Old and New Methods of Initiation
GA 210
19 January 1922, Mannheim
Lecture IV
Some time has passed since we met here, and the opportunity to discuss a number of things with you after such a long while gives me the profoundest pleasure. Behind, us lie extremely grave times, difficult times, of which the gravity is certainly felt, though in wider circles it is still insufficiently understood. It is true to say that people who have experienced the second decade of the twentieth century have gone through more than is otherwise experienced over a span of centuries. We are asleep in our souls if we fail to notice how everything to do with human evolution is different now than it was ten years ago. The whole great turnabout that has taken place will no doubt only be fully realized by mankind at large after some time has passed. Then we shall come to see how the events that took place so catastrophically at the surface of life reach deep down into the roots of human souls, and how what has happened came about in the first instance as errors of soul affecting the widest circles of mankind. Not until the decision is made to seek in human souls the true reasons for this great human misfortune will it be possible to reach a real understanding of this time of trial undergone by mankind. Then also an attitude will develop towards a spiritual stream such as Anthroposophy which will differ from that prevailing at present.
This anthroposophical spiritual stream wants to give to mankind the very thing that has been lacking over the last three, four, five hundred years, the thing whose lack is so intimately bound up with the wretchedness of culture and civilization we have experienced and are experiencing. Both the greatest and the smallest matters and events in the world come out of the spiritual realm, out of life in the spirit. Universal questions face mankind today, questions which can only be tackled out of the depths of spiritual life, yet they are being dealt with in the most superficial manner all over the world. There is no possibility of seeing what it is that is struggling to rise up from the depths of human soul- and spiritual life. Yet it is just this possibility which Anthroposophy wants to bring to mankind.
Today I shall speak out of the realm of the anthroposophical world view about some intimate aspects of human soul- and spiritual life. Then, from the point of view this will give us, perhaps we shall be able to conclude with a brief consideration of some recent historical events.1 There are numerous gaps in the shorthand report of this lecture. The conclusion has been omitted. It deals with contemporary questions and covers virtually the same ground as Lecture One (Soloviev, Bismarck, Robespierre). Anthroposophical spiritual science wants to speak about those worlds which for the moment are hidden from external sense perceptions and also from the intellect which is attached to these sense perceptions. It wants to speak primarily about everything connected with the eternal aspect of the human soul. We say of the realms into which this anthroposophical world view wishes to penetrate that they can only be reached if human beings step over the threshold of consciousness. What is meant is that the step over the threshold must be taken consciously, if knowledge about these super-sensible realms is to be gained. For human beings step unconsciously over the threshold every time they go to sleep. We say of the threshold we cross daily, in connection with going to sleep and waking up, that it is guarded by the Guardian of the Threshold. In doing so we speak of a spiritual force known by the spiritual researcher to be as real as are the human beings we meet. We speak of the Guardian of the Threshold because in the present phase of mankind's development human beings really do need to be protected in their consciousness from crossing unprepared into the spiritual realms.
It is quite remarkable that something which human beings have to value above all else, something to which they belong with the deepest roots of their existence and without which they would lack true human worth, namely the spiritual world, has to be hidden from them at the moment. This is profoundly linked to the whole purpose of human evolution. Human beings would not be able to achieve their true nature during the course of evolution if they did not themselves have to work for and win the strength with which to approach the spiritual world. If unearned grace alone were to allow them to step over the threshold, then perhaps they would be lofty spiritual beings, but they would not be human beings in the true sense of the word. They would not be beings who win their way towards their own value. For to be a true human being in the universe means to be the instigator of one's own worth. To step over the threshold unprepared would lead to a kind of burning up of the human being, a kind of extinguishing of the human being. However, what spiritual science has to say about man's relationship to the spiritual world can certainly be grasped by normal understanding. It is quite possible to understand what has to be said about this out of the foundations of spiritual science.
Observe how someone sinks into a kind of unconscious state on going to sleep. Out of this unconscious state individual waves rise up into the world of dreams as though from the depths of the ocean. Even for those who are free of any kind of superstition or nebulous mysticism, this dream world is mysterious, enigmatic, and it has to be sensed as belonging to the inmost being both of the world and of man's existence. So the period human beings spend between going to sleep and waking up is a kind of lowered consciousness out of which is revealed the picture world of dreams. And even if we only follow the dreams in an external manner, we still have to say: They contain picture echoes of that life which is not only given to us through our sense perceptions by way of our intellect, but also through our feelings. But they contain that otherwise familiar world in a way that is different. On the whole, they do not contain any abstract thoughts; they change everything into pictures. While the sense-perceptible world we know has a certain coherence and order which satisfies our understanding, so that everything has its place in space and time, dreams appear to shake everything up. Events which took place yesterday are mingled with others which happened decades ago. Dreams impose an order on things that differs from the order of space and time into which we look with our daytime consciousness.
Examining dreams more closely, we find that what is missing in them is our power of thinking. On waking up we feel that we step from dreamless sleep into the world in which human ideas and thoughts arise. We feel that we pour the picture world of dreams into our bodily nature. And as we do so our body sends out the power of thought which once more brings order into what the dreams have jumbled up. Our body takes us in hand when we wake up; our body gives us the power of ideas, and in dealing with this power we become fully awake. Then the world of dreams fades and its place is taken by the world of thoughts and ideas in the normal order of place and time.
Those who pay attention to these phenomena can observe in ordinary life how something, at first indeterminate, slips into our bodily nature. They can also understand this to the point where they can say: The power of thoughts is given to me by my body when I plunge down into it with my soul- and spirit-being. This everyday observation will bear out what Anthroposophy has to say: The ideas and thoughts we know in ordinary daily life are bound to our external physical body, which remains in bed at night when our being of spirit and soul steps over the threshold into another world. As consciousness is extinguished it leaves behind at the threshold the power and capacity to form a world of thoughts in the ordinary way. What steps over the threshold is whatever the human soul contains by way of feeling and will.
This content of feeling and will resembles the sleeping state even during ordinary day consciousness. We are properly awake only in our thoughts and ideas. Just think how dark is all that lives in our feelings, and how utterly obscure is everything living in our impulses of will. If we try to gain an idea of how we accomplish even the simplest decision of will, then what takes place in our muscles and bones when we put an idea into realization remains as obscure as our sleeping state. First we think: I lift my arm. Then we see our arm rising up. Nothing but impressions. The mysterious processes that take place remain as hidden from our consciousness as sleep itself. What we take with us across the threshold is, basically, something that is asleep and dreaming, even in our waking state. The dream pictures are no clearer than the feelings which attach to our world of thoughts and ideas. The forms in which soul life expresses itself—in the waking state through feelings and in the sleeping state through dreams—differ, but our life of feeling is no clearer than the pictures of our dreams. If it were clearer, we would lead an extraordinarily abstract life. Consider how we speak quite rightly of cold, sober thoughts and glowing feelings! But what lives in our feelings remains in a kind of darkness similar to that of our dream pictures.
When we go to sleep we carry our feelings over the threshold, and it is our feelings which, in a way, even light up to some extent in our dream pictures. We also carry our will into that world; it is as deeply asleep during our daytime as it is when we sleep. So we can say that what carries human beings through the threshold of consciousness is the feeling and will element of their soul being. Feeling and will belong to sleep consciousness. The life of thoughts and ideas and also a part of the life of feelings—because dreams light up—belong to the waking consciousness of daytime; they lie on this side of the threshold. We speak of the Guardian of the Threshold because it is necessary, at their present stage of consciousness, that human beings do not step consciously but unprepared over the threshold which they cross unconsciously every time they fall asleep. When we come to recognize the forces within which human beings find themselves on the other side of the threshold, we also learn to experience why they have to be guarded—prevented by a Guardian, by something which watches over them—from stepping unprepared over the threshold into the spiritual world.
When we enter the world beyond the threshold it certainly looks very different at first glance from what we have been in the habit of expecting. However, if we enter after having undergone sufficient preparation, it gradually changes and we come to new experiences, different from those we encountered initially, which are bewildering even for those who enter the spiritual world after some preparation. For what is it that appears to us first in the spiritual world? Forces, beings, are what first appear to us. And they behave—I cannot express it otherwise—in a very inimical manner towards the ordinary world of sense perceptions. As we step over the threshold into the spiritual world we are met with a burning, scalding fire which seeks to devour everything the world of sense perceptions has to offer. We enter, without a doubt, the world of destructive forces. This is the first sight that meets us on the other side. From the facts as they are I want to give you an idea of what it is like when we first step over.
Look at the human physical body which clothes us from birth to death. Now look, first with regard to the physical body, at the moment in which the human being approaches death and steps across the threshold. Looking simply at the world of space we find that, after the individual has crossed the threshold, the physical body appears externally much the same as it did before. But very soon we notice that this physical body, which has maintained its natural form for decades, is dissolved, destroyed by the forces of the external world, the external cosmos. It is the destiny of this body that it should be dissolved, destroyed by the forces of the cosmos. Simply by looking without prejudice at the fact, once the soul has departed, the body is destroyed and dissolved by the forces of nature, we must become convinced that between birth and death something not belonging to the world of sense perception lives in it which prevents its destruction. For if it belonged to this same world it would destroy the body instead of preserving it. If people would only take account of this obvious fact they would not find it so difficult to enter into anthroposophical spiritual science. There is the corpse; the external forces of nature destroy it. If what we bear within us were of a kind with the forces of nature it would destroy this body all the time. These simple thoughts are for ever disregarded.
Now bear in mind that we are permanently surrounded by a world which destroys our physical body. The moment our body is deserted by our soul it is destroyed. When we leave this body on going to sleep, we enter the world which destroys our corpse. This we have to come to recognize [Gaps in the shorthand report.]. We enter the world of destructive forces when we go to sleep, and yet this is the spiritual world. Why? Those who expect to find something beyond the threshold which resembles what is to befound here in the physical world of the senses are simply expecting to find another physical world beyond the threshold. But if spirit is to be found there, then the physical world of sense perceptions cannot also be there. What we experience there will have to be forces which have the inclination to destroy the physical world of the senses. This we experience in full force when we cross the threshold consciously. We experience with full force that in this spiritual world we find what is for ever inclined to destroy the physical world.
Now if we were to cross the threshold unprepared and unguarded, we should like it very much in that world—if I may put it simply. Especially would our lower instincts be most satisfied, and we would grow into this world we immediately meet, this world of destructive forces; we would become the allies of these destructive forces. We would no longer want to share in the work of maintaining the physical world which surrounds us. We have to learn to love this physical world as one which is filled with wisdom, in order to be well prepared to enter into the spiritual world. Before taking up our place, so to speak, at the side of the creators, we have to learn to love their creation and thoroughly understand that the world as it has been created has not been brought forth meaninglessly by divine, creative forces. In order to enter well prepared into the spiritual world we must first have thoroughly understood the meaning of earthly life. Otherwise on waking up every morning we would return to the world of sense perceptions filled with a terrible hate for this world and with an urge to destroy it. Simply out of the necessity of human existence we would wake up full of hate and anger if we spent the time between going to sleep and waking up in a state of consciousness such as that.
You can pursue this train of investigation further by looking at dreams in an unprejudiced way. Dreams are filled with terribly destructive forces. What comes to the surface in the form of dream pictures destroys every shred of logic. Dreams say: That's it, logic is finished, I don't want any logic! Logic is for the external world of sense perceptions; there it dogmatically arranges everything. Away with logic—a different world order is what is required! That is what dreams say. And if they were not only strong enough to caress our brain but were also able to submerge themselves into our whole body, then they would seize not only our logical instincts but also all our other instincts and our emotional life. Just as they destroy logic, so would they also destroy the whole life of physical human beings. We should be reluctant to enter once more into our physical body, and in doing so we would gradually destroy it. Because what lives in dreams is overcome by what meets it from the body, it comes about that logic is only destroyed momentarily. This can be observed in every detail. What continues during sleep are the forces which belong to our rhythmic system. Breathing continues, heartbeat and pulse continue. But thoughts cease, the will ceases. What belongs to our middle region continues, though in a subdued form. The moment the pulse grows a little weaker in the brain, dreams rush in and set about destroying the forces of the body—of logic—until these forces of the body once more overcome the dreams as the pulse gains in strength.
When it is a matter of really understanding these forces Anthroposophy knows very well how to be materialistic. Materialists do not really know how to be materialistic because they do not know how the spiritual realm works together with the physical. They fail to notice how the spirit enters into the physical and there continues to work. It is most interesting to observe how the spirit enters in and first wants to make itself felt and destroy logic. For then the forces of the physical body, its powers of thought and ideas, enter the fray and overcome it again. Dreams are rendered harmless to physical, earthly life. If you consider this properly you will gain deep insight into the relationship between waking and sleeping, for it shows that we have to remain aware of our spiritual origin, that we have to sink down again and again into sleep, but that on the other hand, in the present stage of our evolution, we have to be prevented from following in full consciousness what takes place in the state we enter between going to sleep and waking up.
We live on our earth. It is, in the first instance, a physical and a cosmic creation. A time will come when this earth will suffer death by fire. It will go through actual physical fire when the forces of destruction will seize hold of every earthly form, not only the corpses. Spiritual forces are leading this earth towards this death by fire, spiritual forces which are connected with the earth and which we meet in the first stage into which we enter when we step past the Guardian of the Threshold into the spiritual world.
