The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Third Lecture

[ 1 ] In our last two reflections here, we have attempted to point out how the spiritual must be sought behind all the material and physical aspects of our worldly phenomena. We have sought first to characterize the spiritual that lies behind the phenomena of heat, and then behind the phenomena of flowing air. Since, in order to provide such characterizations, we had to go back to very early, primeval stages of our evolution, we had to look into our own inner lives when describing those spiritual conditions that underlie the material. For it is, of course, necessary to draw from somewhere the concepts with which one characterizes something. Words alone are not enough; rather, we must have very specific concepts. We have seen that the spiritual conditions to which we must refer in this context are, in part, so far removed from everything that human beings currently experience—from everything human beings can currently know—that we ourselves had to appeal to rare states and conditions that are by no means common, even within our own inner lives and spiritual existence. We have seen that we had to seek the deepest essence of all conditions of heat and fire far removed from what is outwardly, physically, fire or heat. Certainly it must seem quite grotesque to people of the present day when the sacrifice has been recognized as the essence of all the fire and heat conditions of the world—the sacrifice of very specific beings whom we encountered on the ancient Saturn state of the Earth at a certain stage of development, the Thrones who offered their sacrifice to the Cherubim at that time. And in truth, we must say, such a sacrifice, as it took its starting point in the world’s development back then, exists in everything that appears to us outwardly, in Maya or illusion, in the conditions of heat or fire.

[ 2 ] Likewise, we recognized last time that behind everything we can call flowing air or flowing gases lies, in turn, something very, very distant—that which we have called “giving virtue,” the selfless outpouring of the very essence of spiritual beings. This lies in every breath of wind, in all flowing air. What is thus perceived physically on the outside is really only an illusion, a Maya; and we have the correct conception only when we move beyond Maya to the spiritual. In the reality of the world, fire or heat or air is just as little present as the human being who sees himself in the mirror is present in the mirror image. For just as a mirror image is, in essence, an illusion in relation to the human being, so too are fire, heat, or air illusions, and the truths behind them are in reality to them as the true human being is to his mirror image. It is not fire or air that we must seek in the world of the true, but sacrifice and the virtue of giving.

[ 3 ] In this process, we have ascended by, so to speak, approaching the sacrifice—the virtue of giving—from the old Saturn life to the old Sun life. Within the latter—that is, the second cosmic incarnation of our Earth—we find something that will bring us one step closer to the true conditions of our development. And today we must once again introduce a concept that belongs to the world of truth as opposed to the world of illusion. So before we move on to the actual conditions of development, let us familiarize ourselves with a specific concept. We proceed from the following:

[ 4 ] When a person does anything in their external life, when they carry out any action, it is generally based on an impulse of the will. Whatever a person does—whether it be a movement of the hand or the greatest of deeds—is always based on an impulse of the will. Everything else that leads to an action, to a human endeavor, then flows from this. One might initially say: a strong, powerful deed—one that is intended, let us say, to bring much healing and blessing—requires a strong impulse of will, while a less significant deed requires a weak impulse of will. And in general, one will be inclined to assume that the magnitude of the deed depends on the strength of the impulse of will.

[ 5 ] However, it is only true to a certain extent that we can achieve great things in the world by strengthening our will. From a certain point on, this is no longer the case. Certain deeds that a person can perform—deeds that relate above all to the spiritual world—do not, strangely enough, depend on the strengthening of our will impulses. Certainly, in the physical world, where we primarily live, the magnitude of the deed will depend on the magnitude of the will impulse, for we must exert ourselves more if we wish to achieve more. But in the spiritual world, this is not the case at all; rather, the opposite occurs. There, it is the case that for the greatest deeds, for the greatest effects—we might even say—it is not a strengthening of the positive impulse of will that is necessary, but rather a certain resignation, a renunciation. We can start from the smallest, purely spiritual facts. We do not achieve a certain spiritual effect by displaying our desires as much as possible or by being as active as possible; rather, in the spiritual world, we achieve certain effects by taming our wishes and desires and renouncing their satisfaction.

