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The Riddle of Humanity
GA 170

27 August 1916, Dornach

Lecture XII

I would like to begin with some observations I made in the last lecture. Memory, in the form in which it appears in the present period, the Earth period, is a metamorphosis of other capacities of soul which mankind possessed on Old Moon. As I said, during this period of dreamlike imaginative vision, mankind did not possess a memory of the kind we have today. It was unnecessary because everything that was experienced in dreamlike imaginations was engraved objectively in the world and followed behind a human being like the tail of a comet. This mode of experience disappears with the arrival of the Earth period. And now there is something further one must keep in mind if one is to understand this matter fully: Conscious experiences cannot be engraved in the world substance in this fashion unless they have already been, in a certain sense, experienced beforehand; they are not experienced for the first time when the being in question, in this case, the human being, experiences them—they must, somehow, already have been experienced before. You can see, therefore, that everything mankind experienced through its Moon consciousness consisted in re-experiencing what had been thought for it by the beings of the higher hierarchies. On Old Moon the dreams men dreamed consisted of thoughts that had already been thought by the higher hierarchies. Human thoughts followed in the wake of these—if we can refer to the experiences of this dreamlike imaginative consciousness as thinking.

Other conditions obtain on Earth. Here, human life proceeds in such a way that a person's thoughts do not consist in a repetition of something that has already been thought and which then remain visible. Rather, as we heard yesterday, when a person thinks, his thoughts are preserved only within himself, due to the forces of resistance in his physical body. They are engraved in his own etheric substance and are only given over to the universal substance of the world when he dies. Only then is it possible to look back on everything one has consciously experienced in the manner in which one was formerly able to look back on it; during the time between death and a new birth it is possible to look back consciously on everything one has experienced. What someone has engraved in his own etheric body and then carried through the gates of death out into the universal world-ether is destined, however, to undergo gradual changes. These changes are accomplished in the course of successive Earth incarnations, as the person experiences the whole of Earth existence. Just consider how much is contained in what a person thinks! Would it not be the most horrible thing imaginable if all men's thoughts were objectively engraved in the substance of the world and had to remain there eternally? But that is what would happen if, in the course of repeated lives on Earth, humanity were not in the position to be able to make good the thoughts that should not remain—to either improve them, or eradicate them and replace them with something entirely different, and so on. That is one of the things established by an evolution through successive lives on Earth. It gives mankind the opportunity to improve on what it carries with it through the gates of death into the substance of the world, so that a person can strive for a final Earth incarnation which only leaves behind in the ether substance of the world that which really can remain.

Thus, you can see that the process involved here is different from what took place with the dreamlike imaginative consciousness of Old Moon. During the Moon period, thoughts had been thought beforehand by the beings of the higher hierarchies and, to some extent, by the elemental beings. Then they were thought by the human beings. This caused them to become visible and to remain visible. Whatever thoughts were repeated in human thoughts remained visible. In the Earth period, however, everything that a normally-developed person thinks—this includes all the feelings and impulses of will about which he thinks—is engraved in his own etheric body, in his own ether substance. It only becomes part of the world's ether substance when he passes through the gates of death, and it would have to remain there if, in the course of successive incarnations, he did not rectify the things that need putting right.

This is completely valid for the normal soul life during its development on Earth and thus applies to the usual kind of waking consciousness we develop between birth and death. But it does not apply to the consciousness that is related to waking consciousness and that we develop between death and a new birth. As you know, we often have spoken about what, from now on, needs to begin to enter the consciousness of humanity as spiritual science and why it is urgently necessary that it begin to do so. And what needs to enter as spiritual science so that humanity will be able to achieve its goals on Earth does not derive from the same sources as normal waking consciousness. As you know, this spiritual science must be born on Earth; we have often emphasised the fact that it cannot be developed during the time between death and a new birth. You know that the spiritual knowledge developed here during a life on Earth can only be developed here, and that its effects reach into the world occupied by the dead in the time between death and a new birth.

Spiritual science, therefore, can neither be developed through ordinary daytime consciousness, nor can it be brought back directly into this world through the gates of birth—not in the form in which it must appear. Rather it must develop out of a different way of seeing things. Yesterday and today we have characterised two different kinds of conscious life: the consciousness of Old Moon, with the form of memory we described, and the form of consciousness that belongs to life on Earth—which could be called ‘object-consciousness’—with its own kind of memory, which has also been described.

Now the consciousness which originally gives one access to the contents of spiritual science is of a special kind. You know how I have often emphasised that spiritual science can be understood with the help of normal, healthy human reason, and that one can form a living connection with spiritual science without having to direct one's gaze out into the spiritual world. But to obtain spiritual science from the spiritual world in the first place is another matter and requires a particular mode of consciousness. Furthermore, if one understands it, this special mode of consciousness will also allow mankind to shape the future of the Earth in the way in which it must be shaped, if humanity is not to fall into decadence. Mankind is already clearly standing on the threshold of decadence. If men are not to fall victim to it, they must develop an understanding for how the truths of spiritual science can flow from the spiritual world into our physical world.

If spiritual science is to fulfil its task for the future of mankind, it is necessary to achieve certain attitudes toward its truths. These attitudes are based in an obvious way on the path by which the spiritual-scientific truths pass from the spiritual world into the physical. As I have often explained—even in public lectures—while one is making discoveries in the spiritual world, the naturally-functioning memory that typifies our usual daytime consciousness is in a certain sense suspended. As you know, memory must be, in a way, overcome before one can discover the secrets from the other side of the threshold. But something new must also enter in. Obviously, what is consciously experienced should not just pass away. Something new occurs—and I ask you to keep this particularly in mind!—when a conception, or expression, characterises something that is spiritual in the sense of spiritual science and thus has real spiritual content. In such a case it does not remain in the personal etheric body until death, but is carried directly from consciousness into the spiritual-etheric world. Thus a truly spiritual conception-I mean one that really touches on the spirit-is carried directly into the substance of the ether. In the case of Moon consciousness, what was thought became visible because it had already been thought before. The previously-thought content became visible on Moon through being thought by man. In the case of our usual waking consciousness on Earth, a conception is first embedded in the person's own etheric body and remains connected with him until he can correct it. Thus it is possible for unwarranted thoughts to be corrected in the course of karma. But a conception that really touches on matters of the spirit is carried into the general etheric substance. This must come to pass; it is necessarily so. It is necessary for the evolutionary process of the world that the contents of spiritual science now be inscribed upon the world.

You might say—well, perhaps you might not say it, but someone else might—‘Yes, I prefer to leave everything that has to do with spiritual science to rest in peace; then I will not have to worry so much about my thoughts being directly engraved in the substance of the ether!’ The most recent time during which it would have been possible to speak in this way would have been during the Greco-Roman epoch, but it is no longer possible to do this. For what I said earlier about a person being able to correct what has been written into himself is true in so far as certain contents are concerned. But this ceases to apply in the matters I described yesterday—the matters that depend on Lucifer and Ahriman. In the future it will only be possible to conquer these two by establishing a balance between them. That, also, has been described. Even in our fifth post-Atlantean epoch it must be said that everything produced by a person out of himself can be corrected later. But if you do not learn to be on guard against Lucifer and Ahriman, the things that you think and do under their influence—such things as I have often described—will be engraved into the substance of the world. Where only the results of spiritual science would otherwise be engraved, these events will also be written down in the same manner.

We must learn to draw a fine distinction: On the one hand there is what we cause to be engraved only in ourselves and what is engraved in the universal ether-substance of the world because of its spiritual scientific content. On the other hand, there is what is engraved in the universal world-substance through the agency of Lucifer, the Tempter or Seducer, or by the agency of Ahriman, the Spirit of Falsehood.

Naturally, the phrases one often hears mouthed—for example, that one must be sure not to fall into the clutches of Lucifer or Ahriman—are worthless. But, if we understand, firstly, the necessity of spiritual science and, secondly, its tasks, we must nevertheless ask ourselves in all earnestness: ‘What role, then, does the contents of spiritual science have to play for a person who can behold the necessities facing humanity?’ It is important to know that we are involved in the transition to an age when our thoughts will once more be inscribed directly into the universal world-substance. This is being prepared. But this time it will be the thoughts that we ourselves think, not thoughts that have been thought beforehand. If one takes this into account, then a sense of responsibility for what we think can flow from it—responsibility for everything we do in the world of our thoughts. It is so easy to believe that our thoughts have no objective significance—indeed, as we said, until recent times this view was also essentially correct. But in our times it has already started to become a stark reality that a real lie, or untruths of the kind we described yesterday, are appropriated by Ahriman and engraved into the universal substance of the world. This fact determines the attitude that mankind must gradually learn to adopt towards thinking.

If one does not come to terms with what I have just been describing, it will be easy to develop anxieties. But if one weighs everything quietly, objectively and calmly, there will be no need to become anxious. Indeed, it will not be possible to be anxious if one says to oneself. ‘Yes, I must feel a terrifying responsibility towards what I think.’ In the approaching age and for many thousands of years hence, it will be crucial that we human beings acquire a feeling of responsibility towards the thoughts we take hold of. If one so desires, it is possible, broadly speaking, to understand thinking as developing to the stage at which it is translated into speech and can thus be communicated. Until it has reached the stage where it is, at any rate, suitable for being communicated there is not much that Ahriman can do with our thinking. But Ahriman is on the alert once thinking has been taken to the point where it is ripe for communication, that is to say, the point where we are, about to communicate it. He is there, waiting for an opportunity to take the thought and implant it into the universal world substance. Along with the wakefulness that enables us to see that our thoughts ultimately take their rightful shape and are thoughts for which we can take responsibility, we need to learn to view all thinking as a kind of search. At present, our consciousness is much too influenced by the feeling that every thought must be formulated immediately. But the purpose of our ability to think is not to help us immediately complete each thought! It is there so that we can seek out matters, pursuing the facts, putting them together and looking at them from all sides. But people today like to formulate their thoughts quickly—do they not—in order to get them from their lips or down on paper as quickly as possible. But we are not given the ability to think in order to formulate thoughts with undue haste but, rather, so that we can search. Thinking is to be seen as a process that can remain for a long time at the stage of searching for a form. One should postpone formulating thoughts until responsibility has been taken for the facts—until the facts have been turned and revolved and looked at from all sides—so that they have ceased to be the kind of fact I described earlier, facts about which twenty-six people can speak falsely and only four are able to speak the approximate truth. For thirty sat there and witnessed what happened!

