The Mission of the Individual Folk Souls
GA 121
7 June 1910, Oslo
1. Angels, Folk Spirits, Time Spirits: their part in the Evolution of Mankind
It affords me great pleasure to speak at greater length for the third time to our friends in Norway and I should like to say briefly, in response to the cordial greetings of our friend Mr. Eriksen, that I reciprocate them in an equally cordial and heartfelt manner.
I hope that the course of lectures, which I am about to undertake, will contribute in some degree to the general understanding of Anthroposophy. In the course of these lectures I should like to draw your attention to the fact that they must of necessity incorporate much that touches upon the fundamental truths of Spiritual Science and, at the same time, something that, as yet, is rather remote from man's thinking today. I therefore beg especially those of our friends who are less familiar with the wider questions of Anthroposophy to bear in mind that we should not make progress in our field of investigation if, from time to time, we did not repeatedly take a great leap forward into those regions of spiritual knowledge which are really somewhat remote from the thinking, feeling and perception of man today.
From this point of view it will sometimes be necessary to ask you to accept what I shall have to say with a certain amount of good-will, since to provide the necessary evidence and proof for my statements in the forthcoming lectures would demand more time than I have at my disposal. We should not break new ground in this sphere if I did not appeal to a modicum of good will in you and to your sympathetic spiritual understanding. Indeed the province we touch upon here is one which hitherto has been more or less eschewed particularly by occultists, mystics and theosophists, and has been eschewed for the very reason that greater objectivity is necessary if we are to accept the information I propose to offer without occasionally arousing a certain degree of opposition.
Perhaps the implications of this will be best understood if you recall that at a certain stage of mystic or occult development one is called a ‘homeless man’. This is a technical expression. And if we wish to characterize without further ado—since we are not discussing the path of knowledge—what we understand by the term ‘homeless man’ we may briefly say that a ‘homeless man’ is one whose understanding and grasp of the great laws of humanity cannot be influenced by whatsoever a person acquires through association with his native country. Furthermore, a ‘homeless man’ is one who is able to identify himself with the great laws of human evolution without allowing the particular shades of feeling and sentiment associated with his native country to colour his outlook. It follows then that a certain degree of maturity in mystical and occult development demands an unprejudiced attitude towards our heritage that we justifiably consider to be an inestimable boon and which, on the other hand, in relation to the individual human life, we describe as the mission of the individual Folk Spirits who, by drawing upon the hidden roots and the spirit of the individual peoples make their individual concrete contributions to the collective mission of humanity.
We propose therefore to describe this heritage from which the ‘homeless man’ must liberate himself to some extent. Now the ‘homeless men’ of all times, from primeval ages down to our own day, have always known that if they were to describe in detail the state of homelessness they would meet with little understanding. In the first place the voice of prejudice would reproach them for having severed their connection with their native soil, for having sacrificed their heritage. This is not so, however. In reality, homelessness is, or may be, a detour, so that, once this sanctuary, the state of homelessness, has been reached, the ‘homeless man’ may rediscover the quintessence of the folk and achieve a harmonious relationship with the stable element in the evolution of mankind. From the outset it is necessary to draw attention to this. On the other hand, we have every reason, especially at the present time, to speak quite impartially about the mission of the individual, Folk Souls. Just as it was justifiable to maintain complete silence about their mission hitherto, so it is in order today to begin to speak of this mission. It is particularly important because the destiny of mankind in the near future will bring men together in far greater measure than has hitherto been the case in order to fulfil a mission common to all mankind. But the members of the individual peoples will only be able to offer their proper, free and positive contributions if they have, above all, an understanding of their ethnic origin, an understanding for what we might call “the self-knowledge of the folk”. The injunction “Know thyself!” played an important part in the Apollonian Mysteries of ancient Greece. In the not too distant future the following injunction will be addressed to the Folk Souls: “Know yourselves as Folk Souls.” This maxim will have a certain significance for the activity of mankind in the future.
Now in our age it is particularly difficult to admit the existence of Beings who are inaccessible to sense perception. Today, however, we may be more prepared to acknowledge that certain members of man's being are super-sensible and invisible. The idea that beings such as man, who at least in their external aspect can be apprehended physically, may also have invisible, super-sensible members will be more readily accepted by the modern materialist outlook. But it is asking a great deal of our present age to believe in the existence of beings who, from the ordinary point of view, have no reality. For what is meant by the term Folk Soul or Folk Spirit which one hears from time to time? At best it is something that is acknowledged to be a common characteristic peculiar to hundreds and millions of people concentrated in a certain geographical area. It is difficult to persuade the man of today that, in addition to the teeming millions in this area, a living reality exists there, a reality that he would find to be identical with the conception of the Folk Spirit and which underlies this conception. If we were to ask—to take a case that is non-controversial—what do we understand today by the Swiss Folk Spirit, we would describe in abstract terms a few characteristics peculiar to the people inhabiting the Swiss regions of the Alps and Jura. It would be perfectly clear to us that this description bears no relation to anything that might be known through external cognition. The first steps towards the understanding of this living reality is the frank admission that it is possible to envisage the existence of real Beings who are not immediately perceptible to the senses; that there exist amongst the beings perceptible to the senses other Beings invisibly at work, who express themselves through visible beings just as the human being expresses himself through his fingers and hands. We may therefore speak of a Swiss Folk Spirit in the same way as we speak of the Spirit of a man. We can just as clearly distinguish between the Spirit of man and his ten fingers which are organs of this Spirit as we can distinguish the Swiss Folk Spirit from the millions of people living in the mountains of Switzerland. The Folk Spirit is something quite different from the people, but nevertheless a spiritual Being, just as man himself is a spiritual being. The difference between man and the Folk Spirit is that man's external form is known through the medium of the senses. Whilst the human being is known through sense-perception, a Folk Spirit has no external manifestation; it is not something that can be known through sense-experience or sensory impressions and yet it is unmistakably a real Being.
Today we shall endeavour as far as possible to form an idea of such a Being. How do we proceed in Spiritual Science if we wish to form an idea of a real Being? I propose to illustrate this by a characteristic example. First, we study the being of man. From the point of view of Anthroposophy we distinguish the physical body, etheric body, astral or sentient body and ‘I’ or ego which we look upon as the highest member. We know therefore that the man of the present day consists of these bodies. Now you already know that we look forward to an evolution of mankind in the future and that the ego works upon the three lower members of the human being, spiritualizes them and transmutes them from the present lower form into the higher form of the future. The ego will transmute the astral body into Manas or Spirit Self, so that it becomes something different from what it is today. In the same way, at a higher level, the ego will refashion and transmute the etheric or life-body into Life Spirit or Buddhi. Finally the highest achievement of man that we can envisage at present is the spiritualisation of the physical body, the most intractable member of his being. When our present physical body, the densest and most material member, is transmitted into Atma or Spirit Man it will be the highest member of man's being. Thus we are familiar with three members of the human organism which were developed in past epochs, the organism in which we are at present incarnated and three others which the ego will fashion into something new in the future.
Between the initial development of the higher members in the past and their further development in the future there lies an intermediate stage. We know that we must think of the ego itself as inwardly organized. The ego works upon a kind of intermediate being. Therefore, between the astral body which man has inherited from the past and the Spirit Self or Manas which he will fashion out of the astral body in the distant future, there are the three preparatory members; the Sentient Soul, the lowest member in which the ego has already worked, the Intellectual or Mind Soul and the Spiritual or Consciousness-Soul. But very little of Spirit Self or Manas that we are in process of developing is present in man today, at most only the first indications. On the other hand ‘ man has laid the foundations of this future development by having learnt to control his three lower members to some extent. He learned to control the astral body by permeating it with his ego and forming the Sentient Soul within it. Just as the Sentient Soul stands in a certain relationship to the sentient body, so does the Intellectual Soul or Mind-Soul to the etheric body, so that the Intellectual or Mind-Soul is a feeble foreshadowing of what the Life Spirit or Buddhi will be—a feeble foreshadowing, it is true, but none the less a foreshadowing. And in the Spiritual Soul (or Consciousness-Soul) the ‘I’ has worked down into the physical body to a certain extent. Therefore the Spiritual Soul is a feeble foreshadowing of what will one day be Spirit Man or Atma. Thus, apart from the limited transformation of his astral body which he has already achieved as a first step towards the development of Spirit Self or Manas, we recognize in man today four different members. We can distinguish:
- the physical body,
- the etheric body,
- the astral body,
- the ego that works within them, and further as a foreshadowing of the higher members:
- the Sentient Soul,
- the Intellectual or Mind-Soul,
- the Spiritual Soul or Consciousness-Soul.
Such is man as we know him today; such is our understanding of man at the present stage of his evolution. We clearly see the ego fashioning the higher members after the Sentient, Intellectual and Spiritual Souls have already prepared the ground. We see the ego working with the forces of the Sentient, Intellectual and Spiritual Souls upon the astral body, upon the embryo of Spirit Self. We see man participating in this stage of his development.
Those of you—no doubt the majority of you—who have concerned yourselves with researches into the Akashic Record, with the evolution of man in the primeval past and the prospect for the distant future, will know that man, such as I have portrayed him in the brief sketch I have given you, has evolved. We can look into a distant past when man required long epochs of time for his evolution in order to prepare the foundations, first for his physical body, then for the etheric body and finally for the astral body, and then to develop these three members further. You will also be aware, no doubt, that man did not complete the earlier evolution of his being, the evolution of his astral body, for example, at a time when the Earth was in the same condition as it is today, but that he developed his astral body in an earlier Earth cycle, the Old Moon epoch. Just as we recognize that our present life is the consequence of earlier incarnations, so too do we realize that the Earth itself has known earlier incarnations. The Sentient Soul and the Intellectual Soul were first created during our present Earth epoch, the astral body during the epoch of the Old Moon, the etheric body in a still earlier stage, that of the Old Sun, and the physical body during ancient Saturn. Thus we look back to three incarnations of the Earth and in each of these incarnations we see one of the members which man bears within him today implanted first as a seed and then perfected further.
In speaking of Old Saturn, Old Sun and Old Moon conditions another factor must be borne in mind. We human beings (on Earth) are now living through the stage of self-consciousness which other Beings under-went during the earlier stages of our Earth-evolution, the stages of Old Moon, Old Sun and Old Saturn. It is immaterial whether we adopt the terminology of the East or the more familiar terminology of the West in order to describe these Beings. Those Beings who underwent their human stage on Old Moon and who therefore are one stage above Man were called in Christian esoteric terminology, Angeloi or Angels. They are one stage higher than man because they completed their stage of human evolution one epoch earlier. Their mode of existence on the Old Moon differed from that of man on Earth today. They were Beings at the human stage, but were not incarnated in a physical body. Their stage of evolution corresponded to the human stage which man is experiencing today. In the same way we find Beings of a higher order who underwent their human stage on the Old Sun. These Beings are the Archangeloi or Archangels who are two stages beyond man and who underwent their human stage two epochs earlier. If we go still further back to the first incarnation of our Earth-existence, to Old Saturn, we find that those Beings whom we called the Spirits of Personality or Archai underwent their human stage on Old Saturn. If we take our starting-point from those Beings who were men in the primeval past, on Old Saturn, and follow the incarnations of the Earth down to our own time, we have a picture of the stages of evolution of the various Beings down to the present day. To summarize: the First Beginnings, the Archai, were men on Old Saturn, the Archangels or Archangeloi were men on Old Sun, the Angels or Angeloi were men on Old Moon and men are men on our Earth.
Since we know that we continue our evolution into the future and that we further develop our present astral body, etheric or life-body and our physical body, the question arises: is it not equally natural that the Beings who have already experienced the human stage have now reached the stage when they are transmuting their astral body into Spirit Self or Manas? Just as during the next incarnation of the Earth, the Jupiter stage, we shall complete the transmutation of our astral body into Spirit Self or Manas, so the Angeloi who underwent the human stage on Old Moon have completed the transmutation of their astral bodies into Spirit Self or Manas, or will do so during our Earth evolution, a stage that we shall first have to undergo in the next incarnation of the Earth. If we look still further back to the Beings who underwent the human stage on Old Sun, we realize that they already experienced on Old Moon the stage we shall have to experience for the first time in the next incarnation of the Earth. They are performing the work which will be the prerogative of man when, in his ego, he transmutes his etheric or life-body into Life Spirit or Buddhi. These Archangels, therefore, are Beings who are two stages beyond man; they have reached the stage that will one day be ours when from within our ego, we shall transform the life-body into Life Spirit or Buddhi. When we contemplate these Beings, we recognize them as Beings who are two stages beyond ourselves, who foreshadow what we ourselves will experience in the future; they are Beings who are now working upon their etheric or life-body and are transmuting it into Life Spirit or Buddhi. In the same way we are aware of yet higher Beings, the Spirits of Personality (Archai). They are at a still higher stage than the Archangels, a stage which man will reach in a still more distant future when he will be able to transmute his physical body into Atma or Spirit Man.
