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True and False Paths in Spiritual Investigation
GA 243

22 August 1924, Torquay

11. What is the Position in Respect of Spiritual Investigation and the Understanding of Spiritual Investigation?

A great deal of course could still be added to all that I have touched upon in these lectures, but we shall endeavour today to conclude them with a summary of the whole subject.

The approach we have taken throughout these lectures raises an important issue: What is the attitude to Anthroposophy, to spiritual investigation as presented by Anthroposophy? What is the position in regard to the understanding of anthroposophical teachings seeing that few today can have immediate access to spiritual exercises and practices which enable them to perceive and test thoroughly for themselves the anthroposophical descriptions of other worlds? This is a question that lies close to the hearts of those who feel an urge and even a longing to take up Anthroposophy. But this question is always seen in a false light, and is the more likely to be misinterpreted precisely because they are unable to grasp the right procedures such as I have advocated in these lectures.

People may ask: what is the use of all these descriptions of the spiritual world if I cannot look into that world myself? I should like, therefore, to touch upon this question in my cursory analysis today.

It is not true to say that one cannot acquire an insight into anthroposophical teachings and an understanding of them unless one can investigate the spiritual world oneself. I t is essential to distinguish, especially at the present time, between the actual discovery of facts relating to the different worlds and the comprehension of those facts. This distinction will be clear to you when you recall that man, as we know him today, belongs in fact to different worlds and that his experiences are derived from different worlds. Man as he is constituted today acquires his stock of knowledge and his consciousness of everyday existence in the course of his day to day experiences. During his waking life this consciousness which was the starting-point of our enquiry gives him a certain perspective over a limited field, over that aspect of the world that is accessible to sense-observation, and which can be grasped and interpreted by means of the intellect which he has developed in the course of evolution.

With his understanding man penetrates in his dreams into this world concealed behind the phenomenal world, in a vague, indefinite way as I have already pointed out. In his psychic life man contacts the world through which he passes between death and rebirth only in dreamless sleep, where he is surrounded by spiritual darkness and where he lives out a life which normally he cannot recall.

Man knows three states of consciousness—waking, dreaming and deep sleep. But he does not live only in the worlds to which this threefold consciousness gives access, for he is a being whose kingdom has many mansions. His physical body lives in a different world from his etheric body, his etheric body again in a different world from his astral body and both live in different worlds from the Ego.

And this threefold consciousness—clear waking consciousness, dream consciousness and sleep consciousness (one would like to say absence of consciousness but one can only describe it as diminished consciousness)—belong to the Ego as it is today. And this Ego when it looks inwards has also three states of consciousness. When it looks outwards, it knows waking (day) consciousness, dream consciousness and sleep consciousness. When it looks inwards, it knows clear intellectual consciousness; a sentient consciousness, a sentient life, though this is far more opaque and dreamlike than one usually imagines; it knows als1˃ a sentient life and finally the dim, twilight will-consciousness that resembles the state of deep sleep. Normal consciousness can no more explain the origin of willing than it can explain the origin of sleep. When a man performs an act of will it is accompanied by a thought which is clear and lucid. He then shrouds this thought in feeling which is more indefinite. The thought that is imbued with feeling passes down into the limbs; the process cannot be experienced by normal consciousness. To the kind of investigation of which I spoke yesterday and the day before, willing presents the following picture: whilst a thought wills something in the head and is then transmitted to the whole body through feeling, so that a man wills in the whole of his body, something akin to a delicate, subtle and intimate process of combustion sets in meanwhile.

When man develops Initiate-consciousness he is able to experience this life of will which is subject to the influence of warmth, but it remains wholly subliminal to ordinary consciousness. This is merely one instance which shows how what lies in the subliminal consciousness can be raised to the level of Initiate-consciousness.

When the information in the book I mentioned yesterday is made progressively more accessible to the public, people will realize that when we contemplate with Initiate-consciousness an act of will performed by man, we have the impression that we are watching the lighting of a candle or even the kindling of a warmth-giving light. Just as we have in this instance a clear picture of the external phenomenon, so we shall be able to see the thought as it is precipitated into the will. We then say: the thought develops feeling and from feeling—it follows a downward direction in man—proceeds a sensation of warmth, a flame in man. And this flame wills; it is kindled by degrees. We can represent schematical1y this normal consciousness in the following way:

Inner
Clear thinking
Life of feeling
Will consciousness

Outer
Waking day-consciousness
Dream consciousness
Sleep consciousness

Now although, in order to investigate the spiritual world, we must of necessity direct our consciousness to that world which we seek to apprehend cognitively, none the less, if the fruits of our investigations are to be communicated honestly, the ideas communicated verbally must be expressed in the language of other forms of consciousness.

You can now understand, perhaps, that this is a twofold process. In the first place, for example, we investigate the world of the human organs as I explained yesterday. We investigate the phenomena in question by utilizing the emergent forces in man as he draws near to the spiritual world during the course of his life. We then discover the relevant facts as they are revealed to the understanding. And there are men in the world who are aware of these facts and who communicate them to the world. When they are imparted to the world by such men they can be comprehended by normal consciousness if we look at them with the necessary objectivity. In the course of human evolution there has always been a minority who devoted themselves to investigation of the facts relating to the spiritual world and who then communicated to others the fruits of their investigations.

Now one factor today militates against the acceptance of such knowledge, namely, that as a rule people grow up in a social environment and under an educational system that conditions their habitual responses to such an extent that they can believe only in the world of fact, in the sensory world, and the rational information derived from the world of the senses. This habit is so strongly ingrained that people are inclined to say: At the university there are graduate members of the teaching faculty who, in addition to teaching, investigate certain factual aspects of the phenomenal world or confirm the findings of other research workers in this field. Everyone accepts their findings. Even though one does not investigate the facts oneself, one still believes in them. This boundless credulity is reserved especially for modern science. People believe things which, to those who have insight, are not only problematical, but definitely untrue. This situation stems from centuries of education. I would like to point out that this form of education was unknown to men of earlier centuries. They were far more inclined to believe those who made researches into spiritual facts since they still preserved something of the old insight into, and participation in the spiritual world that was consistent with their will and feeling. Today people are strangers to such knowledge. They are accustomed to an outlook which on the Continent is more theoretical and in England and America more practical, and which has now become firmly established.

On the Continent there exist detailed theories about these matters whilst in England and America there is an instinctive feeling for them which is by no means easy to overcome. During the course of centuries mankind has become inured to a scientific outlook that is related to the phenomenal world and has come to accept the findings of astronomy, botany, zoology and medicine, for example, in the form in which they are presented in recognized schools or centres of learning. A chemist, for example, undertakes a piece of research in his laboratory. People have not the slightest understanding of the technique involved. The work is acclaimed and they unhesitatingly declare: “Here is truth, here is knowledge that makes no appeal to faith.” But what they call knowledge is, in effect, an act of faith.

And amongst the methods adopted for investigating the phenomenal world, for ascertaining the laws of the phenomenal world through the instrument of reason, not a single one gives the slightest information about the spiritual world. But there are few who can afford to dispense wholly with the spiritual world. Those who do so, are not honest with themselves, they persuade themselves into it. Mankind feels an imperious need to know something about the spiritual world. As yet men ignore those who can tell them something about the spiritual world as it is known today, but they are prepared to listen to historical traditions, to the teachings of the Bible and sacred scriptures of the East. They are interested in these traditional writings, because otherwise they cannot satisfy their need for some sort of relationship to a spiritual world. And in spite of the fact that both the Bible and the Eastern scriptures have been investigated only by individual Initiates, people claim that they reflect a different kind of outlook, which bears no relationship to the knowledge of the phenomenal world, scientific knowledge, and depends upon faith and appeals to faith. And so a rigid line of demarcation is set up between science and belief. Men refer science to the phenomenal world and belief to the spiritual world.

Amongst the theologians of the Evangelical Church on the Continent—not amongst the theologians of the Roman Catholic Church who have retained the old traditions, and who do not accept the dichotomy of the Evangelicals or the natural scientists—there exist innumerable theories showing that there are definite boundaries to knowledge and thereafter faith steps in. They are convinced there can be no other possibility.

England is less hag-ridden because theorizing is unpopular. Here the traditional attitude is, on the one hand, to listen to what science has to say, and, on the other hand, to live reverently—I will not go so far as to say sanctimoniously—in faith and to keep the two spheres rigidly apart.

For some time past, laymen and scholars have adopted this point of view. Newton laid the foundations of a theory of gravitation, i.e. of a conception of space which, by its very nature, excludes any possibility of a spiritual outlook. If the world were as Newton depicted it, it would be devoid of spirit. But no-one has the courage to admit it. One cannot imagine a divine-spiritual Presence that lives and moves and has its being in the Newtonian world.

But not only the devotees of these ideas ultimately accept a conception of space and time that excludes the spiritual, but also those who undertake independent research work. Newton offers an excellent example of the latter, for he not only laid the foundation of a world-outlook which excluded the spiritual, but at the same time in his interpretation of the Apocalypse he fully accepted the spiritual.

The links between knowledge of the phenomenal world and knowledge of the spiritual world have been severed. Today the theorists set out to give solid proof of this dichotomy and every effort is made to inoculate the thoughts and feelings of those who distrust theory with this idea, so that ultimately they become conditioned.

On the other hand, man's intelligence, power of comprehension and ideation, his capacity for ideas, have today reached a point where, if he keeps them under conscious control, he can grasp by reason, though he cannot investigate by reason, the teachings of Initiation Science.

It is essential that the following point of view should find wider acceptance: that investigations into the spiritual world must be undertaken by those who, in their present life on Earth are able to call upon forces from earlier incarnations, for it is these forces which release the necessary powers for spiritual investigation; and further, that the results of these investigations shall be accepted by increasing numbers of men and incorporated into ideas which are comprehensible; and that, when the results of spiritual research are accepted by healthy understanding, a way is prepared for these other men, by virtue of this understanding, to have real experience of the spiritual world. For I have often said that the healthiest way to enter the spiritual world is first of all to read about it or to assimilate what we are told about it.

If we accept these ideas, they become inwardly quickened and we attain not only to understanding, but also to clairvoyant vision in accordance with our karmic development. In this respect we must give serious thought to the idea of karma. Today man is not concerned with karma; he believes that just as we analyse sulphur in the laboratory, so we can analyse by laboratory techniques the origin of so-called trans-normal phenomena; and that, as with sulphur, we must subject the individual who manifests abnormal forms of knowledge to experimental tests.

But mineral sulphur has no karma. Only the sulphur associated with the human body has karma, for only human beings are subject to karma. We cannot assume that it is part of man's karma to be experimented upon in a laboratory which would be a necessary prerequisite if the investigations were to have any value.

For this reason we have need of Spiritual Science. It would first of all be necessary to enquire into the karmic conditions which enable us to gain knowledge of the spiritual world through the agency of another. I have explained this clearly at the end of the later editions of my book Theosophy. But mankind today is not yet ready to accept this idea, not from incapacity, but from conservatism; but it is of immense significance.

It is essential to realize that we must not immediately undertake investigations into the spiritual world; but on the other hand if we do not adopt undesirable practices, such as experimenting with karma when there is no karmic necessity, or with mediums whose procedure we do not understand; and if we rely upon the everyday consciousness, which is the right condition of consciousness for this world, then we will attain to a perfect understanding of the communications of Initiation Science. We are greatly mistaken if we imagine that we cannot have such an understanding without first being able to experience the spiritual world for ourselves. To say, “what avails the spiritual world, if I cannot experience it for myself?” is to encourage yet another of the errors commonly committed today. This is to commit one of the greatest, most dangerous and most obvious of errors and must be clearly recognized by those who are associated with a Movement such as the Anthroposophical Society.

Man's existence here on the physical plane is bound up with existence in other worlds. To the unprejudiced mind this can be explained by the fact that man's experiences, as seen in the light of total human experience, are such that, in relation to the most vital questions in life they meet with incomprehension on the part of the ordinary daily consciousness because they appear unrelated, whereas in certain instances they are in effect closely associated.

In this brief account, therefore, I should like first to speak of man's entrance into the physical world and his exit, of birth and death.

