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Karmic Relationships II
GA 236

12 April 1924, Dornach

Lecture II

It is a little difficult to continue what has been given in the last lectures, because so many friends who have not taken part in these studies are here to-day. On the other hand it is hardly possible to make a new beginning, for many things contained in the previous lectures have still to be completed. Friends who have just arrived will have to realise that if some of our thoughts to-day prove somewhat difficult to understand, it is because they are connected—inwardly, though not outwardly—with preceding lectures. At Easter we shall have a self-contained course, but to-day I must continue what has gone before. We did not expect so many friends at this date, although needless to say we are extremely glad that they have come.

In recent lectures we have been speaking of definite karmic relationships—not with the object of finding anything sensational in the successive earthly lives we have studied, but in order to arrive step by step at a really concrete understanding of the connections of destiny in human life.

I have described successive earthly lives of certain historic figures, in order to call forth an idea of how one earthly life works on into the next—and that is not an easy matter.

Again and again it must be emphasised that a new trend has come into the Anthroposophical Movement since the Christmas Foundation Meeting at Dornach. Of this I should now like to say a few introductory words.—You know, my dear friends, that since the year 1918 there have been all manner of undertakings within the Anthroposophical Society. Their origin is clear. When the Anthroposophical Society was founded, this question was really being asked, out of a deep occult impulse: Would the Anthroposophical Society continue to evolve by virtue of the inner strength which (in its members) it had acquired until then? There was only one way to make the test. Until then, I, as General Secretary, had had the leadership of the German Section, which was the form in which the Anthroposophical Movement had existed within the Theosophical Society. The only way now was for me no longer to take in hand the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society but to watch and see how this Society would evolve through its own inherent strength.

You see, my dear friends, that is something quite different from what the position would have been if already at that time (as at our Christmas Foundation Meeting) I had said that I would undertake the leadership of the Society. For the Anthroposophical Society, if led by me, must naturally be an altogether different thing than if led by someone else. Moreover, for certain deep reasons, the Society might have been led all the better if I myself had not had the administrative leadership. Many things might have been done if human hearts had spoken—things which in fact remained undone, or which were even done from outside, often enough under resistance from the anthroposophists.

During the War, of course, we had little opportunity to unfold our forces in all directions. So it came about that after the year 1918, the prevailing state of affairs was taken advantage of by those from many quarters who wanted to do this or that. If I had said at the time, “No, these things shall not be done”, then of course we should hear it said to-day: “If this or that had only been allowed, we should now have numbers of flourishing undertakings.”

For this very reason it was the custom at all times for the leaders of occult movements to let those who wanted to do something try it out and see what became of it, so that convictions might be called forth by the facts themselves. For that is the only way to call forth conviction. And so it had to be in our case too.

The upshot of it all has been that since the year 1918, opposition to our Movement has grown rife, and has brought about the present state of affairs, when it is impossible for me, for instance, to give public lectures in Germany.

At the present moment these facts must in no way be concealed from the Anthroposophical Movement. We must face them with all clarity. As long as we work with unclear situations we shall make no progress.

As you know, all manner of experiments were made in the hope of being ‘truly scientific’—shall we say? Quite naturally so, in view of the characters of those concerned! Scientists who also partake in our Society naturally like to be scientific. But that is the very thing that annoys our opponents. When we say to them, “As scientists we can prove this or that truth”, they come forward with all their so-called scientific claims, and then of course they become furious. We should be under no illusions on this point. Nothing has annoyed our opponents more than the fact that our members have tried to speak on the same subjects as they themselves do, and in the same manner, only—as these our members often used to say—“letting a little Anthroposophy flow into it.” It was precisely this which called forth our opponents in such overwhelming numbers.

Again, we offend most strongly against the life-conditions of Anthroposophy if we give ourselves up to the illusion that we can win over the adherents of various religious communities by saying the same or similar things as they, only once more “letting Anthroposophy flow into it.”

But now, since the Christmas Foundation Meeting, an entirely new element must come into all that is being done in the field of Anthroposophy. Those of you who have observed the way Anthroposophy is now being presented here, or the way it was presented at Prague and again at Stuttgart, will have observed that impulses are now at work which call forth something altogether new, even where our opponents are concerned. If we try to be ‘scientific’ in the ordinary sense of the word—as, unfortunately, many of our members have tried to be—then we are presuming, so to speak, that it is possible to enter into discussion with them. But now take the lectures that have been given here, or the lectures at Prague, or the single lectures at Stuttgart—can you believe for a single moment that there can be any question of entering into discussion with our opponents on these matters? It goes without saying: we can enter into no discussion with our opponents when we speak of these things. How, for example, should we discuss with any representative of the civilisation of to-day the statement, for example, that the soul of Muavija appeared again in the soul of Woodrow Wilson?1See Vol. I, lecture X.

Thus in the whole Anthroposophical Movement there is now a prevailing quality which can tend to nothing else than this.—We must take it at last in real earnest that there can be no question of entering into discussion or argument with our opponents. For if we do so, it will in any case lead nowhere. Thus we must realise that, with regard to our opponents, it can only be a question of refuting calumnies, untruths and lies. We must not give up ourselves to the illusion that these things can be discussed. They must expand by their own inherent power; they cannot be decided by any dialectic.

Through the whole tenor of the Anthroposophical Movement as it has been since Christmas last, this will perhaps be realised increasingly, even by our members. Henceforth the Anthroposophical Movement will take this attitude: It will no longer pay heed to anything other than what the spiritual world itself requires of it.

It is from this standpoint that I have placed before you various thoughts on karma. Those of you who were here, or who heard my last lecture at Stuttgart, will remember that I tried to show how the individualities who lived in the 8th and 9th centuries A.D. at the Court of Haroun al Raschid in Asia, having continued to evolve after death in different directions, played certain definite parts in their new incarnations. At the time of the Thirty Years' War (and a short time before) we have on the one hand the individuality of Haroun al Raschid, reincarnated in the Englishman, Bacon of Verulam. And a great organiser at the Court of Haroun al Raschid, who had lived at the Court—not indeed as an Initiate, but as the reincarnation of an Initiate—this individuality we found again as Amos Comenius, whose field of action was rather in Middle Europe. From these two streams, much in the spiritual part of modern civilisation flowed together. In the spiritual and intellectual aspect of modern civilisation, the Near East—as it was in the time immediately after Mohammed—lived again, on the one hand through the reincarnated Haroun al Raschid, Bacon of Verulam; and on the other hand through Amos Comenius, who had been his counsellor.

In the present lecture I wish to emphasise the following fact:—The evolution of man does not merely take place when he is here on earth, but also when he is between death and a new birth. Bacon as well as Amos Comenius, having fastened Arabism—so to speak from two different sides—on to the civilisation of Europe, died again and passed into the life between death and a new birth. And there they were together with many souls who came down to earth after their time. Bacon and Amos Comenius, having died in the 17th century, lived on in the spiritual world. Other souls, who came down to earth in the 19th century, were in the spiritual world together with the souls of Bacon and Amos Comenius from the 17th to the 19th. On the one hand there were souls who gathered mainly around the soul of Bacon—Bacon whose work became so dominant. Then there were the souls who gathered around Amos Comenius. And though this is rather a pictorial way of speaking, we must not forget that there are ‘leaders’ and ‘followers’—albeit under quite different conditions—even in the spiritual world which men pass through between death and a new birth. Such individualities as Bacon or Amos Comenius worked not only through what they brought about on earth—through their writings, for example, or through the traditions of them which lived on on earth. No, these leading spirits were also working through the souls whom they sent down, or the souls with whom they were together and who were then sent down; they worked by causing certain tendencies to germinate in these souls in the spiritual world. Thus among the men of the 19th century we find souls who had become dependent already in their evolution in the pre-earthly life on one or other of these two spirits—the discarnate Amos Comenius, and the discarnate Bacon.

As I said, I want to lead you more and more into the concrete way in which karma works. Therefore I will now draw your attention to two personalities of the 19th century whose names will be known to most of you. One of them was especially influenced in his pre-earthly life by Bacon, and the other by Amos Comenius.

If we observe Bacon as he stood in earthly civilisation—in his earthly life as Lord Chancellor in England—if we observe him there, we find that his working was such that an Initiate stood behind him. The whole Bacon-Shakespeare controversy, as it is outwardly pursued by the historians of literature, is appallingly barren. All manner of arguments are brought forward which are supposed to show that Shakespeare the actor did not really write his dramas, but that they were written by Bacon the philosopher and Lord Chancellor, and so on ...

All these things—working with external methods, seeking out similarities in the way of thought in Shakespeare's dramas and Bacon's philosophic works—all these are barren superficialities. They do not get at the real truth. For the truth is that at the time when Bacon, Shakespeare, Jacob Boehme, and a fourth were working on the earth, there was one Initiate who really spoke through all four. Hence their kinship, for in reality it all goes back to one and the same source. Of course, these people who dispute and argue do not argue about the Initiate who stood behind, especially as this Initiate—like many a modern Initiate—is described to us in history as a rather intolerable fellow. But he was not merely so. No doubt he was so sometimes in his external actions, but he was not merely so. He was an individuality from whom immense forces proceeded, and to whom were really due Bacon's philosophic works as well as Shakespeare's dramas and the works of Jacob Boehme, and also the works of the Jesuit, Jacob Balde.

If we bear this in mind, then we must see in Bacon, in the philosophic realm, the instigator of an immense and far-reaching stream of the time.

It is most interesting to observe what could become of a soul who lived throughout the two centuries, in the life beyond the earth, under the influence of the dead Bacon. We must turn our attention to the way in which Bacon himself lived after his death. For our studies of human history it will in fact be more and more important to observe the human beings who have lived on earth not only until the moment of their death but in their working beyond death, where they work on and on upon those souls who are afterwards to descend to earth. This applies especially to those who have themselves been responsible for great spiritual achievements.

No doubt these things may be somewhat shocking for men of the present time. So for instance I remember—if I may make this digression—I remember on one occasion I was standing at the entrance to the railway station in a small German University town with a well-known doctor who went in a great deal for occultism. Around us stood many other people. Presently he warmed up to his subject and out of his enthusiasm said to me in a loud voice, so that many of those who were around could hear him: “I will make you a present of the biography of Robert Blum; but that is a biography which begins only after his death.” Spoken loudly as it was, one could well observe the shock it gave to those who were standing around us! One cannot say without more ado to the people of to-day, “I will make you a present of the biography of a man, but it begins only after his death.”

For the rest—apart from this two-volumed biography of Robert Blum, which begins not with his birth but with his death—little has yet been done in the way of relating the biographies of men after their death. Biographies generally begin at birth and end at death; there are not yet many works that begin with a man's death.

Yet, for the real happenings of the world, what a man does after his death is immensely important, notably when he passes on the results of what he did on earth—translated into the spiritual—to the souls who come down after him. We cannot understand the age which succeeds a given age if we do not observe this side of life.

Now I was specially interested in observing those individualities who surrounded Bacon after his death. Among them were individualities who were subsequently born as natural scientists. But there were also others who were born as historians; and if we observe the influence of the dead Lord Bacon on these souls, we see how the materialism which he founded upon earth—the mere researching into the world of sense (for, as you know, everything else was for him an ‘idol’)—translated into the spiritual, reverts into a kind of radicalism. And so indeed, in the very midst of the spiritual world, these souls received impulses which worked on in such a way that after their birth, having descended to the earth, they would attach no value to anything that was not a concrete fact visible to the senses.

I will now speak in a somewhat popular form, but I beg you not to take my words too literally, for if you do so it will of course be only too easy to say: ‘How grotesque!’ Among these souls there were also some who, by their former tendencies—derived from former earthly lives—were destined to become historians. And among them was one who was the greatest. (I am still speaking of the pre-earthly lives of all these souls). One among them was the greatest. Under the influence of Lord Bacon's impulses, all these souls said to themselves, in effect: It is no longer permissible to write history as it was written in former times, to write it with Ideas, investigating the inner connections. Only the actual facts must now be the object of our research.

