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The Christ Impulse and the Development of the Ego-Consciousness
GA 116

8 May 1910, Berlin

VII. The Further Development of Conscience

To-day, the 8th May, the Theosophical Society celebrates the Day of the White Lotus, which to the outer world is known, in the usual terminology of the day, as the death-day of the instigator of that Spiritual stream in which we now stand. To us it would seem more appropriate to select a different designation for to-day's festival, one taken from our knowledge of the Spiritual world and which should run more like this: ‘The day of transition from an activity on the physical plane to one in the Spiritual worlds’. For to us it is not only an inner conviction in the ordinary sense of the words but an ever-increasing knowledge, that what the outer world calls death is but the passing from one form of work, from an activity stimulated by the impressions of the outer physical world, to one entirely stimulated by the Spiritual world. When to-day we remember the great instigator, H. P. Blavatsky, and the leading persons of her movement who have also now passed over into the Spiritual realm, let us in particular try to form a clear idea of what we ourselves must make of our Spiritual movement so that it may represent a continuation of that activity which she exercised on the physical plane as long as she remained on it; so that on the one hand it may be a continuation of that activity and at the same time be possible for the Foundress herself to continue her work from the Spiritual world, both now and in the future. On such a day as this it is seemly that we should in a sense break away from our usual study of theosophical matters, and theosophical life, and should instead go through a sort of conscientious retrospect, a retrospect concerning what the tasks and duties the theosophical movement sets before us, and which may also lead us to a sort of prevision of what this movement should become in the future, and what we should do, and avoid doing.

What we are carrying on as the Theosophical movement came into the world as the result of certain quite special circumstances and certain historical necessities. You know that there was here no question, as in other Spiritual movements or unions of any sort,—of one or more persons determining to follow certain ideals according as the quality of their hearts and minds leads them to feel enthusiasm for these ideals, trying to enthuse other people and to induce them to form societies or unions for carrying these into practice. Not in this way should we view the Theosophical movement if we understand it aright. We only do this if we look upon it as an historical necessity of our present life: something which, regardless of what people feel or would like to feel about it, was bound to come, for it already lay in the womb of time, so to speak, and had to be brought to birth. In what way then may we regard the Theosophical movement? It may be considered as a descent, a new descent of Spiritual life, of Spiritual wisdom and Spiritual forces, into the sensible physical world from the super-sensible ones. Such a descent had to take place for the further development of man, and must repeatedly take place in the future. It cannot of course be our task to-day to point out all the different great impulses through which Spiritual life has flowed down from the super-sensible worlds in order that the soul-life of man should be renewed when it had, so to speak, grown old; but in the course of time this has frequently occurred. One thing, however, must be borne in mind.

In the primeval past, not long after the great Atlantean catastrophe which the traditions of the various countries record as the story of the Flood, came that impulse that we may describe as the inflow of Spiritual life that poured into the development of mankind through the Holy Rishis. Then came that other stream of Spiritual life that flowed down into man's evolution through Zarathustra or Zoroaster, and we find another stream of like nature in that which came to the old Israelites through the revelations of Moses.

Finally, we have the greatest Impulse of all in that mighty inflow of Spiritual life poured into the physical world through the appearance on Earth of Christ-Jesus. This is by far the mightiest Impulse ever given in the past, and as we have repeatedly emphasised, it is greater than any that can at any future time come into the earth development. We have also repeatedly stated that new impulses must ever come; new Spiritual life and a new way of understanding the old Spiritual life must flow into the development of mankind; were it not for this, the tree of human development, which will grow green when humanity has attained the goal of its evolution, would wither and perish. The mighty Christ-Well of life out of which He poured into human development must, through the new Spiritual impulses flowing into our earth-life, be better and better understood.

As our own age, our nineteenth century drew near, the time came when human development once again required a new intervention, a new impulse. Once again new stimuli, new revelations, had to flow from the super-sensible worlds into our physical world. This was a necessity, and ought to have been felt as such in the earth itself, and was so felt in those regions from which the life of earth is guided, the Spiritual regions; only a short-sighted human observation could say: ‘What is the use of these constantly fresh streams of perfectly new kinds of truths? Why should there be constantly new knowledge and new life-impulses? We have that which was given us in Christianity, for example, and with that we can go on quite simply in the old way!’ From a higher standpoint this sort of observation is extremely egotistical. It really is! The very fact that such egotistical remarks are so frequently made to-day by the very people who believe themselves to be good and religious, is all the stronger proof that a refreshing of our Spiritual life is wanted. How often we hear it said to-day: ‘What is the use of new Spiritual movements? We have our old traditions which have been preserved through the ages as far back as history records; do not let us spoil those traditions by what these people say who always think they know best!’ That is an egotistical expression of the human soul. Those who speak thus are not aware of this; they do not realise that they are only anxious about the demands of their own souls. In themselves they feel: ‘We are quite satisfied with what we have!’ And they establish the dogma, a dreadful dogma from the standpoint of conscience, ‘If we are satisfied with our way, those who must learn from us, those who come after us, must learn to find satisfaction in the same way as we have. All must go on as we ourselves feel to be right, in accordance with our knowledge!’ That way of talking is very, very frequently heard in the outer world. This does not merely come from the limitations of a narrow soul, but is connected with what we might call an egotistical bent of the human soul. In religious life souls may in reality be extremely egotistical, while wearing a mask of piety. Anyone who takes the question of the Spiritual development of mankind seriously, must, if he studies the world around him with understanding, become aware of one thing. He must see that the human soul is gradually breaking away more and more from the method in which for centuries men have contemplated the Christ-Impulse, that greatest Impulse in the development of mankind. I do not as a rule care to refer to contemporaneous matters, for what goes on in the external spiritual life to-day is for the most part too insignificant to appeal to the deeper side of a serious observer. For instance, it was impossible in Berlin, during the last few weeks, to pass a placarding column without seeing notices of a lecture entitled, ‘Did Jesus live?’ You probably all know that what led to this subject being discussed as it has been in the widest circles—sometimes with very radical weapons—was the view announced by a German Professor of Philosophy, Dr. Arthur Drews, a disciple of Edouard Hartmann, author of The Philosophy of the Unknown and more especially of The Christ Myth. The contents of the latter book have been made more widely known by the lecture given by Professor Drews here in Berlin, under the title: ‘Did Jesus live?’

It is, of course, in no sense my task to enter into the particulars of that lecture. I will only put its principal thoughts before you. The author of The Christ Myth,—a modern philosopher who may be supposed to represent the science and thought of the day,—searches through the several records of olden times that are supposed to offer historical proof that a certain person of the name of Jesus of Nazareth lived at the beginning of our era. He then tries, by the help of what science and the critics have proved, to reduce the result of all this to something like the following question: ‘Are the separate Gospels historic records proving that Jesus lived?’ He takes all that Modern Theology on its part has to say, and then tries to show that none of the Gospels can be historic records and that it is impossible to prove by them that Jesus ever lived. He also tries to prove that none of the other records of a purely historical nature which man possesses are determinative, and that nothing conclusive concerning an historic Jesus can be deduced from them.

Now everyone who has gone into this question knows, that considered purely from an external standpoint, the sort of observation practised by Professor Drews has much in its favour, and comes as a sort of result of modern theological criticism. I will not go into details; for it is of no consequence to-day that someone having studied the philosophical side of science should assert that there is no historic document to prove that Jesus lived, because the only documents supposed to do so are not authoritative. Drews and all those of like mind go by what has come to us from Paul the Apostle. (In recent times there are even people who doubt the genuine character of all the Pauline Epistles, but as the author of The Christ Myth does not go so far as that, we need not go into it.) Drews says of St. Paul that he does not base his assertions on a personal acquaintance with Jesus of Nazareth, but on the revelation he received in the Event of Damascus. We know that this is absolutely true. But now Drews comes to the following conclusion: ‘What concept of Christ did St. Paul hold? He formed the concept of a purely Spiritual Christ, who can dwell in each human soul, so to speak, and can be realised within each one. St. Paul nowhere asserts the necessity that the Christ, whom he considered as a purely Spiritual Being, should have been present in a Jesus whose existence cannot be historically proved. One can therefore say: that no one knows whether an historic Jesus lived or not; that the Christ-concept of St. Paul is a purely spiritual one, simply reproducing what may live in every human soul as an impulse towards perfection, as a sort of God in man.’ The author of The Christ Myth further points out that certain conceptions—similar to the idea the Christians have of Jesus Christ—were already in existence concerning a sort of pre-Christian Jesus, and that several Eastern peoples had the concept of a Messiah. This compels Drews to ask: ‘What then is actually the difference between the idea of Christ which St. Paul had [and which Drews does not attempt to deny],—what is the difference between the picture of Christ which St. Paul had in his heart and soul, and the idea of the Messiah already in existence?’ Drews then goes on to say: ‘Before the time of St. Paul, men had a Christ-picture of a God, a Messiah-picture of a God, who did not actually become man, who did not descend so far as individual manhood; they even celebrated His suffering, death and resurrection as symbolical processes in their various festivals and mysteries; but one thing they did not possess: there is no record of an individual man having really passed through suffering, death and resurrection on the physical earth.’ That then was more or less the general idea—The author of The Christ Myth now asks: ‘In how far then is there anything new in St. Paul? To what extent did he carry the idea of Christ further?’

Drews himself replies: ‘The advance made by St. Paul on the earlier conceptions is that he does not represent a God hovering in the higher regions, but a God who became individual man.’ Now I want you to note this: According to the author of The Christ Myth, Paul pictures a Christ who really became man. But the strange part is this: St. Paul is supposed to have stopped short at that idea! He is supposed to have grasped the idea of a Christ Who really became man, although, according to him Christ never existed as such! St. Paul is therefore supposed to say, that the highest idea possible is that of a God, a Christ, not only hovering in the higher regions, but having descended to earth and become man; but it never entered his mind that this Christ actually did live on earth in a human being. This means that the author of The Christ Myth attributes to St. Paul a conception of the Christ which, to sound thinking is a mockery. St. Paul is made to say: ‘Christ must certainly have been an individual man, but although I preach Him, I deny His existence in any historical sense.’

That is the nucleus round which the whole subject turns; truly one does not require much theological or critical erudition to refute it; it is only necessary to confront Professor Drews as philosopher. For his Christ-concept cannot possibly stand. The Pauline Christ-concept, in the sense in which Drews takes it, cannot be maintained without accepting the historic Jesus. Professor Drews' book itself demands the existence of the historic Jesus. It would seem therefore, that at the present time a book can be accepted in the widest circles and considered as an earnest and scientific work, which is centred upon a contradiction such as turns all inner logic into a mockery! Is it possible in these days for human thought to travel along such crooked paths as these? What is the reason of this? Anyone who wishes clearly to understand the development of mankind must find the answer to that question.

The reason is that what men believe or think at any given period, is not the result of their logical thought, but of their feelings and sentiments; they believe and think what they wish to think. In particular do those who are preparing the Christ-concept for the coming age feel a strong impulse to shut out from their hearts everything to be found in the old external records—and yet they also feel an urge to prove everything by means of such external documents. These however, considered from a purely material standpoint, lose their value after a definite lapse of time. The time will come for Shakespeare, just as it came for Honker, so will it come for Goethe, when people will try to prove that an historic Goethe never existed at all. Historic records must in course of time lose their value from a material standpoint. What then is necessary, seeing that we are already living in an age when the thought of its most prominent representatives is such that they have an impulse in their hearts urging them towards the denial of the historic Christ? What is necessary as a new impulse of Spiritual life? It is necessary that the possibility should be given of understanding the historic Jesus in a spiritual way. In what other way can this fact be expressed?

As we all know, St. Paul started from the Event of Damascus. We also know that to him that Event was the great revelation, whereas all he had heard at Jerusalem—on the physical plane, as direct information—had not been able to make a Saul into St. Paul. What convinced him was the Damascus revelation from Spiritual worlds! Through that alone Christianity really came into being, and through that St. Paul gained the power to proclaim the Christ. But did he obtain a purely abstract idea, which in itself might be contradicted? No! He was convinced from what he had seen in the Spiritual worlds that Christ had lived on earth, had suffered, died and risen. ‘If Christ be not risen then is my teaching vain,’ St. Paul quite rightly said. He did not receive the mere idea, the concept of Christ from the Spiritual worlds, he convinced himself of the reality of the Christ, Who died on Golgotha. To him that was proof of the historic Jesus.

What then is necessary, now that the time is approaching when, as a result of the materialism of the age the historic records are losing their value, when everyone can quite easily prove that these records cannot withstand criticism, so that nothing can be proved externally and historically? It is necessary that people should learn that Christ can be recognised as the historic Jesus without any external records whatever, that through a right training the Event of Damascus can be renewed in each human being and indeed in the near future will be renewed for humanity as a whole, so that it is absolutely possible to be convinced of the existence of an historic Jesus. That is the new way in which the world must find the road to Him. It is of no consequence whether the facts that occurred were right or wrong, the point of importance is that they did occur. It is of no consequence that such a book as The Christ Myth should contain certain errors, the thing that matters is, it was found possible to write it! It shows that quite different methods are necessary in order that Christ may remain with humanity; that He may be rediscovered.

A man who thinks about humanity and its needs and of how the souls of men are expressing themselves externally, will not adopt the standpoint of saying: ‘What do those people who think differently matter to me? I have my own convictions, they are quite enough for me.’ Most people do not realise what dreadful egoism underlies such words. It was not as the result of an idea, an outer ideal, or of any personal predilection, that a movement arose through which people might learn that it is possible to find the way into the spiritual world, and that among other things, Christ Himself can also be found there. This movement came into being in response to a necessity which arose in the course of the nineteenth century, that there should flow down from the spiritual worlds into the physical world, possibilities, by means of which men will be able to obtain spiritual truth in a new sort of way, the old way having died out. In the course of the past winter, have we not testified how fruitful this new way may be?

We have repeatedly laid stress on the fact that the first thing for us in our movement is not to take our stand on any record or external document, but first of all to enquire: What is revealed to clairvoyant consciousness when one ascends to the spiritual worlds? If, through some catastrophe, all the historical proofs of the historic Jesus of the Gospels and of the Epistles of St. Paul were lost, what would independent spiritual consciousness tell us? What do we learn concerning the spiritual worlds on the path which can be trodden any day and hour by each one? We are told: ‘In the Spiritual worlds you will find the Christ, even though you know nothing historically of the fact that He was on the earth at the beginning of our era.’

The fact which must be established over and over again by a renewal of the Event of Damascus is that there is an original proof of the historic personality of Jesus of Nazareth! Just as a school-boy is not told that he must believe the three sides of a triangle make a hundred and eighty degrees simply because in olden times that was laid down as a fact, but is made to prove it for himself,—so we to-day, not only testify out of a spiritual consciousness that Christ has always existed, but also that the historic Jesus can be found in the spiritual worlds, that He is a reality, and was a reality at the very time of which tradition tells.

