Donate books to help fund our work. Learn more→

The Rudolf Steiner Archive

a project of Steiner Online Library, a public charity

Karmic Relationships V
GA 239

25 May 1924, Paris

Lecture VII

We have spoken about the life between death and a new birth and have realised that after death man is received into a super earthly world which becomes manifest to us on Earth only through its signs or tokens—the stars; for the stars are tokens of another world, indications of spiritual worlds within our ken during our life between death and a new birth. We have heard, too, how man enters a Moon-sphere, a Mercury-sphere, a Venus-sphere, and yesterday we began to think about the Sun-sphere. At the same time I explained how, through Initiation knowledge, the nature of these worlds can be understood.

When through the methods described in my books, the power to look into the spiritual world has been acquired, we are able to survey in retrospect the whole of our earthly life. It lies there, displayed in a vast tableau, and we survey it in periods of time, each of about seven years' duration. We see our early childhood until the change of teeth, and with it the mystery of the Moon-sphere is revealed. The mystery of the Mercury-sphere is revealed by the retrospective survey of the period between the change of teeth at about the seventh year, and puberty. The mystery of the Venus-sphere is revealed by the retrospective survey of the period from the fourteenth or fifteenth year to the beginning of the twenties. And when, having grown older in earthly life, we look back on the period between approximately the twenty-first to the forty-second years when the human being is in the prime of life and has not begun to decline then the mysteries of the Sun-sphere present themselves to us. In this sphere there are no processes, no workings, of nature. None of the causes and effects to be perceived in earthly nature exist in the Sun-sphere. When we have passed the spheres of Moon, Mercury and Venus and have entered that of the Sun there are no activities of nature around us but only activities of a moral kind. Everything that is good has its corresponding good results; whatever is evil has long ago fallen away in the Moon-sphere. The Sun-sphere is pure goodness, shining, radiant goodness; no evil has any place in it. And we must live through this Sun-existence often for centuries, for time is more prolonged in the life between death and rebirth than here on Earth. In the Sun-sphere we come not only into the company of those souls with whom we were connected by karma on Earth, who have passed through the gate of death and have entered the spiritual world as we ourselves have done, but in the Sun-sphere we come also into the province of the Exusiai, Dynamis and Kyriotetes. The activities of these Beings are purely spiritual; their nature is purely spiritual. And the moral world we behold around us in the Sun-sphere belongs to them, just as the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms belong to the Earth.

To understand the life of the human soul in the Sun-sphere we must realise that here on Earth we stand spatially enclosed within our skin. We look out upon the world from what is bounded by our skin. In the Sun-sphere the reverse is the case. There, everything we here call the world is within us; the Moon is within us, not outside us; Mercury is within us; indeed the Sun-sphere itself is within us, not outside us.

Here in earthly life we distinguish between our body and our head, realising that if the head is to do its work as an organ of cognition it must be set apart from the rest of the body. And just as we know that the head must be constructed differently from the rest of the body, so, in the Sun-sphere we know that the world organism is in us, belongs to us as Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun. But We also have something special which corresponds to the head in earthly life, namely, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. They constitute our head in the Sun-existence. We may say: In the Sun-existence, Moon, Mercury and Venus are our limbs; the Sun itself is our whole rhythmic system; the Sun-sphere itself, with all its Beings, is our heart and our lungs; whereas our organ of intelligence and reason, the head, is represented in the Sun-sphere by Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. And just as we speak with the mouth in the lower part of the head, so, because we carry Mars within us in our cosmic body, we live by virtue of the cosmic word. The cosmic word sounds through the wide expanses of space. Thus, just as here on Earth we carry in our head those insignificant earthly thoughts, so through Jupiter we bear within us the wisdom of worlds. And as here we have memory, experiences of remembrance, so in the Sun-existence we bear within us the Saturn-existence which gives us cosmic memory. And just as here we live inside our skin and look outwards, so we live, as I have described, in our Sun-existence and look out upon the outside world, upon Man—not, of course, the being with whom anatomy is concerned, but a being as great, mighty and majestic as the Universe with all its stars.

Seen from an earthly standpoint we have far too low an opinion of what is comprised in man—and this is a good thing for earthly human beings who might otherwise become megalomaniacs. Fundamentally speaking, if we include all the human beings on the Earth, they are the bearers of all the Hierarchies, for the Beings of the Hierarchies unfold their nature in man. That in man which is far grander than the whole starry world, than the courses and phenomena of the stars—that is our outer world in the Sun-existence. And it is together with the Exusiai, Dynamis and Kyriotetes, with the other Beings belonging to the Moon-sphere, with the Angels, with the Beings who inhabit Venus, with the Hierarchy of the Archai, with all the other human souls with whom we are karmically connected, that we prepare our next earthly life. This work in the Sun-existence for the elaboration of the next earthly life is infinitely grander than anything man can achieve for culture and civilisation on the Earth. What earthly civilisation offers is, after all, the work of man. But man himself is much more; to him it is vouchsafed to work for his later earthly life in collaboration with the Beings in the Sun-sphere. The result would be pitiable if man were merely to work with other human souls at the structure subsequently produced for earthly life. He must work in cooperation with all the higher Hierarchies. For the being born of a mother has not arisen on the Earth; it is only the scene of action, as it were, that comes into existence on the Earth. A wonderful cosmic creation, formed in super-sensible worlds, in the Sun-existence, incarnates into what is produced through physical heredity.

If such things are grasped with the right kind of understanding, we must surely look up to the Sun and say that its physical rays shining down to the Earth as warmth are the blessings bestowed by the Sun. But when we know what the Sun is in reality, we shall feel: Up yonder, where the glowing orb of the Sun moves through the Universe, is the scene where the spiritual prototypes of future generations of men first take shape; there the higher Hierarchies work together with the souls of men who lived on Earth in their previous incarnations, to bring the human beings of the future into existence. The Sun is actually the spiritual embryo of the Earth life of the future. In point of fact, it is the first half of the Sun-existence that we spend with the Gods, shaping together with them our future Earth-existence.

When we have lived through half the period between death and a new birth and have reached the point called in my Mystery Plays, the ‘Midnight Hour,' another kind of work begins. We have heard that the Sun-existence is pure goodness. If all that I have described to you had been the work of the higher cosmic wisdom alone, angel like, godlike beings would have come to the Earth instead of men. But these godlike beings would have had no freedom, for in keeping with the Sun-existence from which they sprang they would have been adapted only to do good. They would have had no choice between good and evil.

In the second half of the Sun-existence, part of the human reality produced there is transformed, dissolved as it were, to a picture. To begin with, man is formed in such a way that in his organism he would inevitably have become a wholly good being. Then, however, in the second half of the Sun-existence, part of his nature is not formed as a reality, but only as a picture, so that we go on our way in the Sun-sphere partly as spiritual reality, partly as a picture. This spiritual reality is the foundation for our body in the next earthly life. The part that is merely a picture is the foundation for our head. Because it is merely a picture it can be filled with much denser material, bony substance in fact. At the same time there is membered into this part that is not spiritual reality but a picture only, what we experience on Earth as the echoings of this picture. The requirements of our stomach, liver, and so on, are experienced as necessities of nature. The moral impulse within us is a spiritual experience here on Earth. The rudiment of what resounds from our conscience as the moral impulse is formed in that part of the Sun's embryonic prototype of man which becomes a picture.

Now the Earth in its evolution, the evolution of mankind on the Earth—each has its history; culture and civilisation evolve throughout the course of this history. The Sun life, the long period traversed between death and a new birth, has also its history. The most important event in the Earth's history is the Mystery of Golgotha, and in that history we make a clear distinction between the period before the Mystery of Golgotha and the period after it. A similar distinction must be made in the Sun-existence between what took place there before the Event of Golgotha on Earth, and after it. The following are the facts.—

Before the Mystery of Golgotha had taken place the Christ Being was not present on the Earth; His coming was expected but He was not yet there, He was still in His Sun-existence. Those who were initiated in the Mysteries had ways and means in their Mystery Centres of participating in the Sun life. When the Initiates succeeded in attaining higher knowledge outside the body, they were able, through their Initiation, to reach Christ in the Sun-sphere where He was to be found. Since the Mystery of Golgotha came to pass on the Earth, Christ has no longer been in the Sun-sphere. He has united Himself with Earth-existence. First, Christ is present in the Sun-sphere; afterwards He is no longer there. In Earth life it is exactly the reverse: to begin with, Christ is not there; after the Mystery of Golgotha He is. But just as the Christ Impulse penetrates radically into Earth life, so does it into the Sun life. Here on Earth it costs us effort so to deepen our life of soul that we may experience the Christ, that we may be inwardly filled, permeated by the Christ; similarly, it is difficult during the Sun life to survey, to behold, the essential nature of the whole man. And especially was it difficult in the early days of man's evolution, in spite of the instinctive clairvoyance then prevailing, to perceive the human being in the Sun life after death. Precisely because on Earth man saw something spiritual within himself, it was difficult for him in the Sun life to perceive the mystery of man as a world outside himself. Before the Mystery of Golgotha it was the Christ who gave to man in the Sun-sphere the power to behold his whole being. Since the Mystery of Golgotha we, as men on the Earth, must bring about the spiritual deepening that can be acquired through living contemplation of the Mystery of Golgotha, through inward participation in the life of Christ. In this way, during our earthly existence, we can consciously marshal the forces which we can bear with us through death and which can give us power to see man's whole being in the Sun-sphere. Before the Mystery of Golgotha, Christ gave to human beings in their life between death and rebirth the power to behold man in the Sun-existence; since the Mystery of Golgotha Christ prepares human beings during earthly life itself to be able to behold the whole, full nature of man in the Sun-existence. Thus it is only when we look out beyond Earth-existence into the Sun-existence that we can learn truly to understand the essence of Christianity. And, as we have seen, we learn to recognise in the Sun-existence a first half when man is originally formed as reality, when he is pure goodness. Then the picture-like part is engendered, and this projects into the later life, giving man freedom and containing the seed of moral experience.

Now if we study a man's moral aptitudes and the health-promoting forces in him with Initiation science, we see nothing correctly through Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition unless these faculties are strengthened by what we can receive from the spheres into which man gradually enters on passing out of the Sun-existence—the spheres of Mars-existence, Jupiter-existence, Saturn-existence. Then, in order to fathom this second half of human life between death and rebirth, we must look back once more on certain seven-year periods in life. To see all this connectedly, however, we must have passed our sixty-third year, as I have already pointed out. If we look back on the period between the forty-second and forty-ninth years, the mysteries of Mars shine out from this period of life. From the forty-ninth to the fifty-sixth year, the Jupiter mysteries send out their light, and from the period between the fifty-sixth and the sixty-third years of life, illumination comes from the Saturn mysteries. Merely through the light which radiates towards us in this retrospective survey, we can understand what takes place in the spheres of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn to prepare man for a new life on Earth. For when a man enters these spheres, having passed through the Sun-existence, the Beings of the higher Hierarchies begin to work manifestly: first the Thrones in the Mars-sphere; then the Cherubim in the Jupiter-sphere; and the Seraphim in the Saturn-sphere.

When we have passed through this second half of the life between death and a new birth, once again the position is in a certain respect the opposite of that in earthly life. Here on Earth we look out into the wide spaces of the starry world, we see its wonders and its sublimity fills us with reverence. When in preparation for our future earthly life we proceed from the Sun-existence through the spheres of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, wherever we look we are in the sphere of religious life. But looking downwards towards the Earth, it does not appear to us in a physical form as we have it around us here; rather there appears in the direction of the Earth a sublime and mighty spiritual life, woven out of the events of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, out of the deeds of the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones. Now, however, it is not quite as it was before, when we felt the whole world within us. We felt the Exusiai, Dynamis and Kyriotetes within ourselves. Now, looking down as we experience the deeds of Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones, we see them, to begin with, outside ourselves; we see below us the super-sensible heaven, for the purely spiritual world is, for us, even above that. We see the super-sensible heaven and look down into the spheres of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn; we see Thrones, Cherubim and Seraphim living, striving, working. But what vista presents itself to us when we contemplate this work?—As we watch, we experience in a super-sensible way among the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones what will constitute the fulfilment of our karma in the next earthly life; we see what we shall experience through those other men with whom our karma is in some way interwoven. This we experience in the first place through divine deeds among the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones. They determine among themselves what we shall experience as the fulfilment of our karma in the next life on Earth. The Gods are verily our creators, but they also create our karma. The fulfilment of our karma is first experienced by the Gods in a heavenly picture; and this makes the impression we carry with us into our further existence. We take our karma upon ourselves because we behold it first in the divine deeds of the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones. And in this vista we are shown what is in store for us in the next earthly life, carried into effect by the Gods.

