Art as Seen in the Light of Mystery Wisdom
GA 275
1 January 1915, Dornach
V. Moral Experience of the Worlds of Colour and Tone
Everything in the world, each event and every act of human conduct has two sides, which are, as it were, polar opposites.
Yesterday it was my task to point out to you that through a feeling understanding of our spiritual-scientific world outlook, the human soul should acquire reverence and devotion for the spiritual worlds. The opposite pole to this devotional attitude is energetic work on our inner life, an energetic taking-in-hand of the evolutionary factors of our own soul, making a point of always using our experiences for the purpose of learning something from them and making progress with regard to our inner forces, so that—whatever meets us in life and whatever takes place around us, whether it is easy to understand or not—we shall always avoid the danger of losing ourselves. May we always have the chance of keeping hold of ourselves and of finding within ourselves the strength to develop an understanding for what can encounter us in an often incomprehensible way, and may the kind of devotion for things we were talking about yesterday make such an impact on the development of our souls, that we acquire a proper understanding of universal existence; this, my dear friends, is the New Year greeting I wanted to give you today at the start of the year. We have just been remembering devotion, and I would like to follow that with a reminder of the energetic work on our inner life. The full moon shining down on us out of the cosmos on New Year's Eve is a symbol for the sequence in which we are remembering these things. If it had been the other way round, and the year had started with the new moon, I should have done the right thing in bringing these reminders to you in the opposite order. I should then have closed the year with a reminder of the power of inner development and should have had to leave the thoughts on reverence until today.
We must attach more and more importance to really noticing a symbol like this that shines on us out of the macrocosm. And in our quiet moments this year let this indication work on us in such a way that it can have a special significance, to think first about the transformation the power of reverence can bring about in us, then to follow this with thinking about the transformation that the power of inner preservation, the maintaining of inner soul energy, should bring about in us.
The sequence of these thoughts has been set for the coming year by the writing of the stars, and the world will gradually come to realise again that reading the star script really has a meaning for man. So let us try even in details like this to pay heed to the great law of human existence and to strive for harmony between the macrocosm and the microcosm. The macrocosm is speaking to us over these days in the most obvious way and we shall find how to keep our microcosm in harmony with the macrocosm, if we conduct ourselves in line with it, in the course of this year that has begun amidst such painful events.
If you try and notice what has been the prevailing mood of our talks in the last few days you will discover that, regarding the facts that spiritual science has made significant for us, we live in a time of change, in a time of hope, as it were, for we should now be getting an inkling of the direction the further course of human cultural development should take; of the change that has to come about from a purely materialistic world conception to a spiritual one. What is meant here, however, cannot really fully take place unless it enters every sphere of life and particularly takes hold of the spiritual cultural areas to a marked degree.
We have already had various indications showing that an understanding of the spiritual-scientific outlook, which has taken hold of our feelings and is not merely rational, is bound to bring a change into both artistic creativity and artistic appreciation, because the forces we gain from this can give us an artistic conception of the world. And in our Goetheanum building we have just made the attempt to show at least a small part of what can take an artistic form, from out of spiritual-scientific impulses.
We can see a time coming when we shall be able to enter fully into the feelings that can arise from the spiritual-scientific world conception, a time when the way to artistic creation will in many respects be different from the past; it will be much more alive and the medium of artistic creation will be experienced much more intensely in the human soul; the soul will be capable of experiencing colour and sound far more inwardly, in a kind of moral-spiritual way, and in artists' creations we shall meet, as it were, traces of the artists' experiences in the cosmos.
In essentials, the attitude of artistic creation and artistic appreciation in this past epoch was a kind of external observation, an appeal to something that affects the artist from outside . The need to refer to nature and to a model for external observation has become greater and greater. Not that in the art of the future there is to be any one-sided rejection of nature and outer reality. Far from it, for there will be a much more intimate union with the external world; so strong a union that it will cover not merely the external impression of colour and sound and form, but that which one can experience behind the sound and colour and form; what is revealed in them.
Human beings will make important discoveries in the future in this respect. They will actually unite their moralspiritual nature with the results of sense perception. An infinite deepening of the human soul can be foreseen in this domain. Let us pick a particular example to start from. We will simply imagine that we are looking at a surface shining all over with the same shade of strong vermilion, and let us assume we succeed in forgetting everything else around us and concentrate entirely on experiencing this colour, so that we have the colour in front of us, not merely as something that works upon us but as something with which we ourselves are united, that we are within. You will then be able to feel as though you were in the world, and in this world the whole of you has become colour, the whole of your innermost soul, and wherever your soul goes in the world you will be a soul filled with red, living in, with and out of red. Yet you will not be able to experience this intensely in the soul unless the corresponding feeling is transformed into moral experience, real moral experience.
If we float through the world as though we were red, had identified ourselves with red, and our very soul and the whole world were entirely red, we shall not be able to help feeling that this whole red world is filling us with the substance of divine wrath, coming towards us from all sides in response to all the possibilities of evil and sin in us. In this infinite red space we shall be able to feel as though we were before the judgment of God, and our moral feeling will become the kind of moral experience our souls can have in infinite space. And when the reaction comes, when something emerges in our soul as we are having this experience in infinite red or, I could also say in the one and only red, I can only describe it by saying we learn to pray. If you can experience the raying and glowing of divine wrath, together with all the possibilities of evil in the human soul, and if you can experience in the red how one learns to pray, the experience of red is enormously deepened. We can also experience the form red takes on when it enters space.
We can then understand how we can experience a being that radiates goodness and is full of divine kindness and mercy, a being that we want to feel in the realm of space. Then we shall feel the need of expressing this divine mercy and goodness in a form which arises out of the colour itself. We shall feel the need to let space be pushed aside so that goodness and mercy may shine forth. Before space was there it was all concentrated at the centre, and now goodness and mercy enter space and, just as clouds are driven apart, space is rent asunder and recedes to make way for mercy, and we have the feeling that what is being scattered must be drawn in red. Here in the centre (a drawing was done) we shall have to indicate faintly a kind of magenta shining into the scattering red.
We shall then be present with our whole soul as the colour takes on form. And with our whole soul we shall feel an echo of how the beings who belong especially to our earth process felt, when they had ascended to the Elohim stage and learnt to fashion the world of forms out of colours. We shall learn to experience something of the creative activity of the Spirits of Form who are the Elohim, and we shall then understand how colour can create forms, as indicated in our first Mystery Play. We shall also understand something of how the surface nature of the colour becomes something that has to be overcome, as it were, because we accompany colour into the cosmos. If strong desire is also present, a feeling can arise like Strader has when he sees the portrait of Capesius, and says he would like to pierce the canvas.
You will see that an attempt has been made in these Mystery Plays really to show in artistic form what it is like for the soul, when it attempts to expand in the cosmic forces and to feel what the spirits of the cosmos are feeling. That was, in fact, the beginning of all art. But the materialistic age had to come, and ancient art, with its divine quality of differentiation, in which spirit was revealed in matter, had to change into secondary, materialistic ‘after’-art, which the art of the materialistic age is, in essence; the kind of art which cannot create but only imitate. The sign of all secondary art, all after-art, is that it needs objects to imitate, and that it does not produce the form primarily out of the material.
Let us take another example. Let us imagine we do the same thing with a more orange coloured surface that we did with the red surface. We shall experience something quite different this time. If we submerge ourselves in it and unite with it, then instead of feeling divine wrath bearing down upon us, we shall have the feeling that what comes to meet us here has much less of the serious side of wrath about it and does not only want to punish us, but wants to impart itself to us and arm us with inner strength.
When we enter the world and unite with the orange surface we move in such a way that with every step we take, we feel that by experiencing orange, by living in the forces of orange, we are becoming stronger and stronger, and that what comes to us out of orange does not come merely to punish us and break us with its judgment, but is a source of strength. This is how we go into the world in orange. We then feel the longing to understand the inner nature of things and to unite it with ourselves. By living in red we learn to pray, by living in orange we experience the desire for knowledge of the inner nature of things.
If we do the same thing with a yellow surface we feel as though we were transported back to the beginning of our cycle of time. We feel that we are then living in the forces out of which we were created when we entered upon our first earthly incarnation. You feel an affinity between what you are throughout the whole of earth existence, and what comes to meet you from the world into which you take the yellow with which you are united.
And if you identify yourself with green and accompany green into the world—which can be done very easily by gazing at a green meadow, shutting out everything else and concentrating completely on it, and then trying to immerse yourself in the green meadow as if the green were the surface of a coloured sea—you experience an inner increase in strength in what your are in that particular incarnation. You feel yourself becoming inwardly healthy, yet at the same time becoming inwardly more egoistic, you feel a stimulus of the egoistic forces within you.
If you did the same with a blue surface, you would go through the world with the desire to accompany the blue forever and to overcome your egoism, become macrocosmic, as it were, and develop devotion. And you would find it a blessing if you could remain like this for your meeting with divine mercy. You would feel blessed by divine mercy if you could go through the world like this.
