The Karma of Vocation
GA 172
27 November 1916, Dornach
Lecture X
When we seek the answer to the question to which we referred in the last lecture as to how human beings may establish a relationship with the Christ today, the objection is made by many that a number of human beings already have a relationship with Him. I have spoken frequently about this objection, and we know that it is invalid. On more careful consideration, it turns out to be a thoroughly egoistic objection that can be made only by a person who has the following view: “I have a faith that makes me happy; anything else is no concern of mine.” But in general, humanity's relation to the Christ-Being is not satisfactory; that is easily recognizable from the events of our times and little needs to be added. The necessary answer to this objection can be given by everyone by saying that a basic element in the confession of Christ must be the truth that He died and rose for all men—for all men alike—and that, when man turns against man for the sake of external possessions, it can never be done in His name. It is possible for a person to turn away from this general human destiny to apply himself solely in egoistic fashion to his own creed. Certainly, but then no attenion is paid to the fact that the occurrence of the Mystery of Golgotha is something that primarily concerns human society. We will now have to mention something that may draw our attention to what is essential in the path that leads to Christ, since it is obvious that each soul must find the way to Him for himself with those means that are suitable for the present time.
When we seek to understand in a more profound sense what the Christ Being signifies for the earth, we must first acquaint ourselves with the truth of an essential element in the Mystery of Golgotha; that is, it actually occurred only once at a definite point in space and time. When we fix this in our minds, we shall discover a contradiction of a view that is generally held, even by us; we should not simply seek to remove it by argumentation since it is justifiable and must first be recognized if we desire to remove it for our own souls. You see, provided the Mystery of Golgotha is an inner and genuine truth, it cannot represent anything but the meaning of the evolution of the earth. But, as we know, everything that occurs in time and space belongs to the realm of maya, the great illusion; that is, it does not belong to the real and eternal, the essential nature of things. Thus we face the highly significant contradiction that the Mystery of Golgotha belongs to maya, the great illusion, and we must place this contradiction before our souls in its full validity.
Now, since this Mystery of Golgotha occurred during the time of the earthly evolution of humanity, let us first consider this evolution. We know, of course, that what we have to deal with is that the human being has come over from earlier worlds and that at a definite point of time, as we have set forth in my book, An Outline of Occult Science, he was subjected to what may be called a luciferic temptation, a seduction. We have often considered this luciferic seduction in the sense in which spiritual scientific investigation shows it, and we know it was expressed in a magnificent image at the beginning of the Old Testament. In the so-called “Fall of Man,” the image of Lucifer as a serpent in Paradise is one of the mightiest representations of religious documents.
When we survey the time through which humanity passed from the luciferic temptation to the Mystery of Golgotha, we find it to be a time in which human beings gradually descended from a primeval, atavistic clairvoyant, revelation that was brought over from earlier planetary stages in which the spiritual worlds had a real existence before their souls. During the centuries preceding the Mystery of Golgotha, therefore, they were no longer able to look up to the spiritual world as they had done before, but they now possessed only echoes of the ancient knowledge of the spiritual world.
Taking now a relatively short period of earthly time since we cannot go all the way back to the luciferic temptation, let us review the successive descending stages of human evolution down to the Mystery of Golgotha. If we go back far enough, we discover that what men possessed at an earlier time as an atavistic wisdom, as a real perception of the spiritual world, now echoed in the world conceptions of the religions as reverence for a more or less significant, but highly regarded, ancestor. That is to say, in various regions of the earth we find religious cults that we may call ancestral cults. Such cults in which men look up with reverence to an ancestor still survive among those who have remained at a more or less early stage of evolution. What is the reason for this adoration? What is the reality behind this looking up to an ancestor in ancient times? In those most ancient times to which history can still look back, in that hoary antiquity, we have a certain epoch in which ancestral cults are customary (cf. chart on p. 194).
Such ancestral cults were not based on fact, as is supposed by superficial contemporary science, that those belonging to them imagined they had to look up to a certain ancestor, but the nature of the most ancient ancestral cults was such that men had a direct vision of their ancestors at a certain time in their lives. At these times, in a state of consciousness between waking and sleeping such as was universal in the earlier stages of human evolution, a person who looked up to an ancestral god really attained a condition of union with what he reverenced as his ancestor. The ancestor appeared to him not merely in a dream, but in a dream-like image that signified something real to him, and those individuals to whom the same ancestor appeared belonged together in a single ancestral cult. What these individuals beheld in spirit was, to be sure, a human form elevated to a lofty level, but something entirely different was concealed behind it. If we wish to know what was really concealed behind this spirit form, we must realize that the ancestor had once died and had left the earth as a highly regarded personality who had wrought much good for a human community. He had passed through the portal of death and when these individuals looked up to him, he was on the way between death and a new birth. As these human beings looked up to him, what was it they saw of him?
We know, of course, that when a human being passes through the portal of death, he remains for a short time in his etheric body before it is cast off. But the casting off of this body signifies that it passes over into the spiritual worlds, into the etheric world. The human being continues to develop in his ego and his astral body; the etheric body passes over into the etheric world. Since this man had performed something lasting on earth, the memory of his etheric body continued for a long time. It is this etheric body of the ancestor that was beheld in the ancient atavistic, dream-like clairvoyance and people revered what was revealed to them through it. But during the period between death and a new birth, this etheric body comes into contact with the spirits of the higher hierarchies; most particularly with those belonging to the hierarchy of the archai, the spirits of time. Since this particular ancestor was a significant personality for human evolution, he thus established a union with the time spirit who was bringing human evolution one step forward.
What made itself known through this ghost, as we may call it, of the ancestor was, in reality, one of the time spirits; so worship within the most ancient religions was really directed to the time spirit. Wherever we go back into those times that we may look upon as the hoary antiquity of history, we find that human beings worshipped the etheric bodies of their forefathers to cause the time spirits to reveal themselves. That is to say, as we go back to the ancestral cults, what we find is the worship of the time spirits, the archai.
Men then descended further and began to worship those gods who are known to us from the various mythologies, and whom we call archangels; even Zeus in Greek mythology possessed archangelic manifestations. In the most ancient times people looked up to the time spirits; later, they looked up to those spirits who are not time spirits but are of equal value with the spirits who control the guidance of different peoples, the archangels. Thus we may say that polytheism, when human beings worshipped archangels, follows after ancestral worship.
Then human beings descend still further to the period in which the ego is gradually to be born in the individual. We now find that the most advanced nations pass over to monotheism at a relatively early period—the Egyptians, for example, even in the second millennium before Christ, the people of the Near East later. That is, they begin to worship angels, every person his or her own angel, rather than an archangel. They descend from the higher polytheism to the lower monotheism. After what has previously been presented to you, you will not consider what I am about to say as something strange. You will see that people must cure themselves of the pride that permeates the entire field of religious studies, which deems itself justified to consider monotheism as a religion superior to polytheism. By no means is it so, but the relationship of the two is just as has been described.
Why, then, could the ancient peoples still worship archai, archangels, and angels? They could do so because they still preserved a remnant or echo of the atavistic clairvoyant capacity. For this reason they were able to lift themselves up to what is superhuman; they could, in a certain sense, rise above the human and elevate themselves to the superhuman. In the ancient mysteries, this process of elevating oneself to the superhuman was especially cultivated. Human beings were developed so they could unfold within themselves what extended beyond the human, whereby the human soul lifted itself into the realm of spirituality. But then came the time when the human ego, as it lives here between birth and death, was born for human beings. This was the period coinciding with the occurrence of the Mystery of Golgotha. If the Mystery of Golgotha had not occurred, people would have degenerated; they would have descended from worshipping angels to worshipping the next subordinate hierarchy, man himself. When we recall how the Roman Caesars had themselves worshipped as gods, how they really were “gods” to the people, we shall know that at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha human beings had degenerated so far that they now no longer prayed to archai, archangels, or angels, but to man. In order to save men from praying to earthly human beings, it was necessary for the Divine Man to appear.

The entrance of the Divine Man into history signified an important new way to relate oneself to religious life. Where had the worship of angels, archangels, archai, and even that of man in the form of the Roman Caesars, been found? In man himself; no one worshipped the Caesars through the Caesars, but through the worshipper himself, obviously; this had arisen from man; it came from the human soul. It was necessary that the Christ should appear as historic fact in the evolution of humanity; it was necessary that He should be seen, like the phenomena of nature, from without. He had to come into touch with human beings in an entirely different way from that of the gods of the ancient religions—in an entirely different way. “Where two or three are gathered in My name, there am I in the midst of them.” This is an important principle in Christianity because it signifies that, whereas it is possible through mere individual mysticism to find angels, archangels, even archai, it is not possible by this individual mysticism to find the Christ. Those who wish to practice individual mysticism, as this is often described even among theosophists, generally reach only the individual angel. They simply internalize this angel more, even making him often somewhat more egoistic than other persons make their gods. The Christ is found in different ways, not through the mere development of one's inner being, but when we are most of all aware that the Christ belongs to the community of human beings, to the whole of human community.
We now come to a most important differentiation, which can be taken into the human mind, we must admit, only with great difficulty. It is imperative, however, that we force ourselves to its level. When we face another human being in life, it is in maya that we, as human beings, face each other. Just as we have before us only the maya of natural phenomena, so are we likewise confronted only with the maya of the other human being. It is within maya that this human being stands before our external senses and all that is connected with the external world of the senses; then he stands before us as belonging to his family, his nation, his time. If we should survey him completely, we should see behind him the angel, the archangel, the archai, but they all express themselves in what the person is. It is because the archangel and the archai stand behind the observer and the human being observed, the latter is in a sense a member of certain human groups. In other words, the observed person in this way stands within heredity and hereditary relationships. Only our shortness of vision—understandable because we are human—prevents us from consciously judging a human being before us according to these essential connections; unconsciously we always do this. Unconsciously we face one another within this differentiation, which must inevitably be brought into humanity by these three hierarchies. But the Christ demands something more, something different. He demands in reality that when you face someone, you shall feel that what such a human being appears to you to be in the external world is not the entire and complete human being. When you face a human being, you should perceive his or her real being as coming not only from archai, archangels and angels, but from higher spirits no longer belonging to the earthly or even planetary evolution because this begins with the archai, the higher heavenly spirits, as you know from An Outline of Occult Science. You must see that with the human being something enters into maya that is supramundane.
To understand fully what I have just expressed, you must not allow it to remain a mere concept but carry it over completely into your feelings. It is necessary to understand clearly that in every human being something supramundane in his nature comes to meet us, something not to be understood by earthly human means. Then everyone will experience that sensitive reverence in the presence of all that is human. Before the Mystery of Golgotha, man had gradually lost this superhuman element and had descended all the way to being human. The superhuman element had been lost because—listen carefully—when a human being such as a Roman Caesar comes to be worshipped as a god, he loses his humanity and sinks to the level of the subhuman. He ceases to be a human being if he permits himself to be worshipped as something superhuman in social life. Man was threatened, therefore, with the loss of his humanity and it was restored to him through the appearance of Christ on earth. Read the cycle of lectures, From Jesus to Christ,118 Von Jesus zu Christus (Karlsruhe, 1911), Bibl.-No. 131, CE (Dornach, 1974). From Jesus to Christ, (London, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1973). in which I spoke on this question, telling you that something is really imparted to every individual human being through the fact that Christ was on earth.
Thus, the coming of the Christ has brought it about that we recognize in every earthly human being, even if he is a sinner or a publican, the Christ who is behind him. The Christ sat down with sinners so that we shall recognize in every earthly human being the truth of the statement, “What thou dost to the least of My brethren, thou has done unto Me.”119 Matthew 25:40. As I have said, this concept must be transferred entirely into our feeling nature; only then shall we attain to its full truth. Then one also sees all concepts and ideas that separate men from one another fall away, and something belonging to all men in common spreads as an aura over the entire earth when we vow that we shall carry our search, not merely to the archai, but upward to what stands above them whenever we are in the presence of a human being.
If we look back again to the ancient mysteries, we find that in them the human being endeavored to transcend his own being in order to have his soul coalesce with the spiritual world. But through the occurrence of the luciferic temptation this is only partially possible. In this ascent the possibility is lost to ascend still further. It is not possible to bear anything more up into the higher world. Why is this so? The answer to this question will come to us if we fix our attention on the profounder meaning of the luciferic temptation. What does Lucifer truly purpose for humanity? We have often emphasized this. Humanity lives in maya, something that is not the real world but only a mirror of it. What, then, is Lucifer's intention? In this mirror the human being can lift himself up a few stages as far as to the archai, but he must then be taken over by Lucifer if he desires to rise still higher into the spiritual. In a certain sense, he must then take Lucifer as his guide; Lucifer, who constitutes the light that guides him further. If the luciferic evolution had continued, if Christ had not entered into human evolution, the following would have come about after the time in which the Mystery of Golgotha ought to have taken place: human beings within the mysteries would have developed to such an extent that the archai would have been openly visible to them. Then they would have entered into the luciferic world. In that case, however, all that the higher gods such as the exusiai implanted into earthly evolution in the form of the human element would have remained on earth. Man would have spiritualized himself in an entirely ascetic way and would have entered into the spiritual luciferic world in this ascetic spiritualization, leaving behind the corporeal. Human souls would have found their salvation, but the earth would have remained purposeless. The bodies of human beings would never have been able to render the service to the souls that they really ought to render. To prevent this constitutes the significance of the Mystery of Golgotha.
We must now look back once more to the evolution before the Mystery of Golgotha if we wish to understand this matter completely. From the very beginning of the evolution of the earth, it was Lucifer's intention to lead men away from the earth into his spiritual kingdom. He had no interest in the rest of earthly evolution but wanted only to possess what the higher gods had initiated in connection with man. He wished to lead this away in the form of the soul from the earthly evolution after it had remained for a time in the earthly form that comes from the exusiai, the spirits of form. In other words, he wished to lead the souls away and leave the earth to its fate. Why is it, then, that human beings did not follow this endeavor of Lucifer, before the Mystery of Golgotha, to lead them into a luminous world? Why didn't they? You may understand the reasons from many suggestions I have given here, even in these very lectures. They did not follow Lucifer because something was introduced into the evolution of the earth by the higher gods that prevented them from becoming light enough to do so.
As I have shown you, what is called the eighth sphere was introduced into earthly evolution in ancient times. As one of its aspects, the eighth sphere consists of man's acquiring such a preference for and attachment to his lower nature that Lucifer is not able to remove the higher nature from it. Every time Lucifer endeavored to spiritualize human beings, they were too strongly habituated to the flesh to follow him. If they had not been possessed by this cleaving to the flesh, to the physical nature, they would have followed Lucifer. This is one of the great mysteries of cosmic existence, that a divine element was actually implanted in human nature so that it might have, as it were, a greater heaviness than it would have possessed if this divine and necessary element had not been implanted in it. If it had not been implanted, human souls would have obeyed Lucifer. When we go back into ancient times, we find everywhere that the religions lay emphasis on the necessity of human beings reverencing what is earthly, what is an earthly connection living in flesh and blood so that they may be heavy enough not to be led out into the universe. Since all things having a relationship to both the human and the cosmic require not only an earthly, but also a cosmic arrangement, what you find described in my Occult Science occurred. At a certain time, as you know, not only was the earth formed, revolving in its orbit around the sun, but it was provided with the moon as its satellite.
What does it mean that the earth has a moon as its satellite? It means nothing more than that it acquired a force through which it can attract and hold the moon nearby. Should the earth not possess this power to hold the moon, then the spiritual correlative of this force would not be able to chain man to his lower nature because this force, from the spiritual point of view, is the same as that with which the earth attracts the moon. It may be said, then, that the moon is placed in the universe as an opponent of Lucifer in order to hinder him. I have already alluded to this mystery120 Cf. the lectures in Die okkulte Bewegung im 19. Jahrhundert und ihre Beziehung zur Weltkultur, Bibl.-No. 257, CE (Dornach, 1969). The Occult Movement in the Nineteenth Century, (London, Rudolf Steiner Press, 1973). and pointed out that in the period of materialism of the nineteenth century, this truth has been exactly reversed in Sinnet's book, Esoteric Buddhism.121 Alfred Percy Sinnett, Esoteric Buddhism (1883). There the moon is described as something actually hostile to man. The truth is that it is not hostile to him but prevents him from falling victim to the temptation of Lucifer; it acts as the cosmic correlative of what constitutes the attachment of the human being to his lower nature. Rather than tearing the souls out of the lower nature and thereby preventing its concomitant spiritualization, a subconscious process was required. Had the arrangement been conscious, man would have followed the urges of his lower nature in full consciousness and would have sunk to the animal level. There had to be something in the lower nature of which man was not conscious and which he did not follow except as a human being on earth would follow what flowed into his lower nature as a divine element. Especially the God of the Old Testament, the Jahve God, was concerned that the human being should remain on earth. Jahve is connected in this mysterious way with the moon, as you will find explained also in Occult Science. From this statement you can estimate how materialistic it was to designate the moon as the eighth sphere, whereas it really is the force itself, the sphere, that attracts the moon. In her misguided ways, Blavatsky developed special malice in her Secret Doctrine by maligning the Jahve God as a mere moon god. She wanted to replace him with Lucifer whom she undertook to represent as the friend of the spirit. To be sure, Lucifer is just that, but only in the particular sense I have explained. Blavatsky tried to represent the Jahve God as the god of the mere lower nature, whereas what really constituted an opposition to Lucifer was implanted in the lower nature.
You see how dangerous it is to set up truths that may be perverted to their opposite. Blavatsky was misled by certain beings who had an interest in guiding her into putting Lucifer in the place of Christ, and this was to be achieved by introducing precisely the opposite of the truth of the eighth sphere and by maligning the Jahve God, representing him merely as the god of the lower nature. Thus did those cosmic powers who desired to advance materialism work even through what was called “theosophy.” Materialism would obviously have sunk to its worst abyss if men had come to believe that the moon was really the eighth sphere in the sense indicated by Sinnet or Blavatsky, and that Christianity must be fought in every way.
Now, placing the opponent of Lucifer in the lower nature of man was only possible so long as the human being had not developed his ego in the manner in which this took place at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. The degree to which this ego was subdued in ancient times is greatly underestimated. It was subdued and appeared only during the centuries just prior to the Mystery of Golgotha. Then it no longer sufficed merely to place in the subconscious, or unconscious, nature what strove against Lucifer. Something had to come that the human being could take up into his consciousness; this is the Christ, who follows the Jahve God in evolution. It was necessary that the Christ should come so that through an avowal of Him the human being might consciously oppose mere spiritualization as this was striven for on the part of Lucifer. Christ descended for all human beings and only through our feeling related to everyone else do we belong to the earth. The deeper understanding of the Christ derives from our connection with all human beings and from our effort to attain a full and complete connection with them.
You see, as long as men lived without the fully developed ego before the Mystery of Golgotha, they passed through the portal of death into the spiritual world and entered into relationship with archai, archangels and angels. But since they had not yet developed the complete ego here on earth, even after they had passed through the portal of death they did not need to develop a connection with the higher spiritual beings consciously. This was regulated through the atavistic powers that lay within them. But since the Mystery of Golgotha—not by reason of it but since that time—everything has become quite different. Let us look at ourselves and see how things have changed.
A human being passes through the portal of death as do others or perhaps one person passes through the portal of death and others remain here on earth. By virtue of his or her passing through the portal of death, an individual continues to be a human being and if we desire to keep our connection with such an individual, our relationship to him or her cannot change. Let us now bear in mind, however, that at the present time, since we live after the Mystery of Golgotha, the human being in ascending into the spiritual worlds passes through the hierarchies of the angels, archangels, and archai. Since he is now within the period in which his ego has developed here on earth, he possesses a consciousness also for the other hierarchies that are above them. That is to say, he develops consciously the forces poured into him from beings that are even higher than the archai. What does this signify? Let us take a concrete case and assume that through death a person loses one who is dearly beloved. The one who has passed through the portal of death maintains for many years, of course, the connection with certain inclinations and tendencies that he had during his lifetime. However, since he developed his ego here in his lifetime as a human being, something in him begins consciously to work on the perspective of his next incarnation immediately after he has passed through the portal of death. This occurs in a decisive way in what I have called in the122 Rudolf Steiner, Vier Mysteriendramen [Four Mystery Plays], Bibl.- No. 14, CE (Dornach, 1962). Four Mystery Plays, (Steiner Book Centre, Toronto, 1973). the midnight of existence; it appears to some extent in human consciousness immediately after death. When a person is in this state, however, there lives in him what already draws him away from what he was born into in his last life. Let us suppose that in his last life he belonged to a certain nation. The person who has remained behind continues to belong to this nation in his physical body, but a force belonging to an entirely different nation takes possession of the one who has died. How can the bond between the two continue beyond death undiminished in strength? Only when the one who remains here has an understanding for what extends above the angels, archangels and archai; that is, above what one may develop here through one's inclination toward relationships to human groups. If someone remains behind as a member of a certain nation and loses a friend through death who is already preparing to be a member of a different nation, the bond of love with the dead person cannot remain undisturbed. Only through the fact that both confess Christ, that they understand Christ in what extends above all differentiations of men can this bond be supramundane. What did John the Baptist say when Christ Jesus came to him to be baptized? “Behold, the Lamb of God, who beareth the sins of the world.” The full significance of these words might make us grow pale were we to take it in its full weight.