We have gone further and have shown that what we established by spiritual perception without the Gospels, is to be rediscovered within them. We then feel a deep respect and reverence for the Gospels for we find again in them what we found in the spiritual worlds independently of them. We now know that they must have come from the same sources of super-sensible illumination from which we must draw to-day; we know they must be records of the spiritual worlds.

The purpose of what we call the Theosophical movement is to make such a method of observation possible, to make it possible for spiritual life to play its part in human science. In order that this might come about, the stimulus thereto had to be given by the Theosophical Society. That is the one side of the question. The other is that this stimulus had to be given at a time which was least ripe for it. This is proved by the fact that to-day, thirty years after the birth of the Theosophical movement, the story of the non-historic Jesus still endures. How much is known, outside this movement, of the possibility of the historic Jesus being discovered in any other way than through the external documents? What was being done in the nineteenth century still continues: the authority of the religious documents is being undermined. Thus while there was the greatest necessity that this new possibility should be given to humanity—on the other hand the preparations made for its reception were the smallest conceivable. For do we by any chance believe that our modern philosophers are particularly ready to receive it? How little ready the philosophers of the twentieth century are, can be seen by the concept they have of the Christ of St. Paul. Anyone acquainted with scientific life knows that this is the great and final result of the materialism which has been preparing for centuries: although it asserts that it wishes to rise above materialism, the mode of thought prevailing in science has not progressed beyond that which is in process of dying out. Science as it exists to-day certainly is a ripe fruit, but one which must suffer the fate of all ripe fruit; it must begin to decay. No one can assert that it could bring forth a new impulse for the renewal of its mode of thought or of its methods of coming to conclusions. When we think of this we realise, apart from all other considerations, the weight of the stimulus given through H. P. Blavatsky;—no matter what our opinions of her capacities and the details of her life may be, she was the instrument for the giving of the stimulus; and she proved herself fully competent for the purpose,—We who are taking part in celebrating such a day as this, as members of the Theosophical Society, are in a very peculiar position. We are celebrating a personal festival, dedicated to one person. Now, although the belief in Authority is certainly a dangerous thing in the external world, yet there the danger is reduced by reason of the jealousy and envy that play so great a part; even though the reverence of a few persons is manifested outwardly, and rather strongly, by the burning of incense, yet egoism and envy has considerable power over them. In the Theosophical movement the danger of injury through the worship of the personality and belief in Authority is particularly great. We are, therefore, in a very peculiar position when we celebrate a festival dedicated to a personality. Not only the customs of the time but also the matter itself places us in a difficult position, for the revelations of the higher worlds must always come along the by-way of the personality. Personalities must be the bearers of the revelations—and yet we must take care not to confuse the former with the latter. We must receive the revelations through the medium of a personality, and the question that constantly recurs whether he or she is worthy of confidence, is a very natural one. “What they did on such and such a day does not harmonise with our ideas! Can we, therefore, believe in the whole thing?”

This forms part of a certain tendency of our time, which we may describe as lack of devotion to the truth. How often at the present day do we hear of a case in which some prominent person may please the public; for one or more decades what he or she does may be quite satisfactory, for the public is too lazy to go into the matter for itself. Some years after, if it should transpire that this person's private life is not all it might be and open to suspicion, the idol then falls to the ground. Whether this is right or not is not the point. The point is that we ought to acquire a feeling that although the person in question may be the means by which the spiritual life comes to us, it is our duty to prove this for ourselves—and indeed to test the person by the truth, instead of testing the truth by the person. Especially should that be our attitude in the Theosophical movement: we pay most respect to a personality if we do not encumber him with belief in Authority, as people are so fond of doing, for we know that the activity of that personality after death is only transferred to the spiritual world. We are justified in saying that the activity of H. P. Blavatsky still continues, and we, within the movement which she instigated, can either further that activity or injure it. Most of all do we injure it if we blindly believe in her, swearing by what she thought when she lived on the physical plane, and blindly believing in her authority. We revere and help her most if we are fully conscious that she provided the stimulus for a movement which originated from one of the deepest necessities in human evolution. While we see that this movement had to come, we ascribe the stimulus to her; but many years have gone by since that time and we must prove ourselves worthy of her work, by acknowledging that what was then started must now be carried further. We admit that it had to be instigated by her, but do not let us ferret about in her private affairs, especially at the present time. We know the significance of the impetus she gave, but we know that it only very imperfectly represents what is to come. When we recollect all that has been put before our souls during the past winter, we cannot but say: What Madame Blavatsky started is indeed of deep and incisive importance, but how immeasurable is all that she could not accomplish in that introductory act of hers! What has just been said of the necessity of the Theosophical Movement for the Christ-experience was completely hidden from Blavatsky. Her task was to point out the germs of truth in the religions of the Aryan peoples; the comprehension of the revelations given in the Old and New Testaments was denied her. We honour the positive work accomplished by this Personality and we shall not refer to all she was not able to do, all that was concealed from her and which we must now contribute. Anyone who allows himself to be stirred by H. P. Blavatsky and wishes to go further than she, will say: If the stimulus given by her in the Theosophical Movement is to be carried further, we must attain to an understanding of the Christ-Event.

The early Theosophical movement failed to grasp the religious and spiritual life of the Old and New Testaments; that is why everything is wide of the mark in this first movement, and the Theosophical Movement has the task of making this good and of adding what was not given at first. If we inwardly feel these facts, they are as it were a claim, made by our Theosophical conscience.

Thus we visualise H. P. Blavatsky as the bringer of a sort of dawn of a new light; but of what good would that light be if it were not to illuminate the most important thing that mankind has ever possessed! A Theosophy which does not provide the means of understanding Christianity is absolutely valueless to our present civilisation; but if it should become an instrument for the understanding of Christianity we should then be making the right use of the instrument. If we do not do this, if we do not use the impulse given by H. P. Blavatsky for this purpose, what are we doing? We are arresting the activity of her spirit in our age! Everything is in course of development, including the spirit of Blavatsky. Her spirit is now working in the spiritual world to further the progress of the Theosophical movement; but if we sit before her and the book she wrote, saying: ‘We will raise a monument to you consisting of your own works,’—who is it that is making her spirit earth-bound? Who is condemning her not to progress beyond what she established on earth? We, ourselves! We revere and acknowledge her value if, even as she herself went beyond her time, we also go further than she did so long as the grace ruling the development of the world continues to vouchsafe spiritual revelations from the spiritual world.

That is what we place before our souls to-day as a question of conscience, and after all that is most in accordance with the wishes of our comrade H. C. Olcott, the first President of the Theosophical Society, who has also now passed into the spiritual world. Let us inscribe this in our souls to-day, for it is precisely through lack of knowledge of the living Theosophical life that all the shadow-sides of the Theosophical movement have arisen. If the Theosophical movement were to carry out its great original impulse, unweakened, and with a holy conscience, it would possess the force to drive out of the field all the harmful influences which, as time went by, have already come in, as well as others which certainly will come. This one thing we must very earnestly do: we must continue to develop the impulse. In many places to-day we see Theosophists who think they are doing good work, and who feel very happy to be able to say: ‘We are now doing something which is in conformity with external science!’ How pleasing it is to many leading Theosophists if they can point out that those who study various religions confirm what has come from the spiritual world; while they quite fail to observe that it is just this unspiritual mode of comparison that must be overcome. For instance Theosophy comes into close contact with the thoughts which led to the denial of the historic Jesus and indeed there is a certain relation between them. Originally Theosophy only ranked the historic Jesus with other founders of religion. It never occurred to Blavatsky to deny the historic Jesus; though she certainly placed Him one hundred years earlier. She did not deny His existence, but she did not recognise Christ-Jesus; although she instigated the movement in which He may some day be known, she was not able herself to recognise Him. In this, the first state of the Theosophical movement comes strangely into line with what those who deny the historic Jesus are doing to-day.

For instance, Professor Drews points out that the occurrences that preceded the Event of Golgotha can also be found in the accounts of the old Gods, for example in the cult of Adonis or Tammuz, in that there is a suffering God-hero, a dying God-hero and a risen God-hero, and so on. What is contained in the various religious traditions is always being brought forward and the following conclusion drawn: you are told of a Jesus of Nazareth, who suffered, died and rose again and who was the Christ; but you see that other peoples also worshipped an Adonis, a Tammuz, etc. The similarity to one of the old gods is constantly being insisted on, when referring to the occurrences in Palestine.

This is also being done in our Theosophical movement. People do not realise that comparing the religions of Adonis or Tammuz with the events in Palestine proves nothing. I will show you by means of an example wherein such comparisons are at fault; on the surface they may work out all right, yet there is a great flaw in them. Suppose an official living in 1910 wore a certain uniform as an outer sign of his official activity; and that in 1930 a totally different man should wear the same uniform. It will not be the uniform but the individual wearing it that determines the efficiency of the work he accomplishes. Now, suppose that in the year 2090 an historian comes forward and says: ‘I have ascertained that in 1910 there lived a man who wore a particular coat, waistcoat and trousers and further, that in 1930 the same uniform was being worn, we see therefore, that the coat, waistcoat and trousers have been carried over and that on both occasions we have the same being before us.’

Such a conclusion would of course be foolish, but not more so than to say that in the religions of Asia Minor we find Adonis or Tammuz undergoing suffering and death and rising again, and that we find the same in Christ! The point is not that suffering, death and resurrection were experienced, the point is by Whom were they experienced! Suffering, death and resurrection are like a uniform in the historical development of the world and we should not point to the uniform we meet with in the legends, but to the individualities who wore it. It is true that individualities, in order that men might understand them, have so to say performed Christ-deeds which show that they too could accomplish the acts of a Tammuz, for instance; but each time there was a different being behind the acts. Therefore, all comparisons of religions proving that the figure of Siegfried corresponds to that of Baldur, Baldur to Tammuz and so on, are but a sign that the legends and myths take certain forms in certain peoples. When we are trying to gain knowledge of man there is no more value in these comparisons than there would be in pointing out that a certain species of uniform is later found to be in use for the same office. That is the fundamental error prevailing everywhere, even in the Theosophical movement, and it is nothing but a result of the materialistic habit of thought.

The will and testament of Blavatsky will only be fulfilled if the Theosophical movement is able to cultivate and preserve the life of the spirit—if it looks to the spirit which shows itself, and not in the books someone may have written. Spirit should be cultivated among us. We will not merely study books written centuries ago, but develop in a living way the spirit which has been given us. We will be a union of persons who do not simply believe in books or in individuals, but in the living spirit; who do not merely talk about H. P. Blavatsky having departed from the physical plane and continuing to live on after her death, but who believe in such a living way in what has been revealed through Theosophy that her life on the physical plane may not be made a hindrance to the further super-sensible activity of her spirit.

Only when we think about her in that way will the Theosophical movement be of use, and only when men and women who think in that way are to be found on the earth can H. P. Blavatsky do anything for the movement. For this it is necessary that further spiritual research should be made, and above all that people should learn what was asserted in the last public lecture:—that mankind is in process of development and that something approximate to conscience came into being at the time of Jesus Christ; that such things do arise and are of significance to the whole of evolution. At a particular point of time conscience arose; before that time it was altogether a different thing, and it will be different again after man's soul has for some while developed further in the light of conscience. We have already indicated the way in which it will alter in the future.

As a parallel to the appearance of the Event of Damascus a great number of people in the course of the twentieth century will experience something like the following: As soon as they have acted in some way they will learn to contemplate their deed; they will become more thoughtful, they will have an inner picture of the deed. At first only a few people will experience this, but the numbers will continually increase during the next two or three thousand years. As soon as they have done something the picture will be there; at first they will not know what it is; but those who have studied Theosophy will say: ‘This is a picture! It is no dream; it is a picture, showing the karmic fulfilment of the act I have just committed. Some day this will take place as the fulfilment, the karmic balancing of what I have just done!’ This will begin in the twentieth century. Man will begin to develop the faculty of seeing before him a picture of a far-distant, not-yet-accomplished act. It will show itself as an inner counterpart of his action, its karmic fulfilment, which will some day take place. Man will then be able to say: ‘I have now been shown what I shall have to do to compensate for what I have just done, and I can never become perfect until I have made that compensation.’ Karma will then cease to be mere theory, for this inner picture will be experienced.

Such faculties as this are becoming more frequent; new capacities are developing; but the old are the germs for the new. What will make it possible for men to be shown the karmic pictures? It will come as a result of the soul having for some time stood in the light of conscience! Not the various external physical experiences it may have are of most importance to the soul, but rather its progress towards perfection. By the help of conscience the soul is now preparing for what has been just described. The more incarnations a man has during which he cultivates and perfects his conscience, the more he is doing towards acquiring that higher faculty through which in the form of spiritual vision the voice of God will once more speak to him, the voice of God which was formerly experienced in a different way. Æschylos still represented his Orestes as having a vision before him of what had been brought about by his evil actions; he was compelled to see the results of these actions in the external world. The new capacity in course of development for the soul is such that men will see the effects of their deeds in pictures of the future. That is the new stage. Development runs its course in cycles, following a circular movement, and what man possessed in his older vision comes back again in a new form.

Through knowledge of the spiritual world we are really preparing to awake in the right way in our next incarnation, and this knowledge also helps us to work in the right way for those who are to come after us. For this reason Theosophy is in itself no egotistical movement, for it does not concern itself with what benefits the individual alone but with what makes for the progress of all mankind.

We have now enquired on two occasions: ‘What is conscience?’ To-day we have also asked: ‘What will the conscience now developing, eventually become? How does conscience stand, if we regard it as a seed in the age through which we are now passing? What will be the result of the action of this seed of conscience?—The higher faculties just described!’ It is very important that we should believe in the evolution of the soul, from incarnation to incarnation, from age to age. We learn that, when we learn to understand true Christianity. In this respect we still have a great deal to learn from St. Paul. In all Eastern religions, even in Buddhism, you find the doctrine that ‘the outer world is Maya.’ So it is; and in the East that is established as absolute truth. St. Paul points to the same truth, and emphatically asserts it. At the same time St. Paul emphasises something else: ‘Man does not see the truth when he looks with his eyes; he does not see the reality when he looks at what is outside. Why is this? Because, in his descent into matter he himself transfused the external reality with illusion. It is man himself, through his own act, who made the outer world an illusion.’ Whether you call this the Fall, as the Bible does, or give it any other name, it is a man's own fault that the outer world now appears as an illusion. Eastern religions attribute the blame for this to the Gods! ‘Beat thy breast,’ says St. Paul, ‘for thou hast descended and so dimmed thy vision that colour and sound no longer appear spiritual. Dost thou believe that colour and sound are materially existent? They are Maya! Thou thyself hast made them Maya. Thou, man, must release thyself from this; thou must re-acquire what thou has done away with! Thou hast descended into matter and now must thou release thyself therefrom, and set thyself free—though not in the way advised by Buddha: Free thyself from the longing for existence! No! Thou must look upon the life on earth in its true light. What thou thyself hast reduced to Maya, that thou must restore within thee—This thou can'st do by taking into thyself the Christ-force, which will show thee the outer world in its reality!’

