Cosmosophy II
GA 208
6 November 1921, Dornach
Lecture IX
We have been considering the human form, human life, the inner life and the human spirit in relation to the cosmos. Looking back on the different aspects considered, we are able to produce a kind of extractof it all and say: Deep down in the to produce a kind of extract of it all and say: Deep down in the depths of human nature lies the will (Fig. 37).
In a number of ways it is the most “mysterious” element in human nature, if I may put it like this. When we think of the moral sphere, it inevitably strikes us that our aberrations, tendencies in us which are often entirely hostile to the world, arise from the moral sphere as if from unfathomable depths, and that all pricks of conscience and self-reproaches we may feel stream up from the depths of the will.
We also know that this sphere of the will is mysterious by nature because in many respects there is something indefinite about it, something over which we have little control. It is an element which pushes us hither and thither on the billows of life, and we are not always able to say that we relate to it with our conscious impulses. In another respect, relating to our understanding, I have always stressed that the true nature of the will impulse lies outside our conscious awareness, being at the same level as experiences made in deep, dreamless sleep. In this respect, too, will intent is an indefinite, mysterious element which has been poured into human nature.
Considering the human mind and spirit, we are not able to say that human beings have it only when awake, say, or consciously forming ideas; we also have it in sleep and in the part of us into which will intent have been poured and where we are in the equivalent of deep sleep. We can imagine, therefore, that mind and spirit are also present when we sleep.
With reference to our will intent, two things can be distinguished. In the first place there is the will intent which induces us to be active from the time we wake up until we go to sleep—unless, of course, we are real lay-abouts. We are unable to perceive the nature of this will intent, but its effects come to awareness because we are able to form ideas of them. We do not know how our will impulse works when we take a step, but we can see that we have taken a step forward. We form an idea about the effects of our will intent and in our waking life we thus have an idea and awareness of those effects. This is one aspect of our will intent.
Another aspect is that the will is active in us even while we sleep. Internal processes occurring while we sleep are also effected by the will. We merely do not perceive them. Just as the sun also shines at night—on the other half of the earth, where we do not live—so will intent streams through our inner nature while we sleep, though we are not aware of this. It does, however, show itself afterwards, when we look back on the state of sleep.
We may thus distinguish between two kinds of will intent, an inner and an outer one.
Our will intent may be said to be down in the ocean depths of soul, rising up in waves. Since we had to agree that it is active also during sleep, when our living body is merely involved in organic activity, with no soul element streaming through it nor the light of mind and spirit illumining it, we also have to say: Our sleeping will intent has to do with organic activity, for organic, or vital, processes occur in us that are essentially connected with the will. They continue when we are awake and our will intent is in full flow. Will intent is revealed in internal metabolic processes, another area where we can speak of organic activity.
Out of the depth of this will ocean in human nature rise the waves of what comes to expression in our feelings. We know that in feeling, human nature works at a dimmed-down level (Fig. 37), with the intensity of conscious awareness reduced to the level of dreams. It is, however, less dim than our will intent. Something from the depths of human nature rises up into the light. Human beings bring light into their inner nature through feeling. In the process, the two aspects of will intent rise up into the more intensive level of conscious awareness; both inner and outer will extent can rise up and come to conscious awareness.
We therefore distinguish two kinds of feeling. One is the feeling which rises up from the sphere of the will and is related to the sleeping state in us. It comes to expression mainly in the antipathies of which we have so many. The kind of will intent which makes us active in the outside world when it rises up into our feeling, bringing us together with the world in sympathy, comes to expression in all the sympathies we feel for the world. In this region of the soul, therefore, we have dreamlike feeling experience coming to expression in sympathy and antipathy, sympathies and antipathies which go all the way up to our feeling for beauty, sympathies and antipathies relating to forms in life, both man-made and natural forms, and also the sympathies and antipathies which we have thanks to our organs of smell or taste, as we perceive odours and tastes, finding them good or repellent. All this rich and varied activity is the actual activity of the soul. Will intent is therefore revealed in organic activity, feeling in soul activity (Fig. 37).
If we study soul life from this point of view we can learn a great deal. We perceive that the waking state rouses us to be in sympathy with the world around us. Our antipathies essentially come from more unconscious levels. They rise from the sleep level of our will. It is as if our sympathies were more on the surface and as if our antipathies entered into them from unknown depths. Antipathies reject. With them, we put the world around us at a distance, isolating and shutting ourselves off. Egotism is mainly based on antipathies rising up inside us. The more egotistical a person, the more is the element of antipathy active inside. Egotists want to isolate themselves and be as far as possible by themselves.
In ordinary life we are not aware of the interplay of sympathies and antipathies in the inner life. We do become aware of it when our relationship to the outside world becomes abnormal and our defensive reactions, using our antipathies which come from the realm of sleep, also become abnormal. This happens, for instance, when our breathing is out of balance during sleep and we have nightmares. Inwardly we experience this as antipathy used to defend us against something that wants to invade us, reducing the experience of our egoity.
We get a glimpse of deep secrets in human life. When someone develops very powerful antipathies which then also enter into waking life, antipathy may enter into everything, even the astral body. The astral body then lets antipathetic nature stream out in front, rather like an abnormal aura. It may happen that the individual feels even people with whom he normally has a neutral relationship to be antipathetic and indeed people he normally loves. All the different kinds of persecution mania arise from this kind of situation. When we experience antipathetic feelings that cannot be explained by external circumstances, they come from overflowing antipathies in the soul. The pole arising from the realm of sleep in the life of the soul has undergone abnormal development in this case.
If this antipathetic element gains the upper hand, we get someone who hates all the world. And this can go to extremes. All education and all work done together in the social sphere should be designed to prevent people from developing this hatred. But just consider, if the element which rises up from the depths of human nature can make people into such egotists when it becomes too powerful, what must the inner will intent be like which is at the sleep level and which is mercifully hidden from us! We never come to realize the all-pervading presence of this sleeping will intent in the whole of our organism and our limbs. At most, highly unusual dreams may make some people a little aware of what lives in the will intent which restores the organism when we are sleeping. This element—I have shown it from another point of view in earlier lectures34See the lectures given on 23 and 24 September 1921—Cosmosophy Vol. 1. (GA 207)—is rightly beyond the threshold of ordinary consciousness. When you come to know it, you come to know everything in human beings which can take them to an extreme degree of badness. It is a profound mystery of life that our organic activity is balanced out by powers which would make a person a criminal, a bad character, if they were to gain the upper hand in conscious life.
Nothing in the world is in itself evil or good. Something which is thoroughly evil when it comes up into conscious life, also regulates our organic functions and restores our used up powers of vitality during sleep, which is the right place for it to be used. If you enquire into the nature of the powers which restore used-up vitality, you have to say: It is evil. Evil has its function. When human beings gain spiritual insight and see this element it is an element about which spiritual scientists of earlier times also said: Its true nature must not be described, for sinful are the lips which utter it, sinful the ears which hear it. People must know, however, that life is a dangerous process and that evil is very much present down in the depths, a much-needed power.
The waves also rise higher than this, into the forming of ideas. When the sleeping inner will intent which brings light in the sphere of feeling rises into the forming of ideas, light is shed, but at the same time the quality of our ideas is reduced through abstraction. Feelings of antipathy still have living intensity in human experience. When they rise up into the sphere of ideas, they live in all the negative, dismissive attitudes people have (Fig. 37). Everything we dismiss in this way, every “negative judgement”, as logicians call it, is due to antipathetic feeling, or sleeping will intent, rising up into the life of ideas.
When the sympathetic feelings which have their origin in wide awake, outside-related will intent, rise into the sphere of ideas we get positive attitudes. As you can see, we now have merely abstract images. In our feelings of sympathy and antipathy we still have something very much alive. In the opinion-based attitudes formed in the sphere of ideas we are standing still, as it were, and observing the world. We take a positive or negative stance. We are not as intensely involved as in antipathy, we merely say no. This is an abstract process. Instead of developing the heat of antipathy we simply say no. Instead of developing the warmth of sympathy we say yes. In contemplative calm we are above any relationship to the outside world to the point of forming an abstract judgement. Activity is merely at image level, therefore, and we are able to say, especially in the light of what was said yesterday: Here (Fig. 37) is the activity of mind and spirit, but will intent, feeling and judgement, or the forming of ideas, rise even further, into the sphere of the senses. What becomes of a negative opinion when it enters into the sphere of the senses? It becomes a situation where we perceive nothing. In terms of the most notable form of sensory perception, vision, we may call it a situation in which we see nothing and experience darkness: Experience of darkness. A positive judgement on the other hand means experience of light. We might of course just as well speak of experience of dumbness, experience of sound, etc. We could put this into words for every one of the twelve senses.
We may now ask ourselves what kind of activity we have in the sphere of the senses. We have considered organic activity, activity of the soul, and activity of mind and spirit. The last of these is entirely image-based, but still our own activity. The processes which occur between our senses and the outside world, on the other hand, really are no longer our own activity, for the world is influencing us. It is perfectly possible to draw the eye schematically, making it an independent entity, as it were. What happens in the eye is that the outside world penetrates into the organism as if through a bay. Here we are not engaged in our own activity in the world, but our position in the world is such that we may say: It is the activity of the gods. This is active throughout the whole world around us which in darkness inclines towards negative judgement and in light inclines towards positive judgement. Wise minds of the second post-Atlantean age had a particularly strong feeling for this activity of the gods influencing human beings in their relationship to the world. They had a powerful feeling for God in the light and God in the dark. God in the light is the divine principle with luciferic bias, God in the dark with ahrimanic bias. This is how people of the ancient Persian civilization experienced the world around them. To them, the sun represented that outside world—Sun as source of divine Light: second post-Atlantean age.
The sphere which lies between judgement and feeling was the main sphere of experience for the third post-Atlantean civilization, which is the Egyptian and Chaldean civilization. People then experienced the divine principle not so much in light and darkness outside but in the area where ideas come together with feelings. The influence of the gods on Egyptians and Chaldeans caused people to pour something of their antipathies into their negative judgements and something of their sympathies into their positive attitudes. We need to be able to read the images and other documents which have survived from that period to see how everything arose from positive sympathies and negative antipathies. Looking at figures from Egyptian tombs and elsewhere you can sense something in them that was artistically created out of positive sympathies and negative antipathies. You cannot create a sphinx without bringing in ideas alive with sympathy and antipathy. People then experienced not only light and darkness but the living quality inherent in feelings of sympathy and antipathy. The Sun was experienced as the source of divine Life.