From this you will realise that knowledge of karma is acquired through Initiation science if human life is followed through the second half of the journey from death to a new birth and if we are able to decipher what takes place in the spheres of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn through the deeds of the Thrones, Cherubim and Seraphim. And for one who has learnt to look back in spirit over his life between his forty-second and forty-ninth years, it is possible to penetrate into the Mars mysteries, to have some vision of what takes place in that sphere—especially among the Thrones but in general among Thrones, Cherubim and Seraphim—when man is passing through it. From the standpoint of earthly life alone, the way in which a man's karma works cannot be rightly judged; the super-sensible world must come to our assistance. And if someone wishes to study karma, he must turn his attention to that part of the Universe traversed by man between death and a new birth in the spheres of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Now in certain cases what is taking place in the Mars-sphere is of particular significance for the next earthly life.

Between death and a new birth we look at the Mars-sphere and perceive what is happening there. Everything is ‘word.' The Beings of Mars are ‘word beings'—if I may put it so. Picture it as follows. Man consists of flesh and blood; when he speaks he sets the air in motion. When the air waves strike against our ears, we hear; the sounds and tones are embodied in the air waves. The Mars Beings are formed of such waves; their whole nature consists of words, and when we hear with the ears of spirit we experience these Beings. If in later life we look back over the period between the forty-second and forty-ninth years, if this is the period that has the greatest influence on a man between death and a new birth, if it is in the Mars-sphere that his karma is chiefly worked out, then what he will experience on the Earth is very closely connected with the Mars-existence. At the decisive juncture in his life after death he looks down through the Mars-sphere and forms for himself an earthly life very strongly connected with the Mars-existence.

Now let us take an example. There was a man who lived at the time when the Arabs, under the influence of Mohammedanism, streamed from Asia and North Africa to battle against Europe, threatening the Spanish Empire and setting up Moorish Arabian sovereignty. Suppose that before the spread of Arabian domination in Africa a man had acquired learning in the form customary at that time. There was such a man. In North Africa he had imbibed the knowledge that was available there, not exactly as it had been imbibed by St. Augustine, but in a somewhat similar form. This man—I am not now speaking of St. Augustine but of the other personality—imbibed a later form of North African learning which by then contained elements of Moorish-Arabian thought. This personality subsequently went over to Spain where his beliefs underwent a kind of transformation; he turned to a more Christian point of view and mingled the Arabian concepts he had previously imbibed with the Christian teachings he was now receiving. Then he became imbued with elements of cabbalistic knowledge—not with what is now generally called Cabbalism but with certain trends of cabbalistic thought. The outcome was that he had many doubts, inner doubts and uncertainties; and in this mood of uncertainty he died. Comparatively soon afterwards, in the first half of the Middle Ages, this male personality was reborn as a woman, bringing into the new life an accumulation of all these doubts, which now became more deeply rooted than ever. The same personality appears again later on, having prepared for the transition from life as a woman to life again as a man, partly before and partly during the life between death and rebirth. The destiny for the next earthly life having been elaborated principally in the Mars-sphere, this personality was inevitably associated with the sphere of keen intellectuality on Earth—the sphere of intellectual judgments fraught with elements of criticism, of rebellion. This personality, two of whose previous incarnations I have here described, then became Voltaire.1Voltaire, 1694–1778.

You see how in the life between death and a new birth the earthly life is formed through the connection existing between man and the spiritual realities behind the stars. We understand the historical course of earthly life only when we can perceive the connection between one life and other earthly lives of the same individual.

How, then, do things that were present as causes and effects in earlier epochs of historical evolution pass over into the new epoch? It is men themselves who carry them over. All of you sitting here have brought over from your experiences in earlier epochs what you are experiencing in the present era. It is men themselves who make history, but we understand history only if instead of abstract speculation we are able to perceive what happens to individuals between death and a new birth in concrete reality.

Of particular importance for the understanding of human earthly life is the study of the karmic evolution that is revealed when a man brings with him from his earlier lives on Earth the results of having elaborated the main impulses of his karma in the Saturn-sphere. Men whose main karmic impulses take shape in the Mars-existence become like Voltaire. All their thoughts are concerned with life on Earth, criticising it, fighting against it, sometimes—in Voltaire's case with genius—epitomising it in caustic, aphoristic sayings. It is different when the karma is formed mainly through the Saturn impulses. These Saturn impulses have a very special influence on men. Even the perception of them when a man looks back upon his earthly life between the fifty-sixth and sixty-third years—even the sight of the Saturn mysteries is in many respects shattering; these mysteries are in a sense alien to earthly life. And whoever gradually learns through Initiation knowledge to perceive the Saturn mysteries that are connected with this period of life, undergoes experiences of dramatic intensity, shattering experiences, that are harder and harder to bear because these mysteries strike at the very roots of life. Nevertheless it can be said that we become aware of the whole wonderful setting of the settings of a man's life when we perceive how karma takes shape in this sphere. I will illustrate this too by an example, but something must be said in preparation.

A question may well occur to you—a question that is entirely justified and based upon statements often made by me in books and lectures, namely, that in earlier times there were great Initiates who lived among men. You may ask: Where are they now, in this later age? Probably if you look around at present you will not say of many of the men working in the world that they have the characteristic traits of Initiates—and this has been the case for some long time. So the question must be asked: Where are the Initiates in their later incarnations?

Now someone who was an Initiate in a former incarnation, in full consciousness and outwardly too, need not necessarily become one again in a subsequent incarnation. The fruits of the Initiation may remain in the subconsciousness. A man is obliged to make use of the body with which his epoch can provide him. The bodies of to-day are not well adapted for spiritual knowledge; they are actually a continual hindrance because they are products of a materialistic epoch; and the education we receive from childhood onwards is a greater hindrance still. When a person who was an Initiate in past ages grows up in these conditions, he cannot again give outward expression to what remained of the Initiation for this incarnation. We learn to write in childhood but our present writing is incapable of giving expression to what at one time was Initiation science; and it is the same in other domains. Initiates of earlier epochs may appear in life as great figures in a different sense, but not as Initiates. Many a life at the present time and in the immediate past points back to earlier Initiation.

I should like to give you an example of a personality who in a former earthly life was actually initiated into a high grade of the Hibernian Mysteries, the Mysteries of ancient Ireland, during the first Christian century when those great Mysteries were already in decline, though still preserving far reaching, profound knowledge. The knowledge possessed by these Irish Mysteries was especially profound, not in an intellectual but in an intensely human sense. An impression of the proceedings in these Mysteries can be described as follows: After a candidate had been prepared for a long time to realise that truth may be subject to deception on the Earth, to realise the possibility of doubt, he had to experience in a picture something that only in that form could make the necessary deep impression. The pupil was taken in front of two statues. One was made of elastic substance, but it was hollow. It was of huge dimensions and tremendously impressive. The pupil was told to touch it. This caused a violent shock, for the statue gave the impression of being alive. The finger was pressed into it, then quickly withdrawn, and the original shape was immediately restored. The impression was of something living that was at once restored when disturbed even in the slightest degree. This was intended to signify everything in man that is of the nature of the Sun.

The other statue was more plastic. Again the pupil was told to touch it, and in this case the impression left by the touch, remained. The next day, however, when the pupil was led before the statue again, its original shape had been restored during the night. Ritualistic acts of this kind brought about a change in the inner life of the pupil of the Mysteries.

In this way a deep impression had been made in the Irish Mysteries upon a certain personality who was living at that time as a man. You will realise that when examples of this kind are being given to-day, the male incarnations are the most likely to be conspicuous because in earlier epochs it was almost exclusively men who played any important part. Incarnations as women are intermediate. To-day, when women are beginning to be important figures in historical life and development, the time is coming when female incarnations will be increasingly significant.

Now there is a personality upon whom the Initiation rites and ceremonies of the Hibernian Mysteries had made a profound impression; they had a deep effect upon his inner life and his experiences were of such intensity that he forgot the Earth altogether. Then, after this personality had lived through an incarnation as a woman, when the impulses of earlier Initiation showed themselves merely in the general disposition of the soul, he came to the Earth again as an important figure in the 19th century. He had lived out the consequences of his karma in the Saturn-sphere—the sphere where one lives among Beings who, fundamentally speaking, have no present. It is a shattering experience to look with clairvoyant vision into the Saturn-sphere, where Beings live who have no present but only look back on their past. Whatever they do is done unconsciously; any action of theirs comes to consciousness only when it has happened and is inscribed into the world karma. Acquaintance with these Beings who draw their past after them like a spiritual comet's tail, has a shattering effect. The personality of whom I am speaking, who had at one time been initiated and had thus transcended earthly existence in a certain sense, bore his soul to these Beings who take no part in the present, and elaborated his karma among them. It was as if everything that had been experienced hitherto in an Initiate-existence now illumined with majestic splendour all the past earthly lives. This past was brought to fruition by what had been experienced through the Hibernian Initiation. When this personality appeared again on Earth in the 19th century he had now, by contrast, to unfold impulses for the future. And when, on descending from the Saturn-sphere, this soul, with its gaze into the past illumined by the light of Initiation, arrived on Earth, it presented this contrast: a firm foothold on the Earth while gazing into the future and giving expression to far reaching ideas, impulses and perceptions. This Hibernian Initiate became Victor Hugo.2Victor Hugo, 1802–1885. We can assess a man rightly only when we also perceive the development he underwent between death and a new birth. His moral, religious and ethical qualities then become evident to us. A personality certainly does not become poorer but on the contrary, very much richer, when viewed with the eyes of spirit.

These examples have been selected with the greatest exactitude. How do they help us to understand the life of man, the collaboration of the Cosmos with man? How does a third example help us to understand much that might otherwise be problematical even to unprejudiced minds? How do the karmic connections in such a case explain something quite extraordinary, something which otherwise seems incomprehensible?

We are led to Mysteries that had fallen completely into decay. These Mysteries had at one time been a factor of great significance in America but had then become decadent, with the result that conceptions of the rites, and their actual enactment, had become thoroughly childish in comparison with the grandeur of earlier times. But even the elements of superstition and magic prevailing in these later Mysteries before the so called ‘discovery' of America—therefore not so very long ago—still echoed something of the suggestive power of the most ancient Mysteries.

There was a personality who received in these later Mysteries not only pictures but definite impressions of Beings then known by the names of Taotl, Quetzalcoatl, Tezcalipoca. These Beings made a tremendously strong impression, but it was an impure influence, impure in an ethical respect, as is often the case with decadent Mysteries. I see this personality born again later on as a man whose sub consciousness was permeated with the suggestive power that emanated from these Mysteries. He was reborn as Éliphas Lévi and his writings revive the abstract, rationalistic, purely external conceptions which invariably spring from decadent Mysteries. This throws light on an otherwise enigmatic figure, whose writings have a certain grandeur about them but also something that is apt to stupefy the soul.

No matter where we look, life is clarified by the concrete indications given by Anthroposophy. Is it now possible for you to suppose that genuine descriptions of conditions of existence above and beyond earthly life can be listened to without stirrings of the heart, without spiritual warmth and illumination being brought into your souls? Does not human life between birth and death look different, indeed is it not felt to be different, when these descriptions of super-sensible life are allowed to work upon the soul with all their inner power? We realise that we have come down from a world that can indeed be described; we carry into the physical world something that has lived among Gods.

To grasp these things theoretically is of very secondary importance. What matters is to realise that as human beings on the Earth in the physical body it is incumbent upon us to become worthy of what we have brought with us from super-sensible worlds. If knowledge becomes an impulse of will worthy of our soul life before the descent through birth, then what is taught in Anthroposophy has a direct moral influence. This strengthening of the moral impulse is an essential aspect of Anthroposophy. I think the content of these three lectures will have made this evident.