Let us consider what we have gained with regard to stepping through the portal of death. Our physical body is entirely discarded. Our spirit and soul element now enters the spiritual world in such a way that it straight away develops the wish to return to the physical body. The element of spirit and soul, once it has laid down the physical body, can now begin to form a thought life without the physical body. While it lived in the body it was too weak to endure the forces of destruction. Now, as it passes through the portal of death, it has to be strong enough not to yearn for a return to the physical body. Since it no longer remains unconscious but, instead, enters a genuine consciousness as it passes through the portal of death it has to take up a certain kind of thought life, for only in the life of thoughts is it possible to become really conscious. This is the tremendous difference between crossing the threshold on going to sleep and passing through the portal of death. When we go to sleep our thought world is merely damped down until it returns when we re-enter our physical body on waking up. When we die we take up the thought life with our soul and spirit element without the mediation of our physical body. What does this mean?
Human beings would never return to their physical body in the morning if they knew the spiritual world, if they had grown to be part of it and did not have the wish, which is in them unconsciously, to return to their physical body, that is, to the physical world. Wishes, however, are something which is not connected with clear consciousness but which damp down this clear consciousness into a twilight. Human beings return to their body in the morning because of a wish, but it is these very wishes, pulling towards the physical body, which damp down their thought world. So they only find their thought life once again when they have returned to their body. But, in death, wishes have also died. Human beings enter the world-thoughts. As beings of spirit and soul they now have a thought life, but if they were to enter death entirely unprepared they would enter the same world as the one we enter when we go to sleep in the evening. To express this in extreme terms we have to say: If human beings enter death unprepared they find themselves in a terrible situation; for they have to watch what happens to their physical body. Their physical body is pulverized in the world-all, for if we do not cremate the body then it is cremated by the cosmos. And human beings would have to watch this happening if they were unprepared.
What is the consequence of this, and what has to happen so that human beings see not only destruction after death, so that they live not only in the midst of destructive forces? By absorbing spiritual content, by developing a world view which is consistent with the spirit, they must carry an inward relationship with the divine, spiritual world through the portal of death. If they are aware solely of a physical, material world, then they certainly enter after death in a state of terrible unpreparedness into the world of destructive forces as though into a world of scorching flames. But if they fill themselves with ideas and thoughts about the spiritual world, then the flames become the birthplace of the spirit after death so that they see not destruction alone; in the falling away of earthly dust from their human orbit they see the spirit rising up. No one should say what ordinary materialistic ideas are so prone to saying: I can wait until death comes to me! No, we must bear our consciousness of the spiritual world with us through the portal of death. Then with our soul and spirit we can overcome the destructive cosmic forces which take over our body, so that our element of spirit and soul rises up with new creativity above the destruction.
I am telling you this on the basis of anthroposophical spiritual science, but you have all, surely, heard of the fear experienced in former times in a sense of doom with regard to death, a sense of doom about which the Apostle Paul2 For example: 1 Corinthians, 15. taught when he spoke about man's soul being saved from falling a prey to death. In former times people knew that they could not only die physically with their corpse, but also spiritually with their soul. Human beings dislike speaking about the possible death of their soul. When speaking of death Paul does not mean physical death. He means something that can happen because physical death wants to lead on to the death of soul and spirit. Human beings must become aware once more that they have to do something during their physical earthly life in order to join their consciousness to their soul and spirit, so that these may carry something through death, in order that the spirit may arise for them out of the devouring flames which are always present after death.
Considerations like this must make it clear that to live within the whole universal order is an immensely serious matter. No view of the world is worthy of the human being if it does not lead through inner strength to a world of moral values, if it does not put before our souls the utter seriousness of life. To speak of physical and chemical forces building up the earth and of living creatures and, finally, man developing along the way, is not merely a one-sided world view; it is a world view which ignores the seriousness of life and which arises, actually, simply out of human laziness. A world view, on the other hand, which achieves a proper attitude to the spirit, leads to a seriousness about life because it puts before the soul the possibility that on passing through the gate of death the human being might become united with the forces of destruction. Throughout their physical life human beings are given the opportunity to prepare themselves suitably, because every evening as they go to sleep they are shielded from seeing the world of destructive forces to which they are related. They are given time to take in something that can guide them through the portal of death in a manner which enables them to discern the spirit within the forces of destruction. It is impossible to overemphasize the fact that feelings and perceptions about life must follow as a matter of course from a world view, and that a world view must not be allowed to remain mere abstract theory but must become something living, something which seizes hold of feelings and will. Civilized mankind must wrestle again for a world view such as this. Then, once more, what is imperishable will be seen within everything perishable; and, furthermore, out of everything that does not pursue its course egoistically within man it will be possible to push forward to eternity and immortality.
From this point of view look at life as it is carried on today. And do not take offence when someone who has to speak honestly is forced to say such disagreeable things. Look, for instance, at religious education. What is it built on? On egoism! Because people want to live beyond death, immortality—the possibility of going through death consciously—is spoken about. People long for this, and so to satisfy them—because it is disagreeable to appeal to knowledge—knowledge is omitted and mere belief is called into play. In this way, human egoism alone is approached, human egoism that wants to see what it will be like after death, instead of waiting till it happens. What it is like before birth is not found to be interesting. This can only be learnt through knowledge. Indeed, eternity—what comes after death and what stretches back beyond conception—can only be found through knowledge.
Even our language shows that we only have a half knowledge about the eternity of man. We speak only about immortality, ‘undyingness’. What we need in addition is a word denoting ‘unbornness’. Only when we can grasp both will we finally understand the eternity of the human being. Right down into language, human beings of our time have abjured their links with the spiritual world. These links must be found once more. If they cannot be found it will betotally impossible to carry on living in a proper way, and today's culture and civilization could fall into absolute decline.
In Stuttgart we have founded the Waldorf school3 The Free Waldorf School, Stuttgart, was founded by Rudolf Steiner in 1919. The education of the children was to be in harmony with the knowledge of the human being as revealed by anthroposophical spiritual science. and Waldorf education. All sorts of things are said about this. Recently somebody said: Why does Waldorf education take so little account of fatigue in the children? Fatigue ought to be carefully studied nowadays. In so-called experimental psychology it is pointed out with pride how children tire after repeating unconnected words or following lessons about a sequence of subjects. And then it is said: Waldorf education is not up to date because it does not take the fatigue of the children into account. Why is this? The Waldorf school does not speak much about fatigue. But it does speak about how children ought to be tended and educated after the change of teeth, namely by basing the education mainly on the rhythmic system—which means that the artistic element is cultivated, since this is what stimulates the rhythmic system. Abstract writing comes later, and abstract reading later still. Demands are made, not of the head but of the artistic realm. But those who work with children only at those things which make demands on the head will, of course, have to reckon with fatigue. When, however, we make claims on the rhythmic system, on the artistic element, then we are justified in asking: Does our heart tire throughout life? It has to go on beating, and we have to go on breathing. So Waldorf education need not concern itself too much with fatigue because it aims to educate children in a way which tires them very little. Experimental education has arrived at a system which tires the children dreadfully; by its very method it brings about this tiredness. [Gaps in the shorthand report.] Waldorf education is concerned with body, soul and spirit, and account is taken of what comes from the spiritual and soul worlds to unite with the body and what departs again at death. Anthroposophy is the very thing which can help us to understand the material, physical realm.
What is most lively of all in the child? Its brain activity! From the brain the forces which mould the whole body stream out. These are most lively until the change of teeth. At the change of teeth this moulding capacity is transferred to the system of breathing and heart, and until puberty this is what we have to work with, which means that artistic work, not theoretical work, is what is required. Between the seventh and the fourteenth year the muscles are formed inwardly in a way which is adapted to the rhythmic system. Not until the fourteenth year approaches do soul and spirit take hold of the whole human being, and it is interesting to observe how until this moment the muscles have taken their cue from heartbeat, pulse and breathing. Now, through the sinews, they begin to make friends with the bones, with the skeleton, and to adapt themselves to external movements. You should learn to observe how young people change at this age. [Gaps in the shorthand report.] The process starts from the head; the soul element grows further and further towards the surface of the human being and takes hold of the bones last of all; it fills the whole human being and uses him up, making friends ever more closely with the forces of death, until these forces of death win through to victory at the moment of death.
Anthroposophical spiritual science follows up the spiritual processes right into the minutest detail, showing how they become immersed in material life and how they take hold of the whole human being, starting with the head. Not until knowledge such as this is taken into account, will it become possible to educate people properly once again. We need intellect and understanding so that we may find freedom, but they drive away the certainty of our instincts. A friend of mine was quite a nice person when we were young. Later in life he invited me to visit him. I had never partaken of a midday meal with scales and weights on the table. My friend first weighed everything he ate! By his intellect he had discovered how much he needed in order to maintain his body, and this exact amount was what he ate. Intellect drives out instincts in small things, but also on a larger scale. Now it is necessary for us to find our way back to them. A sure sense for life, a firm stand in life, is needed once more. This is found by seeking our eternal element within the temporal sphere; we need to understand how the eternal finds its place in the temporal. This is what our contemporary civilization needs.
Such things must be treated on a global scale. No account is taken these days of the contrasts that exist between people of the West and people of the East. External matters are broached in an external manner; congresses are called to discuss ways of balancing out the world's difficult situation, but no account is taken of the fact that East and West can only achieve economic balance if they have trust in one another. Asians will never be able to work together properly with the West if they cannot understand each other. But understanding can only come about through the soul. Understanding out of the soul is needed for the economic realm in the world; and understanding out of the soul can only be achieved through a deepening of soul life.
This is why today the most intimate matters of individual soul life are at the same time matters of worldwide import. Comprehension of what the world today needs, in external public matters too, will not be achieved unless an effort is made to listen to what the science of the super-sensible has to say, for the world has changed during the course of evolution. The human race, in particular, has changed.
Looking at the span of human evolution, let us turn to that event without which the whole of human and earth evolution would have no meaning: the Mystery of Golgotha. In this Mystery of Golgotha something divine entered into the conditions of the earth by means of an earthly body. Christ entered the body of Jesus of Nazareth in order from then on to work with the earth. The earth would have perished, would have decayed in the world order, if a new fructification had not been brought about by the entering-in of the Christ. You know also that in the distant past an instinctive knowledge, a primeval wisdom, existed, of which only remnants remained in western civilization at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. Enough remained, however, to make it possible for the Mystery of Golgotha to be at least instinctively comprehended for four centuries. In the early centuries of Christianity the understanding of the super-sensible significance of the Mystery of Golgotha was such that the leading Christian teachers knew about the entering-in of Christ, the Sun Spirit, into the human being, Jesus of Nazareth.
Who today has a living awareness of what it means to ask whether the human being Jesus of Nazareth bore two natures, a human one and a divine one, or only one? Yet in the early Christian centuries this was a vital question, a question which had a bearing on life. There was a vivid awareness of how, coming from the cosmos, the Christ Spirit had united with Jesus; two natures in one personality; God in man.
You have often heard that the fourth post-Atlantean period lasted from 747 before the Mystery of Golgotha to about 1413 after the Mystery of Golgotha. In the first third of the fifteenth century intellectualism proper began. Now, we look at physical forces, we calculate, we study physics, but we no longer know that spiritual forces are at work out there, that the spirit which was known in earlier times really exists out there. Look at this fourth post-Atlantean, period lasting from 747 BC until 1413 AD. If you halve this period you come to a point that lies in the fourth century AD, the point when the wisdom which still contained a spiritual comprehension of the Mystery of Golgotha finally faded away. From then on, intellectual discussion was all that took place. And finally, as the fifteenth century approached, the human intellect became the sole ruler of human civilization. Because of this, anything that represented a living connection between the human being and the Christ was drawn more and more into merely materialistic human thinking. In the most advanced theology in the nineteenth century the Christ was entirely lost, and the most enlightened view was taken to be that of Christ as nothing more than the ‘man of Nazareth’. If we can really feel this in all its gravity, we cannot but develop a yearning to find the Christ Being once again. And this yearning to find Christ once more is what the anthroposophical world view wants to satisfy with regard to the major global questions. In Central Europe people are particularly well prepared for this, as all kinds of symptoms show.
One of Western Europe's great thinkers, Herbert Spencer,4 Herbert Spencer, 1820-1903. Education: Intellectual, Moral and Physical, 1861. wrote about education in a way which pleases materialists very much. He said that all education is useless if it does not educate human beings to educate others. On what does he base this? He says: The greatest achievement in a human being's life is to beget other human beings. So therefore education must also be greatly important. From one point of view western thinking is correct. But what does an eastern thinker say? Out of the eastern spirit, something very ancient still lives in Vladimir Soloviev.5 Lecture Two, Note 1 For western culture, primeval wisdom has disappeared. In the East it remains as a feeling. Soloviev still bears something of true Christian wisdom. Here in Central and Western Europe we have only a God-consciousness. There is virtually no knowledge of the Son. Harnack,6 Adolf von Hamack, 1851-1930. Theologian and historian. for instance, speaks of God in a way which makes it seem as though Christ, the Son, has no place in the Gospels. Consciousness of the Father, consciousness of God, is all that is left. What is said of the Son must also be said of the Father. But Soloviev still has something of the Christ-consciousness, and when he speaks it can sometimes be felt as if we were listening to the old Church Fathers from before the time of the Council of Nicaea.7 19 June 325. Establishment of the creed of identity of Son (Jesus Christ) and Father. Even the titles of his works are quite different. For instance there is a treatise on ‘Freedom, Necessity, Grace and Sin’. You would be unlikely to find a treatise on grace or sin written by one of the western philosophers—Spencer, for instance, or Mill, or Bergson, or Wundt! No such thing exists in the West; it would be quite unthinkable and indeed is not to be found.