During Greco-Latin times people had largely lost the direct connection with the outside world. In my Riddles of Philosophy35Steiner R. Riddles of Philosophy (GA 18), tr. by F. C. A. Koelln. New York: Anthroposophic Press 1973. I have shown how people still experienced thoughts the way we experience sensory perceptions today but were gradually progressing to the state in which we are today. Due to I development, we essentially no longer have a real relationship to the outside world in which our I is in effect asleep in the body, and we tend towards the sleeping state. This was not so highly developed in ancient Greece, though it had already become quite powerful. The ancient Persians had not entered deeply into their physical nature. They did not really see themselves living fully in their bodies, particularly if they were sages. It was their belief that they moved and were active throughout the whole universe on the waves of light. The ancient Greeks had already reached a stage where they were asleep inside their bodies where this cosmic aspect was concerned. When we are actually asleep, our I and astral body are outside us; but compared to the wakefulness of the ancient Persians, even our waking state is one of sleep. The wakefulness, or let us say the “waking up”, of the ancient Persians which I have characterized in my Occult Science was like entering into the human senses, with light itself coming in at the same time.
We are no longer aware of the fact that on awakening we bring light into our eyes. Light is a shadowy element outside us. This meant that the Greeks were no longer able to perceive the sun as the true source of life but as something which penetrated them inwardly. To them, the element in which the sun lives inwardly in human beings was the element of Eros, love. Eros, the sun-element in man, was the true inner experience of the Greeks. Thus the sun was seen as the source of divine love.
Then, from about the 4th century onwards—I have spoken of various aspects of its specific nature on other occasions—came the age when the sun was experienced as no more than a physical body, a sphere of vapour, out there in space. The sun had, in fact, become obscured for humanity. Persians truly felt the sun to be the reflector of the light which billowed and lived in space with tremendous vigour. The Egyptians and Chaldeans saw it as life billowing and pulsing through the universe. The Greeks experienced it as something which instilled love into organic nature, as Eros guiding them through the waves of the emotions. Entering more and more into the human being, experience of the sun vanished into the deep down depths of soul. Today we carry the sun element down in those depths. We are not meant to reach it, because the Guardian of the Threshold stands before it, and because it is in the depths of which it was said in the ancient mysteries that no utterance should be given, for sinful were the lips which uttered it, and sinful the ear which heard it. Schools existed in the 4th century who essentially taught, to allow Christianity to spread: The Sun Mystery must not be revealed; a civilization has to come where the Sun Mystery is not known.
Behind everything which happens in the physical world are the inner powers which, I’d say, are teaching out of the universe. The Roman emperor Constantine (306–337) was one of the instruments of those powers. Under him, Christianity took the form in which the sun is denied.
Another emperor, Julian the Apostate,36Flavius Claudius Julianus (c. 331–363), half-brother of Constantine, Roman emperor (361–363). took less account of developments in his day but let himself be guided by his enthusiasm for the last remnants of the old instinctive wisdom learned from his mystery teachers. He was murdered because he sought to restore the old tradition of the threefold Sun Mystery. The world did not want to take that road.
Today we have to realize that the old, instinctive wisdom needs to be revived in conscious wisdom. Wisdom which has gone down to subconscious levels, into mere organic, and even sub-organic, activity needs to be brought back to consciousness. The Sun Mystery must be found again.
When the Sun Mystery was in the process of being lost, Julian, who still wanted the world to be aware of it, made the most terrible enemies who finally killed him. Today we have enemies who are against the new Sun Mystery which anthroposophy must give to the world. Historical evolution now follows the opposite trend. The 4th century brought the decline; today we need the rise.
In this respect Constantine and Julian are symbols of historical evolution. Julian may be said to have stood on the shattered ruins of the past, wanting to rebuild the forms of the old wisdom out of those ruins. The old forms had been destroyed by Christianity, which initially, under Constantine, had taken materialistic form. Countless works of art, works of ancient wisdom and written works were destroyed, anything that might give people even a hint of the old Sun Mystery.
It is true that in order to achieve freedom, humanity had to come to believe that a sphere of gases moved through the universe out there, though physicists who would be able to go there would be really surprised, for instead of a sphere of gases they would find an empty space, indeed less than space. They would discover that the sun out there is not a sphere of luminous gases—which is a nonsense—but in the first place just a reflector (Fig. 39), unable to radiate light and at most merely reflecting it. In the spirit, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Venus and the moon radiate light. Physically the sun appears to be shining on them, but in reality they radiate light towards the sun, which acts as a reflector. This is the physical reality. The ancient Persians were still able to perceive the sun as the source of light for the earth, but not an actual source but a reflector. Later it became the reflector of life and the reflector of love.
Julian the Apostate wanted people to understand this and was got rid off because of this. To achieve freedom, humanity had to go through superstitious belief in a sphere of gases radiating light—something we see represented as the absolute truth in modern physics textbooks. Now we must penetrate to the truth of the matter again.
In this respect, therefore, Constantine and Julian are very much like two symbols. Julian wanted to preserve the old traditions so that the true Sun Mystery might still reach people. During the early centuries, the Christ was still an Apollo or Sun figure.
The Sun Mystery was seen as the most precious jewel humanity possessed. It was symbolized in the Palladium,37In Greek mythology, the Palladium was an image of the goddess Pallas Athene which had come from heaven and was “the luck of Troy”. Stolen by Odysseus and Diomedes, it was thought to be in Argos, Athens or Sparta. According to the Romans, Anaeas had taken it to Rome. which was said to have been kept in Troy, where the mystery priests used it to reveal the true nature of the sun to people in ritual, sacramental form. It was then taken to Rome, and part of the secret knowledge held by Roman initiates was that the Palladium was in safe keeping in Rome. Essentially the initiate priests of ancient Rome, and also the early emperors of Rome, above all Augustus,38Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (63 BC–AD 14), first Roman emperor. based their actions on the knowledge that the greatest jewel the world possessed, or at least its physical symbol, was in Rome. The Palladium had been placed beneath the foundations of the most highly esteemed temple in Rome, a fact only known to those who knew the deepest secrets of Roman life. Through the spirit, it had, however, also become known to those whose role it was to bring Christianity to the world. The early Christians went to Rome because of this. So there was a definite spiritual element.
When Christianity was secularized under Constantine, the Palladium was removed from Rome. Constantine founded Constantinople and had the Palladium put in the ground under the column he erected to himself. The further development of Roman Christianity was that the Sun mystery was taken away by the very emperor who established the rigid forms, rigid mechanisms, of Christianity in Rome. With this, Christendom has lost the wisdom of the world, the outward sign of this being the transfer of the Palladium from Rome to Constantinople.
In some parts of the Slavonic world—people always put their own interpretation on this—it was believed until the beginning of the 20th century that in the not too far distant future the Palladium would be taken from Constantinople to another city, in their belief a Slav city.
Whichever way this may be, the Palladium—you may take the whole as an outer symbol, but it is the inner aspect which matters—is waiting to go forth from Constantinople, which is casting darkness on it, to a place where it will be totally obscured. The Palladium is thus taken to the East, where the old wisdom lives in decadence and growing obscurity. Just as the Sun is a reflector of light given to it from the universe, everything depends on it in the further evolution of the world that the Palladium be illumined by a wisdom arising from the treasury of insight gained in the West. The Palladium, heirloom of the past taken from Troy to Rome and then to Constantinople, and to be taken even further into the darkness of the East, the Palladium, jewel of the Sun, must wait until in the West grows in mind and spirit and is able to release it from the dark, obscured treasury of insight limited to the natural world. Our mission for the future is thus linked to the most sacred tradition of European development.
To this day, then, legends are still alive for those initiated into these mysteries, some of them very plain, simple people who walk about on this earth. Legends are still alive of the Trojan Palladium being taken to Rome, of the Palladium jewel of wisdom, being taken to Constantinople when Roman Christianity became worldly and superficial, and that it shall be taken to the East one day when all the old wisdom will have been stripped away in the East, having fallen into utter decadence, and legends that speak of the need to bring new light from the West to this Sun jewel.
The Sun has vanished into the depths of human nature. We have to find it again by developing the science of the spirit. Humanity must find this Sun again, or the Palladium will vanish into the obscurity of the East. Today it is sinful to utter words that are wrong: “Ex oriente lux”. The light can no longer come from the East, which has fallen into decadence. Yet the East, which will have the Sun jewel, however obscured, is waiting for the light of the West. Today, people walk in the darkness, arrange to meet in the dark, their eyes turned to—Washington.39Washington Conference (21 November 1921 - 6 February 1922) to discuss naval disarmament and the Far East. Led among other things to American-British-French-Japanese agreement to guarantee each other’s territories and a collective guarantee of China’s independence. Salvation, however, will only come from Washingtons able to speak out of the mood of the spiritual world in such a way that they not only open economic gates for China, looking for the darkness which surrounds the Palladium. Salvation will only come when conferences held in the West decide to take light to the East, letting the Palladium shine out again. Like a fluorescent body, the Palladium in itself is dark; it shines out when light streams into it. The same holds true for the wisdom of the East. Dark in itself, it will be illumined and fluoresce when the wisdom of the West, the light of the spirit from the West, enters into it.
The people of the West are as yet unable to see this. The legend of the Palladium needs to be placed in the bright light of consciousness. We must feel the right kind of compassion for Julian the Apostate who wanted to close his eyes to the age when the light of freedom would be able to germinate in the darkness, who wanted to preserve the instinctive wisdom of old and therefore had to perish. We have to realize that Constantine took the light of wisdom from the Romans by giving them a worldly Christianity, sending Christianity into the darkness. We have to realize that the light which will let the Palladium shine out again must be sought in modern science. Only then will an important step in world history come to fulfilment. Only then will the Palladium, which became Western the moment the Greeks burned down Troy and which still holds the light that shone from Troy, become Western and Eastern. It is now in the dark and must be brought out of the dark. Light must be brought to the Palladium.
We can win enthusiasm from historical evolution if our hearts are in the right place. If they are, in the sense of what I have been presenting today, we shall also be able to find the right response to the impulses which are the true impulses of the science of the spirit.
I’ll continue with this on Friday.