As surely as man is at the present stage of development, so surely are these higher Beings at the respective stages of development which I have just characterized. We doubt their reality as little as we doubt their superiority to ourselves. Now this reality is not unrelated to our life on Earth; it penetrates into it and acts upon it. The question now is: what form does the activity of these higher Beings take? In order to understand this, we must bear in mind that from a spiritual aspect the activity of such Beings will be different from that of man today. Indeed there is a considerable difference between these Beings who are higher than man and those who are now only at the human stage. Strange as this may seem, it will become perfectly clear to you in the course of the following lectures. True spiritual investigation shows that man, such as we know him today, is, to a certain extent, at an intermediate stage of his existence. His ego will not always work upon his lower vehicles in the same way as it does today. The whole human entity at the present time is to some extent an interrelated whole and forms, as it were, an unbroken unity. This situation will be considerably modified in the future evolution of mankind. When ultimately man will have developed so far that he will be able to work upon his astral body in full consciousness and, by means of his ego, transmute his astral body into Spirit Self or Manas, then he will experience in full consciousness a condition akin to the unconscious or subconscious state of man during sleep.
Consider for a moment the condition of man in sleep. His astral body and ego relinquish his physical and etheric bodies which he leaves behind in the bed, and float outside them. Now imagine that in this condition man awakens to self-consciousness, that he is as fully conscious in his spiritual body as in his waking life. How remarkable would be man's impression of himself! At one moment he would feel: “Here am I; below me, perhaps some distance away, are lying my physical and etheric bodies which are part of me, whilst I with my other members am floating outside and above them.” If, at the present time, man becomes conscious in his astral body, i.e. outside his physical and etheric bodies, then he is limited to the free and random movements of his astral body and can be active in the world independently of his physical body, activities which are denied to his physical and etheric bodies. In the distant future, however, he will be able to direct them from outside—for example, from a place in the north of Europe to some other place; he will be able to command their movements and direct them externally. That is not yet possible at present, but it will be a possibility when he has evolved from the stage of Earth-evolution to that of Jupiter, the next stage in the evolution of man. We shall then feel that we can direct ourselves from without. That is the essential step. And this implies a transformation of man's present condition. Here materialistic consciousness is at a loss. It is unable to realize that the spiritual activities now at work to some extent in the external world will also be active within the human being at some future time.
Such phenomena exist already and man could perceive them if only he would give heed to them. He would then see that there are certain entities, for example, who have developed prematurely. Just as man, if he waits for the appropriate moment, will attain the Jupiter state at the right time so that he will then be able to direct his physical and etheric bodies, so there are beings who in a certain respect have developed prematurely. Such prematurely developed beings are to be found amongst the birds, especially the migratory birds. Here we have an example of the group-soul to which the etheric body of each individual bird is related. Just as the group-soul directs the regular migrations of birds, so will man, after he has developed Spirit Self or Manas, command his physical and etheric bodies; he will control and direct them. He will do this in a still higher sense from without when he has so far perfected himself that he is still in the process of transmuting his etheric or life-body. The Beings who can already do this today are the Archangels or Archangeloi. They are Beings who can already do what man will be able to do some day, Beings who are able to compass what is called ‘directing the physical and etheric bodies from without’, but who are able at the same time to work upon their own etheric body.
Try to form an idea of Beings living and working as it were with their ego in the spiritual atmosphere of our Earth, whose ego has already transformed the astral body and who with their fully developed Spirit Self or Manas continue to work on our Earth and into human beings, transforming our etheric or life body; Beings who are themselves at the stage of transmuting their etheric or life-body into Buddhi or Life Spirit. If you imagine such Beings who are at the Archangel stage among the spiritual Hierarchies, you will then have an idea of what are called the “Folk Spirits”, the directing Folk Spirits of the Earth. The Folk Spirits belong to the rank of the Archangels or Archangeloi. We shall see how they, for their part, direct their own etheric or life-body, and how they thereby work down into mankind and thus draw mankind into the sphere of their own activity. If we survey the various peoples on Earth and select out individual examples, then we see in the life and activity of these peoples, in the characteristic attributes peculiar to these peoples, a reflection of what we regard as the mission of the Folk Spirits.
When we recognize the mission of these Beings—for they are inspirers of the nations—we are then able to say what a nation really is. A nation is a homogeneous group of people directed by one of the Archangels. All that the individual members of a nation perform or undertake is inspired by them, i.e. the Archangels. Hence if we can conceive that these Folk Spirits, like human beings, betray individual differences, we shall have no difficulty in understanding that the individual peoples reflect the Particular mission of their individual Archangels. If we have a Clear mental picture of how in the history of the world nation succeeds nation, how peoples work side by side, we can then imagine, at least theoretically—and we shall have more and more concrete evidence in the following lectures—how all these changing circumstances are inspired by these spiritual Beings. But at the same time it will be clear to us that, in addition to this activity of successive peoples, something else takes place in human evolution. In the period of time which we reckon from the beginning of the great Atlantean catastrophe and which so completely changed the face of the Earth that the continent which lay between the Africa, America and Europe of today was submerged, one can distinguish the epochs of the post-Atlantean cultures—the old Indian, the Persian, the Egypto-Chaldean, the Graeco-Latin and our present culture which in the course of time will pass over into the sixth cultural epoch. We also realize that various inspirers of the peoples have successively been at work in these civilizations. We know that the Egypto-Chaldean civilization continued long after the Greek civilization had begun, and that this in its turn perished after the birth of the Roman Civilization. We are in a position therefore to observe the coexistence and continuity of the peoples.
But in addition to the evolution of the peoples and all that is associated with their evolution, a progressive evolution of mankind takes place. Whether we consider one particular civilization to be superior to another is of no consequence. To express a preference for the old Indian culture is a matter of personal opinion. But he who is not swayed by personal opinions will be indifferent to value judgments. Human progress follows ineluctably upon the necessary course of events, although some may later regard this as a decline. When we compare the various periods, 5,000 BC, 3,000 BC and AD 1,000 we are aware of the existence of something that transcends the Folk Spirits, something in which the several Folk Spirits participate. You can observe this at the present time. How is it that so many persons are able to sit together in this hall, people who have come here from many different countries and who understand each other or try to understand each other when they touch upon vital questions that have brought them together here? They come from the spheres of activity of widely different Folk Spirits and yet they have some common ground of understanding. In the same way various people were able to understand one another in Atlantean times because in every age there is something that transcends the Folk Soul, which can bring the various Folk Souls together, something that is more or less universally understood. This is the Zeitgeist or Time Spirit, the Spirit of the Age, to use an unfortunate term which is in common usage. Each epoch has its particular Zeitgeist; the Zeitgeist of the Greek epoch is different from that of our own age. Those who understand the Spirit today are drawn towards Spiritual Science. It is this Spirit which, reflecting the Spirit of the Age, transcends the individual Folk Souls. At the time when Christ Jesus appeared on Earth, His forerunner John the Baptist characterized the Spirit, which might be described as Zeitgeist, in these words: “Repent, change your mental attitude, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Thus for every epoch we can discover the Spirit of the Age, which is something that permeates the activity of the Folk Spirits, an activity we have already described as the activity of the Archangels. To the materialist of today the Spirit of the Age is an abstraction, devoid of reality; still less would he be prepared to accept the Spirit of the Age as an authentic entity. Nevertheless the term ‘Spirit of the Age’ conceals the existence of a real Being, who is three stages above man. It conceals the identity of the Beings, the Archai, who underwent their human stage on Old Saturn and who at the present time are working from the spiritual aura of the Earth at the transformation of the Earth and are thus undergoing the last stage in the transformation of their physical body into Spirit Man or Atma. We are here dealing with exalted Beings and the contemplation of their attributes might well overwhelm us. They are the Beings who might be described as the inspirers—or if we choose to use the technical expression of occultism—the “intuitors” of the Spirit or Spirits of the Age. They work in such a way that they take over from one another and mutually support each other. From epoch to epoch they pass on their mission to their successor. The Spirit of the Age who was active in the Greek epoch handed on his mission to his successor, and so on. As we have already observed, there are a number of such Time Spirits, of such Spirits of Personality who work as Spirits of the Age. These Spirits of Personality, these inspirers of the Spirit of the Age, are of a higher order than the Folk Spirits. In every epoch one of these Spirits of Personality is predominant and sets his seal upon the whole epoch, assigns to the Folk Spirits their specific tasks, so that the whole spirit of the epoch is determined by the special or individual characteristics of the Folk Spirit. Then, in the following epoch, another Spirit of Personality, another of the Archai, takes over.
After a certain number of epochs have elapsed, a Spirit of the Age has evolved further. We must picture this in the following way: when we die, having completed our present stage of evolution, our personality transmits the achievements of this Earth-life to the next Earth-life. The same holds good for the Spirits of the Age. In each Age we have one such Spirit of the Age, and at the end of the epoch he hands over to his successor, who, in his turn, hands over to his successor, and so on. The earlier Spirits, meanwhile, continue their own development. Then the original Spirit takes over again, so that in a later epoch, whilst the others are proceeding with their own evolution, he takes over again and infuses intuitively into mankind what he himself has acquired for his higher mission, for the benefit of the more developed humanity. We look up to these Spirits of Personality, to these Beings who may be characterized by the somewhat colourless term ‘Spirit of the Age’. Now we human beings pass from incarnation to incarnation; but we know for certain that, whilst we ourselves progress from epoch to epoch, when we look into the future, we see ever different Spirits of the Age determining events on Earth. But our Spirit of the Age will return too and we shall meet him once again. Because a characteristic feature of these Spirits of Personality is to perform cyclic revolutions and return to their starting-point, they are therefore called “Spirits of Cyclic Periods”. (We shall justify the use of this expression by giving further details later.) These higher Spiritual Beings then who issue their commands to the Folk Spirits are also called Spirits of Cyclic Periods. We are here referring to those cyclic periods which man himself has to go through when from epoch to epoch he returns to earlier conditions and repeats them in a higher form. Now this repetition of the characteristics of earlier forms may surprise you. If you examine carefully the stages of man's evolution on Earth in the light of Spiritual Science, you will find that these occurrences recur in many different forms. Thus the seven consecutive epochs following upon the Atlantean catastrophe which we call the post-Atlantean culture-epochs, are a repetition. The Graeco-Latin epoch marks the turning point in our cycle and will not therefore be repeated. This stage is followed by a repetition of the Egypto-Chaldean epoch in our own age. This will be followed by a repetition of the Persian epoch, but in a somewhat different form. Then will follow the seventh epoch which will be a repetition of the ancient Indian civilizations the epoch of the Holy Rishis, so that in this coming epoch certain aptitudes which had been implanted in ancient India will reappear in a new form. The direction of these occurrences devolves upon the Spirits of the Age.
In order that, distributed amongst the various peoples of the Earth, the progressive development of successive epochs may be realized, in order that the widely differing ethnic types may be moulded by a particular geographical area or community of language, in order that a particular form—language, architecture, art or science may flourish and their various metamorphoses receive all that the Spirit of the Age can pour into mankind—for this we need the Folk Spirits, who, in the hierarchy of higher Beings, belong to the Archangels.
Now we require yet another intermediary agent between the higher missions of the Folk Spirits and those beings here on Earth who are to be inspired by them. You will readily perceive at least theoretically at first, that the mediator between the two different kinds of Spirits is the Hierarchy of the Angels. They are the intermediaries between the single human being and the Archangel of the folk. In order that the individual may receive into himself that which the Folk Spirit has to pour into the whole people, in order that the single human being may be instrumental in fulfilling the mission of his people, this intermediary agent between the human being and the Archangel of his people is indispensable.
Thus we have looked up to the Beings who attained their human stage three stages above man and have noted how they placed themselves consciously at the service of mankind and influenced our Earth-evolution. In the next lecture we propose to show how far the activity of the Archangels working down from above, from within their Ego which has already developed Manas or Spirit Self and is perfecting the etheric or life-body of man, is expressed in the achievements, attributes and character of a people.
Man is directly associated with the work of the higher Beings, for, as a member of a nation, he is an integral part of it. It is true that man is, in the first place, an individual, a creation of his Ego being; but he is not only an individual, he is also a member of a particular people, something over which, as an individual, he has no control. As a member of a particular people the individual has no choice but to speak the language of his people. He does not acquire this by his own efforts, it does not stem from his individual initiative, it is the legacy of his inheritance. Individual human progress is something totally different. As we watch the life and activity of the Folk Souls, we must bear in mind what is involved in the progress of man and what is demanded of him in order to achieve it. We shall see what determines not only his own particular development but also the development of wholly different Beings.