The eastern philosopher, though, still speaks like that, saying: Alife given to man on earth, a life in which there was no striving for perfection in truth, would not be a genuinely human life. It would be valueless, as indeed would the striving for perfection in truth, if human beings had no part in immortality. Such a life would be a fraud on a global scale. Thus speaks Soloviev, the eastern philosopher. And he goes on: The spiritual task of man only starts when he reaches puberty. This is the very opposite of what Spencer says! Spencer makes the begetting of offspring the goal of development. For the eastern philosopher, development only begins at that point. It is the same with every matter, including questions of economic life. This is how the western economist speaks today, without having any sense for what eastern people feel about economic life. Today's major questions require consideration on a historical scale, and we ought to realize that the great misfortune of mankind in the second decade of the twentieth century, the great challenge and the great trial, is that involving considerations of this kind. An entirely different treatment of life must rise up out of the depths of the soul. The great questions of life, those that lie beyond birth and death, must come to play a part in ordinary human life. The questions of the present time must be illumined by the light of eternity, otherwise people will hasten from congress to congress and sink ever further and further into misfortune.
Das Überschreiten der Schwelle
[ 1 ] Wir haben uns hier in den Zweigen recht lange nicht gesehen und ich darf es wohl aussprechen, daß es mir eine außerordentlich tiefe Befriedigung gewährt, heute wiederum nach so langer Zeit vor Ihnen einiges besprechen zu können. Wir haben eine außerordentlich schwere Zeit hinter uns, die ihren Schwierigkeiten nach wohl gefühlt wird, aber in weiteren Kreisen doch noch immer nicht genug begriffen wird. Es ist ja so, daß man sagen kann, der Mensch, der das zweite Jahrzehnt des 20. Jahrhunderts miterlebt hat, hat dem Inhalte nach mehr erlebt als sonst in Jahrhunderten erlebt werden kann. Und es ist eine Art seelischer Schlaf, wenn man nicht fühlt, wie alle für die Menschheitsentwickelung in Betracht kommenden Dinge heute anders sind als sie etwa vor zehn Jahren waren. Der ganze Umschwung, der sich vollzogen hat, wird wahrscheinlich erst nach und nach der Menschheit zum vollen Bewußtsein kommen. Man wird dann sehen, wie dasjenige, was sich in so katastrophaler Weise an der äußeren Oberfläche der Dinge abgespielt hat, doch außerordentlich tief hineinreicht in die Wurzeln der Menschenseele, wie das, was geschehen ist, im Grunde genommen hervorgegangen ist als die weiteste Kreise der Menschheit betreffenden Irrungen der Seele. Und erst wenn man sich entschließen wird, die eigentlich wirklichen Gründe für das große Menschenunglück in den Seelen zu suchen, erst dann wird man das richtige Verständnis dieser Prüfungszeit der Menschheit entgegenbringen, und es wird dann wohl auch so kommen, daß man eine Geistesströmung wie die anthroposophische in einer anderen Art auffassen wird als man sie vielfach bisher noch auffaßt.
[ 2 ] Diese anthroposophische Geistesströmung möchte gerade der Menschheit dasjenige geben, was sie nicht hatte im Verlaufe der letzten drei, vier, fünf Jahrhunderte und dessen Mangel so innig zusammenhängt mit dem, was wir als Kultur- und Zivilisationselend erlebt haben und erleben. Die Welt ist nicht nur in bezug auf die großen Zusammenhänge, sondern auch in bezug auf die Entwickelung desjenigen, was in kleinsten Kreisen geschieht, aus dem Geistigen, aus dem Leben im Geistigen herausgekommen. Große Weltenfragen stehen heute vor der Menschheit, die sich nur aus den Tiefen des geistigen Lebens heraus irgendwie behandeln lassen, und sie werden in der äußerlichsten Weise über das ganze Gebiet der Welt hin behandelt. Man hat keine Möglichkeit, hineinzuschauen in dasjenige, was sich emporarbeiten will aus den Untergründen des menschlichen Seelen- und Geisteslebens. Das möchte aber gerade anthroposophische Weltanschauung der Menschheit wieder bringen.
[ 3 ] Heute möchte ich aus dem Gebiete dieser anthroposophischen Weltanschauung einige intime Fragen des menschlichen Seelen- und Geisteslebens besprechen. Vielleicht können wir dann von dem Gesichtspunkte, den wir durch eine solche Besprechung gewinnen, zum Schluß in Kürze auch auf einige Zeitereignisse die Blicke werfen. Anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft will sprechen von denjenigen Welten, die zunächst der äußeren Sinnesanschauung und auch dem Intellekt, der an diese Sinnesanschauung sich bindet, verborgen bleiben. Anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft will von dem in erster Linie sprechen, womit das Ewige der Menschenseele zusammenhängt. Die Welten, in welche diese anthroposophische Weltanschauung eindringen will, von ihnen sagt man, daß sie nur erreicht werden können, indem der Mensch die Schwelle des Bewußtseins überschreitet. Man meint damit, daß diese Schwelle des Bewußtseins eben bewußt überschritten werden müsse, damit man Erkenntnisse dieser übersinnlichen Welten gewinnen könne. Denn unbewußt überschreitet eigentlich der Mensch diese Bewußtseinsschwelle mit jedem Eintritt in den Schlafzustand, und wir sprechen im Zusammenhang mit dem Wechsel zwischen Wachen und Schlafen, im Zusammenhang mit der Schwelle, die der Mensch, indem er einschläft, überschreitet - jeden Tag überschreitet -, wir sprechen da auch von dem «Hüter der Schwelle» als von einer geistigen Macht, die der Geistesforscher als eine wirklich reale geistige Macht kennt, wie man andere Menschen als reale Menschen kennenlernt. Wir sprechen von dem «Hüter der Schwelle» aus dem Grunde, weil eben in der gegenwärtigen Entwikkelungsphase der Menschheit der Mensch wirklich zunächst seinem Bewußtsein nach behütet werden muß vor einem unvorbereiteten Eintritt in die geistigen Welten.
[ 4 ] Es könnte zunächst eine außerordentlich auffällige Erscheinung sein, daß dasjenige, was dem Menschen vor allen Dingen wertvoll sein muß, die geistige Welt, der er mit den tiefsten Wurzeln seines Daseins angehört, ohne deren Zugehörigkeit er nicht in wahrem Sinne des Wortes die Menschenwürde hätte, daß diese geistige Welt zunächst eine dem Menschen verborgene sein muß. Das hängt eben tief mit dem ganzen Sinn der Menschheitsentwickelung zusammen. Der Mensch würde sein wahres Wesen doch nicht im Laufe der Entwickelung erreichen können, wenn er sich nicht die Kraft selbst erwerben und ausbilden müßte, durch die er sich zu den geistigen Welten heranarbeitet. Würde er nur wie ein unverdientes Gnadengeschenk das Überschreiten der Schwelle erlangen, würde er vielleicht ein hohes geistiges Wesen sein können, aber er würde nicht in echtem Sinne des Wortes Mensch sein können, ein Wesen sein können, das sich zu seinem eigenen Werte auch selbst bringt; denn das ist das Wesen des Menschen im Weltenzusammenhang, daß er sich doch zu dem selber machen muß, was seine eigentliche Würde ausmacht. Es würde wie eine Art Verbrennen des menschlichen Wesens sein, wie eine Art Verlöschenmachen des menschlichen Wesens, wenn der Mensch unvorbereitet die Schwelle in die geistige Welt überschreitet. Dennoch kann das, was die Geistesforschung zu sagen hat über die Beziehung zu jener Welt, durchaus von dem gesunden Verstand erfaßt werden. Es kann durchschaut werden dasjenige, was aus den Untergründen der Geistesforschung in dieser Beziehung gesagt werden muß. Beachten Sie nur, wie zunächst der Mensch, indem er einschläft, in eine Art bewußtlosen Zustand versinkt. Aus diesem bewußtlosen Zustand tauchen heraus wie aus Meeresuntergründen einzelne Wellen in die Traumeswelt.
[ 5 ] Diese Traumeswelt hat auch für den Menschen, der frei ist von jedem Aberglauben und jeder nebulosen Mystik, etwas durchaus Geheimnisvolles, Rätselhaftes, von dem empfunden werden muß, wie es zusammenhängt mit dem innersten Wesen sowohl der Welt wie des Menschenseins selbst. So können wir denn verfolgen die Zeit, die der Mensch zubringt vom Einschlafen an bis zum Aufwachen, als einen herabgestimmten Bewußtseinszustand, aus dem heraus sich offenbart die Bilderwelt des Traumes. Und wenn wir auch nur in äußerlicher Weise das Träumen verfolgen, müssen wir uns sagen: Die Träume enthalten bildhafte Anklänge an dasjenige Leben, das wir, außer durch die Sinneswahrnehmung, durch den Intellekt, durch die Empfindung gegeben haben. Aber sie enthalten diese uns sonst bekannte Welt in einer andern Art. Nicht nur, daß der Traum in der Regel keine abstrakten Gedanken bringt, sondern alles zu Bildern formt, nicht nur, daß dies der Fall ist, sondern auch das andere: Während wir einen gewissen Weltenzusammenhang in der Sinneswelt vor uns haben, der innerlich in einer gewissen Weise geregelt ist, so daß wir durch die Welt verstandesmäßig befriedigt werden, wenn uns die Dinge geordnet im Raume und in der Zeit erscheinen, würfelt der Traum scheinbar alles durcheinander. Ereignisse, die gestern gewesen sind, durchsetzt er mit Ereignissen, die sich vor Jahrzehnten zugetragen haben. Er bringt eine andere Ordnung in das, was wir kennen als die räumliche Ordnung, als die räumlich-zeitliche Ordnung, in die wir sonst beim Tagwachen hineinschauen.
[ 6 ] Und wenn wir so den Traum studieren, so finden wir, daß das gerade aus dem Traume heraus ist, was unsere Denkkraft ausmacht. Wir verspüren, wenn wir aufwachen, wie wir aus dem traumlosen Schlafe erst wieder in die Welt eintreten, in der sich die menschlichen Vorstellungen, die menschlichen Gedanken entwickeln. Wir fühlen: Wir ergießen die Bilderwelt des Traumes in unsere Leiblichkeit. Und indem wir sie so ergießen, schickt uns der Leib entgegen die Gedankenkraft, durch welche Ordnung wiederum hineingebracht wird in das, was der Traum durcheinandergewürfelt hat. Unser Körper nimmt uns beim Aufwachen in Anspruch, und unser Körper gibt uns die Kraft des Vorstellens, durch deren Handhabung wir ja eigentlich wirklich erst wach werden. Dann verglimmt die Welt des Traumes, und an ihre Stelle tritt wiederum die Welt der Vorstellungen in der regelrechten Ordnung des Raumes und der Zeit.
[ 7 ] Wer nur ein wenig achtgibt auf diese Erscheinungen, der kann schon aus dem gewöhnlichen Leben dieses Hineinschlüpfen von etwas zunächst Unbestimmtem in das Körperlich-Leibliche beobachten und kann auch bis zu dem Grade des Verständnisses vordringen, das sich sagt: Die Kraft der Gedanken wird mir durch meinen Körper gegeben, wenn ich mit dem seelisch-geistigen Wesen in diese Körperlichkeit untertauche. Und er wird durch diese alltägliche Beobachtung doch bestätigt finden können, was Anthroposophie sagen muß: daß das, was wir zunächst aus dem gewöhnlichen täglichen Leben als Vorstellung kennen, gebunden ist an den äußeren physischen Leib, der in der Nacht im Bette liegen bleibt, wenn wir mit unserem geistig-seelischen Wesen über die Schwelle in eine andere Welt hineingehen. Indem unser Bewußtsein dabei auslöscht, läßt es vor der Schwelle die Kraft, die Fähigkeit, Gedankenwelten in gewohntem Sinne zu bilden, zurück und es tritt über die Schwelle von der menschlichen Seele dasjenige, was Gemüts- oder Gefühlsinhalt ist und was Willensinhalt ist. Und dieser Gemüts-, dieser Willensinhalt, sie gleichen auch schon im gewöhnlichen Tagwachen dem Schlafzustand. Wir wachen eigentlich nur in unseren Vorstellungen wirklich. Bedenken Sie nur, wie dunkel das ist, was in unseren Gefühlen lebt und wie ganz finster dasjenige ist, was in unseren Willensimpulsen lebt. Will man vorstellen, wie man den einfachsten Willensentschluß ausführen wird: Es bleibt so dunkel wie der Zustand während des Schlafes, was eigentlich vorgeht in den Muskeln und Knochen, was eigentlich vorgeht, wenn der Gedanke sich verwirklicht. Erst haben wir den Gedanken: Ich hebe den Arm -, dann sehen wir, wie er sich hebt. Nur Eindrücke haben wir. Was da geheimnisvoll vorgeht, das bleibt dem Bewußtsein verborgen, wie der Zustand des Schlafes selbst. Wir tragen im Grunde durch die Schwelle dasjenige, was schon im Wachzustande wie schlafend und träumend ist. Denn die Bilder sind nicht heller als die Gefühle, die sich anschließen an unsere Vorstellungswelt. Andere Formen sind es, in denen sich das Seelenleben im Wachzustande durch Gefühle ausspricht und im Schlafzustande durch den Traum, aber nicht heller als das Traumbild ist das Gefühlsleben. Wäre es heller, dann würden wir als Menschen ein außerordentlich abstraktes Leben führen. Denken Sie nur, mit welchem Rechte man von den kalten, nüchternen Gedanken spricht im Gegensatz zu dem, was vom Gefühl durchglüht ist! Aber was im Gefühle lebt, bleibt in gewissem Sinne dunkel wie die Traumbilder.
