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The Forming of Destiny and Life after Death
GA 157a

14 December 1915, Berlin

5. Concerning the Subconscious Soul Impulses

We have devoted the recent lectures to considering from a certain point of view the life which runs its course behind the ordinary life which in normal circumstances, or to ordinary science, is embraced by our physical consciousness. Fundamentally all our considerations are directed to that life, which transpires beneath the threshold of ordinary consciousness. And we seek to characterise it from the most varied sides, as must be done in Spiritual Science.

A certain security is connected with the external physical perceptible reality, in that one beholds it. But physically, even for those who do not undergo the necessary training whereby they can themselves rise into the spiritual worlds, yet through illuminating these worlds from different sides which harmonise, a certain wisdom is created, and this may create a feeling of security.

Especial attention is drawn to the fact that man is not only in the world which he beholds with ordinary consciousness. Beneath the threshold of ordinary consciousness a life takes place which, unless one goes through the Portal of Initiation, is not grasped by the consciousness. This remains unknown to ordinary human life. Much takes place in the world with reference to the whole entity that comprises a human being; that which man knows while living in the physical body is merely one part of what really occurs; and all the efforts made to get into touch with the spiritual world, consist in trying to see something of the life which transpires beneath the threshold of ordinary consciousness. By means of a widening of this consciousness we try to cross the threshold and perceive that in which we really live, but which is not perceptible to our ordinary consciousness. As I have said, a certain adjustable threshold exists between the ordinary consciousness and that of which—and this expression has a certain meaning for us—we are unconsciously conscious.

In the last lecture I gave a very pointed example. A man proposes early in the morning to accomplish something that night. He lives, as it were, in the thought, that he will carry out his plan during the evening. At mid-day something occurs which prevents him from fulfilling his intention. To the ordinary consciousness this occurrence would seem to be an accident. But if one looks deeper into human life, one discovers wisdom in the so-called accident, but a wisdom that lies beneath the threshold of consciousness. One cannot really perceive this wisdom with the ordinary consciousness, but one very frequently discovers in such cases that if hindrance had not occurred at mid-day the man would perhaps have been brought into some disastrous situation through undertaking the proposed project during the evening. As I said, he might perhaps have broken his leg. But when one knows the connection, one discovers that wisdom lies in the entire occurrence: that the soul herself sought the obstacle and put it in the way, but with intentions lying beneath the threshold of consciousness. Now that is something which is still close to the ordinary consciousness, but it points below to a region to which man belongs; to which he belongs with the concealed parts of his being, those parts which, after he lays aside the physical body, go through the gate of death. This region belongs to that ruling consciousness, of which we spoke in the public lecture, as the beholder of the actions of our will. This spectator is really always present. He guides and conducts us, but the ordinary consciousness knows nothing of him, A great deal goes on in the intervals between the events which we perceive. In all this, especially in what takes place between the events of life, and in what transpires beneath the threshold of consciousness, there is prepared, as the living being is prepared in the egg, that which we shall be after we have passed through the gate of death. And now something on which we dwelt in our last consideration, must be brought into connection with much that should be well known to us from earlier lectures.

I have often pointed out how important and essential memory is for man, in so far as he stands here in physical consciousness, and that this memory should not be severed. We must remember back to a certain point in our physical experience, or at least have the power of tracing the continuity of our life. If this connecting thread is sundered, if we cannot remember definite events, so that at least we have the consciousness that we were in existence when these events took place, then a serious psychic illness appears, to which I have referred in a recent lecture. This memory forms part of our experience here in physical consciousness. But it is also, in a certain sense, a veil; it hides from us those events to which I am now referring, which lie behind the ordinary consciousness, and especially behind that veil woven by our continuous memory. Just think: we are first infants; then we traverse a period of consciousness which we do not recollect. Next comes the time to which we can always remember back in later life. This begins a continuous series of memories. At a certain time, either in the second, third, fourth year of life, or even later with some people, we must recollect becoming aware of the individual self, the Ego. When we thus look back into ourselves, our soul gaze meets this memory, and in so far as we are physical men here, we really live inwardly in these memories. We could not speak of ourselves as ‘I,’ unless we did retain this memory. Anyone who observes himself, recognises this. When he looks into himself, he really looks into the region of his memory. He regards, as it were, the tableau of his memories. Even although all we have experienced may not arise in our memory, yet we know that memories might arise, as far back as that point already described. We must presuppose that we have been consciously present with our Ego in all these memories, and have been able to retain them. If that were not so, the continuity of our Ego would be disturbed, and a soul disease would appear. But behind what we notice in memory there lies that which is seen with spiritual eyes and heard with spiritual ears. So that what I have already explained in public lectures is absolutely correct. When we look into the spiritual world, we use the same force which we otherwise employ in memory. That does not mean that we necessarily lose our memory on acquiring spiritual sight, but it does mean as already characterised in a public lecture, that it is not always possible to remember what we perceive spiritually, we cannot always take it in, for it to live in the memory; for we must always behold it over and over again and always behold it afresh. I have often said, for example, that if one gives a lecture on what one really sees in the spiritual world, one cannot do this from memory in the same way as one can speak of ordinary things, for one must bring it ever again out of the spiritual world. That which lives in the thought must be produced anew. Both the soul and the spirit must be active in such a case and must bring forth the things afresh. When the spiritual seer really looks into the spiritual world that which is usually the veil of memory becomes transparent, and he uses it to look through. He looks, as it were, through the force which otherwise fashions his memory, and looks into the spiritual world. If a student performs his occult exercises with strength and energy, he notices that in ordinary life he uses his power of thought to gain knowledge of the things and events of the world, with the support of the body as a physical instrument which enables him to form real conceptions of these things. The concept supported there by the activity of the physical body remains in us as a memory. When, however, we enter the spiritual world we must be continually active in order to call forth the concepts anew. When we reach the point which I characterised in the public lecture, where one can do nothing but wait until the secrets of the spiritual world reveal themselves—a ceaseless activity begins. But one must participate in this. Just as when drawing one has to be continually active, if one wishes to express anything through the drawing, similarly, when the spiritual world reveals itself, the imagination must actively co-operate. What it produces arises from the objective reality, but man must take part in this production of concepts. In this way we contact something which is continually active in man—in the two-fold man, of which I have already spoken—but which is concealed in us, which lives within our physical covering beneath the threshold of our ordinary physical consciousness. One connects oneself with this being. Then one notices the following: here in the physical world one is so united with it that one stands on a firm basis. One sees other things in the outer world and moves about among them. One enters into certain relations with other men, to whom one does this or that and from whom one suffers this or that. We spend the life which we embrace with the ordinary consciousness in the continuous comprehension of what we develop in this way, but behind it there lies another, a life following definite laws, which we do not perceive with the ordinary consciousness; in this life we share, when, between going to sleep and waking, we live in the astral body and Ego. Our consciousness is, however, then so lowered that we cannot perceive with ordinary senses what position we occupy in a spiritual world which pursues its own course, which continually lives around us, and while yet being super-sensible and invisible weaves itself into the sensible and visible.

Above all we must understand this world as spiritual, and not think of it as a duplicate, a simply more refined physical sensible world; we must conceive of it as spiritual. I have often drawn attention to the reason why just in our time there must be produced from out the fountain of all human knowledge, that which, as carried on by us, relates to the spiritual world. For truly, not only because of the facts which present themselves to the spiritual investigators who have to impart truths concerning the spiritual world, but from the whole course of our civilisation (I have drawn attention to this from various standpoints), it is evident that in humanity a certain longing is arising to open the soul to the hidden side of human life, and to learn something of it. I have already brought forward phenomena in scientific life and elsewhere, which show how this longing lives at the present time.

To-day I should like to add to our considerations a quite special example, from which we can see that already in our day there are people who to a certain extent touch on these secrets of existence. They divine and know something of these mysteries of existence, but for reasons which we shall presently examine closer, they do not wish to approach them in the manner practised by Spiritual Science. The easiest way to bring these things before people is to leave them more or less undecided, leaving, as it were, the door open, by saying: ‘You need not believe these things. You need not think of that world as real.’ In our time there are plenty of examples of this. I have given instances. I shall bring forward an especial case to-day in reference to this point. I shall introduce into our considerations a few remarks about a really extraordinary and significant novel of modern German literature. I might call it a pearl among German novels. It is called Hofrat Eysenhardt. It is really one of the best novels to be found in the more recent literature of Germany and in it, in a really wonderful manner, only one single individual is depicted: namely, Hofrat Eysenhardt himself. He lived in Vienna and became a lawyer, and later President of the local court. He became one of the greatest lawyers of his country. He was feared by all those who had anything to do with the law, and beloved by those associated with him, for he was a most distinguished criminologist. His eloquence was such that he could get anyone convicted who came within his clutches; during the trial he subjected him to a crossfire, and with a certain indifference to human life he was able so to harass his victim (one can use this expression here) that whatever happened, he was trapped. Thus this Hofrat Eysenhardt was, in his external life, a very remarkable man. He had not much talent for entering into psychic relations with other men. He was a kind of hermit with regard to human life; he laid great stress on being correct and blameless in external life; with his subordinates he exchanged but few words, but with his superiors he was not only friendly, but deeply courteous. I could bring forward many more characteristics; he was a model advocate. We need not enter now into his other qualities, they are wonderfully brought out in the novel, reflected in the statement of a subordinate, but we may go to the occasion when he was once chosen to conduct an important case against a notorious man named Markus Freund. This Markus Freund had already suffered punishment in a lesser degree for offences similar to the one of which he was now accused. But it never occurred to the examining magistrate who made the enquiry, that there was any possibility of bringing about a conviction on this occasion. Yet Hofrat Eysenhardt obtained one. And in a document which the Hofrat himself then drew up for a purpose which we shall presently disclose, he himself describes the manner in which Markus Freund behaved during and especially after his conviction. Let me read the passage: ‘This man, who possessed the strong family affections so characteristic of his race, had a special tenderness for a young grand-daughter, of whom he was never tired of speaking with his fellow prisoners. He could hardly await his release, which he confidently anticipated in spite of the severe suspicions laid on him, so much did he long to see the child again. Markus Freund obstinately denied everything, and in the preliminary trial before the magistrate was so well able to explain away each of the suspicious circumstances with a sagacity truly astounding, that the magistrate, a very efficient, although excessively soft-hearted man, was firmly convinced of Freund's innocence until the closing proceedings began, presided over by the person to whom this information refers.’ (Hofrat Eysenhardt writes that himself, he writes of himself in the third person.) Although Markus Freund even in the final trial exerted his sagacity to the utmost, and his advocate made a very beautiful and touching speech (of merit even according to the newspapers) yet the verdict was exactly the opposite to that expected by the magistrate, and perhaps by the defendant himself. Markus Freund was unanimously convicted by the jury and, as there were many previous convictions and aggravating conditions in his past, he was condemned to the severest penalty, twenty years' imprisonment. The person concerned (none other than Hofrat Eysenhardt himself) might well without presumption, regard this verdict as one of the greatest triumphs of his many years of criminal practice. For the jury would have been deceived by the truly bewildering sophistry of Markus Freund—although public feeling at that time was not favourable to men of his race—had not the President been able, by his superior eloquence to crumple this sophistry into nothing. ‘The effect of the verdict on the defendant was such’ (the Hofrat himself is still relating this) ‘that it required hardened nerves, accustomed to such outbreaks, not to be shaken as to the truth and justice of the sentence. First Markus Freund stammered a few incomprehensible words, probably in Hebrew. Then this bowed man, of barely middle height, drew himself up to his full height, so that he appeared huge, and lifted the heavy lids which usually almost covered his eyes—showing the blood-shot whites of his rolling eyes. And from his distorted mouth he rapidly hissed forth a stream of bitter curses and threats directed against the President. To repeat them here in the offensive jargon in which they were poured forth, would hardly harmonise with the respect due to the law. Only the first sentence may be quoted: “Mr. President! You know as well as I do myself that I am innocent;” and the last, “This shall be repaid to you. An eye for an eye, it shall be paid back to you. You shall see!” The rest of his speech was entirely fantastic and appeared, in so far as it had any sense at all, to amount to this: he, Markus Freund, had probed the noble President with his eyes to the very depths and discovered, that even though noble, the President was not aware of it, he was nevertheless of the same sort as himself; he the down-trodden, but this time, innocent Markus Freund. The officers immediately did their duty and seized the offender, to whom the President immediately awarded disciplinary punishment for his outburst. While the soldiers, each holding one of his waving arms, led the accused away, his fury broke out in weeping and sobbing. Even in the corridor one heard his dull moaning: my poor, poor little girl, you will never see your grandfather again. The jury were greatly distressed at this incident, and questioned the President through their foreman as to whether it would not be possible to try the case again immediately. Through their insufficient knowledge of the law they had not enough experience to know that outbursts of this kind occur more often with very hardened blameworthy criminals, than with innocent defendants, who really are much scarcer than the sensational minds of the public imagine. Less excusable was the fact that the above-mentioned soft-hearted Vice-President, who was present at the pronouncement of the sentence and its disagreeable sequel, took upon himself to say to the prosecutor, gently shaking his head, “Mr. President, I do not envy you your talent!”’

‘So Markus Freund was now imprisoned and the Hofrat lived on. But how he lived and what now happened he relates in his statement. We must presuppose that some considerable time has elapsed, and the accused had been a long time in prison. Now the following occurred: ‘Just as the person in question’ (the Hofrat relates this of himself) ‘had seen him at the moment when he uttered those threats and curses against him, with a face distorted with fury, precisely so did the long-forgotten Markus Freund come before his mind in the night between the 18th and 19th March, at 2 o'clock, when he suddenly awoke without cause.

‘Thus the Hofrat suddenly wakes up in the night between the 18th and 19th of March, at 2 o'clock, and has the impression in his mind that Markus Freund was standing before him.

‘And while he lay motionless, as in a trance, the above-mentioned events recapitulated themselves in imagination with lightning speed. He was not clearly conscious whether in the intervening years he had thought much about the occurrence or not. Both alternatives appeared equally correct to him at that moment, for horror weakened his power of thought.

‘Thus Hofrat Eysenhardt woke up in the middle of sleep, was forced to think of Markus Freund and to recapitulate what had happened, but he did not know whether he had previously often thought of it or not. ‘While he lay thus with throbbing heart, an impulse arose immediately to light the candle on the table, but he could not. (He could not move his hands). It was as if something gently tapped at the bedroom door, or rather a timorous scratching, as if a little dog was begging to be let in. Involuntarily the question formed itself: “Who is there?” There was no answer, nor did the door open, but nevertheless he had a feeling that something slipped in. The floor creaked slightly, the sound passing across the room from the door to the bed, as if this invisible something came nearer, and finally stood close to him. Anyhow he had the indescribable feeling of a strange presence, and not of an indefinite, unknown presence, but it seemed to him as if this “something” must be that Markus Freund, the sudden recollection of whom had roused him out of a deep sleep. He even felt as if this invisible presence bent over his face. Now, whether he fell asleep again without being aware of it and dreamed, and—as you know—the dreams and the people of whom one dreams are frequently confused with one another, or whether certain exaggerated ideas of Schopenhauer as to the secret identity of all individuals stirred in him as the after effects of what he had been reading during the last few days, at any rate the senseless thought flashed through his mind that he and Markus Freund were fundamentally one and the same person. And as if in confirmation of this idea, silly as it was and contrary to all logic, he repeated, whether merely inwardly, or outwardly and audibly, he knew not, the above-mentioned curses and threats of Markus Freund as far as he could remember them, and indeed with the horror-struck feeling that each curse was now beginning to fulfil itself. Now whether, as was not impossible, he had fallen asleep and dreamed, certain it is that he awoke with this terrible impression and lit the candle. The clock registered ten minutes past two. Everything in the room was as before, although furniture, walls, and pictures appeared strange to him, and he had to drink a glass of water and wait a little while to recover himself and realise where he was.’

He relates all this himself and says, that first he had this vision, as we may call it. Now, this made such an impression on him that he was driven to go immediately—though still somewhat shaken—to the Court, and look up the documents relating to Markus Freund. But he was not able to do so; something else occurred—Hofrat Eysenhardt had always been a quiet, open-minded man, and he merely relates what happened to him. We shall shortly see why he relates it. Indeed, he considers himself somewhat ridiculous and unworthy to have yielded to it.

‘In vain did he tell himself how absurd and ridiculous his conduct was. His former iron will was in this respect weakened, and remained so. It barely sufficed to conceal from his colleagues the inner torments which were always present with him. One morning, passing a group of legal officials who were engaged in heated conversation in a dark corridor, he thought he heard the name of Markus Freund.’

One day when he went to the Court-house, he really lacked the courage to again take up these documents, but in passing a corridor where several people were conversing he heard the name of Markus Freund.