Thus we see how man is integrated into the ranks of the Hierarchies, how, from age to age, from epoch to epoch, Beings whom we already know from another aspect, cooperate in his evolution, And we have seen how opportunities are provided for these Beings to express themselves in a variety of ways peculiar to themselves and that what they have to offer can be imparted to man.
The guiding principles of the several epochs are determined by the Time Spirits (Zeitgeister). The single folk-individualities are responsible for disseminating the Spirit of the Age over the whole Earth. Whilst the Time Spirits inspire the Folk Spirits, the Angels act as mediators between the Folk Spirit and the single human beings, so that these individuals may fulfil the mission of the Folk Spirits. One of the purposes of these lectures will be to show how this wonderful pattern reveals the working of the various folk-individualities, past and present. In the next lecture we shall begin to throw light upon how this pattern is woven which we have indicated only sketchily today, that spiritual pattern which represents our immediate destiny in the world.
Erster Vortrag
Es gereicht mir zu großer Befriedigung, nun schon das dritte Mal in etwas längeren Ausführungen zu unsern Freunden hier in Norwegen sprechen zu können, und ich möchte auf die lieben Worte unseres lieben Freundes Eriksen nur ganz kurz sagen, daß die Worte herzlicher BegrüRung, die er soeben ausgesprochen hat, ebenso herzlich und aus ebenso tiefen Gründen der Seele heraus, wie sie gesprochen worden sind, von mir erwidert werden.
Ich hoffe, daß auch dieser Vortragszyklus, den ich nunmehr vor Ihnen beginnen möchte, einiges beitragen kann zu der Erkenntnis von dem, was wir das Gesamtbild unserer Weltanschauung nennen. Ich möchte gerade bei diesem Vortragszyklus darauf aufmerksam machen, daß er ja in seinem Verlaufe mancherlei enthalten muß, was sozusagen zu den einschneidendsten Wahrheiten unserer Weltanschauung gehört, daß er einiges von dem wird enthalten müssen, was eigentlich dem gegenwärtigen menschlichen Denken noch ziemlich fern liegt. Daher bitte ich vor allen Dingen diejenigen der verehrten Freunde, welche sich mit den weitergehenden Fragen der geisteswissenschaftlichen Weltanschauung weniger befaßt haben, darauf Rücksicht zu nehmen, daß wir ja nicht vorwärts kommen würden auf unserm Felde, wenn wir nicht von Zeit zu Zeit immer wieder einen kräftigen Ruck, einen kräftigen Sprung in diejenigen Partien geistiger Erkenntnis tun würden, welche gerade dem gegenwärtigen menschlichen Denken, Fühlen und Empfinden eigentlich ziemlich fern liegen.
Von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus wird manchmal den Ausführungen gegenüber ein gewisser guter Wille notwendig sein; denn um alles das herbeizutragen, was herbeigetragen werden müßte an Belegen und Beweisen für dasjenige, was in den nächsten Tagen von dieser Stelle aus gesprochen werden wird, dazu gehört eine viel längere Zeit. Wir würden nicht vorwärts kommen, wenn nicht gerade diesen Ausführungen gegenüber sozusagen etwas appelliert würde an den guten Willen, an das Entgegenkommen spirituellen Verständnisses. Es ist in der Tat das Gebiet, welches wir hiermit berühren, ein solches, das so ziemlich bis in unsere Zeiten hinein gerade von Okkultisten, gerade von Mystikern und Theosophen gemieden worden ist, und zwar gemieden worden ist aus dem Grunde, weil ein höherer Grad von Vorurteilslosigkeit notwendig ist, um die Dinge, die zu sagen sind, gewissermaßen ohne Widerstreben, das manchmal auftauchen könnte, entgegenzunehmen.
Wie das gemeint ist, wird Ihnen vielleicht am verständlichsten werden, wenn Sie sich erinnern, daß man in einem gewissen Grad mystischer oder okkulter Entwickelung ein heimatloser Mensch genannt wird. Es ist dies geradezu ein technischer Ausdruck, «heimatloser Mensch», und wenn wir ohne Umschweife — da wir nicht über den Pfad der Erkenntnis sprechen — charakterisieren wollen, was mit dem Worte «heimatloser Mensch» gemeint ist, so können wir kurz sagen, daß derjenige ein heimatloser Mensch genannt wird, der in seiner Erkenntnis, seiner Auffassung der großen Menschheitsgesetze in Wahrheit unbeeinflußbar ist von alledem, was sonst im Menschen aufsteigt aus dem Ort, an dem er in Gemäßheit seines Volkstums lebt. Ein heimatloser Mensch, können wir auch sagen, ist derjenige, welcher die große Mission der Gesamtmenschheit in sich aufzunehmen vermag, ohne daß sich die Nuancen der besondern Gefühle und Empfindungen einmischen, die aus diesem oder jenem Heimatboden herauswachsen. Sie sehen daraus, daß zu einem gewissen Reifegrad mystischer oder okkulter Entwickelung ein freier Gesichtspunkt gerade gegenüber demjenigen gehört, was wir mit Recht sonst als etwas Großes betrachten, was wir anderseits dem einzelnen Menschenleben gegenüber als die Mission der einzelnen Volksgeister, als dasjenige bezeichnen, was aus dem Untergrunde eines Volksbodens, aus dem Geiste der Völker heraus die einzelnen konkreten Beiträge zu der gesamten Mission der Menschheit liefert.
Schildern wollen wir also sozusagen das Große dessen, wovon der heimatlose Mensch in gewisser Beziehung frei werden muß. Nun haben die heimatlosen Menschen aller Zeiten, von den Urzeiten angefangen bis in unsere Tage hinein, immer gewußt, daß, wenn sie sozusagen in vollem Umfange charakterisieren würden dasjenige, was man als den Charakter der Heimatlosigkeit bezeichnet, sie dann wenig, sehr wenig Verständnis finden würden. Es würde zunächst einmal das Vorurteil diesen heimatlosen Menschen entgegengebracht werden, das sich in dem Vorwurfe ausdrücken würde: Ihr habt ja allen Zusammenhang mit dem Mutterboden des Volkstums verloren; ihr habt ja kein Verständnis für das, was den Menschen sonst das Teuerste ist. — Nun ist es aber nicht so. Heimatlosigkeit ist in gewisser Beziehung doch im Grunde genommen — oder kann es wenigstens sein — ein Umweg, um, nachdem diese heilige Stätte, diese Heimatlosigkeit erreicht ist, wieder den Rückweg zu finden zu den Volkssubstanzen, den Einklang zu finden mit dem Bodenständigen in der Menschheitsentwickelung. Wenn darauf von vornherein aufmerksam gemacht werden muß, so ist es auf der andern Seite doch nicht unbegründet, daß gerade in unserer Zeit in unbefangenster Weise auch einmal über dasjenige gesprochen wird, was wir die Mission der einzelnen Volksseelen der Menschheit nennen. Ebenso, wie es begründet ist, daß bisher sozusagen bis zu einem gewissen Grade von dieser Mission ganz geschwiegen wurde, ebenso begründet ist es, in unserer Gegenwart damit zu beginnen, von dieser Mission zu reden. Es ist aus dem Grunde von einer ganz besonderen Wichtigkeit, weil die nächsten Schicksale der Menschheit in einem viel höheren Grade als das bisher der Fall war, die Menschen zu einer gemeinsamen Menschheitsmission zusammenführen werden. Zu dieser gemeinsamen Mission werden aber die einzelnen Volksangehörigen nur dann ihren entsprechenden freien, konkreten Beitrag liefern können, wenn sie vor allen Dingen ein Verständnis haben für ihr Volkstum, ein Verständnis für dasjenige, was man nennen könnte «Selbsterkenntnis des Volkstums». Wenn im alten Griechenland in den apollinischen Mysterien der Satz: «Erkenne dich selbst» eine große Rolle gespielt hat, so wird in einer nicht zu fernen Zukunft der Ausspruch an die Volksseelen gerichtet werden: «Erkennet euch selbst als Volksseelen.» Dieser Spruch wird eine gewisse Bedeutung haben für das Zukunftswirken der Menschheit.
Nun wird es unserer Zeit schon ganz besonders schwer, Wesenheiten anzuerkennen, welche für die äußere sinnliche Wahrnehmung, für die äußere materielle Erkenntnis sozusagen gar nicht da sind. Es wird ja vielleicht nicht so schwierig sein für unsere Gegenwart, anzuerkennen, daß der Mensch, so wie er in der Welt vor uns steht, gewisse Glieder, gewisse Teile seiner Wesenheit hat, die übersinnlich, unsichtbar sind. Es wird sich vielleicht der gegenwärtige materialistische Sinn der Menschheit noch leichter zu dieser Anschauung führen lassen, daß Wesenheiten, die man wenigstens nach ihrer Außenseite hin physisch sehen kann, wie die Menschen, auch einen übersinnlichen, unsichtbaren Teil haben. Aber eine starke Zumutung ist es für unsere Gegenwart, wenn man zu ihr sprechen soll von Wesenheiten, die eigentlich nach gewöhnlicher Anschauung gar nicht da sind. Denn was ist es eigentlich, was man heute da oder dort Volksseele, Volksgeist nennt? Es ist höchstens das, was man gelten läßt als eine Eigenschaft, als eine gemeinschaftliche Eigenschaft von so und so vielen hundert Menschen oder Millionen von Menschen, die auf einem gewissen Boden zusammengedrängt sind. Daß irgend etwas, was da lebt außer den vielen Millionen Menschen, die auf dem Boden zusammengedrängt sind, daß irgend etwas Reales, das sich decken würde mit dem Begriff Volksgeist, diesem Begriffe zugrunde liegt, das ist schwer für ein Bewußtsein unserer gegenwärtigen Zeit klar zu machen. Wenn man fragen würde — sagen wir jetzt, um etwas ganz Neutrales zu haben —: Was versteht der gegenwärtige Mensch unter dem schweizerischen Volksgeist? — da würde er in abstrakten Ausdrücken einige Eigenschaften beschreiben, welche diejenigen Menschen haben, welche das schweizerische Gebiet der Alpen und des Jura bewohnen, und wird sich klar darüber sein, daß dem nicht etwas entspricht, was man mit äußeren Erkenntniskräften, mit Augen oder sonstigen Wahrnehmungsorganen erkennen könnte. Das muß das erste sein, daß man in offener und ehrlicher Weise sich den Gedanken bilden kann, daß es Wesenheiten gibt, die sich ohne weiteres eigentlich nicht sinnlich äußern, dem gewöhnlichen materiellen Wahrnehmungsvermögen sich nicht darbieten, daß es sozusagen zwischen den Wesen, die sinnlich wahrnehmbar sind, andere unsichtbar wirkende Wesenheiten gibt, die hereinwirken in sichtbare Wesenheiten, wie die menschliche Wesenheit in die menschlichen Hände oder menschlichen Finger, daß man also sprechen kann von dem schweizerischen Volksgeist wie von dem Geiste eines Menschen, und daß man diesen Geist des Menschen ebenso genau von dem unterscheiden kann, was man in den zehn Fingern vor sich hat, wie man den schweizerischen Volksgeist unterscheiden kann von den Millionen von Menschen, die in den Bergen der Schweiz leben. Er ist noch etwas anderes, nämlich eine Wesenheit, wie der Mensch selber eine Wesenheit ist. Nur unterscheiden sich die Menschen davon dadurch, daß sie dem Wahrnehmungsvermögen des Menschen eine sinnliche Außenseite darbieten. In demselben Maße, wie sich der Mensch dem sinnlichen Wahrnehmungsvermögen darbietet, bietet eine äußere Erscheinung, etwas, was man mit Empfindungsorganen oder äußeren Sinnen sehen oder wahrnehmen kann, ein Volksgeist nicht dar, aber er ist dennoch eine durchaus reale Wesenheit.