It may be asked why Christ has been victorious and not Mithras. During the time when Christianity was spreading from the East toward the West, the Mithraic cult expanded along the Danube all the way to France and Spain in Western Europe. The cult of Christ, however, has been victorious over the Mithraic cult. Why? Because the cult of Mithras had developed from extending above angels, archangels, and archai, and through this upward extention wished to attain to the Light-giver and Ruler of the World. What is the Christ in contrast to this? The Christ is He who took upon Himself for the evolution of the earth all that is bound up with angels, archangels, and archai; that is, all that chains man to the earth. He bears the sins of the world, those sins that have come into the world through human differentiation. He is a being in whose presence we must say, “I belong to a single human community, but because I belong to a single human community, to something connected with the earthly, I separate myself from the divine. From this I can be redeemed only by a Being who has nothing to do with human differentiation. The Christ in me leads me beyond earthly differentiations, teaches me to feel that what has been produced by earthly differentiation is suffering, that it brings death. Only through such an understanding of the Christ in me do I find my connection with the spiritual world.” All that entered humanity through the fact that differentiations have come about has been removed from it through the entrance of Christ into the world. Christ could not, therefore, be a divinity like Mithras, who guides the human being beyond himself. He is the one God who descended to earth and took away the sins of differentiation and cleansed man of them. Mithras rushes through the world with a sword in his hand that he thrusts into the lower nature to slay it; under him the lower nature dies. Christ offers Himself as the Lamb of God, who takes the lower nature into Himself in order to redeem it.
Much lies in this comparison, immeasurably much! It is for this reason that the idea of Christ is not to be separated from the idea of death and resurrection. Only when we realize that what leads man to the earth brings him death, that there is more in him than what brings him into the earthly atmosphere, and that something is in him that is the Christ Who leads him away again: In Christo morimur—only then do we understand the Christ and know that we are united with Him. Thus, the representations of the ancient gods could set triumphant beings before us, but the Christ could only be presented by the joining of human beings in suffering and death because Christ endured all that enters into the differentiations of man throughout the earth. It is thus that Christ becomes the One Who leads man through death and back into the spiritual world, but this also makes Him the Divinity Who may be approached here on earth as we pass beyond maya or illusion. As the Christ is born here from the womb of maya, so must we draw near to Him by advancing beyond maya and appealing to Him in all the higher reality that projects into maya, but isn't maya itself.
If it is to turn to this worship of Christ, mankind will still need a long time on earth. Nevertheless, we must begin again to take Christianity earnestly. It is taken least of all seriously by the theologians who are frequently in conflict over whether or not Christ performed miracles and, for example, drove out demons through them. Well, it is entirely superfluous to argue over whether or not Christ drove out demons. It is more important that we learn to reproduce His miracles and thereby cast the demons out now where we can. We still have little power to cast out demons in the higher sense as antiquity knew how to do through its atavism. That is the destiny, the karma, of our epoch. But we can begin to drive out those demons of whom I spoke yesterday; they are there and it is negative superstition to suppose that they are not. How do we drive them out? Humanity will be convinced that they are being driven out when what is unholy service today becomes holy; that is, permeated with the Christ consciousness. In other words, this means that we must change to a sacramentalism in which man's deeds are imbued by the consciousness that the Christ stands behind him everywhere. Thus, he ought to do nothing in the world except that in which the Christ can help him. If he does something else, the Christ must also help him but He is thus crucified again and again in human deeds. The crucifixion is not merely a single deed; it is a continuing deed. So long as we do not drive out the demons through what lives in our souls by changing external mechanical actions into holy actions, we will continue to crucify Christ. It is from this point that our education to a true Christianity must begin. What was symbolically practiced in the ancient cults of Christianity and was once performed only on the altar must take hold of the entire world. Humanity must learn to deal with nature as the gods have done; it should learn not to construct machines in an indifferent way but to fulfill a divine service and bring sacramentalism into everything that is produced.
It is already possible to make a beginning in many things. Most of all, human beings can begin to develop sacramentalism in two areas. The first is that of educating and teaching children. We will begin to spiritualize what the religions call “baptism” when we look upon every human being who enters the world through birth as bringing his/her Christ forces with him/herself. Thus we will have the right reverence before the growing human being and can then direct the entire education and especially the teaching of the child in this spirit so that we bring in this teaching a sacramentalism to fruition. We can achieve the same end when we not only look upon educating and teaching the child as a divine service, but also make it such a divine service. Finally, when we endeavor to bring what we call our knowledge into our consciousness in such a way that, as our souls are filled with ideas of the spiritual world, we are aware that the Spiritual world is entering into us and that we are being united with the spiritual; when we look upon that as a “communion;” when we can realize true knowledge in a sentence you find expressed before 1887: “Thinking is the true communion of humanity,”123 Cf. Preface to: Goethe's Scientific Writings, II, Rudolf Steiner, ed. (1887) in Kürchner's Deutsche National-Litteratur. Photomechanic reprint, 5 vols., Bibl.-No. 1 a-e, CE (1975). Goethe the Scientist, (New York, Anthroposophic Press, 1950). when the symbolic sacrament of the altar will become the universal sacramental experience of knowledge. It is in this direction that the Christianizing of man must move forward. You will then come to the knowledge that, everywhere in life, reality enters into maya in everything that is related to the Christ, and that to look upon reality after the manner of modern science with its world conception is in the most eminent sense unchristian.
It is strange how people nowadays are so easily able to adjust to what is unchristian and how little they can find their way to everything in Christianity that is appropriate to our time. As yet, we can see very little that counteracts materialism from, as I might say, a darkling inclination. If there are some beginnings, people embracing them proceed on false paths in that they, in a confused way, turn to old relations rather than to spiritual science.
Forgive me if I mention in this connection something that concerns me personally, but I am doing this only to cite an example. I may already have pointed out in these lectures that Hermann Bahr,124 Hermann Bahr (1863–1934), a Viennese writer who was the author of the book Expressionismus, 3rd edition (Munich, 1919) and of the play Die Stimme [The Voice] (Berlin, 1916). a contemporary personality whom I knew very well in my youth, is again in the process of seeking spiritual things. He is not seeking them in spiritual science because his interest for it is very limited. Take his very fine and intelligent book on expressionism and you will discover that he has only a marginal interest in spiritual science. But you can also see from the book itself that up to its publication he has informed himself about spiritual science only to the extent of his having read Levy's book125 Eugene Levry, Rudolf Steiners Weltanschauung und ihre Gegner [Rudolf Steiner's World View and its Opponents] (Berlin, 1913). on my world view and on the people who oppose it. He has not found the way yet to really engage himself more deeply. However, it is interesting that he wrote a novel whose hero becomes acquainted with everything: contemporary chemical laboratories and so on, attending Oswald's126 Wilhelm Oswald (1853–1932) was a chemist. lectures in Leipzig, busying himself a bit with the theosophers in London, and so forth. His hero becomes exposed to everything which the present day offers in spiritual sensations, and he even dabbles in spiritism. And then he asks someone—I don't remember who it was—to give him esoteric exercises, which he practices for a while. But he is impatient, continues them only for a short time, does not achieve results and then abandons them; in fact, he gives up on all his endeavors after a short while. Then he has some strange experiences—the most interesting thing for me has been that, in a curious way, much in this book is reminiscent of what I have mentioned most recently in lectures, even about actual events, although I haven't seen Hermann Bahr for the past twenty-eight years except once, but then we definitely did not discuss questions related to our views of the world. Recently, Hermann Bahr also had a play of his staged which is entitled The Voice. One need not defend this play for the simple reason that Hermann Bahr just is not trying to find his way into spiritual science, which he finds too difficult, but is relapsing into orthodox, or let's say, more recent Catholicism. At any rate, he is in search of spiritual life.
It is interesting how the hero of this play is in search of spiritual life. He is married to a lady, the daughter of a very orthodox mother and herself very orthodox in view. This lady is deeply serious about Christianity—more so than can be expected of a human being. However, her husband, the hero of the play, is a disciple of Oswald and Haeckel and is quite a materialist. Since his wife and mother-in-law are serious Christians, they are, of course, pained by the fact that the husband is a disciple of Oswald and Haeckel127 Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) was a renowned zoologist. and does not want to hear anything about the spiritual world. The wife grieves so much about this that she dies. After her death, the husband, from an unknown dark feeling, frequently thinks his deceased wife is calling out one thing or another to him. One day, in the sleeping compartment of a train, he hears the voice of his wife with special clarity. This almost makes him insane; when the train stops at a station he rushes out and behaves like a lunatic in what I believe was the waiting room of a station. The train went on without him, and later, it was demolished in a railroad accident. The injured people are carried into the station and then he realizes that he had been saved by the voice of his deceased wife; she had caused him to leave the train in which he would have otherwise perished. This was the first time that he associated the voice of his wife with the conditions of reality. I do not want to condemn this; I simply want to tell you what a contemporary human being commits to paper these days. The hero of the play, by experiencing this apparent miracle and the after-effect of this woman's being beyond her death, realizes that he has been saved by her and this causes him to reflect anew about the connection of human beings with the spiritual world. Later, his wife continues to communicate with him frequently and the ensuing intimate friendship between his soul and the soul of his deceased wife leads him back to Christianity in the truest sense, and he overcomes his materialistic world view.
Even though we do not need to defend this play as such, we see that there are human beings nowadays who strive to instill the view into life that a truth of the spiritual world can manifest itself in maya, the great deception. Only a clear understanding of Christianity will build the bridge between the life here on earth and the life that exists in the spiritual world. Quite a few people today have a need for this spiritual world but we must admit that their number is insignificant in relation to the large number of those people who are either mired in traditional religions—and thus have fallen prey to materialism even if they don't admit it—or whose lives are directly determined by materialism and who do not have a real connection with the spiritual world. As I said before, we need not defend Bahr's play but it can nevertheless direct us to this important realization: Whoever wants to understand Christianity in its deepest meaning must get beyond the problem of death. After all, the most interesting thing in this play is that it takes as its point of departure the relation between the human soul and the human body which transcends the portal of death. To be sure, there is a basic error in all these things: instead of being led to Christianity—for which process spiritual science, as we understand it, wants to make a real beginning—we are again led back to an individual religious denomination.
If human beings would only understand the Christ in the way I have indicated today—and if we may still continue to speak here, I will deal with this matter more thoroughly—if they could so understand the Christ as the matter has been explained today in only the most elementary suggestions, then the feeling and conceptions that are developed in regard to Him could be conveyed to all human beings. Christ did not die only for those who belong to some Christian sect, but He died and rose again for all mankind. We must not associate some specific religious confession with the Being of Christ, but every religious confession is to be brought into connection with Christianity. If all people would come to understand how to conceive the Christ as has been indicated, Christianity would spread over the entire earth because the revelation of Christ and the revelation of Jesus are two different things.
If we go as missionaries to foreign cultures, or even to people in our own lands, and wish to force upon them the worship of Jesus within a religious denomination, we will not be understood since the knowledge of these people extends far beyond what is brought to them by this or that missionary. I should like to know, for example, what a Turk would say if a modern Protestant pastor should try to convey to him his conception of Christ. This conception as it is dealt with by modern Protestant pastors holds that there was once a Socrates, and then one who was somewhat more than Socrates, the Christ, the human being, the special human being, but still the human being—or any of those confused things that are said today in modern Protestantism about Christ. The Turk would say to him, “What! You tell me such a thing and you wish to be called a Christian? Just read the nineteenth chapter of the Koran;128 The nineteenth sura of the Koran is entitled “Mary.“ much more is contained in it about the Christ than what you are telling me!” In other words, the Turks know a great deal more concerning Christ Jesus than what the modern Protestant pastors are prone to present because the Koran contains more about Him and Christ is represented much more as the Divinity in the Turkish confession than in that of the modern Protestant. This is simply not realized because nowadays people do not often go so far as really to read the original religious documents; rather, they utter much superficial nonsense regarding all possible religions.
The Jesus revelation, too, will touch men in the proper way, but they themselves must attain its truth by their own power. They will be able to do this after having passed through a sufficient number of incarnations. Everyone today is to some degree prepared to receive the Christ revelation; this is a distinction that must be made. However, many forces are at work to suppress the real Christ revelation and genuine spiritual science. In this regard you need only to remember some of the things I previously mentioned regarding my characterization of various endeavors which lay claim to being occult.
And now I would like to conclude today's lecture, but not without offering a short supplement which, for definite reasons that will become apparent to you momentarily, should not be considered as part of the lecture itself. What I have stated thus far I have said without reservations whatsoever; but what I am about to add I shall have to formulate, at least for the time being, with certain qualifications. That is why I am presenting these additional remarks separately. If I mention them today, it is because I consider them somewhat important within the framework of the considerations at hand.
I had indicated earlier that materialism reached its zenith in the middle of the 19th century. During that time, the people who knew that spiritual life would always be necessary for humanity considered teaching mankind that our environment really contains spiritual beings and effects. But I had also indicated that the leading occultists in those days branched off into two groups. One of them maintained that mankind was not yet ready to accept spiritual things, while the second one was saying in the middle of the century that mankind was indeed ready to be exposed in an elementary way to the most important concepts of spiritual life.
This second group, which advocates the teaching and the dissemination of the doctrine, has been reduced to a tiny number of people. However, the anthroposophical movement subscribes to the belief that the dissemination of the doctrine, as it is practiced by us in today's activities, is important for the transmission of spiritual knowledge to mankind. This question was first raised in the fourth decade of the 19th century, but those who held this view were, in a way, outvoted. After that had happened, they agreed to chart a new course and adopt the practice of spiritism. These people attempted to show that spiritualistic media—individuals who can be considered psychics—are able to receive messages from the spiritual world and that it would be possible by these means to get in touch with the realms of the spirit.
I have characterized these things before, and I also indicated that this entire attempt was a failure. It was a failure because in contrast to what I explained in my recent speech in Bern, the people involved in the experiments were unable to pinpoint the various stages of our connection with the dead. Yet, the people in question did not want to deal with that phenomenon and, thus, the entire attempt was unsuccessful. All of the psychics indicated in the most primitive and elementary way that they were in direct communication with the deceased persons, and people always wanted to receive direct pronouncements from some deceased person through these media. Please note, this is not to say that what passes through a medium in an experiment cannot in some way lead to a contact with a dead person. But it is another matter to decide whether or not this is an unconscious, a genuine, and a proper mediation, and whether the mediation is possible at all. Some entirely different results were expected from the experiments. The psychic media were expected to make people understand that not only sensuous, but also spiritual forces flow continuously into human beings. Moreover, the experiments were supposed to teach people that spiritual things were preferably to be sought in the immediate environment, and not in the announcements of this or that dead person.
Since the whole attempt has proven to be a blunder, the serious occultists withdrew from this spiritistic experiment, and mankind now has to pay for this in that the psychic media have been usurped by all kinds of occultists. The latter do not pursue purely occult endeavors, but they chart a course that serves some specific human purpose. I have often mentioned this before: The person who wants to be a genuine occultist cannot merely serve a specific human purpose; rather, he must serve general human purposes, and above all, he or she must never employ improper and incorrect means in order to reach any goals whatsoever. But what isn't called occultism these days! You could get a notion of this if you read the report of the last Theosophical Convention, which contained the speeches of Mrs. Besant129 Cf. footnote 99. and Mr. Leadbeater.130 Charles Webster Leadbeater (1847–1934) was a prominent personality in the Theosophical Society. In these speeches, the present situation is depicted as the big struggle between Lords of Light, on whose side Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater are naturally to be found, and the Lords of Darkness. In these speeches the opinion is expressed that any neutral person not taking sides with any of these opposite parties, or more properly, with Mrs. Besant's and Mr. Leadbeater's Lords of Light, is a traitor. But still other things were discussed in these meetings. Mr. Leadbeater, for example, related from one of his profound occult insights that Bismarck131 Otto Furst von Bismarck (1815–1898) was the Prussian Chancellor who founded the Second German Empire in 1871. was supposed to have gone to France before 1870 and established magnetic centers in the North, South, East, and West of France. During the 1870/71 war, these magnetic centers established by Bismarck had been at work, according to Mr. Leadbeater, because otherwise the war with France would have been lost. This is the kind of stuff people listen to in theosophical meetings! Yes, they do listen to it, and one can only marvel at this or do something more drastic when one learns such things are mentioned. But as I said, there are many kinds of occultism in our age.
Now that serious occultists have withdrawn from spiritism, it is important to keep in mind that the latter has been taken over by people pursuing specific purposes. And it is quite easy to do this. Please keep in mind what I want to say in this supplement: Spiritism originated from an honest attempt to find out whether mankind nowadays is ready to accept spiritual truths. Also, remember that the attempt was a failure and that all kinds of movements, occult brotherhoods, as well as individuals—especially from America—have attempted to manipulate the psychic media one by one for their own specific purposes.
Following all this, I now want to speak about a report that our dear friend, Mr. Heywood-Smith, gave to me yesterday concerning the book that deals with the experiences of Sir Oliver Lodge.132 Oliver Lodge (1851–1940) was an English physicist and a member of the Royal Society. I repeat, I am relating this with every possible reservation because I only have a report in front of me; it, however, is revealing enough. I reserve the right to make further comments when I am in possession of the book itself. However, since I do not consider the matter unimportant, I would like to deal with it today. Should the report prove to be incorrect, I would, of course, clarify the things mentioned today. That is why I speak with reservations.
It is an extraordinarily significant fact, isn't it, that one of the most renowned scientific personalities of England, the great naturalist Sir Oliver Lodge, has written a book133 Oliver Lodge, Raymond, or Life and Death (1916). containing things which, when accepted as he presents them, should be counted among the most significant pronouncements of the present time. We know, of course, that Sir Oliver professed in some of his other books that he acknowledges the existence of the spiritual world. But let me come to the facts:
Sir Oliver Lodge had a son by the name of Raymond who was born in 1889 and who, when the war broke out, volunteered for military service while Sir Oliver and his wife were in Australia. In March 1915 Raymond came to a vicinity of Ypern—and you can imagine how worried his parents were. Soon thereafter, Sir Oliver received a message from an American medium, a Mrs. Piper, which was dated August 15. This message from America had a peculiar content which, according to the report that I have in front of me, reads as follows: “Myers will take an interest in whatever fate has ordained for you and will protect you.” However, this message was couched in the classical form of a poem by Horace. To repeat, Sir Oliver was notified by an American medium in August that Myers, formerly chairman of the Society for Psychical Research in London134 Frederic W. H. Meyers (1843–1901), a spiritist and friend of Sir Oliver Lodge, was a co-founder of the Society for Psychical Research in London. but deceased fourteen years prior to the date of the letter, would protect and support Sir Oliver Lodge during a difficult event of which he, Sir Oliver, would be a part and thus work toward his protection. Please bear in mind that this message mentions only that Myers would help Sir Oliver during a difficult event.
Now, when Sir Oliver's son Raymond was killed in action in September 1915, Sir Oliver at first related the message which had indicated that Myers would help him, to the death of his son. Subsequently, however, Sir Oliver's family was the subject of all kinds of pronouncements by the psychic media; in fact, several psychic media appeared on the scene simultaneously and delivered quite a few messages. Little by little, it turned out that all these messages had the following basic content: “Myers is united with your son”—Sir Oliver's and Lady Lodge's son, because seances were conducted with her as well. “Myers is helping your son, whose primary concern is that you receive word from him and, especially, that Sir Oliver should thereby be placed into a relationship with the spiritual world.”—If one reads the various pronouncements of the individual psychics as presented in this report, one thing stands out everywhere. Throughout, the pronouncements exhibit interesting examples of psychic elevation; everything happens at a precise time; questions are being asked and so on, and they are then answered by the media. The whole process is extremely interesting. Even a picture of Raymond Lodge that was unknown to his family is found because the deceased son points to it and describes it, and it is then found in exactly the same place that he pinpointed. In short, in this book there seems to be compiled with extraordinary precision and exactitude all that can be experienced in many a spiritistic séance and which could lead to the events narrated. It is known that Sir Oliver had always been somewhat inclined toward these practices, much to the displeasure of his sons. However, after these happenings they became believers, too. Sir Oliver himself seems to have described in the most detailed manner how this bridge to his deceased son was constructed through the various psychic media.