[ 6 ] Let us suppose that a person is determined to achieve something in the world through inner spiritual forces. To do so, they must prepare themselves by, above all, learning to suppress their desires and cravings. And while one becomes stronger in the physical world—let’s say, by eating well, by nourishing oneself properly and thereby gaining more strength—one will—this is merely a description, not advice!—achieve something significant in the spiritual world in a certain way precisely when one fasts or does something else to suppress and subdue one’s desires and cravings. And among the greatest spiritual effects—let us say, magical effects—there is always such a preparation that is connected with renouncing the desires, cravings, and impulses of the will that arise within us. The less we “want,” the more we say to ourselves: We let life flow past us and do not desire this or that, but take things as karma throws them at us—the more we thus accept karma and its effects and remain calm in a state of renunciation regarding everything we would otherwise seek to achieve in this life, the more powerful we become, for example, in terms of the effects of thought.

[ 7 ] In the case of a person who is very lustful, who above all loves to eat and drink well and is lustful in other ways as well, it will become apparent—if, for example, he is a teacher or educator—that the words he directs at his pupils do not achieve much; they go in one ear and out the other. He will then believe that this is the pupils’ fault. But that is not always the case. The person who has a higher outlook on life, who lives moderately, who eats only as much as is necessary to sustain life, who is primarily concerned with accepting the things that fate provides—such a person will gradually realize that his words have greater power; indeed, even his gaze can possess great power, and it need not even come to a gaze; he need only be beside the student, need only have an encouraging thought that he does not even express: this will pass over to the student. All of this depends on the degree of renunciation, of resignation toward what man otherwise demands.

[ 8 ] Now, for spiritual activities aimed at achieving spiritual effects in the higher worlds, the correct path is the one that involves renunciation. In this regard, there are many deceptions; and deceptions do not lead to the correct effects—precisely because they appear so similar on the surface. You are all familiar with what is commonly called asceticism or self-mortification. In many cases, this self-mortification can be nothing short of a form of sensual pleasure that the individual chooses out of desire—for example, to achieve great things, or even from some other source of desire, for the sake of sensual pleasure itself. Then asceticism has no effect; for it has meaning only when it occurs as a concomitant of renunciation already rooted in the spiritual. Let us now take up this concept: the concept of creative renunciation, of creative resignation. It is immensely important that we once again embrace this renunciation, this creative resignation—which we can indeed experience in the soul—as a concept far removed from everyday life: then we will be able to be led a step deeper into human evolution. For such things occur in the course of evolution, for example during the transition of development from solar conditions to lunar conditions. Something like resignation occurs in the realm of the beings of the higher worlds, of whom we know that they are connected with the progress of Earth’s development. And here we wish to consider once more the ancient solar development. But let us first draw attention to something we already know, yet which may still seem enigmatic to us in many respects.

[ 9 ] We have repeatedly drawn attention to such processes in evolution that we must attribute to beings who have fallen behind in the course of evolution. Thus, we know that the Luciferic beings intervene in the human race on Earth. We have repeatedly had to point out that these Luciferic beings intervene in our astral body during Earth’s evolution because they did not reach the stage of development they could have attained during the ancient Moon evolution. We have often used the trivial comparison that just as students repeat a grade in our schools, so too do world beings in the great cosmic evolution remain stuck at their stages of development and later intervene in the developmental stages of other beings, thereby causing effects similar to those of the Luciferic beings who remained behind on the ancient Moon, as they do with human beings on Earth.

[ 10 ] In contrast, one might very easily raise the following thought: Actually, these beings are flawed beings, the weaklings of world evolution; for why have they been left behind? That is one thought that may occur to us. But the other thought we might also entertain is this: that human beings would never have attained their freedom, their capacity for independent decision-making, if the Luciferic beings had not remained on the Moon. So that, on the one hand, humanity owes it to the Luciferic beings—in a negative sense—that it possesses desires, drives, and passions in its astral body which continually push it down from a certain height in its development, drawing it toward the lower regions of its being. On the other hand, however, if this were not the case—that human beings can become evil, that they can stray from the good through the power of the Luciferic beings in their astral bodies—they could not act freely, they could not possess what we call freedom of will, arbitrariness. We must therefore say that we also owe our freedom to the Luciferic beings. It follows from this that the one-sided view, as if the Luciferic beings only dragged humanity down, is not correct; rather, humanity must regard their remaining behind as something good, as something without which it could not have attained its human dignity in the true sense of the word.

