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Karmic Relationships I
GA 235

23 March 1924, Dornach

Lecture XII

Yesterday I gave you pictures of two or three personalities. In order to allow for the possibility of proof and confirmation, at least as far as external details are concerned, it is necessary to choose fairly well-known personalities and in describing them to you I have pointed in each case to characteristic qualities which can afford clues for the spiritual scientific investigator and help him to follow up the karmic relationships. This time I have chosen subjects which will also enable me to deal with a problem that has been put to me by members of our Society. Simply stated, it is as follows. Constantly, on every suitable occasion, reference is made—and of course correctly—to the fact that in very early times there were Initiates possessed of a lofty wisdom and at a high stage of development, and the question arises: If human beings pass through repeated earth-lives, where are these highly-initiated personalities? Where are they today? Are they to be found among the human beings who have been led to reincarnation at the present time? I have accordingly chosen examples which will enable me to deal with this very problem.

I gave you, as far as was necessary, a picture of the hero of the freedom of Italy, Garibaldi; and if you take what I said yesterday and add to it all that is well-known to you about this personality—a whole wealth of information is available about him—I think you will still find a very great deal in Garibaldi that is puzzling and that opens up significant questions.

Take two events of his life which amused you yesterday.—He became acquainted through a telescope with the girl who was to be his life-companion for many years, and he learnt of his own death-sentence when reading his name for the first time in print. There is still another very striking event in his life. The life-companion whom he found in the way I have described, and who stood at his side with such heroism, was the sharer of his life for many years. He certainly managed to see something very good through his telescope! Later, she died, leaving him alone, and he married a second time, this time not through a telescope—not even a Garibaldi is likely to do such a thing more than once!—this time he married, shall I say, in a perfectly conventional bourgeois manner. But for Garibaldi the marriage lasted no longer than one day. So you see, there is this other very striking fact in Garibaldi's relations with the ordinary bourgeois conditions of this world.

And now we come to something else of importance. The things I am describing to you come, as it were, with a sudden jerk to one accustomed to occult researches of this kind; they are clues that enable his vision to penetrate right into an earlier life or into a number of earlier lives. And in Garibaldi's life there is still another circumstance which raises a formidable problem.

Garibaldi, you know, was a Republican in his very bones; he was a Republican through and through. I made that abundantly clear in yesterday's lecture. And yet in all his plans for the liberation of Italy he never set out to make Italy into a Republic, but rather into an Empire under Victor Emanuel. That is an astonishing fact. When one looks at Garibaldi's whole life and character and then considers this fact, it really does astonish one.

There we have on the one hand Victor Emmanuel, who could of course reign as king only over a liberated Italy. And we have on the other hand Mazzini—also deeply united in friendship with Garibaldi—who, as you know, stood for a long time at the head of what was intended to be an Italian Republic, for he was willing to come forward only as the founder of an Italian Republic. The karmic relationships of Garibaldi will never be solved unless we take note here of a special set of circumstances.

In the course of a few years—Garibaldi, you know, was born at Nice in 1807—there were born within an area of a comparatively few square miles, four men who had a significant connection with one another in the wider course of European circumstances. In Nice, at the beginning of the 19th century, Garibaldi was born; in Genoa, not far away, Mazzini; in Turin, again not far, away, Cavour; and from the House of Savoy, once more at no great distance, Victor Emanuel. These four men are all quite near to one another in respect of the times and places of their births. And it is these four men together who, if not agreeing in thought, if not even acting always in mutual agreement, nevertheless established the country which became modern Italy.

You can see how the very way in which these four personalities are brought together in history suggests that they have, not only for themselves, but for the world, a common destiny. The most significant among them is, without doubt, Garibaldi himself. Taking into consideration all human conditions and relationships, we cannot but agree that he is by far the most significant figure of the four. Garibaldi's mentality, however, expresses itself in an elemental way. Mazzini's mentality is that of a learned philosopher; Cavour's that of a learned lawyer. And as for Victor Emmanuel's mentality ... well, there is no doubt about it, the most important among them all is Garibaldi. He possesses a quality of mind and spirit that expresses itself with elemental force, so that one cannot remain indifferent towards it. One cannot remain indifferent, for one simply doesn't know whence these traits come ... as long as they are looked at from the standpoint of the personal psychology of a single earth-life.

Now I come back to the question: Where are the earlier Initiates? For certainly it will be said that they are not to be found. But, my dear friends—I shall have to say something paradoxical here!—if it were possible for a number of human beings to be born today at the age of seventeen or eighteen, so that when they descended from the spiritual world they would in some way or other find and enter seventeen- or eighteen-year-old bodies, or if at least human beings could in some way be spared from going to school (as schools are constituted today), then you would find that those who were once Initiates would be able to appear in the human being of the present day. But just as little as it is possible, under the conditions obtaining on earth today, for an Initiate, when he needs bread, to nourish himself from a piece of ice, just as little is it possible for the wisdom of an older time to manifest directly, in the form that you would expect, in a body that has received education—in the present-day accepted sense of the word—up to his seventeenth or eighteenth year. Nowhere in the world is this possible; at all events, nowhere in the civilised world. We have here to take account of things that lie altogether beyond the outlook of the educated men of modern times.

When, as is the custom today, a child is obliged as early as the sixth or seventh year to learn to read and write, it is torture for the soul that wants to develop and unfold in accordance with its own nature. I can only repeat what I have already told you in my autobiography, that I owe the removal of many hindrances to the circumstance that when I was twelve years old I was still unable to write properly. For the capacity of being able to write, in the way that is demanded today, kills certain qualities in the human being.

It is necessary to say such a thing, paradoxical though it may sound, for it is the truth. There is no help for it—it is a fact. Hence it is that a highly evolved individual can be recognised in his reincarnation only if one looks at manifestations of human nature which are not directly apparent in a man, if he has gone through a modern education, but reveal themselves, so to speak, behind him. We have in Garibaldi a most striking example of this. What did civilised men, including Cavour, or at all events the followers of Cavour, think of Garibaldi? They regarded him as a madcap with whom it was useless to discuss anything in a sensible manner. That is a point of which we must take note; for there was much in his arguments and in his whole way of speaking that was bound to appear illogical, to say the least, to people enamoured of modern civilisation. Very often the things he says simply do not hold together. But when we are able to see behind a personality, and can look at that which in an earlier earth-life was able to enter into the body, but in this earth-life, because modern civilisation makes the bodies unfit, was not able to enter into the body—then we can begin to have an idea of what such a personality really is. Otherwise we are right off the track, for what is of most importance in such a personality lies right behind the things he can reveal externally. A good conventional man of the world, who simply expresses himself in the way he has learned to do, and in whom we see merely a reflection of the teaching and education he has received at school and elsewhere—such a man you can “photograph” in his moral and spiritual nature. He is there. A man, however, who comes over from other times bearing a soul filled with great and far-reaching wisdom, so that the soul cannot express itself in the body, can never be estimated with the means afforded by modern civilisation by what he does in the body. Above all, Garibaldi cannot be judged in that way. In his case it is rather like having to do—I am speaking metaphorically—with spiritualistic pictures, where a phantom becomes visible behind. With a personality like Garibaldi, you see him first as he is according to conventional standards, and behind you see something spiritual, a spirit-portrait, as it were, of that which in this incarnation cannot enter fully into the body.

When we take all this into consideration, and particularly if we meditate upon the special facts I have mentioned, then our vision is indeed led back from Garibaldi to a true Initiate who to all appearance lives out his Garibaldi-life in a quite different way, because he is unable to come down into his body.

If you consider the peculiar characteristics of Garibaldi's life to which I drew your attention, you will not find this so astonishing after all. A man must surely be somewhat of a stranger to earthly conventions if he finds his way into family relations through a telescope! Such a happening is certainly not usual, and it was not the only one in Garibaldi's life. In the characteristic style of his life there is something that points right away from ordinary alignment with bourgeois conventions.

Thus, in the case of Garibaldi, we are led back to an Initiate-life, and it was a life in those Mysteries which I described to you some months ago as proceeding from Ireland. Garibaldi, however, is to be found in an offshoot of those Mysteries at no great distance from here, in Alsace. There we find him, as an Initiate of a certain degree. And it is moreover fairly certain that between this incarnation in the 9th century, A.D., and his last incarnation in the 19th century, there was no further incarnation, but a long sojourn in the spiritual world. There you have the secret of this personality. He received all that I have described to you as the wisdom of Hibernia, and he received it at a very high stage of Initiation. He was within the places of the Mysteries in Ireland, and was actually the leader of the colony that came over later into Europe.

It goes without saying that just as an object reflected in a mirror becomes different in its reflected form, so all the wisdom of that time and place, embracing as it did the physical world and the spiritual world above it—all the wisdom in which an Initiate of those times participated, as I described it to you a few months ago—had to express itself during the 19th century in accordance with the civilisation of that period. You must accustom yourselves, when you find a philosopher in bygone times, or when you find a poet or an artist, not to look for the same individuality in the present epoch as a philosopher, poet or artist. The individuality passes from earth-life to earth-life, but the way in which he is able to live out his life depends upon what is possible in a particular epoch. Let me here insert an instance that will make this plain.

We will take another very well-known personality, Ernst Haeckel. Ernst Haeckel is famous as an enthusiastic adherent of a certain materialistic Monism—enthusiastic, one may say, to the point of fanaticism. He is well enough known to you; I need not give you any description of Haeckel. Now when we are led back from this personality to a former incarnation, we come to Pope Gregory VII, the monk Hildebrand, who afterwards became Pope Gregory VII.

I have chosen this instance so that you may see how differently the same individuality may express himself externally, in accordance with the cultural “climate” of the period. One would certainly not expect to look for the reincarnation of Pope Gregory VII in the 19th century representative of materialistic Monism.

The things that a man brings to manifestation on the physical plane, with the means afforded by external civilisation, are far less important to the spiritual world than one is inclined to suppose. Behind the personalities of the monk Hildebrand and Haeckel lies something wherein they are alike and this is of much greater account than the differences between them. One of them fights to the utmost to enhance the power of Roman Catholicism, and the other fights to the utmost against Roman Catholicism, but for the spiritual world it makes little difference. These things, fundamentally speaking, are important for the physical world only; they are quite different from the underlying elements in human nature which count in the spiritual world. And so we need not be astonished, my dear friends, if we have to see in Garibaldi an Initiate from an earlier age, an Initiate, as I said, of the 9th century. In the 19th century this comes to expression in the only way possible during that century. You will agree that for the whole way in which a man takes his place in the world, his temperament, his qualities of character are of importance. But if everything that made up Garibaldi's soul in an earlier incarnation had emerged in the 19th century, together with his temperament, he would most certainly have been regarded as a lunatic by the men of the 19th century. He would have been considered quite mad. As much of him as could emerge—that, externally, was Garibaldi.

And now, once we have been led in a certain direction, explanations light up for other karmic connections. The other three men of whom I have spoken, who were brought together again with Garibaldi in one region and approximately in the same decade, had been his pupils in that distant time—mark well, his pupils, assembled from distant parts of the earth, one from far away in the North, another from far away in the East and the third from far away in the West, called from all corners of the earth to be his pupils.

Now in the Irish Mysteries a definite obligation went with a certain degree of Initiation. It consisted in this, that the Initiate was bound to help on his pupils in all future earth-lives; he must not desert them. When, therefore, owing to their special karmic connections they make their appearance again on earth at the same time as their teacher, this means that he must experience the course of destiny with them; their karma has to be brought into reckoning with his own. If Garibaldi had not, at an earlier time, been associated as teacher with the individuality who came in Victor Emmanuel, then he would have been in very deed a Republican and would have founded the Republic of Italy. But behind all abstract principles are actual human lives passing from one earth-existence to another. Behind lies the duty of the Initiate of old towards his pupils. Hence the contradiction, for in accordance with the conceptions and ideas facing Garibaldi in the 19th century, he became quite naturally a Republican. What else should he have been? I have known a number of Republicans who were faithful servants of royalty. Inwardly they were Republicans, for the simple reason that in a certain period of the 19th century—it is long past now, at the time when I was a boy—everyone who counted himself an intelligent person was a Republican. People said: Of course we are Republicans, only we must not show it in the outer world. Inwardly, however, they were Republicans. So, of course, was Garibaldi, except that he did not show it in the outer world. He did not carry his republicanism into effect and those who were inspired by him could not understand this. Why was it? Because, as I have explained to you, he could not desert Victor Emmanuel, who was karmically united with him. He was obliged to help him on; and this was the only way he could do it.