What is important and what is presented is the fact that such a highly respected personality is induced to transcend into the spiritual world through the use of psychic media. I have to say this: From what I know about the various séances, they themselves do not reveal too many new features.—But something else is very important. We have here a modern scientific personality of the first rank who, when writing in this fashion, can have a tremendous influence on the minds of human beings and who feels compelled to write in this way. That is very important because such writing influences many people and causes them to turn to the “media enterprise,” which seeks to relate itself with the spiritual world in this fashion.
We are, of course, presented here with the same mistake of wanting to attain access to the spiritual world through spiritism which I previously described to you. But now let me ask you to look at the matter more closely. In the first message by the medium Piper which Sir Oliver Lodge received from America, a forecast is made of only one event against which Myers would protect Sir Oliver. To be sure, this event could have occurred in several ways. Suppose the son hadn't been killed in action. In that case, the statement that followed would have been quite compatible with the content of the message: “Well, you have been told that Myers protects your son in the spiritual world and keeps him from dying on the battlefield.”—You will probably not doubt that the people in America could have known that Raymond Lodge had been stationed in an endangered zone of the battlefield and that, therefore, one could have made pronouncements similar to those of the old oracles: “Myers will protect your son.” And had the son come out of the war unscathed, one could have said after the fact: “Myers did protect him by getting him out of the battle zone alive.” Suppose, however, the son was killed in action, one could then easily relate the prophecy to Myers' role as a mediator in bringing father and son together from the spiritual world. Thus we can see that the original pronouncement was shrewdly phrased. The whole affair was contrived in America. Since such fellowships extend, of course, over the whole world, the next medium was then put in touch with Lady Lodge. It is not necessary to know how such an anonymous session, as it is called in the report, comes into being. The procedures are as is customary in those sessions. But by now the sad news of the son's death had been received and Lady Lodge's psyche harbors all the after effects that such a message evokes. It is not difficult to demonstrate that what dwells in one soul migrated into another and communicates through the medium. Moreover, the son survived beyond death in the soul of his mother, in the manner that we are all acquainted with. Therefore, the accomplishment of the medium was nothing more than a rendering of what was already present in the souls of Lady Lodge or her family. This can be nicely substantiated from the protocol of the seances, which in each case is modulated to allow for the character of the major participants in these sessions. The name Myers is mentioned even by the media who were not acquainted with him. That, however, is not all that miraculous because Sir Oliver Lodge was a very good friend of Myers and had worked with him and so on. In short, everything would have been fine if only Sir Oliver, aside from the personal interest he took in his son's fate, had been content with carrying out an experiment whose sole purpose it was to show that there are spiritual effects in our environment. This was the original intention of the occultists, but then they abandoned this path.
I do not want to make judgments as I am sure the book itself will explain this matter, too. However, it seems we are confronted here with the obvious. Some people want to use Sir Oliver in order to attain definite special purposes. By using the constellations at hand, one very sorry occult brotherhood is likely to cite our case as characteristic when it makes its thrust to possibly, if you will, win over science to spiritism. Spiritism always likes to be considered as being “scientific,” and it can be easily used to attain special purposes.
To mention just one example, the attempt had been made in another place in America to cure mankind of the idea of reincarnation. What took place? During the time when the events I characterized had already happened, that is, when the serious occultists had already left spiritism, a certain Langsdorff,135 Georg von Landsdorff was a physician who had previously lived and worked in Freiburg i.Br. if I am not mistaken, organized all kinds of séances in several localities. When media were put in touch with the dead, the latter everywhere gave testimony that they were not at all waiting for reincarnation. And so the doctrine of repeated lives on earth was especially attacked in America. One can accomplish a great deal if one allows people to be approached in this matter by the pronouncements of the dead.
I wanted to discuss this matter quickly with you in a few words because I had talked about these things recently and because the example cited seems to be an especially good one. For how will the world be informed about this? The world will learn that a renowned scientist has confessed his allegiance to spiritism. Then, people will read the book, and most likely—we see this from our example—they will think that the case for spiritism has never been made so convincingly as in this book. As I said, I am speaking in this supplement to our lecture with qualifications because I reserve the right to come back to the matter after I have read the book myself. We are probably confronted here with an attempt by the so-called brotherhood of the left wing to attain special things by these very means. This may not be clear at first blush, but it is well known that there are numerous brotherhoods who wish to attain their special purposes in this fashion, and more is attained in this way than people are accustomed to believe. We will talk about these things some more later on.
Zehnter Vortrag
Wenn wir versuchen, auf die Frage zunächst einzugehen, die wir das letzte Mal andeuteten: Wie kann der gegenwärtige Mensch ein mögliches Verhältnis zu dem Christus gewinnen? — so drängt sich ja selbstverständlich vielen der Einwand auf, daß ja sehr viele Menschen in der Gegenwart ihr Verhältnis zu dem Christus haben. Über diesen Einwand habe ich schon öfter gesprochen, und wir wissen ja, daß er insofern nicht gelten kann, als er sich eigentlich bei genauerer Betrachtung entpuppt als ein recht egoistischer Einwand, der nur gemacht werden kann, wenn man sich auf den Standpunkt stellt: Ich habe meinen befriedigenden Glauben, und alles übrige geht mich nichts an. — Daß im allgemeinen die Menschheit heute nicht auf einem befriedigenden Standpunkt steht gegenüber der Christus-Wesenheit, das aber ist allzu augenscheinlich erkennbar aus den Ereignissen unserer Zeit, als daß man viele Worte darüber sprechen müßte. Die Antwort, die auf diesen Einwand gegeben werden soll, kann sich ja jeder selbst geben, der sich sagt, es müsse zu dem Grundelement des Christus-Bekenntnisses gehören, daß Christus für alle Menschen gestorben und auferstanden ist, für alle Menschen in gleicher Weise, und daß es niemals im Namen des Christus sein kann, wenn sich Mensch gegen Mensch um äußerer Güter willen wendet. Man kann sich abwenden von diesem allgemeinen Menschenschicksal und sich in egoistischer Weise bloß auf sein Bekenntnis konzentrieren. Gewiß, dann aber berücksichtigt man nicht, daß der Eintritt des Mysteriums von Golgatha etwas ist, was vor allen Dingen die menschliche Gemeinschaft angeht. Nun werden wir einiges anzuführen haben, das ja uns aufmerksam machen kann darauf, worinnen das Wesentliche des Weges zu dem Christus besteht; denn selbstverständlich muß den Weg zum Christus mit den Mitteln, welche der heutigen Zeit angemessen sind, eine jegliche Seele selber finden.
Wenn wir zunächst versuchen, in tieferem Sinne zu verstehen, was das Christus-Wesen für die Erde bedeutet, so müssen wir uns zuerst bekanntmachen damit, daß es wesentlich ist für das Christus-Ereignis, daß das Mysterium von Golgatha einmal in einem bestimmten Zeitpunkte, also in der Zeit und im Raume, sich ereignet hat. Wenn wir dies ins Auge fassen, so werden wir sogleich gegen eine allgemeine Anschauung, die auch die unsrige sein muß, einen Widerspruch finden, den man, weil er ein berechtigter Widerspruch ist, nicht hinwegdiskutieren soll, ein Widerspruch, der zunächst anerkannt werden muß, wenn man ihn für seine Seele beseitigen will. Nicht wahr, das Mysteriium von Golgatha kann nur dasjenige sein, was wir immer betont haben: der Sinn der Erdenentwickelung, wenn dieses Mysterium von Golgatha innere, wirkliche Wahrheit hat. Alles dasjenige aber, was sich in der Zeit und im Raume zuträgt, wir wissen es, gehört dem Gebiete der Maja, der großen Täuschung an, gehört also nicht der wirklichen, ewigen Wesenhaftigkeit der Dinge an. Und so stehen wir vor dem bedeutungsvollen Widerspruch, daß das Mysterium von Golgatha der Maja, der großen Täuschung angehört. Das ist ein bedeutungsvoller Widerspruch, den man sich zunächst in seiner vollen Gültigkeit vor die Seele führen muß.
Nun gehen wir, da ja das Mysterium von Golgatha sich in der Zeit abgespielt hat, der die Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechtes auf Erden angehört, einmal auf dieseEntwickelung des Menschengeschlechtes auf der Erde ein. Wir wissen ja, wie es sich für diese Entwickelung des Menschengeschlechtes darum handelt, daß der Mensch aus früheren Welten herübergekommen ist, und daß er, so wie wir das in der «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß» angegeben haben, in einem bestimmten Zeitpunkte dem unterworfen war, was man die luziferische Verführung, Versuchung nennen kann. Wir haben dies, was luziferische Versuchung, Verführung ist, öfters in dem Sinne, wie die geisteswissenschaftliche Forschung das eben andeutet, betrachtet; wir wissen, daß es in einem großartigen Bilde am Beginne des Alten Testamentes zum Ausdruck gebracht worden ist, in dem Bilde vom sogenannten Sündenfall, von Luzifer als der Schlange im Paradiese, das als eines der gewaltigsten Bilder dasteht innerhalb der religiösen Urkunden.
Wenn wir die Zeit, welche die Menschheitsevolution durchmacht von der luziferischen Versuchung an bis zu dem Mysterium von Golgatha überblicken, so ist sie ja für uns eine Zeit, in welcher die Menschen von einer ursprünglichen, von früheren planetarischen Stufen herübergewachsenen, also atavistischen hellseherischen Offenbarung, durch welche ihnen die geistigen Welten vor dem Seelenauge standen, allmählich herabgestiegen sind, so daß sie in den Jahrhunderten, die dem Mysterium von Golgatha vorangingen, nicht mehr in der Lage waren, so hinaufzuschauen zu den geistigen Welten wie früher, sondern daß sie nur noch Nachklänge hatten an die alten Erkenntnisse von den geistigen Welten.
Lassen wir nun einmal für eine verhältnismäßig kurze Erdenzeit — wir können nicht zurückgehen bis zur luziferischen Verführung - die Aufeinanderfolge sozusagen der absteigenden Stufen der Menschheitsevolution bis zum Mysterium von Golgatha vor unserer Seele vorbeiziehen. Da finden wir dasFolgende. Wenn wir weit genug zurückgehen, finden wir dasjenige, was früher die Menschen als eine atavistische Weisheit hatten, als ein wirkliches Anschauen der geistigen Welten, ausgedrückt im Nachklang religiöser Weltanschauungen dadurch, daß die Menschen verehrten, was mehr oder weniger ein bedeutungsvoller, hochangesehener Vorfahre war. Das heißt, wir finden in den verschiedenen Gegenden der Erde religiöse Kulte, die wir als Ahnenkulte bezeichnen können. Solche Ahnenkulte sind ja noch geblieben bei mehr oder weniger auf früheren Stufen der Entwickelung stehengebliebenen Menschen. Menschen also verehren oder schauen verehrend auf zu einem Ahnen. Was liegt diesem Aufschauen zu Ahnen eigentlich zusrunde? Was ist die Realität dieses Aufschauens zu Ahnen in alten Zeiten, in jenen ältesten Zeiten, zu denen noch die Geschichte zurückblicken kann? Sagen wir: Da geht es in graue. Zeiten zurück; dann haben wir eine gewisse Epoche, in der Ahnenkulte da sind (siehe Schema Seite 203).
Solche Ahnenkulte gründeten sich nicht etwa, wie die heutige oberflächliche Wissenschaft glaubt, darauf, daß die Leute sich einbildeten, sie müßten zu einem Vorfahren hinaufschauen, sondern die ältesten Ahnenkulte waren durchaus so, daß die Menschen in gewissen Zeiten ihres Lebens eine unmittelbare Anschauung des Ahnen hatten. Derjenige, der hinaufblickte zu einem Ahnen-Gott, kam in gewissen Zeiten seines Lebens, in Zuständen zwischen Wachen und Schlafen, wie sie ja in der älteren Menschheitsentwickelung durchaus vorhanden waren, dazu, mit dem, was er als seinen Ahnen verehrte, wirklich zusammenzusein. Der Ahne erschien ihm nicht bloß in einem Traume, sondern in einer traumhaften Vorstellung, die etwas Reales bedeutete für ihn. Und diejenigen Menschen gehörten zusammen zu einem Ahnendienst, denen eben ein gemeinschaftlicher Ahne erschien. Dasjenige, was die Menschen im Geiste schauten, war allerdings eine ins Erhabene hinaufgesteigerte Menschengestalt; aber hinter dieser Menschengestalt verbarg sich noch etwas ganz anderes. Will man erkennen, was sich eigentlich hinter dieser Geistgestalt verbarg, so muß man sich das Folgende vor Augen führen: Der Ahne war einmal gestorben; er ging von der Erde ab als eine, wie gesagt, hochangesehene Persönlichkeit, die viel Gutes gewirkt hatte für eine menschliche Gemeinschaft. Der Ahne war durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen, war also, während die Menschen zu ihm aufsahen, auf dem Wege zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt. Was von dem Ahnen sahen denn da die Menschen, wenn sie zu ihm aufblickten?
Wir wissen ja, wenn der Mensch durch die Pforte des Todes schreitet, so ist er noch eine kurze Zeit in seinem Ätherleib; dann wird dieser Ätherleib abgelegt. Aber das Ablegen bedeutet, daß der Ätherleib in die geistigen Welten, in die Ätherwelt übertritt. Der Mensch in seinem Ich und seinem astralischen Leib entwickelt sich weiter; der Ätherleib geht über in die Ätherwelt. Da der betreffende Mensch Konsistentes getan hatte auf Erden, blieb die Erinnerung des Ätherleibes lange. Den ÄÄtherleib ihres Ahnen nahmen die Leute in ihrem alten atavistischen, traumhaften Hellsehen wahr, verehrten dasjenige, was sich ihnen offenbarte durch diesen Ätherleib. Aber zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt kommt dieser Ätherleib in Berührung mit den Geistern der höheren Hierarchien, vor allen Dingen mit den Geistern aus der Hier“archie der Archai, der Zeitgeister. Und weil der Betreffende eine für die Menschheitsentwickelung bedeutsame Persönlichkeit war, so verband er sich mit dem Zeitgeist, der die Menschheitsentwickelung um ein Stück vorwärts brachte.
Dasjenige, was sich durch dieses, sagen wir meinetwillen, Gespenst der Vorfahren kundgab, das war im Grunde genommen der Zeitgeist, einer der Zeitgeister, so daß die älteste religiöse Kultverehrung dem Zeitgeist dargebracht wurde. Überall, wo wir zurückgehen bis in die Zeiten, die noch als graue Zeiten die Geschichte sehen kann, finden wir, daß die Menschen verehrten die ätherischen Leiber ihrer Vorfahren als Offenbarungsmittel der Zeitgeister. Also indem wir zu den Ahnenkulten zurückgehen, haben wir die Verehrung der Zeitgeister, der Archai.
Dann stiegen dieMenschen weiter herunter und fingen an, diejenigen Gottheiten zu verehren, welche uns bekannt sind aus den verschiedenen Mythologien und die wir ja kennen als Erzengel; selbst in der griechischen Mythologie Zeus und so weiter, sie haben den Wert von ErzengelErscheinungen. In den ältesten Zeiten blickten die Menschen hinauf zu den Zeitgeistern; dann blickten sie hinauf zu denjenigen Geistern, die nun nicht mehr Zeitgeister sind, sondern die gleichwertig sind mit den Geistern, welche auch die Führung der Volksstämme haben, zu den Erzengeln. So daß wir sagen können: der Polytheismus folgt auf den Ahnenkult, und die Menschen verehren Archangeloi.
Dann kommt das Zeitalter, in dem die Menschen noch weiter heruntersteigen, das Zeitalter, in dem schon nach und nach das Ich des einzelnen Menschen geboren werden soll. Und wir finden, daß die fortgeschrittensten Nationen verhältnismäßig früh, andere später — die Ägypter zum Beispiel schon im zweiten Jahrtausend, vorderasiatische Völker später - zum Monotheismus übergehen, das heißt beginnen, nicht mehr Erzengel, Archangeloi, sondern Angeloi, jeder seinen Angelos, zu verehren. Sie steigen herunter von dem höheren Polytheismus zu dem niedrigeren Monotheismus. Nach dem, was gestern ausgeführt worden ist, wird Ihnen das nicht mehr fremdartig erscheinen, was ich jetzt sage, und Sie werden einsehen, daß sich die Menschen von dem Hochmut werden kurieren müssen, der die ganzeReligionswissenschaft durchtränkt: daß dasjenige, was man gewöhnlich Monotheismus nennt, herabschauen darf auf den Polytheismus als die untergeordnete Religion. Denn so ist es nicht, sondern es verhält sich so, wie jetzt die Sache dargestellt wurde.
Warum konnten denn diese alten Völker noch Archai, Archangeloi, Angeloi verehren? Sie konnten sie verehren aus dem Grunde, weil sie noch die Überbleibsel hatten oder die Nachklänge der alten atavistischhellseherischen Kunst. Daher konnten sie sich erheben zu demjenigen, was übermenschlich war; sie konnten gewissermaßen hinauswachsen über das Menschliche, sich erheben zu dem Übermenschlichen. Und in den alten Mysterien wurde dieses Hinaufheben zu dem Übermenschlichen ganz besonders kultiviert. Da wurden die Menschen dazu gebracht, das in sich zu entwickeln, was über das Menschliche hinausging, wodurch sich die Menschenseele erhob ins Reich der Geistigkeit. Aber nun kam die Zeit, in welcher das menschliche Ich, wie es hier lebt zwischen Geburt und Tod, für die Menschen geboren wurde. Das war die Zeit, welche gleich liegt dem Hereintreten des Mysteriums von Golgatha. Wäre das Mysterium von Golgatha nicht gekommen, dann wären die Menschen degeneriert; sie würden heruntergestiegen sein von der Verehrung der Angeloi zu der Verehrung der nächstuntergeordneten Hierarchie, des Menschen selber. Und wir brauchen ja nur uns zu erinnern, wie sich die römischen Cäsaren als Götter haben verehren lassen, wie sie wirklich für das Volk Götter waren, so wissen wir, daß zur Zeit des Mysteriums von Golgatha die Menschen in ihrer Degeneration so weit waren, nun nicht mehr Archai oder Archangeloi oder Angeloi anzubeten, sondern den Menschen selber. In dieser Zeit mußte, um die Menschen davor zu retten, den Erdenmenschen anzubeten, der Gottmensch erscheinen.
Archai (Zeitgeister) — Ahnenkult
Archangeloi — Polytheismus
Angeloi — Monotheismus
Mensch — Gottmensch
Daß der Gottmensch in die Geschichte eintrat, das bedeutet eine wesentlich neue Art, sich zum religiösen Leben zu stellen. Denn wo waren denn gefunden Angeloi-, Archangeloi-, Archai-Verehrung, wo war schließlich auch noch die Menschenverehrung der römischen Cäsaren gefunden? Im Menschen selber; denn keiner verehrte den Cäsaren durch den Cäsaren, sondern durch sich selber selbstverständlich; das war im Menschen selber entsprungen, das kam aus der menschlichen Seele heraus. Der Christus mußte als historische Tatsache in die Menschheitsentwickelung eintreten, er mußte wie die Naturerscheinungen selber von außen wahrgenommen werden, er mußte auf einem ganz anderen Weg an die Menschen herantreten, als die Götter der alten Religionen an den Menschen herangetreten waren. «Wo zwei in meinem Namen vereint sind, bin ich mitten unter ihnen» - das ist ein wichtiger Satz des Christentums, denn er bedeutet, daß man zwar auf dem Wege der bloß individuellen Mystik Angeloi, Archangeloi, auch noch Archai finden kann, daß man auf dem Weg der individuellen Mystik aber nicht den Christus finden kann. Diejenigen, die individuelle Mystik pflegen wollen, so wie das oftmals auch unter Theosophen geschildert wird, die kommen in der Regel auch nur bis zum Angelos. Sie verinnerlichen nur diesen Angelos mehr, machen ihn manchmal noch sogar um etwas egoistischer, als die anderen Menschen ihren Gott machen. Den Christus findet man auf andere Weise, nicht bloß durch Entwickelung des Innern, sondern dann, wenn man sich vor allen Dingen bewußt ist, daß der Christus der menschlichen Gemeinschaft angehört, der ganzen menschlichen Gemeinschaft angehört.
