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Pneumatosophy
The Riddles of the Inner Man
GA 224

23 May 1923, Berlin

Translated by Frances E. Dawson

My dear Friends, what I should like to bring to you now will have to be said—as has everything that I have had to say recently about Anthroposophy—with a certain undertone called forth by the painful event which befell our work and our Society on last New Year's Eve: the Goetheanum in Dornach, for the time being, is no more; it was consumed by flames in the night before the New Year. And all who witnessed the destruction in this one night of the work of ten long years, accomplished by so many of our friends, and performed by them with complete devotion—all who have loved this Goetheanum very much, just because of this work, and because of what the Goetheanum was to us, will of necessity be weighed down by the thought that we no longer have this particular outer sign of Anthroposophical activity. For, even if some other building for our work shall arise on the same site—which should by all means occur—owing to the trying circumstances of the present time it can, of course, never be the old Goetheanum. Therefore, behind all that I have had to say since those days there actually stands in the background the fearful glow of the flames, which in such a heart-rending way interrupted the development of all our work. Since this outer sign has vanished, we must dedicate ourselves all the more to laying hold of the inner forces and inner realities of the Anthroposophical Movement and of what is connected with it for the entire evolution of humanity. Let me begin then with a sort of consideration of the nature of the human being. I have presented very much of this kind here in your midst, and I should like now to consider again one phase from a certain point of view.

I should like to start with a consideration of the human being entering the world, of the human being who has descended from the pre-earthly existence and is, as it were, taking his first steps here in the life on earth. We know, of course, that at the time of this entrance into the earth-life, a condition governs the soul which has a certain similarity to the ever-recurring condition of man's sleep-life. As the ordinary consciousness has no remembrance, upon awaking, of that which the soul-spiritual part of man has experienced between going to sleep and waking up (with the exception of the varicolored multiplicity of dreams, which actually float away, as we know, when we sink into sleep or when we wake, and which for the ordinary consciousness do not result from deep sleep)—as, then, the ordinary consciousness has no remembrance of this condition, so for the entire earth life this same consciousness remembers only back to a certain point of time in childhood. With one person this point of time is somewhat earlier, with another later. What occurs in the earthly life prior to this is really as much concealed from the ordinary consciousness as are the events of the sleep state. Of course, it is true that the child is not actually sleeping; it lives in a sort of dreamy, indefinite inner activity; but from the point of view of the whole later life, this condition is at least not very much removed from dream-filled sleep.

There are three activities, however, which set in at this time, three things. which the child is learning. There is what we ordinarily sum up in the expression learning to walk, then what is connected with learning to speak, and what for the child is connected with learning to think. Now, in the expression “learning to walk”, for the sake of our own convenience we actually characterize something which is extraordinarily complex in an exceedingly brief way. We need only to recall how the child is at first utterly unadapted to life, how it gradually gains the ability to accommodate its own position of balance to the space in which it is to move during the entire life. It is not merely “learning to walk” which we observe in the child, but a seeking for the state of equilibrium in the earthly life. Connected with learning to walk is all use of the limbs. And for anyone who is able to observe such a matter in the right way, the most remarkable and most important of life's riddles actually find expression in this activity of learning to walk; a whole universe comes to expression in the manner in which the child progresses from creeping to the upright position, to the placing of the little feet, but also in addition to holding the head upright and to the use of arms and legs. And then anyone who has a more intimate insight into how one child steps more on the heel, and another is more inclined to step on the toes, will perhaps have an inkling of what I shall now have to tell you with regard to the three activities mentioned and their relation to the spiritual world. Only, I should like first to characterize these three activities as to their outer aspects.

On the basis of this effort to attain equilibrium—or, if I may express myself now somewhat more learnedly, perhaps also somewhat more pompously, this search for a dynamic of life—on the basis of this effort, learning to speak is then developed. For, anyone who is able to observe knows quite well that the normal development of the child proceeds in such a way that learning to speak is developed on the basis of learning to walk and to grasp. With regard to learning to talk it will be noticed at the very first how the firm or gentle tread of the child is expressed in the act of talking, in the accenting of the syllables, in the force of the speech. And it will be noticed further how the modulation of the words, how the forming of the words, has a certain parallel with the way the child learns to bend the fingers or to keep them straight, whether it is skillful or unskillful. But anyone who can then observe the entire inner nature of the human organization will be able to know—what even the present-day teaching of evolution concedes—that “right-handed” people not only have the speech-center in the left third convolution of the forehead, in the so-called Broca convolution, which represents in a quite simple physiological way the characteristic relation between speech and the ability to grasp, the entire ability to handle the arm and the hand, if I may make use of the pleonasm; but we know also how closely the movement of the vocal cords, the whole adjustment of the speech organism, takes on exactly the same character which the movements of walking and grasping assume. But in the normal development of the child, speech which, as you know, is developed in imitation of the environment, cannot develop at all unless the foundation is first laid in the quest of the state of equilibrium in life.

With regard to thinking: Even the more delicate organs of the brain, upon which thinking depends, are developed in turn from the speech organization. No one should suppose that in the normal development of the child thinking could be evolved before speech. Anyone who is able to observe the process will find that with the child speech is not at first an expression of “thinking”—not at all! It would be ridiculous to believe that. But, with the child, speech is an expression of feeling, of sensation, of the soul-life. Hence you will see that at first it is interjections, everything connected with feelings, which the child expresses by means of speech. And when the child says “Mama” or “Papa”, it expresses feelings toward Mama or Papa, not any sort of concept or thought. Thinking is first developed from speech. It is true that among human beings many a thing is disarranged, so that someone says, “This child learned to speak before it walked.” But that is not the normal development, and in the rearing of a child one should by all means see to it that the normal course of development is actually observed: walking—speaking—thinking.

However, the real character of these activities of the child is truly perceived only when we observe the other side of human life: that is to say, if we observe how in later life these activities are related to each other in sleep; for they arise out of sleep, as I have indicated, or at least out of the dreamlike sleep of the child. But what do these activities signify during the later earth life?

In general, it is not possible for the scientific life of the present day to enter into these things. It actually knows only the exterior of the human being; it knows nothing of the inner relationships of the human being with the Cosmic Being, in so far as the Cosmic Being is spiritual. In every realm human civilization, if I may use the expression—or let us say human culture—has been developed to a certain materialism, or naturalism. Do not think that I wish here to upbraid materialism: if materialism had not come into human civilization, human beings would not have become free. Materialism is therefore a necessary epoch in the evolution of humanity. But today we must be very clear as to the way we have to go now—as well as in the future. And we must be clear about this in every realm. In order that what I now have to say may be better illustrated, I should like to make it clear to you by means of an example.

You all know and can learn from my books that earth humanity, before it passed through those cultural epochs which are only partly similar to the present one—the ancient Indian, the ancient Persian, the Egypto-Chaldean, the Greco-Latin, and then our own—passed through the so-called Atlantean catastrophe. And during this Atlantean catastrophe the humanity which is now the European, Asiatic, and American civilized humanity lived chiefly on a continent where there is now sea—namely, the Atlantic Ocean. At that time this area was occupied mostly by land, and for a very long time, humanity had been developing upon this Atlantean continent. You can read in my books and cycles what humanity passed through during those epochs. I will not speak of other human experiences during the ancient Atlantean time, but only of musical experiences.

The entire musical experience of the ancient Atlantean would necessarily appear very curious, even grotesque, to a man of the present time, if he could hear it—which, of course, he cannot do. For what the ancient Atlanteans were in quest of in music was, for example, the chords of the seventh.

These chords of the seventh had the peculiarity of affecting the souls of these ancient people—in whose bodies we were all ensheathed, for in repeated earth lives we passed through that time also—in such a way that they were immediately transported out of their bodies when they lived in their music, this music which took into special consideration the chords of the seventh.

They knew no other frame of mind in music than a state of rapture, of enthusiasm, a state in which they were permeated by the God; and, when their extraordinarily simple instruments sounded—instruments intended only for accompaniment to singing—then such an Atlantean immediately felt himself to be actually weaving and living in the outer spiritual world.

Then came the Atlantean catastrophe. Among all post-Atlanteans there was next developed a preference for a sequence of fifths. You probably know that for a long time thereafter fifths played a most comprehensive role in musical development; for example, in ancient Greece, fifths played a quite extensive role. And this preference for a sequence of fifths had the peculiarity of affecting people in such a way that, when they experienced music, they now no longer felt drawn out of their bodies, to be sure, but they felt themselves to be soul and spirit within their bodies. During the musical experience they completely forgot physical experience; they felt that they were inside their skin, so to speak, but their skin was entirely filled with soul and spirit. That was the effect of the music, and very few people will believe that almost up to the tenth and eleventh Christian century the natural music was as I have described it. For not until then did the aptitude for thirds appear, the aptitude for the major and the minor third, and everything of the nature of major and minor. That came relatively late. But with this late development there was evolved at the same time the inner experience of music. Man now remained within himself in musical experience. Just as the rest of the culture at this time tended downward from the spiritual to the material, so in the musical sphere the tendency was downward, from the experience of the spiritual into which he passed in ancient times when he experienced music at all, to the experience of music within himself—no longer as far outward as to the skin, but entirely within himself. In this way there first appeared also at that time the major and minor moods, which are actually possible only when music is inwardly experienced.

Thus, it can be seen how in every domain man has descended from the spiritual into the material, but also into himself. Therefore, we should not always merely say, in a narrow-minded fashion, that the material is something of minor value, and we must escape from it. The human being would not have become truly human at all, if he had not descended and laid hold upon the material life. Precisely because he apprehended the spiritual in the material, did the human being become a self-conscious, independent Ego-Being. And today, with the help of Anthroposophical spiritual science, we must again find the way back into the spiritual world—in all realms we must find the way. This is the reason it is so painful that the artistic endeavor, made by means of the Goetheanum at Dornach, has been obliterated as is now the case. The way into the spiritual world must be sought in every realm.

Let us next consider one activity which the child learns—namely, speech—with regard to the entire evolution of the human being. It must really be said that what the child learns there is something magnificent. Jean Paul, the German poet, has said that in the first three years of life—that is, the years in which the essential things we learn are to walk, to speak and to think—the human being learns much more than in the three academic years. Meanwhile the “three” academic years have become many, but a man still learns no more in those three years than he learns as a child in the first three years of life.—Let us now consider speech. In speaking there is first the outer physical-physiological factor: that is, the larynx and the rest of our speech organs are set in motion. They move the air, which becomes the medium of tone. Here we have, in a way, the physical-physiological part. But in what we say there is soul also. And the soul permeates and gleams through all that we utter in the sounds. In as far as speech is something physical, man's physical body and his etheric body have a share in it. As a matter f course, these are silent from the time of going to sleep until the time of wakening. That is, the normal human being does not speak between going to sleep and waking; but in as much as the soul and the ego have a share in speech, they—the astral body and ego—take with them the soul power of speech, when they pass out of the physical and etheric bodies at the time of going to sleep—and they actually take with them everything of a soul nature which the person has put into his speech during the whole day. We are really different beings each evening, for we have been busy talking all day long—one more, another less, many all too much, many also too little—but, no matter, we have been occupied with talking throughout the day, and we have put our souls into what we have said. And what we have put into our speech, that we take with us into sleep, and it remains our being between sleeping and waking.

Now it may be that in our present materialistic age the human being no longer has any notion that idealism or spirituality may be expressed in the speech. People today usually have the idea that speech is intended to express only the external, the tangibly-objective. The feeling that ideals may be expressed in the speech has almost entirely disappeared. For this reason, it is also true that people today generally find so “unintelligible” what is said to them about “spirit”. For what do people say to themselves when spirit is mentioned? They admit that “words” are being used, but of these words people know only that they indicate what can be grasped or seen. The idea that words may also signify something else, something supersensible, invisible, people no longer like at all. That may be one way in which people regard speech; but the other may, of course, be that people shall find the way again to idealism even in words, even in language, knowing that a soul-spiritual experience may sound through each word, as it were.

What a person who lives entirely in the materialism of the language, so to speak, carries over in sleep into the spiritual world brings him, strangely enough, into a difficult relation with the world of the Archangels, the Archangeloi, into which he should enter each night between going to sleep and waking; while the one who preserves for himself the idealism of speech, and who knows how the genius of the language lives in it, comes into the necessary relation to the Hierarchy of the Archangeloi, especially to that Archangel to whom he himself belongs in the world between sleeping and waking. Indeed, this is expressed even in outer world phenomena. Why do people today seek so frantically for an outer relation to the national languages? Why did this frightful misfortune come upon Europe, which Woodrow Wilson has considered good fortune?—but he was a curious illusionist.—Why then did this great misfortune come upon Europe, that freedom is bound up with the convulsive desire to make use of the national languages, even of the smallest nations? Because in reality the people are frantically seeking externally a relationship which they no longer have in spirit: for in going to sleep they no longer have the natural relation to the language—and also, therefore, not to the Hierarchy of the Archangeloi! And humanity will have to find the way back again to the permeation of all that pertains to language with idealism, if they do not wish to lose the way into the spiritual world.

How does humanity today regard what takes place for the individual human being between going to sleep and waking? People do not take account of this sleep condition at all. If we recollect our past life, we seem to have before us a complete life picture. That is not the case; the time spent in sleep has regularly dropped out; the whole picture is continuously interrupted. We always connect the morning with the previous evening, but between them is the night. And what has occurred during sleep in the night constitutes outwardly, in the first place, at least a third of the human life (at all events, among “respectable” people it is so); and, secondly, it is much more important for the inner man than the outer activity during the whole day. To be sure, the outer activity is more important for external civilization; but our inner development during life is brought about by our coming into relation with the spiritual world in the right way while we sleep during the night.

And the same is true regarding what forms the basis of the other activities; that is to say, if the human being in his actions—that is, what he does throughout the entire realm of the movements which he first learns upon entrance into the earth life—if he puts idealism into the whole realm of his actions, that is, if his life contains idealism in its realization, then the human being finds again the right relation with the Hierarchy of the Archai. And if the thoughts contain idealism, if they are not materialistic, the human being finds during sleep the relation with the Hierarchy of the Angels. This is what we discover if, with the help of Anthroposophical spiritual science, we inquire into the relation to the sleep state of these three activities acquired during childhood.

But this relation may be revealed in a much more comprehensive degree, if we observe the entire life of the human being in the cosmos. You are acquainted with the description in my book Theosophy. When the human being passes through the gate of death, he first experiences for some days the condition which consists in the dissipation of the thoughts, of the concepts. We may express it by saying that the etheric body expands into the distances of the cosmos, the human being “loses” his etheric body. But that is the same as if I say that man's concepts and thoughts are dissipated. But what does that actually mean: that the concepts and thoughts are dissipated? It really means very much. It means, namely, that our entire waking life departs from us. Our entire waking life departs from us in the course of two or three days, and nothing at all would be left of our life, if we did not then live through that of which we remain unconscious during the earth life; that is, if we did not then begin to live through in full consciousness what we have experienced during our sleep life. This sleep life is spiritually infinitely richer, more intense, than the waking life. Whether the sleep be short or long, the sleep-life is each time a reversed repetition of the day life, but with a spiritual impulse: What you have accomplished as actions during the day brings you at night into a relation to the Archai, to the Primal Powers; what you have said in the daytime brings you at night into a relation to the Archangeloi, the Archangels; and your thinking brings you in the same way into a relation to your Angel-being, to the Angeloi.

And what man experiences during sleep is independent of time. It is unnecessary to say: “Very well, but the following is possible: At night I go to sleep; something makes a noise; something awakens me; in this case I certainly cannot complete my going back over the day in retrospect.” Even so it is completed, because the time relations are entirely different; that can be experienced in a moment which otherwise might continue for hours if the sleep were undisturbed. During sleep the time relations are quite different from those of the day. Therefore, it can be stated positively, and must so be stated, that each time a person sleeps he once again experiences in retrospect what he has lived through here in the physical world since the last waking, but this time in spiritual manner and substance. And when the waking life of concepts is dissipated into the cosmos, a few days after death, then the human being lives through the very experiences which he had during the third of life spent in sleep. I have, therefore, always had to describe how man requires a third of his earth-life in order then to live through what he has experienced during the nights of his life. Naturally, it is essentially like the day life, but it is experienced in a different way. And at that time, as the second condition after death, he lives through this retrogression, when he actually experiences once again, in a third of the time, the entire life back to birth. Then when he has again arrived at his birth, he enters into that condition which I have already described to you here in another connection; that is, he enters into that condition in which every conception of the world is essentially altered for him.

You see, here on earth we are in a definite place; the world is around us. We know ourselves very little, indeed, with the ordinary consciousness. The world we observe with the outer senses; that we know. Perhaps, you will say that the anatomists know the inner part of the human being very well. Not at all; they know only the outer aspect of the inner being. The real inner part is something entirely different.—If you call to mind today something which you experienced ten years ago, then you have in the memory something which is in your soul, do you not? It is condensed, a brief remembrance of, perhaps, a very, very extended experience. But it is merely a soul picture of something which you have passed through in the earth life. But now enter into yourself—not now into your memories, but into your physical organism, that is, the apparently physical organism—and observe the wonderful construction of your brain, of your lungs, and so forth. Within you there, rolled up as it were, are—not the experiences of this earth life, but rolled together there is the whole cosmos, the entire universe. Man is really a small universe, a microcosmos. In his organs the whole universe is rolled together. But the human being does not know this with the ordinary consciousness. When he is on earth, he has the memory of his experiences. He does not know that he himself in his physical nature is, as it were, the embodied memory of the whole cosmos.—When, therefore, the backward journey through the life, which I have just indicated, has been completed, then, between death and a new birth, we enter into a cosmic life, where we are not, as now, surrounded by the world with its mountains, clouds, stars, seas, and so on, but where our environment consists of the riddles of the inner human being, where everything concerning the mysteries of the inner human being of which we are deprived in the earth life, now constitutes our environment. Here on the earth, as you know, we live within our skin, and we know about the stars, clouds, mountains, rocks, animals, and plants. Between death and a new birth we know about the human being. All the mysteries of the human being are our environment. And do not suppose that it is a less interesting environment than that of the earth! To be sure, the starry heavens are magnificent, the mountains and the seas are grand; but what the inner being of man contains in a single small vessel is grander and mightier than our earth environment, when between death and a new birth we are surrounded by it in its majestic greatness. The human being is the world between death and a new birth, and he must be the world, because we prepare the next earth life. Together with the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies, we must help to prepare the future earth man. As we here are occupied with our outer culture and civilization, as here on earth we make boots or coats, use the telephone, do people's hair, give lectures, do something artistic, or whatever belongs to our present civilization, so, between death and a new birth, together with the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies, we prepare what the human being is, and what we ourselves shall again be in the physical body in the next earth life.