‘Now, as this man and his name had gradually become a fixed idea in his mind, and never gave him any rest, he regarded a self-deception as not unlikely, and he stopped and asked the gentleman of whom they had been speaking? “Of Markus Freund, of your Markus Freund, Herr Hofrat, don't you remember him?” answered one of the gentlemen, who happened to be the soft-hearted magistrate who at the time had made that rash remark. “Of Markus Freund? Why? What has happened to him?” He could hardly breathe. “Why he is dead. By the grace of God the poor devil is now free,” the soft-hearted one answered. “Dead? When?” “Oh, he died in the night between the 18th and 19th of March, at 2 o'clock.”’

Thus the story relates that Hofrat Eysenhardt had convicted Markus Freund, who was imprisoned for a long time. During the night between the 18th and 19th of March, Eysenhardt wakes up, sees Freund in his thoughts, and then has a vision of his appearance. He is terribly frightened, wants to look up the documents, but allows several weeks to pass. Finally, he overhears a conversation, whereby he learns that Markus Freund died at the very time he appeared to him, creeping into his room like a little dog.

Now, in order to understand all that has been related, the conclusion of the novel is necessary. For this shows that the Hofrat was now urged by circumstances, and indeed by such circumstances that one could not have supposed would have this effect upon him. As President of an especially important trial of a case of espionage he was necessarily brought in connection with certain people. Now, in his connection with them and guided by a dim instinct, he is led to commit the very same offence of which he had convicted Markus Freund. And later, after he had been dragged by passion into crime, he had occasion to remember in a quite special manner the words spoken by Markus Freund after his trial: ‘This shall be repaid to you. An eye for an eye, you shall see.’ Thus something had lived beneath the threshold of the Hofrat's consciousness which was definitely connected with his previous deeds, and which was also connected in a remarkable and mysterious way with the fulfilment of what the dead man had threatened him with. Indeed, there is an even deeper connection. The author of the novel wrote in the first person, as though many of the things about Hofrat Eysenhardt had been related to him personally, and he writes that he had a conversation with one of his subordinates (this conversation occurs in the novel). And this subordinate, who was an extraordinary sagacious, philosophically inclined man, said: ‘This Hofrat was specially gifted with the power to penetrate to the depths of these things because he had a strong disposition towards them himself. And so he penetrates deepest into the cases which appeal to him most.’ That is related in the novel. Now, it is interesting that in the night of the 18th to the 18th of March, at 2 o'clock, the thought arises in the Hofrat, ‘You and this Markus Freund are practically identical.’ This unity, this uniting of the consciousness appears evident to his soul; he has an insight into a connection which lies beneath the threshold of ordinary life. This is revealed to him. Naturally it is not revealed to him in the same way as to others, for cases vary, but this disclosure comes to him. Now, it is interesting that the author of this novel has brought together all the materials possible to make the event comprehensible. And we must also recollect what this author mentions as preceding the vision which the Hofrat had during the night. The Hofrat was really a robust man; as has been said, many characteristics could be brought forward which show him to be a man who did not go soulfully through life, but was one who pursues his way with a sort of brutality, caused by a certain inner robustness. Only, as it were, through an outer symptom could this man, who had never been led astray and who was always sure of himself, become a wrong doer. The outer cause was this: he discovered a tooth had become loose and that he could easily remove it with his fingers. The thought then flashed through his head, ‘my life is now on the wane. Something has begun to decay.’ He could not get the thought out of his head: ‘In this way I shall lose my health, little by little.’ That would not have been so bad, the worst was that from that moment (only he did not notice it, but ruminated over his own decay, as he himself shows in his letters, wherein he describes himself in the third person), from that moment his memory began to fail. His memory was such a help in all his professional work that he develops a certain anxiety about life. He noticed that he could no longer remember certain things which formerly could be recalled so easily. Just consider how interesting it is that the novelist brings forward the possibility of developing a partial clairvoyance as the memory begins to decline. Then his memory becomes better again. He decides to record this, and remembers what his state had been. He, as a freethinker, cannot suppose otherwise than that all this was a part of a diseased condition. And he reflects: ‘thus I am really in danger of going mad.’ That conclusion would be natural in a freethinker. He is ashamed to seek advice and therefore he takes advantage of his position to write in the third person. He then places the document before a physician for mental diseases, as the case of some unknown person, and in that way he hoped to get medical advice. Thereby it happens that the novelist uses this document to impart something of the psychic life of this man.

You see that we have here a really beautiful work of art, which indeed points to those elements of which we have to speak in Spiritual Science, just those elements of which one speaks when dealing with the connection between the power of memory and the perception into the spiritual worlds. The novelist accomplishes that beautifully by causing the memory to fail the moment certain ‘shreds’ of these secret connections become evident to the person in question. And the whole narrative is very extraordinary, for it is so constructed in its various parts that one sees that the author realises that there are such connections behind life. Only he clothes the knowledge in the form of a novel. The novel is very cleverly written, and could only be written by a philosophical mind. It is written by one who was for many years the Manager of the Hamburg Theatre, and who later became Manager of the Vienna Burg-Theatre. This novel is really not only one of the best he has written, but is one of the pearls of German fiction. Naturally I do not say this because it is written around a subject deeply interesting to us, but because none but a man of very fine perception could have such delicate observation in an apparently abnormal matter. What I have said as to the merit of this book is purely from an artistic standpoint. It is really so written that the reader has the consciousness: the author has written a novel, but he might just as well have written a biography of Hofrat Eysenhardt, so realistically does he write. And we see in such a novel that Berger must have known a man who really had such experiences in the course of his life. One cannot help saying: how natural it would be for such a man as Alfred Freiherr von Berger to approach the spiritual world so that through Spiritual Science he might learn to know the real connections. How infinitely important would it be for Berger to have studied Spiritual Science, so that he would have been able to say, for example, ‘What will Hofrat Eysenhardt have to experience in the time which immediately follows the passage through the gates of death, in what we have always called Kamaloka, after having caused an innocent man to be convicted?’ As I have told you: man then has to experience the effects of his deeds, and the significance which his deeds have for others in connection with whom they were committed. What the Hofrat had done at the trial afforded him a tremendous satisfaction at the time, especially his great power of oratory. He had great satisfaction, which he expressed by saying: ‘He regarded it as meritorious that he prevailed against the sophistry of the prisoner, and delivered a speech which urged the jury to convict him, although they regretted it immediately afterwards, when they saw the effect of their verdict on the accused.’ That is the thing as seen from this side of the Hofrat. From the side of Markus Freund it is a very different matter, here we see the effect of the sentence upon him. The effect of this on his soul the Hofrat has to experience in Kamaloka. And a reflection, a picture of this reveals itself in the very moment when Markus Freund himself goes through the gates of death. This so discloses itself to him that he now sees himself as identical, as one with this Markus Freund. He sees himself in Markus Freund. He feels himself also within him. We see that the Hofrat had a foretaste of Kamaloka. This is so powerful that he not only experiences what had happened previously, but something which is intimately connected with the whole matter transpires further in him beneath the threshold of his consciousness. Each single detail is of importance. I told you that he had lost his memory for a while, during which this part of the spiritual world unveiled itself to him. But now comes a time when he is endowed anew with a great natural power of memory. Memory reinstates itself in him again, when he tried the case of espionage. But in the course of this very trial he is driven to commit the same offence for which through his eloquence he had caused Markus Freund to be convicted. The force which formerly proceeded from memory was transformed into the force of instinct, and this drives him. He does not now see the connection which was subconsciously working between what he was now himself doing, and what he had ascribed to Markus Freund. This leads to the following: Hofrat Eysenhardt, when he sees what has happened to him, the very evening preceding the conclusion of the law suit in which he was to accomplish his greatest triumph, goes into his office ...'

Having entered his once, the key of which he had with him, he lit the two candles on the writing table, washed his hands, face, and hair; then changed his civilian attire for his uniform, and for a long time paced up and down. Then he opened the top drawer of his writing table and took from a parcel a new revolver and a packet of cartridges which he had probably bought at the worst time of his nervous breakdown. He carefully loaded every chamber, then took from the paper-rack a sheet of official paper and wrote the following:

“In the name of His Majesty the Kaiser! I have committed a serious offence and feel myself unworthy to exercise my office further, or to live any longer. I have condemned myself to the severest punishment, and in the next few minutes shall execute the same with my own hand. EYSENHARDT. Vienna, 10th June, 1901.”

Neither writing nor signature betrayed a trace of even the slightest nervousness. Next morning he was found dead.

A quite remarkable connection is described in this novel, and we must say that the author was well qualified to see the connection existing between that which transpires here in the ordinary consciousness and that which happens beneath the threshold of consciousness, that is, he could see the spiritual events in which man is entangled. Exoterically one only sees the happenings of the physical world: that the judge convicted Markus Freund, and so on. If that had not happened just at that time when the lawyer became confused and lost his memory, he would not have seen these threads of the spiritual world. They would not have revealed themselves to him; and all this would have remained subconscious. A novel such as this is sent out into the world from the following standpoint, so to speak. ‘There is certainly something behind life, which in certain special cases cannot but be recognised. But if one speaks of this people do not like it. It is uncomfortable to approach such realities. So it is related as a novel and then nobody need believe it; if it merely amuses people that is all right.’

Now, that which holds people off from the spiritual world is something of which they are not aware. The way into the spiritual world goes, as it were, in two directions. In the first we push aside the veil of nature and investigate that which lies behind the phenomena of external nature. In the second we push through the veil of our own soul life, and seek what lies behind that. The ordinary philosophers also seek to probe behind the basis of existence; they seek to solve the Cosmic riddle. But note—how do they do this? They either observe nature directly, or through experiments, and then think it over afterwards. But while one puzzles out these ideas acquired through the knowledge of nature, turning them over and over again in one's mind, and interlacing them, one does certainly arrive at a philosophy, but not at anything really connected with the true outer reality. We can never get behind the veil of existence by reflecting on that which presents itself in outer nature. I expressed this as follows, in a public lecture: ‘That which causes our eternal forces is active, in that it first produces in us the instrument with which we approach our ordinary consciousness.’ But if we are to build up our ordinary consciousness, we must use this instrument. When we enter the experience of ordinary consciousness, everything which the eternal forces make in us is already completed. Hence when through meditation we reach this stage we notice that we cannot penetrate the secrets of nature by means of reflection, but by quite different means. If, as I have described in my public lectures, we strengthen our thought through meditation, and the revelation of the spiritual world comes to us through grace, we then behold nature quite differently. Even human life itself has a different aspect then. We then approach nature, and while taking in any process or object or event that meets us, we have at the same time the consciousness, ‘Before you really see a rose, something else takes place.’ True, you first see the perception, the realisation; but that perception has first fashioned itself. Into the perception is inserted the spiritual; therein lies the memory, the memory of the previous thought. To get behind the secret in this way through spiritual research, that is the secret. The philosopher beholds the rose and then philosophises about it in his rejections. But he who wants to get behind the secret of the rose may not reflect, for if he does, nothing happens. He must behold the rose and be aware, that before it comes through to his sense consciousness, some process has already taken place. It appears to him as a memory which preceded the perception. The whole matter turns on this; that something like a memory transpires, which tells us: ‘I did this before I reached the sensible perception; so that as regards external nature a previous thinking has taken place although it remains subconscious, and then it is brought to the surface as a memory.’ One cannot penetrate the secrets of nature through afterthought, but through forethought. Just as little can one penetrate the secrets of that which fills the soul, in any other way than by really approaching that spectator, of whom I have often spoken. Note well, these are the ways by which we can enter the spiritual world to-day.

You will remember that in the novel a shred of the spiritual world reaches the perception of Hofrat Eysenhardt after he realised the processes of decay in himself, and this is a peculiar illustration of what I have brought forward in my lectures. When our thinking is so strengthened by our exercises that we can see the spiritual world, we are immediately confronted with the process of destruction, with that which is connected with death. The Mystics of all ages have expressed this by the phrase: ‘To approach the Gate of Death,’ that is, all that manifests as destruction in human life. And if we have really carried our meditation to that point where we attain the experience of Initiation, we experience this: ‘I stand at the Gate of Death. I know there is something in me which has prevailed since my birth or conception, which then concentrates itself and becomes the phenomenon of death, the confiscation of the physical body.’ One then makes reply: ‘But all that leads to death has come from the spiritual world. That which has come from the spiritual world has united itself with that which arises from the hereditary substance.’ We see a man standing here in the physical world and we say: ‘That which confronts us is his countenance, which speaks to us through his words, everything he does as physical man is the expression of what prepared itself in the spiritual world through his last death and birth. His soul being lives in this.’ And from the whole bearing of these considerations we can conclude: that part of the human soul which lives between death and rebirth attracts the forces out of the spiritual world in order to fashion man in this incarnation between birth and death, in order to build something which is just the man himself. And then it is really the case, that through meditating on the Will, there is evolved the germ which again goes through the gate of death, to prepare itself in the spiritual world for a next incarnation. Thus in man there lies this eternal process of growth. The psychic spiritual descends from the spiritual world and forms a man here, in whom arises, at first as a mere speck, that which now originates here in life as the germ, and this again goes through the gates of death in order to continue its evolution. So that when we have a man here, it is really evident that as he stands before us, he as man has been created from out of the spiritual world. With that provided by the parents there unites itself that which descends from the spiritual world. While he was in the spiritual world he was among the spiritual powers, just as here in the physical body he is among the forces of nature. He was among the spiritual forces, and with their help he prepared himself for this incarnation. When we see a man incarnate before us, it truly is as I have represented in the second Mystery Play, The Soul's Probation, that whole worlds of divine beings work in order to produce man. Between death and rebirth spiritual forces are operative in order to maintain man. Man here is the goal of certain spiritual forces which are active between death and rebirth. Now note: this leads to Spiritual Science, but it has always been known and brought to expression; for example, a man of note expressed what I have said over and over again, by saying: ‘Life in the human body is the ultimate aim of the Path of the Gods.’ He meant that when we are in the spiritual world, woven into the world of the Gods between death and rebirth, we prepare ourselves for our incarnation, for our body. That is the object of the Divine Path. He was unable, however to add the other sentence: ‘In the body a new beginning is prepared, which then again goes through death and leads to a new incarnation.’ This phrase, ‘The life in the body is the ultimate aim of the Divine Path,’ forms to a certain extent the leading motive of all the works written by Christoph Oetinger, a very noted man nearly a hundred years ago. He drew attention continually to the path that human knowledge and perception must take if it is to recognise these spiritual connections. What Anthroposophy really desires can already be found in the older Theosophists. But Oetinger wishes to present it in his own way. His editor uttered some beautiful words at the end of his preface, in 1847. He wanted to express that in former times men sought the spiritual path, but in their own way; but that the time would come, and was not far distant, in which that which one had really always sought, would be grasped with full scientific consciousness. His editor says: ‘The essential point is that when Theosophy becomes a real science and brings forth definite results, these will gradually become the universal conviction of humanity. Yet this rests in the bosom of the future, which we do not wish to anticipate.’ Thus spake Richard Rothe, the Heidelberg professor, in referring to the Theosophist, Christoph Oetinger, in November, 1847. What Spiritual Science strives for has already existed, but in another form. To-day it is necessary to find it in just the form most appropriate for our time. And as I have often said, ‘the thought of Natural Science has to-day reached a standpoint from which, out of the method of that science herself, the right scientific form must be sought for what lived in Theosophy of all times.’ And when Rothe, as the editor of Oetinger, says that what the latter implies ‘rests in the bosom of the future,’ we must remember that what in 1847 was the future has certainly matured into the present of our time. We are confronting time when we can prove—for it was but one example which I have brought before you to-day in the novel Hofrat Eysenhardt, by Alfred von Berger—that human souls are really ripe to approach the spiritual truths, but that they morally lack the courage to grasp them in reality.

I said that in two directions lies the path to the spiritual world, in which one can see behind the veil of nature. For those who are accustomed to think scientifically, and who merely have to raise their scientific thought to an inner instrument in the way described, why is it so difficult to make progress? Why? They say that there are limits to human knowledge! Ignorabimus! And why do they not wish to enter the spiritual world? Well, the reason for that lies beneath the threshold of their consciousness.

Within the sphere of consciousness so-called logical reasons are brought forward as to why man cannot enter the spiritual world. These arguments have long been known. But beneath these logical reasons is to be found the true inner reason: the fear of the spiritual world. This fear of the spiritual world holds people back, but they are not aware of it. If they could only acquaint themselves with the existence of this unconscious fear, and how everything that is brought forward in opposition is merely a mask, hiding the fear in its reality, they would become aware of many things. That is the one thing. The other is this: directly a man enters the spiritual world he is seized upon, just as we can grasp his thoughts here—he is seized by the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies. Man becomes, as it were, a thought in the spiritual world. Against this the soul inwardly struggles. It is frightened, terrified, and shrinks from being taken possession of by the spiritual world. Again a question of fear, a powerless terror of allowing itself to be laid hold of by the spiritual world, in the way in which at birth one is laid hold of by the physical forces. Thus, outer fear, and dread of a certain powerlessness to resist being seized by the spiritual world, this it is which holds men back from it. That is why they so often wish, as the author in this novel, to splash in the waves of the spiritual world, without—as I might say—binding themselves in any way. That is why they have not really the courage to draw too near to the spiritual world lest it should lay hold of them, as may truly happen through the inner experiments often described, just as the apprehension of the secrets of nature may come about through external experiments.