Zwanzigster Vortrag
[ 1 ] Wir haben verfolgt, wie sich die Gestaltung des Menschen, wie sich die Lebensgestaltung, das Seelische und das Geistige zum Kosmos verhalten. Und wenn wir zurückblicken auf die verschiedenen Teile der Betrachtungen der letzten Zeit, so können wir gewissermaßen als eine Art Extrakt aus alldem heute etwa uns folgendes vor unsere Seele stellen. Wir können sagen: In den tiefen Untergründen der menschlichen Wesenheit ruht zunächst das Wollen. Das Wollen (siehe Schema Seite 166) ist ja in mehrfacher Beziehung — wenn ich mich so ausdrükken darf — das geheimnisvollste Element der menschlichen Wesenheit. Wenn wir das Moralische betrachten, so muß uns auffallen, wie aus dem Moralischen herauf, aber wie aus unergründlichen Tiefen, unsere Lebensverirrungen stammen, unsere Neigungen, die oftmals durchaus weltenfeindlich sind; wie alles das, was in Gewissensbissen oder in Selbstvorwürfen vorstellungsgemäß vor unsere Seele treten kann, aus dem Untergrunde des Wollens heraufströmt.
[ 2 ] Wir wissen ja auch, daß dieses Wollen aus dem Grunde geheimnisvoll ist, weil in vieler Beziehung in unserem Wollen ein höchst unbestimmtes Element lebt, das wir wenig in unserer Gewalt haben, ein instinktives Element, ein Element, das uns hin- und hertreibt auf den Wogen des Lebens, ohne daß wir immer sagen können, wir seien mit unseren bewußten Impulsen bei diesem Hinundhertreiben auch dabei. In anderer Beziehung, in der Beziehung auf die Erkenntnis, haben wir ja immer betonen müssen, wie das eigentliche Wesen des Willensimpulses im Grunde so außerhalb des menschlichen Bewußtseins liegt wie das, was der Mensch im Tiefschlaf erlebt, im traumlosen Schlaf. So daß auch in dieser Beziehung das Wollen als ein unbestimmtes, geheimnisvolles Element in unsere menschliche Wesenheit einergossen ist.
[ 3 ] Aber wenn wir den Menschen in bezug auf seine Geistigkeit betrachten, so können wir ja nicht diese Geistigkeit etwa so auffassen, daß der Mensch ihrer nur teilhaftig sei etwa im Wachen oder im bewußten Vorstellen, sondern er ist ihrer auch teilhaftig, der Geistigkeit, im Schlafe und auch in jenem Teile seines Wesens, in dem das Wollen einergossen ist, wo es also, wenn ich so sagen darf, ebenso zugeht wie in bezug auf die Erlebnisse des Tiefschlafes. Wir können uns daher vorstellen, daß der Geist eben auch im schlafenden Wesen gegenwärtig ist.
[ 4 ] Und gerade mit Bezug auf das Wollen können wir ja ein Zweifaches unterscheiden. Wir können zunächst dasjenige Wollen vor unsere Seele hinstellen, das uns zum Betätigen anleitet, impulsiert vom Aufwachen bis zum Einschlafen, wenn wir nicht gerade Faulpelze sind. Wir können gewiß in das Wesen dieses Wollens nicht hineinschauen, aber die Wirkungen dieses Wollens, sie treten uns, weil wir sie ja vorstellen können, in unser Bewußtsein ein. Wir wissen nicht, wie unser Willensimpuls wirkt, wenn wir gehen, aber wir sehen uns im Gehen vorwärtsschreiten. Wir stellen die Wirkung unseres Wollens vor und haben daher wachend ein vorstellungsgemäßes Bewußtsein von den Wirkungen unseres Wollens. Das ist die eine Seite des Wollens.
[ 5 ] Es gibt eine andere Seite des Wollens. Das Wollen ist auch in uns tätig, während wir schlafen. Während wir schlafen, finden innere Vorgänge ja auch statt, und diese inneren Vorgänge sind durchaus auch eine Wirkung des Willens, nur nehmen wir sie nicht wahr, weil wir eben im schlafenden Zustand sind. Aber es wird immerhin, geradeso wie während der Nacht auch die Sonne scheint, nämlich für die andere Hälfte der Erde, die wir nicht bewohnen, so wird auch unsere menschliche Wesenheit während unseres Schlafens vom Wollen durchströmt, nur daß dieses Wollen sich unserem Bewußtsein entzieht.
[ 6 ] So daß wir unterscheiden können in unserem menschlichen Sein zwischen zwei Arten des Wollens, einem innerlichen Wollen und einem äußerlichen Wollen. Und wir können sagen: Das äußerliche Wollen, es erscheint uns in seinen Wirkungen, wenn wir wachend sind. Das innerliche Wollen erscheint in seinen Wirkungen, wenn wir schlafend sind. — Es erscheint uns eigentlich nicht, aber wir können eben doch sagen: Es offenbart sich, oder es erscheint uns nachher, wenn wir zurückblicken, für den schlafenden Zustand.
[ 7 ] Nun ist gewissermaßen in den Meerestiefen der Seele das Wollen vorhanden. Es schlägt in Wellen herauf. Aber schon dadurch, daß wir das Wollen konstatieren müssen für den Schlafzustand, also für denjenigen Zustand, in dem unser Körperlich-Leibliches in der bloßen organischen Tätigkeit ist, weder seelisch durchströmt ist, noch geistig durchleuchtet ist, müssen wir sagen: Das Wollen als solches hat es zu tun mit der organischen Tätigkeit. Das schlafende Wollen hat es zu tun mit der organischen Tätigkeit, indem organische, also Lebensprozesse in uns stattfinden, die im wesentlichen mit dem Wollen zusammenhängen. Aber auch wenn wir wachend tätig sind, also unser Wollen im Fluß ist, finden solche Lebensprozesse statt. Das Wollen äußert sich ja in innerlichen Stoffwechselprozessen, so daß wir auch da verweisen können auf die organische Tätigkeit.
[ 8 ] Nun schlägt herauf, ich möchte sagen, aus dieser Wollensmeerestiefe des menschlichen Wesens, schlägt herauf wellenartig das, was sich im Fühlen offenbart. Wir wissen ja, daß das Fühlen (siehe Schema Seite 166) zwar noch immer eine sehr dumpfe Betätigung des menschlichen Wesens ist, daß das Fühlen in einer gewissen Beziehung für das Bewußtsein nur diejenige Intensität hat, die der Traum hat. Aber immerhin, es ist heller als das Wollen. Es schlägt in die Helligkeit herauf, was in den Meerestiefen des menschlichen Wesens ist. Der Mensch erhellt sich in seinem Fühlen. Und indem er sich erhellt, steigen die zwei Pole des Wollens herauf in das intensivere Bewußtsein, und es äußert sich sowohl das innerliche Wollen wie das äußerliche Wollen, indem beide heraufschlagen können in das Bewußtsein.
[ 9 ] Und so unterscheiden wir auch zweierlei Arten des Fühlens. Wie wir zweierlei Arten des Wollens, ein innerliches Wollen im schlafenden Zustand, ein äußerliches Wollen im wachenden Zustand unterscheiden, so unterscheiden wir ein Fühlen, das heraufschlägt aus dem Wollen und das verwandt ist dem schlafenden Zustande des Menschen. Das ist dasjenige Fühlen, das sich vorzugsweise in den Antipathien auslebt, die der Mensch im weitesten Umfange entwickelt; also in den Antipathien, im Antipathischen äußert sich das zur Antipathie neigende Fühlen (siehe Schema Seite 166), währenddem dasjenige Wollen, das sich äußerlich betätigt, das den Menschen also in die äußere Welt führt, wenn es heraufschlägt in das Fühlen, uns in sympathischer Weise zusammenbringt mit der äußeren Welt, sich in all den Gefühlserlebnissen äußert, die die sympathischen sind: das sympathisierende Fühlen, das mit der Welt sympathisierende Fühlen (siehe Schema Seite 166). Und indem wir uns diese Region vor die Seele stellen, haben wir in diesem traumhaften Erleben des Fühlens, das sich in Sympathie und Antipathie äußert, in jenen Sympathien und Antipathien, die bis zum Schönen heraufdringen, bis zu den Sympathien und Antipathien, die wir mit den Formen des Lebens haben, mit den Kunstformen oder auch mit den Naturformen, von diesen Sympathien und Antipathien bis zu den Sympathien und Antipathien, die wir in mehr organischer Weise, sagen wir, durch unser Geruchs- oder Geschmacksorgan beim Geruchs- oder Geschmacksekel oder beim Geruchs- oder Geschmackswahrnehmen, -wohlbefinden, -wohlempfinden haben — in allem diesem Weben haben wir nun die eigentliche seelische Tätigkeit. Das Wollen also offenbart sich in der organischen Tätigkeit, das Fühlen offenbart sich in der seelischen Tätigkeit (siehe Schema Seite 166).
[ 10 ] Wir können das Seelenleben von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus studieren und bekommen außerordentlich Aufschlußreiches. Wir sehen, daß das Wachen uns aufruft zur Sympathie mit der Umwelt. Unsere Antipathien kommen eigentlich aus unbewußteren Zuständen. Sie dringen herauf aus dem schlafenden Wollen. Es ist so, wie wenn unsere Sympathien mehr an der Oberfläche wären und als wenn sie aus unbestimmten Tiefen durchdrungen würden von den Antipathien. Die Antipathien sind abweisend. Durch die Antipathien entfernen wir uns die Umwelt, machen uns einsam, schließen uns in uns ab. Der Egoismus, den der Mensch entwickelt, hat namentlich innerlich aufsteigende Antipathien zur Voraussetzung. Je egoistischer ein Mensch ist, desto mehr ist das Element des Antipathischen in ihm wirksam. Er will sich abschließen. Er will sich möglichst in sich fühlen.
[ 11 ] Im normalen Leben merken wir nicht, wie Sympathien und Antipathien ineinanderspielen im eigentlich seelischen Leben. Wir merken aber dieses Ineinanderspielen von Sympathien und Antipathien, wenn die Verbindung mit der Außenwelt anormal wird und wenn wir das Abwehren, das Antipathisieren, das aus dem Schlafe stammt, ebenfalls anormal entwickeln. Das ist dann der Fall, wenn zum Beispiel das Atmen sich nicht in richtiger Weise einstellt beim Schlafe und wir unter Alpdruck leiden. Dieser Alpdruck wird seelisch im wesentlichen erlebt als ein antipathisierendes Abwehren dessen, was in uns hereindringen will, was uns nur in mangelhafter Weise unsere Egoität erleben läßt.