[ 8 ] Und wenn wir einschlafen, tragen wir unsere Gefühle über diese Schwelle, und diese sind es, die sich während des Schlafes in gewissem Sinne sogar aufhellen zu den Traumbildern. Wir tragen unseren Willen in diese Welt hinein, der aber so schlafend schon ist während des Tagwachens, wie er während des Schlafes ist. Und so können wir sagen: Dasjenige, was der Mensch durch die Schwelle des Bewußtseins hindurchträgt, ist das Gefühls- und Willenselement seines Seelenwesens. Gefühl und Wille gehören dem Schlafbewußtsein an. Das Vorstellungsleben und - allerdings, weil der Traum sich aufhellt, so auch das Gefühlsleben - ein Teil des Gefühlslebens gehören dem Tagwachen an, sie liegen noch diesseits der Schwelle des Bewußtseins. Nun spricht man von dem Hüter der Schwelle, weil es für den Menschen im gegenwärtigen Bewußtseinszustand notwendig ist, daß er nicht unvorbereitet bewußt die Schwelle überschreitet, die er bei Herabdämpfung seines Bewußtseins jedesmal beim Einschlafen überschreitet. Wenn man erkennen lernt diejenigen Kräfte, innerhalb welcher der Mensch sich befindet jenseits der Schwelle des Bewußtseins, dann lernt man auch erfahren, warum der Mensch durch einen Hüter, durch etwas, was ihn bewacht, abgehalten werden soll, unvorbereitet über die Schwelle in die geistige Welt hineinzutreten.
[ 9 ] Die Welt jenseits der Schwelle sieht zunächst, wenn man in sie eintritt, für den ersten Anblick wahrhaft anders aus, als man sie sich gerne vorstellen möchte. Allerdings, tritt man vorbereitet genug ein, so verwandelt sie sich nach und nach und man kommt zu andern Erfahrungen als die allerersten sind, und die etwas Bestürzendes auch für den haben, der durchaus vorbereitet in die übersinnliche Welt eintritt. Denn was lebt in der übersinnlichen Welt nach der ersten Art, wie sie sich darstellt? In dieser leben zuerst Kräfte, Wesenhaftigkeiten, die sich, man muß es schon so ausdrücken, außerordentlich feindlich gegenüber der gewöhnlichen Sinneswelt verhalten. Tritt man ein in die geistige Welt über die Schwelle, nimmt sie sich aus wie ein Sengen und Brennen, wie ein verzehrendes Feuer für all dasjenige, was die Sinneswelt darbietet. Man tritt durchaus in die Welt zerstörender Kräfte ein. Das ist der erste Anblick, der sich jenseits zuerst darbietet. Und ich möchte Ihnen aus den Tatsachen heraus eine Vorstellung davon geben, wie es ist mit dem, in das man da zuerst eintritt:
[ 10 ] Betrachten Sie den menschlichen physischen Leib, der uns umkleidet von der Geburt bis zum Tode. Betrachten Sie den Augenblick, wo der Mensch sich dem Tode nähert, wo er durch die Pforte des Todes tritt, zunächst in bezug auf den physischen Leib. Dieser erscheint, nachdem er die Pforte durchschritt, allerdings äußerlich noch in derselben Form wie er ist vor dem Tode, wenn wir das bloß Räumliche zunächst ins Auge fassen. Aber sehr bald erfahren Sie: Dieser physische Leib, der durch Jahrzehnte diese Form bewahren kann, dem diese Form das Naturgemäße ist, der wird aufgelöst, zerstört durch die Kräfte der äußeren Welt, des äußeren Kosmos. Es ist das Schicksal dieses Leibes, daß er durch diese Kräfte des Kosmos aufgelöst, zerstört wird. Einfach dadurch, daß man unbefangen betrachtet, daß der Leib, sobald er entseelt ist, von den Kräften der Natur zerstört, aufgelöst wird, muß man überzeugt sein davon, daß in diesem Leib zwischen Geburt und Tod etwas lebt, was den Leib fortwährend vor der Zerstörung bewahrt, was nicht dieser Welt der Sinne angehört. Denn würde es dieser selben Welt angehören, dann würde es den Leib zerstören, nicht erhalten. Wenn die Menschen nur diese Selbstverständlichkeit beachten wollten, würden sie es nicht so schwer finden, in die anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft einzudringen. Man hat den Leichnam, die äußeren Kräfte der Natur zerstören ihn. Wäre dasjenige, was wir in uns tragen, von derselben Art wie die Naturkräfte, würde es diesen Leib ständig zerstören. Diese einfachen Gedanken werden ständig außer acht gelassen. Aber beachten Sie, daß eine Welt uns umgibt, die immer um uns ist, die unseren Leib zerstört.
[ 11 ] In dem Augenblicke, wo der Leib von dieser Seele verlassen wird, wird er zerstört. Und wenn wir diesen Leib verlassen beim Einschlafen, wandern wir in die Welt hinein, die unseren Leichnam zerstört. Diese müssen wir kennenlernen [Lücken in der Nachschrift.] Wir treten in die Welt der zerstörenden Kräfte hinein, wenn wir einschlafen, und diese Welt ist doch die geistige, denn warum? Derjenige, der erwartet, daß er jenseits der Schwelle etwas antreffen solle was ähnlich ist dem, was hier in der physischen Sinneswelt ist, der erwartet ja nur eine andere physische Sinneswelt jenseits der Schwelle. Wenn dort Geist sein soll, dann kann nicht die physische Sinneswelt dort sein. Was wir dort erleben, werden solche Kräfte sein, die fortwährend die Neigung haben, die physische Sinneswelt zu zerstören. Und das erfahren wir gründlich, wenn wir bewußt die Schwelle überschreiten. Wir erfahren gründlich, daß wir in dieser geistigen Welt dasjenige finden, das fortwährend die Neigung hat, die physische Welt zu zerstören. Würde der Mensch nun unvorbereitet, unbehütet, diese Schwelle überschreiten, dann würde es ihm - wenn ich mich jetzt trivial ausdrücken darf - in dieser Welt außerordentlich gefallen. Gerade niedrige Instinkte würden zunächst außerordentlich befriedigt werden, und der Mensch würde in der Welt, in die er zunächst eintritt, zusammenwachsen mit der Welt der zerstörenden Kräfte, und er würde ein Verbündeter werden dieser zerstörenden Kräfte. Er würde nicht ein Mitarbeiter werden wollen an dem, was als physische Welt uns umgibt. Man muß zuerst liebgewinnen diese physische Welt als auch eine weisheitsvolle, damit man gut vorbereitet ist, in die geistige Welt eintreten zu können. Man muß gewissermaßen, bevor man an die Seite der Schöpfer treten darf, die Schöpfung liebgewonnen haben, und man muß gründlich verstanden haben, daß die Welt, wie sie geschaffen ist, nicht sinnlos von den göttlichen schöpferischen Mächten hervorgerufen worden ist. Man muß den Sinn des Erdenlebens ergründet haben, wenn man gut vorbereitet in die geistige Welt eintreten will, sonst würde man jeden Morgen beim Aufwachen mit einem furchtbaren Haß auf die Sinneswelt zurückkommen, mit dem Trieb, diese Sinneswelt zu zerstören. Einfach durch die Notwendigkeit des menschlichen Daseins würde der Mensch mit Haß und Zorn aufwachen, wenn er die Zeit vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen in einem solchen Bewußtseinszustande verbringen würde.
[ 12 ] Sie können das noch verfolgen, wenn Sie unbefangen den Traum anschauen. Der Traum hat furchtbar zerstörende Kräfte in sich. Was Sie da herauftragen als 'Traumbilder, es zerstört ja alle Logik. Der Traum sagt: Nichts, aus mit der Logik, die Logik will ich nicht haben. Die Logik ist für die äußere Sinneswelt, da ordnet die Logik rechthaberisch die Dinge. Fort mit der Logik, eine andere Weltenordnung muß da herrschen! - Das sagt der Traum, und wenn er stark genug wäre, um nicht bloß das Gehirn zu streicheln, sondern in den ganzen Menschen hinunterzutauchen, dann würde er nicht nur die logischen Instinkte, sondern auch die andern Instinkte und das emotionelle Leben ergreifen, und geradeso wie er die Logik zerstört, auch alles Leben des physischen Menschen zerstören. Der Mensch würde nicht wieder hineinwollen in seinen Leib, sondern er würde auf dem Wege hinein seinen physischen Leib langsam zerstören. Nur weil dasjenige, was im Traum lebt, überwältigt wird von dem, was aus dem Leibe ihm entgegenkommt, wird für Momente nur die Logik zerstört. Das kann man bis in die Einzelheiten verfolgen. Was im Schlafe fortdauert, das sind gerade die Kräfte, die dem rhythmischen System des Menschen angehören. Die Atmung dauert fort, Herzschlag, Pulsschlag dauern fort, Gedanken hören auf, der Wille hört auf. Das, was dem mittleren Menschen angehört, dauert fort, nur wird es herabgestimmt. In dem Augenblick, wo noch im Gehirn etwas schwächer der Pulsschlag lebt, da waltet der Traum herein, da macht er Miene, die Kraft des Leibes zu zerstören und die Logik, bis die Kräfte des Leibes wieder den Traum überwältigen, bis der Puls wieder stärker wird.
[ 13 ] Wenn es sich darum handelt, die Kräfte wirklich zu verstehen, da weiß Anthroposophie schon ganz gut materialistisch zu sein. Die Materialisten verstehen nicht recht, materialistisch zu sein, weil sie nicht wissen, wie das Geistige zusammenwirkt mit dem Physischen. Sie merken nirgends, wie das Geistige untertaucht und im Physischen weiter wirkt. Und es gehört zum Interessantesten, zu beobachten, wie das Geistige untertaucht, da zuerst sich geltend machen will und zerstören will das Logische. Und da entwickeln sich die Kräfte des Physischen, die Vorstellungskräfte, [diese] wirken ihm entgegen und überwältigen es. Der Traum wird unschädlich gemacht für das physische Erdenleben. Das läßt Sie, wenn Sie es richtig betrachten, tief hineinblicken in das Verhältnis von Wachen und Schlafen, denn es zeigt, wie der Mensch sich seines geistigen Ursprunges bewußt bleiben muß, daß er einerseits in den Schlaf immer zurücksinken muß, aber anderseits in der gegenwärtigen Entwickelung mit dem vollen Bewußtsein verfolgt werden muß dasjenige, was sich abspielt in dem Zustand zwischen Einschlafen und Aufwachen.
[ 14 ] Wir leben auf unserer Erde. Diese Erde ist zunächst eine physische kosmische Bildung. Es wird eine Zeit kommen, wo diese Erde dem sogenannten Wärmetod verfallen wird, wo die Erde durch das wirkliche physische Feuer gehen wird, wo die zerstörenden Kräfte die ganzen Erdenbildungen ergreifen werden, nicht nur die Leichname. Dasjenige, was diese Erde dem Feuertod entgegenführt, sind geistige Mächte, die mit der Erde verbunden sind, die man kennenlernt im ersten Stadium, das man betritt, wenn man an dem Hüter der Schwelle vorbeischreitet in die geistige Welt hinein.