An enormous amount depends on whether there are some people who understand the need for this very thing I have been describing. These days it is not even possible to calculate how deeply one sins against the maxim of using thinking as a method of seeking, and of suspending completed thoughts for as long as possible. That is why the phantoms of untruth buzz about our world, and why lying is becoming more and more habitual. But the more humanity leans towards lying and the more it is gripped by the tendency to lie, the more decadent it becomes. A constant oscillation between Lucifer and Ahriman begins to establish itself, on the one side, untruths are spoken, whether directly out of ill-will, or just out of thoughtlessness. And in placing together ‘ill-will’ and ‘thoughtlessness’ we have already indicated that Lucifer is in league with the Spirit of Lies! Lucifer is connected with the Spirit of Lies, for thus he obtains easy access, since, in their turn, lies generate passions. And we, meanwhile, are losing the power to establish a balance between what we think and what we feel and will. It is urgent that mankind become strongly enough aware of an immensely widespread, subconscious tendency, because this subconscious tendency opposes that step we have said is necessary for the future. It opposes the tendency to establish a tough-minded responsibility for whatever one formulates as a truth. Especially in the last few years, it has been dreadful to see how this sense of responsibility is disappearing. But the important thing is that we pay heed to these things. For, in the upper layers of their consciousness, men are not aware of the strength of the impulse to say what is false.

Something can only really become a truth after it has been placed, so to speak, in all kinds of positions and has had light cast on it from various directions—only if one has really suspended judgement for as long as possible. No over-hastily expressed point of view, no over-hastily expressed opinion, no report of an event that is delivered in too great a haste, can be the truth—but they can have the effect of bringing mankind more and more into decadence. This matter can even be the subject of experiments. We would probably agree that most people are not straightforward out-and-out liars. Some are, of course. But the worst thing of all is the unconscious and subconscious lying that is the result of Luciferic seduction—lying that contains a quarter or an eighth or a sixteenth of the truth. It might even be ninety-eight percent true, but the dynamic impetus of the remaining two per cent corrupts the whole thing and carries it all into corruption.

There is a further matter that must also be taken into consideration. Today, people have an insatiable appetite for putting things into words. Immediately, without delay, one must describe everything, one must know everything. People never use their thinking to search out the facts or to reflect upon them. And, especially in these times, it really does not require much talent to notice that so much lying is going on. People do notice—of course they do. But the generalisation that, in the present day, there is much lying going on, also requires our thinking to traverse a certain path. For this truth, in turn, also needs to be illuminated from many sides, since a truth can become exactly the opposite of the truth when it is formulated too quickly and not measured against reality. Recently I read an article about all the huge lies of the present day. Even though it does not require much talent to describe all the lies that are buzzing about our heads, this article was itself the most false thing of all! In spite of the fact that what it said was, of course, true in a way, the entire article was smothered in a sauce of lies; the whole article was a sauce of lies. Such articles are not worthy of criticism. What matters is for mankind to become aware that hasty words are undesirable and that one needs to immerse oneself in things and to illuminate them from all sides.

For you see, in the spiritual world it is especially important to have developed this feeling for the truth of what has been experienced in the physical world. A right and true understanding of the impulses of spiritual science requires this attitude towards the spiritual world, but it is also necessary in the world one experiences after passing through the gates of death. It is necessary to take into account the fact that we will not be able to understand the world which surrounds us in the time between death and a new birth unless we bring with us this fundamental attitude towards the truth. In order to understand anything about what one needs to accomplish in the spiritual world, this responsibility towards the truth is necessary.

At present there are many shocking circumstances which show us the downward path; we must seek the ascending path that corresponds to it. Through spiritual science future humanity must have developed a somewhat different attitude towards the truth. For there is much that must be generated in our own soul life and then embedded in the substance of the Earth and engraved in it as we pass through the remainder of the Earth period and then through the Jupiter, Venus and Vulcan periods. This leads me to something I want to say about the metamorphosis of memory.

I also have some things to say about metamorphosis in the sphere of habit. When we look back to the humanity of Old Moon to see from out of what our present-day habits have developed, we observe that the human beings of that time simply received their impulses from the spiritual beings of the higher hierarchies. They did not develop habits. Human habits are one characteristic of the Earth period and are concerned with principles that apply to it. Now that we have passed beyond the midpoint of the Earth period, we must prepare what is required for our subsequent development. Habit tears us away from the beings who send down their impulses to us from the spiritual world. And habit establishes the foundations for our freedom.

But we must once more come into a relationship with the beings of the higher hierarchies, into a new relationship. During Old Moon and also during the first part of the Earth period, we were unconsciously, or subconsciously, dependent on them without being able to do anything about it. Spiritual beings of the higher hierarchies, and even some elemental beings directed their impulses into our consciousness. Now we are freeing ourselves from this. The period of imitation in early childhood remains as a kind of residue, a remnant.

But we must again develop beyond a life of habit, both in the outer circumstances of our lives and in our moral behaviour. I will simply refer you to the chapter in my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity which deals with moral tact. There you can read how our freedom is established on the basis of the habits we develop. We must be aware of what is really being developed in our life of habits! We still possess remnants of a connection with the spiritual beings of the higher hierarchies, but these are not fully apparent to our usual Earth consciousness. That world is unknown. We leave this unknown world behind when we pass through the gates of the senses into the world in which we live. But we originate in the world that is beyond the senses. Spiritual science enables us to lift the veil of the senses and rediscover it. And we do actually bear a remnant of this world within us. It is simply not apparent to our usual Earth consciousness. Up to the end of the Moon period, and on into Earth times, we still lived with the beings of the higher hierarchies in that spiritual world over yonder. In passing through the gates of the senses, we have left it behind. But not everything that our souls developed when we felt ourselves in the company of the beings of the higher hierarchies has been lost to us. We still carry an unconscious remnant with us. Among many other things, this unconscious remnant is also the basis of conscience. This is another way of viewing conscience. The whole of conscience is still inherited from the spiritual world. Only gradually, as we learn to understand the world once more and as we learn how to grasp it spiritually, will we discover a body of moral principles that will shed light on the more instinctive morality that is based on conscience. A morality that is increasingly filled with light will emerge—but, as goes without saying, only if humanity searches for it!

Diagram 1

This is why there is so much talk about abstract ideals today—such as the great abstract ideals of Truth, Beauty, Goodness. But remember what I said eight days ago. Remember that there are beings in the spiritual world who correspond to the abstract ideals of beauty, truth and goodness we encounter on Earth. It is toward these beings of the higher hierarchies—not merely toward the abstract ideals—that the human soul is once more moving as we pursue more or less abstract ideals in our deeds and activities. In order to raise ourselves up, even as far as Idealism, we must develop sufficiently to rediscover our connections with a living spiritual world whence must stream the impulses for what is done here on Earth. Spiritual science must step forward in order to provide humanity with the impulses for what needs to happen in the physical world. And, I should like to say, these are things you can lay your hands on—I am speaking symbolically: these are, spiritually speaking, things you can really lay your hands on.

Consider what our present-day, materialistic culture of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch has to say about the future of humanity and about what mankind should accomplish! Much of it is certainly beautiful. I do not want to criticise what is said, nor to reprimand anyone. But all this is really a search for abstractions! All these moral ideals and ideals about national economy, and all the many other kinds of ideals—these are all abstractions. Just compare these abstract pictures of the human impulses needed for the future with the living impulses that can come from spiritual science, impulses alive with the knowledge of what has to happen in this world to prepare for the future! Just think what is understood through knowing that one will be able to fulfil certain tasks by entering into a particular relationship with the hierarchy of the Angels, and that the shape of the world will be altered in certain specific ways, and so on. Try putting together all that you can find in the various lecture cycles about the development of humanity in the future and the positive actions that need to be taken. The difference between having something that is just abstract and dead, and having something that is alive, will be apparent if you compare this with the abstract moral idealism that is otherwise put forward. This aliveness and this awareness that the world is not just purely and simply there, is going to be needed: the minerals, plants, animals and the human beings are not simply there so that man can dictate the shape of the world by constructing all kinds of ideals which are nothing but abstractions. No, there is a living chain that reaches up, through mineral, plant, animal, and human being to the Angels, Archangels, and beyond. And as this living connection is re-established, the life that needs to flow into the development of humanity begins to flow again. Until people come to a more complete understanding of this fact through spiritual science they will continue to formulate abstract ideals—just thoughts—as though there could be something creative in thoughts that are not the thoughts of the Angels, Archangels, and so on! This ability to stand in a living connection with the sense and goal of the world will develop. The truth will become more moral, because one will feel a moral responsibility towards the truth. And morality will take on more the aspect of a wisdom-filled knowledge because one will know which beings are being served as one carries out this or that task.