That is the goal of spiritual culture, and it is grander, infinitely grander and more magnificent than the goal of earthly civilization. Not without reason have the ancients called the physical human body a “Temple of the Gods”, because together with the Gods, with the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies, this human physical body is formed between death and a new birth. That is what we do, that is where we are with our ego—among the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies, working on humanity, together with the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies. We move about, as it were, among the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies; we are spirits among spirits.

What we do there we can, of course, do only according to what we have accomplished here in the earth life; and that also is revealed to us in a certain sense in the relation of sleep to waking. Just think how chaotic the dream is! I do not undervalue the wonderfully varied multiplicity and the grandeur of the dream; but we must nevertheless recognize that the dream, compared with the earth life, in whose images it is clothed, is chaotic. You need only to recall that dream which I have mentioned before as an illustration (Volkelt told this dream, according to a report from Württemberg, but we know of such, do we not?). A city lady visited her sister, who was the wife of a country parson, and she dreamed that she went with her sister to church to hear a sermon; but everything was quite peculiar; for, after the Gospel was read and the pastor went up to the pulpit, he did not begin to preach, but instead of raising his arms, he lifted wings, and finally began to .crow like a cock! Or recall another dream in which a lady said she had just dreamed of considering what good thing she should cook for her husband, and nothing at all occurred to her until finally the thought came to her that she still had an old pickled grandmother upstairs in the attic, but she would be very tough yet.—You see a dream can be as chaotic as that—strangely chaotic. But just what does it mean that the dream acts so chaotically? What does it really mean?

While we sleep, we are, with our ego and astral body, outside of our physical and etheric bodies. And during that time we experience again in reverse order—especially with regard to the moral significance—all that we have done, have said and have thought during the day. We live through that in reverse order. We are preparing for ourselves our karma for the next earth life, and this appears in pictures already in the time between going to sleep and waking. But these pictures are still very bungling; for when, upon waking, we are again about to enter into the physical body, the picture does not yet fit in properly: that is, we are not able to conceive things in conformity with the macrocosm; instead we conceive something entirely different, perhaps a “pickled grandmother”. That is because, with regard to what we have already formed in our sleep, we do not understand the adaptation to the human physical body. This adaptation to the human physical body is exceedingly difficult; and we acquire it in that working together, which I have described, with the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies between death and a new birth. There the soul-spiritual self must first readjust what otherwise in the dream so often enters so awkwardly, when the sleep consciousness is again fully overcome, and the person without his own cooperation has plunged again into his old physical body. This soul-spiritual self, between death and a new birth, must penetrate all the mysteries of the physical body, in order that the body may be built up in the right way. For the body is really not formed by the parents and grandparents alone. To believe that is one of the perfect follies of science. (We are justified in making such a statement!) For how does science approximately set forth this human development? Well, it says that as the basis of material substance we have molecules, which are built up in a complicated way from atoms. The albumen molecule, which is contained in the embryo-cell, is the most complicated of all, and because it is so complicated (naturally no scientist can describe it, but he points to its exceeding complexity) because it is so complicated, a human being can originate from it. That is the simplest sort of explanation of the human being! It is simply asserted that the entire human being is already contained in the molecule; it is merely a very complicated molecule.—The truth is, however, that the albumen molecule must completely revert to chaos, must become dust of disorganized matter, if a human being is to originate from it. We have in the outer world organized matter in crystals, in plants, and so on: if anything is to originate, even a plant, or an animal, then the matter must first completely return to dust. And only when it no longer has a definite form does the entire cosmos work upon the tiny bit of stuff, making in it an image of itself. How is it, then, with the human being? Between death and a new birth, we form this human image, with all its mysteries, into which we weave our karma, and we send this image down before us into the body of the mother. So we have first formed the spirit germ—only, this is very large in comparison with the physical germ—and this descends into the matter which has become chaotic. That is the truth—not what the present-day physiology dreams.

In this time of which I have been speaking, the Ego lives as a soul-spiritual being among soul-spiritual Divine Beings, actively occupied with learning to know completely the inner human being as such for the next earth life. Of that which is then spiritually experienced in tremendous majesty and grandeur, an image marvelously appears in the child in the individual actions in attaining equilibrium. It is very interesting to see how the Primal Powers, or Archai, work over from the life between death and a new birth into the whole effort of the child to attain balance or, as we trivially say, to learn to walk. Anyone who can see in everything earthly an image of the spiritual can see in all the practice in walking, in the use of the hands, and so on, an image of those soul-spiritual deeds which we performed between death and a new birth in seeking spiritual equilibrium as an ego among higher egos.

And, when we have completed those conditions in which we are a spirit among spirits, in which we prepare what is to be manifested in our earth life in the body, in the members, through which we again become a human being of such and such a nature, and experience our karma—when we have passed through these conditions yonder in the world between death and a new birth, then a condition appears in the pre-earthly life in which we can no longer distinguish the individual spiritual Beings with whom we have worked for so long, but in which there is only a general perception of the spirit. We know then, to be sure, that we live in a spiritual world; but, because we are now already approaching the earth life, the impression which the spiritual world makes upon us becomes one of greater uniformity, and is no longer a perception of the particular, individual spiritual Beings.

I can express myself by means of a trivial comparison, in order that we may be able to understand one another, but please be very clear about this, namely, that in doing so I refer, nevertheless, to something very exalted. If a little cloud appears somewhere in the distance, you say that it is a little cloud; but when you approach it, you become aware that it is a swarm of gnats. Then you are distinguishing the separate individuals. Well, in the spiritual world between death and a new birth, it is reversed: there you distinguish at first the single individualities of the spiritual Beings; then the impression becomes a general one. What I mean is that the manifestation of the spiritual replaces experience of the spiritual.

Indeed, this condition, which separates us, as it were, from the spiritual world, because we are already seeking the way down to earth again—this condition is reflected now in the inner something within us which forms the basis of human speech. Suppose we speak. It begins with the larynx (that is not exact, but approximate), and the other organs of speech are set in motion. But behind this there lies that which is essential. What is essential lies in the heart, behind the larynx; it lies in the breathing process and everything connected with it. Just as learning to walk, seeking equilibrium, is an earthly image of our movements in the spiritual world, so that which underlies speech is likewise an earthly image of the condition of manifestation in which we perceive the divine-spiritual Beings only as a blurred mass. So the child experiences again when it learns to walk a condition which it has gone through between death and a new birth.

And when we have sent down the spiritual germ of our physical body, when through conception it has gradually become united with the body of the mother, then we are still above. At the end of the time before earthly embodiment, we draw together our etheric body out of all the regions of the universe. And that action, which takes place in the supersensible world in attracting the etheric body, finds expression in the child's learning to think.

Now you have the three successive conditions: experience in the spiritual world in learning to walk; manifestation of the spiritual world in learning to speak. (For this reason, that which as Cosmic Word underlies speech we call the Cosmic Logos, the inner Word. It is the manifestation of the universal Logos, in which the spiritual expresses itself, as do the gnats in the swarm of gnats; it underlies speech.) And then what we do in the forming of our etheric body, which actually thinks in us—we think the whole night through, only we are not present with our ego and astral body—that is the last part which we gather together for ourselves before we descend to earth, and that activity is what extends over into the thinking. Thus, in learning to walk, to speak, and to think, the baby organizes into the physical body what it brings down from the pre-earthly existence.

This is what leads to real spiritual knowledge and also at the same time to the artistic and the religious comprehension of the world; namely, that we are able to relate each single occurrence in the physical sense existence to the spiritual world. Those people who would always like to speak of the divine-spiritual only “in general” I have often likened to a man who should go out into a meadow, and to whom should be pointed out daisies, dandelions, wild chicory, whereupon he would say: “All that does not interest me; they are all just flowers!” That is easy, to say they are all just flowers. But something in the flower-being is differentiated there. And so it is also in the spiritual world. Naturally, it is easy to say that something spiritual underlies everything of a sense-physical nature. But the point is that we should know more and more what spiritual something lies at the foundation of the various sense-physical phenomena; for only in this way can we from the spirit actually lay hold again upon the sense-physical course of life.

By means of this principle, for example, our Waldorf School pedagogy becomes a unique pedagogy, which actually considers the human being. This will appear even more clearly when once this pedagogy shall be developed for the child's first years. As there it would be adapted to learning to walk, to speak, and to think, and the further evolution of these faculties, so we now naturally adapt the method to the years following the sixth and seventh, in such a way that we consider questions such as these: What embodies itself in the child at this moment? What comes to expression in the child's life, with each week, with each month, of that which existed before birth? Thus the pedagogy is really developed from the spirit.

That is one of the impulses of which we must rediscover many, if humanity does not wish to remain in the downward course, but intends to begin to ascend. We must find the way again into the spiritual world; but we shall be able to do this only when we learn quite consciously to find ways and means to act and to speak from the spirit.

In the time immediately following the Atlantean catastrophe, human beings lived from the spirit—that is, each individual—because each could be told on the basis of the point of time at which he was born, what his karma was. At that time astrology did not signify that dilettantism which it often represents today, but it signified livingly experiencing the deeds of the stars with them. And as a result of this living experience, it was revealed from the Mystery Temple to each individual human being how he had to live. Astrology had a vital significance for the individual human experience. Then came the time, about the 6th, 5th and 4th pre-Christian centuries, in which people no longer experienced the mysteries of the starry heavens, but in which they experienced the course of the year. What do I mean by it when I say that human beings experienced the “course of the year”? It means that they knew from direct perception that the earth is not the coarse clod which present day geology contemplates. Upon such an earth as geology represents, plants could never grow, to say nothing of the appearance of animals and human beings. There could be none of these, because the earth of the geologists is a rock; and something will grow directly on a rock only if the entire cosmos works upon it, only if it is united with the whole universe. What man must learn again today was known even in ancient times, namely, that the earth is an organism and has a soul.

It is true that this earth-soul also has its special destiny. Suppose it is winter here with us, Christmas time, the time of the winter solstice—that is the time when the earth soul is fully united with the earth. For, when the cover of snow is over the earth, when, as it were, a mantle of cold surrounds the earth, then the earth-soul is united with the earth, rests within it. It is also true then that the earth-soul, resting within the earth, sustains the life of a multitude of elemental spirits. When today a naturalistic view believes that the seeds which I plant in the earth in the autumn merely lie there until the following spring, that is not true; the seeds must be protected throughout the winter by the elemental spirits of the earth. This is all connected with the fact that during the winter time the earth-soul is united with the earth-body.

Now let us take the opposite season, that is, midsummer, St. John's season. Exactly as the human being inhales the air and exhales it, so that at one time it is within him and at another time outside of him, so the earth breathes in her soul—that is during the winter; and at the height of summer, St. John's season, the earth-soul is entirely breathed out, sent out into the far reaches of the cosmos. At that time the earth-body is, as it were, “empty” of the earth-soul. The earth in her soul lives with the events of the cosmos, the course of the stars, and so on. Therefore, in ancient times there were the winter-mysteries, in which man experienced the union of the earth-soul with the earth; and then there were the summer-mysteries, in which man was able to perceive the mysteries of the universe, from the experience which the earth-soul shared with the stars, for it was granted to the human souls of initiates to follow the earth-soul out into the cosmic spaces.

That people had a consciousness of these things you can learn even from the fragments of ancient tradition which are still extant.—It is now a long while ago, but I often sat—right here in Berlin—with an astronomer, who was very famous here, and who started a fearful agitation about the Easter Festival, saying that it was very disturbing when the Easter Festival, let us say for example, did not fall each year at least on the first Sunday in April, and it was awful that it should be on the first Sunday after the spring full moon. Naturally, it helped not at all to give reasons against his argument, for the fact which lay at the root of the matter was the fear that a dreadful confusion was caused in the debit and credit columns of the ledger, if Easter falls at a different time each year! This movement had already assumed rather large dimensions. (I once mentioned the fact here that on the first page of the ledger there usually stand the words, “With God”, but generally what is in these books is not exactly “with God”.) In those times when the Easter Festival was established according to the course of stars—when the first Sunday after the spring full moon was dedicated to the sun,—in those times a consciousness still existed that in the winter season the earth-soul is in the earth; that at St. John's season the earth-soul is wholly outside in cosmic spaces, and in the spring it is on the way to cosmic spaces. Therefore, the spring festival, the Easter Festival, cannot be established only with reference to the earth, on a definite day, but must be regulated according to the constellations of the stars. There is a deep wisdom in this, which comes from the times when, as a result of the ancient instinctive clairvoyance, human beings were still able to perceive the spiritual reality in the course of the year. We must attain to this again, and we can attain to it again in a certain sense if we lay hold upon the tasks of the present in connection with just such explanations as we have carried on together here.

I have already often said here that, of the spiritual Beings with whom man is united each night, in the way I have told you—for instance, through speech with the Archangels—certain Beings are the ruling spiritual powers throughout a certain period of time. In the last third of the 19th century the Michael-time began, that time in which the Spirit who in the records is usually designated Michael, became the determinative Spirit in the affairs of human civilization. These things are repeated in cycles. In ancient times men knew something of all these spiritual processes. The ancient Hebrew age spoke of Jahve, but it spoke always of the “countenance of Jahve”, and by the countenance was meant the Archangels who actually mediated between Jahve and the earth. And when the Jews expected the Messiah on earth, they knew that it was the time of Michael; that Michael was the agent of Christ's activity on earth. They misunderstood, however, the deeper significance of that fact. Now, since the '70's of the 19th century, the time has come again for the earth when the Michael Power is the ruling spiritual power in the world, and the time has come when we must understand how to bring spirituality into our actions, to arrange our life from the spirit. That means to “serve Michael”—not to order our life merely from the material point of view, but to be conscious that he who has the overcoming of the low Ahrimanic Powers as his mission—that is, Michael—must become our Genius, so to speak, for the evolution of civilization. How can he become that?

Well, he can become our guiding spirit if we call to mind how we can again make connections with the course of the year in the spiritual sense. There is actually great wisdom in the entire cosmic course in the fact that we may unite with the spring festival the festival of the resurrection of Christ Jesus. The historical connection—I have often explained it—is a completely right one: The only possibility is for the spring festival—that is, the Easter Festival—to occur on a different day each year, precisely because it is viewed from the other world. Only we upon the earth have the narrow-minded conception that “time” runs along evenly, that one hour is always as long as another. We determine time by means of our earthly expedient, mathematics; whereas, for the actual spiritual world, the cosmic hour is something living. There one cosmic hour is not equal to another but is longer or shorter. Therefore, it is always possible to err if we establish from the earthly point of view something which should be fixed according to the heavens. The Easter Festival has been established rightly in accordance with the heavens.

What kind of a festival is it? It is that festival which is intended to remind us, and which once reminded humanity with the greatest vividness, that a God descended to earth, took up his abode in the man, Jesus of Nazareth, in order that, at the time when human beings were approaching the development of the ego, they would be able in a suitable manner to find the way back through death into the spiritual life. I have often explained this here. The Easter Festival is, therefore, that festival in which man sees in the Mystery of Golgotha death and immortality following it. We look upon this spring festival in the right sense when we say to ourselves: Christ has affirmed the immortality of man in that He Himself has conquered death; but we human beings only rightly understand the immortality of Christ Jesus if we appropriate this understanding during the earth life; that is, if in our souls we vitalize our relation to the Mystery of Golgotha, and if we are able to free ourselves from that materialistic concept which would dissociate from the Mystery of Golgotha all spiritual significance. Today people no longer wish to acknowledge “Christ” at all, but merely “the humble man of Nazareth, Jesus.” A man would feel embarrassed, as it were, in the presence of his own scientific instincts, if he were to grant that the Mystery of Golgotha involves a spiritual mystery in the middle of earth existence—namely, the death and resurrection of the God.

When we experience that fact spiritually, we prepare ourselves to have spiritual experience of other things also. This is the reason it is so important for the human being of the present time to attain the possibility of experiencing, at the outset, the Mystery of Golgotha as something purely spiritual. Then he will experience other spiritual facts, and he will find the approach, the way, to the spiritual worlds through the Mystery of Golgotha. But then, beginning with the Mystery of Golgotha, the human being must understand the Resurrection while he still lives; and, if he feelingly understands the Resurrection while he lives, he will thereby be enabled to pass through death in the right way. In other words, Death and Resurrection in the Mystery of Golgotha should teach the human being to reverse the condition; that is, during life to experience Resurrection within the soul, in order that, after this inner soul resurrection, he may pass through death in the right way. That experience is the opposite of the Easter experience. At the Easter season we should be able to immerse ourselves in the Death and Resurrection of the Christ. As human beings, however, we need also to be able to immerse ourselves in what is for us resurrection of the soul, in order that the resurrected soul of man may pass rightly through death. As we in the spring acquire the true Easter mood when we see how the plants then germinate and sprout, how nature is resurrected, how nature overcomes the death of winter, so we shall be able, when we have experienced summer in the right way, to acquire a feeling of certainty that the soul has then ascended into cosmic spaces. We are then approaching the autumn, September is coming, the autumnal equinox; the leaves which in the spring became budding and green, now become brownish, yellowish, and drop off; the trees stand there already partly denuded, nature is dying. But we understand this slowly dying nature if we look deeply into the process of decay, into the approach of the snowy covering of the earth and say to ourselves: There the earth-soul is returning again to the earth, and it will be entirely within the earth when the winter solstice shall have come.

It is possible to feel this autumn-time with the same intensity as the spring-time. And if we feel in spring, at Easter-time, the Death and Resurrection of the God, then we shall be able to feel in the autumn the resurrection and death of the human soul; that is, the experience of resurrection during the earth-life in order to pass through death in the right way. Then, however, we must understand also what it signifies for us, for our present time, that the earth-soul is breathed out into the cosmic spaces during St. John's season, in the summer, is there united with the stars, and comes back again. He who has insight into the mystery of this succession of the seasons in the course of the year knows that the Michael-force, which in former centuries did not come down to earth, now comes down through the nature forces! So that we are able to meet the autumn with its falling leaves, when we perceive the Michael-force coming down from the clouds to the earth. Indeed, the name “Michael” is to be found in the calendars on this date, and Michaelmas is a festival day among the peasants; but we shall feel the present time spiritually, in such a way that earthly human events are for us closely connected with the events of nature, only when we again become capable of understanding the year's progression to such an extent that we shall be able to establish in the course of the year the annual festivals, as people of old established them from their ancient dream-like clairvoyance. The ancients understood the year, and on the basis of the mysteries which I have been able only to indicate today, they established Christmas, Easter and the St. John's Festival. At Christmas people give one another gifts, and do some other things also; but I have often explained, when I have given Christmas and Easter lectures here, how little remains with humanity today of these ancient institutions, how everything has become traditional and external. If we shall come to understand again the festivals, which today we merely celebrate but do not understand, then, from the spiritual knowledge of the course of the year, we shall also have the power to establish a festival which will have true significance only for the humanity of the present time: that will be the Michael Festival at the end of September, when autumn approaches, the leaves become withered, the trees become bare, nature moves toward decay—just as it moves toward the sprouting of the Easter season. We shall have the power to establish such a festival, if in decaying nature we perceive how then the earth-soul unites itself with the earth, and how the earth-soul brings Michael with it from the clouds! If we have the force to create from the spirit such a festival as shall again bring into our social life a community of interest, then we shall have done it from the spirit; for then we shall have originated something among us of which the spirit is the source. It would be more important than all the rest of social reflection and the like—which, in the present confused conditions, can only lead to something if the spirit is in them—if, to begin with, a number of intelligent persons were to unite in order to establish again upon earth something from the cosmos: that is, to originate something like a Festival of Michael, which would be worthy of the Easter Festival, but as an autumn festival would be the counterpart of the Easter Festival! If people were able to decide upon something the motive for which lies only in the spiritual world, but which in such a festival would again bring among men a feeling of common interest, something which would be created in the immediate present, out of the full, joyous human heart, that would result in something which would socially unite people again.

