The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Lecture

[ 1 ] Yesterday, we began by pointing out that we can only truly understand certain historical events in human history if we do not merely look at the powers and abilities of the personalities themselves, but if we assume that beings are working through these personalities, as through instruments, allowing their deeds to flow down from higher worlds into our world. We must imagine that these beings cannot directly affect our physical things, our physical facts, because their present stage of development does not allow them to incarnate in a physical body that takes its elements from our physical world. If they therefore want to work within our physical world, they must make use of physical human beings, their hands, but also their intellect and their powers of comprehension. We find the influence and effect of such beings from the higher worlds all the more clearly pronounced the further back we go in the history of human development. However, one must not believe that this flow of forces and modes of action from the higher worlds into the physical world through human beings has ever ceased in our time.

[ 2 ] For the spiritual scientist who, as we have been able to develop over many years, has absorbed within himself what our feelings and imagination lead us to assume about the higher worlds, such a fact, as it has just been characterized, is certainly understandable from the outset, for he is accustomed, so to speak, to always pull the connecting threads that link our knowledge, our thinking, and our will with the beings of the higher hierarchies. But the spiritual scientist sometimes finds himself in the position of having to defend himself against the materialistic ideas that are now prevalent in our time, against ideas that make it impossible for people who are far removed from spiritual development to even begin to understand what must be said about the influence of higher worlds on our physical world.

[ 3 ] In our time, it is basically an outdated view to speak only of the working of abstract ideas within human events, within history. Today, some people consider it completely unacceptable in true science to speak of certain ideas, abstract ideas, which can really only exist in our minds, as living out their lives in successive epochs of history. A last semblance, so to speak, of belief in such abstract ideas — of which, however, one cannot understand how they are supposed to work, since they are abstract ideas — at least a certain last semblance of belief in such abstract ideas still existed in the 19th century in Ranke's historiography. But even this belief in the effective ideas of history is gradually being thrown overboard by our advancing materialistic development, and today, in a certain sense, it is also a sign of an enlightened mind in relation to history to believe merely that everything that characterizes the epochs, everything that has occurred in the epochs, is basically the result of the confluence of physically visible external actions, external needs, external interests, and indeed the ideas of physical human beings. The time is already past when, in a certain way, as if by inspiration, spirits such as Herder portrayed the development of human history in such a way that one could see everywhere that there was at least the prerequisite of living forces, living supersensible forces, which expressed themselves through the deeds of human beings, through the lives of human beings. And anyone who wants to be considered intelligent today will say: Well, a man like Lessing had some quite reasonable ideas, but then at the end of his life he came up with such confused stuff as he wrote in his “Education of the Human Race,” where he could find no other way out than to link the strict laws of historical development to the idea of reincarnation. In the last sentences of his “Education of the Human Race,” Lessing did indeed express what spiritual science describes from occult facts: that souls who lived in ancient epochs, who absorbed the living, active forces, carry these forces over into their new incarnations, so that there is not an abstract, not merely an idealistic continuation, but a real continuation of the spirit behind the material events. As I said, an intelligent mind will say: In his old age, he came up with such confused ideas as reincarnation; we must overlook them. — This always reminds one of the bitterly ironic and yet so clever note that Hebbel once wrote in his diary, where he says that it would be a beautiful motif that a high school teacher is teaching Plato in his school, that the reincarnated Plato is among his students, and that he understands Plato, as taught by the high school teacher, so poorly that the teacher has to impose severe punishments on him.