Now I ask you, what does this mean? Are not the intentions of men the most important thing in history?—and they are not outwardly real! These souls, however, no longer permitted themselves to think in this way; and least of all did the soul who afterwards appeared again as one of the greatest historians of the 19th century—Leopold von Ranke. Leopold von Ranke was a pre-earthly disciple of Lord Bacon.

Study the earthly career of Leopold von Ranke as a historian. What is his principle? Ranke's principle as a historian is this: nothing must be written in history save what is to be read of in the archives. We must compile all history from the archives—from the actual transactions of the diplomats.

If you read Ranke you will find it so. He is a German and a Protestant, but with his sense of reality this has no effect on him. He works objectively—that is to say, with the objectivity of the archives. So he writes his History of the Popes—the best that has ever been written from the pure standpoint of archives. When we read Ranke we are irritated, nay dreadfully so. It is a barren prospect to imagine the old gentleman—quick and alert as he was until a ripe old age—sitting forever in the archives and merely piecing together the diplomatic transactions. That is no real history. It is history which reckons only with the facts of the sense-world—that is to say, for the historian, with the archives.

And so indeed, precisely by taking into account the life beyond the earth we have the possibility to understand why Ranke became what he was.

But now we can also look across to Amos Comenius, and observe how he worked on the pre-earthly willing of souls who afterwards descended to the earth. For just as Leopold von Ranke became the greatest disciple of Bacon—of Bacon after his death—so did Schlosser become the greatest disciple of Comenius after his death.

Read Schlosser's History; observe the prevailing tone, the fundamental note he strikes. On every page there speaks the moralist—the moralist who would fain seize the human heart and soul—whose object is to speak right into the heart. Often he scarcely succeeds, for he is still rather a pedant. He speaks, in effect, like a pedant speaking to the heart. Nevertheless, being a pre-earthly disciple of Amos Comenius, he has absorbed something of the quality that was in Comenius himself, who was so characteristic by virtue of the peculiar quality of his spirit. For after all, Comenius too came over from Mohammedanism. Though he was very different from the spirits who gathered around Lord Bacon, nevertheless Comenius too, in his incarnation as Comenius, concentrated on the real, outer world. Everywhere he demanded visibility, objectivity, in education. There must always be an underlying picture. He demands vision—object lessons, as it were; he too lays stress on the sense-perceptible, though in quite another way. For Amos Comenius was also one of those who at the time of the Thirty Years' War believed most enthusiastically in the coming of the so-called Millennium. In his Pansophia he wrote down great and world-embracing ideas. He wanted to work for human education by a great impulsive power. This too worked on Schlosser. It is there in Schlosser.

I mention these two figures—Ranke and Schlosser—in order to show you how we can understand what appears as the spiritually productive power in man only if we also take into account his life beyond the earth. Only then do we understand it—just as we have also learnt to understand many things by taking into account repeated lives on earth. For in the thoughts which I have recently placed before you, we have observed this marvellous working across from one incarnation to another. As I said, I give these examples in order that we may then consider how a man can think about his own karma. Before we can dwell on the way in which good and evil—or illnesses or the like—work over from one incarnation to another, we must first learn to perceive how that which afterwards emerges in the spiritual and intellectual life of civilisation also works across from one incarnation to another.

Now my dear friends, I must admit that for me one of the most interesting personalities in modern spiritual life, with regard to his karma, was Conrad Ferdinand Meyer. Anyone who observes him closely will see that his most beautiful works depend on a peculiar fact, namely this: Again and again, in his whole human constitution, there was a kind of tendency for the Ego and astral body to flee from the physical and the etheric bodies.

Morbid conditions appear in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, bordering very nearly on dementia. But these morbid conditions only express in a rather more extreme form what was always present in him in a nascent state. His soul-and-spirit tends to go out—holds to the physical and etheric only by a very loose thread. And in this condition—the soul-and-spirit holding to the physical and etheric by a very loose thread only—the most beautiful of his works originate; I mean the most beautiful of his longer works and of his shorter poems too. Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's most beautiful poems may even be said to have originated half out of the body. There was a peculiar relationship between the four members of his nature. Truly there is a great difference between such a personality and an average man of the present time. With an average man of this materialistic age we generally find a very firm and robust connection of the soul-and-spirit with the physical and etheric. The soul-and-spirit is deeply immersed in the physical and etheric—‘sits tight’, as it were. But in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer it was not so. He had a very tender relation of the soul-and-spirit to the physical and etheric. To describe his psyche is really one of the most interesting tasks one can undertake when studying the developments of modern spiritual life. Many things that emerge in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer appear almost like a dim, cloudy recollection—a recollection which has however grown beautiful in growing dim. When Conrad Ferdinand Meyer writes we always have the feeling: He is remembering something, though not quite exactly. He changes it—but changes it into something beautiful and form-perfected. We can observe this wonderfully, piece by piece, in certain of his works.

Now it is characteristic of the inner karma of a human being when there is such a definite relationship of the four members of his nature—physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego. And in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's case, when we trace back this peculiarly intimate connection, we are led, first of all, to the time of the Thirty Years' War. This was the first thing clear to me in his case: there is something of a former earthly life at the time of the Thirty Years' War. And then there is a still earlier life on earth going back into the pre-Carlovingian age, going back quite evidently into the early history of Italy.

When we endeavour to trace Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's karma, the peculiar, intangible fluidity of his being (which none the less expresses itself in such perfection of form)—the peculiar, intangible fluidity of his life somehow communicates itself to our investigation, until at length we feel: We are getting into confusion. I have no other alternative but to describe these things just as they happened in the investigation.

We go back into the time of the 6th century in Italy. There we have the feeling: We are getting into an extraordinarily insecure element. We are driven back again and again, and only gradually we observe that this is not due to ourselves but to the object of our research. There is really in the soul—in the individuality—of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer something that brings us into confusion as we try to investigate him. We are driven to return again and again into his present incarnation or into the one immediately before it. Again and again we must ‘pull ourselves up’ and go back again.

The following was the result.—You must remember, all that has lived in a human soul in former incarnations becomes manifest in the most varied forms—in likenesses which are often quite imperceptible to outer observation. This you will have seen from other instances of reincarnation given here.

So at length we come to an incarnation in Italy in the early Christian centuries—at the end of the first half of the first millennium A.D. Here we come to a halt. We find a soul living in Italy, to a large extent at Ravenna, at the Roman Court. But now we come into confusion. For we must ask ourselves: What was living in that soul? The moment we ask ourselves this question (in order to call forth the further occult investigation), the whole thing is extinguished once again.

We become aware of the experiences which this soul underwent while living at the Court at Ravenna—at the Roman Court. We enter into these experiences and we think we have them, and then again they are extinguished—blotted out from us; and we are driven back again to Conrad Ferdinand Meyer as he lived on earth in the immediate past. At length we perceive that in this later life he obliterates from our vision the content of his soul in the former life. Only after long trouble do we perceive at length how the matter really stands. Conrad Ferdinand Meyer—or rather the individuality who lived in him—was living at that time in a certain relationship to one of the Popes who sent him, among others, to England on a Roman Catholic, Christian Mission.

The individuality who afterwards became Conrad Ferdinand Meyer had first absorbed all that wonderful sense of form which it was possible to absorb in Italy at that time. The Mosaic art of Italy bears witness to it; also the old Italian painting, the greater part, nay practically the whole of which has been destroyed. This art did not continue.

And then he went on a Roman Catholic Christian Mission to the Anglo-Saxons. One of his companions founded the Bishopric of Canterbury. What afterwards took place at Canterbury began essentially with this foundation. The individuality, however, who after-wards appeared as Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, was only there as a witness, so to speak. Nevertheless, he was a very active person, and he called forth the ill-will of an Anglo-Saxon chieftain, at whose investigation he was eventually murdered. That is what we find to begin with.

But while he lived in England there was something in the soul of this Conrad Ferdinand Meyer which robbed him of real joy in life. His soul was deeply rooted in the Italian art of his time—or, if we will call it so, in the Italian spiritual life. He gained no happiness in the execution of his missionary work in England. Yet he devoted himself to it with great intensity—so much so that his assassination was a reaction to it.

This constant unhappiness—being repelled from something which he was none the less doing with all force and devotion out of another impulse in his heart—worked on in such a way that when he passed through his next earthly life there ensued a cosmic clouding-over of his memory. The inner impulse was there but it no longer coincided with any clear concept.

And so it came about that in his subsequent incarnation as Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, an undefined impulse was at work in him, to this effect: ‘I was once working in England. It is connected somehow with Canterbury. I was murdered owing to my connection with Canterbury.’

So indeed the outer life of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer in this incarnation takes its course. He studies outer history, he studies Canterbury, studies what happened in Canterbury, in connection with the history of England. He comes across Thomas à Becket, Chancellor of King Henry II in the 12th century. He learns of the strange destiny of Thomas à Becket, who from being the all-powerful Chancellor of Henry II, was murdered virtually at his instigation. And so in this present incarnation as Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, his own half-forgotten destiny appears to him in Thomas à Becket. It comes before him, half-forgotten in his subconsciousness, for I am speaking of course, of the subconscious life which comes to the surface in this way. So he describes his own fate in a far distant time. But he describes it in the story of what actually happened in the 12th century between King Henry II and Thomas à Becket of Canterbury, whose fate he recounts in his poetic work Der Heilige (The Saint). So indeed it is—only all this takes place in the subconscious life which embraces successive incarnations. It is as though within a single earthly life a man had experienced something in his early youth in connection with a certain place. He has forgotten it. He experienced it maybe in the second or third year of his life. It does not emerge, but some other similar destiny emerges. The very same place is named, and as a result he has a peculiar sympathy for this other person's destiny. He feels it differently from one who has no ‘association of ideas’ with the same place.

Just as this may happen within one earthly life, so it took place in the concrete instance I am now giving you. There was the work in Canterbury, the murder of a person connected with Canterbury (for Thomas à Becket was Archbishop of Canterbury), the murder of Thomas à Becket at the instigation of the King of England. All of these schemes work in together. In the descriptions in his poem he is describing his own destiny.

But now the thing goes on—and this is most interesting in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's case. He was born as a woman about the time of the Thirty Years' War—a lively woman, full of spiritual interest in life, a woman who witnessed many an adventure. She married a man who first took part in all the confused events of the Thirty Years' War, but then grew weary of them and emigrated to Switzerland, to Graubünden (Canton Grisons), where he lived a somewhat philistine existence. But his wife was deeply affected and impressed by all that took place in the Graubünden country under the prevailing conditions of the Thirty Years' War.

This too is eclipsed, as though with another layer. For it is so with this individuality: That which is living in him is easily forgotten in the cosmic sense, and yet he calls it forth again in a transmuted form, where it becomes more glorious and more intense. For out of what this woman observed and experienced in that incarnation there arises the wonderful characterisation of Jürg Jenatsch, the man of Graubünden, in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's historic novel. Observing Conrad Ferdinand Meyer in this incarnation, we have indeed no explanation of his peculiarity if we cannot enter into his karma. I must say—speaking with a grain of salt—that I envy the people who ‘understand’ him so light-heartedly. Before I knew his reincarnations, all that I understood was that I did not understand him. This wonderful inner perfection of form, this inner joy in form, this purity of form, all the strength and power that lives in Jürg Jenatsch, and the wonderful personal and living quality in The Saint,—a good deal of superficiality is needed to imagine that one understands all this. Observe his beautiful forms—there is something of clear line in them, almost severe; they are painted and yet not painted. Here live the mosaics of Ravenna. And in The Saint there lives a history which was undergone once upon a time by this individuality himself; but a mist of the soul has spread over it, and out of the mist it emerges in another form.