Birth and death, the two most momentous events of our life on Earth, appear to ordinary consciousness to be isolated phenomena. We associate all that precedes birth, all that is related to human incarnation, with the beginning of our life on Earth, and death with its end. They appear to be dissociated. But the spiritual investigator sees them drawing ever more closely together. For if we take the path leading to the Moon mysteries and woo the night into the day in the manner described yesterday, then we perceive how, during the processes of birth, the physical body and etheric body progressively grow and flourish: how they develop out of the germ, gradually assume human form, and how during earthly life their vitality progressively increases up to the age of thirty-five, when it gradually decreases and a decline sets in. This process, of course, can be observed externally. But he who follows the lunar path, which I described yesterday, perceives that whilst the cellular life of the physical and etheric bodies grows, develops and assumes embryonic form, another form of life, which in Anthroposophy we call the astral body and Ego, is subject to the forces of decay and death.

When we uncover the hidden recesses of life—I gave a concrete description of this yesterday—we become aware of the birth of the physical and etheric and the death of the astral and Ego. We perceive death interwoven with life, the winter of life allied to its springtime.

And again, when we observe man with Initiate-consciousness, we are aware that, as his body declines, there is a burgeoning of the Ego and the astral from the thirty-fifth year onwards. This burgeoning life is retarded by the presence of dying forces in the physical and etheric being. Nevertheless a definite renewal does take place. And so by means of spiritual investigation we come to recognize the presence of death in life and life in death. Thus we prepare ourselves to trace back that which is seen to be dying at the time of birth to its pre-earthly life where it is revealed in its full significance and greatness.

And because we perceive the gradual burgeoning of the astral and Ego within the declining etheric and physical (for they are imprisoned within the etheric and physical), we prepare ourselves to follow them into the spiritual world after their release from the physical and etheric bodies at the moment of death. Thus we see that birth and death are interrelated, whilst to ordinary consciousness they appear to be isolated events.

All this information which is revealed by spiritual investigation can be grasped by ordinary consciousness as I indicated in the first part of today's lecture. At the same time one must be prepared to abandon the demands of ordinary consciousness for factual or scientific proof.

I once knew a man who maintained that, just as a stone falls to the ground, so if I pick up a chair and let go, it also falls to the ground since everything is subject to gravitation. Wherefore if the Earth is not supported, as it is claimed, it must of necessity fall. But he failed to realize that objects must fall to the ground because they are subject to the gravitational pull of the Earth, that the Earth itself however moves freely in space like the stars which mutually support and attract one another.

Those who, like the modern scientist, demand that proof must be supported by the evidence of the senses resemble this man who believed that the Earth must fall unless it is firmly underpinned. Anthroposophical truths are like the stars which mutually support each other. People must be prepared to see the whole picture. And if they can do this by means of their normal understanding they will begin really to grasp anthroposophical ideas such as the interrelationship of birth and death.

Let us go a little further and take the case of the man who is well grounded in the principles of modern science, but whilst alert and receptive to anthroposophical ideas has not yet learned to take the whole man into consideration, but only the separate organs in the manner described yesterday.

Through this knowledge of the organs acquired in the course of Initiation we are not only aware of birth and death, but of something quite different. In the light of this knowledge of the organs, birth and death have lost their usual significance, for it is only the whole human being who dies, not his separate organs. The lungs, for example, cannot die. Science today dimly realizes that when the whole human being has died, his single organs can be animated to a certain extent. Irrespective of whether a man is buried or cremated, his separate organs do not die. The individual organs take their path into that sphere of the Cosmos to which each is related. Even if man is buried beneath the earth, every organ finds its way into the Cosmos through water, air or warmth, as the case may be. In reality they are dissolved, but they do not perish; only the whole human being perishes.

Death, then, can only have meaning in relation to the whole human being. In the animal the organs die, whereas in man they are dissolved into the Cosmos. They dissolve rapidly. Burial is the slower process, cremation the faster. We can follow the individual organs as they take their path towards the infinite, each towards its own sphere. They are not lost in infinity, but return in the form of the mighty cosmic being whom I described to you yesterday. Thus, as we observe the organs with Initiate-consciousness, we see what really befalls the organs at death, namely, this streaming out of the organs into those regions of the Cosmos to which they are severally related. The heart takes a different path from the lungs; the liver from lungs and heart. They are dispersed throughout the Cosmos. Then the Cosmic Man appears; we see him as he really is, integrated in the Cosmos. And in the vision of this Cosmic Man we become aware of what is the source of successive incarnations, for example. We need this vision which has its origin, not in the whole man, but in the perception of the several organs, in order to be able to recognize once more, clearly and distinctly, the karmic return of former Earth lives in the present life.

It is for this reason that those who approached the spiritual world through the Moon path, mystics, theosophists, and so on, perceived the strangest phenomena—human souls as they had lived on Earth, gods and spirits—but could neither recognize nor decide what they were, nor give any definite assurance whether they were in the presence of Alanus ab Insulis, Dante or Brunetto Latini. Sometimes the entities were given the most grotesque appellations. And they were unable to determine whether the incarnations they contacted were their own or other people's, or what they were.

Thus the spiritual world is associated with the realm of Moon consciousness that has been wooed into the day; then, under the influx of the Venus impulses, this vision is lost and we now behold the spiritual world in its totality, but without that clear definition which it should possess. It is in this realm that we first begin to realize man's situation in the world as a whole and his position as a cosmic being.

In this connection, however, we cannot escape a tragic realization. For if man were simply the complete physical man he appears to be here on Earth, what a virtuous, docile and noble being he would be! Just as little as we can investigate death with normal consciousness—we can always understand death in the sense already suggested—just as little can we discover by means of the ordinary consciousness why human beings, with their candid faces—and there is no denying they have candid faces—have a capacity for evil. It is not the whole man who can become evil. His outer tegument, the skin, as such is noble and good; but man becomes evil through his individual organs; in his organs lies the potentiality for evil.

And thus we come to recognize the relationship of the organs to their respective cosmic spheres and also from what spheres obsession with evil originates; for fundamentally, obsession is inherent in the slightest manifestation of evil.

Thus our knowledge of the total man reveals first, birth and death; secondly, a knowledge of his organization reveals his relationship to the Cosmos in health and disease, namely, evil.

And so we can only perceive spiritually that Figure who experienced the Mystery of Golgotha when we are able to behold Cosmic Man through human organology. For it was as Cosmic Man that Christ came from the Sun. Until that moment He was not earthly man. He approached the Earth in cosmic form. How can we expect to recognize Cosmic Man if we have not first prepared ourselves to understand Cosmic Man as he really is! It is precisely out of this understanding of the Cosmic Man that Christology can grow.

Thus you see how true paths lead into the spiritual world, to a knowledge of birth and death and of the relationship of the human organism to the Cosmos, to the recognition of evil and to knowledge of Christ, the Cosmic Man. All this can be understood, when it is presented in such a way that the various aspects are shown to support each other. And the best means of finding one's own way into the spiritual world is through understanding and by meditating upon what is understood. Other rules for meditation then serve as additional supports. This is the right path into the spiritual worlds for human beings today. On the other hand, all experimenting with other paths which fail to use and maintain the normal channels of consciousness, all experimenting with trance conditions such as mediumism, somnambulism, hypnotism and so on, all investigation into world-events that cannot be apprehended by a consciousness that is a travesty of modern natural science—all these are false paths, for they do not lead into the true spiritual world.

When man is sensitively aware of the findings of spiritual investigation, namely, that through knowledge of the organs the Cosmic Man returns, that this “return” can to some extent lead to an understanding of Christ when all that is disclosed to occult investigation and insight is admitted into the Initiate-consciousness and becomes an integral part of his sentient life, then, through feeling, the Divine manifests in the terrestrial. And this is the province of art.

Through feeling, art embodies half consciously that which man receives from the spiritual world along those paths of return of which I have spoken. In all ages, therefore, it was those who were predestined to do so by their karma, who clothed the spiritual in material form.

Our naturalistic art has abandoned the spiritual approach. Every high point in the history of art depicts the spiritual in sensuous form, or rather raises the material into the realm of the spiritual. Raphael is valued so highly because, to a greater degree than any other painter, he was able to clothe the spiritual in sensuous representation.

Now in the course of the history of art there existed a general movement which tended more to the plastic or graphic arts. Today we must once again inject new life into the plastic arts, for the immediacy of the original impulse was lost years ago.

For centuries the impulse towards music has been growing and expanding. Therefore the plastic arts have assumed a musical character to a greater or lesser extent. Music, which includes also the musical element in the arts of speech, is destined to be the art of the future.

The first Goetheanum at Dornach was conceived musically and for this reason its architecture, sculpture and painting met with so little understanding. And for the same reason, the second Goetheanum will also meet with little understanding because the element of music must be introduced into painting, sculpture and architecture, in accordance with man's future evolution.

The coming of the figure of Christ, the spiritually-living figure, which I referred to as the culminating point in human evolution, has been magnificently portrayed in Renaissance and pre-Renaissance painting, but in future will have to be expressed through music.

The urge to give a musical expression of the Christ Impulse already existed. It was anticipated in Richard Wagner and was ultimately responsible for the creation of Parsifal. But in Parsifal the introduction of the Christ Impulse into the phenomenal world where it seeks to give expression to the purest Christian spirit, has been given a mere symbolic indication, such as the appearance of the Dove and so on. The Communion has also been portrayed symbolically. The music of Parsifal fails to portray the real significance of the Christ Impulse in the Cosmos and the Earth.

Music is able to portray this Christ Impulse musically, in tones that are inwardly permeated with spirit. If music allows itself to be inspired by Spiritual Science, it will find ways of expressing the Christ Impulse, for it will reveal purely artistically and intuitively how the Christ Impulse in the Cosmos and the Earth can be awakened symphonically in tones.

To this end we only need to be able to deepen our experience of the sphere of the major third by an inner enrichment of musical experience that penetrates into the hidden depths of feeling. If we experience the sphere of the major third as something wholly enclosed within the inner being of man and if we then feel the sphere of the major fifth to have the characteristic of “enveloping,” so that, as we grow into the configuration of the fifth, we reach the boundary of the human and the cosmic, where the cosmic resounds into the sphere of the human and the human, consumed with longing, yearns to rush forth into the Cosmos, then, in the mystery enacted between the spheres of the major third and major fifth, we can experience musically something of the inner being of man that reaches out into the Cosmos.

And if we then succeed in setting free the dissonances of the seventh to echo cosmic life, where the dissonances express man's sentient experiences in the Cosmos as he journeys towards the various spiritual realms; and if we succeed in allowing the dissonances of the seventh to die away, so that through their dying fall they acquire a certain definition, then in their dying strains they are ultimately resolved in something which, to the musical ear, resembles a musical firmament.

If, then, having already given a subtle indication of the experience of the ‘minor’ with the ‘major,’ if, in the dying strains of the dissonances of the seventh, in this spontaneous re-creation of the dissonances into a totality, we find here a means of passing in an intensely minor mood from the dissonances of the seventh, from the near consonance of these diminishing dissonances to the sphere of the fifth in a minor mood, and from that point blend the sphere of the fifth with that of the minor third, then we shall have evoked in this way the musical experience of the Incarnation, and what is more, of the Incarnation of the Christ.

In feeling our way outwards into the sphere of the seventh, which to cosmic feeling is only apparently dissonant and that we fashion into a ‘firmament,’ in that it is seemingly supported by the octave, if we have grasped this with our feelings and retrace our steps in the manner already indicated and find how, in the embryonic form of the consonances of the minor third, there is a possibility of giving a musical representation of the Incarnation, then, when we retrace our steps to the major third in this sphere, the “Hallelujah” of the Christ can ring out from this musical configuration as pure music.

Then, within the configuration of the tones man will be able to conjure forth an immediate realization of the super-sensible and express it musically.

The Christ Impulse can be found in music. And the dissolution of the symphonic into near dissonance, as in Beethoven, can be redeemed by a return to the dominion of the cosmic in music. Bruckner attempted this within the narrow limits of a traditional framework. But his posthumous Symphony shows that he could not escape these limitations. On one hand we admire its greatness, but on the other hand we find a hesitant approach to the true elements of music, and a failure to achieve a full realization of these elements which can only be experienced in the way I have described, i.e. when we have made strides in the realm of pure music and discover therein the essence, the fundamental spirit which can conjure forth a world through tones.