Thus we learn to know the inner nature of colour and, as I said before, we can foresee a time when an artist's preparation will mean a moral experience in colour of this kind, when the experience preparatory to artistic creation will be much more inward and intuitive than it ever was in past ages. For these are only a few indications I am giving you, and they will be developed much further in the future. They will take hold of men's souls and enliven them with a tremendous sense for artistic creativity, whereas the materialistic culture that has entered our modern age has dried up the soul and made it passive. Souls must be stimulated again by a power from within; they must be taken hold of by the inner forces of things. As a specific example I have taken the colours that flood the world.
The world of sound will deepen and enliven the life of soul in a very similar way. During the period that is now drawing to a close, the essential thing was that a person experienced a tone as such, and the relationship of one tone to another. In the future people will be able to experience what is behind the tone. They will regard the tone as a kind of window through which they enter the spiritual world, and then it will not depend on vague feeling of how one tone is added to another, to form melodies for instance, but by going through the tone the soul will also experience a moral-spiritual quality behind the separate tones. The soul will enter the spiritual world as though through a window. The secrets of the individual tones will be discovered in this experience behind the tones.
We are still a long way away from this feeling of being able to go from the sense world to the spiritual world through the window of each tone. But this will come. We shall experience the tone as an opening made by the gods from the spiritual world yonder to this physical-material world, and we shall climb through the tone out of the physical-material world into the spiritual world. Through the tonic, for example, which we experience as absolute and not in reference to previous tones of the scale, we experience danger as we pass from the sense world into the spiritual world. We are threatened on entry with being taken captive; the tonic wants to suck us in most horribly through the window of the tone and make us completely disappear in the spiritual world. Assuming that we experience the tonic as absolute, we shall feel that we are still too weak in a spiritual sense in the physical world, and that we are sucked up by the spiritual world when we climb through this window. This is the moral experience to be had on entering the spiritual world through the tonic. I am over-simplifying it now, though; we shall have a very differentiated experience which contains an infinite variety of detail.
When we climb out of the physical world into the spiritual world through the window of the second, we shall have the impression of powers in the spiritual world yonder that, as it were, take pity on our weakness and say, ‘Well! so you were weak in the physical sense world! if you only climb into the spiritual world through the tonic I must dissolve you, suck you up and break you to pieces. But, if you enter through the second, I will offer you something from the spiritual world and remind you of something that is there.’ The peculiar thing is that when we climb from the physical to the spiritual world through the second, it is as though a number of tones rang out to receive us. We enter a totally silent world if we enter the spiritual world through the absolute tonic. If we enter through the second we come to a world where, if we listen, various quiet high-pitched tones ring out wanting to comfort us in our weakness. Yet we must go through the window in a way we most certainly could not do in a physical-material house, for the owner would give us a strange look if we were to walk in through the window and take the whole window with us. But in the spiritual world that is what you have to do, take the tones with you and, in union with them, live over there in the beyond, the other side of the thin partition that separates us from the physical-material world, and in which we have to imagine the tones as windows.
If you enter the spiritual world through the third, you will have the feeling of an even greater weakness. If you enter the spiritual world this way, you will feel that you were really very weak in the physical-material world, where its spiritual content is concerned. But with regard to the third—and remember that you have become sound; you yourself have become a third—you will feel that there are friends over there who, although they themselves are not thirds, approach you according to the kind of disposition you had in the physical-material world. If you enter through the second, it is like a gentle sounding of many tones, with whom you share life in general when you enter through them, whilst tones that are, as it were, friends with one another, come to meet you through the third. People who want to become composers will have to enter especially through the third, for that is where the tone sequences, the tone compositions are, that will stimulate their artistic creativity. You will not always be met by the same tone friends, for which ones you meet will depend on your mood and your feeling and your temperament—in fact how you are disposed to life at the time when you go through the third into spiritual life. This results in an infinite variety of possibilities.
If you penetrate through the fourth into the spiritual world, you will have a strange experience. Although no new tones appear from any direction, those that have come before, when you were experiencing the third, will live lightly in the soul as memories. And you will find that in continuing to live with these tone memories they perpetually take on a fresh colouring; at one time they become as bright and cheerful as can be, at other times they descend to the utmost sadness; now they are as bright as day, now they sink down to the silence of the grave. The modulating of the voice, the way the sound ascends and descends; in short, the whole mood of a tonal creation will have its origin along this path, from these sound memories.
The fifth will produce experiences that are more subjective, that work to stimulate and enrich the life of the soul. It is like a magic wand that conjures up the secrets of the sound world yonder, out of unfathomable depths.
Experiences of this kind will come to one when one no longer just looks at the things and phenomena in the world, or just listens to them, but experiences them from within. These are the kind of experiences mankind must have, particularly through colour and sound, but also through form; in fact, altogether through the realm of art, in order to get away from the purely external relationship to things and their functioning—which is characteristic of the materialistic age—and to penetrate into the inner secrets at the heart of things.
Then something tremendously significant will happen to man, and he will be filled with the awareness of his connection with the divine spiritual powers, which are sub-conscious when his awarenesss is confined to the material realm, and which guide and lead him through the world. And then, above all, he will have inner experiences, such as experiencing the forces which guide man from one incarnation to the next.
If we omit to heat a locomotive, it cannot pull a train. The forces which make things happen in the world have to be continually stimulated. The forces which drive mankind forward also need to be stimulated. And this does happen. However, man has to learn that he is connected with these forces.
I once had the following remarkable experience. There was a lawyer, a famous advocate, in the town where I lived for a while, an extraordinarily famous advocate, whom the people absolutely flocked to, because they believed he was bound to win the most difficult lawsuits. And this was often the case. His legal dialectic was extraordinary, and people who knew him had the deepest respect for it. Now he was once entrusted with the difficult case of a rich man. The rich man would have to suffer a severe penalty if the lawsuit resulted in his being sentenced. The advocate used his greatest dialectic and the most wonderful of his legal skills. He made a long speech, and the people who heard him were convinced that if the jury were not to acquit the accused, nothing further could be done about it. Everyone who heard the advocate's amazing skill were absolutely convinced the jury would now withdraw and acquit the accused.
But in the law court there was not only a skilful counsel but also a skilful judge, and although the hour was not yet so advanced that a judgment could no longer be given, the judge said, ‘Let us close the session for today and continue tomorrow.’ So the jury's session was to take place the following morning, and this gave them time to think the matter over again during the night. The following day came. This ‘overnight delay’ as he called it, had already proved very irksome for the advocate. The session began, the jury withdrew, and everyone awaited their return with tense expectation, most of all our advocate. The jury came back after only a quarter of an hour, and when the advocate heard them coming back from the conference room so soon, he fainted. Yes, he fainted. He did recover again, and a friend helped him up. The accused really had been sentenced, but the advocate only heard this after he had recovered from fainting.
Now what could be said about the course of events looked at from the point of view of external perception? One could say that the advocate was a very ambitious man, for he cared so much about winning this lawsuit that he lost consciousness before the verdict was pronounced. As soon as he saw that the jury had only conferred for a short time he was sure the accused had been sentenced, for if they had acquitted him they would, of course, have taken much longer.
But that was not how the matter stood; it only appeared to be so from an external point of view. There was a kind of second layer of events behind what I have just told you. This other layer, or story, is like this: Before this lawsuit took place this advocate had become addicted to what one can call the demon of gambling—I knew him well, of course. He used the sums of money entrusted to him, as deposit to gamble with. It was an absolute passion with him, and not long before this lawsuit began he had reached the point where he had gambled away large sums of money entrusted to his care. But he had been promised that if he should win this suit, he would be paid so much that he could more or less balance the difference.
So he did not faint only out of wounded ambition; he fainited when the jury returned with the verdict after only a quarter of an hour, because his existence had in fact been destroyed. For he had no hope any more of replacing the deposit money he had lost. Therefore his whole existence had depended on the outcome of the lawsuit. He fainted as symbolic indication that he was now completely ruined for this incarnation. He had to escape to America after that, and had to endure a not very enviable existence there for the rest of his life.
An example of this sort shows us that judgment can very often be wrong, for some people might never have had the chance to hear anything about what went on behind the lawsuit. If these people had only heard the clever advocate during the lawsuit and seen him fainting, they could very well have concluded that some people are so ambitious that they lose consciousness if a speech of theirs misfires. And they could have left it at that.
To be able to judge correctly you would therefore have to know a further layer of facts. In many instances you would even have to know several more layers, otherwise you could be correct with regard to the layer you can see and yet make a wrong judgment. That is the external aspect. But the matter has more behind it. The fellow also had to find a way of getting from this incarnation to the next one. And here we have an example of how wise world guidance puts into the soul the forces it needs to lead it from one incarnation to the next. The man was in such inner conflict that it had destroyed his existence. He was in a terrible position. A situation had been created in which there were no forces left to carry him over to his next incarnation. Also, a situation had been created in which forces of that nature could not be brought to his conscious mind. So his consciousness had to be extinguished for a moment. During short breaks in consciousness all kinds of other spirituality can enter the human soul. And in that moment he received forces capable of restoring his impulse to go forward into the next incarnation. Of course an impulse like this can be given in many different ways. What I have described here was one particular case.