Heute wird es sich darum handeln, uns gewissermaßen eine Vorstellung zu bilden von einer solchen realen Wesenheit. Wie machen wir das überhaupt in der Geisteswissenschaft, wenn wir uns von einer realen Wesenheit eine Vorstellung bilden wollen? Ein charakteristisches Beispiel, wie wir uns eine Vorstellung bilden von einer realen Wesenheit, gewinnen wir, wenn wir zuerst einmal den Blick auf das Wesen des Menschen werfen. Wenn wir geisteswissenschaftlich den Menschen beschreiben, unterscheiden wir an ihm den physischen Leib, den Ather- oder Lebensleib, den Astralleib oder Empfindungsleib und das, was wir als das höchste Glied der menschlichen Wesenheit betrachten, das Ich. Wir wissen also, daß wir in dem, was wir physischen Leib, Atherleib, Astralleib und Ich nennen, sozusagen den gegenwärtigen Menschen vor uns haben. Sie wissen aber auch, daß wir auf eine Entwickelung der Menschheit in der Zukunft hinblicken, und daß das Ich an den drei niederen Gliedern der menschlichen Wesenheit arbeitet, so daß es diese Glieder vergeistigt, umarbeitet von der gegenwärtigen niederen in die zukünftige höhere Form. Das Ich wird das Astrale umarbeiten, umformen, so daß es etwas anderes werden wird, als was es heute schon ist. Der Astralleib wird dann darstellen das, was Sie unter dem Namen Geistselbst oder Manas kennen. Ebenso wird eine noch höhere Arbeit des Ich an dem Atherleibe oder Lebensleibe geleistet werden dadurch, daß es ihn umarbeitet und umprägt in das, was wir Lebensgeist oder Buddhi nennen. Und endlich ist die höchste Arbeit des Menschen, die wir uns vorläufig denken können, die, daß der Mensch das widerstrebendste Glied seiner Wesenheit, den physischen Leib vergeistigen, umwandeln und metamorphosieren wird in das Geistige. Es wird das höchste Glied der menschlichen Wesenheit sein, wenn das Ich umgestaltet haben wird das, was heute physischer Leib ist, das, was heute uns am gröbsten und materiellsten entgegentritt, wenn das Ich es umgestaltet haben wird in den Geistesmenschen oder Atma. So blicken wir auf drei Glieder der menschlichen Natur, die sich in der Vergangenheit entwickelt haben, auf eines, in dem wir jetzt darinnen stehen, und auf drei andere, aus denen das Ich etwas Neues in der Zukunft machen wird.
Wir wissen auch, daß zwischen der Arbeit, die verflossen ist, und zwischen der Arbeit, die in der Zukunft verfließen wird, um die drei höheren Glieder zu bilden, etwas dazwischen liegt. Wir wissen, daß wir das Ich selber gegliedert uns denken müssen. Es arbeitet an einer Art von Zwischenwesenheit. Wir sprechen daher davon, daß zwischen dem Astralleibe, wie er aus der Vergangenheit dem Menschen geworden ist, und dem Geistselbst oder Manas, das aus diesem Astralleib in ferner Zukunft dem Menschen werden wird, in der Mitte darinnen liegen die drei vorbereitenden Glieder; das sind: die Empfindungsseele, das niederste Glied, in dem das Ich gearbeitet hat, die Verstandes- oder Gemütsseele und die Bewußtseinsseele. So daß wir sagen können: Von dem, was wir herausarbeiten als Geistselbst oder Manas, von dem ist außerordentlich wenig heute beim Menschen vorhanden, höchstens der Anfang. Dagegen hat sich der Mensch dadurch zu dieser künftigen Arbeit vorbereitet, daß er seine drei niederen Glieder in einer gewissen Weise, in gewissem Maße hat beherrschen gelernt. Er hat sich vorbereitet dadurch, daß er den Empfindungsleib oder den astralischen Leib hat beherrschen gelernt, indem er mit seinem Ich in denselben eingedrungen ist und innerhalb des Empfindungsleibes die Empfindungsseele herausgebildet hat. Ebenso wie die Empfindungsseele in einem gewissen Verhältnis zum Empfindungsleibe steht, so steht die Verstandes- oder Gemütsseele in einem gewissen Verhältnis zum Ather- oder Lebensleibe, so daß die Verstandes- oder Gemütsseele ein schwaches Vorbild dessen ist, was der Lebensgeist oder Buddhi sein wird, zwar ein schwaches Vorbild, aber doch ein Vorbild. Und das, was in der Bewußtseinsseele sich befindet, ist in gewisser Weise von dem Ich hineingearbeitet in den physischen Leib. Daher ist sie ein schwaches Vorbild dessen, was einst Geistesmensch oder Atma sein wird. Wir können auch sagen: Gegenwärtig erkennen wiram Menschen, wenn wirabsehen von geringfügigen Teilen, die er schon aus dem astralischen Leibe herausgearbeitet hat als Anfang des Geistselbstes oder Manas, vier verschiedene Glieder. Wir können heute unterscheiden:
1. den physischen Leib,
2. den Atherleib,
3. den Astralleib,
4. das in demselben arbeitende Ich,
und ferner, wie ein Vorglanz zu den höheren Gliedern:
die Empfindungsseele,
die Verstandesseele,
die Bewußtseinsseele.
Da haben wir den Menschen als eine Wesenheit vor uns, wie er sich uns heute darbietet, und da erfassen wir sozusagen diesen Menschen in dem gegenwärtigen Augenblicke seines Werdens. Wir sehen förmlich das Ich herausarbeiten, nachdem als Vorbereitung ihm geworden ist die Empfindungs-, Verstandes- und Bewußtseinsseele, die höheren Glieder. Wir sehen dieses Ich arbeiten mit den Kräften der Empfindungs-, Verstandes- und Bewußtseinsseele an dem astralischen Leibe, an den Anfängen des Geistselbstes. Wir sehen den Menschen gegenwärtig in diesem Momente seines Arbeitens.
Diejenigen — und es werden die meisten von Ihnen sein —, die sich mit dem befaßt haben, was wir die Erforschung der Akasha-Chronik nennen, mit der Entwickelung des Menschen in urferner Vergangenheit und mit dem Ausblick in die ferne Zukunft, die werden wissen, daß die Menschen, wie ich sie Ihnen skizzenhaft charakterisieren konnte, sich entwickelt haben, daß wir zurückschauen können in ferne Vergangenheit, daß die Menschen lange Entwickelungsepochen gebraucht haben, um die erste Anlage ihres physischen Leibes, dann die erste Anlage des Atherleibes und endlich des Astralleibes zu bilden und diese drei Glieder dann weiter zu entwickeln. Der Mensch hat dazu lange Zeiträume gebraucht, und Sie wissen vielleicht auch, daß der Mensch die frühere Entwickelung seines Wesens, zum Beispiel die Entwickelung seines astralischen Leibes, nicht in demselben Zustande der Erde durchgemacht hat, in dem die Erde heute ist, sondern daß er seinen astralischen Leib entwickelt hat in einem früheren Zustande des Erdendaseins, dem Mondendasein. Wie wir das heutige Leben als die Folge früherer Erdenleben, früherer Verkörperungen erkennen, so blicken wir auch auf frühere Verkörperungen unserer Erde zurück. Das, was wir Empfindungsseele, Verstandes- oder Gemütsseele nennen, wurde erst in dem heutigen Erdendasein gebildet. In dem Mondendasein wurde der astralische Leib eingepflanzt, und in einem noch früheren Dasein unserer Erde, dem Sonnenzustande, wurde der Ätherleib eingepflanzt und endlich während des Saturnzustandes der physische Leib. So daß wir auf drei Verkörperungen der Erde zurückblicken, und auf jeder dieser Verkörperungen sehen wir eines der Glieder, die der Mensch heute in sich trägt, zuerst veranlagt und dann weiter ausgebildet.
Noch etwas anderes ist zu betonen, wenn wir von dem Saturn-, Sonnen-, Monden-Zustande reden. Genau so, wie wir als Menschen auf der Erde den Zustand durchmachen, den wir den selbstbewußten Menschheitszustand nennen können. So haben während früherer Zustände unserer Erdenentwickelung, während des alten Monden-, Sonnen- und Saturnzustandes andere Wesen die Stufe durchgemacht, die wir heute auf der Erde durchmachen. Es ist dabei ziemlich gleichgültig, ob man mit der Terminologie, die man im Orient gebraucht, oder mit derjenigen, die mehr im Okzident üblich ist, die Wesenheiten benennt. Diejenigen Wesenheiten, die während des Mondenzustandes unserer Erde auf der Stufe standen, auf der der Mensch heute steht, und die die nächsthöheren Wesenheiten sind, die über uns stehen, nennen wir in der Terminologie der christlichen Esoterik Angeloi oder Engel. Sie stehen eine Stufe höher als der Mensch, weil sie um eine Epoche früher ihre Menschheitsstufe absolviert haben, so daß diese Wesenheiten dasjenige, was wir heute sind, dazumal während des alten Mondenzustandes waren. Sie waren es aber nicht so, daß sie damals auf dem Monde herumgegangen wären wie die Menschen heute auf der Erde. Sie waren Wesenheiten auf der Menschheitsstufe, aber sie lebten nicht im Fleische wie der Mensch heute. So entsprach nur ihre Stufe der Entwickelung dem Menschsein, das der Mensch heute durchmacht. Ebenso finden wir Wesenheiten noch höherer Art, welche während des alten Sonnenzustandes die Menschheitsentwickelung durchgemacht haben. Es sind die Archangeloi oder Erzengel. Das sind Wesenheiten, die zwei Stufen höher stehen als der Mensch, die zwei Epochen früher ihre Menschheitsstufe durchgemacht haben. Wenn wir noch weiter zurückgehen bis zur ersten Verkörperung unseres Erdendaseins, bis zum Saturnzustand, da finden wir, daß da diejenigen Wesenheiten ihre Menschheitsstufe durchgemacht haben, die wir als Geister der Persönlichkeit, Archai, Urbeginne bezeichnen, so daß wir, wenn wir bei diesen Wesenheiten beginnen — die also in urferner Vergangenheit, während des alten Saturnzustandes Menschen waren — und dann die Verkörperungen der Erde verfolgen bis auf unseren Zeitpunkt, vor uns haben die Entwikkelungsstufen der Wesen bis herunter zu unserer Wesenheit. Wir können also sagen: Urbeginne, Archai waren Menschen auf dem alten Saturn; Erzengel, Archangeloi waren Menschen auf der alten Sonne; Engel oder Angeloi waren Menschen auf dem alten Mond; Menschen sind Menschen auf unserer Erde. Da wir nun wissen, daß wir in der Zukunft unsere Entwickelung weiterführen, dasjenige, was unsere niederen Glieder sind, weiter entfalten, also dasjenige, was heute unser astralischer Leib, unser Ather- oder Lebensleib und unser physischer Leib ist, so müssen wir doch fragen: Ist es nicht ebenso natürlich, daß die Wesenheiten, die früher die Menschheitsstufe durchgemacht haben, jetzt schon auf der Stufe sind, wo sie umarbeiten ihren astralischen Leib in das Geistselbst oder Manas? Wie wir während der nächsten Verkörperung unserer Erde — während des Jupiter-Daseins — fertig werden mit der Umgestaltung unseres Astralleibes in Geistselbst oder Manas, so sind fertig geworden diejenigen Wesenheiten, die während der Mondepoche Menschen waren, die Angeloi, mit der Umgestaltung ihrer Astralleiber in Geistselbst oder Manas, oder sie werden damit während unseres Erdendaseins fertig werden. Sie machen das durch während unserer Erdenverkörperung, was wir erst während der nächsten Verkörperung der Erde werden durchzumachen haben. Blicken wir noch weiter zurück auf die Wesen, die während des alten Sonnendaseins Menschen waren, so können wir sagen: Sie haben schon während des Mondenzustandes das durchmachen müssen, was wir erst in der nächsten Erdenverkörperung werden durchmachen müssen. Sie stehen bei der Arbeit, die der Mensch ausführen wird, wenn er mit seinem Ich umarbeitet seinen Äther- oder Lebensleib in Lebensgeist oder Buddhi. Wir haben also in diesen Archangeloi, in diesen Erzengeln Wesenheiten, die zwei Stufen über uns stehen, die auf der Stufe stehen, die wir einst erreichen werden, wenn wir von unserem Ich aus umarbeiten werden den Lebensleib in Lebensgeist oder Buddhi. Wir blicken, wenn wir zu diesen Wesenheiten aufschauen, so zu ihnen auf, daß wir sagen: Wir sehen in ihnen Wesenheiten, die zwei Stufen über uns stehen, Wesenheiten, in denen wir gleichsam vorausgenommen sehen, was wir selber in Zukunft erleben werden; wir blicken zu ihnen auf als zu solchen Wesen, die heute arbeiten an ihrem Äther- oder Lebensleib und ihn umformen zu Lebensgeist oder Buddhi. Ebenso blicken wir auf zu noch höheren Wesenheiten, zu den Geistern der Persönlichkeit. Sie stehen auf einer noch höheren Stufe als die Erzengel, auf einer Stufe, die der Mensch erreichen wird in noch fernerer Zukunft, wenn er wird umarbeiten können den physischen Leib in Atma oder Geistesmensch.
