The Rudolf Steiner Archive

First Lecture

[ 1 ] At the start of our Munich lecture series, I would like to take this opportunity—as I have done in previous years—to use the first session as a sort of introduction to what will be presented in the days to come.

[ 2 ] The first thought that may come to mind at the beginning of our cycle is perhaps connected to what we have been using to open this Munich cycle for several years now: our theosophical-artistic performances. And if I may express here the thought that comes to mind on this occasion, it is that it fills me with the deepest satisfaction that we—both last year and this time—were able to open these performances with the reconstruction of the Eleusinian Mystery. And I say this, and wish to make it very clear, that this gives me the greatest satisfaction on the occasion of this Munich lecture series. Perhaps, since we are once again able to enjoy a larger audience this year than was the case in previous years, it will not be unnecessary to repeat on this occasion a few words that I have already allowed myself to express here in Munich on several occasions.

[ 3 ] What is connected with this Mystery of Eleusis is, in fact, quite closely linked to the pursuit that we here in Central Europe have for years called our own as the theosophical pursuit. We began—years ago in Berlin, before a rather small circle, of whom only a few, very few, have actually remained faithful to the Theosophical Movement— building directly upon everything that our highly revered Edouard Schuré accomplished for the theosophical movement through the reconstruction of the Eleusinian Mystery and the presentation of the initiation, the principles of initiation from various times and peoples, thereby, so to speak, providing a kind of introduction to our theosophical movement. And now, since for years here in Munich we have been able to present so much in the form of dramatic performances of what sprang from Edouard Schuré’s soul, we may regard what we have been able to accomplish as a kind of sealing of what, for a smaller circle of us, has become bound in feelings, sensations, and thoughts precisely to this starting point of our striving. And if I were to characterize what has been bound to this, I would say: From the purely spiritual nature, from the chaste-spiritual nature in which these things presented themselves to our souls, flowed an inner confidence, an inner trust that led us to say to ourselves: if we allow these sensations, these feelings to flow into us together with what else lives in our souls for the theosophical endeavor, then we may hope that we will succeed in at least some things. That is what things themselves told us back then, when we began; that is what their serious nature, which penetrated deeply into the spiritual being, told us; and that is what the years that have passed since that time have told us.

[ 4 ] What faith could we have had back then, at the beginning, and then over the course of the last few years?

[ 5 ] The importance of the moment—I mean the moment in the context of world history—in the development of humanity could come to mind; and one could feel the thought that it is entirely natural in the evolution of humanity that, in our present time, new forces—and specifically forces of spiritual life—seek to enter human souls if these souls are to sustain themselves in the face of what the present and the very near future will demand from the innermost depths of these human souls. I may touch upon something personal—though it is not personal to me—in expressing these thoughts. Years ago, before we began our movement in Spiritual Science, I often had the opportunity to discuss various spiritual matters with the German art historian Herman Grimm, who has since passed into the higher worlds. On walks from Weimar to Tiefurt or even in Berlin, many thoughts were expressed regarding the demands of the spiritual life of our time and the demands of what is necessary for our time in accordance with nature—how humanity, in the course of European development, has sought its goals and sought to find its way in its spiritual life. One thought kept coming to the fore whenever one spoke with Herman Grimm, who was so interested in all aspects of Western spiritual life: how, fundamentally speaking, European humanity can look back on a number of centuries—or even the last two millennia—in such a way that the European person, when looking into their soul, when examining the needs of their soul and asking themselves: What can I understand, what is comprehensible to me of the human events unfolding there and which I need for my own inner life? — he can say to himself: However incomprehensible some things may be regarding the details of life, somewhere I can connect with what I myself experience when I allow the new times to unfold before my soul in their historical context. Yes, even those complexities that existed in the Roman Empire, that were present in Caesar’s time or even during the Roman Republic, appear, one might say, comprehensible to the European consciousness of modern times. One finds one’s way when one wishes to understand these souls, even if what they feel and think is often far removed from what the modern human being can feel and think. Things are quite different, however, when the soul looks back to ancient Greece. And only if one does not go deep enough, if one does not take seriously enough what one might call human understanding, can one say that, as a modern person, Greek civilization can be just as comprehensible as, say, Roman civilization and the periods that followed. It begins when one steps back into Greek civilization and allows what has been handed down from historical records—something incomprehensible—to take effect on one’s soul. And I would like to repeat the phrase, which is entirely clear and understandable, that Herman Grimm often used: A man like Alcibiades is a pure fairy-tale prince, compared to Caesar or to those who lived in Caesar’s time. Greek life appears quite different there; the human and the divine appear united; everyday life appears quite different, as does what one might call the divine shining into everyday life; the entire life of the soul that lived on the soil of ancient Greece appears quite different. Things become particularly striking when one allows those figures to take effect on the soul—figures who, in essence, can become far more alive in the modern soul than the figures of whom history tells us—when one allows the figures of a Homer, an Aeschylus, or a Sophocles to take effect upon oneself.

