The Four Seasons and the Archangels
GA 229
7 October 1923, Dornach
III. The Easter Imagination
We must realise clearly how it is that in the depths of winter the Earth, in relation to the cosmos, is a being enclosed within itself. During the winter the Earth is, so to speak, wholly Earth, with a concentrated Earth-nature. In high summer—to add this contrast for the sake of clarity—the Earth is given over to the cosmos, lives with the cosmos. And in between, during spring and autumn, there is always a balance between these extremes.
All this has the deepest significance for the Earth's whole life. Naturally, what I shall be saying applies only to that part of the Earth's surface where a corresponding transition from winter to spring takes place.
Let us start, as we have always done in these lectures, by considering the purely material side. We will look at the salt-deposits which we have had to treat as the most important factor in winter-time. We will study this first in the limestone deposits, which are indeed a phenomenon of the utmost importance for the whole being of the Earth.
You need only go out-of-doors here, where we are surrounded everywhere by the Jura limestone, and you will have before you all that I am going to begin by describing to-day. Ordinary observation is so superficial that for most people limestone is simply limestone, and outwardly there really is no perceptible difference between winter-limestone and spring-limestone. But this failure to distinguish between them comes from the standpoint which yesterday I called the flea-standpoint. The metamorphoses of limestone appear only when we look further out into the cosmos, as it were. Then we find a subtle difference between winter-limestone and spring-limestone, and it is precisely this which makes limestone the most important of all deposits in the soil. After all the various considerations we have gone into here, and since we know that soul and spirit are to be found everywhere, we can allow ourselves to speak of all such substance as vivified, ensouled beings. Thus we can say that winter-limestone is a being content within itself.
If we enter into the being of winter-limestone with Intuition—the Intuition described in my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds—we find it permeated throughout with the most diverse spirituality, made up of the elemental beings who dwell in the Earth. But the limestone is as it were contented, as a human head may be when it has solved an important problem and feels happy to have the thoughts which point to the solution. We perceive—for Intuition always embraces feeling—an inner contentment in the whole neighbourhood of the limestone formations during the winter season.
If we were to swim under water, we should perceive water everywhere; and similarly, if we move spiritually through the process of limestone formation, we perceive this winter contentment on all sides. It expresses itself as an inner permeation of the winter-limestone by mobile, ever-changing forms—living, spiritual forms which appear as Imaginations.
When spring approaches, however, and especially when March comes, the limestone becomes—we may say—dull in respect of its spiritual qualities. It loses them, for, as you know from previous accounts, the elemental beings now take their way, through a kind of cosmic-spiritual breathing-out into the cosmos. The limestone's spiritual thinking qualities are dulled, but the remarkable thing is that it becomes full of eager desire. It develops a kind of inner vitality. A subtle life-energy arises increasingly in the limestone, becoming steadily more active as spring draws on, and even more so towards summer, as the plants shoot up.
These things are naturally not apparent in a crude outward form, but in a subtle, intimate way they do occur. The growing plants draw water and carbonic acid from the limestone in the soil. But this very loss signifies for the limestone an inner access of living activity, and it acquires on this account an extraordinary power of attraction for the Ahrimanic beings. Whenever spring approaches, their hopes revive. Apart from this, they have nothing particular to hope for from the realm of outer nature, because they are really able to pursue their activities only within human beings. But when spring draws near, the impression which the spring-limestone makes on them gives them the idea that after all they will be able to spread their dragon-nature through nature at large. Finding the spring-limestone full of life, they hope to be able to draw in also the astral element from the cosmos in order to ensoul the limestone—to permeate it with soul. So, when March is near, a truly clairvoyant observer of nature can witness a remarkable drama. He sees how everywhere the hopes of the Ahrimanic beings play over the Earth like an astral wind, and how the Ahrimanic beings strive with all their might to call down an astral rain, as it were. If they were to succeed, then in the summer this astral rain would transform the Earth into an ensouled being—or at least partly, as far as the limestone extends. And then, in autumn, the Earth would feel pain at every footfall on its surface.
This endeavour, this illusion, lays hold of the Ahrimanic beings every spring, and every spring it is brought to nothing. From a human standpoint one might say—surely by now the Ahrimanic beings must have become clever enough to give up these hopes. But the world is not just as human beings imagine it to be. The fact is that every spring the Ahrimanic beings have new hope of being able to transform the Earth into an ensouled, living being through an astral rain from above, and every year their illusions are shattered.
But man is not free from danger in the midst of these illusions. He consumes the nature-products which flourish in this atmosphere of hopes and illusions; and it is naïve to suppose that the bread he eats is merely corn, ground and baked. In outer nature these hopes are shattered, but the Ahrimanic beings long all the more to achieve their aim in man, who has a soul already. Thus every spring man is in danger of falling a victim—in subtle, intimate ways—to the Ahrimanic beings. In spring he is much more exposed to all the Ahrimanic workings in the cosmos than he is during other times of the year.
But now, if we direct our gaze upwards, to where the elemental beings of the Earth ascend, where they unite themselves with the cloud-formations and acquire an inner activity which is subject to planetary life, something else can be seen. As March approaches, and down below the Ahrimanic beings are at work, the elemental beings—who are wholly spiritual, immaterial, although they live within the material Earth—are transported up into the region of vapour, air and warmth. And all that goes on up there, among the active elemental beings, is permeated by Luciferic beings. Just as the Ahrimanic beings nourish their hopes and experience their illusions down below, so the Luciferic beings experience their hopes and illusions up above.
If we look more closely at the Ahrimanic beings, we find they are of etheric nature. And it is impossible for these beings, who are really those cast down by Michael, to expand in any other way than by trying to gain domination over the Earth through the life and desire that fill the limestone in spring.
The Luciferic beings up above stream through and permeate all the activities that have risen up from the Earth. They are of a purely astral nature. Through everything that begins to strive upwards in spring, they gain the hope of being able to permeate their astral nature with the etheric, and to call forth from the Earth an etheric sheath in which they could then take up their habitation.

Hence we can say: The Ahrimanic beings try to ensoul the Earth with astrality (reddish); the Luciferic beings try to take up the etheric into their own being (blue with yellow).
When now in spring the plants begin to sprout, they assimilate and draw in carbonic acid. Hence the carbonic acid is active in a higher region than it is in winter; it rises into the realm of the plants, and there it comes under the attraction of the Luciferic beings. While the Ahrimanic beings strive to ensoul the living limestone with a kind of astral rain, the Luciferic beings try to raise up a sort of carbonic acid mist or vapour from the Earth (blue, yellow). If they were to succeed, human beings on Earth would no longer be able to breathe. The Luciferic beings would draw up all that part of man, his etheric nature, which is not dependent on physical breathing, and by uniting themselves with it they would be able to become etheric beings, whereas they are now only astral beings. And then, with the extinction of all human and animal life on Earth, up above there would be a sheath of etheric angel-beings. That is what the Luciferic spirits strive and hope for, when the end of March comes on. They hope to change the whole Earth into a delicate shell of this kind, wherein they, densified through the etheric nature of man, could carry on their own existence.
If the Ahrimanic beings could realise their hopes, the whole of humanity would gradually be dissolved into the Earth: the Earth would absorb them. Finally there would arise out of the Earth—and that is Ahriman's intention—a single great entity into which all human beings would be merged: they would be united with it. But the transition to this union with the Earth would consist in this: man in his whole organism would become more and more like the living limestone. He would blend the living limestone with his organism and become more and more calcified. In this way he would transmute his bodily form into one that looked quite different—a sclerotic form with something like bat's wings and a head like this. This form would then be able to merge gradually into the earthly element, so that the whole Earth, according to the Ahrimanic idea, would become a living Earth-being.

If the Luciferic beings, on the other hand, could absorb the etheric nature of man, and thus condense themselves from an astral to an etheric condition, then out of them would arise something like an etheric form, in which the lower parts of the human organism would be more or less absent, with the upper part transformed. The body would be formed of Earth-vapour (blue), developed only as far down as the breast, with an idealised human head (red). And the peculiar thing is that this being would have wings, born as it were out of clouds (yellow). In front, these wings would concentrate into a sort of enlarged larynx; at the sides they would concentrate into ears, organs of hearing, which again would be connected with the larynx.
You see, I tried to represent the sclerotic form through the figure of Ahriman in the painting in the dome of the Goetheanum and plastically in the wood-carving of the Group. Similarly, the Luciferic shape, created out of Earth-vapour and cloud-masses, as it would be if it could take up the etheric from the Earth, is represented there.1The central motif (painted from a sketch by Rudolf Steiner) in the small dome of the first Goetheanum, and in Rudolf Steiner's woodcarving of the Representative of Humanity.
Thus the two extremes of man are written into the life of the Earth itself: first, the extreme that man would come to if under the influence of Ahriman he were to take up the living limestone and thereby become gradually one with the Earth, dissolved into the whole living, sentient Earth. That is one extreme. The other extreme is what man would come to if the Luciferic beings were to succeed in causing a vapour of carbonic acid to rise from below, so that breathing would be extinguished and physical humanity would disappear, while the etheric bodies of men would be united with the astrality of the Luciferic angel-being up above.
Again we can say: These are the hopes, the illusions, of the Luciferic beings. Anyone who looks out as a seer into the great spaces of the cosmos does not see in the moving clouds, as in Shakespeare's play, a shape which looks first like a camel and then like something else. When March comes, he sees in the clouds the dynamic striving forces of the Luciferic beings, who would like to create out of the Earth a Luciferic sheath. Man sways between these two extremes. The desire of both the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic beings is to blot out humanity as it exists to-day.
These various activities are manifested within the life of the Earth. The hopes of the Luciferic beings are shattered once more every spring, but they work on in man. And in spring-time, while on one hand he is exposed to the Ahrimanic forces, he is also exposed more and more—and right on through the summer—to the Luciferic beings.
These forces, certainly, work in so subtle a way that they are noticed to-day only by someone who is spiritually sensitive and can really live with the course of events in the cosmos round the year. But in earlier times, even in the later Atlantean period, all this had great significance.
In those earlier times, for example, human reproduction was bound up with the seasons. Conception could occur only in the spring, when the forces were active in the way I have described, and births could therefore take place only towards the end of the year. The life of the Earth was thus wholesomely bound up with human life.2See the lecture entitled Christmas at a Time of Grievous Destiny, given in Basle, 21st December, 1916. Printed in The Festivals and their Meaning, Vol. I: Christmas. (Rudolf Steiner Press.)
