The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Second Lecture

[ 1 ] To begin our discussion today, I would like to start by telling you two short stories. The first story—from which I will omit the specific details—goes as follows:

[ 2 ] Once upon a time, there were two boys. These two boys had been close friends since their earliest youth. One was exceptionally gifted, learned with remarkable ease, and, as he grew up, very soon gave every reason to hope that he would attain a higher academic degree. The other of the two boys was less gifted. Since his friend was extremely fond of him, he had to be constantly tutored by him; he needed help, and he could not learn very much on his own. At first, this did not harm his outward life all that much, as he initially had a small inheritance and lived off it. The boy who was the more gifted one, who had now grown into a young man and was soon to earn an academic degree, however, passed away. And since it is customary in the region where this story takes place to start a family very early, the other, the less intelligent one, already had to provide for the family of the deceased. He did so, but as a result, his inheritance was soon spent. He told himself, however: Since my friend’s intellectual gifts proved so fleeting, my material gifts will also be gone very soon; I must therefore now establish a material livelihood for myself. He did this by becoming a merchant. He had to travel a great deal. Once, while sitting in front of a house in a foreign region, a gigantic man sat down beside him. The man gave the impression that he had not eaten for many days and was very hungry. The other man took pity on him and had food brought to him; it was consumed very quickly. The traveling merchant saw this and was extremely astonished. And since one meal was not enough to satisfy his hunger, he brought him a second one. The big man ate that with just as much ravenous appetite, and then he said that even if he were full, he would still need a whole ham and very, very many cakes. He ate all of that as well and was then apparently full from his very substantial meal. Through this event, they had become friends, the big man and the little man, and they now continued their journey together. But the big man soon became a great nuisance to the little man, and so the latter said he could do without his company. But the big man assured the little man of his friendship and said he would not leave him, neither in sorrow nor in joy. Now the little man longed to ask the big man about his life. So the big man said: “I have no house on earth, I have no boat on the sea; by day I live in the village, by night in the city.” — At first, the Little One understood very little of these words. Then it happened that they had to cross a wide river. The boat in which they were both sitting capsized and sank. Then the two of them, the Little One and the Big One, fell into the water. The big man rose to the surface extraordinarily quickly, carried the little man to a safe spot, brought the boat over as well, and set the man inside; then he dived back down and retrieved all the merchant’s treasures that the little man had intended to transport, down to the very last item that had sunk to the bottom. Naturally, the Little One had come to have extraordinary respect for the Big One, and they engaged in many conversations, including deep ones, as friends do. So the Little One said to the Big One: “Oh, if only one could rise up to heaven with full awareness, and if only it were possible to know what is going on up there!” — Then the Big One replied: “Would you perhaps like to rise into the air?” — And when the Little One said yes, he very soon felt something like tiredness and fell asleep. When he woke up again, he saw the stars above, like threads of dust stuck in the calyx of a lotus flower in the sky; he was even able to pluck one and hide it in his sleeve. He then saw a large dragon ship approaching, pulled and steered by dragons. On it was a large barrel of water, and the Big One pointed out to the Little One, who was now with him in the clouds, that the water could be poured out so that it would then drip down to the earth. And the Little One understood that he was in the same position as the spirits of the air are when they let the rain drip down to the earth. He only asked the Great One to pour the water from the barrel over his hometown. Then he asked him to lower him back down to the earth on a rope. But the Great One said to him first: “Behold, you have now saved me; I am a son of the God of Thunder and have my duty to perform in providing the earth with rain and so on, and since I had not performed my duty properly for a while, I had to lead the life that you know.” — Then he let the little one down to earth again. He was now back in his homeland and brought with him the star he had plucked from the heavenly meadow, placing it on his table. It miraculously lit up the entire room; one could read by the light of this star, which by day looked like nothing more than a simple meteorite, but by night shone wonderfully bright. This went on until the man’s somewhat vain wife once combed her hair by the starlight; he would not tolerate this and grew smaller and smaller. One day the woman had a strange urge: swallow the stone! And the result was that the little man suddenly took on the appearance of the great man he knew so well, who said to him: “Behold, through what has now come to pass, I can reach a special stage of development. I will now be able to come to Earth for a while as the son of the God of Thunder: Your wife will give birth to me as your son; I will be your son!” — And indeed, he was born as this man’s son. This son had the ability to glow in the dark like the star once did, so that he was also called the Star Child. Thus he grew up. Although his glow diminished as he grew older, it manifested itself in the form of his great talent. He very soon became an extraordinarily significant person in life.