Herein lies a great impulse for the life of the countries of the West, a new impulse, which as yet is far from having been carried into all parts. What does the world know to-day of the fact that in one part of it an endeavour is actually being made to create a ‘theory of Knowledge’ in the sense of St. Paul, as it were? Such a theory could not alarm as Kant does: ‘The thing-in-itself is incomprehensible.’ Such a theory of knowledge could only say: ‘It lies with thee, 0 man; through what thou now art, thou art bringing about an untrue reality. Thou must thyself go through an inner process. Then will Maya be transformed into truth, into spiritual reality!’ The task of both my books, Truth and Science and Philosophy of Spiritual Activity was to put the theory of Knowledge on a Pauline basis. Both these books are focused on that which is the great achievement of the Pauline conception of man in the Western world. The reason these books are so little understood, or at most in theosophical circles, is because they assume the hypothesis of the whole impulse which has found expression in the Theosophical movement. The greatest must be seen in the smallest!

Through such considerations as these, which lift us above the limits of our narrow humanity, and show us how, in our little every-day work, we can link on to that which goes on from stage to stage, from life to life, leading us ever more and more into the spiritual existence,—through dwelling on these we shall become good Theosophists. It is right that we should devote ourselves to thoughts such as these, on a day devoted to a personality who gave the stimulus to a movement that will live on and on, which is not to remain a mere colourless theory but must have the sap of life within it, so that the tree of the theosophical conception of the world may constantly renew its greenness.

In this spirit let us endeavour to make ourselves capable of preparing a field in the Theosophical movement in which the impulse of Blavatsky shall not be hindered and arrested, but shall progress to further development.

Siebenter Vortrag

Am achten Mai, dem heutigen Tage, begehen wir als Theosophische Gesellschaft den Weißen Lotus-Tag, den man in der äußeren Welt, so wie sie ihre Bezeichnungen heute hat, als den Todestag bezeichnet der Anregerin jener geistigen Strömung, innerhalb welcher wir stehen. Uns liegt es näher, eine andere Bezeichnung für diese unsere Festlichkeit des heutigen Tages zu wählen, jene Bezeichnung, die aus unseren Erkenntnissen der geistigen Welt hergenommen ist und die etwa heißen müßte, der Übergang von einer Wirksamkeit innerhalb des physischen Planes zu einer anderen Wirksamkeit innerhalb der geistigen Welten. Denn uns ist es ja wohl eine nicht nur innigste Überzeugung im gewöhnlichen Sinne des Wortes, sondern eine immer mehr aufgehende Erkenntnis, daß wir es zu tun haben bei dem, was in der Außenwelt der Tod genannt wird, mit dem Übergang von einer Arbeit, einer Wirksamkeit, welche angeregt ist durch die Eindrücke der äußeren physischen Welt, zu einer solchen Wirksamkeit, welche angeregt ist unmittelbar aus der geistigen Welt. Und indem wir uns heute erinnern an die große Anregerin A. P. Blavatsky und an diejenigen, welche als führende Persönlichkeiten heute auch schon hinübergegangen sind in dieses geistige Reich, wollen wir insbesondere versuchen, uns eine Vorstellung davon zu bilden, wie wir selbst unsere geistige Bewegung halten, damit sie vorstellen kann eine Fortsetzung jener Wirksamkeit, welche die Gründerin vollbracht hat auf dem physischen Plan bis zu ihrem Abgang von demselben, eine Fortsetzung dieser Wirksamkeit auf der einen Seite, aber auch eine Möglichkeit dafür, daß diese Begründerin aus den geistigen Welten heraus fortwirken kann in unserer Gegenwart und in die Zukunft hinein.

An einem solchen Tage ziemt es sich wohl, daß wir gewissermaßen unterbrechen die Art und Weise, wie wir uns sonst in diesen Versammlungen den geisteswissenschaftlichen Betrachtungen und dem spirituellen Leben hingeben, und daß wir gleichsam eine Art Gewissenserforschung vornehmen, eine Art Rückschau auf das, was uns aus der theosophischen Bewegung heraus deren Wesen und deren Pflichten vor Augen führen kann, was uns auf der anderen Seite in einer Art von Vorschau vor Augen führen soll, was in der Zukunft diese theosophische Bewegung sein soll, was wir zu tun, was wir zu lassen haben.

Durch ganz besondere Umstände, durch gewisse geschichtliche Notwendigkeiten ist in der neueren Zeit das ins Leben gerufen worden, was wir als theosophische Bewegung behandeln. Sie wissen, daß es sich dabei nicht wie bei manchen anderen geistigen oder sonstigen Bewegungen oder Vereinigungen darum handelt, daß eine oder mehrere Persönlichkeiten diese oder jene Ideale sich vorsetzen, und weil sie für diese Ideale gerade aus den Bedingungen ihres Gemütes, ihres Herzens heraus begeistert sind, nun versuchen, andere Menschen auch dafür zu begeistern, um Vereine, Gesellschaften zu begründen und diese Ideale, für die sie persönlich entflammt sind, in Wirklichkeit umzusetzen. In dieser Weise dürfen wir die theosophische Bewegung, wenn wir sie richtig verstehen, nicht auffassen. Wir werden sie nur dann richtig verstehen, wenn wir sie auffassen als geschichtliche Notwendigkeit unseres gegenwärtigen Lebens, als etwas, was, gleichgültig, wie die Menschen darüber empfinden und fühlen mögen, kommen mußte, weil es sozusagen im Schoße der Zeit lag und geboren werden mußte. Als was kann denn diese theosophische Bewegung aufgefaßt werden? Aufgefaßst kann sie werden als ein Heruntersteigen, ein neues Heruntersteigen von geistigem Leben, von geistiger Weisheit und geistigen Kräften aus den übersinnlichen Welten in die sinnlich-physische Welt. Solches Heruntersteigen von geistigem Leben, geistiger Weisheit und geistigen Kräften mußte ja und wird in der Zukunft immer wieder geschehen müssen zur Fortentwickelung der Menschheit. Es kann natürlich heute nicht die Aufgabe sein, auf alle die einzelnen großen Impulse hinzuweisen, durch welche geistiges Leben heruntergeflossen ist aus den übersinnlichen Welten, damit sozusagen das altgewordene Seelenleben der Menschheit erneuert wurde. Das ist im Laufe der Zeit öfter geschehen. Nur auf einiges soll hingewiesen werden.

In urferner Vergangenheit, nicht lange nachdem die große atlantische Katastrophe hereingebrochen war, die sich in den Überlieferungen der verschiedenen Völker als die Sintflutsage erhalten hat, da hat jener Impuls stattgefunden, den wir bezeichnen können als das Einfließen geistigen Lebens in die Menschheitsentwickelung durch die alten heiligen Rishis. Dann haben wir jenen anderen Strom geistigen Lebens, der herunterfließt in die Menschheitsbewegung durch den großen Zarathustra oder Zoroaster. Dann finden wir einen andern solchen Strom geistigen Lebens in dem, was dem alt-israelitischen Volke in der Moses-Offenbarung zugekommen ist. Und endlich haben wir den größten Impuls, das gewaltigste Hineinfließen übersinnlichen Lebens in die sinnliche Welt durch die Erscheinung des Christus Jesus auf der Erde. Der gewaltigste Impuls ist dies gegenüber aller Vergangenheit und, wie wir auch hervorgehoben haben, gegenüber aller Zukunft der Erdenentwickelung. Aber ebenso ist betont worden, daß immer neue Impulse kommen müssen, daß neues geistiges Leben und eine neue Art, das alte geistige Leben aufzufassen, einströmen muß in die Menschheitsentwickelung. Denn sonst würde der Baum der Menschheitsentwickelung, der grünen muß, wenn die Menschheit ihr Ziel der Entwickelung erreichen soll, dürr werden und absterben. Die gewaltige Christus-Lebenswelle, die eingeflossen ist in die menschliche Entwickelung, muß immer besser und besser begriffen werden durch neue geistige Impulse, die in unser Erdenleben einfließen.

Als nun unser Zeitalter heranrückte, unser 19. Jahrhundert, da war für die Menschheitsentwickelung wieder eine Zeit gekommen, welche einen neuen Einschlag, einen neuen Lebensimpuls forderte. Wieder mußten herunterfließen aus den übersinnlichen Welten in unsere sinnliche Welt hinein neue Anregungen, neue Offenbarungen. Das war eine Notwendigkeit, die man hätte empfinden sollen auf der Erde selber, die man aber namentlich empfand in jenen Regionen, von denen die Lenkung allen Erdenlebens ausgeht in den geistigen Regionen. Es wäre nur kurzsichtige menschliche Betrachtung, wenn man sich etwa sagen wollte: Ach, wozu immer neues Einfließen von ganz neuen Wahrheitsarten? Wozu immer neue Erkenntnisse und neue Lebensimpulse? Was im Christentum zum Beispiel gegeben ist, das ist ja gegeben, und das könnte einfach in der gleichen Weise fortleben!

Diese Betrachtungsweise wäre vor einem höheren Gesichtspunkt eine eminent egoistische. Das ist sie wirklich! Und daß sich solche egoistische Betrachtungsweise gerade bei denjenigen Menschen heute so häufig geltend macht, welche glauben, recht fromm und religlös zu sein, das ist um so mehr ein Beweis dafür, daß es eine Auffrischung des geistigen Lebens bedarf. Wie oft hören wir heute die Redensart: Wozu die neuen geistigen Strömungen? Wir haben die alten Überlieferungen, was uns durch die geschichtlichen Zeiten herauf erhalten worden ist, lassen wir uns das nicht verderben durch dasjenige, was die wissen wollen, die nur immer vorgeben, alles besser zu wissen! — Das ist ein egoistischer Ausdruck der menschlichen Seele. Nur wissen die nicht, welche ihn tun, daß er ein so eminent egoistischer ist. Denn die ihn tun, wollen gleichsam nur für die Bedürfnisse der eigenen Seele sorgen. Sie fühlen in sich selber: Wir sind ja zufrieden mit dem, was wir haben! — Und nun stellen sie das Dogma, das furchtbare Gewissensdogma auf: Wenn wir zufrieden sind in unserer Art, dann müssen die, welche von uns lernen sollen, die unsere Nachkommen sind, in gleicher Art zufrieden sein wie wir. Alles muß nach unserem Herzen, nach unserem Wissen gehen! — das ist eine Redensart, die man in der äußeren Welt sehr, sehr oft hört. Und es ist nicht bloß Engigkeit der Seele, es ist etwas, was verknüpft ist mit dem, was eben gekennzeichnet worden ist als ein egoistischer Zug dieser Menschenseele. Und im religiösen Leben können unter der Maske der Frömmigkeit die Seelen vielleicht gerade am alleregoistischsten sein.

Ein Blick in unsere Umwelt, wenn wir ihn mit Verständnis tun wollen, könnte gerade jene Menschen, denen es ernst ist mit der geistigen Entwickelung der Menschheit, das eine lehren: daß die Menschenseele sich entwickelt, und daß immer mehr und mehr von jener Art und Weise abbröckelt, wie man durch Jahrhunderte hindurch den Blick hingelenkt hat gerade auf den größten Impuls der Menschheitsentwickelung, auf den Christus-Impuls. Ich erwähne sonst nicht gern zeitgenössische Dinge, weil das, was heute im äußeren geistigen Leben geschieht, wirklich zumeist zu unbedeutend ist, als daß? es dem ernsten Betrachter tiefere Seiten ansprechen könnte. Aber dem Zeitbetrachter sollte es dennoch eine Gewissensfrage sein, was vielfach heute im geistigen Leben geschieht. Man konnte in den letzten Wochen zum Beispiel in Berlin fast vor keiner Anschlagsäule vorbeigehen, ohne darauf die Ankündigung eines Vortrages oder einer Versammlung zu finden mit dem Thema: Hat Jesus gelebt? Sie alle wissen vielleicht, daß die Anregung zu dieser Diskussion, die in den weitesten Kreisen gepflogen worden ist, zum Teil mit recht radikalen Waffen, gegeben hat die Anschauung eines deutschen Philosophie-Professors — eines Schülers des Verfassers der «Philosophie des Unbewußten», Eduard von Hartmann -— des Professors Dr. Arthur Drews, und besonders dessen Buch «Die Christus-Mythe». Was in diesem Buche zu finden ist, das ist dann weiter bekanntgeworden durch einen Vortrag des Professors Drews, der hier in Berlin gehalten worden ist unter dem Titel «Hat Jesus gelebt?»

Nun kann es heute natürlich nicht meine Aufgabe sein, auf die Einzelheiten der Drewsschen Betrachtungen einzugehen. Ich will nur einige Hauptgedanken vor Ihre Seele hinstellen. Der Verfasser der «Christus-Mythe», also ein moderner Philosoph, der in Anspruch nimmt, die Wissenschaft und das Denken unserer Zeit in sich zu tragen, nimmt die einzelnen Urkunden durch, aus denen man geschichtlich feststellen will, daß eine gewisse Persönlichkeit, die den Namen Jesus von Nazareth getragen hat, im Beginne unserer christlichen Zeitrechnung gelebt hat. Und er versucht aus dem, was die Kritik, was die Wissenschaft ihrerseits festgestellt hat, etwas zusammenzustellen, was sich ihm dann etwa so ergibt, daß er sagt: Sind etwa die einzelnen Evangelien historische Urkunden, aus denen man beweisen kann, daß Jesus wirklich gelebt hat? — Und er nimmt nun alles, was moderne Theologie von dieser oder jener Seite geboren hat, und versucht zu zeigen, daß keines der Evangelien eine historische Urkunde sein könne, und daß man nicht beweisen könne aus den Evangelien, daß Jesus gelebt hat. Und da versucht er zu zeigen, daß auch alle anderen Nachrichten rein geschichtlicher Art, die die Menschen haben, unmaßgeblich sind, so daß aus ihnen nicht geschlossen werden könne auf einen historischen Jesus.