Nun kommen wir zu einer sehr bedeutsamen Unterscheidung, von der man zugeben muß, daß sie nur sehr schwer in die Menschenseele hineingeht. Aber man muß einmal sich zu ihr aufschwingen. Wenn wir einem Menschen gegenübertreten im Leben, so stehen wir als Mensch dem anderen Menschen gegenüber in der Maja. Geradeso wie wir von den Naturerscheinungen nur die Maja vor uns haben, so haben wir auch von dem anderen Menschen nur die Maja vor uns. Innerhalb der Maja steht uns der Mensch gegenüber, erstens als dieser einzelne Mensch, als der er unseren äußeren Sinnen und dem, was mit der äußeren Sinnlichkeit zusammenhängt, erscheint; dann steht er uns gegenüber als der Angehörige seiner Familie, seines Volkes, als der Angehörige seiner Zeit. Würde man voll ihn überblicken, so würde man hinter ihm sehen den Angelos, den Archangelos, den Arch£g; aber die alle drücken sich aus in dem, was der Mensch ist. Denn der Mensch ist in gewissem Sinne dadurch, daß Archangeloi, Archai hinter ihm stehen, der Angehörige von bestimmten Menschengruppen. Er steht mit anderen Worten dadurch in der Vererbungslinie, in den Vererbungsverhältnissen drinnen. Es ist nur eine Kurzsichtigkeit, die menschlich begreiflich ist, daß wir nicht immer, wenn wir einen Menschen vor uns haben, auch bewußt ihn beurteilen nach dieser seiner Zugehörigkeit, denn unbewußt tun wir das fortwährend. Wir stehen einander unbewußt in dieser Differenzierung gegenüber, die durch diese drei Hierarchien notwendigerweise in die Menschheit hineingebracht werden muß. Aber der Christus verlangt mehr; der Christus verlangt noch anderes. Der Christus verlangt in Wirklichkeit: Wenn du einem Menschen gegenübertrittst, dann sollst du ihn so ansehen, daß dasjenige, als was er dir in der äußeren Welt erscheint, nicht der ganze, volle Mensch ist; du sollst ihn so ansehen, daß seinWirkliches nicht bloß von Archai, Archangeloi, Angeloikommt, sondern von höheren Geistern, die nun nicht mehr der Erdenentwickelung angehören, auch nicht der planetarischen Entwickelung — denn die beginnt mit den Archai, wie Sie aus der «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß» wissen -, sondern mit den höheren himmlischen Geistern; daß mit dem Menschen in die Maja etwas hereintritt, was überirdisch ist.
Das, was ich jetzt ausgesprochen habe, muß man vollständig in das Fühlen übertragen, nicht als einen Begriff lassen, wenn man es voll verstehen will. Man muß sich klar sein darüber, daß mit jedem Menschen uns etwas gegenübertritt, das überirdischer Natur ist und mit irdischen Menschenmitteln nicht begriffen werden kann. Dann stellt sich für jeden Menschen jene intime Ehrfurcht vor allem Menschlichen ein. Aber vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha waren die Menschen so, daß sie allmählich dieses Übermenschliche verloren hatten, daß sie heruntergestiegen waren bis zum Menschen. Das Übermenschliche hatten sie verloren. Denn in dem Augenblicke - fassen Sie diesen Satz wohl! -, wo sich der Mensch wie ein römischer Cäsar als Gott verehren läßt, verliert er seine Menschlichkeit und sinkt in die Untermenschlichkeit herunter. Er hört auf, Mensch zu sein, wenn er sich als etwas Übermenschliches verehren läßt im sozialen Leben. Den Menschen drohte also, ihre Menschlichkeit zu verlieren; und sie wurde ihnen wiedergegeben durch die Erscheinung des Christus auf Erden. Lesen Sie den Karlsruher Zyklus, in dem ich über diese Frage gesprochen habe, wie wirklich jedem einzelnen Menschen etwas mitgeteilt wird dadurch, daß der Christus auf der Erde war.
So ist dadurch mit Christus das gekommen, daß man anerkennt in jedem Erdenmenschen, auch wenn er ein Sünder und Zöllner ist, mit denen sich Christus deswegen zusammensetzt, daß man anerkenne in jedem Erdenmenschen den Christus, der hinter ihm ist, daß man anerkenne in jedem Erdenmenschen die Wahrheit des Wortes: «Was du dem geringsten meiner Brüder tust, das hast du mir getan.» — Wie gesagt, man muß diesen Begriff ganz in die Empfindung umsetzen, dann erst wird man auf seine volle Wahrheit kommen. Denn vor dem, was man also sieht, versinken alle Begriffe und Vorstellungen, die die Menschen trennen, und etwas, was allen Menschen gemeinschaftlich ist, geht als eine Aura über die Erde hin, wenn man sich dazu bekennt, jetzt nicht bloß zu suchen bis zu dem Arch&, sondern hinauf zu suchen bis zu demjenigen, was über dem Arch& steht, wenn man einem Menschen gegenübertritt.
Wenn wir noch einmal den Blick zurückwenden zu den alten Mysterien, so finden wir, daß in diesen alten Mysterien der Mensch versuchte, sich zu erheben über sich selbst, um mit seiner Seele hineinzuwachsen in die geistige Welt. Aber dadurch, daß die luziferische Versuchung einmal da war, ist das nur bis zu einem gewissen Grade möglich. Dann verliert man sozusagen bei diesem Aufstiege die Möglichkeit, weiter hinaufzusteigen. Man kann nichts mehr hinauftragen in die höhere Welt. Warum ist das so? Die Antwort auf diese Frage wird uns, wenn wir den tieferen Sinn der luziferischen Versuchung ins Auge fassen. Was will denn eigentlich Luzifer mit der Menschheit? Wir haben das öfter betont. Die Menschheit lebt in der Maja, in dem, was nur ein Spiegel der Welt ist, nicht die wirkliche Welt. Was will denn Luzifer? Der Mensch kann sich in diesem Spiegel einige Stufen über sich erheben bis zu dem Arche hinauf. Dann aber muß er von Luzifer übernommen werden, wenn er noch weiter ins Geistige hinauf will, dann muß er gewissermaßen Luzifer zu seinem Führer machen, der das Licht ist, das ihn weiterführen kann. Wäre es bei der luziferischen Evolution geblieben, wäre kein Christus in die Menschheitsevolution eingetreten, so würden von der Zeit an, in der das Mysterium von Golgatha hätte sein sollen - aber dann nicht gewesen wäre —, die Menschen in den Mysterien sich hoch entwickelt haben, so weit, daß ihnen die Archai offengelegen hätten. Dann aber würden sie in die luziferische Welt eingetreten sein. Dann aber würde auf der Erde alles das geblieben sein, was von höheren Göttern, wie zum Beispiel von den Exusiai, eingesetzt worden war in die Erdenentwickelung als das Irdisch-Menschliche, als alles dasjenige, was auf der Erde irdisch-menschlich ist. Die Menschen hätten sich sozusagen ganz asketisch vergeistigt und würden asketisch vergeistigt, mit Zurücklassung der Leiblichkeit, in die geistige luziferische Welt eingetreten sein. Die Seelen der Menschen hätten ihre Erlösung gefunden, aber die Erde wäre zwecklos gewesen. Die Leiber hätten den Seelen niemals den Dienst leisten können, den sie eigentlich leisten sollen. Daß das verhindert wurde, darin liegt die Bedeutung des Mysteriums von Golgatha.
Wir müssen nun noch einmal zurückschauen auf die Evolution vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha, wenn wir die Sache ganz gut verstehen wollen. Luzifer hatte vom Anfange der Erdenentwickelung an die Absicht, den Menschen von der Erde hinauszuführen in seine geistigen Reiche, Luzifer hatte kein Interesse an der übrigen Erdenentwickelung; er wollte nur dasjenige für sich haben, was die höheren Götter hereingestellt haben mit den Menschen; das wollte er als Seele hinausführen aus.der Erdenentwickelung, nachdem es einmal verweilt hatte in der irdischen Form, die von den Exusiai, von den Geistern der Form kommt. Er wollte also die Seelen hinausführen und die Erde ihrem Schicksal überlassen. Warum sind denn die Menschen in der Zeit vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha nicht diesem Drang des Luzifer gefolgt, sie in eine lichtvolle Welt zu führen? Warum sind sie nicht gefolgt? Warum sie nicht gefolgt sind, das können Sie entnehmen aus manchen Andeutungen, die ich auch hier in diesen Vorträgen schon gegeben habe. Sie sind nicht gefolgt, weil von den höheren Göttern etwas eingeführt worden ist in die Erdenentwickelung, welches verhindert, daß der Mensch, ich möchte sagen, so leicht wird in seiner Entwickelung, daß er unmittelbar dem Luzifer folgen kann.
Eingeführt wurde, wie ich Ihnen gezeigt habe, vor Zeiten in die Erdenentwickelung dasjenige, was man die achte Sphäre nennt. Die achte Sphäre besteht ja darinnen, in einem ihrer Aspekte, daß der Mensch einen solchen Zug und Hang bekommt zu seiner niedrigen Natur, daß Luzifer nicht die höhere Natur aus dieser niederen Natur herausholen kann. Jedesmal, wenn Luzifer in alten Zeiten wiederum seine Anstrengungen gemacht hat, die Menschen zu vergeistigen, da waren die Menschen zu sehr gewöhnt an das Fleisch, um zu folgen dem Luzifer. Hätten sie nicht den Hang gehabt zum Fleische, zu der physischen Natur, sie wären dem Luzifer gefolgt. Sehen Sie, das ist eines der großen Geheimnisse des Weltendaseins, daß eigentlich ein Göttliches eingepflanzt worden ist der menschlichen Natur, damit diese menschliche Natur gleichsam größere Schwere hat, als sie gehabt hätte, wenn dieses Göttliche nicht eingepflanzt worden wäre, das Göttlich-Notwendige. Wenn es nicht eingepflanzt worden wäre, hätten die menschlichen Seelen dem Luzifer Folge geleistet. Wenn wir zurückgehen in alte Zeiten, finden wir überall, daß die Religionen es darauf anlegen, daß die Menschen verehren dasjenige, was irdisch ist, was irdischen Zusammenhang gibt, was in Fleisch und Blut lebt, damit der Mensch schwer genug ist, nicht hinausgeführt zu werden in das Weltenall. Und da für solche Dinge, wo es sich schon um das Menschliche und Kosmische gemeinschaftlich handelt, nicht nur eine irdische Einrichtung da ist, sondern auch überall die kosmische Einrichtung da sein muß, so geschah dasjenige, was Sie ja auch in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß» dargestellt finden; es geschah das, daß in einer gewissen Zeit, wie Sie wissen, nicht nur die Erde gestaltet wurde und die Erde in ihrer Bahn um die Sonne herumging, sondern daß die Erde als ihren Trabanten den Mond bekam.
Was heißt denn das: die Erde bekommt den Mond als Trabanten? Die Erde bekommt den Mond als Trabanten heißt nichts anderes als: die Erde bekam eine Kraft, durch welche sie den Mond in ihrer Nähe halten kann, ihn anziehen kann. Würde die Erde diese Kraft zum Anziehen des Mondes nicht haben, dann würde das geistige Korrelat dieser Kraft auch nicht den Menschen an seine niedere Natur fesseln; denn von dem Geistigen aus gesehen ist dieselbe Kraft, die den Menschen an seine niedere Natur fesselt, diejenige Kraft, mit welcher die Erde den Mond anzieht. So daß man sagen kann: Der Mond ist in das Weltenall gesetzt als Gegner des Luzifer, um das Luziferische zu verhindern. Ich habe auf dieses Geheimnis schon einmal hier hingedeutet. Ich habe darauf hingedeutet, daß man in der Zeit des Materialismus im 19. Jahrhundert diese Wahrheit geradezu ins Gegenteil verkehrt hat in dem Sinnettschen «Geheimbuddhismus»: der Mond wird geradezu als etwas bezeichnet, das den Menschen feindlich ist. In Wahrheit ist er ihm nicht feindlich, sondern in Wahrheit hindert er ihn, der luziferischen Versuchung zu verfallen, als das kosmische Korrelat desjenigen, was im Menschen das Halten an seiner niederen Natur ist. Um diese niedere Natur mit zu vergeistigen, nicht herauszureißen die Seelen aus der niederen Natur, sondern um die niedere Natur mit zu vergeistigen, dazu bedurfte es einer Einrichtung, die unterbewußt war, denn im Bewußtsein konnte sich das nicht abspielen, sonst wäre der Mensch zum Tiere herabgesunken, sonst wäre er ja bewußt der niederen Natur gefolgt. Es mußte in der niederen Natur etwas sein, das ihm unbewußt war, daß er nicht folgte, sondern als Mensch, als Wesen auf der Erde demjenigen eben folgte, was als Göttliches in seine niedere Natur einfloß. Insbesondere der Gott des Alten Testaments war darum besorgt, der Jahve-Gott, daß der Mensch auf der Erde blieb, und er hängt in dieser geheimnisvollen Weise mit dem Monde zusammen, was Sie ja auch in der «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß» ausgeführt finden. Sie können daraus ermessen, wie materialistisch es war, den Mond geradezu als die achte Sphäre zu bezeichnen, während die achte Sphäre jene Kraft ist, jene Sphäre ist, die den Mond anzieht. Und Blavatsky hat dann unter ihrer Verführung eine ganz besondere Tücke entwickelt, indem sie durch ihre «Geheimlehre», die «Secret Doctrine», den Jahve-Gott verleumdet hat als einen bloßen Mond-Gott, und den Luzifer an seine Stelle setzen wollte, indem sie den Luzifer als den Freund des Geistes hinstellen wollte, der er ja in dem Sinne ist, wie ich es auseinandergesetzt habe. Den Jahve-Gott wollte sie hinstellen als den Gott der bloßen niederen Natur, während dasjenige der niederen Natur eingepflanzt war, was Gegnerschaft des Luzifer war.
Sie sehen, wie gefährlich es ist, Wahrheiten hinzustellen, die in ihr Gegenteil verkehrt werden können. Blavatsky war verführt durch gewisse Wesen, die ein Interesse daran hatten, sie zu verführen, an die Stelle des Christus den Luzifer zu setzen, und das sollte dadurch erreicht werden, daß man über die achte Sphäre geradezu dieses Gegenteil der Wahrheit in die Welt setzte und den Jahve-Gott verleumdete, indem man ihn bloß als den Gott der niederen Natur hinstellte. So arbeiteten diejenigen Weltenmächte, die den Materialismus befördern wollten, auch durch dasjenige, was man so Theosophie nannte, für diesen Materialismus, denu der Materialismus wäre selbstverständlich in seine schlimmsten Abgründe verfallen, wenn man zu dem Glauben gekommen wäre, der Mond wäre wirklich in dem Sinne, wie Sinnett oder Blavatsky es erklärt hatten, die achte Sphäre, und man müsse das Christentum durchaus bekämpfen.
Nun ging es aber nur, den Widerpart des Luzifer in die niedere Natur zu verlegen, solange der Mensch sein Ich nicht in der Weise entwickelt hatte, wie es zur Zeit des Mysteriums von Golgatha geschah. Das unterschätzt man ja zu sehr, wie das Ich herabgedämpft war in alten Zeiten. Es war herabgedämpft. Das Ich trat erst hervor in den Jahrhunderten gegen das Mysterium von Golgatha hin. Da ging es nicht mehr, bloß in die unterbewußte, in die unbewußte Natur dasjenige hineinzuverlegen, was gegen den Luzifer strebt; da mußte etwas kommen, was der Mensch in sein Bewußtsein aufnehmen kann: der Christus, der die Fortentwickelung des Jahve-Gottes ist. Der Christus mußte kommen, damit nun bewußt durch das Sich-Bekennen zum Christus der Mensch sich widersetzt der bloßen Vergeistigung, wie sie von seiten des Luzifer angestrebt wird. Denn Christus ist herabgestiegen für alle Menschen. Nur dadurch aber, daß wir den Zusammenhang fühlen mit allen Menschen, gehören wir der Erde an; dadurch gehören wir wirklich der Erde an. Im Zusammenhange mit den Menschen und in dem, was wir aufbringen für den Zusammenhang mit den Menschen, für den vollen, ganzen Zusammenhang, liegt das tiefere Verständnis für den Christus.
Sehen Sie, solange die Menschen lebten mit noch nicht voll entwikkeltem Ich vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha, da gingen sie durch die Pforte des Todes in die geistige Welt; sie kamen da in Zusammenhang mit Archai, Archangeloi, Angeloi. Aber weil sie hier auf der Erde noch nicht das volle Ich entwickelt hatten, brauchten sie auch, nachdem sie durch die Pforte des Todes geschritten waren, nicht bewußt den Zusammenhang zu entwickeln mit den höheren geistigen Wesenheiten. Durch die atavistischen Mächte, die in ihnen lagen, wurde das geordnet. Aber seit dem Mysterium von Golgatha - nicht durch das Mysterium von Golgatha, sondern seit dieser Zeit - ist es für die Menschen wesentlich anders geworden. Sehen wir uns an, wie es anders geworden ist!
Der Mensch tritt durch die Pforte des Todes, andere Menschen treten auch durch die Pforte des Todes; oder aber: ein Mensch tritt durch die Pforte des Todes, andere bleiben hier auf Erden zurück. Dadurch, daß ein Mensch durch des Todes Pforte eintritt, bleibt er ja Mensch, und nicht kann sich unser Verhältnis zu ihm Ändern, wenn wir in rechtem Zusammenhang mit ihm sein wollen. Nun aber bedenken wir: Der Mensch, indem er hinaufsteigt in die geistigen Welten — heute, da wir nach dem Mysterium von Golgatha leben -, steigt durch die Hierarchie der Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai hinauf, und da er jetzt in der Zeit ist, in der sich hier auf Erden sein Ich entwickelt hat, hat er auch ein Bewußtsein für die anderen Hierarchien, die darüberstehen. Das heißt, er entwickelt bewußt dasjenige, was ihm an Kräften eingeflößt wird von noch höheren Wesenheiten, als die Archai sind. Was heißt denn aber das? Nehmen wir einen bestimmten Fall, nehmen wir an, einem Menschen stirbt hinweg ein sehr lieber Mensch; er bleibt hier zurück. Derjenige, der durch des Todes Pforte gegangen ist, behält allerdings zunächst, wie Sie wissen, durch Jahre den Zusammenhang mit gewissen Neigungen, mit gewissen Richtungen, die er hier im Leben gehabt hat; aber dadurch, daß er ein Ich hier im Leben entwickelt hat als Mensch, wird, indem er durch des Todes Pforte gegangen ist, ihm sogleich etwas bewußt für die Perspektive in die nächste Inkarnation hinein. Entscheiden tut sich das ja in dem, was ich in den Mysterien genannt habe die Mitternacht des Daseins; aber es tritt schon etwas in das menschliche post-mortem-Bewußtsein, indem der Mensch durchgegangen ist durch den Tod. Wenn aber ein Mensch also in diesem Zustande ist, so lebt in ihm dasjenige, was ihn schon abbringt von dem, in das er hineingeboren war im letzten Leben, Sagen wir, er war im letzten . Leben einer bestimmten Volksgemeinschaft angehörig. Derjenige, der hier zurückgeblieben ist, gehört dieser Volksgemeinschaft im physischen Leib weiter an. Denjenigen, der gestorben ist, überkommt schon die einer ganz anderen Volksgemeinschaft angehörige Kraft. Wie kann das Band zwischen dem, der hier lebt und dem, der gestorben ist, ein reales sein, das über den Tod ungeschwächt hinausgeht? Dann, wenn der, der hier ist, ein Verständnis hat für dasjenige, was über Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai hinausgeht, das heißt: über dasjenige hinausgeht, was man an Neigungen seines Zusammenhanges mit Menschheitsgemeinschaften hier entwickeln kann. Würde jemand hier zurückbleiben, sagen wir, als Angehöriger eines gewissen Volkes, und ihm hinsterben ein Mensch, der sich ja schon vorbereitet, einem anderen Volke anzugehören, so würde das Band der Liebe zu dem Toten nicht ein ungetrübtes sein können. Dadurch, daß die beiden sich zu Christus bekennen, den Christus verstehen in dem, was über alle Differenzierungen der Menschen hinausgeht, dadurch allein kann das Band ein überirdisches sein. Denn was sagte Johannes, als der Christus Jesus zur Taufe herankam? «Siehe, das ist das Lamm Gottes, das der Welt Sünde trägt» — ein Wort, vor dessen ganzer Bedeutung man erblassen könnte, wenn man es in seiner vollen Schwere nimmt.