The correct understanding of the Christ principle for our times is also contained in what I have just been saying. What has been obtained from the Christ principle up to now has not been enough to stem the manifold tide of decline that has swept, and will sweep, over our times. But, as I have often said before, Christ did not come with the message, ‘Here I am. Quickly write down everything you can say about me so that humanity can believe in it until the last days of the Earth!’ That is what is taught by the short-sighted, narrow-minded theology of today. What it very often teaches implies that the Christ said, ‘Certain things have I done. Quickly write them down, for that is what is to be taught until the last days of the Earth, and nothing shall be added to it.’

This assertion sits falsely. It is so false that people hesitate to utter it at all. I refer to those who consistently act in accordance with this assumption without ever once stating it. But the assumption on which they act sits falsely, very falsely. For the Christ said, ‘I will be with you to the last days of the Earth.’ And this implies that it is always possible to receive Christ's revelation! In the early days of Christianity it was the Gospels that came from this source; today it is spiritual science.

Those who wrote down what could be written down in those days did not say, ‘We have written this down, and there is nothing else in addition to what we have written that can be written.’ They said, rather, ‘And there are also many other things which Jesus did, that which, if they should be written down, every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.’ As regards understanding the Christ, spiritual science lays bare a nerve that nothing else in our time is able to reveal. It is truly essential in our times to draw attention to the attitude mankind needs to achieve toward its own thoughts and—toward the impulses on which it acts. So much is said about this—at any rate, much is written down—but most of it is unfounded, because people want to go in the other direction. They do not want thinking to be a path that must be traversed for a long, long time before one arrives at the goal and obtains something in which one can believe; they want to get the thinking over with as quickly as possible. But we can only arrive at the goal after we have established a relationship with truth. And even when we have arrived at something that is wholly correct—even though we have considered the matter from all sides to obtain a wholly correct manner of expressing it—we should never cease to look at it anew, considering it from yet other sides.

This is the most earnest challenge that spiritual science has to establish in our souls. And this building that is coming into being here is here to make us aware of this task of spiritual science. It shall stand here as a small, vulnerable point of departure from which what has been said can enter the hearts and souls of mankind. For this to happen, it is of course necessary that everything be done that can be done, for at present there is so much opposition.

Zwolfter Vortrag

Anknüpfen möchte ich an die Bemerkungen, die ich das letzte Mal gemacht habe: daß das Gedächtnis, so wie es in der gegenwärtigen Zeit, das heißt in der Erdenzeit auftritt, eine Art von Metamorphose anderer Seelenbetätigungen des Menschen ist, die dieser Mensch früher während der alten Mondenzeit hatte. Ich sagte: Während dieser Zeit des traumhaften imaginativen Schauens brauchte der Mensch nicht ein solches Gedächtnis, wie er es jetzt hat. Er brauchte es deshalb nicht, weil er gewissermaßen wie einen Kometenschweif nach sich zog, im Objektiven eingraviert, das, was er in seinen traumhaften Imaginationen erlebt hat. Dieses Erleben, daß das da ist, was man so erlebt hat, hat sich für die Erdenzeit verloren. Nun kommt etwas dazu, das man auch ins Auge fassen muß zu dem vollständigen Verständnis dieser Sache: daß in einer solchen Weise eingegraben in die objektive Substantialität der Welt das Bewußtseinserlebnis nur dann sein kann, wenn es in einem gewissen Sinne schon vorerlebt ist, wenn es nicht erst erlebt wird dann, wenn es das Wesen, also in diesem Falle der Mensch erlebt, sondern wenn es in einem gewissen Sinne schon vorher erlebt ist. Daraus sehen Sie, daß alle Erlebnisse des menschlichen Mondenbewußtseins noch solche waren, die eigentlich nur Nacherlebnisse dessen waren, was Wesen höherer Hierarchien den Menschen vorgedacht haben. Die Wesen der höheren Hierarchien haben also das, was die Mondenmenschen geträumt haben, diesen vorgedacht. Die Menschen denken es nachher nach, wenn wir das denken nennen wollen, was eigentlich als traumhaft-imaginatives Bewußtseinserlebnis gemeint ist.

Für die Erdenzeit tritt nun ein anderer Zustand ein. Der Mensch lebt nicht so fort, daß er gewissermaßen das, was schon vorher gedacht ist, noch einmal denkt und daß es dann für ihn sichtbar bleibt. Sondern er denkt, und aufbewahrt wird, wie wir gestern gehört haben, das Gedachte nur in ihm selber durch die Widerstandskraft seines physischen Leibes. Es wird in seine eigene Äthersubstantialität eingegraben und erst nach seinem Tode der allgemeinen Weltensubstantialität übergeben. Dann kann man so zurückschauen, wie man früher auf alles bewußt Erlebte, also im Bewußtsein Erlebte zurückschauen kann; man kann ja zurückschauen in der Zeit, die man da durchlebt zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt. Nun ist dasjenige, was der Mensch also durchlebt, was er sich zuerst in seinen Ätherleib eingräbt, dann, indem er durch den 'Tod geht und es hinausträgt in die allgemeine Weltensubstantialität, dafür bestimmt, nach und nach verändert zu werden dadurch, daß er in wiederholten Erdenleben durch das gesamte Erdendasein durchgeht. Denn überlegen Sie nur einmal, was der Mensch alles denkt! Wäre es nicht der schrecklichste Gedanke, den Sie fassen können, wenn Sie sich sagen müßten, daß alle Gedanken der Menschen objektiv in die Weltenmaterie eingegraben werden und also ewig da sein würden? Das aber würde geschehen, wenn der Mensch nicht dadurch, daß er wiederholte Erdenleben durchmacht, in der Lage wäre, diejenigen Gedanken, die nicht bleiben sollen, wieder auszubessern, entweder zu korrigieren oder ganz auszumerzen und durch andere zu ersetzen und so weiter. Das ist eben etwas, was die Evolution durch die verschiedenen Erdenleben hindurch bildet: daß der Mensch in die Lage kommt, wirklich das, was er bei jedem Tode in die allgemeine Weltensubstantialität eingräbt, zu verbessern, und daß er anstreben kann, daß wirklich von ihm aus, wenn er durch die letzte Erdeninkarnation gegangen sein wird, nur solches der Weltenäthersubstantialität übergeben worden ist, was nun wirklich bleiben kann.

Sie sehen also hier einen anderen Vorgang als den, welcher stattgefunden hat für das traumhaft-imaginative Mondenbewußtsein. Für dieses waren die Gedanken vorgedacht von Wesen der höheren Hierarchien, zum Teil auch von elementarischen Wesenheiten; dann werden sie nachgedacht von Menschen der Mondenzeit. Dadurch werden sie so sichtbar, daß sie sichtbar bleiben. Dasjenige, was derart nachgedacht ist, bleibt nun sichtbar. Während der Normalentwickelung der Erdenzeit ist es so, daß zunächst alles, was der Mensch denkt — dazu gehört jetzt auch dasjenige, was er denkend fühlt und denkend will -, sich eingräbt in den eigenen Ätherleib, in die eigene Äthersubstantialität. Und erst dann, wenn er durch die Pforte des Todes getreten ist, teilt es sich der Weltenäthersubstantialität mit, so daß es dann bleiben würde, wenn er es nicht im Laufe folgender Inkarnationen ausbessern würde, soweit es ausbesserungsbedürftig ist.

Dies ist für das normale Seelenleben der Erdenentwickelung durchaus gültig, also für dasjenige Seelenleben, das wir im gewöhnlichen Wachzustand zwischen Geburt und Tod entwickeln, aber es ist nicht für jenes Bewußtsein der Fall, das wir entwickeln als zugehörig zu diesem Wachbewußtsein: zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt. Was nun aber als Geisteswissenschaft von jetzt ab eintreten muß in das Bewußtsein der Menschheit und warum sie eintreten muß, inwiefern sie eine Urnotwendigkeit ist, davon haben wir ja oftmals gesprochen. Was nun als Geisteswissenschaft so eintreten muß, daß diese Menschheit ihr Erdenziel wirklich erreichen kann, das stammt noch aus anderen Quellen, als es das gewöhnliche Wachbewußtsein ist. Diese Geisteswissenschaft muß, wie Sie wissen, im Erdendasein selber geboren werden; denn wir haben es ja oftmals betont, daß sie nicht entwickelt werden könnte in dem Leben zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt, daß das, was hier während des Erdenlebens entwickelt wird als geistige Erkenntnis, nur hier entwickelt werden kann und hinauswirkt in die Welt, in der die Toten eben zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt sind.

Geisteswissenschaft ist also etwas, was durch das gewöhnliche Tagesbewußtsein nicht entwickelt wird, was auch nicht so unmittelbar, wie es auftritt, durch die Geburt hindurch hereingebracht werden kann in diese Welt, sondern was entwickelt werden muß durch ein anderes Anschauen. Wir haben zweierlei Arten des Bewußtseinslebens gestern und heute charakterisiert: das Mondenbewußtseinsleben, das die Art von Gedächtnis hatte, die wir charakterisiert haben, und das Erdenbewußtseinsleben — wir nennen es das gegenständliche Bewußtsein -, das ein Gedächtnis hat, wie wir es auch charakterisiert haben.

Dasjenige Bewußtsein nun, durch das man ursprünglich den Inhalt der Geisteswissenschaft erhält, ist besonderer Art. Verstehen kann man sie, wie ich oftmals betont habe, immer mit dem gewöhnlichen gesunden Menschenverstand, darinnen leben kann man auch, ohne daß man hineinschaut in die geistige Welt; aber sie gewissermaßen herausholen, dazu ist eine besondere Bewußtseinsart notwendig. Aber diese besondere Bewußtseinsart, die gibt zugleich, wenn man Verständnis für sie hat, die Möglichkeit ab, daß der Mensch überhaupt das künftige Erdendasein so wird gestalten können, wie es gestaltet werden muß, wenn die Menschheit nicht in die Dekadenz verfallen soll. Es muß sich Verständnis entwickeln für das Hereinströmen der geisteswissenschaftlichen Wahrheiten aus der geistigen Welt in unsere physische, wenn nicht die Menschheit in die Dekadenz verfallen soll, an deren Pforten sie ja jetzt schon deutlich sichtbar steht.