Now a principle of the Luciferic beings is to set free everything on Earth, and among the things that have been freed are conception and birth. The fact that a human being can be born at any time of the year was brought about in earlier times by this Luciferic influence, which tends always to loosen man from the Earth, and it has become an established part of human freedom. Next time I will speak of influences that are still active, but to-day I wished to show you how in earlier times the aims of the Luciferic beings were actually achieved, up to a certain point. Otherwise, human beings could have been born only in winter.
As against this, the Ahrimanic beings try with all their might to draw man back into connection with the Earth. And since the Luciferic beings had this great influence in the past, the Ahrimanic beings have a prospect of at least partly achieving their purpose of binding man to the Earth by merging his mind and disposition with the earthly and turning him into a complete materialist. They would like to make his capacity to think and feel depend entirely on the food he digests. This Ahrimanic influence bears particularly on our own epoch and it will go on getting stronger and stronger.
If, therefore, we look back in time, we come to something accomplished by the Luciferic beings and bequeathed to us. If we look forward towards the end of the Earth, we see man faced with the threatening prospect that the Ahrimanic beings, since they cannot actually dissolve humanity into the Earth, will contrive at least to harden him, so that he becomes a crude materialist, thinking and feeling only what material substance thinks and feels in him.
The Luciferic beings accomplished their work in freeing man from nature, in the way I have described, at a time when man himself had as yet no freedom. Freedom has not arisen through human resolve or in an abstract way, as the usual account suggests, but because natural processes, such as the timing of births, have come under human control. When in earlier times it became obvious that children could be born at any season, this brought a feeling of freedom into the soul and spirit of man. Those are the facts. They depend far more on the cosmos than is commonly imagined.
But now that man has advanced in freedom, he should use his freedom to banish the threatening danger that Ahriman will fetter him to the Earth. For in the perspective of the future this threat stands before him. And here we see how into Earth-evolution there came an objective fact: the Mystery of Golgotha.
Although the Mystery of Golgotha had indeed to enter as a once-for-all event into the history of the Earth, it is in a sense renewed for human beings every year. We can learn to feel how the Luciferic force up above would like to suffocate physical humanity in carbonic vapour, while down below, the Ahrimanic forces would like to vivify the limestone masses of the Earth with an astral rain, so that man himself would be calcified and reduced to limestone. But then, for a person who can see into these things, there arises between the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic forces the figure of Christ; the Christ who, freeing Himself from the weight of matter, has Ahriman under his feet; who wrested Himself free from the Ahrimanic and takes no heed of it, having overcome it, as we have shown here in painting and sculpture. And here is shown also how the Christ overcomes the force that seeks to draw the upper part of man away from the Earth. The head of the Christ-figure, the conqueror of Ahriman, appears with a countenance, a look and a bearing such that the dissolvent forces of Lucifer cannot touch them. The Luciferic power drawn into the earthly and held there—such is the form of the Christ as He appears every year in Spring. That is how we must picture Him: standing on the earthly, which Ahriman seeks to make his own; victorious over death; ascending from the grave as the Risen One to the transfiguration which comes from carrying over the Luciferic into the earthly beauty of the countenance of Christ.
So there appears before our eyes, between the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic forms, the Risen Christ in his Resurrection form as the Easter picture; the Risen Christ, with Luciferic powers hovering above and the Ahrimanic powers under His feet.
This cosmic Imagination comes before us as the Easter Imagination, just as we had the Virgin and Child as the Christmas Imagination in deep winter, and the Michael Imagination for the end of September. You will see how right it was to portray the Christ in the form you see here—a form born out of cosmic happenings in the course of the year. There is nothing arbitrary about this. Every look, every trait in the countenance, every flowing fold in the garment should be thought of as placing the Christ-figure between the forms of Lucifer and Ahriman as the One who works in human evolution so that man may be wrested from the Luciferic and Ahrimanic powers at the very time, the time of Easter and Spring, when he could most readily fall victim to them.
Here precisely in the figure of Christ we see again how nothing can be rightly done out of the arbitrary fancies which are favoured in artistic circles to-day. If a man wishes to develop full freedom in the realm of art, he does not bind himself in a slavish, Ahrimanic way to materials and models; he rises freely into spiritual heights and there he freely creates, for it is in spiritual heights that freedom can prevail. Then he will create out of a bluish-violet vapour a kind of breast-form for the Luciferic element, and a form consisting of wings, larynx and ear as though emerging from reddish clouds, so that this form can appear in full reality as an image both of what these beings are in their astral nature and of the etheric guise they threaten to assume.
Place vividly before you these wings of Lucifer, working in the astral and striving towards the etheric. You will find that because these wings are actually feeling about in the cosmic spaces, they are sensitive to all the secrets of force in the cosmos. Through their undulating movement, these wings, with their wave-like formation, are in touch with the mysterious, spiritual wave-activities of the cosmos. And the experience brought by these waves passes through the ear-formation into the inwardness of the Luciferic being and is carried further there. The Luciferic-being grasps through his ear-formation what he has sensed with his wings, and through the larynx—closely connected with the ear—this knowledge becomes the creative word that works and weaves in the forms of living beings.
If you picture a Luciferic being of this kind, with his reddish-yellow formation of wings, ears and larynx, you will see in him the activity which is sensitive to the secrets of the cosmos through his wings, experiences these secrets through the inward continuation of his ear-formation, and utters them as creative word through the larynx, bound up with wings and ears in one organic whole.
So was Lucifer painted in the cupola, and so is he represented in the sculpture-group which was intended to be the central point of our Goetheanum. Thus, in a certain sense, the Easter mystery was to have stood at this central point. But a completion in some form will be necessary, if one is to grasp the whole idea. For all that can be seen as the threatening Luciferic influence and the threatening Ahrimanic influence belongs to the inner being of the Nature-forces and the direction they strive to take in spring and on into summer; and standing over against them is the healing principle that rays out from the Christ. But a living feeling for all this will be attained when the whole architectural scheme is completed and what I have described exists in architectural and sculptured form, and when in the future it will be possible to present in front of the sculpture a living drama with two leading characters—man and Raphael
Within this architecture, and in the presence of the sculpture, there would have to be enacted a kind of Mystery Play, with man and Raphael as chief characters—Raphael with the staff of Mercury and all that belongs to it. In living artistic work everything is a challenge, and fundamentally there is no sculpture and no architecture which—if it is to be inwardly in accord with cosmic truth—does not call for a presentation in the space surrounding it of the artistic action it embodies. At Easter this architecture and sculpture would call for a Mystery Play, showing man taught by Raphael to see how far the Ahrimanic and Luciferic forces make him ill, and how through the power of Raphael he can be led to perceive and recognise the healing principle, the great world-therapy, which lives in the Christ-principle. If all this could be done—and the Goetheanum was designed for all of it—then at Easter there would be, amid much else, a certain crowning of all that can flow into mankind from the Ahrimanic and Luciferic secrets.
You see, if we learn to recognise the springtime activity of the Ahrimanic influence in the living limestone, through which a greedy endeavour is being made to take up the cosmic astral element, then we learn also to recognise the healing forces that reside in everything of a salt-like nature. The difference is not apparent in the coarser kind of activities, but it comes out in the healing ones. Thus we learn to know these healing influences by studying the working of the Ahrimanic beings in the salt-deposits of the Earth. For whatever is permeated by Ahrimanic influences during one season of the year—we will go more closely into this next time—is transformed into healing powers at another season. If we know what is going on secretly in the products and beings of nature, we learn to recognise their therapeutic power. It is the same with the Luciferic element: we learn to recognise the healing forces active in volatile substances that rise up from the Earth, and especially those present in carbonic acid. For just as I explained that in all water there is a mercurial, quicksilver element, so in carbonic acid there is always a sulphurous, phosphoric element.
There is no carbonic acid which consists simply—as the chemists say—of one carbon atom and two oxygen atoms: no such thing exists. In the carbonic acid we breathe out there is always a phosphoric, sulphurous element. This carbonic acid, CO2, one atom of carbon and two of oxygen, is merely an abstraction, an intellectual concept formed in the human mind. In reality there is no carbonic acid which does not contain a phosphoric, sulphurous element in an extraordinarily diluted state, and the Luciferic beings strive towards it in the rising vapour.
Again, in this peculiar balance between the sulphur-element that becomes astral and the limestone that becomes living, the forces we can recognise as healing influences are expressed.
And so, among much else that is connected with the Easter Mystery, we should have the Easter Mystery Play enacted in front of the painting and the sculpture, and through it the communications about ways of healing which are given in the course of the year to those willing to listen would reach a climax in a truly living, artistically religious form. They would indeed be crowned by being placed in the whole course of the cosmos and the seasons; and then the Easter festival would embrace something that could be expressed in the words: “The presence of the World-Healer is felt: the Saviour who willed to lift the great evil from the world. His presence is felt.” For in truth He was, as I have often said, the Great Physician in the evolution of mankind. This will be felt, and to Him will sacrifice be offered with all the wisdom about healing influences that man can possess. This would be included in the Easter Mystery, the Easter ritual; and by celebrating the Easter festival in this way we should be placing it quite naturally in the context of the seasonal course of the year.
To begin with, in describing the powerful Imaginations which come before man at Michaelmas and Christmas, I was able to show them to you only as pictures. But in the case of the Easter Imagination, where over against the activities of the Nature-spirits there arises the higher life of the spirit, as this can develop in the neighbourhood of the Christ, I could show how the Imagination can lead directly to a ritual in the earthly realm, a ritual embracing things which must be cherished and preserved on Earth—the health-giving healing forces, and a knowledge of the Ahrimanic and Luciferic forces which could destroy the human organism. For Ahriman hardens man, while Lucifer wishes to dissolve and evaporate him through his breathing. In all this the forces that make for illness reside.
All that can be learnt in this way under the influence of the great teacher Raphael—who is really Mercury in Christian terminology and in Christian usage should carry the staff of Mercury—can be worthily crowned only in so far as it is received into the mysteries and ritual of Easter. Much else can come into them; of this I will speak in later lectures.
