True and False Paths in Spiritual Investigation
GA 243
11 August 1924, Torquay
1. Nature is the Great Illusion; Know Thyself
I have been asked to speak in these lectures about paths leading to a knowledge of the super-sensible world. This knowledge, and our knowledge of the phenomenal world, the fruit of years of patient and diligent study, to which we owe the magnificent achievements of modern times, are complementary. For reality can be apprehended only by the person who is able to reinforce the remarkable discoveries which the natural and historical sciences have added to our stock of knowledge in recent times with insight derived from the spiritual world.
Wherever the external world confronts us we are in no doubt that it is both spiritual and physical; behind every physical phenomenon will be found in some form or other a spiritual agent which is the real protagonist. The spiritual cannot exist in a vacuum for the spiritual is operative at all times and actively permeates the physical at some undefined time or place.
I propose to discuss in these lectures how the world in which man lives may be known in its totality, on the one hand through a consideration of his physical environment and, on the other hand, through the perception of the spiritual. In this way I hope to indicate the true and false methods of attaining such knowledge.
Before touching upon the actual subject matter of these lectures tomorrow I should like to offer a brief introduction so that you may have some idea of what to expect from them and what purpose I have in view. They are concerned in the first place to bring home to us the question: why do we undertake spiritual investigation at all? Why, as thinking, feeling, practical persons, are we not prepared to accept the phenomenal world as it is and take an active part in it? Why do we strive at all to attain knowledge of a spiritual world? In this context I should like to refer to an ancient conception, an old saying that embraces a truth ever more widely accepted and which, inherited from the earliest days of human thinking and aspiration, is still found today when we inquire into the Ground of the world. Without in any way using these ancient, outmoded conceptions as a basis, I would like, none the less, to call attention to them whenever the occasion arises.
From the East there echoes across thousands of years the saying: the world that we perceive with our senses is Maya, the Great Illusion. And if, as man has always felt during the course of his development, the world is Maya, then he must transcend the ‘Great Illusion’ to find ultimate truth. But why did man look upon this world of sense-impressions as Maya? Why, precisely in the earliest times when men were nearer to the spirit than they are today, did the Mystery Centres arise, Centres that were dedicated to the cultivation of science, religion, art and practical living, whose aim was to point the way to truth and reality, in contradistinction to that which, purely in the external world, was the Great Illusion, the source of man's knowledge and activity? How is one to account for those illustrious sages who trained their neophytes in the ancient, holy Mysteries and sought to lead them from illusion to truth? This question can only be answered if one reviews man more dispassionately, from a more detached angle.
“Know thyself!”—such is another ancient saying that comes down to us from the past. From the fusion of these two sayings—‘the world is Maya,’ from the East, and ‘know thyself!’, from ancient Greece—there first arose the quest for spiritual knowledge amongst later humanity. But in the ancient Mysteries, too, the quest for truth and reality had its origin in this twofold perception that, in the final analysis, the world is illusion and that man must attain to self-knowledge.
It is, however, only through life itself that man can come to terms with this question, not through thinking alone, but through the will, and through full participation in the reality immediately accessible to us as human beings. Neither in full consciousness, nor in clear understanding, but with deep emotion, every man the world over can say to himself: ‘Such as is the outer world that you see and hear, that you cannot be.’
This feeling goes deep. One must reflect upon the implication of these words: ‘Such as is the external world that you perceive with your five senses, that you cannot be.’ When we look at the plants we see the first green shoots emerge in springtime; they blossom in summer and towards autumn they ripen and bear fruit. We see them grow, fade and die: the duration of their life-cycle is a single year. We see, too, how many plants absorb from the soil certain substances which build up the main stem. On the way here yesterday evening by road we saw many extremely old plants which had absorbed quantities of these hardening substances in order that their life-cycle should not be limited to a single year, but should be extended over a longer period of time and thus would bear new growing-points on their stems. And it is given to man to observe how these plants grow, fade and die.
And when he observes the animals, he realizes their impermanence; so too with the mineral kingdom. He observes the mineral deposits in the majestic mountain ranges. And armed with his scientific knowledge, he realizes that they too are impermanent. And finally he turns to some conception such as the Ptolemaic or Copernican system, for example, or some conception borrowed from the ancient or later Mysteries—and he concludes as follows: all that I see in the splendour of the stars, all that irradiates me from sun and moon with their wondrous and complex orbits—all this, too, is impermanent. But apart from impermanence, the kingdom of nature has other attributes. These are of such a kind that man, if he is to know himself, should not assume that he and all that is impermanent—the plants, minerals, sun, moon and stars—are similarly constituted.
Man then comes to the conclusion: I bear within me some quality that is different from anything I see and hear around me. I must arrive at an understanding of my own being, for I cannot find it in anything that I see and hear.
In all the ancient Mysteries men felt this urge to discover the reality of their inner being, whereas all the transient phenomena of space and time were felt to be an expression of the Great Illusion. And so, in order to arrive at an understanding of man's inner being, they looked beyond the findings of sense-perception.
And here they experienced a spiritual world. How to find the right path to the spiritual world will be the subject of these lectures. You can readily imagine that man's first impulse will be to follow the same procedure he adopted in exploring the phenomenal world. He will simply transfer the method of sense-perception to his exploration of the spiritual world. If, however, investigation into the phenomenal world is usually fraught with illusion, then it is probable that the possibilities of illusion will be increased rather than diminished if the methods for investigating the phenomenal world are also applied to the spiritual world. And, in effect, this is what happens. In consequence we merely become the victims of an illusion all the more compelling.
And again, if we harbour vague anticipations, nebulous enthusiasms, unaccountable presentiments from dark corners of the soul, dream-fantasies about the spiritual, it will remain forever unknown to us. We remain in the world of conjecture; we share a belief, but have no real knowledge. If we are content simply to adopt this course, the spiritual will become not better known to us, but progressively more unknown. Thus man may go doubly astray.
On the one hand, he pursues the same line of enquiry in relation to the spiritual and phenomenal world. And the phenomenal world is found to be illusion. If he pursues the same approach to the spiritual world, as the ordinary spiritualists sometimes do, then he is subject to even greater illusions.
On the other hand he can follow the other way of approach. In this case no attempt is made to investigate the spiritual world along clear-cut, intelligible lines, but through self-induced belief and nebulous enthusiasm. Consequently the spiritual world remains a closed book. No matter how urgently we pursue the path of vague conjecture and emotional enthusiasm we shall know progressively less about the spiritual world. In the first instance the illusion is magnified, in the second, our ignorance. As against these two false paths we must find the right path.
We must bear in mind how impossibly difficult it is to substitute a knowledge of the true self for a knowledge of the Great Illusion in the sense I have indicated; and furthermore, if one intends to prepare oneself for a true, authentic approach to spiritual understanding, how impossible it is, in a state of illusion, to overcome all these nebulous feelings about the true self and come to a clear perception of reality. Let us look quite impartially at what is here involved. A materialist can never feel such deep admiration and respect for the recent scientific discoveries of Darwin, Huxley, Spencer and others as the man who has insight into the spiritual world. For these men, and many others since the time of Giordano Bruno, spared no effort in order to gain insight into what the ancient Mysteries considered to be the world of Maya. There is no need to accept the theories advanced by Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, Copernicus, Galileo and the rest. Let others theorize about the universe as they will; we have no intention of being drawn into their arguments. But we must recognize the tremendous impetus given by these men to the detailed, factual study of specific organs in man, animals and plants, or of some particular problem relating to the mineral kingdom. Just imagine how much we have learned in recent times about the functions of the glands, nerves, heart, brain, lungs, liver, etc. as a result of their stimulating researches. They deserve our greatest respect and admiration. But in real life this knowledge can take us only to a certain point. Let me give you three examples to illustrate my point.
We can follow in great detail the first human egg-cell; how it gradually develops into a human embryo, how the various organs evolve step by step and how, from the tiny peripheral organs the complex heart and circulatory system are built up. All this can be demonstrated. We can follow the organic growth of the plant from root to blossom and seed and from this factual information we can construct a theory of the universe that embraces the Cosmos.
Our astronomers and astro-physicists have already done this. They set up a theory of the Cosmos showing how the world emerges from a stellar-nebular system which assumed a progressively more definite form and was capable of spontaneous generation. But despite all this theorizing, we come ultimately face to face once again with the essential being of man, the problem of how to respond to the injunction, ‘Know thyself!’ If we know only the self that is limited to a knowledge of the minerals, plants, animals, human glandular and circulatory systems, we know only the world man enters at birth and leaves at death. But, in the final analysis, man feels that he is not limited to the temporal world. Therefore, in face of all that knowledge of the external world yields in such grandeur and perfection, he must answer from the depths of his being: all this you affirm only between birth and death. But do you know your essential self, your true essence? The moment that the knowledge of man and nature has moral and religious implications, the human being whose organs can only apprehend the world of the Great Illusion is reduced to silence. The injunction, “Know thyself, so that thou mayest know in thine innermost being whence thou comest and whither thou art going,” this problem of cognition, the moment religious issues are raised, cannot be answered at this limited level of understanding.
On entering the Mystery Schools the neophyte was left in no doubt that however much he may have learned through sense-observation, this information could offer no answer to the great riddle of human nature when religious issues were involved.
Furthermore, though we may have the most precise knowledge of the structure of the human head, of the characteristic movements of man's arms and hands, of his gait and stance, though we may respond never so sensitively to the forms of animals and plants in so far as we can know them through sense-observation, directly we try to give artistic expression to this information we are again faced with an unanswerable problem.
For how have men hitherto expressed through art their knowledge of the world? They owed their inspiration to the Mystery teachings. Their knowledge of nature and its various aspects was related to the existing level of understanding, but at the same time it was enriched by spiritual insight.
One need only look back to ancient Greece. Today a sculptor or painter works from the model—at least this was the practice until recently. He sets out to copy and imitate. The Greek artist did not work in this way, although he is alleged to have done so; rather did he sense the spiritual human form within himself In sculpture, if he wished to portray an arm in movement, he was aware that the external world was informed by a spiritual content, that every material object has been created out of the spirit and in his work he strove to recreate the spirit.
Even as late as the Renaissance a painter did not use a model; it served only as a stimulus. He knew intuitively what activated hand or arm and expressed this information in his rendering of movement. Merely to portray the external and superficial aspects of the world of Maya, merely to copy the model, does not advance our understanding; we do not see thereby more deeply into man, but are concerned only with externals and so remain a spectator outside him.
From the standpoint of art, if we fail to transcend the world of Maya we are faced with the formidable problem of human nature and no answer is vouchsafed us.