[ 15 ] Betrachten wir dasjenige, was wir so gewonnen haben im Hinblick auf das Durchschreiten der Todespforte. Da wird der physische Leib vollständig abgelegt. Das Geistig-Seelische tritt jetzt so in die geistige Welt ein, daß es zunächst den Wunsch entwickelt, wieder zum physischen Leibe zurückzukehren. Und dieses Geistig-Seelische, nachdem es den physischen Leib abgelegt hat, das kann jetzt wieder zum Vorstellen kommen ohne den physischen Leib. Dieses Geistig-Seelische war einfach zunächst, während es im physischen Leibe verkörpert war, zu schwach, um die zerstörenden Kräfte zu ertragen. Jetzt, mit dem Durchschreiten der Todespforte, muß dieses Geistig-Seelische aber stark genug sein, um sich nicht mehr nach dem physischen Leibe zurückzusehnen. Da es nicht weiter bewußtlos bleibt, sondern in ein wirkliches Bewußtsein eintritt mit dem Überschreiten der Todespforte, muß es ein gewisses Gedankenleben aufnehmen, denn nur im Gedankenleben kann man wirklich voll bewußt werden. Und das ist auch der gewaltige Unterschied zwischen dem Überschreiten der Schwelle beim Einschlafen und beim Durchgang durch den Tod. Beim Einschlafen wird einfach die Gedankenwelt abgedämpft und kommt erst wieder zurück, wenn der Mensch wieder aufwachend den physischen Leib betritt. Beim Tode nimmt er [der Mensch] die Gedankenwelt ohne Vermittlung des physischen Leibes mit dem Geistig-Seelischen auf. Was ist das?
[ 16 ] Der Mensch würde niemals morgens in seinen physischen Leib zurückkehren, wenn er die geistige Welt kennen würde, mit ihr zusammengewachsen wäre und nicht den Wunsch hätte, der unbewußt in ihm sitzt, wieder zum physischen Leibe, in die physische Welt zurückzukehren. Wünsche sind aber etwas, was nicht mit dem vollen klaren Bewußtsein zusammenhängt, sondern dieses klare Bewußtsein gerade herabdämpfen und herabdämmen. Der Mensch wünscht sich, des Morgens zurückzukehren in seinen Leib, und gerade dieser Wunsch nach dem Leibe hin ist es, der ihm die Gedankenwelt abdämpft. Und so kann er erst wieder, wenn er in dem Leibe ist, das Gedankenleben finden. Im Tode sind aber die Wünsche ertötet. Der Mensch tritt ein in die Weltgedanken. Er hat als Geistig-Seelisches nun ein Gedankenleben, aber er würde in dieselbe Welt eintreten, in die er beim Einschlafen jeden Abend eintritt, wenn er wirklich unvorbereitet in den Tod eintreten würde. Man kann schon sagen, wenn man das extrem in dieser Hinsicht ausdrücken will: Wenn der Mensch unvorbereitet in den Tod eintritt, dann ist er im Grunde einer fürchterlichen Lage ausgesetzt; er ist ausgesetzt der Lage, das anzuschauen, was eigentlich mit seinem physischen Leibe geschieht. Sein physischer Leib wird zerpulvert im kosmischen Weltenzusammenhange, denn wenn man den Leib nicht verbrennt, dann verbrennt ihn der Kosmos. Und diesem müßte der Mensch zuschauen, wenn er nicht vorbereitet wäre.
[ 17 ] Was hat dies zur Folge und was hat nun zu geschehen, damit der Mensch nicht bloß die Zerstörung sieht nach dem Tode, damit er nicht bloß in zerstörenden Kräften lebt? Das hat zu geschehen, daß der Mensch durch das Aufnehmen geistiger Inhalte, durch das Bewußstsein in geistgemäßer Weltanschauung durch die Pforte des Todes eine innere Verwandtschaft mit der göttlich-geistigen Welt trägt. Wenn der Mensch nur ein Bewußtsein hat von einer physisch-materiellen Welt, dann tritt er nach dem Tode allerdings furchtbar unvorbereitet in die Welt der zerstörenden Kräfte ein wie in eine versengende Flammenwelt. Durchdringt er sich mit den Vorstellungen einer geistigen Welt, mit dem Bewußtsein von der geistigen Welt, dann wird die Flamme zu der Geburtsstätte des Geistigen nach dem Tode, dann sieht man nicht auf die Zerstörung allein hin, sondern in dem Herausfallen des irdischen Staubes aus dem menschlichen Zusammenhang sieht man sich erheben das Geistige. Und niemand darf sagen, man könne es abwarten, was geschieht, wenn der Tod eintritt, was die gewöhnliche materialistische Vorstellung so gerne sagt! Nein, man muß hindurchtragen das Bewußtsein vom Geistigen durch die Pforte, damit man das Zerstörende der Weltenkräfte, in die der Leichnam eintritt, mit dem Geistig-Seelischen überwindet und damit sich aus dem Zerstörenden das Geistig-Seelische neu schöpferisch erhebt.
[ 18 ] Das entwickele ich Ihnen aus anthroposophischer Geisteswissenschaft heraus, aber Sie alle haben gewiß gehört von jener Furcht, welche in älteren Zeiten der Mensch vor dem Tode hatte, ahnende Erkenntnis auch im Sinne der Lehre des Apostels Paulus, der ja auch davon spricht, daß der Mensch gerettet werden müsse davor, dem Tode zu verfallen mit seiner Seele. Man war sich dessen bewußt, daß man nicht nur physisch sterben kann dem Leichname nach, sondern auch der Seele nach. Von solchen Dingen redet nur der Mensch nicht gerne, daß die Seele mitsterben kann. Wenn Paulus vom Tode redet, redet er eigentlich nicht vom physischen Tode, sondern von dem, was geschehen kann, indem der physische Tod den geistseelischen Tod nach sich ziehen möchte. Dessen muß der Mensch sich wieder bewußt werden, daß er etwas tun muß im physisch-sinnlichen Leben, um sein Bewußtsein mit dem Seelisch-Geistigen zu verbinden, damit er etwas durch den Tod trägt, womit sich ihm das Geistige erhebt aus der verzehrenden Flamme, die immer da ist nach dem Tode.
[ 19 ] Das muß daraus hervorgehen aus solchen Zusammenhängen, daß es mit dem Leben im Weltenzusammenhange etwas furchtbar Ernstes ist. Keine Weltanschauung ist eine des Menschen werte, die nicht durch die innere Kraft zu einer moralischen Weltauffassung führt, die nicht den ganzen Ernst des Lebens vor die menschliche Seele hinstellt. Davon zu reden, daß physisch-chemische Kräfte die Erde aufgebaut haben, daß daraus Lebewesen und zuletzt der Mensch sich entwickelt haben, ist nicht nur eine einseitige Weltanschauung, das ist auch eine Weltanschauung, welche dem Leben seinen Ernst nimmt und im Grunde nur aus der Bequemlichkeit der Menschen folgt. Aus einer Weltanschauung, die die richtige Stellung zum Geiste gewinnt, folgt der Lebensernst, weil die Möglichkeit vor den Menschen sich hinstellt, verbunden zu werden mit den zerstörenden Kräften, wenn er durch die 'Todespforte geht. Dem Menschen ist durch sein physisches Leben hindurch Gelegenheit gegeben, sich in entsprechender Weise vorzubereiten, indem er behütet wird, jeden Abend beim Einschlafen die zerstörende Welt, mit der er doch verwandt ist, zu schauen, indem ihm Zeit gelassen ist, aufzunehmen dasjenige, was ihn dann durch die Todespforte so leitet, daß er dann in der zerstörenden Welt das Geistige erschauen kann. Das kann nicht genug betont werden, daß Gefühle und Empfindungen in selbstverständlicher Weise über das Leben erfolgen müssen aus einer Weltanschauung, daß eine Weltanschauung nicht eine bloß abstrakte Theorie bleiben darf, sondern etwas Lebendiges werden muß, das Gefühl und Wille ergreift. Und zu einem solchen Anschauen von der Welt muß sich die zivilisierte Menschheit wiederum hindurchringen. Dann wird sie in allem, was vergänglich ist, wiederum das Unvergängliche sehen, dann aber wird sie auch aus demjenigen, was nicht in einer feineren Weise egoistisch im Menschen sich auslebt, zu dem Ewigen, zu dem Unsterblichen vordringen.
[ 20 ] Betrachten Sie von diesem Gesichtspunkte einmal die heutige Lebenspraxis. Man muß es schon nicht übelnehmen, wenn derjenige, der die Wahrheit zu sagen hat, auch so unangenehme Dinge zu sagen hat. Betrachten wir zum Beispiel religiöse Unterweisungen. Auf was wird eigentlich dabei gebaut? Auf den Egoismus! Man spricht zu dem Menschen so, daß man ihm seine Unsterblichkeit, sein bewußtes Durchgehen durch den Tod klarmachen will, weil der Mensch über den Tod hinaus leben möchte. Diesen Wunsch hat der Mensch und ihn will man ihm befriedigen, und weil es unbequem ist, an die Erkenntnis zu appellieren, läßt man die Erkenntnis weg und beschränkt sich auf den bloßen Glauben. Aber man redet da nur zu dem menschlichen Egoismus, der sich interessiert, wie es nach dem Tode ausschaut, denn das muß er abwarten. Wie es vor der Geburt ausschaut, das interessiert ihn nicht. Das kann man nur durch Erkenntnis erfahren. Durch Erkenntnis lernt man überhaupt das Ewige kennen, das sich nicht nur über den Tod, sondern auch über die Empfängnis hinaus erstreckt.
[ 21 ] Bis in den Sprachgebrauch hinein zeigt sich, daß wir nur eine halbe Erkenntnis haben über die Ewigkeit des Menschen; wir haben nur Unsterblichkeit. Wir müßten auch das Wort «Ungeborenheit» haben. Erst wenn wir den Zusammenhang zwischen beiden erfassen, erfassen wir endgültig des Menschen Ewigkeit. Bis in die Sprache hinein hat der Mensch in unserem Zeitalter seinen Zusammenhang mit der geistigen Welt abgeschworen. Dieser Zusammenhang muß wieder gefunden werden. Ohne dieses Wiederfinden ist eine wirkliche Lebenspraxis vollständig unmöglich, und es müßte ein vollständiger Niedergang der gegenwärtigen Kultur erfolgen.
[ 22 ] Wir haben in Stuttgart die Waldorfschule gegründet mit der Waldorfschul-Pädagogik. Wenn man davon redet, knüpfen die Leute allerlei Betrachtungen daran. Jüngst sagte man: Ja, warum beachtet denn die Waldorfschul-Pädagogik so wenig die Ermüdung der Kinder? Man muß doch heute sorgfältig die Ermüdung studieren. Es gibt heute eine sogenannte experimentelle Psychologie. Man registriert, wie das Kind unzusammenhängende Worte aufsagen kann, und nach einiger Zeit konstatiert man die Ermüdung, auch durch die Folge der Lehrgegenstände, und ist sehr stolz darauf. Und nun bemerkt man: Die Waldorfschul-Pädagogik redet nicht so viel von der Ermüdung der Kinder, sie ist also nicht modern, sie beachtet das nicht. - Warum ist das so? Die Waldorfschule redet weniger von der Ermüdung, aber sie redet davon, daß die Kinder nach dem Zahnwechsel zunächst so gepflegt und erzogen werden müssen, daß man die Erziehung vorzugsweise auf das rhythmische System hin anlegen muß, daß man Künstlerisches pflegen muß, das den Rhythmus anregt, erst später das abstrakte Schreiben und dann noch später das abstrakte Lesen. Es wird nicht an den Kopf appelliert, sondern an das Künstlerische. Wer so unterrichtet wie das heute gemacht wird, wer mit den Kindern immer nur solche Dinge treibt, die an den Kopf appellieren, der muß mit der Ermüdung rechnen. Wenn man aber so erzieht, daß man vorzugsweise das Rhythmische, das Künstlerische in Anspruch nimmt, da frage ich Sie: Ermüdet denn das Herz das Leben hindurch? Das Herz muß schlagen, die Atmung muß fortdauern, und die Waldorfschul-Pädagogik braucht deshalb nicht von Ermüdung zu reden, weil sie darauf hinarbeitet, die Kinder so zu erziehen, daß sie überhaupt wenig ermüden. Die experimentelle Pädagogik ist eben zu einem System gekommen, das furchtbar ermüdet, weil sie selbst erst diese furchtbare Ermüdung heraufbeschworen hat. [Lücken in der Nachschrift.] Bei der Waldorfschul-Pädagogik wird der Zusammenhang von Leib, Seele und Geist ins Auge gefaßt und dasjenige verfolgt, was aus der geistig-seelischen Welt sich mit der Körperlichkeit verbindet und mit dem Tode sie wieder verläßt. Wenn es darauf ankommt, das Materielle zu verstehen, dann ist es gerade Anthroposophie, welche das Materielle verstehen kann.
[ 23 ] Was ist am Kinde am regsten? Gerade die Gehirntätigkeit! Von dieser strahlt die plastische Gestaltung des ganzen Leibes aus. Am regsten ist diese bis zum Zahnwechsel. Beim Zahnwechsel überträgt sich diese Bildungsfähigkeit auf das Atmungs-Herzsystem, und bis zur Geschlechtsreife hat man es mit diesem zu tun. Da kann man nur künstlerisch wirken, nicht theoretisch. Die Muskeln bilden sich so innerlich zwischen dem siebenten und vierzehnten Jahre aus, daß das dem rhythmischen System angepaßt ist. Und wenn das vierzehnte Jahr herannaht, dann erst erfaßt das Seelisch-Geistige den ganzen Menschen, und es ist interessant zu verfolgen, wie vorher die Muskeln sich gerichtet haben nach dem Herzschlag, Pulsschlag und Atmen. So fangen sie dann an, sich durch die Sehnen mit den Knochen zu befreunden, mit dem Skelett, und passen sich den äußeren Bewegungen an. Lernen Sie nur ordentlich zu beobachten, wie der junge Mensch sich ändert in diesem Lebensalter. [Lücken in der Nachschrift.] Vom Kopf geht es aus, das Seelische wächst immer weiter und weiter der Oberfläche des Menschen zu und ergreift zuletzt die Knochen, füllt dann den Menschen ganz aus und verbraucht ihn, befreundet sich immer mehr und mehr mit den Absterbekräften, bis diese Absterbekräfte im Moment des Todes den Sieg davontragen.