Nun weiß jeder, der die Dinge kennt, daß, rein äußerlich betrachtet, diese Betrachtungsweise des Professors Drews ja viel für sich hat und gerade wie eine Art Resultat moderner theologischer Kritik auftritt. Auf die Einzelheiten will ich mich dabei nicht einlassen. Denn gerade darauf kommt es an, daß in unserer Zeit die Behauptung aufgestellt werden kann von jemandem, der die Wissenschaftlichkeit von der philosophischen Seite in sich zu tragen meint, daß er sagt: Es gibt keine historischen Dokumente, aus denen man nachweisen kann, daß Jesus gelebt hat; die historischen Dokumente, aus denen man das beweisen will, sind alle nicht maßgebend. -— Woran sich nun Drews hält und alle, die mit ihm gehen, das ist das, was wir von dem Apostel Paulus haben. Es gibt sogar schon neuere Menschen, die auch die Echtheit der gesamten Paulus-Briefe bezweifeln, aber da der Verfasser der «Christus-Mythe» nicht so weit geht, brauchen wir uns auch nicht dabei aufzuhalten. Über Paulus sagt Drews nun folgendes: Paulus ging nicht aus von einer etwaigen persönlichen Bekanntschaft mit dem Jesus von Nazareth, sondern von dem, was er als Offenbarung gehabt hat in dem Ereignis von Damaskus. — Wir wissen, daß das absolut wahr ist. Nun kommt aber Drews zu folgender Anschauung. Was bildete sich nun Paulus für einen Christus-Begriff? Er bildete sich den Begriff eines rein geistigen Christus, der in jeder Menschenseele sozusagen wohnen kann und sich in jeder Menschenseele nach und nach verwirklichen kann. Aber nirgends gäbe es für Paulus eine Notwendigkeit, diesen Christus, den er als ein rein geistiges Wesen ansieht, gegenwärtig zu haben in dem, was ein doch nicht historisch nachweisbarer Jesus gewesen wäre. Daher könnte man sagen: Ob ein historischer Jesus gelebt hat oder nicht, das weiß man nicht; das Christus-Bild des Paulus ist ein rein geistiges, eine reine Idee, die nur etwas wiedergibt, was in jeder Menschenseele als ein Vervollkommnungsimpuls, als eine Art Gott im Menschen leben kann. - Nun weist der Verfasser der «Christus-Mythe» weiter darauf hin, daß gewisse Vorstellungen, ähnlich wie die des Christus Jesus der Christen auch schon vorher vorhanden waren als eine Art vorchristlicher Jesus, und bei verschiedenen orientalischen Völkern weist er den Messias-Begriff nach. Dadurch sieht sich Drews doch genötigt, sich zu fragen: Wodurch unterscheidet sich denn eigentlich die Idee des Christus — von der sich auch in seinem Sinne nicht leugnen läßt, daß Paulus sie gehabt hat —, wodurch unterscheidet sich dieses Bild des Christus in Kopf und Herz des Paulus von dem, was man als Messias-Begriff schon vorher gehabt hat? Und da sagt Drews: Die Menschen vor Paulus haben ein ChristusBild eines Gottes, ein Messias-Bild eines Gottes gehabt, der nicht wahrhaft Mensch geworden ist, der nicht bis zur individuellen Menschlichkeit hinuntergestiegen ist. Sie haben sozusagen in ihren verschiedenen Festen, Mysterien und so weiter wie einen symbolischen Vorgang gefeiert: Leiden, Tod und Auferstehung; aber das haben sie nicht gehabt, daß ein einzelner Mensch auf der physischen Erde wirklich Leiden, Tod und Auferstehung durchgemacht hätte. Das war also gleichsam eine allgemeine Idee. Und nun fragt sich der Verfasser der «Christus-Mythe»: Worinnen besteht nun das Neue bei Paulus? Wie hat Paulus selber die Idee des Christus fortgebildet?

Da sagt nun Drews selber: Das ist der Fortschritt, den Paulus gemacht hat gegenüber dem Früheren, daß er sich nicht bloß vorstellte einen allgemeinen, in den höheren Regionen schwebenden Gott, sondern einen Gott, der individueller Mensch geworden ist. — Also ich bitte noch einmal darauf zu achten: Im Sinne des Verfassers der «Christus-Mythe» stellt sich Paulus einen Christus vor, der wirklich individueller Mensch geworden ist. Aber jetzt kommt das höchst eigentümliche: Paulus sollte jetzt bei der Idee bloß stehengeblieben sein, das heißt, Paulus sollte die Idee eines Christus, der wirklich Mensch geworden ist, gefaßt haben, aber dieser Christus als Mensch sollte für Paulus nicht existiert haben! Paulus sollte sich gesagt haben: Die höchste Idee ist die, daß ein Gott, ein Christus, nicht nur in den höheren Regionen schwebt, sondern daß er heruntergestiegen ist auf die Erde und Mensch geworden ist; er habe aber jetzt nicht im Sinne gehabt, daß dieser Christus wirklich auf der Erde in einem Menschen gelebt habe — das heißt: Der Verfasser der «Christus-My the» schiebt dem Paulus einen Christus-Begriff zu, der in sich selber ein Hohn ist auf jedes gesunde Denken. Paulus sollte gesagt haben: Der Christus muß wirklich ein individueller Mensch gewesen sein, aber ich leugne, trotzdem ich ihn predige, daß dieser Christus historisch gelebt hat!

Das ist der Kernpunkt der Sache, worum es sich handelt, und der sich uns darstellt nicht als etwas, wozu man viel theologisch-kritische Gelehrsamkeit brauchte, um ihn zu widerlegen, sondern da kann der Verfasser der «Christus-Mythe» durchaus als Philosoph angefaßt werden. Denn dieser Christus-Begriff ist auch nur philosophisch gefaßt, unmöglich. Der paulinische Christus-Begriff, wenn man ihn nur im Sinne von Drews nimmt, kann gar nicht bestehen, ohne daß der historische Jesus angenommen wird. So fordert also dieses Buch von Drews selber die Existenz eines historischen Jesus. Es kann also heute in den weitesten Kreisen ein Buch als ernste wissenschaftliche Arbeit angesehen werden, das in seinem Mittelpunkt einen solchen Widerspruch hat, daß es aller inneren Logik Hohn spricht! Es ist möglich, daß heute das menschliche Denken solche krummen Wege nimmt! Woher kommt das? Wer sich klar werden wollte über die Entwickelung der Menschheit, der sollte sich diese Frage beantworten: Woher kommt das?

Das kommt daher, daß über dasjenige, was die Menschen in diesem oder jenem Zeitalter glauben oder denken, zuletzt nicht ihre Logik entscheidet, sondern ihre Empfindungen und Gefühle, das heißt, was sie glauben und denken möchten. Und es liegt im tiefsten Zug gerade derjenigen, welche den Christus-Begriff für das kommende Zeitalter vorbereiten, daß sie aus ihrem Herzen heraus alles ausschließen wollen, was in äußeren Urkunden enthalten ist, dabei-aber auch wieder den Drang haben, alles durch äußere Dokumente beweisen zu wollen. Diese Urkunden aber verlieren, wenn man sie rein materiell betrachtet, nach einer bestimmten Zeit ihren Wert. Die Zeit wird kommen und gerade so, wie sie kam für Homer und heute schon da ist für Shakespeare, so wird sie für Goethe kommen, daß man wird nachzuweisen versuchen, daß ein historischer Goethe niemals existiert hat. Historische Urkunden, rein materiell gefaßt, müssen ihren Wert mit der Zeit verlieren. Was ist also notwendig, da wir heute bereits in einem Zeitalter stehen, welches in seinen besten Vertretern so denken kann, daß aus einem Drange des Herzens heraus das Ziel entsteht, den historischen Christus wegzuleugnen? Was ist notwendig als ein neuer Einschlag des geistigen Lebens? — Die Möglichkeit ist notwendig, auf geistige Art den historischen Jesus zu begreifen.

Was ist ein anderer Ausdruck für diese Tatsache?

Daß Paulus von dem Ereignis von Damaskus ausgegangen ist, wissen wir alle. Und wir wissen auch, daß das für ihn die große Offenbarung war, während alles, was er hören konnte in Jerusalem, als unmittelbare Nachrichten auf dem physischen Plan, nicht geeignet war, aus einem Saulus einen Paulus zu machen. Was ihn überzeugte, das war die Offenbarung von Damaskus aus den geistigen Welten heraus. Erst dadurch ist das Christentum wirklich entstanden und daraus hat Paulus die Kraft geschöpft, den Christus zu verkündigen. Aber hat er daraus die bloße abstrakte Idee gewonnen, die in sich widerspruchsvoll ist? Nein! Sondern aus dem, was er in den geistigen Welten gesehen hat, hatte er die Überzeugung gewonnen, daß der Christus auf der Erde gelebt, gelitten hat, gestorben und auferstanden ist. «Wäre Christus nicht auferstanden, so wäre meine Lehre nichtig!» das hat Paulus mit Recht gesprochen. Er hat aus den geistigen Welten heraus nicht bloß die Idee des Christus bekommen, sondern die Wirklichkeit von dem Christus, der auf Golgatha gestorben ist. Für ihn war damit der Beweis geliefert für den historischen Jesus.

Rückt nun die Zeit heran, wo durch den Materialismus des Zeitalters die historischen Urkunden ihren Wert verlieren und jeder mit leichter Mühe zeigen kann, daß sie für die Kritik so brüchig werden, daß man auf äußere historische Art nichts beweisen kann, was ist dann notwendig? Dann müssen die Menschen erkennen lernen, daß man den Christus als historischen Jesus auch ohne historische Urkunden erkennen kann dadurch, daß sich das Ereignis von Damaskus für jeden Menschen durch Schulung, oder sogar in der nächsten Zukunft für die ganze Menschheit, erneuern kann, so daß es dadurch möglich ist, eine Überzeugung von dem historischen Jesus zu gewinnen. Das ist die neue Art, die in die Welt kommen muß, diesen Weg zu finden zu dem historischen Jesus. Denn ob Tatsachen, die geschehen sind, richtig oder unrichtig sind, darauf kommt es nicht an, sondern darauf, daß sie da sind. Nicht darauf kommt es an, daß ein Buch wie «Die Christus-Mythe» diese oder jene Irrtümer enthält, sondern, daß es geschrieben werden konnte. Das zeigt, daß wir ganz andere Methoden notwendig haben, damit der Christus der Menschheit erhalten bleibt und wiedergefunden werden kann. Wer an die Menschheit denkt und an ihre Bedürfnisse und an die Art, wie die Menschenseele sich äußert, der wird sich nicht auf den Standpunkt stellen: Was gehen mich die Menschen alle an, die anders denken? Ich habe meine Überzeugung, für mich genügt das! - Die meisten ahnen gar nicht, was für ein furchtbarer Egoismus gerade darinnen liegt.

Es war nicht irgendeine äußere Idee, ein äußeres Ideal oder eine persönliche Liebhaberei, daß eine Bewegung entstand, durch welche die Menschen lernen sollten, daß es möglich ist, einen Weg in die geistige Welt hinauf zu finden, und daß unter dem, was dort zu finden ist, auch der Christus gefunden werden kann, sondern aus einer Notwendigkeit heraus ist diese Bewegung entstanden. Diese Notwendigkeit stellte sich im Laufe des 19. Jahrhunderts ein, und ihr entsprechend sollten die Möglichkeiten herunterfließen aus den geistigen Welten in die physische Welt, durch welche die Menschen fähig werden, die geistige Wahrheit auf eine neue Art und Weise zu gewinnen, weil die alte abgestorben war. Und wie haben wir im Laufe dieses Winters gesehen, wie fruchtbar sich dieser Weg erweist!

Wir haben es immer wieder betont: Das erste, was wir zu tun haben innerhalb unserer Bewegung, ist nicht, zu fußen auf irgendeiner Urkunde oder einem äußeren Dokument, sondern zuerst zu fragen: Was gibt uns das hellseherische Bewußtsein, wenn wir hinaufsteigen in die geistigen Welten? Was sagt das unabhängige geistige Bewußtsein, wenn durch irgendeine Katastrophe alle historischen Hinweise auf den historischen Jesus, auf die Evangelien und auch auf die Paulus-Briefe verlorengegangen wären? Was sagt der Weg, der jeden Tag und jede Stunde angetreten werden kann, von den geistigen Welten? Er sagt: Du findest in den geistigen Welten den Christus, und wenn du auch nichts historisch davon weißt, daß der Christus auf der Erde da war in der Zeit, wo unsere Zeitrechnung beginnt! Das ist die Tatsache, die durch eine Erneuerung des Ereignisses von Damaskus immer wieder festgestellt werden kann: Es gibt einen ursprünglichen Beweis für die historische Persönlichkeit des Jesus von Nazareth! Und wie nicht bloß an der Schultafel für einen Schüler gesagt wird: Du mußt glauben, daß die drei Winkel eines Dreiecks 180 Grad sind, “weil irgendwann im Altertum ein Mensch das einmal festgestellt hat! — sondern wie wir ihm heute beweisen können, daß die drei Winkel eines Dreiecks 180 Grad betragen, so zeigen wir heute aus dem geistigen Bewußtsein heraus, daß der Christus nicht nur immer da war, sondern daß der historische Jesus gefunden werden kann in den geistigen Welten, daß er eine Realität ist und gerade eine Realität für die Zeit, die uns überliefert worden ist.

Dann gingen wir weiter und zeigten, wie dasjenige, was wir durch geistige Erkenntnis ohne die Evangelien festgestellt haben, sich wiederfindet in den Evangelien. Und jetzt empfinden wir für die Evangelien jene hohe Achtung und Schätzung, die durch nichts überboten werden kann, weil wir in ihnen wiederfinden, was wir unabhängig von den Evangelien in den geistigen Welten gefunden haben, und wir wissen Jetzt: Also müssen sie aus denselben Quellen übersinnlicher Erleuchtung hervorgegangen sein, aus denen wir heute schöpfen, müssen Urkunden aus den geistigen Welten sein.

Daß eine solche Betrachtung überhaupt möglich ist, daß also geistiges Leben einrückt in menschliche Wissenschaftlichkeit, das ist der Sinn dessen, was wir theosophische Bewegung nennen. Und damit das, was geschehen mußte, geschehen konnte, dazu mußte die Anregung gegeben werden durch die Theosophische Gesellschaft. Das ist die eine Seite der Sache. Die andere Seite ist die, daß diese Anregung gerade hineinfallen mußte in eine Zeit, die dafür am wenigsten reif war. Das zeigt sich gerade daran, daß heute, nachdem die theosophische Bewegung bereits dreißig Jahre in der Welt ist, noch immer das Lied fortdauert von dem «unhistorischen Jesus» und so weiter. Wieviel weiß man denn heute außerhalb unserer Bewegung, daß es möglich ist, den historischen Jesus ganz anders zu finden, als durch die äußeren Urkunden? Man setzt fort, was man im 19. Jahrhundert getan hat: die Autorität der religiösen Urkunden zu untergraben. So war die Notwendigkeit, daß diese neue Möglichkeit der Menschheit gegeben werden mußte, die denkbar größte, und auf der anderen Seite waren die Vorbereitungen der Menschen, um diese Offenbarungen entgegenzunehmen, die denkbar geringsten. Oder glauben Sie vielleicht, daß die Menschen, daß die Philosophen von heute dafür besonders reif gewesen wären? Wie weit die Philosophen am Anfange des 20. Jahrhunderts sind, sehen Sie an der Idee, welche sie über den Christus des Paulus fassen. Wer das wissenschaftliche Leben kennt, der weiß, daß dieses wissenschaftliche Leben zwar eine hohe und letzte Konsequenz dessen ist, was sich seit Jahrhunderten als Materialismus vorbereitet hat, daß es zwar behauptet, über den Materialismus hinauszuwollen, daß aber dasjenige, was sich als Denkweise im Materialismus zeigt, nichts weiter ist als etwas Absterbendes. Wissenschaft, wie sie heute existiert, ist zwar eine reife Frucht, aber eine solche Frucht, die das Schicksal jeder reifen Frucht hat: daß sie anfängt abzusterben. An dieser Wissenschaft kann niemand finden, der sie versteht, daß sie einen neuen Trieb hervorbringen könnte zur Erneuerung ihrer Denkungs- und Beweisart.

