The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Seventh Lecture

[ 1 ] 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.

[ 2 ] 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.

[ 3 ] 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.

[ 4 ] 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.

[ 5 ] 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!”

[ 6 ] 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.

[ 7 ] 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?”

[ 8 ] 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.

[ 9 ] 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?

[ 10 ] 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!

[ 11 ] 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?

[ 12 ] 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.

[ 13 ] What is another expression for this fact?

[ 14 ] 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.

[ 15 ] 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.

[ 16 ] 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!

[ 17 ] 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.

[ 18 ] 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.

[ 19 ] 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.

[ 20 ] 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?

[ 21 ] 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.

[ 22 ] 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.

[ 23 ] 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.

[ 24 ] 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.

[ 25 ] 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.

[ 26 ] 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!

[ 27 ] 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.

[ 28 ] 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.

[ 29 ] 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.

[ 30 ] 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.

[ 31 ] 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.

[ 32 ] 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!

[ 33 ] 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!

[ 34 ] 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.

[ 35 ] 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.