Without doubt the musical development I have described will one day be achieved through anthroposophical inspiration if mankind does not sink into decadence; and ultimately—and this will depend entirely upon mankind—the true nature of the Christ Impulse will be revealed externally.

I wish to draw your attention to this because you will then realize that Anthroposophy seeks to permeate all aspects of life. This can be accomplished if man, for his part, finds the true path to anthroposophical experience and investigation. It will even come to ~ass that one day the realm of music shall echo the teachings of Anthroposophy and the Christian enigma shall be solved through music.

With these words I hope to have concluded what I could only indicate in these lectures, to indicate the purposes I had in view.

I should like to add, however, that I hope to have succeeded in awakening in your souls some recognition of anthroposophical truths; and that these truths will grow and multiply and fertilize ever wider fields of human life.

May this cycle of lectures be a small contribution to the far-reaching aim which Anthroposophy sets out to achieve.

Wie steht es mit dem Verständnis für geistige Forschung?

Zwei Forschungsmöglichkeiten

Es wäre natürlich außerordentlich viel in direkter Fortsetzung desjenigen zu sagen, was in diesen Vorträgen angeschlagen worden ist; allein wir wollen heute versuchen, eine Art summarischer Abrundung dieser Vorträge vor unsere Seele hinzustellen.

Da muß uns vor allen Dingen aus der ganzen Haltung dieser Vorträge eine Frage vor das Seelenauge treten, das ist die Frage: Wie steht es eigentlich mit dem Verständnis der Anthroposophie, der geistigen Forschung, wie sie durch Anthroposophie in die Welt gesetzt werden soll? Wie steht es mit der Einsicht in dasjenige, was durch solche Anthroposophie gegeben wird, gegenüber der Tatsache, daß doch nicht jeder Mensch in der Gegenwart unmittelbar so an jene Exerzitien, an jene Übungen herantreten kann, die ihn schnell dazu bringen, alles das, was man durch Anthroposophie hört, auch selber in den entsprechenden Welten wahrzunehmen, um es so in restloser Weise zu prüfen? Das ist ja eine Frage, die den meisten derjenigen, die zur Anthroposophie einen gewissen Drang, eine gewisse Sehnsucht haben, am Herzen liegt. Aber diese Frage wird gerade immer in einem falschen Lichte gesehen, und sie kann gerade durch das, was man als Richtiges ausspricht, wie ich es in diesen Vorträgen getan habe, erst recht in einem falschen Lichte gesehen werden. Man kann sagen: Ja, was sollen mir alle diese Darstellungen aus der geistigen Welt helfen, wenn ich nicht selber in die geistige Welt hineinschauen kann? Deshalb möchte ich die betreffende Frage in die heutigen summarischen Auseinandersetzungen hineinverweben.

Es ist eben gar nicht so, daß man sagen kann, man kann nicht eine Einsicht, nicht ein Verständnis für die Dinge erwerben, welche durch Anthroposophie gegeben werden, ehe man in der geistigen Welt selber forschen kann. Man muß unterscheiden, insbesondere in der heutigen Zeit unterscheiden zwischen dem Forschen, das heißt dem Auffinden solcher Tatsachen, die den verschiedenen Welten angehören, und dem Verständnis dessen, was durch diese Forschungen gegeben wird. Und das Begreifen dieses Unterschiedes wird Ihnen vollständig aufgehen, wenn Sie bedenken, daß der Mensch, so wie er heute vor uns steht, ja verschiedenen Welten angehört, und daß er die Erlebnisse, die er hat, durchaus aus verschiedenen Welten heraus hat. Der Mensch, wie er heute ist, erwirbt sich im gewöhnlichen Leben das Bewußtsein des Alltagslebens und der gewöhnlichen Wissenschaft, von dem wir ausgegangen sind. Dieses Bewußtsein gibt ihm während des Tagwachens einen gewissen Überblick über ein Stück Welt, über all dasjenige in der Welt, was durch Sinne sich offenbart und was durch den Intellekt, der vom Menschen im Laufe der Zeit in der Evolution angeeignet worden ist, interpretiert werden kann, begriffen werden kann.

In eine an diese unmittelbar angrenzende Welt, die sich aber schon hinter der Sinneswelt verbirgt, reicht der Mensch mit seinem Verständnis in ganz undeutlicher Weise, wie ich es auseinandergesetzt habe, im Träumen hinein. Und in jene Welt, die der Mensch durchlebt zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt, erstreckt er sich mit seinem Seelenleben auf Erden nur hinein während des traumlosen Schlafes, in welchem es um ihn herum seelisch finster und schwarz ist, und in welchem er ein Leben vollbringt, an das er gewöhnlich keine Erinnerungen hat.

Dieses Bewußtsein mit seinem dreifachen Zustand, dem Wachzustand, dem Traumzustand, dem tiefen Schlafzustand, dieses Bewußtsein kennt der Mensch. Aber er lebt nicht allein in den Welten, die ihm dadurch zugänglich sind. Der Mensch ist nun einmal ein Wesen, das in einer ganzen Reihe von Welten lebt. Sein physischer Leib lebt in einer anderen Welt, als sein ätherischer Leib, dieser wieder in einer anderen Welt als der astralische Leib, und all das zusammen wieder in einer anderen Welt als das Ich. Und dieses Bewußtsein: helles Wachbewußt sein, Traumbewußtsein, schlafendes, man möchte sagen Nichtbewußtsein, aber man muß nur sagen dumpfes Bewußtsein, diese drei Bewußtseinszustände hat eigentlich das Ich, so wie es heute ist. Und dieses Ich, so wie es heute ist, hat dann, wenn es nach innen schaut, auch drei Zustände. Drei Zustände hat es, wenn es nach außen schaut: waches Tagesleben, Traumbewußtsein, Schlafbewußtsein. Schaut es nach innen, dann hat es das helle Denkbewußtsein; es hat das schon viel trübere, dem Traumleben viel ähnlichere, als man gewöhnlich glaubt, Gefühlsbewußtsein, das Leben in Gefühlen; und es hat das dumpfe, dämmerhafte, dem Schlafleben sehr ähnliche Willensbewußtsein. Wie unser Wollen zustande kommt, ist dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein ganz, ganz unbekannt, eigentlich so unbekannt wie der Schlaf. Der Mensch, wenn er etwas will, hat den Gedanken; der ist klar und hell. Er entwickelt dann etwas dunkler über diesen Gedanken das Gefühl. Und dann geht der gefühlsdurchdrungene Gedanke hinunter in die Glieder. Was da vorgeht, das erlebt der Mensch mit dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein nicht. Vor jener Forschung, von der ich gestern und vorgestern gesprochen habe, nimmt sich das Wollen so aus: Während der Gedanke im Haupte etwas will und er dann durch das Gefühl hinuntergeht in den ganzen Leib, und der Mensch durch seinen ganzen Leib will, während dieser Zeit entwickelt sich im Menschen etwas wie ein feiner, subtiler, intimer Verbrennungsprozeß.

Der Mensch kann, wenn er zum Initiatenbewußtsein kommt, dieses durch die Wärme influenzierte Wollen erleben. Aber das bleibt für das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein ganz im Untergrunde. Das ist nur ein Beispiel dafür, wie dasjenige, was schon heraufgehoben werden kann in das Initiatenbewußtsein, doch für das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein in den Untergründen bleibt. Man wird zum Beispiel einmal folgendes einsehen, wenn die Dinge, die durch das gestern erwähnte Buch nach und nach in die Welt kommen werden, wirklich eingesehen werden. Man wird einsehen, daß, wenn ein Mensch etwas will und man das mit dem Initiatenbewußtsein anschaut, es so ist, wie wenn man einen äußeren Vorgang des Verbrennens einer Kerze oder überhaupt ein wärmeentwickelndes Licht äußerlich anschaut. Geradeso wie man da von der äußeren Anschauung ein klares Bild hat, so kann man das Hineinschlagen des Gedankens in den Willen so sehen, daß man sagt: Der Gedanke entwickelt das Gefühl, und aus dem Gefühl geht hinunter — es bewegt sich beim Menschen von oben nach unten- Wärmeentwickelung, Flamme; und diese Flamme will. - Es enthüllt sich also nach und nach.

Wir können geradezu dieses gewöhnliche Bewußtsein schematisch so vor uns hinstellen:

Innen: Klares Denken
Gefühlsleben
Willensbewußtsein

Außen: Waches Tagesbewußtsein
Traumbewußtsein
Schlafbewußtsein

Nach außen waches Tagesbewußtsein, nach innen klares Denken; nach außen Traumbewußtsein, nach innen unklares, aber warmes Gefühlsleben; nach außen Schlafbewußtsein, nach innen ganz dunkles Willensbewußtsein.

Nun aber, wenn auch der Mensch, um in der geistigen Welt zu forschen, das heißt, um die Tatsachen aufzusuchen, die aus der geistigen Welt heraus geoffenbart werden können, in die Notwendigkeit versetzt ist, sein Bewußtsein dorthin zu tragen, wo die Welt ist, in die er erkennend eindringen will, so geht doch dann, wenn die Forschungen ehrlich mitgeteilt werden, dasjenige, was an Ideen durch Worte mitgeteilt wird, in die anderen Bewußtseine hinein. Und nun können Sie vielleicht begreifen, daß es zweierlei gibt. Erstens gibt es das, daß man zum Beispiel in der Welt der menschlichen Organe forscht, wie ich es gestern auseinandergesetzt habe, daß man da mit den beim Menschen im Heranleben an die geistige Welt herankommenden Kräften die Tatsachen, um die es sich handelt, untersucht. Da findet man die entsprechenden Tatsachen. Da legen sie sich für das Erkennen vor die Seele, diese Tatsachen. Da hat man sie. Da stehen also Menschen in der äußeren Welt diesen Tatsachen gegenüber. Nun werden diese Tatsachen durch diese betreffenden Menschen mitgeteilt, sie werden der Welt dargelegt. Wenn sie durch Menschen der Welt dargelegt werden, dann sind sie mit dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein zu begreifen, wenn man nur die nötige Unbefangenheit dazu mitbringt. Daher war ja immer in der menschlichen Evolution die Einrichtung, daß wenige Menschen sich damit befaßt haben, die Tatsachen zu erforschen, die für die geistige Welt in Betracht kamen, und sie dann, wenn sie sie erforscht hatten, den anderen mitgeteilt haben.

Nun spricht heute gegen das in Empfangnehmen solcher Erkenntnisse nur das eine, daß die Menschen in der Regel in einem sozialen Milieu und in einer Erziehungsentwickelung aufwachsen, die ihnen in ihren Empfindungsgewohnheiten beibringt, daß man nur an die äußere Tatsachenwelt glauben könne, an die Welt der Sinne und an das, was der Verstand erkundet aus der Welt der Sinne. Das ist eine Gewohnheit, die so stark wirkt, daß man aus dieser Gewohnheit heraus jederzeit geneigt ist, zu sagen: Da ist eine Universität; an der Universität sind Leute graduiert; die lehren jetzt an der Universität, die erforschen auch gewisse Tatsachen, oder wenn andere gewisse Tatsachen der sinnlichen Welt erforschen, so bestätigen sie es. - Man glaubt daran! Man erforscht ja diese Tatsachen der sinnlichen Welt auch nicht selber, man glaubt daran. Und gerade mit Bezug auf die heutige Naturwissenschaft sind ja die Menschen unendlich gläubig. Sie glauben Dinge, die für den, der Einsicht hat, durchaus nicht nur problematisch, sondern sicher ganz unwahr sind. Das rührt nur von einer Jahrhundertealten Erziehung her.

Diese Erziehung hatten die Menschen früherer Jahrhunderte, darf ich sagen, nicht. Da waren die Menschen dadurch, daß bei allen noch etwas heraufkam von einem Hineinschauen in die geistige Welt, von einem gefühlsmäßigen, willensmäßigen Sich-Hineinleben in die geistige Welt, schon noch geneigter, auch denjenigen zu glauben, die geistige Tatsachen erforschten. Heute sind die Menschen das einfach nicht gewöhnt, und man hat sich an eine Anschauungsweise gewöhnt, die auf dem Kontinente mehr theoretisch, in England und Amerika mehr praktisch, sich ganz eingebürgert hat.