Let us now look at the other aspect, the aspect of death which ends physical life on Earth, setting Nothingness in the place of life. If, however, we can picture what it has been possible to describe of the super-sensible world, then behind the Nothingness there rises the spiritual world of the Gods, and man becomes conscious that he will have the strength to begin the work of forming a new physical body just where the Nothingness of his former physical body has been made evident. This gives a strong and true religious impulse. And so a picture of cosmic and human life springs from Anthroposophy. Anthroposophy is moreover the source from which moral and religious ideals are imbued with strength.

I should like to conclude these lectures by speaking of the living Anthroposophy that must remain with us, so that even when we separate in space we are together in spirit. Our thoughts will meet and in reality we are not parting at all. Through study of super-sensible realities we know that those who have been brought together by Anthroposophy can always be together in soul and in spirit. Therefore let these lectures to the Group here conclude on this note: You and I have been together for a time in space, and in spirit we will remain united.

Siebenter Vortrag

Über das Leben zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt haben wir gesprochen und dabei gesehen, wie der Mensch aufgenommen wird nach dem Tode von einer außerirdischen Welt, von jener außerirdischen Welt, die uns auf der Erde nur dutch ihre Zeichen erscheint, denn Sterne sind Zeichen einer anderen Welt. Und wenn wir auf diese Zeichen hindeuten, dann kann uns diese Hindeutung sein zugleich diejenige auf geistige Welten, die wir selbst betrachten, wenn wir in dem Dasein zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt sind. Und wir haben gesehen, wie der Mensch eintritt in eine Mondensphäre, in eine Merkursphäre, in eine Venussphäre, und sind gestern angekommen bei der Betrachtung der Sonnensphäre. Zugleich habe ich ausgeführt, wie man durch die Initiationserkenntnis ein Wissen erlangen kann von den entsprechenden Welten. Hat man sich die Möglichkeit erworben, hineinzuschauen in die geistige Welt durch diejenigen Methoden, die Sie in meinen Büchern geschildert finden, dann bekommt man zunächst einen Rückblick auf das gesamte Erdenleben. Auf einmal, wie ausgebreitet in einem großen Tableau, liegt es da, und man überschaut es in Zeiträumen, die immer ungefähr sieben Jahre dauern im Rückblick. Wir erblicken unsere erste Kindheit bis zum Zahnwechsel. Wenn wir sie durchschauen, so strahlt uns entgegen das Geheimnis der Mondensphäre. Durchschauen wir dann dasjenige, was zwischen dem Zahnwechsel, dem siebenten Jahre und der Geschlechtsteife liegt, so strahlt uns entgegen das Geheimnis der Merkursphäre. Von dem vierzehnten oder fünfzehnten Jahre bis zum Beginn der Zwanzigerjahre, wenn beim Menschen die Geschlechtsreife eingetreten ist, kommt diejenige Epoche, aus der uns im Rückblicke erscheint das Geheimnis der Venussphäre. Und wenn man schon etwas alt geworden ist und zurückblickt auf die Zeit zwischen dem einundzwanzigsten Jahre ungefähr und dem zweiundvierzigsten Jahre, auf diese Zeit, wo man in der Reife des Menschenlebens steht und noch nicht der Abstieg begonnen hat, - wenn man zurückblickt auf diese Zeit, treten einem die Geheimnisse der Sonnensphäre entgegen. Diese Geheimnisse bestehen ja darinnen, daß in dieser Sphäre, wie ich schon gestern angedeutet habe, keine Naturwirkungen sind. Alles das, was wir hier an Ursachen und Wirkungen in der Natur der Erde wahrnehmen, gibt es in der Sonnensphäre nicht. In der Zeit, die wir betreten, wenn wir die Monden-, Merkur-, Venussphäre absolviert haben und in die Sonnensphäre eintreten, in der Zeit haben wir um uns keine Naturwirkungen, sondern nur moralisch-seelische Wirkungen. Alles dasjenige, was gut ist, hat seine entsprechenden guten Ergebnisse, alles dasjenige, was böse ist, ist längst in der Mondensphäre abgefallen. Die Sonnensphäre ist lautere Güte, strahlende, leuchtende Güte. Kein Böses hat in ihr Platz. Und wir müssen dieses Sonnendasein durchleben, durchleben oftmals als Mensch jahrhundertelang, denn die Zeit ist sozusagen ausgedehnter in dem Leben zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt als hier auf der Erde. Wenn wir diese Sonnensphäre durchleben, dann kommen wir nicht nur in die Gesellschaft derjenigen Seelen, die nun auch vom Erdenleben aus durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen sind, mit uns zugleich die geistige Welt betreten haben, und mit denen wir durch das Karma verbunden waren, sondern wir kommen auch in der Sonnensphäre in das Gebiet der Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes. Das sind Wesenheiten, die ganz in geistigen Wirkungen leben, Wesenheiten rein geistiger Art. Und dasjenige, was wir als moralische Umwelt in der Sonnensphäre wahrnehmen, gehört zu diesen Wesenheiten so, wie das mineralische, pflanzliche, tierische Reich zu der Wesenheit der Erde gehört.

Wenn man das Leben der Menschenseele in der Sonnensphäre verstehen will, muß man sich klar darüber sein, daß wir hier auf der Erde als Mensch stehen, gewissermaßen räumlich eingeschlossen in unsere Haut. Alles, was innerhalb unserer Haut ist, nennen wir uns selbst. Alles dasjenige, was außer unserer Haut ist, nennen wir die Welt. Und wir blicken von demjenigen, was innerhalb unserer Haut ist, heraus in die Welt. Genau das Umgekehrte ist der Fall im Leben in der Sonnensphäre. Da sind wir in all dem darinnen, was wir hier Welt nennen; da ist der Mond in uns, nicht außer uns, ist Merkur in uns, ja die Sonnensphäre selber mit ihrem ganzen Gebiet ist in uns, nicht außer uns. Und so, wie wir hier im Erdenleben unterscheiden zwischen unserem Körper und unserem Kopf und uns klar sind darüber, daß der Kopf sich absondert als das Erkenntnisorgan von dem übrigen Körper, wenn er arbeiten soll, - so wie wir wissen, daß der Kopf etwas anders geartet sein muß als der übrige Körper, wissen wir während der Sonnensphäre: Wir haben den Weltenorganismus, der uns angehört, als Mondwesen, als Merkurwesen, als Venuswesen, als Sonnenwesen an uns. Aber wir haben etwas Besonderes noch an uns, so wie wir hier im Erdenleben den Kopf haben. Was wir da Besonderes an uns haben, ist Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, ist gewissermaßen unser Kopf im Sonnendasein. Wir können sagen: Im Sonnendasein werden Mond, Merkur, Venus unsere Gliedmaßen, die Sonne selber unser gesamtes rhythmisches System; unser Herz und unsere Lunge, das ist im Leben in der Sonne die Sonnensphäre selber mit allen ihren Wesenheiten. Dagegen dasjenige, was hier das Begreifens-Organ ist, das Vernunftorgan, der Kopf, das ist in der Sonnensphäre dasjenige, was wir als Mars, Jupiter, Saturn finden. So, wie wir hier mit unserem Kopf in seiner untersten Partie, mit dem Munde, sprechen können, so leben wir dadurch, daß wir den Mars in unserem Weltenleibe in uns tragen, durch das Weltenwort. Das tönt durch alle Raumesweiten. Und so, wie wir hier die Gedanken in unserem Kopfe tragen, diese kleinen, irdisch-winzigen Gedanken, so tragen wir die Weltenweisheit in uns durch den Jupiter. Und wie wir hier Erinnerung haben, Gedächtniserlebnisse, so tragen wir im Sonnendasein in uns das Saturndasein, das uns Welterinnerung gibt. Und wie wir hier in unserer Haut leben und hinausschauen, leben wir in unserem Sonnendasein, wie ich es beschrieben habe, und schauen auf die Außenwelt, auf den Menschen. Der Mensch ist in unserer Welt darinnen. Nicht natürlich der Mensch, von dem die irdische Anatomie spricht, sondern etwas, was in sich so groß und gewaltig, so majestätisch ist wie das Weltall mit all seinen Sternen.

Wenn wir es vom irdischen Standpunkte erblicken, meine lieben Freunde, dann ist es schon so: Wir haben eigentlich - und es ist für den irdischen Menschen gut, damit er nicht dem Größenwahnsinn verfällt - eine viel zu geringe Meinung von dem, was im Menschen eingeschlossen ist. Im Grunde genommen, wenn wir alle Menschen zusammennehmen auf der Erde, sind sie die Träger aller Hierarchien; diese entfalten ihr Wesen im Menschen. Das, was im Menschen ist, was viel großartiger ist als alle Sternenwelt, alle Sternengänge und -erscheinungen, das ist unsere Außenwelt im Sonnendasein. Und mit den Wesenheiten, die ich genannt habe, Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes, mit den anderen Wesenheiten, die im Monde leben, mit den Wesen aus der Hierarchie der Angeloi, mit den Wesen, die auf der Venus leben, mit den Wesen aus der Hierarchie der Archai, mit all den anderen Menschenseelen, mit denen wir karmisch verbunden sind, arbeiten wir aus der Anschauung des menschlichen Leibes heraus unser nächstes Erdendasein aus. Und diese Arbeit im Sonnendasein zur Entstehung des nächsten Erdenmenschen, des nächsten menschlichen Lebens auf der Erde, diese Arbeit, sie ist eine viel großartigere als alles dasjenige, was der Mensch zur Kultur und Zivilisation auf der Erde hervorbringen kann. Dasjenige, was schließlich die Erdzivilisation bietet, ist Menschenwerk. Der Mensch ist nicht nur Menschenwerk; er darf mitarbeiten im Sonnendasein am späteren Erdenleben. Es würde etwas Klägliches herauskommen, wenn der Mensch im Zusammenhang mit anderen Menschenseelen allein an diesem Wunderbau, den er darstellt im Erdenleben, arbeiten würde. Da muß er zusammenarbeiten mit allen höheren Hierarchien. Denn dasjenige, was durch die Mutter des Menschen geboren wird, das ist ja nicht auf der Erde entstanden, nur sozusagen der Schauplatz ist auf der Erde entstanden. In demjenigen, was durch die physische Vererbung gegeben wird, verkörpert sich ein wunderbares Weltengebilde, das in übersinnlichen Welten im Sonnendasein geformt ist.

Da muß man schon, wenn man solche Dinge mit dem richtigen Erkenntnisvermögen erfaßt, zur Sonne hinaufschauen und sich sagen: Schön ist schon ihr physisches Strahlen, schön dasjenige, was uns als die Sonnenwärme zur Erde herniederströmt. Aber wenn wir uns durchdringen mit der Erkenntnis dessen, was die Sonne eigentlich ist, so fühlen wir: Da droben, wo der Sonnenball durch die Welt geht, da ist der Schauplatz, in dem die künftigen Generationen von Menschen in ihren geistigen Vorbildern zuerst gestaltet werden; da arbeiten die höheren Hierarchien im Zusammenhang mit den Menschenseelen, die im vorigen Erdenleben auf der Erde waren, zur Bildung der Menschen der Zukunft. Dieser Sonnenball ist eigentlich der geistige Embryo desjenigen, was wir als Erdenleben in der Zukunft erahnen. Und im Grunde genommen ist es die erste Hälfte des Sonnendaseins, die wir so zubringen, daß wir mit den Göttern zusammen so aus dem Sonnendasein heraus unser zukünftiges Erdenmenschenwesen formen.

Wenn wir die halbe Zeit des Daseins zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt erlebt haben und angekommen sind bei dem, was ich in meinen « Mysterien » die « Mitternachtshöhe » genannt habe, beginnt eine andere Arbeit. Wir haben ja gehört, daß das Sonnendasein lauter Güte ist. Würde nur das, was ich Ihnen beschrieben habe, aus der höheren Weltenweisheit heraus gearbeitet haben, so würden nicht Menschen auf die Erde kommen, sondern engelhafte, götterhafte, gütige Wesen. Aber diese götterhaften, gütigen Wesen hätten nicht Freiheit, es wäre nichts Freies in ihnen. Denn es würde ihrer Natur entsprechen, dem Sonnendasein, aus dem sie entsprungen sind, gemäß, nur das Gute zu tun. Sie hätten keine Wahl zwischen dem Guten und Bösen.