Similarly the others, Cavour and Mazzini, were karmically united with Garibaldi, and he was able to do for them only as much as their capacities allowed. Whatever could proceed from all four of them, that alone Garibaldi was able to bring to fulfilment. He could not go his own way independently.

From this deeply significant fact, my dear friends, you can see that many things in life can be explained only from out of an occult background.

Have you not often experienced how at some moment of his life a person does something that is quite incomprehensible to you? You would not have expected it of him; you cannot possibly explain it from his character. You feel that if he were to follow his personal character, he would do something different. And you may be right. But there is another man living near him, with whom he is karmically united, as in Garibaldi's case. Why does he act as he does? It is really only against an occult background. that life becomes explicable. And so, in the case of Garibaldi, for example, we can truly say that we are led back to the Hibernian Mysteries—it sounds like a paradox but it is a fact. If we turn our gaze to the spiritual, we find that what meets us in external life on earth is, in many of its aspects, Maya. Many people with whom you are constantly together in ordinary life—if you could tell them what you are able to learn about them by looking through to the individuality behind—would be exceedingly astonished, they would be utterly bewildered. For what a man expresses outwardly—and this is particularly so in the present age, for the reasons I have given—is the merest fraction of what he really is, in terms of his former earth-lives. Many secrets are hidden in the things of which I am now speaking.


And now let us take the second personality of whom I gave you yesterday a brief characterisation—Lessing, who at the end of his life came forward with his pronouncement on repeated earth-lives. In his case we are led very far back, right back into Greek antiquity, when the ancient Mysteries of Greece were in their prime. Lessing was an Initiate in these Mysteries. And with him, too, we find that in the 18th century he was unable, so to speak, to come right down into his body. In the 13th century, as a repetition of his life in ancient Greece, we find an incarnation when he was a member of the Dominican Order, a distinguished Schoolman with subtle and penetrating concepts; and then, in the 18th century, he became the journalist par excellence of Middle Europe.

Take that drama of tolerance, Nathan the Wise, or such a book as The Dramatic Art of Hamburg—read for yourselves certain chapters of that book and then read The Education of the Human Race. These writings are comprehensible only on the assumption that all three incarnations of this personality have worked upon them: the Greek Initiate of olden times (read Lessing's treatise, How the men of old pictured death); the Schoolman, versed in medieval Aristotelianism; and lastly he who, with all this resting in his soul, found his way into the civilisation of the 18th century. Then, if you will keep in mind what I have just told you, a certain fact will become clear, a most striking and surprising fact.

It is remarkable how Lessing's life gives one the impression of a continual search. He himself brought this characteristic of his spiritual nature to expression when he uttered the famous saying, which has been quoted again and again (quoted, however, with very little understanding, by people who have no particular desire to strive after anything at all): “If God held in his right hand the whole full Truth, and in his left the everlasting striving after Truth, I would fall down before Him and say, ‘Father, give me what thou hast in thy left hand’.” A Lessing could say that. But when a mere pedant says it after him, it is of course intolerable. Lessing's whole life was indeed a search, an intense search. This comes to expression again and again in his works, and if we were honest with ourselves we should have to admit that many of Lessing's utterances are clumsy on this account, precisely those that are the most full of genius. People do not dare to admit that they stumble over them, because in history and literature Lessing is accounted a great man. In truth, however, his sayings often trip one up, so to speak; or, rather, they give one a feeling of being stabbed. You must, of course, become acquainted with Lessing himself to understand this. If you take up the book by Erich Schmidt, the two volumes on Lessing, then even when Erich Schmidt quotes him word for word you will not feel as though his utterances impaled you. Not at all! They may be the utterances of Lessing as far as the sound of the words goes, but what is written in the book before and after them takes away their edge.

It was not until the end of his earthly life that this seeker came to write The Education of the Human Race, which closes with the idea of repeated earth-lives. What is the explanation?

My dear friends, the way to understand this fact is through another fact I once mentioned. In the quarterly periodical [Das Reich. The articles are contained in the volume of the Complete Edition of Rudolf Steiner's works entitled, Philosophie und Anthroposophie. (Bibliographical No. 35.)] now discontinued, edited by our friend Bernus, I wrote an article on The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz and I drew attention to the fact that it was written down by a boy of seventeen or eighteen. The boy himself understood not a word of it. We have external proof of that. He wrote down this Chymical Wedding from beginning to end. The last page is not extant, but he wrote down the whole of the Chymical Wedding, without understanding a word of it. If he had understood it, he would have been bound to retain the understanding in later years. The boy, however, became a pastor, a good, honest pastor of the Württemberg-Swabian type, who wrote exhortations and theological treatises which are distinctly below the average, and very far indeed from having anything to do with the content of the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz. Life itself proves to us that it was not the Swabian pastor-to-be who wrote this Chymical Wedding out of his own soul. It is an inspired writing throughout.

So we may not always have to do with a man's own personality; there may be times when a spirit expresses itself through him. But there is a difference between the good Swabian pastor Valentin Andreae, who wrote those conventional theological treatises, and Lessing. Had Lessing been Valentin Andreae, merely transported into the 18th century, he might perhaps have written in his youth a beautiful treatise on the Education of the Human Race, bringing in the idea of repeated earth-lives. But he was not Valentin Andreae; he was Lessing, Lessing who had no visions, who even—so it is said—had no dreams. He banished the inspirer—unconsciously of course. If the inspirer had wanted to take possession of him in his youth, Lessing would have said: Go away, I have nothing to do with you. He followed the path that was normal for an educated man in the 18th century. And so it was only in extreme old age that he was mature enough to understand what had been in him throughout his life. It was with him as it would have been with Valentin Andreae if the latter had also banished the inspirer, had written no trivial, edifying sermons and theological treatises, but had waited until he reached a grey old age and had then written the Chymical Marriage of Christian Rosenkreutz consciously.

Such are the links that unite successive earth-lives. And the day must come when this will be clearly understood. If we take a single earth-life, whether it be that of Goethe, or Lessing or Herbert Spencer or Shakespeare or Darwin, and look at what emerges from that life alone, it is just as though we were to pluck off a flower from a plant and imagine that it can exist by itself. A single life on earth is not comprehensible by itself; the explanation for it must be sought on the basis of repeated earth-lives.

And now we shall find it most interesting to study the two personalities of whom I spoke yesterday, Lord Byron and my geometry teacher. (You will pardon me if I become personal here.) They had in common only the construction of the foot, but this is a feature that specially repays attention. If one follows it up in an occult sense, it leads one to a peculiar condition of the head in an earlier earth-life. I have shown you a similar connection in the case of Eduard von Hartmann.—There is no getting over it. One can do no other than simply relate such things, as vision reveals them to one. No external, logical proofs, no proofs in the ordinary sense, can be given for these things.—When we follow the lives of these two men, it appears to us as though the lives they led in the 19th century had been shifted out of place. For we find, first of all, a contradiction of something mentioned here a few weeks ago—that in the course of certain cycles of time, those who were once contemporaries will incarnate again as contemporaries. Everything, of course, has its exceptions. In the spiritual world there are rules, but there are no rigid schemes. Everything is individual.

Thus in the case of these two personalities one is led back to a period when their lives ran together. I would never have found Byron in this earlier life if I had not found this geometry teacher of mine at his side. Byron was a genius. My geometry teacher was not even a genius in his own way. He was not a genius at all, but he was an excellent geometrician, quite the best I have ever come across, because he was a genuine geometrician and nothing else. In the case of a painter or a musician, you know that you are dealing with a one-sided man. For as a matter of fact, people are significant only when they are one-sided. As a rule, however, a geometrician in our time is not one-sided. A geometrician knows the whole of mathematics; when he constructs something in geometry, he always knows how to state the equations for it. He knows the mathematical, calculating side of it all. But this geometry teacher, though an excellent geometrician, was properly speaking no mathematician at all. He understood, for example, nothing whatever of analytical geometry. He knew nothing of the geometry that has to do with calculating and equations; in that respect he sometimes did the most childish things. On one occasion it was really very humorous. The man was so entirely a constructive geometrician and nothing else that he arrived by means of constructive geometry at the fact that the circle is the locus of the constant quotient. He found it out by construction, and since no one had found it before by construction, he regarded himself as its discoverer. We boys, who were as yet unsophisticated and had a good store of high spirits left in us, knew that in our book of analytical geometry it is shown how one sets up such and such an equation and the circle comes. We took the occasion to change the name of the circle and to start calling it by the name of our geometry teacher. The “N.N. line” we called it (I won't give his real name). This man had in fact the one-sidedness of the constructive geometrician to the point of genius. That was what was so significant about him; his character and talents were so clearly defined. People of the present day are not like that at all; you cannot get hold of them; they are like slippery eels! My teacher was anything but a slippery eel; he was a man with sharp corners, and that even in his external appearance. He had a face shaped like this—quite square, a most interesting head, absolutely four-angled, nowhere round. Really, you could study in the face of the man the right-angled nature of his peculiar constructive talent. It was most interesting.

Now, in vision, this personality is found directly by the side of Byron, and one is led back to early times in Eastern Europe, one or two hundred years before the Crusades. I once told you how, when the Roman Emperor Constantine founded Constantinople, he had the Palladium—which had been taken originally to Rome from Troy—removed from Rome to Constantinople. The transference was carried out with tremendous pomp and ceremony. For the Palladium was regarded as a particularly sacred object, which bestowed power upon whoever had it. It was firmly believed in Rome that as long as the Palladium lay beneath a pillar in the city, the power of Rome resided in it, and that this power had been brought across to Rome from the once mighty city of Troy, devastated by the Greeks. And so Constantine, whose destiny it was to transplant the power of Rome to Constantinople, caused the Palladium to be taken across to Constantinople with great pomp and ceremony, though to begin with, quite secretly. He caused it to be buried, a wall built about it, and set up an ancient pillar that came from Egypt, over the spot where the Palladium lay. On the top of the pillar he placed an ancient statue of Apollo, so arranged as to look like himself. Then he had nails brought from the Cross of Christ. And out of these he made a sort of halo for the statue, which was, as I have said, an ancient statue of Apollo and at the same time was supposed to represent himself. And so there the Palladium lay, in Constantinople.

Now there is a legend which has later assumed strange forms, but is in reality very, very ancient. Later, in connection with the Testament of Peter the Great, it was revived and transformed, but it goes back to very ancient times. The legend tells how at some time in the future the Palladium would leave Constantinople and come further up towards the North-East. Hence the idea in the Russia of a later time that the Palladium must be brought from the city of Constantinople into Russia, in order that all that is connected with the Palladium, and had been corrupted under the rule of the Turks, might have its place in the rule of Eastern Europe. Now these two personalities in olden times—it was one or two hundred years before the Crusades but I have not been able to fix the exact year—resolved to go out from what is now Russia to Constantinople in order, by some means or other, to capture the Palladium and bring it into the East of Europe.