[ 4 ] With regard to the historical view of human development, much has been lost from earlier spiritual understanding, and the spiritual sciences will really have to defend themselves against the onslaught of materialistic thinking, which is penetrating from all sides and simply finds foolish what can be communicated from spiritual facts. We have, after all, come a long way, for example in the way that all those powerful images, those powerful symbolic ideas that sprang from the ancient clairvoyant knowledge of human beings and find expression in mythology, in heroic figures, in legends and fairy tales, are now explained in the strangest ways. The most curious thing in this field is probably the little book Orpheus by Salomon Reinach, which has caused quite a stir in many circles in France in our time. In it, everything that is supposed to have flowed from the ideas of Demeter Orpheus, and the ideas of other mythological circles, are traced back to purely materialistic events, and it is sometimes utterly grotesque how the historical existence of this or that figure, who, let us say, is behind Hermes or Moses, is derived, and in what a trivial manner these figures are sought to be explained, so to speak, out of free human imagination, out of fantasy. According to Salomon Reinach's method, it would be easy, after sixty or seventy years, that is, when the external memory of him had faded a little, to prove that there had never been such a Reinach, but that it was only folk poetry that had transferred the old idea of Reynard the Fox to Salomon Reinach. According to his method, this would be entirely possible. So absurd is the whole thing that has been written in this little book Orpheus, as explained in the preface, “for the widest circles of our present educated people, even for the youngest circles”! “For the youngest circles,” because he emphasizes that he has avoided everything that could cause offense to younger female personalities—although he has not avoided attributing the idea of Demeter to a pig. However, he promises that if his book gains the influence he hopes for, he will then write a special edition of his booklet for mothers, which will contain everything that must still be withheld from daughters at present. So far we have come.

[ 5 ] One would like to point out to the followers of spiritual science in particular that it is possible to prove, on purely external rational grounds, the existence of spiritual powers and forces working through human beings right up to our own century, quite apart from the purely occult-esoteric research that will mainly occupy us here. But in order that we may understand how spiritual science can gain a certain possibility of defending the working of supersensible forces in history on purely external grounds, let me point out the following.

[ 6 ] Anyone who gains a little insight into the development of modern humanity, as it took place in the 14th, 15th, and into the 16th centuries, will know that it was of infinitely profound significance how a certain personality historically intervened in this modern external development of humanity, a personality of whom one can truly say, I would say, prove with the most external reasons that spiritual, supersensible forces worked through them. In order to shed a little light on the occult view of history, one can ask the question: What would have become of the development of modern Europe if, at the beginning of the 15th century, the Maid of Orleans, the Virgin of Orleans, had not intervened in its development? Anyone who even takes a superficial look at the development of this period must say to themselves: If you were to remove the deeds of the Maid of Orleans from historical events, then based on what you know from purely external historical research, you would have to conclude that without the influence of higher supernatural powers through the girl from Orleans, France, and indeed the whole of Europe, would have taken a completely different form in the 15th century. For at that time, everything that was happening in the impulses of the will, in the brains of the physical heads, was aimed at covering Europe, so to speak, with a general conception of the state that would wipe out and extinguish the individualities of the peoples. And under its influence, much of what has emerged in recent centuries through the interplay of European national individualities within Europe would certainly have become impossible.

[ 7 ] Imagine for a moment that the deed of the Maid of Orleans had been wiped out of history, imagine France left to its fate without her intervention, and ask yourself: What would have become of France without this deed? And then consider the role France played in the following centuries for the entire spiritual life of humanity! And add to this the undeniable facts, documented by external sources, of the mission of the Maid of Orleans! Realize that this girl, with an education that was not particularly high even by the standards of her time, suddenly felt, at the age of not yet twenty, in the autumn of 1428, that spiritual powers from the supersensible worlds were speaking to her, powers to which she, however, assigns forms that are familiar to her, so that she sees them through the lens of her imagination; but that is no objection to the reality of these powers. Imagine that she knows that supernatural powers are directing her will toward a very specific point. I will not tell you about these facts, which can be recounted from the Akashic Records, but only what has been established in the records, purely historically.

[ 8 ] We know that this girl from Orleans first revealed herself to a relative, with whom she found understanding—one might almost say by chance—that after many detours and difficulties she was led to the court of King Charles, who, with the entire French army, had reached the end of his wit, so to speak; and we know that after every conceivable obstacle had been placed in her way, finally, among a whole crowd of people in which King Charles was so well hidden that he was completely indistinguishable to the naked eye, she correctly identified him by walking straight up to him. It is also known that she confided something to him at that time—he wanted to test her—about which it can be said that only he alone and the supernatural worlds knew the answer. And you may know from external history how it was she who, under the constant impulses and under the constant impression of her strong faith—one would say, through her direct vision—led the armies to victory under the greatest difficulties and the king to his coronation.