Man muß gegenüber den Wahrheiten der Geisteswissenschaft, wenn diese nun ihre Aufgabe erfüllen soll in der menschlichen Zukunft, gewisse Empfindungen erlangen. Und diese Empfindungen gründen sich eben in selbstverständlicher Weise auf den Weg, den diese geisteswissenschaftlichen Wahrheiten machen aus der geistigen Welt herein in die physische. Diejenige Art des naturgemäß wirkenden Gedächtnisses, die unser gewöhnliches Tagesbewußtsein auszeichnet, hört in einem gewissen Sinne — wie ich sogar schon in öffentlichen Vorträgen ausgeführt habe — wieder auf gegenüber dem Ergründen in der geistigen Welt. Das Gedächtnis ist ja etwas, was, wie Sie wissen, in einer gewissen Weise sogar überwunden wird für jenes Bewußtsein, das die Geheimnisse jenseits der Schwelle zu ergründen hat. Damit muß aber etwas Neues eintreten. Es darf selbstverständlich das, was im Bewußtsein durchlebt ist, nicht vorübergehen. Und dieses Neue tritt dadurch ein — ich bitte, dieses jetzt recht gut ins Auge zu fassen! -, daß ein Satz, ein Inhalt, der Geistiges im Sinne der Geisteswissenschaft charakterisiert, also realen geistigen Inhalt hat, nicht bleibt in dem eigenen Ätherleib bloß bis zum Tode, sondern sich nun unmittelbar aus dem Bewußtsein heraus einträgt in die geistig-ätherische Welt. Also ein wahrer, ich meine ein wirklich Geistiges berührender Satz trägt sich ein in die ÄÄthermäterie. Beim Mondenbewußtsein wird der Inhalt sichtbar, weil er schon vorgedacht war. Dadurch, daß der Mondenmensch ihn vorstellt, wird der vorher in einer gewissen Weise vorgedachte Inhalt nur sichtbar. Beim gewöhnlichen wachen Erdenbewußtsein gräbt sich der Satz zuerst in den eigenen Ätherleib ein, bleibt mit dem Menschen verbunden bis der Mensch ihn korrigieren kann. Da verbessert sich also das Schlechtgedachte im Laufe des Karma. Ein wirklich Geistiges berührender Satz trägt sich ein in die allgemeine Äthersubstanz. Das muß kommen, das muß sich so entwickeln. Denn es braucht einfach der Evolutionsvorgang der Welt dasjenige, was nun durch den Inhalt der Geisteswissenschaft in die Welt eingeschrieben werden kann.

Sie werden vielleicht sagen — nun, Sie sagen es vielleicht nicht, aber es könnte es jemand sagen: Ja, dann lasse ich lieber alles, was Geisteswissenschaft ist, ruhig liegen; dann brauche ich mich nicht zu fürchten, daß das, was ich denke, so unmittelbar eingegraben wird in die Äthersubstantialität! — Das hätten Sie höchstens sagen können in der Epoche der griechisch-lateinischen Kultur, das können Sie schon jetzt nicht mehr sagen. Denn worauf ich früher hinwies: daß der Mensch das korrigieren kann, was in ihm eingeschrieben ist, das ist richtig, soweit es einen gewissen Inhalt betrifft. Aber es hört auf, richtig zu werden für alles dasjenige, was ich Ihnen gestern charakterisiert habe als von Luzifer und Ahriman herrührend. Und die werden in der Zukunft nur überwunden werden dadurch, daß man das Gleichgewicht zwischen ihnen herstellt, wie ich es auch ausgeführt habe. Die Menschen produzieren von sich aus, auch von unserem fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraum an, allerdings nur solches, das wieder korrigiert werden kann. Aber unter dem Einflusse Luzifers und Ahrimans, wenn sie nicht lernen, auf der Hut zu sein vor ihnen, graben sie doch in die allgemeine Äthersubstantialität der Welt ein, was sie denken, was sie unter dem Einflusse Luzifers und Ahrimans vollführen in dem oft entwickelten Sinne. Das wird nun ebenso eingetragen, wie sonst nur die Ergebnisse der Geisteswissenschaft eingegraben werden.

Das ist also die feinere Unterscheidung: Was wir durch uns selbst nur in uns eingraben, was durch den geisteswissenschaftlichen Inhalt eingegraben wird in die allgemeine Weltensubstantialität; und was in diese allgemeine Weltensubstantialität eingegraben wird dadurch, daß Luzifer als Verführer oder Versucher und Ahriman als Lügengeist wirkt.

Das, was oftmals in phrasenhafter Weise vorgebracht wird: man solle sich hüten, nur ja nicht Ahriman, nur ja nicht Luzifer zu verfallen, das hat natürlich gar keinen Wert. Aber die Frage muß uns doch, gerade wenn wir erstens die Notwendigkeit und zweitens die Aufgabe der Geisteswissenschaft verstehen, mit aller Lebendigkeit vor die Seele treten: Um was handelt es sich denn also für denjenigen, der durchschauen kann, was der Menschheit nottut, mit den geisteswissenschaftlichen Inhalten? Es handelt sich um das Wissen, daß wir eben in jene Weltepoche schon hinübergehen, sie vorbereiten, in der wiederum, nun aber nicht, was uns vorgedacht ist, sondern was wir selber denken, in die allgemeine Weltensubstantialität eingetragen wird. Und wenn man dies berücksichtigt, dann wird aus dieser Wahrheit fließen das Gefühl der Verantwortlichkeit für alles, was wir vollziehen innerhalb unserer Gedankenwelt, das Gefühl der Verantwortlichkeit für das, was wir denken. Es liegt ja dem Menschen so nahe zu glauben - und, wie gesagt, bis zur abgelaufenen Zeit war es ja im wesentlichen auch richtig -, Gedanken hätten keine objektive Bedeutung. In unserer Zeit beginnt es schon stark so zu sein, daß eine wirkliche Lüge, eine wirkliche Unwahrheit im gestern charakterisierten Sinne übernommen wird von Ahriman und eben eingegraben wird in die allgemeine Weltensubstantialität. Daraus geht aber hervor, wie die Menschen nach und nach sich werden angewöhnen müssen, sich zum Denken zu stellen.

Findet man sich nicht zurecht in dem, was eben jetzt charakterisiert worden ist, dann könnte man ängstlich werden. Erwägt man aber alles ruhig und objektiv und gelassen, dann braucht man nicht ängstlich zu werden; man könnte sogar nicht ängstlich werden, wenn man sich nur sagt: Ja, da muß ich ein so furchtbares Verantwortlichkeitsgefühl haben gegenüber allem, was ich denke. - Für die nächste Zeit, für viele Jahrtausende kommt es darauf an, daß wir uns als Menschen Verantwortlichkeitsgefühl aneignen für einen Gedanken, den wir fassen. Und man kann ungefähr das Gedankenfassen so verstehen, daß der Gedanke so weit ist, daß wir ihn in die Sprache übersetzen und eventuell zur Mitteilung geeignet machen. Solange wir ihn nicht erst so formuliert haben, daß wir den Gedanken zur Mitteilung geeignet machen, solange hat der Gedanke allerdings nicht das Stadium erreicht, wo Ahriman viel anfangen kann. Haben wir aber den Gedanken so weit getrieben, daß wir ihn zur Mitteilung reif halten, das heißt, daß wir einmal bereit sind, in der Zeit, die da kommt, den Gedanken mitzuteilen - dann, dann paßt Ahriman auf, um den Gedanken zu haben und ihn hineinzusetzen in die allgemeine Weltensubstantialität. Verbunden muß sein mit dem Achtgeben darauf, daß wir zuletzt richtig formulierte Gedanken haben, denen gegenüber wir die Verantwortung übernehmen können, daß wir uns aneignen, überhaupt das Denken wie ein Suchen zu behandeln. Wir haben als Menschen heute noch das ist das Erbstück des vierten nachatlantischen Zeitraums und das Noch-nicht-Entwickelte des fünften nachatlantischen Zeitraums — zu stark das Bewußtsein, daß wir jeden Gedanken gleich formulieren dürfen. Das Denken ist uns gar nicht dazu gegeben, um gleich Gedanken fertig zu machen! Es ist uns vielmehr zum Suchen gegeben, damit wir nachgehen den Tatsachen, sie zusammentragen und wenden nach allen Seiten. Nicht wahr, so wie der Mensch heute ist, formt er am liebsten rasch einen Gedanken, den er dann so rasch wie möglich auch über die Lippen bringt oder aufs Papier hinschreibt oder so etwas. Er will ihn möglichst rasch in der Welt draußen haben. Aber nicht dazu ist uns das Denken gegeben, um voreilig den Gedanken zu bilden, sondern um zu suchen, das Denken als Operation anzusehen, als etwas, das womöglich lange in diesem Gestalten bleibt. Und suspendieren sollte man gewissermaßen den formulierten Gedanken, bis man vor sich selber verantworten kann, man habe eine Tatsache nach allen Seiten gedreht und gewendet, so daß sie nicht mehr eine Tatsache ist, der gegenüber sechsundzwanzig Menschen Falsches aussagen, wie ich charakterisierte, und nur vier ein annähernd Richtiges. Denn dreißig sind davor gesessen!