[ 24 ] Bis in die geringsten Einzelheiten hinein verfolgt anthroposophische Geisteswissenschaft die geistigen Prozesse, wie sie sich in das materielle Leben hinein versenken und wie das Geistig-Seelische vom Kopf aus den ganzen Menschen ergreift. Erst von solcher Erkenntnis aus wird man Menschen wieder erziehen können. Der Verstand ist nötig, damit wir die Freiheit finden können, aber er vertreibt die Sicherheit der Instinkte. Ich hatte einen Freund. Der war, als wir beide jung waren, ein ganz netter Mensch. Dann habe ich ihn wieder besucht, denn ich wurde von ihm eingeladen. Ich hatte niemals an einem Mittagsmahle teilgenommen, wo man eine Waage mit Gewichten aufgestellt hat. Da wurde eine Waage aufgetragen und er wog sich alles dasjenige, was er aß, zuerst ab! Der Intellekt hatte herausgefunden, wieviel man braucht, um den Leib zu erhalten, und das wurde dem Leibe zugeführt. Der Intellekt vertreibt die Instinkte in Kleinigkeiten, aber auch im Großen, und man muß den Weg wieder zurückfinden. Es wird wiederum die Sicherheit des Lebens, der selbstverständliche Halt des Lebens erlangt, denn man findet das zeitliche Leben gerade dadurch in der richtigen Weise, daß man den ewigen Anteil an diesem Zeitlichen findet, daß man weiß, wie dieses Ewige im Zeitlichen drinnen lebt, und das braucht unsere gegenwärtige Zivilisation.
[ 25 ] Man muß diese Dinge schon auch als Weltfragen behandeln. Man beachtet heute gar nicht, welche Gegensätze zwischen den Menschen des Westens und des Ostens vorhanden sind. Man behandelt die äußeren Fragen in äußerlicher Weise, redet auf Kongressen über den Ausgleich der schweren Lage, aber man beachtet nicht, daß Ost und West nur dann zu einem wirtschaftlichen Ausgleich kommen können, wenn sie Vertrauen zueinander haben. Die Asiaten werden niemals mit dem Westen in der richtigen Weise zusammenwirken können, wenn sie sich mit diesem nicht verstehen können. Verstehen aber kann man sich nur aus der Seele heraus. Zu dem Wirtschaften in der Welt gehört also seelisches Verständnis; dieses aber ist nur zu erringen durch Vertiefung des Seelenlebens. Deshalb sind heute die intimen Fragen des menschlichen Seelenlebens zu gleicher Zeit die großen Weltfragen. Man wird nicht eindringen in dasjenige, was die Welt heute braucht auch in den äußeren öffentlichen Angelegenheiten, wenn man sich nicht bequemen wird, hinzuhören auf das, was die Wissenschaft vom Übersinnlichen zu sagen hat, denn die Welt ist anders geworden im Laufe der Zeitentwickelung. Besonders das Menschengeschlecht ist anders geworden.
[ 26 ] Wir blicken zurück, wenn wir die Menschheitsentwickelung überschauen, zu demjenigen Ereignis, das dieser Menschheits- und Erdenentwickelung überhaupt den Sinn gibt: zum Mysterium von Golgatha. Dieses Mysterium von Golgatha war ja das Hereinkommen eines Göttlichen durch einen irdischen Leib in die Erdenverhältnisse. Der Christus ist in den Leib des Jesus von Nazareth eingetreten, um nun überhaupt mit der Erde zu wirken. Die Erde hätte zugrunde gehen müssen, verfallen müssen im Weltenzusammenhang, wenn nicht eine neue Befruchtung durch das Hereinkommen des Christus geschehen wäre. Nun wissen Sie auch, daß es vor alten Zeiten eine instinktive Wissenschaft gegeben hat, eine Urweltweisheit, doch zur Zeit des Mysteriums von Golgatha war nur noch wenig davon da in der abendländischen Zivilisation. Aber so viel noch war da, daß das Mysterium von Golgatha durch vier Jahrhunderte wenigstens noch instinktiv hat begriffen werden können. Und wer wirklich kennt, wie in den ersten Jahrhunderten der christlichen Entwickelung das Mysterium von Golgatha in seiner übersinnlichen Bedeutung aufgefaßt worden ist, der weiß, daß bis in das 4. Jahrhundert hinein die maßgebenden christlichen Lehrer von dem Hereinkommen des Christus-Sonnengeistes in den Menschen Jesus von Nazareth gewußt haben.
[ 27 ] Wer hat denn eigentlich heute noch ein lebendiges Bewußtsein, was es heißt, ob in dem Menschen Jesus von Nazareth zwei Naturen, eine göttliche und eine menschliche sind, oder nur eine? Das war aber durchaus eine Lebensfrage in den ersten christlichen Jahrhunderten, etwas, was im Leben eine Bedeutung hatte. Man hatte ein lebendiges Bewußtsein davon, wie aus den Weltenweiten sich der Christus-Geist verbunden hat mit dem Jesus. Da haben wir zwei Naturen in der einen Persönlichkeit: den Gott und den Menschen. [Lücke in der Nachschrift.]
[ 28 ] Sie werden öfters gehört haben, daß der vierte nachatlantische Zeitraum gedauert hat von 747 vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha ungefähr bis 1413 nach dem Mysterium von Golgatha. Seit dem ersten Drittel des 15. Jahrhunderts beginnt der eigentliche Intellektualismus. Wir schauen nun hinein in physische Kräfte, rechnen und treiben Physik, aber wir wissen nichts mehr davon, daß da draußen geistige Kräfte wirksam sind und daß da draußen wirklicher Geist vorhanden ist — was man früher gewußt hat. Aber nehmen Sie diesen Zeitraum von 747 vor Christus bis 1413 [nach Chr.]. Es ist der Zeitraum der vierten nachatlantischen Epoche. Wenn Sie 747 nehmen und dann bis 1413 gehen, so bekommen Sie, wenn Sie halbieren, einen Zeitabschnitt, der gerade in das vierte Jahrhundert nach Christus fällt, der auch zusammenfällt mit dem vollständigen Abklingen derjenigen Weisheit, die noch das Mysterium von Golgatha in spirituellem Sinne hat erfassen können [siehe Hinweis]. Nachher war es nur ein verstandesmäßiges Diskutieren. Und als dann das 15. Jahrhundert herankam, wurde der Menschenverstand für die menschliche Zivilisation Alleinherrscher. Dadurch aber wurde das, was auch eine lebendige Verbindung des Menschen mit dem Christus darstellt, immer mehr und mehr hereingezogen in das bloß materielle menschliche Denken. Und dann erlebte man im 19. Jahrhundert, wie der Christus gerade für die fortgeschrittenste Theologie ganz verlorengegangen ist, wie man es für aufgeklärt hielt, von einem bloßen «Menschen von Nazareth» zu sprechen. Wenn man das in der ganzen Schwere wiederum empfindet, muß man zu der Sehnsucht kommen, die Christus-Wesenheit wiederum zu finden. Und diese Sehnsucht, den Christus wieder finden zu können, möchte anthroposophische Weltanschauung für die großen Weltenfragen befriedigen, und dazu ist man wirklich gerade in Mitteleuropa ganz besonders vorbereitet. Sie können das aus verschiedenen Symptomen sehen.
[ 29 ] Ein großer Denker Westeuropas, Herbert Spencer, hat eine Schrift über Erziehung geschrieben, die den Materialisten sehr gefällt, und darin sagt er, alle Erziehung tauge nichts, wenn der Mensch nicht dazu erzogen werde, wiederum den Menschen zu erziehen. Wie begründet er das? Er sagt: Das Höchste, wozu es der Mensch bringen kann im Leben, ist, wiederum Menschen zu erzeugen. Also muß auch Erziehung das Höchste sein. - Das westliche Denken ist von der einen Seite her richtig. Was sagt nun ein östlicher Denker? Bei Wladimir Solowjow lebt aus dem Geiste des Ostens noch etwas sehr Altes. Für die westliche Kultur ist die Urweisheit ganz verschwunden. Im Osten hat sie sich noch als ein Gefühl erhalten. Solowjow hat noch etwas von der wirklich christlichen Weisheit. Hier in Mittel- und Westeuropa hat man nur ein Gottesbewußtsein, man hat kaum mehr ein Wissen von dem Sohne. Harnack zum Beispiel spricht von Gott so, als ob der Christus, der Sohn, gar nicht in die Evangelien gehöre, sondern nur der Vater. Nur noch das Vaterbewußtsein ist da, das Gottesbewußtsein. Und was er sagt von dem Sohn, muß von dem Vater gesagt werden. Solowjow hat eben noch etwas von dem Christus-Bewußtsein, und wenn er redet, hat man manchmal das Gefühl, als ob die alten Kirchenväter vor dem Konzil von Nicäa redeten. Solowjow hat schon ganz andere Titel über seine Abhandlungen gesetzt, so zum Beispiel eine Abhandlung «Von Freiheit, Notwendigkeit, Gnade und Sünde». Suchen Sie sich bei den westlichen Philosophen eine Abhandlung über Gnade oder Sünde, bei Spencer oder Mill oder Bergson, oder Wundt! Das gibt es im Westen nicht, ist ganz undenkbar, das taucht in diesem Zusammenhang dort gar nicht auf.
[ 30 ] Der östliche Philosoph redet noch so, und was sagt er? Ein Leben, das den Menschen gegeben wäre auf dieser Erde, das nicht streben müßte nach Vervollkommnung in der Wahrheit, das wäre kein wirkliches Menschenleben, das wäre wertlos, aber auch die Vervollkommnung in der Wahrheit wäre wertlos, wenn der Mensch nicht Anteil an der Unsterblichkeit hätte. Ein Weltbetrug wäre ein solches Leben. So redet Solowjow, der östliche Philosoph. Und dann sagt er: Die eigentliche geistige Menschenaufgabe beginnt erst dann, wenn der Mensch in das geschlechtsreife Alter eingetreten ist. [Lücke in der Nachschrift.] Der vollständige Gegensatz zu Spencer! Spencer schließt die Entwickelung ab mit der Erzeugung der Nachkommenschaft, und der östliche Philosoph beginnt sie erst da. So ist es in allen Fragen bis in die Fragen des wirtschaftlichen Lebens hinein. So redet heute der westliche Wirtschafter, ohne etwas zu verstehen von dem, was die Gefühle des östlichen Menschen sind beim Wirtschaftsleben. Wir brauchen auch in den großen Weltfragen eine welthistorische Besinnung heute, und wir müssen uns klar sein, daß das große Unglück der Menschheit im zweiten Jahrzehnt des 20. Jahrhunderts die große Aufforderung, die gewaltige Prüfung an die Menschheit ist zu dieser Besinnung. Es muß aus den Untergründen der Seele heraufsteigen eine ganz andere Behandlung des Lebens. Die großen Fragen des Lebens, die über Geburt und Tod hinausliegen, müssen in das gewöhnliche Menschenleben hineinspielen. Die Fragen der Gegenwart müssen von dem Lichte der Ewigkeit beleuchtet werden, sonst werden die Menschen von Kongreß zu Kongreß eilen und immer mehr und mehr ins Unglück hineinsinken.
Crossing the threshold
[ 1 ] We haven't seen each other here in the branches for quite some time, and I think I can say that it gives me extraordinary satisfaction to be able to discuss a few things with you again today after such a long time. We have gone through an extremely difficult period, the difficulties of which are well felt, but still not sufficiently understood in wider circles. It can be said that those who lived through the second decade of the 20th century experienced more in terms of content than can normally be experienced in centuries. And it is a kind of spiritual slumber if one does not feel how everything that is relevant to the development of humanity is different today than it was, say, ten years ago. The entire transformation that has taken place will probably only gradually become fully apparent to humanity. We will then see how what has played out in such a catastrophic way on the outer surface of things nevertheless reaches extraordinarily deeply into the roots of the human soul, how what has happened has basically emerged as errors of the soul affecting the widest circles of humanity. And only when people decide to look for the real reasons for the great human misfortune in the souls, only then will they be able to understand this time of trial for humanity, and then it will probably also happen that a spiritual current such as anthroposophy will be understood in a different way than it has been understood in many cases up to now.
[ 2 ] This anthroposophical spiritual current aims precisely to give humanity what it has lacked during the last three, four, or five centuries, and whose absence is so intimately connected with what we have experienced and are experiencing as the misery of culture and civilization. The world has emerged from the spiritual realm, from life in the spirit, not only in relation to the great connections, but also in relation to the development of what happens in the smallest circles. Great world questions confront humanity today that can only be dealt with in some way from the depths of spiritual life, and they are being dealt with in the most external way throughout the whole world. We have no way of looking into what is striving to work its way up from the depths of human soul and spirit life. But this is precisely what the anthroposophical worldview wants to bring back to humanity.