Auf dem Kontinente gibt es ausführliche Theorien darüber, in England und Amerika gibt es ein Gefühl dafür, das man innerlich gar nicht leicht besiegen kann. Es ist dieses: Die Menschen haben sich eingewöhnt in das, was durch Jahrhunderte heraufgekommen ist, Naturwissenschaft, die sich auf die äußeren Sinne bezieht, zum Beispiel Astronomie, Pflanzenkunde, Tierkunde, Medizin so hinzunehmen, wie man es für sie präpariert in den anerkannten Schulen und an den anerkannten Stätten. Daran haben sich die Menschen durch Jahrhunderte gewöhnt, und heute halten sie an dem furchtbar fest. Und wenn ein Chemiker in seinem Laboratorium etwas erforscht, und man hat keine blasse Ahnung von dem, wie er das macht, aber es wird bekannt, so sagen sie: Das ist wahr, das ist Erkenntnis. - Sie sagen: Das ist kein Glaube, das ist Erkenntnis. - Es ist natürlich purer Glaube! Aber die Menschen sagen: Das ist Erkenntnis.

Und nun auf all den Wegen, die man anwendet, um so die Sinneswelt zu erforschen, um so mit dem Verstande die Gesetze der Sinneswelt zu finden, auf all den Wegen findet man nichts über die geistige Welt. Aber der Menschen, die die geistige Welt ganz entbehren können, sind ja nur wenige, und die reden es sich ein, sind darin nicht ehrlich. Die Menschen haben vor allen Dingen ein Bedürfnis, auch über die geistige Welt etwas zu wissen. Sie hören heute noch nicht auf diejenigen, die ihnen von der geistigen Welt nach heutiger Art etwas sagen können, aber sie hören auf dasjenige, was geschichtlich überkommen ist, was in den Büchern steht, was in den heiligen Schriften des Ostens, was in der Bibel steht. Sie hören auf das, weil sie nicht anders können, als irgendwie einen Bezug zur geistigen Welt zu haben. Und trotzdem alles, was in der Bibel oder in den heiligen Schriften des Ostens steht, auch nur von einzelnen Initiaten erforscht worden ist, so sagen sie: Ja, das ist eine andere Art von Anschauung. Das ist nicht so, wie das Erkennen der äußeren Sinneswelt, wie das Erkennen der Wissenschaft, sondern das beruht auf einem Glauben. Da muß man glauben. - Und da machen die Menschen dann den strammen Unterschied, etwas ist Wissenschaft, etwas anderes ist Glaube. Und sie beziehen dann die Wissenschaft auf die Sinnenwelt und den Glauben auf die geistige Welt.

Darüber gibt es auf dem Kontinent, namentlich unter den Theologen der evangelischen Kirche - nicht unter den Theologen der katholischen Kirche, die haben nur die Traditionen der früheren Zeit bewahrt und die unterscheiden nicht in derselben Weise wie die evangelischen Theologen oder wie die äußeren Wissenschafter -, da gibt es auf dem Kontinent ganze Theorien, wie das Erkennen bis zu einem gewissen Punkte kommt, dann beginnt der Glaube. Das müsse so sein. Hier in England gibt es weniger Theorien, weil man Theorien nicht so liebt. Aber hier gibt es diese Lebenspraxis, richtig auf der einen Seite nach der Wissenschaft hinzuhören und das für etwas zu halten, was man von der Wissenschaft annimmt; richtig auf der anderen Seite zu leben, pietätvoll, ich will nicht sagen pietistisch, im Glauben, und die beiden Dinge streng voneinander zu trennen.

Das bringen nicht nur die Laien fertig, das bringen ja auch die Gelehrten fertig, schon seit langer Zeit. Newton begründete auf der einen Seite die Gravitationslehre, das heißt eine Raumesweltanschauung, welche durch dasjenige, was sie ist, jede Anschauung vom Geistigen ausschließt. Wenn die Welt so wäre, wie sie Newton angeschaut hat, so könnte sie keinen Geist enthalten. Man hat nur nicht den Mut, sich das zu gestehen. Geradesowenig wie aus einem Spinnrad jemals ein Mensch werden könnte, wie vorgestellt werden könnte in einem Spinnrade ein Mensch, ebensowenig kann in der Newtonschen Welt ein göttlich-geistiges Walten und Weben vorgestellt werden. Man hat nur nicht den inneren Mut, die innere Courage, sich das zu gestehen. Aber nicht nur diejenigen, die so etwas aufnehmen, bringen es fertig, auf der einen Seite einer Raumesweltanschauung und einer Zeitenweltanschauung sich hinzugeben, die das Geistige ausschließt, sondern auch diejenigen, die selber forschen, wofür Newton ein schönes Beispiel ist, der auf der einen Seite eine Weltanschauung begründet, die alles Geistige ausschließt, auf der anderen Seite mit vollständiger Trennung der Seele davon die Apokalypse interpretiert.

Es sind die Brücken abgebrochen zwischen demjenigen, was Wissen, Erkenntnis von der äußeren Sinneswelt ist, und dem, was Wissen, Erkenntnis von der geistigen Welt ist. Und man versucht heute sogar da, wo man Theorien liebt, das streng zu beweisen, da, wo man Theorien nicht liebt, es recht in die Empfindungs- und Denkgewohnheiten einzufressen, so daß man gar nicht daraus herauskommt. Dagegen ist der Verstand der Menschen, das Verstehen, die Ideenkraft, die Ideenfähigkeit heute schon so weit, wenn man sich nur darauf besinnt, wenn man sie nur recht in der Hand hat, daß dasjenige, was aus Initiationswissenschaft hervorgeht, durch den Verstand voll begriffen werden, aber nicht erforscht werden kann.

Was ist denn daher das Notwendige? Daß sich die Anschauung entwickele: Es muß zunächst dasjenige erforscht werden, was aus der geistigen Welt erforscht werden soll, durch diejenigen Menschen, die in ihrem gegenwärtigen Leben Kräfte zu Hilfe nehmen können aus früheren Inkarnationen, die sie befähigen, dasjenige heraufzubringen, was notwendig ist, um zu forschen; daß ferner das, was so erforscht wird, von einer Anzahl von Menschen, von immer mehr und mehr Menschen aufgenommen werde, verstanden werde in Ideen, wie es verstanden werden kann; und daß dadurch, wenn in gesundem Verstehen das spirituell Erforschte aufgenommen wird, gerade für diese anderen Menschen aus dem Verstehen heraus die Grundlage geschaffen wird, auch wirklich in die geistige Welt hineinzuschauen. - Denn ich habe es ja oftmals ausgesprochen: Es ist der gesündeste Weg, um wirklich in die geistige Welt hineinzukommen, sich zunächst mit der Lektüre zu befassen oder mit dem Aufnehmen dessen, was aus der geistigen Welt verkündet wird.

Nimmt man diese Gedanken auf, so beleben sie sich innerlich, und der Mensch kommt hinein in das Verstehen nicht nur, sondern auch in das Erschauen, so wie es sein Karma zuläßt. Und gerade auf diesem Punkte muß man sich in die Anschauung vom Karma streng hineinfinden. Der heutige Mensch denkt nicht an Karma. Er redet davon, daß man, wie man im Laboratorium den Schwefel untersucht, so auch laboratoriumsgemäß untersuchen müsse, wie ein Mensch sogenannte abnorme Erscheinungen zustande bringt. Man müsse mit dem Menschen, der abnormes Erkennen aus sich herausbringt, so experimentieren, wie man mit dem Schwefel experimentiert. Aber sehen Sie, der Schwefel hat kein Karma. Nur derjenige «Schwefel», der vom Menschen geredet wird, hat ein Karma! Der gewöhnliche mineralische Schwefel hat kein Karma. Nur die Menschen haben ein Karma. Und es kann niemals vorausgesetzt werden, daß der Mensch es in seinem Karma hat, in einem Laboratorium mit sich experimentieren zulassen, und das müßte vorliegen, wenn die Forschungen fruchtbar werden sollten. Daher müßte zunächst Geisteswissenschaft vorliegen. Man müßte zunächst die Bedingungen untersuchen, wie es aus dem Karma hervorgeht, daß man durch einen Menschen etwas erfahren kann über die geistige Welt. Das habe ich in den späteren Auflagen meiner «Theosophie» am Schlusse deutlich ausgesprochen. Aber dazu ist die gegenwärtige Welt nicht geeignet - nicht aus Unfähigkeit, sondern aus Gewohnheit -, die Dinge aufzunehmen. Aber das ist unendlich wichtig. Wichtig ist es vor allen Dingen, sich darüber klar zu sein: Du mußt nicht gleich auf Forschungswegen in die geistige Welt eingedrungen sein; sondern, wenn du nur auf dem physischen Plane hier nicht ein Ungesundes anwendest, wie ein Experimentieren mit Karma unbedingt nicht karmisch bedingt wäre, oder mit Medien, deren Handlungsweise du nicht verstehst; wenn du dich hier verlässest auf dasjenige, was für diese Welt vorerst gerade das richtige Bewußtsein ist, und was ich geschildert habe als das Alltagsbewußtsein; wenn du dich auf dieses Alltagsbewußtsein richtig verlässest, dann kommst du auf ein völliges Verständnis dessen, was aus der Initiationswissenschaft heraus gesagt wird. - Und wenn man glaubt, man könne nicht ein solches Verständnis haben, ehe man selber eindringen kann, so gibt man sich einem ganz großen Irrtum hin. Und das ist wieder einer der falschen Wege, auf die man sich heute begibt, zu sagen: Was geht mich die Geistwelt an, solange ich nicht selber hineinschauen kann. — Hier liegt einer der allergrößten, der allergefährlichsten, der allerdeutlichsten Irrtümer vor. Dieser Irrtum muß vor allen Dingen von einer Bewegung, wie sie die Anthroposophische Gesellschaft verkörpert, scharf ins Auge gefaßt werden.

Geburt und Tod und das Böse

Daß der Mensch mit seinem Dasein hier in der physischen Welt verschiedenen Welten angehört, das kann dem unbefangenen Bewußtsein einfach daraus hervorgehen, daß die Tatsachen, die der Mensch erlebt, so wie sie nun einmal sich darstellen vor dem gesamten menschlichen Erfahren, sich so ausnehmen, daß sie überall, wo es auf Wichtigstes im Leben ankommt, an die Unverständlichkeit des Alltagsbewußtseins stoßen, anstoßen dadurch, daß sie auseinandergerückt erscheinen, während sie für gewisse Fälle eng zusammengehören.

So möchte ich in dieser summarischen Betrachtung zunächst auf das Hereinkommen des Menschen in diese physische Welt und das Hinausgehen des Menschen hinweisen, möchte hinweisen auf Geburt und Tod. Geburt und Tod, diese zwei ja einschneidendsten Ereignisse im menschlichen Erdenleben, sie erscheinen dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein auseinandergerückt. Alles, was der Geburt vorangeht, was damit zusammenhängt, daß der Mensch ins Erdendasein hereinrritt, ist an den Anfang des Erdenlebens gestellt. Der Tod ist an das Ende des Erdenlebens gestellt. Sie scheinen auseinandergerückt zu sein. Für denjenigen, der auf dem Gebiete des geistigen Lebens forscht, rücken ste immer mehr und mehr zusammen. Denn wenn man den Weg beschreitet, den ich dadurch charakterisiert habe, daß der Mensch in die Mondenmysterien eindringt, die Nacht so hereinzaubert in den Tag, wie ich das gestern beschrieben habe, so schaut er, wie in all den Vorgängen des Geborenwerdens der physische und der Ätherleib immer sprießender und sprossender werden; wie sie aus dem kleinen Eikeim hervorgehen, wie sie sich allmählich zur menschlichen Gestalt heranbilden, wie sie auch noch während des Erdenlebens ein, man möchte sagen, aufwärtsgehendes Leben zeigen und erst in der Mitte des Erdenlebens, etwa mit dem fünfunddreißigsten Jahre, beginnen, allmählich zu verfallen, ein abwärtsgehendes Leben zu zeigen. Das schaut der Mensch ja auch äußerlich. Derjenige aber, der sich auf jenen Mondenweg begibt, von dem ich gestern gesprochen habe, der sieht nun auch, wie zu gleicher Zeit, indem ein sprießendes, sprossendes Keimesleben für das Physische und Ätherische beginnt und sich weitergestaltet, ein anderes Leben, das wir zusammenfassen auf dem Gebiete der Anthroposophie als astralischen Leib und Ich, eigentlich erstirbt, dem Tode unterliegt.