Es wird ungeheuer viel davon abhängen, daß eine Anzahl von Menschen gerade diese geforderte Tatsache, die ich jetzt charakterisiert habe, auffaßt. Denn es ist heute eigentlich gar nicht auszudenken, wie gegen diese Maxime, das Denken zum Suchen zu verwenden und möglichst lange den fertigen Gedanken zu suspendieren, gesündigt wird. Und deshalb durchschwirren Lügengespinste unsere Welt, deshalb wird die Lüge immer mehr und mehr zur Gewohnheit. Aber indem der Hang zur Lüge, die Tendenz zur Lüge unsere Menschheit ergreift, geht die Menschheit direkt in die Dekadenz über, und ein fortwährendes Hinund Herpendeln zwischen Ahriman und Luzifer findet statt. Auf der einen Seite wird Unwahres gesagt, sei es direkt aus bösem Willen, sei es aber auch aus Leichtsinn, und da haben wir schon, indem wir sagen «bösen Willen, Leichtsinn», darauf hingedeutet, daß mit dem Lügengeist Luzifer verbündet ist! Mit dem Lügengeist ist Luzifer verbündet, aber dann kann er besonders gut heran, denn das Lügen erzeugt wiederum Leidenschaft. Und wir verlieren die Kraft, Gleichgewicht zu halten zwischen dem, was wir fühlen und wollen, und dem, was wir denken. Es wird sehr notwendig sein, daß die Menschen genügend stark aus dem Unterbewußtsein heraufbringen ins Bewußtsein, wie unendlich verbreitet heute die gegenteilige Tendenz ist von dem, was hier als eine Notwendigkeit für die Zukunft gefordert wird: die harte Verantwortlichkeit gegenüber dem, was man als Wahrheit formuliert. Wir sehen sie in erschreckender Weise verschwinden, insbesondere in den letzten Jahren. Aber das Wichtige ist, daß man achtgeben muß. Denn die Menschen wissen nicht in ihrem oberen Bewußtsein, wie stark die Tendenz ist, die Unwahrheit zu sagen.

Wirklich, etwas wird zu einer Wahrheit erst dann, wenn man es nach allen Seiten gewendet, wenn man es überallhin gewissermaßen gestellt hat und von verschiedenen Seiten hat beleuchten lassen; wenn man wirklich das Urteil möglichst lange suspendiert hat. Nicht eine vorschnell gesprochene Anschauung, vorschnell gesprochene Meinung, vorschnell gesprochene Mitteilung einer Tatsache kann Wahrheit sein. Sie kann so wirken, daß die Menschheit immer mehr und mehr in die Dekadenz kommt. Man kann geradezu Experimente machen in dieser Beziehung. Nicht wahr, so glattweg lügen tun ja die Menschen meist nicht. Gewiß, manche Menschen tun es auch; aber was das Allerschlimmste ist, das ist das unbewußte und unterbewußte Lügen aus einer luziferischen Verführung heraus, so daß man eine halbe oder Viertels- oder Achtels- oder Sechzehntelswahrheit, ja sogar eine Achtundneunzighundertstelswahrheit sagt, aber durch das Dynamische der zwei Hundertstel, die übrigbleiben, alles ins Schlimme treibt.

Dazu kommt namentlich das in Betracht, daß jetzt so unendlich stark der Hang existiert bei den Leuten, alles immer zu charakterisieren, alles zu wissen, über nichts nachzudenken, niemals das Denken zum Suchen zu verwenden, sondern gleich alles zu formulieren. Und wirklich, es ist ja natürlich, daß den Leuten auffällt, daß in der Gegenwart so viel gelogen wird, es gehört nicht viel Talent dazu, dies zu bemerken, gerade in der Gegenwart. Aber man muß auch da sich klar sein, wenn man nun das allgemeine Urteil fällt: In der Gegenwart wird viel gelogen, - dann müßte man schon auch einen Weg des Denkens gehen, um diese Wahrheit, daß in der Gegenwart viel gelogen wird, wiederum von allen Seiten zu beleuchten. Sonst kann eine Wahrheit dadurch, daß sie zu schnell und nicht in der richtigen Weise wirklichkeitsgemäß gefaßt wird, gerade zu einem Umgekehrten werden. So habe ich in den letzten Tagen einen Artikel über die großen Lügen, die in der Gegenwart gemacht werden, gelesen. Es gehört nicht viel Talent dazu, um alle Lügen, die jetzt in der Luft schwirren, zu charakterisieren, aber nichts finde ich verlogener als diesen Artikel! Dieser Artikel ist so ganz eine einzige Lügensauce, eine einzige Lügensauce ist über den Artikel ausgebreitet, trotzdem das, was gesagt wird, selbstverständlich in einer gewissen Weise wahr ist. Damit soll nichts gegen einen solchen Artikel gesagt sein, aber es handelt sich darum, daß wirklich das Bewußtsein in der Menschheit auftritt: Man muß sich versenken in die Dinge, man muß sie von allen Seiten beleuchten, man darf nicht zu raschen Formulierungen kommen.

Sehen Sie, brauchen tut man für die geistige Welt von dem, was man hier in der physischen Welt erlebt, vorzugsweise diese Art, sich der Wahrheit gegenüber zu fühlen. Das braucht man für die geistige Welt, die rechtes, wahres Verständnis für die geisteswissenschaftlichen Impulse will; das braucht man aber auch schon für die Welt, die man durchlebt, wenn man durch die Todespforte gegangen ist. Das ist notwendigerweise zu berücksichtigen, daß man diese Gesinnungen gegenüber der Wahrheit braucht, weil man sonst nicht die Möglichkeit hat, Verständnis zu entwickeln für die Umgebung in der Zeit zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt. Diese Art, Verantwortung zu fühlen gegenüber der Wahrheit, das braucht man, um Verständnis zu finden für das, was man überhaupt in der geistigen Welt zu leisten hat.

In gewisser Beziehung muß die Stellung des Menschen zur Wahrheit in der zukünftigen Menschheitsentwickelung eine andere werden durch die Geisteswissenschaft, und in vieler Beziehung zeigt das, was uns in der gegenwärtigen Zeit erscheint, eben in erschreckender Art, wie der absteigende Weg ist, zu dem der aufsteigende gesucht werden muß. Denn indem durchgegangen werden muß durch den Rest der Erdenzeit, durch Jupiter-, Venus-, Vulkanzeit, muß vieles, was in uns selbst durch unser Seelenleben erzeugt wird, in die Weltensubstantialität hineingraviert, hineinverlegt werden. Das ist etwas, was ich zu sagen habe über die Metamorphose des Gedächtnisses.

Auch über die Metamorphose des Gewohnheitsmäßigen möchte ich nun einiges sagen. Wenn wir zurückschauen, woraus sich dieses entwickelt hat, wie gewissermaßen das, was heute Gewohnheitsmäßiges ist, beim Mondenmenschen war, so können wir sagen: Es war so, daß der Mensch von geistigen Wesenheiten der höheren Hierarchien einfach die Impulse empfing. Er entwickelte noch nicht die Gewohnheit. Das ist Erdenzeitprinzip, Erdenzeittatsache, daß der Mensch Gewohnheiten hat. Nun muß aber wiederum, weil wir ja schon die Mitte der Erdenzeit überschritten haben, das vorbereitet werden, was für die weitere Entwickelung notwendig ist. Durch die Gewohnheit entreißen wir uns den Wesenheiten, die ihre Impulse heruntersenden aus der geistigen Welt. Und durch die Gewohnheit wird unsere Freiheit begrundlagt.

Aber wir müssen wiederum einlaufen in ein anderes Verhältnis zu den Wesen der höheren Hierarchien. Unter- oder unbewußt waren wir abhängig während der Mondenzeit und auch noch während der ersten Erdenzeit, ohne daß wir etwas dazu taten. In unser Bewußtsein sandten die geistigen Wesenheiten der höheren Hierarchien, sogar gewisse Elementarwesen in uns ihre Impulse herein. Jetzt machen wir uns frei. Gleichsam wie ein Residuum, wie eine Art Rest blieb das Nachahmen in den ersten Zeiten des Kindesalters zurück. Aber wir müssen uns wieder hinausentwickeln über dieses In-Gewohnheit-Leben, über das, was nicht nur Gewohnheit ist für äußere Verrichtungen, sondern auch für unser moralisches Verhalten - ich verweise Sie nur auf das Kapitel in meiner «Philosophie der Freiheit» über den moralischen Takt -, also über alles, was wir uns so als Gewohnheit aneignen und wodurch wir unsere Freiheit begrundlagen. Erkennen wir es recht, was wir da entwickeln im Leben der Gewohnheiten! Es ist so, daß wir in uns einen Rest haben eines Verhältnisses zu den geistigen Wesenheiten der höheren Hierarchien, welchen wir im gewöhnlichen Erdenwachbewußtsein nicht ganz durchschauen, Ich möchte sagen: Da ist eine unbekannte Welt. Aus dieser unbekannten Welt gehen wir durch die Sinnespforte ein in die Welt, in der wir leben. Aber wir stammen aus der Welt von jenseits der Sinne, aus der Welt, die da hinter dem Schleier der Sinneswelt ist, die wir uns wieder enthüllen durch Geisteswissenschaft. Aber wir tragen in uns einen Rest aus dieser Welt. Nur ist er uns nicht klar während des gewöhnlichen Erdenbewußtseins. Wir haben gelebt in der geistigen Welt drüben bis zum Ende der Mondenzeit und noch in der Erdenzeit mit den Wesen der höheren Hierarchien. Wir sind herausgetreten durch die Sinnespforte. Aber wir haben nicht alles verloren, was sich in unserer Seele entwickelt hat an Zusammengehörigkeitsgefühl mit den Wesen der höheren Hierarchien. Wir tragen einen unterbewußten Rest mit. Neben vielem anderen ist dieser unterbewußte Rest auch die Grundlage des Gewissens. Man kann das Gewissen auch von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus betrachten. Das Gewissen ist durchaus noch ein Vermächtnis der geistigen Welt. Nur allmählich, indem wir die Welt wieder verstehenlernen, indem wir sie wieder geistig zu fassen wissen, wird sich uns eine Summe von Moralprinzipien ergeben, die sich beleuchtend verhalten werden zu dem, was wie eine instinktive Moral aus unserem Gewissen kommt. Eine immer leuchtendere Moral wird auftreten - wenn die Menschheit sie sucht, selbstverständlich!