[ 11 ] Now, underlying all that we call such a lagging behind in the case of the Luciferic and Ahrimanic beings is something much deeper, which we already encounter on ancient Saturn, but which is so difficult to discern there that we could hardly find words in any language to characterize what underlies it on ancient Saturn. When we proceed, however, to the ancient Sun existence, we can characterize it quite clearly by considering the concept of resignation or renunciation described earlier today. For underlying all such lagging behind of beings, all such working-in through this lagging behind, is the resignation or renunciation of higher beings. Thus we can see that the following occurs on the Sun. We have said that the Thrones, the Spirits of Will, offer sacrifices to the Cherubim. They offer these sacrifices—as we saw last time—not only during the Saturn period, but they continue to do so during the Sun period. So that here, too, we have gained a picture: the Thrones, the Spirits of Will, offering sacrifices to the Cherubim. And in the act of sacrifice lies the very essence of all heat or fire conditions existing in the world. During the Sun period, we can now clearly observe the following when we look back into the Akashic Records: the Thrones sacrifice and continue their sacrificial activity; so that we have the sacrificing Thrones, and we also have a number of Cherubim to whom we see the sacrifice ascending, as they take into themselves what flows from the sacrifice—the warmth. But a number of Cherubim perform something else: they renounce the sacrifice, do not participate in the act of sacrifice. Therefore, we must supplement the image we brought before our soul last time.

[ 12 ] In this image, we see the sacrificing thrones and the cherubim who accept the sacrifice; but we also see cherubim who do not accept the sacrifice, but instead return what is offered to them. This is extraordinarily interesting to trace in the Akashic Records. For because the bestowing virtue of the spirits of wisdom now flows, so to speak, into the warmth of the sacrifice, we see the sacrificial smoke rising during the time of the ancient Sun—smoke which, as we have said, is then reflected back by the archangels in the form of light from the outermost circumference of the Sun. But now we see something else as well, as if something quite different were present within the space of the ancient Sun: sacrificial smoke, which is now not merely reflected back as light by the archangels, but which is not accepted by the cherubim, so that it flows back, accumulates, resulting in accumulating clouds of sacrifice within the solar space: sacrifice that ascends, sacrifice that descends; sacrifices that are accepted, sacrifices that are rejected, that return upon themselves. We find this encounter of the actual spiritual cloud formations in the old solar space, as it were, between what we last time called the outer and the inner, these two dimensions on the Sun, like a separating layer; so that in the middle we have the sacrificing thrones, then the cherubim on high who accept the sacrifice, then those cherubim who do not accept the sacrifice but hold it back. Through this holding back, a ring-shaped cloud arises, as it were; and on the very outside we have the reflected masses of light.

[ 13 ] Imagine this picture vividly: that we have this ancient solar space, this ancient solar mass—a cosmic sphere, as it were—beyond which nothing can be conceived, so that we need only conceive of the space extending up to the archangels. Let us further imagine that in the center we have this ring formation arising from the meeting of accepted and rejected sacrifices. From these accepted and rejected sacrifices, something arises within the ancient Sun that we can call a doubling of the entire solar substance, a splitting apart. The sun in this ancient time can be compared to an external figure only if we compare it to our present-day image of Saturn: the sphere surrounded by a ring, in which these accumulating masses of sacrifice throw inward what is in the center, and what is on the outside is arranged like a ring-mass on the outside. Thus we have the substance of the sun actually divided into two parts by the force of the accumulating sacrificial powers.