And again one needs to know: All that is living in his romance of Graubünden, Jürg Jenatsch, was absorbed by the heart and mind of a woman; while in the momentum, the driving power that lives in this romance there lives again the swashbuckler of the Thirty Years' War. The man was pretty much of a philistine, as I said, but he was a swashbuckler. And so, all that comes over from former experiences on earth comes to life again in a peculiar form in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer. Only now do we begin to understand him. Now we say to ourselves: In olden times of human evolution, men were not ashamed to speak of Spirits from beyond descending to the earth, or of earthly human beings finding their way upward and working on from spiritual worlds. All this must come again, otherwise man will not get beyond his present outlook of the earthworm. For all that the natural-scientific conception of the world contains, it is the world-outlook of the earth-worm. Men live on earth as though only the earth concerned them, as though it were not true that the whole Cosmos works upon all earthly things and lives again in man. As though it were not true that earlier epochs of history live on, inasmuch as we ourselves carry into later times what we absorbed in former times.

We do not understand karma by talking theoretic concepts about successive earthly incarnations. To understand karma is to feel in our hearts all that we can feel when we see what existed ages ago flowing into the later epochs in the souls of men themselves. When we begin to see how karma works, human life gains quite a new content. We feel ourselves quite differently in human life.

Such a spirit as Conrad Ferdinand Meyer feels his former earthly lives like an undertone—an undertone that sounds from far away. We understand what appears in him only when we develop an understanding for this undertone. The progress of mankind in spiritual life will depend on its ability to regard life in this way, to observe in all detail what flows across from former epochs of the world's evolution into later epochs through the human beings themselves. Then we shall cease, in the childish way of psycho-analysts, to explain the peculiarities of souls by speaking of ‘hidden underlying regions’ and the like. After all, one can ascribe anything one likes to what is ‘hidden’. We shall look for the real causes. In some respects, no doubt, the psycho-analysts do quite good work. But these pursuits remind us of the story of how someone heard that in the year 1749 a son was born to a certain patrician. Afterwards this son emerged as a very gifted man. To this day we can point to the actual birth-place in Frankfurt of the man who afterwards came forth as Wolfgang Goethe. ‘Let us make excavations in the earth and see by dint of what strange emanations his talents came about’. Sometimes the psycho-analysts seem to me just like that. They dig into the earth-realm of the soul, into the hidden regions which they themselves first invent by their hypotheses, whereas in reality one ought to look into the preceding lives on earth and lives between death and a new birth. Then if we do so, a true understanding of human souls is opened out to us. Truly the souls of men are far too rich in content to enable us to understand their content out of a single life alone.

Zweiter Vortrag

Es ist etwas schwierig, die Fortsetzung desjenigen, was in den letzten anthroposophischen Vorträgen hier gegeben worden ist, heute zu gestalten, da so viele Freunde erschienen sind, die eben die vorangehenden Betrachtungen nicht mitgemacht haben. Aber auf der anderen Seite ist es nicht gut möglich, gerade heute, wo manches zu ergänzen ist zu den früheren Vorträgen, mit etwas Neuem anzufangen, so daß also die jetzt angekommenen Freunde schon es werden hinnehmen müssen, daß mancherlei von den Betrachtungen, die an Voriges innerlich, nicht äußerlich, anknüpfen, vielleicht dem Verständnis Schwierigkeiten bereiten werde. Der geschlossene Vortragszyklus soll ja eben zu Ostern abgehalten werden, und der wird aus sich selber dann verständlich sein. Heute aber muß ich die Fortsetzung desjenigen geben, was vorangegangen ist. Es ist ja auch durchaus nicht vorauszusehen gewesen, daß so viele Freunde schon heute erscheinen, was auf der anderen Seite ja durchaus befriedigend ist.

Es handelte sich nämlich in unseren letzten Betrachtungen hier um die Besprechung konkreter karmischer Zusammenhänge, die immer angestellt worden sind, nicht um irgend etwas Sensationelles in bezug auf aufeinanderfolgende Erdenleben zu sagen, sondern um nach und nach zu einem wirklichen konkreten Verständnis der Schicksalszusammenhänge im Menschenleben zu kommen. Und ich habe aufeinanderfolgende Erdenleben geschildert, einfach so geschildert, wie sie zunächst an mehr historischen Persönlichkeiten beobachtet werden können, um einen Begriff davon hervorzurufen — was ja nicht besonders leicht ist —, wie das eine Erdenleben in das andere hineinwirkt. Man muß dabei immer wiederum im Auge behalten, daß ja seit der Dornacher Weihnachtstagung ein neuer Zug in die anthroposophische Bewegung hineingekommen ist. Und über diesen Zug möchte ich nur ganz kurz einleitend ein paar Worte sagen.

Sie wissen ja, meine lieben Freunde, es gab nach dem Jahre 1918 allerlei Bestrebungen innerhalb der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft. Diese Bestrebungen hatten einen ganz bestimmten Ursprung. Als die Anthroposophische Gesellschaft 1913 begründet worden ist, hat es sich darum gehandelt, einmal wirklich aus einem okkulten Grundimpuls heraus die Frage zu stellen: Wird diese Anthroposophische Gesellschaft sich weiter entwickeln durch die Kraft, die sie bis dahin in ihren Mitgliedern gewonnen hatte? Und das konnte nur dadurch auserprobt werden, daß ich selber, der ich ja bis dahin als Generalsekretär die Leitung der Deutschen Sektion hatte, als welche die anthroposophische Bewegung in der Theosophischen Gesellschaft drinnen war, daß ich selber dazumal nicht weiter die Leitung der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft in die Hand nahm; sondern ich wollte zusehen, wie diese Anthroposophische Gesellschaft sich nun aus ihrer eigenen Kraft entwickelt.

Sehen Sie, meine lieben Freunde, das ist etwas anderes, als es gewesen wäre, wenn ich etwa dazumal geradeso wie bei der Weihnachtstagung gesagt hätte, ich wolle selbst die Leitung der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft übernehmen. Denn natürlich muß ja die Anthroposophische Gesellschaft etwas ganz anderes sein, wenn sie von mir geleitet wird, oder wenn sie von jemandem anderen geleitet wird. Und aus gewissen Untergründen heraus hätte die Anthroposophische Gesellschaft, ohne daß ich selber sozusagen die Verwaltungsleitung gehabt hätte, um so besser geleitet werden können. Es hätten, wenn die Herzen gesprochen hätten, manche Dinge geschehen können, die eben dann unterblieben sind in Wirklichkeit, die nicht getan worden sind, ja, die sogar, unter dem Widerstand der Anthroposophen, von auswärts getan worden sind.

Und so ist es denn gekommen, daß — während des Krieges war ja natürlich nicht sehr viel Möglichkeit vorhanden, nach allen Seiten die Kräfte zu entfalten -, so ist es denn gekommen, daß nach dem Jahre 1918, ich möchte fast sagen, der Zustand, der da war, benützt worden ist von allen möglichen Seiten, um das oder jenes zu tun. Hätte ich dazumal gesagt, das soll nicht geschehen, dann würde heute natürlich die Rede dahin gehen, daß man sagt: Nun, hätte man das geschehen lassen, so hätte man heute florierende Unternehmungen nach allen Seiten.

Deshalb war es ja auch immer zu allen Zeiten Sitte, möchte ich sagen, daß die Leiter einer okkulten Bewegung sozusagen von denen, die etwas tun wollten, erproben ließen, wie das wird, damit durch die Tatsachen Überzeugungen hervorgerufen werden können. Das ist ja die einzig mögliche Art, Überzeugungen hervorzurufen. Und das mußte denn auch schon in diesem Falle geschehen.

Und das alles hat ja dazu geführt, daß dann gerade seit dem Jahre 1918 die Gegnerschaft in der Weise herangewachsen ist, wie sie nun einmal geworden ist, wie sie heute dasteht. Denn im Jahre 1918 hatten wir ja diese Gegnerschaft noch nicht. Wir hatten selbstverständlich einzelne Gegner. Um die kümmerte man sich nicht und brauchte sich nicht zu kümmern. Aber eigentlich sind die Gegner erst seit dem Jahre 1918 ins Kraut geschossen. Und das hat jenen heutigen Zustand hervorgerufen, unter dessen Einfluß es mir zum Beispiel unmöglich ist, öffentliche Vorträge innerhalb des Gebietes von Deutschland zu halten.

Das alles sollte gerade in der Gegenwart der anthroposophischen Bewegung nicht verhehlt werden. Darauf sollte man mit aller Klarheit schauen, denn wir kommen nicht vorwärts, wenn wir mit Unklarheiten arbeiten.

Nun ist aber auch verschiedenes experimentiert worden. Denken Sie nur einmal, was alles für Experimente gemacht worden sind, um immerzu, sagen wir, «wissenschaftlich» zu sein, ganz begreiflicherweise gewiß aus den Charakteren der Menschen heraus. Warum sollte es denn nicht dazu kommen, daß Wissenschafter, die ja auch teilnehmen an unserer Gesellschaft, wissenschaftlich sein wollen? Aber das ärgert die Gegner gerade. Denn dann, wenn man ihnen sagt, das oder jenes kann man beweisen als wissenschaftlich, dann treten sie mit ihren Aspirationen auf, die sie wissenschaftlich nennen, und dann werden sie natürlich wütend. Darüber muß man sich ja ganz klar sein. Nichts hat die Gegner mehr geärgert, als daß man über dieselben Themen, über die sie selber reden, in derselben Weise reden wollte, nur, wie man immer sagte, mit etwas «Einströmenlassen» von Anthroposophie. Dieses Einströmenlassen, das ist ja gerade das, was die Gegner in so großen Scharen herbeigerufen hat.

Und wenn man erst der Illusion sich hingibt, daß man etwa, sagen wir, die Menschen verschiedener Religionsgesellschaften dadurch irgendwie für Anthroposophie gewinnen könne, daß man dasselbe oder ähnliches sagt, was sie sagen, nur indem man wiederum Anthroposophie «einströmen» läßt, wenn man sich dieser Illusion hingibt, dann sündigt man ganz stark gegen die Lebensbedingungen der Anthroposophie.

Nun, in all das, was auf anthroposophischem Felde geschehen ist, muß eben seit der Weihnachtstagung ein ganz neuer Zug kommen. Und diejenigen, die bemerkt haben die Art, wie jetzt Anthroposophie hier vertreten wird, wie sie in Prag vertreten worden ist, wie sie jetzt wiederum in Stuttgart vertreten worden ist, die werden ja gesehen haben, daß nunmehr Impulse da sind, die auch in bezug auf die Gegner etwas ganz Neues hervorrufen. Denn wenn man wissenschaftlich sein will im gewöhnlichen Sinne des Wortes, wie es leider viele haben sein wollen, dann setzt man sozusagen voraus, es ließe sich mit den Gegnern diskutieren. Aber wenn Sie nun die Vorträge nehmen, die hier gehalten worden sind, die Vorträge, die in Prag gehalten worden sind, den Vortrag, der in Stuttgart gehalten worden ist: Können Sie da einen Augenblick noch glauben, daß es sich nur darum handeln kann, mit dem Gegner zu diskutieren? Selbstverständlich kann man nicht mit Gegnern diskutieren, wenn man von diesen Dingen spricht, denn wie soll man mit irgend jemandem von der heutigen Zivilisation darüber diskutieren, daß die Seele des Muawija in der Seele des Woodrow Wilson wiedererschienen ist!

Also es lebt jetzt in der ganzen anthroposophischen Bewegung ein Zug, der gar nicht auf etwas anderes hinausgehen kann als darauf, daß nun endlich einmal Ernst gemacht werde mit diesem Nichtdiskutieren mit den Gegnern. Wenn es sich um Argumente handelt, da kommt man ja ohnedies nicht zurecht. Und es wird doch endlich einmal eingesehen werden, daß es sich in bezug auf die Gegner nur handeln kann um das Zurückweisen von Verleumdungen und Unwahrheiten und Lügen. Man wird sich nicht der Illusion hingeben dürfen, daß man über solche Sachen diskutieren kann. Die müssen sich durch ihre eigene Macht und Gewalt verbreiten. Die lassen sich nicht durch Dialektik entscheiden.

Das ist dasjenige, was vielleicht jetzt gerade durch die Haltung der anthroposophischen Bewegung, wie sie seit Weihnachten ist, immer mehr und mehr auch in unserer Mitgliedschaft eingesehen werden wird. Und deshalb ist es schon so, daß nunmehr die anthroposophische Bewegung so gestaltet wird, daß sie auf nichts mehr Rücksicht nimmt als auf das, was die geistige Welt von ihr haben will.