These impulses are always there. But I just wanted to show you that man's conscious life is linked with an ongoing process in the unconscious, and that in man's conscious life there are really points where the consciousness is suppressed so that something can enter out of the unconscious. Sometimes these unconscious moments need not be long; they can be short spells similar to fainting. Yet a tremendous amount of spiritual life forces can stream into the human being at such moments, both good and bad, and capable of good and evil.
What I want to show you with this example is that, in observing the world, mankind must try to notice links of this kind, which are of no significance to a materialistic outlook.
You will gradually reach the point of becoming so perceptive for living links that you will recognise the moments in which the spirit comes near to each human being. In the future the world will no longer be explained so unequivocably as it is now, on the basis of material causes, but matter will be relegated to its right place, and at the same time people will realise that the material phenomenon is not the only thing, for spirit shines through
it.
We have seen that colours and sound are windows through which we can ascend spiritually into the spirit world, and life also brings to us windows through which the spiritual world enters our physical world. The advocate's fainting fit was this kind of window. If we interpret this phenomenon correctly we have to say that spiritual life streams down to us through this window. It is clear to us that these forces flowing into us cannot be explained on a purely material level. So there are windows in the tones through which we ascend from the physical-material world into the spiritual world; and there are also windows through which, if we remain in the physical-material world, the spirit can descend to us.
If we do not perceive the fact that spirit descends to us through such windows, it is like someone opening a beautiful book who cannot read. He has the same thing in front of him as someone who can read, but if he cannot read he sees unintelligible scribble on the white pages which, at the most, he can just describe. Only a person who can read is capable of following a biography, perhaps, or a piece of information that has been laid down in these strange signs. A person who cannot read world phenomena is like a cosmic illiterate where these phenomena are concerned. A person who can read, however, reads the ongoing process of the spiritual world in them. It is characteristic of the present materialistic age that materialism has made people illiterate with regard to the cosmos, almost a hundred per cent so. At a time when people are so proud of having reduced the percentage of illiteracy in civilised countries to such a great extent, they are enthusiastically heading towards illiteracy where the cosmos is concerned.
It is the task of spiritual science to eliminate this cosmic illiteracy. Few people nowadays are illiterate in the ordinary sense. In the time of ancient clairvoyance human beings were far less illiterate in the spirit. But this must not make us conceited. It is a fact that when we acquire an inkling of our task in the spiritual-scientific stream, we ought to change from being illiterate to becoming people who can read the cosmos. Yet we should remain humble, for the times are such that we are still very much in need of the elementary level of education. We can hardly read yet, but only spell out the letters. Yet we can be gripped by the impulse to change, an impulse which is breaking in upon mankind through these things. And if we are gripped by them we shall have the right attitude to what the signs of the times are demanding of us, and we shall enter into them as people who rightly belong to the spiritual-scientific world conceptual stream.
Fünfter Vortrag
Ein jegliches Ding, eine jegliche Tatsache der Welt und auch ein. jegliches Verhalten des Menschen, sie haben alle zwei Seiten, sie bilden gleichsam zwei polarische Gegensätze.
Gestern hatte ich Sie aufmerksam darauf zu machen, wie aus dem empfindenden Verständnis unserer geisteswissenschaftlichen Weltanschauung in die Menschenseele hineinkommen sollen Ehrfurcht und Hingebung gegenüber den geistigen Welten. Die andere Seite zu diesem ehrfürchtig-hingebungsvollen Verhalten ist das energische Arbeiten an der eigenen Innerlichkeit, das energische In-die-HandNehmen der Evolutionsfaktoren der eigenen Seele, das Daraufschauen, daß wir unsere Erlebnisse, die wir durchmachen innerhalb unserer Erfahrungen, immer dazu verwenden, etwas an ihnen zu lernen, ein wenig vorwärtszukommen in bezug auf die Kräfte unseres Inneren, damit wir - was uns auch im Leben begegnen, was auch um uns herum vorgehen mag, ob es uns leicht oder schwer verständlich ist — immer der Gefahr entgehen, uns selber zu verlieren. Daß wir immer die Möglichkeit haben, uns zu erhalten, daß wir aus uns selber die Kraft gewinnen können, Verständnis zu entwickeln für dasjenige, was uns oftmals in dem, was als Äußeres an uns herantritt, unverständlich erscheinen kann, daß wir die Ehrfurcht vor Dingen, wie sie gestern erwähnt worden sind, so stark auf die eigene Evolution der Seele wirken lassen mögen, daß diese Seele ein richtiges Verständnis gegenüber dem Weltendasein gewinnen könne: das, meine lieben Freunde, möchte ich Ihnen heute am Beginn des Jahres als den Neujahrsgruß sagen. Ich möchte folgen lassen der Erinnerung an die Ehrfurcht die Erinnerung an das energische Arbeiten an unserem Inneren. Ein Symbolum für diese Folge der Erinnerung ist es, daß uns in dieser Neujahrsnacht der volle Mond aus dem Weltenall hereinscheint. Wäre es umgekehrt gewesen, würden wir den Jahresbeginn mit dem Neumonde haben, so würde ich recht getan haben, die Erinnerungen in der umgekehrten Reihenfolge an Ihre Herzen heranzubringen. Dann hätte ich gestern das Jahr geschlossen mit der Erinnerung an die Kraft der inneren Evolution und hätte heute folgen zu lassen gehabt die Erinnerung an die Ehrfurcht.
Daß ein solches Symbolum, wie es uns erglänzt aus dem Makrokosmos, wirklich beachtet wird, das ist dasjenige, was wiederum immer mehr und mehr als etwas Wichtiges angesehen werden soll. Und wenn wir ruhige Augenblicke in diesem Jahr haben, dann lassen wir diesen Wink auf uns wirken, lassen ihn so wirken, daß es in diesem Jahr von besonderer Bedeutung sein kann, sich zuerst einmal zu überlegen, was die Kraft der Ehrfurcht aus uns machen kann, und dann sich zu überlegen, was die Kraft der inneren Erhaltung, Bewahrung der inneren Seelenenergie aus uns machen soll.
Aus der Sternenschrift ist uns diese Reihenfolge für dieses Jahr geboten, und die Welt wird wiederum einsehen nach und nach, daß das Lesen in der Sternenschrift für den Menschen doch eineBedeutung hat. So suchen wir auch in diesen Einzelheiten zu beachten das große Gesetz des menschlichen Daseins, Einklang zu erstreben zwischen dem Makrokosmos und dem Mikrokosmos. Der Makrokosmos drückt sich ja in der Mondphase in diesen Tagen für uns auf die elementarste Weise aus, und den Einklang mit diesem Makrokosmos in unserem Mikrokosmos finden wir, wenn wir uns demgemäß verhalten in dem Ablaufe dieses Jahres, das unter so schmerzlichen Tatsachen geboren worden ist.
Wenn Sie das beachten, was wie ein Grundton durch die Auseinandersetzungen der letzten Tage hindurchgegangen ist, so wird es Ihnen das sein, daß wir in bezug auf die gerade uns wichtigen Tatsachen, die uns wichtig geworden sind durch die geisteswissenschaftlichen Betrachtungen, in einer Zeit des Umschwungs, gewissermaßen in einer Zeit der Hoffnung leben, in einer Zeit, wo uns Ahnungen aufgehen sollen, wie es im weiteren Verlaufe der menschlichen Kulturentwickelung auf der Erde werden soll, wie ein Umschwung stattfinden soll von einer rein materialistischen zu einer spirituellen Weltauffassung. Das aber, was hiermit angedeutet worden ist, kann nicht in einem vollen Umfange wirklich eintreten, wenn es nicht alle Gebiete des Lebens ergreift und vor allen Dingen die geistigen Gebiete des Lebens in hohem Maße erfaßt.
Schon haben wir erkennen können aus mancherlei Andeutungen, wie das wirkliche gefühlsmäßige, nicht bloß verstandesmäßige Erfassen der geisteswissenschaftlichen Weltanschauung auch einen Umschwung im künstlerischen Schaffen und im künstlerischen Genießen zur Folge haben muß, daß gleichsam einfließen können die Kräfte, die uns kommen aus der geisteswissenschaftlichen Anschauung für das künstlerische Erfassen der Welt. Haben wir ja gerade versucht, mit unserem Bau eine Art Impuls anzudeuten für wenigstens einen kleinen Teil desjenigen, was aus geisteswissenschaftlichen Impulsen hineinfließen kann in das künstlerische Gestalten, in das, was wir künstlerisch vor uns haben können.
Eine Zeit können wir vor uns sehen, wenn wir voll untertauchen in die Empfindungen und Gefühle, die uns hervorgehen können aus der geisteswissenschaftlichen Weltanschauung, eine Zeit, wo der Weg zum Künstlertum in vieler Beziehung ein anderer werden wird, als er in der abgelaufenen Zeit war, wo er ein viel lebensvollerer sein wird, wo das, was Mittel des künstlerischen Schaffens ist, viel intensiver erlebt werden wird von der Menschenseele, als es in abgelebten Zeiten erlebt worden ist, wo Farbe und Ton viel intimer von der menschlichen Seele durchlebt werden, gewissermaßen von der menschlichen Seele moralisch-spirituell durchlebt werden können, und wo in den Schöpfungen der Künstler uns entgegentreten werden gleichsam die Spuren der Erlebnisse der Künstlerseelen im Kosmos.