So wahr der Mensch auf der jetzigen Stufe seines Daseins ist, so wahr sind diese entsprechenden Wesenheiten auf den eben charakterisierten Stufen ihres Daseins, so wahr stehen sie über uns, so wahr sind sie Realitäten. Nun steht ihre Realität nicht etwa fern dem Erdendasein, sondern greift vielmehr in dasselbe ein, wirkt hinein in unser Menschendasein. Wir müssen uns jetzt nur fragen: Wie wirken diese über dem Menschen stehenden Wesenheiten in unser Menschheitsdasein hinein? Wenn wir uns dieses Hineinwirken begreiflich machen wollen, dann müssen wir darauf Rücksicht nehmen, daß solche Wesenheiten sozusagen in ihrer Arbeit einen anderen geistigen Anblick darbieten werden als diejenigen Wesenheiten, die wir heute Menschen nennen. Es ist in der Tat ein beträchtlicher Unterschied zwischen diesen Wesenheiten, die über dem Menschen stehen, und denjenigen Wesenheiten, die heute erst auf der Menschheitsstufe sich befinden. So sonderbar das jetzt auch klingen mag, es wird Ihnen im Laufe der nächsten Tage noch vollständig klar werden. Es ist doch durchaus aus wirklicher Geistesforschung heraus gesprochen: Der Mensch, wie er heute ist, ist gewissermaßen in einem Mittelzustand seines Daseins. So wie heute sein Ich an seinen niederen Gliedern arbeitet, wird es nicht immer bleiben. Es ist gleichsam das ganze menschliche Wesen heute wie in sich zusammenhängend, und es bildet gleichsam eine durch nichts unterbrochene Wesenheit. Das kann in der Zukunft der Menschheitsentwickelung anders werden, und es wird wesentlich anders werden. Wenn der Mensch einmal so weit sein wird, daß er mit vollem Bewußtsein an seinem Astralleib arbeiten und mit seinem Ich diesen Astralleib in Geistselbst oder Manas umarbeiten wird, dann wird ein ähnlicher Zustand bei vollem Bewußtsein vorhanden sein, wie er jetzt beim Unbewußtsein oder Unterbewußtsein des Menschen im Schlafe vorhanden ist. Stellen Sie sich einmal den Schlafzustand des Menschen vor. Der Mensch rückt beim Schlafzustand in bezug auf seinen Astralleib und sein Ich aus seinem physischen Leib und seinem Ätherleib heraus, er läßt sie im Bette liegen und schwebt dann gleichsam außerhalb des physischen und Ätherleibes. Denken Sie sich jetzt in diesem Zustande den Menschen so, daß das Bewußtsein erwacht: Ich bin ein Ich, — daß es so erwacht in diesem Geistesleib, wie es im tagwachen Bewußtseinszustande da ist. Was würde der Mensch schon gegenwärtig für einen merkwürdigen Anblick für sich selber darbieten! Er würde an einer Stelle fühlen: «Da bin ich», und vielleicht da unten, weit weg von dieser ersteren Stelle: «Da ist mein physischer Leib und mein Ätherleib; sie sind an jenem Orte und sie gehören zu mir, aber ich mit meinen anderen Gliedern, ich schwebe außerhalb, da oben». Wenn der Mensch heute bewußt wird in seinem Astralleibe, außerhalb seines physischen und Ätherleibes, dann kann er allerdings — und wenn er heute auf der Erde sozusagen noch so hoch entwickelt ist — nichts anderes tun, als frei in seinem Astralleibe sich da- oder dorthin bewegen und kann unabhängig von seinem physischen Leibe da oder dort in der Welt tätig sein, aber das kann er dann noch nicht mit seinem physischen und Atherleibe. Man wird sie aber in ferner Zukunft auch von einer Stätte des Nordens von Europa zum Beispiel von außen hingeleiten können nach einer anderen Stätte, ihnen befehlen: Geht weiter! und sie dann in ihrer Bewegung von außen lenken. Das geht heute noch nicht. Das wird aber der Mensch können, wenn er sich über die Stufe der Erdenentwickelung zu der Jupiterstufe entwickelt haben wird, zu der folgenden Entwikkelungsstufe unseres Erdenplaneten. Das wird auch der folgende Entwickelungszustand des Menschen sein. Wir werden dann fühlen, daß wir gewissermaßen für uns selbst der Dirigent von außen sein werden. Das ist das Wesentliche. Und das führt zu einer Spaltung von dem, was wir heute die menschliche Wesenheit genannt haben. Das materialistische Bewußtsein kann damit allerdings nicht viel anfangen. Es kann nicht verfolgen dasjenige, was heute schon in gewisser Beziehung real in der Außenwelt wirkt in ähnlicher Weise, wie es einmal in der Zukunft beim Menschenwesen vorhanden sein wird. Solche Erscheinungen sind schon heute da. Die Menschen könnten sie wahrnehmen, wenn sie acht geben würden. Sie würden dann sehen, daß es gewisse Wesenheiten gibt, die zum Beispiel zu früh sich so entwickelt haben. Wie der Mensch, wenn er den richtigen Zeitpunkt abwartet, im richtigen Zeitpunkt den Jupiterzustand erreichen wird, so daß er leiten kann seinen physischen und ätherischen Leib, so gibt es auch Wesen, welche in gewisser Beziehung sich vorschnell entwickelt haben, ohne den richtigen Zeitpunkt abgewartet zu haben. Solche vorzeitig entwikkelte Wesenheiten haben wir in unserer Vogelwelt, und zwar in solchen Wesenheiten der Vogelwelt, welche jedes Jahr die großen Wanderzüge über die Erde vollführen. Da ist es die sogenannte Gruppenseele, welche mit dem ätherischen Leibe eines jeden Vogels zusammenhängt. So wie die Gruppenseele die regelmäßigen Wanderzüge der Vögel über die Erde hin dirigiert, so wird der Mensch, nachdem er sein Geistselbst oder Manas entwickelt hat, das, was wir physischen und ätherischen Leib nennen, befehligen, ihnen gebieten, sie in Bewegung setzen. In einem noch höheren Sinne wird der Mensch diese dirigieren, von außen in Bewegung setzen können, wenn er einmal so weit entwickelt sein wird, daß er auch noch umarbeitend in bezug auf den Ather- oder Lebensleib wirkt. Solche Wesenheiten, die das schon können, gibt es schon heute. Das sind die Archangeloi oder Erzengel. Das sind Wesenheiten, die das bereits können, was der Mensch einmal können wird, Wesenheiten, die dasjenige vollbringen können, was man nennen kann «seinen ätherischen und seinen physischen Leib von außen dirigieren», die aber außerdem auch noch arbeiten können an ihrem eigenen Ätherleibe.
Bilden Sie sich als Idee den Begriff von Wesenheiten, die sozusagen im Umkreis unserer Erde wirken, die in der geistigen Atmosphäre unserer Erde enthalten sind mit ihrem Ich, die von diesem ihrem Ich aus schon umgewandelt haben ihren astralischen Leib, so daß sie ein vollentwickeltes Geistselbst oder Manas besitzen, die aber jetzt mit diesem vollentwickelten Geistselbst oder Manas weiterwirken auf unserer Erde und hereinarbeiten in die Menschen, indem sie unseren Ather- oder Lebensleib umgestalten; Wesenheiten, die auf der Stufe stehen, auf welcher sie den Ather- oder Lebensleib zu Buddhi oder Lebensgeist umgestalten. Wenn Sie sich solche Wesenheiten denken, die also auf der Stufe der geistigen Hierarchien stehen, die wir Erzengel nennen, haben Sie einen Begriff von dem, was man «Volksgeister» nennt, was man die dirigierenden Volksgeister der Erde nennt. Die Volksgeister gehören in die Stufe der Archangeloi oder Erzengel. Wir werden sehen, wie sie ihrerseits den Äther- oder Lebensleib dirigieren, und wie sie dadurch wieder hineinwirken in die Menschheit und diese in ihre eigene Tätigkeit einbeziehen. Wenn wir die verschiedenen Völker unserer Erde betrachten und einzelne herausheben, dann werden wir in dem eigentümlichen Weben und Leben dieser Völker, in dem, was wir die besonderen, charakteristischen Eigenschaften dieser Völker nennen, ein Abbild von dem haben, was wir als die Mission der Volksgeister betrachten können.
Wenn wir die Mission dieser Wesenheiten erkennen — Inspiratoren der Völker sind diese Wesenheiten —, dann können wir sagen, was ein Volk ist. Ein Volk ist eine zusammengehörige Gruppe von Menschen, welche von einem der Archangeloi, einem der Erzengel geleitet wird. Die einzelnen Glieder eines Volkes bekommen das, was sie als Glieder des Volkes tun, was sie als Glieder des Volkes vollführen, von einer solchen Seite her inspiriert. Dadurch, daß wir uns vorstellen, daß diese Volksgeister individuell verschieden sind, wie die Menschen auf unserer Erde, werden wir es begreiflich finden, daß die einzelnen verschiedenen Gruppen der Völker die individuelle Mission dieser Archangeloi sind. Wenn wir uns einmal geistig veranschaulichen, wie in der Weltgeschichte Volk nach Volk und auch Volk neben Volk wirkt, so können wir jetzt, wenigstens in abstrakter Form — die Form wird immer konkreter und konkreter werden in den nächsten Vorträgen — uns vorstellen, daß alles, was da vor sich geht, inspiriert ist von diesen geistigen Wesenheiten. Aber eines wird uns wohl leicht vor die Seele treten können: daß neben diesem Wirken von Volk nach Volk noch etwas anderes stattfindet in der Menschheitsentwickelung. Sie können, wenn Sie jenen Zeitraum überblicken, den wir von der großen atlantischen Katastrophe aus rechnen, die das Antlitz der Erde so weit verändert hat, daß jener Kontinent, der bestanden hat zwischen dem heutigen Afrika, Amerika und Europa, in jener Zeit untergegangen ist, die Zeiträume unterscheiden, in welchen die großen Völker gewirkt haben, bei denen die nachatlantischen Kulturen herauskamen: die alte indische, die persische, die ägyptisch-chaldäische, die griechisch-lateinische und unsere gegenwärtige Kultur, die nach einiger Zeit in die sechste Kulturepoche übergehen wird. Wir bemerken auch, daß nacheinander darin gewirkt haben verschiedene Völkerinspiratoren. Wir wissen, daß noch lange die ägyptisch-chaldäische Kultur gewirkt hat, als die griechische Kultur schon ihren Anfang nahm, und daß die griechische Kultur noch weiter waltete, als die römische schon ihren Anfang genommen hatte. So können wir die Völker nebeneinander und nacheinander betrachten. Aber in allem, was sich in und mit den Völkern entwickelt, entwickelt sich noch etwas anderes. Es ist ein Fortschritt in der menschlichen Entwickelung. Es kommt dabei nicht in Betracht, ob wir das eine höher oder niedriger stellen. Es kann zum Beispiel einer sagen: Mir gefällt die indische Kultur am besten. Das mag ein persönliches Urteil sein. Wer aber nicht auf persönliche Urteile schwört, der wird sagen: Es ist gleichgültig, wie wir die Dinge bewerten; der notwendige Gang führt die Menschheit vorwärts, mag man das später auch Niedergang nennen. Die Notwendigkeit führt die Menschheit vorwärts. Wenn wir die verschiedenen Zeiträume vergleichen, 5000 Jahre vor Christus, 3000 Jahre vor Christus und 1000 Jahre nach Christus, dann ist etwas noch da, was über die Volksgeister hinübergreift, etwas, woran die verschiedenen Volksgeister teilnehmen. Sie brauchen das nur in unserer Zeit ins Auge zu fassen. Woher kommt es, daß in diesem Saale so viele Menschen zusammensitzen können, die aus den verschiedensten Volksgebieten herkommen und sich verstehen und sich zu verstehen versuchen in bezug auf das Allerwichtigste, was sie hier zusammengeführt hat? Die verschiedenen Menschen kommen aus dem Bereich der verschiedensten Volksgeister heraus, und dennoch gibt es etwas, worin sie sich verstehen. In ähnlicher Weise verstanden sich und konnten sich verstehen in damaliger Zeit die verschiedenen Völker untereinander, weil es in jeder Zeit etwas gibt, was die Volksseele übergreift, die verschiedenen Volksseelen zusammenführen kann, etwas, was man überall mehr oder weniger versteht. Das ist dasjenige, was man mit dem recht schlechten, aber gebräuchlichen deutschen Wort «Zeitgeist» benennt oder auch «Geist der Epoche». Der Geist der Epoche, der Zeitgeist, ist ein anderer in der griechischen Zeit, ein anderer in der unsrigen. Diejenigen, welche den Geist in unserer Zeit erfassen, werden zur Theosophie hingetrieben. Das ist das aus dem Geiste der Epoche über die einzelnen Volksgeister Übergreifende. In derjenigen Zeit, in der Christus Jesus auf der Erde erschien, bezeichnete sein Vorläufer, Johannes der Täufer, den Geist, den man als Zeitgeist bezeichnen könnte, mit den Worten: «Ändert die Verfassung der Seele, denn die Reiche der Himmel sind nahe herbeigekommen.»