And again, on entering the old Mysteries, it was made clear to the neophyte who was about to be initiated: if you remain within the world of Maya, you will be unable to penetrate the essential being of man or of any other kingdom of Nature. You cannot become an artist. In the sphere of art it was found necessary to remind the neophyte of the clear injunction, “Know thyself,” and then he began to feel the need for spiritual knowledge.
But, you will object, there are thoroughly materialistic sculptors. After all they were no mere amateurs and knew what they were about. They too knew how to draw forth the secrets from their model and invest their figures and motifs with these secrets. That is indeed so, but whence did they derive their knowledge? People fail to realize that this ability did not come from the artists themselves. They owed it to earlier artists who in their turn had it from their predecessors. They worked from a tradition. But they were unwilling to admit this because they claimed they owed everything to themselves. They knew how the old masters worked and imitated them. But the earliest of the old masters learned their secret from the spiritual insights of the Mysteries. Raphae1 and Michelangelo learned it from those who still drew on the Mysteries.
But true art must be created out of the spiritual. There is no other solution. As soon as we touch upon the problem of man, any perception of the Great Illusion has no answer to life's problems, to the problem of man's destiny. If we are to return to the fountain-head of art and artistic creativity we must recover insight into the spiritual world.
Now a third example. The botanist or zoologist can gain wonderfully detailed knowledge of the form of every available plant. The bio-chemist can describe the processes that take place in plant life. He can also tell how foodstuffs are assimilated in the metabolic system, are absorbed by the blood vessels in the walls of the alimentary canal and are carried in the blood to the nervous system. A gifted anatomist, physiologist, botanist or geologist can cover a wide field of the world of Maya, but if he intends to use this knowledge for purposes of healing or medical treatment, if he wishes to press forward from the outer, or even the inner constitution of man to his essential being, he cannot do it.
You will reply: but there are doctors in plenty who are materialists and have no interest in the spiritual world. They treat patients in accordance with the methods of natural science and yet they achieve results.
That is so. But they are able to affect cures because they too have behind them a tradition based upon an old world-conception. Old remedies were derived from the Mysteries, but they all shared a remarkable characteristic. If you look at an old prescription, you will find that it is highly complicated. It makes considerable demands upon those who prepare it and who apply it to the particular purpose laid down by tradition. If you had gone to an old physician and had asked how such a prescription was made up he would never have replied: first I make chemical experiments and ascertain whether the materials behave in such and such a way; then I try it out on the patients and note the results. Such an idea would never have occurred to him. People have no idea of the circumstances prevalent in earlier epochs. He would have replied: I live in a laboratory (if I may call it that) that was equipped on the basis of the Mystery teaching and when I light upon a remedy I owe it to the Gods. He was quite clear on this point, that he was in close communication with the spiritual world through the whole atmosphere engendered in his laboratory. Spiritual beings were as unmistakably present to him as human beings are to us. He was aware that through the influence of spiritual beings he had attained a higher dimension of being and was able to achieve more than would otherwise have been possible. And he proceeded to make up his complicated prescriptions, not from natural knowledge, but as the Gods dictated. It was known within the Mysteries that, in order to understand man, one should not be identified with the world of Maya, but press on to the truth of the divine world.
With all their knowledge of the external world men are further today from the truth of the divine world than were the ancients with their knowledge derived from the Mysteries. But the way back must be found again.
From the third example it is evident that if we seek to heal, even though equipped with the widest possible knowledge of nature (that is, of the world of Maya), then we are faced again with the unsolved problems of human life and destiny. If we wish to understand man from the standpoint of Maya, the “Great Illusion,” from the standpoint of the “Know thyself” which is demanded for the purposes of healing, then we shall be unable to advance a single step further in our understanding.
And so, in the light of these examples, we can say: he who wishes to bridge the gap between the world of Maya and the “Know thyself” will realize, the moment he approaches the human being with religious feeling, as a creative artist, as healer or doctor, that he stands before a void if his sole starting-point is the world of illusion. He is powerless unless he finds a form of knowledge that transcends the knowledge of external nature, which is knowledge of Maya, the Great Illusion.
Let us now draw a comparison between the way in which men sought, out of the spirit of the Mysteries, to reach a comprehensive knowledge of the world and the way in which this is attempted today. We shall then be in a position to find our bearings in relation to the paths leading to this comprehensive knowledge
A few thousand years ago the world and its divine Ground or essence were spoken of very differently from the way in which authorities speak to-day. Let us look back to that epoch a few thousand years ago, when a sublime and majestic knowledge flourished in the Mysteries of the Near East. We will attempt to look more closely into the nature of this knowledge by giving a brief description of its characteristics.
In ancient Chaldea, the following was taught: man's soul forces reach their maximum potentiality when he directs the eye of the spirit to the wonderful contrast between the life of sleep (his consciousness is dimmed, he is oblivious of his environment) and his waking life (he is clear-sighted, he is aware of the world around). These alternating conditions of sleep and waking were experienced differently thousands of years ago. Sleep was less unconscious, waking life not so fully conscious. In sleep man was aware of powerful, ever changing images, of the flux and movement of the life of worlds. He was in touch with the divine Ground, the essence, of the universe.
The dimming of consciousness during sleep is a consequence of human evolution. A few thousand years ago waking life was not so clear and lucid as today. Objects had no clearly defined contours, they were blurred. They radiated spiritual qualities in various forms. There was not the same abrupt transition from sleep to waking life. The men of that epoch were still able to distinguish these two states, and the environment of their waking life was called ‘Apsu.’ This life of flux and movement experienced in sleep, this realm that blurred the clear distinction between the minerals, plants and animals of waking life, was called ‘Tiamat.’ Now the teaching in the Chaldean Mystery Schools was that when man, in a state of sleep, shared the flux and movement of Tiamat, he was closer to truth and reality than when he lived his conscious life amongst minerals, plants and animals. Tiamat was nearer to the Ground of the world, more closely related to the world of man than Apsu. Apsu was more remote. Tiamat represented something that lay nearer to man. But in the course of time Tiamat underwent changes and this was brought to the notice of the neophytes in the Mystery Schools. From the life of flux and movement of Tiamat emerged demoniacal forms, equine shapes with human heads, leonine forms with the heads of angels. They arose out of the warp and woof of Tiamat and these demoniacal forms became hostile to man.
Then there appeared in the world a powerful Being, Ea. Anyone today who has an ear for sounds can feel how the conjunction of these two vowels points to that powerful Being who, according to these old Mystery teachings, stood at man's side to help him when the demons of Tiamat grew strong. Ea or Ia, became later—if one anticipates the particle ‘Soph’—Soph-Ea, Sophia. Ea implies approximately abstract wisdom, wisdom that permeates all things. Soph is a particle that suggests (approximately) a state of being. Sophia, Sophea, Sopheia, the all-pervading, omnipresent wisdom sent to mankind her son, then known as Marduk, later called Micha-el, the Micha-el who is invested with authority from the hierarchy of the Angels. He is the same Being as Marduk, the son of Ea, wisdom—Marduk-Micha-el.
According to the Mystery teachings Marduk-Micha-el was great and powerful and all the demoniacal beings such as horses with human heads and leonine forms with angels' heads—all these surging, mobile, demoniacal forms, conjoined as the mighty Tiamat, were arrayed against him. Marduk-Micha-el was powerful enough to command the storm wind that sweeps through the world. All that Tiamat embodied was seen as a living reality, and rightly so, for that is how they experienced it. All these demons together were envisaged as the adversary, a powerful dragon which embodied all the demoniacal powers born out of Tiamat, the night. And this dragon-being, breathing fire and fury, advanced upon Marduk. Micha-el first smote him with various weapons and then drove the whole force of his storm-wind into the dragon's entrails so that Tiamat burst asunder and was scattered abroad. [>The “Poem of Creation” says: “The North Wind bore (it) to places undisclosed.”] And so Marduk-Micha-el was able to create out of him the Heavens above and the Earth beneath. Thus arose the Above and the Below.
Such was the teaching of the Mysteries. The eldest son of Ea, wisdom, has vanquished Tiamat and has fashioned from one part of him the Heavens above and from the other the Earth below. And if, O man, you lift your eyes to the stars, you will see one part of that which Marduk-Micha-el formed in the Heavens out of the fearful abyss of Tiamat for the benefit of mankind. And if you look below, where the plants grow out of the mineralized Earth, where minerals begin to take form, you will find the other part which the son of Ea, wisdom, has recreated for the benefit of mankind.
Thus the ancient Chaldeans looked back to the formative period of the world, to the forming from the formless; they saw into the workshop of creation and perceived a living reality. These demon forms of the night, all these nocturnal monsters, the weaving, surging beings of Tiamat had been transformed by Marduk-Micha-el into the stars above and the Earth beneath. All the demons transformed by Marduk-Micha-el into shining stars, all that grows out of the Earth, the transformed skin and tissue of Tiamat—this is the form in which the men of ancient times pictured whatsoever came to them through the old attributes of the soul. That information they accounted as knowledge.
Then the priests of the Mysteries anticipated the future by studying the psychic powers of their pupils. And when the neophytes had developed adequate strength of soul they were in a position to understand the first elementary lessons that children are taught in school today—that the Earth revolves round the Sun and that worlds are formed from nebulae. This knowledge was a well-guarded secret in those days. The teaching given openly was concerned, on the other hand, with the deeds of Marduk-Micha-el which I have just described to you. In our schools and universities today—and they lay no claim to secrecy—and even in our primary schools the Copernican system and astro-physics are taught, subjects which, in ancient times, only the sages dared undertake or were permitted to undertake and then only after long preparation. What every schoolboy knows could, in those days, be learned only by Initiates. Today all this is part of the school curriculum.
There was an epoch dating further back still than the epoch of the old Chaldean Mysteries, when people spoke only of such things as I have described—of Ea, of Marduk-Micha-el, of Apsu and Tiamat. They abhorred everything taught by these ‘eccentric’ Mystery teachers about the movements of the stars or of the sun; they wished to study, not the invisible, but solely the visible and tangible, though in the personified or symbolic forms revealed through old clairvoyance. They rejected the knowledge which the old Initiate-teachers and their pupils had acquired. Then came the time when the primeval wisdom was gradually diffused from the East, and both forms of knowledge were treasured. Men set great store on the manifestations of the Beings of the spiritual worlds, the deeds of Marduk-Micha-el, for example; and equally they treasured what could be illustrated diagrammatically—the sun in the centre and the planetary bodies revolving round it in cycles and epicycles. Then, in the course of time, insight into the spiritual worlds, the worlds of demons and gods, was lost and intellectual knowledge was fostered, the knowledge which we prize so highly today and which reached its zenith in the early years of our epoch. We are now living in an epoch that ignores the spiritual, even as the phenomenal world was ignored by those to whom the spiritual was self-evident. We have to anticipate the time when we shall again be in a position to accept side by side with the teachings of astronomers, astrophysicists, zoologists and botanists a knowledge of spiritual realities derived from spiritual insights. This epoch is now imminent and we must be ready to meet it if we are to accomplish our task and rediscover amongst other things the religious source of art and the art of healing.