They did not succeed. Such a project could never have succeeded, for the Palladium was well guarded. There was no possibility of getting hold of it, and those who knew how it was guarded were not to be won over. But an overwhelming pain took possession of these two men. And the pain that entered into them like a piercing ray, paralysing them both in the head, manifested in Lord Byron in his being somewhat like Achilles who was vulnerable in the heel, for Byron had a defect in his foot. On the other hand he was a genius in his head, which was a compensation for the paralysis he had suffered in that earlier earth-life. The other man also, on account of the paralysed head, had a defective foot, a clubfoot. But let me tell you (for it is not generally realised) that man does not get geometry or mathematics out of his head. If you did not step the angle with your feet, your head would not have the perception of it. You would have no geometry at all if you did not walk and grasp hold of things. Geometry pushes its way up through the head and comes forth in ideas. And in anyone who has a foot such as my geometry teacher had, there resides a strong capacity to be alive to the geometrical constitution of his limbs and his motor organism and to re-create it in his head.

If one penetrated more deeply into this geometry teacher of mine, into his whole spiritual configuration, one gained a significant impression of him as a human being. There was something really delightful about his way of doing things! Fundamentally speaking, he did everything from the point of view of a constructive geometrician and it was as if the rest of the world were simply not there. He was a singularly free human being, but one had only to observe him closely enough to feel as though some inner spell had once held sway over him and had brought him to the one-sided condition I have described.

But now in Lord Byron—I have mentioned the other man only because I should not have been able to get at the truth about Lord Byron if he had not put me on the track—in Lord Byron you can truly see karma working itself out. Once, long ago, he goes across from the East to fetch the Palladium. When he is born in the West, he goes eastward to help the cause of freedom, the spiritual Palladium of the 19th century. And he is drawn to the very same region of the earth to which he had gone long ago, from the other side. It is really staggering to see how the same individuality comes to the same locality in one life from one direction, in another life from another direction; first, attracted by something that is still deeply veiled in myth, and later by what had become the great ideal of the “age of enlightenment.” There is something in all this that stirs one very deeply.

The things that come to light out of karmic connections are indeed startling. They always are. And in this realm we shall come to know of many other striking, paradoxical things. Today I wanted to give you a grasp of the remarkable way in which the connections between earlier and later earth-lives can play into human existence.

Zwölfter Vortrag

Nun, meine lieben Freunde, ich habe Ihnen gestern eine Anzahl von Persönlichkeiten geschildert, und man muß ja bei einer solchen Schilderung, damit die Dinge wenigstens ihren Äußerlichkeiten nach überprüft werden können, bekanntere Persönlichkeiten nehmen. Ich habe deshalb eine Anzahl bekannterer Persönlichkeiten geschildert, gerade nach denjenigen Charaktereigenschaften hin, die dem geisteswissenschaftlichen Untersucher die Möglichkeit bieten, Anhaltspunkte zu geben, um die karmischen Zusammenhänge zu verfolgen. Und ich habe diesmal -— wir werden ja über diese Dinge ausführlich in den verschiedensten Varianten immer wieder sprechen — solche Persönlichkeiten gewählt, an denen ich ein ganz bestimmtes Problem erörtern kann, ein Problem, das mir innerhalb der Gesellschaft entgegengetreten ist. Ich möchte dieses Problem, das, wie gesagt, andere gestellt haben, aus dem Schoße der Gesellschaft heraus, ganz trocken formulieren.

Es ist dies, daß ja bei jeder Gelegenheit hingewiesen wird darauf — mit Recht selbstverständlich -—, daß es in der Vorzeit eingeweihte Persönlichkeiten gegeben hat, eingeweihte Persönlichkeiten mit einer hohen Weisheit, auf einer hohen Entwickelungsstufe und so weiter, und daß dann doch die Frage entsteht: Ja, wenn das Leben der Menschen immer wiederkehrt, wo sind denn jetzt in der Gegenwart diese einmal initiierten Persönlichkeiten? Sind die nicht aufzufinden im Umkreise der Menschen der Gegenwart unter denen, die es sozusagen gerade trifft, ihre Wiederverkörperung in dieser Zeit erleben zu sollen?

Deshalb habe ich solche Beispiele gewählt, an denen ich zugleich diese Frage erörtern kann. Sehen Sie, ich habe Ihnen das Bild, soweit wir es zunächst brauchen, des italienischen Freiheitshelden Garibaldi vorgeführt, und ich glaube, daß Sie, wenn Sie das nehmen, was ich gestern besprochen habe, und alles das hinzufügen, was Ihnen ja in reichlichem Ausmaße über diese Persönlichkeit bekannt sein wird, Sie schon gerade an dieser Persönlichkeit außerordentlich viel Rätselhaftes finden werden, vieles, das große, bedeutungsvolle Fragen aufwirft.

Nehmen wir nur einmal die paar Züge, über die Sie gestern sich zuweilen sogar ergötzt haben, die ich angeführt habe, das Bekanntschaftmachen durch das Fernglas mit einer Lebensgefährtin für viele Jahre, das Bekanntwerden mit dem Todesurteil durch den zum ersten Mal gedruckten Namen. Auch etwas anderes Frappierendes ist bei Garibaldi noch da: Die Lebensgefährtin, die er auf die geschilderte Weise gefunden hat, und die in einer so heldenhaften Weise, wie ich es gestern geschildert habe, an seiner Seite gestanden hat, sie war eben seine Lebensgefährtin viele Jahre hindurch. Also durch das Fernglas konnte er etwas sehr Gutes sehen. Später starb sie ihm weg, und er hat sich ja ein zweites Mal verheiratet, diesmal nicht durch ein Fernglas, denn solch eine Sache macht man ja, selbst wenn man Garibaldi ist, wohl nur einmal im Leben, aber diesmal auf eine ganz gewöhnlich bürgerliche Art, so wie es eben, nicht wahr, unter guten Bürgern zugeht. Aber da dauerte die Ehe nur einen Tag für Garibaldi! Also Sie sehen, es gibt auch noch dieses zweite Frappierende an dem Verhältnis Garibaldis zu den gewöhnlichen bürgerlichen Verhältnissen in dieser Welt.

Dann gibt es aber etwas anderes. Diese Dinge, die ich Ihnen da schildere, die sind schon so, daß sie durchaus den, der an dergleichen okkulte Untersuchungen gewöhnt ist, ich möchte sagen, dazu stoßen, daß er sie gebrauchen kann, um so starke Anhaltspunkte zu haben, daß er dann mit dem Schauen wirklich in ein früheres Leben oder in eine Anzahl früherer Leben zurückdringt. Aber es gibt noch etwas anderes, was vor allen Dingen als ein starkes Problem auftritt.

Sehen Sie, Garibaldi war eigentlich seiner Gesinnung nach — ich habe es gestern schon durchleuchten lassen — Republikaner, durch und durch Republikaner. Aber er hat sich für die Befreiung Italiens so eingesetzt, daß er sich eigentlich gar nicht darauf eingelassen hat, Italien zu einer Republik zu machen, sondern Italien zu einem Königreich unter Viktor Emanuel zu machen. Das hat etwas außerordentlich Frappierendes. Wenn man den ganzen Garibaldi anschaut und dies nimmt, so hat es etwas außerordentlich Frappierendes. Da war auf der einen Seite Viktor Emanuel, der als König natürlich nur an der Spitze des italienischen, befreiten Staates stehen konnte.

Da war auf der anderen Seite Mazzini, der auch durchaus mit Garibaldi verbunden war, befreundet war, der eine Zeitlang ganz an der Spitze einer italienischen Republik gestanden hat, die da hätte eingerichtet werden sollen; der von sich aus nur dafür eintreten wollte, eine italienische Republik zu begründen.

Und die karmischen Verhältnisse bei Garibaldi lösen sich einem gar nicht, wenn man nicht auf einen gewissen Zusammenhang zunächst kommt. Und dieser Zusammenhang besteht in folgendem. Im Laufe von wenigen Jahren — Garibaldi, wissen Sie, ist 1807 in Nizza geboren — werden eigentlich im Umkreise von ein paar Quadratmeilen, könnte man sagen, vier Männer geboren, die dann einen deutlichen Lebenszusammenhang im weiteren Verlaufe der europäischen Verhältnisse hatten. In Nizza wird im Beginne des 19. Jahrhunderts also Garibaldi geboren. In Genua, also nicht weit davon entfernt, Mazzini. Wiederum in Turin, nicht weit davon entfernt, Cavour, und aus dem Savoyischen Hause, also wiederum nicht weit davon entfernt, Viktor Emanuel. Sie sind an Jahren und an der Lokalität der Geburtsorte durchaus einander nahegerückt. Und sie sind es alle viere, die zusammen, wenn auch nicht mit zusammenstimmender Gesinnung, ja, auch nicht mit zusammenstimmender gegenseitiger Behandlung, die aber zusammen dasjenige begründen, was dann das moderne Italien geworden ist.

Da weist einen schon gewissermaßen der äußere Verlauf der Geschichte einfach darauf hin, sich zu sagen: Diese vier Persönlichkeiten, die werden zusammengetragen, in deutlicher Weise zusammengetragen, um nicht nur für sich, sondern für die Welt ein gemeinsames Schicksal darzustellen.

Der Bedeutendste unter ihnen ist ohne Zweifel eben Garibaldi selber. Wenn man alle menschlichen Verhältnisse nimmt, ist der Bedeutendste von ihnen Garibaldi. Aber Garibaldis Geistigkeit tritt in einer elementarischen Art zutage. Mazzinis Geistigkeit ist eine philosophisch-erstudierte, Cavours Geistigkeit ist eine juristisch-erstudierte, und Viktor Emanuels Geistigkeit - nun ja... Also der Bedeutendste unter ihnen ist eben Garibaldi, alle menschlichen Verhältnisse genommen, und bei ihm ist etwas vorhanden, das mit elementarer Gewalt auftritt, so daß man nicht leicht gegenüber einer solchen Geistigkeit Psychologe sein kann. Man kann es nicht sein, wenn man eigentlich nicht weiß: Woher kommen die Dinge, wenn man sie so vom Standpunkte der persönlichen Psychologie eines Erdenlebens nimmt?

Nun komme ich auf die Frage zurück: Wo sind die früheren Eingeweihten? Denn man wird ja sagen, die seien nicht da. Ja, meine lieben Freunde, wenn in ausgiebigerem Maße heute die Möglichkeit gegeben wäre, daß die Menschen - ich muß in dieser Beziehung schon etwas paradox sprechen — entweder gleich mit siebzehn, achtzehn Jahren geboren würden, so daß sie also schon gleich siebzehn, achtzehn Jahre alt wären, aus der geistigen Welt herunterstiegen und siebzehn-, achtzehnjährige Körper vorfinden würden auf irgendeine Weise — ich sage natürlich etwas Paradoxes -, oder wenn wenigstens den Menschen erspart würde, die in heutiger Art konstituierte Schule durchzumachen, dann würden Sie finden, daß in heutigen Menschen die ehemaligen Eingeweihten auftreten könnten. Aber geradesowenig wie es den Eingeweihten möglich ist, unter den gewöhnlichen Erdenverhältnissen, wenn sie Brot brauchen, sich mit einem Stück Eis zu nähren, ebensowenig ist es möglich, die Weisheitsverhältnisse der alten Zeit unmittelbar in der Form, wie man es erwartet, in einem Körper zu manifestieren, der in dem Sinne, wie es die heutige Zivilisation mit sich bringt, bis zum siebzehnten, achtzehnten Lebensjahre erzogen wird. Das ist auf der ganzen Welt nicht möglich; wenigstens da, wo eben Zivilisation herrscht, ist es nicht möglich. Da kommen ja Dinge in Betracht, die überhaupt durchaus außer dem Gesichtskreise des heutigen Gebildeten liegen.

Wenn man, wie es heute üblich ist, unsere gegenwärtigen Lese- und Schreibkenntnisse vom sechsten, siebenten Lebensjahre an sich aneignen muß, so ist das eine solche Tortur für die Seele, die sich ihrer besonderen Eigenart nach entwickeln will, daß - ja, ich kann nur sagen, was ich schon in meiner Lebensbeschreibung gesagt habe: Ich verdanke das Hinwegräumen manches Hindernisses dem Umstande, daß ich mit zwölf Jahren nicht orthographisch schreiben konnte, überhaupt noch nicht ordentlich schreiben konnte. Ich habe es erwähnt in meiner Lebensbeschreibung, denn das so Schreibenkönnen, wie man es heute verlangt, ertötet gewisse Eigentümlichkeiten des Menschen.