[ 3 ] That is one fictional story. You will now ask me, why am I telling you this story? But before I answer that, I will tell you a second, similar story:

[ 4 ] Once upon a time, there was a man whom we might call a court counselor or a government official. He had been living with his family in an exceptionally beautiful, spacious house. But after some time, something strange began to happen in that house: namely, that one could find no peace there during the day, and especially not at night; one was constantly being jostled and pinched from all sides, accused of all manner of things—in short, it turned out to be a dreadful haunting. So they left that house and moved into another. They left only one servant behind to keep watch. But this servant died very soon, after a few days. A second was soon sent; he died as well. The same happened with a third, so that they now wanted to leave the house without a servant. Then a young man arrived, a free spirit, who was supposed to be preparing for his exams and wanted to move into this house for that purpose. The court councilor warned him: one could never come out alive again, and in any case, one would experience the most terrible things. But the young man said: “I have just written a treatise on the ‘Irrealness of Ghosts,’ which proves that ghosts do not exist. I could write much more of the same, and a person who has written such a thing is not afraid of what goes on in a house like this!” — So the court councilor was persuaded to let him have the house. The young man took a whole stack of books with him that he intended to study, and sat down to begin his work. But it wasn’t long before something began tugging at him—now at one ear, now at the other, now somewhere else; in short, he was harassed in the most varied ways. And when he went to sleep, that’s when it really began. He had no peace all night, and the good free spirit began to fear in the most pitiful way. But he did not want to be exposed to shame and therefore held out resolutely. And since he had endured it so, the ghostly figures also appeared to him, bending over his books, for example, having fun covering his eyes when he wanted to read, and the like. The good man was quite courageous, but the situation was still terrifying. This went on in this manner until, through his good-naturedness, he formed a sort of friendship with the two spiritual beings who were always teasing him and harassing him from all sides. Then it came to the point where he made the discovery: they cannot read, but would very much like to be able to. And so it turned out that he set up a proper school for spirits and taught them to copy down all sorts of things that were in his books and so on. They were extraordinarily grateful for this, and so everyone had learned something. For him, dealing with the spirits had now become quite entertaining, and the spirits who lived in the house had even benefited somewhat through him. So the time drew near when he was to take his exams. He had learned so much amidst all this amusement that he hoped to be able to take the exams. But he had an enemy. This enemy managed to spread the rumor that he had cheated his way through his written exams. Since people in that country are extremely strict about such matters, and since they initially believed this, he was imprisoned for it. Now he was in prison, and they kept him locked up for quite a long time and gave him nothing to eat. One day, however, one of his spirit friends brought him food. She then brought the other one as well, and they provided him with everything he needed. Consequently, an even greater friendship developed between him and one of the spirit friends than had existed before. And the result was that, after his innocence had been proven and he had been released, he now considered his spirit friend—even though he had previously “proved” the unreality of spirits—to be so “real” that he even decided to marry her! But she said that, in the situation she was in, she could not marry, for she belonged to the spirit world. However, if he went to a certain sorcerer and asked him for advice, there would be a way out. So he went to the sorcerer, and the sorcerer gave him a magic spell, telling him: When a funeral procession passed by, his spirit friend should swallow the magic spell right at the coffin, and then she could become human and marry him. — Not long after, a funeral was indeed to take place there. So the spirit friend approached the funeral procession, swallowed the magic spell, and vanished into the coffin on the spot. People were extremely surprised to see the figure that had been visible—for she had also become visible to others when she swallowed the spell—disappear into the coffin. So they set the coffin down on the ground and opened it, but it turned out there was no corpse inside at all. The funeral could therefore not take place. Instead, after a few days, the ghostly friend came to her lover and told him that she had now become the person who had been in the coffin, and that they could now marry. And so the two, who had met in the haunted house, continued to live together as husband and wife.