Just as in ancient times the spiritual dwelt amongst men whilst the material world was contemned, to be followed by an epoch when material knowledge was fostered and the spiritual suppressed, so now the time must come when we must transform our vast, comprehensive knowledge of the external world, so deserving of admiration, into a renewed knowledge of the Mystery teachings. Since the material science of today has torn down the edifice of the old spirituality, so that nothing survives of the ancient structure save, at most, those fragments that we unearth, we must once again recover the spiritual; but there must be a full and clear understanding of everything we bring to light when we delve into the history of past epochs. We must find our way back to the spiritual through a new creative art imbued with religious feeling, through a new art of healing and through a new knowledge of the spirit that permeates the being of man.
These are three examples which I have given you today in the hope that we may strive to renew the Mysteries which shall give us an understanding of the Ground and principle of the world in its entirety and an understanding of man who shall work as a fully integrated person rather than as a narrow materialist to promote the welfare and enlightenment of his fellow men.

Die Natur ist die große Illusion «Erkenne dich selbst»
Warum forschen wir überhaupt nach einem Geistigen?
Es ist mir der Wunsch ausgedrückt worden, in diesen Vorträgen zu sprechen über die Wege in die übersinnliche Welt, in das geistige Leben hinein, die Wege, welche zu übersinnlichen Erkenntnissen führen und die sich vereinigen können mit den in so großer, schöner Weise in der neueren Zeit gegangenen Wegen zur Erkenntnis der sinnlichen, der physischen Welt. Denn nur derjenige Mensch kann die Wirklichkeit erkennen, der zu den großen, bewunderungswürdigen Erkenntnissen, welche die Naturwissenschaft, die historische Wissenschaft, welche anderes Erkennen in der neueren Zeit geleistet hat, hinzufügt dasjenige, was man in bezug auf die geistige Welt wissen kann.
Überall, wo uns die Welt entgegentritt, ist sie in Wahrheit geistig und physisch, und es gibt nirgends ein Physisches, das nicht hinter sich in irgendeiner Weise als den eigentlichen Akteur ein Geistiges hätte. Und es gibt nicht irgendein Geistiges, das, nur um sich zu langweilen in der Welt, ein wesenloses, tatenloses Dasein führte, sondern jedes Geistige, das irgendwo gefunden werden kann, wird auch bis ins Physische hinein zu irgendeiner Zeit oder an irgendeinem Orte wirksam.
Wie man innerhalb der physischen Tatsachen auf der einen Seite, wie man durch die Anschauung des Geistigen auf der anderen Seite die Welt, in der der Mensch lebt, in ihrer Totalität erkennen kann, darüber soll gesprochen werden, gesprochen werden so, daß die richtigen und die falschen Methoden dieser Erkenntnis hier in diesen Vorträgen zur Darstellung kommen.
Heute möchte ich, bevor ich den eigentlichen Gegenstand, mit dem ich morgen anfangen werde, bespreche, eine Art Einleitung geben, damit Sie sehen, was eigentlich von diesen Vorträgen zu erwarten ist, was mit ihnen beabsichtigt ist. Es wird sich darum handeln, zunächst die Frage uns nahezulegen: Warum forschen wir denn überhaupt nach einem Geistigen? Warum befriedigen wir uns als Menschen, die in der Welt denken, in der Welt fühlen, die in der Welt etwas tun, warum befriedigen wir uns nicht damit, die sinnlich-physische Welt einfach aufzufassen, in ihr zu wirken? Warum streben wir nach der Erkenntnis eines Geistigen?
Ich darf dabei auf eine alte Anschauung, ein altes Wort hinweisen, das aber eine immer erweiterte Wahrheit enthält, das herübertönt aus Urzeiten menschlichen Denkens und menschlichen Strebens, das wir aber auch finden, wenn wir heute forschen nach dem Wesen der Welt. Ohne daß hier auch nur das geringste gebaut werden soll auf fremde alte Anschauungen, möchte ich aber immer da, wo es am Platze ist, auf solche alten Anschauungen hinweisen.
Da tönt uns mit einem Alter von Jahrtausenden aus dem Orient herüber das Wort: Die Welt, die wir mit den Sinnen sehen, ist Maja. Diese Welt, die wir mit den Sinnen sehen, ist die große Illusion, denn Maja ist ja die große Illusion. Und wenn - so fühlte man immer im Verlaufe der menschlichen Entwickelung — diese Welt die große Illusion ist, so muß der Mensch über diese große Illusion hinaus zur wahren Wirklichkeit kommen.
Aber warum faßt denn der Mensch diese Welt, die er mit seinen Augen sieht, mit seinen Ohren hört, mit seinen übrigen Sinnen wahrnimmt, als die große Illusion auf? Warum taten sich denn auf, gerade in den ältesten Zeiten der Menschheit, wo der Mensch dem Geist nähergestanden hat als heute, Mysterienstätten, die zu gleicher Zeit zur Pflege der Wissenschaft, der Religion, der Kunst, des praktiischen Lebens da waren, und die auf die Realität, auf die Wahrheit hinweisen wollten gegenüber dem, was im nur äußeren Leben die große Illusion darstellt, in der der Mensch erkennt und in der er mit seinem gewöhnlichen Wirken zunächst auch lebt? Warum die überragenden Weisen, die ihre Schüler ausbildeten in den heiligen Mysterien der alten Zeiten, die zur Wahrheit führen wollten gegenüber der Illusion — warum das? Ja, diese Frage, sie beantwortet sich nur, wenn man etwas unbefangener, vorurteilsloser auf den Menschen selber hinsieht.
«Erkenne dich selbst», so tönt ja ein anderes altes Wort wiederum zu uns. Und, ich möchte sagen, aus dem Zusammenfügen dieser beiden Worte: «Die Welt ist Maja», aus dem Orient, «Erkenne dich selbst», aus dem alten griechischen Wort - erfloß der ganzen neueren Menschheit ihr Streben nach einer spirituellen Erkenntnis. Aber in allen alten Mysterien erfloß auch das Streben nach der wirklichen Wahrheit aus diesem Zusammenempfinden, daß die Welt eigentlich Illusion ist, daß der Mensch sich selbst erkennen müsse.
Aber erst im Leben kommt man zurecht mit dieser Frage; nicht im Denken, sondern im Wollen und im vollen Drinnenstehen in der uns Menschen zunächst zugänglichen Wirklichkeit. Nicht im vollen Bewußtsein, nicht in deutlicher Erkenntnis, aber in einem intensiven Fühlen sagt sich jeder Mensch innerhalb jeder Erdenlokalität: So wie die äußere Welt, die du siehst, die du hörst, kannst du selbst nicht sein.
Diese Empfindung ist eine tiefgehende, meine verehrten Anwesenden. Man muß nur einmal sich das ganz klar vor die Seele stellen, was das bedeutet, wenn der Mensch sich sagt: So wie die äußere Welt, die du siehst, die du hörst, mit deinen übrigen Sinnen wahrnimmst, kannst du selbst nicht sein. -— Wir betrachten die Pflanzen, wir sehen sie im Frühling mit ihren grünen Blättern aus der Wurzel aufsprießen. Wir sehen sie im Laufe des Sommers zur Blüte, gegen den Herbst zu als Frucht sich entfalten. Wir sehen sie entstehen und vergehen. Wir sehen das Leben eingespannt in einen Jahreslauf. Wir schen allerdings, wie manche Pflanzen aus dem Irdischen Härteres, wenn ich so sagen darf, aufnehmen, sich mit Härterem durchdringen, einen Baumstamm sich bilden. Und als wir im Auto hierher gefahren sind, um schnell noch hierherzukommen gestern abend, sahen wir unterwegs recht, recht alte Pflanzen, die viel von dem Irdischen aufgenommen haben, um nicht in einen Jahreslauf ihr Leben zu bannen, sondern um länger ihr Dasein zu führen und immer wieder neue und neue Sprossen an ihrem Stamme hervorzubringen. Aber der Mensch hat Gelegenheit, auch das Entstehen und Vergehen solcher Pflanzen zu beobachten.
Der Mensch betrachtet die Tiere. Er sieht sie entstehen, er sieht sie vergehen. Er tut es zuletzt auch mit den Mineralien. Er beobachtet dasjenige, was sich in der Erde abgelagert hat an Mineralien, an den mächtigen, grandiosen Gebirgszügen. Er ist in der neueren Wissenschaft darauf gekommen, daß auch diese grandiosen Gebirgszüge entstehen und vergehen. Und endlich wendet sich der Mensch zu irgendeiner Anschauung, sei sie ptolemäisch oder kopernikanisch, oder zu irgendeinem der alten oder der neueren Mysterien, und der Mensch kommt zu der Anschauung: Was du siehst in den majestätischen Sternen, was dir entgegenleuchtet aus Sonne und Mond mit all den wunderbaren, verwickelten Bahnen, all das entsteht und vergeht ja auch. — Und außer dem Entstehen und Vergehen trägt es Eigenschaften, die so sind, daß der Mensch, wenn er sich selbst erkennen soll, nicht annehmen darf, daß er gleich sei mit all dem, was da entsteht und vergeht, mit Pflanzen, Mineralien, mit Sonne, Mond und Sternen. Dann kommt der Mensch aber zu der Anschauung: Ich trage ja etwas in mir, was anders ist als das, was ich in meiner Umgebung sehe, was ich in meiner Umgebung höre. Ich muß auf die Wahrheit meines eigenen Wesens kommen. Das finde ich nicht in dem, was ich sehe und höre.