Man muß schon so paradox sprechen. Es ist einmal eine Wahrheit. Es ist nichts zu machen dagegen, es ist eine Wahrheit. Und so kommt es eben, daß gerade hoch entwickelte Individualitäten der Vergangenheit eigentlich in ihrer Wiedergeburt nur zu erkennen sind von dem, der da auf diejenigen Manifestationen der Menschennatur schaut, die sich durch die heutige Zivilisationsbildung mehr hinter dem Menschen als in dem Menschen offenbaren.

Und in dieser Beziehung ist gerade Garibaldi ein außerordentlich schlagendes Beispiel. Die zivilisierten Menschen, einschließlich Cavours oder wenigstens der Anhänger von Cavour, für was haben sie denn Garibaldi gehalten? Für einen verdrehten Zwickel, für einen verdrehten Kerl, mit dem vernünftigerweise gar nicht zu diskutieren ist. Das ist es ja, was man auch berücksichtigen muß, denn es war eben vieles in seinen Schlußfolgerungen in der Art und Weise, wie er vor Leuten sprach, die auf die heutige Zivilisation versessen sind, sagen wir, zum mindesten unlogisch. Es war eigentlich an dieser Persönlichkeit schon im Exterieur vieles unlogisch. Es paßten viele Dinge nicht zusammen.

Und nur derjenige, der gewissermaßen hinter eine Persönlichkeit sieht, der auf das sieht, was in früheren Erdenleben in den Körper hinein konnte und was in diesem Erdenleben, weil die gegenwärtige Zivilisation die Körper ungeeignet macht, nicht in den Körper hinein konnte, wer auf das sehen kann, der kann sich eine Vorstellung machen, was eine solche Persönlichkeit eigentlich ist. Ein anderer kommt gar nicht darauf, denn das Allerwichtigste bei einer solchen Persönlichkeit liegt eigentlich hinter den Äußerungen, die auf äußerliche Art eben gemacht werden können. Ein wackerer — die Anwesenden sind ja immer ausgenommen -, ein wackerer Philister, sagen wir, der einfach sich so ausdrückt, wie er es gelernt hat, bei dem man also einen Abglanz seines schulmäßigen und sonstigen Lernens und Erziehens sieht, den kann man eben seiner moralisch-geistigen Art nach photographieren. Er ist da. Aber einen Menschen, der mit einer umfänglichen Weisheitsseele aus alten Zeiten herüberkommt, so daß diese Seele in dem Körper sich nicht ausdrücken kann, den kann man nicht darnach beurteilen, was von ihm mit den Mitteln der heutigen Zivilisation aus dem Körper herauskommt. Das kann man vor allen Dingen bei Garibaldi nicht. Da muß man gewissermaßen — ich meine das nur als Bild die Sache so aufnehmen, wie gewisse Spiritistenbilder sind, hinter denen ein Phantom sichtbar wird; so erscheint einem solch eine Persönlichkeit: Erstens ihrem bürgerlichen Wert nach, und dahinter dann — wie etwas Spirituelles, wie eine Geistaufnahme — dasjenige, was nun nicht herein kann in den Körper. |

Wenn man das alles berücksichtigt, namentlich wenn man sich tragen läßt im Schauen von den Dingen, die ich Ihnen besonders angeführt habe, dann fällt tatsächlich der Blick zu Garibaldi hin auf das Leben eines wirklich Eingeweihten zurück, der nur in einer ganz anderen Weise sich äußerlich auslebt, weil er eben in den Körper nicht ganz hinein kann. Und schließlich werden Ihnen doch die Dinge nicht ganz so erstaunlich erscheinen, wenn eben diese Eigenschaften, die ich hervorgehoben habe, berücksichtigt werden. Man muß schon etwas fremd sein dem, was einem heute anerzogen ist, man muß schon etwas «erdenentrückt» sein, wenn man durch ein Fernrohr sich in die bürgerlichen Verhältnisse hineinstellt, was ja sonst nicht üblich ist, und ähnliche Dinge. Es ist etwas, was in diesen Eigenschaften herausweist aus dem gewöhnlichen Drinnenstehen in diesen bürgerlichen Verhältnissen.

So werden wir denn bei Garibaldi zurückgeführt in ein Eingeweihtenleben, und gerade in ein Eingeweihtenleben, meine lieben Freunde, in einem solchen Mysterium, wie ich es hier vor einigen Monaten geschildert habe als ausgehend von Irland. Ich habe Ihnen die irischen Mysterien geschildert, ausgehend von Irland, aber zu suchen ist er in einer Zweigniederlassung nicht einmal gar sehr weit von hier, nämlich im Elsaß, im heutigen Elsaß; da finden wir in einem gewissen Grade eingeweiht gerade Garibaldi. Und zwar ist es ziemlich sicher, daß zwischen dieser Inkarnation, die wir etwa im 9. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert zu suchen haben, und der letzten im 19. Jahrhundert keine weitere dazwischen liegt, daß da ein langer Aufenthalt in der geistigen Welt dazwischen ist. Das ist dasjenige, was sich einem als das Geheimnis dieser Persönlichkeit gibt.

Aufgenommen hat diese Persönlichkeit das, was ich Ihnen als die Weisheitsgüter Hybernias geschildert habe, und zwar in einem sehr hohen Grade. Er war noch innerhalb der irischen Insel, der dortigen Mysterienstätte, und hat selbst die Kolonie geleitet, die dann später nach Europa hereingekommen ist.

Natürlich, geradeso wie, sagen wir, durch irgendein Spiegelglas der Spiegelform gemäß dasjenige anders wird, was sich abspiegelt, so kam das, was dazumal auf einem Gebiete vorhanden war, das die physische Welt und die darüberstehende geistige Welt umfaßte und worinnen ein solcher Eingeweihter tätig war in der Art, wie ich es damals vor Monaten geschildert habe, so kam das auf die Weise zum Ausdrucke, wie es sich im 19. Jahrhundert eben auf einem gewissen Standpunkte der Zivilisation entwickeln konnte. Und man muß sich schon daran gewöhnen, in einem Philosophen, in einem Dichter oder Künstler, den man in einem verflossenen Zeitalter findet, nicht etwa wiederum einen Philosophen oder Dichter oder Künstler im gegenwärtigen Zeitalter zu suchen. Die Verhältnisse ändern zwar nicht die Individualität des Menschen. Diese Individualität geht von Erdenleben zu Erdenleben. Aber die Art, wie sich diese Individualitäten ausleben können, die hängt ab von dem, was eben in einem Zeitalter möglich ist. Lassen Sie mich ein Beispiel einflechten, das Ihnen dies veranschaulichen könnte.

Auch eine weithin bekannte Persönlichkeit ist ja Ernst Haeckel. Ernst Haeckel ist bekannt als ein enthusiastischer Vertreter eines gewissen materialistischen Monismus, enthusiastisch, man könnte schon sagen bis zum Fanatismus. Ich brauche auch für ihn nicht, denn er ist ja hinlänglich bekannt, irgendwelche Charakteristiken hier vorzuführen. Wird man aber von dieser Persönlichkeit zurückgetrieben in die vorige Inkarnation, dann findet man jenen Papst, der aus dem Mönch Hildebrand geworden ist als Gregor VII.

Das Beispiel führe ich Ihnen aus dem Grunde vor, damit Sie sehen, wie verschieden nach den Kulturverhältnissen eines bestimmten Zeitalters ein und dieselbe Individualität nach außen sich äußern kann. Man würde nicht leicht darauf kommen, in dem Vertreter des materialistischen Monismus im 19. Jahrhundert den wiederverkörperten Papst Gregor VII. zu suchen. Aber auf diese Dinge, wie man mit den äußeren Zivilisationsmitteln des physischen Planes sich darlebt, kommt es ja der geistigen Welt in viel geringerem Grade an, als man denkt. Hinter der Persönlichkeit Haeckels und hinter der Persönlichkeit des Mönches Hildebrand liegt etwas, was viel gleicher, viel ähnlicher ist als das, worinnen sie verschieden sind, wenn der eine den Katholizismus in extremster Art zur Macht bringen will, der andere den Katholizismus in extremster Art bekämpft. Das ist für die geistige Welt keine so große Verschiedenheit. Bei der geistigen Welt kommt es auf ganz andere menschliche Hintergründe an als auf diese Dinge, die im Grunde genommen doch nur eine Bedeutung in der physischen Welt haben. Also Sie brauchen nicht deshalb sich zu verwundern, meine lieben Freunde, wenn in Garibaldi ein wirklicher Eingeweihter aus einem früheren Zeitalter, wie gesagt, aus dem 9. Jahrhundert zu sehen ist, und wenn das im 19. Jahrhundert in einer Weise zum Ausdrucke kam, wie es eben im 19, Jahrhundert nur zum Ausdruck kommen konnte. Denn wichtig für die Art und Weise, wie ein Mensch sich in die Welt hineinstellt, ist es, welches Temperament er hat, wie er mit seinen Charaktereigenschaften auftritt.

Ja, würde dasjenige, was Inhalt der Seele Garibaldis war in einer früheren Inkarnation, im 19. Jahrhundert mit dem Temperament Garibaldis aufgetreten sein, dann wäre er halt ein Irrsinniger gewesen für die Menschen des 19. Jahrhunderts. Er wäre als ein Irrsinniger betrachtet worden, als wahnsinnig. Das, als was er hat auftreten können, das ist er eben geworden im äußeren Leben.

Nun aber, sofort treten einem lichtvolle Erklärungen für andere karmische Zusammenhänge auf, wenn man die Direktion nach einer gewissen Richtung hin hat. Die anderen drei, von denen ich Ihnen gesprochen habe, die ungefähr in demselben Jahrzehnt mit ihm wieder zusammengetragen werden auf einen Erdenfleck, diese anderen drei waren seine Schüler dazumal, notabene seine Schüler, aus allen Windrichtungen zusammengeholt, der eine weit aus dem Norden, der andere weit aus dem Osten, der dritte weit aus dem Westen; aus allen Erdwinkeln zusammengeholt, waren sie seine Schüler.

Nun bestand gerade in den irischen Mysterien eine ganz bestimmte Verpflichtung für einen gewissen Einweihungsgrad. Diese Verpflichtung besagte, daß der Eingeweihte in allen ferneren Erdenleben seine Schüler weiter fördern muß, sie nicht verlassen darf. Wenn sie also durch ihre besonderen karmischen Verhältnisse mit ihm wiederum gleichzeitig im Erdenleben auftreten, so bedeutet das, daß er mit ihnen zusammen das Schicksal erleben muß, daß ihre Art des Karmas mit dem seinigen in Rechnung gesetzt werden muß. Wäre nicht mit der Individualität, die in Viktor Emanuel war, Garibaldi verbunden gewesen als der Lehrer Viktor Emanuels, dieses einstmaligen Schülers, dann wäre Garibaldi eben Republikaner geworden, der auch die italienische Republik begründet hätte. Aber da liegt hinter diesen rein abstrakten, prinzipiellen Dingen das lebendige Menschenleben, das von Erdendasein zu Erdendasein geht. Dahinter liegt diese Verpflichtung des alten Eingeweihten gegenüber seinen Schülern. Und deshalb dieser Widerspruch. Nach den Begriffen, nach den Ideen, die Garibaldi im 19. Jahrhundert fand, wurde er natürlich Republikaner. Was hätte er anders werden sollen? Ich habe ja so viele Republikaner gekannt, die treue Diener irgendeines Fürsten waren. Sie waren in ihrem Inneren Republikaner, weil einfach in einer gewissen Zeit des 19. Jahrhunderts — jetzt ist sie lange versunken, aber in der Zeit, in der ich ein Knabe war - eigentlich alle Leute, die sich für vernünftig hielten, Republikaner waren. Sie sagten, wir sind selbstverständlich Republikaner, man kann es nur nicht in der Außenwelt zeigen. Aber innerlich waren sie alle Republikaner. Nur war Garibaldi selbstverständlich ein solcher, der das auch in der Außenwelt zeigte, aber er hielt es nicht durch. Und alle diejenigen, die von ihm sogar begeistert waren, konnten es nicht begreifen, daß er es nicht durchhielt. Warum nicht? Weil er den Viktor Emanuel, der mit ihm karmisch verbunden war, in der Weise, wie ich es gekennzeichnet habe, nicht von sich lassen konnte. Er mußte ihn eben fördern. Und das war die einzige Art, wie er ihn fördern konnte,

Und ebenso waren die beiden anderen, Cavour und Mazzini, mit ihm karmisch verbunden, und er konnte nur eben das tun, was sie zu vollbringen imstande waren. Was also aus allen vieren hervorgehen konnte, das nur konnte er vollbringen. Er konnte nicht einseitig seiner Richtung folgen.