Im wesentlichen war das Verhalten des künstlerisch Schaffenden und des künstlerisch Genießenden in der abgelaufenen Epoche eine Art äußeren Anschauens, ein Appellieren an das, was von außen an den Künstler herantreten kann. Das Angewiesensein auf die Natur und auf das Modell für das äußere Anschauen ist immer größer und größer geworden. Nicht soll etwa in einer einseitigen Weise hingewiesen werden auf ein Verlassen der Natur, auf ein Verlassen der äußeren Wirklichkeit in der Kunst der Zukunft. Das sei ferne. Hingewiesen soll werden auf ein noch intensiveres Beisammensein mit der äußeren Welt, auf ein so starkes Zusammensein, daß es sich nicht bloß erstreckt auf den äußeren Eindruck der Farbe, des 'Tones und der Form, sondern auch auf dasjenige, was man hinter dem Tone, hinter der Farbe, hinter den Formen erleben kann, was sich offenbart in Farbe, Ton und Form.
In dieser Beziehung werden die Menschenseelen bedeutungsvolle Entdeckungen machen in der Zukunft. Sie werden wirklich ihr moralisch-spirituelles Wesen verbinden mit demjenigen, was der Sinnenschein uns bringt. Eine unendliche Vertiefung der Menschenseele kann auf diesem Gebiete vorausgesehen werden. Nehmen wir einmal zunächst als Grundlage eine Einzelheit. Wir nehmen einfach den Fall, daß wir unseren Blick auf eine gleichmäßig in stark zinnobrigem Rot leuchtende Farbenfläche richten, und wir nehmen ferner an, daß wir dazu gelangen, alles übrige, das um uns herum ist, zu vergessen, uns zu konzentrieren ganz auf das Erleben dieser Farbe, so daß wir diese Farbe nicht bloß als etwas vor uns haben, das auf uns wirkt, sondern so, daß wir diese Farbe als etwas haben, worin wir selber sind, daß wir eins werden mit dieser Farbe. Wir werden dann gleichsam die Empfindung haben können: Du bist jetzt in der Welt, du bist selbst in dieser Welt ganz Farbe geworden, das Innerste deines Seelenwesens ist ganz Farbe geworden, wo du auch hinkommen magst in der Welt mit deiner Seele, wirst du als roterfüllte Seele hinkommen, du wirst überall in Rot, mit Rot und aus Rot leben. -— Dies aber wird man bei intensivem Seelenleben nicht erleben können, ohne daß die entsprechende Empfindung übergeht in ein moralisches Erleben, in wirkliches moralisches Erleben.
Wenn man so gleichsam die Welt durchschwimmt als Rot, identisch geworden ist mit dem Rot, wenn einem also selbst die Seele und auch die Welt ganz rot ist, so wird man nicht umhin können, in dieser rot gewordenen Welt, mit der man selber rot ist, zu empfinden, als wenn diese ganze Welt im Rot zugleich uns durchsetzt mit der Substanz des göttlichen Zornes, der uns von allen Seiten entgegenstrahlt für alles dasjenige, was an Möglichkeiten des Bösen und der Sünde in uns ist. Wir werden uns gleichsam in dem unendlichen roten Raum wie in einem Strafgerichte Gottes empfinden können, und unser moralisches Empfinden wird wie eine moralische Empfindung unserer Seele im ganzen unendlichen Raum sein können. Und wenn dann die Reaktion kommt, wenn irgend etwas auftaucht in unserer Seele, wenn wir uns also im unendlichen Rot erleben, ich könnte auch sagen, im einzigen Rot erleben, so kann es nur so sein, daß man es bezeichnen möchte mit dem Worte: Man lernt beten. Wenn man im Rot erleben kann das. Erstrahlen und Erglühen des göttlichen Zornes mit allem, was an Möglichkeiten des Bösen in der menschlichen Seele liegen kann, und wenn man im Rot erfahren kann, wie man beten lernt, dann ist das Erleben mit dem Rot unendlich vertieft. Dann können wir auch verspüren, wie sich das Rot formend in die Räumlichkeit hineinstellen kann.
Wir können es dann begreifen, wie wir erleben können ein Wesen, das von sich Gutes ausstrahlt, das erfüllt ist mit göttlicher Güte und göttlicher Barmherzigkeit, ein Wesen, das wir hineinempfinden wollen in den Raum. Dann werden wir die Notwendigkeit fühlen, dieses Hineinempfinden in den Raum der göttlichen Barmherzigkeit, der göttlichen Güte, zur Form aus der Farbe heraus sich gestalten zu lassen. Wir werden das Bedürfnis empfinden, abwehren zu lassen die Räumlichkeit, so daß die Güte, die Barmherzigkeit ausstrahlt. Bevor sie da war, war es so zusammengezogen, ganz konzentriert im Mittelpunkt, und jetzt stellt sie sich hinein, diese Güte und Barmherzigkeit, in den Raum, und wie Wolken auseinandergetrieben werden, so treibt sie das zurück, treibt es auseinander, so daß es vor der Barmherzigkeit weicht und wir das Gefühl bekommen: das mußt du verlaufend rot machen. Und dann werden wir das Gefühl bekommen: Hier (es wurde gezeichnet) in der Mitte werden wir eine Art Rosaviolett schwach andeuten müssen als hineinstrahlend in das auseinanderstiebende Rot.
Wir werden dann mit unserer ganzen Seele bei einem solchen SichFormen der Farbe dabei sein. Wir werden mit unserer ganzen Seele etwas nachempfinden, was die Wesen empfunden haben, die insbesondere zu unserem Erdenwerden gehören, die, als sie zu dem Elohimdasein aufgestiegen waren, gelernt haben, aus den Farben heraus die Formenwelt zu gestalten. Wir werden lernen, etwas zu empfinden von dem Schöpferischen der Geister der Form, die uns als Geister die Elohim sind, und wir werden dann begreifen, wie die Formen der Farbe Werk sein können, was angedeutet worden ist in unserem ersten Mysterium. Wir werden auch etwas begreifen davon, wie gleichsam die Fläche der Farbe für uns etwas wird, was überwunden werden muß, weil wir mit der Farbe in das Weltenall gehen. Wenn das bei einer starken Wunschentwickelung auftritt, dann kann eine solche Empfindung entstehen, wie diejenige ist, die in Strader lebt in dem Augenblicke, wo er das Ebenbild des Capesius sieht und sagt: «Die Leinwand, ich möchte sie durchstoßen. »
Wenn Sie ein solches Mysterienspiel nehmen, dann werden Sie ja sehen, wie in diesen Mysterienspielen versucht worden ist, wirklich so etwas künstlerisch hinzustellen, wie es sich vor uns hinstellt, wenn unsere Seele versucht, sich aufnehmen zu lassen von den kosmischen Kräften, wenn sie mitfühlt mit den Geistern des Kosmos. Das war wirklich der Anfang aller Kunst. Dann aber mußte die materialistische Zeit kommen und diese mit ihrer göttlichen Nuancierung auftretende alte Kunst, bei der das Geistige als Innerliches durch die Materie sich offenbart, mußte sich verwandeln in die sekundäre, materialistische Afterkunst, die im wesentlichen die Kunst der materialistischen Zeit ist, jene Kunst, welche nicht schaffen, sondern nur nachschaffen kann. Es ist das Zeichen alles Sekundär-Künstlerischen, alles Afterkünstlerischen, daß es nur nachschaffen kann, daß es Vorwürfe braucht zum Nachschaffen, und daß es nicht primär zugleich mit dem Stoffe die Form erzeugt.
Nehmen wir ein anderes. Nehmen wir an, wir machten dasselbe, was wir hier mit der roten Fläche gemacht haben, mit einer mehr orangefarbenen Fläche. Wir werden da ganz andere Erfahrungen machen mit der orangefarbenen Fläche. Wenn wir uns in sie versenken und eins werden mit derselben, so werden wir nicht jene Empfindungen haben können von einem Entgegensteuern dem göttlichen Zorn, sondern wir werden das Gefühl haben, daß das, was uns da entgegensteuert, höchstens nur noch im schwachen Maße das Seriöse des Zornes hat, daß es aber etwas ist, was sich uns mitteilen will, was uns nicht bloß strafen will, sondern was uns mit innerer Kraft ausrüsten will.
Indem wir hineingehen in die Welt und eins geworden sind mit der Orangefläche, bewegen wir uns so, daß wir mit jedem Schritt, den wir weiterkommen, fühlen: Durch diese Empfindung im Orange, durch dieses Leben in den Orangekräften werden wir uns so in die Welt hineinkraften, daß wir stärker und stärker werden, daß uns nicht bloß das Strafgericht zerschellt, sondern daß das, was da aus dem Orange an uns herankommt, nicht bloß strafend kommt, sondern ein Stärkendes ist. So leben wir uns mit dem Orange hinein in die Welt. Wir lernen dann die Sehnsucht, das Innere der Dinge zu ergreifen und es mit uns selber zu vereinigen. Wir lernen durch das Leben im Rot beten. Wir lernen durch das Leben im Orange die Erkenntnis, die Sehnsucht nach der Erkenntnis des inneren Wesens der Dinge.