Man kann die Frage aufwerfen: Warum hat denn der Christus gesiegt, und nicht der Mithras? In der Zeit, in der das Christentum sich ausbreitete von dem Osten nach dem Westen, da breitete sich zu gleicher Zeit der Mithras-Dienst aus, die ganze Donau herauf bis nach Westeuropa, bis nach Frankreich und Spanien hinein. Aber der Christus-Dienst hat gesiegt über den Mithras-Dienst. Warum? Weil der Mithras-Dienst herausgewachsen war aus dem Hinaufsteigen über Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai, und durch dieses Hinaufsteigen erreichen wollte den Welterleuchter und Weltregierer. Aber was ist der Christus dagegen? Der Christus ist dagegen derjenige, welcher auf sich genommen hat für die Erdenentwickelung alles dasjenige, was mit Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai verbunden ist, was den Menschen an die Erde fesselt. Er trägt der Welt Sünden, das heißt diejenigen Sünden, die durch die menschlichen Differenzierungen in die Welt gekommen sind. Er ist ein Wesen, demgegenüber man sich sagen muß: Ich gehöre einer einzelnen Menschengemeinschaft an; dadurch aber, daß ich einer einzelnen Menschengemeinschaft angehöre, das heißt etwas angehöre, was mit dem Irdischen zusammenhängt, trenne ich mich ab von dem Himmlischen. Davon kann mich nur ein Wesen erlösen, das nichts mit einer Menschendifferenzierung zu tun hat. Nur dadurch, daß ich den Christus in mir verstehe, der mich hinausführt über die Erdendifferenzierungen, der mich empfinden lehrt, daß das, was Erdendifferenzierung bewirkt, Leiden ist, todbringend ist, nur dadurch finde ich wieder meinen Zusammenhang mit den geistigen Welten. Alles, was in die Menschheit gefahren ist dadurch, daß die Differenzierungen eingetreten sind, das ist abgenommen worden der Menschheit dadurch, daß der Christus in die Welt getreten ist. Daher konnte der Christus kein Gott Mithras sein, der den Menschen hinaufführt über sich selbst, sondern der Gott, der herunterstieg auf die Erde und die Sünden der Differenzierungen hinwegnimmt, hinwegfegt. Mithras jagt durch die Welt, das Schwert in der Hand, das er der niederen Natur in die Seite stößt, um sie zu ertöten; unter ihm stirbt die niedere Natur. Der Christus stellt sich dar als das Lamm Gottes, das die niedere Natur an sich nimmt, um diese niedere Natur zu erlösen.
Viel liegt in diesem Gleichnis, unendlich viel liegt in diesem Gleichnis! Deshalb ist der Christus-Gedanke nicht zu trennen von dem Todesgedanken und dem Auferstehungszedanken. Nur wenn wir wissen, daß dasjenige, was den Menschen auf die Erde hereinführt, das Todbringende ist, daß aber mehr im Menschen ist, als was den Menschen in die Erdenatmosphäre hereinführt, daß das im Menschen ist, was der Christus ist, der ihn wieder herausführt — «In Christo morimur» -, dann verstehen wir den Christus, dann wissen wir uns mit ihm vereint. Daher konnten die Darstellungen der alten Götter triumphierende Wesenheiten darstellen; daher konnte den Christus nur darstellen das Zusammenbringen des Menschen mit Leiden und Tod, denn er erleidet dasjenige, was in den Differenzierungen des Menschen über den Erdenball hingeht. Dadurch wird der Christus derjenige, der den Menschen durch den 'Tod führt, der den Menschen zurückführt in die geistige Welt; dadurch wird er aber auch dasjenige göttliche Wesen, dem man sich nähern darf auf der Erde, indem man überschreitet die Maja oder die Täuschung. Wie der Christus geboren ist hier aus dem Schoße der Maja, so müssen wir uns ihm nähern, indem wir selber die Maja überschreiten, das heißt, an ihn appellieren bei alledem, was in die Maja hereinragt und nicht Maja ist, sondern höhere Wirklichkeit.
Die Menschheit wird noch lange Zeit brauchen auf der Erde, wenn sie sich zunächst diesem Christus-Dienste zuwenden soll; aber man wird anfangen müssen, das Christentum wieder ernst zu nehmen. Am wenigsten ernst wird es genommen von seiten der Theologen aus; denn diese Theologen streiten sich oft darüber, ob Christus Wunder gewirkt hat, ob er Dämonen ausgetrieben hat zum Beispiel durch Wunder. Nun, es ist ganz überflüssig zu streiten, ob der Christus Dämonen ausgerrieben hat, wenn wir nur an der richtigen Stelle lernen, dort die Dämonen jetzt auszutreiben, wo wir sie jetzt zunächst austreiben können, wenn wir lernen, ihm dieWunder nachzumachen.Wir vermögen noch wenig — das ist das Schicksal, das Karma unseres Zeitalters —, im höheren Sinne wiederum Dämonen auszutreiben, wie es das Altertum konnte aus dem Atavismus heraus. Aber die Dämonen können wir beginnen zunächst auszutreiben, von denen wir gestern gesprochen haben; diese Dämonen sind da, und negativer Aberglaube ist es, zu meinen, daß sie nicht da sind. Wodurch treiben wir sie aus? Die Menschheit wird sich überzeugen, daß sie ausgetrieben werden, wenn dasjenige, was heute ein unheiliger Dienst ist, ein heiliger Dienst wird, das heißt, durchtränkt wird mit dem Christus-Bewußtsein. Das heißt mit anderen Worten: zum Sakramentalismus übergehen, wenn in dasjenige, was der Mensch verrichtet, das Bewußtsein einzieht, daß überall hinter ihm der Christus ist, und daß er nichts anderes machen soll in der Welt als dasjenige, bei dem der Christus ihm helfen kann. Denn macht er etwas anderes, so muß der Christus ihm helfen; das heißt: der Christus wird in den menschlichen Taten gekreuzigt und weiter gekreuzigt. Die Kreuzigung ist nicht bloß eine einzige Tat, die Kreuzigung ist eine fortschreitende Tat. So oft wir nicht die Dämonen austreiben durch das, was in unserer Seele lebt, indem wir die äußere mechanische Handlung zunächst zu einer heiligen machen, so lange kreuzigen wir den Christus. Denn von da aus muß unsere Erziehung zu dem wahren Christentum gehen. Dasjenige, was in den alten Kulten des Christentums symbolisch gepflogen wurde, das muß die ganze Welt ergreifen; was bloß auf dem Altar vollzogen wurde, das muß die ganze Welt ergreifen. Die Menschheit muß lernen, die Natur so zu behandeln, wie die Götter selber die Natur behandelt haben: nicht in uninteressierter Weise Maschinen bauen, sondern bei allen Verrichtungen einen Gottesdienst erfüllen, Sakramentalismus in alles bringen.
Anfänge wird man schon mit mancherlei machen können. Vor allen Dingen an zwei Punkten können heute die Menschen beginnen, Sakramentalismus zu entwickeln. Das ist erstens an dem Punkt der Erziehung und des Unterrichtes. Wenn wir jeden Menschen, der durch die Geburt in die Welt hereingeht, so betrachten, daß er seine Kraft des Christus mit hereinbringt und wir dadurch vor dem aufwachsenden Menschen die rechte Ehrfurcht haben, und daraufhin die ganze Erziehung und namentlich den Unterricht einrichten, das heißt, in dem Unterrichte einen Sakramentalismus verwirklichen — darüber können wir uns ja einmal deutlicher aussprechen -, wenn wir ein Sakramentales verwirklichen, wenn wir in dem Erziehen und Unterrichten einen Gottesdienst sehen, aber es auch zu einem Gottesdienst machen, dann beginnen wir dasjenige, was die Religionen Taufe nennen, zu spiritualisieren. Und wenn wir versuchen, dasjenige, was wir unsere Erkenntnis nennen, so zu unserem Bewußtsein zu bringen, daß, indem unsere Seele sich mit Ideen über die geistige Welt anfüllt, wir das Bewußtsein haben: Das Geistige geht da in uns über, wir vereinigen uns mit dem Geistigen -, wenn wir das als eine Kommunion ansehen, wenn wir verwirklichen können wahre Erkenntnis — das Denken ist die wahre Kommunion der Menschheit, Sie finden den Satz schon 1887 ausgesprochen -, wenn wir das verwirklichen können: dann wird dasjenige, was das symbolische Altarsakrament war, zu einem allgemeinen sakramentalen Erleben der Erkenntnis. Nach dieser Richtung muß die Verchristung der Menschen gehen; dann werden Sie darauf kommen, daß überall im Leben für alles dasjenige, was mit dem Christus zusammenhängt, in der Tat die Wirklichkeit einzieht in die Maja, und daß, die Wirklichkeit so anzusehen, wie sie die neuere Wissenschaft ansieht mit ihrer Weltanschauung, unchristlich ist, im eminentesten Sinne unchristlich ist.
Es ist merkwürdig, wie leicht sich heute die Menschen hineinfinden können in alles dasjenige, was unchristlich ist, und wie wenig sie sich hineinfinden können in dasjenige, was als Christentum der heutigen Zeit angemessen ist. Es ist ja noch wenig, was man sieht, das, ich möchte sagen, wie aus einem dunklen Triebe heraus entgegenarbeitet dem Materialismus, aber es ist schon einiges da; nur geht es auf falschen Wegen, indem es sich, statt zur Geisteswissenschaft sich zu wenden, in einer konfusen Weise zu den alten Religionen wendet. Verzeihen Sie, daß ich dabei etwas mir Naheliegendes erwähne, aber es geschieht ja solches nur, um zu exemplifizieren. Ich habe vielleicht auch schon hier aufmerksam gemacht darauf, daß eine Persönlichkeit der Gegenwart, die ich in ihrer Jugend sehr gut kannte, Hermann Bahr, jetzt eben daran geht, das Geistige wiederum zu suchen. Hermann Bahr sucht es zunächst nicht bei der Geisteswissenschaft; für die interessiert er sich nur ein ganz klein wenig. Wenn Sie sein sehr schönes, geistreiches Buch über den «Expressionismus» nehmen, so werden Sie sehen, daß er sich schon ein bißchen interessiert für die Geisteswissenschaft, aber er hat zunächst bis zu diesem Buche — das kann man aus dem Buche selbst ersehen sich nur soweit unterrichtet über die Geisteswissenschaft, daß er das Buch von Levy durchgelesen hat über meine Weltanschauung und ihre Gegner. Er hat noch nicht den Weg gefunden, wirklich tiefer einzugehen. Aber interessant ist es doch, daß er einen Roman geschrieben hat, in dem ein Held ist, der alles kennenlernt: Chemische Laboratorien der Gegenwart und so weiter, er hatte bei Ostwald in Leipzig «gehört», hat sich ein bißchen umgetan bei den Theosophen in London und so weiter, ein Held, der so durchläuft durch alles das, was die Gegenwart an spirituellen Sensationen gibt, der sich auch an den Spiritismus heranmacht; dann läßt er sich von jemandem - ich weiß schon nicht von wem — Übungen geben, esoterische Übungen, die er eine Zeitlang macht. Aber er ist ungeduldig, er macht sie nur kurze Zeit, bekommt keine Resultate, da läßt er auch diese, wie er überhaupt alles gleich läßt. Dann macht er merkwürdige Erlebnisse durch; und das Interessanteste ist für mich gewesen, daß kurioserweise in diesem Buch manches anklingt, was gerade in den allerletzten Zeiten ich in Vorträgen - sogar über aktuelle Ereignisse — gesagt habe, trotzdem ich Hermann Bahr seit achtundzwanzig Jahren nicht gesehen habe, nur kurz einmal, in der Zwischenzeit, wo aber jedenfalls nicht von Weltanschauungsfragen die Rede war. Nun aber hat Hermann Bahr in der letzten Zeit auch ein Drama aufführen lassen, das heißt: «Die Stimme.» Man braucht dieses Drama nicht zu verteidigen, aus dem einfachen Grunde nicht zu verteidigen, weil Hermann Bahr eben nicht den Weg, der ihm zu schwierig ist, in die Geisteswissenschaft sucht, sondern zurückfällt in den orthodoxen, oder sagen wir, in den neueren Katholizismus; aber er sucht immerhin spirituelles Leben. Und es ist interessant, wie der Held dieses Dramas das spirituelle Leben sucht. Der Held dieses Dramas ist verheiratet mit einer Dame, welche die Tochter ist einer sehr orthodoxen Mutter und selber sehr orthodox ist, aber ihr Christentum ernst nimmt, tief ernst nimmt, über den Ernst, der von einem Menschen gefordert werden kann, hinaus nimmt. Der Mann aber, der der Held des Dramas ist, der ist ein Schüler Ostwalds, Haeckels, ein ganz materialistischer Mensch. Da Frau und Schwiegermutter ihr Christentum ernst nehmen, so ist ihnen natürlich das ein großer Schmerz, daß der Mann Ostwaldianer und Haeckelianer ist und nichts von einer geistigen Welt wissen will; und die Frau grämt sich darüber so, daß sie aus Gram stirbt. Aber während ihrer Krankheit hat sie die entschiedene Empfindung: sie will hinsterben, um von der geistigen Welt aus dem Mann zu helfen. Sie ist gestorben, die Frau. Nach ihrem Tode ist der Mann einmal in einem Eisenbahnzug. Er hat oftmals schon, so wie aus unbekanntem Dämmerdunkel heraus, so etwas gehört, wie wenn ihm die verstorbene Frau dies oder jenes zurufen würde. Da ist er einmal im Eisenbahnwagen, in einem Schlafwagen, und da hört er besonders stark die Stimme der Frau. Darüber wird er fast wahnsinnig, und er stürmt aus dem Zug heraus. Wie ein Wahnsinniger gebärdet er sich — glaube ich - im Wartesaal auf einer Station. Und da hört er dann, daß der ganze Zug, in dem er war, zugrunde gegangen ist durch ein Eisenbahnunglück. Verwundete bringt man und so weiter. Er sieht, daß er durch die Stimme der Frau gerettet worden ist, weil er herausgegangen ist aus dem Zug, in dem er sonst zugrunde gegangen wäre. Das ist das erstemal, daß die Stimme der Frau mit den realen Verhältnissen in Zusammenhang kommt. Ich will das nicht verdammen; ich will nur erzählen, was ein Mensch der Gegenwart heute schreibt. Nun wird er dadurch, daß er ja durch ein offenbares Wunder, durch ein Nachwirken des Wesens dieser Frau über den Tod hinaus, gerettet worden ist, zu neuem Nachdenken veranlaßt über den Zusammenhang des Menschen mit der geistigen Welt. Dann aber ereignet es sich später noch öfter, daß die Frau sich ihm kundgibt, und durch eine intime Beziehung zwischen seiner Seele und der Seele der verstorbenen Frau wird er nun im wahren Sinne zum Christentum zurückgeführt, kommt hinaus über die materialistische Weltanschauung.
Jedenfalls sehen wir, wenn wir auch gerade dieses Drama nicht zu verteidigen brauchen, daß es heute auch schon Menschen gibt, welche dahin streben, in das Leben hineinzubringen die Anschauung, daß in der großen Täuschung, in der Maja, eine Wahrheit der geistigen Welt aufgehen kann. Erst die reine Erfassung des Christentums wird die Brücke schlagen zwischen dem Leben hier auf der Erde und dem Leben in der geistigen Welt. Aber das Bedürfnis nach dieser Welt, es haben das schon viele, viele Menschen, die allerdings noch ein kleines Häuflein sind im Verhältnis zu der großen Zahl derer, die heute entweder in den traditionellen Religionen stecken, die ja auch dem Materialismus verfallen sind, wenn sie es auch nicht zugeben, oder die direkt im Materialismus das wirkliche Zusammenhängen mit der geistigen Welt nicht haben. Wie gesagt, das Drama von Bahr wollen wir nicht verteidigen, aber auf das eine kann es uns hinweisen: daß der Mensch nicht hinauskommt über das Problem des Todes, wenn er das Christentum wirklich verstehen will; denn zu dem Interessantesten in diesem Drama gehört es immerhin, daß es ausgeht von jener Beziehung zwischen Menschenseele und Menschenleib, die über das Tor des Todes hinwegführt. Ein Grundfehler liegt allerdings in all diesen Dingen: daß man statt zum Christentum zu führen, wozu Geisteswissenschaft, wie wir sie verstehen, den wirklichen Anfang machen will, wiederum zu einem einzelnen Bekenntnisse zurückführen will.
Wenn die Menschen nur einmal so verstehen wollten den Christus, wie ich es heute angedeutet habe - und wenn wir noch öfter hier reden können, so werde ich das genauer ausführen —, wenn die Menschen so verstehen könnten den Christus, wie das heute in den allerersten primitivsten Andeutungen eben gezeigt worden ist, dann würden die Empfindungen, die Vorstellungen, die über den Christus entwickelt werden, wirklich zu allen Menschen getragen werden können, denn der Christus ist nicht bloß für diejenigen gestorben, die sich zu einem jetzigen christlichen Bekenntnisse bekennen, sondern er ist gestorben und auferstanden für alle Menschen. Und man darf nicht ein bestimmtes Religionsbekenntnis mit dem Christus-Wesen zusammenbringen, sondern jedes Religionsbekenntnis ist mit dem Christentum zusammenzubringen. Würden die Menschen verstehen, den Christus so aufzufassen, wie es angedeutet worden ist, dann würde das Christentum über die ganze Erde verbreitet werden. Denn etwas anderes ist die Christus-Offenbarung und die Jesus-Offenbarung.
Gehen wir als Missionare in fremde Gegenden, oder auch zu einheimischen Menschen, und wollen ihnen den Jesus-Dienst aufzwingen in irgendeinem Bekenntnisse, dann werden sie uns nicht verstehen, sintemal oftmals dasjenige, was diese Leute wissen, sogar über das hinausragt,was ihnen von dem oder jenem Missionar gebracht werden soll. Denn ich möchte wissen, was zum Beispiel ein Türke sagen würde, wenn ihm ein neuerer Protestant die Christus-Auffassung beibringen wollte, die er als neuerer protestantischer Pastor hat, diese Christus-Auffassung, welche davon handelt — bei den neueren protestantischen Pastoren ist das ja schon so —, nun ja, daß es einen Sokrates gab, dann einen, der etwas mehr war als Sokrates: der Christus, der Mensch, nicht wahr, der besondere Mensch, aber eben der Mensch, oder jene konfusen Dinge, die sonst über den Christus im neueren Protestantismus heute gesagt werden. Der Türke würde ihm sagen: Was, so etwas erzählst du, und du willst Christ sein? Lies dir doch nach im Koran die 19. Sure: da steht ja viel mehr über den Christus drinnen, als was du uns erzählst! Die Türken wissen nämlich viel mehr über den Christus Jesus, als die neueren protestantischen Pastoren von dem Christus Jesus vertreten, weil im Koran viel mehr drinnensteht, weil der Christus Jesus viel mehr an die Göttlichkeit herangeführt wird im türkischen Glaubensbekenntnis als im neueren protestantischen Glaubensbekenntnis. Das weiß man nur nicht, weil man es heute noch wenig dahin bringt, die religiösen Urkunden wirklich zu lesen und oberflächliches Zeug reden will über alle möglichen Religionen.
Die Jesus-Offenbarung wird auch über die Menschen kommen in der richtigen Weise. Aber dazu müssen sie selber kommen. Und sie werden dazu kommen, wenn sie die genügende Anzahl von Inkarnationen durchgemacht haben. Für die Christus-Offenbarung ist heute jeder reif bis zu einem gewissen Grade. Diesen Unterschied muß man machen. Aber es sind viele Mächte an der Arbeit, um wirkliche Christus-Offenbarung und auch wirkliche Geisteswissenschaft nicht aufkommen zu lassen. Und da brauchen Sie sich ja nur zu erinnern an mancherlei, was ich in der letzten Zeit gesagt habe über allerlei okkult sich nennende Bestrebungen, die ich charakterisiert habe.
Und nun möchte ich eigentlich in diesem Augenblicke den heutigen Vortrag schließen. Ich werde nur noch einen kleinen Anhang geben dazu. Aus einem ganz bestimmten Grunde möchte ich das nicht zu dem Vortrag selber rechnen. Sie werden gleich sehen, aus welchem Grunde. Dasjenige nämlich, was ich im Vortrage sage, sage ich ohne alle Reserve, aber was ich jetzt sagen werde, werde ich vorläufig mit einiger Reserve zu sagen haben und daher trenne ich es von dem Vortrage ab. Aber ich messe ihm doch eine gewisse Wichtigkeit bei gerade im Zusammenhang mit unseren jetzigen Betrachtungen, und deshalb will ich es schon heute erwähnen.