For in ancient times the festivals made strong bonds between human beings. Just consider what, has been done, and what has been said and thought on behalf of the festivals and at the festivals for the whole civilization!

That is what has been gradually interwoven into the physical world through the fixing of festivals directly out of the spirit. If people of today could decide in a worthy manner to establish a Michael Festival at the end of September, it would be a deed of the greatest significance. For this purpose, people would have to have courage, not merely to dispute about outer social organizations and the like, but to do something which will unite the earth with the heavens, which will again connect physical conditions with spiritual conditions. Then, because by this means the spirit would again be brought into earthly affairs, something would actually happen among men which would be a mighty impulse for the extension of our civilization and of our whole life. There is naturally no time to set forth in detail all that this would mean for scientific, religious and artistic experience, but such a new festival, created from the spirit, in grand style, would affect these realms just as did the ancient festivals. And how much more important would be such a creation from the spiritual world, than all that is developed today in social tirades. For what would be the significance of such a creation? Oh, it signifies much for the deep observation of the human soul, if I see what a man intends, or if I understand his words rightly. If we today are able to learn from observation how the whole cosmic course operates when autumn approaches, if we can unriddle, can decipher, the entire physiognomy of the universe, and out of our knowledge can act creatively, then we shall disclose not only the willing of human beings in the creation of such a festival, but we shall disclose the willing of Spiritual Beings, of Gods!

Die Schaffung Eines Michael-Festes Aus Dem Geiste Heraus Die Rätsel Des Inneren Menschen

Was ich Ihnen heute vorbringen möchte, wird, wie alles, was ich über Anthroposophie in der letzten Zeit zu sagen hatte, mit einem gewissen Unterton gesagt werden müssen, der hervorgerufen ist durch das schmerzliche Ereignis, das unsere Sache und unsere Gesellschaft am letzten Silvesterabend getroffen hat: Das Goetheanum in Dornach ist ja augenblicklich nicht mehr. Es ist von den Flammen in der letzten Silvesternacht verzehrt worden. Und alle die, welche mit dieser einen Nacht die zehnjährige, lange Arbeit zerstört sahen, die ausgegangen ist von so vielen unserer Freunde, die in hingebungsvoller Weise diese Arbeit geleistet haben, alle, die aus dieser Arbeit und aus dem, was uns das Goetheanum war, dieses Goetheanum sehr lieb gehabt haben, die werden unter diesem Eindruck stehen müssen, daß wir dieses äußere Zeichen anthroposophischen Wirkens nicht mehr haben. Denn wenn auch — was ja durchaus sein sollte — irgendein Bau für unsere Sache an derselben Stätte wiederum entstehen wird: das alte Goetheanum kann es ja unter dem Einfluß der schwierigen Zeitverhältnisse selbstverständlich nicht mehr werden. So steht denn eigentlich im Hintergrunde hinter alledem, was ich seit jenen Tagen zu sagen habe, die furchtbare Glut der Flammen, die in einer so herzzerreißenden Weise eingriffen in die Entwickelung unserer ganzen Sache. Wir müssen uns da um so mehr, als dieses äußere Zeichen dahin ist, widmen dem Ergreifen der inneren Kräfte und inneren Wesenhaftigkeiten der anthroposophischen Bewegung und desjenigen, was mit ihr für die ganze Entwickelung der Menschheit zusammenhängt. So lassen Sie mich denn auch zunächst mit einer Art Betrachtung über das Wesen des Menschen beginnen. Ich habe solche viele hier in Ihrer Mitte angestellt und möchte nun heute wiederum eine solche von einem gewissen Gesichtspunkte aus anstellen.

Ich möchte ausgehen von einer Betrachtung des in die Welt hereintretenden Menschen, des Menschen, der heruntergestiegen ist aus dem vorirdischen Dasein und seine ersten Schritte hier im Erdenleben macht. Wir wissen, daß bei diesem Eintritt in das Erdenleben ein Zustand unsere Seele beherrscht, der doch eine gewisse Ähnlichkeit hat mit dem immer sich wiederholenden Zustande des menschlichen Schlaflebens. Wie das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein beim Aufwachen eine Erinnerung nicht hat an das, was das menschliche Seelisch-Geistige vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen durchgemacht hat — mit Ausnahme der bunten Mannigfaltigkeit der Träume, die aber auch eigentlich, wie wir ja wissen, dahinfluten mit dem Einschlafen oder mit dem Aufwachen, die eigentlich für das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein nicht herauskommen aus dem tiefen Schlafe -, wie also das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein sich an diese Zustände nicht erinnert, so hat ja dieses selbe Bewußtsein für das ganze Erdenleben nur eine Erinnerung bis zurück zu einem gewissen Zeitpunkte der Kindheit. Bei dem einen liegt er etwas früher, bei dem andern etwas später. Was davor liegt im Erdenleben, ist eigentlich für das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein so verhüllt wie die Ereignisse des Schlafzustandes. Es ist ja richtig, das Kind ist nicht in einem wirklichen Schlafe, es ist in einer Art träumerischer, unbestimmter inneren Tätigkeit, aber für das ganze spätere Leben ist dieser Zustand zunächst wenigstens einem traumerfüllten Schlafe nicht ganz fernliegend.

Nun greifen aber drei Tätigkeiten, drei Dinge, die das Kind lernt, in dieser Zeit ein: dasjenige, was wir gewöhnlich zusammenfassen mit dem Ausdrucke Gehenlernen, dann das, was mit dem Sprechenlernen und das, was mit dem Denkenlernen für das Kind verbunden ist. Nun bezeichnen wir mit dem Ausdrucke Gehenlernen in einer außerordentlich abgekürzten und eben aus unserer Bequemlichkeit stammenden Weise eigentlich etwas, was außerordentlich kompliziert ist. Wir müssen nur daran denken, wie das Kind zunächst in völliger Ungeschicklichkeit in das Leben hereintritt, wie es nach und nach die Möglichkeit gewinnt, seine eigene Gleichgewichtslage in den Raum hineinzupassen, in dem es sich durch das ganze Leben hindurch bewegen soll. Es ist ja nicht bloß ein Gehenlernen, was wir beim Kinde wahrnehmen, sondern ein Aufsuchen der Gleichgewichtslage des irdischen Lebens, und verbunden mit diesem Gehenlernen ist der Gebrauch der Bewegungsgliedmaßen überhaupt. Für den, der für eine solche Sache das richtige Anschauungsvermögen hat, drücken sich in diesem Gehenlernen eigentlich die merkwürdigsten, großartigsten Lebensrätsel aus. Eine ganze Welt drückt sich aus in der Art und Weise, wie das Kind vom Kriechen zum Aufrichten, zum Füßchenstellen, aber auch zu allem andern, zum Aufrichten des Hauptes, zum Gebrauch der Arme und Gliedmaßen kommt. Und wer dann, ich möchte sagen, intimer da hineinsieht, wie das eine Kind das Füßchen mehr mit der Ferse aufstellt, das andere mehr dazu neigt, mit den Zehen aufzutreten, der wird vielleicht eine Ahnung bekommen von dem, was ich Ihnen gerade heute mit Bezug auf die genannten drei Tätigkeiten und ihren Zusammenhang mit der geistigen Welt werde auszuführen haben. Ich möchte nur vorher erst äußerlich diese drei Tätigkeiten noch charakterisieren.

Auf Grundlage dieses Gleichgewichtsuchens, dieses Suchens wenn ich mich jetzt etwas gelehrter, vielleicht auch etwas geschwollener ausdrücken darf — nach einer Dynamik des Lebens, auf Grundlage dieses Suchens bildet sich dann das Sprechenlernen aus. Denn wer beobachten kann, weiß ganz genau: die normale Entwickelung des Kindes geht so, daß sich das Sprechenlernen auf Grundlage des Gehen- und Greifenlernens entwickelt. Zunächst wird man schon am Sprechenlernen merken, wie das feste oder leichte Auftreten des Kindes sich auch ausdrückt in dem Sprechtakt, in dem Betonen der Silben, in der Kraft der Sprache. Und man wird ferner merken, wie die Modulation der Worte, wie die Konturierung der Worte einen gewissen Parallelismus hat mit der Art und Weise, wie das Kind lernt, geschickt oder ungeschickt seine Fingerchen zu biegen oder geradezuhalten. Aber wer dann das ganze Innere des menschlichen Organismus beobachten kann, der wird wissen können, wie nicht nur, was ja auch die heutige Entwickelungslehre zugibt, rechtshändige Menschen in der linken dritten Stirnwindung, in der sogenannten Brocaschen Windung, das Sprachzentrum haben — was ganz einfach physiologisch den charakteristischen Zusammenhang zwischen der Sprache und dem Greifvermögen, wenn ich mich des Pleonasmus bedienen darf: des ganzen Handhabungsvermögens des Armes und der Hand vergegenwärtigt -, sondern er weiß auch, wie intim die Bewegung der Stimmbänder, die ganze Einstellung des Sprachorganismus genau denselben Charakter annimmt, den die Geh- und Greifbewegungen annehmen. Aber es kann sich bei der normalen kindlichen Entwickelung das Sprechen, das ja in Nachahmung der Umgebung entwickelt wird, gar nicht entwickeln, ohne daß die Grundlage des Aufsuchens der Gleichgewichtslage im Leben erst da ist.

Und das Denken! Ja, die feineren Organe des Gehirns, die dem Denken zugrunde liegen, sie entwickeln sich wieder aus der Sprachorganisation. Es soll nur niemand glauben, daß sich in der normalen kindlichen Entwickelung das Denken vor dem Sprechen entwickeln könnte. Wer aufzupassen vermag, der wird finden: Die Sprache ist zunächst nicht ein Ausdruck von Gedanken beim Kind. Ganz und gar nicht! Es wäre lächerlich, das zu glauben. Sondern die Sprache ist beim Kinde ein Ausdruck des Fühlens, des Empfindens, des Seelenlebens. Daher werden Sie sehen, daß es zunächst die Empfindungsworte sind, alles, was Empfindungen sind, was das Kind durch die Sprache zuerst ausdrückt. Und wenn das Kind «Mama» oder «Papa» sagt, so sind es die Gefühle zu Mama oder Papa, die es meint, nicht irgendein Begriff oder Gedanke. Das Denken entwickelt sich erst aus der Sprache heraus. Allerdings verschiebt sich beim Menschen manches, so daß man dann sagt: Dieses Kind hat sprechen gelernt vor dem Gehenlernen. Aber es ist dies nicht die normale Entwickelung, und man sollte sogar bei der Erziehung durchaus darauf sehen, daß die normale Entwickelungsreihe wirklich eingehalten werde: Gehen, Sprechen, Denken.

Aber den wirklichen Charakter dieser Tätigkeiten des Kindes wird man eigentlich erst gewahr, wenn man die andere Seite des menschlichen Lebens beobachtet, wenn man nämlich beobachtet, wie sich diese Tätigkeiten im späteren Leben im Schlafe verhalten, denn aus dem Schlafe oder wenigstens aus dem traumhaften Schlafe des Kindes, wie ich angedeutet habe, gehen diese Tätigkeiten hervor. Aber was machen denn nun diese Tätigkeiten während des späteren Erdenlebens?

Es ist im allgemeinen dem heutigen wissenschaftlichen Leben nicht möglich, auf diese Dinge einzugehen. Das heutige wissenschaftliche Leben kennt ja eigentlich nur die Außenseite der Menschenwesenheit und kennt nicht die inneren Zusammenhänge des Menschen mit dem Weltenwesen, insofern das Weltenwesen geistig ist. Auf allen Gebieten hat sich die Menschheitszivilisation - wenn ich mich des Ausdruckes bedienen darf -— oder sagen wir die Menschheitskultur, zu einem gewissen Materialismus oder Naturalismus entwickelt. Glauben Sie nicht, daß ich hier gegen den Materialismus keifen will. Wenn der Materialismus in der Menschheitszivilisation nicht gekommen wäre, so wären die Menschen nicht frei geworden. Der Materialismus ist also eine notwendige Entwickelungsepoche in der Menschheit. Aber heute muß man sich darüber klarwerden, welche Wege wir gehen müssen, auch weiter in die Zukunft hinein. Und darüber müssen wir uns auf allen Gebieten klarwerden. Damit das besser illustriert ist, was ich Ihnen nun zu sagen habe, möchte ich Ihnen dies an einem Beispiel veranschaulichen.

Sie wissen alle und können es aus meinen Schriften erfahren, daß die Erdenmenschheit, bevor sie diejenigen Kulturepochen durchgemacht hat, die der heutigen noch halbwegs ähnlich sind — die uralt indische, die urpersische, die ägyptisch-chaldäische, die griechisch-lateinische und dann die unsrige -, vordem durchgegangen ist durch die sogenannte atlantische Katastrophe. Und während dieser atlantischen Katastrophe war die Menschheit, die heute europäische, asiatische und amerikanische Kulturmenschheit ist, im wesentlichen ansässig auf einem Kontinente, der heute Meer ist, nämlich der Atlantische Ozean. Dort war damals im wesentlichen Land, und die Menschheit hat sich vor sehr langer Zeit auf diesem atlantischen Lande entwickelt. Sie können ja das, was die Menschheit da durchgemacht hat, auch in meinen Schriften und Zyklen nachlesen.

Ich will nun nicht von andern Erlebnissen der Menschheit in der alten atlantischen Zeit sprechen, als gerade von musikalischen Erlebnissen. Das ganze musikalische Erleben der alten Atlantier müßte einem heutigen Menschen, wenn er es hören könnte - er kann es ja nicht hören -, völlig grotesk, kurios erscheinen, denn das, was die alten Atlantier in der Musik aufgesucht haben, das waren zum Beispiel Septimenakkorde. Diese Septimenakkorde hatten für die Atlantier die Eigentümlichkeit, daß die Seelen dieser Urmenschen - in deren Leibern wir ja alle drinnensteckten, denn in den wiederholten Erdenleben haben wir ja diese Zeit selbst auch durchgemacht — sofort aus ihren Leibern heraus entrückt waren, wenn sie in ihrer Musik lebten, die vorzugsweise die Septimenakkorde berücksichtigte. Sie kannten keine andere Gemütsstimmung in der Musik als das Entrücktsein, das Enthusiasmiertsein, das Mit-dem-Gotte-Durchdrungensein. Und sofort, wenn ihre außerordentlich einfachen Instrumente erklangen, die übrigens nur Begleitinstrumente zum Singen waren, dann fühlte sich eigentlich solch ein Atlantier herumwebend und -lebend in der geistigen Außenwelt.

Nun kam die atlantische Katastrophe. Bei allen Nachatlantiern entwickelte sich zunächst die Vorliebe für Quintenfolgen. Sie wissen ja wahrscheinlich, daß die Quinte noch lange Zeit in der musikalischen Entwickelung die ausgedehnteste Rolle spielte; noch im alten Griechenland zum Beispiel spielte die Quinte eine ganz ausgebreitete Rolle. Die Vorliebe für Quintenfolgen hatte die Eigentümlichkeit zur Folge, daß zwar die Menschen, indem sie musikalisch erlebten, sich allerdings jetzt nicht mehr außerhalb ihres Leibes fühlten, aber in ihrem Leibe sich seelisch-geistig fühlten. Sie vergaßen völlig während des musikalischen Erlebens das physische Erleben. Sie fühlten sich zwar sozusagen innerhalb ihrer Haut, aber ihre Haut ganz ausgefüllt mit Seele und Geist. Das war die Wirkung der Musik, und die wenigsten Menschen werden es glauben, daß fast noch bis zum 10., 11. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert die naturgemäße Musik so wat, wie ich es beschrieb, denn dann erst traten die Begabungen der Menschen für Terzen ein, die große und die kleine Terz, und für das Dur- und Mollmäßige. Das ist verhältnismäßig spät gekommen, aber mit diesem Spätkommen gestaltete sich zugleich das innerliche Erleben des Musikalischen heraus. Der Mensch blieb jetzt bei sich im Musikalischen. So wie die übrige Kultur in dieser Zeit von dem Geistigen herunterstrebte zum Materiellen, so strebte der Mensch im Musikalischen von dem Erleben des Geistigen, in das er aufging in den alten Zeiten, wenn er überhaupt Musik erlebte, hin zu dem Erleben des Musikalischen in sich, nicht mehr bis zur Haut, sondern ganz in sich. In dieser Weise waren auch die Dur- und Mollstimmungen erst damals heraufgekommen, die im wesentlichen eigentlich erst möglich sind, wenn der Mensch das Musikalische innerlich erlebt.

So kann man auf allen Gebieten verfolgen, wie sich der Mensch von dem Geistigen herunter zu der Materie, aber auch zu sich entwickelt hat. Deshalb darf man nicht in einer philiströs-banausischen Weise immer nur sagen: Ach, der Materialismus ist so etwas Minderwertiges, aus dem muß der Mensch heraus. - Der Mensch wäre gar nicht richtig Mensch geworden, wenn er nicht heruntergestiegen wäre zum Ergreifen des materiellen Lebens. Gerade dadurch, daf3 er das Geistige im Materiellen ergriff, wurde der Mensch das seiner selbst bewußte, freie Ich-Wesen. Und heute müssen wir mit Hilfe der anthroposophischen Geisteswissenschaft wiederum zurück den Weg in die geistige Welt finden, müssen ihn auf allen Gebieten finden. Deshalb ist es ja so schmerzlich, daß der künstlerische Versuch, der mit Dornach gemacht worden ist, in dieser Weise heute ausgelöscht ist! Es muß eben auf allen Gebieten der Weg in die geistige Welt hinein gesucht werden.