Sehen Sie, ich habe nun von diesem Gesichtspunkte aus verschiedene Karmabetrachtungen angestellt, und diejenigen, die hier dabeigewesen sind, oder die das letzte Mal bei meinem Vortrag in Stuttgart waren, die werden sich erinnern, daß ich zu zeigen versuchte, wie diejenigen Individualitäten, die im 8. und 9. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert am Hofe des Harun al Raschid in Asien drüben vorhanden waren, nach verschiedenen Richtungen hin sich weiterentwickelt haben nach dem Tode und dann in ihren Wiederverkörperungen eine gewisse Rolle gespielt haben. In der Zeit, die wir auch das Zeitalter des Dreißigjährigen Krieges nennen können, etwas vorher, da haben wir auf der einen Seite die Individualität des Harun al Raschid, wiederverkörpert in dem Engländer Baco von Verulam, und haben den großen Organisator am Hofe von Harun al Raschid, der dort gelebt hat, allerdings nicht als Eingeweihter, aber als die Wiederverkörperung eines Eingeweihten, haben seine Individualität gefunden in Amos Comenius. Sie hat dann mehr in Mitteleuropa gewirkt. Aber aus diesen beiden Strömungen ist eigentlich vieles in dem geistigen Teil der neueren Zivilisation zusammengeflossen. So daß in dem geistigen Teil der neueren Zivilisation der Vordere Orient aus der Nach-Mohammed-Zeit gelebt hat, auf der einen Seite durch den wiederverkörperten Harun al Raschid in Baco von Verulam, auf der anderen Seite durch Amos Comenius, seinen großen Ratgeber.

Nun wollen wir heute einmal das betonen, daß ja die Entwickelung des Menschen nicht bloß stattfindet, wenn er hier auf Erden ist, sondern daß im wesentlichen auch die Entwickelung stattfindet, wenn die Menschen zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt sind. So daß man sagen kann: Sowohl Bacon wie Amos Comenius, nachdem sie sozusagen den Arabismus von zwei verschiedenen Seiten her in der europäischen Zivilisation befestigt hatten, sind ja nach ihrem Tode eingetreten in das Leben zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt. Da sind sie, sowohl Bacon wie Amos Comenius, mit verschiedenen Seelen zusammengewesen, welche später auf der Erde waren als sie, welche im 17. Jahrhundert starben und dann weiterlebten in der geistigen Welt. Dann sind ja Seelen im 19. Jahrhundert auf die Erde gekommen; die sind vom 17. bis 19. Jahrhundert mit den Seelen von Bacon und Amos Comenius in der geistigen Welt zusammen gewesen.

Nun gab es solche Seelen, die sich vorzugsweise versammelten um die Seele des ja tonangebenden Bacon, und solche Seelen, die sich sammelten um Amos Comesius. Und wenn das auch mehr bildlich ist, so dürfen wir doch nicht vergessen, daß, natürlich unter ganz anderen Verhältnissen, auch in der geistigen Welt, die die Menschen durchmachen zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt, sozusagen Führerschaft und Anhängerschaft vorhanden ist. Und es wirkten solche Individualitäten nicht bloß durch das, was sie auf der Erde hier bewirkten, etwa durch die Schriften von Bacon oder durch die Schriften von Amos Comenius, oder durch das, was in der Tradition hier auf der Erde fortlebte, sondern diese führenden Geister wirkten ja dadurch auch, daß sie in den Seelen, die sie herunterschickten, oder mit denen sie zusammen waren und die heruntergeschickt wurden, etwas ganz Besonderes auch noch in der geistigen Welt aufkeimen ließen. Und so sind nun auch in den Menschen des 19. Jahrhunderts Seelen, welche in ihrer Entwickelung schon im vorirdischen Dasein abhängig geworden sind von einem der beiden Geister, dem entkörperten Amos Comenius, dem entkörperten Bacon.

Und da möchte ich denn — wie gesagt, weil ich immer mehr und mehr hineinführen will in die Art und Weise, wie konkret Karma wirkt — aufmerksam machen auf zwei Persönlichkeiten des 19. Jahrhunderts, deren Namen den meisten bekannt sein werden, wovon der eine ganz besonders im vorirdischen Leben beeinflußt war von Bacon, der andere beeinflußt war von Amos Comenius.

Wenn wir uns Bacon anschauen, wie er innerhalb der Erdenzivilisation in seinem irdischen Leben als Lordkanzler in England gestanden hat, so müssen wir sagen: Er wirkte ja so, daß zu spüren ist, wie hinter seinem Wirken ein Eingeweihter stand. Der ganze Streit um Bacon und Shakespeare ist ja so, wie er äußerlich von Literaturhistorikern getrieben wird, etwas außerordentlich Odes, denn es werden allerlei schöne Argumente vorgeführt, die da zeigen sollen zum Beispiel, daß eigentlich der Schauspieler Shakespeare überhaupt nicht seine Dramen geschrieben hat, sondern daß sie der Philosoph und Staatskanzler Bacon geschrieben haben soll, und dergleichen.

Alle diese Dinge, die mit äußeren Mitteln arbeiten, Ähnlichkeiten aufsuchen in der Denkweise der Shakespearschen Dramen und der Baconschen philosophischen Werke, alle diese äußeren Dinge sind ja eigentlich öde, weil sie an die Sache gar nicht herankommen, da ja die Wahrheit so liegt, daß in der Zeit, als Bacon, Shakespeare, Jakob Böhme und noch ein anderer gewirkt haben, ein Eingeweihter da war, der eigentlich durch alle vier gesprochen hat. Daher ihre Verwandtschaft, weil tatsächlich das auf einen Quell zurückgeht. Aber natürlich disputieren die Leute, die mit äußeren Argumenten disputieren, nicht über einen Eingeweihten, der dahintergestanden hat, sintemalen dieser Eingeweihte in der Geschichte geschildert wird, wie ja mancher moderne Eingeweihte, als ein ziemlich lästiger Patron. Aber er war nicht bloß das. In seinen äußeren Handlungen war er es schon auch, aber er war nicht bloß das, sondern er war eben ein Individualität, von der ungeheure Kräfte ausgingen und auf die eigentlich zurückgingen sowohl die Baconschen philosophischen Werke wie auch die Shakespearschen Dramen, wie die Jakob Böhmeschen Werke und wie noch die Werke des Jesuiten Jakob Balde. Wenn man dies ins Auge faßt, so muß man schon in Bacon auf philosophischem Gebiete den Anreger einer ungeheuren, breiten Zeitströmung sehen.

Will man sich nun vergegenwärtigen, was aus einer Seele werden kann, die durch zwei Jahrhunderte im überirdischen Leben ganz unter dem Einflusse des gestorbenen Bacon steht — es ist eine sehr interessante Frage -, dann muß man hinschauen auf die Art und Weise, wie Bacon nach seinem Tode gelebt hat. Es wird schon einmal wichtig werden für Betrachtungen der Menschengeschichte, daß man die Menschen, die auf der Erde leben, nicht bloß bis zu ihrem Tode betrachtet, sondern auch in ihrem Wirken über den Tod hinaus, wo sie, namentlich wenn sie Bedeutsames auf geistigem Gebiet geleistet haben, weiter wirken für die Seelen, die dann heruntersteigen auf die Erde.

Diese Dinge sind ja natürlich zuweilen etwas schockierend für die Menschen der Gegenwart. So zum Beispiel erinnere ich mich — es sei nur ein kleines Intermezzo, das ich einschiebe -, daß ich einmal auf dem Bahnhof einer kleineren deutschen Universitätsstadt, am Bahnhofstor, mit einem Arzt stand, einem bekannten Arzt, der sich viel mit Okkultismus beschäftigt. Um uns herum standen viele andere Leute. Er wurde warm, und aus seinem Enthusiasmus heraus sagte er zu mir in einem etwas lauten Ton, so daß es viele Umstehende hören konnten: Ich werde Ihnen die Biographie von Robert Blum schenken, aber die fängt erst mit seinem Tode an. — Es war, weil das so laut gesprochen war, schon etwas von Schockiertsein bei den Umstehenden zu bemerken. Man kann heute nicht so ohne weiteres zu den Leuten sagen: Ich schenke Ihnen die Biographie eines Menschen, die aber erst mit dem Tode anfängt.

Aber außer dieser zweibändigen Biographie von Robert Blum, die nicht mit der Geburt, sondern mit dem Tode anfängt, ist Ja noch wenig geschehen nach dieser Richtung hin, biographisch von den Menschen zu sprechen, nachdem sie gestorben sind. Man fängt gewöhnlich bei der Geburt an und endigt mit dem Tode. Es gibt noch nicht viele Werke, die mit dem Tode anfangen.

Nun liegt aber für das reale Geschehen ein ungeheuer Wichtiges gerade in dem, was der Mensch nach dem Tode tut, wenn er die Ergebnisse dessen, was er auf der Erde getan hat, umgesetzt in das Geistige, den Seelen vermittelt, die nach ihm herunterkommen. Und man versteht gar nicht die Folgezeit eines Zeitalters, wenn man nicht auch auf diese Seite des Lebens hinschaut.

Es handelte sich für mich darum, einmal diejenigen Individualitäten anzusehen, die um Bacon nach seinem Tode herum waren. Und es waren herum um Bacon solche Individualitäten, die dann als Naturforscher geboren wurden in der Folgezeit, aber auch solche Individualitäten, die als Geschichtsschreiber geboren wurden. Und wenn man sich nun den Einfluß des gestorbenen Lord Bacon auf diese Seelen anschaut, so sieht man, wie das, was er auf der Erde begründet hat, der Materialismus, das bloße Forschen in der Sinneswelt - alles andere ist ja für ihn Idol -, wie das, hinaufgesetzt, übersetzt ins Geistige, in einen Radikalismus umschlägt. So daß in der Tat diese Seelen mitten in der geistigen Welt Impulse aufnehmen, die dahin gehen, nach ihrer Geburt, nachdem sie heruntergestiegen sind, auf der Erde nur auf dasjenige etwas zu geben, was eine Tatsache ist, die man mit den Sinnen sehen kann.

Nun möchte ich etwas populär sprechen, aber ich bitte Sie, das Populäre eben auch nicht ganz wörtlich zu verstehen, denn natürlich ist es dann furchtbar leicht zu sagen: Das ist grotesk. — Unter diesen Seelen waren auch solche, die nach ihren früheren Anlagen, nach den Anlagen ihrer früheren Erdenleben eben Historiker haben werden sollen. Einer unter ihnen war — ich meine, drüben noch im vorirdischen Leben - einer der Bedeutendsten. Alle diese Seelen haben eigentlich unter dem Eindruck der Impulse von Lord Bacon gesagt: Man darf jetzt nicht mehr Geschichte schreiben, wie die Früheren geschrieben haben, so daß man Ideen hat, daß man Zusammenhänge erforscht, sondern es müssen die realen Tatsachen erforscht werden.

Nun frage ich Sie: Was heißt in der Geschichte, die reale Tatsache benützen? —- Das Wichtigste in der Geschichte sind ja die Absichten der Menschen, die nicht reale Tatsachen sind. Aber das zu erforschen, haben sich diese Seelen dann gar nicht mehr gestattet, und am wenigsten hat es sich gestattet diejenige Seele, die dann als einer der größten Geschichtsschreiber des 19. Jahrhunderts wieder erschienen ist, Leopold von Ranke, ein vorirdischer Schüler Lord Bacons, der eben als Leopold von Ranke wieder erschienen ist.

Verfolgt man nun den irdischen Historikerlauf des Leopold von Ranke, welches ist denn sein Grundsatz? Rankes Grundsatz als Geschichtsschreiber ist der: Nichts darf in der Geschichte geschrieben werden, als was man in Archiven liest; man muß die ganze Geschichte aus Archiven, aus den Verhandlungen der Diplomaten zusammenstellen.