[ 5 ] If you reflect a little on these two stories, you will have to admit one thing. If you leaf through all the literature available to Europeans, you will not find similar stories, even if you go back to the earliest times of belief in ghosts. One finds the spirit world intermingling with the human world. But in such a way that, the moment one reads the story, one is bound to think: one could not more naturally allow the spirit world to intermingle with the human world—you will likely not find such short stories in European literature. They are quite unique. If one follows the way these stories are told, what stands out is that, for example, in the first story it is said: A star is born as the son of a human and then continues to live on Earth as a human! — So that, so to speak, for a consciousness that thinks as the first novella is based, it is a matter of course that there are beings on the stars who are kindred to human beings, and that those who walk about on Earth as humans could actually be incarnated star beings. This lies as a matter of course at the foundation of the first story. The second story is based on the idea that a human who enters into a relationship—even a marital one—with another human being first gets to know this other human being in the spiritual world, and that this being then descends into the physical world and continues to live there. So a very similar theme to that of the first story. This very peculiar coexistence with the spiritual world—not merely as we find it in our European myths and legends, but on an entirely different basis, as we shall discuss shortly—is not encountered in this peculiar form anywhere in the entirety of European literature, unless such things have been imitated in more recent literature.

[ 6 ] Now, please recall something I said in one of my recent public lectures. As is customary in a public lecture, I spoke there about the course of Earth’s evolution and about the origin of humankind as it relates to that evolution. I pointed out that what we now call the evolution of humanity began relatively late. Today, when we speak of the evolution of the human being and of humanity, we say: When a human being enters physical life on Earth, what we call their inner core of being comes from a previous incarnation. This works within the human being within a certain scope, plastically forming the finer organs, the brain, and the finer physicality in general; in short, we have in the human being a spiritual-soul core that comes from earlier incarnations and that envelops itself in what comes from the ancestors and is carried on through the generations via physical heredity. Thus, in a human being who appears on Earth, we have a synthesis of what comes from earlier incarnations with what is carried from generation to generation and surrounds what passes from one incarnation to the next. Now I have said that this type of human development first arose during the Atlantean epoch, when conditions on Earth arose that made such a development of the human being and of humanity possible. And I have pointed out that this mode of human development was preceded by another, in which human beings did not actually enter earthly existence through the interaction of man and woman and the coming together of what comes from man and woman with what passes through the various incarnations, but rather that, if we go further back in the Earth’s development, we arrive at a completely different mode of human origin and human genesis, because the Earth only became what it has become over time during the post-Atlantean era. The last Atlantean era was not so fundamentally different from the current configuration of the Earth. But the early Atlantean period was so fundamentally different from the later one that anyone who does not take into account the fact that entirely different conditions prevailed during that time will form a false mental image of the Earth’s configuration. For the Earth, having passed through the Saturn, Sun, and Moon epochs, was not only a living being but also a spiritual being, a great organism permeated by the spiritual and the soul. We do not return to a lifeless gas ball in the sense of the Kant-Laplacean theory, but we return to the Earth as a great living being. And the development of humanity in earlier times was such that fertilization did not take place between man and woman, but between “above” and “below,” in such a way that the Earth, in its liveliness, provided the more substantial element—the more material element—while from above, like rain that pours down fertilizing over meadows, the spiritual principle came and united with the more material principle. Through this fertilization, the first human beings came into being. This is what we have shown, and what was even discussed in the public lecture mentioned earlier, and what can also be logically justified if one considers the achievements of natural science in the proper sense.

[ 7 ] Then the earth secreted a solid mass, like a kind of skeletal system, and it became impossible for it to continue yielding what it had previously provided—such as an egg to be fertilized. This had to be transferred more to the inner being of the human being. In place of fertilization from above, fertilization through the two sexes now took its place, and what had previously been imprinted through the interaction of above and below was transferred into the laws of heredity and into the laws of reincarnation associated with them. As a result, what had previously taken place on the surface was now concealed within. People appeared who were increasingly able, in the sense of a continuous process of reproduction through heredity, to pass on the qualities that humans had previously received from the spiritual sphere, or to transmit them from one reincarnation to the next. One need only recall certain things that were said at the time: how the first human beings who appeared were initially hermaphroditic, how differentiation then occurred into the masculine and the feminine, and how the present conditions subsequently took shape, so that what had previously acted more from above—the more feminine element— passed over to the woman, and what acted more within the earthly element passed over to the man through the line of inheritance.