Wenn wir das bedenken, dann werden wir jetzt, ganz abgesehen von allem übrigen, begreifen das Gewicht der Anregung, das gekommen ist von H. P. Blavatsky, ganz gleichgültig, wie wir zu denken haben über die Einzelheiten ihres Lebens und ihrer Fähigkeiten. Sie war das Instrument, um die Anregung zu geben, und sie erwies sich immerhin als ein geeignetes Instrument dafür. Und wir sind als Mitglieder der theosophischen Bewegung, wenn wir an einem solchen Tage uns mit einer solchen Festlichkeit befassen, in einer ganz besonderen Lage. Wir feiern ein ganz persönliches Fest, das auf ein Persönliches hinweist. Nun ist der Autoritätsglaube schon in der äußeren Welt etwas sehr Gefährliches; er ist aber deshalb dort nicht so gefährlich, weil Eifersucht, Neid und so weiter eine so große Rolle spielen, daß, selbst wenn Verehrung von einzelnen Persönlichkeiten sich äußerlich geltend macht in ziemlich starkem Weihrauchstreuen, doch Egoismus und Neid den Leuten im Nacken sitzen. Aber in der theosophischen Bewegung ist die Gefahr des Schadens alles Persönlichkeitskultus und alles Autoritätsglaubens eine außerordentlich große. Daher sind wir in einer ganz besonderen Lage, wenn wir ein Fest feiern, das einer Persönlichkeit geweiht ist. Und wir sind nicht nur aus den Gewohnheiten der Zeit heraus, sondern aus der Sache heraus in einer besonderen Schwierigkeit, weil die Offenbarungen aus den höheren Welten immer den Umweg über die Persönlichkeit nehmen müssen. Persönlichkeiten müssen die Träger sein für die Offenbarungen, und dennoch sollen wir uns hüten, die Persönlichkeiten mit den Offenbarungen zu vermischen. Wir müssen die Offenbarungen empfangen durch Vermittelungen der Persönlichkeiten. Wie nahe liegt die Frage, die immer wieder auftritt: Ist die Persönlichkeit glaubhaft? Was hat sie alles getan an diesem oder jenem Tage, was mit unseren Begriffen gar nicht stimmt! Kann man also glauben an diese Sache?

Das entspricht einem gewissen Hang unserer Zeit, den man charakterisieren könnte als einen gewissen Mangel in der Hingabe an die Wahrheit. Wie oft kann man es heute erleben, daß sich die Leute einverstanden erklären mit dem Wirken einer Persönlichkeit vielleicht von Jahrzehnten: das gefällt ihnen ganz gut, da sind sie zu bequem, um irgend etwas zu prüfen. Wenn sich dann aber vielleicht nach Jahrzehnten herausstellt, daß das Privatleben dieser Persönlichkeit dieses oder jenes aufweist, wo man vielleicht einhaken kann, dann fällt diese Persönlichkeit dahin. Ob das nun berechtigt ist oder nicht, darauf kommt es gar nicht an, sondern darauf, daß man ein Gefühl dafür bekommen soll, daß die Persönlichkeit zwar der Weg ist, durch welchen geistiges Leben zu uns kommt, daß wir aber die Verpflichtung haben, selbst zu prüfen, und zwar an der Wahrheit die Persönlichkeit zu prüfen, und nicht die Wahrheit an der Persönlichkeit! Gerade den Persönlichkeiten gegenüber in unserer theosophischen Bewegung müssen wir uns immer so verhalten. Und wir verehren sie im Grunde genommen am besten, wenn wir sie nicht mit Autoritätsglauben behängen, wie man das so gern tun möchte, denn wir wissen, daß die Wirksamkeit einer verstorbenen Persönlichkeit nach dem Tode nur verlegt ist in die geistige Welt. Es ist berechtigt zu sagen: Die Wirksamkeit von H. P. Blavatsky dauert fort, und wir können innerhalb dessen, wozu sie die Anregung gegeben hat, diese Wirksamkeit entweder fördern oder beeinträchtigen. Wir beeinträchtigen diese Wirksamkeit am allermeisten dann, wenn wir der Blavatsky blind glauben, wenn wir schwören auf das, was sie gedacht hat, als sie auf dem physischen Plan wandelte, wenn wir glauben wollten, wie sie vielleicht gerade geglaubt hat, und ihr mit einer blinden Autorität entgegenkommen. Und wir fördern und verehren sie am allermeisten, wenn wir uns bewußt sind: Sie hat die Anregung gegeben zu einer tiefsten, in der Notwendigkeit der Menschheitsentwickelung begründeten Bewegung. Wir schreiben ihr dieses Verdienst zu und sehen ein, daß diese Bewegung kommen mußte. Aber es sind Jahre seitdem verflossen, und wir wollen uns dieser Anregung würdig erweisen, indem wir sagen: Was angeregt worden ist, das muß weitergebildet werden. -— Wir sehen ein: Durch diesen Kopf mußte die Anregung gehen. Wir stecken unsere Nase nicht in die Privatverhältnisse von H. P. Blavatsky, insbesondere nicht am heutigen Tage. Wir wissen, was die Anregung bedeutet, aber wir wissen auch, daß die Anregung dasjenige, was geschehen soll, nur in der unvollkommensten Weise darstellen kann. Und wenn wir das betrachten, was im letzten Winter vor unsere Seele getreten ist, so müssen wir sagen: Was H. P. Blavatsky angeregt hat, ist zwar etwas tief Einschneidendes; aber was hat alles Frau Blavatsky durch ihre erste Tat nicht tun können? — Was jetzt erst in dieser Stunde bewiesen worden ist: Die Notwendigkeit der theosophischen Bewegung für das Christus-Erlebnis, das ist etwas, was der Blavatsky ganz verschlossen war. Ihr oblag es, hinzuweisen auf den Wahrheitskern in den Religionen der arischen Völker; vollständig verschlossen war es ihr, die alt- und neutestamentlichen Offenbarungen zu verstehen. Wir verehren das, was die Persönlichkeit positiv geleistet hat, und blicken nicht auf das, was sie nicht konnte und was ihr verschlossen war und was wir eben hinzufügen müssen. Wer sich durch H.P. Blavatsky anregen läßt und weitergehen will, als sie selbst gegangen ist, der wird sich sagen: Wenn die Anregung, die H.P. Blavatsky gegeben hat, in der theosophischen Bewegung weitergeführt wird, dann wird man dazu kommen, das Christus-Ereignis zu begreifen.

Das aber war gerade der Mangel der ersten theosophischen Bewegung, daß das alttestamentliche und neutestamentliche religiöse und geistige Leben nicht begriffen werden konnte. Daher ist im Grunde alles schief, was in dieser ersten Anregung darüber enthalten ist. Und die theosophische Bewegung hat die Aufgabe, das wieder gut zu machen und dasjenige, was in den ersten Anregungen überhaupt nicht enthalten war, hinzuzufügen. Wenn wir diese Tatsache in uns heute fühlen, ist sie zugleich eine Anforderung an unser theosophisches Gewissen.

So sehen wir gerade in H. P. Blavatsky die Bringerin einer Art von Morgenröte eines neuen Lichtes. Aber was würde dieses Licht nützen, wenn es nicht das Allerwichtigste, was die Menschheit gehabt hat, beleuchten wollte? Eine Theosophie, welche nicht die Mittel hat, das Christentum zu begreifen, ist für die gegenwärtige Kultur absolut wertlos. Wenn sie aber doch das Instrument ist, um das Christentum zu begreifen, dann haben wir das Instrument in der richtigen Weise zu benutzen. Was machen wir denn, wenn wir dies nicht tun, was eben charakterisiert worden ist, wenn wir nicht die Anregung von H. P. Blavatsky benutzen, um das Christentum zu begreifen? Dann hemmen wir die Wirksamkeit des Geistes der Blavatsky in unserer Zeit! Alles ist doch in Entwickelung, also auch der Geist der Blavatsky. Und dieser Geist wirkt heute in der geistigen Welt, daß die theosophische Bewegung vorschreitet. Wenn wir uns aber vor H. P. Blavatsky hinstellen mit den Büchern, die sie geschrieben hat, und sagen: Mit deinen eigenen Werken richten wir dir einen Hügel auf! Du mußt stehenbleiben bei dem, was du getan hast im physischen Leben! — wer ist es denn dann, der den Geist der Blavatsky zu einem erdgebundenen macht, der ihn dazu verurteilt, daß er nicht hinübergehen kann über das, was er auf der Erde gestiftet hat? Wir selber wären das! Dadurch aber ehren und anerkennen wir H. P. Blavatsky, wenn wir über sie hinausgehen, wie sie über das hinausgegangen ist, was vor ihr war, so lange uns die Gnade der Weltenentwickelung geistige Offenbarungen aus der geistigen Welt geben kann.

Das wollen wir heute als eine Gewissensfrage vor unsere Seelen hintreten lassen, und das ist schließlich am allermeisten auch im Sinne desjenigen Zeitgenossen, der jetzt auch schon in die geistige Welt eingegangen ist, H. S. Olcotts, des ersten Präsidenten der Theosophischen Gesellschaft. Das wollen wir uns heute ganz besonders in die Seele schreiben! Denn gerade durch die Nichterkenntnis des lebendigen theosophischen Lebens sind auch alle Schattenseiten der theosophischen Bewegung entstanden: Würde die theosophische Bewegung ihre ursprünglichen großen Impulse mit heiligem Gewissen ungeschwächt fortführen, so würde sie durch ihre Kraft alles leicht aus dem Felde schlagen können, was an verderblichen Einschlägen im Laufe der Zeit bereits aufgetreten ist und was ganz gewiß noch auftreten wird. Das aber müssen wir auch ernstlich tun: die Impulse lebendig fortbilden. Heute aber sehen wir an vielen Orten, wo Theosophen zu wirken meinen, daß sie sich ganz besonders behaglich fühlen, wenn sie sagen: Wir tun jetzt etwas, was uns die äußere Wissenschaft auch bestätigt! — Wie lieb ist es manchen führenden Theosophen, wenn sie hinweisen können, wie die Religionsforscher auch das bestätigen, was aus der geistigen Welt herausgekommen ist, und gar nicht beachten sie, daß gerade die ungeistige Art der Vergleichung der religiösen Urkunden überwunden werden sollte. Da berührt sich zum Beispiel Theosophie sogar hart mit dem, was absterbend war und zur Leugnung des historischen Jesus geführt hat, und da ist sogar eine gewisse Verwandtschaft mit diesen Dingen vorhanden. Ursprünglich hat Theosophie den historischen Jesus auch nur gelten lassen wie die anderen Religionsstifter. Es ist der Blavatsky nicht eingefallen, den historischen Jesus zu leugnen. Sie hat ihn zwar in der Zeit um hundert Jahre hinausgeschoben, was allerdings ein Irrtum ist, sie hat ihn also nicht geleugnet, aber sie hat auch das Wesen des Christus Jesus nicht erkannt. Sie hat zwar die Anregung gegeben, daß in der von ihr eingeleiteten Bewegung das Wesen des Christus einmal erkannt werden kann, hat es aber selbst nicht tun können. Da berührt sich der erste Zustand der theosophischen Bewegung höchst merkwürdig mit dem, was die Leugner des historischen Jesus heute tun.

So wird heute zum Beispiel von Professor Drews darauf hingewiesen, daß man die Vorgänge, welche dem Ereignis von Golgatha vorangehen, auch in der alten Götter-Erklärung findet, so zum Beispiel in den Kulten des Adonis oder 'Tammuz. Da zeigt sich ein leidender Gottesheld, ein sterbender Gottesheld, ein auferstehender Gottesheld und so weiter. Es wird immer verglichen, was da und dort religiöse Überlieferung ist und dann wird geschlossen: Es wird euch erzählt von einem leidenden, sterbenden und auferstehenden Jesus von Nazareth, der der Christus war, aber ihr seht, daß das die anderen Völker auch feierten an Adonis, an Tammuz und so weiter. Überall wird hingewiesen auf die Ähnlichkeit dieser oder jener alten Götterfigur mit dem, was in den Vorgängen von Palästina beschrieben wird.

Das ist im weiten Umfange im Grunde auch in der theosophischen Bewegung getrieben worden. Man sieht gar nicht heute bei dieser Religionsvergleichung, daß damit gar nichts gesagt ist, wenn man vergleicht Adonis oder Tammuz mit den Ereignissen von Palästina. Ich will Ihnen nur durch einen Vergleich einmal vor die Seele führen, wo der Irrtum einer solchen Religionsvergleichung liegt. Äußerlich kann sie absolut richtig sein, aber dennoch ist sie einem gewaltigen Irrtum unterworfen. Nehmen Sie an, es gibt eine Uniform irgendeines Beamten, der, sagen wir, im Jahre 1910 lebte. Die Uniform, welche dieser Beamte im Jahre 1910 trägt, stellt zu gleicher Zeit die äußere Art seiner Tätigkeit dar, seines Amtes. Und nehmen wir weiter an, im Jahre 1930 steckte ein anderer Mensch, der ganz anders ist, in derselben Uniform. Aber nicht auf die Uniform, sondern auf die Individualität kommt es dabei an, wie ein Mensch seine Arbeit verrichtet. Jetzt aber denken wir uns, im Jahre 2090 käme ein Geschichtsforscher, der etwa sagte: Es wird berichtet, daß es im Jahre 1910 einen Menschen gab, der diesen Rock, dieses Beinkleid und diese Weste angehabt hat. Im Jahre 1930 aber sehe ich auch den gleichen Rock, dieselbe Weste und dieselben Beinkleider, also sehen wir, daß sich Rock, Beinkleid und Weste fortgepflanzt haben, und daß wir beide Male eigentlich dasselbe Wesen vor uns haben!