Ranke, der ja ein deutscher Protestant ist, dem das aber gegenüber seinem Wirklichkeitssinn ganz gleichgültig ist, arbeitet mit Objektivität, das heißt, mit Archivobjektivität schreibt er die Geschichte der Päpste, die beste Geschichte der Päpste, die geschrieben worden ist vom reinen Archivstandpunkte aus. Wenn man Ranke liest, so ist man etwas irritiert, eigentlich im Grunde schrecklich irritiert. Denn es ist etwas Odes, den bis ins höchste Alter beweglichen und regsamen Herrn sich denken zu müssen bloß in Archiven sitzend und zusammenstellend, was diplomatische Verhandlungen waren. Es ist ja gar keine wirkliche Geschichte. Aber es ist eine Geschichte, die nur mit den Tatsachen der Sinneswelt rechnet, und die sind für die Geschichte eben die Archive.

Und so haben wir gerade unter dem Gesichtspunkt der Berücksichtigung auch des außerirdischen Lebens die Möglichkeit, ein Verständnis dafür zu gewinnen: Warum ist Ranke so geworden?

Aber man kann auch hinüberschauen, wenn man solche Betrachtungen anstellt, zu Amos Comenius, wie der gewirkt hat auf das vorirdische Wollen von Seelen, die nachher heruntergestiegen sind. Und ebenso wie Leopold von Ranke der bedeutendste nachtodliche Schüler Bacons geworden ist, so ist Schlosser der bedeutendste nachtodliche Schüler von Amos Comesius geworden.

Und nun nehmen Sie bei Schlosser, wenn Sie seine Geschichte durchlesen, den ganzen Duktus, den ganzen Grundton: Überall spricht der Moralist, derjenige, der die menschlichen Seelen, die menschlichen Herzen ergreifen will, der zu den Herzen sprechen will. Manchmal gelingt es ihm ja schwer, weil er eben doch einen pedantischen Zug hat. Nun, er spricht halt auf pedantische Weise zu den Herzen, aber er spricht zu den Herzen, weil er ein vorirdischer Schüler des Amos Comenius ist, weil er von ihm etwas davon aufgenommen hat, was in diesem Amos Comenius steckte, der gerade durch seine besondere Geistesart so charakteristisch ist.

Denken Sie sich, er kommt ja doch vom Mohammedanismus herüber. Er ist etwas ganz anderes, als etwa die Geister sind, die sich an Lord Bacon angeschlossen haben; aber in die reale Außenwelt ging auch Amos Comenius in seiner Amos Comenius-Inkarnation. Überall forderte er Anschaulichkeit für den Unterricht, überall soll Bildliches zugrunde liegen. Anschauung fordert er, das Sinnliche wird betont, aber auf eine andere Art. Denn Amos Comenius ist zugleich einer derjenigen, die im Zeitalter des Dreißigjährigen Krieges in der allerlebendigsten Weise zum Beispiel an dem Eintritt des sogenannten «Tausendjährigen Reiches» festhalten; er ist der, der in seiner «Pansophia» große, weltumspannende Ideen geschrieben hat, der es also darauf abgesehen hatte, durch Stoßkraft auf die Erziehung der Menschen zu wirken. Das wirkte in Schlosser noch nach, das ist in Schlosser drinnen.

Ich erwähnte diese beiden Gestalten, Ranke und Schlosser, aus dem Grunde, um Ihnen zu zeigen, wie man das, was im Menschen als geistig produzierend auftritt, nur begreifen kann, wenn man das außerirdische Leben eben auch in Betracht zieht. Dann erst versteht man es, so wie wir manches verstanden haben dadurch, daß wir die wiederholten Erdenleben ins Auge gefaßt haben.

Nun ist ja benerklich geworden in den Betrachtungen, die ich hier in den voranliegenden Stunden vor Ihnen angestellt habe, daß in einer merkwürdigen Weise von einer Inkarnation in die andere hinübergewirkt wird, und ich erwähne, wie ich schon sagte, diese Beispiele aus dem Grunde, damit dann eingegangen werden kann auf die Art und Weise, wie jemand über sein eigenes Karma denken kann. Man muß, bevor man eingeht auf die Art und Weise, wie Gut und Böse hinüberwirken von einer Inkarnation in die andere, wie Krankheiten und dergleichen hinüberwirken, erst eine Anschauung davon gewinnen, wie dasjenige hinüberwirkt, was dann im eigentlichen Geistesleben der Zivilisation zutage tritt.

Ich darf gestehen, meine lieben Freunde, daß eine der äußerst interessanten Persönlichkeiten mit Bezug auf ihr Karma aus dem neueren Geistesleben für mich Conrad Ferdinand Meyer war. Denn wer Conrad Ferdinand Meyer in seiner Gestalt, wie er gelebt hat als der Dichter Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, betrachtet, der sieht ja, daß die schönsten Leistungen Conrad Ferdinand Meyers darauf beruhen, daß immer und immer wieder in seiner gesamtmenschheitlichen Verfassung etwas da war wie ein Entfliehenwollen des Ich und des astralischen Leibes heraus aus dem physischen Leib und dem Ätherleib.

Krankhafte Zustände treten bei Conrad Ferdinand Meyer auf, bis hart an die Grenze des Geistesgestörtseins kommend. Es sind Zustände, die nur in einer etwas extremeren Form das zustande bringen, was eigentlich im Entstehungsgrunde, im Status nascendi immer bei ihm vorhanden ist: heraus will das eigentliche Geistig-Seelische und hält nur mit leisem Band das Physisch-Ätherische.

Und in diesen Zuständen, wo das Geistig-Seelische mit leisem Bande das Physisch-Ätherische hält, entstehen bei Conrad Ferdinand Meyer die schönsten seiner Leistungen, sowohl die schönsten seiner größeren Dichtungen wie auch die schönsten seiner kleineren Gedichte. Man kann schon sagen, halb außerhab des Leibes sind die schönsten der Dichtungen von Conrad Ferdinand Meyer entstanden. Es war ein ganz eigentümliches Gefüge zwischen den vier Gliedern der Menschennatur bei diesem Conrad Ferdinand Meyer vorhanden. Es ist wirklich ein Unterschied zwischen einer solchen Persönlichkeit und einem Durchschnittsmenschen der Gegenwart. Bei einem Durchschnittsmenschen des materialistischen Zeitalters, da hat man es gewöhnlich mit einer sehr robusten Verbindung des Geistig-Seelischen mit dem Physisch-Ätherischen zu tun. Da steckt das Geistig-Seelische tief im Physisch-Ätherischen drinnen, setzt sich ganz hinein. Bei Conrad Ferdinand Meyer war das nicht vorhanden. Da war ein zartes Verhältnis des Geistig-Seelischen mit dem Physisch-Ätherischen. Und die Psyche dieses Menschen zu beschreiben, gehört wirklich zu dem Interessantesten, das man in bezug auf die neuere Geistesentwickelung machen kann. Es ist schon außerordentlich interessant zu sehen, wie manches, was bei Conrad Ferdinand Meyer heraufkommt, sich fast ausnimmt wie eine getrübte Erinnerung, die aber schön geworden ist durch die Trübung. Man hat immer das Gefühl: Wenn Conrad Ferdinand Meyer schreibt, so erinnert er sich an etwas, aber nicht genau. Er verändert es, aber er verändert es ins Schöne und ins Formvollendete. Das ist für einzelne seiner Dichtungen auch wiederum Stück für Stück in einer wunderbaren Weise zu beobachten.

Nun ist es ja das Charakteristische im inneren Karma eines Menschen, wenn ein ganz bestimmtes Verhältnis der vier Glieder der menschlichen Natur vorhanden ist, von physischem Leib, Ätherleib, astralischem Leib und Ich. Diese sonderbar intime Verbindung hat man nun zurückzuverfolgen. Da kommt man zunächst zurück in das Zeitalter des Dreißigjährigen Krieges. Das war mir zuerst bei dieser Persönlichkeit klar: da liegt etwas von einem vorigen Erdenleben in der Zeit des Dreißigjährigen Krieges. Dann wiederum ein weiter vorangehendes Erdenleben, das geht zurück bis in die vorkarolingische Zeit und geht deutlich zurück in die italienische Geschichte.

Aber bei dem Verfolgen des Karma von Conrad Ferdinand Meyer überträgt sich, ich möchte sagen, das eigentümlich Verschwimmende seines Wesens, das aber doch wiederum in solcher Formvollendung auftritt, auf die Untersuchung, und man hat dann das Gefühl: du kommst in die Verwirrung hinein. Und es ist eigentlich nur etwas getan, wenn ich diese Dinge tatsächlich so schildere, wie sie sich ergeben. Man hat, wenn man da zurückgeht in die Zeit des 7., 8. Jahrhunderts in Italien, man hat das Gefühl: du kommst in etwas außerordentlich Unsicheres hinein. Man wird immer wieder zurückgestoßen, und man merkt erst nach und nach, daß das nicht an einem selber liegt, sondern daß es an der Sache liegt; daß da in der Seele, in der Individualität des Conrad Ferdinand Meyer etwas liegt, was einen selber in die Verwirrung bringt beim Untersuchen. Denn man muß ja, wenn man eine solche Sache untersucht, immer wieder zurückkommen in die gegenwärtige Inkarnation, respektive in die jüngst vergangene vorhergehende, in die weiter vorangehende, dann muß man wiederum, ich möchte sagen, Posto fassen und immer wieder zurückkommen.

Und nun ergab sich folgendes. Sie müssen denken: Alles, was in vorangehenden Inkarnationen in einer Menschenseele gelebt hat, kommt ja in den verschiedensten Formen, in für die äußere Betrachtung manchmal gar nicht konstatierbaren Ähnlichkeiten zutage. Das werden Sie schon an anderen Wiederverkörperungen gesehen haben, die ich in diesen Wochen hier entwickelt habe.

Und so kommt man zu einer Inkarnation in Italien in den ersten christlichen Jahrhunderten, das heißt am Anfang der zweiten Hälfte des ersten christlichen Jahrtausends, wo die Seele, bei der man zunächst halt machen muß, gelebt hat — viel in Ravenna, viel am römischen Hofe. Aber nun kommt man dadurch in eine Verwirrung hinein, daß man sich doch fragen muß: Was lebte in der Seele? — In dem Augenblicke, wo man sich frägt, um die okkulte Forschung herauszufordern: Was lebte in der Seele? - da löscht sich einem das wieder aus. Man kommt auf die Erlebnisse, die diese Seele hat, die am Ravenna-Hofe, am römischen Hofe lebt; man kommt in diese Erlebnisse hinein, man glaubt sie zu haben: da löschen sie sich einem wieder aus. Und man wird dann zurückgetrieben zu dem in jüngster Zeit lebenden Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, bis man darauf kommt: Er löscht einem in diesem späteren Leben seinen eigenen Seeleninhalt des früheren Lebens aus. Und wirklich, erst nach langer Mühe kommt man darauf, wie sich die Sache verhält. Da kommt man darauf: Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, das heißt die Individualität, die in ihm lebte, lebte dazumal in Italien in einem gewissen Verhältnisse zu einem Papste, der diese Individualität mit anderen zusammen in einer katholischen christlichen Mission nach England schickte. So daß diese Individualität, die dann Conrad Ferdinand Meyer wurde, erst all jenen wunderbaren Formensinn aufgenommen hatte, den man gerade in jener Zeit in Italien aufnehmen konnte, von dem namentlich die Mosaikkünste in Italien sprechen, von dem die ältere italienische Malerei spricht, die zum größten Teile ja überhaupt ganz zugrunde gegangen ist — das hat ja aufgehört -, und er ging dann mit einer katholisch-christlichen Mission zu den Angelsachsen.