Ich habe ausgeführt, daß in der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts die Hochflut des Materialismus da war, daß dazumal diejenigen Menschen, die etwas wußten von der Notwendigkeit, daß immer geistiges Leben in der Menschheit sein sollte — ich skizziere das nur voraus -, daran dachten, der Menschheit beizubringen, daß wirklich in unserer Umgebung geistige Wesenheiten, geistige Wirkungen sind. Aber es spalteten sich, sagte ich, dazumal die maßgebenden Okkultisten in solche, welche sagten: Die Menschheit kann die Dinge noch nicht aufnehmen - und in andere, welche sagten in der Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts: Die Menschheit könnte schon in elementarer Weise in die wichtigsten Begriffe des geistigen Lebens eingeführt werden. — Die letzteren sind heute geradezu fast auf eine kleine Zahl zusammengeschmolzen, die für den Unterricht sind, für das Verbreiten der Lehre. Es gehört aber zu unserer anthroposophischen Bewegung die Überzeugung, daß es auf die Verbreitung der Lehre, so wie wir das machen, heute ankommt, daß dadurch der Menschheit das Geistesgut überliefert werden muß. Dazumal tauchte die Frage in den vierziger Jahren des 19. Jahrhunderts zuerst auf, aber die wurden sozusagen überstimmt, die dieser Ansicht waren, und so kam man überein, einen anderen Weg einzuschlagen, den Weg durch den Spiritismus. Man versuchte, auf dem Wege der Mediumschaft zu zeigen, daß solche Persönlichkeiten, welche als Medien angesehen werden können - ich habe ja die Dinge hier charakterisiert -, Kundgebungen aus der geistigen Welt hereinbekommen können, und daß man dadurch Zusammenhang mit den Reichen des Geistes bekommen kann. Ich habe auch schon gesagt: Der ganze Versuch ist mißlungen. Denn wäre er gelungen, dann hätte sich herausgestellt so etwas Ähnliches, wie ich es neulich für diejenigen, die dabei waren, in dem Vortrage in Bern ausgesprochen habe: man hätte erkannt, wie die verschiedenen Stufen des Zusammenhanges mit den Toten sind. Aber auf das wollte man sich nicht einlassen. Und so kam man denn zu einer vollständig mißglückten Sache. Die Medien gaben alle an in der primitivsten, in der elementarsten Weise: sie stünden unmittelbar mit irgendwelchen Toten in Verbindung, und die Menschen wollten immer unmittelbar Kundgebungen von irgendwelchen Toten durch die Medien hereinbekommen. Merken Sie wohl, damit ist nicht gesagt, daß wenn ein Medium da ist und man mit einem Medium experimentiert, dasjenige, das durch das Medium kommt, nicht irgendeine Vermittelung zu einem Toten abgeben könnte. Aber ein anderes ist es, ob es eine unbewußte, eine wirkliche, rechte Vermittelung ist und ob es überhaupt eine mögliche Vermittelung sein kann. Dasjenige, was man erwartet hat, war nämlich etwas ganz anderes; was man erwartet hat, war, daß man erkennen würde durch die Medien, daß auch dem Menschen fortwährend geistige Kräfte, ebenso wie sinnliche Kräfte, einfließen, daß man also vorzugsweise das Feld des Geistigen in der unmittelbaren Umgebung sucht, nicht in der Kundgebung dieser oder jener einzelnen Toten.
Da sich nun das Ganze als ein Mißgriff herausgestellt hat, haben die ernsthaften Okkultisten ihre Hand zurückgezogen von diesem spiritistischen Versuch, und die Menschheit muß jetzt büßen dafür, indem sich der Medien bemächtigt haben alle möglichen okkulten Menschen, okkultistischen Menschen, welche nicht rein okkultistische Pfade verfolgen, sondern Pfade zu irgendeinem speziellen Menschenzwecke. Ich habe es ja öfter ausgeführt: Derjenige, der ein wirklicher Okkultist sein will, kann nicht nur einem speziellen Menschenzwecke dienen, sondern nur dem allgemeinen menschlichen Zweck, allgemein-menschlichen Zielen, und er darf vor allen Dingen niemals schlechte Mittel anwenden, unrichtige Mittel anwenden, um zu irgendwelchen Zielen zu gelangen. Aber was nennt man heute nicht alles Okkultismus! Was man heute alles Okkultismus nennen kann, davon könnten Sie einen Begriff bekommen, wenn Sie den Bericht lesen würden, welcher Ihnen wiedergibt die Reden, welche Mrs. Besant und Mr. Leadbeater auf der letzten Theosophischen Convention abgehalten haben, wo die gegenwärtigen Ereignisse dargestellt werden als der große Kampf zwischen den Lords of Light, auf deren Seite selbstverständlich Mrs. Besant und Mr.Leadbeater stehen, und den Lords of Darkness, und worinnen ausgesprochen wird, daß jeder, der als Neutraler, als wirklicher Neutraler für sich steht, nicht Partei nimmt für irgendeine Seite - selbstverständlich für die Lords of Light, auf deren Seite Mrs. Besant und Mr. Leadbeater stehen —, daß der ein Verräter ist. Aber es wurde‘ja allerlei anderes noch in dieser Versammlung erzählt. So zum Beispiel hat da Leadbeater aus einer profunden okkulten Erkenntnis heraus erzählt, daß vor dem Jahre 1870 Bismarck nach Frankreich gegangen ist und im Norden, im Süden, im Osten und Westen von Frankreich magnetische Zentren eingerichtet hat. Während des Krieges 1870/71 haben diese magnetischen Zentren, die Bismarck zuerst in Frankreich eingerichtet hat, gewirkt, sonst wäre dazumal der Krieg mit Frankreich verlorengegangen. Das lassen sich die Leute heute wirklich erzählen auf theosophischen Versammlungen! Ja, sie hören es sich an! Man kann nur staunen darüber oder irgend etwas anderes noch tun, wenn man vernimmt, daß solche Dinge angeführt werden. Aber wie gesagt, es gibt mancherlei Okkultismus in der Gegenwart.
Dasjenige, was wichtig ist, ist, daß nun, nachdem der ernsthafte Okkultismus sich zurückgezogen hat von dem Spiritismus, daß da sich des ganzen Spiritismus bemächtigt haben eben solche Menschen, welche Sonderzwecke verfolgen. Und man kann ja sehr leicht irgendwelche Sonderzwecke verfolgen. Ich bitte, jetzt festzuhalten für das, was ich sagen will, daß es dies gibt, daß also der Spiritismus durch den ehrlichen Versuch in die Welt gebracht worden ist, zu prüfen die gegenwärtige Menschheit, ob sie reif ist, geistige Wahrheiten aufzunehmen, daß der Versuch mißglückt ist, und daß dann alle möglichen Strömunsen und okkulten Brüderschaften und einzelne Menschen, namentlich von Amerika aus, versucht haben, die ganze Mediumschaft immer im einzelnen in die Hand zu bekommen, um dadurch gewisse Sonderzwecke zu verfolgen. Nun, das was ich im Anschlusse daran erzählen will, das erzähle ich, weil mir gestern unser lieber Freund, Herr Heywood-Smith, den Bericht gegeben hat über das Buch von den Erfahrungen des Sir Oliver Lodge. Ich wiederhole, ich erzähle es mit aller Reserve, weil ich zunächst nur einen Bericht vor mir habe, aus dem man allerdings schon viel entnehmen kann, aber ich will mir vorbehalten, wenn ich das Buch selber gehabt haben werde, auf mancherlei noch zurückzukommen. Aber ich halte die Sache an sich nicht für unwichtig und möchte heute davon sprechen. Sollte der Bericht nicht richtig sein, so würde ich selbstverständlich - und deshalb spreche ich mit Reserve — die Dinge auch richtigstellen, die infolge des falschen Berichtes heute gesagt würden.
Nicht wahr, es ist eine außerordentlich bedeutungsvolle Tatsache, daß eine der allerangesehensten Persönlichkeiten des wissenschaftlichen England, Sir Oliver Lodge, der große Naturforscher Oliver Lodge, der ja allerdings verschiedene Bücher schon geschrieben hat, worin er sich bekannt hat zur Anerkennung einer geistigen Welt, daß Sir Oliver Lodge ein solches Buch schrieb, das Dinge enthält, das, wenn es so genommen werden würde, wie Sir Oliver Lodge meint, eigentlich zum Allerbedeutsamsten gehören müßte, was man sagen kann in der gegenwärtigen Zeit. Die Tatsache ist diese:
Sir Oliver Lodge hatte einen Sohn, der 1889 geboren war und der, als der Krieg ausbrach, sich dem Kriegsdienste zur Verfügung stellte, während Lodge und seine Gattin selber in Australien waren, und der dann im März 1915 — der Sohn, Raymond Lodge - an eine sehr gefährliche Stelle der Kriegsführung kam und, man kann sich denken, an dieser gefährlichen Stelle - er kam auch in die Nähe von Ypern den Eltern mancherlei Sorge machte. Nun bekam Sir Oliver Lodge eine im August 1915 geschriebene Botschaft von Mrs. Piper aus Amerika. Von Mrs.Piper, einem amerikanischen Medium, bekam er eine Botschaft, eine Botschaft, welche einen merkwürdigen Inhalt hatte, der etwa also, wie es hier mitgeteilt ist, so lautete: Myers wird teilnehmen an Ihnen in dem, was das Schicksal über Sie verhängt und wird Sie beschützen. — Aber dieses wurde gekleidet in eine klassische Form, in ein Horaz-Wort. Also Sir Oliver Lodge bekam von einem amerikanischen Medium im August — im August war sie geschrieben — die Mitteilung, daß Myers, der früher Vorsitzender war der Society for Psychical Research in London, aber vor vierzehn Jahren gestorben ist, daß Myers bei einem schweren Fall, welcher treffen soll Sir Oliver Lodge, ihn beschützen und ihm beistehen werde, also zu seinem Schutze arbeiten wird. Ich bitte, Rücksicht zu nehmen darauf, daß nichts steht in dieser Mitteilung, als daß bei einem schweren Fall Myers beistehen werde dem Sir Oliver Lodge.
Nun fiel im September 1915 der Sohn Raymond Lodge, und da bezog Sir Oliver Lodge zunächst in seinen Gedanken die Mitteilung, daß Myers ihm beistehen werde, auf den Tod des Sohnes. Nun kam die Familie des Sir Oliver Lodge in Zusammenhang mit allerlei Medien; mehrere Medien sind zugleich aufgetreten. Diese Medien, die brachten allerlei Botschaften. Diese Botschaften liefen jetzt nach und nach alle darauf hinaus: Dein Sohn, oder euer Sohn - es wurden auch mit Lady Lodge diese Sitzungen abgehalten — ist mit Myers zusammen; Myers hilft ihm, und eurem Sohn ist jetzt alles daran gelegen, daß ihr von ihm erfahrt, und daß namentlich Sir Oliver Lodge dadurch einen Zusammenhang mit der geistigen Welt erhält. - Wenn man sich die verschiedenen Kundgebungen der einzelnen Medien durchliest, so wie sie hier zunächst wiedergegeben sind, so merkt man überall ganz genau: es sind überall interessante Steigerungen drinnen; es tritt alles in einem ganz bestimmten Momente auf. Es werden Frageni gestellt und so weiter, und beantwortet von den Medien; der Verlauf ist außerordentlich interessant. Und sogar bis zu dem kommt es, daß ein Bild von Raymond Lodge, das man nicht kannte in der Familie, aufgefunden wird dadurch, daß der Sohn, der verstorbene Sohn, auf dieses Bild hinweist, es beschreibt, und es wird dann so gefunden, wie er es beschrieben hat. Kurz, es scheint in diesem Buche mit außerordentlicher Genauigkeit und Exaktheit das zusammengestellt worden zu sein, was man ja in sehr vielen spiritistischen Sitzungen bekommen kann und was führen kann zu dem, was da erzählt ist. Sir Oliver Lodge war ja schon immer etwas dafür, solche Dinge zu treiben; seine Söhne haben das offenbar nicht gern gehabt; aber durch das, was da vorgekommen ist, sind auch sie überzeugt worden. In aller ausführlichen Weise scheint nun Sir Oliver Lodge geschrieben zu haben, wie diese Brücke durch die verschiedenen Medien zu seinem Sohne hinübergezogen worden ist.
Das Wichtige, was da vorliegt, das ist das, daß eine so angesehene Persönlichkeit veranlaßt wird, auf dem Wege des Mediumismus hinüberzukommen in die geistige Welt. Ich muß sagen: So viel ich bis jetzt weiß über die verschiedenen Sitzungen, bieten die Sitzungen an sich nichts übermäßig Neues. — Aber etwas anderes ist sehr wichtig: daß eine Persönlichkeit allerersten Ranges der Gegenwart, eine wissenschaftliche Persönlichkeit, die, wenn sie in dieser Weise schreibt, auf das Intellektuelle der Menschen einen großen Einfluß gewinnen kann, daß eine solche Persönlichkeit getrieben wird, in dieser Weise zu schreiben. Das ist sehr wichtig, denn dadurch werden viele Leute zum Mediumismus getrieben, getrieben auf diesen Weg, der auf diese Weise den Zusammenhang mit der geistigen Welt sucht.
Es liegt natürlich auch da nichts anderes vor, als was der Mißgriff war damals, als man durch den Spiritismus das erreichen wollte, was ich Ihnen ja beschrieben habe. Aber nun, ich bitte Sie, verfolgen Sie die Sache etwas genauer. In der ersten Mitteilung von dem Medium Piper, die Sir Oliver Lodge bekommt aus Amerika herüber, steht nur etwas von einem Faktum, das eintreten werde und demgegenüber Myers ihn beschützen wird. Schön, dieses Faktum konnte in der verschiedensten Weise eintreten. Nehmen wir an, der Sohn wäre nicht gefallen, so wäre es mit dieser Mitteilung durchaus vereinbar, daß man sagt: Nun ja, du bist darauf hingewiesen worden, daß Myers von der geistigen Welt aus deinen Sohn hier beschützt vor dem Tod auf dem Schlachtfelde. - Daß man, nachdem der junge Raymond Lodge an einer gefährdeten Stelle des Schlachtfeldes war, das in Amerika drüben auch gewußt haben kann, das werden Sie nicht weiter bezweifeln, und daß man daher so sprechen konnte, wie manchmal ein altes Orakel gesprochen hat: Myers wird den Sohn beschützen — und sich nachher hätte darauf berufen können, wenn der Sohn durchgekommen wäre: Er hat ihn beschützt, indem er ihn durchgebracht hat; wenn der Sohn aber fällt, man das darauf beziehen kann, daß der Myers nun von der geistigen Welt aus den Sohn zusammenbringt, in eine Verbindung bringt mit dem Vater; das ist auch möglich. Also die Mitteilung war zunächst sehr schlau gehalten. Von Amerika herüber wurde die Sache eingefädelt; dann - solche Brüderschaften erstrecken sich selbstverständlich sehr weit -, dann wurde herangebracht an Lady Lodge das nächste Medium. Man braucht gar nicht zu wissen, auf welchem Wege eine solche — wie es hier genannt wird — anonyme Sitzung zustande kommt. Da wird zunächst so vorgegangen, wie bei den Sitzungen vorgegangen wird. Aber jetzt ist bereits die Trauerkunde längst da; Lady Lodge hat in ihrer eigenen Psyche alle die Nachwirkungen dieser Trauerkunde. Das kann ja eben gezeigt werden, daß dasjenige, was in einer Seele lebt, hinübergeht in die andere Seele und durch das Medium spricht. Außerdem, in der Seele der Lady Lodge hat natürlich in der Weise, wie wir das kennen, der Sohn über den Tod hinaus fortgelebt. Dasjenige, was also durch das Medium zustande gebracht worden ist, ist lediglich die Wiedergabe desjenigen, was in der Seele derLady Lodge. war, oder in den Seelen der anderen Familienmitglieder. Man kann es sogar sehr schön schon aus dem Protokoll studieren, weil sich das abstuft je nach dem Charakter derjenigen, die als Maßgebende bei diesen Sitzungen sitzen. Auch der Name Myers tritt auf bei Medien, dieMyers nicht gekannt haben. Das ist aber nicht weiter wunderbar, denn Sir Oliver Lodge war sehr gut befreundet mit Myers, hat mit ihm zusammen gearbeitet und so weiter, kurz, würde Sir Oliver Lodge so experimentieren, daß er, abgesehen von dem persönlichen Interesse, das er an dem Sohne nimmt, bloß nachweisen wollte, wie man es zuerst wollte, daß geistige Wirkungen in unserer Umgebung sind, dann wäre ja alles gut. Aber dieser Pfad ist ja verlassen worden.
Es handelt sich also um nichts Geringeres, als selbstverständlich darum, daß von irgendeiner Seite her — auch diese Seite wird das Buch ganz klarlegen, ich will heute darüber noch kein Urteil fällen -, daß von irgendeiner Seite her benützt werden soll Sir Oliver Lodge, um Sonderzwecke, ganz bestimmte Sonderzwecke zu erreichen. Gerade dies wird höchst wahrscheinlich ein charakteristischer Fall sein für einen Vorstoß, den wiederum eine sehr trübe okkulte Brüderschaft macht, um durch die Konstellationen, die hier eingetreten sind, möglichst was man immer will — auch die Wissenschaft zu erobern für den Spiritismus, der immer sehr gern als wissenschaftlich gelten will und durch den man sehr leicht ganz besondere Sonderzwecke erreichen will.
Es war ja von einer anderen Stätte in Amerika, um nur ein Beispiel zu erwähnen, versucht worden, die Reinkarnation dem Menschen auszutreiben. Was hat man getan? Man hat in der Zeit, in der schon das eingetreten war, was ich charakterisiert habe, der Spiritismus verlassen war von den ernsthaften Okkultisten, man hat ich glaube, Langsdorff hieß der betreffende Mann - allerlei Sitzungen veranstaltet in den verschiedensten Orten, in denen die Medien immer in Zusammenhang gebracht worden sind mit Toten, und die Toten haben überall davon gezeugt, daß gar keine Rede davon ist, daß man hier wartet auf eine künftige Wiederverkörperung. So hat man gerade von da aus die Lehre von den wiederholten Erdenleben bekämpft. Man kann ungeheuer viel erreichen, wenn man die Sache als Kundgebungen der Toten an die Menschen herankommen läßt.
Weil ich in der letzten Zeit über diese Dinge gesprochen habe, und weil mir dies zunächst ein ganz besonders hervorragendes Beispiel zu sein scheint, habe ich es sehr rasch vor Ihnen wenigstens mit ein paar Gedanken besprechen wollen. Denn, was wird die Welt erfahren? Die Welt wird erfahren, daß ein großer Gelehrter sich zum Spiritismus bekannt hat, wird das Buch lesen und höchstwahrscheinlich — das zeigt schon diese Probe - finden, daß noch niemals der Spiritismus so gut begründet worden ist, wie gerade in diesem Buche. Und wahrscheinlich — wie gesagt, ich spreche heute diesen Anhang mit Reservatio aus, weil ich mir vorbehalte, darauf zurückzukommen, wenn ich das Buch selber gelesen habe -, wahrscheinlich wird eben nichts anderes vorliegen als der Versuch einer sogenannten Brüderschaft des linken Pfades, gerade auf diesem Wege ganz besondere Dinge zu erreichen. Es ist nicht gleich durchsichtig, aber es gibt ja namentlich zahlreiche Brüderschaften, welche auf diese Weise ihre Sonderzwecke erreichen wollen; und man erreicht mehr auf diese Weise, als man gewöhnlich glaubt. Doch auch von diesen Dingen werden wir ja noch weiter sprechen.
Tenth Lecture
If we try to address the question we touched on last time: How can people today gain a possible relationship to Christ? — many people will naturally object that very many people today do have a relationship to Christ. I have spoken about this objection many times before, and we know that it cannot be valid insofar as, on closer examination, it turns out to be a rather selfish objection that can only be made if one takes the standpoint: I have my satisfying faith, and everything else is none of my business. That humanity in general today does not stand on a satisfactory footing with regard to the Christ Being is all too obvious from the events of our time, so that there is no need to say much about it. The answer to this objection can be given by anyone who says that it must be part of the basic element of the Christ confession that Christ died and rose again for all people, for all people in the same way, and that it can never be in the name of Christ when people turn against each other for the sake of external goods. One can turn away from this general human destiny and concentrate selfishly on one's own confession. But then one fails to take into account that the entry of the mystery of Golgotha is something that concerns the human community above all else. Now we will have to mention a few things that can draw our attention to what is essential on the path to Christ; for it goes without saying that every soul must find the path to Christ for itself, using the means appropriate to the present age.
If we first try to understand in a deeper sense what the Christ being means for the earth, we must first familiarize ourselves with the fact that it is essential for the Christ event that the mystery of Golgotha took place at a specific point in time, that is, in time and space. When we consider this, we immediately encounter a contradiction to a general view, which must also be ours, a contradiction that cannot be dismissed because it is a legitimate contradiction, a contradiction that must first be acknowledged if we want to remove it from our souls. Surely the mystery of Golgotha can only be what we have always emphasized: the meaning of Earth's development, if this mystery of Golgotha has inner, real truth. But we know that everything that happens in time and space belongs to the realm of Maya, the great deception, and therefore does not belong to the real, eternal essence of things. And so we are faced with the significant contradiction that the mystery of Golgotha belongs to Maya, the great deception. This is a significant contradiction that must first be brought to the soul in its full validity.