Dritter Vortrag
Wir fahren in der Betrachtung des Jahreslaufes von den Gesichtspunkten, die wir gestern und vorgestern begonnen haben, fort. Wir müssen uns klar darüber sein, wie zur Tiefwinterzeit die Erde gegenüber dem Kosmos eigentlich ein abgeschlossenes Wesen wird. Die Erde wird sozusagen während des Winters ganz Erde, ihre Erdennatur konzentriert sie. Während der Hochsommerzeit -— um diesen Gegensatz zur Erklärung hinzuzufügen - ist die Erde an den Kosmos hingegeben, lebt das Leben des Kosmos mit. Und zwischendrinnen, für die Frühlings- und Herbsteszeit, ist immer ein Ausgleich zwischen diesen beiden Extremen vorhanden. Das alles hat aber die denkbar tiefste Bedeutung für das ganze Leben der Erde. Natürlich bezieht sich auch das, was ich sagen werde, immer auf denjenigen Teil der Erdoberfläche, wo eben entsprechend das Hinübergehen des Winters zum Frühling stattfindet.
Gehen wir zunächst, wie wir das in diesen Tagen immer getan haben, von der Betrachtung des rein Materiellen aus, und betrachten wir dasjenige, was wir als das Wichtigste für die Winterzeit in Anspruch nehmen mußten: die Ablagerungen, das Salzartige. Betrachten wir das zunächst, und zwar in einer für das ganze Wesen der Erde bedeutsamsten Erscheinung, in den Kalkablagerungen. Sie brauchen ja nur hier hinauszugehen, wo Sie überall umgeben sind von den Jurakalkbildungen, und Sie haben sozusagen das alles, was ich Ihnen zunächst im Anfang der Betrachtung zu beschreiben habe, vor sich.
So äußerlich betrachtet, ist es ja der Fall, daß dem Menschen eben Kalk Kalk ist, und es ist ja wirklich zu den verschiedenen Zeiten für das rein äußerliche Auge kein beträchtlicher Unterschied zwischen sozusagen dem Winterkalk und dem Frühlingskalk. Aber diese Unterschiedslosigkeit ist doch in gewisser Beziehung auch nur wiederum für jenen Standpunkt vorhanden, den ich charakterisierte als den Flohstandpunkt. Die Metamorphosen des Kalkes erscheinen eben erst, wenn man gewissermaßen sich weiter in den Kosmos hinausbegibt in der Betrachtung. Und da tritt ein feiner Unterschied auf zwischen dem Winterkalk und dem Frühlingskalk, gerade dieser wichtigsten Ablagerung in unserem Erdboden. Der Winterkalk ist sozusagen eine in sich zufriedene Wesenheit — wir dürfen ja nach den mannigfaltigsten Betrachtungen, die wir hier angestellt haben, weil wir wissen, daß im Grunde genommen überall Seele und Geist zu finden ist, von solchen Dingen wie von belebten, beseelten Wesen sprechen -, der Winterkalk ist gewissermaßen eine in sich zufriedene Wesenheit.
Dieser Winterkalk ist, wenn man sich in sein Wesen intuitiv vertieft, so wie das in meinem Buche «Wie erlangt man Erkenntnisse der höheren Welten?» für die Intuition gemeint ist, eigentlich durchdrungen von dem mannigfaltigsten Geistigen. Es sind ja die Elementarwesen, die in dem Irdischen leben. Er ist durchgeistigt. Aber er ist gewissermaßen so zufrieden, wie ein Menschenkopf zufrieden ist, wenn er eben ein wichtiges Problem gelöst hat und froh ist, daß er nun Gedanken hat, die diese Lösung bedeuten. Man nimmt, weil man ja in der Intuition überall auch gefühlsmäßig wahrnimmt, eben im ganzen Umfange der irdischen Kalkbildung während der Winterzeit innere Befriedigung wahr.
Nicht wahr, wenn man unter dem Wasser schwimmen würde, würde man überall Wasser wahrnehmen. Wenn man sich geistig im Verlauf der Kalkbildungen bewegt, nimmt man überall während der Winterzeit Befriedigung wahr, die sich auslebt in inneren Durchlebungen, Durchdringungen dieses Winterkalkes mit sich lebendig verwandelnden Gebilden, die in Imaginationen erscheinen, lebendig sich verwandelnden Gebilden geistiger Art. Wenn es aber gegen den Frühling zu geht, namentlich wenn der März kommt, dann wird der Kalk in bezug auf seine geistigen Eigenschaften, wir dürfen sagen, dumpf. Er hat nicht mehr diese geistigen Eigenschaften, weil ja, wie Sie aus den vorigen Darstellungen wissen, die Elementarwesen durch eine Art geistig-kosmischer Atmung ihren Weg hinaus in das Weltenall nehmen. Er wird dumpf in bezug auf seine denkerisch-geistigen Eigenschaften. Aber das Merkwürdige ist, er wird jetzt begierdenhaft. Er entwickelt eine Art von innerer Lebendigkeit. Es ist immer mehr und mehr ein feines Leben vorhanden in dem Kalk, und dieses Leben in dem Kalk wird um so innerlich bewegter gegen den Frühling, und dann weiter auch gegen den Sommer zu, je mehr die Pflanzen heraus sprießen.
Die Dinge spielen sich natürlich nicht im Groben ab, sondern im Feinen, im Intimen, aber sie spielen sich ab. Die Pflanzen, die herauswachsen, entziehen nämlich dem Kalk etwas von Wasser und etwas von Kohlensäure, namentlich dem in der Erde verteilten Kalk, und das entbehrt er. Und das bedeutet für ihn ein innerliches Lebendigwerden. Er wird lebendig. Dadurch aber, daß dieser Kalk innerlich lebendig wird, erlangt er eine ungeheure Anziehungskraft für die ahrimanischen Wesen. Diese ahrimanischen Wesen bekommen jedesmal, wenn es gegen den Frühling zu geht, Hoffnungen. Sie haben eigentlich gegenüber der Natur keine besonderen Hoffnungen sonst, weil sie eigentlich ihr Wesen nur innerhalb des Menschen treiben können. In der animalischen Natur des Menschen können diese ahrimanischen Wesen sonst wirken. Aber wenn es gegen den Frühling zu geht, dann gibt ihnen der Eindruck, den der Frühlingskalk auf sie macht, die Meinung, daß sie in die allgemeine Natur hinaus ihre Drachennatur entfalten können, und daß sie dadurch, daß sie den Frühlingskalk lebendig finden, auch die Möglichkeit gewinnen können, Astralisches aus dem Weltenall anzuziehen, um diesen lebendigen Kalk zu beseelen, mit Seele zu durchdringen. So daß also, wenn es gegen den März zu geht, für den wirklichen seherischen Naturbeobachter sich dieses merkwürdige Schauspiel ergibt: Man sieht überall, wie die Hoffnungen der ahrimanischen Wesen in Imaginationen über die Erde hinüberspielen, ich möchte sagen, wie ein geistiger Wind, der alles überweht, und man sieht, wie sich nun die ahrimanischen Wesen anstrengen, von oben herunter gewissermaßen einen Regen des Astralischen hervorzurufen. Dieser Regen des Astralischen, den sie da hervorrufen wollen, der würde, wenn sie es könnten - sie streben es immer mit allen möglichen Kräften an -, die Erde während der Sommerzeit wenigstens teilweise, soweit sie Kalk ist, in ein beseeltes lebendiges Wesen verwandeln. Und das streben die ahrimanischen Wesen in jedem Frühling an, die Erde in ein beseeltes lebendiges Wesen zu verwandeln. So daß also, wenn irgendein Wesen dann im Herbst seinen Fuß auf die Erde setzen würde, die Erde Schmerz empfinden würde vom bloßen Daraufsetzen des Fußes im Herbst.
Nun, dieses Streben, diese Illusion, die ist in jedem Frühling bei den ahrimanischen Wesen vorhanden und wird in jedem Frühling vernichtet. Gewiß, vom menschlichen Standpunkte aus kann man sagen: Nun müßten die ahrimanischen Wesen schon so gescheit geworden sein, daß sie diese Hoffnungen aufgeben. — Aber so ist es eben nicht in der Welt, wie der Mensch es sich vorstellt, sondern es ist einfach eine Tatsache, daß diese ahrimanischen Wesen jeden Frühling wiederum neue Hoffnungen schöpfen, die Erde in ein beseeltes lebendiges Wesen durch einen astralischen Regen von oben herunter verwandeln zu können. Diese Illusionen werden jedes Jahr zerstört.
Aber der Mensch bleibt sozusagen nicht ungefährdet unter diesen Illusionen. Der Mensch genießt ja diejenigen Naturprodukte, die in dieser Atmosphäre von Hoffnungen und Illusionen gedeihen, und es ist eigentlich im Grunde genommen eine Naivität des Menschen, wenn er glaubt, sein Brot zu essen aus bloßem gemahlenen und gebackenen Korn. In diesem gemahlenen und gebackenen Korn drinnen sind die Illusionen der ahrimanischen Wesenheiten und die Hoffnungen der ahrimanischen Wesenheiten. Draußen werden sie zerstört. Um so mehr erwacht nun in den ahrimanischen Wesenheiten die Sehnsucht, da, wo schon Seele ist, im Menschen, mit dem, was sie wollen, ihr Ziel zu erreichen. So daß der Mensch eigentlich jeden Frühling, wenn das auch alles sich im Intimen abspielt, tatsächlich gefährdet ist, den ahrimanischen Wesenheiten zum Opfer zu fallen. Der Mensch ist wirklich im Frühling in dieser Beziehung allen ahrimanischen Kraftwirkungen im Kosmos viel mehr ausgesetzt, als er es in einer andern Jahreszeit ist.
Etwas anderes findet statt, wenn wir den Blick hinaufrichten. Richten wir den Blick hinauf, da hinauf, wo also die Elementarwesen der Erde aufsteigen, wo sie sich dann verbinden mit den Wolkenbildungen, wo sie eine innere Regsamkeit annehmen, welche dem planetarischen Leben unterworfen ist, dann ergibt sich vor allen Dingen, gerade wiederum, wenn es gegen den März zu geht, wenn da unten die ahrimanischen Wesenheiten ihr Wesen treiben, etwas anderes. Da kommen die Elementarwesen hinauf; was sonst innerhalb der Erde an rein Geistigem ist, an Nichtmateriellem, was aber sich im Materiellen auslebt, das wird da hinaufversetzt in die Region, wo Dunst, Luft, Wärme ist. Und da wird alles das, was nun in den sich regenden Elementarwesen geschieht, wiederum da oben durchsetzt von den luziferischen Wesenheiten. So wie unten die ahrimanischen Wesenheiten ihre Hoffnungen bekommen und ihre Illusionen durchmachen, so machen oben die luziferischen Wesenheiten ihre Hoffnungen und ihre Illusionen durch.