Ein solcher Schluß ist natürlich töricht. Aber es ist nicht gescheiter, wenn man sagt: Wir nehmen die vorderasiatischen Religionen und sehen da, wie in Adonis oder Tammuz Leiden, Sterben und Auferstehung dargestellt wird; dasselbe finden wir beim Christus auch! — Darauf kommt es aber nicht an, daß Leiden, Sterben und Auferstehen dargestellt wird, sondern darauf, wer auferstanden ist! Leiden, Tod und Auferstehung ist die Uniform in der weltgeschichtlichen Entwickelung, und wir dürfen nicht auf die Uniform, die uns in den Legenden entgegentritt, hinweisen, sondern auf die Individualitäten, welche darinnenstecken. Gewiß haben sich die Individualitäten, damit die Menschen sie begreifen, in derselben Weise gezeigt, haben sozusagen «Christus-Taten» vollbracht, welche zeigen sollten: Er kann auch die Taten verrichten, die einmal ein Tammuz zum Beispiel hat. — Aber es war immer eine andere Wesenheit hinter diesen Taten. Daher ist alle Religionsvergleichung, daß zum Beispiel die Siegfried-Gestalt übereinstimmt mit der Baldur-Gestalt, die BaldurGestalt mit der Tammuz-Gestalt und so weiter, nur ein Zeichen dafür, daß gewisse Formen der Legenden und Mythen bei diesen und jenen Völkern vorkommen. Das ist nicht mehr wert, als wenn man, um die Menschen kennenzulernen, zeigen würde, wie sich eine bestimmte Uniformgattung bei einem bestimmten Amte wiederfindet. Das ist der fundamentale Irrtum, der überall grassiert und der zum Beispiel auch in der theosophischen Bewegung grassieren kann, und der nichts anderes ist, als eine Konsequenz materialistischer Denkgewohnheiten.

Nur dann wird das Testament der Blavatsky erfüllt werden, wenn die theosophische Bewegung fähig ist, das Leben des Geistes in sich zu pflegen und zu bewahren, wenn auf den Geist gesehen wird, der sich nicht durch Bücher, die jemand geschrieben hat, sondern durch das lebendige Leben immerfort zeigt. Geist soll bei uns gepflegt werden. Nicht Bücher wollen wir bloß studieren, die vor Jahrhunderten geschrieben worden sind, sondern lebendig fortentwickeln, was uns als Geist gegeben ist. Und wir wollen etwas sein wie eine Vereinigung von Menschen, die nicht bloß glauben an Bücher und Menschen, sondern an den lebendigen Geist, und die nicht bloß davon sprechen, daß H. P. Blavatsky abgegangen ist vom physischen Plan und nach ihrem Tode weiter lebt, sondern die so weit lebendig glauben an das, was durch die Theosophie offenbart worden ist, daß sie selbst durch ihre eigene Wesenheit auf dem physischen Plan kein Hemmnis sein können für das übersinnliche Fortwirken des Geistes der Blavatsky. Nur dann werden wir der theosophischen Bewegung etwas sein, wenn wir so denken über H.P. Blavatsky, und nur dann wird H. P. Blavatsky etwas sein können für die theosophische Bewegung, wenn solche Menschen auf Erden existieren, die so denken können. Aber dazu ist notwendig, daß weiter geistig geforscht wird, und daß man vor allen Dingen glaubt an das, was besonders in dem letzten öffentlichen Vortrag erwähnt worden ist: daß die Menschheit im Fortschreiten begriffen ist, und daß wirklich so etwas in die Geschichte eingetreten ist zur Zeit des Christus Jesus wie das Gewissen, und daß solche Dinge entstehen und eine Bedeutung haben für die ganze Entwickelung. Das Gewissen ist etwas, was zu einem bestimmten Zeitpunkt eingetreten ist. Das Gewissen war früher etwas anderes, und es wird wieder etwas anderes werden, nachdem die Menschenseelen im Lichte des Gewissens sich eine Weile entwickelt haben werden. Wie das Gewissen sich verändern wird in der Zukunft, darauf haben wir auch schon hingewiesen.

Parallel gehen wird mit dem Auftreten des Ereignisses von Damaskus bei einer großen Anzahl Menschen im Laufe des 20. Jahrhunderts so etwas, daß die Menschen lernen werden, wenn sie irgendeine Tat im Leben getan haben, aufzuschauen von dieser Tat. Sie werden bedächtiger werden, werden ein innerliches Bild haben von der Tat — zunächst wenige, dann immer mehr und mehr im Laufe der nächsten zwei bis drei Jahrtausende. Nachdem die Menschen etwas getan haben werden, wird das Bild da sein. Sie werden zunächst nicht wissen, was das ist. Die aber Geisteswissenschaft kennengelernt haben, werden sich sagen: Hier habe ich ein Bild! Das ist kein Traum, gar kein Traum, es ist ein Bild dessen, was mir die karmische Erfüllung dieser Tat zeigt, die ich eben getan habe. Das wird einmal geschehen als Erfüllung, als karmischer Ausgleich dessen, was ich eben getan habe! — Das wird im 20. Jahrhundert beginnen. Da wird sich für den Menschen hinzuentwickeln die Fähigkeit, daß er ein Bild hat von einer ganz fernen, noch nicht geschehenen Tat. Das wird sich zeigen als ein inneres Gegenbild seiner Tat, als die karmische Erfüllung, die einmal eintreten wird. Der Mensch wird sich dann sagen: Jetzt habe ich dies getan. Nun wird mir gezeigt, was ich zum Ausgleich tun muß, und was mich immer zurückhalten würde in der Vervollkommnung, wenn ich den Ausgleich nicht vollbringen würde. -— Da wird Karma nicht eine bloße Theorie mehr sein, sondern es wird dieses charakterisierte innere Bild erfahren werden.

Solche Fähigkeiten treten nach und nach immer mehr auf. Neue Fähigkeiten entwickeln sich, aber die alten Fähigkeiten sind die Keime für die neuen. Wovon werden es denn die Menschen haben, daß sich das karmische Bild zeigen wird? Davon werden sie es haben, daß die Seele eine gewisse Zeit im Lichte des Gewissens gestanden hat! Das ist ja das Wichtige für die Seele: nicht daß dieses oder jenes äußere Physische erlebt wird, sondern daß die Seele dadurch vollkommener wird. Durch das Gewissen bereitet sich die Seele zu demjenigen vor, was jetzt charakterisiert worden ist. Und je mehr die Menschen gegangen sein werden durch Inkarnationen, wo sie besonders das Gewissen ausgebildet haben, je mehr sie dieses Gewissen in sich pflegen werden, desto mehr werden sie tun, um jene höhere Fähigkeit zu haben, die ihnen im geistigen Schauen selber jene Gottesstimme wieder vorführt, welche die Menschen früher einmal in anderer Weise gehabt haben. Äschylos stellte noch einen solchen Orest dar, der vor sich hatte, was seine schlimmen Taten bewirkten. Orest muß noch ansehen, wie die Wirkung seiner Taten in die Außenwelt hinausgestellt ist. Die neue Fähigkeit, welche sich für die Seele entwickelt, ist eine solche, daß der Mensch in Bildern sehen wird die Wirkung seiner Taten für die Zukunft. Das ist das Neue. Die Entwickelung verläuft immer zyklisch, immer kreisförmig, und was die Menschheit an dem alten Schauen besessen hat, das stellt sich in erneuerter Weise auch wieder ein.

So bereiten wir uns durch die Erkenntnisse der geistigen Welt vor, daß wir wirklich in einer richtigen Weise in der nächsten Inkarnation aufwachen, und dadurch arbeiten wir auch in der Weise, daß auch für die Menschen, die unsere Nachkommen sind, im entsprechenden Maße gesorgt ist. Dadurch ist die Geistesforschung in ihrem inneren Grunde eine unegoistische Richtung, weil sie nicht fragt, was dem einzelnen frommt, sondern wodurch der Fortschritt der ganzen Menschheit bewirkt wird.

Wir haben nun zweimal gefragt: Was ist das Gewissen? Jetzt haben wir auch gefragt: Was wird aus dem Gewissen, das sich heute entwikkelt? Wie stellt sich das Gewissen dar, wenn wir es betrachten als einen Samen in der Zeit, welche die Menschheit jetzt durchmacht? Was wird aus dem, was das Gewissen als Keim bewirkt? — Diese charakterisierten höheren Fähigkeiten werden daraus! Das ist das Wichtige, daß wir an die Entwickelung der Seele von Inkarnation zu Inkarnation, von Zeitalter zu Zeitalter glauben. Das lernen wir, indem wir das wirkliche Christentum verstehen lernen. Und da haben wir von Paulus noch sehr viel zu lernen. Sehen Sie sich bei allen orientalischen Religionen um, auch beim Buddhismus, Sie finden die Lehre: Die äußere Welt ist Maja. — Gewiß ist sie das, aber das wird im Orient als eine absolute Wahrheit hingestellt. Paulus weiß diese Wahrheit auch, sie ist wahrhaftig bei ihm genügend betont. Aber etwas anderes ist bei Paulus noch betont, nämlich dies: Wohl sieht der Mensch nicht Wahrheit, wenn er hinausschaut mit seinen Augen, er sieht nicht die Wirklichkeit, wenn er in das schaut, was draußen ist. Warum nicht? Weil er sich selbst bei seinem Herunterstieg in die Materie die äußere Wirklichkeit zur Illusion umgegossen hat! Der Mensch ist es selbst, der die äußere Welt durch seine Tat zur Illusion gemacht hat! Nennen Sie es nun mit der Bibel «Sündenfall» oder sonstwie, was bewirkt, daß ihm die äußere Welt jetzt als eine Illusion erscheint. Den «Göttern» gibt die orientalische Religionslehre die Schuld, daß dem Menschen die Welt als Maja erscheint. Schlag’ an deine eigene Brust! — so sagt Paulus —, du bist heruntergestiegen und hast deine eigene Anschauung so getrübt, daß Farbe und Ton nicht wirklich als ein Geistiges erscheinen. Du glaubst, daß Farbe und Ton etwas ist, was materiell für sich da ist? Maja ist es! Du hast es selbst zur Maja gemacht. Du Mensch, du mußt dich selbst davon wieder erlösen. Du mußt dir das, was du verwirkt hast, wieder aneignen! Du bist heruntergestiegen in die Materie, und jetzt mußt du dich selbst wieder davon erlösen, davon befreien, aber nicht in der Weise, wie es Buddha sagt: Bezwinge den Drang nach Dasein! Nein! du mußt das Dasein der Erde in ihrer Wirklichkeit sehen. Was du selber zur Maja gemacht hast, das mußt du wieder richtig machen in dir. Und das kannst du, indem du die Christus-Kraft in dich aufnimmst, die dir die äußere Welt in ihrer Wirklichkeit zeigt!

Darin liegt ein großer Impuls westländischen Lebens, ein neuer Zug, und der ist noch lange nicht auf den einzelnen Gebieten durchgeführt. Was weiß heute die Welt davon, daß auf einem Gebiete sogar versucht worden ist, sozusagen im Sinne des Paulus, eine Erkenntnistheorie zu schaffen? Eine solche Erkenntnistheorie könnte nicht im kantischen Sinne sagen: Das Ding an sich ist etwas Unbegreifliches —, sondern sie könnte nur sagen: Es liegt an dir, Mensch, du bewirkst durch das, was du jetzt bist, eine unrichtige Wirklichkeit. Du mußt selbst einen inneren Prozeß durchmachen. Dann verwandelt sich dir Maja in Wahrheit, in die geistige Wirklichkeit! — In diesem Sinne die Erkenntnistheorie auf paulinische Basis zu stellen, war die Aufgabe meiner beiden Schriften «Wahrheit und Wissenschaft» und «Die Philosophie der Freiheit». Diese beiden Bücher stellen sich hinein in das, was die große Errungenschaft der paulinischen Auffassung vom Menschen ist in der westländischen Welt. Daher sind diese Bücher auch so wenig verstanden worden, höchstens in einigen Kreisen, weil sie voraussetzen gerade die ganzen Impulse, welche in der Bewegung für Geisteswissenschaft zum Ausdruck gekommen sind. Im Kleinsten muß sich das Größte zeigen!

Durch solche Betrachtungen, die uns von unserer engen Menschlichkeit emporheben und uns zeigen, wie wir in unserer kleinen alltäglichen Arbeit anknüpfen können an das, was uns von Stufe zu Stufe, von Leben zu Leben immer mehr hineinführt in das geistige Dasein, durch solche Betrachtungen werden wir zu rechten Theosophen. Und wir dürfen uns einer solchen Betrachtung gerade hingeben an einem Tage, der gewidmet ist einer Persönlichkeit, die eine Anregung gegeben hat zu einer Bewegung, die immer weiter und weiter leben wird, die nicht für einen Menschen eine graue Theorie bleiben soll, sondern die Lebenssaft in sich haben soll, damit der Baum immer von neuem grünen wird, den wir den Baum der theosophischen Weltanschauung nennen.

Aus diesem Geiste heraus wollen wir es versuchen, uns geeignet zu machen, einen Boden zu bereiten in unserer Bewegung, der die Impulse der Blavatsky nicht hemmt und zurückhält, sondern zu immer weiterer Entfaltung fördert.

Seventh Lecture

On this day, May 8, we as the Theosophical Society celebrate White Lotus Day, which in the outer world, as it is known today, is regarded as the day of death of the initiator of the spiritual movement within which we stand. We feel it is more appropriate to choose another name for our celebration today, a name taken from our knowledge of the spiritual world, which might be called the transition from one sphere of activity within the physical plane to another sphere of activity within the spiritual worlds. For it is not only our deepest conviction in the ordinary sense of the word, but an ever-growing realization that what we are dealing with in the outer world, which is called death, is the transition from a work, an activity inspired by the impressions of the outer physical world, to an activity inspired directly by the spiritual world. And as we remember today the great inspirer A. P. Blavatsky and those leading figures who have already passed over into this spiritual realm, let us try in particular to form an idea of how we ourselves can maintain our spiritual movement so that it can represent a continuation of the activity which the founder accomplished on the physical plane until her departure from it, a continuation of this activity on the one hand, but also a possibility for this founder to continue to work from the spiritual worlds in our present and into the future.

On such a day, it is fitting that we interrupt, as it were, the way in which we usually devote ourselves to spiritual scientific contemplation and spiritual life in these gatherings, and that we undertake, as it were, a kind of examination of conscience, a kind of review of what the theosophical movement can show us about its nature and its duties, and what, on the other hand, should show us in a kind of preview what this theosophical movement should be in the future, what we should do and what we should refrain from doing.