Wenn es eine gelbe Fläche ist, und wir machen dasselbe, dann fühlen wir uns in diesem Erleben des Gelben wie, ich möchte sagen, an den Anfang unseres Zeitenzyklus versetzt. Wir fühlen: Jetzt lebst du in den Kräften, aus denen du geschaffen worden bist, als du deine erste Erdeninkarnation antratest. — Das, was man ist durch das ganze Erdendasein hindurch, fühlt man verwandt mit dem, was einem entgegenkommt aus der Welt, in die man selber das mit einem identisch gewordene Gelb trägt.
Und identifiziert man sich mit Grün und geht mit dem Grün durch die Welt, was man dadurch besonders leicht haben kann, daß man versucht, die Augen über eine grüne Wiese schweifen zu lassen, den Blick über dieselbe auszubreiten, und versucht nun, von allem übrigen abzusehen, sich ganz zu konzentrieren auf die grüne Wiese, unterzutauchen in die grüne Wiese, das Grün als die Oberfläche eines Farbenmeeres zu betrachten und dann unterzutauchen in das Grün: wenn man so versucht zu leben in der Welt, dann erlebt man ein innerliches Kräftigerwerden in dem, was man in der einen Inkarnation ist. Man erlebt ein innerliches Gesundwerden, aber zu gleicher Zeit auch ein innerliches Egoistischerwerden, ein Angeregtsein der egoistischen Kräfte im eigenen Inneren.
Würde man dasselbe mit einer blauen Fläche machen, so würde man durch die Welt gehen, indem man das Bedürfnis empfindet, mit dem Blau immer weiter und weiter fortzuschreiten, den Egoismus in sich zu überwinden, gleichsam makrokosmisch zu werden, Hingabe zu entwickeln. Und man würde sich beglückt finden, wenn man in dieser Vorstellung bleiben könnte durch das einem Entgegenkommen der göttlichen Barmherzigkeit. Wie begnadet von göttlicher Barmherzigkeit würde man sich fühlen, wenn man also durch die Welt geht.
So lernt man erkennen die innere Natur des Farbigen. Und wie gesagt, eine Zeit können wir vorausahnen, wo die Vorbereitung, die der Maler als Künstler durchmachen wird, ein solches moralisches Erleben in der Farbe bedeuten wird, wo viel innerlicher, viel intimer, als es jemals in alten Zeiten der Fall gewesen ist, das Erleben sein wird, das vorbereitet zum künstlerischen Schaffen. Denn das sind nur einzelne Andeutungen, die ich hier gebe, die noch weiter ausgebildet werden in der Zukunft. Sie werden mit einem kolossalen Sinn für das künstlerische Schaffen die Seele des Menschen ergreifen und lebendig machen können, während das sich Hereinbewegen der materialistischen Kulturentwickelung in unser modernes Zeitalter hinein die Seele ausgedörrt hat, passiv gemacht hat. Durch innere Kraft müssen die Seelen wiederum angeregt werden, erfaßt werden müssen sie von den inneren Kräften der Dinge. Dieses spezifische Beispiel, das ich gebraucht habe, sind die Farben, die in der Welt fluten.
In einer ganz ähnlichen Weise wird die Vertiefung und Belebung des menschlichen Seelenlebens durch die Tonwelt eintreten. Das Wesentliche der abgelaufenen Periode in bezug auf diesen Punkt ist ja, daß der Mensch einen Ton als solchen erlebt, und dann das Verhältnis von einem Ton zu einem andern. In der Zukunft wird der Mensch mit seinem Erleben hinter den Ton gehen können. Er wird gleichsam den Ton wie ein Fenster betrachten, durch das er in die geistige Welt hineintritt, und dann wird es nicht von jenem unbestimmten Fühlen abhängen, wie Ton an Ton sich setzt, zu Melodien zum Beispiel, sondern hinter den einzelnen Tönen wird die Seele wiederum moralisch-spirituell erleben durch den Ton hindurch. Wie durch ein Fenster wird die Seele in die spirituelle Welt eindringen. Die Geheimnisse des einzelnen Tones werden sich in diesem Erleben des einzelnen Tones hinter dem Ton enthüllen.
Wir sind noch weit entfernt von diesem Gefühle, daß wir durch jeden Ton wie durch ein Fenster aus der sinnlichen Welt in die spirituelle Welt hineinsteigen können. Aber dies wird kommen. Wir werden den Ton empfinden wie eine Öffnung, welche die Götter gemacht haben aus der jenseits von uns liegenden spirituellen Welt in diese physisch-sinnliche Welt hinein, und wir werden hineinsteigen durch den Ton aus der physisch-sinnlichen Welt in die spirituelle Welt. Wir werden zum Beispiel durch eine Prim, die wir absolut empfinden, nicht etwa in Anlehnung an frühere Töne der Tonskala, erfühlen, wie wir hineinsteigen aus der Sinnenwelt in die spirituelle Welt, und zwar auf eine gefahrvolle Weise. Die Gefahr liegt darinnen, daß uns dieses Hineinsteigen droht ganz gefangenzunehmen, daß uns die Prim wie mit furchtbarer Saugekraft durch das Fenster des Tones holen will, uns ganz verschwinden lassen will in der spirituellen Welt. Wir werden empfinden, wenn wir also die Prim als eine Absolute empfinden, daß wir spirituell noch zu schwach sind in der physischsinnlichen Welt und daß wir aufgesogen werden von der spirituellen Welt, wenn wir durch dieses Fenster gestiegen sind. Das wird die moralische Empfindung sein, die wir haben können beim Aufsteigen in die spirituelle Welt durch die Prim. Aber das charakterisiere ich jetzt nur so einfach, das wird eine ganz differenzierte, unendlich mannigfaltige Einzelheiten in sich enthaltende Empfindung sein, die wir da erleben.
Wenn wir dann durch die Sekund wie durch ein Fenster hineinsteigen aus der physischen Welt in die spirituelle Welt, werden wir empfinden so, wie wenn es drüben in der geistig-spirituellen Welt Mächte gäbe, die sich gleichsam unserer Schwachheit erbarmen, die sagen: Nun ja, du warst schwach in dieser physisch-sinnlichen Welt! Wenn du nur durch die Prim hineinsteigst in die geistige Welt, so muß ich dich auflösen, muß dich aufsaugen, muß dich zersplittern oder zerschellen. Wenn du aber durch die Sekund hereinsteigst, will ich dir etwas entgegenbringen aus der geistigen Welt und dich erinnern an etwas, was auch drüben ist. - Das Eigentümliche ist, wenn wir durch die Sekund aus der physischen in die spirituelle Welt hineinsteigen, als ob eine Summe von Tönen, eine Anzahl von Tönen uns entgegentönte, die einen in Empfang nehmen. In eine völlig stumme Welt tritt man ein, wenn man durch die absolute Prim eintritt in die spirituelle Welt. In eine Welt, in der, wenn man so hinhört, leise verschieden hohe Töne erklingen, die einen trösten wollen über die Schwachheit, kommt man, wenn man durch die Sekund eindringt. So aber muß man eindringen, wie man natürlich nicht eindringen darf durch ein Fenster in ein physisch-sinnliches Haus, denn da würde einen der Eigentümer sonderbar anschauen, wenn man durch das Fenster einträte und das ganze Fenster mitnähme. In der geistigen Welt aber muß man das tun, man muß die Fenster mitnehmen, die Töne mitnehmen, und mit ihnen identifiziert ganz drüben leben in der spirituellen Welt, jenseits des Häutchens, das uns von der physisch-sinnlichen Welt trennt.
Wenn man durch die Terz in die geistige Welt eingeht, so wird man das Gefühl einer starken, einer stärkeren Schwäche noch haben. Wenn man so die spirituelle Welt betritt, wird man fühlen, daß man eigentlich recht schwach war in der physisch-sinnlichen Welt in bezug auf deren spirituellen Inhalt. Aber man wird in bezug auf die Terz man ist ja Ton geworden, man ist jetzt selber Terz geworden fühlen, daß da drüben Freunde sind, die nicht selber Terzen sind, die aber herankommen, je nachdem man in der physisch-sinnlichen Welt beschaffen war. Während es bei dem Eindringen durch die Sekunde wie ein leises Erklingen vieler Töne ist, in denen man so im allgemeinen lebt, wenn man durch sie eindringt, werden einem durch die Terz entgegenkommen gleichsam befreundete Töne. Diejenigen, die Komponisten werden wollen, werden insbesondere durch die Terz eindringen müssen, denn da werden sich ergeben die Tonfolgen, Tonkompositionen, welche anregen werden ihr künstlerisches Schaffen. Nicht immer dieselben Tonfreunde werden einem entgegenkommen, sondern ihre Art wird davon abhängen, wie man in der Stimmung, im Erleben, im Temperamente, kurz in der ganzen Verfassung des Lebens war, wenn man also durch die Terz in das geistige Leben eintritt: eine unendliche Mannigfaltigkeit der Tonwelt wird sich da ergeben.