Wenn wir genauer eingehen auf die Natur der ahrimanischen Wesenheiten, so ist diese eigentlich ätherisch. Und es fehlt den ahrimanischen Wesenheiten, die eigentlich die von Michael gestürzten Wesenheiten sind, die Möglichkeit, sich so zu entfalten, daß sie auf andere Art als durch den lebendig-begehrlich gewordenen Kalk Herrschaft bekommen könnten über die Erde.
Die luziferischen Wesenheiten da oben, sie durchströmen und durchsetzen dasjenige, was da hinaufgezogen ist und sich nun in den oberen Elementen der Erde regsam macht. Sie durchsetzen das, und sie sind eigentlich, diese luziferischen Wesen, rein astralischer Natur. Sie bekommen nun die Hoffnung, durch alles das, was da im Frühling anfängt hinaufzustreben, ihre astralische Natur durchsetzen zu können . mit ätherischer Natur und eine Ätherhülle der Erde hervorzurufen, die aber dann bewohnt werden könnte von ihnen selber.
Man kann also sagen: Die ahrimanischen Wesen streben danach, die Erde astralisch zu beseelen (Tafel III, rötlich); die luziferischen Wesenheiten streben danach, von oben herunter das Ätherische in ihr Wesen aufzunehmen (Blau mit Gelb).
Wenn im Frühling nun die Pflanzen zu sprießen beginnen, so assimilieren sie Kohlensäure, ziehen Kohlensäure ein. Und diese Kohlensäure ist etwas, was ja, weil die Pflanzendecke da ist, gewissermaßen im Frühling in einer höheren Region wirkt als im Winter; sie zieht sich hinauf, die Kohlensäure, nämlich in die Region, welche die Region der Pflanzen ist. Wenn also im Frühling die Pflanzen zu sprießen beginnen, dann wird diese Kohlensäure angezogen von den luziferischen Wesenheiten. Und während die ahrimanischen Wesenheiten eine Art astralischen Regens anstreben, um den lebendigen Kalk auch zu beseelen, erstreben die luziferischen Wesenheiten eine Kohlensäureerhebung, eine Art Kohlensäureverdunsten von der Erde aus nach oben hin (siehe Tafel III, blau). Wenn sie das zuwege bringen würden, so würde auf Erden das Atmen aufhören müssen, und sie würden alles das, was der Mensch an sich hat ohne den physischen Atem, sein Ätherisches, hinaufziehen, und durch ihre Verbindung mit dem Ätherischen des Menschen würden sie in die Lage kommen, ätherische Wesenheiten zu werden, während sie so nur astralische Wesenheiten sind. So daß - mit Vernichtung dessen, was unten an Menschlichem und Tierischem ist — da oben eine Hülle von äthetrischen Engelwesen sein würde. Das ist wiederum etwas, was, wenn der März, Ende März kommt, die luziferischen Geister anstreben und erhoflen. Sie erhoffen, die ganze Erde eigentlich in eine solche feine Erdenschale zu verwandeln, in der sie, verdichtet durch die Äthernatur der Menschen, ihr Wesen treiben können.
Wenn die ahrimanischen Wesenheiten ihre Hoffnungen erfüllt bekämen, dann müßte die ganze Menschheit sich allmählich auf Erden auflösen. Die Erde würde den Menschen aufnehmen. Es würde zuletzt entstehen aus der Erde — das ist auch die Absicht Ahrimans eine große Wesenheit, in der alle Menschen gewissermaßen aufgelöst wären. Sie wären verbunden mit dieser großen einheitlichen Erdenwesenheit. Aber der Übergang zu diesem Verbundensein mit dieser Erdenwesenheit würde darin bestehen, daß der Mensch zunächst in seinem ganzen Organismus immer ähnlicher und ähnlicher würde dem lebendigen Kalk. Er würde lebendigen Kalk mit seinem Organismus verbinden und immer mehr verkalken. Er würde dadurch metamorphosieren, umwandeln seine Gestalt in eine Gestalt, die dann ganz anders aussehen würde, die etwa so aussehen würde: eine sklerotisierte Gestalt mit einer Art Fledermausflügeln und diesem Kopf (siehe Tafel IV). Die würde eben in der Lage sein, sich allmählich in dem Irdischen aufzulösen, so daß das Irdische dann auf ahrimanische Art als ganze Erde ein irdisch-lebendiges Wesen wäre.
Wenn die luziferischen Wesenheiten andererseits das Ätherische des Menschen heranziehen und sich dadurch gewissermaßen aus ihrer Astralität ätherisch verdichten könnten, dann würde aus ihnen auf ätherische Art etwas entstehen, was mehr oder weniger die unteren Partien des menschlichen Organismus nicht hätte, was aber auch die oberen Partien verändert hätte; was zum Beispiel vor allen Dingen einen wie aus Erdendunst gebildeten Leib (Tafel TV, blau), der aber nur bis zur Brust ausgebaut wäre, und dafür ein ins Idealische gesteigertes menschliches Haupt hätte (rot). Aber nun käme das Eigentümliche, daß dieses Wesen Flügel haben würde, Flügel, die wie herausgeboren wären aus Wolken (gelb). Diese Flügel würden sich nach vorn konzentrieren zu einer Art vergrößerten Kehlkopfs; sie würden sich an der Seite hier zu Ohrenorganen, Gehörorganen konzentrieren, die wiederum mit dem Kehlkopf zusammenhängen.
Sie sehen, dasjenige, was sich da unten bildet, habe ich in der Gestalt des Ahriman, der drüben in der Kuppel malerisch geschaffen war und in der Holzgruppe eben plastisch geschaffen ist, wiederzugeben versucht; ebenso das, was im Luziferischen aus Erdendunst und Wolkenwallungen, wenn es das Ätherische der Erde aufnehmen könnte, sich bilden würde zu einer luziferischen Gestalt.
Damit aber sind in das Erdenleben selber eingezeichnet die beiden Extreme des Menschen: dasjenige Extrem des Menschlichen, was der Mensch würde, wenn er sozusagen unter dem Einflusse des Ahriman aufnehmen würde den lebendigen Kalk und dadurch allmählich mit der Erde eins würde, aufgelöst würde in dem ganzen lebendig empfindenden Erdenwesen, das ist das eine Extrem. Das andere Extrem ist das, was der Mensch würde, wenn es den luziferischen Wesen gelingen würde, das, was sie wollen, auszuführen, nämlich von unten einen Dunst von Kohlensäure aufsteigen zu machen, so daß das Atmen verschwinden müßte, so daß die Menschen damit als physische Menschheit verschwänden, damit aber die Ätherleiber sich verbänden mit demjenigen, was als astralisches, luziferisches Engelwesen da droben ist.
Wiederum kann man sagen: Das sind Hoffnungen, das sind Illusionen der luziferischen Wesenheiten. - Wer seherisch den Blick hinausrichtet in die Weltenweiten, der sieht nicht etwa, wie es in dem Shakespeareschen Stück heißt, bald ein Kamel, bald irgend etwas anderes in den ziehenden Wolken, sondern der sieht, wenn der März kommt, in den ziehenden Wolken die dynamisch strebenden Kräfte der luziferischen Engel, die da eine luziferische Hülle des Irdischen erzeugen wollen, die das Menschengeschlecht von der Erde entfernen wollen. Zwischen diesen beiden Extremen schwebt der Mensch. Das wollen die ahrimanischen sowohl wie die luziferischen Wesenheiten: die Menschheit, wie sie als Menschheit der Gegenwart ist, austilgen.
Innerhalb des Lebens der Erde äußern sich aber doch diese verschiedenen Einwirkungen. Wiederum ist es ja so, daß zwar dasjenige, was die lJuziferischen Wesen erhoffen, jedes Jahr aufs neue zerstört wird für die äußere Natur; aber im Menschen wirkt es. Und der Mensch ist um die Frühlingszeit, wie er auf der einen Seite den ahrimanischen Kräften stark ausgesetzt ist, wiederum auch immer mehr und mehr - und es bleibt das dann durch den Sommer hindurch — den luziferischen Wesen ausgesetzt.
Nun ist das ja allerdings für das Menschenwesen, wie es jetzt schon einmal ist, so: Für das Menschenleben äußert es sich in der Weise, daß es ganz intim ist, daß es nur derjenige bemerkt, der eine spirituellsensitive Natur hat und wirklich miterleben kann, was im Kosmos im Laufe des Jahres geschieht. Aber für frühere Zeiten, selbst noch für die spätatlantischen Zeiten hatte das eine große Bedeutung. In früheren Zeiten der Erdenentwickelung war zum Beispiel das menschliche Fortpflanzungswesen an den Jahreslauf gebunden. Da konnte eine Empfängnis nicht anders stattfinden als im Frühling, in jedem Frühling, wo die Kräfte so regsam wurden, wie ich es Ihnen jetzt erzählt habe, und da konnten Geburten nicht anders stattfinden als gegen das Ende des Jahres. Da war das Erdenleben auf eine gute Art mit dem Leben der Menschen verbunden.
Es ist nun ein Prinzip der luziferischen Wesen, alles auf Erden frei zu machen, und unter den Dingen, den irdischen, mehr sinnlichen Realitäten, die nun von den luziferischen Wesen frei gemacht worden sind, ist eben die Emanzipation des Empfangens und Geborenwerdens. Daß der Mensch zu jeder Jahreszeit geboren werden kann, das ist in früheren Zeiten bewirkt worden durch diese den Menschen von der Erde losreißende luziferische Kraft. Dies steckt sozusagen in der Freiheit des Menschengeschlechtes, in jeder Zeit des Jahres geboren werden zu können. Da sind wirklich die luziferischen Kräfte drinnen. Von Einflüssen, die heute noch geltend sind, will ich dann das nächste Mal sprechen. Aber ich wollte Ihnen diese Einflüsse, die ich eben charakterisiert habe, schildern, damit Sie sehen, wie in früheren Zeiten dasjenige, was die luziferischen Wesen erstrebten, auch wirklich bis zu einem gewissen Grade sogar erfüllt worden ist und jetzt noch dasteht in der Möglichkeit, daß der Mensch in jeder Zeit des Jahres geboren werden kann. Denn sonst würde der Mensch nur zur Winterzeit geboren werden.