[ 9 ] Who intervened in the course of historical development at that time? None other than members of higher hierarchies! The Maid of Orleans was an external instrument of these beings, and they, these beings of the higher hierarchies, guided the deeds of history. It may well be that some intellect says to itself: If I had guided her, I would have guided her more wisely — because it finds this or that aspect of the Maid of Orleans's actions inappropriate to its thinking. However, followers of spiritual science should not seek to correct the deeds of gods through human understanding, which is, of course, what happens everywhere today within our so-called civilization. You see, there have naturally been people who, in keeping with the spirit of our times, have sought to exonerate modern world history, so to speak, from the deeds of the Maid of Orleans. Anatole France wrote a work characteristic of our times in this materialistic vein. One would really like to know how materialistic thinking comes to terms with reports that are truly well-founded — and I am still talking about documents from external history. Since we are here in this place, and I sometimes like to take local conditions into consideration, I would like to cite a document that has already been referred to here.

[ 10 ] The people of Stuttgart certainly know that an important Gospel scholar once lived here. As a scholar of the humanities, one need not agree with everything that Gfrörer—as the Gospel scholar was called—presented in his Gospel research, some of which was quite clever, and one can be quite sure that if Gfrörer had heard what is now being proclaimed in the field of spiritual science, he would use the expression he often used for his opponents, whom he did not always treat kindly with his stubbornness: the expression that these theosophists were also people “who were not quite right in the head.” But at that time, the time had not yet come when one could, so to speak, ignore historical documents in a purely materialistic way, as one does today when these historical documents concern facts that are inconvenient, that apparently indicate the working of living higher forces within our physical world. And so today I would like to quote a short document, a letter that was published in the first half of the 19th century. I would like to read you just a few passages, as Gfrörer referred to this letter at the time to justify his belief. I would like to read you a passage from a characterization of the Maid of Orleans and then ask you what such a vivid description means.

[ 11 ] After the writer of this letter, to which Gfrörer refers, has listed what the Maid of Orleans has accomplished, he continues:

[ 12 ] “This and much more has the Maid (of Orleans) accomplished, and with God's help she will accomplish even greater things. The maiden is of graceful beauty and possesses a masculine bearing; she speaks little and displays wonderful intelligence; in her speech she has a pleasant, delicate voice, like that of a woman. She eats moderately and drinks wine even more moderately. She takes pleasure in beautiful horses and weapons. She loves armed and noble men very much. The Virgin dislikes meeting and talking with many people; she often weeps, loves a cheerful face, endures unheard-of labor, and is so persistent in the handling and bearing of weapons that she remains fully armed day and night for six days without ceasing. She says that the English have no right to France, and that is why, she says, God sent her to drive them out and defeat them, but only after a warning has been given. She shows the king the highest reverence; she says that he is loved by God and under special protection, which is why he will be preserved. She says that the Duke of Orleans, your nephew, will be miraculously freed, but only after a warning has been given to the English who are holding him captive.

[ 13 ] And so, illustrious prince, I come to the end of my report: even more wonderful things are happening and have happened than I can write or express in words. As I write this, the aforementioned maiden has already moved to the region of Reims in Champagne, where the king has hastily set out for his anointing and coronation with God's assistance. Most illustrious and powerful prince and my most revered lord! I commend myself to you most humbly, asking the Most High to protect you and fulfill your wishes.

[ 14 ] Written at Biteromis on the 21st day of June.

[ 15 ] Your humble servant Percival, Lord of Bonlamiulk, advisor and chamberlain to the King of France and the Lord Duke of Orleans, seneschal to the King, born in Berry.”

[ 16 ] Someone who knows the girl writes this letter from close proximity to the king. It is indeed astonishing when, for purely occult reasons and based on occult evidence, one has to find all these things again—for they can be found in the Akashic Records, and one sees how, in such cases, one can also provide external historical documents. In short, it seems almost insane to doubt what the Virgin of Orleans accomplished. And when we consider that her “deeds have given the entire history of modern times a different face,” we are justified in saying that we see the supernatural world directly at work here, documented by external evidence. When the spiritual researcher goes further and looks around in his own way for the actual inspirer who worked through the Maid of Orleans, he finds something very remarkable as he investigates the successive periods. He finds that the same spirit that worked through the Virgin of Orleans as its instrument at that time has, so to speak, in a completely different form, in a completely different way, also inspired another personality who lived as a philosopher at the court of Charles the Bald: Scotus Erigena, whose philosophical-theological ideas had such a profound influence on Europe in an early period. And so we see that the same forces work in different ways through people as their instruments in different eras; that there is continuity, a continuous process in what we call history.