If to what has been said you apply what was brought forward in one of the public lectures concerning this connection between the forces of genius which appear in life, and premature death, brought about by man's body being taken from him, through a shell or some other cause on the battlefield—if, in connection with what has been said you remember that the forces of genius or of invention appear in man as the effect of those processes which occurred when he was deprived of his physical body, then there also you have something remaining beneath the threshold of consciousness. But in his courage, in the whole way in which a man offers himself up for some great event of the time, there lies an instinctive expression of something resting beneath the threshold of consciousness, and which is unable to reach his consciousness in its full significance. Nevertheless, in our time there is in human evolution an impulse to carry up to the threshold of consciousness what lies beneath it, so that man may know something of it. And when I point to the fact that even in the great events of our time, in all that transpires in full consciousness, especially in the events of this epoch, there lie significant subconscious processes—I mean this to be taken in the above-mentioned sense, for that which these events are inserting into the great connection of human will never be included in what the external historian can grasp of these present events. More than ever before does the subconscious play a part in the present happenings. And therefore the spiritual investigator is allowed to indicate that a time will come in the future when, in order to behold the present significant historical events in the right light of their Cosmic connections, we shall point to their spiritual background. With this in view the words with which we now always conclude will be more and more present to our souls:—

From the fighters' courage,
From the blood of battles,
From the mourners' suffering,
From the people's sacrifice,
There will ripen fruits of Spirit
If with consciousness the soul
Turns her thought to Spirit Realms.

Fünfter Vortrag

Wir haben die letzten Betrachtungen hier von einem gewissen Gesichtspunkte her auf das Leben gerichtet, das hinter jenem verläuft, welches für den Menschen in der Alltäglichkeit oder in der gewöhnlichen Wissenschaft abläuft in seinem ihm durch das Erdenwerkzeug, durch das physische Werkzeug vermittelten physischen Bewußtsein. Im Grunde genommen sind ja alle unsere Betrachtungen auf dieses Leben, das unter der Schwelle des gewöhnlichen Bewußtseins verläuft, gewendet. Dennoch versuchen wir, wie das ja in der Geisteswissenschaft sein muß, von den verschiedensten Seiten her diesem Leben nahezukommen.

Während einem Gewißheit gegeben wird in bezug auf die äußere physisch-sinnliche Wirklichkeit einfach durch das Anschauen - der Mensch sagt: Ich weiß, daß etwas ist, wenn ich es gesehen habe -, wird eine Gewißheit über die geistigen Welten auch für denjenigen, der nicht durch besondere Übungen in sie aufzusteigen vermag, dadurch geschaffen, daß man sie von verschiedenen Seiten her beleuchtet erhält. Durch diese Beleuchtungen von verschiedenen Seiten her, die dann zusammenstimmen, kann eine gewisse Gewißheit erlangt werden.

Ich habe insbesondere darauf aufmerksam gemacht, daß der Mensch in der Welt nicht nur durch dasjenige darinnensteht, was er so überschaut mit dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein, sondern daß unter der Schwelle des gewöhnlichen Bewußtseins ein Leben des Menschen abläuft, welches nicht vom Bewußtsein umfaßt wird, welches allerdings erkennbar wird, wenn der Mensch, wie man sagt, durch die Pforte der Initiation schreitet, welches aber unbewußt bleibt fur das gewöhnliche Menschenleben. Es geht mit dem Ganzen, das der Mensch ist, vieles in der Welt vor — so habe ich mich ausgedrückt -, und dasjenige, wovon man, indem man durch das Leben im physischen Leibe schreitet, weiß, ist nur ein Teil dessen, was eigentlich mit dem Menschen vorgeht. Und alles Bestreben, mit der geistigen Welt in einen Zusammenhang zu kommen, besteht darin, etwas hineinzuschauen in dieses Leben, das unter der Schwelle des gewöhnlichen Bewußtseins verläuft, das heißt durch eine Erweiterung dieses Bewußtseins die Schwelle zu überschreiten und hineinzuschauen eben in das, worin wir ja in der Wirklichkeit stehen, was wir aber nicht mit dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein überschauen. Und so sagte ich, daß eine gewisse verschiebbare Schwelle ist zwischen dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein und demjenigen, was — und das Wort hat ja für uns eine bestimmte Geltung — «unbewußt-bewußt» für den Menschen verläuft.

Ich hatte das letzte Mal ein sehr naheliegendes Beispiel angeführt. Der Mensch nimmt sich des Morgens früh etwas vor, das er am Abend ausführen will. Er lebt sozusagen in dem Gedanken, daß er dies am Abend ausführen werde. Mittags passiert irgend etwas, was ihn verhindert, die Sache am Abend auszuführen. Für das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein liegt da vielleicht eines jener Ereignisse vor, die man einen Zufall nennt. Sieht man aber tiefer in das Menschenleben hinein, so entdeckt man in diesem sogenannten Zufall Weisheit, aber eben eine Weisheit, die unter der Schwelle des Bewußtseins liegt. Man kann eigentlich diese Weisheit mit dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein nicht durchschauen, aber man entdeckt in solchen Fällen sehr häufig, daß, wenn das Hindernis am Mittag nicht eingetreten wäre, der Mensch vielleicht in recht schlimme Lagen gebracht worden wäre dadurch, daß er am Abend das Betreffende unternommen hätte. Ich sagte das letzte Mal, er hätte sich vielleicht am Abend ein Bein gebrochen oder dergleichen. Und sowie man dann den Zusammenhang hat, entdeckt man, daß Weisheit liegt in dem ganzen Verlauf, daß die Seele selbst das Hindernis gesucht, herbeigeführt hat, aber mit Absichten, die unter der Schwelle des Bewutßtseins liegen. Nun, das ist etwas, was ganz hart am gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein noch liegt, aber es weist hinunter in eine Region, der der Mensch angehört, der er angehört mit den verborgenen Teilen seines Wesens, die, nachdem er den physischen Leib abgelegt hat, durch die Pforte des Todes schreiten. Es gehört jenem waltenden Bewußtsein an, von dem wir im Öffentlichen Vortrag gesprochen haben als von einem Zuschauer unserer Willenshandlungen. Dieser Zuschauer ist wirklich immer da. Er lenkt und leitet uns, aber das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein weiß nichts von ihm. Vieles geht da vor, das sich zwischen die Ereignisse, die das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein überschaut, hineinstellt. Und da bereitet sich, wie sich das Lebewesen im Ei vorbereitet, namentlich in alledem, was da zwischen die Ereignisse des Lebens sich hineinstellt, in dem, was unter der Schwelle unseres Bewußtseins vorgeht, dasjenige vor, was wir sein werden, wenn wir durch die Pforte des Todes geschritten sind.

Nun müssen wir zusammenklingen lassen etwas, was wir in den letzten Betrachtungen vor unsere Seele geführt haben, mit mancherlei, was uns noch wohlbekannt sein kann aus früheren Betrachtungen. Ich habe oftmals hingewiesen darauf, wie wichtig und wesentlich für den Menschen, insofern er hier im physischen Bewußtsein steckt, das Gedächtnis ist, dieses Gedächtnis, das nicht zerrissen werden darf. Wir müssen bis zu einem gewissen Punkte unseres physischen Erlebens uns zurückerinnern, wenigstens zurückerinnern können, an den Zusammenhang unseres Lebens. Zerreißt dieser Zusammenhang, können wir an bestimmte Ereignisse uns nicht erinnern, so daß wir wenigstens das Bewufßitsein haben, wir waren in der Zeit vorhanden, als diese Ereignisse da waren, so tritt eine bedenkliche Seelenkrankheit ein, auf die ich in den letzten Betrachtungen hier hingewiesen habe. Dieses Erinnern, das gehört zu dem Erleben im physischen Bewußtsein hier. Aber dieses Erinnern ist zugleich in gewissem Sinne ein Schleier, der uns zudeckt diejenigen Ereignisse, die ich jetzt eigentlich meine und die hinter dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein stehen, die eben hinter jenem Schleier stehen, der von der fortlaufenden Erinnerung gewoben wird. Bedenken Sie nur einmal: Wir sind zuerst ein Kind; da durchlaufen wir gewisse Bewußtseinszeiten, an die wir uns nicht zurückerinnern. Dann kommt der Zeitpunkt, bis zu dem wir uns immer im späteren Leben zurückerinnern können. Da ist eine geschlossene Erinnerungsreihe, da wissen wir unser Ich bis zu einem Zeitpunkt zurückzuerfassen, der eben im zweiten, dritten, vierten Lebensjahr, bei manchen Menschen auch später, im gewöhnlichen Leben eintritt. Wenn wir so in uns zurückschauen, wenn wir in uns hineinschauen, dann trifft unser seelischer Blick zunächst auf diese Erinnerung, und insofern wir hier ein physischer Mensch sind, leben wir innerlich eigentlich in diesen Erinnerungen. Wir könnten gar nicht von unserem Ich sprechen, wenn wir nicht in diesen Erinnerungen leben würden. Wer sich selbst betrachtet, erkennt dieses. Indem er in sich hineinschaut, schaut er eigentlich in den Umfang seiner Erinnerungen hinein. Er blickt also gleichsam auf das Tableau seiner Erinnerungen. Wenn auch nicht alles in diesen Erinnerungen auftaucht, was wir erlebt haben, so wissen wir, es könnten Erinnerungen auftauchen bis zu dem charakterisierten Zeitpunkte hin, und wir müssen sogar voraussetzen, daß wir mit unserem Ich wirklich bewußt bei all diesen Erinnerungen dabeigewesen sind und Erinnerungen haben behalten können. Wäre das nicht, so wäre der Zusammenhang unseres Ich zerstört und eine Seelenkrankheit eingetreten. Aber hinter dem, was wir da in der Erinnerung bemerken, liegt gerade dasjenige, was mit dem Geistesauge gesehen, mit dem Geistesohr gehört wird. So daß es richtig ist, was ich schon im Öffentlichen Vortrage angeführt habe: Die Kraft, die wir sonst zur Erinnerung brauchen, die verwenden wir, wenn wir in die geistige Welt hineinschauen, eben zum Hineinschauen in die geistige Welt. Das bedingt nicht, daß man sein Gedächtnis verliert, wenn man sich das geistige Schauen erringt, aber es bedingt das, was ich charakterisiert habe im öffentlichen Vortrag, nämlich daß man nicht in derselben Weise erinnerungsmäßig lebt, nicht das, was man geistig erschaut, wirklich immer überblicken kann, sondern daß man es immer wieder und wiederum schauen muß und immer wieder aufs neue schauen muß.

Ich habe oftmals gesagt: Wenn jemand wirklich aus der geistigen Welt heraus einen Vortrag hält, so kann er ihn nicht aus der Erinnerung heraus halten, wie man über etwas anderes redet, sondern es muß immer aus der geistigen Welt neu geschöpft werden, es muß dasjenige, was im Denken lebt, immer wieder erzeugt werden. Der Geist, die Seele müssen tätig sein, müssen immer wieder neu erzeugen in einem solchen Falle. Wenn der geistig Schauende wirklich in die geistige Welt hineinsieht, so wird ihm dasjenige, was ihm sonst der Schleier der Erinnerung ist, zu einem durchsichtigen Schleier, zu etwas, durch das er hindurchsieht. Er sieht gleichsam durch die Kraft, die ihm sonst die Erinnerung bildet, hindurch und sieht da in die geistige Welt hinein. Wenn man streng und energisch seine Übungen macht, so merkt man, daß, wenn man im gewöhnlichen Leben sein Denken braucht, indem man die Dinge, die Ereignisse der Welt auf sich wirken läßt, daß einen dann der Leib als ein physisches Instrument unterstützt, damit man die Dinge wirklich vorstellen kann; und dann bleibt die Vorstellung, unterstützt durch die Tätigkeit des physischen Leibes, als Erinnerung in uns. Wenn man in die geistige Welt hineinkommt, muß man immer tätig sein, um die Vorstellung immer von neuem hervorzurufen. Eine unausgesetzte Tätigkeit beginnt, wenn man an dem Punkte ankommt, den ich im öffentlichen Vortrag charakterisiert habe, wenn man nun warten kann, bis die Geheimnisse der geistigen Welt sich eröffnen. Aber man muß: mittun! Wie, wenn man etwas zeichnet, man immerzu mittun muß, um etwas durch die Zeichnung auszudrücken, so muß man, indem die geistige Welt sich enthüllt, die Imagination immer tätig miterzeugen. Sie erzeugt sich aus der objektiven Wirklichkeit heraus, aber man muß bei diesem Erzeugen der Vorstellungen dabeisein. Dann kommt man allerdings auf diese Weise zunächst hinein in etwas, was sich fortwährend abspielt mit dem Menschen, mit dem zwiefachen Menschen, den ich auch schon angedeutet habe, der in uns verborgen ist, der da lebt innerhalb unserer physischen Hülle und unter der Schwelle unseres gewöhnlichen physischen Bewußtseins. An diesen Menschen knüpft man an. Da merkt man: Hier in der physischen Welt ist man so verknüpft mit der Welt, daß man auf einem festen Boden steht, so verknüpft, daß man andere Dinge der Außenwelt sieht, sich bewegt zwischen diesen anderen Dingen, daß man in ein gewisses Verhältnis zu Menschen kommt, denen man dieses oder jenes tut, von denen einem das oder jenes angetan wird. In der fortlaufenden Auffassung desjenigen, was wir so entwickeln, liegt dieses Leben, das wir mit dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein umfassen. Aber es liegt ein anderes Leben dem zugrunde, eine Gesetzmäßigkeit, die wir mit diesem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein nicht überschauen, in die wir aber hineingestellt sind, wenn wir vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen in unserem Ich und Astralleibe sind. Doch da ist unser Bewußtsein so herabgedämpft, daß wir mit den gewöhnlichen Sinnen nicht überschauen können, wie wir in einer Welt des Geistes stehen, die sich abspielt, die fortwährend um uns herum lebt, aber die sich hineinverwebt als ein Unsinnlich-Unsichtbares in das Sinnlich-Sichtbare. Diese Welt müssen wir durchaus eben als eine geistige auffassen, wir müssen sie nicht denken gleichsam als ein Duplikat, als etwas bloß Feineres gegenüber der physisch-sinnlichen Welt, sondern wir müssen sie denken als ein Geistiges.

Nun habe ich ja öfters darauf aufmerksam gemacht, welches die Gründe sind, daß gerade in unserer Zeit herausgeholt werden muß aus dem Borne aller menschlichen Erkenntnis dasjenige, was sich also, wie wir es treiben, auf die geistige Welt bezieht. Wahrhaftig, nicht nur aus der Tatsache, daß da Geistesforscher auftreten, die über die geistige Welt zu erzählen haben, sondern aus dem ganzen Verlauf unseres Kulturlebens — ich habe von verschiedenen Gesichtspunkten darauf aufmerksam gemacht - ist zu ersehen, daß eine gewisse Sehnsucht der Menschen besteht, diese verborgene Seite des menschlichen Lebens wirklich an die Seelen herankommen zu lassen, etwas von diesen verborgenen Seiten des Lebens zu wissen. Ich habe ja auch schon Erscheinungen im wissenschaftlichen und im sonstigen Leben angeführt, die zeigen, wie diese Sehnsucht lebt in der Gegenwart.