Now, since the mystery of Golgotha took place in the time belonging to the development of the human race on earth, let us consider this development of the human race on earth. We know, of all things, that for this development of the human race it is necessary that human beings came over from earlier worlds and that, as we have indicated in “An Outline of Esoteric Science,” at a certain point in time they were subjected to what can be called the Luciferic temptation, the temptation. We have considered what the Luciferic temptation is in the sense indicated by spiritual scientific research; we know that it was expressed in a magnificent image at the beginning of the Old Testament, in the image of the so-called Fall of Man, of Lucifer as the serpent in Paradise, which stands as one of the most powerful images in religious documents.
If we look back over the period of human evolution from the Luciferic temptation to the Mystery of Golgotha, we see that it was a time when human beings gradually descended from an original, atavistic clairvoyant revelation, which had grown out of earlier planetary stages and enabled them to see the spiritual worlds before their soul's eye. gradually descended, so that in the centuries preceding the mystery of Golgotha they were no longer able to look up to the spiritual worlds as they had done before, but only had echoes of the old knowledge of the spiritual worlds.
Let us now, for a relatively short period of time on earth — we cannot go back to the Luciferic seduction — let the succession of the descending stages of human evolution up to the Mystery of Golgotha pass before our soul. We find the following. If we go back far enough, we find what people used to have as atavistic wisdom, as a real view of the spiritual worlds, expressed in the echoes of religious worldviews through people's worship of what was more or less a meaningful, highly respected ancestor. That is, we find religious cults in various parts of the world that we can call ancestor cults. Such ancestor cults have remained among people who are still at earlier stages of development. People therefore worship or look up to an ancestor with reverence. What is the reason for this looking up to ancestors? What is the reality of this looking up to ancestors in ancient times, in those most ancient times to which history can still look back? Let us say: this goes back to gray times; then we have a certain epoch in which ancestor cults exist (see diagram on page 203).
Such ancestor worship was not based, as today's superficial science believes, on people imagining that they had to look up to an ancestor, but rather the oldest forms of ancestor worship were such that people had a direct view of their ancestors at certain times in their lives. Those who looked up to an ancestral god came, at certain times in their lives, in states between waking and sleeping, which were quite common in the earlier stages of human development, to actually be together with what they revered as their ancestors. The ancestor did not appear to them merely in a dream, but in a dreamlike vision that meant something real to them. And those people who saw a common ancestor belonged together in an ancestral cult. What people saw in their minds was, of course, a human figure raised to a sublime level; but behind this human figure there was something else entirely. If we want to understand what was actually hidden behind this spirit figure, we must consider the following: The ancestor had once died; he left the earth as a highly respected personality who had done much good for a human community. The ancestor had passed through the gate of death and was therefore, while people looked up to him, on the path between death and a new birth. What did people see of the ancestor when they looked up at him?
We know that when a person passes through the gate of death, they remain in their etheric body for a short time; then this etheric body is discarded. But discarding it means that the etheric body passes into the spiritual worlds, into the etheric world. The human being in his ego and his astral body continues to develop; the etheric body passes into the etheric world. Since the person in question had done consistent things on earth, the memory of the etheric body remained for a long time. People perceived the etheric body of their ancestors in their old atavistic, dreamlike clairvoyance and revered what was revealed to them through this etheric body. But between death and a new birth, this etheric body comes into contact with the spirits of the higher hierarchies, above all with the spirits from the hierarchy of the archai, the spirits of the times. And because the person in question was a personality significant for the development of humanity, he connected himself with the spirit of the times, which brought human development a step forward.
What manifested itself through this, let us say, ghost of the ancestors, was basically the spirit of the age, one of the spirits of the age, so that the oldest religious cult worship was offered to the spirit of the age. Everywhere we go back in time, even to the gray ages of history, we find that people worshipped the ethereal bodies of their ancestors as manifestations of the spirits of the times. So, by going back to ancestor worship, we find the worship of the spirits of the times, the archai.
Then people descended further and began to worship those deities whom we know from various mythologies and whom we know as archangels; even in Greek mythology, Zeus and so on have the value of archangel apparitions. In the earliest times, people looked up to the spirits of the times; then they looked up to those spirits who are no longer spirits of the times, but who are equivalent to the spirits who also lead the tribes, the archangels. So we can say that polytheism follows ancestor worship, and people worship archangels.
Then comes the age in which people descend even further, the age in which the ego of the individual human being is gradually born. And we find that the most advanced nations relatively early, others later — the Egyptians, for example, already in the second millennium, the peoples of the Near East later — pass over to monotheism, that is, they begin to worship no longer archangels, Archangeloi, but Angeloi, each his own Angelos. They descend from higher polytheism to lower monotheism. After what has been explained yesterday, what I am about to say will no longer seem strange to you, and you will understand that human beings will have to cure themselves of the arrogance that permeates the entire science of religion: that what is commonly called monotheism may look down on polytheism as the inferior religion. For this is not the case, but rather the situation is as I have now described it.
Why were these ancient peoples still able to worship Archai, Archangeloi, Angeloi? They were able to worship them because they still had the remnants or echoes of the ancient atavistic clairvoyant art. That is why they were able to rise to what was superhuman; they were able, in a sense, to grow beyond the human, to rise to the superhuman. And in the ancient mysteries, this elevation to the superhuman was cultivated in a very special way. There, people were led to develop within themselves that which went beyond the human, whereby the human soul rose to the realm of spirituality. But then came the time when the human ego, as it lives here between birth and death, was born for human beings. That was the time that corresponds to the advent of the Mystery of Golgotha. If the Mystery of Golgotha had not come, human beings would have degenerated; they would have descended from the worship of the Angeloi to the worship of the next lower hierarchy, the human being itself. And we need only remember how the Roman Caesars allowed themselves to be worshipped as gods, how they were truly gods to the people, to know that at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, human beings had degenerated to such an extent that they no longer worshipped Archai or Archangeloi or Angeloi, but human beings themselves. At that time, in order to save people from worshipping earthly human beings, the God-man had to appear.
Archai (spirits of the times) — ancestor worship
Archangeloi — polytheism
Angeloi — monotheism
Human being — God-man
The fact that the God-man entered history signifies a fundamentally new way of approaching religious life. For where was the worship of Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai to be found, and where, ultimately, was the worship of men to be found in the Roman Caesars? In human beings themselves; for no one worshipped the Caesars through the Caesars, but through themselves, of course; that sprang from within human beings themselves, it came from the human soul. Christ had to enter human development as a historical fact; he had to be perceived from outside, like natural phenomena; he had to approach people in a completely different way than the gods of the old religions had approached them. “Where two are united in my name, I am in their midst” — this is an important sentence in Christianity, for it means that although one can find Angeloi, Archangeloi, and even Archai on the path of mere individual mysticism, one cannot find Christ on the path of individual mysticism. Those who want to cultivate individual mysticism, as is often described among theosophists, usually only get as far as the Angelos. They simply internalize this Angelos more, sometimes even making him a little more selfish than other people make their God. Christ is found in another way, not merely through inner development, but when one is conscious above all that Christ belongs to the human community, to the entire human community.
Now we come to a very important distinction, which, it must be admitted, is very difficult for the human soul to grasp. But one must make an effort to understand it. When we encounter another human being in life, we stand before them as human beings in Maya. Just as we have only Maya before us in natural phenomena, so too do we have only Maya before us in other human beings. Within Maya, the human being stands before us, first as this individual human being, as he appears to our outer senses and to what is connected with outer sensuality; then he stands before us as a member of his family, his people, as a member of his time. If one were to view him fully, one would see behind him the angelos, the archangelos, the arch£g; but all these are expressed in what the human being is. For in a certain sense, the human being is, through the fact that archangeloi, archai stand behind him, a member of certain human groups. In other words, he stands within the line of inheritance, within the relationships of inheritance. It is only human short-sightedness that we do not always consciously judge a person before us according to his affiliation, for we do so unconsciously all the time. We stand unconsciously before one another in this differentiation, which must necessarily be brought into humanity through these three hierarchies. But Christ demands more; Christ demands something else. Christ demands in reality: when you stand before a human being, you should look at them in such a way that what appears to you in the outer world is not the whole, complete human being; you should look at them in such a way that their reality does not come merely from Archai, Archangeloi, Angeloi, but from higher spirits, which no longer belong to the development of the earth, nor to planetary development — for that begins with the archai, as you know from “The Secret Science in Outline” — but with the higher heavenly spirits; that something super-earthly enters into the human being through Maya.
What I have now said must be completely transferred into feeling, not left as a concept, if one wants to understand it fully. One must be clear that with every human being something confronts us that is of a super-earthly nature and cannot be grasped by earthly human means. Then that intimate reverence for everything human arises in every human being. But before the mystery of Golgotha, human beings were such that they had gradually lost this superhuman element, that they had descended to the level of human beings. They had lost the superhuman element. For at the moment—mark this sentence well!—when a human being allows himself to be worshipped as a god, like a Roman Caesar, he loses his humanity and sinks into subhumanity. He ceases to be human when he allows himself to be worshipped as something superhuman in social life. Human beings were therefore in danger of losing their humanity; and it was restored to them through the appearance of Christ on earth. Read the Karlsruhe Cycle, in which I spoke about this question, about how something is truly communicated to each individual human being through the fact that Christ was on earth.
Thus, with Christ, it has come about that we recognize in every human being on earth, even if he is a sinner and a tax collector, with whom Christ associates himself for that very reason, that we recognize in every human being on earth the Christ who is behind him, that we recognize in every human being on earth the truth of the words: “Whatever you do to the least of my brothers, you do to me.” As I have said, one must translate this concept entirely into feeling; only then will one arrive at its full truth. For before what one thus sees, all concepts and ideas that separate human beings sink away, and something that is common to all human beings passes over the earth like an aura, if one confesses that one is now seeking not merely up to the Arch&, but up to that which stands above the Arch&, when one stands before a human being.
If we turn our gaze back to the ancient mysteries, we find that in these ancient mysteries, human beings attempted to rise above themselves in order to grow into the spiritual world with their souls. But because the Luciferic temptation was once there, this is only possible to a certain degree. Then, in this ascent, one loses, so to speak, the possibility of climbing further. One can no longer carry anything up into the higher world. Why is that so? The answer to this question becomes clear when we consider the deeper meaning of the Luciferic temptation. What does Lucifer actually want with humanity? We have emphasized this often. Humanity lives in Maya, in what is only a mirror of the world, not the real world. What does Lucifer want? In this mirror, human beings can rise a few steps above themselves, up to the ark. But then they must be taken over by Lucifer if they want to ascend further into the spiritual realm. They must, in a sense, make Lucifer their guide, who is the light that can lead them further. If the Luciferic evolution had continued, no Christ would have entered into human evolution, and from the time when the Mystery of Golgotha should have been—but was not—human beings would have developed so far in the mysteries that the Archai would have been open to them. But then they would have entered the Luciferic world. Then everything that had been placed into earthly evolution by higher gods, such as the Exusiai, as the earthly-human, as everything that is earthly-human on earth, would have remained on earth. Human beings would have become, so to speak, completely ascetic and spiritualized, and would have entered the spiritual Luciferic world in an ascetic and spiritualized state, leaving their physical bodies behind. The souls of human beings would have found their salvation, but the earth would have been useless. The bodies would never have been able to serve the souls as they were actually meant to do. The fact that this was prevented is the significance of the mystery of Golgotha.
We must now look back once more at the evolution before the mystery of Golgotha if we want to understand the matter properly. From the beginning of Earth's development, Lucifer had the intention of leading human beings out of the Earth into his spiritual realms. Lucifer had no interest in the rest of Earth's development; he only wanted for himself what the higher gods had placed there with human beings; he wanted to lead that out as soul. of Earth's development, after it had lingered for a time in the earthly form that comes from the Exusiai, from the spirits of form. He therefore wanted to lead the souls out and leave the Earth to its fate. Why did human beings in the time before the Mystery of Golgotha not follow Lucifer's urge to lead them into a world of light? Why did they not follow? Why they did not follow can be gleaned from some hints I have already given here in these lectures. They did not follow because something was introduced into the development of the earth by the higher gods which prevents human beings, I might say, from becoming so light in their development that they can immediately follow Lucifer.
As I have shown you, what is called the eighth sphere was introduced into the development of the earth in ancient times. One aspect of the eighth sphere is that human beings acquire such a tendency and inclination toward their lower nature that Lucifer cannot draw the higher nature out of this lower nature. Every time Lucifer made his efforts in ancient times to spiritualize human beings, they were too accustomed to the flesh to follow him. Had they not had this inclination toward the flesh, toward the physical nature, they would have followed Lucifer. You see, this is one of the great mysteries of the world's existence, that something divine has actually been implanted in human nature so that this human nature has, as it were, greater heaviness than it would have had if this divine, this divine necessity, had not been implanted. If it had not been implanted, human souls would have followed Lucifer. If we go back to ancient times, we find everywhere that religions are intent on making people worship what is earthly, what gives earthly connection, what lives in flesh and blood, so that human beings are heavy enough not to be led out into the universe. And since for such things, where it is already a matter of the human and the cosmic together, there is not only an earthly structure, but also a cosmic structure must be present everywhere, so what you find described in my “Secret Science in Outline” happened; what happened was that at a certain time, as you know, not only was the Earth formed and the Earth placed in its orbit around the Sun, but the Earth also received the Moon as its satellite.
What does this mean: the Earth received the Moon as its satellite? The Earth received the Moon as its satellite means nothing other than: the Earth received a force through which it can keep the Moon in its vicinity, can attract it. If the Earth did not have this power to attract the moon, then the spiritual counterpart of this power would not bind human beings to their lower nature; for from a spiritual point of view, the same power that binds human beings to their lower nature is the power with which the Earth attracts the moon. So one can say: The moon is placed in the universe as the opponent of Lucifer in order to prevent the Luciferic. I have already hinted at this secret here. I have pointed out that during the age of materialism in the 19th century, this truth was turned on its head in Sinnett's “secret Buddhism,” where the moon is described as something hostile to humans. In truth, it is not hostile to him, but in truth it prevents him from succumbing to Luciferic temptation, as the cosmic counterpart of that which in man is the clinging to his lower nature. In order to spiritualize this lower nature, not to tear souls out of the lower nature, but to spiritualize the lower nature, a subconscious mechanism was needed, because this could not take place in the conscious mind, otherwise man would have sunk down to the level of animals, otherwise he would have consciously followed the lower nature. There had to be something in the lower nature that was unconscious to him, so that he did not follow it, but as a human being, as a being on earth, followed precisely what flowed into his lower nature as the divine. The God of the Old Testament, the Yahweh God, was particularly concerned that man should remain on earth, and he is connected in this mysterious way with the moon, as you will find explained in “An Outline of Esoteric Science.” You can see from this how materialistic it was to describe the moon as the eighth sphere, when the eighth sphere is the force, the sphere that attracts the moon. And Blavatsky, under her seduction, developed a very special malice by slandering the God Yahweh in her “Secret Doctrine” as a mere moon god, and wanted to put Lucifer in his place by portraying Lucifer as the friend of the spirit, which he is in the sense I have explained. She wanted to portray the Yahweh God as the god of mere lower nature, while that which was implanted in lower nature was the opposition of Lucifer.
You see how dangerous it is to present truths that can be turned into their opposite. Blavatsky was seduced by certain beings who had an interest in seducing her to put Lucifer in the place of Christ, and this was to be achieved by placing this very opposite of the truth about the eighth sphere into the world and slandering the God Yahweh by portraying him merely as the god of lower nature. This is how those world powers worked who wanted to promote materialism, also worked for this materialism through what was called theosophy, for materialism would naturally have fallen into its worst abysses if people had come to believe that the moon was really the eighth sphere in the sense explained by Sinnett or Blavatsky, and that Christianity must be fought against at all costs.However, it was only possible to transfer Lucifer's adversary into the lower nature as long as human beings had not developed their ego in the way that happened at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. People greatly underestimate how much the ego was suppressed in ancient times. It was suppressed. The ego only emerged in the centuries leading up to the Mystery of Golgotha. It was no longer possible to simply transfer into the subconscious, into unconscious nature, that which strives against Lucifer; something had to come that human beings could take into their consciousness: Christ, who is the further development of the God Yahweh. Christ had to come so that, through consciously professing Christ, human beings could now resist the mere spiritualization sought by Lucifer. For Christ descended for all human beings. But it is only through feeling our connection with all human beings that we belong to the earth; it is through this that we truly belong to the earth. In connection with human beings and in what we bring to bear for the connection with human beings, for the full, complete connection, lies the deeper understanding of Christ.
You see, as long as people lived with an ego that was not yet fully developed before the mystery of Golgotha, they passed through the gate of death into the spiritual world; there they came into contact with archai, archangeloi, angeloi. But because they had not yet developed the full ego here on earth, they did not need to consciously develop a connection with the higher spiritual beings after they had passed through the gate of death. This was regulated by the atavistic forces within them. But since the Mystery of Golgotha—not through the Mystery of Golgotha, but since that time—things have become essentially different for human beings. Let us see how they have become different!
A human being passes through the gate of death, other human beings also pass through the gate of death; or else: one human being passes through the gate of death, others remain here on earth. Because a human being passes through the gate of death, he remains a human being, and our relationship to him cannot change if we want to be in the right relationship with him. But now let us consider: as human beings ascend into the spiritual worlds—today, since we live after the Mystery of Golgotha—they ascend through the hierarchy of the Angeloi, Archangeloi, and Archai, and since they are now in the time in which their ego developed here on earth, they also have an awareness of the other hierarchies that stand above them. This means that they consciously develop what is instilled in them by forces from beings even higher than the Archai. But what does that mean? Let us take a specific case. Let us assume that a very dear person dies and leaves a human being behind. The person who has passed through the gate of death initially retains, as you know, for years the connection with certain inclinations, with certain directions that he had here in life; but because he has developed an ego here in life as a human being, something immediately becomes conscious to him, as he passes through the gate of death, about the perspective into the next incarnation. This is decided in what I have called the midnight of existence in the mysteries; but something already enters into the human post-mortem consciousness when the human being has passed through death. But when a human being is in this state, that which already detaches him from what he was born into in his last life lives within him. Let us say he belonged to a certain community in his last life. The one who has remained here continues to belong to this community in the physical body. The one who has died is already overcome by a force belonging to a completely different community. How can the bond between the one who lives here and the one who has died be a real one that continues unabated beyond death? Then, when the one who is here has an understanding of that which goes beyond Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai, that is, beyond that which can be developed here as inclinations of his connection with human communities. If someone were to remain here, say, as a member of a certain people, and a person who is already preparing to belong to another people were to die, the bond of love for the deceased could not be unclouded. It is only because the two profess their faith in Christ, understand Christ in what transcends all human differences, that the bond can be a supernatural one. For what did John say when Christ Jesus came to him for baptism? “Behold, this is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” — words whose full meaning could make one pale if one took them at their full weight.
One might ask: Why did Christ triumph and not Mithras? At the time when Christianity was spreading from the East to the West, the cult of Mithras was spreading at the same time, all the way up the Danube to Western Europe, as far as France and Spain. But the service of Christ triumphed over the service of Mithras. Why? Because the service of Mithras had grown out of ascending above the angeloi, archangeloi, archai, and through this ascension wanted to reach the world illuminator and world ruler. But what is Christ in contrast? Christ, on the other hand, is the one who took upon himself for the development of the earth everything that is connected with Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai, everything that binds human beings to the earth. He bears the sins of the world, that is, those sins that have come into the world through human differentiation. He is a being to whom one must say: I belong to a single human community; but by belonging to a single human community, that is, by belonging to something connected with the earthly, I separate myself from the heavenly. Only a being who has nothing to do with human differentiation can redeem me from this. Only by understanding the Christ within me, who leads me out of earthly differentiation, who teaches me to feel that what causes earthly differentiation is suffering, is deadly, only then do I find my connection with the spiritual worlds again. Everything that has entered into humanity through the differentiation that has taken place has been taken away from humanity through the coming of Christ into the world. Therefore, Christ could not be the god Mithras, who leads people up above themselves, but rather the God who descended to earth and took away the sins of differentiation, sweeping them away. Mithras rushes through the world with a sword in his hand, which he thrusts into the side of lower nature to kill it; beneath him, lower nature dies. Christ presents himself as the Lamb of God who takes lower nature upon himself in order to redeem it.