So kann man für jede Epoche den Zeitgeist finden, und das ist etwas, was sich hineinwebt in das Weben der Volksgeister, das wir damit zu gleicher Zeit als das Weben der Archangeloi charakterisiert haben. Für den heutigen materialistischen Menschen ist der Zeitgeist etwas ganz Abstraktes ohne Realität, und noch weniger darf man ihm damit kommen, in dem Zeitgeist ein wahres Wesen zu sehen. Dennoch verbirgt sich hinter dem Worte «Zeitgeist» eine wirkliche Wesenheit, keine andere Wesenheit als eine solche, die drei Stufen über der Menschheitsstufe steht. Jene Wesenheiten verbergen sich dahinter, die schon auf dem alten Saturn, der am weitesten zurückliegenden Entwickelungsepoche der Erde, ihre Menschheitsstufe durchmachten, und die heute aus dem geistigen Umkreis der Erde an der Umgestaltung der Erde arbeiten und dabei die letzte Phase sozusagen an der Umgestaltung ihres physischen Leibes in Geistesmensch oder Atma durchmachen. Mit hohen Wesenheiten haben wir es hier zu tun, mit Wesenheiten, gegenüber deren Eigenschaften den Menschen ein Schwindel überkommen möchte. Es sind diejenigen Wesenheiten, die wir wieder bezeichnen könnten als die eigentlichen Inspiratoren — oder wir müssen auf diesem Gebiete sagen, wenn wir mit technischen Ausdrücken des Okkultismus sprechen wollen —, die Intuitoren des Zeitgeistes oder der Zeitgeister. Sie wirken so, daß sie sich abwechseln und gleichsam einer dem andern die Hand reicht. Von Epoche zu Epoche reichen sie sich ihre Aufgabe zu. Der Geist der Epoche, der während der griechischen Zeit wirkte, reicht weiter die Mission an den, der später wirkt und so weiter. Sie wechseln sich also ab. Es sind, wie wir sahen, eine Anzahl solcher Zeitgeister, solcher Geister der Persönlichkeit, die als Zeitgeist wirken. Sie sind eine höhere Rangordnung gegenüber den Volksgeistern, diese Geister der Persönlichkeit, diese Intuitoren des Zeitgeistes. In jedem Zeitalter wirkt vorzugsweise einer und gibt diesem Zeitalter seine Gesamtsignatur, gibt seine Aufträge an die Volksgeister, so daß dasjenige, was der Gesamtgeist der Epoche ist, sich spezialisiert, individualisiert nach den Volksgeistern. Dann wird er abgelöst in der kommenden Epoche von einem andern Zeitgeiste, einem andern Geiste der Persönlichkeit, einem andern Arche.
Wenn eine gewisse Anzahl von Epochen vorübergegangen ist, dann ist ein Zeitgeist durch die Weiterentwickelung hindurchgegangen. Das müssen wir uns so vorstellen: Wenn wir in unserer Zeit sterben und unsere Entwickelung hier durchgemacht haben, so gibt unsere Persönlichkeit das Ergebnis dieses Erdenlebens an das nächste Erdenleben weiter. So ist es auch mit den Geistern der Epoche der Fall. In jeder Epoche haben wir einen solchen Geist der Epoche; der gibt am Ende der Epoche sein Amt an seinen Nachfolger ab, dieser wieder an seinen weiteren Nachfolger und so weiter. Die vorangegangenen machen inzwischen ihre eigene Entwickelung durch, dann kommt derjenige, der am längsten nicht daran gewesen ist, wieder an die Reihe, so daß derselbe in einer spätern Epoche, während die andern dann ihre eigene Entwickelung durchmachen, als Geist der Epoche wiederkommt und für die fortgeschrittene Menschheit das, was er selber für seine höhere Mission erworben hat, intuierend der Menschheit einflößt. Wir blicken zu diesen Geistern der Persönlichkeit hinauf, zu diesen Wesen, die mit dem sonst so nichtssagenden Worte «Zeitgeist» benannt werden können, so, daß wir sagen können: Wir Menschen gehen von Inkarnation zu Inkarnation; wir wissen aber ganz genau, daß, indem wir selber von Epoche zu Epoche schreiten, indem wir in die Zukunft sehen, immer andere Zeitgeister die Geschehnisse unserer Erde regieren. Aber auch unser heutiger Zeitgeist wird wiederkommen, wir werden ihm wieder begegnen. Wegen dieser Eigenschaft dieser Geister der Persönlichkeit, daß sie gleichsam Kreise beschreiben und wieder zu ihrem Ausgangspunkte zurückkommen, daß sie Zyklen beschreiben, wegen dieser Eigenschaft werden sie auch «Geister der Umlaufszeiten» genannt. — Wir werden diesen Ausdruck noch genauer zu rechtfertigen haben. — Also diese höheren geistigen Wesenheiten, die ihre Befehle ausgeben an die Volksgeister, werden auch Geister der Umlaufszeiten genannt. Es sind damit gemeint jene Umlaufszeiten, die der Mensch selber durchzumachen hat, indem er von Epoche zu Epoche in gewisser Weise zurückkehrt zu früheren Zuständen und sie in höherer Form wiederholt. Nun sehen Sie, dieses Wiederholen der Eigentümlichkeiten früherer Formen, das kann Ihnen auffallen. Wenn Sie in geisteswissenschaftlichem Sinne genau die Entwickelung der Menschheitsstufen auf der Erde durchnehmen, so finden Sie diese wiederholten Geschehnisse in der verschiedensten Weise. So ist eine Wiederholung darin, daß sozusagen sieben Epochen sich folgen nach der atlantischen Katastrophe, die wir nennen die nachatlantischen Kulturstufen. Die griechisch-lateinische Stufe oder Kulturepoche bildet sozusagen den Wendepunkt in unserm Zyklus und erleidet daher keine Wiederholung. Auf diese folgt die Wiederholung der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Epoche, und zwar in unserer eigenen Zeit. Auf diese wird folgen eine andere Epoche, die eine Wiederholung der persischen Zeit sein wird, allerdings in etwas anderer Art, und dann wird die siebente Epoche kommen, die eine Wiederholung der uralt-indischen Kultur, der Epoche der heiligen Rishis sein wird, so daß in dieser Epoche gewisse Dinge in anderer Form heraus kommen werden, die damals veranlagt worden sind. Die Lenkung dieser Geschehnisse obliegt den Zeitgeistern.
Daß nun auf die Erde verteilt in verschiedenen Völkern das ausgelebt wird, was von Epoche zu Epoche weiterschreitet, daß die verschiedensten Gestalten aus diesem oder jenem Boden gebildet werden, aus dieser oder jener Sprachgemeinschaft herauswachsen, aus dieser oder jener Formensprache, aus Architektur, Kunst und Wissenschaft entstehen können und alle die Metamorphosen annehmen können und alles das aufzunehmen vermögen, was der Geist der Epoche der Menschheit einflößen kann, dazu brauchen wir die Volksgeister, die in der Hierarchie höherer Wesenheiten zu den Erzengeln gehören. Nun brauchen wir noch eine Vermittlung zwischen der höheren Mission der Volksgeister und denjenigen Wesenheiten, die hier auf der Erde von ihnen inspiriert werden sollen. Sie werden unschwer erkennen können, zunächst in abstrakter Form, daß die Vermittler dieser beiden Geisterarten die Hierarchie der Engel sind. Sie bilden das vermittelnde Glied zwischen Volksgeist und Einzelmensch. Damit der Mensch in sich hineinbekommen kann, was der Volksgeist dem ganzen Volke einzuflößen hat, damit der einzelne Mensch ein Werkzeug werde in der Mission des Volkes, dazu bedarf es dieser Vermittlung zwischen Einzelmensch und Erzengel des Volkes.
So haben wir hinaufgeschaut zu den Wesen, welche Mensch geworden sind, drei Stufen bevor der Erdenmensch seine Menschheitsstufe erreichte, und haben gesehen, wie sie sich hineinstellen in ihrem Bewußtsein in die Menschheit und eingreifen in unsere Erdenentwickelung. Wir werden nun morgen zu zeigen haben, inwiefern das Arbeiten der Erzengel von oben herunter, von ihrem Ich aus, das schon Manas oder Geistselbst ausgebildet hat und am Atherleib oder Lebensleib des Menschen arbeitet, gerade in den Produktionen, in den Eigenschaften und in dem Charakter eines Volkes sich darlebt. Der Mensch steht darin in dieser Arbeit der höheren Wesenheiten, unmittelbar umgibt sie den Menschen, indem er als Angehöriger eines Volkes in dieselbe hineingestellt ist. Der Mensch ist zwar zunächst eine menschliche Individualität, eine Ausgestaltung einer Ichheit, dann aber ist er nicht nur Individualität, sondern auch Angehöriger eines Volkes und damit etwas, wofür er zunächst als menschliche Individualität nichts kann. Was kann der Mensch, indem er einem bestimmten Volke angehört, dafür, daß er gerade die Sprache dieses Volkes spricht? Das ist nicht eine individuelle Errungenschaft, das gehört auch nicht zu dem, was wir ein individuelles Fortschreiten nennen, das ist das Strombett, in das er aufgenommen wird. Das, was wir menschliches Fortschreiten nennen, ist etwas ganz anderes. Indem wir die Volksseele weben und leben sehen, werden wir uns erinnern, worin das Fortschreiten des Menschen besteht und was der Mensch braucht, um sich durch dasselbe durchzubewegen. Wir werden sehen, was sozusagen nicht nur zu seiner Entwickelung, sondern zur Entwickelung noch ganz anderer Wesenheiten gehört.
So sehen wir, wie der Mensch eingegliedert ist in die Reihe der Hierarchien, wie in seiner Entwickelung von Zeit zu Zeit, von Epoche zu Epoche Wesenheiten, die wir von der anderen Seite her kennen, mitwirken. Und wir haben gesehen, wie dafür gesorgt wird, daß sich diese Wesenheiten in der mannigfaltigsten individuellen Weise ausleben können, haben gesehen, daß das, was sie zu liefern haben, sich hineinleben kann in die Menschen.
Die großen Richtlinien der einzelnen Epochen geben die Zeitgeister. Die Ausbreitung des Zeitgeistes über die ganze Erde hin wird durch die einzelnen Völkerindividualitäten möglich. Während die Zeitgeister die Volksgeister befähigen, wird durch die Engel bewirkt, daß diese einfließen können in die einzelnen Menschen, so daß die einzelnen Menschen ihre Mission erfüllen können. Daß die einzelnen Menschen Werkzeuge werden in dieser Mission der Volksgeister, das wird bewirkt durch die Wesen, welche zwischen den Menschen und den Volksgeistern stehen, durch die Engel oder Angeloi.
Wie dieses wunderbare Netz uns erkennen lassen wird das Wirken der mannigfaltigen Volksindividualitäten der Vorzeit und der Gegenwart, das wird einen Gegenstand dieser Vorträge bilden. Wir werden im nächsten Vortrag damit beginnen, in das Konkrete hineinzuleuchten, wie dieses Gewebe, auf das wir heute nur skizzenhaft hingedeutet haben, gesponnen wird, das Geistesgewebe, das unser nächstes Weltendasein ist.
First Lecture
It gives me great pleasure to be able to speak to our friends here in Norway for the third time in a somewhat longer presentation, and I would like to respond very briefly to the kind words of our dear friend Eriksen by saying that the warm welcome he has just expressed is reciprocated by me just as warmly and from the bottom of my heart.
I hope that this series of lectures, which I would now like to begin, will contribute something to the understanding of what we call the overall picture of our worldview. I would like to point out that this series of lectures will necessarily contain many things that belong, so to speak, to the most radical truths of our worldview, that it will have to contain some things that are still quite foreign to present-day human thinking. I therefore ask above all those of our esteemed friends who have not been so much concerned with the more advanced questions of spiritual science, to bear in mind that we would not make any progress in our field if we did not from time to time give ourselves a powerful jolt, a powerful leap forward into those areas of spiritual knowledge which are actually quite remote from present-day human thinking, feeling, and perception.