[ 17 ] Yesterday I showed you how a significant myth from the Babylonian-Chaldean period points to the influence of the spiritual worlds on human beings, on whom much depended in the course of history for the third of our post-Atlantean epochs, such as the course of the entire historical development in ancient Chaldea, in ancient Babylonia. However, we must now also consider the two personalities behind the legendary names Gilgamesh and Eabani from the standpoint of occult science. From an occult-historical perspective, we must see them as personalities who stand at the starting point of what we call Babylonian and Chaldean culture. We find the impulses that came from them in the development of the actual spiritual culture of ancient Babylonia and Chaldea. Gilgamesh was such a personality who had undergone many incarnations in such a way that one can, in a sense, describe this personality as an old soul within human evolution.

[ 18 ] You know from the description in my book “An Outline of Esoteric Science” that during the Lemurian period of Earth's development, only very few human beings survived the events of Earth's development on Earth itself, so to speak, that only a few remained on Earth during the Lemurian period; that the majority of souls, before the actual danger of mummification of everything human began, lifted themselves away from the earth to other planets and continued to live on Mars, Saturn, Venus, Jupiter, and so on; that then, from the end of the Lemurian period and during the Atlantean period, these souls gradually came back down to earth in order to incarnate in earthly bodies under the changed earthly conditions and appear in ever new incarnations. So we have souls that descended relatively early from the planetary world, and others that descended late, only in the late periods of the Atlantean evolution. The former souls, who descended earlier, have more incarnations within the Earth behind them than those who descended later, and we can therefore call them, in contrast to the former, younger souls, souls who have absorbed less.

[ 19 ] An old soul was the individuality hidden behind the name Gilgamesh, and a younger one was embodied in Eabani at the beginning of Babylonian culture. Yes, with regard to this younger or older nature of human souls, something very remarkable appears—one might almost say to the surprise of the occultist. If, for example, someone today has progressed to the point where they admit the truths of spiritual science to a certain extent, but otherwise still clings to the prejudices and value judgments of the outer world, then it will seem plausible to them that, for example, the souls of philosophers or scholars of our time must be counted among the older souls. Occult research shows the exact opposite, strange as it may sound, and it is surprising even to occultists that a young soul lived in Kart, for example. Yes, the facts speak for themselves; there is nothing that can be done about it. And one could now point out that the younger souls are indeed embodied in the colored races in the majority, that the colored races, especially the Negro race, preferentially bring younger souls into embodiment. But it is precisely the peculiarity of that human way of thinking, which finds its expression in scholarship and in today's materialistic science, that conditions younger souls. And it can even be proven that in some personalities, in whom one would not expect it at all, the previous incarnation lies entirely with savages. Yes, the facts say so again! All this must be firmly established; it is so. Of course, this does not detract from the significance or value of the judgments we make about our environment; nevertheless, it must be understood in order to gain a complete understanding of what is at stake. In this sense, we are dealing with Eabani in ancient Babylonia, a young soul, and with Gilgamesh, an old soul. Such an old soul, by its very nature, will quickly grasp what is not only a cultural element or factor of the present, but also what is falling into the present as a cultural impact and allows us to look far into the future.

[ 20 ] Some may object, however, if it were made plausible to them that the theosophists, whom they often consider inferior, are mostly older souls than those who give academic lectures. But research shows this to be true, and even if spiritual research should not be misused to overturn value judgments and mock what was once the impact of our culture, we must nevertheless look the truth squarely in the eye. Gilgamesh was therefore a personality who, by virtue of his soul constitution, was in touch with what belonged to the most advanced spiritual elements and factors of his time, which for that time shone far into the future, and which even then could only be achieved by such a personality undergoing a kind of initiation. In a certain initiation, in a communication of what can only be received through initiation, Gilgamesh was to be given what enabled him to provide the ferment for Babylonian culture. So he had to undergo an initiation to a certain degree.