Ich möchte heute in unsere Betrachtung ein ganz besonderes Beispiel einfügen, aus dem wir ersehen können, daß es schon Menschen gibt in unserer Zeit, die gewissermaßen rühren an diese Geheimnisse des Daseins, die etwas ahnen und wissen von diesen Geheimnissen des Daseins, die aber eben nicht wollen, aus Gründen, die ich nachher auch charakterisieren will, in der Weise eingehen auf diese Geheimnisse des Daseins, wie wir das durch unsere Geisteswissenschaft versuchen. Wenn man diese Dinge so bespricht, daß man sie gewissermaßen so ein wenig in der Schwebe läßt, daß man den Leuten auch die Türe offen läßt: Nun, ihr braucht ja die Sache nicht zu glauben, ihr braucht nicht darüber zu denken, daß das eine wirkliche Welt ist! - dann kommt man mit diesen Dingen leichter an die Menschen heran. Und davon gibt es in unserer Zeit viele Beispiele. Ich habe sie angeführt. Ich will heute ein besonderes Beispiel noch anführen, gerade in bezug auf dieses Kapitel. Ich will einfügen in diese Betrachtung einige Bemerkungen über eine wirklich außerordentlich bedeutsame Novelle aus der deutschen Literatur der jüngsten Vergangenheit, ich möchte sagen, über eine Perle der deutschen Novellistik. In dieser Novelle, sie heißt «Hofrat Eysenhardt», die wirklich eine der besten Novellen ist, die wir innerhalb der neueren deutschen Literatur haben, wird in einer ganz außerordentlich wunderbaren Weise eine, nur eine einzige Persönlichkeit charakterisiert, nämlich der Hofrat Eysenhardt selber. Dieser Hofrat Eysenhardt, der in Wien lebt — es wird sehr genau angegeben, wann er geboren ist: «Dr. Franz Ritter von Eysenhardt war einige Jahre vor dem Ausbruch der Revolution von 1848 zu Wien geboren» — wird Jurist, später Vorsitzender des Landesgerichts; er wird einer der bedeutendsten Juristen seines Landes. Er ist gefürchtet bei denjenigen Menschen, die irgend etwas mit dem Gericht zu tun haben. Er ist beliebt bei denjenigen Menschen, die seine Vorgesetzten sind, denn er ist ein ganz ausgezeichneter Kriminalist. Er hat eine Dialektik, die imstande ist, jeden zu verurteilen, könnte man sagen, der nur irgendwie in seine Fangarme kommt. Er bringt jeden in ein Kreuzfeuer in den Verhören, und er weiß mit einer gewissen Anteillosigkeit am menschlichen Leben sein - man kann in diesem Falle sagen sein «Objekt» — zu peinigen, so daß es sich verstrickt in alle möglichen Fallen, die ihm eben gelegt werden. Dabei ist der Hofrat Eysenhardt, so äußerlich im Leben, ein ganz merkwürdiger Mensch. Er hat nicht viel Begabung, sein Menschlich-Seelisches an andere Menschen anzuschließen. Er ist für das menschliche Leben eine Art Einsiedler. Er gibt sehr viel darauf, in einer gewissen Weise korrekt und tadellos im äußeren Leben dazustehen. Er ist kurz angebunden jedem Untergebenen gegenüber. Er ist freundlich nicht nur, sondern tief höflich jedem Vorgesetzten gegenüber. Ja, ich könnte Ihnen noch viele Eigenschaften anführen; er ist das Muster eines Hofrates. Nun wollen wir nicht auf diese sonstigen Eigenschaften eingehen - diese sind zum Beispiel wunderbar geschildert im Spiegel einer Erzählung eines seiner Untergebenen in der Novelle -, wir wollen aber gleich hinweisen darauf, daß er einmal ausersehen war, einen bedeutungsvollen Prozeß zu führen gegen einen merkwürdigen Menschen, der Markus Freund heißt. Dieser Markus Freund hatte für ähnliche Vergehen geringerer Art als dasjenige, dessen er jetzt angeklagt war, schon Vorstrafen auf sich. Es stellte sich aber für den Untersuchungsrichter, der die Voruntersuchung machte, diesmal gar nicht die Möglichkeit heraus, es zu einer Verurteilung zu bringen. Aber der Hofrat Eysenhardt brachte es zu einer Verurteilung. Und in einem Schriftstück, das dann der Hofrat selber verfaßte, zu einem Zweck, den ich Ihnen gleich nennen werde, schildert er dann selber die Art und Weise, wie sich jener Markus Freund benommen hat während oder namentlich nach der Verurteilung. Also, ich will nur die Stelle lesen, wie sich der Markus Freund bei der Verurteilung benommen hatte:

«Sonst hatte dieser Mann, der überhaupt den für seine Rasse so charakteristischen Familiensinn besaß, eine ganz besondere Zärtlichkeit für eine jüngst geborene Enkelin, von der mit den Zellengenossen zu sprechen er nicht müde ward. Er konnte seine Freilassung, auf welche, obwohl schwerste Verdachtmomente gegen ihn vorlagen, er mit Sicherheit zu rechnen sich den Anschein gab, kaum erwarten, um das Kind wiederzusehen. Markus Freund leugnete hartnäckig und wußte in den Verhören vor dem Untersuchungsrichter jeden der ihn belastenden schwerwiegenden Umstände mit wahrhaft verblüffendem Scharfsinn so aufzuklären, daß der Untersuchungsrichter, ein sonst sehr tüchtiger, wenn auch über Gebühr weichherziger Mann, von Markus Freunds Unschuld vollkommen überzeugt war, als die Schlußverhandlung begann, deren Vorsitz die Person führte, auf welche diese Information sich bezieht.» -— Der Hofrat Eysenhardt schreibt das selber, er schreibt in der dritten Person von sich. -— «Obwohl Markus Freund auch in der Schlußverhandlung das Äußerste an Scharfsinn leistete und sein Verteidiger eine sehr schöne und rührende, von den Zeitungen nach Gebühr gepriesene Rede hielt, war der Ausgang des Prozesses doch dem vom Untersuchungsrichter und vielleicht vom Angeklagten selbst erwarteten genau entgegengesetzt. Herr Markus Freund wurde von den Geschworenen einstimmig schuldig gesprochen und, da mehrere Vorstrafen und andere erschwerende Umstände vorlagen, zum höchsten Strafsatz von zwanzig Jahren schweren Kerkers verurteilt. Besagte Person» - also die besagte Person ist dieser Hofrat Eysenhardt selber, — «darf ohne Unbescheidenheit diesen Ausgang als einen der größten Triumphe ihrer vieljährigen kriminalistischen Praxis bezeichnen. Denn sicherlich hätten sich die Geschworenen durch die wahrhaft blendenden Sophismen des Markus Freund zu seinen Gunsten einnehmen lassen, obwohl die Volksstimmung damals Menschen seiner Rasse nicht eben günstig war, wenn nicht der Vorsitzende durch seine dem Angeklagten noch überlegene und doch der Fassungskraft der Geschworenen volkstümlich angepaßte Dialektik diese Sophismen in ein Nichts aufzulösen verstanden hätte. Die Wirkung der Verkündigung des Urteils auf den Angeklagten war eine derartige» — das erzählt also immer der Hofrat selber -, «daß gestählte und an solche Auftritte gewöhnte Nerven dazu gehörten, um sich dadurch nicht erschüttern und vielleicht an der Wahrheit und Gerechtigkeit des gefällten Urteils irre machen zu lassen. Zuerst stammelte Markus Freund einige unverständliche, wahrscheinlich hebräische Worte. Dann richtete der anscheinend kaum mittelgroße, gebeugte Mann sich auf, daß er wie groß aussah, die Lider, die seine Augen sonst fast zudeckten, hoben sich empor und ließen das von roten Äderchen durchzogene Weiß der rollenden Augäpfel sehen. Und aus dem verzerrten Munde zischte und geiferte in größter Schnelligkeit eine Reihe gegen den Vorsitzenden gerichteter Verwünschungen und Drohungen hervor, die in dem widerlichen Jargon, in welchem sie hervorgestoßen wurden, hier zu wiederholen, mit der Würde der Justiz kaum im Einklang stünde. Nur der erste Satz: ‹Herr Präsident, Sie wissen so gut wie ich selbst, daß ich unschuldig bin...› sei erwähnt und der letzte: ‹Es wird Ihnen heimgezahlt werden. Aug’ um Auge wird’s Ihnen heimgezahlt werden, warten Sie nur!› Was dazwischen lag, war überaus phantastischen Inhaltes und schien, wofern es überhaupt einen Sinn hatte, darauf hinauszulaufen, er, Markus Freund, habe den hohen Herrn Präsidenten bis auf die Nieren mit seinem Auge geprüft und gefunden, daß der hohe Herr Präsident, wenn er es auch jetzt noch nicht ahne, von einerlei Art sei wie er, der zertretene, aber diesmal unschuldige Markus Freund. Die Justizsoldaten taten alsbald ihre Pflicht, bändigten den Rasenden, dem der Präsident auf der Stelle wegen seines Exzesses die verdiente Disziplinarstrafe zuerkannte. Während die Soldaten, jeder einen der beiden fuchtelnden Arme festhaltend, den Verurteilten wegführten, schlug sein Wüten in Weinen und Schluchzen um. Noch auf dem Korridor vernahm man sein hohles Gewimmer: «Meine arme, arme Kleine, du wirst den Großpapa nie mehr sehen" Die Herren Geschworenen waren durch diesen Vorfall ganz konsterniert und frugen durch ihren Obmann beim Präsidenten an, ob es nicht möglich sei, die Verhandlung sogleich wieder aufzunehmen. Sie hatten, bei mangelnder Gesetzeskenntnis, eben nicht genugsam Erfahrung, um zu wissen, daß derlei Ausbrüche häufiger bei sehr verstockten schuldigen Verbrechern vorkommen als bei unschuldig Verurteilten, die jedoch viel seltener sind als die romanhafte Phantasie des Publikums sich einbildet. Minder entschuldbar dürfte es sein, daß der oben erwähnte weichherzige Untersuchungsrichter, welcher der Schlußverhandlung nebst ihrem widerwärtigen Nachspiel beigewohnt hatte, zum Vorsitzenden beim Hinausgehen, leise den Kopf schüttelnd, die Worte zu sprechen sich herausnahm: «Herr Hofrat, ich beneide Sie nicht um Ihr Talent.»

Nun war also der Markus Freund eingesperrt worden, und der Hofrat lebte zunächst weiter. Aber wie er weiterlebte und was nun geschah, das erzählt er nun auch in seiner Auseinandersetzung. Lange Zeit also, müssen wir uns vorstellen, ziemlich lange Zeit ist verflossen, und der Gefangene war festgesetzt worden. Nun geschah das Folgende:

«Ganz so wie die in Rede stehende Person» - also das ist der Hofrat selber, der das weiter erzählt - «in jenem Augenblicke ihn gesehen hatte, als er jene Fluche und Drohungen mit vor Wut entstelltem Gesicht gegen sie ausstieß, ganz so stand, als sie in der Nacht vom 18. auf den 19.März um zwei Uhr plötzlich unmotiviert aufwachte, der längst vergessene Markus Freund vor ihren Gedanken.»

Also der Hofrat wacht in der Nacht vom 18. auf den 19. März um zwei Uhr nachts plötzlich auf und hat den Eindruck, im Gedanken stunde ihm der Markus Freund vor der Seele.

«Und während besagte Person im Starrkrampf regungslos dalag, rekapitulierte ihre Phantasie blitzschnell das oben ausführlich Erzählte. Sie war sich dabei nicht deutlich bewußt, ob sie in den dazwischenliegenden Jahren niemals oder immer an diese Ereignisse gedacht hatte. Beides erschien ihr richtig in jenem Moment, da das Entsetzen ihr die Denkkraft lahmte.»

Also, er wacht auf, Hofrat Eysenhardt, mitten aus dem Schlafe heraus, muß an den Markus Freund denken, muß sich rekapitulieren dasjenige, was sich abgespielt hat, weiß nicht, ob er öfter oder gar nicht an die Sache gedacht hatte.

«Während gedachte Person so mit klopfenden Pulsen lag, und ihre alsbald auftauchende Absicht, das Licht auf dem Nachttisch anzuzünden, nicht auszuführen vermochte» — also er konnte die Hände nicht bewegen -, «war ihr, als poche etwas ganz leise an die Zimmertüre, oder vielmehr, es war mehr ein zaghaftes Scharren, als ob ein Hündchen um Einlaß bettele. Unwillkürlich stieß gedachte Person die Frage hervor: Wer ist da? Weder erfolgte eine Antwort, noch öffnete sich die Türe, aber gedachte Person hatte doch die deutliche Empfindung, als sei etwas hereingeschlüpft, und ein schwaches Knistern ging durch die Parketten, quer durch das Zimmer von der Türe zum Bett, als ob dieses unsichtbare Etwas näher käme und endlich dicht bei gedachter Person stehen bliebe. Wenigstens hatte diese das nicht genauer beschreibbare Gefühl fremder Anwesenheit, und zwar nicht etwa ein allgemeines, nicht bestimmt individualisiertes, sondern ihr war, als müsse das Etwas, das neben ihrem Bette stand, eben jener Markus Freund sein, dessen plötzlich aufzuckendes Erinnerungsbild sie soeben aus tiefem Schlafe aufgerissen hatte. Sie hatte sogar die Empfindung, als beuge sich das unsichtbare Etwas über ihr Gesicht. Sei es nun, daß gedachte Person inzwischen, ohne sich dessen bewußt zu sein, wieder einzuschlafen begonnen hatte und schon träumte, wobei bekanntlich nicht selten die Menschen, von denen man träumt, ineinander, ja sogar mit dem Traumenden selbst verschwimmen, sei es, daß gewisse überspannte Ideen Schopenhauers über die geheime Identität aller Individuen als Nachwirkung der Abendlektüre der letzten Tage sich in ihr regten, jedenfalls zuckte gedachter Person der sinnlose Gedanke durch den Kopf, daß sie selbst und jener Markus Freund im Grunde doch der nämliche Mensch sei, und wie zur Bestätigung dieser unsinnigen, jeder Logik widersprechenden Annahme wiederholte sie, ob nur rein innerlich oder hörbar und mit Bewegung ihrer Sprechorgane, weiß sie nicht, die oben zitierten Flüche und Drohungen jenes Markus Freund, so weit wie sie ihr noch erinnerlich waren, und zwar mit dem Entsetzen erregenden Gefühl, daß jene Flüche eben jetzt einzutreffen begonnen hätten. Falls gedachte Person, was nicht unmöglich ist, geschlafen und geträumt haben sollte, wachte sie unter diesem fürchterlichen Eindruck wieder auf und zündete das Licht an. Die Taschenuhr auf dem Nachtkästchen zeigte zehn Minuten nach zwei Uhr. Im Zimmer war alles wie sonst, obwohl Möbel, Wände und Bilder gedachter Person wie fremd erschienen und sie einiger Zeit und eines Trunkes Wasser bedurfte, um sich wieder einigermaßen in dem sie umgebenden Raum und in sich selbst zurechtzufinden.»

Also das erzählt er. Er erzählt: Zuerst im Gedanken hat er den Markus Freund vor sich. Dann hat er diese - sagen wir, diese Vision. Nun ließ aber das, so erzählt er weiter, einigen Eindruck in ihm zurück, einen Eindruck, der ihn zunächst veranlaßte, den Hofrat Eysenhardt, etwas bebend in das Landesgericht zu gehen und sich vorzunehmen, sich die Akten, die sich auf den Markus Freund beziehen sollten, noch einmal geben zu lassen. Er kam nie recht dazu. Aber es geschah etwas anderes. Hofrat Eysenhardt ist eigentlich immer ein ganz freigeistig gesinnter Mensch gewesen. Er erzählt nur, daß ihm dies passiert ist. Wir werden gleich sehen, warum er das erzählt. Ja, er findet es sogar etwas lächerlich und unwurdig, daß er etwas darauf gegeben hat:

«Umsonst hielt sich gedachte Person das Unwürdige und Lächerliche ihres Betragens vor. Ihre vormals eiserne Willenskraft war und blieb in dieser Hinsicht wie gelähmt. Sie reichte kaum mehr aus, um die inneren Martern, die sie mit sich herumtrug, den Kollegen und Untergebenen wenigstens einigermaßen zu verhehlen. Eines Vormittags glaubte gedachte Person aus einer Gruppe von richterlichen Funktionären, die in einem dunklen Korridor in lebhaftem Gespräch beisammenstanden, im Vorbeigehen den Namen «Markus Freund; zu vernehmen.»

Also, er war eines Tages in das Landesgericht gegangen - er hatte sich eigentlich nie getraut, diese Akten wieder vorzunehmen -, und er hört, daß im Korridor einige Leute sprechen, und im Vorbeigehen hört er den Namen Markus Freund.

«Da dieser Mensch und dieser Name ihr allmählig zur Zwangsidee geworden war, die ihr nirgends und niemals Ruhe ließ}, hielt sie eine Selbsttäuschung für nicht ausgeschlossen» — also er glaubt sogar, er höre durch eine Selbsttäuschung den Namen Markus Freund -, «blieb stehen und fragte: «Von wem sprechen die Herren?» «Von Markus Freund, von Ihrem Markus Freund, Herr Hofrat, entsinnen Sie sich nicht mehr? antwortete einer der Herren, der zufällig der weichherzige Untersuchungsrichter war, welcher damals jene übereilte Äußerung getan hatte. «Von Markus Freund? Was ist mit ihm?» Gedachter Person stand der Atem still. «Nun, gestorben ist er; Gott sei Dank, jetzt ist er erlöst, der arme Teufel, antwortete der Weichherzige. «Gestorben? Wann?» «Vor drei oder vier Wochen ungefähr, sagte der Gefragte. «Hier, Landesgerichtsrat N. muß es ja wissen.» «In der Nacht vom 18. auf den 19. März dieses Jahres um zwei Uhr, sagte der Landesgerichtsrat.»