Und es war in allen alten Mysterien der Drang, nach der Wahrheit des Menschenwesens zu kommen. Dieser Wahrheit des Menschenwesens gegenüber, die man suchte, empfand man dasjenige, was draußen im Raume und in der Zeit entsteht und vergeht, als die große Illusion. Und so suchte man um der Erkenntnis des Menschenwesens willen ein anderes, als die äußeren Sinne geoffenbart haben. Und dieses andere empfand man als eine geistige Welt. Wie diese geistige Welt eben richtig gesucht werden kann, das wird der Gegenstand der Vorträge sein. Denn Sie können sich ja denken, zunächst wird der Mensch dasjenige, was er gewöhnt ist, als Weg zu haben, um in der Sinneswelt zu suchen, fortsetzen wollen. Er wird gerade so, wie er das Wesen der äußeren Sinneswelt sucht, sein Suchen auch in die geistige Welt hinein fortsetzen wollen. Wenn aber die Forschung über die Sinneswelt im gewöhnlichen Leben Illusionen gibt, dann steht ja zu erwarten, daß die Illusion nicht kleiner, sondern größer wird, wenn man dieselben Wege, die man zur Erkenntnis in die Sinneswelt wählt, auch in die geistige Welt zur Erkenntnis wählt. Und so ist es auch. Das wird sich uns zeigen. Forscht man in der geistigen Welt so, wie man forscht in der Sinneswelt, kann die Illusion nicht kleiner werden, sondern muß größer werden, und wir leben uns, indem wir die sinnliche Forschung fortsetzen in die geistige Welt hinein, nur in eine um so größere, stärkere Illusion hinein.
Und wiederum, wenn wir ahnen vom Geistigen, wenn wir unbestimmt in dunkler Mystik vom Geistigen ahnen, träumen vom Geistigen, ja, dann bleibt uns das Geistige eben unbekannt. Wir ahnen es nur. Wir glauben nur; wir wissen nichts davon. Wenn wir diese Mystik, diesen Glauben, dieses Ahnen gegenüber der geistigen Welt bloß fortsetzen wollen, dann wird sie uns nicht bekannter, sondern immer unbekannter, so daß der Mensch sozusagen zwei falsche Wege finden kann.
Auf der einen Seite: er benimmt sich gegenüber der geistigen Welt so wie gegenüber der sinnlichen Welt. Da liefert ihm die sinnliche Welt zunächst die Illusion. Sucht er denselben Weg in die geistige Welt hinein fortzusetzen, wie es etwa die gewöhnlichen Spiritisten tun, so kommt er nicht etwa zu einer geringeren, sondern zu einer größeren Illusion.
Und es ergibt sich der andere Weg, nicht mit durchdringlicher, mit klarer Forschung in die geistige Welt eindringen zu wollen, sondern glauben zu wollen, mystisch ahnen zu wollen. Dann bleibt die geistige Welt unbekannt. Wenn man sich noch so anstrengt, um diesen Weg des Ahnens, des Mystizierens fortzusetzen, wird sie immer unbekannter und unbekannter. In beiden Fällen kommt man nicht in die geistige Welt hinein. In dem einen Fall wird die Illusion größer, in dem anderen Fall wird die Ignoranz größer. Gegenüber diesen beiden falschen Wegen ist eben der richtige zu suchen.
Die wahren Wege in das geistig wirkliche Erkennen
Man muß sich vor Augen halten, wie unmöglich es ist, von der Erkenntnis der Illusion in dem angegebenen Sinne zu der Erkenntnis des wahren Selbstes zukommen, und auch wiederum von dem Ahnen des wahren Selbstes, von dem mystischen Fühlen des wahren Selbstes zu dem Durchschauen der Wirklichkeit in der Illusion zu kommen, wenn man sich vorbereiten will, die wahren, die echten Wege in das geistig wirkliche Erkennen hinein zu finden.
Betrachten wir einmal ganz unbefangen, was da vorgeht. Man kann eigentlich mit materialistischem Sinn niemals ein so großer Verehrer sein von all den neueren naturwissenschaftlichen Forschern, Darwin, Huxley, Spencer und so weiter, wie man es sein kann als Erkenner der geistigen Welt, denn diese Menschen und viele andere seit der Giordano Bruno-Zeit haben wirklich Unendliches getan, um dasjenige zu erkennen, was man zu allen Zeiten in den Mysterien als die große Illusion durchschaute. Man braucht sich gar nicht bei Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, bei Kopernikus, Galilei und so weiter an die Theorien zu halten. Mögen die Menschen theoretisch über das Weltenall denken, was sie wollen, wir wollen uns darauf gar nicht einlassen; aber wir wollen uns einmal klarmachen, welche Anregung gegeben worden ist durch alle diese Menschen, um im einzelnen dieses oder jenes Organ im Menschen, in der Pflanze, im Tier, dieses oder jenes Geheimnis, das im Steine waltet, rein materiell zu durchschauen. Man soll sich nur vorstellen, was wir alles über Drüsen-, Nerven-, Herz-, Hirn-, Lunge-, Leberleben und so weiter in der neueren Zeit durch die Anregung dieser Forschung beobachtet haben. Man wird schon die nötige Hochschätzung bekommen. Allein der Mensch kommt mit allen diesen Erkenntnissen im ganzen wirklichen Leben nur bis zu einem Punkte. Das möchte ich Ihnen an drei Beispielen zeigen.
Man kann außerordentlich minuziös erkennen, wie der erste Eikeim des Menschen sich bildet, wie sich nach und nach in wunderbarer Weise dieser Keim zum menschlichen Embryo gestaltet, wie er Organe nach und nach ansetzt, wie aus peripherisch angeordneten kleinen Organen zuletzt das wunderbare Herz- und Zirkulationssystem sich aufbaut. Man kann das alles erkennen. Man kann erkennen, wie wunderbar sich in der Pflanze von der Wurzel auf bis zur Blüte und zum Samen alle die Dinge materiell entwickeln, und kann sich daraus eine Welt aufbauen nach den Anschauungen, die man sich gebildet hat, eine Welt, die bis zu den Sternen reicht. Es haben unsere astronomischen, unsere astrophysischen Theoretiker das getan. Man hat sich eine Welt aufgebaut aus einem Nebel-Sternsystem heraus, die zu immer deutlicherer und deutlicherer Struktur gekommen ist, Leben aus sich entwickeln konnte und so weiter.
Man kann sich das alles aufbauen. Aber zuletzt steht man da und frägt nun doch wiederum nach dem eigenen menschlichen Wesen, nach dem, was Antwort sein soll auf die Frage: «Erkenne dich selbst.» Und wenn man sich nur in demjenigen Selbst erkennt, das beschlossen ist in dem, was man erkennt an den Steinen, Pflanzen, Tieren, an den menschlichen Organen, am menschlichen Drüsen-, am menschlichen Zirkulationssystem — was erkennt man? Diejenige Welt erkennt man, die man bei der Geburt betritt, mit dem Tode verläßt. Nichts anderes.
Das aber erfühlt der Mensch in der Tiefe seines eigenen Wesens, daß das nicht seine wahre, letzte Grenze ist. Und so muß der Mensch aus dem Innersten seines Wesens alldem entgegenrufen, was in so großer Vollendung, in so großer Majestät an äußerer Erkenntnis an ihn herantreten kann: Das alles nimmst du nur an zwischen der Geburt und dem Tode. Was bist du in deinem wahren Wesen? -— In dem Augenblick, wo die Frage der Naturerkenntnis und der Menschenerkenntnis sich religiös wendet, in dem Augenblicke kommt der Mensch mit dem, was hineinschaut in die Welt der großen Illusion, nicht weiter. Die Frage: Erkenne dich selbst, so daß du weißt, woher du stammst im Innersten deines Wesens, wohin du gehst mit dem Innersten deines Wesens — diese Frage, die Erkenntnisfrage ins Religiöse gewendet, bleibt unbeantwortet.
Das war es, was die alten Mysterien ihren Schülern schon an den Pforten klarmachten: Du magst erkennen, was du willst mit deinen äußeren Sinnen, wendest du die Frage religiös, dann bleibt dir die große Menschheitsfrage, das große Menschenrätsel unbeantwortet. Und weiter. Wir mögen noch so genau hinschauen können auf die Art, wie ein menschliches Gesicht geformt ist, wir mögen noch so genau hinschauen können, wie ein Mensch seine Arme und Hände bewegt, wie er geht und steht, wir mögen uns ein noch so feines Gefühl aneignen für die Gestalt eines Tieres, die Gestalt der Pflanzen, so weit wir das mit den Sinnen erkennen können - in dem Augenblick, wo wir dieses unser Fühlen, wo wir dasjenige, was wir so auffassen, künstlerisch wenden wollen, bleibt uns wiederum eine Frage unbeantwortet. Denn wie haben die Menschen das, was sie von der Welt wußten, von jeher künstlerisch gewendet? Die Mysterien, sie haben in alten Zeiten dazu angeregt. Man wußte das oder jenes über die Natur nach den Erkenntniskräften, die da waren. Aber man vertiefte dasjenige, was man so wußte, in die Anschauung des Geistigen.
Man braucht nur ins alte Griechenland zurückzugehen. Wenn wir heute einen Bildhauer, einen Maler sehen, er greift - wenigstens war das vor kurzer Zeit noch ganz der Fall, heute ist es schon weniger der Fall -, er greift nach dem Modell. Er will etwas nachmachen. Er will etwas imitieren. Das hat der Grieche nicht getan. Man glaubt das nur, daß es der Grieche getan habe. Der Grieche hat den geistigen Menschen in sich gefühlt. Wollte er bildhauerisch einen Arm in seiner Bewegung modellieren, dann wußte er: In dem, was ich da außen am Modell anschaue, da steckt das Geistige darinnen. — Er wußte, daß alles Materielle nach dem Geistigen geschaffen ist, und er strebte danach, dieses Geistige nachzuschaften.
Der Maler noch zur Renaissancezeit stellte sich nicht hin und schaute das Modell an; es war ihm nur Anregung. Dasjenige, was er von innen heraus wußte, daß esim Arm, in der Hand lebte, das brachte er in die Bewegung hinein. Wie der Mensch innerlich mit dem Geiste lebte, das brachte er hinein. Bloß das Äußere anschauen in der großen Illusion, in der Maja, bloßes Imitieren des Modelles läßt uns da stehenbleiben, wo wir stehen, nicht im Menschen, sondern vor dem Menschen. Künstlerisch die Frage gewendet, stehen wir, wenn wir bei der Illusion stehenbleiben, vor der großen Menschheitsfrage, vor den gewaltigen Menschenrätseln, die unbeantwortet bleiben.
Wiederum war es schon an der Pforte der alten Mysterien, wo man nun dem Schüler, der eingeweiht werden sollte, klarmachte: Willst du innerhalb der äußeren Welt der Illusion stehenbleiben, kannst du nicht in die menschliche Wesenheit, aber auch nicht in die Wesenheit eines anderen Naturreiches eindringen. Du kannst kein Künstler werden. Man war wiederum auch auf dem Wege der Kunst in die Notwendigkeit versetzt, an den Menschen das anschauliche «Erkenne dich selbst» heranzubringen. Da fühlte man die Notwendigkeit der spirituellen Erkenntnis.