[ 21 ] Let us consider this Gilgamesh, how he had to place himself in the development of humanity before this initiation. He was a human being of the third post-Atlantean epoch. But in this epoch, natural human clairvoyance, what human beings could do and were capable of through their natural powers, had already reached its twilight. It was no longer present to such an extent that large numbers of people could look back into their previous incarnations. If we go back further, to the second and first post-Atlantean epochs, we would find that the majority of people on Earth could still look back into their previous incarnations, into the flow of their soul life before their present birth. But this had gradually been lost. In the case of Gilgamesh, the situation was such that from the outset, the being that was to reveal itself through him, and that could only reveal itself through him by gradually leading him to a kind of initiation, always held its hand over him, so to speak. It placed him in the position through which he learned to assess his own place in world history. Through events of a supernatural nature, which we encounter in images in the myth I quoted yesterday, he was given a friend, a friend whose barbarism and uncivilized nature are indicated by his half-animal appearance. It is said that this friend wore animal skins on his body, which means that he was still hairy, like the people of the primeval state, and that his soul was so young that it built a body that still showed the wild form of humans. Thus Gilgamesh, the more advanced, had in Eabani a man beside him who, because of his young soul and the physical constitution that resulted from it, still possessed an ancient clairvoyance. This friend had been given to him to help him find his way. With the help of this friend, he then succeeded in accomplishing certain things, such as, let us say, the restoration of that spiritual power which is again depicted in the myth under the image of the city goddess of Erek, Ishtar. I have told you that the city goddess had been stolen by the neighboring city and that therefore the two, Gilgamesh and Eabani, waged war against the neighboring city, defeated the king of that city, and brought the city goddess back.

[ 22 ] If one wants to understand such things, which are presented to us in these ancient myths, correctly from a historical point of view, then one must go into the occult background of the matter. Behind this abduction of the city goddess lies something similar to the abduction of Helen, who was carried off to Troy by Paris. We must be clear that what is explained in my little book “Blood is a very special juice” is based on sound reasoning. There you will find that in the peoples of ancient times there was a certain collective consciousness that human beings did not only perceive their personal ego within their own skin, but that they perceived themselves as a member of the tribe, the city community. Just as the individual human soul is perceived as the central factor for our fingers, toes, hands, legs, which belong together, for our entire organism, so in ancient times man felt himself to be a member of the group soul to which he belonged. Something like this still existed in ancient times in the old city communities, even in Greece. A communal spirit, a national ego, a tribal ego, lived and wove through the individual personalities of the people. But what could come to human consciousness from such a communal ego had to be administered, so to speak, in mysteries, in secret temple sites. There were the ancient mystery priests who administered the common spiritual affairs of a city or tribe. And it is not merely figurative, but in a certain sense real and true, to say that such a temple was really like a dwelling place for the city ego, for the group soul. There it had its central residence, and the temple priests were its servants. They were the ones who received the commands of this group soul through inspiration — what were called oracles — and carried them out into the world so that this or that might happen; for oracles were to be understood at that time in the sense I have just described to you.

[ 23 ] Now, the administration of such temple sites was connected with certain secrets, and many battles in ancient times were fought in such a way that the temple priests of one city were carried off as prisoners by the neighboring city, so that, so to speak, the most important secrets of a city were carried off to the neighboring city with the temple priests. There you have the real fact that corresponds to the image of the city goddess Ishtar, the soul of the people of Erek, being stolen by the neighboring city. The temple priests, the administrators of the temple secrets, had been taken prisoner because the neighboring city hoped in this way to gain possession of the sacred secrets and thus the power of the city in question. That is the real background.

[ 24 ] And Gilgamesh, in the state of mind he was in at the time, could not perceive such things himself because he did not see into these connections. But a younger soul served him, so to speak, as a clairvoyant sense that helped him to recapture the temple treasure for his father's city. Gilgamesh was thus made fully aware that in human life, especially in times of transition, there is something like what is depicted in the legend of the blind man and the lame man, each of whom is helpless on his own, but who together make progress by the blind man carrying the lame man on his shoulders and the lame man lending the blind man his sight. In Gilgamesh and Eabani, we see such cooperation between people of very different abilities translated into the spiritual realm. We encounter this particularly in the historical facts of ancient times at every turn. And it is important to understand this, because only then can we understand why myths and legends so often present us with friends who have something to accomplish together: friends who are usually as dissimilar in their mental constitution as Gilgamesh and Eabani were. But what Gilgamesh was also able to gain for his soul through Eabani, his friend, was that he was, as it were, infected by Eabani with his own clairvoyant power, so that he could, in a certain sense, look back into his own previous incarnations. Thus Gilgamesh really learned from Eabani how to look back into previous incarnations. This was something that was beyond Gilgamesh's normal abilities. And now let us vividly imagine how Gilgamesh might have been influenced by this looking back into his previous incarnations.