Dagegen setzen die ahrimanischen Kräfte alle Gewalt ein, die sie haben, um den Menschen wiederum mit der Erde zusammenzubringen. Und haben die luziferischen Wesen diesen großen Einfluß gehabt während eines früheren Lebens der Erde, so haben eigentlich die ahrimanischen Wesen Aussicht, wenigstens partiell, teilweise zu erreichen, was sie wollen, das heißt, den Menschen mit der Erde zu verbinden, indem sie gerade seine Gesinnung, seine Auffassung mit dem Irdischen zusammenschmelzen wollen. Sie wollen ihn nach jeder Beziehung ganz zum Materialisten machen, sie wollen, daß der Mensch eigentlich nichts können soll, als was die in ihm verdauten Nahrungsmittel an Denkkraft, an Gefühlskraft und so weiter hervorbringen. Und dieser Einfluß der ahrimanischen Wesenheiten macht sich besonders in unserem Zeitalter geltend und wird immer stärker und stärker werden.
Wenn wir also zurückgehen in der Zeitenwende, dann kommen wir zu dem, was die luziferischen Wesen einmal erreicht haben und hinterlassen haben. Wenn wir die Perspektive nach dem Erdenende zu richten, dann steht das Bedrohliche vor der Menschheit, daß die ahrimanischen Wesenheiten den Menschen, da sie ihn nicht in der Erde auflösen können, wenigstens dazu bringen, in sich zu verhärten, zu verphilistern, zu vermaterialisieren, so daß er eigentlich nichts mehr denkt und nichts mehr fühlt, als was automatisch die Stoffe in ihm denken und fühlen.
Die luziferischen Wesenheiten haben für die Dinge, die ich geschildert habe, ihre, ich möchte sagen naturbefreiende Wirkung damals erlangt, als der Mensch selber noch keine Freiheit hatte. Die Freiheit ist nicht entstanden durch einen Beschluß der Menschen oder auf abstrakte Weise, wie man es gewöhnlich schildert, sondern dadurch, daß solche naturhaften Dinge, wie die Verteilung der Geburten, frei geworden sind im Menschenleben. Aus diesen naturhaften Dingen ist dann überhaupt das Walten der Freiheit gewissermaßen aufgestiegen. Es war schon in älteren Zeiten sehr stark wahrnehmbar, daß der Mensch seine Nachkommen zu jeder Jahreszeit auf die Erde stellen kann, und das hat ihn dann auch seelisch und geistig mit dem Freiheitsgefühl durchdrungen. So sind die Dinge. Die hängen viel mehr am Kosmos, als man gewöhnlich sich erträumt.
Aber jetzt, wo der Mensch in die Freiheit aufgerückt ist, jetzt soll er gerade unter dem Einfluß seiner Freiheit dieses Bedrohliche aus der Welt schaffen, daß ihn Ahriman an die Erdenverhältnisse kettet. Dieses Bedrohliche steht als eine Perspektive der Zukunft vor ihm. Und da sehen wir denn, wie ein Objektives in der Erdenentwickelung geschehen ist: das Mysterium von Golgatha.
Das Mysterium von Golgatha ist nicht als einmaliges Ereignis bloß geschehen. Wohl mußte es sich als einmaliges Ereignis hinstellen in das Erdengeschehen, aber es wird dieses Ereignis, dieses Mysterium von Golgatha jedes Jahr in einer gewissen Weise für den Menschen erneuert. Wer ein Gefühl dafür entwickelt, wie da oben das Luziferische im Kohlensäuredampf ersticken will die physische Menschheit, wie da unten das Ahrimanische im astralischen Regen die ganze Erde so beleben will in ihren Kalkmassen, daß der Mensch sich in ihr zunächst sklerotisiert, auflöst, wer das durchschaut, für den ersteht zwischen dem Luziferischen und dem Ahrimanischen die Gestalt des Christus, die Gestalt des sich von der Materie befreienden Christus, der den Ahriman zu seinen Füßen hat, sich heraus entwickelt aus dem Ahrimanischen, nicht berücksichtigend das Ahrimanische, es überwindend, wie es hier malerisch und plastisch dargestellt worden ist. Und er sieht diesen Christus, wie er auf der andern Seite überwindet, was nur eben das Obere des Menschen wegziehen will von der Erde. Es erscheint der Kopf jener Gestalt, die über den Ahriman siegt, es erscheint der Christus-Kopf in einer solchen Physiognomie, in einem solchen Blick, in einer solchen Antlitzgebärde, daß dieser Blick, diese Antlitzgebärde abgerungen ist den verflüchtigenden Kräften des Luzifer. Hereingezogen die luziferische Gewalt in das Irdische, hineingestellt in das Irdische, das ist die Gestalt des Christus, wie er jedes Jahr im Frühling erscheint, wie wir ihn uns vorstellen müssen: Stehend auf dem Irdischen, das zum Ahrimanischen gemacht werden soll, siegend über den Tod, auferstehend aus dem Grab, sich hinauferhebend als Auferstandener zur Verklärung, zur Verklärung, die da kommt durch das Hinüberführen des Luziferischen in die irdische Schönheit des Christus-Antlitzes.
Und so erscheint zwischen dem Ahrimanischen und dem Luziferischen der in seiner Auferstehungsgestalt sich vor das Auge rückende Christus als die Ostererscheinung, die Ostererscheinung, die sich so hinstellt vor den Menschen; Der auferstandene Christus, oben überschwebt von luziferischen Gewalten, unten gegründet auf ahrimanische Gewalten.
Diese Weltenimagination stellt sich als die Osterimagination hin, so wie sich die Jungfrau mit dem Kinde als Weihnachtsimagination, als Tiefwinterimagination aus dem Jahreslauf herausstellt, so wie sich die Michael-Imagination, wie ich sie Ihnen vorgestern beschrieben habe, als die Ende-September-Imagination hinstellt. Damit sehen Sie zugleich, wie berechtigt es war, das Christus-Bild so zu formen, wie es hier bei uns geformt wurde, denn das ist aus dem kosmischen Werden im Jahreslaufe herausgeboren. Daran ist nichts Willkürliches. Da ist jeder Blick, da ist jede Konfiguration im Antlitz, da ist jede verlaufende Falte im Gewande so zu denken, daß sich hineinstellt das Christus-Bild zwischen das Luziferbild und das Ahrimanbild als dasjenige, was im Menschen in der Erdenentwickelung wirken soll so, daß der Mensch entrissen werde gerade in der Zeit, in der er am meisten verfallen kann den luziferischen und ahrimanischen Mächten, in der Oster-, in der Frühlingszeit, eben diesen ahrimanischen, diesen luziferischen Mächten.
Wiederum ist es so, daß wir gerade an diesem Christus-Bild sehen: Es kann nichts willkürlich in dem Sinne, wie man es heute künstlerisch liebt, gemacht werden. Gerade wenn der Mensch seine völlige Freiheit im Künstlertum entwickeln will, dann kettet er sich nicht sklavisch-ahrimanisch an Material und Modell, dann erhebt er sich frei in geistige Höhen und schafft aus den geistigen Höhen heraus frei, was frei da zu schaffen ist, weil in geistigen Höhen eben die Freiheit walten kann.
Dann wird es so sein, daß er aus einem bläulich-violettlichen Dunstgebilde heraus dieses schafft, was eine Art Brustgebilde des Luziferischen ist, daß er wie aus Wolkengebilden rötlich hervorkommend dasjenige schafft, was Flügel- und Kehlkopf- und Ohrengebilde ist, damit das wie aus Wolken heraus gebildete Flügel-Kehlkopf-Ohrgebilde zu gleicher Zeit in seiner vollen Realität erscheinen kann als malerisches Abbild dessen, was diese Wesen draußen astralisch sind, was sie ätherisch zu werden drohen (siehe hierzu und zum folgenden: Tafel IV).
Denn stellen Sie sich einmal lebendig diese im Astralischen wirkenden, nach dem Ätherischen hinstrebenden Flügel Luzifers vor, dann werden Sie finden, daß sie, weil sie tastend sind, diese Flügel, indem sie herumtasten in den Weltenweiten, indem sie herumwirken in den Weltenweiten, alle Kraftgeheimnisse des Weltenalls erfühlen. Es ist im Luziferischen ein Herumschweifen, ein Sich-Herumbewegen in Wellen, so daß diese Flügel in ihren wellenförmigen Bildungen alles ertasten, was an geheimnisvoll-geistigen, spirituellen Wellenwirkungen im Weltenall vorhanden ist. Und was da in diesen Wellen ertastet wird, das geht durch die Ohrenbildung in das Innere des Luziferwesens, setzt sich da fort. Das Luziferwesen begreift durch die Ohrenbildungen, was es ertastet durch die Flügel, und durch den damit verbundenen Kehlkopf wird das zum schaffenden Worte, das in den Formen des Lebendigen west. und lebt.
Wenn Sie also ein solches luziferisches Wesen mit seinen gelblich-rötlichen Flügel-Ohren-Kehlkopfbildungen anschauen, so sehen Sie in ihm dasjenige, was da wirkt im Weltenall als ertastend die Geheimnisse des Weltenalls durch die Flügel, erlebend diese Geheimnisse des Weltenalls durch die nach innen fortwirkenden Ohrengebilde, aussprechend im schöpferischen Worte diese Geheimnisse des Weltenalls in diesem mit Flügel und Ohr als einem organischen Ganzen verbundenen Kehlkopf.