Man sieht, wenn man so in das mystische Leben hineinkommt, das ich gestern in seiner Konkretheit geschildert habe, nicht nur ein Geborenwerden des Physischen und Ätherischen, man sieht ein Sterben des Astralischen und Ich-Wesens. Man sieht den Tod sich hineinverweben in das Leben, das Absterbende dem Aufsprossenden sich vermählen. Und wiederum, wenn man den Menschen mit diesem Initiatenbewußtsein beobachtet, so sieht man dann, wenn sein Leib zerfällt, vom fünfunddreißigsten Lebensjahre an ein Beginnen des Auflebens im Astralischen und im Ich-Wesen. Nur sind diese gestört durch das, was ringsherum abstirbt im physischen und ätherischen Wesen. Aber ein wirkliches Aufleben geschieht. Und so lernt man durch diesen geistesforscherischen Weg den Tod schon im Leben, das Leben im Tode kennen. Dadurch bereitet man sich eben vor, dasjenige, was man absterben sieht während des Geborenwerdens, weiter zurückzuverfolgen ins vorirdische Leben, wo es sich in seiner vollen Bedeutung, in seiner Größe zeigt. Und dadurch, daß man im absterbenden Erdenleben das Astralische und das Ich-Wesen allmählich frischer werden sieht, nur eben gefangengenommen durch das Ätherische und durch das Physische, bereitet man sich wiederum vor, dem zu folgen, was durch die Pforte des Todes hinausgeht aus dem menschlichen Physischen und Ätherischen, dem zu folgen in die geistige Welt hinein. Tod und Geburt rücken aneinander, während sie im gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein als auseinandergerückte Tatsachen vorliegen.

Das alles aber, was so herausgeholt wird durch die Forschung aus der geistigen Welt, kann eben in der Weise, wie ich es im ersten Teil des heutigen Vortrags angedeutet habe, durchaus mit dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein erfaßt werden. Man muß sich nur dasjenige abgewöhnen, was dieses gewöhnliche Bewußtsein für den heutigen Tag verlangt. Sehen Sie, ich habe einen Menschen gekannt, der sagte: Der Stein fällt hinunter; wenn ich einen Stuhl aufhebe und ihn loslasse, fällt er hinunter; alles fällt hinunter zur Erde. Da behaupten die Menschen, die Erde stünde nicht auf etwas drauf; da müßte sie doch hinunterfallen — sagte er. Und dieser Mensch beachtete nicht, daß alles, was auf der Erde ist, hinunterfallen muß, weil die Erde da ist, daß aber die Erde selber frei im Weltenraum schwebt, wie die Sterne in ihrer Totalität sich gegenseitig stützen und halten.

Die Menschen, die heute behaupten, alles müsse durch die äußeren Sinne nach dem Muster der heutigen Wissenschaft bewiesen werden, die gleichen dem Menschen, der sagt: Wenn die Erde nicht auf einem großen Pflock aufruht, dann muß sie herunterfallen. —- Die anthroposophischen Wahrheiten sind eben so, daß sie sich gegenseitig stützen wie die Sterne. Darauf muß man kommen. Und ist man mit seinem gewöhnlichen Verständnisse einmal dazu gekommen, dann beginnt man tatsächlich ideenmäßig Anthroposophie zu begreifen, auch solche Dinge wie das Zusammenrücken von Geburt und Tod. Aber gehen wir weiter. Fassen wir ins Auge, wie derjenige, der zunächst gut vorbereitet ist durch das, was die gegenwärtige Wissenschaft bedeuten kann, aber mit lebendiger Empfänglichkeit sich hineinstellend, nun nicht den ganzen Menschen erkennen lernt, sondern in der gestern ausgeführten Weise seine Organe.

Ja, sehen Sie, durch diese Organerkenntnis, durch diese auf dem Initiatenweg ergriffene Organerkenntnis stellen sich nicht Geburt und Tod vor die Seele, sondern etwas ganz anderes. Vor der Organerkenntnis haben Geburt und Tod sogar ihren gewöhnlichen Sinn verloren, denn sterben kann eigentlich nur der ganze Mensch, sterben kann nicht ein einzelnes Organ. Die Lunge zum Beispiel stirbt nicht. Das hat schon die gewöhnliche Wissenschaft heute ein bißchen an einem Zipfel erfaßt, daß, wenn der ganze Mensch gestorben ist, die einzelnen Organe in einer gewissen Weise für sich belebt werden können. Die einzelnen Organe sterben nicht, gleichgültig, ob der Mensch beerdigt oder verbrannt wird, die einzelnen Organe suchen sich für ihr Wesen ein jedes den Weg hinaus in den Kosmos, wenn auch der Mensch in der Erde liegt und die Erde über ihm, wenn er beerdigt worden ist, ihn zudeckt; es suchen sich die Organe den Weg durch Wasser, Luft und Wärme in den Kosmos hinaus. Die Organe lösen sich in Wirklichkeit auf, sterben nicht; nur der ganze Mensch stirbt.

Vom Tode zu sprechen beim Menschen hat nur einen Sinn in bezug auf den ganzen Menschen. Beim Tier muß man von den Organen in dem Sinne sprechen, daß sie sterben. Beim Menschen ist der Unterschied gegenüber dem Tiere, daß die Organe sich auflösen. Sie lösen sich nur schnell auf, so, wie wenn Sie einen unreifen Apfel kochen, er in einem gewissen Sinne den Prozeß schneller durchmacht, als der reife Apfel. Das Beerdigen ist der langsame Prozeß, das Verbrennen ist der schnelle Prozeß. Die Organe können auch in ihrer Eigenart verfolgt werden, wie sie ins Unendliche hinausgehen. Aber da draußen im Kosmos, da ziehen sie nicht ins Unendliche hinaus, sondern es kommt einem zurück dasjenige, was ich gestern geschildert habe, der große Mensch, der kosmische Mensch.

Man schaut also, wenn man die Organe mit dem Initiatenbewußtsein verfolgt, das, was im Tode mit den Organen sich wirklich vollzieht, dieses Hinausgehen nach ihrer Verwandtschaft in die Regionen des Kosmos. Das Herz geht woandershin als die Lunge, die Leber geht woandershin als Lunge und Herz. Sie zerstreuen sich im Kosmos. Das kann man schauen, wenn man auf dem Initiatenwege das Organbewußtsein, das Bewußtsein über die Organe entwickelt. Dann erscheint dieser Mensch. Dann erscheint der Mensch, so wie er eigentlich in den Kosmos eingegliedert ist. Und im Anschauen dieses Menschen, wie er eigentlich in den Kosmos eingegliedert ist, kann sich dasjenige darstellen, was zum Beispiel aufeinanderfolgenden Inkarnationen zugrunde liegt.

Man braucht das Anschauen, das sich nicht aus dem ganzen Menschen, sondern nur aus dem Organanschauen ergibt, um auch wiederum erkennen zu können das Zurückkommen früherer Erdenleben für die Anschauung in dieses Erdenleben. Daher war es so, daß die Leute, die auf dem Mondenwege, wie die Mystiker, die Theosophen und so weiter, sich hinbegaben in die geistige Welt, durchaus alles mögliche, Menschenseelen, wie sie früher gelebt haben, Götter, Geister gesehen haben, aber sie nicht eigentlich erkennen konnten, nicht darauf kommen konnten, was sie waren, nicht in bestimmter Weise sagen konnten: Das ist der Alanus ab Insulis; das ist Dante; das ist Brunetto Latini. — Die Wesenheiten waren da; sie wurden mitunter mit ganz grotesken Bezeichnungen belegt. Frühere Inkarnationen waren da. Aber man konnte nicht unterscheiden, ob es die eigenen oder fremde oder irgendwelche andere waren. So daß die geistige Welt in diese in den Tag hereingezauberte Nachtwelt hineintritt, sich aber eben dann unter dem Einfluß der Venusimpulse auflöst, und nun als geistige Welt in der Gesamtheit da ist, nicht die Bestimmtheit bekommt, die sie bekommen soll. Sehen Sie, in dieser Welt beginnt also die Möglichkeit, einzusehen, wie der Mensch im ganzen in die Welt hineingestellt ist, wie er als kosmisches Wesen existiert.

Auf der anderen Seite ist damit verbunden eine, ich möchte sagen außerordentlich tragische Erkenntnis. Denn wenn der Mensch nur der ganze Mensch wäre, wie er eben in seiner Haut hier auf der Erde erscheint, ach, das wäre ja ein so gutes, ein so zahmes, ein so edles Wesen! Geradesowenig wie man den Tod mit dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein erforschen kann -begreifen kann man ihn in dem angedeuteten Sinne, aber nicht ihn erforschen -, so kann man auch nicht erforschen mit dem gewöhnlichen Bewußtsein, warum die Menschen mit ihren treuherzigen Gesichtern - sie haben ja alle so treuherzige Gesichter —, warum sie mit ihren treuherzigen Gesichtern auch böse werden können. Böse wird man nämlich nicht als ganzer Mensch. Die Haut ist etwas außerordentlich Braves. Böse wird man durch die einzelnen Organe. In den Organen liegt die Möglichkeit des Bösen. Und daher lernt man im Zusammenhange dieser Verwandtschaft der Organe mit den einzelnen Weltregionen auch erkennen, aus welchen Weltregionen herkommt die Besessenheit von dem Bösen; denn eine solche liegt im Grunde genommen vor selbst beim geringsten Bösen. So daß zuerst beim Menschen auftritt aus dem Erkennen des ganzen Menschen Geburt und Tod; zweitens aus dem Erkennen der Organisation des Menschen Verwandtschaft mit dem Kosmos im gesunden und kranken Zustande: das Böse.

Und so kann auch diejenige Gestalt, die durch das Mysterium von Golgatha gegangen ist, vor die menschliche Seele nur hintreten, wenn man zuerst eine Möglichkeit hat, aus der menschlichen Organologie heraus den kosmischen Menschen anzuschauen. Denn als kosmischer Mensch kam Christus von der Sonne. Er war bis dahin noch nicht Erdenmensch. Er kam als kosmischer Mensch heran. Wie soll man einen kosmischen Menschen erkennen, wenn man sich nicht dazu erst vorbereitet hat, den kosmischen Menschen überhaupt zu ergreifen! Gerade eine Christologie kann hervorgehen aus diesem Begreifen des kosmischen Menschen. Und so sehen Sie, wie die richtigen Wege hineinführen in die geistige Welt, führen zum Erkennen von Geburt und Tod, führen zum Erkennen der Verwandtschaft der menschlichen Organe mit dem Kosmos, führen zum Erkennen des Bösen, führen zum Erkennen des kosmischen Menschen: Christus.

Das alles, wenn es dargestellt wird, so daß es sich gegenseitig stützt, kann verstanden werden. Und das Verstehen ist dann der beste Weg, selber hineinzukommen in die geistige Welt, das Verstehen und Meditieren über dasjenige, worinnen man im Verstehen ist. Die anderen Meditationsregeln sind dann weitere Unterstützungen. Aber so ist für jeden heutigen Menschen der rechte Weg hinein in die geistige Welt. Dagegen alles Probieren auf anderen Wegen, die heute nicht durch das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein gehen und das gewöhnliche Bewußtsein bewahren, alles Probieren mit ausgeschaltetem Bewußtsein, wiebeim Mediumismus, beim Somnambulismus, bei der Hypnose und so weiter, alles Untersuchen an solchen Weltenvorgängen, an die man nicht herankommen kann mit dem Bewußtsein im Sinne einer karikaturhaften heutigen Naturwissenschaft, alles das sind falsche Wege, denn sie führen nicht in die wirkliche geistige Welt hinein.