[ 6 ] If one starts from such a thought, one can conclude from everything that current education reveals: The further back one goes in human development, the more the human being appears to be directly connected to a supersensible realm that shines into his soul and works within it, for the dawn of a wholly new humanity is already revealed when one approaches the Greek soul not superficially but thoroughly. This is why something quite special emerges when one allows the historical works of literature that have arisen in the course of European education to take effect upon oneself. Historians write about the various eras, all the way back to Roman times, as if they had mastered them. Wherever you open a history book, you will find that the author is able to draw upon the feelings and sensibilities of his own time to bring the figures he portrays to life in a vivid and well-rounded way. In mere historiography—try to really think this through—even when the best historians are at work, the Greek figures, even those of the later Greek period, become like silhouettes, like shadow figures. They cannot come alive. Or who, having a genuine feeling for a human being with both feet firmly on the ground, could claim that any historian has ever truly succeeded in bringing a Lycurgus or an Alcibiades to life in the same way that this might be the case, for example, with Caesar? The Greek soul appears mysterious when one looks back to the times of Greek civilization. It appears mysterious to the eye that seeks to grasp it with ordinary consciousness alone. And only those who sense this mystery perceive it correctly. One might well ask: How would a Greek soul have felt about so many things that are fully perceptible and fully comprehensible to the modern soul?

[ 7 ] Let us take an early Greek soul. Let us try, using some of what Spiritual Science already offers us, to empathize with this Greek soul. One then asks oneself: What would the Greek soul have said about the figure, the depiction of the Fall, the course and the presentation of ancient history, which are so comprehensible to the later European soul? The story of Paradise, everything that later times took up as the Old Testament, would have been quite foreign to the Greek soul, as foreign as the Greek soul itself remains to the purely modern human being. The temptation in Paradise, the story of Adam and Eve, as it was lived, for example, in the Middle Ages or even in modern times—one cannot imagine it within the Greek soul in such a way that this Greek soul would fully understand the matter, understand it in such a way that, if one delves deeper into the matter, one might call it understanding. That is why it is also necessary for us, so to speak, to first prepare our souls in order to make this entirely different era comprehensible to us once again. When one harbors such thoughts, one truly senses what, in essence, our very modern times have brought us.