[ 8 ] Now, from various hints that have been made over the years regarding humanity and human development, it is also clear to you that these conditions continued to influence events well into the Atlantean era, and that the current form of human development did not actually emerge until the second half of the Atlantean era. So when we look back at the Atlantean population of our Earth, we must say: This Atlantean population of our Earth actually still lived, deep down, amidst the remnants of the old conditions—the fertilization of earthly substance by heavenly spirituality. For them, the emergence of a human being was the direct embodiment, the descent of the spiritual into the material. — Just as we see the rain falling from the sky and moistening the earth, so the Atlantean population saw the human being descending from heavenly heights, uniting with a materiality provided by the earth, incarnating within it, and then walking about on the earth. Conditions changed only slowly and gradually, so that in certain regions the preparations for the present conditions had long been in place, while in other regions, where the preconditions for the old conditions had been preserved, it was the case that people knew: human beings are first up in the spiritual world and then seek out a physical substance in order to connect with the human race on earth. So when people in the Atlantean era saw their fellow human beings walking about, they said to themselves: This is indeed taken from the Earth; but what is inside is taken from the same world to which the stars belong; human beings have descended from the starry worlds. — Thus people knew something that sounds like a fairy tale from ancient times: that human beings descend from heavenly heights, enveloping and clothing themselves in earthly matter. They understood the interplay between heaven and earth, and seeing human beings placed upon the earth, they knew: Human beings descend; they are first spirits; when they take on matter, they walk upon the earth! — Thus, a heavenly being, a being from the spiritual world, was seen in the human being. For it was known: just as one walks about as a human being, one differs from spirits only in that human beings are clothed in matter, while spirits are not. There was a gentler transition from the spiritual world to the physical world. And not only would it have been nonsense for the Atlantean to deny the spiritual world, but it was also clear to him that there was, after all, no such great difference between physical human beings and spirit beings belonging to the spiritual world. They knew: one can communicate with a human being through signs, using the first elements of the human proto-language; with spirits as well, but in such a way that human communication with spirits takes place in a manner similar to that with humans.

[ 9 ] Naturally, little of this direct knowledge of humanity’s connection to the spiritual world has survived the Atlantean catastrophe. The post-Atlantean era was essentially dedicated to developing in human beings a sense of earthly existence—a sense of everything that can be gained through the development of the physical instruments, the body—so that the natural coexistence with the spiritual world very soon disappeared in the course of the post-Atlantean era. But what disappears from normal consciousness is preserved in atavistic clairvoyance, in moments when the soul is particularly at one with itself. One might say: What was once experience—what the soul undergoes by directing its gaze into the spiritual environment—is later offered anew, but reborn as imagination. Let us suppose there were some people of the post-Atlantean era who were distinguished above all by having retained the most of the characteristics and powers of the Atlantean era. Of course, this people could not have Atlantean experiences in the post-Atlantean era. But something would have to arise in its imagination that distinguishes its imagination from that of the less backward remnants of Atlantean races that have reformed. The dominant races of the post-Atlantean era will therefore give rise to this natural interaction of human beings with the spiritual world to a lesser extent. A people, on the other hand, that is particularly characterized by having brought into the post-Atlantean era—as a state of soul from the Atlantean era—what can be brought into it, such a people must exhibit entirely different aftereffects in the soul than the actual post-Atlantean races. In the case of a people that could be characterized, in the sense of the occult worldview, as not belonging to the progressive races but rather presenting itself as a remnant of the ancient Atlantean races, we would have to assume that the imagination, which tells of the connection between the human world and the spirit world, operates in a completely different way than in other peoples. In such a people, we might suppose that something of this nature will arise in the imagination in a grotesque manner, as if the being of a star suddenly resolves to incarnate as the son of a human who has bestowed favors upon that star, as is recounted in our first novella, where we see that a star being is born as the son of the befriended human, who walked the earth for a time with the spiritual being who is the son of the god of thunder. And on the other hand, we see in the second story that there is a very gentle transition into falling in love with the spiritual being up there, and that such a being does not then descend through the ordinary path of becoming human, but rather chooses a dead body and thus comes down. This is like an Atlantean soul, having often witnessed how a human descends and assumes earthly substance, having strayed into a body that is not at all suited to the post-Atlantean era, but rather to the Atlantean era, when one did not need to be born in the present manner, but simply assumed earthly matter. In this sense, we could interpret such stories as an aftereffect of earlier conditions. We would therefore not be surprised by such stories in a race that were remnants of earlier Atlantean races. And it is interesting that a series of such tales, bearing exactly the same character as those cited, were collected by Martin Buber and published under the title “Chinese Ghost and Love Stories.” This shows that what may be surmised based on what occult science reveals to us is indeed the case, even if they are merely traditions.