Ein Genosse von ihm begründete das Bistum Canterbury. Und dasjenige, was in Canterbury geschehen ist, das hat sich im wesentlichen an diese Begründung angeschlossen. Die Individualität, die dann als Conrad Ferdinand Meyer erschienen ist, war nur dabei, aber diese Individualität war eine sehr regsame und hat dadurch den Unwillen eines Angelsachsenhäuptlings hervorgerufen und ist auf das Anstiften dieses Angelsachsenhäuptlings ermordet worden. Das ist etwas, das man zunächst findet. Aber es war in der Seele des Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, während er in England verweilte, etwas, was sie ihres Lebens nicht froh werden ließ. Diese Seele wurzelte eigentlich in der damaligen italienischen Kunst, wenn man das so nennen will, in dem italienischen Geistesleben. Sie wurde nicht froh bei der Ausübung der Missionstätigkeit in England, widmete sich aber dieser Missionstätigkeit dennoch in einer intensiven Weise, so daß eben dann die Ermordung sogar die Reaktion darauf war.

Dieses Nicht-froh-Werden, dieses eigentlich Abgestoßensein von etwas, das er aber wiederum aus einem anderen Trieb des Herzens heraus mit aller Kraft, mit aller Hingabe ausführte, das wirkte in einer gewissen Weise so, daß nun beim Durchgang durch das nächste Erdenleben eine kosmische Trübung des Gedächtnisses eintrat. Der Impuls war da, aber er deckte sich nicht mit irgendeinem Begriffe mehr.

Und so wurde zustande gebracht, daß dann in der Conrad Ferdinand Meyer-Inkarnation ein unbestimmter Impuls sich geltend machte: In England wirkte ich; etwas hängt zusammen mit Canterbury, ermordet worden bin ich wegen meines Zusammenhanges mit Canterbury.

Darauf hin wirkt nun das äußere Leben der Conrad Ferdinand Meyer-Inkarnation. Conrad Ferdinand Meyer studiert englische Geschichte, er studiert Canterbury, er studiert, was da im Zusammenhange mit der englischen Geschichte und Canterbury vor sich geht. Er stößt auf Thomas Becket, den Kanzler des Königs Heinrich II. im 12. Jahrhundert, auf dieses eigentümliche Schicksal des Thomas Becket, der zuerst ein allmächtiger Kanzler Heinrichs II. war, dann ermordet wurde auf Anstiften Heinrichs II. Dann erschien dem Conrad Ferdinand Meyer im Conrad Ferdinand Meyer-Leben in diesem Thomas Becket sein eigenes, halbvergessenes Schicksal — im Unterbewußten, meine ich, halbvergessen, denn ich rede natürlich von dem Unterbewußten, das da erscheint. Und da schildert er sein eigenes Schicksal aus uralter Zeit, indem er es schildert in der Geschichte, die sich abgespielt hat im 12. Jahrhundert zwischen dem König Heinrich II. und dem Thomas Becket von Canterbury, indem er dieses Schicksal schildert in seiner Dichtung «Der Heilige». Es ist gerade so - nur spielt sich das alles in dem Unterbewußten ab, das die aufeinanderfolgenden Erdenleben umfaßt -, es ist alles so, wie wenn etwa ein Mensch in einem Erdenleben in früher Jugend im Zusammenhange mit irgendeinem Orte etwas erlebt hätte, vielleicht im zweiten, dritten Lebensjahre etwas erlebt hat, das er dann vergessen hat, das nicht auftaucht. Dann taucht ein ähnliches anderes Schicksal auf, der Ort wird genannt: dieser Ort ruft hervor, daß der Betreffende eine besondere Sympathie hat für dieses andere Schicksal und dieses andere Schicksal anders empfindet als eben einer, der nicht mit diesem Orte irgendwie in eine Ideenassoziation tritt. So wie sich das in einem Erdenleben abspielen kann, so spielt es sich ab in diesem konkreten Falle, den ich Ihnen angebe: Das Wirken in Canterbury, die Ermordung einer an Canterbury gebundenen Persönlichkeit - denn Thomas Becket ist ja Erzbischof von Canterbury — durch den König von England. Indem also diese Motive zusammenwirken, schildert er das eigene Schicksal in demjenigen, was er darstellt.

Nun geht es aber fort bei Conrad Ferdinand Meyer - das ist das Interessante: Er wird wiedergeboren so im Zeitalter des Dreißigjährigen Krieges, als Frau wiedergeboren, als regsame, geistig interessenreiche Frau geboren in der Zeit des Dreißigjährigen Krieges, sieht manches Abenteuerliche. Diese Frau heiratet einen Mann, der zunächst an all den Wirren, die da waren im Dreißigjährigen Kriege, teilnahm, dem es dann aber zu dumm geworden ist und der nach der Schweiz auswanderte, nach Graubünden, und da als ein ziemlich philiströser Herr lebte. Aber seine Frau nahm alles das auf, was innerhalb des Graubündner Landes selber sich abspielte unter dem Einfluß der Verhältnisse des Dreißigjährigen Krieges.

Das ist wiederum wie mit einer Schicht zugedeckt, weil schon einmal dasjenige, was in dieser Individualität ist, ich möchte sagen, sich kosmisch leicht vergißt und dennoch wiederum in Veränderung heraufgeholt wird und dann glorioser, intensiver wird. Und aus dem, was diese Frau erlebt hat in ihrer Anschauung, entsteht die wunderbare Charakteristik des «Jürg Jenatsch», des Mannes aus Graubünden. Und so hat man, wenn man nun diesen Conrad Ferdinand Meyer in seiner Conrad Ferdinand Meyer-Inkarnation ansieht, keine Erklärung für seine Eigentümlichkeit, wenn man nicht auf sein Karma eingehen kann. Denn eigentlich muß ich sagen — das ist cum grano salis gesprochen selbstverständlich, denn das Wort paßt nicht recht -, eigentlich beneide ich die Leute, die Conrad Ferdinand Meyer so leichten Herzens verstehen. Als ich seine frühere Verkörperung noch nicht gekannt habe, habe ich nur verstanden, daß ich ihn eigentlich nicht verstehe. Denn diese wunderbare Geschlossenheit der Form, diese innere Freude an der Form, dieses Reine der Form, diese Kraft, die Gewalt, die in «Jürg Jenatsch» lebt, dieses ungemein Persönlich-Lebendige, das in dem «Heiligen» lebt - man muß schon ein Stück Oberflächlichkeit haben, wenn man das ohne weiteres zu verstehen glaubt.

Wenn man aber merkt: in den schönen Formen, die zugleich etwas Linienhaftes, etwas Strenges haben, die gemalt und wieder nicht gemalt sind, leben die Mosaiken von Ravenna; in dem «Heiligen» lebt eine Geschichte, die einstmals von der Individualität selber durchgemacht worden ist, über die sich aber Seelendunst breitete, so daß aus dem Seelendunst eine andere Formung herauskam - und wenn man weiß: vom Frauengemüt ist dasjenige aufgenommen worden, was in der Graubündner Dichtung des «Jürg Jenatsch» lebt, und in manchem, was da ist an Stoßigem in dieser Graubündner Dichtung, da lebt wiederum der Haudegen aus dem Dreißigjährigen Kriege, der ein ziemlich philiströser Herr, aber dennoch ein Haudegen war; wenn man weiß: da lebt in der Seele in einer eigentümlichen Form dasjenige auf, was von früheren Erdenerlebnissen herüberkommt — dann beginnt man eigentlich erst zu begreifen. Und man sagt sich dann: In alten Zeiten der Menschheitsentwickelung haben die Menschen ungeniert gesprochen über die Art und Weise, wie überirdische Geister auf die Erde herabgestiegen sind, wie wiederum Menschen der Erde sich hinaufgelebt haben, um von der Geisteswelt aus weiterzuwirken, und das ist etwas, was wieder kommen muß, sonst bleibt der Mensch bei seinem Regenwurm-Materialismus. Denn was sich heute naturwissenschaftliche Weltanschauung nennt, ist ja eine Regenwurm-Weltanschauung.

Die Menschen leben eigentlich so auf Erden, als wenn nur die Erde sie anginge und als wenn nicht der ganze Kosmos auf das Irdische wirkte und im Menschen lebte, und als wenn nicht frühere Zeiten fortlebten dadurch, daß wir dasjenige, was wir in ihnen aufgenommen haben, selber herübertragen in die späteren Zeiten. Und Karma verstehen, heißt nicht, irgendwie begrifflich reden zu können über aufeinanderfolgende Erdeninkarnationen, sondern Karma verstehen, heißt, in seinem Herzen das zu fühlen, was man fühlen kann, wenn man in spätere Epochen in Menschenseelen selbst dasjenige herüberfließen sieht, was vor Zeiten da war. Wenn man sieht, wie Karma wirkt, dann erhält das menschliche Leben ja einen ganz anderen Inhalt. Man fühlt sich selber ganz anders in dem menschlichen Leben drinnenstehend.

Solch ein Geist wie Conrad Ferdinand Meyer tritt auf und fühlt die früheren Erdenleben wie einen Grundton in seinem Wesen darinnen, wie Untertöne, die da herübertönen. Man versteht erst das, was da ist, wenn man ein Verständnis für diese Grundtöne entwickelt. Und der Fortschritt der Menschheit im Geistesleben wird darauf beruhen, daß in dieser Weise das Leben wird betrachtet werden können, daß man wirklich wird eingehen können auf das, was durch Menschen selber aus früheren Epochen der Weltenentwickelung in spätere Epochen der Weltenentwickelung hinüberströmt, Das Eigentümliche von mancher Seele, etwa wie die Psychoanalytiker es tun, auf törichte Art aus «verborgenen Seelenprovinzen» heraus zu erklären - man kann ja dem Verborgenen alles zuschreiben -, das wird aufhören, und man wird die wirklichen Ursachen suchen. Denn das Treiben der Psychoanalytiker, die ja in gewisser Beziehung wirklich wiederum ganz Gutes leisten, das erinnert einen manchmal daran, wie wenn jemand sagen würde: Im Jahre 1749 ist in Frankfurt einem Patrizier ein später begabt auftretender Sohn geboren worden; man kann heute noch den Ort feststellen, wo in Frankfurt dieser später als Wolfgang Goethe auftretende Mensch geboren worden ist. Man grabe einmal nach in der Erde, durch welche Ausdünstung seine Anlagen zustande gekommen sind. — So kommen einem die Psychoanalytiker manchmal vor! Sie graben unten ins Erdreich der Seele hinein, in die «verborgenen Provinzen», die sie erst selber hypothetisch entdecken, während man in Wirklichkeit in den vorangegangenen Erdenleben und in den Leben, die zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt sind, suchen muß. Dann eröffnet sich das Verständnis von Menschenseelen. Menschenseelen sind wahrhaft viel zu reich, als daß man ihren Inhalt aus einem einzigen Erdenleben heraus erkennen könnte.

Second Lecture

It is somewhat difficult to continue today what has been given here in the last anthroposophical lectures, since so many friends have come who did not attend the previous lectures. But on the other hand, it is not possible to start with something new today, when there is much to be added to the earlier lectures, so that the friends who have now arrived will have to accept that some of the reflections, which are linked inwardly, not outwardly, to the previous lectures, will perhaps cause difficulties in understanding. After all, the closed lecture cycle is to be held at Easter, and it will then be comprehensible in itself. Today, however, I must give a continuation of what has gone before. It could not have been foreseen that so many friends would come today, which on the other hand is quite satisfying.

In our last considerations here it was a matter of discussing concrete karmic connections, which have always been made, not to say anything sensational with regard to successive earth lives, but to gradually arrive at a real concrete understanding of the connections of destiny in human life. And I have described successive earth lives, simply as they can be observed in more historical personalities, in order to evoke an idea - which is not particularly easy - of how one earth life works into the other. We must always bear in mind that since the Dornach Christmas Conference a new trend has entered the anthroposophical movement. And I would just like to say a few words very briefly by way of introduction about this movement.

You know, my dear friends, that after 1918 there were all kinds of endeavors within the Anthroposophical Society. These efforts had a very specific origin. When the Anthroposophical Society was founded in 1913, it was a matter of really asking the question from a basic occult impulse: Will this Anthroposophical Society continue to develop through the strength it had gained in its members up to that point? And this could only be tested by the fact that I myself, who until then had been the General Secretary of the German Section, as which the anthroposophical movement was part of the Theosophical Society, did not take the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society into my own hands at that time; instead, I wanted to see how this Anthroposophical Society would now develop from its own strength.