Dringt man durch die Quart in die geistige Welt ein, dann wird man eine merkwürdige Erfahrung machen: die Erfahrung, daß jetzt allerdings von keiner Seite andere Töne auftauchen, daß aber dasjenige, was schon aufgetaucht ist, was man durch die Erfahrungen mit der Terz durchgemacht hat, in leicht kommenden Erinnerungen in der Seele lebt. Und man wird finden, indem man so weiterlebt mit seinen Tonerinnerungen, wenn man eingedrungen ist durch die Quart in die spirituelle Welt, daß diese 'Tonerinnerungen immer andere Färbungen annehmen, daß sie bald sich entwickeln zu hellster Helligkeit und Heiterkeit, bald sich herabstimmen zur äußersten Traurigkeit, bald sonnig hell, bald traurig untertauchend bis zur Grabesruhe. Das Temperieren der Stimme, das Hinauf- und Hinuntergehen des Tones, kurz, der Verlauf in der Stimmung eines Tonwerkes wird sich ergeben durch diesen Weg, durch diese Tonerinnerungen.
Die Quint wird mehr subjektive Erfahrungen und Erlebnisse ergeben, sie wird anregend, bereichernd auf das seelische Erleben wirken. Sie wird gleichsam wie ein Zauberstab wirken, der die Geheimnisse der Tonwelt drüben aus unergründlichen Tiefen hervorzaubett.
Solche Erlebnisse wird man haben, wenn man mit den Dingen, mit den Erscheinungen der Welt nicht bloß so verkehrt, daß man sie anschaut, anhört, sondern so, daß man sie innerlich erlebt. Durch diese Art des Erlebens, namentlich an Farben und Tönen, aber auch an den Formen, kurz, an dem Künstlerischen muß der Weg gefunden werden, den die Menschheit gehen muß, um überhaupt aus dem bloß äußerlichen Sich-Verhalten zu den Dingen und ihrem Verlaufe — was das Kennzeichen eines materialistischen Zeitalters ist -— herauszukommen und in die innerlichen Tiefen der Dinge, in ihre Geheimnisse zu dringen.
Dann wird über den Menschen kommen ein Bewußtsein, ein ungeheuer bedeutungsvolles Bewußtsein von seinem Zusammenhang mit den für das materialistische Bewußtsein unterbewußten göttlich-geistigen Kräften, die ihn führen und leiten durch die Welt. Und dann wird vor allen Dingen so etwas auftreten wie ein innerliches Erleben jener Kräfte, die zum Beispiel den Menschen hinüberleiten von einer Inkarnation zur andern.
Wenn wir eine Lokomotive nicht heizen, so kann sie nicht einen Eisenbahnzug vorwärtsziehen. Die Kräfte müssen fortwährend angeregt werden, die das Geschehen in der Welt herbeiführen. So müssen auch die Kräfte angeregt werden, welche den Menschen vorwärtstreiben. Und es geschieht das auch. Aber lernen muß der Mensch, sich in Verbindung zu wissen mit diesen Kräften.
Ich konnte einmal folgende bemerkenswerte Erfahrung machen. Es war ein Rechtsgelehrter, ein Advokat, der ganz berühmt war, an dem Orte, wo ich eine Zeitlang lebte, ein außerordentlich berühmter Advokat, dem die Leute förmlich zugelaufen sind und von dem sie die Meinung hatten, daß er die schwierigsten Prozesse gewinnen müsse. Es war das auch in vielen Fällen geschehen. Seine advokatorische Dialektik war eine außerordentlich große, und die Leute, die ihn kannten, hatten die größte Verehrung für diese advokatorische Dialektik. Da wurde ihm einmal ein schwieriger Prozeß eines reichen Mannes übergeben. Es hing das Verhängtwerden einer großen Strafe von dem Ausgang des Prozesses für diesen reichen Mann im Verurteilungsfalle ab. Der Advokat bot die alleräußerste Dialektik, die wunderbarste Advokatengeschicklichkeit auf. Er hielt eine lange Rede, und das Auditorium hatte durchaus den Eindruck, wenn die Geschworenen — es handelte sich um ein Geschworenengeticht — jetzt den Angeklagten nicht freisprechen, dann weiß man eigentlich gar nicht mehr, was advokatorische Kunst noch entwickeln könnte. Alle diejenigen, welche das gehört hatten, was an ungeheuerlicher Geschicklichkeit von dem Advokaten geleistet worden war, hatten durchaus den Eindruck, die Geschworenen würden sich jetzt zurückziehen und den Angeklagten freisprechen.
Nun war aber bei dem Gerichte nicht nur ein geschickter Rechtsanwalt, sondern auch ein geschickter Vorsitzender des Gerichtshofes, und obgleich die Stunde noch nicht so weit vorgerückt war, daß das Urteil nicht mehr hätte gefällt werden können, so sagte der Vorsitzende doch: Wir wollen heute die Sitzung abbrechen und sie morgen fortsetzen. - Am nächsten Tag, vormittags, sollte also die Sitzung der Geschworenen sein und dadurch hatten die Geschworenen über Nacht Zeit, die Sache noch einmal durchzudenken. Der nächste Tag kam. Dieses «Verschleppen über Nacht», wie er es nannte, war dem Advokaten schon recht unangenehm gewesen. Die Sitzung begann, die Geschworenen zogen sich zurück, alles wartete in größter Spannung auf ihr Wiedererscheinen, in allergrößter Spannung aber war der betreffende Advokat. Nach einer Viertelstunde schon kamen die Geschworenen zurück, und als der Advokat die Geschworenen nach so kurzer Zeit aus dem Beratungszimmer zurückkehren hörte, fiel er in Ohnmacht. Ja, er fiel in Ohnmacht. Er erholte sich wieder, wurde gestützt von einem seiner Freunde. Der Angeklagte war wirklich verurteilt worden. Aber das erfuhr der Advokat erst, nachdem er sich von der Ohnmacht wieder erholt hatte.
Was konnte man nun sagen, wenn man den Verlauf der Tatsachen äußerlich betrachtete, nach dem, was sich der menschlichen Anschauung darbot? Man konnte sagen: Der Advokat ist ein sehr ehrgeiziger Mann, denn ihm lag so viel an dem Gewinnen dieses Prozesses, daß er vor der Urteilsverkündung das Bewußtsein verlor. Als er sah, daß die Geschworenen nur so lange sich beraten hatten, war es für ihn sicher, daß der Angeklagte verurteilt würde, denn hätten sie ihn freigesprochen, so würden sie natürlich viel längere Zeit gebraucht haben.
So war aber die Sache nicht, so hätte sie sich nur für die äußere Anschauung darstellen können. Es lag gleichsam eine andere Schicht von Ereignissen hinter dem, was ich jetzt erzählt habe. Diese andere Schicht oder Geschichte ist diese: Der betreffende Advokat war erfaßt worden - ich kannte ihn ja gut - in einer Zeit, die vor diesem Prozesse lag, von dem, was man nennen kann den Spielteufel. Er nahm die Gelder, die ihm als Depot anvertraut waren, und spielte damit an der Börse. Es war eine reine Leidenschaft für ihn, und er war kurz vor dem Beginne dieses Prozesses so weit, daß er große Geldbeträge, die ihm anvertraut gewesen, verspielt hatte. Versprochen aber war ihm, daß er, wenn er den Prozeß gewinnt, so viel bekommen würde, daß er ungefähr die Differenz ausgleichen konnte.
Er fiel also nicht in Ohnmacht aus bloß gekränktem Ehrgeiz, sondern er fiel in Ohnmacht, als nach einer Viertelstunde die Geschwotrenen mit einem Schuldurteil herauskamen, weil tatsächlich seine Existenz vernichtet war. Denn nun konnte er niemals mehr daran denken, dasjenige, was er an Depotgeldern verspielt hatte, wieder zu ersetzen. Seine ganze Existenz hing also an dem Ausgange dieses Prozesses. Er fiel in Ohnmacht als symbolische Andeutung dafür, daß er jetzt für diese Inkarnation überhaupt vernichtet war. Er mußte dann nach Amerika fliehen und hat ein nicht sehr beneidenswertes Dasein für den Rest seiner Inkarnation in Amerika durchzumachen gehabt.
Wir sehen an einem solchen Falle das Folgende. Wir sehen, daß sehr häufig im Leben das Urteil fehlgeht, denn es hätte ganz gut Menschen geben können, die niemals etwas erfahren hätten von dem, was hinter dem Prozesse spielte. Wenn diese nur den dialektisch so geschulten Advokaten bei dem Prozesse gehört und gesehen hätten, wie er in Ohnmacht fiel, so hätten sie sehr wohl urteilen können: Es gibt Leute, die so ehrgeizig sind, daß sie bei einer verfehlten Rede das Bewußtsein verlieren. —- Bei diesem Urteil hätte man bleiben können.