There is much in this parable, infinitely much! That is why the idea of Christ cannot be separated from the idea of death and the idea of resurrection. Only when we know that what brings man into the world is death, but that there is more in man than what brings him into the earthly atmosphere, that what is in man is Christ, who leads him out again — “In Christo morimur” — only then do we understand Christ, only then do we know that we are united with him. That is why the representations of the ancient gods could depict triumphant beings; that is why Christ could only be represented by bringing human beings together with suffering and death, for he suffers what passes through the differentiations of human beings on the earth sphere. This makes Christ the one who leads human beings through death, who leads them back into the spiritual world; but this also makes him the divine being whom we may approach on earth by transcending Maya or deception. Just as Christ was born here from the womb of Maya, so must we approach him by transcending Maya ourselves, that is, by appealing to him in all that protrudes into Maya and is not Maya, but higher reality.
Humanity will still need a long time on earth if it is to turn first to this service to Christ; but we will have to begin to take Christianity seriously again. It is taken least seriously by theologians, for these theologians often argue about whether Christ performed miracles, whether he cast out demons, for example, through miracles. Well, it is quite superfluous to argue whether Christ exorcised demons, if we only learn to exorcise demons in the right place, where we can exorcise them now, if we learn to imitate his miracles. We are still capable of very little—that is the fate, the karma of our age—when it comes to expelling demons in the higher sense, as people in ancient times were able to do out of atavism. But we can begin to expel the demons we spoke of yesterday; these demons are there, and it is negative superstition to think that they are not. How do we drive them out? Humanity will become convinced that they will be driven out when what is today an unholy service becomes a holy service, that is, when it is imbued with Christ consciousness. In other words, we must move toward sacramentalism, when the consciousness enters into what man does that Christ is everywhere behind him and that he should do nothing else in the world than that in which Christ can help him. For if he does something else, Christ must help him; that is, Christ is crucified in human deeds and continues to be crucified. The crucifixion is not just a single act; the crucifixion is a progressive act. As long as we do not drive out the demons through what lives in our souls, by first making the external mechanical act a sacred one, we continue to crucify Christ. For it is from there that our education must proceed to true Christianity. What was symbolically practiced in the ancient cults of Christianity must take hold of the whole world; what was performed only on the altar must take hold of the whole world. Humanity must learn to treat nature as the gods themselves treated nature: not building machines in a disinterested manner, but performing a religious service in all their activities, bringing sacramentalism into everything.
A start can already be made in many ways. Above all, there are two points where people today can begin to develop sacramentalism. The first is in education and teaching. If we regard every human being who enters the world through birth as bringing with them the power of Christ, and if we therefore have the right reverence for the growing human being, and if we then organize the whole of education, and especially teaching, in such a way that we realize a sacramentalism in teaching—we can speak more clearly about this another time—if we realize a sacramentalism, if we see education and teaching as a religious service, but also make it a religious service, then we begin to spiritualize what religions call baptism. And if we try to bring what we call our knowledge into our consciousness in such a way that, as our soul fills with ideas about the spiritual world, we have the consciousness that The spiritual passes into us, we unite ourselves with the spiritual—if we see this as a communion, if we can realize true knowledge—thinking is the true communion of humanity, you will find this sentence already expressed in 1887—if we can realize this, then what was the symbolic sacrament of the altar becomes a general sacramental experience of knowledge. This is the direction in which the Christianization of humanity must go; then you will come to realize that everywhere in life, for everything that is connected with Christ, reality indeed enters into Maya, and that to view reality as modern science does with its worldview is unchristian, unchristian in the most eminent sense.
It is remarkable how easily people today can find their way into everything that is unchristian, and how little they can find their way into what is appropriate for Christianity today. There is still little that one sees that, I would say, works against materialism out of some dark impulse, but there is already something there; only it is going down the wrong path, turning in a confused way to the old religions instead of turning to spiritual science. Forgive me for mentioning something that is close to my heart, but I am only doing so to illustrate my point. I may have already pointed out here that a contemporary figure whom I knew very well in his youth, Hermann Bahr, is now seeking the spiritual again. Hermann Bahr is not looking for it in spiritual science; he is only slightly interested in that. If you take his very beautiful, witty book on “Expressionism,” you will see that he is already a little interested in spiritual science, but up until this book—as can be seen from the book itself—he has only educated himself about spiritual science to the extent that he has read Levy's book on my worldview and its opponents. He has not yet found the way to really delve deeper. But it is interesting that he has written a novel in which there is a hero who learns everything: contemporary chemical laboratories and so on, he had “heard” from Ostwald in Leipzig, spent some time with the Theosophists in London, and so on, a hero who who goes through everything that the present has to offer in terms of spiritual sensations, who also tries his hand at spiritualism; then he lets someone—I don't know who—give him exercises, esoteric exercises, which he does for a while. But he is impatient, he only does them for a short time, gets no results, so he gives them up, just as he gives up everything else. Then he has strange experiences; and the most interesting thing for me has been that, curiously enough, this book echoes some of the things I have said in recent lectures—even about current events—even though I have not seen Hermann Bahr for twenty-eight years, only briefly once in the meantime, but then certainly not when we discussed questions of worldview. Now, however, Hermann Bahr has recently had a drama performed, entitled Die Stimme (The Voice). There is no need to defend this drama, for the simple reason that Hermann Bahr does not seek the path into spiritual science, which he finds too difficult, but falls back into orthodox, or let us say, modern Catholicism; but he is nevertheless seeking spiritual life. And it is interesting how the hero of this drama seeks spiritual life. The hero of this drama is married to a woman who is the daughter of a very orthodox mother and is herself very orthodox, but takes her Christianity seriously, deeply seriously, beyond the seriousness that can be demanded of a human being. The man, however, who is the hero of the drama, is a disciple of Ostwald and Haeckel, a completely materialistic person. Since his wife and mother-in-law take their Christianity seriously, it is naturally a great pain to them that the man is an Ostwaldian and Haeckelian and wants nothing to do with a spiritual world; and the woman grieves so much over this that she dies of grief. But during her illness, she has the definite feeling that she wants to die in order to help her husband from the spiritual world. The woman dies. After her death, the man is once on a train. He has often heard something, as if from an unknown twilight, as if his deceased wife were calling this or that to him. Once, he is in a railway carriage, in a sleeping car, and there he hears his wife's voice particularly clearly. This drives him almost mad, and he storms out of the train. He behaves like a madman, I think, in the waiting room at a station. And then he hears that the entire train he was on has been destroyed in a train accident. Wounded people are being brought in and so on. He realizes that he was saved by his wife's voice, because he got out of the train where he would otherwise have perished. This is the first time that the woman's voice is connected with real circumstances. I do not want to condemn this; I only want to recount what a person of the present day writes. Now, because he has been saved by an apparent miracle, by the after-effect of this woman's being beyond death, he is led to think anew about the connection between human beings and the spiritual world. But then it happens more often later on that the woman reveals herself to him, and through an intimate relationship between his soul and the soul of the deceased woman, he is now led back to Christianity in the true sense, coming out of the materialistic worldview.
In any case, even if we do not need to defend this particular drama, we can see that there are already people today who are striving to bring into life the view that in the great deception, in Maya, a truth of the spiritual world can emerge. Only a pure understanding of Christianity will build a bridge between life here on earth and life in the spiritual world. But many, many people already have this need for this world, although they are still a small group compared to the large number of people who today are either stuck in traditional religions, which have also fallen into materialism, even if they do not admit it, or who, in their materialism, have no real connection with the spiritual world. As I said, we do not want to defend Bahr's drama, but it can point us to one thing: that human beings cannot escape the problem of death if they really want to understand Christianity; for one of the most interesting things about this drama is that it starts from the relationship between the human soul and the human body that leads beyond the gate of death. However, there is a fundamental error in all these things: instead of leading to Christianity, which spiritual science as we understand it wants to initiate, they want to lead back to a single creed.
If only people would understand Christ as I have indicated today — and if we can talk about this more often here, I will explain it in more detail — if people could understand Christ as has just been shown in the very first, most primitive hints, then the feelings and ideas that are developed about Christ could truly be carried to all people, for Christ did not die only for those who profess a present Christian confession, but he died and rose again for all people. And one must not bring a particular religious confession into connection with the Christ being, but every religious confession must be brought into connection with Christianity. If people understood how to perceive Christ as has been indicated, then Christianity would spread throughout the whole earth. For the revelation of Christ is something different from the revelation of Jesus.
If we go as missionaries to foreign lands, or even to native people, and want to impose the service of Jesus on them in some form of creed, they will not understand us, because often what these people know even exceeds what is to be brought to them by this or that missionary. For I would like to know what a Turk, for example, would say if a modern Protestant wanted to teach him the concept of Christ that he has as a modern Protestant pastor, this concept of Christ which is all about—as is already the case with modern Protestant pastors—well, that there was a Socrates, then someone who was a little more than Socrates: Christ, the man, not true, the special man, but just a man, or those confused things that are otherwise said about Christ in modern Protestantism today. The Turk would say to him: What, you say such things and you want to be a Christian? Read the 19th sura in the Koran: there is much more about Christ in there than what you are telling us! The Turks know much more about Christ Jesus than the newer Protestant pastors represent about Christ Jesus, because there is much more in the Koran, because Christ Jesus is brought much closer to divinity in the Turkish creed than in the newer Protestant creed. People just don't know this because today they still don't really read the religious documents and prefer to talk superficially about all kinds of religions.
The revelation of Jesus will also come to people in the right way. But they must come to it themselves. And they will come to it when they have gone through enough incarnations. Today, everyone is ripe to a certain degree for the Christ revelation. This distinction must be made. But there are many forces at work to prevent the true Christ revelation and true spiritual science from emerging. And here you need only remember many things I have said recently about all kinds of occult endeavors, which I have characterized.
And now I would like to conclude today's lecture. I will only add a small appendix. For a very specific reason, I do not want to include this in the lecture itself. You will see why in a moment. For what I say in the lecture, I say without any reservation, but what I am about to say now I must say with some reservation for the time being, and therefore I am separating it from the lecture. However, I do attach a certain importance to it, precisely in connection with our present considerations, and that is why I want to mention it today.
I have explained that in the middle of the 19th century there was a flood of materialism, that at that time those people who knew something of the necessity that spiritual life should always exist in humanity — I am only sketching this out in advance — thought of teaching humanity that spiritual beings and spiritual influences really exist in our environment. But, I said, at that time the leading occultists split into two groups: those who said that humanity was not yet ready to accept these things, and those who said in the middle of the 19th century that humanity could already be introduced to the most important concepts of spiritual life in a basic way. The latter have now dwindled to a small number who are in favor of teaching and spreading the doctrine. However, it is part of our anthroposophical movement to believe that what is important today is to spread the doctrine as we do, so that the spiritual heritage can be handed on to humanity. This question first arose in the 1840s, but those who held this view were, so to speak, outvoted, and so it was agreed to take a different path, the path of spiritualism. An attempt was made to use mediumship to show that personalities who can be regarded as mediums—I have characterized these things here—can receive messages from the spiritual world and that through this it is possible to establish contact with the spiritual realm. I have already said that the whole experiment failed. For if it had succeeded, something similar to what I recently said in my lecture in Bern to those who were present would have become apparent: one would have recognized the various stages of connection with the dead. But no one wanted to go along with that. And so the whole thing ended in complete failure. The mediums all claimed in the most primitive, elementary way that they were in direct contact with some dead people, and people always wanted to receive direct messages from some dead people through the mediums. Please note that this does not mean that when a medium is present and one experiments with a medium, what comes through the medium cannot be some kind of communication with a dead person. But it is another matter whether it is an unconscious, real, true communication and whether it can be a possible communication at all. What was expected was something completely different; what was expected was that through the mediums it would be recognized that spiritual forces, just like sensory forces, are constantly flowing into human beings, and that one should therefore seek the spiritual realm primarily in one's immediate surroundings, not in the manifestations of this or that individual dead person.
Since the whole thing has now turned out to be a mistake, serious occultists have withdrawn their support from this spiritualistic experiment, and humanity must now pay the price for this, as the mediums have been taken over by all kinds of occultists who do not follow purely occult paths, but paths that serve some specific human purpose. I have often said that anyone who wants to be a true occultist cannot serve a specific human purpose, but only the general human purpose, general human goals, and above all, they must never use bad means, incorrect means, to achieve any goals. But what is not called occultism today! You could get an idea of what can be called occultism today if you read the report that recounts the speeches given by Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater at the last Theosophical Convention, where current events are presented as the great battle between the Lords of Light, on whose side Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater, and the Lords of Darkness, and in which it is stated that anyone who stands as a neutral, as a true neutral, and does not take sides with either side — naturally with the Lords of Light, on whose side Mrs. Besant and Mr. Leadbeater stand — is a traitor. But all sorts of other things were said at this meeting. For example, Leadbeater recounted from his profound occult knowledge that before 1870, Bismarck went to France and established magnetic centers in the north, south, east, and west of France. During the war of 1870/71, these magnetic centers, which Bismarck had first established in France, were effective, otherwise the war with France would have been lost at that time. People today really allow themselves to be told this at theosophical gatherings! Yes, they listen to it! One can only marvel at this or do something else when one hears such things being said. But as I said, there are many kinds of occultism in the present day.
What is important is that now, after serious occultism has withdrawn from spiritualism, it is precisely those people who pursue special purposes who have taken control of the whole of spiritualism. And it is very easy to pursue any special purpose. I ask you to bear in mind what I am about to say, that spiritualism was brought into the world through an honest attempt to test whether the present human race is ready to accept spiritual truths, that the attempt failed, and that then all kinds of currents and occult brotherhoods and individual people, especially from America, have attempted to get their hands on the whole mediumship in detail in order to pursue certain special purposes. Now, what I want to tell you in connection with this, I am telling you because yesterday our dear friend, Mr. Heywood-Smith, gave me the report on the book about the experiences of Sir Oliver Lodge. I repeat, I am telling you this with all due reserve, because I only have a report in front of me, from which, however, much can already be gleaned, but I would like to reserve the right to come back to some points when I have read the book myself. However, I do not consider the matter itself unimportant and would like to speak about it today. Should the report be incorrect, I would of course—and this is why I am speaking with reservation—correct any statements made today as a result of the incorrect report.
Isn't it true that it is an extraordinarily significant fact that one of the most respected personalities in scientific England, Sir Oliver Lodge, the great natural scientist Oliver Lodge, who has already written several books in which he professes his belief in the existence of a spiritual world, that Sir Oliver Lodge wrote such a book containing things which, if taken at face value, as Sir Oliver Lodge believes, would actually belong to the most significant things that can be said in the present time. The fact is this:
Sir Oliver Lodge had a son who was born in 1889 and who, when the war broke out, volunteered for military service while Lodge and his wife were in Australia, and who then, in March 1915, found himself in a very dangerous part of the war and, as one can imagine, in this dangerous place, he also came close to Ypres, causing his parents much worry. Now Sir Oliver Lodge received a message written in August 1915 from Mrs. Piper in America. From Mrs. Piper, an American medium, he received a message with a strange content, which, as reported here, read something like this: Myers will participate with you in what fate has in store for you and will protect you. — But this was couched in a classical form, in a Horace quote. So Sir Oliver Lodge received a message from an American medium in August—it was written in August—that Myers, who was formerly president of the Society for Psychical Research in London but had died fourteen years earlier, would protect and assist Sir Oliver Lodge in a serious case that was to befall him, and would therefore work for his protection. Please note that there is nothing in this message other than that Myers would assist Sir Oliver Lodge in a serious case.
Then, in September 1915, Raymond Lodge, Sir Oliver Lodge's son, died, and Sir Oliver Lodge initially interpreted the message that Myers would assist him as referring to the death of his son. The family of Sir Oliver Lodge then came into contact with all kinds of mediums; several mediums appeared at the same time. These mediums brought all kinds of messages. These messages now gradually all boiled down to this: Your son, or your son – these séances were also held with Lady Lodge – is with Myers; Myers is helping him, and it is now very important to your son that you learn about this, and that Sir Oliver Lodge in particular thereby gains a connection with the spiritual world. When one reads through the various statements of the individual mediums as they are reproduced here, one notices everywhere very clearly that there are interesting escalations throughout; everything occurs at very specific moments. Questions are asked and answered by the mediums; the course of events is extremely interesting. It even goes so far that a picture of Raymond Lodge, which was unknown in the family, is found because the son, the deceased son, points to this picture, describes it, and it is then found exactly as he described it. In short, this book seems to have compiled with extraordinary accuracy and precision what can be obtained in many spiritualist séances and what can lead to what is recounted there. Sir Oliver Lodge had always been somewhat inclined to pursue such things; his sons apparently did not like it, but through what happened, they too were convinced. Sir Oliver Lodge seems to have written in great detail about how this bridge was built to his son through the various mediums.
The important thing here is that such a respected personality was prompted to cross over into the spiritual world through mediumship. I must say that, as far as I know about the various sessions, the sessions themselves do not offer anything excessively new. But something else is very important: that a personality of the highest order of the present day, a scientific personality who, when he writes in this way, can exert a great influence on the intellect of people, that such a personality is driven to write in this way. This is very important, because it drives many people to mediumship, drives them on this path, which in this way seeks connection with the spiritual world.
Of course, there is nothing else here than what was a mistake at the time, when people wanted to achieve through spiritualism what I have described to you. But now, I beg you, follow the matter a little more closely. In the first message from the medium Piper, which Sir Oliver Lodge receives from America, there is only mention of a fact that will occur and against which Myers will protect him. Fine, this fact could have come about in various ways. Let us assume that the son did not fall in battle. It would be entirely consistent with this message to say: Well, you have been informed that Myers is protecting your son here from death on the battlefield from the spiritual world. You will not doubt that, after the young Raymond Lodge was in a dangerous place on the battlefield, which could also have been known in America, one could therefore speak as an old oracle sometimes spoke: Myers will protect the son—and afterwards, if the son had survived, one could have referred to this and said: He protected him by bringing him through; but if the son falls, one can refer to the fact that Myers will now bring the son together from the spiritual world, bring him into contact with his father; that is also possible. So the message was initially very cleverly worded. The matter was arranged from America; then — such brotherhoods naturally extend very far — the next medium was brought to Lady Lodge. One does not need to know how such an anonymous séance, as it is called here, comes about. First, the proceedings are the same as at other séances. But now the news of the death has long since arrived; Lady Lodge has all the after-effects of this news in her own psyche. It can be shown that what lives in one soul passes over into another soul and speaks through the medium. Furthermore, in Lady Lodge's soul, her son has naturally lived on beyond death in the way we know. So what has been brought about through the medium is merely the reproduction of what was in Lady Lodge's soul or in the souls of the other family members. You can even study this very clearly from the minutes, because it varies according to the character of those who sit as authoritative figures at these sessions. The name Myers also appears among mediums who did not know Myers. But that is not surprising, because Sir Oliver Lodge was a very good friend of Myers, worked with him, and so on. In short, if Sir Oliver Lodge had conducted his experiments in such a way that, apart from his personal interest in his son, he merely wanted to prove, as was initially intended, that spiritual influences exist in our environment, then everything would have been fine. But this path has been abandoned.
It is therefore nothing less than self-evident that from some quarter—this book will make that quite clear, I do not wish to pass judgment on it today—that from some quarter Sir Oliver Lodge is to be used to achieve special purposes, very specific special purposes. This will most likely be a characteristic case of an advance made by a very obscure occult brotherhood, which, through the constellations that have arisen here, wants to achieve whatever it wants — including conquering science for spiritualism, which always wants to be considered scientific and through which it is very easy to achieve very special purposes.
To mention just one example, an attempt was made from another place in America to drive reincarnation out of people. What was done? At the time when what I have described had already occurred, when spiritualism had been abandoned by serious occultists, I believe the man in question was called Langsdorff, all kinds of séances were held in various places, in which mediums were always brought into contact with the dead, and the dead testified everywhere that there was no question that one was waiting here for a future reincarnation. Thus, the doctrine of repeated earthly lives was combated from that point on. One can achieve an enormous amount if one allows the matter to come across as manifestations of the dead to human beings.
Because I have been talking about these things lately, and because this seems to me to be a particularly excellent example, I wanted to discuss it with you very quickly, at least with a few thoughts. For what will the world learn? The world will learn that a great scholar has professed his belief in spiritualism, will read the book, and most likely—as this sample already shows—will find that spiritualism has never been so well founded as in this book. And probably—as I said, I am adding this appendix today with reservations, because I reserve the right to return to it once I have read the book myself—probably there will be nothing more than an attempt by a so-called brotherhood of the left path to achieve very special things in this way. It is not immediately obvious, but there are numerous brotherhoods that want to achieve their special purposes in this way; and one achieves more in this way than one usually believes. But we will talk more about these things later.