You see, my dear friends, that is different from what it would have been if I had said at that time, as I did at the Christmas Conference, that I wanted to take over the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society myself. For of course the Anthroposophical Society must be something quite different if it is led by me, or if it is led by someone else. And from certain backgrounds, the Anthroposophical Society could have been all the better led without me being the administrative head, so to speak. If the hearts had spoken, many things could have happened that in reality did not happen, that were not done, yes, that were even done from outside under the resistance of the anthroposophists.

And so it came about that - during the war, of course, there was not much opportunity to develop forces on all sides - so it came about that after 1918, I would almost like to say, the situation that existed was used by all possible sides to do this or that. If I had said at the time that this should not happen, then of course today people would say: Well, if we had let that happen, we would have flourishing businesses on all sides today.

That is why it has always been the custom at all times, I would like to say, for the leaders of an occult movement to have those who wanted to do something test how it would turn out so that convictions could be evoked through the facts. That is the only possible way to evoke convictions. And that is what had to happen in this case as well.

And all this has led to the fact that since 1918 the opposition has grown in the way it has become today. For in 1918 we did not yet have this opposition. Of course we had individual opponents. We didn't care about them and didn't need to. But it was only in 1918 that the opponents really started to grow. And that has led to the current situation, under the influence of which it is impossible for me, for example, to give public lectures within the territory of Germany.

All this should not be concealed, especially in the presence of the anthroposophical movement. We should look at this with all clarity, because we cannot make progress if we work with ambiguities.

Now, however, various things have been experimented with. Just think of all the experiments that have been carried out in order to be, let us say, “scientific”, quite understandably, of course, out of people's characters. Why shouldn't scientists, who also participate in our society, want to be scientific? But that is what annoys the opponents. Because when you tell them that this or that can be proven to be scientific, then they come forward with their aspirations, which they call scientific, and then of course they get angry. You have to be quite clear about that. Nothing has annoyed the opponents more than that one wanted to talk about the same subjects they themselves talk about in the same way, only, as they used to say, with a little “letting in” of anthroposophy. This letting in, that is precisely what has brought the opponents in such large numbers.

And if one first indulges in the illusion that one can somehow win over the people of different religious societies to anthroposophy by saying the same or something similar to what they say, just by again letting anthroposophy “flow in”, if one indulges in this illusion, then one sins very strongly against the living conditions of anthroposophy.

Now, in all that has happened in the anthroposophical field, since the Christmas meeting, a completely new trait must come. And those who have noticed the way in which anthroposophy is now being represented here, how it was represented in Prague, how it has now been represented again in Stuttgart, will have seen that there are now impulses which also evoke something quite new in relation to the opponents. Because if you want to be scientific in the usual sense of the word, as unfortunately many want to be, then you presuppose, so to speak, that it is possible to discuss with the opponents. But if you take the lectures that were given here, the lectures that were given in Prague, the lecture that was given in Stuttgart: can you still believe for a moment that it can only be a matter of discussing with the opponent? Of course you can't discuss with opponents when you talk about these things, because how can you discuss with anyone from today's civilization that the soul of Muawija has reappeared in the soul of Woodrow Wilson!

So there is now a trend in the whole anthroposophical movement which cannot be aimed at anything other than that this non-discussion with opponents should finally be taken seriously. When it comes to arguments, you can't get along anyway. And it will finally be recognized that, with regard to opponents, it can only be a matter of rejecting slander, untruths and lies. We must not give in to the illusion that we can discuss such things. They must spread by their own power and force. They cannot be decided by dialectics.

This is something that perhaps the attitude of the anthroposophical movement, as it has been since Christmas, is making our membership realize more and more. And that is why the anthroposophical movement is now being shaped in such a way that it takes nothing more into consideration than what the spiritual world wants from it.

You see, from this point of view I have now made various observations on karma, and those who were present here, or who were at my lecture in Stuttgart last time, will remember that I tried to show how those individualities who were present at the court of Harun al Raschid in Asia in the 8th and 9th centuries after Christ developed further in various directions after death and then played a certain role in their reincarnations. In the period that we can also call the age of the Thirty Years' War, somewhat before that, we have on the one hand the individuality of Harun al Raschid, reincarnated in the Englishman Baco of Verulam, and we have the great organizer at the court of Harun al Raschid, who lived there, not as an initiate, but as the reincarnation of an initiate, and we have found his individuality in Amos Comenius. It then had a greater impact in Central Europe. But from these two currents much has actually flowed together in the spiritual part of the newer civilization. So that in the spiritual part of the newer civilization the Near East from the post-Mohammed period lived, on the one hand through the re-embodied Harun al Raschid in Baco of Verulam, on the other hand through Amos Comenius, his great advisor.

Now we want to emphasize today that the development of man does not only take place when he is here on earth, but that essentially the development also takes place when people are between death and a new birth. So that one can say: Both Bacon and Amos Comenius, after they had, so to speak, established Arabism from two different sides in European civilization, entered after their death into the life between death and a new birth. They, both Bacon and Amos Comenius, were together with different souls who were later on earth than they were, who died in the 17th century and then lived on in the spiritual world. Then souls came to earth in the 19th century; they were together with the souls of Bacon and Amos Comenius in the spiritual world from the 17th to the 19th century.

Now there were such souls that preferably gathered around the soul of Bacon, who set the tone, and such souls that gathered around Amos Comesius. And even if this is more figurative, we must not forget that in the spiritual world, which people go through between death and a new birth, there are also leaders and followers, so to speak, under completely different circumstances. And such individualities not only worked through what they brought about here on earth, for example through the writings of Bacon or through the writings of Amos Comenius, or through what lived on in the tradition here on earth, but these leading spirits also worked through the fact that in the souls they sent down, or with whom they were together and who were sent down, they also allowed something quite special to germinate in the spiritual world. And so there are now also souls in the people of the 19th century whose development already became dependent on one of the two spirits, the disembodied Amos Comenius, the disembodied Bacon, in their pre-earthly existence.

And here I would like - as I said, because I want to lead more and more into the way in which karma works concretely - to draw attention to two personalities of the 19th century whose names will be known to most people, one of whom was particularly influenced by Bacon in his pre-earthly life, the other by Amos Comenius.

When we look at Bacon as he stood within earthly civilization in his earthly life as Lord Chancellor in England, we have to say that he worked in such a way that we can sense that there was an initiate behind his work. The whole controversy about Bacon and Shakespeare, as it is outwardly carried on by literary historians, is something extraordinarily Odes, because all kinds of beautiful arguments are put forward to show, for example, that the actor Shakespeare did not actually write his plays at all, but that the philosopher and chancellor Bacon is supposed to have written them, and the like.

All these things that work with external means, that seek out similarities in the way of thinking of Shakespeare's dramas and Bacon's philosophical works, all these external things are in fact dull, because they do not get at the matter at all, since the truth is that at the time when Bacon, Shakespeare, Jakob Böhme and another were active, there was an initiate who actually spoke through all four of them. Hence their kinship, because this actually goes back to a source. But of course the people who argue with external arguments do not argue about an initiate who was behind it, because this initiate is described in history, like many a modern initiate, as a rather annoying patron. But he was not just that. In his outward actions he was that too, but he was not just that, he was an individuality from whom immense powers emanated and to whom the philosophical works of Bacon, the dramas of Shakespeare, the works of Jakob Böhme and the works of the Jesuit Jakob Balde can actually be traced back. If one considers this, then one must see in Bacon, in the philosophical field, the inspirer of an enormous, broad contemporary current.

If you now want to visualize what can become of a soul that has been completely under the influence of the deceased Bacon for two centuries in the supernatural life - it is a very interesting question - then you have to look at the way Bacon lived after his death. It will become important for considerations of human history that we not only look at the people who live on earth until their death, but also in their work beyond death, where they continue to work for the souls who then descend to earth, especially if they have achieved something significant in the spiritual field.

These things are of course sometimes somewhat shocking for people of the present. For example, I remember - and this is just a brief interlude - that I was once standing at the station gate of a small German university town with a doctor, a well-known doctor who dealt a lot with occultism. There were many other people standing around us. He warmed up, and out of his enthusiasm he said to me in a somewhat loud tone, so that many bystanders could hear: 'I'm going to give you the biography of Robert Blum, but it won't start until he dies. - Because it was spoken so loudly, there was a certain amount of shock among the bystanders. You can't just say to people today: I'm giving you a biography of a man, but it only starts when he dies.

But apart from this two-volume biography by Robert Blum, which begins not with birth but with death, little has been done in this direction, to speak biographically of people after they have died. One usually begins at birth and ends with death. There are not yet many works that begin with death.

But for the real event there is a tremendously important thing just in that what man does after death when he imparts the results of what he has done on earth, converted into the spiritual, to the souls which come down after him. And one does not understand the afterlife of an age at all if one does not also look at this side of life.

For me, it was a matter of looking at the individualities that surrounded Bacon after his death. And there were individuals around Bacon who were then born as natural scientists, but also individuals who were born as historians. And if we now look at the influence of the deceased Lord Bacon on these souls, we see how that which he founded on earth, materialism, mere research in the world of the senses - everything else is an idol for him - turns into radicalism when translated into the spiritual. So that in fact these souls take up impulses in the middle of the spiritual world, which after their birth, after they have descended, only give something on earth to that which is a fact that can be seen with the senses.

Now I would like to speak somewhat popularly, but I ask you not to understand the popular quite literally, because of course it is then terribly easy to say: That is grotesque. - Among these souls were also those who, according to their earlier dispositions, according to the dispositions of their earlier lives on earth, were to become historians. One of them was - I mean, over there in the pre-earthly life - one of the most important. All these souls, under the impression of Lord Bacon's impulses, actually said: One must no longer write history as the earlier ones wrote, so that one has ideas, so that one researches connections, but the real facts must be researched.

Now I ask you: What does it mean in history to use real facts? -- The most important thing in history is people's intentions, which are not real facts. But these souls did not allow themselves to investigate this, and least of all did the soul who reappeared as one of the greatest historians of the 19th century, Leopold von Ranke, a pre-earthly disciple of Lord Bacon, who reappeared as Leopold von Ranke.

Following Leopold von Ranke's earthly career as a historian, what is his principle? Ranke's principle as a historian is this: Nothing must be written in history but what one reads in archives; one must compile the whole story from archives, from the negotiations of diplomats.

Ranke, who is a German Protestant, but who is completely indifferent to his sense of reality, works with objectivity, that is, with archival objectivity he writes the history of the popes, the best history of the popes that has been written from a purely archival point of view. When one reads Ranke, one is somewhat irritated, in fact basically terribly irritated. For it is a little odd to have to imagine this gentleman, agile and lively into his old age, sitting in archives and compiling what diplomatic negotiations were. It's not really a story at all. But it is a history that only reckons with the facts of the sensory world, and for history these are the archives.

And so we have the opportunity to gain an understanding of it precisely from the point of view of taking extraterrestrial life into account: Why did Ranke become like this?

But we can also look over to Amos Comenius, if we make such observations, to see how he influenced the pre-earthly will of souls that later descended. And just as Leopold von Ranke has become the most important post-mortal disciple of Bacon, so Schlosser has become the most important post-mortal disciple of Amos Comesius.

And now, if you read through Schlosser's history, you will notice the whole style, the whole basic tone: the moralist speaks everywhere, the one who wants to take hold of human souls, human hearts, who wants to speak to hearts. Sometimes it is difficult for him to succeed because he has a pedantic streak. Well, he speaks to hearts in a pedantic way, but he speaks to hearts because he is a pre-earthly disciple of Amos Comenius, because he has absorbed from him something of what was in this Amos Comenius, who is so characteristic precisely because of his particular way of thinking.