Sie werden sagen: Aber es gibt doch recht materialistische Bildhauer, materialistische Maler, die können doch auch etwas, die wissen ganz gut dem Modell die Geheimnisse abzulocken und es in die Gestalten, in die Stoffe hineinzulegen. — Gewiß, aber woher können sie das? Sie wissen das gar nicht von sich aus. Man durchschaut das nur nicht. Sie haben das gelernt von den älteren Malern; diese wieder von den [noch] älteren Malern. Tradition ist es. Man weiß, wie Ältere das gemacht haben. Man sagt sich das nicht immer, weil man doch selber tüchtig sein will. Aber man ist es nicht. Man weiß nur, wie die Älteren tüchtig waren und macht es ihnen nach. Aber die Ältesten von diesen Älteren, die haben eben das Geheimnis gerade aus den spirituellen Anschauungen der Mysterien heraus bekommen. Ältere Maler, ältere Bildhauer haben es von den Mysterien bekommen; Raffael, Michelangelo haben es von solchen bekommen, die es noch aus den Mysterien bekamen. Aber wirkliche Kunst muß aus dem Spirituellen geschöpft sein. Anders geht es nicht. Sobald man an den Menschen herankommt, läßt einem das Anschauen der großen Illusion, der Maya, unbeantwortet die Lebensrätsel, die Menschenrätsel. Wollen wir wiederum zum Ursprünglichen einer Kunst kommen, zum schaffenden Künstlerischen, brauchen wir wiederum einen Einblick in die spirituelle Welt.
Ein drittes Beispiel: Man kann als Botaniker, als Zoologe wunderbar kennen jede Form der einem zugänglichen Pflanzen. Man kann in Chemie, Physiologie die Prozesse beschreiben, die in den Pflanzen vor sich gehen. Man kann die Prozesse kennenlernen, wie sich Nahrungsmittel verwandeln in den Verdauungsorganen und innerhalb des Blutes und weiter bis zu den Nerven hin. Man kann das alles kennenlernen. Man kann ein sehr kluger, gescheiter Anatom oder Physiologe oder Botaniker oder Zoologe werden, vieles erforschen in der Welt der großen Illusion — will man heilend, medizinisch an den Menschen mit all diesen Kenntnissen herankommen, will man wiederum den Weg finden von der Natur des Menschen, ja, von der Innennatur des Menschen zu seinem Wesen: man kann es nicht.
Sie werden sagen: Es gibt aber genug materialistisch denkende Ärzte, die wollen nichts wissen von der geistigen Welt, die gehen nur nach dem, was man mit der Naturwissenschaft erforschen kann, und sie heilen doch. - Ja, warum heilen sie? Sie heilen, weil sie wiederum die Tradition aus einer alten Weltanschauung haben. Alte Heilmittel waren ja auch aus den Mysterien heraus entnommen; aber sie haben alle eine merkwürdige Eigentümlichkeit. Wenn Sie, meine sehr verehrten Anwesenden, ein altes Rezept in die Hand nehmen: das ist ungeheuer kompliziert, das erfordert, um es darzustellen und zu dem anzuwenden, wovon einem gesagt wird nach der Tradition, daß es angewendet werden soll, außerordentlich viel.
Wenn Sie nun in die alten Mysterien gegangen wären und einen Mysterienarzt gefragt hätten, wie solch ein Rezept zustande kommt, der würde Ihnen nie geantwortet haben: Da mache ich chemische Versuche, da probiere ich zuerst einmal, ob die Stoffe miteinander sich so und so verhalten, und dann wende ich das bei den Kranken an und sehe, was sich da ergibt. - Das würde Ihnen der alte Mysterienarzt nie geantwortet haben, ihm wäre dies nicht eingefallen. Die Menschen wissen nur nicht, wie das in früheren Zeiten war. Der hätte Ihnen geantwortet: Ich lebe in dem Laboratorium — wenn wir es so nennen wollen -, das mir im Sinne des Mysteriums eingerichtet worden ist, und wenn ich zu einem Heilmittel komme, so haben mir das die Götter gesagt. - Denn er war sich klar darüber: Durch die ganze Stimmung, die in seinem Laboratorium erzeugt worden ist, kam er in lebendigen Verkehr mit der geistigen Welt. Da wurden geistige Wesen so gegenwärtig für ihn, wie es sonst die Menschen sind. Und da wurde er sich bewußt: Durch den Einfluß der geistigen Wesen in der geistigen Welt kann er mehr sein als ohne solchen Einfluß. Und er setzte seine komplizierten Rezepte zusammen. Nicht mit Naturerkenntnis, nach Götterart setzte er sie zusammen. Man wußte innerhalb dieser Mysterien selber: Will man an den Menschen herankommen, dann darf man nicht in der Illusion stehenbleiben, dann muß man zur Wahrheit der göttlichen Welt vordringen.
Die Menschen sind heute in ihrem äußeren Erkennen der Wahrheit der göttlichen Welt noch viel ferner, als die Alten es waren mit ihren Mysterien. Aber der Weg muß wieder zurückgefunden werden. Denn das ist das dritte, was ich Ihnen als Beispiel anführen kann: Wenn man mit der allerausgebreitetsten Erkenntnis der Natur, das heißt der großen Illusion, gerüstet ist und will heilen - man steht wiederum mit unbeantworteten Fragen vor dem Menschenleben, vor dem Menschenrätsel. Kommt man von der Illusion an den Menschen heran, von dem «Die Natur ist die große Illusion» zu dem «Erkenne dich selbst», wie es auch beim Heilen dargelegt werden muß: man kann keinen Schritt weitermachen.
Und so kann man aus diesen drei Beispielen sagen: Der Mensch, der die Brücke schlagen will zwischen der Welt der großen Illusion, der Maja, und dem «Frkenne dich selbst», der sieht, wie er vor dem Nichts steht, wenn er nur von der Illusion ausgehen will, sobald er an den Menschen religiös fühlend, künstlerisch schaffend und helfend als Heiler, als Arzt herankommen will. Er kann es nicht, wenn er nicht übergeht zu einer ganz anderen Erkenntnis, als die Erkenntnis der äußeren Natur, die Erkenntnis der großen Illusion, der Maja, ist.
Die Erkenntnis der Welt in ihrer Totalitat durch geistige Anschauung innerhalb der physischen Tatsachen
Wir wollen nun noch einen Vergleich anstellen zwischen der Art, wie man in alten Zeiten aus dem Geiste der Mysterien heraus versucht hat, die Totalerkenntnis von der Welt zu erwerben, und wie man heute versucht, es zu tun, um daran uns zu orientieren in bezug auf die Wege zu einer solchen Totalerkenntnis von der Welt.
Ganz anders sprach man vor einigen Jahrtausenden über die Welt und ihr Wesen, als heute diejenigen Gelehrten sprechen, die auf Autorität Anspruch machen. Wollen wir uns einmal einige Jahrtausende zurückversetzen in die Zeit, wo eine glänzende, majestätische Erkenntnis in Vorderasien blühte, aus heiligen Mysterien heraus, wollen wir uns einmal mit einigen charakteristischen Strichen in die Art dieser Erkenntnis hinein vertiefen.
Da wurde etwa im alten Chaldäa, sagen wir, folgendes gelehrt: Der Mensch erlebt die äußersten Grenzen des Daseins, bis zu denen er kommen kann mit seinen Seelenkräften, wenn er den geistigen, den Seelenblick auf den wunderbaren Gegensatz lenkt zwischen dem Leben, wenn er schläft - das Bewußtsein ist dumpf, der Mensch weiß nichts von seinem Leben -, und demjenigen Leben, das er verbringt, wenn er wach ist - es ist hell um den Menschen herum, der Mensch weiß von seinem Leben.
Anders wurden diese Wechselzustände zwischen Schlafen und Wachen vor Jahrtausenden empfunden. Der Schlaf war nicht so bewußtlos, das Wachen war nicht so bewußtvoll. Im Schlafe nahm man sich wandelnde, mächtige Bilder, webend-wellendes Weltenleben wahr; man war unter Wesenhaftem, wenn man schlief. Daß der Schlaf so bewußtlos geworden ist, ist erst mit der Entwickelung der Menschheit geschehen. Dafür aber war vor Jahrtausenden das Wachleben nicht so durchsonnt, nicht so durchleuchtet wie heute. Die Dinge hatten nicht feste Grenzen, waren verschwommen. Sie sprühten noch allerlei Geistiges aus. Es war kein so schroffer Übergang zwischen Schlafen und Wachen. Aber man konnte unterscheiden, und man nannte alles das, worinnen man lebte, im Wachen der damaligen Zeit, etwa «Apsu». Das war die Welt des Wachens.
Man nannte dasjenige, worin man war, wenn man schlief, das Webend-Wellende, das, wodurch man nicht so gut unterscheiden konnte, wie wenn man wach war, Mineralien, Tiere und Pflanzen, man nannte das «Tiamat».
Nun wurde in den chaldäischen Mysterien gelehrt: Mehr ist der Mensch im Wahren, im Wirklichen drinnen, wenn er im Tiamat schlafend webt, als wenn er wachend unter den Mineralien, Pflanzen und Tieren lebt. Tiamat ist ursprünglicher, ist mehr der Welt des Menschlichen verbunden als Apsu; Apsu ist unbekannter; Tiamat stellt dasjenige dar, was dem Menschen naheliegt. Aber es traten Veränderungen ein im Tiamat im Laufe der Zeit. So sagte man und lehrte man den Schülern der Mysterien. Aus dem Weben und Leben entstanden Dämonengestalten, pferdeähnliche Gestalten mit Menschenköpfen, löwenähnliche Gestalten mit Engelsköpfen. Sie entstanden aus dem Gewebe des Tiamat. Das, was da lebte als dämonische Gestalten, wurde dem Menschen feindlich.
Da aber trat in die Welt ein mächtiges Wesen ein: «Ea». Wer heute noch Laute fühlt, der fühlt in dem Zusammenklange von E und A den Hinweis auf jenes mächtige Wesen, das dem Menschen hilfreich im Sinne dieser alten Mysterienlehre zur Seite war, als die Dämonen aus Tiamat mächtig waren: Ea, la, was dann später, indem man die Seinspartikel «soph» voraussetzte, Soph Ea = Sophia wurde. Ea, ungefähr dasjenige, was wir mit dem abstrakten Worte: Weisheit, die in allen Dingen waltet, bezeichnen. Ia = die in allem waltende Weisheit, Sophia. Soph = eine Partikel, die ungefähr «seiend» bedeutet. Sophia, Sophea, Sopheia = die waltende Weisheit, die überall waltende Weisheit schickte dem Menschen einen Sohn, jenen Sohn, den man dazumal mit dem Namen bezeichnete: «Marduk», den wir gewohnt worden sind in einer etwas späteren Terminologie als Michael zu bezeichnen, als den aus der Hierarchie der Archangeloi heraus waltenden Michael. Das ist dieselbe Wesenheit wie Marduk, der Sohn von Ea, der Weisheit, Marduk-Michael.