So war Luzifer malerisch oben in der Kuppel dargestellt, so wird er plastisch dargestellt sein in der plastischen Gruppe, die den Mittelpunkt bilden sollte unseres Goetheanum. Und so sollte gerade stehen in diesem Mittelpunkt des Goetheanum in einem gewissen Sinne das Ostergeheimnis. Aber es wird in irgendeiner Form noch eine Ergänzung nötig, wenn man die ganze Sache auffaßt. Denn alles das, was da geschaut werden kann als das drohende Luziferische, als das drohende Ahrimanische, das ist ja das innere Wesen der Naturkräfte, das ist das, wohin die Naturkräfte tendieren wollen in der Frühlingszeit gegen den Sommer zu, und dem sich gesundend entgegenstellt das heilende Prinzip, das vom Christus ausstrahlt. Aber ein lebendiges Gefühl von alledem wird man erlangen, wenn, nachdem das Ganze architektonisch und plastisch geworden ist und in der Architektur und Plastik dasteht, was ich beschrieben habe, wenn dann in der Zukunft auch noch einmal die Möglichkeit herbeigeführt werden kann, ein Lebendig-Dramatisches vor dieses Plastische hinzustellen gerade zur Osterzeit, ein Lebendig-Dramatisches, in dem namentlich zwei Hauptpersonen sein würden: der Mensch und Raphael. Es müßte sich als eine Art Mysterienspiel gerade innerhalb dieser Plastik und innerhalb dieses Architektonischen abspielen ein Mysterienspiel, Hauptpersonen der Mensch und Raphael, Raphael mit dem Merkurstab, Raphael mit alledem, was sich an den Merkurstab anknüpft. Im Lebendig-Künstlerischen ist alles, alles fordernd, und es gibt im Grunde genommen keine Plastik und keine Architektur, die nicht, wenn sie in ihrem Inneren kosmische Wahrheit ist, fordern würde dasjenige, was künstlerisch drinnen geschieht in einem Raum, der diese Architektur, diese Plastik hat. Und zur Osterzeit würde diese Architektur, diese Plastik ein Mysterienspiel fordern: der Mensch, belehrt von Raphael, inwiefern die ahrimanischen und luziferischen Kräfte den Menschen krankmachen, und inwiefern man durch die Raphael-Gewalt angeleitet werden kann, das heilende Prinzip, die große Weltentherapie, die im Christus-Prinzip lebt, zu durchschauen, zu erkennen. Und wenn dies alles ganz gemacht werden könnte - denn auf das alles war das Goetheanum veranlagt -, dann würde zum Beispiel unter vielem andern dieses stehen, daß alles, was aus den ahrimanischen und luziferischen Geheimnissen in den Menschen hineinfließen kann, eine gewisse Krönung gerade zur Osterzeit erführe.
Lernt man erkennen das Ahrimanische, wie es wirkt in dem zur Frühlingszeit lebendig werdenden Kalk, in dem gestrebt wird, begierdehaft aufzunehmen das kosmische Astralische, dann lernt man in allem, was salzartig ist, die Heilkräfte erkennen. In den groben Wirkungen drückt sich dieser Unterschied nicht aus; in den Heilwirkungen drückt er sich aus. Man lernt die Heilwirkungen zum Beispiel aller Salzablagerungen kennen, indem man dieses Weben und Leben des Ahrimanischen in den Salzablagerungen der Erde studieren kann. Denn dasjenige -— wir werden darauf noch näher in der nächsten Betrachtung eingehen -, was zu einer Jahreszeit verahrimanisiert wird, das wird wiederum in Heilkraft umgewandelt in einer andern Jahreszeit. Und wenn man dann das kennt, was geheimnisvoll in den Naturprodukten, in den Naturwesen vor sich geht, dann lernt man ihre therapeutische Kraft erkennen. Und ebenso ist es mit dem Luziferischen. Man lernt erkennen, was in verdunstenden Körpern, die nach oben streben in ihrem Verdunsten, was aber namentlich als heilende Kräfte wirkt von dem, was im Kohlensauren arbeitet. Denn wie ich Ihnen sagen konnte, daß eigentlich in allem Wasser ein Merkuriales, ein Quecksilbriges ist, so ist in allem, was Kohlensäure ist, ein Sulfuriges, ein Phosphotriges.
Es gibt nicht die Kohlensäure, die bloß, wie der Chemiker sagt, aus einem Atom Kohlenstoff und zwei Atomen Sauerstoff besteht; es gibt diese Kohlensäure nicht. In allem, was wir selber als Kohlensäure in der Ausatmungsluft erzeugen, lebt Phosphotiges, Sulfuriges. Diese Kohlensäure, COs, ein Atom Kohlenstoff, zwei Atome Sauerstoff, das ist nur ein Abstraktum, das ist etwas, was als Verstandesgebilde im Menschen entsteht. In Wirklichkeit findet sich keine Kohlensäure, die nicht, wenn ich mich so ausdrücken darf, in außerordentlicher Verdünnung Phosphoriges, Sulfuriges enthält. Und dieses Phosphotige, Sulfurige, dies streben eigentlich in einem aufstrebenden Dunste die luziferischen Wesen an. Und wiederum in diesem eigentümlichen Ausgleich, der vorhanden ist zwischen dem Sulfurigen, das astralisch wird, und dem Kalk, der lebendig wird, äußern sich dann jene Kräfte, in denen wir die Heilwirkungen erkennen können.
Und so würde zum Beispiel unter vielem andern, was mit dem Ostergeheimnis verknüpft ist, in diesem Mysterienspiel zur Osterzeit — gerade dadurch, daß es sich anschließt, daß es sich hinstellt vor dasjenige, was plastisch und malerisch gebildet ist - das, was im Laufe des Jahres an solche, die es hören wollen, an Heilwirkungsweisen überliefert ist, in einer Weise, die durchaus unmittelbar lebendig künstlerisch-religiös sein könnte, seinen Abschluß finden. Es würde tatsächlich gekrönt werden können dadurch, daß es gewissermaßen hineingestellt wird in den ganzen Verlauf des Kosmos, in den Jahreslauf, und es würde innerhalb des Osterkultus enthalten sein etwas, was sich ausdrücken würde in den Worten: Der Weltenheiland wird gefühlt, derjenige, der das große Übel der Erde als Heiland heben wollte, er wird gefühlt. Denn er war ja, wie ich schon öfter dargestellt habe, der große "Therapeut der Menschheitsentwickelung. Das wird gefühlt, und ihm wird geopfert mit allem, was man an Weisheit haben kann über Heilwirkungen. Es würde sich das hineingliedern in das Ostergeheimnis, in den Osterkult, indem man in Wirklichkeit gerade diesen Osterkult in dieser Weise so vollbringen würde, so begehen würde, daß er sich in ganz selbstverständlicher Weise in den Jahreslauf einfügte.
Ich konnte Ihnen zunächst — wir werden dabei auch noch auf anderes kommen - bei dem, was sich als eine gewaltige Imagination hinstellt vor den Menschen zur Michaelizeit, zur Weihnachtszeit, ich konnte Ihnen da nur die Bilder vorführen. Bei dem aber, was als eine Imagination sich darstellt gegenüber dem Ostergeheimnis, wo gegenüber dem sozusagen naturhaften Geistwirken auftritt das höhere Geistesleben, wie es in der Umgebung des Christus sich entwickeln kann, bei dem konnte ich Ihnen darstellen, wie es unmittelbar im Irdischen zum Kultus führen kann, wie es aber auch aufnehmen kann dasjenige, was im Irdischen gehegt und gepflegt werden muß: die gesundenden, die heilenden Kräfte, und die Erkenntnis dessen, was den Menschenorganismus zerstören kann, ahrimanisch zerstören kann, luziferisch zerstören kann. Ahriman verhärtet den Menschen, Luzifer will ihn durch die Atmung auflösen, verflüchtigen. In alledem liegen die kränkenden, die krankmachenden Kräfte.
Alles das, was, ich möchte sagen, unter der Einwirkung des großen Lehrmeisters Raphael, der eigentlich in christlicher Terminologie der Merkur ist, der im christlichen Gebrauche den Merkurstab zu tragen hat, alles das, was unter dem großen Lehrmeister Raphael auf diesem Gebiete gelernt werden kann, das kann nur seine würdige Krönung dadurch erlangen, daß es hineingeheimnißt wird in den Osterkultus, der vieles noch umfassen kann, wie ich Ihnen in einer folgenden Betrachtung darstellen werde.


Third Lecture
We continue our consideration of the course of the year from the points of view we began yesterday and the day before yesterday. We must be clear about how the earth actually becomes a self-contained being in relation to the cosmos in the depths of winter. The earth becomes, so to speak, completely earth during the winter, its earth nature is concentrated. During midsummer - to add this contrast to the explanation - the earth is given over to the cosmos, lives the life of the cosmos with it. And in between, for the spring and fall seasons, there is always a balance between these two extremes. But all this has the deepest possible significance for the whole life of the earth. Of course, what I am going to say always refers to that part of the earth's surface where the transition from winter to spring takes place.
Let us first, as we have always done in these days, start from the consideration of the purely material, and let us consider that which we had to take as the most important for the winter time: the deposits, the salt-like. Let us look at this first, namely in a phenomenon that is most significant for the whole nature of the earth, in the lime deposits. You only need to go out here, where you are surrounded everywhere by the Jurassic limestone formations, and you have before you, so to speak, everything that I have to describe to you at the beginning of the observation.
So outwardly seen, it is the case that for man lime is lime, and there is really no considerable difference at the different times for the purely external eye between, so to speak, the winter lime and the spring lime. But this indistinguishability is in a certain sense only present for that point of view which I characterized as the flea point of view. The metamorphoses of lime only appear when one goes further out into the cosmos, so to speak, in observation. And there is a subtle difference between winter lime and spring lime, precisely this most important deposit in our soil. The winter lime is, so to speak, an entity satisfied in itself - we may, after all, after the most varied considerations we have made here, because we know that basically soul and spirit can be found everywhere, speak of such things as animate, animated beings - the winter lime is, so to speak, an entity satisfied in itself.
This winter lime, if one delves intuitively into its essence, as is meant for intuition in my book “How does one gain knowledge of the higher worlds?”, is actually permeated by the most diverse spiritual beings. It is the elemental beings that live in the earthly. He is spiritualized. But in a way it is as satisfied as a human mind is satisfied when it has just solved an important problem and is happy that it now has thoughts that mean this solution. One perceives inner satisfaction, because one also perceives emotionally everywhere in intuition, in the whole scope of earthly calcification during the winter time.