Think about it, he comes from Mohammedanism after all. He is something quite different from the spirits that followed Lord Bacon, for example; but Amos Comenius also went into the real outside world in his Amos Comenius incarnation. Everywhere he demanded vividness for teaching, everywhere there should be a pictorial basis. He demanded visualization, the sensual was emphasized, but in a different way. For Amos Comenius was also one of those who, in the age of the Thirty Years' War, held on to the advent of the so-called “Millennial Kingdom” in the most vivid way; he was the one who wrote great, world-embracing ideas in his “Pansophia”, who therefore aimed to have an impact on the education of people. That still had an effect on Schlosser, it is still in Schlosser.

I mentioned these two figures, Ranke and Schlosser, in order to show you how one can only understand that which appears in man as spiritually productive if one also considers extraterrestrial life. Only then can it be understood, just as we have understood many things by considering the repeated earth lives.

Now it has become noticeable in the considerations which I have made here before you in the preceding hours that in a strange way one incarnation is worked over into another, and I mention these examples, as I have already said, for the reason that one can then go into the way in which someone can think about his own karma. Before going into the way in which good and evil work over from one incarnation to another, how diseases and the like work over, one must first gain an idea of how that which then comes to light in the actual spiritual life of civilization works over.

I may confess, my dear friends, that one of the extremely interesting personalities for me with regard to their karma from the more recent spiritual life was Conrad Ferdinand Meyer. For anyone who looks at Conrad Ferdinand Meyer in the form in which he lived as the poet Conrad Ferdinand Meyer will see that Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's most beautiful achievements are based on the fact that there was always and repeatedly in his overall human constitution something like a desire of the ego and the astral body to escape from the physical body and the etheric body.

Morbid states occur in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, reaching the limits of mental disturbance. These are states that only bring about, in a somewhat more extreme form, what is actually always present in him at the origin, in the status nascendi: the actual spiritual-soul wants out and only holds the physical-etheric with a faint bond.

And it is in these states, where the spiritual-emotional holds the physical-ethereal with a gentle bond, that Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's most beautiful achievements emerge, both the most beautiful of his larger poems and the most beautiful of his smaller poems. One could say that the most beautiful of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's poems were written half out of body. This Conrad Ferdinand Meyer had a very peculiar structure between the four limbs of human nature. There really is a difference between such a personality and the average person of the present day. In an average person of the materialistic age, one usually has to deal with a very robust connection between the spiritual-soul and the physical-etheric. There, the spiritual-soul is deeply embedded in the physical-etheric, it becomes completely integrated. This was not the case with Conrad Ferdinand Meyer. There was a delicate relationship between the spiritual-soul and the physical-etheric. And describing the psyche of this man is really one of the most interesting things you can do in relation to the more recent development of the spirit. It is extraordinarily interesting to see how some of what comes up in Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's work almost looks like a clouded memory, but which has become beautiful because of the cloudiness. You always have the feeling that when Conrad Ferdinand Meyer writes, he remembers something, but not exactly. He changes it, but he changes it into something beautiful and perfect in form. This can also be observed in a wonderful way in some of his poems, piece by piece.

Now it is characteristic of a person's inner karma that there is a very specific relationship between the four members of human nature, the physical body, the etheric body, the astral body and the ego. This peculiarly intimate connection must now be traced back. First of all, we return to the age of the Thirty Years' War. That was clear to me first with this personality: there is something of a previous life on earth in the time of the Thirty Years' War. Then again, a previous life on earth that goes back to the pre-Carolingian period and clearly goes back to Italian history.

But in following Conrad Ferdinand Meyer's Karma, I would like to say that the peculiar blurring of its essence, which nevertheless appears in such perfection of form, is transferred to the investigation, and one then has the feeling: you enter into confusion. And something is actually only done when I actually describe these things as they arise. If you go back to the time of the 7th, 8th century in Italy, you have the feeling that you are entering into something extraordinarily uncertain. You are pushed back again and again, and only gradually do you realize that this is not because of yourself, but because of the subject matter; that there is something in the soul, in the individuality of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, which confuses you when you investigate it. For when one investigates such a matter, one must always come back to the present incarnation, or rather to the most recent previous one, to the one further ahead, then one must again, I would like to say, grasp Posto and come back again and again.

And now the following arises. You must think: Everything that has lived in a human soul in previous incarnations comes to light in the most diverse forms, in similarities that are sometimes not at all apparent to external observation. You will have already seen this in other reincarnations that I have developed here over the past few weeks.

And so you come to an incarnation in Italy in the first Christian centuries, that is, at the beginning of the second half of the first Christian millennium, where the soul with which you must first stop lived - much in Ravenna, much at the Roman court. But now we find ourselves in a state of confusion, because we have to ask ourselves: What lived in the soul? - At the moment when one asks oneself in order to challenge occult research: What lived in the soul? - then it is erased again. One comes upon the experiences that this soul has, which lives at the Ravenna court, at the Roman court; one enters into these experiences, one believes to have them: there they extinguish themselves again. And then you are driven back to Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, who lived in recent times, until you realize that in this later life he is erasing the content of his own soul from his earlier life. And really, it's only after a lot of effort that you realize how things are. Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, that is, the individuality that lived in him, lived at that time in Italy in a certain relationship to a pope who sent this individuality together with others on a Catholic Christian mission to England. So that this individuality, which then became Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, had first absorbed all that wonderful sense of form that one could absorb in Italy at that time, of which the mosaic arts in Italy in particular speak, of which the older Italian painting speaks, which for the most part has completely perished - that has indeed ceased - and he then went with a Catholic Christian mission to the Anglo-Saxons.

A comrade of his founded the bishopric of Canterbury. And what happened in Canterbury essentially followed on from this foundation. The individuality that then appeared as Conrad Ferdinand Meyer was only there, but this individuality was a very active one and thus provoked the displeasure of an Anglo-Saxon chieftain and was murdered at the instigation of this Anglo-Saxon chieftain. That is something that one finds at first. But there was something in the soul of Conrad Ferdinand Meyer, while he was in England, that did not allow him to enjoy his life. This soul was actually rooted in the Italian art of the time, if you want to call it that, in Italian intellectual life. She was not happy while carrying out missionary work in England, but nevertheless devoted herself to this missionary work in such an intensive way that her murder was actually the reaction to it.

This not being happy, this actually being repulsed by something, but which he carried out with all his strength and dedication out of another impulse of the heart, had a certain effect so that a cosmic clouding of the memory occurred during the passage through the next life on earth. The impulse was there, but it no longer coincided with any concept.

And so it came about that in the Conrad Ferdinand Meyer incarnation an indeterminate impulse asserted itself: In England I worked; something is connected with Canterbury, I was murdered because of my connection with Canterbury.

This is what the outer life of the Conrad Ferdinand Meyer incarnation works towards. Conrad Ferdinand Meyer studies English history, he studies Canterbury, he studies what is going on in connection with English history and Canterbury. He comes across Thomas Becket, the chancellor of King Henry II in the 12th century, this peculiar fate of Thomas Becket, who was first an all-powerful chancellor of Henry II, then was murdered at the instigation of Henry II. Then his own half-forgotten fate appeared to Conrad Ferdinand Meyer in the Conrad Ferdinand Meyer life in this Thomas Becket - in the subconscious, I mean, half-forgotten, because of course I'm talking about the subconscious that appears there. And there he describes his own fate from ancient times, by describing it in the story that took place in the 12th century between King Henry II and Thomas Becket of Canterbury, by describing this fate in his poem “The Saint”. It is just so - only it all takes place in the subconscious, which embraces the successive lives on earth - it is all as if a man had experienced something in an earthly life in early youth in connection with some place, perhaps experienced something in the second or third year of life, which he then forgot, which does not appear. Then a similar other fate appears, the place is named: this place evokes that the person concerned has a special sympathy for this other fate and feels this other fate differently from someone who does not somehow enter into an association of ideas with this place. Just as this can take place in an earthly life, so it takes place in this concrete case which I am giving you: The work in Canterbury, the murder of a personality bound to Canterbury - for Thomas Becket is Archbishop of Canterbury - by the King of England. So by combining these motifs, he depicts his own fate in what he portrays.

But now Conrad Ferdinand Meyer continues - that is the interesting thing: he is reborn in the age of the Thirty Years' War, reborn as a woman, born as a lively, intellectually interested woman in the time of the Thirty Years' War, sees many an adventure. This woman marries a man who initially took part in all the turmoil of the Thirty Years' War, but who then got fed up and emigrated to Switzerland, to Graubünden, where he lived as a rather philistine gentleman. But his wife took in everything that was happening within the Grisons itself under the influence of the circumstances of the Thirty Years' War.

This is again as if covered with a layer, because what is in this individuality, I would like to say, is easily forgotten cosmically and yet is brought up again in change and then becomes more glorious, more intense. And from what this woman has experienced in her contemplation, the wonderful characterization of “Jürg Jenatsch”, the man from Graubünden, emerges. And so, when you look at this Conrad Ferdinand Meyer in his Conrad Ferdinand Meyer incarnation, you have no explanation for his peculiarity if you can't go into his karma. Because actually I have to say - this is a matter of course, speaking cum grano salis, because the word doesn't really fit - I actually envy the people who understand Conrad Ferdinand Meyer so easily. When I didn't know his earlier incarnation, I only understood that I didn't really understand him. Because this wonderful unity of form, this inner joy in form, this purity of form, this power, the violence that lives in “Jürg Jenatsch”, this immensely personal and lively quality that lives in the “Saint” - you have to be a bit superficial if you think you can understand that without further ado.

But when one realizes: in the beautiful forms, which at the same time have something linear, something austere, which are painted and then again not painted, live the mosaics of Ravenna; in the “sacred” lives a history that was once undergone by the individuality itself, but over which the haze of the soul spread, so that a different formation emerged from the haze of the soul - and if one knows: that which lives in the Graubünden poetry of “Jürg Jenatsch” has been absorbed by the woman's mind, and in some of the thrusting things in this Graubünden poetry, there again lives the warhorse from the Thirty Years' War, who was a rather philistine gentleman, but nevertheless a warhorse; when one knows: there lives up in the soul in a peculiar form that which comes over from earlier earthly experiences - then one really only begins to understand. And then you say to yourself: In ancient times of mankind's development, people spoke openly about the way in which supernatural spirits descended to earth, how, in turn, people of the earth lived themselves up in order to continue to work from the spiritual world, and that is something that must come again, otherwise man will remain with his earthworm materialism. For what today is called a scientific world view is, after all, an earthworm world view.

People actually live on earth as if only the earth concerned them and as if the whole cosmos did not have an effect on the earthly and lived in man, and as if earlier times did not live on through the fact that we ourselves carry over into later times what we have absorbed in them. And to understand karma does not mean to be able to speak somehow conceptually about successive incarnations on earth, but to understand karma means to feel in one's heart what one can feel when one sees flowing over into later epochs in human souls what was there before. When you see how karma works, then human life takes on a completely different content. One feels oneself standing in human life in a completely different way.

Such a spirit as Conrad Ferdinand Meyer appears and feels the earlier earthly lives like a keynote in his being, like undertones that resonate over there. One only understands what is there when one develops an understanding of these basic tones. And the progress of mankind in spiritual life will be based on the fact that life can be viewed in this way, that one will really be able to enter into that which flows through man himself from earlier epochs of world development into later epochs of world development, The peculiarity of many a soul, for instance, as the psychoanalysts do, to explain in a foolish way out of “hidden soul provinces” - one can ascribe everything to the hidden - that will cease, and one will seek the real causes. Because the activities of psychoanalysts, who in certain respects really do quite good things, sometimes remind us of someone saying: In 1749, a patrician in Frankfurt gave birth to a son who later turned out to be gifted; you can still find the place in Frankfurt where this person, who later turned out to be Wolfgang Goethe, was born. Just dig into the earth to find out what kind of vapor caused his disposition. - That's how psychoanalysts sometimes appear to us! They dig down into the soil of the soul, into the “hidden provinces”, which they themselves only discover hypothetically, whereas in reality one has to search in the previous lives on earth and in the lives that lie between death and a new birth. Then the understanding of human souls opens up. Human souls are truly far too rich to be able to recognize their content from a single life on earth.