[ 25 ] What could he say to himself from the day on when the possibility arose in his soul to look back into what his soul had experienced in previous incarnations? At first, this alienated him. He could not quite find his way into his own being as it had been in previous incarnations; he did not really recognize himself, so to speak. This is how it would be for all human beings if they began to look back on their previous incarnations. It would usually look different from the imaginings that arise again and again when it is said that a person is the reincarnation of this or that personality. It can happen that one finds a personality who lists a whole series of historical, great names as those of their previous incarnations. There are even supposed to be entire groups of people who are convinced that in their previous incarnations they were nothing less than queens or princesses! — In matters that are supposed to be so serious, there must be no room for fantasy; no nonsense must be allowed.

[ 26 ] Now, anyone who, like Gilgamesh at that time, looks back on the sequence of his incarnations, may indeed be surprised at times. He looked back on incarnations while he was still interwoven in all kinds of connections that were given by the group soul nature. However, he had in a certain sense worked his way out of these connections for his own sake, and it was only through Eabani that he was able to experience the full value of what is symbolized by the city goddess in the myth. But as he looked back, he did not like many things in his earlier incarnations, and he could say to himself: that is not to my taste. He found, for example, that in his incarnations his soul had had very special friendships, very special human relationships, of which he was now ashamed. This led to what is described in the myth, that he began to reproach himself in a certain way for what the city goddess had revealed to him on his detour through Eabani, that he reproached his soul. The myth suggests that he reproached the goddess for her acquaintances, because he became jealous of such acquaintances. He looked, as it were, at the horizon of his soul, and the visions stood before him as vividly as people stand around another person in the outer physical world, toward whom one feels this or that sympathy or antipathy. And in all the accusations that Gilgamesh now makes against the city goddess, we recognize that he is actually talking to what is going on at the bottom of his soul. So when we are told, for example, that he reproached the city goddess for having previously been acquainted with a certain man named Ischulanu in the myth, this means nothing other than that he did not like his own acquaintance with a certain man who had been his master's gardener in a previous incarnation. So what was going on in Gilgamesh's soul, and what actually gave him the inner strength and fulfillment he needed to become the founder of Babylonian culture, is shown to us in his return to a certain clairvoyance, in his ascent to supersensible worlds, which, because he was an old soul, had already been lost in a certain sense. This is depicted in the myth.

[ 27 ] And then he had to undergo a kind of initiation by being led back to the kind of perception that his own soul had had during the Atlantean incarnations. What the myth now presents to us as Gilgamesh's sea voyages and wanderings to the west is nothing other than the inner initiation journey of his soul, through which it ascends to spiritual heights where it can perceive what was around it in the ancient Atlantean time, when the soul still looked clairvoyantly into the spiritual world. This is why the myth tells us that Gilgamesh, on his spiritual journey, was brought together with the great Atlantean ruler Xisuthros. This was a personality who belonged to certain higher hierarchies and lived in the regions of humanity during the Atlantean era, but had since been removed from humanity and lived in higher realms of existence. Gilgamesh was to get to know this personality in order to gain from the perception of its essence what was necessary to know what souls are like when they can look into the spiritual worlds. Thus he was to be led back up into the spiritual spheres by being taken back in his soul to the Atlantean times. And when he is told not to sleep for seven nights and six days, this means nothing other than an exercise through which the soul was to be shaped in order to penetrate completely into the corresponding spiritual regions just characterized. When we are told that he could not endure this, it means something very important: it means that Gilgamesh is to be presented to us as a personality who is brought to the brink of initiation, who was supposed to look through the gate of initiation into the spiritual mysteries, but who, due to the nature of the times, was unable to penetrate to all depths. In short, it is to be said that the initiator, the founder of Babylonian culture, stopped at the gate of initiation, so to speak, that he could not see clearly into the higher spiritual worlds, and that he therefore gave Babylonian culture the character that is an imprint of a mere glimpse into the mysteries of initiation.