Through very special circumstances, through certain historical necessities, what we call the theosophical movement has come into being in recent times. You know that this is not like many other spiritual or other movements or associations, where one or more personalities set themselves this or that ideal, and because they are enthusiastic about these ideals precisely because of the conditions of their minds and their hearts, they try to inspire other people to do the same, to found associations and societies, and to put into practice the ideals for which they themselves are personally enthusiastic. This is not how we should understand the theosophical movement if we understand it correctly. We will only understand it correctly if we regard it as a historical necessity of our present life, as something that, regardless of how people may feel about it, had to come because it was, so to speak, in the womb of time and had to be born. How, then, can this theosophical movement be understood? It can be understood as a descent, a new descent of spiritual life, spiritual wisdom, and spiritual forces from the supersensible worlds into the sensory-physical world. Such a descent of spiritual life, spiritual wisdom, and spiritual forces had to happen and will have to happen again and again in the future for the further development of humanity. Of course, it cannot be our task today to point out all the individual great impulses through which spiritual life has flowed down from the supersensible worlds in order to renew, so to speak, the aging soul life of humanity. This has happened many times in the course of time. Only a few examples will be mentioned here.

In the distant past, not long after the great Atlantean catastrophe, which has been preserved in the traditions of various peoples as the story of the Flood, there was an impulse that we can describe as the inflow of spiritual life into human evolution through the ancient holy Rishis. Then we have that other stream of spiritual life flowing down into the human movement through the great Zarathustra or Zoroaster. Then we find another such stream of spiritual life in what came to the ancient Israelite people in the revelation of Moses. And finally, we have the greatest impulse, the most powerful inflow of supersensible life into the sensory world through the appearance of Christ Jesus on earth. This is the most powerful impulse in relation to all the past and, as we have also emphasized, in relation to all the future of earth's development. But it has also been emphasized that new impulses must always come, that new spiritual life and a new way of understanding the old spiritual life must flow into human development. For otherwise the tree of human development, which must be green if humanity is to reach its goal of development, would wither and die. The mighty wave of Christ's life that has flowed into human development must be understood better and better through new spiritual impulses that flow into our earthly life.

When our age, our 19th century, approached, a time had come again for human development that demanded a new impact, a new impulse of life. Once again, new inspirations, new revelations had to flow down from the supersensible worlds into our sensory world. This was a necessity that should have been felt on Earth itself, but which was felt especially in those regions from which the guidance of all earthly life emanates in the spiritual regions. It would be short-sighted human thinking to say, for example, “Oh, why always a new influx of completely new kinds of truth? Why always new insights and new impulses for life? What we have in Christianity, for example, is what we have, and it could simply continue in the same way!”

From a higher point of view, this way of looking at things would be eminently selfish. It really is! And the fact that such a selfish way of looking at things is so prevalent today among people who believe themselves to be very pious and religious is all the more proof that a renewal of spiritual life is needed. How often do we hear people say today: Why do we need new spiritual currents? We have the old traditions that have been handed down to us through the ages; let us not allow them to be corrupted by those who claim to know better, who always pretend to know everything better! This is an egoistic expression of the human soul. Only those who do it do not realize that it is so eminently egoistic. For those who do so want, as it were, to provide only for the needs of their own soul. They feel within themselves: We are satisfied with what we have! — And now they establish the dogma, the terrible dogma of conscience: If we are satisfied in our way, then those who are to learn from us, our descendants, must be satisfied in the same way as we are. Everything must be according to our heart, according to our knowledge! — This is a saying that is heard very, very often in the outer world. And it is not merely narrowness of soul; it is something that is connected with what has just been characterized as an egoistic trait of the human soul. And in religious life, under the mask of piety, souls can perhaps be at their most egoistic.

If we look at our environment with understanding, it could teach those who are serious about the spiritual development of humanity one thing: that the human soul is developing and that more and more of the way in which people's attention has been directed for centuries toward the greatest impulse in human development, the Christ impulse, is crumbling away. I do not usually like to mention contemporary matters, because what is happening today in the outer spiritual life is really too insignificant for the most part to appeal to the serious observer on a deeper level. But it should nevertheless be a matter of conscience for the observer of the times to consider what is happening in spiritual life today. In recent weeks, for example, it was almost impossible to walk past a poster in Berlin without seeing an announcement of a lecture or a meeting on the subject: Did Jesus live? You may all know that the impetus for this discussion, which has been pursued in the widest circles, sometimes with quite radical weapons, came from the views of a German professor of philosophy—a student of the author of The Philosophy of the Unconscious, Eduard von Hartmann—Professor Dr. Arthur Drews, and especially his book The Christ Myth. The contents of this book have become widely known through a lecture given by Professor Drews here in Berlin under the title “Did Jesus Live?”

Now, of course, it cannot be my task today to go into the details of Drews's considerations. I would just like to present a few of the main ideas to you. The author of “The Christ Myth,” a modern philosopher who claims to embody the science and thinking of our time, examines the individual documents from which it is claimed that a certain personality named Jesus of Nazareth lived at the beginning of our Christian era. And he tries to piece together from what criticism and science have established something that leads him to say: Are the individual Gospels historical documents from which it can be proven that Jesus really lived? And he takes everything that modern theology has produced from this or that source and tries to show that none of the Gospels can be a historical document and that it cannot be proven from the Gospels that Jesus lived. And then he tries to show that all other purely historical information that people have is irrelevant, so that no conclusion can be drawn from it about a historical Jesus.

Now everyone who knows these things knows that, viewed purely from an external perspective, Professor Drews's approach has a lot going for it and appears to be a kind of result of modern theological criticism. I do not want to go into the details here. For what is important is that in our time, someone who considers himself to be a scientific philosopher can make the claim that there are no historical documents that prove that Jesus lived, and that the historical documents that are used to prove this are all irrelevant. What Drews and all those who follow him adhere to is what we have from the Apostle Paul. There are even more recent people who doubt the authenticity of all of Paul's letters, but since the author of “The Christ Myth” does not go that far, we need not dwell on this. Drews now says the following about Paul: Paul did not start from any personal acquaintance with Jesus of Nazareth, but from what he had received as a revelation in the event at Damascus. — We know that this is absolutely true. But now Drews comes to the following view. What concept of Christ did Paul form for himself? He formed the concept of a purely spiritual Christ who can dwell in every human soul, so to speak, and gradually realize himself in every human soul. But nowhere did Paul see any necessity for this Christ, whom he regarded as a purely spiritual being, to be present in what would have been a historically unverifiable Jesus. Therefore, one could say: Whether a historical Jesus lived or not, we do not know; Paul's image of Christ is a purely spiritual one, a pure idea that only reflects something that can live in every human soul as an impulse toward perfection, as a kind of God in man. The author of “The Christ Myth” goes on to point out that certain ideas, similar to those of the Christian Jesus, already existed before him as a kind of pre-Christian Jesus, and he traces the concept of the Messiah to various Eastern peoples. This leads Drews to ask himself: How does the idea of Christ—which, even in his view, Paul undoubtedly had—differ from the image of Christ in Paul's mind and heart from what was previously understood as the concept of the Messiah? And here Drews says: The people before Paul had an image of Christ as a god, an image of the Messiah as a god who did not truly become man, who did not descend to the level of individual humanity. In their various festivals, mysteries, and so on, they celebrated, as it were, a symbolic process: suffering, death, and resurrection; but they did not have the idea that a single human being on the physical earth had actually undergone suffering, death, and resurrection. So this was, as it were, a general idea. And now the author of “The Christ Myth” asks: What is new in Paul? How did Paul himself develop the idea of Christ?

Drews himself says: This is the progress Paul made over his predecessors, that he did not merely imagine a general God floating in the higher regions, but a God who became an individual human being. — So I ask you to pay attention once again: In the sense of the author of “The Christ Myth,” Paul imagines a Christ who really became an individual human being. But now comes the most peculiar thing: Paul should have stopped at the idea, that is, Paul should have grasped the idea of a Christ who really became human, but this Christ as a human being should not have existed for Paul! Paul should have said to himself: The highest idea is that a God, a Christ, does not merely float in the higher regions, but that he has descended to earth and become human; but he did not mean that this Christ really lived on earth in a human being — that is to say: The author of the “Christ-Myth” attributes to Paul a concept of Christ that is in itself a mockery of all sound thinking. Paul is supposed to have said: Christ must have been a real individual human being, but even though I preach him, I deny that this Christ lived historically!

That is the crux of the matter, and it does not present itself to us as something that requires a great deal of theological-critical scholarship to refute, but rather the author of “Christus-Mythe” can be approached as a philosopher. For this concept of Christ is also only possible in philosophical terms. The Pauline concept of Christ, if taken only in the sense of Drews, cannot exist without the assumption of the historical Jesus. Thus, this book by Drews himself demands the existence of a historical Jesus. So today, in the widest circles, a book can be regarded as serious scientific work that has at its core such a contradiction that it makes a mockery of all internal logic! It is possible that human thinking today takes such crooked paths! Where does this come from? Anyone who wants to understand the development of humanity should answer this question: Where does this come from?

It comes from the fact that what people believe or think in this or that age is ultimately not decided by their logic, but by their feelings and emotions, that is, by what they want to believe and think. And it is in the deepest nature of those who are preparing the concept of Christ for the coming age that they want to exclude from their hearts everything that is contained in external documents, while at the same time feeling the urge to prove everything through external documents. But these documents, when viewed purely materially, lose their value after a certain time. The time will come, just as it came for Homer and is already here for Shakespeare, when people will try to prove that a historical Goethe never existed. Historical documents, viewed purely materially, must lose their value over time. What is necessary, then, now that we are already living in an age whose best representatives are capable of thinking that a desire of the heart gives rise to the goal of denying the historical Christ? What is necessary as a new impetus for spiritual life? — What is necessary is the possibility of understanding the historical Jesus in a spiritual way.

What is another expression for this fact?

We all know that Paul started from the event in Damascus. And we also know that this was the great revelation for him, whereas everything he could hear in Jerusalem, as immediate news on the physical plane, was not suitable for turning Saul into Paul. What convinced him was the revelation from the spiritual worlds in Damascus. It was only through this that Christianity really came into being, and from this Paul drew the strength to proclaim Christ. But did he gain from this a mere abstract idea that is contradictory in itself? No! Rather, from what he saw in the spiritual worlds, he gained the conviction that Christ lived, suffered, died, and rose again on earth. “If Christ had not risen, my teaching would be futile!” Paul spoke rightly. He did not merely receive the idea of Christ from the spiritual worlds, but the reality of the Christ who died on Golgotha. For him, this was proof of the historical Jesus.

Now that the time is approaching when, due to the materialism of the age, historical documents are losing their value and anyone can easily show that they are so fragile to criticism that nothing can be proven by external historical means, what is necessary? Then people must learn to recognize that Christ can be recognized as the historical Jesus even without historical documents, because the event at Damascus can be renewed for every human being through training, or even in the near future for all of humanity, so that it is possible to gain a conviction about the historical Jesus. This is the new way that must come into the world to find the path to the historical Jesus. For it does not matter whether facts that have happened are true or false, but that they exist. It does not matter that a book like “The Christ Myth” contains this or that error, but that it could be written. This shows that we need completely different methods so that Christ can be preserved for humanity and rediscovered. Anyone who thinks about humanity and its needs and the way the human soul expresses itself will not take the position: What do I care about people who think differently? I have my convictions, and that is enough for me! Most people have no idea what terrible selfishness lies in this attitude.

It was not some external idea, an external ideal, or a personal hobby that gave rise to a movement through which people were to learn that it is possible to find a way up into the spiritual world and that among what can be found there, Christ can also be found. Rather, this movement arose out of necessity. This necessity arose in the course of the 19th century, and in accordance with it, possibilities were to flow down from the spiritual worlds into the physical world, enabling people to gain spiritual truth in a new way, because the old way had died. And as we have seen in the course of this winter, how fruitful this path is proving to be!

We have emphasized this again and again: the first thing we have to do within our movement is not to base ourselves on any document or external record, but first to ask: what does clairvoyant consciousness give us when we ascend into the spiritual worlds? What does independent spiritual consciousness say if, through some catastrophe, all historical references to the historical Jesus, to the Gospels, and also to the letters of Paul were lost? What does the path that can be taken every day and every hour say about the spiritual worlds? It says: You will find Christ in the spiritual worlds, even if you know nothing historically about Christ's presence on earth at the beginning of our calendar! This is the fact that can be established again and again through a renewal of the event at Damascus: there is original proof for the historical personality of Jesus of Nazareth! And not as it is said to a pupil on the blackboard: you must believe that the three angles of a triangle are 180 degrees “because at some time in ancient times a man once established this! — but just as we can prove to him today that the three angles of a triangle are 180 degrees, so we can show today, out of spiritual consciousness, that Christ has not only always been there, but that the historical Jesus can be found in the spiritual worlds, that he is a reality and precisely a reality for the time that has been handed down to us.

Then we went further and showed how what we have discovered through spiritual knowledge without the Gospels can be found again in the Gospels. And now we feel for the Gospels that high respect and esteem which cannot be surpassed by anything, because we find in them what we have found independently of the Gospels in the spiritual worlds, and we know now: Therefore, they must have come from the same sources of supersensible enlightenment from which we draw today; they must be documents from the spiritual worlds.

That such a consideration is possible at all, that spiritual life enters into human science, is the meaning of what we call the Theosophical Movement. And in order that what had to happen could happen, the stimulus had to be given by the Theosophical Society. That is one side of the matter. The other side is that this stimulus had to come at a time when it was least ripe. This is evident from the fact that today, after the Theosophical Movement has been in the world for thirty years, the song about the “unhistorical Jesus” and so on still continues. How much is known today outside our Movement that it is possible to find the historical Jesus in a completely different way than through the external documents? People continue to do what they did in the 19th century: undermine the authority of religious documents. Thus, the need to give humanity this new possibility was as great as it could possibly be, while on the other hand, people's preparation to receive these revelations was as minimal as it could possibly be. Or do you perhaps believe that people, that philosophers today, were particularly ready for this? You can see how far philosophers have come at the beginning of the 20th century by the idea they have formed about the Christ of Paul. Anyone familiar with scientific life knows that this scientific life is indeed a high and ultimate consequence of what has been preparing itself for centuries as materialism, that it claims to want to go beyond materialism, but that what manifests itself as a way of thinking in materialism is nothing more than something dying. Science as it exists today is indeed a ripe fruit, but it is a fruit that has the fate of every ripe fruit: it begins to die. No one who understands this science can find in it the potential to produce a new impulse for the renewal of its way of thinking and proving.