Und Marduk-Michael - so ist die Mysterienlehre — war mächtig, groß und gewaltig. Und alle jene Dämonenwesen, wie Pferde mit Menschenköpfen, Löwengestalten mit Engelsköpfen, alle diese webenden, wogenden Dämonen standen eben in ihrem Zusammenhange als die große Tiamat ihm gegenüber. Er war mächtig, Marduk-Michael, den Sturmwind, der durch die Welt wogt, zu beherrschen. Also Tiamat, alles das wurde wesenhaft vorgestellt, mit Recht, denn so sah man es, wesenhaft. Alle diese Dämonen zusammen bildeten einen mächtigen Drachen, der feuerwütig sich entgegensteilte als die Summe all der Dämonengewalten, die aus Tiamat, der Nacht, herausgeboren wurden. Als sein Wesen feuerwütig Marduk-Michael entgegentrat, da stieß er ihm erst seine anderen Waffen, dann die ganze Gewalt des Sturmwindes in die Eingeweide, und das Wesen Tiamat barst und rollte auseinander, zerbarst in alle Welt. Und Marduk-Michael konnte oben formen den Himmel und unten die Erde. Und so entstand das Oben und Unten.
Und so lehrte man in den Mysterien: Der große Sohn der Ea, der Weisheit, er hat Tiamat bezwungen und aus einem Teil des Tiamat das Obere, die Himmel gebildet, aus einem anderen Teil des Tiamat das Untere, die Erde gebildet. Siehst du hin in die Himmel zu den Sternen, o Mensch, dann siehst du einen Teil desjenigen, was aus den furchtbaren Abgründen der Tiamat Marduk-Michael oben geformt hat zum Heile der Menschen.
Und siehst du nach unten, wo die Pflanzen aus dem mineraldurchsetzten Irdischen wachsen, wo die Tiere sich gestalten, dann findest du den anderen Teil, den der Sohn der Ea, der Weisheit, aus Tiamat zum Heile der Menschheit umgeformt hat.
Und so sah jene alte Menschheitszeit im alten Chaldäa zurück auf ein Gestalten in der Welt, sah hin auf Wesenhaftes. Alles das empfand man wesenhaft: diese Dämonengestalten, die die Nacht bevölkerten, all das, was aus diesen Nachtgestalten, aus den waltenden, webenden Wesenheiten in der Tiamat, die ich Ihnen geschildert habe, MardukMichael geformt hat als oben die Sterne, als unten die Erde - all das, was uns aus den Sternen entgegenglänzt: umgewandelte, durch Marduk-Michael umgewandelte Dämonen - all das, was uns aus der Erde selber herauswächst: durch Marduk-Michael umgewandelte Haut, umgewandeltes Gewebe von Tiamat, so sah man in alten Zeiten dasjenige an, was man durch die alten Seelenfähigkeiten sich vergegenwärtigen konnte. Das war Erkenntnis.
Und dann haben die Leiter eines Mysteriums ihre Schüler ganz im Geheimen vorbereitet, seelenkräftig vorbereitet. Und wenn die Schüler solche Seelenkräfte entwickelten, dann haben sie die ersten Elemente desjenigen erkennen können, was wir heute schon den Kindern in der Schule als Elementarlehre davon beibringen, daß die Sonne stillsteht, die Erde sich herumdreht, daß sich aus Nebeln Welten gebildet haben. Diese Naturlehre, die wir heute in der Schule den Kindern beibringen, die war das große Geheimnis. Dagegen das, was vor aller Welt entfaltet wurde, das war dasjenige, was ich Ihnen eben erzählt habe von den Taten des Marduk-Michael. Wir lernen heute in unseren Schulen —- wenn sie auch nicht mehr mysterienhaft aussehen -, auf unseren Universitäten, aber auch schon in den niederen Schulen bis zur Volksschule hin dasjenige, was kopernikanische Weltanschauung als astrophysisches Weltenwissen ist, das die alten Weisen sich erst nach langer Vorbereitung erringen durften und erringen konnten. Was heute jedes Schulkind weiß, das konnte man in alten Zeiten nur wissen, wenn man eingeweiht wurde. Heute lernt man alles dieses in der Schule.
Es gab eine Zeit - sie liegt noch weiter zurück als die Weisheit des alten chaldäischen Mysterienwesens -, da redeten die Menschen nur von solchen Dingen, wie ich sie Ihnen geschildert habe, von Ea, von Marduk-Michael, von der Apsu und Tiamat, nur von diesen Dingen redeten diese Menschen. Da verabscheuten sie alles, was diese schrullenhaften Mysterienlehrer sagten von der Bewegung der Sterne, von der Bewegung der Sonne, und wollten nur das Äußere, Sichtbare erforschen, nicht das Unsichtbare, was sich eben, wenn auch in Form des alten Hellsehertums, vor die Menschheit hinstellte. Man verachtete dasjenige, was sich die alten Eingeweihtenlehrer und -schüler aneigneten.
Dann kam die Zeit, wo sich allmählich vorbereitete aus dem Orient das uralte Wissen. Da schätzte man beides. Man schätzte dasjenige, was man in dem Herausleben des Wesenhaften der geistigen Welt hatte, man schätzte zum Beispiel dasjenige, was die Taten des geistigen Wesens Marduk-Michael sind; man schätzte eben[so] das, was man auf die Tafel [etwa so] zeichnen könnte (es wird gezeichnet): in der Tafel i* Mitte die Sonne, ringsherum die Sterne, sich bewegend in Zyklen und Epizyklen. Man schätzte das alles.
Dann kam die Zeit, in der man das Hineinschauen in geistige Welten, in Dämonen- und Götterwelten nicht mehr hatte, und in der sich besonders ausbildete das andere, das intellektuelle Wissen, jenes Wissen, auf das der heutige Mensch so stolz ist, das sich allmählich bis zur Kulmination gegen unser Zeitalter hin ausgebildet hat. Wir stehen nun ungefähr in der äußeren Welt in jenem Zeitalter, wo man so verachtet das Spirituelle, wie in alten Zeiten das Materielle von denjenigen verachtet wurde, denen das Spirituelle selbstverständlich war. Wir müssen uns hineinleben in die Zeiten, wo wir wieder imstande sein werden, neben dem, was Astronomen, Astrophysiker, was Zoologen und Biologen lehren, dasjenige aufzunehmen, was die spirituelle Erkenntnis an geistigen Wesensinhalten gibt. Diese Zeit ist gekommen. Dieser Zeit muß der Mensch entgegenleben, wenn er seine Aufgaben lösen will, wenn er wiederum zum Religiösen, zur Kunst, zur Heilkunde und so weiter kommen will.
So wie in alten Zeiten der Spiritualismus geleuchtet hat unter den Menschen, das Materielle aber verachtet worden ist, und dann ein Zeitalter gekommen ist, wo man die materielle Erkenntnis aufgenommen hat, die dann groß geworden ist und die Spiritualität verdrängt hat, so wie man also in einem Irrtum in alten Zeiten mit dem Spirituellen allein gelebt und die äußere Welt verachtet hat, und so, wie man in der Zeit, als man das Materielle schätzte, irrtümlicherweise den Spiritualismus verachtet hat, so muß jetzt eine Zeit kommen, wo man von der umfassenden und wunderbaren Erkenntnis der äußeren Welt wiederum zu einem neuen Mysterienwissen kommen muß.
Wir müssen, nachdem die materielle Erkenntnis, die so wunderbar geworden ist, von der alten Spiritualität Stück für Stück sich abgerissen hat, so daß wie von uralten Gebäuden nichts mehr vorhanden ist auf der Erde als höchstens jene Überreste, die man wie die alten materiellen Gebäude ausgräbt — wir müssen wiederum zu einer Spiritualität kommen, aber mit voller Erkenntnis dessen, was wir aufzeigen können, wenn wir, in alte Erdenzeiten zurückblickend, wie in der Historie graben. Wir müssen wiederum zu solcher Spiritualität kommen durch ein neues religiöses Vertiefen, durch ein neues künstlerisches Gestalten, durch ein neues, in das Menschenwesen eindringendes Geistwissen durch Heilpraxis und so weiter.
Das sind drei Beispiele, die ich heute vor Ihnen ausgeführt habe, um wiederum Mysterien zu erbauen, vor denen wir dann stehen werden wie vor etwas, das uns bringen kann Erkenntnis der Wesenstotalität der Welt und Handeln des Menschen zum Heile der Menschheit im Sinne der Totalität, nicht bloß der einseitigen materiellen Wirklichkeit.

Nature is the great illusion “Know thyself”
Why do we search for the spiritual at all?
I have expressed the wish to speak in these lectures about the paths into the supersensible world, into the spiritual life, the paths that lead to supersensible knowledge and that can unite with the paths to knowledge of the sensual, the physical world that have been taken in such a great, beautiful way in more recent times. For only that person can recognize reality who adds to the great, admirable insights that natural science, historical science and other forms of knowledge have achieved in recent times, that which can be known in relation to the spiritual world.
Everywhere the world confronts us, it is in truth spiritual and physical, and there is nowhere a physical that does not have a spiritual behind it in some way as the actual actor. And there is not any spiritual that, just to be bored in the world, leads an insubstantial, inactive existence, but every spiritual that can be found anywhere also becomes effective into the physical at some time or in some place.
How one can recognize the world, in which man lives, in its totality within the physical facts on the one hand, how one can recognize the world, in which man lives, through the contemplation of the spiritual on the other hand, is to be spoken about, spoken about in such a way that the right and the wrong methods of this cognition are presented here in these lectures.
Today, before I discuss the actual subject matter, which I will begin tomorrow, I would like to give a kind of introduction so that you can see what is actually to be expected from these lectures, what is intended with them. First of all, we will be asking ourselves the question: Why do we search for a spiritual being at all? Why do we satisfy ourselves as people who think in the world, who feel in the world, who do something in the world, why do we not satisfy ourselves by simply grasping the sensual-physical world, by working in it? Why do we strive for knowledge of the spiritual?
I may refer here to an old view, an old word, which, however, contains an ever-expanding truth, which resounds from primeval times of human thought and human striving, but which we also find when we research the nature of the world today. Without wanting to build the slightest thing here on strange old views, I would like to refer to such old views wherever it is appropriate.