In der zweiten Hälfte des Sonnendaseins wird ein Teil desjenigen, was zur Menschentrealität geworden ist durch die Arbeit des Sonnendaseins, umgeformt, so daß es gewissermaßen zum Bilde verflüchtigt wird. Zunächst wird der Mensch geformt, so daß er in seinem Organismus werden müßte ein bloß gütiges Wesen. Dann aber wird ein Teil desjenigen, was am Menschen geformt wird, in der zweiten Hälfte des Sonnendaseins nicht zu einer Realität gebildet, sondern nur zum Bilde, so daß wir den weiteren Weg im Sonnendasein antreten teilweise als geistige Realität, teilweise als Bild. Aus demjenigen, was geistige Realität ist, wird die Grundlage für unseren Körper im künftigen Erdendasein. In demjenigen, was bloß Bild ist, wird die Grundlage für unser Haupt, für unseren Kopf geschaffen. Weil das bloß Bild ist, kann es sich ausfüllen mit viel dichterer Materie, mit Knochenmaterial. Aber es gliedert sich zugleich ein diesem Teil, der Bild ist, nicht geistige Realität ist, sondern Bild ist, es gliedert sich ein das, was wir hier auf der Erde noch im Nachklang dieses Bildes erleben. Dasjenige, was unser Magen, unsere Leber und so weiter wollen, das erleben wir als Naturnotwendigkeit. Das, was in uns als moralischer Impuls sitzt, erleben wir hier auf der Erde geistig, das, was wir da geistig erleben, was aus unserem Gewissen heraustönt als der moralische Impuls, das bildet sich der Anlage nach in dem, was hier Bild wird, in der Sonnenkeimesanlage des Menschen.

Nun, meine lieben Freunde, die Erde in ihrer Entwickelung, die Entwickelung der Menschheit auf der Erde, sie haben eine Geschichte. Die Kultur, die Zivilisation entwickelt sich durch den Lauf der Geschichte hindurch. Das Sonnenleben, das wir durchlaufen in einer langen Zeit zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt, hat auch Geschichte. Und das wichtigste Ergebnis in der Erdengeschichte ist das Mysterium von Golgatha, und wir unterscheiden ja in der Erdengeschichte die Geschehnisse, die Tatsachen vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha und nach dem Mysterium von Golgatha. In einer ähnlichen Weise muß man auch im Sonnenleben, das der Mensch durchmacht zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt, unterscheiden zwischen dem, was vorgegangen ist da, bevor auf der Erde das Ereignis von Golgatha war, und dem, was nachher vor sich gegangen ist. Nur ist die Sache so: Wenn wir das Erdenleben bis zum Ereignis von Golgatha betrachten, dann finden wir, daß auf der Erde nicht die ChristusWesenheit anwesend ist; der Christus wird erwartet auf der Erde, aber er ist noch nicht da, er ist noch in seinem Sonnendasein. Die Initiierten in den Mysterien hatten die Mittel und Wege, um aus ihren Mysterienstätten teilzunehmen an dem Sonnenleben. Wenn sie aufsteigen konnten, die Initiierten, zu einer Erkenntnis außerhalb ihres Leibes, dann gelangten sie außerhalb des Erdenerlebens durch die Initiation zum Christus, denn der Christus war in der Sonne zu finden. Nach dem, was auf der Erde geschehen ist durch das Mysterium von Golgatha, ist der Christus nicht mehr in der Sonne, er hat sich verbunden mit dem Erdendasein. Erst war im Sonnenleben der Christus da, nachher ist er nicht mehr da, gerade entgegengesetzt dem Erdenleben, wo der Christus zuerst nicht da ist und dann da ist. Aber ebenso, wie radikal eingreift der Christus-Impuls in das Erdenleben, so auch in das Sonnenleben. Wie es uns auf der Erde hier ein Ringen kostet, in uns selber das seelische Leben so zu vertiefen, daß wir den Christus erleben können, daß wir innerlich erfüllt werden vom Christus, daß wir durchchristet werden, so ist es während des Sonnenlebens schwierig, den ganzen Menschen seiner Wesenheit nach, so wie ich es vorhin gesagt habe, zu überblicken, zu schauen. Und insbesondere war es in alten Zeiten der Menschheitsentwickelung, wo auf der Erde allerdings eine instinktive Hellsichtigkeit geherrscht hat, schwierig, nach dem Tode im Sonnenleben den Menschen zu schauen. Daß der Mensch auf der Erde etwas Geistiges in sich schaute, machte es ihm gerade im Sonnenleben schwierig, das Geheimnis des Menschen als Außenwelt zu schauen. Da war es vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha der Christus, der den Menschen im Sonnendasein die Kraft gab, wirklich das Menschenwesen restlos zu schauen. Seit dem Mysterium von Golgatha müssen wir als Menschen auf der Erde jene innere Vertiefung durchmachen, die uns werden kann durch das Betrachten des Mysteriums von Golgatha, durch das Hineinleben in das Mysterium von Golgatha, durch die Anteilnahme an dem Christus-Leben. Wir können auf diese Art und Weise in uns während des Erdendaseins in freiem Bewußtsein jene Kräfte sammeln, die wir mitnehmen können durch den Tod und die uns die Kraft geben können, das Menschenwesen im Sonnendasein zu schauen. Und hat der Christus den Menschen im Leben zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha die Kraft gegeben, den Menschen zu schauen im Sonnendasein, so bereitet er nach dem Mysterium von Golgatha während des Erdenlebens den Menschen vor, damit er im Sonnendasein das ganze, volle Menschenwesen schauen kann. So also lernen wir das Wesen des Christentums auch nur ganz kennen, wenn wir aus dem Erdendasein hinausschauen auf das Sonnendasein. Und wir lernen im Sonnendasein, wie wir gesehen haben, eine erste Hälfte kennen, wo der Mensch zunächst in der Realität gebildet wird, wo er lauter Güte ist. Dann wird das Bildhafte erzeugt, das in das spätere Menschenleben hereinragt, den Menschen freimacht, in dem der Keim des moralischen Erlebens enthalten ist.

Wenn wir nun an das herantreten mit der initiierten Wissenschaft, was da an moralischen Anlagen, an Gesundheitskräften im Menschen entsteht, dann sehen wir nichts Richtiges mit unserer Imagination, Inspiration und Intuition, wenn wir nicht uns durchkraften lassen, wenn wit nicht unsere Imagination, Inspiration und Intuition durchkraften lassen von dem, was uns werden kann durch diejenige Sphäre, in die der Mensch nun nach und nach aus dem Sonnendasein heraus gewissermaßen hineinschlüpft, -— die Sphäre des Marsdaseins, des Jupiterdaseins, des Saturndaseins. Und wollen wir diese zweite Hälfte des menschlichen Lebens zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt im Zusammenhang beurteilen, so müssen wir wiederum in rückschauendem Leben auf gewisse, sieben Jahre dauernde Epochen sehen. Aber um das im Zusammenhang zu überblicken, müssen wir, wie ich schon andeutete, über das dreiundsechzigste Jahr gegangen sein. Wenn wir zurückblicken über den Zeitraum vom zweiundvierzigsten bis neunundvierzigsten Lebensjahre, strahlt uns heraus aus diesem Lebensabschnitt dasjenige, was Marsgeheimnisse sind. Aus dem neunundvierzigsten bis sechsundfünfzigsten Lebensjahr strahlen uns entgegen die Jupitergeheimnisse; und aus dem Zeitraum vom sechsundfünfzigsten bis dreiundsechzigsten Lebensjahr strahlen uns entgegen die Saturngeheimnisse. Wir können einfach durch diesen Rückblick mit dem, was uns da entgegenstrahlt, verstehen, was im Mars vorgeht, was im Jupiter vorgeht, was im Saturn vorgeht für die Vorbereitung des Menschen zu einem neuen Erdendasein. Denn hier, wo der Mensch eintritt, wenn er durch das Sonnendasein durchgegangen ist, zuerst in das Marsdasein, dann ins Jupiterdasein und später ins Saturndasein, da wirken für den Menschen offenbar die Wesenheiten der höheren Hierarchien, die Throne, die Cherubime, die Seraphime, und zwar so, daß mit der Marssphäre die Throne auftreten, mit der Jupitersphäre die Cherubime, mit der Saturnsphäre die Seraphime.

Wenn wir nun diese zweite Hälfte des Lebens zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt durchgehen, dann ist es wiederum in einer gewissen Beziehung umgekehrt, wie es im Erdenleben ist. Hier im Erdenleben stehen wir auf der Erde, schauen hinaus in die Weiten der Sternenwelt, erblicken die Wunderbarkeit der Sternenwelt, lassen sie in ihrer Erhabenheit auf uns wirken. Wenn wir vom Sonnendasein weiterschreiten, uns vorbereitend für das künftige Erdenleben, durch Mars-, Jupiter-, Saturnsphäre, da sind wir, wohin wir blicken, im religiösen Leben. Aber wir blicken gegen die Erde hinunter. Da erscheint uns nicht die Erde in der physischen Weise, wie wir sie hier um uns haben, da erscheint uns — ich möchte sagen, in der Richtung nach der Erde - ein gewaltiges geistiges Leben, das gewoben wird aus den Mars-, Jupiter-, Saturnereignissen, das gewoben wird aus den Taten der Seraphime, Cherubime und Throne. Aber jetzt ist es nicht ganz so wie früher, daß wir alles von der Welt in uns fühlen. Die Exusiai, Kyriotetes, Dynamis haben wir in uns gefühlt; und indem wir nun erleben, hinunterschauend, die Taten der Seraphime, Cherubime und Throne, sehen wir da zunächst außer uns; wir sehen unter uns den übersinnlichen Himmel, denn die rein geistige Welt ist für uns darüber. Wir sehen den übersinnlichen Himmel, wir sehen hinunter in die Mars-, Jupiter- und Saturnsphäre, sehen leben und streben und arbeiten in ihrer Art Throne, Cherubime und Seraphime. Aber was für ein Anblick bietet sich uns, indem wir diese Arbeit sehen? - Da bietet sich uns der Anblick, daß wir erlebend sehen auf übersinnliche Art und Weise unter den Seraphimen, Cherubimen und Thronen dasjenige, was die Erfüllung unseres Karma im nächsten Erdenleben sein wird, was wir erleben werden als Mensch durch andere Menschen, weil wir in gewisser Weise ein Karma angesponnen haben mit ihnen; das erleben wir zuerst durch Göttertaten unter Seraphimen, Cherubimen und Thronen. Die machen untereinander aus, was wir im nächsten Erdendasein als Erfüllung unseres Karma erleben. Die Götter sind wirklich die Schöpfer des Menschen; aber auch unser Karma schaffen sie. Daß Götter die karmische Erfüllung zunächst im Himmelsbilde erleben, das macht auf uns den Eindruck, der sich einprägt, indem wir unser Dasein weiterführen. Unser Karma, wie es sich erfüllen wird, wir nehmen es auf uns, weil wir es zuerst in Göttertaten der Seraphime, Cherubime und Throne erblicken. So erleben wir in diesem Anblicke dasjenige, was über uns kommen wird im nächsten Erdenleben, ausgeführt durch Götter.

Sie sehen daraus, daß durch die Initiationswissenschaft die Erkenntnis des Karma zu gewinnen ist, wenn man verfolgt das Menschenleben in der zweiten Hälfte des Durchganges vom Tode zu einer neuen Geburt und in der Lage ist, zu entziffern dasjenige, was durch 'Throne, Cherubime und Seraphime geschieht in der Mars-, Jupiter-, Saturnsphäre. Und derjenige, der gelernt hat zurückzublicken auf sein Leben vom zweiundvierzigsten bis zum neunundvierzigsten Lebensjahre im Geiste, dem bietet sich auch die Möglichkeit, eben in die Marsgeheimnisse, in das Marsgeschehen einzudringen, gewissermaßen zu sehen, was da vorgeht - hauptsächlich zwischen den Thronen, aber im ganzen zwischen Thronen, Seraphimen und Cherubimen -, wenn der Mensch durch diese Sphäre durchgeht. Hier im Erdenleben allein läßt sich das Karma eines Menschen, wie es sich auswirkt, nicht beurteilen. Man muß zu Hilfe nehmen die übersinnliche Welt. Und wenn man Karmastudien machen will, muß man hinblicken gerade auf den Teil der Welt, den der Mensch durchmacht zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt in der Mars-, Jupiter-, Saturnsphäre. Nun ist es da so, daß für gewisse Menschen maßgebend wird für das nächste Erdenleben gerade dasjenige, was sich in der Marssphäre abspielt.