Um hier richtig urteilen zu können, mußte man also noch eine Schicht mehr der Tatsachen wissen. Für viele Dinge muß man sogar viele Schichten mehr wissen, denn sonst kann man Recht haben in bezug auf die eine Schicht, die man übersieht, und dennoch ein. falsches Urteil fällen. Das ist das Äußerliche. Aber die Sache hat noch einen weiteren Hintergrund. Der Mann mußte doch auch einen Weg finden von dieser Inkarnation in die nächste hinein. Und so haben wir hier ein Beispiel, wie die weise Weltenlenkung gleichsam die Kräfte in die Seele hineinversetzt, die notwendig sind, um die Seele von der einen Inkarnation in die nächste hinüberzuleiten. Der Mann war in einen solchen Lebenskonflikt gekommen, daß ihm dieser Lebenskonflikt die Existenzmöglichkeit verzehrt hatte. Es war eine furchtbare Lage geschaffen; es war damit die Lage geschaffen, daß keine Kräfte mehr vorhanden waren, die ihn hinüberbringen konnten in die nächste Inkarnation. Es war aber auch die Lage geschaffen, daß in sein Bewußtsein solche Kräfte nicht gebracht werden konnten. Da mußte denn der Fall eintreten, daß das Bewußtsein kurz ausgelöscht wurde. Und in der Zeit, wo das Bewußtsein in der Menschenseele für kurze Zeit ausgelöscht wird, kann das Mannigfaltigste von äußerer Spiritualität in die Menschenseele hineindringen. In diesem Momente drangen also Kräfte in ihn hinein, die geeignet sind, ihm wiederum den Impuls, den Antrieb für den Übergang in die nächste Inkarnation zu geben. Natürlich geschieht das Geben des Antriebes, des Impulses in der verschiedenartigsten Weise. Das, was ich geschildert habe, war so ein besonderer Fall.
Diese Antriebe sind immer da. Aber ich wollte Ihnen damit nur zeigen, wie des Menschen bewußtes Leben an einen unbewußten Verlauf geknüpft ist, und wie es wirklich im bewußten Verlaufe Punkte gibt, wo das Bewußtsein zerpreßt wird, damit aus dem Unbewußten etwas hereinkommen kann. Diese unbewußten Augenblicke brauchen manchmal nicht lang zu sein, es können kurze, ohnmachtähnliche Zustände sein. Dennoch kann ungeheuer vieles in solchen Momenten an spirituell-vitalen Kräften in die menschliche Natur hineinstrahlen, sowohl an guten, als auch an bösen Kräften, die zu dem oder jenem fähig sind.
Dieses letztere Beispiel und dasjenige, was ich darin ausführen will, führte ich an aus dem Grunde, um zu zeigen, wie in der Weltbetrachtung die Menschheit versuchen muß, Zusammenhänge zu beachten, die für eine materialistische Welterfassung bedeutungslos sind.
Man wird dahin kommen, die Lebenszusammenhänge allmählich so zu durchschauen, daß man die Augenblicke erkennt, in denen das Spirituelle an jeden Menschen herantritt. Man wird in Zukunft die Welt nicht mehr so eindeutig darstellen, wie man es jetzt macht, indem man sie aus den materiellen Ursachen erklärt, sondern man wird sie in Zukunft so darstellen, daß man das Materielle an den richtigen Ort stellen wird, gleichzeitig aber auch erkennen wird, daß noch mehr da ist als die bloße materielle Erscheinung, und daß durch die materielle Erscheinung durchblickt das Spirituelle.
Haben wir in den Farben und Tönen Fenster gesehen, durch die wir hindurchsteigen, geistig, in die spirituelle Welt hinein, so bringt uns das Leben wiederum Fenster, durch welche die geistige Welt in unsere physische Welt hineintritt. Die Ohnmacht des Advokaten war ein solches Fenster. Deuten wir richtig dieses Ereignis, so müssen wir sagen: Es strömt durch dieses Fenster spirituelles Leben zu uns herein. Wir sehen, hier spielen Kräfte in uns hinein, die wir nicht bloß sinnlich deuten können. Es gibt also Fenster in den Tönen, durch die wir aus der physisch-sinnlichen Welt in die spirituelle Welt hineinsteigen. Und es gibt wieder Fenster, durch die, wenn wir stehenbleiben in der physisch-sinnlichen Welt, das Spirituelle zu uns hineinsteigt.
Merken wir das nicht, daß das Spirituelle durch solche Fenster zu uns hineinsteigt, ja, dann ist es so, wie wenn ein Mensch, der nicht lesen kann, ein schönes Buch aufschlägt. Er hat dasselbe vor sich wie einer, der lesen kann, aber wer nicht lesen kann, der sieht da ein Kricksel-Kracksel auf dem weißen Papier, das er nicht deuten kann, er kann es höchstens beschreiben. Nur derjenige, welcher lesen kann, ist in der Lage, in diesem Buche vielleicht ein Schicksal oder eine Weisheit zu verfolgen, die hineingelegt worden sind in diese sonderbaren Zeichen. Derjenige, der die Welterscheinungen nicht lesen kann, steht eben wie ein Analphabet des Kosmos vor den Erscheinungen. Der aber, der lesen kann, liest den Verlauf der geistigen Welt aus diesen Dingen. Das für die jetzige materialistische Zeit Charakteristische ist, daß die Menschen durch den Materialismus dem Kosmos gegenüber Analphabeten sind, und zwar nahezu hundertprozentige. In einer Zeit, wo man so stolz darauf ist, daß man die Prozente der Analphabeten in den Kulturländern so sehr vermindert hat, steuert man mit Begeisterung dem Analphabetismus in kosmischer Beziehung entgegen.
Diesen kosmischen Analphabetismus aufzuheben, ist die Aufgabe der Geisteswissenschaft. Jetzt gibt es wenige Menschen, die Analphabeten sind im gewöhnlichen Sinne. Die Menschen waren in den Zeiten des alten Hellsehens viel weniger Analphabeten des Geistes. Aber das soll uns alles nicht stolz machen. Wahr ist es, wenn wir unsere Aufgabe in der geisteswissenschaftlichen Strömung ahnen, daß wir aus Analphabeten Lesende des Kosmos werden sollen. Aber wir sollen die Demut dabei nicht verlieren, denn so wie die Zeit heute ist, sind wir noch sehr stark in der Notwendigkeit der Elementarschule. Wir kommen kaum schon zu einem wirklichen Lesen, sondern nur zu einer Art von Buchstabieren. Aber wir können doch ergriffen sein von dem Umwandlungsimpuls, der dadurch für die Menschheitsentwickelung hereinbricht. Und wenn wir davon ergriffen werden, dann stellen wir uns in der richtigen Weise zu dem, was sozusagen die Zeichen der Zeit von uns fordern, stellen uns als richtige Glieder der geisteswissenschaftlichen Weltanschauungsströmung in diese hinein.
Fifth Lecture
Every single thing, every single fact in the world, and also every single human behavior, they all have two sides; they form, as it were, two polar opposites.
Yesterday, I drew your attention to how reverence and devotion to the spiritual worlds should enter the human soul from the sensitive understanding of our spiritual-scientific worldview. The other side of this reverent and devoted behavior is energetic work on one's own inner life, energetically taking charge of the evolutionary factors of one's own soul, ensuring that we always use the experiences we go through to learn something from them, to advance a little in relation to our inner forces, so that whatever we encounter in life, whatever may be happening around us, whether it is easy or difficult for us to understand, we always escape the danger of losing ourselves. That we always have the opportunity to preserve ourselves, that we can draw strength from within ourselves to develop understanding for that which often seems incomprehensible to us in what approaches us externally, that we may allow reverence for things, as mentioned yesterday, to have such a strong effect on the evolution of our own soul that this soul may gain a true understanding of the world's existence: that, my dear friends, is what I would like to say to you today at the beginning of the year as a New Year's greeting. I would like to follow the memory of reverence with the memory of energetic work on our inner selves. A symbol of this sequence of memories is that on this New Year's night, the full moon shines down on us from the universe. Had it been the other way around, had we begun the year with the new moon, I would have done well to bring the memories to your hearts in reverse order. Then I would have closed the year yesterday with the memory of the power of inner evolution, and today I would have had to follow with the memory of reverence.
That such a symbol, as it shines down on us from the macrocosm, is truly observed is something that should be regarded as increasingly important. And when we have quiet moments this year, let us allow this hint to work on us, let it work in such a way that this year it may be of special importance to first consider what the power of reverence can do for us, and then to consider what the power of inner preservation, the preservation of inner soul energy, should do for us.
The stars have given us this sequence for this year, and the world will gradually realize once again that reading the stars does have meaning for human beings. So, in these details, we also seek to observe the great law of human existence, striving for harmony between the macrocosm and the microcosm. The macrocosm expresses itself to us in the most elementary way in the moon phase these days, and we find harmony with this macrocosm in our microcosm when we behave accordingly in the course of this year, which was born under such painful circumstances.