[ 10 ] Thus we see how we can shed light on everything we encounter in the world, if only we have the patience to truly take in the deeper connections of world development. People today will often stand before such things in amazement. But they will only truly understand them when they see that such things are simply self-evident to those who grasp the deeper connections of human development. One will not come to understand Spiritual Science better and better by pedantically demanding logical proofs, for proofs are only good for those who wish to believe the assertions; proofs are only there for those who can believe them as “proofs.” But one simply need not believe in the proofs; then one spares oneself the trouble of believing in the assertions! Spiritual Science will take root in people’s souls as it becomes increasingly evident how, even in the most secret recesses of spiritual and material culture, the laws—whose knowledge can only be gained through occult means—are gaining more and more ground. These insights will take root as more and more people have the patience to observe how everything that can be gathered from the world—when placed in the light of a spiritual worldview—coincides perfectly, and how in this way things can only receive their full illumination and true explanation, whereas otherwise they remain misunderstood.

[ 11 ] When we consider this, we will be able to say: Post-Atlantean culture has its own special task; namely, that humanity, which understands its time in the right way, gradually acquire the insights, the acts of the will, and the states of mind that can be acquired with the help of physical instruments. In this regard, it will be possible to continue advancing further and further. With this progress, we are essentially standing within the development that began precisely with the culture of the holy Indian Rishis and continued until the descent of the Christ impulse into our humanity. Alongside this, however, there is much that exists within humanity as bound, ancient spiritual heritage. European humanity was, after all, already greatly astonished that direct spiritual insights came into the world of European humanity when the wisdom traditions of India or ancient Persia could be accessed: the Krishna or Brahmanic culture, the culture of the ancient Zarathustra, and so on. Naturally, the spiritual element was more present in the older cultures than in the later products of knowledge. And when the West became acquainted with these older cultures—for example, when they were explored by German intellectual development in the first half of the 19th century, much as Friedrich Schlegel explored Indian culture, or as Persian culture was later explored—they had a startling effect. This had such an astonishing effect that, when we take this into account, we can understand philosophical currents on which Eastern philosophy had a profound influence, such as in the case of Schopenhauer or Eduard von Hartmann. Here we see the West’s initial astonishment at what has been preserved in these older cultures as a bound form of spirituality. We now face a different epoch, the epoch in which yet another entirely different bound spirituality will be able to astonish the West—namely, that spirituality which, while by no means belonging to the mission of post-Atlantean humanity, has nevertheless remained to it as a legacy from earlier times, one that was veiled right up to our own epoch within the Chinese spiritual life, which is quite unknown to the West. And it will take only one circumstance to make, so to speak, what is about to happen, a veritable force that overwhelms European Western spiritual culture, so that the latter might even forget its true mission, its true significance, and its task. The human being, who lives more and more into the future, will have to realize that the spiritual heritage bound to our earthly sphere, spiritual knowledge left over from the ancient Atlantean era, is still present to a far greater extent than emerged when the ancient Brahmanic and Zoroastrian cultures became known; this will be set free once Chinese culture is liberated in its spiritual life. Then two things will become necessary for the human being who lives toward the future. One will recognize that a significant stream of spiritual life must flow forth, which in a wondrous way will also instruct people outwardly about that which they could indeed learn if they were to enter into spiritual life along the path opened up by Spiritual Science. But if the vast majority of humanity remains in a state of slumber—to use an expression that our esteemed friend Michael Bauer employed at our General Assembly for a different purpose—in the face of what Spiritual Science has to offer, then one day, when spiritual treasures begin to flow forth from Chinese culture—albeit in a manner not suited to the European Western consciousness— spiritual intellectual wealth pours forth from Chinese culture, this portion of humanity will be astonished by it and will see that such a culture cannot be grasped with the philistine, pedantic style of the West, but only by immersing oneself in what is built upon ancient Chinese culture, what existed as the ancient Taoist culture. Spiritual Science is often unpalatable to these people because one must engage with it in such a way that one believes in it. But those who continue to cultivate their slumbering state will be astonished; yet they will also feel at ease when certain aspects of Spiritual Science appear to them as liberated Chinese culture, as a legacy from the ancient Atlantean era. Then they will even be able to say: We don’t need to believe in it, for what has remained historically is studied because it is interesting! — That is how philologists and archaeologists do it. One need not believe in it; one possesses it by studying it and is thus relieved of the need to “believe” in things. But what is thus set free will have an effect in other ways: it will work through its power, through its self-evidence, through its grandeur; it will astonish; it will shock. It will pour out over what humanity has achieved in Christian culture in such a way that one will want to have the right perspective, the right standpoint, in the face of what is to come in the form of a rusted, Sinicized culture. It will be such that one says to oneself: This spirituality was there; it once represented the spiritual culture of our earth. But every age has its own mission, and European Western culture has the task of drawing out of the sphere of worldly existence everything that can be drawn out of the spiritual, so that this spiritual reveals itself in spite of and behind the sensory world, behind what eyes can see and hands can grasp, and what presents itself to us as a revelation from the spiritual worlds. One must understand that there is a different mission from another era, and that we must stand firm on the ground that Christianity has laid.