Sie schauen hin zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt auf die Marssphäre und sehen, was sich abspielt. Da ist es vorzugsweise dasjenige, was ich nennen möchte das «Weltenwort». Alles ist Wort. Die Wesen des Mars, sie sind nur Wortwesen, wenn ich den Ausdruck gebrauchen darf. Wenn Sie sich vorstellen: der Mensch besteht aus Fleisch und Blut, er spricht, er bringt dadurch die Luft in Bewegung. Indem die Luftwellen an unser Ohr anschlagen, hören wir, die Töne verkörpern sich in Luftwellen. So sind die Marswesen aus solchen Wellen gebildet, ihr ganzes Wesen besteht in Worten. Indem man hört mit dem Geiste, erlebt man diese Wesenheiten. Wenn man zurückblickt in seinem späteren Leben nach dem Lebensabschnitt vom zweiundvierzigsten bis zum neunundvierzigsten Lebensjahre, wenn diese Sphäre diejenige ist, die zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt auf den Menschen am stärksten wirkt, wenn da hauptsächlich sein Karma ausgearbeitet wird, dann hängt das, was er auf der Erde erleben wird, sehr stark mit dem Marsdasein zusammen, er schaut aus dem jenseitigen Leben durch die Marssphäre in der maßgebenden Zeit hinunter; er bildet sich ein Erdenleben aus, das mit dem Marsdasein eben durchaus sehr stark zusammenhängt. Nehmen wir ein Beispiel. Nehmen wir einen Menschen, der gelebt hat in der Zeit, als die Araber unter dem Impuls Mohammeds, von Asien heraus, von Nordafrika nach Europa kriegerisch geströmt sind und die spanischen Reiche bedroht haben und die maurische und arabische Herrschaft aufgerichtet haben. Nehmen wir einen Menschen, der in dieser Zeit vor der Ausbreitung der Araberherrschaft in Afrika nach der Sitte der damaligen Zeit Erkenntniswissenschaft gelernt hat. Solch einen gab es; er hat aufgenommen innerhalb Nordafrikas - nicht ganz so, aber in ähnlicher Weise, wie Sie es historisch wissen von dem heiligen Augustinus - die nordafrikanische Wissenschaft. Ich meine jetzt nicht den heiligen Augustinus, sondern eine andere Persönlichkeit, die später nordafrikanische Wissenschaft etwas verschieden aufgenommen hat, maurisch-arabisch gefärbt. Diese Persönlichkeit ist dann nach Spanien, nach dem heutigen Spanien herübergekommen, hat da eine Art von Umwandlung in seinem Bekenntnisse durchgemacht, hat sich mehr einer christlichen Anschauung zugewendet und durcheinandergebracht arabische Anschauungen, die sie früher aufgenommen hatte, und christliche Anschauungen, die sie aufgenommen hat. Es kam dann in diese Persönlichkeit etwas schon von dem hinein, was eine Art kabbalistischer Wissenschaft war, noch nicht dasjenige, was man gewöhnlich Kabbalistik nennt, aber schon Ansätze zur kabbalistischen Denkweise kamen in diese Persönlichkeit hinein. So hatte diese Persönlichkeit viele Zweifel, innere Zweifel in sich aufgenommen und innere Unsicherheit und starb auch in dieser Unsicherheit. Es war eine männliche Persönlichkeit, die verhältnismäßig kurz darnach später im Mittelalter, vor der Mitte des Mittelalters, als Frau wiedergeboren wurde, wo sich das Ganze dann, was das Leben an Zweifeln angehäuft hatte in dieser Persönlichkeit, tiefer in die Natur derselben hineingelebt hat. Und diese Persönlichkeit erschien dann später wieder, erschien so wieder, daß sie, teilweise schon vorher, teilweise in dem Leben zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt, von dem Frauenleben wieder zu einem männlichen Leben so durchgegangen ist, daß sie vorzugsweise ihr Schicksal für das nächste Erdenleben geprägt hat durch die Marssphäre und dadurch verwandt wurde für das nächste Leben mit all dem, was auf der Erde lebt und webt als scharfes Verstandesurteil — Verstandesurteil, das vielfach einen begrifflich-kriegerischen Charakter hatte. Es entsteht aus der Persönlichkeit, die ich da in zwei Inkarnationen charakterisiert habe, dann Voltaire.

Sie sehen, wie sich in dem Leben zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt durch den Zusammenhang des Menschen mit dem, was hinter den Sternen lebt, das Erdenleben formt. Wir lernen überhaupt das Erdenleben nur kennen in seinem geschichtlichen Verlauf, wenn wir hinschauen können auf den Zusammenhang eines Menschenlebens mit anderen Erdenleben desselben Menschen.

Wodurch kommen denn die Dinge, die als Ursache und Wirkungen in früheren Epochen der geschichtlichen Entwickelungen vorhanden sind, herüber in die neue Epoche? — Die Menschen selber tragen sie herüber. Sie alle, die Sie hier sitzen, haben das, was Sie erleben in der gegenwärtigen Zivilisationsepoche, herübergetragen aus Ihrem Erleben in früheren Epochen. Die Menschen selber bilden die Geschichte. Aber wir verstehen dieses Bilden der Geschichte nur, wenn wir hinschauen können und nicht bloß abstrakt schwätzen, sondern konkret hinschauen können auf dasjenige, was mit den Menschen zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt geschieht.

Von besonderer Bedeutung für das Verständnis des menschlichen Erdenlebens wird, wenn man jene karmische Entwickelung betrachtet, die sich abspielt dann, wenn der Mensch aus seinen früheren Erdenleben die besondere Bedingung mitbringt, daß er sich im Saturndasein die Hauptimpulse seines Karma schafft. Menschen, die im Marsdasein sich die Hauptimpulse ihres Karma schaffen, werden so wie Voltaire. Sie hängen stark mit all ihren Gedanken zusammen mit dem Erdenleben, kritisieren es, bekämpfen es und so weiter, und finden es wohl auch so, daß sie es - bei Voltaire ist es genial - in Sentenzen zusammenfassen. Anders steht die Sache, wenn das Karma hauptsächlich durch die Saturnimpulse gebildet ist. Diese Saturnimpulse, sie sind eigentlich von einer ganz besonderen Wirkung auf den Menschen. Schon die Anschauung der Saturngeheimnisse, die man überblickt, wenn man zurückschaut auf sein irdisches Leben zwischen dem sechsundfünfzigsten und dreiundsechzigsten Lebensjahr, schon der Anblick der Saturngeheimnisse hat etwas in vieler Beziehung stark Bedrückendes, Erschütterndes; es ist in einer gewissen Weise fremd dem irdischen Leben. Und wer durch die Initiationswissenschaft im Laufe der Jahre zwischen dem sechsundfünfzigsten und dreiundsechzigsten Lebensjahre allmählich erlebt, wie die Saturngeheimnisse sich ihm enthüllen, der erlebt dies dramatisch sich steigernd, erschütternder und erschütternder, allerdings auch solches, das in steigendem Maße immer schwieriger und schwieriger zu erleben wird, weil es das Leben angreift. Aber man möchte sagen: Die ganze wunderbare Bedeutung vom Menschen kann man ihrem Zusammenhange nach entdecken, wenn man hineinschaut, wie sich in dieser Sphäre Karma bildet. - Auch hierüber ein Beispiel; dabei muß ich allerdings eines voraussagen.

Es könnte unter Ihnen allen, meine lieben Freunde, eine Frage auftauchen, die ganz berechtigt wäre, die Frage, die sich stützte auf die Behauptung, die auch ich oftmals mache in Büchern und Vorträgen, daß es in alten Zeiten große Eingeweihte gegeben hat, die unter den Menschen gelebt haben. Sie können fragen: Wo sind die in der Gegenwart, in der späteren Zeit? - Und wahrscheinlich, wenn Sie in der Gegenwart herumblicken: von vielen Menschen, die in der Gegenwart wirken, werden Sie nicht behaupten, daß sie den Charakter von Eingeweihten tragen, und schließlich ist das schon seit langem der Fall. So muß man die Frage aufwerfen: Wo sind die Eingeweihten in deren späteren Inkarnationen?

Derjenige, der in einer früheren Inkarnation auch nach außen hin mit vollem Bewußtsein als Eingeweihter dastand, muß es in einer folgenden Inkarnation nicht wieder werden. Es kann die Initiation im Unterbewußtsein bleiben. Der Mensch muß eben denjenigen Körper benutzen, den ihm irgendein Zeitalter geben kann. Die heutigen Körper sind für die spirituelle Wissenschaft nicht sehr geeignet, sie sind ein fortwährendes Hindernis, weil sie aus einer materialistisch veranlagten Zeitepoche herauskommen, und erst recht ist unsere Erziehung von der Kindheit an ein Hindernis. Wenn man in sie hineinwächst und war vorher ein Eingeweihter in alten Zeiten, kann man nicht wiederum dasjenige, was von der Einweihung blieb für diese Inkarnation, nach außen hin ausleben. Man lernt schreiben, aber in der gegenwärtigen Schrift läßt sich nicht ausdrücken, was ehemals Eingeweihtenwissenschaft war. Und so in anderen Verhältnissen des Lebens. Und so ist es, daß ja in der Tat Eingeweihte früherer Epochen in anderer Weise groß im Leben auftreten, aber nicht als Eingeweihte. Und manches Leben in der Gegenwart und der unmittelbaren Vergangenheit weist zurück auf frühere Einweihung. Sehen Sie, ich möchte Ihnen ein Beispiel anführen, ein Beispiel einer wirklich in früheren Erdenleben eingeweihten Persönlichkeit. Es war gerade eine Persönlichkeit, die eingeweiht war in die hybernischen Mysterien, die Mysterien Irlands, in der Zeit des ersten christlichen Jahrhunderts, als die alten großen Mysterien Irlands schon im Niedergang waren, aber noch das große Wissen bewahrten. Da lebte eine Persönlichkeit, die in einem höheren Grade eingeweiht war. Nun waren die irischen Mysterien von ganz besonderer Tiefe, nicht von einer intellektuellen Tiefe, sondern von einer allgemein menschlichen Tiefe. Es war zum Beispiel einer der kultischen Eindrücke, die man empfing, dieser: Nachdem man lange vorbereitet war über das Trügerische der Wahrheit auf der Erde, über die Möglichkeit der Zweifel, sollte man im Bilde erleben dasjenige, was nur durch das Bild den großen Eindruck machen kann. Da wurde der Schüler vor zwei Statuen gebracht. Die eine stellt sich dar wie ganz elastisch, aber im Inneren hohl. Sonst war sie von majestätischer Größe, sie machte durch ihre ganze Wirkung einen gewaltigen Eindruck. Der Schüler mußte tasten. Dieses Tasten durchschauerte ihn innerlich furchtbar, den Eindruck des Lebendigen machte die Statue - man grub sich hinein mit dem Finger, zuckte zurück, und gleich stellte sich die Form wieder her. Man bekam den Eindruck von einem Leben, das da war, das sich gleich herstellt, wenn es auch nur ein wenig zerstört wird. Dadurch sollte auf alles dasjenige im Menschen gedeutet werden, was im Menschen sonnenhaft ist.