Not true, if one were to swim under the water, one would perceive water everywhere. If one moves spiritually in the course of the lime formations, one perceives satisfaction everywhere during the winter time, which lives itself out in inner experiences, interpenetrations of this winter lime with livingly transforming formations that appear in imaginations, livingly transforming formations of a spiritual kind. But as spring approaches, especially when March arrives, the lime becomes, we may say, dull in its spiritual qualities. It no longer has these spiritual qualities because, as you know from the previous descriptions, the elemental beings make their way out into the universe through a kind of spiritual-cosmic respiration. He becomes dull in relation to his mental-spiritual qualities. But the strange thing is that he now becomes desirous. It develops a kind of inner vitality. There is more and more of a subtle life in the lime, and this life in the lime becomes all the more inwardly agitated towards spring, and then further towards summer, the more the plants sprout out.
These things do not, of course, take place in the gross, but in the subtle, in the intimate, but they do take place. The plants that grow out take some of the water and some of the carbonic acid out of the lime, namely the lime distributed in the soil, and it is deprived of this. And that means that it comes alive internally. It becomes alive. But because this lime becomes inwardly alive, it acquires a tremendous attraction for the ahrimanic beings. These ahrimanic beings become hopeful every time spring approaches. They actually have no special hopes for nature otherwise, because they can actually only do their work within the human being. Otherwise these ahrimanic beings can work in the animal nature of man. But when it comes to spring, then the impression that the spring lime makes on them gives them the opinion that they can unfold their dragon nature out into the general nature, and that by finding the spring lime alive they can also gain the possibility of attracting astral things from the universe in order to animate this living lime, to permeate it with soul. So that when it comes to March, the real seerly observer of nature sees this strange spectacle: One sees everywhere how the hopes of the ahrimanic beings play over the earth in imaginations, I would like to say, like a spiritual wind that blows over everything, and one sees how the ahrimanic beings now make an effort to call forth, as it were, a rain of the astral from above. This rain of the astral, which they want to evoke, would, if they could - they always strive for it with all possible forces - transform the earth during the summer time at least partially, as far as it is lime, into an animated living being. And this is what the ahrimanic beings strive for every spring, to transform the earth into an animated living being. So that if any being were to set foot on the earth in the fall, the earth would feel pain from the mere act of setting foot on it in the fall.
Well, this striving, this illusion, is present in the Ahrimanic beings every spring and is destroyed every spring. Certainly, from the human point of view one can say: Now the ahrimanic beings should have become so clever that they give up these hopes. - But this is not how it is in the world as man imagines it, but it is simply a fact that every spring these ahrimanic beings again create new hopes of being able to transform the earth into an animated living being through an astral rain from above. These illusions are shattered every year.
But man does not remain safe, so to speak, under these illusions. After all, man enjoys those natural products that thrive in this atmosphere of hopes and illusions, and it is actually basically naivety on the part of man if he believes that he can eat his bread from merely ground and baked grain. Inside this ground and baked grain are the illusions of the ahrimanic entities and the hopes of the ahrimanic entities. Outside they are destroyed. All the more now the longing awakens in the ahrimanic entities to reach their goal with what they want, where there is already soul, in man. So that the human being is actually in danger of falling prey to the ahrimanic entities every spring, even if everything takes place in the intimate realm. In this respect, man is really much more exposed to all ahrimanic forces in the cosmos in spring than he is at any other time of the year.
Something else takes place when we look up. If we direct our gaze upwards, up to where the elemental beings of the earth ascend, where they then unite with the cloud formations, where they assume an inner activity that is subject to planetary life, then, above all, when it comes to March, when the ahrimanic beings are at work down there, something else arises. There the elemental beings come up; what is otherwise purely spiritual within the earth, what is non-material, but which lives itself out in the material, is transferred up into the region where there is vapor, air, warmth. And there everything that happens in the elemental beings that are coming to life is again permeated by the Luciferic beings above. Just as the Ahrimanic entities below get their hopes and go through their illusions, so the Luciferic entities above go through their hopes and illusions.
If we look more closely at the nature of the Ahrimanic entities, it is actually ethereal. And the ahrimanic entities, which are actually the entities overthrown by Michael, lack the possibility to unfold in such a way that they could gain dominion over the earth in another way than through the lime that has become alive and desirable.
The Luciferic beings up there, they flow through and enforce that which has moved up there and now makes itself active in the upper elements of the earth. They push this through, and they are actually, these luciferic beings, of a purely astral nature. They now have the hope of being able to assert their astral nature through everything that begins to ascend in spring . with etheric nature and to bring forth an etheric shell of the earth, which could then be inhabited by themselves.
So we can say: The ahrimanic beings strive to animate the earth astrally (panel III, reddish); the luciferic beings strive to absorb the etheric into their being from above (blue with yellow).
When the plants begin to sprout in spring, they assimilate carbonic acid, draw in carbonic acid. And this carbonic acid is something that, because the plant cover is there, works in a higher region in spring than in winter; it is drawn upwards, the carbonic acid, namely into the region that is the region of the plants. So when the plants begin to sprout in spring, this carbonic acid is attracted by the Luciferic entities. And while the ahrimanic entities strive for a kind of astral rain in order to animate the living lime, the luciferic entities strive for a carbonic acid elevation, a kind of carbonic acid evaporation from the earth upwards (see Table III, blue). If they could accomplish this, breathing on earth would have to cease, and they would draw up all that man has in himself without the physical breath, his etheric, and through their connection with the etheric of man they would come into the position of becoming etheric entities, while they are thus only astral entities. So that - with the destruction of what is human and animal below - there would be a shell of ethereal angelic beings above. This again is something that the Luciferic spirits strive for and hope for when March comes, at the end of March. They hope to actually transform the whole earth into such a fine earth shell in which they, condensed by the etheric nature of human beings, can do their work.
If the ahrimanic entities were to have their hopes fulfilled, then the whole of humanity would gradually have to dissolve on earth. The earth would absorb the human being. In the end a great entity would emerge from the earth - that is also Ahriman's intention - in which all human beings would be dissolved to a certain extent. They would be connected with this great unified earth entity. But the transition to this connection with this earth entity would consist in the fact that man in his whole organism would first become more and more similar to living lime. He would combine living lime with his organism and become more and more calcified. He would thereby metamorphose, transform his form into a form which would then look quite different, which would look something like this: a sclerotized form with a kind of bat's wings and this head (see Plate IV). It would be able to gradually dissolve into the earthly, so that the earthly would then be an earthly-living being in an Ahrimanic way as a whole earth.
If, on the other hand, the Luciferic entities could draw on the etheric of the human being and thereby, as it were, etherically condense themselves out of their astrality, then something would emerge from them in an etheric way which would more or less not have the lower parts of the human organism, but which would also have changed the upper parts; which, for example, would above all have a body formed as if from earthly vapor (panel TV, blue), but which would only be developed up to the chest, and instead would have a human head increased into the ideal (red). But now the peculiar thing would be that this being would have wings, wings that would be as if born out of clouds (yellow). These wings would concentrate forward into a kind of enlarged larynx; they would concentrate on the side here into ear organs, hearing organs, which in turn would be connected to the larynx.
You see, I have tried to reproduce that which forms down there in the figure of Ahriman, which was created pictorially over there in the dome and is just created sculpturally in the wooden group; likewise that which would form in the Luciferic from earth vapor and cloud surges, if it could absorb the etheric of the earth, into a Luciferic figure.
Thus, however, the two extremes of the human being are drawn into earth life itself: that extreme of the human being which the human being would become if he were to absorb the living lime under the influence of Ahriman, so to speak, and thereby gradually become one with the earth, would be dissolved in the whole livingly sentient earth being, that is the one extreme. The other extreme is what man would become if the Luciferic beings succeeded in carrying out what they want, namely to make a haze of carbonic acid rise from below, so that breathing would have to disappear, so that people would thus disappear as physical humanity, but so that the etheric bodies would unite with that which is up there as astral, Luciferic angelic beings.
Again, one can say: These are hopes, these are illusions of the Luciferic beings. - Whoever looks out into the vastness of the world will not see, as it says in Shakespeare's play, soon a camel, soon something else in the drifting clouds, but will see, when March comes, in the drifting clouds the dynamically striving forces of the Luciferic angels, who want to create a Luciferic shell of the earthly, who want to remove the human race from the earth. Man hovers between these two extremes. This is what the ahrimanic as well as the luciferic entities want: to eradicate humanity as it is in the present as humanity.
Within the life of the earth, however, these various influences express themselves. Again, it is true that what the Luciferic beings hope for is destroyed anew every year for external nature, but it works in man. And around springtime, just as man is strongly exposed to the ahrimanic forces on the one hand, he is also more and more exposed to the luciferic beings - and this remains so throughout the summer.
However, this is the case for the human being as it is now: For human life it expresses itself in such a way that it is quite intimate, that only those who have a spiritually sensitive nature and can really experience what happens in the cosmos in the course of the year notice it. But for earlier times, even for the late Atlantean times, this had great significance. In earlier times of earthly development, for example, the human reproductive system was bound to the course of the year. Conception could not take place otherwise than in spring, in every spring, when the forces became as active as I have now told you, and births could not take place otherwise than towards the end of the year. Then life on earth was connected in a good way with human life.
It is now a principle of the Luciferic beings to make everything on earth free, and among the things, the earthly, more sensual realities, which have now been made free by the Luciferic beings, is precisely the emancipation of conception and birth. The fact that man can be born at any time of the year was brought about in earlier times by this Luciferic power which tears man away from the earth. This is, so to speak, in the freedom of the human race to be born at any time of the year. The Luciferic forces really are in there. I will talk about influences that are still in effect today next time. But I wanted to describe these influences, which I have just characterized, so that you can see how in earlier times what the Luciferic beings were striving for was actually fulfilled to a certain degree and still exists in the possibility that man can be born at any time of the year. For otherwise the human being would only be born in wintertime.
On the other hand, the Ahrimanic forces use all the power they have to bring the human being back together with the earth. And if the Luciferic beings had this great influence during an earlier life of the earth, then the Ahrimanic beings actually have the prospect of achieving, at least partially, what they want, that is, to unite man with the earth by wanting to fuse his attitude, his conception, with the earthly. They want to make him completely materialistic in every respect, they want man to be able to do nothing but what the food digested in him produces in terms of thinking power, emotional power and so on. And this influence of the Ahrimanic entities is particularly prevalent in our age and will become stronger and stronger.