[ 8 ] When the curtain fell last Sunday after the final scene of The Mystery of Eleusis, I couldn’t help but think how grateful we should be that, in our time, we are able to direct our eyes and souls toward the unfolding of events that this Greek soul reveals to us through its feelings and experiences, and furthermore, to have souls in the audience who, as they observe these events, can conceive that in the evolution of humanity across the Earth, the human soul has taken on different forms from epoch to epoch, learning to perceive its surroundings and its own life in entirely different ways. Over the years we have striven to learn to understand how human souls had to live at the dawn of Earth’s development, when the outer physical body and thus the inner soul life were quite different from what they were later. We have striven to learn to understand how human souls lived in the Atlantean era and in the post-Atlantean era, and have thereby gained the ability to say: Oh, the human soul, how manifold has it lived itself out within us! The soul that is within each of us and has passed through incarnation after incarnation, not to experience the same thing, but to experience something different again and again—how manifold has it lived itself out! And so we may succeed in sitting down there in the auditorium and, for once, forgetting what must immediately move us in our own time, and in taking in, impartially and objectively, what souls in entirely different times called their own. We need not set our intellect in motion; we need only surrender to our immediate feeling, and then it will become clear to us that the events unfolding in the reconstructed Eleusinian Mystery do indeed contain within them all that souls have lived through—from the darkest depths of life up to the lights of the spirit, from pain to bliss—but that they experienced this in manifold ways over the course of time. And then, perhaps quite naively and unpretentiously—but all the more surely for it—one gains a sense of what the Greeks felt when names were spoken and mental images such as Demeter, Persephone, and Dionysus were evoked. One may be granted the opportunity to see entire worlds emerge from the depths of the soul before us when these mental images are stirred within us.

[ 9 ] As human beings, we find ourselves within the external physical world. We come to know it through our senses, through the experiences of our soul, and through what we can perceive with our intellect and reason. In a very specific way, we today feel, as it were, that our soul is independent of the external life of the nature surrounding us and of all that is hidden within nature. How human beings feel about this today is expressed in a way that the Greek soul could not have felt. The alienation from nature, the emphasis that one must leave the sensory world in order to ascend into the spiritual worlds, would not yet have been comprehensible to the Greeks. But in his own way, he sensed that there is a significant difference, a significant separation, between what one might call the spirit within the human being and what one might call the soul. These are, after all, terms for human experience, two distinct realms that initially lie in sharp contrast to one another: the soul and the spirit.

[ 10 ] Let us turn our gaze to the scene right at the beginning of the performance: Demeter, standing before Persephone in proud spiritual chastity, admonishing her not to partake of the fruits that Eros can offer. We turn our gaze to this Demeter. Everything that human beings call spiritual, everything of which they say they partake as spirit, they behold in Demeter. But they also behold how, within the earthly world, this spiritual is connected with the most sensual, with the most material. Demeter, the goddess, the bringer of crops and presider over the external institutions and moral orders of humanity—as the human spirit, chaste and proud in the face of much that otherwise lives within the human being, yet intimately connected with the external sensory world, permeating it—thus does Demeter stand before us. Persephone immediately appears before the inner eye as something that evokes in our soul the mental image of the human soul, connected to all that with which the human being is linked in his or her individual existence by virtue of the soul’s very immersion in earthly sufferings and earthly joys. The soul must feel connected to all that runs through the sufferings and joys of the earth if it is to create a mental image of what lives in Persephone. Wholly soul—Persephone; wholly human spirit—Demeter. And when we then allow the course of the Eleusinian Mystery to take effect upon us, when the fundamental tones struck at the very first conversation between Demeter and Persephone resound within us, intertwine, and find one another, and then finally approach the figure of Dionysus—how does the whole human being find itself in Dionysus, how does that which comes alive within us in relation to Demeter and Persephone find itself, at the same time, in Dionysus! And in the final scene we see a striving of the soul of humanity to harmonize its soul with the spiritual: the entire Dionysian drama—from the darkness of life up toward the light of the spirit!

[ 11 ] I am not offering commentary, nor do I wish to dissect a work of art; I merely wish to put into words the feelings that can arise from the intimate secrets of the human soul when a person is confronted with the Mystery of Eleusis. It would never occur to me to say that Demeter personifies or symbolizes a primal form of the human spirit and Persephone the human soul. That would be to do violence to the plasticity of the artwork, to apply rigid intellectual concepts to what lives in the artwork, just as human beings or other beings live with their own vitality. But what one is permitted to feel, what one can feel about the mysteries of the soul—that one may say.