[ 12 ] Wir sehen da in tiefe Geheimnisse des menschlichen Erlebens hinein. Wenn der Mensch die antipathischen Gefühle, das antipathische Wesen ganz besonders stark ausbildet, so daß es auch in sein Wachleben hereinspielt, dann geschieht es, daß er sich ganz mit Antipathie durchdringt und daß dann dieses antipathisierende Wesen seinen astralischen Leib ergreift. Dann wird sein astralischer Leib vom antipathisierenden Wesen durchströmt. Er strömt sie vor sich selber aus, ich möchte sagen, wie eine anormale Aura strömt er vor sich selber hin die Antipathie. Und da kann es ihm passieren, daß er Menschen, zu denen er sich sonst neutral verhält, ja sogar Menschen, die er sonst liebt, antipathisch empfindet, Menschen, mit denen er im Leben bekannt war, antipathisch empfindet. Alle Arten des Verfolgungswahnes treten durch diese Verhältnisse auf. Wenn man antipathische Empfindungen erlebt, die nicht durch die äußeren Verhältnisse erklärbar sind, so rührt das von den überquellenden Antipathien in der Seele her, das heißt von einer abnormen Ausbildung des einen Poles im seelischen Leben, der aus dem Schlafe heraufstößt.
[ 13 ] Wenn also dieses antipathisierende Wesen überhand nimmt, dann wird der Mensch ein Weltenhasser. Dieser Weltenhaß kann sich sehr, sehr steigern. Alle Erziehung und alles soziale Zusammenwirken sollte darauf hingehen, die Menschen nicht zu solchen Menschenhassern werden zu lassen. Aber denken Sie sich, wenn schon das, was da heraufschlägt aus den Meerestiefen des menschlichen Wesens, den Menschen, wenn es überhand nimmt, in eine starke Egoität bringen kann — und alle Arten des Verfolgungswahnes sind ja eine übersprudelnde Egoität, ein übersprudelnder Egoismus -, wenn schon das, was da heraufschlägt, so sein kann: wie muß erst das innerliche schlafende Wollen sein, dasjenige Wollen, das uns eine gütige Schöpfung zudeckt durch den Schlaf! Wir lernen ja gar nicht erkennen, wie unser ganzer Organismus, wie unsere Glieder durchzogen sind von diesem innerlichen schlafenden Wollen. Höchstens daß bei manchen Menschen einmal durch ganz absonderliche Träume etwas heraufdringt in das Bewußtsein von dem, was in jenem Wollen lebt, das unseren Organismus herstellt, wenn wir im schlafenden Zustande sind. Was da in diesem Wollen lebt - ich habe es schon von einer anderen Seite her bei früheren Vorträgen charakterisiert —, das ist etwas, was mit Recht für das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein jenseits der Schwelle liegt. Wer es kennenlernt, lernt alles das im Menschen kennen, was im äußersten Maß den Menschen zur Schlechtigkeit bringen kann. Und es ist das tiefe Geheimnis des Lebens, daß wir den Ausgleich unserer organischen Tätigkeit haben durch diejenigen Kräfte, die, wenn sie den Menschen im bewußten Leben beherrschen würden, ihn zum Verbrecher und Bösewicht machen würden.
[ 14 ] Nichts in der Welt ist an sich böse oder gut. Das, was, wenn es ins bewußte Leben hereinstößt, radikal böse ist, das ist, am richtigen Orte verwendet, nämlich während unseres schlafenden Zustandes als die organische Tätigkeit regulierend verwendet, das ist ja der Ausgleich für die verbrauchten Lebenskräfte. Fragen Sie nach dem Wesen jener Kräfte, die ausgleichend wirken für die verbrauchten Lebenskräfte, dann müssen Sie sagen: Es ist das Böse. Das Böse hat seine Aufgabe. Hier hat es seine Aufgabe. Und wenn die Menschen durch eine geistige Schulung dieses ansichtig werden — ich habe es, wie gesagt, schon von einer anderen Seite vor kurzem auch hier einmal charakterisiert -, dann ist es das, dem gegenüber auch ältere Geistesforscher gesagt haben: In seiner eigentlichen Wesenheit darf es nicht charakterisiert werden, denn sündhaft ist der Mund, der es ausspricht, sündhaft ist das Ohr, das es hört. - Aber der Mensch muß wissen, daß das Leben ein gefährlicher Prozeß ist für den Menschen, und daß in den Untergründen des Lebens als eine Kraft, die notwendig gebraucht wird, eben durchaus das Böse vorhanden ist.
[ 15 ] Nun schlagen die Wellen aber weiter herauf auch in das Vorstellen (siehe Schema Seite 166). Und wenn das innerlich schlafende Wollen aufhellt im Fühlen, heraufschlägt in das Vorstellen, dann wird es zwar hell, aber es wird zu gleicher Zeit qualitativ abgestumpft, es wird verabstrahiert. Das antipathische Fühlen hat noch eine gewisse lebendige Intensität im menschlichen Erleben. Wenn es heraufschlägt in das Vorstellen, dann lebt es in alledem, was im Menschen verneinende Urteile sind, abweisende, verneinende Urteile (siehe Schema Seite 166). Alles das, was wir im Leben urteilsgemäß negieren, alles, was der Logiker verneinende Urteile nennt, das ist das Heraufschlagen des antipathischen Fühlens beziehungsweise des schlafenden Wollens in das Vorstellungsleben.
[ 16 ] Und wenn das sympathische Fühlen, das urständet im äußerlichen Wollen, im wachenden Wollen, wenn das sympathische Fühlen heraufschlägt in das Vorstellen, bekommen wir die bejahenden Urteile. Wir kommen zu dem, was, wie Sie sehen, nur in abstrakter Bildhaftigkeit im Menschen lebt. Im Fühlen haben wir noch etwas, indem wir Antipathien und Sympathien entwickeln, was intensives Leben ist. Im Urteilen, das im Vorstellen abläuft, sind wir gewissermaßen stillstehende, ruhige Betrachter der Welt. Wir bejahen und verneinen. Wir bringen es nicht bis zur intensiven Antipathie, wir verneinen bloß. Es ist ein abstrakter Vorgang. Wir echauffieren uns nicht bis zur Antipathie, wir sagen bloß: Nein. —- Ebenso echauffieren wir uns nicht bis zur Sympathie, wir sagen: Ja. - Was bleibt, ist in kontemplativer Ruhe. Wir sind erhaben über unser Verhältnis zur Außenwelt, bis zum abstrakten Urteil erhaben.
[ 17 ] Das ist also nur eine bildhafte Tätigkeit. Wir können sagen, gerade in dem Sinne dessen, was wir gestern kennengelernt haben: Hier (siehe Schema Seite 166) ist unsere geistige Tätigkeit, aber es schlägt Wollen, Fühlen und Urteilen oder Vorstellen weiter herauf bis in die Sinnessphäre. Und indem dies in die Sinnessphäre heraufschlägt, bis in die Sinne also heraufschlägt das verneinende Urteil, was wird es denn da? Es wird das, wo man nichts wahrnimmt, also — wenn wir es uns durch das auffälligste Wahrnehmen, das Sehen, repräsentieren, können wir sagen, wo wir nichts sehen, wo wir die Finsternis erleben -: Erleben der Finsternis. Das bejahende Urteil dagegen ist das Erleben des Lichtes (siehe Schema). Natürlich könnten wir ebenso von dem Erleben der Stummbheit, von dem Erleben des Tones oder des Lautes sprechen. Für alle zwölf Sinne könnten wir das aussprechen, was wir hier durch Licht und Finsternis charakterisieren.
[ 18 ] Und wenn wir uns jetzt fragen: Was ist denn das für eine Tätigkeit, die entspricht dieser Sinnessphäre? Wir haben gefunden die Organtätigkeit, seelische Tätigkeit, die geistige Tätigkeit. Die geistige Tätigkeit ist schon eine ganz bildhafte Tätigkeit nur, aber sie ist in der Bildhaftigkeit noch unsere Tätigkeit. Was sich dagegen zwischen den Sinnen und der Außenwelt abspielt, das ist eigentlich nicht mehr unsere Tätigkeit, da spielt die Welt in uns herein. Wir können ja wirklich schematisch das Auge so zeichnen, daß wir es in einer gewissen Weise als ein selbständiges Wesen haben, und was sich im Auge abspielt, das ist das Hereindringen der Außenwelt wie durch einen Golf in den Organismus herein. Da sind wir nicht mehr mit unserer eigenen Tätigkeit in der Welt drinnenstehend, da stehen wir in der Welt drinnen so, daß wir sagen können: Es ist die göttliche Tätigkeit. Diese göttliche Tätigkeit, sie durchwebt unsere Umwelt, welche als Finsternis hinneigt zum verneinenden Urteil, als Licht hinneigt zum bejahenden Urteil. Diese göttliche Tätigkeit in ihrem Wirken auf den Menschen in seinem Verhältnis zur Welt, die empfand besonders die Weisheit des zweiten nachatlantischen Zeitraumes sehr stark, erlebte sie sehr stark: Gott im Lichte, Gott in der Finsternis. Gott im Lichte: das Göttliche mit luziferischer Färbung; Gott in der Finsternis: das Göttliche mit ahrimanischer Färbung. So erlebte die persische Kultur die Außenwelt. Und die Sonne war der Repräsentant dieser Außenwelt — Sonne als göttliche Lichtquelle: zweite nachatlantische Zeit.
[ 19 ] Dagegen erlebte man mehr diejenige Sphäre, die zwischen dem Urteilen und Fühlen ist, in der dritten nachatlantischen Kultur, der ägyptisch-chaldäischen. Da hatte man nicht so das Erleben, daß man das Göttliche draußen erlebte in Licht und Finsternis; da hatte man das Erleben, daß man das Göttliche erlebte im Zusammenstoßen des Vorstellens mit dem Fühlen. So sind nämlich eigentlich die Götterwirkungen bei den Ägyptern und Chaldäern, daß der Mensch hineingoß in sein Urteil: in die Verneinung etwas von seinen Antipathien, in das Bejahen etwas von seinen Sympathien. Und nur wenn wir lesen können, was an bildhaften oder sonstigen Dokumenten aus der ägyptisch-chaldäischen Zeit vorhanden ist, so kommen wir darauf, wie ja alles herausgestaltet worden ist aus sympathisierender Bejahung, antipathisierender Verneinung. Sie können es noch den ägyptischen Grab- und anderen Figuren anfühlen, daß in ihnen etwas liegt, das künstlerisch gebildet worden ist mit dem sympathisierenden Bejahen und dem antipathisierenden Verneinen. Man kann keine Sphinxe schaffen, ohne daß man hereinbringt, was sympathisierendes und antipathisierendes Ideenleben hat. Da empfand man nicht bloß Licht und Finsternis, da empfand man etwas, was etwas hat von dem Lebendigen, was man im Sympathisieren und Antipathisieren hat. Man empfand die Sonne als göttliche Lebensquelle.