Und gerade aus solch einer tief bedeutsamen Tatsache, meine lieben Freunde, können Sie ersehen, wie manches, was einem im Leben entgegentritt, eigentlich erst aus den okkulten Hintergründen heraus erklärlich wird.

Haben Sie nicht auch schon manchen Menschen kennengelernt, der in irgendeinem Zeitpunkt seines Lebens irgend etwas tut, das Ihnen eigentlich unerklärlich ist? Sie hätten das nicht von ihm erwartet. Sie können es sich gar nicht aus seinem Charakter erklären. Es ist auch nicht aus seinem Charakter zu erklären. Würde er seinem persönlichen Charakter folgen, so würde er eben etwas anderes tun. Darinnen können Sie ganz recht haben. Aber ein anderer Mensch lebt noch neben ihm da, mit dem er in einer solchen Art, wie ich es für Garibaldi geschildert habe, karmisch verbunden ist. Weshalb tut er das, was er tut? Das Leben wird nur aus diesen seinen okkulten Untergründen heraus in Wirklichkeit erklärlich. So daß wir also gerade an dieser Persönlichkeit zurückgeführt werden, man kann schon sagen, in die hybernischen Mysterien. Das erscheint paradox, aber es ist eben so, daß wenn man auf das Geistige schaut, dasjenige, was im äußeren Erdenleben einem entgegentritt, vielfach eine Maja ist.

Und mancher Mensch, den man so im gewöhnlichen Leben öfter sieht, mit dem man so im gewöhnlichen Leben öfter zusammen ist: Wenn man ihm sagen könnte, was man alles an ihm lernen kann, wenn man durch ihn hindurch auf seine Individualität schaut, dann würde er äußerst verwundert sein; er würde wirklich äußerst verwundert sein. Denn dasjenige, was ein Mensch äußert, ist ja, besonders im gegenwärtigen Zeitalter, aus den Gründen, die ich angegeben habe, nur das Allerwenigste von dem, was ein Mensch eigentlich nach seinem vorigen Erdenleben ist. Da stecken viele Geheimnisse in den Dingen drinnen, von denen ich jetzt spreche.

Und nehmen Sie die zweite Persönlichkeit, von der ich gestern eine kurze Charakteristik gegeben habe: Lessing, der am Ende seines Lebens mit der Verkündigung der wiederholten Erdenleben selber auftritt. Bei ihm ist es so, daß man weit, weit zurückgeführt wird, und zwar bis in jenes griechische Altertum, in dem noch die alten griechischen Mysterien in voller Blüte waren. Da war Lessing ein Eingeweihter. Wiederum war es so, daß er im 18. Jahrhundert nicht völlig in den Körper untertauchen konnte. Dann war er, in Wiederholung dieses früheren Erdenlebens in der alten Griechenzeit, im 13. Jahrhundert ein Mitglied des Ordens der Dominikaner, ein ausgezeichneter Scholastiker, der Begriffsschärfe in sich aufgenommen hatte; und dann wurde er im 18. Jahrhundert eigentlich der erste Journalist Mitteleuropas.

Aber wirklich, sowohl das Toleranzdrama «Nathan der Weise», wie namentlich so etwas wie die «Hamburgische Dramaturgie» - lesen Sie nur gewisse Kapitel - und dann die «Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts», sie sind ja nur verständlich, wenn man die Voraussetzung macht, daß alle drei Inkarnationen dieser Persönlichkeit daran gearbeitet haben: Der alte griechische Eingeweihte — bitte lesen Sie die schöne Lessingsche Abhandlung «Wie die Alten den Tod gebildet» -, dann der in einem mittelalterlichen Aristotelismus erzogene Scholastiker, und derjenige, der eigentlich, indem das alles auf seiner Seele lag, nun hineingewachsen ist in die Zivilisation des 18. Jahrhunderts. Und sogar eine gewisse Tatsache, die außerordentlich auffällig ist, tritt einem klar entgegen, wenn man das, was ich gesagt habe, ins Auge faßt.

Es ist doch merkwürdig, daß das ganze Lessingsche Leben einem so erscheint, als ob es ein Suchen wäre. Er hat ja selbst diesen Charakter seines Wesens, seines geistigen Wesens dadurch zum Ausdrucke gebracht, daß er den berühmten Ausspruch getan hat, der immer wieder und wieder zitiert wird - allerdings in einer philiströsen Auffassung, denn alle Philister, die nicht gern etwas Bestimmtes erstreben möchten, sagen es ihm nach —: Und wenn Gott in seiner Rechten die ganze volle Wahrheit hielte, und in seiner Linken das ewige Streben nach Wahrheit, ich fiele vor ihm nieder und sagte: Vater, gib mir, was du in deiner Linken hast. — Das konnte ein Lessing sagen; wenn es ihm aber ein Philister nachsagt, so ist es natürlich etwas Entsetzliches. Aber dieses ist wichtig, daß sein ganzes Leben eben ein Suchen war, ein intensives Suchen, was man, wenn man ehrlich ist, dadurch zum Ausdrucke bringen muß, daß man sagt: Man stolpert eigentlich über viele Lessingsche Sätze, gerade über die genialsten stolpert man, die Leute getrauen sich nur nicht zu stolpern, weil eben Lessing in den Geschichts- und Literaturbüchern als eine Größe dasteht. In Wahrheit stolpert man schon, oder vielmehr man spießt sich auf. Das gestehen sich eben die Leute nicht. Natürlich muß man dann Lessing selber kennenlernen. Denn wenn man etwa das zweibändige Lessing-Buch von Erich Schmidt in die Hand nimmt, dann wird man von den Sätzen, auch wenn Erich Schmidt sie wörtlich zitiert, nicht aufgespießt. Sie sind noch immer dem Wortlaute nach die Lessingschen Sätze, aber was davor oder danach steht, das nimmt ihnen die Spitze weg.

Und dieser Sucher kommt eigentlich erst am Ende seines Erdenlebens dazu, die «Erziehung des Menschengeschlechts» mit dem Ausklingen in die Idee von den wiederholten Erdenleben zu schreiben. Warum dieses?

Ja, sehen Sie, so etwas müssen Sie sich verständlich machen durch eine andere Tatsache, die ich auch einmal behandelt habe. Ich habe ja in der ehemaligen, von unserem Freunde Bernus herausgegebenen Zeitschrift «Das Reich» die «Chymische Hochzeit des Christian Rosenkreutz» behandelt, habe darauf aufmerksam gemacht, daß ein siebzehn-, achtzehnjähriger Knabe diese «Chymische Hochzeit des Christian Rosenkreutz» niedergeschrieben hat. Verstanden hat der Knabe nichts, aber auch gar nichts davon. Dafür gibt es einen äußerlichen Beweis. Er hat diese Chymische Hochzeit niedergeschrieben bis auf die letzte Seite, die ja überhaupt nicht dasteht. Sie steht auch heute nicht da, aber er hat die Chymische Hochzeit niedergeschrieben — und hat nichts davon verstanden. Wenn er etwas davon verstanden hätte, so hätte er doch das Verständnis noch in späteren Jahren haben müssen. Aber aus dem Knaben ist ein wackerer württembergischer Schwabenpfarrer geworden, der, man kann sogar sagen, unter dem Durchschnitt Erbauungs- und theologische Schriften geschrieben hat, Schriften, die weit davon entfernt sind, irgend etwas zu haben von dem Inhalte der «Chymischen Hochzeit des Christian Rosenkreutz». Daß da also nicht der spätere Schwabenpfarrer mit seiner Seele diese Chymische Hochzeit aufgeschrieben hat, dafür liefert ja das Leben den Beweis. Denn das ist eine durch und durch inspirierte Schrift.

Also man hat es nicht immer mit der Persönlichkeit eines Menschen zu tun, wenn sich ein Geist durch einen Menschen äußert. Nur ist ein gewisser Unterschied zwischen dem wackeren Schwabenpfarrer Valentin Andreae, der die philiströsen theologischen Schriften geschrieben hat, und Lessing. Wäre Lessing, nur ins 18. Jahrhundert versetzt, Valentin Andreae gewesen, so hätte er vielleicht auch in seiner Jugend einen schönen Traktat geschrieben über die Erziehung des Menschengeschlechtes mit der Idee der wiederholten Erdenleben. Aber er war eben nicht Valentin Andreae, er war Lessing, jener Lessing, der keine Visionen, sogar, wie man sagt, keine Träume gehabt hat. Er hat den Inspirator fortgeschickt, natürlich im Unbewußten. Wenn der hätte in seiner Jugend über ihn kommen wollen, so hätte er gesagt: Geh weg, ich habe mit dir nichts zu tun. —- Er nahm seinen gewöhnlichen menschlichen Erziehungsweg im 18. Jahrhundert. Und dadurch wurde er erst im höchsten Alter reif, dasjenige zu verstehen, was immer in ihm war während seines Lessing-Lebens. Es war bei ihm so, wie wenn Valentin Andreae auch weggeschickt hätte den Inspirator und keine trivialen theologischen Erbauungsschriften geschrieben hätte, sondern bis ins Greisenalter gewartet und dann bewußt die «Chymische Hochzeit des Christian Rosenkreutz» geschrieben hätte.

So verkettet sind die einzelnen Erdenleben. Und es muß einmal dahin kommen, daß man sich voll bewußt wird: es ist wirklich so. Wenn man ein einzelnes Menschenleben — sei es das Goethesche, Lessingsche, Spencersche, Shakespearesche, Darwinsche Leben — nimmt und das ins Auge faßt, was aus diesem Menschenleben hervorgetreten ist, so ist es, wie wenn man eine Blume abreißt vom Blumenstock und glaubt, die kann für sich bestehen. So ein einzelnes Erdenleben ist nicht für sich erklärlich, man muß die Erklärung eben auf dem Grunde der wiederholten Erdenleben finden.

Interessant ist das Leben bei den zwei Persönlichkeiten, von denen ich dann gestern zuletzt gesprochen habe, Lord Byron auf der einen Seite und — verzeihen Sie, daß ich da persönlich werde - mein Geometrielehrer auf der anderen Seite. Sie hatten eben nur die Fußkonstruktion gemeinschaftlich, aber diese Fußkonstruktion ist doch außerordentlich beachtenswert. Wenn man diese Fußkonstruktion in okkulter Art verfolgt, führt sie einen darauf, daß sie in ähnlicher Weise, wie ich das für Eduard von Hartmann auseinandergesetzt habe, auf die besondere Beschaffenheit des Kopfes in einem früheren Erdenleben führt. Und gewiß, man kann solche Dinge nicht anders als eben erzählen, wie sie sich einem für das Schauen ergeben, ich habe das schon bei anderer Gelegenheit gesagt. Es kann ja nicht im gewöhnlichen Sinne äußere logische Beweise für diese Dinge geben. Wenn man nun das Leben dieser beiden Menschen verfolgt, so erscheint einem in der Tat wie verschoben das Erdenleben, das die beiden im 19. Jahrhundert gehabt haben. Denn da ist zunächst ein Widerspruch gegen etwas, was ich vor einigen Wochen hier angeführt habe: daß sich in gewissen Zyklen diejenigen, die einmal Zeitgenossen waren, wiederum als Zeitgenossen verkörpern. Es erleidet natürlich alles Ausnahmen. Daß man die Dinge nach dem «Schema F» behandeln kann, das geht schon auf dem physischen Plane nicht, wenn man nicht selber eben zum F im Schema werden will. Aber der geistigen Welt gegenüber, meine lieben Freunde, geht es schon gar nicht. Da gibt es zwar Regeln, aber nicht starre Schemen. Da ist alles individuell.