[ 12 ] And now let us create mental images of two images in our minds. Let us place before our soul the later European consciousness, which is only now, in our present time, beginning to dissolve and will yearn for those forms that theosophy truly points out to it, as it has worked through the centuries: this European soul, which sensed the mysteries of life when it was presented with the mental image of how the human being, the first human being, stood there—man, woman—at an infinite distance from his God, whom he had to fear, hearing the enticing voice of a being foreign to his own human soul. Where does this being come from? What is it? How is it related to one’s own soul? The European soul, the European consciousness, scarcely thinks of seeking to enlighten itself on this matter. It accepts the strangeness of Lucifer; it is content to know that from him came both knowledge and the voice of temptation. And how do the words then resound, as if from the far reaches of the cosmos, with which the divine judgment of punishment is pronounced after the temptation! How, by their very formulation, are they suited to prevent the soul from even asking itself: Where does that which resounds out there in the macrocosm through the realms live within the soul’s most intimate, innermost life? Let one try to vividly imagine what can be conceived as a mental image of the Paradise event; let one try to feel how unnatural it would be to depict the corresponding figures involved in it in purely human forms. And now let us try to create a mental image of how natural it is that, where the most intimate, deepest matters of the Greek soul are spoken of, the human form of Demeter, the human form of Persephone, even the human form of Dionysus or Zeus stands before our eyes! Try to sense from this how infinitely close to the Greek soul was that which at the same time pervades the macrocosm!

[ 13 ] It takes only one word to describe what this is all about. That word can be spoken simply, very simply. One need only say: Before our highly esteemed Edouard Schure reconstructed the Mystery of Eleusis as we can now see it, it simply did not exist. And now we have it! One need only sense what lies in these two sentences, and then everything is said. In relation to this matter, it is something that, in my view, transcends any trivial expression of gratitude. This, however, points to the full significance that this reconstruction of the Mystery of Eleusis holds for modern spiritual life. But then, too, many a soul may admit to itself that everything connected with this Mystery of Eleusis—and what has taken place through the same author regarding the historical revival of the principles of initiation from various epochs—is something to which the deepest, most intimate aspects of the European soul-nature are destined. And there is an obligation, a sacred and solemn obligation for everyone who is sincere and serious about spiritual life, to bring precisely this kind of understanding into modern spiritual life.

[ 14 ] My dear friends! You can speak at length to people out in the world about all manner of theosophical matters; it may even be that people appear satisfied by such talk. But if one is able to look into the depths of the soul, then one knows what the soul needs, how necessary it is to give them what they may not be aware of, but what they truly long for in the deepest recesses of their hearts! It was such feelings that permeated my soul as we watched the curtain fall last Sunday after the final scene of the “Mystery of Eleusis.” And if one wishes to feel what has taken place in this way, then there is so much life in this very feeling that one acknowledges its fruitfulness and power to act in life. And if we have seen this fruitfulness, this effectiveness, in so many things over the past few years, then we can also easily overlook many other things that do not belong here today, but which stand in the way of this fruitfulness, this effectiveness, and may stand in the way even more than was the case in years past. And that I myself am not alone in this feeling—that is what the weeks leading up to our Munich performances have taught me. You see, in the first few days, as you face these Mystery plays at the beginning of our time in Munich, a number of friends from the stage, and since you all surely know those you see there, I need not—though I truly would—list the names of each individual here. But this I may well say: that all of us sitting here may feel a warm sense of gratitude toward those who, for weeks on end, with devotion—for that is necessary, even if it often does not appear so—with the devotion of all their powers, have dedicated themselves to the study and deep understanding of the characters they are to portray. And in all those whom you yourselves see on stage lives the awareness that they are servants of the spiritual world, that in our time there is a need to bring spiritual values into general human culture, and that everything must be done to bring these spiritual values into general human culture. A reverence for spiritual matters enables the performers to willingly endure many of the hardships required by the preparations for the performances. This may be said for the reason that it is, after all, connected to our entire endeavor, and because the efforts involved are truly too great for mere ambition or vanity—the desire to be viewed from the stage—to lead individuals to take on the roles of the respective characters. With special thanks, however, we must remember those who, so to speak, behind the scenes—yet perhaps even more visibly than the individual performers—have for years now, in a self-sacrificing and devoted manner, placed their skills and their striving—especially their skills, which are even more than their striving—at the service of this very cause. We may regard it as a kind of inner karma specific to our movement that we are in a position to have a person who takes care of everything the stage design requires in terms of, let us say, coverings and clothing, in terms of the performers’ costumes—if I may use this trivial, to me abhorrent-sounding word from the general theatrical lexicon—in such a way that it not only corresponds to the intentions that are dear to my own heart, but is also imbued with true spirituality. We may regard it as a favorable karma of our movement within Central Europe to have such a personality among us. And that this karma is more deeply rooted is also evident in the fact that this same personality was able to contribute in such an excellent manner to everything that has taken place in recent months, for example, regarding our “Calendar,” which, like all our undertakings, is intended to serve the great goal; so that the name of Miss von Eckardtstein may certainly be mentioned first and foremost among those who contribute in an outstanding way, not only as performers but also to the whole. Then, with the deepest gratitude, I would like to remember—and I would like to inspire this feeling of gratitude in your hearts as well—our devoted painters Volckert, Linde, Haß, and this year also Steglich from Copenhagen. I would like to inspire this gratitude in your hearts, because it truly takes something special to strive, from the depths of the spirit, to create something that is visible to the eye, something that stands before our souls. And many must remain unnamed, simply because there are too many of them. Yes, when such a stage set stands there, one does not realize that for it—perhaps only for the final adjustments, moreover, what the painter has prepared in a room much larger than this hall here—must be stretched out, and that forty to fifty people must crawl around on the floor to even get all of it into place where it belongs. Our friends gladly take on such a task; they gladly crawl around on the floor to sew on everything that needs to be sewn on, and which may then be visible from the stage for only a few minutes. Why am I saying all this?