[ 19 ] Und kommen wir in die griechisch-lateinische Zeit, da war dem Menschen das unmittelbare Zusammensein mit der Außenwelt schon in hohem Grade abhandengekommen. Ich habe in meinen «Rätseln der Philosophie» dargestellt, wie der Mensch zwar noch die Gedanken so fühlte, wie wir heute die Sinnesempfindungen fühlen, aber er näherte sich doch schon demjenigen Zustand, in dem wir heute leben, wo wir im Grunde genommen durch die Ausbildung des Ich keinen rechten Zusammenhang mehr mit der Außenwelt haben, wo wir mit dem Ich eigentlich schon im Leibe schlafen, wo wir uns hinüberneigen zum Schlafenden. Noch nicht so stark war es beim Griechen, aber es war schon in einer gewissen Weise vorhanden. Das griechische Wesen kann nur verstanden werden, wenn man sich klar darüber ist, daß der Griechesich schon sehr stark in seine Leibhaftigkeit eingelebthatte, noch nicht so stark wie wir, aber schon sehr stark sich eingelebt hatte. Die alten Perser hatten sich nicht sehr stark in ihre Leiblichkeit eingelebt. Sie glaubten eigentlich nicht, daß sie so richtig in ihrer Leiblichkeit innerhalb ihrer Haut lebten, namentlich wenn sie Weise waren, sondern sie glaubten, daß sie auf den Wellen des Lichtes eigentlich das ganze Universum durchwoben, durchwellten. Der Grieche war schon ganz so, daß er eigentlich in seinem Leibe drinnen mit diesem Weltenwesen schlief. Wenn wir im wirklichen Schlafe sind, sind wir mit unserem Ich und mit unserem astralischen Leib draußen; aber unser Wachen ist gegenüber dem persischen Wachen wiederum ein Schlafen. Das persische Wachen, sagen wir das persische Erwachen - das urpersische natürlich, das ich in meiner «Geheimwissenschaft im Umriß» charakterisiere -, das war wie ein Hereintreten in die menschlichen Sinne, aber zu gleicher Zeit wie ein Hereindringen des Lichtes selber.
[ 21 ] Wir fühlen nichts mehr davon, daß wir das Licht mit dem Erwachen in unsere Augen hereinbringen. Für uns ist das Licht schattenhaft draußen. Das alles bewirkte, daß die Griechen die Sonne auch nicht mehr als eigentlichen Lebensquell wahrnehmen konnten, sondern daß die Griechen die Sonne wahrnahmen wie etwas, was sie innerlich durchdringt. Und sie fühlten dasjenige Element, wo die Sonne innerlich lebt im Menschen, das fühlten sie als das Element des Eros, als das Element der Liebe. Eros, das Sonnenhafte im Menschen, das war es, was in dem eigentlichen griechischen inneren Erleben war; darum: die Sonne als göttliche Liebesquelle.
[ 22 ] Und dann trat etwa vom 4. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert ab, das ich überhaupt in seinem eigentümlichen Charakter nach den verschiedensten Seiten charakterisiert habe, das Zeitalter ein, wo die Sonne überhaupt nicht mehr anders empfunden wird denn als eine physische Nebelkugel draußen im Raume, wo die Sonne eigentlich für den Menschen verfinstert ist. Der Perser empfand die Sonne wirklich als den Reflektor des den Raum durchwogenden und durchwuchtenden Lichtes. Der Ägypter und Chaldäer empfand die Sonne als das das Universum durchwellende und durchpulsende Leben. Der Grieche empfand die Sonne als das, was dem organischen Wesen Liebe einträufelte, was den Eros durch die Wellen des Empfindens leitet. Indem es immer weiter und weiter in den Menschen hineinstieg, dieses Sonnenerleben, verschwand es in seinen Untergründen, in die Meerestiefe der Seele hinein. In den Meerestiefen der Seele trägt heute der Mensch das Sonnenhafte. Er soll es nicht erreichen, weil der Hüter der Schwelle davorsteht, weil es unten ist in jenen Untergründen, von denen die alten Mysterienlehren gesagt haben, man soll es nicht aussprechen, weil gerade sündhaft ist der Mund, der es ausspricht, wie das Ohr sündhaft ist, das es hört. Und da gab es denn im 4. Jahrhundert Schulen, welche hauptsächlich lehrten für die weitere Verbreitung des Christentums: Das Sonnengeheimnis darf nicht ausgesprochen werden; es muß eine Zivilisation kommen, welche das Sonnengeheimnis nicht kennt.
[ 23 ] Hinter alldem, was äußerlich in der Welt geschieht, stehen ja die innerlichen, ich möchte sagen, aus dem Universum heraus lehrenden Kräfte. Ein Werkzeug solcher lehrenden Kräfte war der römische Kaiser Konstantin. Unter ihm hat das Christentum diejenige Form angenommen, die die Sonne verleugnet.
[ 24 ] Dann war noch einer da, der allerdings die Entwickelung der Zeit weniger in Betracht gezogen hat als seinen Enthusiasmus für das, was er noch von seinen Mysterienlehrern gelernt hat als den letzten Überrest der alten, instinktiven Weisheit: das war Julian Apostata. Und Julian Apostata ist aus dem Grunde von Mörderhand gefallen, weil er bestrebt war, das dreifache Sonnengeheimnis als alte Tradition zu überliefern. Die Welt wollte mit dem nicht mitgehen.
[ 25 ] Heute muß man allerdings erkennen, daß die alte instinktive Weisheit ein Wiederaufleben haben muß in der bewußten Weisheit, daß alles das aus dem Bewußten wieder heraufgehoben werden muß, was sich hinuntergesenkt hat in das Unterbewußte, in die bloße organische Tätigkeit oder auch in die unterorganische Tätigkeit. Wir müssen wiederum das Sonnengeheimnis finden.
[ 26 ] Aber so wie beim Abhandenkommen des Sonnengeheimnisses demjenigen, der es noch der Welt verkünden wollte, dem Julian Apostata, die furchtbarsten Feinde erwachsen sind, die ihn dann ja auch getötet haben, so sind diese Feinde wiederum gegenüber dem neuen Sonnengeheimnis da, das eben durch die Geisteswissenschaft in die Welt treten muß. Wir leben jetzt im anderen Pol der geschichtlichen Entwickelung. Damals, im 4. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert, war der Niedergang. Jetzt brauchen wir den Aufgang.
[ 27 ] In dieser Beziehung sind das schon zwei Symbole der geschichtlichen Entwickelung, Konstantin und Julian Apostata. Julian Apostata, der steht gewissermaßen auf den Trümmern der alten Zeit, möchte aber noch aus diesen Trümmern die Formen der alten Weisheit wiederum aufbauen. Julian Apostata möchte jene alten Denkmäler der Menschheit dalassen, die das zunächst materialistische Form annehmende, in der Konstantinischen Zeit materialistische Form annehmende Christentum zerstört hat. Unzähliges wurde zerstört, Unzähliges an Kunstdenkmälern, Unzähliges an Weisheitsdenkmälern, an Schrifttum. Gerade das wurde alles zerstört, was in irgendeiner Weise geeignet war, den Menschen erraten zu lassen das alte Sonnengeheimnis.
[ 28 ] Es ist wahr, die Menschen mußten durchgehen, um zur Freiheit zu kommen, durch den Glauben, daß da draußen ein Gasball durch die Welt wandle, während die Physiker sehr erstaunt sein würden, wenn sie dorthin wandern könnten und gar keinen Gasball, sondern im Gegenteil einen Hohlraum, ja weniger als einen Raum finden würden, und entdecken würden, was die Sonne ist: daß die Sonne nicht da draußen ein leuchtender Gasball ist, der Licht ausstrahlt — Unsinn ist das! -, sondern daß das zunächst ein bloßer Reflektor ist, der nicht Licht ausstrahlen kann, höchstens zurückwerfen kann. Dann aber haben wir in Wirklichkeit geistig Licht ausstrahlend Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Merkur, Venus, Mond. Und während es physisch so erscheint, als ob die Sonne denen allen Licht gäbe, strahlen die eigentlich alle gegen die Sonne das Licht, und die Sonne ist der Reflektor. So ist es physisch. So haben es aus instinktivem Erkennen die Alten, die Urperser noch erkannt und haben in diesem Sinne die Sonne als die irdische Lichtquelle anerkannt, aber eigentlich nicht als die Lichtquelle, sondern als den Lichtreflektor. Dann wurde sie der zurückstrahlende Lebensreflektor und der zurückstrahlende Liebesreflektor.
[ 29 ] Diese Anschauung wollte Julian Apostata geltend machen, und er ist aus dem Wege geräumt worden. Die Menschen mußten eben durchgehen, um zur Freiheit zu kommen, durch den Aberglauben von dem im Raum vorhandenen Gasball, der Licht ausstrahlt, welchen Aberglauben wir ja heute in allen Physikbüchern als eine absolute Wahrheit hingestellt finden. Wir müssen wiederum durchdringen zu dem, was wahr ist in dieser Sache.
[ 30 ] In dieser Beziehung sind eben durchaus Konstantin und Julian Apostata wie zwei Symbole. Julian Apostata möchte die alten Denkmäler der Welt erhalten, aus denen gewissermaßen noch das wirkliche Sonnengeheimnis an den Menschen herandringen könnte. Eine Apollo-, eine Sonnengestalt war der Christus in den ersten Jahrhunderten noch.