From this point of view, a certain amount of goodwill will sometimes be necessary in relation to the explanations given; for it would take much longer to bring together all the evidence and proof that would be needed to support what will be said here in the next few days. We would not make any progress if these explanations did not appeal, so to speak, to the goodwill and spiritual understanding of the listener. The field we are touching upon here is indeed one that has been shunned, right up to our own time, by occultists, mystics, and theosophists, and shunned for the reason that a higher degree of impartiality is necessary in order to accept the things that need to be said without the resistance that sometimes arises.
What this means will perhaps become clearer to you if you remember that, at a certain stage of mystical or occult development, a person is called a homeless person. This is actually a technical term, “homeless person,” and if we want to characterize without further ado — since we are not talking about the path of knowledge — what is meant by the word “homeless person,” , we can say briefly that a homeless person is someone who, in their knowledge and understanding of the great laws of humanity, is truly unaffected by everything else that arises in human beings from the place where they live in accordance with their culture. We can also say that a homeless person is someone who is able to take on the great mission of humanity as a whole without the nuances of particular feelings and sensibilities that arise from this or that homeland interfering. You can see from this that, at a certain stage of mystical or occult development, a free point of view is necessary precisely in relation to what we rightly regard as something great, which we describe as the mission of the individual folk spirits, as that which, from the depths of a people's soil, from the spirit of the peoples, provides the individual concrete contributions to the overall mission of humanity.
We want to describe, so to speak, the greatness of that from which the homeless person must become free in a certain sense. Now, homeless people of all times, from primeval times to the present day, have always known that if they were to characterize in full, so to speak, what is called the character of homelessness, they would find little, very little understanding. First of all, these homeless people would be met with prejudice, which would be expressed in the accusation: You have lost all connection with the mother soil of your people; you have no understanding of what is most precious to other people. But that is not the case. In a certain sense, homelessness is basically — or at least it can be — a detour that, once this sacred place, this homelessness, has been reached, allows one to find the way back to the substance of the people, to find harmony with the down-to-earth aspects of human development. If this must be pointed out from the outset, it is not without reason that, especially in our time, we should speak in an unbiased manner about what we call the mission of the individual souls of the peoples of humanity. Just as it is justified that, up to a certain point, this mission has been completely ignored, it is equally justified to begin talking about it now. This is particularly important because the future of humanity will, to a much greater extent than has been the case up to now, bring people together in a common mission for humanity. However, the individual members of each nation will only be able to make their corresponding free and concrete contribution to this common mission if they have, above all, an understanding of their own national character, an understanding of what might be called “self-knowledge of the national character.” If in ancient Greece, in the Apollonian mysteries, the phrase “Know thyself” played a major role, then in the not too distant future the saying will be addressed to the souls of the people: “Know yourselves as souls of a people.” This saying will have a certain significance for the future of humanity.
Now, it is particularly difficult for our time to recognize beings that are, so to speak, not at all present for external sensory perception, for external material knowledge. It may not be so difficult for us today to recognize that human beings, as they stand before us in the world, have certain members, certain parts of their being that are supersensible, invisible. Perhaps the current materialistic mindset of humanity will find it even easier to accept the view that beings that can at least be seen physically, such as human beings, also have a supersensible, invisible part. But it is a great demand on our present age to speak to it about beings that, according to ordinary perception, do not actually exist. For what is it, really, that we call the soul of a people or the spirit of a people? It is at most what we accept as a characteristic, as a collective characteristic of so many hundreds or millions of people who are crowded together on a certain piece of land. That something lives there besides the many millions of people crowded together on the ground, that something real, which would correspond to the concept of the national spirit, underlies this concept, is difficult to make clear to the consciousness of our present time. If one were to ask—let us say, in order to have something completely neutral—what does the contemporary person understand by the Swiss national spirit? — he would describe in abstract terms some characteristics that are possessed by the people who inhabit the Swiss territory of the Alps and the Jura, and he would be clear that this does not correspond to anything that can be recognized with external powers of cognition, with the eyes or other organs of perception. The first thing must be to form the idea, openly and honestly, that there are beings that do not readily express themselves in a sensual way, that do not present themselves to ordinary material perception, that there are, so to speak, other invisible beings between the beings that are sensually perceptible, which influence visible beings, such as the human entity into human hands or human fingers, that one can therefore speak of the Swiss national spirit as of the spirit of a human being, and that one can distinguish this spirit of the human being just as precisely from what one has before one in the ten fingers as one can distinguish the Swiss national spirit from the millions of people who live in the mountains of Switzerland. It is something else, namely an entity, just as the human being is an entity. The only difference between humans and this entity is that humans present a sensory exterior to human perception. To the same extent that humans present themselves to sensory perception, an external appearance, something that can be seen or perceived with the organs of sensation or the external senses, does not present a national spirit, but it is nevertheless a thoroughly real entity.
Today we will try to form a certain idea of such a real entity. How do we do this in spiritual science when we want to form an idea of a real entity? We find a characteristic example of how we form an idea of a real entity when we first look at the nature of the human being. When we describe the human being in spiritual science, we distinguish between the physical body, the etheric or life body, the astral body or sentient body, and what we consider to be the highest member of the human being, the I. We know, then, that in what we call the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body, and the I, we have, so to speak, the present human being before us. But you also know that we are looking toward the future development of humanity, and that the I is working on the three lower members of the human being, so that it spiritualizes these members, transforming them from their present lower form into their future higher form. The I will transform and reshape the astral body so that it will become something different from what it is today. The astral body will then represent what you know as the spirit self or manas. Likewise, an even higher work of the I will be accomplished on the etheric body or life body by transforming and reshaping it into what we call the life spirit or buddhi. And finally, the highest work of the human being that we can conceive of for the time being is that the human being will spiritualize, transform, and metamorphose the most resistant member of his being, the physical body, into the spiritual. It will be the highest member of human nature when the ego has transformed what is today the physical body, what today appears to us as the coarsest and most material, when the ego has transformed it into the spiritual human being or Atma. Thus we look at three members of human nature that have developed in the past, at one in which we now stand, and at three others out of which the I will make something new in the future.
We also know that between the work that has passed and the work that will pass in the future to form the three higher members, there is something in between. We know that we must think of the I itself as divided. It works on a kind of intermediate being. We therefore speak of the three preparatory members lying in the middle between the astral body, as it has become man from the past, and the spirit self or manas, which will become man from this astral body in the distant future. These are: the sentient soul, the lowest member, in which the I has worked, the intellectual or emotional soul, and the conscious soul. So we can say that of what we work out as the spiritual self or manas, very little is present in human beings today, at most the beginning. On the other hand, human beings have prepared themselves for this future work by learning to control their three lower members in a certain way and to a certain extent. They have prepared themselves by learning to control the sentient body or astral body by entering into it with their I and developing the sentient soul within the sentient body. Just as the sentient soul stands in a certain relationship to the sentient body, so the intellectual or emotional soul stands in a certain relationship to the etheric or life body, so that the intellectual or emotional soul is a weak model of what the life spirit or Buddhi will be, a weak model, but a model nonetheless. And what is in the consciousness soul is, in a certain sense, worked into the physical body by the I. Therefore, it is a weak model of what will one day be the spirit-human being or Atma. We can also say that at present, when we look at human beings, we recognize four different members, apart from the minor parts that they have already worked out of the astral body as the beginning of the spirit self or manas. Today we can distinguish:
1. the physical body,
2. the etheric body,
3. the astral body,
4. the I working within it,
and further, as a foreshadowing of the higher members:
the sentient soul,
the intellectual soul,
the conscious soul.
Here we have the human being before us as a being as he presents himself to us today, and we grasp this human being, so to speak, at the present moment of his becoming. We see the I formally working itself out, after the feeling, intellectual, and conscious souls, the higher members, have been prepared for it. We see this I working with the forces of the feeling, intellectual, and conscious souls on the astral body, on the beginnings of the spirit self. We see the human being at this moment of his work.
Those of you — and most of you will be among them — who have studied what we call the Akashic Records, the development of human beings in the distant past and the outlook for the distant future, will know that human beings have developed as I have been able to sketch them for you, that we can look back into the distant past and see that human beings needed long periods of development to form the first elements of their physical body, then the first elements of the etheric body, and finally the astral body, and then to develop these three elements further. Human beings have needed long periods of time for this, and you may also know that human beings did not undergo the earlier development of their being, for example the development of their astral body, in the same state of the Earth as it is today, but that they developed their astral body in an earlier state of Earth's existence, the Moon's existence. Just as we recognize our present life as the result of previous earthly lives, previous incarnations, so we also look back on previous incarnations of our Earth. What we call the sentient soul, the intellectual soul, or the emotional soul, was only formed in the present earthly existence. In the lunar existence, the astral body was implanted, and in an even earlier existence of our Earth, the solar state, the etheric body was implanted, and finally, during the Saturn state, the physical body. Thus we look back on three incarnations of the earth, and in each of these incarnations we see one of the members that human beings carry within themselves today, first as an inclination and then further developed.
Something else must be emphasized when we speak of the Saturn, Sun, and Moon states. Just as we as human beings on Earth go through the state that we can call the self-conscious human state, so during earlier states of our Earth's development, during the old Moon, Sun, and Saturn states, other beings went through the stage that we are going through today on Earth. It is quite irrelevant whether one uses the terminology used in the East or that which is more common in the West to name these beings. Those beings who, during the lunar stage of our Earth, were at the stage where human beings are today, and who are the next higher beings above us, are called Angeloi or angels in Christian esoteric terminology. They are one stage higher than human beings because they completed their human stage an epoch earlier, so that these beings were what we are today during the ancient lunar state. However, they did not walk around on the moon as humans do today on Earth. They were beings at the human stage, but they did not live in flesh as humans do today. Thus, only their stage of development corresponded to the human existence that humans are going through today. We also find beings of an even higher order who went through human development during the old Sun state. These are the archangels. They are beings who stand two stages higher than humans, who completed their human stage two epochs earlier. If we go back even further to the first incarnation of our earthly existence, to the Saturn state, we find that the beings we call spirits of personality, archai, primal beginnings, have undergone their human stage there, so that when we begin with these beings — who were therefore humans in the distant past, during the old Saturn state — and then trace the incarnations on Earth up to our present time, we have before us the stages of development of beings down to our own being. We can therefore say: Primordial beginnings, archai were human beings on the old Saturn; archangels, archangeloi were human beings on the old Sun; angels or angeloi were human beings on the old Moon; human beings are human beings on our Earth. Since we now know that we will continue our development in the future, further developing what are our lower members, that is, what is today our astral body, our etheric or life body, and our physical body, we must ask: Is it not just as natural that the beings who previously passed through the human stage are now already at the stage where they are transforming their astral body into the spirit self or manas? Just as we will complete the transformation of our astral body into spirit self or manas during the next incarnation of our Earth—during the Jupiter existence—so will those beings who were human during the lunar epoch, the angeloi, complete the transformation of their astral bodies into spirit self or manas, or they will complete it during our Earth existence. They are doing during our Earth incarnation what we will have to go through during the next incarnation of the Earth. If we look back even further to the beings who were human during the old Sun existence, we can say that they already had to go through during the Moon stage what we will have to go through in the next Earth incarnation. They stand at the work that human beings will carry out when they transform their etheric or life body into life spirit or buddhi with their ego. So in these archangels we have beings who are two stages above us, who stand on the stage that we will one day reach when we transform the life body into life spirit or buddhi from our ego. When we look up at these beings, we look up to them in such a way that we say: We see in them beings who stand two steps above us, beings in whom we see, as it were, a foretaste of what we ourselves will experience in the future; we look up to them as beings who are working today on their etheric or life body and transforming it into life spirit or Buddhi. In the same way, we look up to even higher beings, to the spirits of personality. They stand on a higher level than the archangels, on a level that human beings will reach in the distant future when they are able to transform their physical body into the soul or spirit.