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Weil das so ist, reden wir heute noch so vielfach von abstrakten Idealen: von den großen abstrakten Idealen der Wahrheit, der Schönheit, der Güte. Aber erinnern Sie sich, wie ich vor acht Tagen hier ausgeführt habe, wie das, was Wahrheit, Schönheit, Güte als abstrakte Ideale hier in der physischen Welt sind, Wesenheiten entspricht in der geistigen Welt. Zu diesen Wesenheiten der höheren Hierarchien, und nicht bloß zu den abstrakten Idealen von Schönheit, Wahrheit und Güte, wird die Menschenseele sich wieder hinentwickeln, während wir jetzt mit unserem Tun, mit unserer menschlichen Betätigung gewissermaßen abstrakten Idealen nachgehen. Wenn wir schon überhaupt zum Idealismus uns erheben, müssen wir uns dahin entwickeln, daß wir wieder unseren Zusammenhang mit einer lebendigen geistigen Welt wissen, aus der die Impulse für dasjenige, was hier in der physischen Welt geschieht, strömen müssen. Geisteswissenschaft wird auftreten müssen so, daß der Mensch durch sie Impulse bekommt für das, was in der physischen Welt zu geschehen hat. Und ich möchte sagen: Handgreiflich sind ja die Dinge — ich meine das symbolisch -, geistig, selbstverständlich, sind sie handgreiflich!

Nehmen Sie das, was man aus der heutigen materialistischen Kultur der fünften nachatlantischen Zeit zu sagen hat über die Zukunft der Menschheit, über das, was der Mensch tun soll! Schön ist ja gewiß vieles. Ich will durchaus nicht tadeln, nicht kritisieren, was da gesagt wird. Aber es ist halt doch ein Suchen von Abstraktionen! Die sittlichen Ideale, die nationalökonomischen Ideale, allerlei andere Ideale, es sind Abstraktionen. Vergleichen Sie das, was da an Abstraktionen gegeben wird für das, was als ein menschlicher Impuls da sein soll in der Zukunft, mit dem Lebendigen, von dem der Mensch wissen kann aus der Geisteswissenschaft heraus, daß es geschehen soll in der Welt! Nehmen Sie, was man verstehen kann dadurch, daß man weiß: zu der Hierarchie der Angeloi wird man in diese Beziehung treten, die wird diese Aufgabe einen erfüllen lassen, dadurch wird die Welt diese und jene Gestaltung haben und so weiter. Versuchen Sie, das sich zusammenzustellen, was Sie in den verschiedenen Zyklen finden über die Art, wie die Menschheit in der Zukunft sich entwickelt, was sie positiv tun wird. Vergleichen Sie das mit den abstrakten Moral-Idealen, die sonst aufgestellt werden, so werden Sie den Unterschied zwischen dem Lebendigen haben und demjenigen, was bloß tot, abstrakt ist. Aber dieses Lebendige wird man brauchen, das Bewußtsein, daß die Welt nicht bloß so dasteht: Mineralien, Pflanzen, Tiere und der Mensch, und der Mensch macht sich so allerlei Ideale, nach denen er sich richtet, lauter Abstraktionen, nach denen sich die Welt bilden muß. Nein, sondern Mineralien, Pflanzen, Tiere, Mensch, Angeloi, Archangeloi und so weiter, wie ein lebendiges Kettenband geht es hinauf! Und aus diesem lebendigen Zusammenhang fließt wiederum das Lebendige, das einfließen soll in die Entwickelung der Menschheit. Ehe man nicht durch Geisteswissenschaft sich voll entfaltet zu einem Verständnis dieser Tatsache, wird es immer nur abstrakte Ideale geben. Gedanken - als ob Gedanken etwas Schöpferisches hätten, wenn diese Gedanken nicht die Gedanken sind der Angeloi, Archangeloi und so weiter! Dieses Sich-Aneignen des Bewußtseins, im lebendigen Zusammenhang zu stehen mit einem Weltsinn und Weltenziel, das wird kommen. Die Wahrheit wird moralischer werden, weil man moralische Verantwortlichkeit gegenüber der Wahrheit empfindet. Und die Sittlichkeit wird mehr zur weisheitsvollen Erkenntnis werden, weil man wissen wird, welchen Wesen man dient, indem man dies oder jenes verrichtet.

Im wesentlichen ist das, was ich jetzt eben gesagt habe, zugleich die richtige Auffassung des Christus-Prinzipes für unsere Zeit. Was aus dem Christus-Prinzip geholt worden ist bis zu unserer Zeit, hat nicht verhindern können, daß unsere Zeit in vielfacher Weise geradezu absteigt und absteigen wird. Aber der Christus, wie ich schon öfter gesagt habe, ist nicht gekommen, indem er gesagt hat: Ich bin nur jetzt da, schreibt so schnell wie möglich einiges auf von dem, was ihr von mir zu sagen wißt, und daran soll dann bis ans Ende der Erdentage die Menschheit glauben! - Daß das so ist, wird nur gelehrt von einer kurzsichtigen, beschränkten Theologie der Gegenwart. Was sie lehrt, das kann man vielfach in die Worte fassen, als ob der Christus gesprochen hätte: Ich habe einiges getan, schreibt es schnell auf, dann darf niemals etwas dazu kommen, und das muß bis ans Ende der Erdentage gelehrt werden.

Unwahres liegt dieser Behauptung, die so unwahr ist, daß man sie nicht einmal aussprechen will, zugrunde. Ich meine, daß diejenigen, die fortwährend danach handeln, sie nicht einmal aussprechen. Unwahres, Unwahrstes liegt diesem Impuls, nach dem man handelt, zugrunde. Denn der Christus hat gesagt: «Ich werde bei euch sein alle Tage bis ans Ende der Erdenzeit», und das heißt: Seine Offenbarung wird immer zu bekommen sein! Im Beginne des Christentums war es der Inhalt der Evangelien; heute ist es der Inhalt der Geisteswissenschaft, der aus den Quellen kommt.

Diejenigen, die das aufgeschrieben haben, was dazumal aufgeschrieben werden konnte, haben nicht gesagt: Wir schreiben, und nichts anderes ist niederzuschreiben als das, was wir niederschreiben -, sondern sie haben gesagt: Wenn man alles das, was über den Christus zu. sagen ist, aufschreiben wollte, so könnte die Welt nicht Bücher genug darüber fassen.

In einem gewissen Sinne wird gerade das, was durch die Geisteswissenschaft pulsiert, einen Nerv des Christus-Verständnisses bloßlegen, der durch nichts anderes in der Gegenwart bloßgelegt werden kann. Notwendig ist es wahrhaftig in der Gegenwart, daß aufmerksam darauf gemacht werde, welche Stellung der Mensch gewinnen muß gegenüber seinen eigenen Gedanken und gegenüber den Impulsen, die er seinen Handlungen zugrunde legt. Darüber wird so unendlich viel, oder wurde wenigstens so unendlich viel geschrieben, aber das meiste ohne alle Grundlage, weil die Leute heute durchaus den anderen Weg gehen wollen. Schnell fertig wollen sie sein mit dem Denken und nicht das Denken zum Weg machen zu einem Ziele hin, in dessen Besitz man sich erst glaubt, wenn man lange, lange gegangen ist. Und dann, wenn man einiges Verhältnis zur Wahrheit gewonnen hat, dann kommt doch erst noch die Zeit, wo man weiß: auch wenn man eine Sache nach allen Seiten gewendet hat, es kann dann ein ganz Richtiges, eine ganz richtige Formulierung entstehen, aber man braucht noch immer nicht aufzuhören, sie weiter von anderen Seiten anzusehen, zu betrachten.

Dies ist einmal dasjenige, was Geisteswissenschaft als sehr ernste Forderung in unsere Seele setzen soll. Und daß ein Bewußtsein entstehe von dieser Aufgabe der Geisteswissenschaft, dazu steht ja eigentlich, soweit er jetzt fertig ist, dieser Bau da. Und er soll dastehen, daß er einen Ausgangspunkt bildet, einen kleinen, schwachen Ausgangspunkt, damit das, was gesagt worden ist, in die Herzen und in die Seelen der Menschen eintreten könne. Dazu ist natürlich notwendig, daß schon alles dasjenige geschieht, was geschehen kann, denn vieles ist in der Gegenwart dagegen.

Twelfth Lecture

I would like to pick up on the remarks I made last time: that memory, as it appears in the present time, that is, in the earth time, is a kind of metamorphosis of other soul activities of the human being, which this human being had earlier during the old moon time. I said that during this period of dreamlike imaginative vision, human beings did not need memory as they have it now. They did not need it because they carried what they had experienced in their dreamlike imaginations with them, engraved in the objective world, like a comet's tail. This experience of what one has experienced has been lost for the earthly period. Now something else must be taken into account in order to fully understand this matter: that the experience of consciousness can only be engraved in the objective substantiality of the world in this way if it has already been pre-experienced in a certain sense, if it is not first experienced when the being, in this case the human being, experiences it, but if it has already been experienced in a certain sense beforehand. From this you can see that all the experiences of human lunar consciousness were actually only after-experiences of what beings of higher hierarchies had thought before them. The beings of the higher hierarchies therefore preconceived what the lunar humans dreamed. Humans think it afterwards, if we want to call what is actually meant as a dreamlike, imaginative experience of consciousness “thinking.”