[ 31 ] Dieses Sonnengeheimnis, es wurde empfunden als das größte geistige Kleinod der Menschheit. Und es wurde symbolisiert durch dasjenige, was man das Palladium nannte. In Troja soll es einst gewesen sein, und die Mysterienpriester in Troja drüben sollen in diesem Palladium dasjenige gesehen haben, an dem sie gewissermaßen sakramental kulturell, kultusartig den Leuten enthüllt haben, was das Sonnenwesen ist. Dann wurde es nach Rom gebracht, und es war ein Geheimnis der in Rom Eingeweihten, daß Rom das Palladium bewahrt. Rom bewahrte das Palladium. Und im Grunde genommen haben die eingeweihten Priester der Römer und noch die ersten Kaiser der Römer, namentlich noch Augustus, durchaus aus dem Bewußtsein heraus gearbeitet in der Welt, gewirkt in der Welt, daß in Rom das größte Kleinod der Welt repräsentiert ist, wenigstens äußerlich-symbolisch, indem in dem geschätztesten römischen Tempel unter der Grundmauer das Palladium war, das nur diejenigen kannten, die von den größten Geheimnissen des römischen Daseins wußten. Aber auf geistige Art war es denen bekanntgeworden, die das Christentum der Welt zu bringen hatten. Und aus der Erkenntnis, daß Rom den Palladiumschatz bewahrt, ging der Zug der ersten Christen nach Rom. Es war durchaus etwas Spirituelles darinnen.
[ 32 ] Aber als unter Konstantin das Christentum verweltlicht ist, wurde von Rom das Palladium weggenommen. Konstantin gründete Konstantinopel, und unter derjenigen Säule, die er dort sich selber errichten ließ, ließ er in den Boden hineinsenken das Palladium. Und das römische Christentum hat sich ferner so entwickelt, daß ihm das Wissen vom Sonnengeheimnis gerade durch denjenigen Kaiser weggenommen worden war, welcher das Christentum äußerlich in seinen Formen, in seinem starren Mechanismus in Rom festgelegt hatte. In der äußerlichen, weltlichen Befestigung des Christentums durch Konstantin ist dem Christentum die Weisheit von der Welt verlorengegangen, was auch äußerlich zum Ausdrucke kommt in dem Überführen des Palladiums nach Konstantinopel.
[ 33 ] Namentlich in gewissen Teilen der slawischen Welt — die Leute deuten sich das ja alles in ihrem Sinne - herrscht, herrschte bis in den Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts herein der Glaube, daß das Palladium von Konstantinopel in nicht zu ferner Zukunft nach einer anderen, und wie man glaubte in der slawischen Welt, nach einer slawischen Stadt verbracht werden wird.
[ 34 ] Jedenfalls wartet das Palladium darauf - nehmen Sie jetzt den Vorgang symbolisch äußerlich, aber das Wichtigere ist das Innere dabei -, daß aus dem schon auf dieses Palladium verfinsternd wirkenden Konstantinopel hervorgeht diejenige Lokalität, oder daß das Palladium wandert nach derjenigen Lokalität, die durch sich dieses Palladium völlig verfinstern würde. Ja, das Palladium wird nach dem Osten gebracht, wo die Dekadenz der alten Weisheit lebt, aber eben der Verfinsterung entgegenlebt. Und alles hängt in der weiteren Weltenentwickelung davon ab, daß ebenso, wie die Sonne ein Reflektor ist von dem Lichte, das ihr aus dem Universum gegeben wird, das Palladiumkleinod beleuchtet werde von einer Weisheit, die aus dem Schatze der Erkenntnis des Westens gefunden wird. Das Palladium, das alte Erbstück, das aus Troja nach Rom, von Rom nach Konstantinopel gebracht worden ist, das noch weiter in die Finsternis des Ostens gebracht werden soll, das Palladium, das Sonnenkleinod, es muß warten, bis man es geistig im Westen aus dem dunklen, finsteren Schatze der bloßen Naturerkenntnis heraus erlöst. So hängt mit den heiligsten Traditionen eigentlich der europäischen Entwickelung zusammen, was als Aufgabe für die Zukunft dasteht.
[ 35 ] So berühren sich heute noch lebendige Sagen, die man finden kann bei denjenigen, die in solche Dinge eingeweiht sind — und das sind zuweilen recht einfache, schlichte Menschen, die in der Welt herumgehen -, so berühren sich solche Sagen wie diese von der Überführung des trojanischen Palladiums noch Rom, von der Überführung des Palladiums, des Kleinodes der Weisheit, als das römische Christentum äußerlich, verweltlicht wurde, nach Konstantinopel, und von der zukünftigen Überführung nach dem Osten, wenn der Osten völlig entblößt sein wird von der alten Weisheit, völlig in die Dekadenz übergegangen sein wird, und von der Notwendigkeit, daß dieses Sonnenkleinod aus dem Westen ein neues Licht empfangen könne.
[ 36 ] Die Sonne ist verschwunden in die Untergründe der Menschheit. Wir müssen durch geisteswissenschaftliche Entwickelung die Sonne wieder finden. Die Menschheit muß diese Sonne wieder finden, sonst verschwindet das Palladium in der Finsternis des Ostens. Heute ist es Sünde, wenn so etwas, was unrichtig ist, ausgesprochen wird, Sünde ist es, das Wort auszusprechen: Ex oriente lux. — Nicht mehr kann das Licht aus dem Osten kommen. Der Osten ist in der Dekadenz. Aber er wartet - denn er wird das Kleinod, das Sonnenkleinod, wenn auch in der Finsternis, haben -, er wartet auf das Licht des Westens. Heute wandern die Menschen noch tief in der Finsternis, arrangieren Zusammenkünfte in der Finsternis, schauen hin — nach Washington. Aber erst diejenigen Washingtons werden Heil bringen, die aus dem Tone der geistigen Welt heraus so sprechen, daß sie nicht bloß die freien Wirtschaftstore für China, nicht bloß die Finsternis suchen, die das Palladium umgibt. Erst diejenigen Konferenzen werden Heil bringen, die im Westen so gehalten werden, daß man von dort will Licht hintragen, damit das Palladium wieder aufglänze. Denn wie ein fluoreszierender Körper ist das Palladium finster an sich; wird es von Licht durchströmt, dann leuchtet es auf. So wird es mit der Weisheit des Ostens sein: finster an sich, aufleuchten wird sie, fluoreszieren wird sie, wenn sie von der Weisheit des Westens, von dem geistigen Lichte des Westens durchdrungen wird.
[ 37 ] Heute aber sieht man das im Westen noch nicht ein. Erst wenn man ins helle Licht des Bewußtseins die Palladiumsage rücken wird, erst wenn man wiederum das richtige Mitleiden empfinden wird mit so jemandem wie Julian Apostata, der übersehen wollte das Zeitalter, in dem in Finsternis das Licht der Freiheit keimen konnte, der die alte instinktive Weisheit bewahren wollte und deshalb zugrunde gehen mußte, erst wenn man einsehen wird, daß Konstantin, indem er den Römern das äußerliche Christentum gegeben hat, ihnen die Weisheit, das Licht genommen hat und das Christentum in die Finsternis geschickt hat, erst wenn man einsieht, daß aus der modernen Naturerkenntnis heraus das Licht gesucht werden muß, das das Palladium wiederum zum Erglänzen bringt, erst dann wird ein wichtiges Stück Weltgeschichte erfüllt. Erst dann wird dasjenige, was westlich geworden ist in dem Momente, wo die Griechen 'Troja verbrannt haben, das Palladium, in dem heute noch vorhanden ist das Licht, das aus Troja geflammt hat, wiederum west-östlich werden. Aber es ist in der Finsternis. Es muß hervorgeholt werden. Das Palladium muß beleuchtet werden.
[ 38 ] Wir können Enthusiasmus herausholen aus dem geschichtlichen Werden, wenn wir das Herz auf dem rechten Flecke haben. Und wenn wir dieses Herz auf dem rechten Flecke haben in dem Sinne, wie ich das heute ausgesprochen habe, dann werden wir auch die richtigen Empfindungen gegenüber jenen Impulsen finden können, die die rechten Impulse der Geisteswissenschaft sein sollen.
[ 339 ] Freitag werde ich dann hier den nächsten Vortrag halten, von solchen Dingen weiter sprechen.
Twentieth Lecture
[ 1 ] We have traced how the constitution of the human being, how the constitution of life, the soul and the spirit relate to the cosmos. And when we look back on the various parts of our recent considerations, we can today, as it were, present the following to our soul as a kind of extract from all of this. We can say that in the deepest foundations of the human being, the will lies at rest. The will (see diagram on page 166) is, in many respects — if I may express it thus — the most mysterious element of the human being. When we consider morality, we cannot fail to notice how our moral errors, our inclinations, which are often thoroughly hostile to the world, arise from morality, but from unfathomable depths; how everything that can arise in our minds in the form of remorse or self-reproach flows up from the depths of the will.
[ 2 ] We also know that this will is mysterious because, in many respects, there is a highly indeterminate element in our will over which we have little control, an instinctive element, an element that drives us back and forth on the waves of life without us always being able to say that we are also present with our conscious impulses in this back and forth. In another respect, in relation to knowledge, we have always had to emphasize how the actual essence of the impulse of the will lies, in essence, as much outside human consciousness as what a person experiences in deep sleep, in dreamless sleep. So that in this respect, too, the will is fused into our human nature as an indefinite, mysterious element.
[ 3 ] But when we consider the human being in relation to his spirituality, we cannot conceive of this spirituality as something of which the human being is only a part, for example in waking life or in conscious imagination, but rather he is also a part of it, in spirit, in sleep and also in that part of his being in which the will is poured, where, if I may say so, the same thing happens as in relation to the experiences of deep sleep. We can therefore imagine that the spirit is also present in the sleeping being.
[ 4 ] And it is precisely with regard to the will that we can distinguish between two things. First, we can place before our soul the will that prompts us to act, impulsed from waking to falling asleep, unless we are lazybones. We certainly cannot look into the essence of this will, but the effects of this will enter our consciousness because we can imagine them. We do not know how our impulse of will works when we walk, but we see ourselves walking forward. We imagine the effect of our will and therefore, while awake, we have a conscious awareness of the effects of our will based on our imagination. That is one side of the will.
[ 5 ] There is another side to the will. The will is also active within us while we sleep. While we sleep, internal processes also take place, and these internal processes are also an effect of the will, only we do not perceive them because we are asleep. But just as the sun shines during the night, namely for the other half of the earth that we do not inhabit, so too is our human essence permeated by the will during our sleep, only that this will eludes our consciousness.