As true as it is that human beings are at the present stage of their existence, so true are these corresponding beings at the stages of their existence just characterized, so true do they stand above us, so true are they realities. Now, their reality is not remote from earthly existence, but rather intervenes in it, works into our human existence. We must now ask ourselves: How do these beings standing above man work into our human existence? If we want to understand this working, we must take into account that such beings, in their work, present a different spiritual appearance than those beings we today call human beings. There is indeed a considerable difference between these beings that stand above human beings and those beings that are only at the human stage today. As strange as this may sound now, it will become completely clear to you over the next few days. It is spoken from genuine spiritual research: human beings as they are today are, in a sense, in a middle state of their existence. The way his ego works on his lower limbs today will not always remain the same. The whole human being today is, as it were, interconnected and forms a being that is uninterrupted by anything. This may change in the future of human development, and it will change significantly. Once humans have reached the point where they can work on their astral body with full consciousness and transform this astral body into spirit self or manas with their ego, then a state similar to the state of full consciousness will exist, as now exists in the unconsciousness or subconsciousness of humans during sleep. Imagine the state of sleep in humans. During sleep, the human being moves out of his physical body and etheric body in relation to his astral body and his ego; he leaves them lying in bed and then floats, as it were, outside the physical and etheric bodies. Now imagine the human being in this state with consciousness awakening: I am an I — awakening in this spirit body just as it is in the waking state of consciousness. What a strange sight the human being would present to himself at that moment! He would feel in one place: “There I am,” and perhaps down below, far away from this first place: “There is my physical body and my etheric body; they are in that place and they belong to me, but I, with my other limbs, am floating outside, up there.” When human beings today become conscious in their astral body, outside their physical and etheric bodies, then he can indeed — even if he is, so to speak, highly developed on Earth today — do nothing else but move freely in his astral body here or there and be active in the world independently of his physical body, but he cannot yet do this with his physical and etheric bodies. In the distant future, however, it will be possible to guide them from a place in northern Europe, for example, to another place from outside, commanding them: Go on! and then direct their movement from outside. This is not yet possible today. But human beings will be able to do this when they have evolved beyond the stage of Earth's development to the Jupiter stage, the next stage in the development of our planet. This will also be the next stage of human development. We will then feel that we are, in a sense, our own conductors from outside. That is the essence of it. And this leads to a division of what we have called the human being today. However, materialistic consciousness cannot do much with this. It cannot follow what is already at work in the external world in a certain sense, in a similar way to how it will exist in human beings in the future. Such phenomena already exist today. People could perceive them if they paid attention. They would then see that there are certain beings who, for example, have developed too early. Just as human beings, when they wait for the right moment, will reach the Jupiter state at the right moment so that they can guide their physical and etheric bodies, so there are also beings who, in a certain sense, have developed prematurely without waiting for the right moment. We find such prematurely developed beings in our bird world, namely in those beings of the bird world that undertake the great migratory flights across the earth every year. There is the so-called group soul, which is connected with the etheric body of each bird. Just as the group soul directs the regular migrations of birds across the earth, so will human beings, after they have developed their spirit self or manas, command what we call the physical and etheric bodies, and set them in motion. In an even higher sense, humans will be able to direct them, to set them in motion from outside, once they have developed to the point where they can also work on the etheric or life body. Such beings who can already do this exist today. They are the archangels. They are beings who can already do what human beings will one day be able to do, beings who can accomplish what can be called “directing their etheric and physical bodies from outside,” but who can also work on their own etheric bodies.
Form an idea of beings that work, so to speak, in the vicinity of our Earth, that are contained in the spiritual atmosphere of our Earth with their I, that have already transformed their astral body from this I, so that they possess a fully developed spirit self or manas, but who now continue to work on our earth with this fully developed spiritual self or manas and work into human beings by transforming our etheric or life body; beings who are at the stage where they transform the etheric or life body into buddhi or life spirit. If you imagine such beings, who are thus on the level of the spiritual hierarchies that we call archangels, you will have an idea of what is meant by “folk spirits,” what are called the directing folk spirits of the earth. The folk spirits belong to the level of the archangels. We will see how they in turn direct the etheric or life body, and how they thereby work back into humanity and involve it in its own activity. When we look at the different peoples of our earth and single out individual ones, we will see in the peculiar weaving and life of these peoples, in what we call the special, characteristic qualities of these peoples, a reflection of what we can consider to be the mission of the folk spirits.
When we recognize the mission of these beings—these beings are the inspirers of the peoples—then we can say what a people is. A people is a cohesive group of human beings guided by one of the archangels. The individual members of a people receive what they do as members of the people, what they accomplish as members of the people, inspired from this source. By imagining that these folk spirits are individually different, like the people on our earth, we will find it understandable that the individual different groups of peoples are the individual missions of these Archangeloi. Once we have mentally visualized how, in world history, one people after another and also one people alongside another has been working, we can now, at least in abstract form — the form will become more and more concrete in the next lectures — imagine that everything that is happening there is inspired by these spiritual beings. But one thing will probably strike us immediately: that alongside this activity from people to people, something else is taking place in human evolution. If you look back over the period of time since the great Atlantean catastrophe, which changed the face of the earth so much that the continent that existed between what is now Africa, America, and Europe sank at that time, you can distinguish the periods in which the great peoples were active, giving rise to the post-Atlantean cultures: the ancient Indian, Persian, Egyptian-Chaldean, Greek-Latin, and our present culture, which after some time will pass into the sixth cultural epoch. We also notice that different peoples have worked as inspirers in succession. We know that the Egyptian-Chaldean culture continued to have an effect long after the Greek culture had already begun, and that the Greek culture continued to prevail even after the Roman culture had already begun. Thus, we can view the peoples side by side and one after the other. But in everything that develops in and with the peoples, something else also develops. It is progress in human development. It is irrelevant whether we consider one thing higher or lower than another. For example, someone might say, “I like Indian culture best.” That may be a personal opinion. But anyone who does not swear by personal opinions will say, “It doesn't matter how we evaluate things; the necessary course leads humanity forward, even if we later call it decline.” Necessity drives humanity forward. If we compare the different periods, 5000 years before Christ, 3000 years before Christ, and 1000 years after Christ, then there is still something that transcends the national spirits, something in which the different national spirits participate. You only need to consider this in our time. How is it that so many people can sit together in this hall, coming from the most diverse ethnic backgrounds, and understand each other and try to understand each other in relation to the most important thing that has brought them together here? These different people come from the realm of the most diverse national spirits, and yet there is something in which they understand each other. In a similar way, the different peoples understood each other and were able to understand each other in those days, because in every age there is something that transcends the national soul, something that can bring the different national souls together, something that is understood more or less everywhere. This is what is called, in the rather poor but common German word, Zeitgeist, or the spirit of the age. The spirit of the epoch, the Zeitgeist, is different in Greek times than it is in ours. Those who grasp the spirit of our time are drawn to theosophy. This is what transcends the individual national spirits from the spirit of the epoch. At the time when Christ Jesus appeared on earth, his forerunner, John the Baptist, described the spirit that could be called the spirit of the age with the words: “Change the constitution of your souls, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
In this way, one can find the spirit of the age for every epoch, and this is something that weaves itself into the fabric of the national spirits, which we have also characterized as the weaving of the archangels. For today's materialistic human being, the spirit of the age is something completely abstract without any reality, and even less can one see in it a true being. Nevertheless, behind the words “spirit of the age” there is a real being, none other than one who stands three stages above the human stage. Hidden behind it are those beings who already passed through their human stage on ancient Saturn, the most distant epoch of the Earth's development, and who are now working from the spiritual sphere surrounding the Earth on the transformation of the Earth, undergoing, so to speak, the final phase of the transformation of their physical bodies into spiritual human beings or Atma. We are dealing here with high beings, beings whose qualities make human beings feel dizzy. These are the beings we could again describe as the actual inspirers — or, if we want to use technical terms from occultism, we must say in this field — the intuitors of the spirit of the age or the spirits of the age. They work in such a way that they alternate and, as it were, pass the baton to one another. From epoch to epoch, they pass on their task. The spirit of the epoch that was active during the Greek period passes on its mission to the one who will be active later, and so on. They alternate, as it were. As we have seen, there are a number of such spirits of the age, such spirits of personality, who work as the spirit of the age. They are higher in rank than the folk spirits, these spirits of personality, these intuitors of the spirit of the age. In each age, one spirit predominates and gives that age its overall signature, assigning tasks to the folk spirits so that what is the overall spirit of the epoch becomes specialized and individualized according to the folk spirits. Then it is replaced in the coming epoch by another spirit of the age, another spirit of personality, another arche.
When a certain number of epochs have passed, a spirit of the age has passed through its further development. We must imagine it like this: when we die in our time and have completed our development here, our personality passes on the result of this earthly life to the next earthly life. This is also the case with the spirits of the epoch. In every epoch we have such a spirit of the epoch; at the end of the epoch it hands over its office to its successor, who in turn hands it over to his successor, and so on. In the meantime, the previous ones go through their own development, then the one who has been away the longest comes back, so that in a later epoch, while the others are going through their own development, he returns as the spirit of the epoch and intuitively instills in humanity what he himself has acquired for his higher mission. We look up to these spirits of personality, to these beings who can be named with the otherwise meaningless word “zeitgeist,” so that we can say: We humans go from incarnation to incarnation; but we know very well that as we ourselves pass from epoch to epoch, as we look into the future, different zeitgeists always govern the events of our earth. But our present Zeitgeist will also return, we will encounter it again. Because of this characteristic of these spirits of personality, that they describe circles, as it were, and return to their starting point, that they describe cycles, because of this characteristic they are also called “spirits of the cycles.” We will have to justify this expression more precisely later. So these higher spiritual beings, who issue their commands to the folk spirits, are also called spirits of the cycles. This refers to the cycles that human beings themselves have to go through, in that they return in a certain way from epoch to epoch to earlier states and repeat them in a higher form. Now you see, this repetition of the characteristics of earlier forms is something you may notice. If you examine the development of the stages of humanity on Earth in a spiritual-scientific sense, you will find these repeated events in a wide variety of ways. For example, there is a repetition in the fact that, so to speak, seven epochs follow one another after the Atlantic catastrophe, which we call the post-Atlantean cultural stages. The Greek-Latin stage or cultural epoch forms, so to speak, the turning point in our cycle and therefore does not undergo any repetition. This is followed by the repetition of the Egyptian-Chaldean epoch, namely in our own time. This will be followed by another epoch, which will be a repetition of the Persian period, albeit in a slightly different form, and then the seventh epoch will come, which will be a repetition of the ancient Indian culture, the epoch of the holy Rishis, so that in this epoch certain things that were laid down at that time will emerge in a different form. The guidance of these events is the responsibility of the spirits of the times.
That what progresses from epoch to epoch is now lived out among different peoples scattered across the earth, that the most diverse forms can be formed from this or that soil, grow out of this or that language community, arise from this or that formal language, from architecture, art, and science, and can undergo all kinds of metamorphoses and be capable of absorbing everything what the spirit of the epoch can instill in humanity, we need the folk spirits, who belong to the archangels in the hierarchy of higher beings. Now we need a mediator between the higher mission of the folk spirits and those beings who are to be inspired by them here on earth. You will easily recognize, initially in abstract form, that the mediators between these two types of spirits are the hierarchy of angels. They form the mediating link between the folk spirit and the individual human being. In order for the human being to be able to absorb what the folk spirit has to instill in the whole people, in order for the individual human being to become an instrument in the mission of the people, this mediation between the individual human being and the archangel of the people is necessary.
Thus we have looked up to the beings who became human beings, three stages before the earthly human being reached his stage of humanity, and have seen how they place themselves in their consciousness within humanity and intervene in our earthly evolution. Tomorrow we will have to show how the work of the archangels from above, from their I, which has already formed the manas or spirit self and works on the etheric body or life body of the human being, manifests itself precisely in the productions, characteristics, and character of a people. Human beings stand in this work of higher beings, which surrounds them directly because they are placed in it as members of a people. Human beings are indeed first and foremost human individuals, manifestations of an ego, but they are not only individuals; they are also members of a people and thus something for which they, as human individuals, are initially responsible. What can human beings do, by belonging to a particular people, to ensure that they speak the language of that people? This is not an individual achievement, nor does it belong to what we call individual progress; it is the stream into which they are taken up. What we call human progress is something completely different. By seeing the soul of a people weave and live, we will remember what human progress consists of and what human beings need in order to move through it. We will see what belongs, so to speak, not only to their development, but to the development of entirely different beings.
Thus we see how human beings are integrated into the hierarchy, how in their development from time to time, from epoch to epoch, beings whom we know from the other side participate. And we have seen how it is ensured that these beings can live out their lives in the most diverse individual ways, and we have seen that what they have to offer can live into human beings.
The great guidelines of the individual epochs are given by the spirits of the times. The spread of the spirit of the times over the whole earth is made possible by the individual nationalities. While the spirits of the times enable the folk spirits, the angels cause these to flow into individual human beings so that they can fulfill their mission. The fact that individual human beings become instruments in this mission of the folk spirits is brought about by the beings who stand between human beings and the folk spirits, by the angels or angeloi.
How this wonderful network reveals to us the workings of the manifold national individualities of the past and the present will be the subject of these lectures. In the next lecture, we will begin to shed light on the concrete details of how this fabric, which we have only sketched out today, is woven, the spiritual fabric that is our next world existence.