[ 15 ] To some, it may seem entirely unnecessary to say this. But theosophy consists not merely of theories and prophecies. Theosophy consists of a devoted willingness to make sacrifices for what our time demands of us, even if we ourselves can only meet these demands by spending many days crawling on the ground to set things right—so that what is meant to be alive in our soul may come to life within us, enabling that soul to cope with the demands of the modern age. A sense must be awakened that the core of that spiritual life—which is also necessary for the future of humanity—emanates from genuine human work. Then, when one feels this, one will also understand more and more how the souls of those who wish to call themselves ‘Theosophists’ must grow together in common, serious, and worthy goals through concrete, immediate work. For what is valuable above all is what the individual does, what the individual creates, what the individual is willing to sacrifice! And what is of value is what the individual gains in resilience through disappointments. Here in this place and within our Central European movement of Spiritual Science, it may be said: Those whose karma it is, so to speak, to hold together the threads we need for the formation of the spiritual core have truly experienced no few disappointments in recent times. But while many words may have been spoken about such disappointments, one has not yet been spoken, and we would like to ask the spiritual powers that stand behind our movement and encourage it that this word need not be spoken—a word: that our dear co-workers might grow weary. As long as they move their hands, as long as they move their thoughts, we can say of our spiritual movement: They want to! And as long as they will, regardless of whether success is evident on the first day or only after centuries, as long as they will, so long will they be theosophists in the true sense of the word! If we feel united in this will—which can also endure disappointments—in true, diligent love, then we will be able to work. Then what is necessary for humanity at its present stage of development will spring from this. Our strength may be weak; we cannot bring any greater strength than we possess. But there is one thing we can do; for months we have been emphasizing this one thing, and I have had to reflect on this one thing in recent days. There were days in between our performances; many of our friends were occupied from morning to evening with the dress rehearsals. Our dear Dr. Unger had given lectures to you here in Munich during those days. It was something deeply gratifying and blissful for me when our dear friend, Director Sellin, came to me yesterday morning, full of enthusiasm about these two lectures by Dr. Unger, and said to me backstage: “A movement that has such enthusiastic representatives before the public will not perish!” For what, may I be permitted to say—allow me this sincere, honest word—do I myself rejoice in most of all, when precisely such a thing can happen? I rejoice most of all in the independent strength, in the thoroughly independent manner in which a human personality here, of its own accord, freely—without adhering solely to what I myself can articulate—justifies the matter from within, according to its own abilities! Anyone who wishes to act independently will welcome nothing more joyfully or sincerely than when an independent personality stands shoulder to shoulder beside them and offers what they are able to give, having recognized that it can fit into the whole. It was a great joy to me when Director Sellin came and—I would say as if from a child’s heart, for that is how it appeared—expressed his full enthusiasm for what he had heard. I may tell you, and I know that many will believe me, that I take the deepest joy in such independence, in such individual action, and that this is the truth. A short time before, I received a letter that said, in essence, that it would be necessary to do various things within the German Theosophical Movement, because otherwise no one would have a say except those who might parrot verbatim what I myself say. Such is often the portrayal out in the world of what the truth is! No criticism should be leveled at such a statement, which objectively contains an inaccuracy in the strictest sense of the word, nor should there be any reproach or punishment in it. One can only feel pity for such a statement. But the other aspect, which can be positive for us, must be emphasized again and again: Let us feel bound to truthfulness, to the examination of what is! And let us feel forbidden to speak of anything before we have come to know it, before we have delved into it! Otherwise, there is no blessing in occult development, in occult endeavor. Truth and truthfulness—that is the supreme law. What use are all prophecies, what use are all descriptions of supersensible facts, if they are not steeped in the bath of the most honest, most sincere truthfulness! You may receive many things from the place from which I am permitted to speak to you, regarding this or that truth of Spiritual Science; but what I would most like is for you to receive this word here: that it will always be my very own, innermost aspiration toward you to speak of nothing other than what I am permitted to speak of in the spirit of the most honest truthfulness, and that I can see the blessing of an occult movement in nothing other than in the feeling of being bound to truthfulness! It may be contrary to our wishes, it may be contrary to what our ambition or vanity demands, it may be repugnant to many things within our soul, it may be repugnant to us to submit to any authority—that may be true. There is one authority to which we should submit ourselves voluntarily and willingly: the authority of truthfulness, so that everything we can accomplish—not only in what we say, but also in what we do, in every detail of our actions—may be permeated by truthfulness. Seek this also in what we have presented before your eyes in our theosophical-artistic endeavors. Try to find it, and perhaps you will see that we have not achieved everything, but one thing you will see: that it is our aim to immerse what we do in the sphere and atmosphere of truthfulness, that we forbid ourselves to speak of tolerance if this tolerance is not truly present, if we do not truly practice it. For calling others intolerant does not constitute tolerance; telling something about someone that is different from what they stand for does not constitute tolerance; always emphasizing that one is tolerant does not constitute tolerance. But if one is truthful, then one knows one’s worth, and one also knows how far one may go. And if one is a servant of truthfulness, then one is, of course, tolerant.