Die Offenbarung des Himmlischen im Irdischen durch die Kunst

Wenn der Mensch gefühlsmäßig aufmerksam wird - und das kann er auf dasjenige, was durch die Forschung sich ergibt, wie ich es nun angedeutet habe, daß durch die Organerkenntnis der kosmische Mensch zurückkehrt, der Christus gewissermaßen in diesem Zurückkehren verstanden werden kann; wenn der Mensch dieses, was der okkulten Forschung und Anschauung aufgehen kann, was in das Initiatenbewußtsein hereingenommen werden kann an Forschung, wenn das im Menschen gefühlsmäßig ersteht, dann ist gewissermaßen innerhalb des Irdischen das Himmlische durch das Gefühl in dem Ihnen angedeuteten Bewußtsein geoffenbart. Und das geschieht durch die Kunst. In der Kunst hält ein halb Unterbewußtes seelisch fest dasjenige, was aus der geistigen Welt eben auf den Rückwegen herankommt an die Menschen, auf jenen Rückwegen, die ich charakterisiert habe. Daher war es, daß zu allen Zeiten diejenigen Menschen, die durch ihr Karma dazu prädestiniert waren, in der Kunst durch das Irdisch-Stoffliche das Geistige festgehalten haben.

Unsere naturalistische Kunst ist davon abgegangen. Aber jede Höhe der Kunstentwickelung in der Menschheit stellt ein Geistiges im Sinnlichen dar, oder, könnte man auch sagen, erhebt das Sinnliche in die Sphäre des Geistigen hinauf. Man schätzt Raffael, den Maler, deshalb so hoch, weil er, wie kein anderer in diesem Maße, imstande war, im Sinnlichen etwas darzustellen, was sich zu dem Geistigen hinauferhebt.

Nun gab es im allgemeinen in der Menschheitsentwickelung eine Strömung, welche vorzugsweise eine plastische, den bildenden Künsten zugeneigte war. Wir müssen heute wiederum neues Leben in den bildenden Künsten finden; aber der unmittelbare elementarische Impuls in der bildenden Kunst ist erflossen in vergangenen Zeiten. Seit längerer Zeit, seit Jahrhunderten, bildet sich der andere Impuls aus, der Impuls nach dem Musikalischen hin. Daher nehmen auch die bildenden Künste mehr oder weniger eine musikalische Form an. Das Musikalische ist in künstlerischer Beziehung die Zukunft der Menschheit, und alles Musikalische, das auch sonst in den redenden Künsten zutage treten kann. Der Dornacher Goetheanumbau war im Musikalischen gehalten. Daher ist er als Architektur und Plastik und Malerei vorläufig so wenig verstanden worden. Auch derjenige, der erstehen soll, wird eben aus diesem Grunde schwer verstanden, weil das Musikalische ganz im Sinne der Menschheitsentwickelung in das Plastisch-Malerische, Bildhauerische hineingeführt werden muß.

Aber gerade das, was ich angedeutet habe, was für die Menschheitsentwickelung ein Höchstes ist, das Herankommen der Gestalt des Christus, ja, der lebensvollen, geist-lebensvollen Gestalt des Christus, das ist etwas, was in gewissem Sinne ja wunderbar der Malerei durch die Renaissancemalerei und das, was ihr vorangegangen ist, gelungen ist, was aber künftig durch das Musikalische wird gefunden werden müssen. Sehen Sie, der Drang war da. Es war der Drang da in Richard Wagner. Und dieser Drang hat Richard Wagner zuletzt zu seinem «Parsifal» gebracht. Aber der «Parsifal» ist in bezug auf das Hereinzaubern des Christus-Impulses in die physisch-sinnliche Welt, wo er am christlichsten sein will, doch sozusagen nur in eine symbolistische Andeutung verschwebt: die Taube erscheint und dergleichen. Die Kommunion ist symbolisch da. Es ist nicht im Elemente des Musikalischen dasjenige erreicht, was im Kosmos und im Irdischen den Christus-Impuls eigentlich ausmacht. Das Musikalische ist aber befähigt, diesen Christus-Impuls in Tönen, in gestalteten Tönen, in durchseelten, in durchgeistigten Tönen einmal vor die Welt hinzustellen. Läßt sich die Musik inspirieren von anthroposophischer Geisteswissenschaft, wird sie die Wege dazu finden, denn sie wird rein künstlerisch, artistisch, gefühlsmäßig enträtseln, wie in Tönen symphonisch belebt werden kann dasjenige, was im Kosmisch-Tellurischen als der Christus-Impuls lebt.

Man braucht dazu nur in einer innerlich bis ins Mystische in der Empfindung gehenden Vertiefung des musikalischen Erlebens das Terzengebiet in Dur vertiefen zu können. Erlebt man dies als etwas, was musikalisch ganz im Inneren des Menschen beschlossen ist, und empfindet man dann das Quintengebiet in Dur, empfindet man das Quintengebiet als dasjenige, was etwas Umhüllendes hat, was etwas davon hat, daß, wenn der Mensch in die Quintengestaltung hineinwächst, er bis an die Grenze des Menschlichen und Kosmischen gelangt, wo das Kosmische in das Menschliche hereintönt, das Menschliche in das Kosmische hinaus sich sehnt, ja hinaussehnend stürmt, dann kann man gerade im Musikalischen durch das Mysterium, das zwischen dem Terzen- und Quintengebiete in Dur sich abspielt etwas erleben von dem, was als Innermenschliches in das Kosmische hinaus will. Und gelangt man dann dazu, zuerst auftönen zu lassen in den Septimendissonanzen das Leben im Kosmos, wo die Septimendissonanzen sprechen als dasjenige, was der Mensch im Kosmos empfindend erleben kann, wenn er sich auf dem Wege befindet in die verschiedenen Geistesregionen hinaus, und gelangt man dazu, die Septimendissonanzen verschweben zu lassen so, daß sie gerade durch ihr Verschweben etwas Bestimmtes annehmen, dann bekommen die Septimendissonanzen zuletzt im Verschweben etwas, was sich wie ein musikalisches Firmament dem musikalischen Erleben darstellt.

Und findet man dann, indem man vorher schon angedeutet hat in intimen Zügen ein Moll-Erleben in dem Dur-Erleben, findet man dann in diesem Verschweben der Septimendissonanzen, in diesem Sich-Gestalten der Septimendissonanzen zu einer Totalität, die in ihrer Totalität fast harmonisch wird, fast konsonierend wird, weil sie verschwebt, findet man darinnen die Möglichkeit, in intensivem Moll herauszubekommen aus der Septimendissonanz, aus dem fast Harmonischen des Verschwebens der Septimendissonanzen, findet man zurück den Weg ins Quintengebiet in Moll und von da das Durchsetzen des Quintengebietes mit dem Moll-Terzengebiet, dann hat man auf diesem Wege erzeugt das Erleben, das musikalische Erleben der Inkarnation, und zwar gerade der Inkarnation Christi.

Denn man wird finden können in diesem Sich-hinaus-Fühlen in das dem kosmischen Empfinden gegenüber nur scheinbar dissonierende Septimengebiet, das man zu einem Firmament gestaltet, indem man die Oktave wie dahinterstehend, aber nur annähernd dahinterstehend hat, hat man dieses im Erfühlen ergriffen, kehrt man dann in der angedeuteten Weise zurück und findet, wie in der Keimgestalt der Terzenkonsonanzen in Moll die Möglichkeit liegt, wie etwas Musikalisches die Inkarnation darzustellen, dann darf, wenn wiederum zurückgegangen wird zum Dur auf diesem Gebiete, da das «Halleluja» des Christus aus dieser musikalischen Gestaltung herausklingen, rein musikalisch, rein aus der Gestaltung der Töne heraus. Dann wird der Mensch innerhalb der Gestaltung der Töne herauszaubern in dieser Formung der Töne ein unmittelbar Übersinnliches, es für das musikalische Empfinden hinstellen.

Der Christus-Impuls kann im Musikalischen gefunden werden. Und jene Auflösung des Symphonischen in das nicht ganz mehr Musikalische, das bei Beethoven vorhanden war, kann wiederum zurückgeführt werden in das wirklich kosmische Walten im musikalischen Elemente. Aus einer gewissen Engigkeit und, ich möchte sagen, aus einer gewissen traditionellen Beschränktheit heraus hat Bruckner das versucht. Aber wie er drinnen stecken blieb, zeigt gerade die nachgelassene Symphonie, wenn man sie auf der einen Seite in ihrer Wunderbarkeit hat, auf der anderen Seite in einem Sich-Vortasten durch die eigentlich musikalischen Elemente und Nichtkommen zu einem vollen Erleben dieser musikalischen Elemente, die man nur erleben kann in der Weise, wie ich es jetzt angedeutet habe, wenn man im rein Musikalischen vorschreitet und im Musikalischen drinnen das Essentielle, das Wesenhafte findet, das eine Welt in Tönen hineinzaubern kann.

Es wird einmal ganz gewiß, wenn die Menschheit nicht in die Dekadenz kommt, durch anthroposophische Inspiration dasjenige entstehen können, was ich angedeutet habe. Und so kann es einmal dazu kommen - es hängt ja nur von den Menschen ab -, daß gerade im Musikalischen der Christus-Impuls in wahrer Gestalt auch vor die äußere Offenbarung hintritt.

Ich wollte dieses aus dem Grunde vor Ihre Seele hinstellen, weil Sie daraus sehen können, daß Anthroposophie auf allen Gebieten hineinfließen will in das Leben, und es kann das geschehen, wenn das Leben auch wirklich auf der anderen Seite den Weg, den rechten Weg findet hin zu dem anthroposophischen Erfahren, zu dem anthroposophischen Erforschen. Und es wird sogar das sein können, daß dasjenige, was auf anthroposophischem Gebiet da ist, einmal wie in einem Echo aus dem Musikalischen heraustönt, wie wenn das Echo eine Lösung wäre des christologischen Rätsels.

Mit diesen Worten möchte ich abgerundet haben dasjenige, was ich durch diese Vorträge ja nur andeuten konnte, andeuten, welche Absichten damit verbunden waren. Ich möchte nur noch das Wort anfügen, daß es mir gelungen sein möge, in den Seelen ein wenig anzuregen, was ich bemerklich zu machen versuchte durch diese Darstellungen anthroposophischer Wahrheiten, daß tatsächlich diese anthroposophischen Wahrheiten Keime sein können in jeder Seele, die zu Leben erstehen können, die zu immer weiterem und weiterem Leben in der Zivilisation führen können.

Möge auch dieser Vortragszyklus ein kleiner Beitrag zu diesen weitgehenden Absichten anthroposophischen Wollens sein.

What about the understanding of intellectual research?

Two research possibilities

Of course, there would be an extraordinary amount to say in direct continuation of what has been said in these lectures; however, today we want to try to present a kind of summary rounding off of these lectures to our souls.

From the whole attitude of these lectures one question above all must come before the eye of the soul, that is the question: What is the actual state of the understanding of anthroposophy, of spiritual research, as it is to be put into the world through anthroposophy? What about the insight into that which is given through such anthroposophy, compared with the fact that not every human being in the present can immediately approach those spiritual exercises which quickly lead him to perceive everything he hears through anthroposophy himself in the corresponding worlds, in order to examine it in a complete way? This is a question that is close to the hearts of most of those who have a certain urge, a certain longing for anthroposophy. But this question is always seen in the wrong light, and it can be seen all the more in the wrong light precisely because of what one says is right, as I have done in these lectures. You can say: Yes, what good are all these representations from the spiritual world if I cannot see into the spiritual world myself? That is why I would like to weave this question into today's summary discussions.

It is not at all the case that one can say that one cannot acquire an insight, an understanding of the things that are given through anthroposophy, before one can research the spiritual world oneself. One must distinguish, especially at the present time, between research, that is, the discovery of such facts that belong to the different worlds, and the understanding of what is given through this research. And the understanding of this difference will become completely clear to you when you consider that man, as he stands before us today, belongs to different worlds, and that the experiences he has come from different worlds. Man as he is today acquires in ordinary life the consciousness of everyday life and ordinary science from which we started. This consciousness gives him during the waking hours a certain overview of a part of the world, of all that in the world which is revealed through the senses and which can be interpreted and understood by the intellect, which has been acquired by man in the course of evolution.