There the word sounds to us from the Orient, thousands of years old: The world that we see with our senses is Maja. This world that we see with our senses is the great illusion, because Maja is the great illusion. And if - as has always been felt in the course of human development - this world is the great illusion, then man must go beyond this great illusion to true reality.
But why then does man perceive this world, which he sees with his eyes, hears with his ears, perceives with his other senses, as the great illusion? Why then did mystery places arise, especially in the oldest times of mankind, when man was closer to the spirit than he is today, which at the same time existed for the cultivation of science, religion, art and practical life, and which wanted to point to reality, to truth, as opposed to that which in merely external life represents the great illusion in which man recognizes and in which he initially also lives with his ordinary activity? Why the outstanding sages who trained their disciples in the sacred mysteries of ancient times, who wanted to lead to truth as opposed to illusion - why that? Yes, this question can only be answered if you look at people themselves in a more impartial, unprejudiced way.
“Know thyself” is another old saying that comes back to us. And, I would like to say, from the combination of these two words: “The world is Maja”, from the Orient, “Know thyself”, from the old Greek word - flowed to the whole of modern humanity its striving for spiritual knowledge. But in all the ancient mysteries, the striving for the real truth also flowed from this common perception that the world is actually illusion, that man must recognize himself.
But it is only in life that one comes to terms with this question; not in thinking, but in willing and in being fully immersed in the reality that is initially accessible to us humans. Not in full consciousness, not in clear knowledge, but in an intense feeling, every human being says to himself within every earthly locality: You cannot be like the outer world that you see, that you hear.
This feeling is a profound one, ladies and gentlemen. You only have to imagine very clearly what it means when a person says to himself: You cannot be like the outer world that you see, that you hear, that you perceive with your other senses. -- We look at the plants, we see them in spring with their green leaves sprouting from their roots. We see them blossom in the course of the summer and develop into fruit in the fall. We see them emerge and fade away. We see life as part of the course of the year. However, we see how some plants absorb something harder, if I may say so, from the earthly, interpenetrate with something harder, form a tree trunk. And when we drove here in the car to get here quickly last night, we saw quite old plants on the way that had absorbed a lot from the earthly world in order not to banish their life to the course of a year, but to lead a longer existence and to keep producing new and new shoots on their trunks. But man also has the opportunity to observe the emergence and decay of such plants.
Man observes the animals. He sees them develop, he sees them decay. Finally, he does the same with minerals. He observes the minerals that have been deposited in the earth, the mighty, grandiose mountain ranges. In more recent science he has discovered that these grandiose mountain ranges also come into being and pass away. And finally man turns to some view, be it Ptolemaic or Copernican, or to some of the old or newer mysteries, and man comes to the conclusion that what you see in the majestic stars, what shines towards you from the sun and moon with all the wonderful, intricate orbits, all this also comes into being and passes away. - And apart from coming into being and passing away, it has qualities that are such that man, if he is to recognize himself, must not assume that he is the same as all that comes into being and passes away, with plants, minerals, sun, moon and stars. But then man comes to the conclusion: I carry something within me that is different from what I see in my surroundings, what I hear in my surroundings. I must come to the truth of my own being. I don't find that in what I see and hear.
And in all ancient mysteries there was the urge to come to the truth of the human being. In contrast to this truth of the human being, which one sought, one perceived that which arises and passes away outside in space and in time as the great illusion. And so, for the sake of the knowledge of the human being, one sought something other than what the outer senses revealed. And this other was perceived as a spiritual world. How this spiritual world can be properly sought will be the subject of the lectures. For you can imagine that at first man will want to continue what he is accustomed to have as a way of searching in the sense world. Just as he seeks the essence of the outer sense world, he will also want to continue his search into the spiritual world. But if research into the sense world in ordinary life gives rise to illusions, then it is to be expected that the illusion will not diminish but increase if one chooses the same paths to knowledge in the sense world as one chooses to knowledge in the spiritual world. And so it is. This will be shown to us. If one researches in the spiritual world in the same way as one researches in the sensory world, the illusion cannot become smaller, but must become larger, and by continuing our sensory research into the spiritual world, we only live ourselves into an even larger, stronger illusion.
And again, if we suspect the spiritual, if we vaguely suspect the spiritual in dark mysticism, dream of the spiritual, yes, then the spiritual remains unknown to us. We only suspect it. We only believe; we know nothing about it. If we merely want to continue this mysticism, this belief, this presentiment about the spiritual world, then it will not become more familiar to us, but more and more unfamiliar, so that man can find two wrong paths, so to speak.
On the one hand, he behaves towards the spiritual world as he does towards the sensual world. The sensual world initially provides him with the illusion. If he tries to continue on the same path into the spiritual world, as the ordinary spiritualists do, he does not arrive at a lesser illusion, but at a greater one.
And the other way arises, not to want to penetrate the spiritual world with penetrating, clear research, but to want to believe, to want to mystically suspect. Then the spiritual world remains unknown. No matter how hard you try to continue on this path of intuition, of mysticism, it will become more and more unknown. In both cases you cannot enter the spiritual world. In the one case the illusion becomes greater, in the other case the ignorance becomes greater. In contrast to these two false paths, the right one must be sought.
The true paths to spiritually real cognition
It must be borne in mind how impossible it is to get from the realization of the illusion in the sense indicated to the realization of the true self, and also in turn from the inkling of the true self, from the mystical feeling of the true self to the seeing through of reality in the illusion, if one wants to prepare oneself to find the true, the real ways into the spiritually real cognition.
Let us look at what is going on in a completely unbiased way. One can never be such a great admirer of all the newer scientific researchers, Darwin, Huxley, Spencer and so on, in a materialistic sense, as one can be as a recognizer of the spiritual world, because these people and many others since the time of Giordano Bruno have really done an infinite amount to recognize that which has always been seen through in the mysteries as the great illusion. There is no need to stick to the theories of Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, Copernicus, Galileo and so on. Let men think what they will theoretically about the universe, we will not enter into it; but let us realize for once what stimulus has been given by all these men to see through this or that organ in man, in the plant, in the animal, this or that secret that rules in the stone, purely materially. One should only imagine what we have observed in recent times about the life of the glands, nerves, heart, brain, lungs, liver and so on through the stimulation of this research. We will already have the necessary appreciation. However, with all this knowledge, man only gets as far as one point in real life. I would like to show you this with three examples.
You can see in extraordinary detail how the first egg germ of the human being forms, how this germ gradually and wonderfully develops into a human embryo, how it gradually develops organs, how the wonderful heart and circulatory system ultimately develops from peripherally arranged small organs. You can recognize all this. We can recognize how wonderfully all things develop materially in the plant from the root up to the blossom and the seed, and from this we can build up a world according to the views we have formed, a world that reaches up to the stars. This is what our astronomical, our astrophysical theorists have done. They have built up a world from a nebular star system, which has come to have a clearer and clearer structure, from which life could develop and so on.
You can build it all up. But in the end, you stand there and ask about your own human nature, about what should be the answer to the question: “Know thyself.” And if you only recognize yourself in that self which is decided in what you recognize in the stones, plants, animals, in the human organs, in the human glandular system, in the human circulatory system - what do you recognize? One recognizes that world which one enters at birth and leaves at death. Nothing else.
But man senses in the depths of his own being that this is not his true, final limit. And so man must call out from the innermost part of his being to all that can approach him in such great perfection, in such great majesty of external knowledge: You accept all this only between birth and death. What are you in your true nature? -- At the moment when the question of knowledge of nature and knowledge of man turns religious, at that moment man gets no further with that which looks into the world of great illusion. The question: Know yourself, so that you know where you come from in the innermost part of your being, where you are going with the innermost part of your being - this question, the question of knowledge turned into a religious one, remains unanswered.
This is what the ancient mysteries already made clear to their disciples at the gates: You may recognize what you want with your outer senses, but if you turn the question into a religious one, then the great question of humanity, the great human riddle, remains unanswered. And further. No matter how closely we can look at the way a human face is formed, no matter how closely we can look at how a human being moves his arms and hands, how he walks and stands, no matter how fine a feeling we acquire for the form of an animal, the form of plants, as far as we can recognize this with our senses - the moment we want to turn this feeling, when we want to turn what we perceive in this way, artistically, a question remains unanswered for us again. For how have people from time immemorial artistically interpreted what they knew of the world? In ancient times, the mysteries inspired them to do so. One knew this or that about nature according to the powers of knowledge that were there. But what was known was deepened in the contemplation of the spiritual.
You only have to go back to ancient Greece. When we see a sculptor or a painter today, he reaches for the model - at least that was the case a short time ago, but today it is less the case. He wants to imitate something. He wants to imitate something. The Greek did not do that. It is only believed that the Greek did. The Greek felt the spiritual man within himself. If he wanted to sculpt an arm in its movement, then he knew that what I was looking at on the outside of the model contained the spiritual within. - He knew that everything material was created according to the spiritual, and he strove to recreate this spiritual.
The painter in Renaissance times did not stand and look at the model; it was only a stimulus to him. What he knew from within, that it lived in the arm, in the hand, he brought into the movement. How man lived inwardly with the spirit, that is what he brought into it. Merely looking at the exterior in the great illusion, in the Maja, merely imitating the model leaves us where we are, not in the human being, but in front of the human being. Turning the question artistically, if we stop at the illusion, we stand before the great question of humanity, before the enormous human riddles that remain unanswered.
Again, it was already at the gate of the ancient mysteries where it was now made clear to the disciple who was to be initiated: If you want to remain within the outer world of illusion, you cannot penetrate the human entity, but neither can you penetrate the entity of another kingdom of nature. You cannot become an artist. In turn, through art, it was also necessary to bring the vivid “Know thyself” to man. That's when you felt the need for spiritual knowledge.
You will say: But there are quite materialistic sculptors, materialistic painters, they can also do something, they know quite well how to draw the secrets from the model and put them into the figures, into the materials. - Certainly, but how can they do that? They don't know that of their own accord. You just don't see through it. They have learned it from the older painters, who in turn have learned it from the [even] older painters. It's tradition. You know how older people did it. You don't always tell yourself that because you want to be good yourself. But you're not. You only know how your elders did it and you imitate them. But the elders of these elders got the secret precisely from the spiritual views of the mysteries. Older painters, older sculptors got it from the Mysteries; Raphael, Michelangelo got it from those who still got it from the Mysteries. But real art must be drawn from the spiritual. There is no other way. As soon as you get to the human being, looking at the great illusion, the Maya, leaves the riddles of life, the riddles of man, unanswered. If we want to get back to the originality of art, to the creative artistic, we need an insight into the spiritual world.