[ 16 ] Such words may well have been spoken by way of introduction, although it is not usually my habit to dwell on all manner of admonitions and exhortations. But how could these words not spring from the heart on such an occasion, words meant to draw attention to how, out of a deeply shared impulse, we were able to make this reconstruction of the Mystery of Eleusis, in a certain sense, something we could return to again and again? We wanted to be honest, sincere, and truthful toward the European soul, and we wanted to seek, in the spirit of truthfulness, what the European soul yearns for. What is often the deepest is ultimately revealed in the simplest words, ultimately expressed in the simplest words. Let us learn, out of honest, sincere conviction regarding what the times require, to recognize what a feat it was to recreate this Mystery of Eleusis from the dark depths of the spirit, which begin precisely when we move from Roman culture into Greek culture. Let us feel what it means: Before the Mystery of Eleusis was created by our highly revered Edouard Schuré, it was not there, and now it is here! We have it and may rely on it, and thus on the unique way in which true Hellenism can present itself before our soul, so that it may look upon it. When we sense this, we feel the significance of that—with which we may open our Munich endeavors—this year as in the last. Then we may leave it to every single soul present here to determine with what warmth—which I am certain will be heartfelt for many—they are filled by the thought that the creator of this reconstruction of the Eleusinian Mysteries is dwelling among us precisely during this time in Munich.