Also, es wird uns erzählt: Hofrat Eysenhardt hatte den Markus Freund verurteilt. Er war längst eingesperrt. In der Nacht vom 18. auf den 19. März wacht er auf, hat ihn in Gedanken zuerst vor sich, hat dann die Vision seines Eintretens, bekommt eine heillose Angst, will sich die Akten geben lassen, läßt aber Wochen darüber vergehen. Endlich erlauscht er ein Gespräch, wodurch er erfährt, daß Markus Freund in derselben Minute gestorben ist, wo ihm erscheint, zuerst wie sich einschleichend wie ein Pudelchen, der verstorbene Markus Freund. Nun, um das Ganze zu verstehen, muß man zu dem schon Gesagten hinzunehmen den Schluß der Novelle. Denn der Schluß der Novelle zeigt, daß nun der Hofrat durch die Verhältnisse getrieben wird, und zwar durch Verhältnisse, von denen man gar nicht voraussetzen sollte, daß er dazu getrieben werden könnte -, daß er dazu getrieben wird, gerade als Vorsitzender eines ganz besonders wichtigen Spionageprozesses, in Zusammenhang zu kommen mit Persönlichkeiten, in welchem Zusammenhange er, durch einen dunklen Instinkt geleitet, genau das Verbrechen begeht, wegen dessen er Markus Freund verurteilt hat. Er hatte also, als er durch seine Leidenschaftlichkeit später in dieses Verbrechen hereingerissen, dieses Verbrechen hinter sich hatte, Gelegenheit, sich jetzt in ganz besonderer Weise zu erinnern an dasjenige, was der Markus Freund gesprochen hat nach seiner Verurteilung: «Es wird Ihnen heimgezahlt werden, Auge um Auge, warten Sie nur. Auge um Auge wird es Ihnen heimgezahlt werden!»

Der Hofrat hatte also unter der Schwelle des Bewußtseins etwas erlebt, was zusammenhängt in der genugsam angedeuteten Weise mit seinen Handlungen in der vorhergehenden Zeit, was aber auch in einer merkwürdig geheimnisvollen Weise zusammenhängt mit der Erfüllung desjenigen, was der Verstorbene ihm angedroht hat. Ja, es hängt in einer noch tieferen Weise zusammen. Derjenige, der die Novelle geschrieben hat, schreibt in der Ichform, so, als ob ihm mancherlei erzählt worden wäre von diesem Hofrat Eysenhardt, und er erzählt, wie er ein Gespräch gehabt hat mit einem Untergebenen — es wurde das schon früher in dieser Novelle vorgeführt. Dieser Untergebene ist ein merkwürdig scharfsinniger, philosophisch angelegter Mensch, er sagt: Dieser Hofrat ist gerade deshalb so begabt, auf den Grund der Dinge zu gehen, weil er zu all diesen Dingen selber viel Anlage hat; und da dringt er am allertiefsten, wozu er seine besonderen Anlagen hat. Das wird in der Novelle erzählt. Nun ist interessant, daß ja der Gedanke auftaucht im Hofrat, in dieser Nacht um zwei Uhr, vom 18. auf den 19. März: Du bist so etwas wie eine Einheit mit diesem Markus Freund. Diese Einheit, dieses Zusammenstecken der Bewußtseine, das kommt ihm da vor die Seele, er hat einen Durchblick auf einen Zusammenhang, der unter der Schwelle des gewöhnlichen Lebens liegt. Der wird ihm eröffnet. Er wird ihm selbstverständlich nicht eröffnet, wie er jedem eröffnet wird, aber er wird ihm eröffnet.

Nun ist interessant, daß der Dichter dieser Novelle alle Bausteine zusammengetragen hat, um die Handlung verständlich zu machen. Und da müssen wir denn auch noch vor unsere Seele stellen dasjenige, was der Dichter anführt als vorangehend dieser Vision in der Nacht, die der Hofrat hatte. Der Hofrat war eigentlich ein robuster Mann. Wie gesagt, viele Eigenschaften ließen sich anführen, die ihn zeigen würden als einen zwar sich nicht seelisch ins Leben hineinfindenden Menschen, aber als einen Menschen, der mit einer gewissen Brutalität seinen Weg geht, und dem lag auch eine gewisse innere Gesundheit zugrunde. Nur wie durch ein äußeres Symptom wurde der Mann, der nie an sich irre geworden war, der immer von sich überzeugt war, an sich irre. Er entdeckte nämlich, daß ein Zahn locker geworden war und daß er ihn einfach mit den Fingern herausnehmen konnte. Da ging ihm der Gedanke durch den Kopf: Jetzt geht es abwärts mit dem Leben; jetzt fängt etwas an, abzubauen. Und der Gedanke ging ihm durch den Kopf: So verlierst du also Stück für Stück von deinem Organismus. Aber das wäre nicht das Schlimme gewesen, sondern das Schlimme war, daß er von diesem Augenblicke an — er merkte das nur nicht so — spintisierte über seinen eigenen Abbau, wie er nun wiederum in seinem eigenen Brief schreibt, wo er sich wie eine dritte Person beschreibt -, das Schlimme war, daß sein Gedächtnis zurückging. Und weil ihm sein Gedächtnis eine solche Hilfe war bei allen Berufsarbeiten, die er in solcher Weise ausüben mußte und ausgeübt hatte, so bekam er eine gewisse Angst vor dem Leben. Und er merkte wirklich, wie er sich an gewisse Dinge nicht mehr erinnern konnte, an die er früher sich so leicht erinnert hatte, wie er früher alles so beisammen hatte.

Denken Sie, wie interessant es ist, daß der Novellist zusammenbringt diese Möglichkeit, ein ganz partielles Hellsehen zu haben, mit dem Herabgehen des Gedächtnisses! Dann wird das Gedächtnis wieder besser. Und dann kommt er dazu, dieses aufzuschreiben. Und er erinnert sich: Du warst so. Als Freigeist kann er nichts anderes denken, als daß das ganz krankhafte Erscheinungen seien. Na, und da denkt er sich: Ich bin ja eigentlich vor der Gefahr, verrückt zu werden. Das liegt ja natürlich in der Natur des Freigeistes. Und er schämt sich, da jemand um Rat zu fragen. Deshalb will er seine Stellung dazu benützen, um in der dritten Person zu schreiben und es dann als ein Dokument, bei dem man nicht weiß, wer es ist, irgendeinem Irrenarzt vorzulegen, der ihm ein Urteil über diese gedachte Person gibt. Auf diese Weise will er herausbekommen, was der Irrenarzt denkt. Und dadurch kommt es heraus; dieses Dokument benützt der Novellist, um über das Seelenleben dieses Menschen etwas mitzuteilen.

Sie sehen, wir haben hier ein sehr schönes künstlerisches Produkt, das im Grunde wirklich auf solche Elemente hinweist, von denen man sprechen muß in der Geisteswissenschaft, gerade auf diejenigen Elemente, auf die man aus dem Zusammenhang zwischen dem Gedächtnis, zwischen der Erinnerungsfähigkeit und diesem Hineinschauen in die geistigen Welten, zu sprechen kommt. Sehr schön macht das der Novellist, daß er das Gedächtnis herabgestimmt sein läßt in dem Augenblick, wo dann einige Fetzen, möchte man sagen, über diese geheimnisvollen Zusammenhänge hervorkommen für den Betreffenden. Und merkwürdig, sehr merkwürdig ist die ganze Erzählung, indem sie Stück für Stück so verfaßt ist, daß man sieht, der Autor sagt sich: Es gibt solche Zusammenhänge hinter dem Leben. Aber er kleidet es in novellistische Form. Die Novelle ist sehr feinsinnig geschrieben, wie sie nur ein philosophischer Geist schreiben kann. Sie ist geschrieben von dem langjährigen Direktor des Hamburger Schauspielhauses, der dann Direktor des Wiener Burgtheaters wurde, Alfred Freiherr von Berger. Die Novelle gehört tatsächlich nicht nur zu dem weitaus Besten, was Berger geschrieben hat, sondern sie gehört wirklich zu den Perlen der deutschen novellistischen Literatur. Das sage ich selbstverständlich nicht aus dem Grunde, weil diese Novelle ein Thema enthält, das uns naheliegt, sondern aus dem Grunde, weil wirklich nur ein feinsinniger Mensch eine so feinsinnige Beobachtung haben kann in einer scheinbar abnormen Sache. Rein vom künstlerischen Gesichtspunkte aus meine ich dasjenige, was ich über den Wert der Novelle sage. Diese Novelle ist wirklich so geschrieben, daß jeder, der sie liest, das Bewußtsein hat: Der Mann schreibt eine Novelle, aber er möchte eigentlich lieber eine Biographie des Hofrates Eysenhardt schreiben, denn er schreibt wirklich so, daß man nie ein anderes Gefühl bekommt, wenn man diese wunderbar realistische Schilderung liest, als daß der gute Berger einen Mann kennenlernte, der wirklich einen solchen Verlauf seines Lebens hatte. Nun muß man sagen: Wie nahe liegt einem Menschen, wie diesem Alfred Freiherr von Berger, wie nahe liegt es ihm, an die geistige Welt heranzutreten, durch Geisteswissenschaft wirklich diese Zusammenhänge kennenzulernen! Wie unendlich bedeutungsvoll müßte es für diesen Berger gewesen sein, die Geisteswissenschaft so kennenzulernen, daß er sich zum Beispiel hätte sagen können: Dieser Hofrat, indem er den Markus Freund wie durchleuchtet und in diesem Falle unschuldig verurteilt hat, wie wird er nun zu leben haben in der Zeit, die unmittelbar folgt auf das Durchgehen durch die Pforte des Todes, in dem, was wir das Kamaloka immer genannt haben? Ich habe gesagt: Da muß der Mensch leben in der Wirkung seiner Taten, in dem, was die Taten für eine Bedeutung haben in dem anderen, in bezug auf welchen sie ausgeführt werden. Was der Hofrat bei der Gerichtsverhandiung getan hat, daran hat er gewiß seine ungeheure Befriedigung gehabt, gerade an seiner großen Dialektik. Er hat seine große Befriedigung gehabt, die sich ja ausdrückte in dem Satze, daß er sagte: Er könne sich zum Verdienst anrechnen, gegen die Sophismen des Angeklagten aufgekommen zu sein und zugleich eine Sprache gesprochen zu haben, die die Geschworenen zur Verurteilung gebracht hat, trotzdem sie gleich hinterher die Gerichtsverhandlung wieder aufgenommen hätten, als sie die Wirkung des Urteilsspruches auf den Angeklagten sahen. Das ist das eine, von seiten des Hofrates angesehen. Von seiten des Markus Freund angesehen liegt die Sache so, daß wir sagen müssen: Wir sehen die Wirkung des Urteilsspruches auf ihn. In dem muß ja - in dem, was Wirkung auf die Seele des Markus Freund war -, der Hofrat im Kamaloka leben. Und ein Spiegelbild, ein Bild hiervon, eröffnet sich eben in dem Augenblick, wo Markus Freund durch die Pforte des Todes schreitet. So eröffnet sich ihm dieses Bild, daß er jetzt sieht: Er ist identisch, er ist eins mit diesem Markus Freund; er sieht sich in diesen Markus Freund hinein, er fühlt sich in ihn hinein. Wir sehen: einen Vorgeschmack des Kamaloka hat der Hofrat. Er hat ihn so stark, daß er nicht nur dasjenige, was da vorgegangen ist, jetzt erlebt, sondern daß sich in ihm nun weiter etwas anspinnt, was mit der ganzen Sache zusammenhängt, unter der Schwelle seines Bewußtseins. Jeder einzelne Zug ist da von Bedeutung. Ich sagte Ihnen, er hat das Gedächtnis eine Weile verloren gehabt, da hat sich ihm dieser Fetzen der geistigen Welt enthüllt. Aber jetzt kommt eine Zeit, wo er neuerdings mit einer großen natürlichen Gedächtniskraft ausgestattet ist; das Gedächtnis ist bei ihm wieder hergestellt, während er diesen Spionageprozeß führt. Aber gerade im Verlauf dieses Spionageprozesses wird er zu dem gleichen Verbrechen getrieben, wegen dem er den Markus Freund verurteilte durch seine Dialektik. Die Kraft, die früher aus dem Gedächtnis hervorging, hat sich verwandelt in die Kraft der Instinkte, und er wird jetzt getrieben. Er sieht jetzt nicht den Zusammenhang, der sich wiederum unter der Schwelle des Bewußtseins abspielt zwischen dem, was er jetzt tut, und demjenigen, was er Markus Freund zugeschrieben hat. Das führt dazu, daß der Hofrat Eysenhardt, als er sieht, was ihm passiert ist, dann gerade an dem Abend, der vorangeht der Schlußverhandlung des Prozesses, in dem er seinen höchsten Triumph feiern sollte, in sein Büro geht:

«In seinem Büro angekommen, dessen Schlüssel er bei sich trug, zündete Eysenhardt die zwei Kerzen auf dem Schreibtisch an, wusch sich vorerst Hände, Gesicht und Haar, dann vertauschte er seinen Zivilanzug mit seiner Amtsuniform und ging längere Zeit auf und ab. Hierauf öffnete er die oberste Seitenlade seines Schreibtisches und entnahm ihr nebst einem Päckchen Patronen einen neuen Revolver, den er wahrscheinlich in der ärgsten Zeit seiner Nervenzerrüttung gekauft hatte. Er lud sorgfältig alle Kammern, dann holte er aus dem Papierschrank einen Bogen Amtspapier und schrieb:

Im Namen seiner Majestät des Kaisers!

Ich habe ein schweres Verbrechen begangen und fühle mich unwürdig, fürderhin mein Amt auszuüben und überhaupt weiter zu leben. Ich habe selbst die härteste Strafe über mich verhängt und werde sie in der nachsten Minute mit eigener Hand an mir vollstrek ken. m Eysenhardt

Wien, am 10. Juni 1901.

Schrift und Unterschrift verriet keine Spur auch nur leisesten Zitterns.»

Am nächsten Morgen wurde er tot aufgefunden.

Es ist ein ganz merkwürdiger Zusammenhang in der Novelle geschildert, und wir müssen sagen, daf3 der Verfasser ganz geeignet gewesen wäre, einzusehen, welcher Zusammenhang besteht zwischen dem, was sich hier im gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein abspielt, und demjenigen, was unter der Schwelle des Bewußtseins vorgeht, das heißt die geistigen Ereignisse zu sehen, in die der Mensch hineinverstrickt ist. Nicht wahr, von außen sieht man eben nur das, was in der physischen Welt geschehen ist: daß der Hofrat den Markus Freund verurteilt hat und so weiter. Wäre das nicht passiert gerade in dem Alter, in dem der Hofrat also brüchig werden konnte und das Gedächtnis verlor, so hätte er nicht diesen Fetzen der geistigen Welt gesehen. Er hätte sich ihm nicht erschlossen. Da wäre alles unterbewußt geblieben. Gerade eine solche Novelle wird ja sozusagen von dem Gesichtspunkte aus in die Welt geschickt: Ja, es gibt etwas hinter dem Leben, und es drängt sich in besonderen Fällen sehr klar auf. Aber will man den Menschen in konkreter Weise davon sprechen, dann ist ihnen das unangenehm. An solche Realität wirklich heranzutreten, ist ihnen unangenehm. Also erzählt man es ihnen als Novelle, da brauchen sie nicht daran zu glauben, da können sie sich dabei amüsieren; dann geht es.

Dasjenige, meine lieben Freunde, was die Menschen abhält von der geistigen Welt, das ist nun auch etwas, was sie nicht kennen. Nach zwei Richtungen hin geht ja sozusagen der Weg in die geistige Welt hinein. Nach der einen Richtung hin, indem wir, ich möchte sagen, den Schleier der Natur durchstoßen und aufsuchen dasjenige, was hinter den Erscheinungen der äußeren Natur liegt. Und nach der anderen Seite, indem wir den Schleier des eigenen Seelenlebens durchstoßen und suchen, was hinter dem eigenen Seelenleben liegt. Die gewöhnlichen Philosophien, die suchen gewiß auch hinter die Gründe des Daseins zu kommen, suchen die Weltenrätsel zu lösen. Aber, wie machen sie das? Nun, sie beobachten die Natur entweder unmittelbar oder durch Experimente, und dann denken sie nach. Aber indem man diese Begriffe, die man sich durch dieses Wissen aus der Natur erworben hat, durcheinanderpuddelt, und immer wieder und wiederum durcheinanderpuddelt, und bald so, bald so verschränkt, kommt man zwar zu einer Philosophie, aber zu nichts, was mit der wahren Wirklichkeit draußen zusammenhängt. Durch Nachdenken desjenigen, was sich einem darbietet, Kommt man nie hinter den Schleier des Daseins. Ich habe es im öffentlichen Vortrag dargestellt: Dasjenige, was unsere ewigen Kräfte sind, das ist tätig, indem es uns erst das Werkzeug herstellt, und mit dem Werkzeug kommen wir zu dem, was uns das bloße Bewußtsein gibt. Ja, aber wenn wir uns so das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein bilden, so müssen wir das Werkzeug benützen. Wenn wir dann in die Erfahrung des gewöhnlichen Bewußtseins eintreten, da ist alles schon fertig, was die ewigen Kräfte in uns machen. Nicht durch Nachdenken kommen wir hinter die Geheimnisse der Natur, sondern auf eine ganz andere Weise. Wenn wir durch Meditation, wie ich es im öffentlichen Vortrag beschrieben habe, dahin kommen, daß wir uns im Denken erstarken und daß uns dann wie durch Gnade entgegenkommt die Offenbarung der geistigen Welt, dann schauen wir ganz anders die Natur an. O, ganz anders! Und auch das Menschenleben schauen wir ganz anders an. Dann treten wir vor diese Natur auch hin, und irgendeinen Vorgang oder ein Ding oder ein Ereignis, das uns entgegentritt, das fassen wir auf. Aber wir haben zugleich das Bewußtsein: Bevor du eigentlich die Rose angeschaut hast, ist schon etwas geschehen. Du siehst ja erst die Vorstellung, die Wahrnehmung, aber die Wahrnehmung hat sich erst gebildet. Darin steckt das Geistige, in dem Wahrnehmen; darin steckt die Erinnerung, die Erinnerung an ein Vordenken. Darin liegt das Geheimnis, auf das man kommt durch die Geistesforschung.