Betrachten wir nun zunächst die eine Tätigkeit, die das Kind lernt, die sprachliche, mit Bezug auf die Gesamtentwickelung des Menschen. Man muß wirklich sagen: Das, was da das Kind lernt, ist etwas Großartiges, und Jean Paul, der deutsche Dichter, hat gesagt, in den drei ersten Lebensjahren - wo man also wesentlich gehen, sprechen, denken lernt - lerne der Mensch viel mehr als in den drei akademischen Jahren. Mittlerweile sind ja die drei akademischen Jahre viele geworden, man lernt aber noch immer nicht mehr in den «drei» akademischen Jahren, als man in den drei ersten Lebensjahren als Kind lernt. Nun, betrachten wir das Sprechen! In dem Sprechen liegt zunächst das äußerlich Physisch-Physiologische: unser Kehlkopf und unsere übrigen Sprachorgane kommen in Bewegung, sie bewegen die Luft. Es wird der Ton vermittelt. Da kommen wir. gewissermaßen an das äußerlich Physisch-Physiologische heran. Aber in dem, was wir sprechen, ist ja auch Seele, und die Seele durchzieht und durchglüht alles dasjenige, was wir in den Lauten von uns geben. Ja, insofern die Sprache etwas Physisches gibt, sind der physische Leib und der Ätherleib des Menschen daran beteiligt. Die schweigen selbstverständlich vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen, das heißt, der normale Mensch spricht ja nicht vom Einschlafen bis zum Aufwachen. Aber insofern Seele und Ich am Sprechen beteiligt sind, nehmen Seele und Ich, der astralische Leib und das Ich, indem sie beim Einschlafen aus dem physischen Leib und dem Ätherleib herausgehen, das seelische Sprachvermögen mit, und damit eigentlich alles, was der Mensch während des ganzen Tages seelisch in sein Sprechen hineingelegt hat. Wir sind ja eigentlich an jedem Abend andere Menschen, denn wir haben uns den ganzen Tag über sprechend betätigt, die einen viel, andere weniger, manche allzuviel, manche auch zu wenig, aber immerhin, wir haben uns den ganzen Tag sprechend betätigt und unsere Seele in die Sprache hineingelegt. Und das, was wir da hineingelegt haben in die Sprache, das nehmen wir mit dem Einschlafen mit, das bleibt unser Wesen zwischen Einschlafen und Aufwachen.

Nun kann es heute, gerade in unserem materialistischen Zeitalter, so sein, daß der Mensch gar nicht mehr eine Ahnung davon hat, daß in der Sprache Idealismus oder Spiritualismus zum Ausdruck kommen kann. Die Menschen haben vielfach heute nur noch die Meinung, daß die Sprache Äußerliches, handgreiflich Gegenständliches ausdrücken soll. Die Empfindung dafür, daß man in der Sprache Ideale zum Ausdruck bringen kann, ist ja vielfach ganz verlorengegangen. Daher ist es ja auch so, daß die Menschen heute das, was zu ihnen vom Geiste gesprochen wird, meistens so unverständlich finden. Denn was sagen sich die Menschen, wenn vom Geiste gesprochen wird? Sie sagen sich: Ja, der spricht da in Worten. — Aber von diesen Worten wissen die Leute nur, daß sie das bedeuten, was man angreifen oder sehen kann. Daß die Worte auch hindeuten können auf irgend etwas, was übersinnlich, unsichtbar ist, das mögen die Leute gar nicht mehr. Und das kann die eine Art sein, wie die Menschen zur Sprache stehen. Die andere kann aber allerdings diese sein, daß die Menschen sich wiederum hinfinden zum Idealismus schon in den Worten, schon in der Sprache, so daß die Menschen wissen, daß gewissermaßen dutch jedes Wort durchtönen kann ein seelisch-geistiges Erleben.

Was ein Mensch, der ganz im Materialismus der Sprache lebt, nun mit dem Einschlafen hinüberträgt in die geistige Welt, das bringt ihn merkwürdigerweise in ein schwieriges Verhältnis zur Erzengelwelt, zur Welt der Archangeloi, in die er jede Nacht zwischen Einschlafen und Aufwachen kommen soll, während der, welcher den Idealismus der Sprache sich bewahrt und weiß, wie in der Sprache der Sprachgenius lebt, in das notwendige Verhältnis zur Hierarchie der Archangeloi kommt, namentlich zu demjenigen der Archangeloi, dem er selbst zugeordnet ist in der Welt zwischen dem Einschlafen und Aufwachen. Ja, dies drückt sich selbst in den äußeren Welterscheinungen aus.

Warum suchen denn die Menschen heute so krampfhaft ein äußeres Verhältnis zu den Nationalsprachen? Warum kam denn dieses furchtbare Unglück über Europa, das Woodrow Wilson für ein «Glück» gehalten hat - aber der ist halt eben ein kurioser Illusionär gewesen -, warum kam denn dieses große Unglück über Europa, daß die Freiheit verbunden ist mit dem krampfhaften Ergreifenwollen der kleinsten Nationalsprachen? Weil die Menschen in Wirklichkeit äußerlich krampfhaft ein Verhältnis suchen, das sie nicht mehr haben im Geistigen; denn einschlafend haben sie nicht mehr das naturgemäße Verhältnis zur Sprache und deshalb auch nicht zu der Hierarchie der Archangeloi. Die Menschheit wird sich wiederum zurückfinden müssen zu der Durchdringung des ganzen Sprachlichen mit Idealismus, wenn sie nicht den Weg in die geistige Welt verlieren will.

Wie achtet denn die Menschheit heute überhaupt darauf, was mit dem einzelnen Menschen zwischen dem Einschlafen und dem Aufwachen vorgeht? Die Menschen rechnen ja gar nicht mit diesem Schlafzustande. Wenn man sich so zurückerinnert an das Leben, so glaubt man: was man da vor sich hat, ist ein geschlossenes Lebensbild. Das ist nicht wahr! Da fallen ja immer die Schlafenszeiten heraus, das Ganze ist immer unterbrochen. Wir knüpfen zwar immer den Morgen an den Abend an, aber dazwischen liegt ja die Nacht. Und was während des Schlafes in der Nacht geschehen ist, das bedeutet erstens äußerlich mindestens einen Drittel des menschlichen Lebens - wenigstens bei «anständigen Menschen» ist es so -, und zweitens ist es für das Innere des Menschen viel wichtiger als das äußere Tun während des ganzen Tages. Gewiß, das äußere Tun ist für die äußere Kultur das Wichtigere. Aber unsere innere Gestaltung während des Lebens wird dadurch zustande gebracht, daß wir in nachtschlafender Zeit in der richtigen Weise hineinkommen in den Zusammenhang mit der geistigen Welt.

Und ebenso ist es mit dem, was den andern Tätigkeiten zugrunde liegt. Legt der Mensch in seine Handlungen, das heißt in das, was er durch das Gesamtgebiet seiner Bewegungen, die er ja auch als erstes lernt beim Antritte des Erdenlebens, legt er in die Gesamtheit seiner Handlungen Idealismus, das heißt, enthält sein Leben in seiner Verwirklichung Idealismus, dann findet der Mensch wieder den richtigen Zusammenhang mit der Hierarchie der Archai. Und durch die Gedanken, wenn sie Idealismus enthalten, wenn sie nicht materialistische sind, findet der Mensch nachtschlafend den Zusammenhang mit der Hierarchie der Angeloi. Darauf kommt man, wenn man anthroposophisch-geisteswissenschaftlich den Zusammenhang dieser drei während der Kindheit angeeigneten Tätigkeiten mit dem nachtschlafenden Zustande untersucht. Aber dieser Zusammenhang kann sich uns in einem viel umfassenderen Maße enthüllen, wenn wir auf das Gesamtleben des Menschen im Kosmos sehen.

Sie kennen die Darstellung in meiner «Theosophie». Wenn der Mensch durch die Pforte des Todes geht, macht er zunächst während einiger Tage den Zustand durch, der in dem Fortgehen der Gedanken, der Vorstellungen besteht. Man kann das so ausdrücken, daß man sagt: Der Ätherleib dehnt sich in die weite Welt hinaus aus, der Mensch verliert seinen Ätherleib. - Aber das ist dasselbe, wie wenn ich sage: Die Vorstellungen und Gedanken des Menschen gehen fort. -— Aber was heißt denn das eigentlich: die Vorstellungen, die Gedanken gehen fort? Das heißt nämlich im Grunde sehr viel. Das heißt nämlich, daß unser ganzes Wachleben von uns fortgeht. Unser ganzes Wachleben geht im Verlaufe von zwei, drei Tagen von uns fort, und es wäre von unserem Leben gar nichts mehr da, wenn wir dann nicht das durchlebten, was während des Erdenlebens unbewußt bleibt, wenn wir nicht dann anfingen, dasjenige in voller Bewußtheit zu durchleben, was wir während unseres Schlafeslebens durchgemacht haben. Dieses Schlafesleben ist nämlich geistig unendlich viel reicher, intensiver als das tagwachende Leben. Dieses Schlafesleben ist jedesmal, ob wit einen kurzen oder einen langen Schlaf durchmachen, eine rückwärtsverlaufende Wiederholung des Tageslebens, aber mit geistigem Einschlage. Das, was Sie als Handlungen durchgemacht haben während des Tages, bringt Sie während der Nacht in ein Verhältnis zu den Archai, zu den Urkräften. Was Sie als Sprechende am Tage durchgemacht haben, bringt Sie nachts in ein Verhältnis zu den Archangeloi, Erzengelwesen. Und was Sie als Denkende durchmachten, bringt Sie ebenso in ein Verhältnis zu Ihren Engelwesen, den Angeloi. Dasjenige, was da der Mensch durchmacht, ist ja auch unabhängig von der Zeit. Sie brauchen nicht zu sagen: Ja, es gibt aber diese Möglichkeit: Ich schlafe, auf einmal rumort etwas in der Nacht, irgend etwas, was weiß ich, weckt mich auf, dann kann ich doch nicht mein Zurückleben fertigmachen? - Doch mache ich es fertig, weil die Zeitverhältnisse ganz andere sind. In einem Augenblicke kann das durchgemacht werden, was sonst, wenn der Schlaf regelmäßig vor sich geht, durch Stunden dauern kann. Die Zeitverhältnisse sind während des Schlafeslebens eben ganz andere. Deshalb kann das durchaus gesagt werden und muß gesagt werden, daß der Mensch jedesmal, wenn er schläft, rückwärtslaufend das, was er durchlebt hat hier in der physischen Welt zwischen dem letzten Aufwachen und Einschlafen, noch einmal in geistiger Form, Art und Wesenheit durchlebt. Und wenn er das wache Vorstellungsleben nach dem Tode in wenigen Tagen in den Kosmos hinaus verloren hat, dann lebt er eben dasjenige durch, was er in einem Drittel des Lebens, im Schlafe, durchgemacht hat. Deshalb habe ich auch immer beschreiben müssen, wie der Mensch ein Drittel seines Erdenlebens dazu braucht, um dann das zu durchleben, was er in den Nächten durchgemacht hat. Es gleicht das ja im wesentlichen natürlich dem Tagesleben, aber es wird auf andere Art durchgemacht, und der Mensch durchlebt dann als zweiten Zustand nach dem Tode dieses Rückwärtsgehen, wo er eigentlich das ganze Leben in einem Drittel der Zeit noch einmal bis zur Geburt durchmacht. Dann ist er bei der Geburt wieder angekommen, und dann lebt er sich in jenen Zustand ein, den ich Ihnen in einem andern Zusammenhange hier schon beschrieben habe: er lebt sich ein in denjenigen Zustand, wo sich alle Weltanschauung für ihn wesentlich ändert.

Sehen Sie, hier auf der Erde stehen wir an einem bestimmten Punkte der Erde. Um uns herum ist die Welt. Wir kennen uns ja sehr wenig mit dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein. Die Welt schauen wir mit den äußeren Sinnen an, die kennen wir. Sie werden vielleicht sagen: Aber die Anatomen kennen ja das Innere des Menschen ganz gut. - Nein, die kennen nur das Äußere des Inneren. Das wirkliche Innere ist etwas ganz anderes. Wenn Sie sich heute an etwas erinnern, was Sie vor zehn Jahren durchgemacht haben, dann haben Sie in der Erinnerung doch etwas, was im Inneren Ihrer Seele ist. Es ist zusammengedrängt, eine kurze Erinnerung vielleicht von einem sehr, sehr weit ausgedehnten Erlebnis. Aber da ist nur ein seelisches Bild von etwas da, das Sie im Erdenleben durchgemacht haben. Gehen Sie jetzt aber in sich hinein, jetzt nicht in Ihre Erinnerungen, sondern in Ihren physischen Organismus, das heißt den scheinbar physischen Organismus, beachten Sie Ihr wunderbar gebautes Gehirn, Ihre wunderbar gebauten Lungen und so weiter, dann leben darinnen nicht zusammengerollt gewissermaßen die Erlebnisse dieses Erdenlebens, sondern da ist zusammengerollt der ganze Kosmos, die ganze Welt. Der Mensch ist wirklich eine kleine Welt, ein Mikrokosmos. In seinen Organen ist zusammengerollt die ganze Welt. Aber der Mensch weiß es nicht mit dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein. Wenn er auf der Erde steht, so hat er die Erinnerung an seine Erlebnisse. Er weiß nicht, daß er selbst mit seinem physischen Wesen gewissermaßen die verkörperte Erinnerung des ganzen Kosmos ist.

Wenn also nun die Rückwärtswanderung durch das Leben, die ich hier eben angedeutet habe, abgeschlossen ist, dann treten wir zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt in ein Weltenleben ein, wo nun nicht um uns herum die Welt mit ihren Bergen, Wolken, Sternen, Meeren und so weiter ist, sondern wo die Rätsel des inneren Menschen unsere Umgebung sind — wo alles, was sich uns im Erdenleben über die Geheimnisse des inneren Menschen entzieht, dann unsere Umgebung ist. Hier auf dieser Erde leben wir ja innerhalb unserer Haut und wissen von der Sternen-, Wolken-, Berges-, Stein-, Tier- und Pflanzenwelt. Zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt wissen wir von dem Menschen; alle Geheimnisse des Menschen sind dann unsere Umgebung. Und glauben Sie nicht, daß das eine uninteressantere Umgebung ist als die Erdenumgebung! Gewiß, prachtvoll ist der Sternenhimmel, großartig sind die Berge und die Meere; aber dasjenige, was das Innere des Menschen in einem einzigen Gefäßchen ist, ist großartiger und gewaltiger, wenn wir es in seiner majestätischen Größe zwischen Tod und einer neuen Geburt um uns herum haben als dasjenige, was in unserer Erdenumgebung ist. Der Mensch ist die Welt zwischen Tod und einer neuen Geburt, und er muß die Welt sein, weil wir ein nächstes Erdenleben vorbereiten. Wir müssen dabei sein, um mit den Wesen der höheren Hierarchien zusammen den künftigen Erdenmenschen vorzubereiten. Wie wir hier unsere äußere Kultur und Zivilisation besorgen, wie wir hier auf der Erde Stiefel machen, Röcke machen, Telephone bedienen, Leute frisieren, Vorträge halten, Künstlerisches treiben und was heute alles zur Zivilisation gehört, so machen wir zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt mit den Wesenheiten der höheren Hierarchien zusammen dasjenige, was Mensch ist und was wir selber wiederum im physischen Leibe im nächsten Erdenleben werden. Das ist das geistige Kulturziel, und es ist gewaltiger, unendlich viel gewaltiger und großartiger als das irdische Kulturziel. Nicht umsonst haben die alten Menschen den physischen Menschenleib einen Tempel der Götter genannt, weil mit den Göttern, mit den Wesen der höheren Hierarchien zusammen dieser menschliche physische Leib zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt geformt wird. Das ist die Tätigkeit, da sind wir mit unserem Ich nun zwischen den Wesen der höheren Hierarchien, arbeiten an der Menschheit mit den Wesen der höheren Hierarchien zusammen. Wir wandeln gewissermaßen zwischen den Wesen der höheren Hierarchien nun herum, wir sind Geister unter Geistern.

Was wir da tun, können wir allerdings nur nach Maßgabe desjenigen tun, was wir im Erdenleben hier vollbracht haben, und auch das zeigt sich uns in einem gewissen Sinne in dem Verhältnis des Schlafes zum Wachen. Denken Sie doch nur einmal, wie chaotisch der Traum ist! Ich verkenne nicht die wunderbar bunte Mannigfaltigkeit und das Großartige des Traumes, aber wir müssen uns doch darüber klar sein, daß der Traum gegenüber dem Erdenleben, in dessen Bilder er sich kleidet, chaotisch ist. Sie brauchen sich ja nur an jenen Traum zu erinnern, den ich früher einmal zur Illustration angeführt habe — Vo/kelt erzählt diesen Traum nach einer württembergischen Erzählung, aber solche "Träume kennen wir ja -, wo eine Stadtfrau ihre Schwester, die die Frau eines Pfarrers ist, auf dem Lande besucht. Sie träumt, daß sie mit ihrer Schwester zusammen in die Kirche zur Predigt geht. Aber es ist ihr da ganz sonderbar, denn, nachdem das Evangelium gelesen ist und der Pastor auf die Kanzel steigt, da fängt er nicht an zu predigen, sondern da hebt er statt der Arme die Flügel und fängt schließlich an zu krähen wie ein Hahn! — Oder denken Sie an einen andern Traum, wo eine Frau sagt, sie habe eben geträumt, wie sie darüber nachgedacht habe, was sie Gutes ihrem Manne kochen solle, und da sei ihr gar nichts anderes eingefallen, bis ihr zuletzt der Gedanke gekommen sei, daß sie noch eine alte gesalzene Großmutter oben auf dem Boden habe, aber die sei noch sehr zähe. — So chaotisch kann der Traum wirken, merkwürdig chaotisch. Aber was heißt denn das: der Traum wirkt so chaotisch? Was heißt das eigentlich?

Während wir schlafen, sind wir mit unserem Ich und astralischen Leib außerhalb des physischen Leibes und des Ätherleibes. Aber da leben wir zurück — namentlich mit der moralischen Bedeutung - alles das, was wir bei Tage getan, gesprochen und gedacht haben. Das leben wir zurück. Wir bereiten uns unser Karma für das nächste Erdenleben vor, und das erscheint in Bildern schon zwischen dem Einschlafen und dem Aufwachen. Aber diese Bilder sind noch sehr ungeschickt, denn wenn wir dann beim Aufwachen in den physischen Leib wieder hinein wollen, dann paßt das noch nicht recht hinein. Wir können nicht makrokosmosgemäß vorstellen. Wir stellen statt dessen etwas ganz anderes vor, vielleicht eine «gesalzene Großmutter». Das ist, weil wir mit Bezug auf das, was wir schon ausgebildet haben, nicht die Anpassung an den physischen Menschenleib verstehen, und diese Anpassung an den physischen Menschenleib ist unendlich schwierig. Wir eignen sie uns an in jener Zusammenarbeit, die ich geschildert habe, mit den Wesen der höheren Hierarchien zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt. Da muß das innere Seelisch-Geistige, das sonst im Traum oftmals so ungeschickt hineinsteigt, dies erst wieder ausgleichen, wenn das ganze Schlafbewußtsein wiederum überwunden ist und der Mensch ohne sein Zutun in seinen alten physischen Leib wieder untergetaucht ist.