[ 28 ] We will now see how this external Babylonian culture is in fact such that it justifies what has just been said. For example, while everything points to the fact that we have before us in Hermes a personality who looked deeply, deeply into the most sacred mysteries of initiation and was therefore able to become the great initiator of Egyptian culture, we must say that the outer Babylonian culture was prepared in the way we have just characterized it: namely by a leading personality who had in his soul all those qualities that develop when one does not penetrate completely into the innermost core of the sacred mysteries. That is why we find in ancient Babylonia a historical development in which we have a clear parallel between an outer cultural process and an esoteric inner one. While in Egyptian life these two interact more, in ancient Babylonian culture they fall apart completely, so to speak. And within what we must regard as Babylonian culture, as inaugurated by Gilgamesh, lived that which lies in the most sacred, most hidden mysteries of the Chaldeans.

[ 29 ] These initiates of the mysteries were indeed initiated into the innermost mysteries, but this flowed through the outer culture only as a small stream. This outer culture was a result of Gilgamesh’s impulses. Now, it has become clear to us from all these considerations that Gilgamesh, as a personality, was not, in essence, advanced enough to have been able to undergo a complete initiation. But precisely because he did not, so to speak, live out his own personal impulses during the time in which he was active—that is, because he did not communicate to the world what was his strength—he was particularly capable of allowing one of the spiritual beings we count among the class of fire spirits, that is, the Archangeloi, the Archangels, to work through him. Such a being worked through Gilgamesh, and the order of Babylonian conditions, the driving forces behind them, for which Gilgamesh was the instrument, are to be found in such a fire spirit. Thus we are to imagine this Gilgamesh quite rightly in an image that the symbol of the ancient centaur could provide. Such ancient symbols correspond more closely to reality than is usually thought. A centaur, half-animal, half-human, was always meant to represent how, in the more powerful human beings of ancient times, the highest spiritual humanity and that which connected the individual personalities to the animal organization were, in a certain sense, truly divided. Like a centaur, this Gilgamesh worked upon those who could judge him, and so he still works today upon those who can judge him.

[ 30 ] It is very strange that this image of the centaur is reappearing today in the field of modern scientific thinking. A book has recently been published that claims to be based entirely on scientific facts, but which nevertheless deals with these facts in a certain way that is free of prejudice and therefore does not mix everything up in such an amateurish and senseless way as those who call themselves monists do. The author genuinely seeks to understand human beings as independent spiritual beings in contrast to their physical body organization. And here a person who relies on scientific evidence arrives at a peculiar image. He certainly did not have centaurs in mind when he imagined this image, but he says of what scientific ideas reveal about the relationship between the soul and the body: “This can be compared to a rider riding a horse. One cannot help but conclude from a true understanding of scientific facts that the soul is independent and uses the body as a tool, just as the rider uses his horse. The centaur is back, things will indeed move quickly, and before people realize it, spiritual scientific ideas will have to take root in our contemporaries under the pressure of scientific facts. For it was not long ago that I spoke with a philosopher who held materialistic ideas in high regard and who, based on his materialistic ideas, said to me: “The image of the centaur arose naturally: the ancient inhabitants of Greece saw certain tribes coming from the north on their horses, and since it was mostly foggy, they had the idea that rider and horse were a single figure. In their superstition, they could easily imagine this.”

[ 31 ] Indeed, a very simple idea, perhaps not very philosophical, but quite simple nonetheless! This idea of the centaur, which did not arise because the Greeks were unable to distinguish the rider from his horse, but because the older peoples really had to think of the spiritual essence of man as independent of physical nature — this idea reappears in our time, quite independently of scientific ideas. So we must say that, despite all our materialistic ideas, we are already on the way today to the point where even materialism, if it wants to base itself solely on facts, will gradually lead to what spiritual science has to say from its occult sources. But if we want to place a figure such as Gilgamesh, who has already come close to external research, at the forefront of occult observation, as we must do for our considerations, then we must be clear that we are dealing here with the influence of a being from the higher spiritual hierarchies. So that if we actually have to look at every human being in terms of their spirituality in the image of the centaur, we must assume in particular in the case of a person who acts like Gilgamesh that the spirituality of the centaur is directed by higher powers that send their forces into the progress of humanity. And we will see, as we go further back in history, that this will become even clearer to us. We will see how this then modifies itself into our present and how spiritual forces always take on different forms when they work through human beings, the more we come into our immediate present.