Nicht wahr, der Philosoph schaut die Rose an; dann philosophiert er durch Nachdenken. Derjenige, der hinter das Geheimnis der Rose kommen will, darf nicht nachdenken; da geschieht doch nichts. Sondern er schaut die Rose an und wird sich bewußt: Bevor sie ihm überhaupt zum sinnlichen Bewußtsein kommt, hat sich schon ein Prozeß abgespielt. Das erscheint ihm wie eine - ja, wie eine Erinnerung, die dem Anschauen vorangegangen ist. Dieses, dafß sich uns etwas wie Erinnerung ergibt, wovon wir wissen: Das hast du getan, bevor du die sinnliche Anschauung gehabt hast -, das in bezug auf die äußere Natur Vordenken, das unbewußt bleibt und das dann heraufgeholt wird wie eine Erinnerung: das ist es, worauf es ankommt. Durch kein Nachdenken kommt man hinter die Geheimnisse der Natur, sondern durch Vordenken. Ebensowenig kommt man hinter die Geheimnisse desjenigen, was Inhalt der Seele ist, anders, als daß man zu jenem Zuschauer, von dem ich gesprochen habe, wirklich hinkommt. Sehen Sie, das sind die Wege, durch die wir heute in die geistige Welt hineindringen können.

Wenn Sie sich erinnern, daß in der Novelle dem Hofrat Eysenhardt gerade ein Fetzen der geistigen Welt zur Anschauung kommt, nachdem er den Abbau an sich wahrgenommen hat, so werden Sie darin eine eigentümliche Illustrierung finden desjenigen, was ich vorgetragen habe: Wenn man durch die Übung des Denkens dahin kommt, daß das Denken so weit erkraftet ist, daß man die geistige Welt sehen kann, dann kommt man zunächst auch in den Abbau hinein, in dasjenige, was mit dem Tode zusammenhängt. Die Mystiker aller Zeiten haben es ausgedrückt dadurch, daß sie sagten: «An die Pforte des Todes herankommen», das heißt an alles dasjenige, was sich im Menschenleben als Abbauendes darstellt. Und so kommen wir also darauf, wenn wir wirklich die Meditation bis zu dem Punkte getrieben haben, daß wir das Initiations-Ereignis erlangt haben: Du stehst an der Pforte des Todes; du weißt, da ist an dir etwas, was seit deiner Geburt oder Empfängnis an dir waltet, das sich dann zusammensummiert und zur Erscheinung des Todes, zur Wegnehmung des physischen Leibes wird. Da sagt man sich: Aber das alles, was zum Tode führt, es ist herausgegangen aus der geistigen Welt. Was aus der geistigen Welt herausgegangen ist, es hat sich vereinigt mit dem, was durch die Vererbungssubstanz gekommen ist. Wir sehen den Menschen hier in der physischen Welt stehen und sagen uns: Was uns in seinem Antlitz entgegentritt, was uns durch seine Worte spricht, alles, was er als physischer Mensch tut, es ist der Ausdruck desjenigen, was sich durch seinen letzten Tod und durch seine letzte Geburt vorbereitet hat in der geistigen Welt. Da lebt sein Seelisches drinnen. Aber wir können aus dem ganzen Sinn der Auseinandersetzung entnehmen: Das, was von der Menschenseele lebt zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt, das zieht die Kräfte an aus der geistigen Welt, um in dieser Inkarnation zwischen Geburt und Tod an dem Menschen zu bilden, etwas zu bilden, was eben der Mensch ist. Und dann ist das wirklich so — wenn Sie sich erinnern, wie ich das im öffentlichen Vortrag dargestellt habe -: Indem in der Meditation im Denken der Wille erkraftet wird, kann erlebt werden, wie sich der Keim entwickelt, der nun wiederum durch die Pforte des Todes geht und sich vorbereitet in der geistigen Welt zu einer weiteren Inkarnation, so daß im Menschen dieser ewige Bildungsprozeß ist: Aus der geistigen Welt kommt heraus das Seelisch-Geistige, bildet sich diesen Menschen hier. In diesem Menschen entsteht, anfangs wie ein Punkt, dasjenige, was nun hier im Leben als der Keim entsteht, der wiederum durch die Pforte des Todes geht, um gleichsam die Entwickelung fortzusetzen. So daß, wenn wir den Menschen hier haben, das sich wirklich so zeigt: Wie er vor uns steht, so ist er aus der geistigen Welt heraus als Mensch geschaffen. Mit dem, was die Eltern geben können, vereinigte sich das, was aus der geistigen Welt heraus kam. Solange er in der geistigen Welt war, war er inmitten der geistigen Mächte, so wie er hier inmitten der Naturkräfte ist im physischen Leibe. Er war inmitten der geistigen Mächte, mit denen zusammen er sich vorbereitete auf diese Inkarnation. Es ist wirklich so, wenn wir den Menschen vor uns sehen in einer Inkarnation, wie ich es im zweiten Mysteriendrama, in «Die Prüfung der Seele» dargestellt habe: Ganze Götterwelten wirken, um den Menschen darzustellen; zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt wirken geistige Kräfte, um den Menschen in das Dasein hineinzustellen. Dieser Mensch hier ist das Ziel gewisser geistiger Kräfte, die zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt wirken.

Sehen Sie, das hat eine gewisse wissenschaftliche Richtung, aber eine geisteswissenschaftliche Richtung, immer gewußt und zum Ausdruck gebracht. Immer wieder und wiederum hat zum Beispiel ein bedeutender Mensch dies, was ich eben jetzt dargestellt habe, zum Ausdruck gebracht, indem er sagte: «Leiblichkeit ist das Ende der Wege Gottes» Er wollte sagen: Während wir in der geistigen Welt drinnen sind, mit der göttlichen Welt verwoben sind zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt, bereiten wir uns zu unserer Leiblichkeit vor. Die ist das Ende der Wege Gottes. Er hat nur nicht dazufügen können den andern Satz: In der Leiblichkeit bereitet sich ein neuer Anfang vor, der dann wiederum durch den Tod hindurchgeht und zu einer neuen Inkarnation führt. Dieser Ausspruch: «Leiblichkeit ist das Ende der Wege Gottes», bildet gewissermaßen sogar das Leitmotiv aller Werke, die ein sehr bedeutender Mensch vor jetzt fast hundert Jahren geschrieben hat, der immer wiederum darauf aufmerksam gemacht hat, daß das menschliche Wissen, die menschliche Erkenntnis Wege nehmen muß, um diese geistigen Zusammenhänge zu erkennen: Christoph Oetinger. Auch Oetinger wollte in seiner Art die Theosophie darstellen. Richard Rothe hat schöne Worte am Schluß der Vorrede zu einem Buche über Oetinger geschrieben. Er wollte zum Ausdruck bringen, daß in älteren Zeiten die Menschen spirituelle Wege gesucht haben, aber in ihrer Art, und daß die Zeit kommen werde und nicht mehr ferne liege, in welcher mit vollem wissenschaftlichem Bewußtsein ergriffen wird dasjenige, was man eigentlich immer gesucht hat. Rothe sagt: «Was die Theosophie eigentlich will, das ist bei den älteren Theosophen oft schwer zu erkennen. Und was die Hauptsache ist, wenn sie nur erst einmal eigentliche Wissenschaft geworden ist und also auch deutlich bestimmte Resultate abgesetzt hat, so werden diese schon nach und nach in die allgemeine Überzeugung übergehen... Doch dies ruht im Schoße der Zukunft, der wir nicht vorgreifen wollen.» So Richard Rothe, der Heidelberger Professor, über den Theosophen Christoph Oetinger, im November 1847.

Dasjenige, was gesucht wird durch die Geisteswissenschaft, hat es immer gegeben, nur in anderer Weise. Heute obliegt es dem Menschen, auf die Art es zu suchen, wie es eben in unserer Zeit gesucht werden muß. Und oft habe ich es ausgeführt: Das naturwissenschaftliche Denken ist heute an einen Punkt gekommen, wo aus der naturwissenschaftlichen Gesinnung gerade eine wissenschaftliche Form gesucht werden muß für dasjenige, was als Wissenschaft in der Theosophie aller Zeiten lebte. Und wenn nun Rothe als Herausgeber Oetingers sagt, daß dasjenige, was er meint, so anzusprechen ist: «Doch dies ruht im Schoße der Zukunft» — dasjenige, was im Jahre 1847 Zukunft war, es ist heute unbedingt zur Gegenwart erreift. Wir stehen heute vor einer Zeit, wo wir nachweisen können denn es war nur ein Beispiel, das ich heute vorgebracht habe mit der Novelle «Hofrat Eysenhardt» von Alfred von Berger -, daß die Menschenseelen wirklich reif sind, heranzukommen an die geistigen Wahrheiten, und daß sie nur nicht den Mut haben, wirklich diese geistigen Wahrheiten zu ergreifen.

Nach zwei Seiten hin, sagte ich, führt der Weg in die geistigen Welten hinein, indem hinter den Schleier der Natur geschaut wird. Warum schreiten die Menschen so schwer hinein, auch diejenigen, die sich angewöhnt haben, wissenschaftlich zu denken, und nur das wissenschaftliche Denken zu einer innerlichen Handhabe erheben müßten in der geschilderten Weise? Warum? Sie sagen, daß der Mensch Erkenntnisgrenzen hat: Ignorabimus! Und warum wollen sie nicht in die geistige Welt? Ja, das liegt eben schon hinter der Schwelle des Bewußtseins. Innerhalb des Bewußtseins führt man sogenannte logische Gründe dafür an, daß man nicht in die geistige Welt hineinkönne, logische Gründe, wie sie hinlänglich bekannt sind. Unter diesen logischen Gründen liegt erst der wahre innere Grund: die Furcht vor der geistigen Welt. Die kommt nicht in das Bewußtsein herauf, aber die Furcht vor der geistigen Welt hält die Menschen ab, die unbewußte, unterbewußte Furcht. Würde man sich nur mit dem Dasein der unbewußten Furcht bekannt machen, und wie das alles, was man sich einredet, nur eine Maske ist für dasjenige, was in Wahrheit Furcht ist, man würde sehr vieles erkennen. Das ist das eine. Das andere ist: Sobald man in die geistige Welt hineinkommt, wird man erfaßt, so wie man selber die Gedanken erfaßt, von den Wesenheiten der höheren Hierarchien. Man wird gleichsam ein Gedanke in der geistigen Welt. Dagegen sträubt sich innerlich das Seelische. Es fürchtet sich davor, hingenommen zu werden von der geistigen Welt. Wiederum eine Art Furcht, eine Art ohnmächtiger Furcht davor, sich ergreifen zu lassen von der geistigen Welt, so wie man, wenn man durch die Geburt hineinkommt in die physische Welt, ergriffen wird von den physischen Kräften. Furcht nach außen und Scheu vor einer gewissen Ohnmacht im Ergriffenwerden von der geistigen Welt — das ist es, was die Menschen zurückhält von der geistigen Welt. Das ist es, warum sie, wie dieser Berger in seiner Novelle, manchmal so plätschern wollen in den Wellen der geistigen Welt, aber wollen, daß das, ich möchte sagen, unverbindlich sei, und nicht den Mut haben, wirklich heranzukommen an das Ergreifen der geistigen Welten, was wahrhaftig durch die Ihnen oftmals geschilderten inneren Experimente geschehen kann, wie das Ergreifen der Naturgeheimnisse durch die äußeren Experimente geschehen kann.

Wenn Sie zu dem, was ich gesagt habe, hinzunehmen dasjenige, was ich ausgeführt habe in einem der öffentlichen Vorträge über den Zusammenhang zwischen den genialischen Kräften, die auftreten im Leben, und zwischen den frühen Toden, die dadurch herbeigeführt werden, daß dem Menschen sein Leib genommen wird — ich sagte, durch eine Kugel oder auf andere Weise, zum Beispiel auf dem Schlachtfelde -, wenn Sie sich erinnern an dasjenige, was ich ausgeführt habe, daß, wenn Erfindungskräfte, geniale Kräfte im Menschen auftreten, diese die Wirkung sind jener Vorgänge, die geschehen, wenn dem Menschen sein physischer Leib abgenommen wird, dann haben Sie da auch etwas, was unter der Schwelle des Bewußtseins bleibt. Aber es liegt in dem Mut, in der ganzen Art und Weise, wie der Mensch sich für eine große Zeiterscheinung aufopfert, ein instinktiver Ausdruck für etwas, was unter der Schwelle des Bewußtseins liegt und so den Menschen nicht in seiner vollen Art zum Bewußtsein kommen kann. In unserer Zeit jedoch besteht der Impuls in der Menschheitsentwickelung, daß dasjenige, was unter der Schwelle des Bewußtseins liegt, bis zu einem gewissen Grade hinaufgetragen wird in dieses Bewußtsein, so daß der Mensch davon wissen könne. Und in diesem Sinne meine ich es immer, wenn ich darauf hinweise, daf3 gerade auch in den großen Ereignissen unserer Zeit, in all dem, was sich oberhalb [der Schwelle] des Bewußtseins abspielt, bedeutsame unterbewußte Vorgänge liegen und daß niemals erschöpft sein wird durch dasjenige, was der äußere Geschichtsforscher von diesen gegenwärtigen Ereignissen erfassen kann, was diese Ereignisse in den großen Zusammenhang der Menschheitsentwickelung hineinstellt. Mehr als jemals ist das Unterbewußte beteiligt an demjenigen, was in unserer Gegenwart geschieht. Und deshalb darf gerade der Geistesforscher darauf hinweisen, wie eine künftige Zeit, um im richtigen Lichte des Weltzusammenhanges unsere bedeutsamen geschichtlichen gegenwärtigen Ereignisse zu schauen, auf den geistigen Untergrund hinweisen wird. Auch von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus stellt sich uns immer wieder und wiederum vor die Seele, was wir zum Schlusse der Betrachtung immer wieder gesagt haben:

Aus dem Mut der Kämpfer,
Aus dem Blut der Schlachten,
Aus dem Leid Verlassener,
Aus des Volkes Opfertaten
Wird erwachsen Geistesfrucht—
Lenken Seelen geistbewußt
Ihren Sinn ins Geisterreich.

Fifth Lecture

We have directed our last considerations here from a certain point of view toward the life that runs behind that which unfolds for human beings in everyday life or in ordinary science, in the physical consciousness mediated to them through the earthly instrument, through the physical instrument. Basically, all our reflections are directed toward this life that lies beneath the threshold of ordinary consciousness. Nevertheless, as is necessary in spiritual science, we try to approach this life from various angles.

While certainty is given with regard to external physical-sensory reality simply by looking at it—the human being says, “I know that something is when I have seen it”—certainty about the spiritual worlds is also created for those who are unable to ascend into them through special exercises by illuminating them from different sides. Through this illumination from different sides, which then come together, a certain certainty can be attained.

I have pointed out in particular that human beings do not exist in the world only through what they perceive with their ordinary consciousness, but that beneath the threshold of ordinary consciousness there is a life that is not encompassed by consciousness, which, however, becomes recognizable when human beings , as they say, passes through the gate of initiation, but which remains unconscious to ordinary human life. Much happens in the world with the whole of what a human being is, as I have expressed it, and what one knows while passing through life in the physical body is only a part of what actually happens to the human being. And all striving to come into contact with the spiritual world consists in looking into this life that takes place below the threshold of ordinary consciousness, that is, in crossing the threshold through an expansion of this consciousness and looking into that in which we actually stand, but which we cannot see with our ordinary consciousness. And so I said that there is a certain movable threshold between ordinary consciousness and what — and the word has a certain meaning for us — runs “unconsciously-consciously” for human beings.