Dieses Seelisch-Geistige muß zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt alle Geheimnisse des Leiblichen durchschauen, damit der Leib in einer richtigen Weise aufgebaut werden kann. Denn der Leib wird ja wirklich nicht von den Eltern und Voreltern allein aufgebaut. Das zu glauben, ist ein richtiger Unsinn der Wissenschaft - man darf schon dieses Wort aussprechen. Denn wie stellt sich die Wissenschaft ungefähr dieses Menschwerden vor? Nun, sie sagt: Wir haben unter den Stoffen Moleküle, die sind in einer komplizierten Weise aus Atomen aufgebaut. Das Eiweißmolekül, das in der Keimzelle enthalten ist, ist das allerkomplizierteste Molekül — natürlich kann das kein Wissenschafter beschreiben, aber er weist auf die ungeheure Kompliziertheit hin —, und weil es so kompliziert ist, kann ein Mensch daraus entstehen. - Es ist die einfachste Art von Menschenerklärung. Man sagt eben: Der ganze Mensch steckt da schon drinnen, es ist nur ein so kompliziert aufgebautes Molekül. -— Die Wahrheit ist aber, daß nur dadurch ein Mensch entstehen kann, daß das Eiweißmolekül ganz ins Chaos zurückfallen muß, Staub werden muß aus ungeordneter Materie. Wir haben draußen geordnete Materie, in Kristallen, in Pflanzen und so weiter. Wenn etwas entstehen soll, auch die Pflanze, auch das Tier, so muß erst die Materie völlig in Staub zurückfallen. Und wenn erst die Materie nicht mehr eine Form in sich bestimmt hat, dann wirkt der ganze Kosmos auf das.kleine Stückchen Materie, macht sich in ihm ein Bild.

Wie ist es also mit dem Menschen? Wir formen dieses Menschenbild zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt mit allen Geheimnissen, in die wir nun hineinweben unser Karma, schicken es herunter vor uns in den Leib der Mutter; wir haben den Geistkeim, der nur groß ist im Verhältnis zum physischen Keim, also erst ausgebildet, und der senkt sich in die chaotisch gewordene Materie hinein. Das ist die Wahrheit, nicht dasjenige, wovon die heutige Physiologie träumt.

In dieser Zeit, von der ich jetzt gesprochen habe, lebt das Ich als Geistig-Seelisches unter geistig-seelischen Götterwesen, lebt in der Betätigung, den Menschen als solchen innerlich ganz kennenzulernen für das nächste Erdenleben. Von dem, was da geistig in ungeheurer Majestät und Großartigkeit durchgemacht wird, ist ein Abbild dasjenige, was wunderbar in den einzelnen Betätigungen des Gleichgewichtsuchens beim Kinde auftritt. Es ist sehr interessant zu sehen, wie da die Urkräfte oder Archai herüberwirken aus dem Leben zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt in das ganze Gleichgewichtsuchen des Kindes, in das, was wir trivial das Gehenlernen nennen. Wer in allem Irdischen ein Bild des Geistigen sehen kann, der kann sehen, wie in allen Gehbetätigungen, in den Armgreifbetätigungen und so weiter diese seelisch-geistigen Taten, die wir zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt in dem Suchen eines geistigen Gleichgewichtes als Ich unter höheren Ichen ausführen, ihr Abbild finden in dem irdischen Gehenlernen.

Und wenn wir jene Zustände durchgemacht haben, wo wir ein Geist unter Geistern sind, wo wir das vorbereiten, was in unserem Erdenleben sich auslebt im Körper, in den Gliedmaßen, durch die wir wiederum ein so und so gearteter Mensch werden und unser Karma erleben, wenn wir diese Zustände drüben in der Welt zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt durchgemacht haben, dann wird es so, daß ein Zustand im vorirdischen Leben kommt, wo wir die einzelnen Geistwesen, mit denen wir so lange zusammengearbeitet haben, nicht mehr unterscheiden können, sondern wo nur ein allgemeines Wahrnehmen des Geistes da ist. Wir wissen dann zwar, daß wir in einer geistigen Welt leben, aber indem wir uns jetzt schon dem Erdenleben nähern, wird der Eindruck, den die geistige Welt auf uns macht, mehr ein einheitlicher, nicht mehr der des speziellen, individuellen Wahrnehmens der geistigen Wesenheiten. Ich kann mich durch einen trivialen Vergleich ausdrücken, damit wir uns verständigen können, aber seien Sie sich nur klar darüber, daß ich damit doch etwas sehr Erhabenes meine. Wenn sehr weit entfernt irgendwo eine kleine Wolke ist, so sagen Sie: Das ist eine kleine Wolke. - Wenn Sie aber näher herangehen, werden Sie gewahr: Das sind ja lauter Mücken! - Da unterscheiden Sie die einzelnen Individualitäten. Nun, in der geistigen Welt zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt ist es umgekehrt. Da unterscheiden Sie zunächst die einzelnen Individualitäten der geistigen Wesenheiten, dann wird es ein allgemeiner Eindruck. Ich möchte sagen, die Offenbarung des Geistigen tritt an die Stelle des Erlebens des Geistigen.

Ja, dieser Zustand, der uns also gewissermaßen von der geistigen Welt entfernt, weil wir schon den Weg zu der Erde herunter wieder suchen, dieser Zustand spiegelt sich nunmehr in dem Inneren, das der menschlichen Sprache zugrunde liegt. Nehmen Sie an, wir sprechen. Beim Kehlkopf sozusagen fängt es an — es ist nicht genau, aber ungefähr -, die andern Sprachorgane werden in Bewegung gesetzt. Aber hinter dem liegt ja das Wesentliche dann noch. Das Wesentliche liegt im Herzen, hinter dem Kehlkopf, liegt in der ganzen Atmung und in allem, was damit zusammenhängt. Das, was der Sprache da zugrunde liegt, ist ebenso ein irdisches Bild dieses Zustandes der Offenbarung, wo wir das Göttlich-Geistige nur mehr verschwommen wahrnehmen, wie das Gehenlernen, das Gleichgewichtsuchen ein irdisches Bild ist des Sich-Bewegens in der geistigen Welt. So erlebt das Kind, indem es sprechen lernt, wiederum einen Zustand, der durchgemacht ist zwischen Tod und neuer Geburt.

Und wenn wir unseren Geistkeim des physischen Leibes heruntergeschickt haben, wenn der durch die Empfängnis sich nach und nach vereinigt hat mit dem Leibe der Mutter, dann sind wir noch immer oben. Es ist die letzte Zeit vor der irdischen Verkörperung. Da ziehen wir aus allen Gegenden der Welt den Ätherleib zusammen, und das, was da geschieht in der übersinnlichen Welt im Zusammenziehen des Ätherleibes, das drückt sich in dem kindlichen Denkenlernen aus.

Nun haben Sie die drei aufeinanderfolgenden Zustände: Erleben in der geistigen Welt, sich spiegelnd im Gehenlernen, Offenbarung der geistigen Welt im Sprechenlernen. Daher nennen wir dasjenige, was als Weltenwort zugrunde liegt, den Weltenlogos, das innere Wort. Es ist die Offenbarung des allgemeinen Logos, in dem sich das Geistige ausspricht, wie die Mücke im Mückenschwarm, es liegt dem Sprechen zugrunde. Und was wir dann tun, um unseren Ätherleib auszubilden, der ja eigentlich in uns denkt - wir denken nämlich die ganze Nacht fort, wir sind nur nicht dabei mit unserem Ich und Astralleib -, das ist das letzte, was wir zusammensammeln für uns, bevor wir heruntersteigen auf die Erde, und das ist das, was dann herüberreicht in das Denken. So gliedert das ganz kleine Kind im Gehen-, Sprechen-, Denkenlernen in den physischen Leib das hinein, was es herunterträgt aus dem vorirdischen Dasein.

Das ist es, was zur wirklichen Geist-Erkenntnis und damit auch zum künstlerischen Erfassen der Welt und zur religiösen Erfassung der Welt führt: daß wir jedes einzelne im physisch-sinnlichen Dasein auf das Geistige beziehen können. Diejenigen Menschen, die nur immer im allgemeinen vom Göttlich-Geistigen reden möchten, habe ich schon öfter verglichen mit einem Menschen, der auf eine Wiese hinausginge und dem gezeigt würde: Sieh einmal, dort sind Gänseblümchen, dort Löwenzahn, dort sind Zichorien, Wegwarte! - und der darauf sagen würde: Ach, das interessiert mich alles nicht! Blume, Blume, Blume ist alles. - Das ist bequem: Blume, Blume ist alles. Aber da differenziert sich doch etwas im Blumensein! Und so ist es auch in der geistigen Welt. Es ist natürlich bequem, zu sagen: Allem SinnlichPhysischen liegt ein Geistiges zugrunde. — Darauf aber kommt es an, daß wir immer mehr und mehr wissen, welches Geistige dem einzelnen Physisch-Sinnlichen zugrunde liegt, denn nur dadurch können wir aus dem Geist heraus tatsächlich wiederum eingreifen in den physisch-sinnlichen Gang des Lebens.

Durch dieses Prinzip wird ja zum Beispiel unsere Waldorfschulpädagogik eine besondere Pädagogik, die den Menschen wirklich berücksichtigt. Das wird sich noch deutlicher zeigen können, wenn einmal diese Pädagogik für die ersten Jahre des Kindes ausgebildet sein wird. Wir können das noch nicht machen. Wir hatten bis jetzt immer nach oben anzustückeln und haben in diesem Jahr die letzte Klasse eingerichtet. Man hat sehr viel zu tun, wenn man eine ganze Schule in ihren Lehrzielen ausgestalten will. Deshalb war bis jetzt nicht daran zu denken, auch nach unten die Sache vollständiger zu machen und eine Art Kindergarten daranzustückeln. Jetzt sollen die ersten Waldorfschüler zu ihrem Abiturientenexamen kommen. Dann wird das Anstückeln nach oben nicht weiter nötig sein, aber bei unserem außerordentlichen «Überfluß an Geldmangel», den wir haben, gerade auch für die Waldorfschule, fürchte ich, daß trotzdem das Anstückeln nach unten scheitern wird. Wie man es da einrichten würde für das Gehenlernen, Sprechenlernen, Denkenlernen und ihre weitere Entwickelung, so richten wir natürlich auch zwischen dem sechsten und siebenten und den andern Lebensjahren die Sache so ein, daß wir darauf Rücksicht nehmen: Was verkörpert sich da im Kinde? Was kommt mit jeder Woche, mit jedem Monat von dem, was vorgebuttlich ist, in dem kindlichen Leben zum Ausdruck? Also man bildet tatsächlich vom Geiste aus die Pädagogik.

Das ist eines der Momente, von denen wir viele wiederfinden müssen, wenn die Menschheit nicht in dem Niedergang bleiben will, sondern wenn sie zum Aufgang kommen will. Wir müssen wieder die Wege in die geistige Welt finden. Das können wir aber nur, wenn wir aus voller Bewußtheit heraus lernen, Mittel und Wege zu finden, aus dem Geiste heraus zu handeln, zu sprechen.

In der ersten Zeit nach der großen atlantischen Katastrophe lebten die Menschen aus dem Geiste heraus, jeder einzelne, weil jedem einzelnen gesagt werden konnte aus dem Zeitpunkte, an dem er geboren war, wie sein Karma ist. Da bedeutete die Astrologie nicht jenen Dilettantismus, den sie heute oftmals darstellt, sondern da bedeutete die Astrologie das lebendige Miterleben der Sternentaten, und es wurde aus diesem lebendigen Miterleben jedem einzelnen Menschen aus dem Mysterium heraus geoffenbart, wie er zu leben hatte, Es hatte die Astrologie eine lebendige Bedeutung für das einzelne menschliche Erleben.

Dann kam die Zeit, etwa mit dem sechsten, fünften, vierten vorchristlichen Jahrtausend, wo die Menschen zwar nicht mehr die Geheimnisse des Sternenhimmels erlebten, wo sie aber den Jahreslauf erlebten. Was meine ich denn damit, wenn ich sage, die Menschen erlebten den Jahreslauf? Das heißt, sie wußten aus unmittelbarer Anschauung, die Erde ist nicht jener grobe Klotz, als den die heutige Geologie sie anschaut. Auf der Erde, wie die Geologie sie sich vorstellt, könnten nie Pflanzen wachsen, geschweige denn Tiere oder Menschen vorkommen. Das könnte es gar nicht geben, denn die Erde der Geologen ist ein Stein, und im Stein wächst unmittelbar nur etwas, wenn der ganze Kosmos auf ihn einwirkt, wenn er mit der ganzen Welt in Verbindung steht. Man wußte eben in alten Zeiten, was man heute wieder wissen lernen muß: daß die Erde ein Organismus ist, eine Seele hat.

Diese Erdenseele hat nun auch ihre besonderen Schicksale. Nehmen Sie an, bei uns sei Winter, Weihnachtszeit, Wintersonnenwendezeit, so ist das die Zeit, wo die Erdenseele ganz mit der Erde vereinigt ist. Denn wenn die Schneedecke die Erde bedeckt, wenn gewissermaßen ein Kältemantel um die Erde herum ist, dann ist die Erdenseele mit der Erde vereinigt, ruht im Inneren der Erde. Da ist es auch so, daß die in der Erde ruhende Erdenseele das Leben zahlreicher Elementargeister unterhält. Wenn heute eine naturalistische Anschauung meint, die Samen, die ich im Herbst in die Erde säe, die lägen nun dadrinnen, und das gehe so bis zum nächsten Frühling hin, so ist das nicht wahr. Die Samen müssen hinüberbewahrt werden über die Winterzeit durch die Elementargeister der Erde. Das alles hängt damit zusammen, daß während der Winterzeit die Erdenseele mit dem Erdenleib vereinigt ist.

Nehmen Sie die entgegengesetzte Zeit, die Johannizeit. Geradeso wie der Mensch die Luft einatmet und ausatmet, so daß sie einmal in ihm und einmal außer ihm ist, so atmet die Erde ihre Seele ein. Das ist während der Winterzeit. Und ganz ausgeatmet, hinausvetrlegt in die Weiten des Kosmos ist die Erdenseele in der Hochsommerzeit, während der Johannizeit. Da ist der Erdenleib gewissermaßen von der Erdenseele leer. Die Erde lebt in ihrer Seele die Ereignisse des Kosmos mit, den Gang der Sterne und so weiter. Daher hatte man in den alten Zeiten Wintermysterien, in denen man das Zusammensein der Erdenseele mit der Erde erfuhr, und man hatte Sommermysterien, in denen man die Geheimnisse des Weltenalls wahrnehmen konnte aus dem Zusammenerleben der Erdenseele - der die Menschenseele in den Eingeweihten hinaus folgen sollte in den Weltenraum — mit den Sternen.

Daß man ein Bewußtsein von diesen Dingen hatte, das kann Ihnen aus den alten traditionellen Resten hervorgehen, die heute noch da sind. Es ist jetzt lange her, da saß ich öfter — gerade hier in Berlin war es - mit einem Astronomen zusammen, der hier sehr berühmt war und der furchtbar dafür agitierte, daß es doch sehr störend sei, wenn nicht in jedem Jahre das Osterfest zum Beispiel wenigstens auf den ersten Sonntag im April falle, und es sei schrecklich, daß das Osterfest der erste Sonntag nach dem Frühlingsvollmond sein solle. Es half einem natürlich nichts, Gründe dagegen anzuführen, denn die Sache, die da zugrunde lag, war diese: es käme doch dadurch eine furchtbare Unordnung in Soll und Haben der Kassabücher hinein, wenn man jedes Jahr das Osterfest auf eine andere Zeit legt. Diese Bewegung hatte sogar schon ziemlich große Dimensionen angenommen. Ich habe auch hier schon einmal gesagt: In den Kassabüchern steht gewöhnlich immer auf der ersten Seite «Mit Gott», aber meistens ist es dann so, daß das, was in diesen Büchern steht, nicht gerade «mit Gott» ist.

In jenen Zeiten, in denen man das Osterfest festgesetzt hat nach dem Sternenlauf — der erste Sonntag nach dem Frühlingsvollmond war der Sonne geweiht -, da war noch ein Bewußtsein dafür vorhanden: Zur Winterzeit ist die Erdenseele in der Erde, zur Johannizeit ist die Erdenseele ganz draußen im Weltenraum, im Frühling ist sie auf dem Wege nach dem Weltenraum. Das Frühlingsfest, das Osterfest kann daher nicht nach der Erde allein festgesetzt werden auf einen bestimmten Tag, sondern muß sich nach den Sternenkonstellationen richten. Da ist eine tiefe Weisheit darinnen, die aus den Zeiten herrührt, in denen die Menschen aus dem alten instinktiven Hellsehen noch das Geistige des Jahreslaufes wahrnehmen konnten. Dazu müssen wir wieder kommen, und wir können in einem gewissen Sinne wieder dazu kommen, wenn wir, gerade anknüpfend an solche Auseinandersetzungen, wie wir sie hier zusammen gepflogen haben, die Aufgaben der Gegenwart ergreifen.

Ich habe es schon öfter auch hier ausgesprochen: Von den geistigen Wesenheiten, mit denen sich der Mensch jede Nacht vereinigt in der Weise, wie ich das gesagt habe - durch die Sprache mit den Archangeloi -, sind gewisse Wesenheiten durch einen gewissen Zeitraum Hindurch die regierenden geistigen Mächte. Und im letzten Drittel des 19. Jahrhunderts ging die Michaelzeit an, jene Zeit, in welcher der Geist, der sonst in den Schriften mit Michael bezeichnet wird, für die menschlichen Zivilisationsangelegenheiten der wesentliche geworden ist. Diese Dinge wiederholen sich zyklisch.