A third example: as a botanist, as a zoologist, you can wonderfully know every form of plant accessible to you. You can use chemistry and physiology to describe the processes that take place in plants. You can get to know the processes of how food is transformed in the digestive organs and within the blood and on to the nerves. You can get to know all this. You can become a very clever, clever anatomist or physiologist or botanist or zoologist, research many things in the world of great illusion - if you want to approach people with all this knowledge in a healing, medical way, if you want to find the way from the nature of man, yes, from the inner nature of man to his essence: you cannot.
You will say: But there are enough materialistically thinking doctors who don't want to know anything about the spiritual world, they only go by what can be researched with natural science, and yet they heal. - Yes, why do they heal? They heal because they have the tradition of an old worldview. Ancient remedies were also taken from the mysteries, but they all have a strange peculiarity. If you, ladies and gentlemen, take an old recipe in your hand, it is enormously complicated, it requires an extraordinary amount of work to present it and to apply it to what tradition says it should be applied.
If you had gone to the ancient Mysteries and asked a Mystery Doctor how such a recipe is created, he would never have answered you: I do chemical experiments, I first try out whether the substances behave in such and such a way with each other, and then I apply this to the sick and see what results. - The old mystery doctor would never have told you that, he would never have thought of it. People just don't know what it was like in earlier times. He would have answered you: I live in the laboratory - if we want to call it that - that has been set up for me in the spirit of the Mystery, and when I come to a cure, the gods have told me so. - Because he was clear about it: Through the whole atmosphere created in his laboratory, he came into living intercourse with the spiritual world. Spiritual beings became as present to him as people usually are. And then he realized that he could be more through the influence of the spiritual beings in the spiritual world than without such influence. And he put together his complicated recipes. He did not compose them with knowledge of nature, but in the manner of the gods. It was known within these mysteries themselves: if you want to get to the human being, then you must not remain in illusion, then you must penetrate to the truth of the divine world.
In their outward recognition of the truth of the divine world, people today are much further away than the ancients were with their mysteries. But the path must be found again. For that is the third thing I can give you as an example: If one is equipped with the most extensive knowledge of nature, that is, the great illusion, and wants to heal - one stands again with unanswered questions before human life, before the human riddle. If we move from the illusion to the human being, from “Nature is the great illusion” to “Know thyself”, as it must also be explained in healing: we cannot go one step further.
And so we can say from these three examples: The person who wants to build the bridge between the world of the great illusion, the Maja, and the “Know thyself”, sees how he is faced with nothing if he only wants to start from the illusion, as soon as he wants to approach the human being in a religiously feeling, artistically creating and helping way as a healer, as a doctor. He cannot do this if he does not move on to a completely different realization than the realization of external nature, the realization of the great illusion, the maja.
The knowledge of the world in its totality through spiritual contemplation within the physical facts
We will now make a comparison between the way in which in ancient times people tried to acquire a total knowledge of the world from the spirit of the Mysteries, and the way in which we try to do it today in order to orient ourselves with regard to the paths to such a total knowledge of the world.
A few millennia ago, people spoke about the world and its nature in a completely different way than those scholars who claim authority do today. If we want to go back a few millennia to the time when a brilliant, majestic knowledge flourished in the Near East, out of sacred mysteries, let us delve into the nature of this knowledge with a few characteristic strokes.
In ancient Chaldea, let us say, the following was taught: Man experiences the outermost limits of existence, up to which he can reach with his soul forces, when he directs the spiritual, the soul's gaze to the wonderful contrast between life when he is asleep - consciousness is dull, man knows nothing of his life - and that life which he spends when he is awake - it is bright around man, man knows of his life.
These alternating states between sleeping and waking were experienced differently thousands of years ago. Sleep was not so unconscious, waking was not so conscious. In sleep one perceived changing, powerful images, weaving, undulating world-life; one was among beings when one slept. The fact that sleep became so unconscious only happened with the development of mankind. But thousands of years ago, waking life was not as saturated, not as illuminated as it is today. Things did not have fixed boundaries, they were blurred. They still radiated all kinds of spirituality. There was not such a sharp transition between sleeping and waking. But you could tell the difference, and everything you lived in was called “Apsu” in the waking world of that time. That was the world of waking.
What you were in when you were asleep, the weaving-waving, what you could not distinguish as well as when you were awake, minerals, animals and plants, was called “Tiamat”.
Now it was taught in the Chaldean Mysteries: Man is more in the true, in the real, when he sleeps and weaves in Tiamat than when he lives awake among the minerals, plants and animals. Tiamat is more primal, more connected to the human world than Apsu; Apsu is more unknown; Tiamat represents that which is close to man. But changes occurred in Tiamat in the course of time. Thus the students of the Mysteries were told and taught. Demon figures, horse-like figures with human heads, lion-like figures with angel heads emerged from the weaving and life. They emerged from the fabric of Tiamat. The demonic creatures that lived there became hostile to humans.
But then a powerful being entered the world: “Ea”. Anyone who still feels sounds today will feel in the sound of E and A the reference to that powerful being that was helpful to man in the sense of this ancient mystery teaching when the demons from Tiamat were powerful: Ea, la, which then later, by presupposing the particle of being “soph”, became Soph Ea = Sophia. Ea, roughly what we mean by the abstract word: Wisdom, which reigns in all things. Ia = the wisdom that rules in everything, Sophia. Soph = a particle that roughly means “being”. Sophia, Sophea, Sopheia = the ruling wisdom, the everywhere ruling wisdom sent a son to man, the son who was then called “Marduk”, whom we have become accustomed to designate in a somewhat later terminology as Michael, as the Michael ruling out of the hierarchy of the Archangeloi. This is the same entity as Marduk, the son of Ea, the Wisdom, Marduk-Michael.
And Marduk-Michael - according to the mystery teachings - was powerful, great and mighty. And all those demonic beings, such as horses with human heads, lion creatures with angel heads, all these weaving, undulating demons stood opposite him in their context as the great Tiamat. He was mighty to control Marduk-Michael, the storm wind that surges through the world. So Tiamat, all this was imagined in essence, and rightly so, for that is how it was seen, in essence. All these demons together formed a mighty dragon, which divided itself fiercely as the sum of all the demonic forces that were born out of Tiamat, the night. When his being confronted Marduk-Michael in a rage of fire, he thrust first his other weapons and then the full force of the storm wind into his guts, and the being Tiamat burst and rolled apart, bursting into all the world. And Marduk-Michael was able to form the heavens above and the earth below. And so the above and below came into being.
And so it was taught in the mysteries: The great son of Ea, wisdom, he conquered Tiamat and from one part of Tiamat formed the above, the heavens, from another part of Tiamat formed the below, the earth. If you look up into the heavens to the stars, O man, then you will see a part of that which Marduk-Michael formed from the terrible abysses of Tiamat above for the salvation of mankind.
And if you look down, where the plants grow from the mineral-permeated earthly, where the animals are formed, then you will find the other part, which the son of Ea, the wisdom, has reshaped from Tiamat for the salvation of mankind.
And so that ancient time of humanity in ancient Chaldea looked back at a form in the world, looked at the essential. Everything was perceived as being: these demonic figures that populated the night, everything that Marduk-Michael formed from these night figures, from the ruling, weaving entities in the Tiamat, which I have described to you, as the stars above, as the earth below - everything that shines towards us from the stars: transformed demons, transformed by Marduk-Michael - all that which grows out of the earth itself towards us: skin transformed by Marduk-Michael, transformed tissue of Tiamat, this is how in ancient times one looked at that which one could visualize through the old soul faculties. That was knowledge.
And then the leaders of a Mystery prepared their disciples in secret, prepared them with soul power. And when the pupils developed such soul powers, then they were able to recognize the first elements of what we already teach children today in school as the elementary doctrine that the sun stands still, that the earth turns around, that worlds have formed from nebulae. This theory of nature, which we teach children in school today, was the great secret. On the other hand, what was unfolded before the whole world was what I have just told you about the deeds of Marduk-Michael. Today we learn in our schools - even if they no longer look mysterious - at our universities, but also in the lower schools down to elementary school, that which is the Copernican worldview as astrophysical knowledge of the world, which the ancient sages were only allowed and able to acquire after long preparation. What every schoolchild knows today, one could only know in ancient times if one was initiated. Today, you learn all this at school.
There was a time - it goes back even further than the wisdom of the old Chaldean mystery system - when people only spoke of things like those I have described to you, of Ea, of Marduk-Michael, of the Apsu and Tiamat, these were the only things these people spoke of. They despised everything that these quirky mystery teachers said about the movement of the stars, about the movement of the sun, and only wanted to investigate the external, the visible, not the invisible, which, even if in the form of the old clairvoyance, presented itself to mankind. They despised what the old initiate teachers and students had acquired.
Then came the time when the ancient knowledge gradually prepared itself from the Orient. Both were valued. One appreciated what one had in the living out of the essence of the spiritual world, one appreciated, for example, what the deeds of the spiritual being Marduk-Michael were; one appreciated just as much what one could draw on the tablet [like this] (it is drawn): in the middle of the tablet the sun, around it the stars, moving in cycles and epicycles. It was all appreciated.
Then came the time in which one no longer had the insight into spiritual worlds, into the worlds of demons and gods, and in which the other, the intellectual knowledge, that knowledge of which today's man is so proud, gradually developed to its culmination towards our age. We are now in an age in the outer world where the spiritual is despised in the same way that the material was despised in ancient times by those who took the spiritual for granted. We must live into the times when we will again be able to absorb the spiritual content of spiritual knowledge alongside what astronomers, astrophysicists, zoologists and biologists teach. This time has come. Man must live towards this time if he wants to solve his tasks, if he in turn wants to come to religion, art, medicine and so on.
Just as in ancient times spiritualism shone among men, but the material was despised, and then an age came when material knowledge was taken up, which then became great and supplanted spirituality, Just as in ancient times people lived in error with the spiritual alone and despised the outer world, and just as in the time when the material was esteemed, spiritualism was mistakenly despised, so now a time must come when one must again come from the comprehensive and wonderful knowledge of the outer world to a new knowledge of the Mysteries.
We must, after the material knowledge, which has become so wonderful, has torn itself away piece by piece from the old spirituality, so that there is nothing left on earth but at most those remains of ancient buildings, which one digs up like the old material buildings - we must again come to a spirituality, but with full knowledge of what we can show when we, looking back into old earth times, dig like in history. We must in turn arrive at such a spirituality through a new religious deepening, through a new artistic creation, through a new spiritual knowledge that penetrates the human being through healing practice and so on.
These are three examples that I have presented to you today in order to again build mysteries before which we will then stand as before something that can bring us knowledge of the totality of the essence of the world and human action for the salvation of humanity in the sense of totality, not merely of one-sided material reality.