[ 14 ] What, then, is the effect of such a renunciation of sacrifice on the part of certain cherubim?—This is an extraordinarily difficult subject we are approaching, and you will only be able to grasp, through slow meditation, the meaning of the concepts that are now being explained. Only by reflecting at length on the concepts presented will one discover the realities underlying them. The resignation we have spoken of must be linked to something whose origin we learned about on ancient Saturn: the origin of time. We have seen that with the spirits of time, the Archai, time actually first arises on ancient Saturn, and that it makes no sense to speak of “time” prior to ancient Saturn. Now, although there is a repetition in this, we can still say: time continues. “Continuation” is already a concept that contains time within itself. So when it is said, “time continues,” this means: When we look at Saturn and the Sun in the Akashic Records, we find the emergence of time on Saturn, and on the Sun, that time is also present. If all conditions were to continue as we have characterized them in the last two considerations regarding Saturn and the Sun, then time would form an element for all events in evolution. We could not conceive of any event in evolution without time. We have seen, after all, that the spirits of time arose on the ancient Saturn, and that time is implanted in everything. And everything we have hitherto conceived of evolution in images and imaginations, we must conceive in connection with time. If, then, only what we have mentioned had taken place—sacrifice and the virtue of giving—everything would have been subject to time. Nothing would have been exempt from time. That is to say, everything would be subject to coming into being and passing away, which indeed belongs to time.

[ 15 ] Those cherubim, then, who have renounced the sacrifice—that is, what lies, as it were, in the smoke of the sacrifice—have done so because they thereby withdraw from the properties of this sacrificial smoke. And among these properties, time stands foremost, and with it, coming into being and passing away. In the cherubim’s complete renunciation of the sacrifice lies, therefore, their transcendence of temporal conditions. They go beyond time, freeing themselves from subjection to time. Thus, the conditions of the old solar evolution are, as it were, divided in such a way that certain conditions, which continue in a straight line from Saturn, remain subject to time as sacrifice and the giving virtue of time, while the other conditions, which were initiated by the cherubim through their renunciation of sacrifice, break free from time and thereby incorporate eternity, duration, and freedom from subjection to becoming and passing away. This is something most remarkable: during the old solar evolution, we arrive at a separation into time and eternity. It is through the resignation of the cherubim during the solar evolution that eternity has been attained as a property of certain conditions that arose during the solar evolution.

[ 16 ] Just as we saw, by looking into our own soul, certain effects arising from that soul as a result of the human being acquiring self-denial and resignation within the soul, so we see—if we speak for the moment only of the old Sun—that certain divine-spiritual beings have attained immortality, eternity were attained through their resignation to sacrifice and to what could arise from the spreading gifts of the virtue of giving. Just as we saw time emerge on Saturn, so we see certain conditions breaking free from time during the development of the Sun. I have, however, said—and I ask you to take this to heart—that this is already being prepared during the Saturn era, so that eternity does not begin only during the Sun era. But it is only during the Sun era that it becomes clear and distinct enough to be expressed in concepts. On Saturn, this separation of eternity from time is so faintly discernible that our concepts and words prove insufficiently precise to characterize such a phenomenon even for the ancient Saturn and its evolution.

[ 17 ] Thus we have learned about the meaning of resignation, the renunciation of the gods during the ancient Sun Age, and the attainment of immortality. What, then, was the next consequence of this?

[ 18 ] From *Outlines of Esoteric Science*, which in a certain sense still had to remain within the realm of Maya, we know that the development of the Sun was followed by the development of the Moon, that at the end of the Solar Age all conditions plunged into a kind of twilight, into a cosmic chaos, and reemerged as the Moon. Thus we see sacrifice re-emerge as warmth. So whatever remained on the Sun as warmth, we also see it emerge on the Moon as conditions of warmth. What is a giving virtue, we see emerge as gas, as air. But resignation also continues, the renunciation of sacrifice. What we called “resignation” is contained in all that is taking place on the old moon. It is truly so: what we can experience as resignation, we must also conceive of as a force in everything on the old moon, having come over from the sun, just as we conceive of something else that exists in the outer world. What was sacrifice appears as warmth in Maya; what was the virtue of giving appears in Maya as gas or air. What is now resignation appears in the outer Maya as a liquid, as water. Water is Maya, and it would not exist in the world if renunciation or resignation were not its spiritual foundation. Wherever there is water in the world, there is the renunciation of the gods! Just as surely as warmth is an illusion, and sacrifice lies behind it, just as gas or air is an illusion, and the virtue of giving lies behind it, so water as a substance, as an external reality, is merely a sensory illusion, a reflection; and what truly exists in it is the resignation of certain entities to what they receive from other entities. One might say that water can only trickle in the world if resignation lies at its foundation. Now we know that, as the Sun progressed toward the Moon, the atmospheric conditions condensed into aquatic conditions; water first arises on the Moon; on the Sun there was no water yet. What we see during the early development of the Sun as gathering cloud masses coagulates as it presses together into a denser form, into the water that appears on the Moon, into the lunar seas.