In alten Zeiten wußte man von allen diesen geistigen Vorgängen etwas. Das hebräische Altertum sprach von Jahve, aber es sprach immer von dem Antlitz Jahves, und mit dem Antlitz meinte es die Erzengel, die eigentlich zwischen Jahve und der Erde vermittelten. Und als die Juden den Messias auf Erden erwarteten, da wußten sie, das ist die Michaelzeit, da vermittelt Michael die Tätigkeit des Christus auf Erden. Sie haben das nur im tieferen Zusammenhang dann mißverstanden. Jetzt ist wiederum für die Erde die Zeit eingetreten, seit den siebziger Jahren des 19. Jahrhunderts, wo die Michael-Macht die regierende geistige Macht in der Welt ist und wo wir verstehen müssen, Geistiges in unsere Handlungen einzuführen, von dem Geistigen aus unser Leben einzurichten. Das heißt, dem Michael dienen: nicht bloß vom Materiellen aus unser Leben einzurichten, sondern sich bewußt zu sein, daß derjenige, der die niederen ahrimanischen Mächte zu überwinden in seiner Mission hat, Michael, sozusagen unser Genius für die Zivilisationsentwickelung werden muß. Wie kann er das? Nun, das kann er, wenn wir uns erinnern, wie wir wiederum an den Jahreslauf im geistigen Sinne anknüpfen können.

Es liegt wirklich eine große Weisheit im ganzen Weltenlaufe darin, daß wir mit dem Frühlingsfeste das Auferstehungsfest des Christus Jesus verbinden dürfen. Der historische Zusammenhang - ich habe ihn ja öfter dargelegt - ist ein durchaus richtiger: Es kann nur in jedem Jahre das Frühlingsfest, das heißt das Osterfest, auf einen andern Tag fallen, weil es ja eben von der andern Welt aus angesehen wird. Nur wir auf der Erde haben die philiströse Vorstellung, daß die Zeit kontinuierlich fortläuft, daß immer eine Stunde so lang ist als die andere. Die Zeit zu bestimmen, das machen wir ja nur mit unseren irdischen Hilfsmitteln, mit der Mathematik. Dagegen für die wirkliche geistige Welt ist die Weltenstunde lebendig. Da ist nicht eine Weltenstunde gleich wie die andere, sondern länger oder kürzer. Daher können wir uns immer irren, wenn wir etwas, was von dem Himmel aus festgesetzt werden soll, nur von der Erde aus festsetzen. Das Osterfest ist rechtmäßig himmelsmäßig festgesetzt.

Was ist es für ein Fest? Es ist dasjenige Fest, das uns erinnern soll und das dieMenschen einmal mit aller Lebendigkeit erinnert hat daran, daß ein Gott zur Erde herniedergestiegen ist, in dem Menschen Jesus von Nazareth Wohnung genommen hat, damit in der Zeit, in der sie sich näherten der Ich-Entwickelung, die Menschen in entsprechender Weise zurückfinden können den Weg durch den Tod in das geistige Leben hinein. Das habe ich öfter hier auseinandergesetzt. So daß also das Osterfest dasjenige Fest ist, in dem der Mensch anschaut Tod und darauf folgende Unsterblichkeit in dem Mysterium von Golgatha. Wir schauen dieses Frühlingsfest in dem richtigen Sinne an, wenn wir uns sagen: Der Christus hat bekräftigt die Unsterblichkeit des Menschen, indem er selber den Tod besiegt hat. Aber wir Menschen verstehen die Unsterblichkeit des Christus Jesus nur richtig, wenn wir uns während des Erdenlebens dieses Verständnis aneignen, das heißt, wenn wir in unserer Seele unser Verhältnis zu dem Mysterium von Golgatha beleben und wenn wir loskommen können von jener materialistischen Vorstellung, die von dem Mysterium von Golgatha alles Geistige wegsondern will. Heute will man gar nicht mehr den Christus gelten lassen, sondern nur noch den «schlichten Mann aus Nazareth», den Jesus. Man geniert sich gewissermaßen vor seiner eigenen Wissenschaftlichkeit, wenn man zugeben sollte, daß das Mysterium von Golgatha ein geistiges Geheimnis mitten im Erdendasein enthält: Tod und Auferstehung des Gottes. Aber wenn wir das geistig erleben, dann bereiten wir uns auch vor, anderes geistig zu erleben.

Daher ist für den Menschen der Gegenwart so wichtig, daß er die Möglichkeit gewinne, das Mysterium von Golgatha zunächst als etwas rein Geistiges zu erleben. Dann wird er anderes Geistiges erleben, und er wird den Zugang zu den geistigen Welten, die Wege zu den geistigen Welten durch das Mysterium von Golgatha finden. Aber dann muß der Mensch, anknüpfend an das Mysterium von Golgatha, die Auferstehung verstehen, während er noch lebt. Und wenn er die Auferstehung empfindend versteht, während er lebt, wird er dadurch auch befähigt werden, in der richtigen Weise durch den Tod zu gehen. Das heißt, Tod und Auferstehung im Mysterium von Golgatha sollen den Menschen lehren, umzukehren das Verhältnis: während des Lebens die Auferstehung innerlich seelisch zu erleben, damit der Mensch nach dieser inneren seelischen Auferstehung recht durch den Tod gehen kann. Das ist das dem Ostererleben entgegengesetzte Erleben.

Zu Ostern sollen wir uns versenken können in Tod und Auferstehung des Christus. Wir brauchen aber als Menschen auch die Möglichkeit, uns versenken zu können in das, was uns ist Auferstehung der Seele, damit die auferstandene Seele des Menschen richtig durch den Tod gehe. Wie wir uns im Frühling die richtige Osterstimmung aneignen, wenn wir sehen, wie da die Pflanzen sprießen und sprossen, wie die Natur aufersteht, wie die Natur den Tod des Winters überwindet, so können wir, wenn wir den Sommer richtig durchgemacht haben, uns auch ein Gefühl dafür aneignen, daß wir wissen: Da ist die Seele hinaufgestiegen in kosmische Weiten, wir nähern uns nun dem Herbste, September kommt heran, Herbstsonnenwende kommt heran. Diejenigen Blätter, die im Frühling grünend und sprossend geworden sind, werden bräunlich, gelblich, werden abgelegt, die Bäume stehen da, schon zum Teil entblättert, die Natur erstirbt. Aber wir verstehen diese ersterbende Natur, wenn wir hineinschauen in das Absterben, in das Nähern der Schneedecke der Erde und uns sagen: Da zieht die Erdenseele wiederum zurück zur Erde, und sie wird ganz bei der Erde sein, wenn die Wintersonnenwende herangekommen sein wird.

Es gibt eine Möglichkeit, diese Herbsteszeit mit derselben Intensität zu empfinden wie die Frühlingszeit. Und empfinden wir in der Frühlings-Osterzeit Tod und Auferstehung des Gottes, so können wir in der Herbsteszeit Auferstehung und Tod der Menschenseele empfinden, das heißt das Auferstehungserlebnis während des Erdenlebens, um in der richtigen Weise durch den Tod zu gehen. Dann aber müssen wir auch verstehen, was das bedeutet für uns, für unsere jetzige Zeit, daß die Erdenseele während der Johannizeit im Sommer ausgeatmet wird in die Weltenweiten, da mit den Sternen vereinigt ist und wieder zurückkommt. Wer die Geheimnisse dieses Erdenkreislaufes im Laufe des Jahres durchschaut, der weiß, daß da die Michael-Kraft jetzt durch die Naturkräfte wieder herunterkommt, die in den früheren Jahrhunderten nicht heruntergekommen ist; so daß wir dem sich entlaubenden Herbst entgegengehen können, in dem wir das Herankommen der Michael-Kraft aus den Wolken zur Erde hin erblicken.

Ja, in den Kalendern steht an diesem Tag «Michael», und als ein Bauernfeiertag gilt Michaeli. Aber die Gegenwart geistig so empfinden, daß sich uns die Erden-Menschenereignisse zusammenschließen mit den Naturereignissen, das werden wir erst, wenn wir wieder fähig werden, den Jahreslauf so weit zu verstehen, daß wir bilden können im Jahreslaufe — wie die alten Menschen aus ihrem alten traumhaften Hellsehen heraus sie gebildet haben - Jahresfeste. Die Alten haben das Jahr verstanden und haben aus diesen Geheimnissen, die ich heute nur andeuten konnte, Weihnachten, Ostern und das Johannifest herausgebildet. Man beschenkt sich zu Weihnachten, man tut auch einiges andere, aber ich habe es ja öfter, wenn ich hier Weihnachts- oder Ostervorträge gehalten habe, auseinandergesetzt, wie wenig die Menschen heute noch von diesen alten Festes-Setzungen haben, wie alles traditionell und äußerlich geworden ist. Aber wird man wieder die Feste verstehen, die man heute nur feiert, jedoch nicht versteht, so wird man auch die Kraft haben, aus der geistigen Erkenntnis des Jahreslaufes ein Fest festzusetzen, das erst für die gegenwärtige Menschheit die rechte Bedeutung hat. Das wird das Michael-Fest sein in den Ende-September-Tagen, wenn der Herbst naht, die Blätter welk werden, die Bäume kahl werden, die Natur dem Absterben entgegengeht — wie sie im Osterfeste dem Aufsprießen entgegengeht -, wenn wir in der absprossenden Natur gerade gewahr werden, wie da die Erdenseele sich mit der Erde vereinigt, wie sie Michael aus den Wolken mitbringt.

Wenn wir die Kraft haben, aus dem Geiste heraus solch ein Fest zu schaffen, das in unser soziales Leben wiederum Gemeinsamkeit hereinbringt, dann werden wir das aus dem Geiste heraus getan haben. Denn dann werden wir unter uns etwas gestiftet haben, wozu der Geist den Ursprung bildet. Wichtiger als alles übrige soziale Nachdenken und dergleichen, das in den jetzigen verworrenen Verhältnissen doch nur dann zu etwas führen kann, wenn der Geist darinnen ist, wäre es zunächst, daß eine Anzahl verständnisvoller Menschen sich zusammenfänden, um wiederum aus dem Kosmos heraus auf Erden etwas zu stiften wie ein Michaelifest, das würdig des Osterfestes, aber als Herbstfest das Gegenstück zum Osterfest wäre. Könnte man sich entschließen, etwas, wozu es Motive nur in der geistigen Welt gibt, was aber dann unter die Menschen wiederum gemeinsames Fühlen brächte bei einem solchen Fest, das aus der vollen, frischen Menschenbrust noch in unmittelbarer Gegenwart geschaffen wäre, so würde es etwas geben, was die Menschen sozial wieder bindet. Denn die Feste haben die Menschen in alten Zeiten sozial fest gebunden. Denken Sie nur, was für die Feste und zu den Festen für die ganze Kultur getan, gesprochen und gedacht worden ist! Das ist dasjenige, was durch die Fixierung der Feste aus dem unmittelbaren Geiste heraus sich in das Physische hineingelebt hat.

Könnten sich die Menschen heute in würdiger Weise dazu entschließen, ein Michaelifest in den Ende-September-Tagen einzusetzen, so wäre das eine Tat von größter Bedeutung. Dazu müßte der Mut sich finden in den Menschen: nicht nur zu diskutieren über äußere soziale Organisationen und dergleichen, sondern etwas zu tun, was die Erde an den Himmel bindet, was die physischen Verhältnisse wieder an die geistigen Verhältnisse bindet. Dann würde, weil dadurch der Geist wiederum in die irdischen Verhältnisse eingeführt würde, unter den Menschen wirklich etwas geschehen, was ein mächtiger Impuls wäre zur Weiterführung unserer Zivilisation und unseres ganzen Lebens.

Es ist natürlich keine Zeit, um Ihnen auszumalen, was das alles für wissenschaftliches, religiöses und künstlerisches Erleben wäre, geradeso wie durch die alten Feste, so durch ein solches in großem Stil aus dem Geiste heraus geschaffenes neues Fest, und wieviel wichtiger als alles das, was man heute an sozialen Tiraden entwickelt, ein solches Schaffen aus der geistigen Welt heraus wäre. Denn was würde das bedeuten? Ach, es bedeutet viel für das Hineinschauen in das menschliche Innere, wenn ich einem Menschen absehen kann, was er meint, oder wenn ich seine Worte richtig verstehe. Kann man heute absehen, wie der ganze Weltenlauf wirkt, wenn es gegen den Herbst zu geht, kann man enträtseln, entziffern diese ganze Physiognomie des Weltenalls und kann man schöpferisch daraus wirken, dann enthüllt man nicht nur Menschenwillen an einem solchen Festeschaffen, dann enthüllte man Götter- und Geisterwillen. Dann ist wieder Geist unter den Menschen!

Aber heute ist es ja wirklich so, daß das Geistige in einer sonderbaren Weise in der Welt aufgenommen wird. Womit ich begonnen habe, damit darf ich vielleicht auch mit ein paar Worten schließen. Ich mußte längst hinweisen darauf, wie, ausgehend von einer sehr untergeordneten freimaurerischen Seite und dann aber wiederholt in allerlei astrologischen Werken, aufgegriffen von allen Gegnern seit längerer Zeit, der Satz in die Welt gesetzt worden ist: Geistige Feuerfunken seien in das Goetheanum in Dornach genug hineingeflogen; es werde die Zeit kommen, wo der physische Feuerfunke in dieses Goetheanum hineinfliegen wird. — Die Leute haben es durch zwei Jahre geschrieben. Das ist die Art und Weise, wie heute dasjenige, was wirklich aus dem Geiste heraus geschöpft wird, in der Welt empfangen wird! Demgegenüber muß es Menschen geben, welche mit dem SichHineinversetzen in den Geist völlig Ernst machen können. Ernst machen kann man nicht durch das Reden vom Geist allein, sondern durch ein solches Reden vom Geist, das auch wirklich den Geist unter uns Menschen verbreiten kann. Eine solche Verbreitung des Geistes wäre es, wenn wir schafflend würden aus dem Geiste, wie alte Zeiten schaffend wurden aus dem Geiste. Ich habe des öfteren über das Weihnachtsfest, das Osterfest, das heißt über alte Feste unter Ihnen sprechen dürfen. Es ist schön, den Geist der alten Feste herauszuholen aus den Zeitenläuften. Aber ich möchte doch, daß man nicht nur versteht, wenn durch Anthroposophie das an die Oberfläche gebracht wird, was alte Weisheit gedacht hat, sondern ich möchte, daß man auch verstehen kann dasjenige, was aus dem Geist unserer unmittelbaren Gegenwart als Aufforderung zu uns spricht. Es genügt nicht, bloß die Evangelien als Ausdruck des Christentums anzusehen, denn Christus hat gesagt: «Ich bin bei euch alle Tage bis ans Ende der Erdenzeiten.» Er ist da! Verstehen wir seinen Geist, seine Worte, dann können wir jeden Tag aus diesem Geiste heraus sprechen. Was die Alten schaffend gemacht hat aus einer Weltenweisheit, was gemacht hat, daß wir heute noch den tiefen Sinn der Feste enthüllen können, das lebt doch unter uns. Wir wollen doch ganze Menschen sein. Dann müssen wir aber auch als ganze Menschen geistig schaffen können. Dann müssen wir nicht nur nachdenken können über den Sinn der alten Feste, dann müssen wir selber dadurch sozial schöpferisch werden können, daß wir aus dem Jahreslauf heraus Feste-schöpfend werden können.

Das mutet allerdings den Menschen mehr zu, als die alteingesessenen Feste zu erklären. Aber es ist eben auch eine wirkliche Anthroposophie, eine höhere Anthroposophie. Und geprüft werden kann die Anthroposophische Gesellschaft doch nur daran, ob sie nicht nur tote Anthroposophie begreift, die über Vergangenes handelt, sondern ob sie auch lebendige Anthroposophie begreift. Die wird auch eine Summe von Feuerfunken sein können! Aber diese Feuerfunken werden in einem Tempel sein, der nicht aus äußerem Material besteht. Physische Flammen verzehren Tempel, die aus äußerem Material bestehen. Die Flammen echter spiritueller Begeisterung, echten spirituellen Lebens, die den Tempel durchdringen müssen, weil sie ihn erleuchten müssen mit dem, was im Geiste aufleuchtet, diese Flammen können den Tempel nicht zerstören, die können diesen Tempel nur immer herrlicher gestalten. Denken wir an das, was lebendige Anthroposophie ist, als diejenige Feuerflamme, die uns immer weiter- und weiterführen wird, wie der lebendige Geist der Anthroposophie selber, der uns führen soll zum Fortschritt der Menschheit und zum Wiederaufbau desjenigen, was jetzt in einem so deutlichen Niedergange ist.

Das wollte ich Ihnen bei meiner diesmaligen Anwesenheit in Berlin sagen, meine lieben Freunde, weil es gut ist, wenn wir solche ernsten Dinge, gerade weil wir so selten zusammensein können, jetzt besprechen. Ich hoffe, daß ausgehen möge auch von diesem ein recht gutes Zusammensein in Gedanken. Denn Anthroposophie soll wirken im Geiste, nicht bloß im physischen Raume. Und so möge es als Gruß zu Ihnen gesprochen sein, daß wir beisammenbleiben mögen im Geiste, auch wenn wir jetzt räumlich längere Zeit wieder getrennt sein müssen.

The Creation of a Michael Festival Out of the Spirit The Mysteries of the Inner Human Being

What I would like to say to you today, like everything I have had to say about anthroposophy in recent times, must be said with a certain undertone caused by the painful event that befell our cause and our society on New Year's Eve: The Goetheanum in Dornach is no longer standing. It was consumed by flames on New Year's Eve. And all those who saw the ten years of work destroyed in that one night, work that had been carried out by so many of our friends who had devoted themselves to it, all those who loved the Goetheanum very much because of this work and because of what the Goetheanum meant to us, will have to live with the impression that we no longer have this outward sign of anthroposophical activity. For even if — as is certainly to be hoped — some building for our cause will be erected again on the same site, the old Goetheanum can of course no longer be the same under the influence of the difficult circumstances of the times. So behind everything I have had to say since those days lies the terrible heat of the flames that intervened in such a heartbreaking way in the development of our entire cause. Now that this external sign is gone, we must devote ourselves all the more to grasping the inner forces and inner essences of the anthroposophical movement and of what is connected with it for the entire development of humanity. So let me begin with a kind of reflection on the nature of the human being. I have made many such reflections here among you, and today I would like to make another one from a certain point of view.

I would like to start with a consideration of the human being entering the world, the human being who has descended from pre-earthly existence and is taking his first steps here in earthly life. We know that when we enter earthly life, our soul is dominated by a state that bears a certain resemblance to the ever-repeating state of human sleep. Just as the ordinary consciousness has no memory of what the human soul-spirit has gone through from falling asleep to waking up — with the exception of the colorful variety of dreams, which, however, as we know, actually flow away with falling asleep or waking up — just as the ordinary consciousness does not remember these states, so this same consciousness does not remember these states for the ordinary consciousness, which actually do not emerge from deep sleep. which do not actually emerge from deep sleep for ordinary consciousness — just as ordinary consciousness does not remember these states, so this same consciousness has only a memory of the whole earthly life back to a certain point in childhood. For some this is a little earlier, for others a little later. What lies before that in earthly life is actually as veiled to ordinary consciousness as the events of the state of sleep. It is true that the child is not in a real sleep, it is in a kind of dreamlike, indefinite inner activity, but for the whole of later life this state is at first at least not entirely remote from a dream-filled sleep.