Die andere Statue, sie war mehr plastisch. Wiederum tastete man da. Der dadurch entstandene Eindruck blieb. Erst, wenn man am nächsten Tage wieder hingeführt wurde, war inzwischen in der Nacht alles wieder hergestellt worden. Solche Kultverrichtungen bewirkten eine Umwandlung des inneren Lebens. Und so hatte einen tiefen Eindruck eine Persönlichkeit in diesen irischen Mysterien empfangen, die dazumal auch als männliche Persönlichkeit lebte. Sie werden begreifen, meine lieben Freunde, daß, wenn man heute Inkarnationsbeispiele anführt, man leicht auf männliche Inkarnationen stößt, weil in früheten Epochen fast ausschließlich die Männer eine Rolle gespielt haben. Die weiblichen Inkarnationen liegen dazwischen. Heute, wo die Frau beginnt, die große Rolle zu spielen in der geschichtlichen Entwickelung, heute bereitet sich die Zeit vor, wo man in intensiver Weise wird zu sprechen kommen auf weibliche Inkarnationen.

Nun finden wir eine Persönlichkeit, auf welche die kultischen Einweihungszeremonien der hybernischen Mysterien einen ungeheutren Eindruck machten, sie großartig berührten im Inneren, und man kann sagen, sie wurde durch dasjenige, was sie erlebte, erfüllt von solchen inneren Eindrücken, daß sie eigentlich mit der ganzen Seele die Erde ganz vergaß. Nachdem sie auch ein Frauendasein erlebt hatte, in dem sich nur in der allgemeinen Seelenverfassung etwas zeigte von früheren Einweihungsimpulsen, kam sie im neunzehnten Jahrhundert wiederum auf die Erde als eine bedeutende Persönlichkeit des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, aber eine solche Persönlichkeit, die die Folgen ihres Karma in der Saturnsphäre durchmachte, in jener Sphäre, wo man lebt zwischen Wesen, die im Grunde genommen keine Gegenwart haben. Das ist das ungeheuer Erschütternde, wenn man die Saturnsphäre hellsichtig schaut, in dem Sinne, wie ich das auseinandergesetzt habe, daß in der Saturnsphäre Wesenheiten leben, die eigentlich keine Gegenwart haben, sondern nur auf ihre Vergangenheit zurückblicken. Was sie tun, geschieht unbewußt, und eine Handlung, die sie tun, kommt erst zum Bewußtsein, wenn sie geschehen ist, eingeschrieben ist in das Weltenkarma. Die Bekanntschaft mit diesen Wesen, die ihre Vergangenheit wie einen geistigen Kometenschweif nachziehen, wirkt erschütternd. Zu diesen Wesenheiten trug diese Persönlichkeit, die einmal eingeweiht war, hinausgewachsen war über das irdische Dasein, zu diesen Wesenheiten, die keinen Anteil nehmen an der Gegenwatt, trug diese Persönlichkeit ihre Seele, bildete ihr Karma aus. Es ist da wirklich so, wie wenn in einer großartigen, majestätischen Weise all dasjenige, was noch dazu als ein Eingeweihtendasein erlebt worden ist, wie wenn es beleuchtete weithin die ganze Vergangenheit der menschlichen Erdenleben. Da lebt sich das ein wie eine Befruchtung dieser Vergangenheit, was durch die hybernische Einweihung erlebt wurde. Als nun diese Persönlichkeit auf der Erde erschien, da waren es nunmehr Zukunftsimpulse durch den Kontrast, in dem sich die Seele jetzt auf der Erde entwickeln mußte. Als diese Seele - unmittelbar beim Hinuntergang auf die Erde aus der Satutnsphäre, ganz hingerichtet den Blick auf die Vergangenheit in einer Weise, daß die Vergangenheit erhellt war von dem Eingeweihtenlicht - dann hinunterstieg auf die Erde, bildet sie den Kontrast aus: fest auf der Erde stehend, aber in die Zukunft schauend, gewichtige, sich überspannende Ideen, Impulse und Empfindungen auslebend! Es wird aus diesem hybernischen Eingeweihten Victor Hugo. - Wir sehen eigentlich einen Menschen erst dann recht, wenn wir ihn im Zusammenhang ansehen in seiner Entwickelung auch zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt. Wir sehen ihn mit seinen moralischen, religiösen, ethischen Qualitäten, wenn wir ihn so anschauen. Nicht ärmer wird eine Persönlichkeit dadurch, daß wir sie durchleuchten mit Geisteslicht, sondern reicher.

Wie versteht man durch solche Beispiele, die wirklich mit aller Exaktheit herausgeholt sind durch Geisteswissenschaft aus der Entwickelung der Menschheit, wie versteht man das Leben des Menschen, das Zusammenwirken der Welt mit den Menschen? Wie versteht man zum Beispiel durch ein drittes Beispiel manches, was sonst rätselhaft sein könnte für denjenigen, der unbefangen auf die Sache hinschaut? Wie versteht man durch einen karmischen Zusammenhang in diesen Fällen etwas, was ganz merkwürdig, was sonst unbegreiflich erscheint?

Da sehen wir hin auch auf eine Art Mysterien, aber ganz verfallene Mysterien. Die Mysterien, die einstmals eine große Rolle in Amerika gespielt haben, aber die in die Dekadenz gekommen sind, so daß die Vorstellungen, die sich gebildet haben von dem Kulte, und die Verrichtung der Kulte selber durchaus kindlich, möchte ich sagen, geworden waren gegenüber dem Großartigen, was früher vorhanden war. Es zeigt sich selbst in dem Abergläubischen, Zauberischen, Magischen dieser Mysterien vor der Entdeckung Amerikas, also doch vor nicht sehr langer Zeit, noch etwas von der Kraft, von der suggestiven Kraft dieser alten Mysterien. Da lebte wiederum eine Persönlichkeit darinnen, von der ich sprechen will, die innerhalb dieser Mysterien nicht nur Vorstellungen, sondern Eindrücke bekam von solchen Wesenskräften, die etwa dort bezeichnet werden als Taotel, Quitzalkaotel, Tetzquatlipoka, Wesenheiten, die allerdings einen starken, aber ich möchte sagen unreinlichen Eindruck auf den Menschen machen. Es ist vielfach die Eigenart von verfallenen Mysterien, daß sie einen unreinlichen Eindruck mit Bezug auf das Ethische machen. Ich sehe diese Persönlichkeit später als Mann wiedergeboren, durchdrungen im Unterbewußtsein stark von demjenigen, was an suggestiver Kraft von solchen Mysterien ausgehen kann. Da sehen wir diese Persönlichkeit wiedergeboren als Eliphas Levi und in ihm aufleben einfach mit den abstrakten, rationalistischen, rein äußerlichen Begriffen dasjenige, was eigentlich verfallenes Mysterienwesen ist. Sofort wird ein Licht geworfen auf eine sonst rätselhafte Erscheinung, die etwas von Großartigkeit hat in ihren Schriften, aber auch etwas von dem, was ganz inkohärent die menschliche Seele macht, sogar in gewisser Beziehung dumm und dumpf macht.

Überall, wo wir hinblicken, klärt sich uns das Leben durch die Zusammenhänge auf, auf die nicht in abstrakter, sondern in konkreter Weise Anthroposophie hinweisen muß. Aber können Sie sich nun vorstellen, meine lieben Freunde, daß Sie echte Schilderungen desjenigen, was jenseits des Erdenlebens liegt, entgegennehmen, ohne aus diesen Schilderungen innere Bewegung Ihres Gemütes, innere Durchwärmung und Durchleuchtung Ihrer Seele zu empfangen? Schaut sich nicht das Menschenleben nach Geburt und Tod anders an, ja fühlt es sich nicht anders, wenn man diese Schilderungen aus dem übersinnlichen Leben wirklich mit aller inneren Kraft auf die Seele wirken läßt? - Da schaut man hin und weiß: Man ist heruntergestiegen aus einer Welt, die zu beschreiben ist; wir tragen hinein in die physische Welt dasjenige, was unter Göttern gelebt hat. - Das nur theoretisch zu begreifen, ist nicht das Wesentliche. Aber sich als Mensch so zu fühlen: hinuntergestiegen zu sein aus solcher Sphäre, die so beschrieben werden kann, das bedeutet, daß wir uns als Mensch in unserem sinnlich-physischen Leibe auf der Erde verantwortlich fühlen dafür, daß wir würdig werden dessen, was mit uns heruntergestiegen ist. Wird so die Erkenntnis innerer Willensimpuls, würdig zu werden unserem Seelenleben vor dem Hinunterstieg durch die Geburt, dann wird dasjenige, was in der Anthroposophie gelehrt wird, zum unmittelbar Moralischen. Dieses Durchkraften der moralischen Impulse, das ist ein wesentlicher Aspekt der Anthroposophie. Ich glaube, er dürfte auch aus der Art der Beschreibung dieser drei Vorträge hervorgetreten sein.

Blicken wir nach dem anderen Aspekt, dem Aspekt des Todes, der das physische Erdenleben schließt. Er setzt an die Stelle, wo der Mensch gelebt hat, das Nichts. Schildern wir aber dasjenige, was wir schildern konnten aus der übersinnlichen Welt, dann steigt hinter dem Nichts die geistige Götterwelt auf, und der Mensch erlangt das Bewußtsein: er wird die Kraft haben, da, wo das Nichts seines physischen Leibes sich hingelegt hat, die Arbeit zu beginnen für einen neuen physischen Leib. Das gibt den kräftigen religiösen Impuls und das gibt den realen religiösen Impuls. So, meine lieben Freunde, entspringt aus Anthroposophie ein Bild des Weltlebens, des Menschenlebens. So erkraften sich aus Anthroposophie moralische und religiöse Ideale. Von diesem Inhalte der Anthroposophie wollte ich Ihnen einiges sprechen in den drei kurzen Vorträgen, die ich vor Ihnen halten konnte.

Ich möchte diese Vorträge damit schließen, daß ich aufmerksam mache auf dasjenige, was auch unter uns selbst als lebendige Anthroposophie da sein muß, als wesenhafte Anthroposophie, daß, wenn wir auseinandergehen räumlich, wir im Geiste beieinander bleiben. Unsere Gedanken werden sich finden, und wir gehen eigentlich in Wirklichkeit nicht auseinander. Weil wir Verständnis uns erwerben durch Anthroposophie, durch die Betrachtung des Übersinnlichen, wissen wir, daß diejenigen Persönlichkeiten, die Anthroposophie zusammengeführt hat, immer im Geiste und in der Seele zusammensein können. Deshalb wollen wir diese Zweigvorträge damit schließen, daß wir uns sagen: Wir waren, ich und Sie, eine Weile räumlich zusammen; wir wollen recht stark im Geiste beieinander bleiben! Damit darf ich diese Betrachtungen hiermit vor Ihnen schließen.

Seventh Lecture

We have spoken about life between death and a new birth and have seen how man is taken up after death by an extraterrestrial world, by that extraterrestrial world which only appears to us on earth through its signs, for stars are signs of another world. And if we point to these signs, then this pointing can also be a pointing to spiritual worlds that we ourselves observe when we are in the existence between death and a new birth. And we have seen how the human being enters a lunar sphere, a Mercury sphere, a Venus sphere, and yesterday we arrived at the contemplation of the solar sphere. At the same time, I have explained how one can gain knowledge of the corresponding worlds through initiatory realization. Once you have acquired the opportunity to look into the spiritual world through the methods described in my books, you will first of all be given a retrospective view of your entire life on earth. Suddenly, as if spread out in a large tableau, it lies there and you look back over it in periods of time that always last about seven years. We see our first childhood up to the change of teeth. When we look through it, the mystery of the lunar sphere shines towards us. If we then look through that which lies between the change of teeth, the seventh year and sexual puberty, the mystery of the Mercury sphere shines out towards us. From the fourteenth or fifteenth year to the beginning of the twenties, when a person has reached sexual maturity, comes the epoch from which the mystery of the Venus sphere appears to us in retrospect. And when one has already grown a little old and looks back to the time between about the age of twenty-one and the age of forty-two, to this time when one stands in the maturity of human life and the descent has not yet begun, - when one looks back to this time, the secrets of the solar sphere confront one. These secrets consist in the fact that in this sphere, as I already indicated yesterday, there are no natural effects. All the causes and effects that we perceive here in the nature of the earth do not exist in the solar sphere. In the time that we enter, when we have passed through the Moon, Mercury and Venus spheres and enter the solar sphere, we have no natural effects around us, only moral and spiritual effects. Everything that is good has its corresponding good results, everything that is evil has long since fallen away in the lunar sphere. The solar sphere is pure goodness, radiant, luminous goodness. There is no place for evil in it. And we have to live through this solar existence, often live through it as human beings for centuries, because the time between death and a new birth is, so to speak, more extended than here on earth. When we live through this solar sphere, we not only come into the company of those souls who have now also passed through the gate of death from life on earth, who have entered the spiritual world with us at the same time, and with whom we were connected through karma, but we also enter the realm of the Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes in the solar sphere. These are beings who live entirely in spiritual effects, beings of a purely spiritual nature. And that which we perceive as the moral environment in the solar sphere belongs to these entities just as the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms belong to the entity of the earth.