Last time, I gave a very obvious example. In the morning, a person decides to do something in the evening. He lives, so to speak, with the thought that he will do this in the evening. At noon, something happens that prevents them from doing it in the evening. For ordinary consciousness, this may be one of those events that we call chance. But if we look deeper into human life, we discover wisdom in this so-called chance, but a wisdom that lies below the threshold of consciousness. One cannot actually see through this wisdom with ordinary consciousness, but in such cases one very often discovers that if the obstacle had not arisen at noon, the person might have been brought into quite a bad situation by doing what he had planned in the evening. Last time I said that he might have broken his leg in the evening or something like that. And once you have the connection, you discover that wisdom lies in the whole course of events, that the soul itself sought out and brought about the obstacle, but with intentions that lie below the threshold of consciousness. Now, this is something that is still very difficult for ordinary consciousness to grasp, but it points down to a region to which human beings belong, to which they belong with the hidden parts of their being that pass through the gate of death after they have laid down their physical body. It belongs to that ruling consciousness of which we spoke in the public lecture as a spectator of our volitional actions. This spectator is really always there. He guides and directs us, but ordinary consciousness knows nothing of him. Much goes on there that intervenes between the events that ordinary consciousness surveys. And there, just as a living being prepares itself in the egg, namely in everything that intervenes between the events of life, in what goes on below the threshold of our consciousness, there is a preparation for what we will be when we have passed through the gate of death.

Now we must bring together something that we have brought before our soul in the last few reflections with various things that may still be familiar to us from earlier reflections. I have often pointed out how important and essential memory is for human beings, insofar as they are here in physical consciousness, this memory that must not be torn apart. We must remember, or at least be able to remember, the connection between our lives up to a certain point in our physical experience. If this connection is torn apart, if we cannot remember certain events, so that we at least have the awareness that we existed at the time when these events took place, then a serious mental illness sets in, which I pointed out in the last reflections here. This remembering belongs to the experience in physical consciousness here. But this remembering is at the same time, in a certain sense, a veil that covers those events that I now actually mean and that lie behind ordinary consciousness, that lie behind that veil woven by continuous memory. Just think about it: we are first a child; we go through certain periods of consciousness that we cannot remember. Then comes the point in time up to which we can always remember back in later life. There is a closed series of memories, we can trace our ego back to a point in time that occurs in the second, third, or fourth year of life, or later for some people, in ordinary life. When we look back within ourselves, when we look inside ourselves, our spiritual gaze first encounters these memories, and insofar as we are physical human beings, we actually live inwardly in these memories. We could not speak of our self if we did not live in these memories. Anyone who looks at themselves recognizes this. By looking within themselves, they are actually looking into the scope of their memories. They are, as it were, looking at the tableau of their memories. Even if not everything we have experienced appears in these memories, we know that memories could emerge up to the point in time characterized, and we must even assume that we were really consciously present with our ego during all these memories and were able to retain them. If this were not the case, the connection of our ego would be destroyed and a mental illness would have occurred. But behind what we perceive in our memories lies precisely that which is seen with the spiritual eye and heard with the spiritual ear. So it is true, as I have already stated in public lectures, that the power we otherwise need for memory is used when we look into the spiritual world, precisely for looking into the spiritual world. This does not mean that one loses one's memory when one attains spiritual vision, but it does mean what I characterized in my public lecture, namely that one does not live in the same way in terms of memory, that one cannot really always survey what one sees spiritually, but that one must look again and again and look again and again.

I have often said: When someone truly gives a lecture from the spiritual world, they cannot do so from memory, as one speaks about something else, but it must always be newly created from the spiritual world; that which lives in the mind must be generated again and again. The spirit, the soul must be active, must constantly recreate in such a case. When the spiritual seer truly looks into the spiritual world, what is otherwise the veil of memory becomes a transparent veil, something through which he can see. He sees, as it were, through the power that otherwise forms his memory, and sees into the spiritual world. If you do your exercises strictly and energetically, you will notice that when you use your thinking in ordinary life, allowing the things and events of the world to affect you, your body supports you as a physical instrument so that you can really imagine things; and then the image, supported by the activity of the physical body, remains in us as a memory. When you enter the spiritual world, you must always be active in order to bring forth the image again and again. An uninterrupted activity begins when you arrive at the point I characterized in the public lecture, when you can now wait until the secrets of the spiritual world open up. But you must participate! Just as when you draw something, you must constantly participate in order to express something through the drawing, so too, as the spiritual world reveals itself, you must actively participate in creating the imagination. It arises out of objective reality, but you must be present during the creation of these ideas. In this way, one initially enters into something that is constantly happening with human beings, with the twofold human being I have already mentioned, who is hidden within us, who lives within our physical shell and below the threshold of our ordinary physical consciousness. One connects with this human being. One notices that here in the physical world, one is so connected with the world that one stands on solid ground, so connected that one sees other things in the external world, moves between these other things, enters into a certain relationship with people to whom one does this or that, from whom one receives this or that. In the continuous perception of what we develop in this way lies this life that we encompass with our ordinary consciousness. But there is another life underlying it, a lawfulness that we cannot grasp with this ordinary consciousness, but into which we are placed when we are in our ego and astral body from the moment we fall asleep until we wake up. But there our consciousness is so dulled that we cannot perceive with our ordinary senses how we stand in a world of the spirit that is constantly unfolding and living around us, but which is woven into the sensory and visible as something non-sensory and invisible. We must understand this world as a spiritual one; we must not think of it as a duplicate, as something merely finer than the physical-sensory world, but we must think of it as something spiritual.

Now, I have often pointed out the reasons why, especially in our time, we must draw from the source of all human knowledge that which, as we do, relates to the spiritual world. Truly, not only from the fact that there are spiritual researchers who have something to say about the spiritual world, but from the entire course of our cultural life — I have pointed this out from various points of view — it can be seen that there is a certain longing among people to really allow this hidden side of human life to touch their souls, to know something about these hidden sides of life. I have already cited examples from scientific and other areas of life that show how this longing is alive in the present.

Today I would like to add a very special example to our consideration, from which we can see that there are already people in our time who, in a sense, touch upon these mysteries of existence, who sense and know something about these mysteries of existence, but who, for reasons that I will characterize later, do not want to in the way we try to do through our spiritual science. If you discuss these things in such a way that you leave them a little up in the air, so to speak, that you leave the door open for people: Well, you don't have to believe it, you don't have to think that this is a real world! — then it is easier to approach people with these things. And there are many examples of this in our time. I have cited them. Today I would like to cite a special example, precisely in relation to this chapter. I would like to insert into this consideration a few remarks about a truly extraordinary novella from recent German literature, I would say, about a pearl of German novella writing. In this novella, called Hofrat Eysenhardt, which is truly one of the best novellas in recent German literature, a single character, Hofrat Eysenhardt himself, is characterized in an extraordinarily wonderful way. This Hofrat Eysenhardt, who lives in Vienna—his date of birth is specified very precisely: “Dr. Franz Ritter von Eysenhardt was born in Vienna a few years before the outbreak of the 1848 revolution”—becomes a lawyer, later president of the regional court; he becomes one of the most important lawyers in his country. He is feared by those who have anything to do with the court. He is popular with his superiors because he is an excellent criminal investigator. He has a way with words that is capable of condemning anyone who falls into his clutches, so to speak. He puts everyone in a crossfire during interrogations, and he knows how to torment his victims with a certain indifference to human life—in this case, one could say his “object”—so that they become entangled in all kinds of traps that are set for them. At the same time, Court Councilor Eysenhardt is, outwardly, a very strange person. He does not have much talent for connecting with other people on a human and emotional level. He is a kind of recluse when it comes to human life. He attaches great importance to appearing correct and impeccable in his outward life. He is curt with all his subordinates. He is not only friendly, but also deeply polite to all his superiors. Yes, I could list many more characteristics; he is the model of a court councilor. But let us not go into these other characteristics—they are wonderfully described, for example, in the account of one of his subordinates in the novella—but let us point out that he was once chosen to conduct an important trial against a strange man named Markus Freund. This Markus Freund already had previous convictions for similar offences of a lesser nature than the one of which he was now accused. However, the investigating judge who conducted the preliminary investigation found that there was no possibility of securing a conviction this time. But Court Councilor Eysenhardt secured a conviction. And in a document which the Court Councilor himself drafted for a purpose which I will explain to you in a moment, he describes the manner in which Markus Freund behaved during and, in particular, after the conviction. I will read only the passage describing Markus Freund's behavior during the conviction:

“Otherwise, this man, who possessed the family spirit so characteristic of his race, had a very special tenderness for a recently born granddaughter, of whom he never tired of talking to his cellmates. He could hardly wait for his release, which he was certain to receive despite the strongest suspicions against him, in order to see the child again. Markus Freund stubbornly denied everything and, during the interrogations before the investigating judge, was able to explain away each of the serious circumstances incriminating him with truly astonishing acumen, that the investigating judge, an otherwise very capable, if overly soft-hearted man, was completely convinced of Markus Freund's innocence when the final hearing began, which was presided over by the person to whom this information refers.” - Court Councilor Eysenhardt writes this himself, referring to himself in the third person. - “Although Markus Freund displayed the utmost acumen in the final hearing and his defense attorney delivered a very fine and moving speech, which was duly praised by the newspapers, the outcome of the trial was exactly the opposite of what the investigating judge and perhaps the defendant himself had expected. Mr. Markus Freund was unanimously found guilty by the jury and, due to several previous convictions and other aggravating circumstances, was sentenced to the maximum penalty of twenty years in prison. The aforementioned person” — that is, the aforementioned person is this court councilor Eysenhardt himself — ”may without immodesty describe this outcome as one of the greatest triumphs of his many years of criminal practice. For surely the jury would have been swayed in his favor by Markus Freund's truly dazzling sophistry, even though the mood of the people at that time was not exactly favorable to people of his race, had not the presiding judge, with his dialectic, which was superior to that of the defendant and yet adapted to the comprehension of the jury, been able to reduce this sophistry to nothing. The effect of the pronouncement of the verdict on the defendant was such,” the court councilor himself recounts, ”that it took nerves of steel, accustomed to such appearances, not to be shaken by it and perhaps lose faith in the truth and justice of the verdict. At first, Markus Freund stammered a few incomprehensible words, probably Hebrew. Then the apparently not very tall, stooped man straightened up so that he looked tall, the lids that usually almost covered his eyes lifted, revealing the white of his rolling eyeballs, streaked with red veins. And from his contorted mouth hissed and spat forth at great speed a series of curses and threats directed at the presiding judge, which, in the repulsive jargon in which they were uttered, would hardly be consistent with the dignity of the judiciary to repeat here. Only the first sentence: “Mr. President, you know as well as I do that I am innocent...” and the last: “You will pay for this. You will pay for this with your life, just you wait!” What lay between was utterly fantastical and seemed, if it had any meaning at all, to imply that he, Markus Freund, had examined the high lord president thoroughly and found that the high lord president, even if he did not yet suspect it, was of the same kind as he, the downtrodden but this time innocent Markus Freund. The soldiers of justice immediately did their duty, subduing the raving man, whom the president immediately awarded the disciplinary punishment he deserved for his excesses. As the soldiers, each holding one of his flailing arms, led the condemned man away, his rage turned to weeping and sobbing. His hollow whimpering could still be heard in the corridor: “My poor, poor little girl, you'll never see your grandpa again.” The gentlemen of the jury were completely dismayed by this incident and asked the president through their foreman whether it would be possible to resume the trial immediately. Due to their lack of legal knowledge, they did not have enough experience to know that such outbursts are more common among very stubborn guilty criminals than among innocent convicts, who are, however, much rarer than the romantic imagination of the public would have us believe. It is perhaps less excusable that the aforementioned soft-hearted investigating judge, who had attended the final hearing and its repugnant aftermath, took the liberty of saying quietly to the presiding judge as he left, shaking his head: “Mr. Court Councilor, I do not envy you your talent.”

So Markus Freund had been imprisoned, and the court councillor continued to live. But how he continued to live and what happened next is also recounted in his account. We must imagine that a long time passed, quite a long time, and the prisoner had been detained. Then the following happened:

"Just like the person in question” – that is, the court councillor himself, who continues the story – “at that moment when he had uttered those curses and threats against her with a face contorted with rage, stood just as she had suddenly awakened in the night of 18 to 19 March at two o'clock, long forgotten, Markus Freund before her mind's eye.”

So the court councillor suddenly wakes up at two o'clock in the night of 18 to 19 March and has the impression that Markus Freund is standing before her in her mind.

“And while the person in question lay motionless in a state of rigidity, her imagination quickly replayed the events described above in detail. She was not clearly aware of whether she had never or always thought about these events in the intervening years. Both seemed correct to her at that moment, as horror paralyzed her ability to think.”

So, he wakes up, Hofrat Eysenhardt, in the middle of his sleep, has to think of Markus Freund, has to recapitulate what happened, doesn't know whether he had thought about it often or not at all.

“While the person in question lay there with his pulse racing, unable to carry out his sudden intention to turn on the light on the bedside table” — that is, he could not move his hands — “he thought he heard something tapping very softly on the door, or rather, it was more of a timid scratching, as if a little dog were begging to be let in. The person in question involuntarily blurted out the question: Who is there? There was no answer, nor did the door open, but the person in question had the distinct feeling that something had slipped in, and a faint crackling sound ran across the parquet floor, across the room from the door to the bed, as if this invisible something was coming closer and finally came to stand close to the person in question. At least she had this indescribable feeling of a strange presence, and not just a general, undefined feeling, but rather the feeling that the thing standing next to her bed must be Markus's friend, whose sudden image had just awakened her from a deep sleep. She even had the feeling that the invisible thing was leaning over her face. Whether it was that the person she was thinking of had, without being aware of it, begun to fall asleep again and was already dreaming, in which case it is well known that the people one dreams about often merge with each other, even with the dreamer himself, or whether it was that certain far-fetched ideas of Schopenhauer about the secret identity of all individuals, as an after-effect of her evening reading of the last few days, were stirring in her, in any case, the senseless thought flashed through the person's mind that she herself and Markus Freund were basically the same person, and as if to confirm this absurd assumption that defied all logic, she repeated, whether purely inwardly or audibly and with movement of her vocal organs, she does not know, the above-quoted curses and threats of Markus Freund, as far as she could remember them, with the terrifying feeling that those curses had just begun to come true. If the person in question, which is not impossible, had been asleep and dreaming, she woke up again under this terrible impression and lit the light. The pocket watch on the nightstand showed ten minutes past two o'clock. Everything in the room was as usual, although the furniture, walls, and pictures seemed strange to the person in question, who needed some time and a drink of water to regain some sense of the room around them and of themselves.

That is what he says. He says that at first he has Markus Freund in front of him in his mind. Then he has this—let's call it a vision. But, he continues, this left an impression on him, an impression that initially prompted him to go to the regional court, somewhat trembling, and ask to see the files relating to Markus Freund again. He never got around to it. But something else happened. Court Councillor Eysenhardt had always been a very free-thinking person. He simply recounts what happened to him. We will soon see why he tells this story. Yes, he even finds it somewhat ridiculous and unworthy that he paid any attention to it:

“The person in question was wrong to deny the unworthy and ridiculous nature of his behavior. His formerly iron willpower was and remained paralyzed in this regard. It was barely enough to conceal the inner torment he carried with him from his colleagues and subordinates. One morning, the person in question believed he heard the name “Markus Freund” as he passed by a group of judicial officials standing together in lively conversation in a dark corridor.

So, one day he went to the state court—he had never really dared to take up these files again—and he heard some people talking in the corridor, and as he passed by, he heard the name Markus Freund.

“Since this man and this name had gradually become an obsession that gave her no peace anywhere or at any time, she did not rule out the possibility of self-deception” — so he even believes that he hears the name Markus Freund through self-deception — “she stopped and asked, ‘Who are you gentlemen talking about?’ “Markus Freund, your Markus Freund, don't you remember? replied one of the gentlemen, who happened to be the soft-hearted investigating magistrate who had made that rash remark. “Markus Freund? What about him?” The person in question's breath caught in his throat. “Well, he's dead; thank God, now he's been delivered, the poor devil,” replied the soft-hearted man. ‘Dead? When?’ ‘About three or four weeks ago,’ said the man questioned. ‘Here, District Court Judge N. must know.’ ‘In the night of March 18 to 19 of this year, at two o'clock,’ said the District Court Judge.

So, we are told: Court Councillor Eysenhardt had sentenced Markus Freund. He had long since been imprisoned. In the night of March 18 to 19, he wakes up, first thinking of him, then has a vision of him entering, is seized by a terrible fear, wants to have the files brought to him, but lets weeks go by. Finally, he overhears a conversation in which he learns that Markus Freund died at the very moment when the deceased Markus Freund appeared to him, at first creeping up like a little poodle. Now, in order to understand the whole thing, one must add to what has already been said the conclusion of the novella. For the conclusion of the novella shows that the court councilor is now driven by circumstances and by circumstances that one would not expect to drive him to this—that he is driven, precisely as the presiding judge in a particularly important espionage trial, to come into contact with personalities in whose company, guided by a dark instinct, he commits the very crime for which he condemned Markus Freund. So when, driven by his passion, he was later drawn into this crime and had committed it, he had the opportunity to remember in a very special way what Markus Freund had said after his conviction: “You will be paid back, eye for an eye, just wait. You will be paid back, eye for an eye!”