Now, however, three activities, three things that the child learns, come into play during this period: what we usually summarize with the expression “learning to walk,” then what is associated with learning to speak, and what is associated with learning to think. Now, when we speak of learning to express oneself, we are actually referring to something that is extremely complicated in an extremely abbreviated way that stems from our own convenience. We need only think of how the child first enters life in complete clumsiness, how it gradually gains the ability to find its own balance in the space in which it is to move throughout its entire life. What we observe in children is not merely learning to walk, but rather seeking the equilibrium of earthly life, and connected with this learning to walk is the use of the limbs for movement in general. For those who have the right perception for such things, this learning to walk actually expresses the most remarkable and magnificent mysteries of life. A whole world is expressed in the way a child goes from crawling to standing up, to putting its feet down, but also to everything else, to raising its head, to using its arms and limbs. And those who look more closely, I would say, at how one child places its feet more on the heel and another tends to step more on the toes, will perhaps get an idea of what I am about to explain to you today with reference to the three activities mentioned and their connection with the spiritual world. But first, I would like to characterize these three activities externally.

On the basis of this search for balance, this search—if I may express myself in a more scholarly, perhaps somewhat pompous manner—for a dynamic of life, on the basis of this search, speech learning then develops. For anyone who observes this knows very well that the normal development of the child is such that learning to speak develops on the basis of learning to walk and grasp. First of all, one notices in the process of learning to speak how the firm or light gait of the child is also expressed in the rhythm of speech, in the emphasis of syllables, in the power of language. And one will also notice how the modulation of words, the contouring of words, has a certain parallelism with the way in which the child learns to bend or keep straight its little fingers, skilfully or unskilfully. But anyone who can observe the entire inner workings of the human organism will be able to understand how, as modern developmental theory admits, right-handed people have their speech center in the left third of the frontal lobe, in the so-called Broca's area — which is simply the physiological explanation for the characteristic connection between speech and the ability to grasp, if I may use the pleonasm: the entire manipulative ability of the arm and hand — but they will also know how intimately the movement of the vocal cords, the entire attitude of the speech organ, takes on exactly the same character as the movements of walking and grasping. But in normal child development, speech, which is developed by imitating the environment, cannot develop at all without the foundation of seeking equilibrium in life being there first.

And thinking! Yes, the finer organs of the brain that underlie thinking develop again from the organization of speech. No one should believe that in normal child development, thinking could develop before speech. Anyone who pays attention will find that language is not initially an expression of thoughts in children. Not at all! It would be ridiculous to believe that. Rather, language in children is an expression of feeling, of sensation, of the life of the soul. You will therefore see that it is first and foremost the words of sensation, everything that is sensation, that the child expresses through language. And when the child says “Mama” or “Papa,” it is the feelings toward Mama or Papa that it means, not some concept or thought. Thinking develops only out of language. However, in humans, some things shift, so that one then says: This child learned to speak before learning to walk. But this is not the normal development, and in education one should even make sure that the normal sequence of development is really followed: walking, speaking, thinking.

But the real character of these activities of the child is only really apparent when one observes the other side of human life, namely, when one observes how these activities behave in later life during sleep, for it is from sleep, or at least from the dream-filled sleep of the child, as I have indicated, that these activities emerge. But what do these activities do during later life on earth?

It is generally not possible in today's scientific life to go into these things. Today's scientific life really only knows the outer side of human beings and does not know the inner connections of the human being with the world being, insofar as the world being is spiritual. In all areas, human civilization—if I may use that expression—or let us say human culture, has developed into a certain materialism or naturalism. Do not think that I am railing against materialism here. If materialism had not come into human civilization, human beings would not have become free. Materialism is therefore a necessary stage in human development. But today we must be clear about the paths we must take, also in the future. And we must be clear about this in all areas. To illustrate what I am about to say, I would like to give you an example.

You all know, and can learn from my writings, that before humanity on Earth went through the cultural epochs that are still somewhat similar to today's — the ancient Indian, the ancient Persian, the Egyptian-Chaldean, the Greek-Latin, and then our own — it went through the so-called Atlantean catastrophe. And during this Atlantean catastrophe, the humanity that is now the European, Asian, and American cultural humanity was essentially settled on a continent that is now sea, namely the Atlantic Ocean. At that time, it was essentially land, and humanity developed on this Atlantic land a very long time ago. You can read about what humanity went through there in my writings and cycles.

I do not wish to speak now of other experiences of humanity in the ancient Atlantean era, but only of musical experiences. The entire musical experience of the ancient Atlanteans would seem completely grotesque and bizarre to a person today, if they could hear it—which they cannot—because what the ancient Atlanteans sought in music were, for example, seventh chords. These seventh chords had the peculiarity for the Atlanteans that the souls of these primitive human beings — in whose bodies we were all enclosed, for we ourselves went through this period in our repeated earthly lives — were immediately transported out of their bodies when they lived in their music, which gave preference to seventh chords. They knew no other mood in music than being enraptured, enthusiastic, and imbued with God. And as soon as their extraordinarily simple instruments sounded, which, incidentally, were only accompanying instruments for singing, such an Atlantean actually felt himself weaving and living in the spiritual world outside.

Then came the Atlantean catastrophe. All post-Atlanteans initially developed a preference for fifths. You probably know that the fifth played the most extensive role in musical development for a long time; even in ancient Greece, for example, the fifth played a very widespread role. The preference for fifths had the peculiar effect that, although people no longer felt themselves outside their bodies when they experienced music, they felt themselves spiritually and emotionally within their bodies. During the musical experience, they completely forgot their physical experience. They felt themselves, so to speak, within their skin, but their skin was completely filled with soul and spirit. That was the effect of music, and very few people will believe that until almost the 10th or 11th century AD, natural music was as I have described it, for it was only then that people's talents for thirds, the major and minor thirds, and for major and minor modes began to emerge. This came relatively late, but with this late arrival, the inner experience of music also developed. Human beings now remained within themselves in music. Just as the rest of culture in this period strove downwards from the spiritual to the material, so human beings in music strove from the experience of the spiritual, in which they were absorbed in ancient times, if they experienced music at all, towards the experience of music within themselves, no longer on the surface, but completely within themselves. In this way, major and minor keys also first emerged at that time, which are essentially only possible when people experience music inwardly.

Thus, in all areas, one can trace how people have developed from the spiritual down to the material, but also toward themselves. That is why we must not always say in a philistine, philistine way: Oh, materialism is something inferior, man must get out of it. Man would not have become truly human if he had not descended to grasp material life. It was precisely by grasping the spiritual in the material that man became a self-conscious, free being. And today, with the help of anthroposophical spiritual science, we must find our way back to the spiritual world, and we must find it in all areas. That is why it is so painful that the artistic experiment that was undertaken in Dornach has been wiped out in this way today! The path to the spiritual world must be sought in all areas.

Let us now consider the one activity that children learn, namely language, in relation to the overall development of the human being. It really must be said that what children learn is something magnificent, and Jean Paul, the German poet, said that in the first three years of life – when we essentially learn to walk, speak and think – human beings learn much more than in the three years of school. Nowadays, the three academic years have become many, but we still do not learn more in the “three” academic years than we do in the first three years of our lives as children. Now, let us consider speech! Speaking involves, first of all, the external physical and physiological: our larynx and other speech organs move, they move the air. Sound is transmitted. This brings us, in a sense, to the external physical and physiological. But what we speak also contains the soul, and the soul permeates and glows through everything we utter in sounds. Yes, insofar as language is something physical, the physical body and the etheric body of the human being are involved in it. Of course, they are silent from the moment we fall asleep until we wake up; that is, normal human beings do not speak from the moment they fall asleep until they wake up. But insofar as the soul and the I are involved in speaking, the soul and the I, the astral body and the I, take with them the soul's power of speech when they leave the physical body and the etheric body at falling asleep, and with it, in fact, everything that the human being has put into his speech during the whole day. We are actually different people every evening, because we have been speaking all day long, some a lot, others less, some too much, some too little, but at least we have been speaking all day long and putting our soul into language. And what we have put into language, we take with us when we fall asleep; it remains our essence between falling asleep and waking up.

Now, especially in our materialistic age, it may be that people no longer have any idea that idealism or spiritualism can be expressed in language. Today, many people believe that language is only meant to express external, tangible objects. The sense that language can express ideals has been largely lost. That is why people today find what is spoken to them from the spirit so incomprehensible. For what do people say to each other when they speak of the spirit? They say to themselves: Yes, he is speaking in words. — But all people know about these words is that they mean what can be touched or seen. People no longer accept that words can also point to something that is supersensible, invisible. And that may be one way in which people relate to language. The other way, however, may be that people find their way to idealism already in words, already in language, so that they know that, in a sense, every word can resonate with a spiritual experience.

What a person who lives entirely in the materialism of language carries over into the spiritual world when they fall asleep strangely puts them in a difficult relationship with the world of the archangels, the world of the Archangeloi, into which they are supposed to enter every night between falling asleep and waking up, while those who preserve the idealism of language and know lives in the language of the linguistic genius, enters into the necessary relationship with the hierarchy of the Archangeloi, namely with the Archangeloi to whom he himself is assigned in the world between falling asleep and waking up. Yes, this is expressed even in the outer phenomena of the world.

Why do people today seek so desperately an external relationship to national languages? Why did this terrible misfortune befall Europe, which Woodrow Wilson considered a “blessing” — but he was just a curious illusionist — why did this great misfortune befall Europe, that freedom is linked to the desperate desire to cling to the smallest national languages? Because in reality, people are desperately seeking an external relationship that they no longer have in their minds; for, having fallen asleep, they no longer have a natural relationship to language and therefore also to the hierarchy of the Archangels. Humanity will have to find its way back to the permeation of the entire linguistic realm with idealism if it does not want to lose its way into the spiritual world.

How does humanity today pay attention to what happens to the individual between falling asleep and waking up? People do not even consider this state of sleep. When we look back on our lives, we believe that what we have before us is a complete picture of our lives. This is not true! The periods of sleep are always left out, and the whole is always interrupted. We always link the morning to the evening, but in between there is the night. And what happens during sleep at night, firstly, externally, accounts for at least a third of human life – at least for “decent people” – and secondly, it is much more important for the inner life of the human being than the external activities during the whole day. Certainly, external activity is more important for external culture. But our inner development during life is brought about by entering into the right relationship with the spiritual world during the night while we sleep.

And it is the same with what underlies other activities. If a person puts idealism into their actions, that is, into the totality of their movements, which they learn first when they enter earthly life, then they find the right connection with the hierarchy of the archai. And through thoughts, if they contain idealism, if they are not materialistic, human beings find the connection with the hierarchy of the angeloi during nighttime sleep. This is what we arrive at when we examine the connection between these three activities acquired during childhood and the state of nighttime sleep from an anthroposophical-spiritual scientific perspective. But this connection can reveal itself to us in a much more comprehensive way when we look at the whole life of the human being in the cosmos.

You are familiar with the description in my “Theosophy.” When the human being passes through the gate of death, he first goes through a state lasting several days, which consists in the passing away of thoughts and ideas. One can express this by saying that the etheric body expands into the wide world and the human being loses his etheric body. But this is the same as saying that the human being's ideas and thoughts disappear. But what does this actually mean: the ideas and thoughts disappear? It means a great deal. It means that our entire waking life departs from us. Our entire waking life departs from us in the course of two or three days, and there would be nothing left of our life if we did not then experience what remains unconscious during our earthly life, if we did not then begin to experience in full consciousness what we have gone through during our sleep life. This sleep life is spiritually infinitely richer and more intense than our waking life. Every time we sleep, whether for a short or a long time, this sleep life is a backward repetition of our daily life, but with a spiritual impact. What you have experienced as actions during the day brings you into a relationship with the archai, the primal forces, during the night. What you have experienced as speech during the day brings you into relationship with the archangels at night. And what you have experienced as thinking also brings you into relationship with your angelic beings, the angeloi. What human beings experience is independent of time. You don't need to say, “Yes, but there is this possibility: I am asleep, suddenly something stirs in the night, something, I don't know what, wakes me up, then I can't finish reliving my day, can I?” But you do finish it, because the time conditions are completely different. In a moment, you can go through what would otherwise take hours if you were sleeping regularly. The time conditions during sleep are completely different. Therefore, it can and must be said that every time a person sleeps, they relive in reverse what they have experienced here in the physical world between the last time they woke up and the last time they fell asleep, in spiritual form, nature, and essence. And when they have lost their waking life of imagination in the cosmos within a few days after death, they then live through what they have gone through in one third of their life, in sleep. That is why I have always had to describe how human beings need one third of their earthly life to then live through what they have gone through during the nights. This is essentially similar to daily life, of course, but it is experienced in a different way, and after death, the human being then goes through this backward journey as a second state, in which he actually experiences his entire life again in one third of the time, back to his birth. Then they arrive back at birth, and then they live in that state which I have already described to you here in another context: they live in that state where their whole worldview changes fundamentally.

You see, here on Earth we stand at a certain point on the Earth. Around us is the world. We know very little about it with our ordinary consciousness. We look at the world with our outer senses, which we know. You may say: But anatomists know the inside of the human being very well. No, they only know the outside of the inside. The real inner self is something completely different. When you remember something today that you went through ten years ago, you have something in your memory that is inside your soul. It is compressed, perhaps a brief memory of a very, very extensive experience. But there is only a spiritual image of something you went through in your earthly life. But now go inside yourself, not into your memories, but into your physical organism, that is, the seemingly physical organism. Notice your wonderfully constructed brain, your wonderfully constructed lungs, and so on. Then you will see that it is not the experiences of this earthly life that are rolled up inside you, but rather the entire cosmos, the entire world. Man is truly a small world, a microcosm. The whole world is rolled up in his organs. But man does not know this with his ordinary consciousness. When he stands on earth, he has the memory of his experiences. He does not know that he himself, with his physical being, is, so to speak, the embodied memory of the entire cosmos.

So when the backward journey through life, which I have just indicated, is complete, we enter, between death and a new birth, into a world life where it is not the world with its mountains, clouds, stars, seas, and so on that surrounds us, but where the mysteries of the inner human being are our surroundings — where everything that eludes us in earthly life about the mysteries of the inner human being is then our surroundings. Here on this earth, we live within our skin and know about the world of stars, clouds, mountains, stones, animals, and plants. Between death and a new birth, we know about human beings; all the mysteries of human beings are then our environment. And do not believe that this is a less interesting environment than the earthly environment! Certainly, the starry sky is magnificent, the mountains and the seas are grand; but what is inside the human being in a single vessel is more magnificent and more powerful when we have it around us in its majestic grandeur between death and a new birth than what is in our earthly environment. Man is the world between death and a new birth, and he must be the world because we are preparing for a next life on earth. We must be there to prepare the future human beings on earth together with the beings of the higher hierarchies. Just as we here on earth create our outer culture and civilization, just as we make boots, skirts, operate telephones, cut people's hair, give lectures, engage in artistic pursuits, and do everything else that belongs to civilization today, so between death and a new birth we work together with the beings of the higher hierarchies to create that which is human and which we ourselves will become in our physical bodies in our next earthly life. This is the spiritual goal of culture, and it is more powerful, infinitely more powerful and magnificent than the earthly goal of culture. It is not without reason that the ancients called the physical human body a temple of the gods, because it is together with the gods, with the beings of the higher hierarchies, that this human physical body is formed between death and a new birth. This is the activity in which we, with our ego, are now between the beings of the higher hierarchies, working together with the beings of the higher hierarchies on humanity. We are, so to speak, wandering among the beings of the higher hierarchies; we are spirits among spirits.

However, we can only do what we do there in accordance with what we have accomplished here in our earthly life, and this is also revealed to us in a certain sense in the relationship between sleep and waking. Just think how chaotic dreams are! I do not deny the wonderfully colorful diversity and grandeur of dreams, but we must be clear that dreams are chaotic in comparison to earthly life, in whose images they are clothed. You need only remember the dream I once cited as an illustration — Vo/kelt recounts this dream based on a Württemberg story, but we are familiar with such dreams — in which a city woman visits her sister, who is a pastor's wife, in the country. She dreams that she goes to church with her sister to hear the sermon. But it seems very strange to her, because after the Gospel has been read and the pastor climbs into the pulpit, he does not begin to preach, but instead raises his arms and finally begins to crow like a rooster! Or think of another dream in which a woman says she has just dreamed that she was thinking about what she should cook for her husband, and nothing else came to mind until she finally remembered that she still had an old, salty grandmother upstairs in the attic, but that she was still very tough. — Dreams can seem chaotic, strangely chaotic. But what does it mean when a dream seems chaotic? What does that actually mean?

While we sleep, our ego and astral body are outside the physical body and the etheric body. But there we live back—namely with the moral meaning—of everything we did, said, and thought during the day. We live that back. We prepare our karma for the next earthly life, and this appears in images between falling asleep and waking up. But these images are still very clumsy, because when we want to return to the physical body upon waking up, they do not yet fit in properly. We cannot imagine in accordance with the macrocosm. Instead, we imagine something completely different, perhaps a “salty grandmother.” This is because, with reference to what we have already developed, we do not understand how to adapt to the physical human body, and this adaptation to the physical human body is infinitely difficult. We acquire it in the cooperation I have described with the beings of the higher hierarchies between death and new birth. There, the inner soul-spiritual, which otherwise often enters so clumsily in dreams, must first balance this out again when the whole sleeping consciousness is overcome and the human being has submerged back into his old physical body without any effort on his part.

Between death and rebirth, this soul-spiritual element must penetrate all the secrets of the physical body so that the body can be built up in the right way. For the body is not really built up by the parents and ancestors alone. To believe that is utter nonsense in science—one may well say so. For how does science imagine this process of becoming human? Well, it says: We have molecules among the substances, which are constructed in a complicated way from atoms. The protein molecule contained in the germ cell is the most complicated molecule of all — of course, no scientist can describe it, but he points to its enormous complexity — and because it is so complicated, a human being can arise from it. This is the simplest way of explaining human beings. One simply says: the whole human being is already there, it is just a molecule with a very complex structure. But the truth is that a human being can only come into being if the protein molecule falls back into complete chaos, if it turns into dust from disordered matter. Outside, we have orderly matter, in crystals, in plants, and so on. If something is to come into being, including plants and animals, the matter must first fall back completely into dust. And once the matter no longer has a form of its own, the entire cosmos acts upon that tiny piece of matter, creating an image within it.

So what about human beings? We form this image of the human being between death and new birth with all its mysteries, into which we now weave our karma, send it down before us into the mother's body; we have the spirit germ, which is only large in relation to the physical germ, i.e., only just formed, and it descends into the matter that has become chaotic. That is the truth, not what modern physiology dreams of.