So if we go back to the turn of time, then we come to what the Luciferic beings once achieved and left behind. If we direct the perspective towards the end of the earth, then the threatening thing before humanity is that the ahrimanic entities, since they cannot dissolve man in the earth, at least cause him to harden within himself, to become philistine, to materialize, so that he actually no longer thinks or feels anything other than what the substances in him automatically think and feel.
The Luciferic entities have achieved their, I would like to say nature-liberating effect for the things I have described at a time when man himself did not yet have freedom. Freedom did not come about through a human decision or in an abstract way, as is usually described, but through the fact that such natural things, such as the distribution of births, became free in human life. It is from these natural things that the rule of freedom has risen, so to speak. It was already very perceptible in older times that man could place his offspring on earth at any time of the year, and this then also imbued him mentally and spiritually with the feeling of freedom. That's how things are. They are much more attached to the cosmos than is usually dreamed of.
But now that man has moved up into freedom, he is supposed to get rid of this threatening thing under the influence of his freedom, that Ahriman chains him to the earthly conditions. This threat stands before him as a perspective of the future. And there we see how an objective thing has happened in the development of the earth: the Mystery of Golgotha.
The Mystery of Golgotha did not just happen as a one-off event. It certainly had to take place as a one-off event in earthly events, but this event, this Mystery of Golgotha, is renewed for man in a certain way every year. Whoever develops a feeling for how the Luciferic up there wants to suffocate physical humanity in the carbonic acid vapour, how the Ahrimanic down there wants to animate the whole earth in its lime masses in the astral rain in such a way that the human being first sclerotizes, dissolves in it, whoever sees through this, For him, between the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic, the figure of Christ appears, the figure of Christ freeing himself from matter, who has the Ahriman at his feet, developing out of the Ahrimanic, not taking the Ahrimanic into account, overcoming it, as it has been pictorially and vividly depicted here. And he sees this Christ overcoming on the other side what only the upper part of man wants to pull away from the earth. The head of the figure that conquers Ahriman appears in such a physiognomy, in such a look, in such a facial gesture, that this look, this facial gesture is wrested from the volatilizing powers of Lucifer. The Luciferic power drawn into the earthly, placed into the earthly, that is the figure of Christ as he appears every year in spring, as we must imagine him: standing on the earthly, which is to be made Ahrimanic, victorious over death, rising from the grave, lifting himself up as the Risen One to the transfiguration, to the transfiguration that comes through leading the Luciferic into the earthly beauty of the face of Christ.
And so, between the Ahrimanic and the Luciferic, Christ appears before the eye in his resurrection form as the Easter apparition, the Easter apparition, which thus presents itself before men; the resurrected Christ, hovering above by Luciferic powers, below founded on Ahrimanic powers.
This world-imagination presents itself as the Easter-imagination, just as the Virgin with the Child presents itself as the Christmas-imagination, as the deep-winter-imagination from the course of the year, just as the Michael-imagination, as I described it to you the day before yesterday, presents itself as the end-of-September-imagination. This also shows you how justified it was to form the image of Christ in the way it was formed here with us, because it was born out of the cosmic becoming in the course of the year. There is nothing arbitrary about it. Every look, every configuration in the face, every fold in the garment is to be thought of in such a way that the image of Christ is placed between the image of Lucifer and the image of Ahriman as that which is to work in man in earthly development so that man is torn away precisely at the time when he can most easily fall prey to the Luciferic and Ahrimanic powers, at Easter and in the springtime, precisely to these Ahrimanic and Luciferic powers.
Again, it is precisely in this image of Christ that we see this: Nothing can be made arbitrary in the sense that is artistically loved today. Precisely when man wants to develop his complete freedom as an artist, then he does not chain himself slavishly and Ahrimanically to material and model, then he rises freely to spiritual heights and creates freely from the spiritual heights what can be created freely, because freedom can reign in spiritual heights.
Then it will be so that out of a bluish-violet haze he creates that which is a kind of chest formation of the Luciferic, that he creates that which is wing and larynx and ear formations, emerging reddishly as if from cloud formations, so that the wing, larynx and ear formations formed as if out of clouds can at the same time appear in their full reality as a pictorial image of what these beings outside are astral, what they threaten to become etheric (see on this and the following: Plate IV).
For if you imagine these wings of Lucifer working in the astral, striving towards the etheric, then you will find that, because they are groping, these wings, by groping around in the expanses of the world, by working around in the expanses of the world, they sense all the secrets of power in the universe. In the Luciferic it is a wandering about, a moving about in waves, so that these wings feel in their wave-like formations all the mysterious spiritual, spiritual wave effects that are present in the universe. And what is felt in these waves passes through the ear formation into the interior of the Lucifer being and continues there. The Lucifer being grasps through the ear formations what it senses through the wings, and through the larynx connected to it this becomes the creating word that lives in the forms of the living west.
So when you look at such a Luciferic being with its yellowish-reddish wing-ear-larynx formations, you see in it that which works in the universe as feeling the secrets of the universe through the wings, experiencing these secrets of the universe through the ear formations working inwards, expressing in the creative word these secrets of the universe in this larynx connected with wing and ear as an organic whole.
So Lucifer was represented pictorially at the top of the dome, so he will be represented sculpturally in the sculptural group that was to form the center of our Goetheanum. And so it is precisely in this center of the Goetheanum that the Paschal Mystery should stand in a certain sense. But some form of supplementation is still necessary if the whole thing is to be understood. For all that which can be seen there as the threatening Luciferic, as the threatening Ahrimanic, that is, after all, the inner being of the forces of nature, that is what the forces of nature want to tend towards in the springtime towards the summer, and which is countered in a healing way by the healing principle that radiates from the Christ. But a lively feeling of all this will be attained when, after the whole has become architectural and plastic, and what I have described stands in architecture and sculpture, if then in the future the possibility can be brought about once again of placing a living-dramatic before this plastic, especially at Easter time, a living-dramatic in which there would be two main figures in particular: the human being and Raphael. It would have to take place as a kind of mystery play within this sculpture and within this architecture, a mystery play, the main characters being man and Raphael, Raphael with the staff of Mercury, Raphael with everything that is connected to the staff of Mercury. In the living-artistic everything, everything is demanding, and there is basically no sculpture and no architecture that would not, if it is cosmic truth in its interior, demand that which happens artistically inside in a room that has this architecture, this sculpture. And at Easter time this architecture, this sculpture would demand a mystery play: man, taught by Raphael, to what extent the Ahrimanic and Luciferic forces make man ill, and to what extent one can be guided by Raphael's power to see through, to recognize the healing principle, the great world therapy that lives in the Christ principle. And if all this could be done completely - for the Goetheanum was designed for all this - then, for example, among many other things, this would stand, that everything that can flow into the human being from the Ahrimanic and Luciferic mysteries would receive a certain culmination precisely at Easter time.
If one learns to recognize the ahrimanic as it works in the lime that comes to life at springtime, in which one strives to eagerly absorb the cosmic astral, then one learns to recognize the healing powers in everything that is salty. This difference is not expressed in the gross effects; it is expressed in the healing effects. One gets to know the healing effects of all salt deposits, for example, by being able to study this weaving and life of the Ahrimanic in the salt deposits of the earth. For that which is ahrimanized in one season is transformed into healing power in another season. And if one then knows what is mysteriously going on in the products of nature, in the beings of nature, then one learns to recognize their therapeutic power. And it is the same with the Luciferian. One learns to recognize what is at work in evaporating bodies, which strive upwards in their evaporation, but which works in particular as healing forces from that which works in the carbonic acid. For just as I was able to tell you that in all water there is actually a mercurial, a mercurial, so in everything that is carbonic acid there is a sulphuric, a phosphotriacal.
There is no such thing as carbonic acid, which, as the chemist says, merely consists of one atom of carbon and two atoms of oxygen; there is no such thing as carbonic acid. In everything that we ourselves produce as carbonic acid in the air we exhale, there is a phosphotic, sulphurous element. This carbonic acid, COs, one atom of carbon, two atoms of oxygen, that is only an abstract concept, that is something that arises in the human mind. In reality, there is no carbonic acid that does not contain, if I may put it this way, phosphorous, sulphuric substances in extraordinary dilution. And it is this phosphorous, sulphuric quality that the Luciferic beings actually strive for in an aspiring darkness. And again in this peculiar balance that exists between the sulphuric, which becomes astral, and the lime, which becomes alive, those forces are expressed in which we can recognize the healing effects.
And so, for example, among many other things that are connected with the Easter Mystery, in this Mystery Play at Easter time - precisely by the fact that it follows on, that it places itself before that which is formed plastically and pictorially - that which has been handed down in the course of the year to those who want to hear it, in terms of healing effects, would find its conclusion in a way that could certainly be directly alive artistic-religious. It could indeed be crowned by being placed, as it were, in the whole course of the cosmos, in the course of the year, and something would be contained within the Easter cult which would be expressed in the words: The Savior of the world is felt, the one who wanted to lift the great evil of the earth as Savior, he is felt. For he was, as I have often described, the great "therapist of human development. This is felt, and he is sacrificed to with all the wisdom one can have about healing effects. This would be integrated into the Easter mystery, into the Easter cult, by actually performing this Easter cult in such a way, celebrating it in such a way, that it would fit into the course of the year in a completely natural way.
First of all - we will also come to other things - I could only show you the pictures of what presents itself as a powerful imagination to people at Michaelmas time, at Christmas time. But in the case of what presents itself as an imagination in relation to the Easter Mystery, where the higher spiritual life, as it can develop in the environment of the Christ, appears in relation to the so to speak natural working of the spirit, I was able to show you how it can lead directly in the earthly to the cult, but how it can also absorb that which must be nurtured and cared for in the earthly: the healthy, the healing powers, and the realization of that which can destroy the human organism, can destroy ahrimanically, can destroy luciferically. Ahriman hardens the human being, Lucifer wants to dissolve him through breathing, to volatilize him. In all of this lie the offending, the disease-causing forces.
All that which, I would say, can be learned in this field under the influence of the great teacher Raphael, who in Christian terminology is actually Mercury, who in Christian usage has to carry the staff of Mercury, all that which can be learned under the great teacher Raphael, can only attain its worthy culmination by being incorporated into the Easter cult, which can still encompass much, as I will show you in a following reflection.