When we consider this, then, quite apart from everything else, we will understand the weight of the stimulus that came from H. P. Blavatsky, no matter what we may think about the details of her life and abilities. She was the instrument that provided the stimulus, and she proved to be a suitable instrument for it. And we, as members of the Theosophical Movement, are in a very special position when we engage in such festivities on such a day. We are celebrating a very personal festival that points to something personal. Now, belief in authority is already something very dangerous in the outer world; but it is not so dangerous there because jealousy, envy, and so on play such a large role that even if veneration of individual personalities manifests itself outwardly in fairly strong incense-burning, egoism and envy still sit on people's necks. But in the theosophical movement, the danger of harm from all personality cults and all belief in authority is extremely great. Therefore, we are in a very special situation when we celebrate a festival dedicated to a personality. And we are in a special difficulty, not only because of the customs of the time, but because of the nature of the matter itself, because revelations from the higher worlds must always take a detour via the personality. Personalities must be the vehicles for revelations, and yet we must be careful not to confuse personalities with revelations. We must receive revelations through the mediation of personalities. How obvious is the question that arises again and again: Is the personality credible? What did they do on this or that day that does not correspond to our concepts at all? Can one therefore believe in this matter?

This corresponds to a certain tendency of our time, which could be characterized as a certain lack of devotion to the truth. How often do we see people today agreeing with the work of a personality, perhaps over decades: they like it, they are too comfortable to question anything. But then, perhaps after decades, it turns out that this personality's private life reveals this or that, something that can be used against them, and then this personality falls from grace. Whether this is justified or not is irrelevant; what matters is that we should develop a sense that, although the personality is the channel through which spiritual life comes to us, we have an obligation to examine it ourselves, and to examine the personality in the light of the truth, not the truth in the light of the personality! We must always behave in this way, especially toward personalities in our theosophical movement. And we honor them best when we do not burden them with a belief in their authority, as people are so fond of doing, because we know that the effectiveness of a deceased personality after death is merely transferred to the spiritual world. It is justified to say that the effectiveness of H. P. Blavatsky continues, and we can either promote or impair this effectiveness within the framework of what she inspired. We impair this influence most of all when we blindly believe Blavatsky, when we swear by what she thought while she was on the physical plane, when we want to believe what she may have believed, and when we treat her with blind authority. And we promote and revere her most when we are aware that she gave the impetus to a profound movement based on the necessity of human development. We attribute this merit to her and recognize that this movement had to come. But years have passed since then, and we want to prove ourselves worthy of this inspiration by saying: What has been inspired must be further developed. We realize that the inspiration had to come through this head. We do not pry into the private affairs of H. P. Blavatsky, especially not today. We know what the inspiration means, but we also know that inspiration can only represent what is to happen in the most imperfect way. And when we consider what came before our souls last winter, we must say: What H. P. Blavatsky inspired is indeed something profound; but what could Mrs. Blavatsky not do through her first act? What has now been proven at this very moment: the necessity of the Theosophical movement for the Christ experience is something that was completely closed to Blavatsky. It was her task to point out the kernel of truth in the religions of the Aryan peoples; she was completely unable to understand the revelations of the Old and New Testaments. We revere what the personality has accomplished positively, and do not look at what she could not do, what was closed to her, and what we must add. Those who are inspired by H.P. Blavatsky and want to go further than she went will say to themselves: If the inspiration that H.P. Blavatsky gave is continued in the theosophical movement, then we will come to understand the Christ event.

But that was precisely the shortcoming of the first theosophical movement, that the religious and spiritual life of the Old and New Testaments could not be understood. Therefore, everything contained in this initial inspiration is fundamentally wrong. And the theosophical movement has the task of making up for this and adding what was not contained in the initial inspiration at all. When we feel this fact within ourselves today, it is at the same time a demand on our theosophical conscience.

Thus, we see H. P. Blavatsky as the bringer of a kind of dawn of a new light. But what use would this light be if it did not seek to illuminate the most important thing that humanity has ever had? A theosophy that does not have the means to understand Christianity is absolutely worthless for the present culture. But if it is indeed the instrument for understanding Christianity, then we must use that instrument in the right way. What are we doing if we do not do what has just been described, if we do not use H. P. Blavatsky's inspiration to understand Christianity? Then we are hindering the effectiveness of Blavatsky's spirit in our time! Everything is in development, including the spirit of Blavatsky. And this spirit is working in the spiritual world today to advance the theosophical movement. But if we stand before H. P. Blavatsky with the books she wrote and say, “With your own works we will build a mound for you! You must remain with what you have done in physical life! — who then is it who makes the spirit of Blavatsky earthbound, condemning it to remain within the confines of what it has created on earth? It would be us! But by going beyond her, as she went beyond what was before her, we honor and acknowledge H. P. Blavatsky, as long as the grace of world evolution can give us spiritual revelations from the spiritual world.

Let us today place this before our souls as a matter of conscience, and this is ultimately also most in keeping with the spirit of that contemporary who has now already entered the spiritual world, H. S. Olcott, the first president of the Theosophical Society. Let us today write this down in our souls with particular emphasis! For it is precisely through ignorance of the living theosophical life that all the dark sides of the theosophical movement have arisen: if the theosophical movement were to continue its original great impulses with a holy conscience, it would be able to easily overcome everything that has already appeared in the course of time and that will certainly still appear. But we must also do this seriously: keep the impulses alive. Today, however, we see in many places where theosophists think they are working that they feel particularly comfortable when they say: We are now doing something that external science also confirms! How much some leading theosophists love to point out that religious scholars also confirm what has come out of the spiritual world, completely ignoring the fact that it is precisely the unspiritual nature of comparing religious documents that should be overcome. For example, theosophy even touches harshly on what was dying and led to the denial of the historical Jesus, and there is even a certain kinship with these things. Originally, theosophy only accepted the historical Jesus as it did other founders of religions. It did not occur to Blavatsky to deny the historical Jesus. She did postpone him by a hundred years, which is a mistake, but she did not deny him; however, she did not recognize the essence of Christ Jesus. She did suggest that the essence of Christ could one day be recognized in the movement she initiated, but she herself was unable to do so. Here, the initial state of the theosophical movement touches in a most remarkable way on what the deniers of the historical Jesus are doing today.

Today, for example, Professor Drews points out that the events preceding the events at Golgotha can also be found in ancient explanations of the gods, for example in the cults of Adonis or Tammuz. There we see a suffering god-hero, a dying god-hero, a resurrected god-hero, and so on. Comparisons are always made between religious traditions here and there, and then the conclusion is drawn: You are told of a suffering, dying, and resurrected Jesus of Nazareth who was the Christ, but you see that other peoples also celebrated this in Adonis, Tammuz, and so on. Everywhere, reference is made to the similarity of this or that ancient god figure with what is described in the events in Palestine.

This has also been done to a large extent in the theosophical movement. When comparing religions today, people do not realize that comparing Adonis or Tammuz with the events in Palestine does not prove anything. I would like to use a comparison to show you where the error lies in such a comparison of religions. Outwardly, it may be absolutely correct, but it is nevertheless subject to a tremendous error. Suppose there is a uniform worn by a civil servant who lived, say, in 1910. The uniform worn by this civil servant in 1910 represents the outward appearance of his activity, his office. And let us further suppose that in 1930 another person, who is completely different, is wearing the same uniform. But it is not the uniform that matters, but the individuality of how a person performs his work. Now let us imagine that in 2090 a historian comes along and says: It is reported that in 1910 there was a person who wore this coat, these trousers, and this waistcoat. But in 1930, I also see the same coat, the same waistcoat, and the same leggings, so we see that the coat, leggings, and waistcoat have been passed down, and that we actually have the same person in front of us both times!

Such a conclusion is, of course, foolish. But it is no more intelligent to say: We take the religions of the Near East and see how suffering, death, and resurrection are depicted in Adonis or Tammuz; we find the same thing in Christ! — But what matters is not that suffering, death, and resurrection are depicted, but who it is who has risen! Suffering, death, and resurrection are the uniform of world historical development, and we must not point to the uniform that confronts us in legends, but to the individualities that lie within them. Certainly, in order for people to understand them, the individualities showed themselves in the same way, performed, so to speak, “Christ's deeds,” which were meant to show that He can also perform the deeds that Tammuz, for example, once performed. But there was always a different being behind these deeds. Therefore, all comparisons between religions, such as the similarity between the figure of Siegfried and that of Baldur, or between Baldur and Tammuz, and so on, are merely a sign that certain forms of legends and myths occur among these and those peoples. This is no more valuable than trying to get to know people by pointing out that a certain type of uniform is worn by a certain profession. This is the fundamental error that is rampant everywhere and that can also be found in the theosophical movement, for example, and it is nothing more than a consequence of materialistic habits of thought.

Only then will Blavatsky's testament be fulfilled, when the theosophical movement is able to cultivate and preserve the life of the spirit within itself, when attention is paid to the spirit that is constantly revealed not through books written by someone, but through living life. The spirit must be cultivated among us. We do not want merely to study books that were written centuries ago, but to develop in a living way what has been given to us as spirit. And we want to be something like an association of people who do not merely believe in books and people, but in the living spirit, and who do not merely talk about the fact that H. P. Blavatsky has departed from the physical plane and lives on after her death, but who believe so deeply in what has been revealed through Theosophy that they themselves, through their own being on the physical plane, cannot be an obstacle to the supersensible continuing activity of Blavatsky's spirit. Only then will we be something to the Theosophical Movement if we think this way about H. P. Blavatsky, and only then will H. P. Blavatsky be something to the Theosophical Movement if there are people on earth who can think this way. But for this it is necessary that further spiritual research be carried out and that, above all, one believe in what was mentioned in particular in the last public lecture: that humanity is in a state of progress and that something like conscience really did enter into history at the time of Christ Jesus, and that such things arise and have a meaning for the whole of evolution. Conscience is something that came into being at a certain point in time. Conscience used to be something else, and it will become something else again after human souls have developed for a while in the light of conscience. We have already pointed out how conscience will change in the future.

Parallel to the occurrence of the event at Damascus, something will happen to a large number of people in the course of the 20th century, namely that people will learn, when they have done something in their lives, to look up from that deed. They will become more thoughtful, will have an inner image of the deed — at first few, then more and more in the course of the next two or three millennia. After people have done something, the image will be there. At first they will not know what it is. But those who have become acquainted with spiritual science will say to themselves: Here I have an image! This is not a dream, not a dream at all, it is an image of what the karmic fulfillment of the deed I have just done shows me. This will happen one day as fulfillment, as karmic compensation for what I have just done! — This will begin in the 20th century. Human beings will develop the ability to have an image of a very distant deed that has not yet happened. This will appear as an inner counter-image of their deed, as the karmic fulfillment that will one day occur. Human beings will then say to themselves: Now I have done this. Now I am being shown what I must do to compensate, and what would always hold me back from perfection if I did not achieve compensation. — Then karma will no longer be a mere theory, but this characterized inner image will be experienced.

Such abilities are gradually emerging more and more. New abilities develop, but the old abilities are the seeds for the new ones. From what will people derive the ability to see the karmic image? They will derive it from the fact that the soul has stood for a certain time in the light of conscience! That is what is important for the soul: not that this or that external physical thing is experienced, but that the soul becomes more perfect as a result. Through conscience, the soul prepares itself for what has now been characterized. And the more people have gone through incarnations where they have particularly developed their conscience, the more they will cultivate this conscience within themselves, the more they will do to attain that higher ability which, in spiritual vision, will reveal to them once again the voice of God that people once had in a different way. Aeschylus portrayed Orestes as someone who had before him the consequences of his evil deeds. Orestes must still see how the effects of his deeds are manifested in the outer world. The new ability that develops for the soul is such that human beings will see in images the effects of their deeds for the future. That is what is new. Development always proceeds cyclically, always in a circle, and what humanity possessed in the old way of seeing will reappear in a renewed form.

Thus, through the knowledge of the spiritual world, we prepare ourselves to awaken in the next incarnation in the right way, and in this way we also work to ensure that our descendants are cared for in the appropriate measure. Spiritual research is therefore fundamentally unselfish, because it does not ask what is good for the individual, but what will bring about the progress of the whole of humanity.

We have now asked twice: What is conscience? Now we have also asked: What will become of the conscience that is developing today? How does conscience appear when we consider it as a seed in the time that humanity is now going through? What will become of what conscience brings about as a germ? — These characterized higher abilities will come out of it! It is important that we believe in the development of the soul from incarnation to incarnation, from age to age. We learn this by learning to understand true Christianity. And we still have much to learn from Paul. Look at all the Eastern religions, including Buddhism, and you will find the teaching that the outer world is Maya. — Certainly it is, but in the East this is presented as an absolute truth. Paul also knows this truth, and he emphasizes it sufficiently. But Paul emphasizes something else as well, namely this: Man does not see truth when he looks out with his eyes; he does not see reality when he looks at what is outside. Why not? Because in descending into matter, he has transformed external reality into illusion! It is man himself who has made the external world an illusion through his own actions! Call it the “Fall” in the Bible or whatever you like, but it is this that causes the external world to appear to him as an illusion. Oriental religious teachings blame the “gods” for the fact that the world appears to humans as Maya. Strike your own breast! — says Paul — you have descended and clouded your own vision so that color and sound do not really appear as spiritual. You believe that color and sound are something material that exists in themselves? It is Maya! You yourself have made it Maya. You, human being, must redeem yourself from it. You must reclaim what you have forfeited! You have descended into matter, and now you must redeem yourself from it, free yourself from it, but not in the way Buddha says: Conquer the urge to exist! No! You must see the existence of the earth in its reality. What you yourself have made into Maya, you must make right again within yourself. And you can do that by taking into yourself the Christ power that shows you the outer world in its reality!

Therein lies a great impulse for Western life, a new trend, and it is far from being carried out in all areas. What does the world know today about the fact that an attempt has even been made in one area to create a theory of knowledge, so to speak, in the spirit of Paul? Such a theory of knowledge could not say in the Kantian sense: The thing in itself is something incomprehensible — but it could only say: It is up to you, human being, you bring about an incorrect reality through what you are now. You must go through an inner process yourself. Then Maya is transformed into truth, into spiritual reality! — In this sense, the task of my two writings, Truth and Science and The Philosophy of Freedom, was to place epistemology on a Pauline basis. These two books place themselves within what is the great achievement of the Pauline conception of man in the Western world. That is why these books have been so little understood, except perhaps in a few circles, because they presuppose precisely those impulses that have found expression in the movement for spiritual science. The greatest must reveal itself in the smallest!

Through such considerations, which lift us out of our narrow humanity and show us how we can connect our small everyday work with that which leads us step by step, life by life, ever deeper into spiritual existence, through such considerations we become true theosophists. And we can give ourselves over to such contemplation on a day dedicated to a personality who gave impetus to a movement that will live on and on, that should not remain a gray theory for one person, but should have the lifeblood within it so that the tree we call the tree of theosophical worldview will always grow green anew.

In this spirit, let us try to make ourselves fit to prepare a ground in our movement that does not inhibit or hold back Blavatsky's impulses, but promotes their ever-further unfolding.