[ 3 ] Today I would like to discuss some intimate questions of human soul and spirit life from the perspective of this anthroposophical worldview. Perhaps we can then, from the point of view we gain through such a discussion, briefly turn our attention to some current events. Anthroposophical spiritual science seeks to speak about those worlds that remain hidden from external sensory perception and also from the intellect that is bound to this sensory perception. Anthroposophical spiritual science seeks to speak primarily about that with which the eternal in the human soul is connected. The worlds into which this anthroposophical worldview seeks to penetrate are said to be accessible only when human beings cross the threshold of consciousness. This means that this threshold of consciousness must be consciously crossed in order to gain knowledge of these supersensible worlds. For unconsciously, human beings actually cross this threshold of consciousness every time they enter the state of sleep, and we speak in connection with the transition between waking and sleeping, in connection with the threshold that human beings cross when they fall asleep — cross every day — we also speak of the “guardian of the threshold” as a spiritual power that the spiritual researcher knows to be a truly real spiritual power, just as one comes to know other human beings as real human beings. We speak of the “guardian of the threshold” because, in the present phase of human development, human beings really must first be protected by their consciousness from unprepared entry into the spiritual worlds.
[ 4 ] It may seem extremely striking at first that what must be most valuable to human beings, the spiritual world to which they belong with the deepest roots of their existence, without which they would not have human dignity in the true sense of the word, must initially be hidden from them. This is deeply connected with the whole meaning of human evolution. Human beings would not be able to attain their true nature in the course of evolution if they did not have to acquire and develop the power through which they work their way up to the spiritual worlds. If he were to attain the crossing of the threshold as an undeserved gift of grace, he might perhaps be a high spiritual being, but he would not be able to be a human being in the true sense of the word, a being that brings itself to its own value; for that is the essence of the human being in the context of the world, that he must make himself into what constitutes his true dignity. It would be like a kind of burning of the human being, like a kind of extinguishing of the human being, if the human being crossed the threshold into the spiritual world unprepared. Nevertheless, what spiritual research has to say about the relationship to that world can be grasped by the healthy mind. What must be said in this connection from the foundations of spiritual research can be understood. Just consider how, when a person falls asleep, they first sink into a kind of unconscious state. From this unconscious state, individual waves emerge into the world of dreams, as if from the depths of the sea.
[ 5 ] Even for people who are free from superstition and nebulous mysticism, this dream world has something thoroughly mysterious and enigmatic about it, something that must be felt as connected with the innermost essence of both the world and human existence itself. We can thus trace the time that humans spend from falling asleep to waking up as a lowered state of consciousness from which the world of images of dreams reveals itself. And even if we only observe dreaming in an external way, we must say to ourselves: Dreams contain pictorial echoes of the life we have lived, not only through sensory perception, but also through the intellect and through feeling. But they contain this world we know in a different way. Not only does the dream generally not bring abstract thoughts, but it forms everything into images. Not only is this the case, but also the following: While we have a certain world order before us in the sensory world, which is internally regulated in a certain way so that we are intellectually satisfied by the world when things appear to us in an orderly fashion in space and time, dreams seem to throw everything into confusion. They intersperse events that happened yesterday with events that took place decades ago. It brings a different order to what we know as spatial order, as the spatial-temporal order that we otherwise see when we are awake.
[ 6 ] And when we study dreams in this way, we find that it is precisely what comes out of dreams that constitutes our power of thought. When we wake up, we feel as if we are entering the world again from dreamless sleep, where human ideas and thoughts develop. We feel that we are pouring the world of images from our dreams into our physical bodies. And as we pour them out, our bodies send us the power of thought, which in turn brings order to what the dream has thrown into confusion. Our body claims us when we wake up, and our body gives us the power of imagination, through the use of which we actually become awake. Then the world of dreams fades away, and in its place comes the world of ideas in the regular order of space and time.
[ 7 ] Anyone who pays just a little attention to these phenomena can observe this slipping into the physical realm of something initially undefined in everyday life and can also advance to the level of understanding that says: The power of thought is given to me through my body when I immerse myself in this physicality with my soul and spirit. And through this everyday observation, they will be able to confirm what anthroposophy must say: that what we initially know from ordinary daily life as ideas is bound to the outer physical body, which remains in bed at night when we cross the threshold into another world with our spiritual-soul being. As our consciousness is extinguished, it leaves behind the threshold the power, the ability to form worlds of thought in the usual sense, and that which is the content of the soul, the content of the will, passes over the threshold. And this content of the soul, this content of the will, is already similar to the state of sleep in ordinary waking life. We are actually only truly awake in our imaginations. Just consider how dark is that which lives in our feelings, and how completely dark is that which lives in our impulses of will. If we try to imagine how we will carry out the simplest decision of will: What actually happens in our muscles and bones, what actually happens when the thought is realized, remains as dark as the state of sleep. First we have the thought: I lift my arm—then we see it lift. We only have impressions. What happens there mysteriously remains hidden from consciousness, like the state of sleep itself. We basically carry through the threshold that which is already asleep and dreaming in the waking state. For the images are no brighter than the feelings that follow our world of imagination. It is in other forms that the life of the soul expresses itself through feelings in the waking state and through dreams in the sleeping state, but the life of feelings is no brighter than the dream image. If it were brighter, we as human beings would lead an extraordinarily abstract life. Just think how rightly we speak of cold, sober thoughts in contrast to those that are inflamed by feeling! But what lives in feeling remains, in a certain sense, as dark as dream images.
[ 8 ] And when we fall asleep, we carry our feelings across this threshold, and it is these feelings that, in a certain sense, even brighten up during sleep to become dream images. We carry our will into this world, but it is as asleep during waking life as it is during sleep. And so we can say: What the human being carries through the threshold of consciousness is the feeling and will element of his soul being. Feeling and will belong to the consciousness of sleep. The life of imagination and—because dreams become clearer, so does the life of feeling—a part of the life of feeling belong to waking life; they still lie on this side of the threshold of consciousness. Now we speak of the guardian of the threshold because it is necessary for human beings in their present state of consciousness not to cross the threshold unprepared, which they cross every time they fall asleep when their consciousness is dulling. When one learns to recognize the forces within which human beings find themselves beyond the threshold of consciousness, one also learns why human beings must be prevented by a guardian, by something that watches over them, from entering the spiritual world unprepared.
[ 9 ] When you first enter the world beyond the threshold, it looks very different from what you would like to imagine. However, if one enters sufficiently prepared, it gradually transforms and one has experiences that are different from the very first ones, which are somewhat disconcerting even for those who are well prepared to enter the supersensible world. For what lives in the supersensible world in the first way in which it presents itself? First of all, there are forces, essences that behave, one must say, extremely hostile toward the ordinary sensory world. When one crosses the threshold into the spiritual world, it feels like a scorching and burning, like a consuming fire for everything that the sensory world offers. One enters a world of destructive forces. This is the first sight that presents itself beyond the threshold. And I would like to give you an idea, based on facts, of what it is like to enter this world:
[ 10 ] Consider the human physical body that envelops us from birth to death. Consider the moment when a person approaches death, when they pass through the gate of death, initially in relation to the physical body. After passing through the gate, the body appears outwardly in the same form as it was before death, if we consider only the spatial aspect. But very soon you will experience that this physical body, which can retain this form for decades, for which this form is natural, is dissolved, destroyed by the forces of the external world, of the external cosmos. It is the destiny of this body to be dissolved and destroyed by these forces of the cosmos. Simply by observing impartially that the body, as soon as it is deprived of its soul, is destroyed and dissolved by the forces of nature, one must be convinced that something lives in this body between birth and death that continually preserves the body from destruction, that does not belong to this world of the senses. For if it belonged to this same world, it would destroy the body, not preserve it. If people would only consider this self-evident fact, they would not find it so difficult to penetrate anthroposophical spiritual science. We have the corpse, and the external forces of nature destroy it. If what we carry within us were of the same nature as the forces of nature, it would constantly destroy this body. These simple thoughts are constantly ignored. But consider that we are surrounded by a world that is always around us, destroying our body.
[ 11 ] The moment the soul leaves the body, it is destroyed. And when we leave this body when we fall asleep, we wander into the world that destroys our corpse. We must learn about this [gaps in the transcription]. We enter the world of destructive forces when we fall asleep, and this world is indeed the spiritual world, for why else? Anyone who expects to encounter something beyond the threshold that is similar to what is here in the physical sensory world is only expecting another physical sensory world beyond the threshold. If there is to be spirit there, then the physical sensory world cannot be there. What we experience there will be forces that constantly tend to destroy the physical sensory world. And we experience this thoroughly when we consciously cross the threshold. We experience thoroughly that in this spiritual world we find that which has a constant tendency to destroy the physical world. If a person were to cross this threshold unprepared and unprotected, then—if I may express myself trivially—they would find this world extremely pleasant. Low instincts would be extremely satisfied at first, and humans would grow together with the world of destructive forces in the world they first enter, and they would become allies of these destructive forces. They would not want to become co-workers in what surrounds us as the physical world. One must first learn to love this physical world as a world of wisdom, so that one is well prepared to enter the spiritual world. Before one is allowed to stand at the side of the creators, one must, in a sense, have learned to love creation, and one must have thoroughly understood that the world, as it has been created, has not been brought into being senselessly by the divine creative powers. One must have fathomed the meaning of earthly life if one wants to enter the spiritual world well prepared, otherwise one would return every morning upon awakening with a terrible hatred for the sensory world and the urge to destroy it. Simply because of the necessity of human existence, people would wake up with hatred and anger if they spent the time between falling asleep and waking up in such a state of consciousness.
[ 12 ] You can follow this if you look at the dream with an open mind. Dreams have terribly destructive powers. What you describe as ‘dream images’ destroys all logic. The dream says: Nothing, no more logic, I don't want logic. Logic is for the external sensory world, where it dogmatically orders things. Away with logic, a different world order must prevail! That is what the dream says, and if it were strong enough not just to caress the brain but to plunge down into the whole human being, then it would seize not only the logical instincts but also the other instincts and the emotional life, and just as it destroys logic, it would also destroy all the life of the physical human being. The human being would not want to return to his body, but would slowly destroy his physical body on the way there. Only because what lives in the dream is overwhelmed by what comes towards him from the body is logic destroyed for a few moments. This can be traced in detail. What continues in sleep are precisely the forces that belong to the rhythmic system of the human being. Breathing continues, the heartbeat and pulse continue, thoughts cease, the will ceases. What belongs to the average human being continues, only it is toned down. At the moment when the pulse is still beating a little weaker in the brain, the dream comes in, making a move to destroy the power of the body and logic, until the forces of the body overwhelm the dream again and the pulse becomes stronger.
[ 13 ] When it comes to truly understanding the forces, anthroposophy is already quite materialistic. Materialists do not really understand how to be materialistic because they do not know how the spiritual interacts with the physical. They do not notice anywhere how the spiritual submerges and continues to work in the physical. And it is one of the most interesting things to observe how the spiritual submerges, because it first wants to assert itself and destroy the logical. And then the forces of the physical develop, the powers of imagination, which work against it and overcome it. The dream is rendered harmless for physical life on earth. If you consider this correctly, it allows you to look deeply into the relationship between waking and sleeping, for it shows how human beings must remain conscious of their spiritual origin, that on the one hand they must always sink back into sleep, but on the other hand, in the present stage of development, they must pursue with full consciousness that which takes place in the state between falling asleep and waking up.
[ 14 ] We live on our Earth. This Earth is first and foremost a physical cosmic formation. A time will come when this Earth will succumb to what is known as heat death, when the Earth will pass through real physical fire, when destructive forces will seize all earthly formations, not just corpses. What leads this earth to its fiery death are spiritual forces connected to the earth, which one learns about in the first stage one enters when passing the guardian of the threshold into the spiritual world.
[ 15 ] Let us consider what we have gained in this way with regard to passing through the gate of death. There the physical body is completely laid aside. The spiritual-soul now enters the spiritual world in such a way that it first develops the desire to return to the physical body. And this spiritual-soul life, having laid aside the physical body, can now come back into consciousness without the physical body. While it was embodied in the physical body, this spiritual-soul life was simply too weak to endure the destructive forces. Now, however, as it passes through the gate of death, this spiritual-soul life must be strong enough not to long for the physical body any longer. Since it does not remain unconscious, but enters into real consciousness as it passes through the gate of death, it must take up a certain life of thought, for only in the life of thought can one become truly fully conscious. And this is also the enormous difference between crossing the threshold when falling asleep and when passing through death. When falling asleep, the world of thoughts is simply dampened and only returns when the person wakes up and re-enters the physical body. At death, the person takes in the world of thoughts with the spiritual-soul life without the mediation of the physical body. What is this?