If one wants to understand the life of the human soul in the solar sphere, one must be clear about the fact that we stand here on earth as human beings, so to speak spatially enclosed in our skin. Everything that is within our skin we call ourselves. Everything that is outside our skin we call the world. And we look out into the world from what is inside our skin. Exactly the opposite is the case in life in the solar sphere. There we are in all that which we call the world; there the moon is in us, not outside us, Mercury is in us, indeed the solar sphere itself with its whole area is in us, not outside us. And just as we distinguish here in earthly life between our body and our head and are clear about the fact that the head separates itself as the organ of cognition from the rest of the body if it is to work, - just as we know that the head must be of a somewhat different nature than the rest of the body, we know during the solar sphere: We have the world organism that belongs to us as Moon beings, as Mercury beings, as Venus beings, as Sun beings in us. But we still have something special about us, just as we have the head here in earthly life. What we have that is special about us is Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, is, so to speak, our head in our solar existence. We can say: In solar existence, the moon, Mercury, Venus become our limbs, the sun itself our entire rhythmic system; our heart and our lungs, that is the solar sphere itself with all its entities in life in the sun. On the other hand, that which is the organ of understanding here, the organ of reason, the head, is that which we find in the solar sphere as Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. Just as we can speak here with our head in its lowest part, with the mouth, so we live through the fact that we carry Mars within us in our world body, through the world word. This resounds through all the expanses of space. And just as we carry the thoughts in our heads here, these small, earthly, tiny thoughts, so we carry the wisdom of the world within us through Jupiter. And just as we have memory here, memory experiences, so in our solar existence we carry Saturn's existence within us, which gives us world memory. And just as we live here in our skin and look out, we live in our solar existence, as I have described, and look at the outside world, at man. Man is inside our world. Not, of course, the human being that earthly anatomy speaks of, but something that is in itself as great and mighty, as majestic as the universe with all its stars.

When we look at it from an earthly point of view, my dear friends, it is like this: We actually have - and it is good for earthly man so that he does not fall prey to megalomania - a far too low opinion of what is enclosed in man. Basically, if we take all people on earth together, they are the bearers of all hierarchies; these unfold their essence in people. That which is in man, which is much greater than all the starry world, all the starry courses and phenomena, that is our outer world in the existence of the sun. And with the beings I have named, Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes, with the other beings who live in the moon, with the beings from the hierarchy of the Angeloi, with the beings who live on Venus, with the beings from the hierarchy of the Archai, with all the other human souls with whom we are karmically connected, we work out our next earthly existence from the view of the human body. And this work in the solar existence for the emergence of the next earthly human being, the next human life on earth, this work is much greater than anything that man can bring forth for culture and civilization on earth. That which ultimately offers earth civilization is the work of man. Man is not only the work of man; he is allowed to collaborate in the sun's existence in later life on earth. Something deplorable would result if man, in connection with other human souls, were to work alone on this miraculous construction which he represents in earth life. He must work together with all the higher hierarchies. For that which is born through the mother of man did not originate on earth, only the scene, so to speak, was created on earth. In that which is given through physical heredity, a wonderful world structure is embodied, which is formed in supersensible worlds in the solar existence.

If one grasps such things with the right faculty of knowledge, one must look up to the sun and say to oneself: Its physical radiance is already beautiful, beautiful that which flows down to earth as the sun's warmth. But when we penetrate ourselves with the knowledge of what the sun actually is, we feel: Up there, where the ball of the sun passes through the world, is the scene where the future generations of men are first formed in their spiritual models; there the higher hierarchies work in connection with the human souls who were on earth in the previous earthly life to form the men of the future. This ball of the sun is actually the spiritual embryo of that which we can foresee as earth life in the future. And basically, it is the first half of the sun's existence that we spend together with the gods forming our future earthly human being out of the sun's existence.

When we have experienced half the time of existence between death and a new birth and have arrived at what I have called in my “Mysteries” the “midnight height”, another work begins. We have heard that being in the sun is all goodness. If only what I have described to you had worked out of the higher wisdom of the world, it would not be human beings who would come to earth, but angelic, divine, benevolent beings. But these divine, benevolent beings would not have freedom, there would be nothing free in them. For it would correspond to their nature, in accordance with the sun existence from which they have arisen, to do only what is good. They would have no choice between good and evil.

In the second half of the sun's existence, a part of that which has become human reality through the work of the sun's existence is reshaped so that it is, as it were, volatilized into an image. First the human being is formed so that he would have to become a merely benevolent being in his organism. Then, however, a part of that which is formed in man is not formed into a reality in the second half of the sun's existence, but only into an image, so that we begin our further path in the sun's existence partly as a spiritual reality, partly as an image. That which is spiritual reality becomes the basis for our body in the future earthly existence. In that which is merely an image, the foundation for our head is created. Because it is merely an image, it can fill itself out with much denser matter, with bone material. But at the same time this part, which is image, is not spiritual reality but image, is subdivided into what we still experience here on earth in the echo of this image. What our stomach, liver and so on want, we experience as a natural necessity. That which sits within us as a moral impulse, we experience spiritually here on earth, that which we experience spiritually there, that which sounds out of our conscience as the moral impulse, that is formed according to the disposition in what becomes an image here, in the sun germ disposition of the human being.

Now, my dear friends, the earth in its development, the development of humanity on earth, they have a history. Culture, civilization develops through the course of history. The solar life that we go through in a long time between death and a new birth also has a history. And the most important result in the history of the earth is the Mystery of Golgotha, and in the history of the earth we distinguish between the events, the facts before the Mystery of Golgotha and after the Mystery of Golgotha. In a similar way, in the life of the sun, which man goes through between death and a new birth, we must distinguish between what happened before the event of Golgotha took place on earth and what happened afterwards. But the thing is like this: If we look at life on earth up to the event of Golgotha, we find that the Christ-being is not present on earth; the Christ is expected on earth, but he is not yet there, he is still in his solar existence. The initiates in the Mysteries had the ways and means to participate in the solar life from their Mystery places. If they could ascend, the initiates, to a knowledge outside their bodies, then they reached the Christ outside the earthly experience through initiation, for the Christ was to be found in the sun. After what happened on earth through the Mystery of Golgotha, the Christ is no longer in the sun, he has united himself with earthly existence. First the Christ was there in the life of the sun, afterwards he is no longer there, just the opposite of earthly life, where the Christ is first not there and then is there. But just as radically as the Christ impulse intervenes in life on earth, it also intervenes in life in the sun. Just as it costs us a struggle here on earth to deepen the life of the soul in ourselves so that we can experience the Christ, so that we are inwardly filled with the Christ, so that we are christened, so it is difficult during solar life to survey, to see the whole human being according to his essence, as I said earlier. And especially in the old times of human development, when an instinctive clairvoyance prevailed on earth, it was difficult to see the human being after death in solar life. The fact that man on earth saw something spiritual within himself made it difficult for him to see the mystery of man as an outer world, especially in solar life. Before the Mystery of Golgotha, it was the Christ who gave man the power to really see the human being completely in his solar existence. Since the Mystery of Golgotha, we as human beings on earth must undergo that inner deepening which can become ours through contemplating the Mystery of Golgotha, through living into the Mystery of Golgotha, through sharing in the life of Christ. In this way, during our earthly existence, we can gather within us in free consciousness those powers which we can take with us through death and which can give us the strength to see the human being in the sun's existence. And if in the life between death and a new birth before the Mystery of Golgotha the Christ gave man the power to see the human being in the sun's existence, after the Mystery of Golgotha he prepares man during his earthly life so that he can see the whole, full human being in the sun's existence. So we only get to know the essence of Christianity fully when we look out of our earthly existence into the sun's existence. And, as we have seen, we get to know the first half of the sun's existence, where the human being is first formed in reality, where he is pure goodness. Then the imagery is created, which projects into later human life, liberates the human being, in which the germ of moral experience is contained.

When we now approach that with the initiated science, what arises there in moral dispositions, in health forces in man, then we see nothing right with our imagination, inspiration and intuition, if we do not let ourselves be strengthened, if we do not let our imagination be strengthened, inspiration and intuition from that which can become us through the sphere into which the human being now gradually slips, as it were, out of the solar existence -- the sphere of the Martian existence, the Jupiter existence, the Saturnian existence. And if we want to assess this second half of human life between death and a new birth in context, we must again look back in retrospect at certain epochs lasting seven years. But in order to see this in context, we must, as I have already indicated, have passed the sixty-third year. If we look back over the period from the forty-second to the forty-ninth year of life, that which is the secrets of Mars radiates out of this period of life. From the forty-ninth to the fifty-sixth year of life, the secrets of Jupiter radiate towards us; and from the period from the fifty-sixth to the sixty-third year of life, the secrets of Saturn radiate towards us. We can understand what is going on in Mars, what is going on in Jupiter, what is going on in Saturn for the preparation of the human being for a new earthly existence simply by looking back at what radiates towards us. For here, where man enters, when he has passed through the solar existence, first into the Mars existence, then into the Jupiter existence and later into the Saturn existence, there the beings of the higher hierarchies, the thrones, the cherubim, the seraphim, obviously work for man, and indeed in such a way that with the Mars sphere the thrones appear, with the Jupiter sphere the cherubim, with the Saturn sphere the seraphim.

If we now go through this second half of life between death and a new birth, then it is again in a certain respect the other way round, as it is in earth life. Here in earthly life we stand on earth, look out into the vastness of the starry world, behold the marvelousness of the starry world, let it affect us in its sublimity. When we move on from our solar existence, preparing ourselves for our future life on earth, through the spheres of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, we are in religious life wherever we look. But we look down towards the earth. There the earth does not appear to us in the physical way as we have it here around us, there appears to us - I would like to say, in the direction towards the earth - a tremendous spiritual life, which is woven from the Mars, Jupiter, Saturn events, which is woven from the deeds of the seraphim, cherubim and thrones. But now it is not quite as before that we feel everything of the world within us. We have felt the Exusiai, Kyriotetes, Dynamis within us; and now as we experience, looking down, the deeds of the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones, we see there at first outside of us; we see below us the supersensible heaven, for the purely spiritual world is above it for us. We see the supersensible heaven, we look down into the spheres of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, we see thrones, cherubim and seraphim living and striving and working in their way. But what kind of sight is offered to us when we see this work? - There we are presented with the sight that we see experiencing in a supersensible way among the seraphim, cherubim and thrones that which will be the fulfillment of our karma in the next life on earth, that which we will experience as human beings through other human beings, because in a certain way we have spun a karma with them; we experience this first through deeds of the gods among seraphim, cherubim and thrones. They make up among themselves what we experience in the next earthly existence as the fulfillment of our karma. The gods are really the creators of man; but they also create our karma. The fact that the gods first experience karmic fulfillment in the heavenly image makes an impression on us that is imprinted on us as we continue our existence. Our karma, as it will be fulfilled, we take it upon ourselves because we first see it in the deeds of the gods in the seraphim, cherubim and thrones. Thus we experience in this sight that which will come upon us in the next life on earth, carried out by the gods.

You see from this that through the science of initiation the knowledge of karma can be gained if one follows human life in the second half of the passage from death to a new birth and is able to decipher what happens through thrones, cherubim and seraphim in the sphere of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. And he who has learned to look back on his life from the forty-second to the forty-ninth year of life in spirit, is also offered the opportunity to penetrate into the Martian mysteries, into the Martian happenings, to see, so to speak, what goes on there - mainly between the thrones, but on the whole between thrones, seraphim and cherubim - when man passes through this sphere. Here in earthly life alone it is not possible to judge the effect of a person's karma. The supersensible world must be consulted. And if you want to study karma, you have to look at the part of the world that a person passes through between death and a new birth in the sphere of Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Now it is the case that for certain people precisely that which takes place in the sphere of Mars becomes decisive for the next life on earth.