[ 19 ] If we consider this, we will at least be able to grasp a question that may be raised. Resignation becomes water; water is, in truth, resignation. We thus arrive at a spiritual concept of a very peculiar kind for what water actually is. But we can raise the question: Is there not a certain difference between the state that would have arisen if the cherubim had not resigned themselves, and the state that has now arisen because they have resigned themselves? Does this difference express itself in any way? — Yes, it does. It is expressed, namely, in the fact that the consequences of that resignation now clearly manifest during the lunar phases. For if this resignation had not occurred—if the renouncing cherubim in question had accepted the sacrifice offered to them—they would have had, so to speak, the sacrificial smoke within their own substance; what they themselves had done would have been expressed in the sacrificial smoke. Let us suppose these cherubim had carried out this or that. Then it would have appeared, expressed outwardly, through the changing clouds in the air; that is, what the non-resigned cherubim would have done with the sacrificial substance would have been expressed in the outer form of the air. Now, however, they have rejected it and have thereby indeed passed from mortality into immortality, from transience into permanence. But the sacrificial substance is there for the time being; it has, so to speak, been released from the forces that would otherwise have absorbed it, and now need not follow the drives, the impulses of the cherubim, for they have released it, have rejected it. What happens now to this sacrificial substance? — What happens is that other beings take possession of it; by no longer having this sacrificial substance within the cherubim, they become independent of the cherubim, becoming autonomous beings that exist alongside the cherubim, whereas otherwise they would be directed by the cherubim if the latter had absorbed the sacrificial substance. This is the basis for the possibility that the opposite of resignation occurs: that beings draw the outflowing sacrificial substance to themselves and act within it. And these are the beings that remain behind, so that remaining behind is a consequence of the cherubim’s resignation. Through what they resign themselves to, the cherubim themselves provide the remaining beings with the very possibility of remaining behind. By rejecting a sacrifice, other entities that do not resign themselves—those who indulge in their desires and express their wishes—can seize the object of the sacrifice, the sacrificial substance, and are thus able to step forward as independent entities alongside the other beings.

[ 20 ] Thus, with the transition of development from the Sun to the Moon, and with the cherubim becoming immortal, the possibility arises for other beings to separate themselves, in their own substantiality, from the ongoing development of the cherubim—and indeed from the immortal beings in general. We see, then, as we now come to understand the deeper reason for this lagging behind, that the original guilt—if we are to speak of such a thing—for this lagging behind does not actually lie with those who have remained behind. It is important that we grasp this. Had the Cherubim accepted the sacrifices, the Luciferic beings could not have remained behind, for they would have had no opportunity to incarnate in this substance. In order for the possibility to exist that beings might become independent in this way, the renunciation took place beforehand. It is thus arranged by the wise guidance of the worlds that the gods have brought forth their opponents themselves. Had the gods not renounced, beings could not have opposed them. Or, to put it simply, we might say that the gods foresaw, as it were: If we continue on just as we have done, from Saturn to the Sun, free beings acting out of their own will will never arise. For such beings to arise, there must be the possibility that opponents will arise for us in the universe, that we will encounter resistance in that which is subject to time. If we were to arrange everything ourselves, we would not be able to find such resistance. We could make things very easy for ourselves by accepting every sacrifice; then all evolution would be subject to us. But we will not do that; we want beings who are free from us, who can resist us. Therefore, we do not accept the sacrifice, so that those beings, through our resignation and by accepting the sacrifice themselves, become our adversaries!