In dreams, man's understanding reaches into a world that is directly adjacent to this world, but which is already hidden behind the world of the senses, in a very indistinct way, as I have explained. And into that world, which man lives through between death and a new birth, he extends himself with his soul life on earth only during dreamless sleep, in which it is spiritually dark and black around him, and in which he accomplishes a life of which he usually has no memories.

This consciousness with its threefold state, the waking state, the dream state, the deep sleep state, this consciousness is known to man. But he does not live alone in the worlds that are thus accessible to him. Man is, after all, a being who lives in a whole series of worlds. His physical body lives in another world than his etheric body, this again in another world than the astral body, and all this together again in another world than the ego. And this consciousness: bright waking consciousness, dream consciousness, sleeping, one would like to say non-consciousness, but one only has to say dull consciousness, these three states of consciousness actually have the ego as it is today. And this I, as it is today, also has three states when it looks inwards. It has three states when it looks outwards: waking day life, dream consciousness, sleep consciousness. When it looks inwards, it has the bright thinking consciousness; it has the much cloudier consciousness of feeling, the life of feelings, which is much more similar to dream life than is usually believed; and it has the dull, dim consciousness of will, which is very similar to sleep life. How our volition comes about is quite, quite unknown to ordinary consciousness, in fact as unknown as sleep. When man wants something, he has the thought; it is clear and bright. He then develops a somewhat darker feeling about this thought. And then the emotionally imbued thought goes down into the limbs. What happens there is not experienced by man with ordinary consciousness. Before the research of which I spoke yesterday and the day before yesterday, the volition looks like this: While the thought in the head wants something and it then goes down through the feeling into the whole body, and the human being wants through his whole body, during this time something like a fine, subtle, intimate combustion process develops in the human being.

When a person comes to initiate consciousness, he can experience this volition influenced by warmth. But this remains completely underground for the ordinary consciousness. This is only one example of how that which can already be lifted up into the initiate consciousness remains in the underground for the ordinary consciousness. For example, one will realize the following when the things that will gradually come into the world through the book mentioned yesterday are really understood. You will realize that when a person wants something and you look at it with the initiate consciousness, it is like looking at an external process of burning a candle or looking at a heat-producing light externally. Just as one has a clear picture of the external view, so one can see the thought striking into the will in such a way that one says: The thought develops the feeling, and from the feeling goes down - it moves in man from top to bottom - heat development, flame; and this flame wants. - So it reveals itself little by little.

We can almost place this ordinary consciousness schematically before us like this:

Inside: Clear thinking
emotional life
Consciousness of will

Outside: Waking day consciousness
Dream consciousness
Sleep consciousness

Wakeful day consciousness on the outside, clear thinking on the inside; dream consciousness on the outside, unclear but warm emotional life on the inside; sleep consciousness on the outside, completely dark will consciousness on the inside.

Now, however, even if man, in order to research in the spiritual world, that is, to seek out the facts that can be revealed out of the spiritual world, is put into the necessity to carry his consciousness to where the world is, into which he wants to penetrate cognitively, then nevertheless, when the research is honestly communicated, that which is communicated in ideas through words enters into the other consciousnesses. And now perhaps you can understand that there are two things. Firstly, there is the fact that research is carried out, for example, in the world of the human organs, as I explained yesterday, that one examines the facts in question with the forces that approach the spiritual world in human life. There one finds the corresponding facts. There they lay themselves before the soul for cognition, these facts. There you have them. People in the outer world are confronted with these facts. Now these facts are communicated by the people concerned, they are presented to the world. When they are presented to the world by people, then they can be understood with ordinary consciousness, if only one has the necessary impartiality. That is why it has always been the case in human evolution that a few people have occupied themselves with researching the facts that were relevant to the spiritual world and then, when they had researched them, communicated them to others.

Now the only thing that speaks against receiving such knowledge today is that people generally grow up in a social milieu and in an educational development that teaches them in their habits of perception that one can only believe in the external world of facts, in the world of the senses and in what the intellect explores from the world of the senses. This is a habit that has such a strong effect that one is inclined to say at any time out of this habit: There is a university; people have graduated from the university; they are now teaching at the university, they also investigate certain facts, or if others investigate certain facts of the sensory world, they confirm them. - You believe in it! You don't research these facts of the sensory world yourself, you believe in them. And it is precisely with regard to today's natural science that people are infinitely faithful. They believe things that are not only problematic for those with insight, but are certainly completely untrue. This only stems from centuries of education.

I may say that people in earlier centuries did not have this education. People were more inclined to believe those who investigated spiritual facts, because everyone still had something of an insight into the spiritual world, of an emotional, volitional involvement in the spiritual world. Today people are simply not used to this, and they have become accustomed to a way of looking at things that is more theoretical on the continent and more practical in England and America.

On the continent there are detailed theories about it, in England and America there is a feeling for it that one cannot easily overcome inwardly. It is this: People have become accustomed to what has come down through the centuries, to accept natural science that relates to the external senses, for example astronomy, botany, zoology, medicine, as it is prepared for them in the recognized schools and at the recognized places. People have become accustomed to this for centuries, and today they cling to it terribly. And when a chemist researches something in his laboratory and people have no idea how he does it, but it becomes known, they say: That is true, that is knowledge. - They say: That's not faith, that's knowledge. - Of course it is pure faith! But people say: This is knowledge.

And now in all the ways that one uses to explore the sense world, to find the laws of the sense world with the intellect, in all the ways one finds nothing about the spiritual world. But there are only a few people who can completely do without the spiritual world, and they talk themselves into it, they are not honest about it. Above all, people have a need to know something about the spiritual world. They do not yet listen to those who can tell them something about the spiritual world as it is today, but they do listen to what has been handed down historically, what is written in the books, what is written in the holy scriptures of the East, what is written in the Bible. They listen to this because they cannot help but somehow have a connection to the spiritual world. And yet everything that is written in the Bible or in the holy scriptures of the East has only been researched by individual initiates, so they say: Yes, that is a different kind of view. It is not like the recognition of the external sensory world, like the recognition of science, but is based on faith. You have to believe. - And that's where people make the sharp distinction between something being science and something else being faith. And they then relate science to the sensory world and faith to the spiritual world.

There are whole theories on the continent, especially among theologians of the Protestant Church - not among theologians of the Catholic Church, they have only preserved the traditions of earlier times and they do not differentiate in the same way as the Protestant theologians or as the external scientists - as to how cognition comes to a certain point, then faith begins. It has to be like that. Here in England there are fewer theories because people don't love theories so much. But here there is this life practice of listening properly to science on the one hand and taking that for something that one accepts from science; living properly on the other hand, piously, I don't want to say pietistically, in faith, and strictly separating the two things from each other.

It's not just laypeople who can do this, scholars have been doing it for a long time. On the one hand, Newton founded the doctrine of gravitation, that is, a view of space which, by virtue of what it is, excludes any view of the spiritual. If the world were as Newton saw it, it could not contain any spirit. But one does not have the courage to admit this to oneself. Just as a spinning wheel could never become a human being, just as a human being could never be imagined in a spinning wheel, neither can a divine-spiritual working and weaving be imagined in Newton's world. One just does not have the inner courage, the inner courage to admit this to oneself. But it is not only those who accept such things who manage to surrender to a worldview of space and a worldview of time that excludes the spiritual, but also those who do their own research, of which Newton is a fine example, who on the one hand establishes a worldview that excludes everything spiritual, and on the other interprets the Apocalypse with complete separation of the soul from it.

The bridges have been broken between that which is knowledge, cognition of the external sensory world, and that which is knowledge, cognition of the spiritual world. And today, even where one loves theories, one tries to prove this strictly, where one does not love theories, one tries to eat it right into the habits of feeling and thinking, so that one cannot get out of it at all. On the other hand, people's intellect, their understanding, their power of ideas, their capacity for ideas is already so far advanced today, if one only thinks about it, if one only has it properly in hand, that what emerges from initiation science can be fully understood by the intellect, but cannot be researched.

What is therefore necessary? That the perception may develop: First of all, that which is to be investigated from the spiritual world must be investigated by those people who in their present life can draw on powers from earlier incarnations which enable them to bring up that which is necessary to investigate; that furthermore, what is researched in this way will be received by a number of people, by more and more people, will be understood in ideas as to how it can be understood; and that thereby, when what is spiritually researched is received with a healthy understanding, the basis will be created for these other people to really look into the spiritual world. - Because I have said it many times: The healthiest way to really enter the spiritual world is to start by reading or absorbing what is proclaimed from the spiritual world.

If one absorbs these thoughts, they will revive inwardly and the person will not only enter into understanding but also into seeing, as his karma allows. And it is precisely at this point that one must find one's way strictly into the view of karma. Today's man does not think of karma. He talks about the fact that, just as one examines sulphur in the laboratory, one must also examine in the laboratory how a human being brings about so-called abnormal phenomena. One must experiment with the human being who produces abnormal cognition in the same way as one experiments with sulphur. But you see, sulphur has no karma. Only the “sulphur” that is spoken of by man has a karma! Ordinary mineral sulphur has no karma. Only human beings have karma. And it can never be assumed that man has it in his karma to allow experimentation with himself in a laboratory, and this would have to be present if the research were to be fruitful. Therefore, spiritual science must first be present. One would first have to investigate the conditions under which a person can learn something about the spiritual world through karma. I have expressed this clearly at the end of the later editions of my “Theosophy”. But the present world is not suited for this - not out of inability, but out of habit - to absorb things. But that is infinitely important. Above all, it is important to be clear about it: You need not have penetrated into the spiritual world through research; but if you do not use something unhealthy here on the physical plane, such as experimenting with karma, or with mediums whose way of acting you do not understand; if you rely here on what is for the time being the right consciousness for this world, and what I have described as the everyday consciousness; if you rely correctly on this everyday consciousness, then you will come to a complete understanding of what is said in the science of initiation. - And if you believe that you cannot have such an understanding before you can penetrate yourself, then you are committing a very great error. And that is again one of the wrong paths that people take today, to say: What is the spirit world to me as long as I cannot see into it myself. - This is one of the greatest, the most dangerous, the most obvious errors. Above all, this error must be sharply confronted by a movement such as that embodied by the Anthroposophical Society.

Birth and death and evil

The fact that man with his existence here in the physical world belongs to different worlds can simply emerge for the unbiased consciousness from the fact that the facts which man experiences, as they present themselves before the whole of human experience, appear in such a way that wherever the most important things in life are concerned, they come up against the incomprehensibility of everyday consciousness in that they appear to be separated, whereas in certain cases they belong closely together.

So in this summary consideration I would first like to point out the coming of man into this physical world and the going out of man, I would like to point out birth and death. Birth and death, these two most incisive events in human life on earth, appear to the ordinary consciousness to be separate. Everything that precedes birth, everything that is connected with man's entry into earthly existence, is placed at the beginning of earthly life. Death is placed at the end of life on earth. They seem to have moved apart. For the one who researches in the field of spiritual life, they move closer and closer together. For if one follows the path which I have characterized by the fact that man penetrates into the lunar mysteries, conjuring the night into the day as I described yesterday, he sees how in all the processes of birth the physical and etheric bodies become more and more sprouting and sprouting; how they emerge from the little egg, how they gradually develop into human form, how they still show, one might say, an ascending life during earthly life and only in the middle of earthly life, around the age of thirty-five, do they begin to gradually decay, to show a descending life. Man also sees this outwardly. But he who embarks on the lunar path of which I spoke yesterday also sees how, at the same time as a sprouting, budding germ life for the physical and etheric begins and continues to develop, another life, which we summarize in the field of anthroposophy as the astral body and ego, actually dies, is subject to death.

When you enter into the mystical life, which I described yesterday in its concreteness, you not only see a birth of the physical and etheric, you see a death of the astral and ego being. One sees death interweaving itself into life, the dying merging with the sprouting. And again, if one observes the human being with this initiate consciousness, one then sees, when his body disintegrates, from the thirty-fifth year of life onwards, a beginning of revival in the astral and in the ego-being. Only these are disturbed by what is dying all around in the physical and etheric being. But a real resurrection takes place. And so, through this path of spiritual research, one learns to know death in life, life in death. In this way one prepares oneself to trace back further into pre-earthly life that which one sees dying while being born, where it shows itself in its full meaning, in its greatness. And by seeing the astral and the ego-being gradually become fresher in the dying earthly life, just captured by the etheric and the physical, one prepares oneself again to follow that which goes out through the gate of death from the human physical and etheric, to follow it into the spiritual world. Death and birth move closer together, while in ordinary consciousness they exist as separate facts.