They look at the Martian sphere between death and a new birth and see what takes place. There it is preferably that which I would like to call the “world word”. Everything is word. The beings of Mars are only word beings, if I may use the expression. If you imagine: man is made of flesh and blood, he speaks, he sets the air in motion. As the air waves strike our ears, we hear, the sounds are embodied in air waves. Thus the Martian beings are made of such waves, their whole being consists of words. By listening with the spirit, we experience these beings. If one looks back in his later life after the period of life from the forty-second to the forty-ninth year of life, when this sphere is the one that has the strongest effect on man between death and a new birth, when his karma is mainly worked out, then what he will experience on earth is very strongly connected with the Martian existence, he looks down from the life on the other side through the Martian sphere in the decisive time; He forms an earthly life that is very strongly connected with the Martian existence. Let us take an example. Let us take a man who lived at the time when the Arabs, under the impulse of Mohammed, poured out from Asia, from North Africa to Europe, threatening the Spanish empires and establishing Moorish and Arab rule. Let us take a person who learned cognitive science according to the customs of the time before the spread of Arab rule in Africa. There was such a person; he absorbed North African science within North Africa - not quite in the same way, but in a similar way, as you know historically from St. Augustine. I am not referring to St. Augustine, but to another personality who later absorbed North African science in a somewhat different way, with a Moorish-Arabic tinge. This personality then came over to Spain, to present-day Spain, underwent a kind of transformation in his faith, turned more towards a Christian view and mixed up Arab views, which he had previously absorbed, and Christian views, which he had absorbed. Something of what was a kind of Kabbalistic science then entered this personality, not yet what is usually called Kabbalistics, but the beginnings of a Kabbalistic way of thinking already entered this personality. So this personality had absorbed many doubts, inner doubts and inner insecurity and also died in this insecurity. It was a male personality who was reborn relatively shortly afterwards in the Middle Ages, before the middle of the Middle Ages, as a woman, where all the doubts that life had accumulated in this personality then lived deeper into its nature. And this personality then reappeared later, reappeared in such a way that, partly already before, partly in the life between death and a new birth, it went through from the female life again to a male life in such a way that it preferably shaped its destiny for the next life on earth through the Martian sphere and thereby became related for the next life with all that lives and weaves on earth as a sharp intellectual judgment - intellectual judgment that often had a conceptual-warlike character. It arises from the personality that I have characterized in two incarnations, then Voltaire.

You see how life on earth is formed in the life between death and a new birth through man's connection with that which lives beyond the stars. We only get to know earthly life in its historical course if we can look at the connection between a human life and other earthly lives of the same human being.

How then do the things that are present as cause and effect in earlier epochs of historical development come over into the new epoch? - People themselves carry them over. All of you sitting here have carried over what you are experiencing in the present epoch of civilization from your experiences in earlier epochs. People themselves form history. But we can only understand this formation of history if we can look and not just talk abstractly, but look concretely at what happens to people between death and a new birth.

It is of particular importance for the understanding of human life on earth if we look at the karmic development that takes place when the human being brings with him from his earlier earthly lives the special condition that he creates the main impulses of his karma in his Saturnian existence. People who create the main impulses of their karma in their Martian existence become like Voltaire. They are strongly connected with all their thoughts with life on earth, criticize it, fight it and so on, and probably also find it so that they summarize it - with Voltaire it is ingenious - in aphorisms. The situation is different when karma is mainly formed by Saturn's impulses. These Saturn impulses actually have a very special effect on man. Even the sight of Saturn's mysteries, which one surveys when one looks back on one's earthly life between the ages of fifty-six and sixty-three, even the sight of Saturn's mysteries has something in many respects strongly oppressive, shocking; it is in a certain way alien to earthly life. And whoever gradually experiences through initiation science in the course of the years between the fifty-sixth and sixty-third year of life how the Saturn mysteries reveal themselves to him, experiences this dramatically increasing, more shattering and more shattering, but also something that becomes increasingly difficult and more difficult to experience, because it attacks life. But one would like to say: the whole wonderful meaning of man can be discovered in its context if one looks into how karma is formed in this sphere. - Here, too, is an example; however, I must predict one thing.

A question could arise among you all, my dear friends, which would be quite justified, the question based on the assertion, which I also often make in books and lectures, that in ancient times there were great initiates who lived among men. You can ask: Where are they in the present, in later times? - And probably, if you look around in the present: of many people who are active in the present, you will not say that they bear the character of initiates, and after all, that has been the case for a long time. So the question must be asked: Where are the initiates in their later incarnations?

A person who in a previous incarnation was outwardly fully conscious as an initiate does not have to become one again in a subsequent incarnation. The initiation can remain in the subconscious. Man must use the body that any age can give him. Today's bodies are not very suitable for spiritual science, they are a constant obstacle because they come out of a materialistically inclined epoch, and all the more so is our upbringing from childhood onwards an obstacle. If one grows into it and was previously an initiate in ancient times, one cannot again live outwardly that which remained of the initiation for this incarnation. One learns to write, but it is not possible to express in the present writing what was once the science of initiation. And so in other conditions of life. And so it is that, indeed, initiates of earlier epochs appear great in life in other ways, but not as initiates. And many a life in the present and the immediate past points back to earlier initiations. You see, I would like to give you an example, an example of a personality who was really initiated in earlier earth lives. It was a personality who was initiated into the Hybernian Mysteries, the Mysteries of Ireland, in the time of the first Christian century, when the old great Mysteries of Ireland were already in decline, but still preserved the great knowledge. There lived a personality who was initiated to a higher degree. Now the Irish mysteries were of a very special depth, not of an intellectual depth, but of a generally human depth. For example, one of the cultic impressions one received was this: After having been prepared for a long time about the deceptive nature of truth on earth, about the possibility of doubt, one was to experience in the image that which can only make a great impression through the image. The pupil was brought before two statues. One appeared to be completely elastic, but hollow inside. Otherwise it was of majestic size; its whole effect made a powerful impression. The pupil had to feel it. This touching gave him a terrible inner feeling, the statue made the impression of being alive - you dug into it with your finger, jerked back, and immediately the form was restored. You got the impression of a life that was there, that would immediately restore itself if it was destroyed even a little. This was intended to point to everything that is solar in man.

The other statue was more sculptural. Again, one felt there. The resulting impression remained. Only when one was led there again the next day was everything restored during the night. Such rituals brought about a transformation of the inner life. And so a personality had received a deep impression in these Irish mysteries, who at that time also lived as a male personality. You will realize, my dear friends, that if you cite examples of incarnations today, you will easily come across male incarnations, because in earlier epochs it was almost exclusively men who played a role. The female incarnations lie in between. Today, when women are beginning to play a major role in the development of history, the time is now approaching when female incarnations will be discussed more intensively.

Now we find a personality on whom the cultic initiation ceremonies of the Hybernian Mysteries made a tremendous impression, touched her greatly within, and one can say that she was filled with such inner impressions by what she experienced that she actually forgot the earth completely with her whole soul. After she had also experienced a woman's existence, in which something of earlier initiatory impulses only showed themselves in the general constitution of the soul, she came to earth again in the nineteenth century as an important personality of the nineteenth century, but such a personality who underwent the consequences of her karma in the Saturn sphere, in that sphere where one lives between beings who basically have no presence. That is the tremendously shocking thing when you look at the Saturn sphere clairvoyantly, in the sense that I have explained, that beings live in the Saturn sphere who actually have no present, but only look back to their past. What they do happens unconsciously, and an action that they do only comes to consciousness when it has happened, when it is inscribed in the karma of the world. The acquaintance with these beings, who trace their past like a spiritual comet's tail, has a shattering effect. It was to these beings that this personality, once initiated and having outgrown earthly existence, carried its soul and formed its karma. It is really as if, in a magnificent, majestic way, all that has been experienced as an initiatory existence, as if it had illuminated the whole past of human life on earth. That which was experienced through the Hybernian initiation lives in like a fertilization of this past. When this personality now appeared on earth, it was now future impulses through the contrast in which the soul now had to develop on earth. When this soul - immediately on its descent to earth from the sphere of Satutn, having completely directed its gaze to the past in such a way that the past was illuminated by the light of the initiate - then descended to earth, it formed the contrast: standing firmly on earth, but looking into the future, living out weighty, spanning ideas, impulses and feelings! This Hybernian initiate becomes Victor Hugo. - We only really see a person properly when we look at him in the context of his development between death and a new birth. We see him with his moral, religious, ethical qualities when we look at him in this way. A personality is not made poorer by the fact that we illuminate it with spiritual light, but richer.

How does one understand the life of man, the interaction of the world with man, through such examples, which are really brought out with all exactness through spiritual science from the development of mankind? How can we understand, for example, through a third example, many things that might otherwise be puzzling to those who look at the matter impartially? How can we understand through a karmic connection in these cases something that seems quite strange and otherwise incomprehensible?

There we are also looking at a kind of mystery, but a mystery that has completely decayed. The mysteries that once played a great role in America, but which have fallen into decadence, so that the mental images that have formed of the cults and the performance of the cults themselves have become quite childish, I would say, compared to the greatness that used to exist. Even in the superstitious, enchanting, magical aspects of these mysteries before the discovery of America, i.e. not very long ago, something of the power, of the suggestive power of these ancient mysteries is still evident. There again lived a personality in it, of whom I want to speak, who within these mysteries not only received mental images, but impressions of such forces of beings, which are described there as Taotel, Quitzalkaotel, Tetzquatlipoka, beings which, however, make a strong, but I would like to say impure impression on man. It is often the peculiarity of degenerate mysteries that they make an impure impression with regard to the ethical. I see this personality later reborn as a man, strongly imbued in the subconscious with the suggestive power that can emanate from such mysteries. There we see this personality reborn as Eliphas Levi, and in him there comes to life, simply with the abstract, rationalistic, purely external concepts, that which is actually decayed mystery being. Immediately a light is thrown on an otherwise enigmatic phenomenon, which has something of grandeur in its writings, but also something of what makes the human soul quite incoherent, even makes it stupid and dull in certain respects.

Everywhere we look, life clarifies itself to us through the connections to which anthroposophy must point, not in an abstract but in a concrete way. But can you now imagine, my dear friends, that you receive genuine descriptions of that which lies beyond earthly life without receiving from these descriptions inner movement of your mind, inner warming and illumination of your soul? Does not human life after birth and death look different, indeed does it not feel different, if you really allow these descriptions from the supersensible life to affect your soul with all your inner strength? - There one looks and knows: one has descended from a world that is to be described; we carry into the physical world that which has lived among gods. - To understand this only theoretically is not the essential thing. But to feel like this as a human being: to have descended from such a sphere that can be described in this way, that means that we as human beings in our sensual-physical body on earth feel responsible for becoming worthy of that which has descended with us. If this realization becomes an inner impulse of the will to become worthy of our soul life before the descent through birth, then that which is taught in anthroposophy becomes directly moral. This working through of moral impulses is an essential aspect of anthroposophy. I believe it may also have emerged from the way these three lectures were described.

Let us look at the other aspect, the aspect of death, which closes physical life on earth. He puts nothingness in the place where man has lived. But if we describe what we have been able to describe from the supersensible world, then the spiritual world of the gods rises behind the nothingness, and man attains the consciousness that he will have the power to begin the work for a new physical body where the nothingness of his physical body has been laid down. This gives the strong religious impulse and this gives the real religious impulse. Thus, my dear friends, a picture of world life, of human life, springs from anthroposophy. Thus moral and religious ideals arise from anthroposophy. I wanted to tell you something about this content of anthroposophy in the three short lectures I was able to give you.

I would like to conclude these lectures by drawing your attention to that which must also be present among us as living anthroposophy, as essential anthroposophy, so that when we separate spatially, we remain together in spirit. Our thoughts will find each other, and in reality we will not part. Because we acquire understanding through anthroposophy, through the contemplation of the supersensible, we know that those personalities whom anthroposophy has brought together can always be together in spirit and in soul. That is why we want to conclude these branch lectures by saying to ourselves: We were together for a while in space, I and you; we want to remain together in spirit! With this, I would like to close these reflections before you.