[ 6 ] So that we can distinguish in our human existence between two kinds of will, an inner will and an outer will. And we can say: The outer will appears to us in its effects when we are awake. The inner will appears in its effects when we are asleep. — It does not actually appear to us, but we can nevertheless say: it reveals itself, or it appears to us afterwards, when we look back, for the sleeping state.
[ 7 ] Now, in a sense, the will is present in the depths of the soul. It beats up in waves.
But precisely because we must acknowledge the will in the state of sleep, that is, in the state in which our physical body is engaged in mere organic activity, neither permeated by the soul nor illuminated by the spirit, we must say that the will as such has to do with organic activity. The sleeping will has to do with organic activity in that organic, i.e., life processes take place within us that are essentially connected with the will. But even when we are awake and active, i.e., when our will is in flux, such life processes take place. The will expresses itself in internal metabolic processes, so that we can also refer to organic activity here.[ 8 ] Now, I would say, from this sea of will in the human being, there rises up, like waves, that which reveals itself in feeling. We know that feeling (see diagram on page 166) is still a very dull activity of the human being, that in a certain sense feeling has only the intensity of a dream for consciousness. But at least it is brighter than the will. What is in the depths of the human being rises up into the light. Human beings illuminate themselves in their feeling. And as they illuminate themselves, the two poles of willing rise up into more intense consciousness, and both inner and outer willing express themselves, as both can rise up into consciousness.
[ 9 ] And so we also distinguish between two kinds of feeling. Just as we distinguish between two kinds of will, an inner will in the sleeping state and an outer will in the waking state, so we distinguish between a feeling that rises up from the will and is related to the sleeping state of the human being. This is the feeling that is expressed primarily in the antipathies that humans develop to the greatest extent; thus, in antipathies, in the antipathetic, the feeling that tends toward antipathy expresses itself (see diagram on page 166), while the will that is active externally, that leads the human being into the external world, when it arises in feeling, brings us together with the external world in a sympathetic way, expresses itself in all the emotional experiences that are sympathetic: sympathetic feeling, feeling that sympathizes with the world (see diagram on page 166). And by placing this region before our soul, we have in this dreamlike experience of feeling, which expresses itself in sympathy and antipathy, in those sympathies and antipathies that rise up to beauty, to the sympathies and antipathies we have with the forms of life, with the forms of art or even with the forms of nature, from these sympathies and antipathies to the sympathies and antipathies that we have in a more organic way, say, through our sense of smell or taste when we experience disgust or pleasure in smells or tastes, or when we perceive, enjoy, or feel good about smells or tastes—in all this weaving we now have the actual soul activity. Willing thus reveals itself in organic activity, feeling reveals itself in soul activity (see diagram on page 166).
[ 10 ] We can study the life of the soul from this point of view and gain extraordinarily insightful knowledge. We see that waking life calls us to sympathize with our environment. Our antipathies actually come from more unconscious states. They rise up from the sleeping will. It is as if our sympathies were more on the surface and as if they were permeated from indeterminate depths by antipathies. Antipathies are repulsive. Through antipathies, we distance ourselves from our environment, make ourselves lonely, and shut ourselves off. The egoism that humans develop is based on antipathies that arise within us. The more egoistic a person is, the more the element of antipathy is at work in them. They want to shut themselves off. They want to feel as much as possible within themselves.
[ 11 ] In normal life, we do not notice how sympathies and antipathies interact in our actual spiritual life. However, we do notice this interplay of sympathies and antipathies when our connection with the outside world becomes abnormal and when we also develop abnormal defensiveness and antipathy originating from sleep. This is the case, for example, when breathing does not regulate properly during sleep and we suffer from nightmares. This nightmare pressure is essentially experienced psychologically as an antipathetic rejection of what wants to penetrate us, what allows us to experience our ego only in a deficient way.
[ 12 ] We are looking into the deep mysteries of human experience. When a person develops antipathetic feelings, an antipathetic nature, so strongly that it also plays a role in their waking life, then they become completely permeated with antipathy, and this antipathetic nature takes hold of their astral body. Their astral body is then flooded with the antipathetic nature. They radiate it out before themselves; I would say that they radiate their antipathy before themselves like an abnormal aura. And then it can happen that they feel antipathy toward people toward whom they are otherwise neutral, even people whom they otherwise love, people whom they knew in life. All kinds of persecution manias arise from these circumstances. When one experiences antipathetic feelings that cannot be explained by external circumstances, this stems from the overflowing antipathies in the soul, that is, from an abnormal development of one pole in the soul life that bursts forth from the sleep state.
[ 13 ] So when this antipathetic nature gains the upper hand, the person becomes a hater of the world. This hatred of the world can increase greatly. All education and social interaction should be aimed at preventing people from becoming such misanthropes. But just think, if what rises up from the depths of the human being can, when it gets out of control, lead people into strong egoism — and all kinds of persecution mania are indeed an overflowing egoism, an overflowing selfishness — if what rises up can be like that, how must the inner, sleeping will be, the will that covers us with a benevolent creation through sleep! We do not learn to recognize how our entire organism, how our limbs are permeated by this inner sleeping will. At most, in some people, something once emerges into consciousness through very strange dreams, something that lives in that will which creates our organism when we are asleep. What lives in this will—I have already characterized it from another angle in earlier lectures—is something that rightly lies beyond the threshold of ordinary consciousness. Those who come to know it learn everything in human beings that can lead them to the utmost degree of wickedness. And it is the deep mystery of life that we have a balance in our organic activity through those forces which, if they were to dominate human beings in conscious life, would make them criminals and evil-doers.
[ 14 ] Nothing in the world is evil or good in itself. That which is radically evil when it intrudes into conscious life is, when used in the right place, namely during our sleeping state as a regulator of organic activity, the compensation for the life forces that have been used up. If you ask about the nature of those forces that balance the life forces that have been used up, then you must say: it is evil. Evil has its purpose. Here it has its purpose. And when people become aware of this through spiritual training — I have already characterized this from another perspective here recently — then it is what older spiritual researchers have also said: It cannot be characterized in its true essence, for sinful is the mouth that utters it, sinful is the ear that hears it. But human beings must know that life is a dangerous process for them, and that in the depths of life, as a force that is necessary, evil is indeed present.
[ 15 ] Now the waves continue to surge upward into the imagination (see diagram on page 166). And when the inner sleeping will brightens in feeling and surges upward into the imagination, it becomes bright, but at the same time it becomes qualitatively dulled, it becomes abstracted. The antipathetic feeling still has a certain lively intensity in human experience. When it surges into the imagination, it lives in everything that is negative judgment in human beings, dismissive, negative judgments (see diagram on page 166). Everything that we negate in life according to our judgments, everything that the logician calls negative judgments, is the emergence of antipathetic feeling or dormant will into the life of the imagination.
[ 16 ] And when sympathetic feeling, which originates in external will, in waking will, when sympathetic feeling breaks into the imagination, we get affirmative judgments. We arrive at what, as you can see, lives in human beings only in abstract imagery. In feeling, we have something else, in that we develop antipathies and sympathies, which is intense life. In judging, which takes place in the imagination, we are, so to speak, still, calm observers of the world. We affirm and deny. We do not go so far as to feel intense antipathy; we merely deny. It is an abstract process. We do not get worked up to the point of antipathy; we simply say no. Likewise, we do not get worked up to the point of sympathy; we say yes. What remains is contemplative calm. We are elevated above our relationship to the outside world, elevated to the point of abstract judgment.
[ 17 ] So this is only a pictorial activity. We can say, precisely in the sense of what we learned yesterday: Here (see diagram on page 166) is our mental activity, but it continues to beat up to the sphere of the senses as wanting, feeling, judging, or imagining. And as this rises up into the sphere of the senses, as the negative judgment rises up into the senses, what does it become? It becomes that which we do not perceive, so—if we represent it to ourselves through the most striking perception, seeing, we can say where we see nothing, where we experience darkness—the experience of darkness. The affirmative judgment, on the other hand, is the experience of light (see diagram). Of course, we could just as well speak of the experience of silence, of the experience of sound or noise. We could express this for all twelve senses in terms of light and darkness.
[ 18 ] And if we now ask ourselves: What kind of activity corresponds to this sphere of the senses? We have found organ activity, soul activity, and spiritual activity. Spiritual activity is already a completely pictorial activity, but in its pictorial nature it is still our activity. What takes place between the senses and the external world, on the other hand, is actually no longer our activity; it is the world playing within us. We can actually draw the eye schematically in such a way that we have it as an independent being, and what happens in the eye is the intrusion of the external world into the organism as if through a gulf. There we are no longer standing in the world with our own activity; there we stand in the world in such a way that we can say: It is divine activity. This divine activity permeates our environment, which as darkness tends toward negative judgment, and as light tends toward positive judgment. This divine activity in its effect on human beings in their relationship to the world was felt very strongly by the wisdom of the second post-Atlantean period, which experienced it very intensely: God in the light, God in the darkness. God in light: the divine with a Luciferic coloring; God in darkness: the divine with an Ahrimanic coloring. This is how Persian culture experienced the outer world. And the sun was the representative of this outer world — the sun as the divine source of light: the second post-Atlantean epoch.
[ 19 ] In contrast, the sphere between judgment and feeling was experienced more in the third post-Atlantean culture, the Egyptian-Chaldean culture. There, people did not experience the divine outside in light and darkness; there one experienced the divine in the clash between imagination and feeling. For this is how the gods actually work among the Egyptians and Chaldeans, that man pours into his judgment something of his antipathies in the form of negation and something of his sympathies in the form of affirmation. And only when we can read what is available in pictorial or other documents from the Egyptian-Chaldean period do we realize how everything was shaped by sympathetic affirmation and antipathetic negation. You can still sense in the Egyptian tomb figures and other figures that there is something in them that has been artistically formed with sympathetic affirmation and antipathetic negation. One cannot create sphinxes without bringing in what has a sympathetic and antipathetic life of ideas. There, one did not merely perceive light and darkness; one perceived something that has something of the living, which one has in sympathizing and antipatizing. One perceived the sun as a divine source of life.