A different state now comes into being for the Earth period. Human beings do not continue to live in such a way that they think again what has already been thought before and that it then remains visible to them. Rather, they think, and, as we heard yesterday, what is thought is preserved only within themselves through the resistance of their physical body. It is engraved in his own etheric substance and only after his death is it transferred to the general world substance. Then one can look back in the same way as one can look back on everything one has consciously experienced, that is, experienced in consciousness; one can look back in the time one lives through between death and a new birth. Now, what a person experiences, what they first bury in their etheric body, then, by passing through death and carrying it out into the general world substance, is destined to be gradually changed by passing through repeated earthly lives through the entire earthly existence. Just consider all the things a person thinks! Would it not be the most terrible thought you could conceive if you had to tell yourself that all human thoughts are objectively engraved in the substance of the world and would therefore exist eternally? But that would happen if human beings were not able, through repeated earthly lives, to improve those thoughts that are not meant to remain, either by correcting them or by eradicating them completely and replacing them with others, and so on. This is precisely what evolution brings about through the various earthly lives: that human beings come into a position where they can truly improve what they engrave into the general world substance at each death, and that they can strive to ensure that, when they have passed through their last earthly incarnation, only that which can truly remain is handed over to the world ether substance.

You see here, then, a process different from that which took place for the dream-like, imaginative consciousness of the Moon. For this consciousness, thoughts were preconceived by beings of the higher hierarchies, partly also by elemental beings; then they were reflected upon by human beings of the Moon period. In this way they became so visible that they remained visible. That which is thus reflected upon now remains visible. During the normal development of the Earth period, everything that human beings think — including what they feel and will through thinking — first sinks into their own etheric body, into their own etheric substance. And only when they have passed through the gate of death does it communicate with the world ether substance, so that it would then remain if they did not repair it in the course of subsequent incarnations, insofar as it needs repair.

This is entirely valid for the normal soul life of earthly evolution, that is, for the soul life we develop in the ordinary waking state between birth and death, but it is not the case for the consciousness we develop as belonging to this waking consciousness: between death and a new birth. But we have often spoken about what must now enter into the consciousness of humanity as spiritual science, and why it must enter, and to what extent it is a fundamental necessity. What must now enter as spiritual science, so that humanity can truly attain its earthly goal, comes from sources other than ordinary waking consciousness. This spiritual science must, as you know, be born in earthly existence itself; for we have often emphasized that it could not be developed in the life between death and a new birth, that what is developed here during earthly life as spiritual knowledge can only be developed here and has its effect in the world in which the dead are between death and a new birth.

Spiritual science is therefore something that is not developed through ordinary everyday consciousness, something that cannot be brought into this world through birth as immediately as it appears, but something that must be developed through a different way of looking at things. Yesterday we characterized two kinds of consciousness: the lunar consciousness, which had the kind of memory we have described, and the earth consciousness — we call it the objective consciousness — which has a memory as we have also described.

The consciousness through which one originally receives the content of spiritual science is of a special kind. As I have often emphasized, it can always be understood with ordinary common sense, and one can live in it without looking into the spiritual world; but to bring it out, so to speak, a special kind of consciousness is necessary. But this special kind of consciousness, when understood, also gives us the possibility that human beings will be able to shape their future existence on earth in such a way that it will be shaped as it must be if humanity is not to fall into decadence. An understanding must develop for the influx of spiritual scientific truths from the spiritual world into our physical world if humanity is not to fall into decadence, at the gates of which it now clearly stands.

Certain feelings must be acquired toward the truths of spiritual science if they are to fulfill their task in the future of humanity. And these feelings are based, in a self-evident way, on the path that these spiritual scientific truths take from the spiritual world into the physical world. The type of memory that acts naturally and characterizes our ordinary everyday consciousness ceases, in a certain sense—as I have already explained in public lectures—when it comes to exploring the spiritual world. Memory is something which, as you know, is in a certain sense even overcome by the consciousness that has to explore the mysteries beyond the threshold. But this means that something new must come into play. Of course, what has been experienced in consciousness cannot simply pass away. And this new element comes into play in the following way — please pay close attention to this now! — that a sentence, a content that characterizes the spiritual in the sense of spiritual science, i.e., that has real spiritual content, does not remain in one's own etheric body merely until death, but now enters directly from consciousness into the spiritual-etheric world. So a true sentence, one that I mean to say truly touches the spiritual, enters into the etheric matter. In lunar consciousness, the content becomes visible because it has already been thought beforehand. Through the fact that the lunar human being imagines it, the content that was previously thought in a certain way only becomes visible. In ordinary waking earth consciousness, the sentence first burrows into one's own etheric body and remains connected to the human being until the human being can correct it. Thus, what has been poorly thought out improves in the course of karma. A sentence that truly touches the spiritual carries itself into the general etheric substance. This must come, this must develop in this way. For the evolutionary process of the world simply needs what can now be inscribed into the world through the content of spiritual science.

You may say — well, you may not say it, but someone might say: Yes, then I'd rather leave everything that is spiritual science alone; then I don't need to be afraid that what I think will be so directly engraved in the etheric substance! — You could have said that at most in the era of Greek-Latin culture, but you can no longer say that now. For what I pointed out earlier, that human beings can correct what is inscribed in them, is true insofar as it concerns a certain content. But it ceases to be true for everything that I characterized yesterday as originating from Lucifer and Ahriman. And these will only be overcome in the future by establishing a balance between them, as I have also explained. From our fifth post-Atlantean period onwards, human beings produce of themselves only that which can be corrected again. But under the influence of Lucifer and Ahriman, if they do not learn to be on their guard against them, they dig into the general etheric substance of the world what they think, what they accomplish under the influence of Lucifer and Ahriman in the sense that is often developed. This is now recorded in the same way as the results of spiritual science are usually recorded.

This, then, is the finer distinction: what we bury within ourselves through our own efforts, what is buried in the general world substance through the content of spiritual science; and what is buried in this general world substance through the activity of Lucifer as seducer or tempter and Ahriman as the spirit of lies.

What is often put forward in a phraseological way: one should beware of falling into the clutches of Ahriman, one should beware of falling into the clutches of Lucifer, is of course completely worthless. But the question must arise with all its vitality in our souls, especially when we understand, first, the necessity and, second, the task of spiritual science: What, then, is it that the contents of spiritual science offer to those who can see what humanity needs? It is the knowledge that we are already passing into that world epoch, preparing it, in which it will no longer be what has been thought for us that is entered into the general world substance, but what we ourselves think. And when we take this into account, then from this truth will flow a sense of responsibility for everything we do within our world of thoughts, a sense of responsibility for what we think. It is so natural for human beings to believe—and, as I said, until recently this was essentially correct—that thoughts have no objective meaning. In our time, it is already becoming very much the case that a real lie, a real untruth in the sense characterized yesterday, is taken over by Ahriman and buried in the general world substance. But this shows how people will gradually have to accustom themselves to thinking.

If you cannot find your way in what has just been characterized, then you may become fearful. But if you consider everything calmly, objectively, and serenely, then you need not be fearful; you could not even be fearful if you simply say to yourself: Yes, I must have such a terrible sense of responsibility for everything I think. - For the foreseeable future, for many millennia, it is important that we as human beings acquire a sense of responsibility for every thought we conceive. And one can understand the formation of a thought to mean that the thought has reached the point where we can translate it into language and possibly make it suitable for communication. As long as we have not first formulated it in such a way that we make the thought suitable for communication, the thought has not yet reached the stage where Ahriman can do much with it. But once we have developed the thought to the point where we consider it ready for communication, that is, once we are prepared to communicate the thought in the time that is to come, then Ahriman is on the lookout to seize the thought and insert it into the general substance of the world. This must be combined with taking care to ensure that we ultimately have correctly formulated thoughts for which we can take responsibility, that we make it our own to treat thinking as a search. As human beings today, we still have this legacy from the fourth post-Atlantean epoch and the not-yet-developed aspect of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch — we are still too strongly aware that we can formulate every thought immediately. Thinking is not given to us in order to produce finished thoughts! Rather, it is given to us for searching, so that we may pursue facts, gather them together, and examine them from all sides. Isn't it true that, as humans are today, they prefer to quickly form a thought, which they then express as quickly as possible, either verbally or in writing? They want to get it out into the world as quickly as possible. But thinking is not given to us in order to form thoughts hastily, but rather to search, to view thinking as an operation, as something that may remain in this formative state for a long time. And one should, in a sense, suspend the formulated thought until one can justify to oneself that one has turned a fact over and over in all directions so that it is no longer a fact about which twenty-six people make false statements, as I characterized, and only four make statements that are approximately correct. For thirty people sat there before!

An enormous amount will depend on whether a number of people understand precisely this required fact that I have now characterized. For today it is actually inconceivable how this maxim, to use thinking for searching and to suspend finished thoughts for as long as possible, is being violated. And that is why our world is riddled with webs of lies, why lying is becoming more and more a habit. But as the tendency to lie takes hold of humanity, humanity is sliding directly into decadence, and a constant oscillation between Ahriman and Lucifer takes place. On the one hand, untruths are spoken, whether out of malice or recklessness, and in saying “malice” or “recklessness,” we have already pointed out that the spirit of lying is allied with Lucifer! Lucifer is allied with the spirit of lying, but then he can work particularly well, because lying in turn generates passion. And we lose the power to maintain a balance between what we feel and want and what we think. It will be very necessary for people to bring sufficiently to consciousness from their subconscious how infinitely widespread today is the tendency contrary to what is demanded here as a necessity for the future: the hard responsibility toward what one formulates as truth. We see it disappearing in a frightening way, especially in recent years. But the important thing is to be careful. For people do not know in their upper consciousness how strong the tendency is to tell untruths.