Und so wird man gerade bei diesen beiden Persönlichkeiten auf ein gemeinsames Erdenleben, das sie miteinander geführt haben, zurückversetzt. Byron hätte ich gar nicht in diesem früheren Erdenleben gefunden, wenn ich nicht diesen meinen Geometrielehrer an seiner Seite gefunden hätte. Byron war genial; dieser Geometrielehrer war nicht einmal in seiner Art genial. Er war gar nicht genial, aber er war ein ausgezeichneter Geometer, der beste, den ich in meinem Leben überhaupt kennengelernt habe, weil er ein echter Geometer war.

Wirklich — nicht wahr, bei einem Maler weiß man: da ist etwas Einseitiges; bei einem Musiker weiß man: er ist einseitig. Denn die Leute sind eigentlich nur bedeutend, wenn sie einseitig sind; aber ein Geometer in unserer Zeit ist in der Regel ja nicht einseitig. Ein Geometer kennt die ganze Mathematik und weiß, wenn er irgend etwas Geometrisches konstruiert, immer, wie man auch die Gleichungen aufstellt von diesen Dingen. Er weiß das Mathematische davon, das Rechnerische.

Dieser Geometrielehrer, von dem ich Ihnen jetzt erzähle, der war ein ausgezeichneter Geometer, aber gar kein Mathematiker. Er verstand gar nichts von analytischer Geometrie zum Beispiel. Von analytischer Geometrie, von der rechnerischen Geometrie, die mit Gleichungen zu tun hat, wußte er gar nichts; da hat er die kindlichsten Sachen gemacht.

Es war sogar einmal sehr spaßig. Der Mann war so sehr nur Konstrukteur, daß er durch konstruktive Methode darauf gekommen ist, daß der Kreis der geometrische Ort der konstanten Quotienten ist. Das hat er auf konstruktive Weise gefunden, und weil es auf konstruktive Weise niemand vor ihm gefunden hatte, hielt er sich für den Entdecker der Sache. Und wir Buben, die natürlich, insofern sie nicht gerade Philister waren, schon auch ein gut Stück Ausgelassenheit hatten, wir Buben wußten: in unserem analytischen Buch stand ja das drinnen, daß man eine solche Gleichung aufstellt und der Kreis kommt. Und wir haben da natürlich den Anlaß genommen, den Kreis nicht mehr Kreis zu nennen, sondern auf den Namen unseres Geometrielehrers zu benennen: die N.-N.-Linie haben wir gesagt — ich will den Namen nicht nennen. Wirklich, er hatte die geniale Einseitigkeit des konstruktiven Geometers. Das war auch das so Bedeutsame, so Prägnante an ihm. Die Menschen des gegenwärtigen Zeitalters sind ja nicht zu fassen; sie sind nicht so prägnant, es sind so viele Aale darunter. Aber das war kein Aal, das war ein Mensch mit Ecken, sogar in der äußeren Konfiguration. Er hatte ein Gesicht, das ungefähr viereckig geformt war, einen sehr interessanten Kopf, ganz viereckig, gar nichts Abgerundetes. Wirklich, das Rechteck konnte man in seinen Eigenschaften, in seinen konstruktiven Eigenschaften an dem Gesichte dieses Mannes studieren. Sehr interessant war das.

Es stellt sich nun in der Anschauung diese Persönlichkeit direkt neben Byron hin, und man wird zurückgeführt in sehr alte Zeiten Osteuropas, die etwa ein oder zwei Jahrhunderte vor den Kreuzzügen liegen.

Nun habe ich Ihnen einmal eine Geschichte erzählt — diejenigen, die dagewesen sind, werden sich erinnern -, daß, als der römische Kaiser Konstantin Konstantinopel begründet hatte, er das von Asien, von 'Troja nach Rom gebrachte Palladium von Rom aus nach Konstantinopel verpflanzen ließ. Das wurde mit einem ungeheuren Gepränge gemacht. Denn dieses Palladium wurde als ein besonderes Heiligtum angesehen, als etwas, das Kraft verleiht demjenigen, der es hat. Und so war man in Rom tatsächlich überzeugt, daß, so lange das Palladium unter einer Säule in Rom auf einem wichtigen Platze lag, darinnen eigentlich die Kraft Roms beruhe; man war überzeugt, daß man diese Kraft von dem einstmals mächtigen, nur eben von den Griechen zerstörten Troja herübergebracht hatte.

Konstantin, dem daran lag, die römische Macht nach Konstantinopel herüberzuverpflanzen, hat ja mit einem ungeheuren Gepränge dieses Palladium hinüber nach Konstantinopel bringen lassen, natürlich ganz im geheimen zunächst, es versenken lassen, darüber vermauert, und mit einer Säule, die von Ägypten stammte, den Platz bedecken lassen, darunter das Palladium lag. Dann hatte er diese alte Säule herrichten lassen, oben darauf eine alte Apollo-Statue gestellt, die aber so hergerichtet war, daß sie dem Kaiser Konstantin ähnlich sah in der damaligen Zeit. Dann ließ er Nägel aus dem Kreuz Christi kommen. Von denen machte er eine Strahlenkrone der Statue, die eine alte Apollo-Statue war, die aber ihn darstellen sollte. Und da war denn das Palladium nach Konstantinopel verlegt worden.

Nun gibt es eine Sage, die sich in einer merkwürdigen Weise später gebildet hat, die aber eigentlich sehr, sehr alt ist. Sie wurde nur später in Anlehnung an das Testament Peters des Großen wieder erneuert und umgestaltet, aber sie geht in sehr alte Zeiten zurück: daß nämlich einmal von Konstantinopel weiter nach Nordosten hinauf das Palladium kommen würde. Daraus ist im späteren Rußland eben die Anschauung entstanden, daß man das Palladium von der Hauptstadt Konstantinopel nach Rußland verpflanzen müsse. Dann gehe dasjenige, was damit verknüpft ist, was nur unter der Türkenherrschaft korrumpiert worden ist, über an die Herrschaft Osteuropas.

Nun, diese beiden Persönlichkeiten, diese beiden Individualitäten, die lernten in alten Zeiten diese Sage kennen — wie gesagt, ein oder zwei Jahrhunderte vor den Kreuzzügen, genau konnte ich das nicht feststellen —, und sie waren diejenigen, die sich darangemacht haben, aus dem heutigen Rußland heraus nach Konstantinopel zu gehen, um dort das Palladium in irgendeiner Weise zu erwerben und es nach dem Osten Europas zu bringen.

Dazu kam es nicht. Es konnte ja nicht dazu kommen, denn das Palladium war gut verwahrt, und die Persönlichkeiten, die wußten, wie es verwahrt ist, denen war es nicht abzugewinnen. Aber ein ungeheurer Schmerz bemächtigte sich dieser beiden Menschen. Und was da wie ein Strahl hineingegangen ist in den einen und in den anderen, das paralysierte geradezu ihre Köpfe in der damaligen Zeit, und das kam bei dem einen, bei Lord Byron, so zum Vorschein, daß er gewissermaßen wie Achilles, der an der Ferse verwundbar war, einen schadhaften Fuß hatte, dafür aber die Genialität des Hauptes, die einfach der Ausgleich war für die Paralysierung in dem früheren Erdenleben; und daß der andere nun auch wegen des paralysierten Hauptes den schadhaften Fuß, den Klumpfuß hatte. Aber, sehen Sie, man weiß es halt gewöhnlich nicht, daß der Mensch die Geometrie, die Mathematik nicht aus dem Kopfe hat. Wenn Sie nicht den Winkel abschreiten würden mit ihren Füßen, so hätte der Kopf nicht die Anschauung. Sie hätten überhaupt nichts von Geometrie, wenn Sie nicht mit der Geometrie gehen und greifen würden. Das alles schlägt sich aus dem Kopfe heraus und kommt in den Vorstellungen hervor. Und derjenige, der einen solchen Fuß hat wie mein Geometrielehrer, bei dem ist eine starke Aufmerksamkeitsmöglichkeit vorhanden, die geometrische Konstitution des motorischen Organismus, des Gliedmaßenorganismus in seinem Kopfe wiederzugeben.

Und wenn man sich in diesen Geometrielehrer vertiefte, in seine ganze geistige Konfiguration, dann hatte man noch einen bedeutsamen menschlichen Eindruck. Und wirklich, es war etwas Entzückendes in ihm, wenn er im Grunde genommen alles so tat als geometrischer Konstrukteur, wie wenn die ganze übrige Welt nicht da wäre. Er war ein ungeheuer freier Mensch, und es kam einem schon bei ihm - man mußte nur genau zusehen — etwas in den Sinn, wie wenn eine innere Zaubermacht einmal auf ihm gewaltet hätte und ihn zu dieser besagten Einseitigkeit gebracht hätte.

Nun, bei Lord Byron - ich erwähnte ja den zweiten nur, weil ich Lord Byron sonst nicht hätte kennenlernen können, wenn der mich nicht auf den Weg geführt hätte -, da sehen Sie aber das Karma sich auswirken. Von Osten herüber geht er einstmals, das Palladium zu holen. Als er im Westen geboren wird, geht er, um die Freiheit, das geistige Palladium im 19. Jahrhundert verwirklichen zu helfen. Und er geht, indem er von derselben Erdgegend angezogen wird, von derselben Richtung wenigstens, der er einstmals von der anderen Seite her gefolgt ist. Es hat etwas wirklich Erschütterndes, zu sehen, wie ein und dieselbe Individualität nach derselben Lokalität der Erde in einem Erdenleben von der einen, im anderen Erdenleben von der anderen Seite kommt; im einen Erdenleben berufen von dem, was tief in den Mythos nach den Anschauungen der damaligen Zeit getaucht ist, in dem anderen Erdenleben von demjenigen angezogen, was das Aufklärungszeitalter als das große Ideal hervorgebracht hatte. Es hat das etwas ungeheuer Erschütterndes.

Und erschütternd sind eigentlich die Dinge, die sich einem aus den karmischen Zusammenhängen heraus ergeben. Sie sind immer erschütternd. Und wir werden noch mancherlei Erschütterndes, Frappierendes, Paradoxes auf diesem Gebiete kennenlernen. Für heute wollte ich Ihnen eben das vorlegen, was Ihnen wirklich ganz begreiflich machen kann, wie merkwürdig die Zusammenhänge zwischen früheren und späteren Erdenleben sich im Menschentum einstellen können.

Twelfth Lecture

Now, my dear friends, yesterday I described a number of personalities to you, and in such a description, so that things can at least be examined according to their outward appearances, one must take better known personalities. I have therefore described a number of well-known personalities, precisely according to those character traits which offer the spiritual-scientific investigator the possibility of providing clues to trace the karmic connections. And I have chosen this time - we will talk about these things in detail in the most diverse variations again and again - such personalities with whom I can discuss a very specific problem, a problem that I have encountered within society. I would like to formulate this problem, which, as I said, others have posed, very dryly from the bosom of society.

It is that at every opportunity it is pointed out - quite rightly, of course - that in the past there were initiated personalities, initiated personalities with a high level of wisdom, at a high stage of development, and so on, and that the question then arises: Yes, if the life of human beings returns again and again, where are these once-initiated personalities now in the present? Are they not to be found in the circle of the people of the present among those who are, so to speak, experiencing their re-embodiment at this time?