[ 20 ] And when we come to the Greek-Latin period, people had already lost their direct contact with the outside world to a great extent. In my “Riddles of Philosophy,” I have shown how humans still felt their thoughts as we today feel our sensory impressions, but were already approaching the state in which we live today, where, through the development of the ego, we basically no longer have any real connection with the outside world, where we are actually already asleep in our bodies, where we are leaning toward sleep. This was not yet so strong in the Greeks, but it was already present in a certain way. The Greek nature can only be understood if one is clear that the Greeks had already become very strongly accustomed to their physicality, not yet as strongly as we are, but already very strongly accustomed. The ancient Persians had not settled very strongly into their physicality. They did not really believe that they lived truly in their physicality within their skin, especially if they were wise, but they believed that they actually interwove and permeated the entire universe on waves of light. The Greek was already so that he actually slept inside his body with this world being. When we are in real sleep, we are outside with our ego and our astral body; but our waking state is, in comparison with the Persian waking state, a kind of sleep. Persian waking, let us say Persian awakening — the original Persian awakening, of course, which I characterize in my Outline of Esoteric Science — was like entering the human senses, but at the same time like the light itself penetrating them.
[ 21 ] We no longer feel that we bring light into our eyes when we awaken. For us, light is shadowy outside. All this meant that the Greeks could no longer perceive the sun as the actual source of life, but rather perceived the sun as something that penetrates them inwardly. And they felt the element where the sun lives inwardly in human beings; they felt this as the element of Eros, as the element of love. Eros, the sun-like element in human beings, was what was at the heart of the actual Greek inner experience; hence the sun as the divine source of love.
[ 22 ] And then, from about the 4th century AD, which I have characterized in its peculiar nature in various ways, there began an age in which the sun was no longer perceived as anything other than a physical ball of mist out there in space, where the sun was actually eclipsed for human beings. The Persians perceived the sun as the reflector of the light that filled and permeated space. The Egyptians and Chaldeans perceived the sun as the life that pulsated and pulsed through the universe. The Greeks perceived the sun as that which instilled love in organic beings, which guides Eros through the waves of sensation. As this experience of the sun penetrated further and further into human beings, it disappeared into their depths, into the ocean depths of the soul. Today, humans carry the sun within the depths of their souls. They are not supposed to reach it because the guardian of the threshold stands before it, because it is down in those depths of which the ancient mystery teachings said that one should not speak, because the mouth that speaks it is sinful, just as the ear that hears it is sinful. And so, in the 4th century, there were schools that taught mainly for the further spread of Christianity: The secret of the sun must not be spoken; a civilization must come that does not know the secret of the sun.
[ 23 ] Behind everything that happens outwardly in the world are inner forces, I would say, teaching forces emanating from the universe. One instrument of such teaching forces was the Roman Emperor Constantine. Under him, Christianity took on a form that denies the sun.
[ 24 ] Then there was another who, however, paid less attention to the development of time than to his enthusiasm for what he had learned from his mystery teachers as the last remnant of ancient, instinctive wisdom: that was Julian Apostata. And Julian Apostata fell victim to murderers because he sought to pass on the triple secret of the sun as an ancient tradition. The world did not want to go along with him.
[ 25 ] Today, however, we must recognize that the old instinctive wisdom must be revived in conscious wisdom, that everything that has sunk down into the subconscious, into mere organic activity or even into suborganic activity, must be raised up again from the conscious. We must find the sun mystery again.
[ 26 ] But just as the loss of the secret of the sun brought the most terrible enemies upon Julian the Apostate, who still wanted to proclaim it to the world, and who were ultimately responsible for his death, so these enemies are now present in relation to the new secret of the sun, which must now come into the world through spiritual science. We now live at the other pole of historical development. Back then, in the 4th century AD, there was decline. Now we need an ascent.
[ 27 ] In this respect, Constantine and Julian the Apostate are already two symbols of historical development. Julian Apostata stands, as it were, on the ruins of the old age, but wants to rebuild the forms of ancient wisdom from these ruins. Julian Apostata wants to leave behind those ancient monuments of humanity that Christianity, which initially took on a materialistic form and then, in the Constantinian era, took on a materialistic form, destroyed. Countless things were destroyed, countless works of art, countless monuments of wisdom, countless writings. Everything that was in any way capable of allowing people to guess the ancient secret of the sun was destroyed.
[ 28 ] It is true that people had to go through this in order to attain freedom, through the belief that there was a ball of gas wandering through the world, while physicists would be very astonished if they could travel there and find not a ball of gas at all, but on the contrary a hollow space, indeed less than a space, and discover what the sun is: that the sun is not a glowing ball of gas out there emitting light—that's nonsense!—but that it is initially a mere reflector that cannot emit light, at most it can reflect it back. But then, in reality, we have Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Venus, and the moon, which emit light spiritually. And while it physically appears as if the sun gives light to all of them, they actually all radiate light toward the sun, and the sun is the reflector. That is how it is physically. The ancients, the ancient Persians, recognized this instinctively and acknowledged the sun as the earthly source of light, but not actually as the source of light, but as the reflector of light. Then it became the reflecting mirror of life and the reflecting mirror of love.
[ 29 ] Julian Apostata wanted to assert this view, and he was removed from the scene. People had to go through this in order to attain freedom, through the superstition of the gas ball existing in space that radiates light, a superstition that we find presented today in all physics books as an absolute truth. We must once again penetrate to what is true in this matter.
[ 30 ] In this respect, Constantine and Julian Apostata are indeed like two symbols. Julian Apostata wants to preserve the ancient monuments of the world, from which the real secret of the sun could, in a sense, still reach people. In the first centuries, Christ was still an Apollo, a sun figure.
[ 31 ] This secret of the sun was perceived as the greatest spiritual treasure of humanity. And it was symbolized by what was called the Palladium. It is said to have once been in Troy, and the mystery priests in Troy are said to have seen in this Palladium that which they revealed to the people in a sacramental, cultural, cult-like manner, namely what the sun being is. Then it was brought to Rome, and it was a secret of those initiated in Rome that Rome preserved the Palladium. Rome preserved the Palladium. And basically, the initiated priests of the Romans and even the first Roman emperors, especially Augustus, worked and acted in the world out of the consciousness that Rome represented the greatest treasure in the world, at least outwardly and symbolically, in that the Palladium was kept under the foundation wall of the most revered Roman temple, known only to those who were privy to the greatest secrets of Roman existence. But in a spiritual sense, it had become known to those who were to bring Christianity to the world. And from the knowledge that Rome preserved the treasure of the Palladium, the first Christians made their way to Rome. There was definitely something spiritual in this.
[ 32 ] But when Christianity became secularized under Constantine, the Palladium was taken away from Rome. Constantine founded Constantinople, and under the column he had erected there, he had the Palladium sunk into the ground. And Roman Christianity developed further in such a way that the knowledge of the secret of the sun was taken away from it by the very emperor who had established Christianity outwardly in Rome in its rigid forms and mechanisms. In the outward, worldly consolidation of Christianity by Constantine, Christianity lost the wisdom of the world, which is also outwardly expressed in the transfer of the Palladium to Constantinople.
[ 33 ] In certain parts of the Slavic world in particular — people interpret everything in their own way — the belief prevailed until the beginning of the 20th century that the Palladium of Constantinople would in the not too distant future be transferred to another city, and, as was believed, to a Slavic city.
[ 34 ] In any case, the palladium is waiting — take this process symbolically, but what is more important is the inner meaning — for the locality to emerge from Constantinople, which is already casting a shadow over this palladium, or for the palladium to migrate to the locality that would completely eclipse it. Yes, the palladium will be brought to the East, where the decadence of ancient wisdom lives, but also lives in opposition to the eclipse. And everything in the further development of the world depends on the fact that, just as the sun is a reflector of the light given to it from the universe, the palladium treasure will be illuminated by a wisdom found in the treasure trove of Western knowledge. The palladium, the ancient heirloom that was brought from Troy to Rome, from Rome to Constantinople, and is to be taken even further into the darkness of the East, the palladium, the sun jewel, must wait until it is spiritually redeemed in the West from the dark, gloomy treasure of mere knowledge of nature. Thus, what stands as a task for the future is actually connected with the most sacred traditions of European development.
[ 35 ] Thus, legends that are still alive today, which can be found among those who are initiated into such things — and these are sometimes quite simple, unassuming people who go about their business in the world — touch upon such legends as that of the transfer of the Trojan Palladium to Rome, about the transfer of the Palladium, the jewel of wisdom, to Constantinople when Roman Christianity became outwardly secularized, and about its future transfer to the East when the East will be completely stripped of its ancient wisdom, will have completely passed into decadence, and about the necessity that this jewel of the sun from the West should receive a new light.
[ 36 ] The sun has disappeared into the depths of humanity. We must find the sun again through spiritual scientific development. Humanity must find this sun again, otherwise the palladium will disappear into the darkness of the East. Today it is a sin to say something that is incorrect, it is a sin to say the words: Ex oriente lux. — The light can no longer come from the East. The East is in decadence. But it waits — for it will have the jewel, the sun jewel, even if in darkness — it waits for the light of the West. Today, people still wander deep in darkness, arrange meetings in darkness, look—to Washington. But only those Washingtons will bring salvation who speak from the tone of the spiritual world in such a way that they do not merely seek free economic gates for China, not merely the darkness that surrounds the palladium. Only those conferences held in the West that seek to carry light from there so that the palladium may shine again will bring salvation. For like a fluorescent body, the palladium is dark in itself; when light flows through it, it glows. So it will be with the wisdom of the East: dark in itself, it will light up, it will fluoresce when it is permeated by the wisdom of the West, by the spiritual light of the West.
[ 37 ] Today, however, this is not yet recognized in the West. Only when the legend of the Holy Palladium is brought into the bright light of consciousness, only when people once again feel true compassion for someone like Julian the Apostate, who wanted to overlook the age in which the light of freedom could germinate in darkness, who wanted to preserve the old instinctive wisdom and therefore had to perish, only when people realize that Constantine, by giving the Romans external Christianity, took away their wisdom and light and sent Christianity into darkness, only when people realize that the light that will make the Palladium shine again must be sought in modern knowledge of nature, only then will an important piece of world history be fulfilled. Only then will that which became Western at the moment when the Greeks burned Troy, the palladium in which the light that flamed from Troy still exists today, become Western-Eastern again. But it is in darkness. It must be brought forth. The palladium must be illuminated.
[ 38 ] We can draw enthusiasm from historical development if we have our hearts in the right place. And if we have our hearts in the right place in the sense I have expressed today, then we will also be able to find the right feelings toward those impulses that are to be the right impulses of spiritual science.
[ 39 ] On Friday, I will give the next lecture here and continue talking about these things.