[ 21 ] Thus we see that we must not seek the root of evil in the so-called evil beings, but rather in the so-called good beings, whose resignation was what ultimately allowed evil to arise through the beings capable of bringing evil into the world. Now someone might very easily object—and I ask you to let this thought sink in deeply—: I used to have a better opinion of the gods! Until now, I have held the view of the gods that they could bring about what human freedom was meant to bring about without creating the possibility of evil. How is it that all these good gods could not bring something like human freedom into the world without evil? — I would like to recall here that Spanish king who found the world so terribly complicated and who therefore once said: if God had left it to him to create the world, he would have made it simpler. — Man, in his weakness, may think that the world could be made simpler; but the gods know better, and they have therefore not left it to man to create the world.

[ 22 ] From the perspective of the science of knowledge, we could characterize these relationships even more precisely. Let us suppose that something needs to be supported, and someone is told that it could be supported by erecting a pillar and placing the object on top of it. The person in question might then say: Actually, there must be another way to do it! — Yes, why shouldn’t there be another way to do it? Or someone might say, if a triangle is needed in a construction: Why should this triangle have only three corners? A god might perhaps make a triangle so that it does not have three corners! — But just as much sense as it makes that a triangle should not have three corners, just as much sense would it make that the gods should have created freedom without the possibility of evil and suffering. Just as three corners belong to a triangle, so the possibility of evil belongs to freedom through the resignation of spiritual beings. All of this belongs to the resignation of the gods, who thereby created evolution out of the immortal, after they had, by renouncing the sacrifice, relinquished the degree of immortality in order to lead evil back to good. The gods did not avoid evil, which alone could provide the possibility of freedom. Had the gods avoided evil, the world would be poor, it would not be manifold. The gods had to allow evil to enter the world for the sake of freedom, and to do so, they had to secure for themselves the power to lead evil back to good. This power is something that, as an effect, can arise only from renunciation, from resignation.

[ 23 ] Religions are always there to point, so to speak, through images and imaginings, to the great mysteries of the world. Today we have referred to ancient phases of development, and by adding the concept of resignation to the concepts of sacrifice and the virtue of giving, we have thereby taken another step toward truth in the face of Maya and illusion. Such images and concepts were also given to humanity through religions. And there is something within the biblical religion through which human beings can appropriate the concept of sacrifice and resignation, of the rejection of the sacrifice. This is the story of Abraham offering his own son to God, and of God’s renunciation of the patriarch’s sacrifice. If we take this concept of renunciation into our souls, then such views can enter into us, as we have already expressed them. Once I said: Let us suppose that Abraham’s sacrifice had been accepted and Isaac sacrificed. Since the entire ancient Hebrew people descends from him, God would have removed this entire people from the earth by accepting the sacrifice. Everything that descended from Abraham, God, through the renunciation of a sphere outside of Himself, thereby withdrew it from His sphere of influence. Had He accepted the sacrifice, He would thereby have taken into Himself the entire sphere that unfolded within the ancient Hebrew people, for the sacrificed Isaac would then have been with God. But instead, He renounced it and thereby left this entire line of evolution to the Earth. — All concepts of resignation and sacrifice can be understood through the meaningful image of the ancient patriarch’s sacrifice.