That is why I have chosen such examples with which I can also discuss this question. You see, I have presented you with the picture, as far as we need it for the time being, of the Italian hero of freedom Garibaldi, and I believe that if you take what I discussed yesterday and add everything that you will know about this personality in abundance, you will find an extraordinary amount of mystery in this personality in particular, much that raises great, meaningful questions.

Let's just take the few traits that I mentioned yesterday, the acquaintance through binoculars with a life companion for many years, the acquaintance with the death sentence through the name printed for the first time. There is also something else striking about Garibaldi: the companion he found in the way I described, and who stood by his side in such a heroic way, as I described yesterday, was his companion for many years. So through the binoculars he could see something very good. Later she died on him, and he married a second time, this time not through binoculars, because even if you're Garibaldi, you only do something like that once in a lifetime, but this time in a very ordinary bourgeois way, the way things are, aren't they, among good citizens? But then the marriage only lasted one day for Garibaldi! So you see, there is also this second striking thing about Garibaldi's relationship to the ordinary bourgeois conditions in this world.

But then there is something else. These things that I am describing to you are such that they certainly push those who are accustomed to such occult investigations, I would like to say, to use them in order to have such strong clues that they then really penetrate back into an earlier life or into a number of earlier lives. But there is something else that is a major problem above all else.

You see, Garibaldi was actually a republican in his convictions - I already had it examined yesterday - a republican through and through. But he was so committed to the liberation of Italy that he did not actually agree to make Italy a republic, but to make Italy a kingdom under Victor Emmanuel. There is something extraordinarily striking about that. If you look at the whole of Garibaldi and take this, there is something extraordinarily striking about it. On the one hand, there was Victor Emmanuel, who as king could of course only stand at the head of the Italian, liberated state.

On the other hand, there was Mazzini, who was also very close to Garibaldi, who was friends with him, who for a time stood at the very head of an Italian republic that should have been established there; who only wanted to advocate the establishment of an Italian republic on his own initiative.

And the karmic circumstances of Garibaldi do not become clear to us if we do not first come to a certain connection. And this connection is as follows. In the course of a few years - Garibaldi, you know, was born in Nice in 1807 - four men were actually born within a radius of a few square miles, you could say, who then had a clear life connection in the further course of European circumstances. So it was in Nice that Garibaldi was born at the beginning of the 19th century. In Genoa, not far away, Mazzini. Again in Turin, not far away, Cavour, and from the Savoy family, again not far away, Victor Emmanuel. They are very close to each other in terms of age and place of birth. And they are all four of them, who together, even if they do not share the same mindset, indeed, even if they do not treat each other in the same way, together form what has become modern Italy.

In a sense, the outward course of history simply points to the fact that these four personalities are brought together, brought together in a clear way, to represent a common destiny not only for themselves, but for the world.

The most important of them is undoubtedly Garibaldi himself. If you take all human relationships, the most important of them is Garibaldi. But Garibaldi's spirituality emerges in an elementary way. Mazzini's spirituality is a philosophically studied one, Cavour's spirituality is a legally studied one, and Victor Emanuel's spirituality - well... So the most important of them is Garibaldi, all human relations taken together, and in him there is something that emerges with elemental force, so that one cannot easily be a psychologist in the face of such a spirituality. One cannot be if one does not actually know: Where do things come from if one takes them in this way from the standpoint of the personal psychology of an earthly life?

Now I come back to the question: Where are the former initiates? For one will say that they are not there. Yes, my dear friends, if the possibility were given to a greater extent today that people - I must speak somewhat paradoxically in this respect - would either be born at the age of seventeen or eighteen, so that they would already be seventeen or eighteen years old, descend from the spiritual world and find seventeen-, eighteen-year-old bodies in some way - I am of course saying something paradoxical - or at least if people were spared having to go through school as it is constituted today, then you would find that the former initiates could appear in people today. But just as it is not possible for initiates to nourish themselves with a piece of ice under ordinary earthly conditions when they need bread, so it is not possible for the wisdom conditions of the old time to manifest themselves directly in the form one expects in a body that is educated in the sense that today's civilization brings with it until the seventeenth or eighteenth year of life. This is not possible anywhere in the world; at least it is not possible where civilization prevails. There, things come into consideration that are completely beyond the scope of today's educated person.

If, as is customary today, one has to acquire our present reading and writing skills from the age of six or seven, it is such an ordeal for the soul, which wants to develop according to its special nature, that - yes, I can only say what I have already said in my biography: I owe the removal of many an obstacle to the fact that at the age of twelve I could not write orthographically, could not write properly at all. I mentioned this in my biography, because being able to write in the way that is required today kills off certain human characteristics.

You have to speak so paradoxically. For once it is a truth. Nothing can be done about it, it is a truth. And so it happens that the highly developed individualities of the past can only be recognized in their rebirth by those who look at those manifestations of human nature that reveal themselves more behind the human being than in the human being through today's formation of civilization.

And in this respect, Garibaldi is an extraordinarily striking example. Civilized people, including Cavour or at least Cavour's followers, what did they think Garibaldi was? For a twisted gusset, for a twisted fellow with whom it is not reasonable to argue. That's what you have to take into account, because there was a lot in his conclusions in the way he spoke to people who are obsessed with today's civilization, let's say, at least illogical. There was actually a lot that was illogical about this personality, even on the surface. Many things did not fit together.

And only those who look behind a personality, so to speak, who look at what could enter the body in earlier earthly lives and what could not enter the body in this earthly life because the present civilization makes the bodies unsuitable, who can look at that, can form an idea of what such a personality actually is. Others will not be able to do so, because the most important thing about such a personality lies behind the outward expressions that can be made. A brave - those present are always excluded - a brave philistine, let's say, who simply expresses himself in the way he has learned, in whom you can see a reflection of his scholastic and other learning and education, you can photograph him according to his moral and spiritual nature. He is there. But a person who comes over with a comprehensive wisdom soul from ancient times, so that this soul cannot express itself in the body, cannot be judged by what comes out of his body with the means of today's civilization. Above all, you cannot do that with Garibaldi. There one must, so to speak - I mean this only as an image - take the matter as certain spiritualist images are, behind which a phantom becomes visible; this is how such a personality appears to one: firstly according to its civil value, and then behind it - like something spiritual, like a spirit absorption - that which cannot now enter the body.

If you take all this into account, especially if you allow yourself to be carried by the things I have mentioned to you in particular, then the view of Garibaldi actually falls back on the life of a real initiate, who only lives outwardly in a completely different way because he cannot completely enter the body. And after all, things will not seem quite so astonishing to you if these very qualities that I have emphasized are taken into account. One must be somewhat alien to what one has been brought up with today, one must be somewhat “removed from the earth” if one places oneself through a telescope into bourgeois conditions, which is otherwise not usual, and similar things. It is something that in these qualities points out from the usual standing inside these bourgeois conditions.

So with Garibaldi we are led back into an initiate's life, and precisely into an initiate's life, my dear friends, in such a mystery as I described here a few months ago as emanating from Ireland. I have described the Irish mysteries to you, starting from Ireland, but he is to be sought in a branch not even very far from here, namely in Alsace, in present-day Alsace; there we find Garibaldi initiated to a certain degree. And it is quite certain that between this incarnation, which we have to look for in the 9th century AD, and the last one in the 19th century, there is no further incarnation, that there is a long stay in the spiritual world in between. That is what is revealed to us as the secret of this personality.

This personality has absorbed what I have described to you as the wisdom of Hybernia, and that to a very high degree. He was still within the Irish island, the mystery site there, and he himself led the colony that later came into Europe.

Naturally, just as, let us say, through any mirror glass that which is reflected becomes different according to the shape of the mirror, so that which was then present in an area that encompassed the physical world and the spiritual world above it and in which such an initiate was active in the way I described it months ago, so it was expressed in the way it could develop in the 19th century from a certain point of view of civilization. And you have to get used to looking for a philosopher, a poet or an artist in a bygone age, rather than looking for a philosopher, poet or artist in the present age. Circumstances do not change the individuality of man. This individuality passes from earthly life to earthly life. But the way in which these individualities can express themselves depends on what is possible in a particular age. Let me give you an example that might illustrate this for you.

Another well-known personality is Ernst Haeckel. Ernst Haeckel is known as an enthusiastic representative of a certain materialistic monism, enthusiastic, one could even say to the point of fanaticism. I don't need to present any characteristics for him here, because he is well known. But if one is driven back by this personality to the previous incarnation, then one finds the pope that the monk Hildebrand became as Gregory VII.

The reason I give you this example is so that you can see how differently one and the same individuality can express itself to the outside world according to the cultural conditions of a particular age. It would not be easy to find in the representative of materialistic monism in the 19th century the reincarnated Pope Gregory VII. But these things, how one lives with the external means of civilization of the physical plan, are much less important to the spiritual world than one might think. Behind the personality of Haeckel and behind the personality of the monk Hildebrand lies something that is much the same, much more similar than that in which they differ, when the one wants to bring Catholicism to power in the most extreme way, the other fights Catholicism in the most extreme way. This is not such a great difference for the spiritual world. In the spiritual world, it depends on completely different human backgrounds than on these things, which basically only have a meaning in the physical world. So you need not be surprised, my dear friends, if in Garibaldi you see a real initiate from an earlier age, as I said, from the 9th century, and if this was expressed in the 19th century in a way that it could only be expressed in the 19th century. Because what is important for the way a person presents himself in the world is his temperament, how he presents himself with his character traits.

Yes, if that which was the content of Garibaldi's soul in an earlier incarnation had appeared in the 19th century with Garibaldi's temperament, then he would have been a madman for the people of the 19th century. He would have been regarded as a madman, as insane. What he could have appeared as, that is what he became in outer life.

Now, however, luminous explanations for other karmic connections immediately appear to you if you have direction in a certain direction. The other three, of whom I have spoken to you, who were brought together again with him in about the same decade on one spot of earth, these other three were his disciples at that time, notabene his disciples, brought together from all wind directions, one far from the north, the other far from the east, the third far from the west; brought together from all corners of the earth, they were his disciples.

Now in the Irish Mysteries there was a very definite obligation for a certain degree of initiation. This obligation meant that the initiate must continue to support his disciples in all distant lives on earth, that he must not abandon them. If, therefore, through their particular karmic relations, they appear again simultaneously with him in earth-life, it means that he must experience fate together with them, that their kind of karma must be taken into account with his own. If Garibaldi had not been connected with the individuality that was in Victor Emmanuel as the teacher of Victor Emmanuel, this former pupil, then Garibaldi would have become a republican, who would also have founded the Italian Republic. But behind these purely abstract, principled things lies the living human life that goes from earthly existence to earthly existence. Behind it lies this obligation of the old initiate towards his disciples. And therefore this contradiction. According to the concepts, according to the ideas that Garibaldi found in the 19th century, he naturally became a republican. What could he have done differently? I have known so many republicans who were loyal servants of some prince or other. They were republicans at heart, simply because in a certain period of the 19th century - it's long gone now, but at the time when I was a boy - all people who considered themselves sensible were republicans. They said, of course we are republicans, you just can't show it in the outside world. But inside they were all republicans. But of course Garibaldi was one of those who showed it in the outside world, but he didn't keep it up. And all those who were even enthusiastic about him couldn't understand why he couldn't keep it up. Why not? Because he could not let go of Viktor Emanuel, who was karmically connected to him in the way I have described. He just had to support him. And that was the only way he could promote him.

And likewise the other two, Cavour and Mazzini, were karmically bound to him, and he could only do what they were capable of accomplishing. So what could emerge from all four, only he could accomplish. He could not follow his direction unilaterally.

And it is precisely from such a deeply significant fact, my dear friends, that you can see how many things you encounter in life can only be explained from the occult background.