The court councilor had thus experienced something beneath the threshold of consciousness that was connected in the manner sufficiently indicated above with his actions in the previous period, but which was also connected in a strangely mysterious way with the fulfillment of what the deceased had threatened him with. Yes, it is connected in an even deeper way. The author of the novella writes in the first person, as if he had been told various things about this court councillor Eysenhardt, and he recounts how he had a conversation with one of his subordinates — this was already presented earlier in the novella. This subordinate is a strangely astute, philosophically minded man who says: This court councilor is so gifted at getting to the bottom of things precisely because he himself has a great aptitude for all these things; and that is where he penetrates most deeply, where he has his special aptitudes. This is recounted in the novella. Now it is interesting that the thought occurs to the court councilor at two o'clock in the morning, on the night of March 18 to 19: You are something like one with this Markus Freund. This unity, this merging of consciousnesses, comes to his mind; he has a glimpse of a connection that lies below the threshold of ordinary life. It is revealed to him. Of course, it is not revealed to him in the way it is revealed to everyone else, but it is revealed to him.

Now it is interesting that the author of this novella has gathered all the building blocks to make the plot understandable. And here we must also consider what the author presents as preceding this vision in the night that the court councillor had. The court councilor was actually a robust man. As I said, many characteristics could be cited that would show him to be a man who, although not emotionally fulfilled in life, went his own way with a certain brutality and was also fundamentally healthy. But as if through an external symptom, the man who had never lost faith in himself, who had always been convinced of himself, began to lose faith in himself. He discovered that one of his teeth had become loose and that he could simply pull it out with his fingers. The thought crossed his mind: Now my life is going downhill; now something is starting to break down. And the thought crossed his mind: So this is how you lose your organism piece by piece. But that would not have been the worst thing; the worst thing was that from that moment on—he just didn't realize it—he began to fantasize about his own decline, as he writes in his own letter, where he describes himself as a third person. The worst thing was that his memory was failing. And because his memory was such a help to him in all the professional work he had to do and had done, he developed a certain fear of life. And he really noticed how he could no longer remember certain things that he had remembered so easily before, how he had had everything so well organized before.

Think how interesting it is that the novelist brings together this possibility of having a very partial clairvoyance with the decline of memory! Then his memory improves again. And then he gets around to writing it down. And he remembers: You were like that. As a free spirit, he can't help thinking that these are completely pathological phenomena. Well, and then he thinks to himself: I'm actually in danger of going mad. That is, of course, in the nature of a free spirit. And he is ashamed to ask anyone for advice. That is why he wants to use his position to write in the third person and then present it as a document, where no one knows who it is about, to some psychiatrist who will give him an opinion on this imaginary person. In this way, he wants to find out what the psychiatrist thinks. And that's how it comes out; the novelist uses this document to communicate something about this person's inner life.

You see, we have here a very beautiful artistic product that basically points to elements that must be discussed in the humanities, precisely those elements that arise from the connection between memory, the ability to remember, and this insight into the spiritual worlds. The novelist does this very nicely by allowing memory to be tuned down at the moment when, one might say, a few fragments of these mysterious connections emerge for the person concerned. And the whole story is strange, very strange, in that it is written piece by piece in such a way that one sees the author saying to himself: there are such connections behind life. But he clothes it in the form of a novella. The novella is written with great subtlety, as only a philosophical mind can write. It was written by Alfred Freiherr von Berger, the long-time director of the Hamburg Schauspielhaus, who later became director of the Burgtheater in Vienna. The novella is not only one of the best works Berger ever wrote, but it is truly one of the gems of German novella literature. I am not saying this, of course, because this novella deals with a subject that is close to our hearts, but because only a subtle person can make such subtle observations in a seemingly abnormal situation. From a purely artistic point of view, that is what I mean when I talk about the value of the novella. This novella is really written in such a way that everyone who reads it is aware that the author is writing a novella, but would actually prefer to write a biography of Hofrat Eysenhardt, because he writes in such a way that when you read this wonderfully realistic description, you never get the feeling that the good Berger met a man who really had such a life. Now one must say: How natural it is for a person like Alfred Freiherr von Berger to approach the spiritual world and to truly understand these connections through spiritual science! How infinitely meaningful it must have been for Berger to get to know spiritual science in such a way that he could say to himself, for example: This court councilor, in examining Markus Freund as if with X-rays and in this case condemning him unjustly, how will he now have to live in the time immediately following his passage through the gate of death, in what we have always called Kamaloka? I have said: There the human being must live in the effect of his deeds, in the meaning that the deeds have for the other person in relation to whom they are carried out. What the court councilor did at the trial certainly gave him immense satisfaction, precisely because of his great dialectic. He derived great satisfaction from this, which was expressed in the sentence he uttered: he could count it to his credit that he had countered the sophistry of the defendant and at the same time spoken in such a way that the jury had been led to convict him, even though they would have resumed the court proceedings immediately afterwards when they saw the effect of the verdict on the defendant. That is one way of looking at it, from the perspective of the court councilor. From the perspective of Markus Freund's friend, we must say that we see the effect of the verdict on him. In that effect—in what affected Markus Freund's soul—the court councilor must be living in Kamaloka. And a mirror image, a picture of this, opens up at the very moment when Markus Freund passes through the gate of death. This image opens up to him, and he now sees that he is identical, he is one with this Markus Freund; he sees himself in this Markus Freund, he feels himself in him. We see that the court councilor has a foretaste of Kamaloka. He has it so strongly that he not only experiences what has happened there, but something else is now developing within him that is connected with the whole thing, below the threshold of his consciousness. Every single feature is significant. I told you that he lost his memory for a while, and during that time this fragment of the spiritual world was revealed to him. But now a time is coming when he is once again endowed with a great natural power of memory; his memory is restored while he is conducting this espionage trial. But it is precisely in the course of this espionage trial that he is driven to commit the same crime for which he condemned Markus Freund through his dialectic. The power that formerly sprang from his memory has been transformed into the power of instinct, and he is now driven. He no longer sees the connection that is taking place beneath the threshold of consciousness between what he is doing now and what he attributed to Markus Freund. This leads to the court councilor Eysenhardt, when he sees what has happened to him, going to his office on the very evening before the final hearing of the trial in which he was to celebrate his greatest triumph:

"Arriving at his office, the key to which he carried with him, Eysenhardt lit the two candles on his desk, washed his hands, face, and hair, then changed out of his civilian suit into his official uniform and paced back and forth for a long time. He then opened the top drawer of his desk and took out a packet of cartridges and a new revolver, which he had probably bought during the worst period of his nervous breakdown. He carefully loaded all the chambers, then took a sheet of official paper from the filing cabinet and wrote:

In the name of His Majesty the Emperor!

I have committed a serious crime and feel unworthy to continue in my office or to live at all. I have imposed the harshest punishment on myself and will carry it out with my own hand in the next minute. m Eysenhardt

Vienna, June 10, 1901.

The writing and signature betrayed not even the slightest tremor."

The next morning, he was found dead.

The novella describes a very strange connection, and we must say that the author was well suited to understand the connection between what is happening here in ordinary consciousness and what is going on below the threshold of consciousness, that is, to see the spiritual events in which human beings are entangled. From the outside, one sees only what has happened in the physical world: that the court councilor has condemned Markus Freund, and so on. If this had not happened at the age when the court councilor was becoming frail and losing his memory, he would not have seen this fragment of the spiritual world. It would not have been revealed to him. Everything would have remained subconscious. A novella like this is sent out into the world from this point of view, so to speak: Yes, there is something behind life, and in special cases it imposes itself very clearly. But if you want to talk to people about it in concrete terms, they find it unpleasant. It is unpleasant for them to really approach such a reality. So you tell them as a novella, then they don't have to believe it, they can enjoy it; then it works.

That, my dear friends, which keeps people away from the spiritual world is something they do not know. There are, so to speak, two paths that lead into the spiritual world. One path is when we, so to speak, pierce the veil of nature and seek what lies behind the phenomena of external nature. And in the other direction, we pierce the veil of our own soul life and seek what lies behind our own soul life. Ordinary philosophies certainly seek to get to the bottom of the reasons for existence and to solve the riddles of the world. But how do they do that? Well, they observe nature either directly or through experiments, and then they think about it. But by muddling up the concepts acquired through this knowledge of nature, muddling them up again and again, intertwining them in various ways, one arrives at a philosophy, but one that has nothing to do with true reality outside. By thinking about what presents itself to us, we never get behind the veil of existence. I have explained this in a public lecture: What our eternal powers are is active in that they first create the tools for us, and with these tools we attain what mere consciousness gives us. Yes, but when we form our ordinary consciousness in this way, we must use the tools. When we then enter into the experience of ordinary consciousness, everything that the eternal forces in us do is already finished. It is not through thinking that we discover the secrets of nature, but in a completely different way. When, through meditation, as I have described in public lectures, we reach the point where we become stronger in our thinking and then, as if by grace, the revelation of the spiritual world comes to us, we see nature in a completely different light. Oh, completely different! And we also view human life in a completely different way. Then we step before this nature, and we grasp some process or thing or event that comes toward us. But at the same time we are conscious that before you actually looked at the rose, something had already happened. You see first the idea, the perception, but the perception has already been formed. Therein lies the spiritual, in perception; therein lies memory, the memory of a prior thought. Therein lies the mystery that one discovers through spiritual research.

Isn't it true that the philosopher looks at the rose and then philosophizes by thinking? The person who wants to discover the secret of the rose must not think; nothing happens then. Instead, he looks at the rose and becomes aware that before it even enters his sensory consciousness, a process has already taken place. This appears to him like a memory that preceded the act of looking. This fact that something arises in us like a memory, something we know: “You did that before you had the sensory perception” — this pre-thinking in relation to external nature, which remains unconscious and is then brought up like a memory: that is what matters. No amount of reflection can reveal the secrets of nature; only pre-thinking can do that. Nor can one discover the secrets of the soul in any other way than by actually becoming the spectator I have spoken of. You see, these are the paths through which we can penetrate the spiritual world today.

If you remember that in the novella, Hofrat Eysenhardt gets a glimpse of the spiritual world after he has perceived the decay, you will find in this a peculiar illustration of what I have said: When, through the exercise of thinking, one reaches the point where thinking is so powerful that one can see the spiritual world, one first enters into decay, into that which is connected with death. The mystics of all ages have expressed this by saying, “Approaching the gate of death,” that is, approaching everything that appears in human life as destructive. And so we come to the point, when we have really carried meditation to the point where we have attained the initiation experience: you stand at the gate of death; you know that there is something in you that has been at work since your birth or conception, which then sums itself up and becomes the appearance of death, the removal of the physical body. Then you say to yourself: But everything that leads to death has come out of the spiritual world. What has come out of the spiritual world has united with what has come through the hereditary substance. We see the human being standing here in the physical world and say to ourselves: What we see in his face, what speaks to us through his words, everything he does as a physical human being, is the expression of what has been prepared in the spiritual world through his last death and his last birth. That is where his soul lives. But we can gather from the whole meaning of the discussion that what lives in the human soul between death and new birth draws forces from the spiritual world in order to form something in this incarnation between birth and death, something that is precisely what the human being is. And then it is really so — if you remember how I described this in the public lecture — that By strengthening the will in meditation, we can experience how the germ develops, which then passes through the gate of death and prepares itself in the spiritual world for another incarnation, so that this eternal process of formation takes place in the human being: the soul-spiritual emerges from the spiritual world and forms this human being here. In this human being, what now arises here in life as the germ, initially like a point, passes through the gate of death in order to continue its development, as it were. So that when we have the human being here, it really shows itself in this way: as he stands before us, he has been created as a human being out of the spiritual world. What the parents can give is united with what came out of the spiritual world. As long as he was in the spiritual world, he was in the midst of spiritual powers, just as he is here in the midst of natural forces in the physical body. He was surrounded by spiritual forces with which he prepared himself for this incarnation. It is really so when we see a human being before us in an incarnation, as I have described in the second Mystery Drama, The Soul's Trial: entire worlds of gods are at work to shape the human being; between death and a new birth, spiritual forces are at work to bring the human being into existence. This human being here is the goal of certain spiritual forces that are at work between death and new birth.

You see, this has a certain scientific direction, but it is a spiritual scientific direction, always known and expressed. Again and again, for example, an important person has expressed what I have just described by saying: “Physicality is the end of God's paths.” He meant to say: While we are in the spiritual world, interwoven with the divine world between death and a new birth, we prepare ourselves for our physicality. That is the end of God's paths. He was only unable to add the other sentence: In physicality, a new beginning is being prepared, which then passes through death and leads to a new incarnation. This statement, “Physicality is the end of God's paths,” is, in a sense, the leitmotif of all the works written almost a hundred years ago by a very important person who repeatedly pointed out that human knowledge and human understanding must take certain paths in order to recognize these spiritual connections: Christoph Oetinger. Oetinger also wanted to present theosophy in his own way. Richard Rothe wrote some beautiful words at the end of the preface to a book about Oetinger. He wanted to express that in earlier times people sought spiritual paths, but in their own way, and that the time would come, and was not far off, when what people had always sought would be grasped with full scientific consciousness. Rothe says: “What theosophy actually wants is often difficult to discern in the older theosophists. And what is most important is that once it has become a true science and has thus produced clearly defined results, these will gradually become part of general conviction... But this rests in the bosom of the future, which we do not want to anticipate.” So said Richard Rothe, the Heidelberg professor, about the theosophist Christoph Oetinger, in November 1847.

What is sought by spiritual science has always existed, only in a different way. Today it is up to human beings to seek it in the way that it must be sought in our time. And I have often said that scientific thinking has now reached a point where a scientific form must be sought from the scientific attitude for that which has always lived as science in theosophy. And when Rothe, as Oetinger's editor, says that what he means is to be addressed as follows: “But this rests in the bosom of the future” — what was the future in 1847 has now definitely matured into the present. We are now facing a time when we can prove — for the example I have given today with Alfred von Berger's novella Hofrat Eysenhardt was only one example — that human souls are truly ready to approach spiritual truths, and that they simply lack the courage to truly grasp these spiritual truths.

I said that the path into the spiritual worlds leads in two directions, by looking behind the veil of nature. Why do people find it so difficult to enter, even those who have become accustomed to thinking scientifically and who should only need to elevate scientific thinking to an inner tool in the manner described? Why? They say that human beings have limits to their knowledge: Ignorabimus! And why do they not want to enter the spiritual world? Yes, that lies just beyond the threshold of consciousness. Within consciousness, people give so-called logical reasons for not being able to enter the spiritual world, logical reasons that are well known. Underlying these logical reasons lies the true inner reason: fear of the spiritual world. This does not come up in consciousness, but the fear of the spiritual world holds people back, the unconscious, subconscious fear. If one would only become acquainted with the existence of unconscious fear, and how everything one tells oneself is only a mask for what is really fear, one would recognize a great deal. That is one thing. The other is that as soon as one enters the spiritual world, one is grasped, just as one grasps one's own thoughts, by the beings of the higher hierarchies. One becomes, as it were, a thought in the spiritual world. The soul resists this inwardly. It is afraid of being taken in by the spiritual world. Again, it is a kind of fear, a kind of powerless fear of being seized by the spiritual world, just as when one enters the physical world through birth, one is seized by physical forces. Fear of the outside world and shyness of a certain powerlessness in being seized by the spiritual world — that is what holds people back from the spiritual world. That is why, like Berger in his novella, they sometimes want to splash around in the waves of the spiritual world, but want this to be, I would say, non-committal, and do not have the courage to really approach the spiritual worlds, which can truly happen through the inner experiments I have often described to you, such as grasping the secrets of nature through external experiments.

If you add to what I have said what I explained in one of my public lectures on the connection between the genius forces that appear in life and the early deaths that are brought about by the fact that the human being is deprived of his body — I said by a bullet or in some other way, for example on the battlefield — if you remember what I explained, that when inventive powers, genius powers arise in human beings, these are the effect of those processes that occur when the physical body is taken away from the human being, then you also have something that remains below the threshold of consciousness. But there lies in the courage, in the whole manner in which a human being sacrifices himself for a great event of the times, an instinctive expression of something that lies below the threshold of consciousness and thus cannot come to consciousness in its full form. In our time, however, there is an impulse in human evolution that what lies below the threshold of consciousness is carried up to a certain degree into this consciousness so that human beings can know about it. And this is what I always mean when I point out that, especially in the great events of our time, in everything what is happening above [the threshold] of consciousness, there are significant subconscious processes at work, and that what the external historian can grasp of these present events will never exhaust what places these events in the great context of human development. More than ever, the subconscious is involved in what is happening in our present. And that is why the spiritual researcher in particular must point out how a future time will, in order to see our significant historical events of the present in the right light of the world context, point to the spiritual background. From this point of view, too, what we have said again and again at the end of our consideration arises again and again before our soul:

From the courage of the fighters,
From the blood of the battles,
From the suffering of the forsaken,
From the sacrifices of the people
The fruits of the spirit will grow—
Souls, conscious of the spirit,
Will direct their minds to the realm of the spirits.