[ 24 ] But there is another point in our earthly history where we can find this resignation on the part of higher beings, and here too we may again point to something we already mentioned last time: Leonardo da Vinci’s painting, *The Last Supper*. For it depicts the scene where we have, as it were, the very meaning of the Earth before us: Christ. As we seek to penetrate the full meaning of the painting, let us recall those words we also find in the Gospel: “Could I not call upon a whole host of angels if I wished to escape this sacrificial death?” What Christ could accept at that moment—what would naturally be an easy option for him—is rejected in resignation, in renunciation. And the greatest renunciation of Christ Jesus confronts us there where, through his renunciation, he allows the adversary himself to enter his sphere: Judas. If we see in Christ Jesus what we can see in him, then we must see in him a reflection of those beings we have just come to know at a certain stage of development—those who had to renounce sacrifice, those whose nature is resignation. Christ resigns himself to what would happen if he did not allow Judas to appear as his adversary, just as the gods themselves once, during the Sun Age, brought forth their adversaries through resignation. Thus we see this process repeated in the image on Earth: Christ in the midst of the Twelve, with Judas standing there as the betrayer, just as the adversaries of the cosmic powers appeared. In order for that which is of infinite value to humanity to enter into evolution, Christ himself must confront his adversary. For we are reminded of such a momentous cosmic moment at the sight of the Last Supper, when we recall the words: “He who dips his hand with me into the dish will betray me,” because we see in the earthly image the adversary of the gods himself set against the gods, this is why this image makes such a powerful impression. That is why I have often said: Everything a Martian would see if he could descend to Earth, he might find more or less interesting, even if he did not quite understand it. But upon seeing that painting by Leonardo da Vinci, he would come to know, from a point in the cosmos that is connected to Mars just as much as to Earth—and to which the entire solar system is connected—something from which he would recognize the meaning of Earth. What is depicted in that earthly image has significance for the entire cosmos: the opposition of certain powers to the immortal divine powers. And as Christ appears amidst his apostles, overcoming death on Earth—thus demonstrating the triumph of immortality—we must point to that momentous universal moment that occurred when the gods separated themselves from temporal existence and achieved victory over time, that is, became immortal. Our hearts can feel this when we look at Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper.”

[ 25 ] Do not say that the person who views the “Eucharist” with a naive heart does not know all that we have said today. He does not need to know it. For the mysterious depth of the human soul lies in the fact that one need not know with the intellect what the human soul feels. Does the flower know the laws by which it grows? No, but it grows nonetheless. What need has the flower for laws, what need has the human soul for reason, to feel the utterly immeasurable greatness that exists when a God and his adversary spread out before the eye, when the highest that can be expressed—the contrast between the immortal and the transitory—stands before us? One need not know this; it passes into the soul with magical power when a person stands before this image, which is painted there for us as a mirror of the meaning of the world. And the artist did not need to be an occultist in the same sense to paint it. But in the soul of Leonardo da Vinci were the powers that could express precisely this highest, most significant reality. That is why great works of art have such a tremendous effect: because they are deeply connected to the meaning of the world order. In earlier times, artists were connected to the meaning of the world order in a dim consciousness, without their knowing it. But art would die out, would find no continuation, if spiritual science did not provide a new foundation for these matters of art in the future.

[ 26 ] Subconscious art has its past, and with its past it has reached an end. Art that draws inspiration from spiritual science is in its infancy, at the very beginning of its development. This is the art of the future. Just as it is true that the old “artist” did not need to know what underlies works of art, so it is true that the artist of the future must know, but with those forces that once again represent a kind of the infinite, that once again represent something from the full content of the soul. For spiritual science does not belong to the one who turns it back into a science of the intellect, who expresses it in schemes and paradigms, but rather to the one who, with every concept we develop —sacrifice, the virtue of giving, resignation—who, with every word, can sense something that seeks to shatter the word, the idea itself, something that can at most flow into the ambiguity of images.

[ 27 ] One can construct schemes if one believes that the development of the world takes place in abstract terms. Schemes no longer work when one wants to introduce living concepts such as sacrifice, the virtue of giving, and resignation. The three Logoi can still be represented by schemes where one thinks of the Logoi as little more than the five letters. If we wish to set before us the concepts of sacrifice, the virtue of giving, and resignation, we must paint before us images such as those we have described in recent sessions: the sacrificing thrones sending their offerings up to the cherubim, the spreading sacrificial smoke, the archangels reflecting the light, and so on. And when we move on to the lunar existence next time, we will see how the image becomes richer, how something will indeed have to be added—such as the liquefaction of the accumulating cloud masses, trickling down as lunar masses, and the addition of the flickering flashes of the Seraphim. There we must move on to richer conceptions, in response to which one will say: The future of humanity will surely find the means to procure the artistic material and artistic resources necessary to express to the outer world what can otherwise only be read in the Akashic Records.