Have you not also met some people who, at some point in their lives, do something that is actually inexplicable to you? You wouldn't have expected it from them. You can't explain it from their character. Nor can it be explained by his character. If he followed his personal character, he would do something else. You may be quite right about that. But there is another person living next to him with whom he is karmically connected in the way I have described for Garibaldi. Why does he do what he does? Life can only be explained in reality on the basis of his occult background. So that it is precisely through this personality that we are led back, one could even say, into the Hybernian mysteries. This seems paradoxical, but it is just so that when one looks at the spiritual, that which one encounters in outer earthly life is often a maja.

And some people whom you see more often in ordinary life, with whom you are together more often in ordinary life: If you could tell them what you can learn from them when you look through them at their individuality, they would be extremely astonished; they would really be extremely astonished. For what a person expresses is, especially in the present age, for the reasons I have given, only the very least of what a person actually is after his previous life on earth. There are many secrets in the things I am talking about now.

And take the second personality of whom I gave a brief characterization yesterday: Lessing, who appears at the end of his life with the proclamation of repeated earth lives himself. In his case, we are led far, far back into ancient Greece, when the ancient Greek mysteries were still in full bloom. Lessing was an initiate there. Again, in the 18th century, he was unable to immerse himself completely in the body. Then, repeating this earlier life on earth in ancient Greek times, in the 13th century he was a member of the Dominican order, an excellent scholastic who had absorbed conceptual acuity; and then, in the 18th century, he actually became the first journalist of Central Europe.

But really, both the tolerance drama “Nathan the Wise”, and especially something like the “Hamburg Dramaturgy” - just read certain chapters - and then the “Education of the Human Race”, they are only comprehensible if one makes the assumption that all three incarnations of this personality worked on them: The old Greek initiate - please read Lessing's beautiful treatise “How the Ancients Formed Death” - then the scholastic educated in a medieval Aristotelianism, and the one who actually, with all this lying on his soul, has now grown into the civilization of the 18th century. And even a certain fact, which is extraordinarily conspicuous, comes clearly to mind when one considers what I have said.

It is strange that Lessing's whole life appears to one as if it were a search. He himself expressed this character of his being, of his spiritual being, by making the famous statement which is quoted again and again - though in a philistine sense, for all philistines who do not like to strive for something definite repeat it after him: And if God held in his right hand the whole full truth, and in his left hand the eternal striving for truth, I would fall down before him and say: Father, give me what you have in your left hand. - A Lessing could say this; but if a Philistine says it to him, it is of course something horrible. But this is important, that his whole life was a search, an intensive search, which, if one is honest, must be expressed by saying: one actually stumbles over many of Lessing's sentences, one stumbles over the most ingenious ones in particular, people just don't dare to stumble because Lessing stands there in the history and literature books as a greatness. The truth is that you do stumble, or rather you impale yourself. People just don't admit that to themselves. Of course, you have to get to know Lessing yourself. Because if you pick up the two-volume Lessing book by Erich Schmidt, for example, you won't be skewered by the sentences, even if Erich Schmidt quotes them verbatim. They are still Lessing's sentences according to the wording, but what comes before or after them takes the sting out of them.

And this seeker only actually comes to write the “Education of the Human Race” at the end of his life on earth, with the idea of repeated earthly lives at the end. Why this?

Yes, you see, you have to make sense of something like this through another fact that I also dealt with once. In the former magazine “Das Reich”, published by our friend Bernus, I dealt with the “Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz”, I drew attention to the fact that a seventeen-, eighteen-year-old boy wrote down this “Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz”. The boy understood nothing, but nothing at all. There is external proof of this. He wrote this Chymische Hochzeit down to the last page, which is not there at all. It's not there today either, but he wrote down the Chymical Wedding - and didn't understand any of it. If he had understood any of it, he would have had to have understood it in later years. But the boy became a brave Swabian priest from Württemberg who, one could even say, wrote edifying and theological writings below the average, writings that are far from having anything of the content of the “Chymische Hochzeit des Christian Rosenkreutz”. The fact that it was not the later Swabian pastor who wrote down this Chymical Wedding with his soul is proven by his life. For this is a thoroughly inspired writing.

So we are not always dealing with the personality of a person when a spirit expresses itself through a person. But there is a certain difference between the brave Swabian priest Valentin Andreae, who wrote the philistine theological writings, and Lessing. If Lessing had only been Valentin Andreae in the 18th century, he might also have written a beautiful treatise in his youth on the education of the human race with the idea of repeated earthly lives. But he was not Valentin Andreae, he was Lessing, the Lessing who had no visions, or even, as they say, no dreams. He sent the inspirer away, naturally in the unconscious. If he had wanted to come upon him in his youth, he would have said: "Go away, I have nothing to do with you. -- He took his ordinary human educational path in the 18th century. And as a result he only became mature in his old age, to understand what was always in him during his Lessing life. It was as if Valentin Andreae had also sent the inspirer away and had not written any trivial theological edification writings, but had waited until old age and then consciously written the “Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz”.

So interlinked are the individual lives on earth. And it must come to pass that one fully realizes: it really is so. If one takes a single human life - be it Goethe's, Lessing's, Spencer's, Shakespeare's, Darwin's - and looks at what has emerged from this human life, it is like tearing a flower from the vine and believing that it can stand on its own. Such a single life on earth cannot be explained by itself, one must find the explanation on the basis of the repeated lives on earth.

Interesting is the life of the two personalities of whom I spoke last yesterday, Lord Byron on the one hand and - forgive me for being personal here - my geometry teacher on the other. They only had the foot construction in common, but this foot construction is extraordinarily remarkable. If you follow this foot construction in an occult way, it leads you to the conclusion that it leads to the particular constitution of the head in a previous life on earth in a similar way to what I have explained for Eduard von Hartmann. And certainly, one cannot tell such things in any other way than as they arise for one's perception, as I have already said on another occasion. There can be no external logical evidence for these things in the usual sense. If you now follow the lives of these two people, the life on earth that they both had in the 19th century does indeed appear to have been postponed. For there is first of all a contradiction to something I mentioned here a few weeks ago: that in certain cycles those who were once contemporaries incarnate themselves again as contemporaries. Of course, everything suffers exceptions. That one can treat things according to the “scheme F” is not possible on the physical plane, if one does not want to become an F in the scheme oneself. But in the spiritual world, my dear friends, it is certainly not possible. There are rules, but not rigid schemes. Everything is individual.

And so, with these two personalities in particular, you are taken back to a shared life on earth that they led together. I wouldn't have found Byron in this earlier earthly life if I hadn't found my geometry teacher at his side. Byron was brilliant; this geometry teacher was not even brilliant in his way. He wasn't genius at all, but he was an excellent geometrician, the best I ever met in my life, because he was a real geometrician.

Really - isn't it true that with a painter you know: there's something one-sided; with a musician you know: he's one-sided. Because people are only really important when they are one-sided; but a geometer in our time is not usually one-sided. A surveyor knows all the mathematics and, when he constructs something geometrical, he always knows how to set up the equations of these things. He knows the mathematical side of it, the mathematical side.

The geometry teacher I'm telling you about now was an excellent geometrician, but not a mathematician at all. He knew nothing about analytical geometry, for example. He didn't know anything about analytical geometry or computational geometry, which has to do with equations; he did the most childish things.

It was even very funny once. The man was such a constructor that he discovered by constructive methods that the circle is the geometric locus of constant quotients. He found this in a constructive way, and because nobody had found it in a constructive way before him, he considered himself the discoverer of the thing. And we boys, who of course, insofar as we were not philistines, also had a good deal of exuberance, we boys knew: in our analytical book it was written that you set up such an equation and the circle appears. And of course we took the opportunity to stop calling the circle a circle and instead named it after our geometry teacher: we called it the N.N. line - I don't want to mention the name. Really, he had the ingenious one-sidedness of the constructive geometrician. That was also what was so significant, so concise about him. The people of the present age cannot be captured; they are not so concise, there are so many eels among them. But this was not an eel, this was a man with corners, even in his outer configuration. He had a face that was roughly square in shape, a very interesting head, completely square, nothing rounded at all. Really, you could study the rectangle in its characteristics, in its constructive qualities in the face of this man. It was very interesting.

This personality now stands right next to Byron, and you are taken back to very old times in Eastern Europe, about a century or two before the Crusades.

Now I once told you a story - those who were there will remember - that when the Roman Emperor Constantine had founded Constantinople, he had the palladium brought from Asia, from 'Troy to Rome, transplanted from Rome to Constantinople. This was done with tremendous fanfare. For this palladium was regarded as a special sanctuary, as something that gave power to whoever had it. And so people in Rome were actually convinced that as long as the palladium lay under a pillar in an important place in Rome, it actually contained the power of Rome; they were convinced that this power had been brought over from the once mighty Troy, which had only just been destroyed by the Greeks.

Constantine, who was keen to transplant Roman power to Constantinople, had this palladium brought over to Constantinople with tremendous pomp and circumstance, of course quite secretly at first, had it sunk, walled up above it, and had the place under which the palladium lay covered with a column that came from Egypt. Then he had this old column made up and placed an old statue of Apollo on top of it, but it was made to look like the Emperor Constantine in those days. Then he had nails taken from the cross of Christ. From these he made a crown of rays for the statue, which was an old statue of Apollo, but which was supposed to represent him. And then the Palladium was moved to Constantinople.

Now there is a legend that developed later in a strange way, but which is actually very, very old. It was only later renewed and reshaped on the basis of Peter the Great's will, but it goes back to very old times: namely that the Palladium would one day come from Constantinople further up to the north-east. This gave rise to the view in later Russia that the Palladium had to be transplanted from the capital Constantinople to Russia. Then everything connected with it, which had only been corrupted under Turkish rule, would be transferred to the rule of Eastern Europe.

Well, these two personalities, these two individualities, they got to know this legend in ancient times - as I said, one or two centuries before the Crusades, I couldn't find out exactly - and they were the ones who set out to go from what is now Russia to Constantinople to acquire the Palladium in some way and bring it to Eastern Europe.

This did not happen. It could not come to that, because the Palladium was well kept, and the personalities who knew how it was kept could not be wrested from it. But a tremendous pain took hold of these two people. And what went into the one and the other like a ray, paralyzed their minds at that time, and that came out in the one, in Lord Byron, in such a way that he had, as it were, like Achilles, who was vulnerable at the heel, a damaged foot, but the genius of the head, which was simply the compensation for the paralysis in the earlier life on earth; and that the other now also had the defective foot, the clubfoot, because of the paralyzed head. But, you see, one does not usually realize that man does not have geometry, mathematics, out of his head. If you didn't walk the angle with your feet, your head wouldn't have the view. You would have nothing of geometry at all if you did not walk and grasp with geometry. It all comes out of the head and emerges in the imagination. And those who have a foot like that of my geometry teacher have a strong power of attention to reproduce the geometric constitution of the motor organism, the limb organism in their head.

And if you immersed yourself in this geometry teacher, in his whole mental configuration, then you still had a significant human impression. And really, there was something delightful about him when he basically did everything as a geometric constructor, as if the rest of the world were not there. He was a tremendously free man, and there was something about him - you only had to look closely - as if an inner magic power had once worked on him and brought him to this one-sidedness.

Now, with Lord Byron - I only mentioned the second one because otherwise I would not have been able to get to know Lord Byron if he had not led me on this path - you can see the effects of karma. From the East he once went to fetch the palladium. When he was born in the West, he went to help realize freedom, the spiritual palladium in the 19th century. And he goes by being drawn to the same region of the earth, at least to the same direction that he once followed from the other side. There is something really shocking in seeing how one and the same individuality comes to the same locality of the earth from one side in one earthly life and from the other side in the other earthly life; in the one earthly life called by that which is deeply immersed in myth according to the views of the time, in the other earthly life attracted by that which the Age of Enlightenment had brought forth as the great ideal. There is something tremendously shattering about it.

And the things that arise from the karmic connections are actually shattering. They are always shattering. And we will get to know many shocking, astonishing and paradoxical things in this area. For today, I wanted to present to you something that can really make you understand how strange the connections between earlier and later earthly lives can be in humanity.