Indeed, something only becomes truth when it has been turned in all directions, when it has been placed everywhere, so to speak, and illuminated from different sides; when judgment has been suspended for as long as possible. A hastily expressed view, a hastily expressed opinion, a hastily communicated fact cannot be truth. It can have the effect of leading humanity further and further into decadence. One can even conduct experiments in this regard. It is true that people do not usually lie so blatantly. Certainly, some people do; but what is worst of all is the unconscious and subconscious lying that comes from Luciferian temptation, so that one tells half or a quarter or an eighth or a sixteenth of the truth, or even one ninety-eight hundredth of the truth, but through the dynamic force of the two hundredths that remain, everything is driven to a bad end.

Added to this is the fact that there is now such an infinitely strong tendency among people to always characterize everything, to know everything, to think about nothing, never to use thinking to search, but to formulate everything immediately. And indeed, it is only natural that people notice that there is so much lying going on at present; it does not take much talent to notice this, especially at present. But one must also be clear when making a general judgment: there is a lot of lying in the present day—then one must also follow a line of thought that illuminates this truth, that there is a lot of lying in the present day, from all sides. Otherwise, a truth can become its opposite precisely because it is grasped too quickly and not in a realistic way. In recent days, I have read an article about the great lies that are being told today. It does not take much talent to characterize all the lies that are currently circulating, but I find nothing more mendacious than this article! This article is one big lie, a single layer of lies spread over the article, even though what is said is, of course, true in a certain sense. This is not to say anything against such an article, but the point is that a real awareness is emerging in humanity: one must immerse oneself in things, one must examine them from all sides, one must not jump to quick conclusions.

You see, what is needed for the spiritual world from what we experience here in the physical world is preferably this kind of attitude toward the truth. This is needed for the spiritual world, which wants a right, true understanding of the spiritual scientific impulses; but it is also needed for the world we live in after we have passed through the gate of death. It is necessary to take into account that one needs these attitudes toward truth, because otherwise one has no possibility of developing understanding for the environment in the time between death and a new birth. This kind of feeling of responsibility toward truth is necessary in order to find understanding for what one has to accomplish in the spiritual world.

In a certain sense, the position of human beings toward truth in the future development of humanity must become different through spiritual science, and in many respects what appears to us in the present time shows in a frightening way how the descending path is the one that must be sought in order to ascend. For as we must pass through the rest of the Earth's time, through the Jupiter, Venus, and Vulcan ages, much of what is produced in ourselves through our soul life must be engraved into the substance of the world, transferred into it. This is something I have to say about the metamorphosis of memory.

I would now like to say a few words about the metamorphosis of habit. If we look back at how this developed, how what is now habit in the lunar human being was in the lunar human being, we can say that it was simply that the human being received impulses from spiritual beings of the higher hierarchies. He had not yet developed habit. It is a principle of the Earth's time, a fact of the Earth's time, that human beings have habits. But now, because we have already passed the middle of the Earth's time, what is necessary for further development must be prepared. Through habit, we tear ourselves away from the beings who send down their impulses from the spiritual world. And through habit, our freedom is established.

But we must again enter into a different relationship with the beings of the higher hierarchies. During the lunar period and even during the first earth period, we were subconsciously or unconsciously dependent without doing anything about it. The spiritual beings of the higher hierarchies, even certain elemental beings within us, sent their impulses into our consciousness. Now we are freeing ourselves. Imitation remained in the early stages of childhood, like a residue, a kind of remnant. But we must evolve beyond this habitual life, beyond what is not only habit in our external actions but also in our moral behavior—I refer you to the chapter in my Philosophy of Freedom on moral tact—in short, beyond everything we acquire as habit and on which we base our freedom. Let us recognize what we are developing in our habitual life! It is so that we have within us a remnant of a relationship to the spiritual beings of the higher hierarchies, which we cannot fully comprehend in our ordinary earthly consciousness. I would like to say: there is an unknown world. From this unknown world, we enter through the sensory gate into the world in which we live. But we originate from the world beyond the senses, from the world that lies behind the veil of the sensory world, which we reveal to ourselves again through spiritual science. But we carry within us a remnant of this world. It is just that it is not clear to us during ordinary earthly consciousness. We lived in the spiritual world over there until the end of the lunar period and continued to live in the earthly period with the beings of the higher hierarchies. We stepped out through the sense door. But we did not lose everything that had developed in our souls in terms of a sense of belonging to the beings of the higher hierarchies. We carry a subconscious remnant with us. Among many other things, this subconscious remnant is also the basis of conscience. Conscience can also be viewed from this perspective. Conscience is definitely still a legacy of the spiritual world. Only gradually, as we learn to understand the world again, as we learn to grasp it spiritually again, will a sum of moral principles emerge that will shed light on what comes from our conscience as an instinctive morality. An ever more luminous morality will emerge—if humanity seeks it, of course!

AltName

Because this is so, we still talk so much today about abstract ideals: about the great abstract ideals of truth, beauty, and goodness. But remember, as I explained here eight days ago, how what truth, beauty, and goodness are as abstract ideals here in the physical world correspond to entities in the spiritual world. The human soul will evolve back to these beings of the higher hierarchies, and not just to the abstract ideals of beauty, truth, and goodness, while we now pursue abstract ideals, so to speak, with our actions and human activities. If we are to rise to idealism at all, we must develop to the point where we once again recognize our connection with a living spiritual world from which the impulses for what happens here in the physical world must flow. Spiritual science will have to emerge in such a way that it gives human beings impulses for what needs to happen in the physical world. And I would like to say: Things are tangible — I mean symbolically — spiritually, of course, they are tangible!

Take what today's materialistic culture of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch has to say about the future of humanity, about what human beings should do! Much of it is certainly beautiful. I do not wish to reproach or criticize what is said. But it is still a search for abstractions! The moral ideals, the national economic ideals, all kinds of other ideals are abstractions. Compare the abstractions that are presented as what should be a human impulse in the future with the living reality that human beings can know from spiritual science, that it should happen in the world! Take what can be understood from the knowledge that we will enter into this relationship with the hierarchy of the Angeloi, that this will enable us to fulfill this task, and that as a result the world will take this or that form, and so on. Try to piece together what you find in the various cycles about the way humanity will develop in the future, what positive things it will do. Compare this with the abstract moral ideals that are otherwise put forward, and you will see the difference between what is alive and what is merely dead and abstract. But we need this living thing, the awareness that the world does not just stand there: minerals, plants, animals, and humans, and humans create all kinds of ideals for themselves, according to which they live, mere abstractions according to which the world must be formed. No, minerals, plants, animals, humans, angeloi, archangeloi, and so on, like a living chain, go up! And from this living connection flows back into us the life that is to flow into the development of humanity. Until we have fully developed an understanding of this fact through spiritual science, there will always be only abstract ideals. Thoughts – as if thoughts had something creative about them, if these thoughts are not the thoughts of the angeloi, archangeloi, and so on! This appropriation of consciousness, of standing in a living connection with a world meaning and world goal, will come. Truth will become more moral because one feels moral responsibility toward the truth. And morality will become more of a wise realization because one will know which beings one serves by doing this or that.

Essentially, what I have just said is also the correct understanding of the Christ principle for our time. What has been taken from the Christ principle up to our time has not been able to prevent our time from descending in many ways and continuing to descend. But Christ, as I have often said, did not come saying: I am only here now, write down as quickly as possible some of what you know about me, and then humanity shall believe in this until the end of the earth! That this is so is taught only by a short-sighted, limited theology of the present. What it teaches can be put into words in many ways, as if Christ had said: I have done a few things, write them down quickly, then nothing else must ever be added, and this must be taught until the end of the earth.

This assertion is based on something untrue, so untrue that one does not even want to utter it. I mean that those who constantly act according to it do not even utter it. Untruth, the most untrue thing, lies at the root of this impulse according to which people act. For Christ said, “I will be with you always, even unto the end of the world,” and that means that His revelation will always be available! At the beginning of Christianity, it was the content of the Gospels; today it is the content of spiritual science that comes from the sources.

Those who wrote down what could be written down at that time did not say: We write, and there is nothing else to write down except what we write down—but they said: If one wanted to write down everything that can be said about Christ, the world would not have enough books to contain it.

In a certain sense, it is precisely what pulsates through spiritual science that will expose a nerve of Christ understanding that cannot be exposed by anything else in the present. It is truly necessary in the present that attention be drawn to the position that human beings must gain in relation to their own thoughts and to the impulses that underlie their actions. So much has been written about this, or at least so much has been written, but most of it without any basis, because people today want to go the other way. They want to be done with thinking quickly and not make thinking a path to a goal that one believes one has only attained after a long, long journey. And then, when one has gained some relationship to the truth, there comes a time when one knows that even if one has turned a thing around in every direction, a completely correct formulation can still arise, but one must still not stop looking at it from other angles, considering it.

This is what spiritual science should instill in our souls as a very serious requirement. And this building, insofar as it is now complete, stands for the emergence of an awareness of this task of spiritual science. And it should stand there as a starting point, a small, weak starting point, so that what has been said can enter into the hearts and souls of people. Of course, it is necessary that everything that can happen already happens, because much in the present stands in the way of this.