During this period I have just described, the I lives as a spiritual-soul being among spiritual-soul gods, living in the activity of getting to know human beings as such inwardly for the next life on earth. What is wonderfully apparent in the individual activities of the child in its search for balance is a reflection of what is spiritually experienced in tremendous majesty and grandeur. It is very interesting to see how the primal forces or archai work over from the life between death and new birth into the child's entire search for balance, into what we trivially call learning to walk. Those who can see an image of the spiritual in everything earthly can see how in all walking activities, in the grasping movements of the arms, and so on, these soul-spiritual acts, which we carry out between death and new birth in the search for a spiritual balance as the I among higher I's, find their reflection in the earthly learning to walk.

And when we have gone through those states where we are a spirit among spirits, where we prepare what will be lived out in our earthly life in the body, in the limbs, through which we in turn become a human being of a certain kind and experience our karma, when we have gone through these states over there in the world between death and a new birth, then a state comes in the pre-earthly life where we can no longer distinguish the individual spirit beings with whom we have worked together for so long, but where there is only a general perception of the spirit. We then know that we are living in a spiritual world, but as we are already approaching earthly life, the impression that the spiritual world makes on us becomes more uniform and no longer that of the special, individual perception of spiritual beings. I can express this through a trivial comparison so that we can understand each other, but please be aware that I am referring to something very sublime. When there is a small cloud somewhere far away, you say: That is a small cloud. But when you come closer, you realize: Those are all mosquitoes! You distinguish the individual entities. Now, in the spiritual world between death and rebirth, it is the other way around. First you distinguish the individual entities of the spiritual beings, then it becomes a general impression. I would say that the revelation of the spiritual takes the place of the experience of the spiritual.

Yes, this state, which in a sense removes us from the spiritual world because we are already seeking the way back down to earth, is now reflected in the inner realm that underlies human speech. Suppose we speak. It begins, so to speak, in the larynx—not exactly, but approximately—and the other speech organs are set in motion. But behind this lies the essential. The essential lies in the heart, behind the larynx, in the whole act of breathing and in everything connected with it. What underlies language is likewise an earthly image of this state of revelation, where we perceive the divine-spiritual only vaguely, just as learning to walk and seeking balance are earthly images of movement in the spiritual world. In this way, by learning to speak, the child experiences once again a state that is passed through between death and new birth.

And when we have sent down the spirit germ of our physical body, when it has gradually united with the mother's body through conception, we are still above. This is the last period before earthly incarnation. There we gather the etheric body from all parts of the world, and what happens in the supersensible world in the gathering of the etheric body is expressed in the child's learning to think.

Now you have the three successive states: experience in the spiritual world, reflected in learning to walk, and revelation of the spiritual world in learning to speak. That is why we call that which underlies the world word the world Logos, the inner word. It is the revelation of the general Logos, in which the spiritual expresses itself, like the mosquito in the swarm of mosquitoes; it underlies speech. And what we then do to develop our etheric body, which actually thinks within us—for we continue to think throughout the night, we are just not present with our ego and astral body—is the last thing we gather for ourselves before we descend to earth, and this is what then passes over into thinking. In this way, the very small child, in learning to walk, speak, and think, integrates into the physical body what it carries down from its pre-earthly existence.

This is what leads to true spiritual knowledge and thus also to an artistic understanding of the world and to a religious understanding of the world: that we can relate everything in physical, sensory existence to the spiritual. I have often compared people who only ever want to talk in general terms about the divine-spiritual to someone who goes out into a meadow and is shown: Look, there are daisies, there are dandelions, there are chicory, chicory! — and who then says: Oh, I'm not interested in any of that! Flower, flower, flower is everything. That is convenient: flower, flower is everything. But there is a difference between flowers! And so it is in the spiritual world. It is, of course, convenient to say: Everything physical and sensory has a spiritual basis. — But what matters is that we know more and more about the spiritual basis of each individual physical and sensory phenomenon, for only then can we actually intervene in the physical and sensory course of life from the spirit.

This principle is what makes our Waldorf school pedagogy a special pedagogy that truly takes the human being into account. This will become even clearer once this pedagogy has been developed for the early years of childhood. We are not yet able to do this. Until now, we have always had to add on to the top, and this year we have established the final class. There is a great deal to do when you want to develop the educational goals of an entire school. For this reason, it has not been possible to consider completing the lower levels and adding on a kind of kindergarten. Now the first Waldorf students are about to take their high school exams. Then it will no longer be necessary to add classes at the top, but given our extraordinary “surplus of lack of money,” especially for the Waldorf school, I fear that adding classes at the bottom will nevertheless fail. Just as we would arrange things for learning to walk, to speak, to think, and for their further development, we naturally also arrange things between the sixth and seventh years of life and the other years of life in such a way that we take into consideration: What is embodied in the child? What emerges each week, each month, from what is pre-formed in the child's life? So pedagogy is actually formed out of the spirit.

This is one of the moments that we must rediscover many times if humanity does not want to remain in decline but wants to rise again. We must find our way back to the spiritual world. But we can only do this if we learn, out of full consciousness, to find ways and means to act and speak out of the spirit.

In the early days after the great Atlantean catastrophe, people lived out of the spirit, each and every one, because each individual could be told at the moment of their birth what their karma was. Astrology did not mean the dilettantism it often represents today, but rather the living experience of the deeds of the stars, and from this living experience, it was revealed to each individual human being from the mystery how he was to live. Astrology had a living meaning for the individual human experience.

Then came the time, around the sixth, fifth, fourth millennium BC, when people no longer experienced the mysteries of the starry sky, but they did experience the cycle of the year. What do I mean when I say that people experienced the cycle of the year? It means that they knew from direct observation that the earth is not the crude lump that modern geology regards it as. On the earth as geologists imagine it, plants could never grow, let alone animals or human beings. That could not possibly exist, because the Earth of geologists is a stone, and nothing grows directly in stone unless the entire cosmos acts upon it, unless it is connected to the whole world. In ancient times, people knew what we must learn again today: that the Earth is an organism, that it has a soul.

This soul of the Earth also has its own special destinies. Suppose it is winter, Christmas time, the time of the winter solstice. This is the time when the soul of the earth is completely united with the earth. For when the snow covers the earth, when there is, as it were, a cold mantle around the earth, then the soul of the earth is united with the earth, resting within the earth. It is also true that the Earth's soul resting within the Earth sustains the life of numerous elemental spirits. If today a naturalistic view holds that the seeds I sow in the earth in autumn lie there until the following spring, this is not true. The seeds must be preserved through the winter by the elemental spirits of the Earth. All this is connected with the fact that during the winter time the earth soul is united with the earth body.

Take the opposite time, the time of St. John. Just as a human being breathes in and out, so that the air is once inside him and once outside him, so the earth breathes in its soul. This is during the winter season. And completely exhaled, carried out into the vastness of the cosmos, the soul of the earth is in midsummer, during the season of St. John. Then the earth's body is, in a sense, empty of the earth's soul. The earth lives in its soul the events of the cosmos, the course of the stars, and so on. That is why in ancient times there were winter mysteries in which people experienced the union of the earth's soul with the earth, and there were summer mysteries in which people could perceive the secrets of the universe from the coexistence of the earth's soul — which the human soul was supposed to follow out into space in the initiated — with the stars.

That people were aware of these things can be seen from the ancient traditional remnants that still exist today. A long time ago, I often sat—it was here in Berlin—with an astronomer who was very famous here and who argued vehemently that it was very disturbing if Easter did not fall on at least the first Sunday in April every year, and that it was terrible that Easter should be the first Sunday after the full moon in spring. Of course, it was no use giving reasons against it, because the underlying issue was this: it would cause terrible confusion in the cash books if Easter were to fall at a different time every year. This movement had even taken on quite large dimensions. I have already said here once before: in cash books, the first page usually says “With God,” but most of the time what is written in these books is not exactly “with God.”

In those days when Easter was fixed according to the course of the stars – the first Sunday after the full moon in spring was dedicated to the sun – there was still an awareness that during winter the soul of the earth is within the earth, at St. John's Day it is completely outside in the world space, and in spring it is on its way to the world space. The spring festival, Easter, cannot therefore be fixed on a specific day according to the earth alone, but must be determined by the constellations of the stars. There is a deep wisdom in this that stems from the times when people, out of their ancient instinctive clairvoyance, were still able to perceive the spiritual aspects of the course of the year. We must return to this, and in a certain sense we can return to it if, precisely by taking up the tasks of the present, we follow up on the discussions we have had here.

I have often said here that of the spiritual beings with whom human beings unite every night in the way I have described—through language with the archangels—certain beings are the ruling spiritual powers for a certain period of time. And in the last third of the 19th century, the Michael period began, the time in which the spirit, which is otherwise referred to in the scriptures as Michael, became essential for human civilization. These things repeat themselves cyclically.

In ancient times, people knew something about all these spiritual processes. Hebrew antiquity spoke of Yahweh, but it always spoke of the face of Yahweh, and by the face it meant the archangels who actually mediated between Yahweh and the earth. And when the Jews were awaiting the Messiah on earth, they knew that this was the Michael period, when Michael mediates the activity of Christ on earth. They only misunderstood this in a deeper context. Now, since the 1870s, the time has come again for the earth when the power of Michael is the ruling spiritual power in the world and when we must understand how to introduce the spiritual into our actions and organize our lives from the spiritual. This means serving Michael: not merely organizing our lives from the material point of view, but being aware that Michael, who has the mission of overcoming the lower Ahrimanic forces, must become, so to speak, our genius for the development of civilization. How can he do that? Well, he can do it if we remember how we can connect with the spiritual meaning of the course of the year.

There is truly great wisdom in the whole course of the world in that we are allowed to connect the spring festival with the resurrection of Christ Jesus. The historical connection — I have explained it often — is entirely correct: the spring festival, that is, Easter, can only fall on a different day each year because it is viewed from the other world. Only we on earth have the philistine idea that time runs continuously, that one hour is always as long as another. We determine time only with our earthly aids, with mathematics. In contrast, for the real spiritual world, the world hour is alive. No two world hours are the same, but rather longer or shorter. Therefore, we can always be mistaken when we determine something that is to be determined from heaven only from Earth. Easter is legitimately determined by heaven.

What kind of festival is it? It is the festival that is meant to remind us, and that once reminded people with all its vitality, that a God descended to earth, in whom the man Jesus of Nazareth took up residence, so that in the time when they were approaching the development of the ego, people could find their way back through death into spiritual life in a corresponding manner. I have often explained this here. So Easter is the festival in which human beings contemplate death and the immortality that follows it in the mystery of Golgotha. We view this spring festival in the right sense when we say to ourselves: Christ confirmed the immortality of human beings by conquering death himself. But we humans can only understand the immortality of Christ Jesus correctly if we acquire this understanding during our earthly life, that is, if we enliven our relationship to the mystery of Golgotha in our souls and if we can free ourselves from the materialistic conception that wants to separate everything spiritual from the mystery of Golgotha. Today, people no longer want to accept Christ, but only the “simple man from Nazareth,” Jesus. They are, in a sense, embarrassed by their own scientific knowledge when they have to admit that the mystery of Golgotha contains a spiritual secret at the heart of earthly existence: the death and resurrection of God. But when we experience this spiritually, we also prepare ourselves to experience other things spiritually.

That is why it is so important for people today to gain the opportunity to experience the mystery of Golgotha first as something purely spiritual. Then they will experience other spiritual things and find access to the spiritual worlds, the paths to the spiritual worlds, through the mystery of Golgotha. But then, building on the mystery of Golgotha, human beings must understand the resurrection while they are still alive. And when they understand the resurrection with feeling while they are still alive, they will also be enabled to pass through death in the right way. This means that death and resurrection in the mystery of Golgotha should teach human beings to reverse the relationship: to experience the resurrection inwardly in their souls during life, so that after this inner spiritual resurrection, human beings can pass through death in the right way. This is the experience that is the opposite of the Easter experience.

At Easter, we should be able to immerse ourselves in the death and resurrection of Christ. But as human beings, we also need the opportunity to immerse ourselves in what is the resurrection of the soul, so that the resurrected soul of the human being can pass through death correctly. Just as we acquire the right Easter mood in spring when we see the plants sprouting and budding, how nature is resurrecting, how nature is overcoming the death of winter, so too, when we have gone through summer properly, we can acquire a feeling that we know: The soul has ascended into cosmic expanses, we are now approaching autumn, September is coming, the autumn equinox is approaching. The leaves that turned green and sprouted in spring are turning brownish, yellowish, are being shed, the trees stand there, already partly leafless, nature is dying. But we understand this dying nature when we look into the dying, into the approaching snow cover of the earth, and say to ourselves: There the soul of the earth is drawing back to the earth, and it will be completely with the earth when the winter solstice arrives.

There is a way to experience this autumn season with the same intensity as springtime. And if we experience the death and resurrection of God during the springtime of Easter, we can experience the resurrection and death of the human soul during the autumn season, that is, the experience of resurrection during earthly life in order to pass through death in the right way. But then we must also understand what this means for us, for our present time, that the soul of the earth exhales into the world during the time of St. John in summer, unites with the stars, and returns again. Those who understand the secrets of this earthly cycle throughout the year know that the Michael force is now descending again through the forces of nature, which did not descend in earlier centuries, so that we can look forward to the leafless autumn, in which we can see the Michael force approaching from the clouds toward the earth.

Yes, the calendars say “Michael” on this day, and Michaelmas is considered a farmers' holiday. But we will only be able to perceive the present spiritually in such a way that the events of human life on earth are connected with the events of nature when we become capable again of understanding the course of the year to such an extent that we can form annual festivals in the course of the year — as the ancient people formed them out of their ancient dreamlike clairvoyance. The ancients understood the year and developed Christmas, Easter, and St. John's Day from these mysteries, which I have only been able to hint at today. People give each other gifts at Christmas and do other things, but I have often pointed out in my Christmas and Easter lectures here how little people today still have of these ancient festivals, how traditional and outwardly focused everything has become. But if we come to understand again the festivals that we celebrate today without understanding them, we will also have the strength to establish a festival from the spiritual knowledge of the cycle of the year that has the right meaning for the present human race. This will be the Michaelmas festival in late September, when autumn approaches, the leaves wither, the trees become bare, nature moves toward death—just as it moves toward sprouting at Easter—when we become aware in the sprouting nature how the soul of the earth unites with the earth, how Michael brings it from the clouds.

If we have the strength to create such a festival out of the spirit, which in turn brings community into our social life, then we will have done so out of the spirit. For then we will have created something among ourselves that has its origin in the spirit. More important than all other social reflection and the like, which in the present confused circumstances can only lead to something if the spirit is present, would be for a number of understanding people to come together to create something on earth out of the cosmos, such as a Michaelmas festival, which would be worthy of Easter but, as an autumn festival, would be the counterpart to Easter. If we could decide to do something for which there are motives only in the spiritual world, but which would then bring about a common feeling among people at such a festival, which would be created from the full, fresh human breast in the immediate present, then there would be something that would bind people together socially again. For festivals bound people together socially in ancient times. Just think of what has been done, said, and thought for the festivals and during the festivals for the whole culture! That is what has lived its way into the physical world through the fixation of the festivals out of the immediate spirit.

If people today could decide in a dignified manner to introduce a Michaelmas festival at the end of September, it would be an act of the greatest significance. To do this, people would need to find the courage not just to discuss external social organizations and the like, but to do something that connects the earth to the heavens, something that reconnects physical conditions to spiritual conditions. Then, because the spirit would once again be introduced into earthly conditions, something would really happen among people that would be a powerful impulse for the continuation of our civilization and our entire life.

This is not the time, of course, to describe to you what all this would mean for scientific, religious, and artistic experience, just as the ancient festivals did, and how much more important than all the social tirades developed today such a creation from the spiritual world would be. For what would that mean? Oh, it means a great deal for looking into the human inner life when I can see what a person means, or when I understand his words correctly. If one can see today how the whole course of the world works as autumn approaches, if one can unravel and decipher the entire physiognomy of the universe and work creatively from it, then one reveals not only the will of human beings in such festive creations, but also the will of gods and spirits. Then there is spirit among human beings again!

But today it is really the case that the spiritual is received in a strange way in the world. With what I began, I may perhaps conclude with a few words. I had to point out long ago how, starting from a very subordinate Masonic source and then repeatedly in all kinds of astrological works, taken up by all opponents for a long time, the sentence was put into the world: Spiritual sparks of fire have flown into the Goetheanum in Dornach; the time will come when physical sparks of fire will fly into this Goetheanum. People have been writing this for two years. This is how what is truly created out of the spirit is received in the world today! In contrast, there must be people who can take immersing themselves in the spirit completely seriously. One cannot take it seriously by merely talking about the spirit, but by talking about the spirit in such a way that it can truly spread the spirit among us human beings. Such a spreading of the spirit would be if we became creative out of the spirit, as in ancient times people became creative out of the spirit. I have often had the opportunity to speak to you about Christmas, Easter, that is, about ancient festivals. It is wonderful to bring out the spirit of the ancient festivals from the course of time. But I would like people not only to understand what anthroposophy brings to the surface from ancient wisdom, but also to understand what speaks to us from the spirit of our immediate present as a challenge. It is not enough to regard the Gospels as an expression of Christianity, for Christ said, “I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” He is here! If we understand his spirit, his words, then we can speak from this spirit every day. What the ancients created from world wisdom, what has enabled us to reveal the deep meaning of the festivals even today, lives among us. We want to be whole human beings. But then we must also be able to create spiritually as whole human beings. Then we must not only be able to reflect on the meaning of the ancient festivals, but we must also be able to become socially creative ourselves by becoming festival-creative out of the course of the year.

This, of course, demands more of people than explaining the long-established festivals. But it is also true anthroposophy, a higher anthroposophy. And the Anthroposophical Society can only be tested by whether it understands not only dead anthroposophy, which deals with the past, but also living anthroposophy. This will also be a sum of sparks of fire! But these sparks of fire will be in a temple that is not made of external material. Physical flames consume temples made of external material. The flames of genuine spiritual enthusiasm, of genuine spiritual life, which must permeate the temple because they must illuminate it with what shines in the spirit, these flames cannot destroy the temple; they can only make this temple ever more magnificent. Let us think of what living anthroposophy is as the flame of fire that will carry us ever forward, like the living spirit of anthroposophy itself, which is to lead us to the progress of humanity and to the rebuilding of that which is now in such obvious decline.

That is what I wanted to say to you during my visit to Berlin this time, my dear friends, because it is good to discuss such serious matters now, precisely because we are so rarely able to be together. I hope that this will also result in a very good meeting in spirit. For anthroposophy should work in the spirit, not merely in physical space. And so let this be said to you as a greeting, that we may remain together in spirit, even if we must now be separated for a long time again.