[ 16 ] Human beings would never return to their physical bodies in the morning if they knew the spiritual world, had grown together with it, and did not have the unconscious desire to return to the physical body, to the physical world. Desires, however, are something that are not connected with full, clear consciousness, but rather dampen and suppress this clear consciousness. Man desires to return to his body in the morning, and it is precisely this desire for the body that dampens his world of thoughts. And so he can only find his thought life again when he is in the body. In death, however, desires are killed. Man enters the world of thoughts. As a spiritual-soul being, he now has a life of thoughts, but he would enter the same world he enters every evening when he falls asleep if he were to enter death completely unprepared. To put it in extreme terms, one could say that If a person enters death unprepared, he is basically exposed to a terrible situation; he is exposed to seeing what actually happens to his physical body. His physical body is pulverized in the cosmic world context, because if the body is not cremated, the cosmos cremates it. And human beings would have to watch this if they were not prepared.
[ 17 ] What does this mean, and what must happen so that human beings do not merely see destruction after death, so that they do not merely live in destructive forces? What must happen is that through the absorption of spiritual content, through consciousness in a spiritual worldview, human beings carry an inner kinship with the divine-spiritual world through the gate of death. If human beings are only conscious of a physical, material world, then after death they enter the world of destructive forces terribly unprepared, as if into a world of scorching flames. If they permeate themselves with ideas of a spiritual world, with awareness of the spiritual world, then the flame becomes the birthplace of the spiritual after death, and then one does not look only at destruction, but in the falling away of earthly dust from the human context, one sees the spiritual rising. And no one should say that we can wait and see what happens when death comes, as the ordinary materialistic view so readily suggests! No, one must carry the consciousness of the spiritual through the gate, so that one may overcome the destructive forces of the worlds into which the corpse enters with the spiritual-soul, and so that the spiritual-soul may rise anew creatively out of the destructive.
[ 18 ] I am developing this for you from anthroposophical spiritual science, but you have all certainly heard of the fear that people had of death in earlier times, a premonitory knowledge also in the sense of the teaching of the Apostle Paul, who also speaks of the need for human beings to be saved from falling into death with their souls. People were aware that they could die not only physically, in terms of their corpse, but also in terms of their soul. People do not like to talk about such things, that the soul can die with the body. When Paul speaks of death, he is not actually speaking of physical death, but of what can happen when physical death seeks to bring about spiritual death. Human beings must become aware again that they must do something in their physical, sensory life to connect their consciousness with the soul and spirit, so that they carry something through death with which the spirit rises from the consuming flame that is always there after death.
[ 19 ] It must be clear from such connections that life in the world is something terribly serious. No worldview is of value to human beings unless it leads through inner strength to a moral view of the world that presents the whole seriousness of life to the human soul. To say that physical and chemical forces built the earth, that living beings and ultimately humans developed from this, is not only a one-sided worldview, it is also a worldview that takes life seriously and is basically only a consequence of human convenience. From a worldview that gains the right position toward the spirit, the seriousness of life follows, because the possibility stands before human beings of being connected with the destructive forces when they pass through the “gate of death.” Throughout their physical life, human beings are given the opportunity to prepare themselves in an appropriate way by being protected, by seeing the destructive world with which they are nevertheless related every evening as they fall asleep, by being given time to take in that which then guides them through the gate of death in such a way that they can then see the spiritual in the destructive world. It cannot be emphasized enough that feelings and sensations must arise naturally throughout life from a worldview, that a worldview must not remain a mere abstract theory, but must become something alive that grips the feelings and will. And civilized humanity must once again struggle to attain such a view of the world. Then it will see the imperishable in everything that is transitory, but then it will also advance from that which does not live out itself in a more subtle form of egoism in human beings to the eternal, to the immortal.
[ 20 ] Consider today's way of life from this point of view. One must not take it badly when someone who has to tell the truth also has to say unpleasant things. Let us consider religious instruction, for example. What is it actually based on? On egoism! People are spoken to in such a way as to make clear to them their immortality, their conscious passage through death, because human beings want to live beyond death. Human beings have this desire, and people want to satisfy it, and because it is inconvenient to appeal to knowledge, knowledge is left out and people limit themselves to mere belief. But this only appeals to human egoism, which is interested in what happens after death, because that is what it must wait for. It is not interested in what happens before birth. This can only be learned through knowledge. Through knowledge, one learns about the eternal, which extends not only beyond death but also beyond conception.
[ 21 ] Even in our use of language, it is evident that we have only half a knowledge of the eternity of the human being; we only have immortality. We should also have the word “unborn.” Only when we grasp the connection between the two do we finally grasp the eternity of the human being. In our age, human beings have renounced their connection with the spiritual world, even in their language. This connection must be rediscovered. Without this rediscovery, a real life practice is completely impossible, and the present culture would have to come to a complete decline.
[ 22 ] We founded the Waldorf School in Stuttgart with the Waldorf School curriculum. When people talk about this, they attach all kinds of ideas to it. Recently someone said: Yes, why does the Waldorf School curriculum pay so little attention to children's fatigue? Today, fatigue must be studied carefully. Today there is something called experimental psychology. One records how a child can recite unrelated words, and after a while one notes the fatigue, also as a result of the subjects taught, and is very proud of this. And now one notices: Waldorf education does not talk so much about children's fatigue, so it is not modern, it does not pay attention to this. Why is that? Waldorf schools talk less about fatigue, but they talk about the fact that after children lose their baby teeth, they must first be cared for and educated in such a way that education is preferably based on the rhythmic system, that artistic activities that stimulate rhythm must be cultivated, and only later should abstract writing be introduced, followed even later by abstract reading. The appeal is not to the head, but to the artistic. Anyone who teaches as is done today, who always does things with children that appeal to the head, must expect fatigue. But if you educate in such a way that you prefer to make use of the rhythmic, the artistic, then I ask you: does the heart tire throughout life? The heart must beat, breathing must continue, and Waldorf education does not need to talk about fatigue because it works to educate children in such a way that they tire very little. Experimental education has developed into a system that is terribly tiring because it has brought about this terrible fatigue itself. [Gaps in the transcription.] Waldorf education takes into account the connection between body, soul, and spirit and pursues that which connects the spiritual-soul world with physicality and leaves it again at death. When it comes to understanding the material world, it is precisely anthroposophy that can understand the material.
[ 23 ] What is most active in children? Brain activity! The plastic formation of the entire body radiates from this activity. It is most active until the teeth change. When the teeth change, this formative ability is transferred to the respiratory and cardiac systems, and this is what we are dealing with until sexual maturity. One can only work artistically here, not theoretically. Between the ages of seven and fourteen, the muscles develop internally in such a way that they are adapted to the rhythmic system. And when the age of fourteen approaches, the soul and spirit take hold of the whole human being, and it is interesting to observe how the muscles have previously been aligned with the heartbeat, pulse, and breathing. They then begin to connect with the bones through the tendons, with the skeleton, and adapt to external movements. Just learn to observe carefully how young people change at this age. [Gaps in the transcription.] It starts in the head, the soul grows further and further toward the surface of the human being and finally takes hold of the bones, then fills the human being completely and consumes him, becoming more and more friendly with the forces of death until these forces of death carry victory at the moment of death.
[ 24 ] Anthroposophical spiritual science traces in minute detail the spiritual processes as they sink into material life and how the spiritual-soul life takes hold of the whole human being from the head. Only from such knowledge will it be possible to re-educate human beings. The intellect is necessary for us to find freedom, but it drives away the security of the instincts. I had a friend. When we were both young, he was a very nice person. Then I visited him again because he invited me. I had never been to a lunch where a scale with weights was set up. A scale was brought in, and he weighed everything he ate first! His intellect had figured out how much he needed to maintain his body, and that was fed to his body. The intellect drives away instincts in small things, but also in big things, and one must find the way back. The security of life, the natural stability of life, is regained, because one finds temporal life in the right way precisely by finding the eternal share in this temporal life, by knowing how this eternal lives within the temporal, and that is what our present civilization needs.
[ 25 ] These things must also be treated as world issues. Today, no attention is paid to the contrasts between the people of the West and the East. External issues are dealt with in an external manner, and congresses are held to discuss how to resolve the difficult situation, but no attention is paid to the fact that East and West can only achieve economic balance if they have trust in each other. Asians will never be able to cooperate with the West in the right way if they cannot understand each other. But understanding can only come from the soul. Spiritual understanding is therefore part of the economy of the world, but this can only be achieved by deepening the life of the soul. That is why the intimate questions of human soul life are today at the same time the great questions of the world. We will not be able to penetrate what the world needs today, even in external public affairs, if we do not make ourselves comfortable enough to listen to what the science of the supersensible has to say, for the world has changed in the course of time. The human race in particular has changed.
[ 26 ] When we look back over the development of humanity, we look back to the event that gives meaning to the development of humanity and the earth: the mystery of Golgotha. This mystery of Golgotha was the entry of something divine into earthly conditions through an earthly body. Christ entered the body of Jesus of Nazareth in order to work with the earth. The earth would have had to perish, would have had to decay in the world context, if a new fertilization had not taken place through the coming of Christ. Now you also know that in ancient times there was an instinctive science, a primordial world wisdom, but at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, very little of this remained in Western civilization. However, enough remained that the Mystery of Golgotha could still be understood instinctively for at least four centuries. And anyone who truly knows how the mystery of Golgotha was understood in its supersensible meaning in the first centuries of Christian development knows that until well into the fourth century, the authoritative Christian teachers knew about the coming of the Christ-Sun Spirit into the human being Jesus of Nazareth.
[ 27 ] Who today still has a living awareness of what it means whether there are two natures, one divine and one human, in the man Jesus of Nazareth, or only one? This was, however, a question of life and death in the first Christian centuries, something that had meaning in life. People had a living awareness of how the Christ Spirit connected with Jesus from the worlds beyond. So we have two natures in one personality: the God and the human being. [Gap in the transcript.]
[ 28 ] You will often have heard that the fourth post-Atlantean period lasted from approximately 747 BC, before the Mystery of Golgotha, to 1413 AD, after the Mystery of Golgotha. Actual intellectualism began in the first third of the 15th century. We now look into physical forces, calculate and pursue physics, but we no longer know that spiritual forces are at work out there and that real spirit exists out there — something that was known in earlier times. But take this period from 747 BC to 1413 [AD]. It is the period of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. If you take 747 and then go to 1413, halving the time, you get a period that falls precisely in the fourth century AD, which also coincides with the complete decline of the wisdom that was still able to grasp the mystery of Golgotha in a spiritual sense [see note]. After that, it was just intellectual discussion. And then, when the 15th century came, human reason became the sole ruler of human civilization. As a result, however, what also represents a living connection between human beings and Christ was increasingly drawn into purely material human thinking. And then, in the 19th century, we experienced how Christ was completely lost, especially in advanced theology, where it was considered enlightened to speak of a mere “man from Nazareth.” When we feel the full weight of this, we cannot help but long to find the Christ being again. And this longing to find Christ again is what the anthroposophical worldview seeks to satisfy in relation to the great questions of the world, and Central Europe is particularly well prepared for this. You can see this from various symptoms.
[ 29 ] A great Western European thinker, Herbert Spencer, wrote a book on education that is very popular with materialists, in which he says that all education is useless unless people are educated to educate other people. How does he justify this? He says that the highest goal a person can achieve in life is to produce other people. Therefore, education must also be the highest goal. Western thinking is correct from one point of view. But what does an Eastern thinker say? In Vladimir Solovyov, something very ancient still lives on from the spirit of the East. For Western culture, this primordial wisdom has completely disappeared. In the East, it has been preserved as a feeling. Solovyov still has something of true Christian wisdom. Here in Central and Western Europe, people only have an awareness of God; they hardly know anything about the Son anymore. Harnack, for example, speaks of God as if Christ, the Son, did not belong in the Gospels at all, but only the Father. Only the awareness of the Father remains, the awareness of God. And what he says about the Son must be said about the Father. Soloviev still has something of the Christ consciousness, and when he speaks, one sometimes has the feeling that the old Church Fathers are speaking before the Council of Nicaea. Soloviev has given his treatises very different titles, for example, a treatise “On Freedom, Necessity, Grace, and Sin.” Try to find a treatise on grace or sin among Western philosophers, among Spencer or Mill or Bergson, or Wundt! It does not exist in the West, it is completely unthinkable, it does not even appear in this context there.
[ 30 ] The Eastern philosopher still speaks like this, and what does he say? A life given to man on this earth that did not have to strive for perfection in truth would not be a real human life; it would be worthless, but perfection in truth would also be worthless if man did not have a share in immortality. Such a life would be a deception of the world. This is how Soloviev, the Eastern philosopher, speaks. And then he says: The real spiritual task of man only begins when he has reached sexual maturity. [Gap in the transcript.] The complete opposite of Spencer! Spencer concludes development with the production of offspring, and the Eastern philosopher only begins it there. This is true in all questions, even in questions of economic life. This is how Western economists speak today, without understanding anything about the feelings of Eastern people when it comes to economic life. We also need a world-historical reflection on the great questions of the world today, and we must be clear that the great misfortune of humanity in the second decade of the 20th century is the great challenge, the tremendous test for humanity to achieve this reflection. A completely different approach to life must rise from the depths of the soul. The great questions of life that lie beyond birth and death must play a role in ordinary human life. The questions of the present must be illuminated by the light of eternity, otherwise people will rush from congress to congress and sink deeper and deeper into misfortune.