But everything that is thus brought out of the spiritual world through research can be grasped by the ordinary consciousness in the way I have indicated in the first part of today's lecture. You only have to get out of the habit of what this ordinary consciousness demands for today. You see, I have known a man who said: "The stone falls down; if I pick up a chair and let go of it, it falls down; everything falls down to the earth. People claim that the earth is not standing on something; it should fall down - he said. And this man ignored the fact that everything that is on the earth must fall down because the earth is there, but that the earth itself floats freely in the universe, just as the stars in their totality support and hold each other.

Those people who today claim that everything must be proved by the outer senses according to the pattern of present-day science are like the man who says: "If the earth does not rest on a great stake, then it must fall down. -- The anthroposophical truths are just such that they support each other like the stars. One must come to this. And once you have come to it with your ordinary understanding, then you really begin to grasp anthroposophy in terms of ideas, even such things as the moving together of birth and death. But let us go further. Let us consider how he who is at first well prepared by what present-day science can mean, but who places himself in it with living receptivity, now learns to recognize not the whole man, but his organs in the way described yesterday.

Yes, you see, through this knowledge of organs, through this knowledge of organs grasped on the initiatic path, it is not birth and death that stand before the soul, but something quite different. Before the knowledge of organs, birth and death have even lost their usual meaning, for only the whole human being can actually die, not a single organ. The lungs, for example, do not die. Ordinary science today has already grasped this to a certain extent, that when the whole human being has died, the individual organs can be revived in a certain way. The individual organs do not die, regardless of whether the human being is buried or cremated, the individual organs each seek a way out into the cosmos for their own being, even if the human being lies in the earth and the earth above him, when he has been buried, covers him; the organs seek their way out into the cosmos through water, air and warmth. In reality, the organs dissolve and do not die; only the whole person dies.

To speak of death in humans only makes sense in relation to the whole human being. In animals one must speak of the organs in the sense that they die. The difference between humans and animals is that the organs dissolve. They only dissolve quickly, just as when you cook an unripe apple, in a certain sense it goes through the process faster than the ripe apple. Burying is the slow process, burning is the fast process. The organs can also be followed in their own way as they go out into infinity. But out there in the cosmos, they do not go out into infinity, but what I described yesterday, the great human being, the cosmic human being, comes back to you.

So when you follow the organs with the initiate consciousness, you see what really takes place with the organs in death, this going out according to their relationship into the regions of the cosmos. The heart goes somewhere else than the lungs, the liver goes somewhere else than the lungs and the heart. They disperse in the cosmos. You can see this when you develop organ consciousness, the consciousness of the organs, on the initiatic path. Then this human being appears. Then the human being appears as he is actually integrated into the cosmos. And in looking at this human being as he is actually integrated into the cosmos, that which, for example, underlies successive incarnations can be represented.

You need the view that does not arise from the whole human being, but only from the organ view, in order to be able to recognize the return of earlier earth lives for the view in this earth life. Therefore it was so that the people who went into the spiritual world on the lunar path, like the mystics, the theosophists and so on, saw all kinds of things, human souls as they had lived before, gods, spirits, but could not actually recognize them, could not come to know what they were, could not say in a certain way: This is Alanus ab Insulis; this is Dante; this is Brunetto Latini. - The entities were there; they were sometimes given quite grotesque names. Earlier incarnations were there. But one could not distinguish whether they were one's own or another's or any other. So that the spiritual world enters this night world conjured into the day, but then dissolves under the influence of the Venus impulses, and is now there as a spiritual world in its entirety, but does not receive the definiteness that it should receive. You see, in this world the possibility begins to see how the human being as a whole is placed in the world, how he exists as a cosmic being.

On the other hand, this is connected with an, I would say, extraordinarily tragic realization. For if man were only the whole man as he appears in his skin here on earth, oh, that would be such a good, such a tame, such a noble being! Just as one cannot investigate death with ordinary consciousness - one can comprehend it in the sense indicated, but not investigate it - so one cannot investigate with ordinary consciousness why men with their loyal faces - they all have such loyal faces - why they can also become evil with their loyal faces. You don't become evil as a whole person. The skin is something extraordinarily good. You become evil through the individual organs. The possibility of evil lies in the organs. And therefore, in connection with this relationship of the organs with the individual regions of the world, one also learns to recognize from which regions of the world the possession of evil comes; for such a possession is basically present even in the slightest evil. So that firstly, birth and death occur in man from the recognition of the whole man; secondly, from the recognition of the organization of man's relationship with the cosmos in a healthy and sick state: evil.

And so the figure that passed through the Mystery of Golgotha can only come before the human soul if we first have the opportunity to look at the cosmic man from the human organology. For Christ came from the sun as a cosmic man. He was not yet an earthly man. He came as a cosmic man. How can we recognize a cosmic man if we have not first prepared ourselves to grasp the cosmic man in the first place! A Christology can emerge from this understanding of the cosmic man. And so you see how the right paths lead into the spiritual world, lead to the recognition of birth and death, lead to the recognition of the relationship of the human organs with the cosmos, lead to the recognition of evil, lead to the recognition of the cosmic man: Christ.

All this can be understood if it is presented in such a way that it supports each other. And understanding is then the best way to enter the spiritual world oneself, to understand and meditate on that in which one is in understanding. The other meditation rules are then further support. But this is the right way for every person today to enter the spiritual world. On the other hand, all experimentation on other paths that do not go through the ordinary consciousness today and preserve the ordinary consciousness, all experimentation with consciousness switched off, as in mediumism, somnambulism, hypnosis and so on, all investigation of such world processes that cannot be approached with consciousness in the sense of a caricature-like modern natural science, all these are wrong paths, because they do not lead into the real spiritual world.

The revelation of the heavenly in the earthly through art

When man becomes emotionally attentive - and he can do so to that which arises through research, as I have now indicated, that through the knowledge of the organs the cosmic man returns, the Christ can be understood to a certain extent in this return; When the human being is able to grasp that which can emerge from occult research and contemplation, that which can be taken into the initiate consciousness in research, when this arises in the human being emotionally, then the heavenly is, as it were, revealed within the earthly through the feeling in the consciousness indicated to you. And this happens through art. In art, a half-subconscious holds on to that which comes to man from the spiritual world on the paths of return which I have characterized. That is why at all times those people who were predestined to do so through their karma have captured the spiritual in art through the earthly material.

Our naturalistic art has departed from this. But every height of artistic development in humanity represents a spiritual in the sensual, or, one could also say, raises the sensual into the sphere of the spiritual. Raphael, the painter, is held in such high esteem because he, more than anyone else to this extent, was able to depict something in the sensual that rises up to the spiritual.

Now, in general, there was a current in the development of mankind which was preferably a plastic one, inclined towards the fine arts. Today we must again find new life in the fine arts; but the direct elementary impulse in the fine arts flowed out in past times. For a long time, for centuries, the other impulse has been developing, the impulse towards the musical. This is why the visual arts also take on a more or less musical form. In artistic terms, the musical is the future of humanity, and everything musical that can also emerge in the verbal arts. The Goetheanum building in Dornach was musical. That is why it has been so little understood as architecture, sculpture and painting for the time being. The one that is to be built is also difficult to understand for this very reason, because the musical must be led into the plastic-painterly, sculptural in the sense of the development of humanity.

But precisely what I have hinted at, which is a supreme thing for the development of mankind, the approach of the figure of Christ, yes, the vital, spiritually vital figure of Christ, that is something that in a certain sense painting has wonderfully succeeded in doing through Renaissance painting and what preceded it, but which will have to be found in the future through music. You see, the urge was there. The urge was there in Richard Wagner. And this urge ultimately brought Richard Wagner to his “Parsifal”. But in terms of conjuring up the Christ impulse in the physical-sensual world, where he wants to be most Christian, “Parsifal” is, so to speak, only a symbolic allusion: the dove appears and the like. Communion is symbolic. That which actually constitutes the Christ-impulse in the cosmos and in the earthly is not achieved in the musical element. The musical, however, is capable of presenting this Christ-impulse to the world in tones, in shaped tones, in soulful, spiritualized tones. If music allows itself to be inspired by anthroposophical spiritual science, it will find the ways to do so, for it will unravel in a purely artistic, artistic, emotional way how that which lives in the cosmic-telluric as the Christ impulse can be symphonically enlivened in tones.

A person only needs to be able to deepen the major third in an inwardly mystical deepening of the musical experience. If one experiences this as something that is musically decided entirely within the human being, and if one then feels the major fifth region, one feels the fifth region as that which has something enveloping about it, which has something of the fact that when the human being grows into the formation of fifths, he reaches the limit of the human and the cosmic, where the cosmic sounds into the human, the human longs out into the cosmic, indeed storms out longing, then one can experience something in the musical, through the mystery that takes place between the thirds and fifths in major, of that which wants to go out into the cosmic as the inner human. And if one then succeeds in first allowing the life in the cosmos to resound in the seventh dissonances, where the seventh dissonances speak as that which man can experience in the cosmos when he is on his way out into the various spiritual regions, and if one succeeds in allowing the seventh dissonances to float in such a way that they take on something definite precisely through their floating, then the seventh dissonances finally take on something in the floating that presents itself like a musical firmament to the musical experience.

And if one then finds, as one has already intimated in intimate traits, a minor experience in the major experience, one then finds in this blending of the seventh dissonances, in this forming of the seventh dissonances into a totality that becomes almost harmonious in its totality, almost consonant, because it blends, one finds therein the possibility, in an intense minor from the seventh dissonance, from the almost harmonious floating of the seventh dissonances, one finds the way back to the fifth area in the minor and from there the interspersing of the fifth area with the minor third area, then in this way one has created the experience, the musical experience of the incarnation, and precisely the incarnation of Christ.

For one will be able to find in this feeling oneself out into the seventh region, which is only apparently dissonant in relation to the cosmic feeling, which one forms into a firmament by having the octave as if standing behind it, but only approximately standing behind it, once one has grasped this in feeling, one then returns in the manner indicated and finds, the possibility of representing the incarnation like something musical lies in the germinal form of the consonances of thirds in the minor, then, if we go back to the major in this area, the “Hallelujah” of Christ may sound out of this musical form, purely musically, purely out of the form of the tones. Then the human being will conjure up something directly supersensible within the shaping of the tones in this shaping of the tones, presenting it for musical perception.

The Christ-impulse can be found in the musical. And that dissolution of the symphonic into the no longer entirely musical, which was present in Beethoven, can in turn be led back into the truly cosmic activity in the musical element. Bruckner attempted this out of a certain narrowness and, I would say, out of a certain traditional narrowness. But how he got stuck in it is shown by the late symphony, when you have it on the one hand in its wonderfulness, on the other hand in feeling your way through the actual musical elements and not coming to a full experience of these musical elements, which you can only experience in the way I have now indicated, when you advance in the purely musical and find the essential, the essential that can conjure up a world in tones within the musical.

It will certainly be possible one day, if humanity does not fall into decadence, to create what I have hinted at through anthroposophical inspiration. And so it may come about one day - it only depends on the people - that precisely in music the Christ impulse in its true form will also appear before the outer revelation.

I wanted to place this before your soul for the reason that you can see from it that anthroposophy wants to flow into life in all areas, and this can happen if life on the other side also really finds the way, the right way, to anthroposophical experience, to anthroposophical investigation. And it will even be possible for that which is there in the anthroposophical field to sound out from the musical as if in an echo, as if the echo were a solution to the Christological riddle.

With these words I would like to round off what I could only hint at in these lectures, hint at what intentions were connected with them. I would only like to add the word that I may have succeeded in stimulating a little in the souls what I tried to make noticeable through these presentations of anthroposophical truths, that these anthroposophical truths can indeed be germs in every soul, which can arise into life, which can lead to further and further life in civilization.

May this lecture cycle also be a small contribution to these far-reaching intentions of anthroposophical will.