[ 12 ] This is what will give rise to the other point of view. Thus, people will joyfully embrace what has survived from ancient times, but they will infuse it with, and experience it through, what has gradually arisen in their souls from more recent times, from post-Atlantean Christian culture. The weak, however, will say: We take spirituality wherever it is offered to us, for we want only a sensational glimpse into the spiritual worlds! — Thus there may be certain new kinds of theosophists who will say: The truth does not lie in the deeply grasped Christ principle, but in what the Chinese have preserved, which reappears when they bring forth the Atlantean wisdom that has sunk into the lowest layers of the soul. — And perhaps a new esoteric teaching will spread across Europe, copied from Chinese truths, which will then say: If only this modern theosophy had a model in such a theosophy that did not see its task in drawing the source of spiritual life from Christian mysticism and Christian love, but rather copied—and quite poorly at that—the wisdom of ancient India, somewhat embellished with the wisdom of ancient Egypt. — And the weak might look just as greedily toward Chinese culture as the weak look toward what they believe ancient or even modern Indian culture offers in terms of spirituality. For the European, too, China lies just as far beyond certain waters as India does. And if one were to tell people that in China, with the help of forces that have now been unleashed once more, certain revelations have taken place, this might seem more credible to them than if such a thing had taken place in Berlin.

[ 13 ] If we bear this in mind, we will find the right balance between joyfully embracing what has been preserved for humanity from earlier spiritual ages and standing firmly on the ground to which humanity has arrived in the course of its historical development. That this balance be observed, that this balance be truly taken into account—this is and will remain the constant concern of the spiritual movement we call our own. Therefore, it is simply untrue when it is said anywhere that we deny or disregard, for example, what Indian spirituality has to offer. That is untrue. And anyone who has participated in our spiritual movement knows that this is a falsehood. And it would be sad if such falsehoods were to take hold out in the world as characteristics of our movement. It is easy to deal with opposing opinions; they tend to balance each other out. But with what is misrepresented, one can provoke misunderstanding upon misunderstanding, for it is the peculiar nature of misunderstanding that it perpetually gives birth to new misunderstandings. From this perspective, our first task must be, when we ourselves take the standpoint to which Western development has brought us, to be aware of the extent to which this standpoint is justified in relation to the other phases of human development. On the other hand, however, we must be mindful that all the characteristics we provide regarding other phases of human development, regarding other spiritualities, are based on an honest, truthful presentation. And it must be emphasized again and again, for it must take root in the hearts of theosophists: even if much of what we have gained in spiritual insight may fade away, the pervasive character will remain. And we should strive toward this: that whatever may appear before our spiritual eye, however things may present themselves to us, we let everything be permeated by the pursuit of honesty, sincerity, and truthfulness! And if in the future one may perhaps be able to say nothing else regarding the particulars found here than: some things have been improved, some things have not remained at all, but an example has been provided that even in the occult realm, in the realm of spiritual research, charlatanism and humbug need not always play a role in serious research, but that despite all striving for occult knowledge, this can be permeated by truthfulness, sincerity, and honesty: an example of this has been provided—if this can be said of our movement, then a good service has been rendered to the development of the spiritual and truly occult movement through our movement. And it may perhaps be recognized by us as our finest achievement that we wish to admit nothing, absolutely nothing, of which one will not be able to speak in the future in the manner just indicated.