If you consider what has been a fundamental theme throughout the debates of the last few days, you will realize that, with regard to the facts that are important to us, which have become important to us through spiritual scientific considerations, we are living in a time of change, in a time of hope, so to speak, in a time when we should have premonitions of how human cultural development on earth will proceed, how a transition will take place from a purely materialistic to a spiritual worldview. But what has been hinted at here cannot really come to pass in its full extent unless it takes hold of all areas of life and, above all, encompasses the spiritual areas of life to a high degree.
We have already been able to recognize from various indications how the real emotional, not merely intellectual, grasp of the spiritual-scientific worldview must also result in a shift in artistic creation and artistic enjoyment, so that the forces that come to us from the spiritual-scientific view can flow into the artistic grasp of the world. With our building, we have just tried to suggest a kind of impulse for at least a small part of what can flow from spiritual scientific impulses into artistic creation, into what we can have before us artistically.We can envision a time when we will be fully immersed in the sensations and feelings that can arise from the spiritual-scientific worldview, a time when the path to artistry will in many ways be different from what it was in the past, when it will be much more alive, when the means of artistic creation will will be experienced much more intensely by the human soul than it has been in past times, where color and sound will be experienced much more intimately by the human soul, where they can be experienced morally and spiritually by the human soul, so to speak, and where the creations of artists will confront us with, as it were, the traces of the experiences of artists' souls in the cosmos.
Essentially, the behavior of the artist and the art lover in the past era was a kind of external observation, an appeal to what could approach the artist from outside. The dependence on nature and on the model for external observation has become greater and greater. This is not to suggest in a one-sided way that we should abandon nature, that we should abandon external reality in the art of the future. Far from it. What should be pointed out is an even more intense communion with the external world, a communion so strong that it extends not only to the external impression of color, tone, and form, but also to what can be experienced behind the tone, behind the color, behind the forms, what is revealed in color, tone, and form.
In this regard, human souls will make meaningful discoveries in the future. They will truly connect their moral and spiritual essence with what the senses reveal to us. An infinite deepening of the human soul can be anticipated in this area. Let us first take a single detail as a basis. Let us simply take the case where we direct our gaze to a surface of color glowing evenly in a strong vermilion red, and let us further assume that we manage to to forget everything else around us and concentrate entirely on the experience of this color, so that we do not merely have this color in front of us, affecting us, but so that we have this color as something in which we ourselves are, that we become one with this color. We will then be able to have the feeling, as it were: You are now in the world, you yourself have become completely color in this world, the innermost part of your soul has become completely color, wherever you may go in the world with your soul, you will arrive as a soul filled with red, you will live everywhere in red, with red, and from red. — But with an intense soul life, one will not be able to experience this without the corresponding feeling turning into a moral experience, into a real moral experience.
If one swims through the world as red, so to speak, has become identical with red, if one's own soul and also the world are completely red, then one will not be able to help feeling, in this world that has become red, with which one oneself is red, as if this whole world in red simultaneously permeates us with the substance of divine wrath, which shines upon us from all sides for all that is possible in us in terms of evil and sin. We will be able to feel ourselves, as it were, in the infinite red space as if in a court of God's judgment, and our moral sensibility will be like a moral sensation of our soul in the whole infinite space. And when the reaction comes, when something arises in our soul, when we experience ourselves in infinite red, or I could also say, in the only red, then it can only be described with the words: one learns to pray. When one can experience that in red. The radiance and glow of divine wrath with all the possibilities of evil that can lie in the human soul, and when one can experience in red how to learn to pray, then the experience with red is infinitely deepened. Then we can also feel how red can form itself into space.
We can then understand how we can experience a being that radiates goodness, that is filled with divine goodness and divine mercy, a being that we want to feel into the space. Then we will feel the need to let this feeling into the space of divine mercy, divine goodness, take shape from the color. We will feel the need to let the spatiality be repelled so that goodness and mercy radiate. Before it was there, it was so contracted, completely concentrated in the center, and now it places itself, this goodness and mercy, into the space, and like clouds being driven apart, it drives it back, drives it apart, so that it gives way to mercy and we get the feeling: you must make it run red. And then we will get the feeling: here (it was drawn) in the middle we will have to faintly suggest a kind of rose-violet shining into the scattering red.
We will then be present with our whole soul as the color takes shape in this way. We will empathize with our whole soul with what the beings who belong in particular to our becoming earthly have felt, who, when they ascended to the Elohim existence, learned to shape the world of forms out of colors. We will learn to feel something of the creativity of the spirits of form, who are the Elohim spirits to us, and we will then understand how the forms of color can be works, as was hinted at in our first mystery. We will also understand something of how, as it were, the surface of color becomes something for us that must be overcome, because we go into the universe with color. When this occurs with a strong development of desire, a feeling can arise such as that which lives in Strader at the moment when he sees the image of Capesius and says: “The canvas, I want to pierce it.”
If you take such a mystery play, you will see how these mystery plays have attempted to artistically represent what appears before us when our soul tries to be absorbed by the cosmic forces, when it empathizes with the spirits of the cosmos. That was truly the beginning of all art. But then the materialistic age had to come, and this ancient art, with its divine nuance, in which the spiritual reveals itself as something inner through matter, had to transform itself into secondary, materialistic imitation art, which is essentially the art of the materialistic age, that art which cannot create, but only imitate. It is the sign of all secondary art, all imitative art, that it can only reproduce, that it needs models for reproduction, and that it does not primarily create form at the same time as matter.
Let's take another example. Let us assume that we did the same thing we did here with the red surface, but with a more orange-colored surface. We will have a completely different experience with the orange-colored surface. If we immerse ourselves in it and become one with it, we will not be able to have those feelings of counteracting divine wrath, but we will have the feeling that what is counteracting us has at most only a faint trace of the seriousness of wrath, but that it is something that wants to communicate with us, that does not merely want to punish us, but wants to equip us with inner strength.
As we enter the world and become one with the orange area, we move in such a way that with every step we take, we feel: Through this feeling in orange, through this life in the orange forces, we will force our way into the world in such a way that we become stronger and stronger, that not only does the judgment of punishment shatter us, but that what comes to us from the orange does not come merely as punishment, but as something that strengthens us. In this way we live our way into the world with orange. We then learn the longing to grasp the inner nature of things and to unite it with ourselves. We learn to pray through life in red. Through life in orange, we learn knowledge, the longing for knowledge of the inner nature of things.
If it is a yellow surface, and we do the same, then in this experience of yellow we feel, I would say, transported to the beginning of our cycle of time. We feel: Now you are living in the forces from which you were created when you began your first incarnation on earth. — What one is throughout one's entire existence on earth feels related to what comes toward one from the world, into which one carries the yellow that has become identical with oneself.
And if one identifies with green and goes through the world with green, which is particularly easy to do by letting one's eyes wander over a green meadow, spreading one's gaze over it, and then trying to disregard everything else, concentrating entirely on the green meadow, immersing oneself in the green meadow, to regard the green as the surface of a sea of colors and then to immerse oneself in the green: if one tries to live in the world in this way, one experiences an inner strengthening in what one is in this incarnation. One experiences an inner healing, but at the same time also an inner becoming more egoistic, a stimulation of the egoistic forces within oneself.
If one were to do the same with a blue surface, one would go through the world feeling the need to progress further and further with the blue, to overcome the egoism within oneself, to become macrocosmic, as it were, to develop devotion. And one would find oneself happy if one could remain in this state of mind through the accommodation of divine mercy. How blessed by divine mercy one would feel when walking through the world in this way.
This is how one learns to recognize the inner nature of color. And as I said, we can foresee a time when the preparation that the painter will undergo as an artist will mean such a moral experience in color, where the experience will be much more inner, much more intimate than it ever was in ancient times, preparing one for artistic creation. For these are only individual hints that I am giving here, which will be further developed in the future. With a colossal sense of artistic creation, they will be able to grasp the human soul and bring it to life, whereas the encroachment of materialistic cultural development into our modern age has dried up the soul and made it passive. Souls must once again be stimulated by inner strength; they must be grasped by the inner forces of things. The specific example I have used is the colors that flood the world.
In a very similar way, the deepening and enlivening of human soul life will come about through the world of sound. The essence of the past period in relation to this point is that human beings experience a sound as such, and then the relationship of one sound to another. In the future, human beings will be able to go behind the sound with their experience. They will, as it were, regard the sound as a window through which they enter the spiritual world, and then it will not depend on that indefinite feeling of how sound follows sound, for example in melodies, but behind the individual sounds the soul will again experience morally and spiritually through the sound. As through a window, the soul will enter the spiritual world. The secrets of the individual sound will be revealed in this experience of the individual sound behind the sound.
We are still far from this feeling that we can enter the spiritual world from the sensory world through each sound as through a window. But this will come. We will perceive the tone as an opening that the gods have made from the spiritual world beyond us into this physical-sensory world, and we will enter through the tone from the physical-sensory world into the spiritual world. For example, through a prime tone that we perceive absolutely, not in reference to earlier tones of the tonal scale, we will feel how we enter from the sensory world into the spiritual world, and in a dangerous way. The danger lies in the fact that this entry threatens to completely captivate us, that the prime wants to pull us through the window of sound with a terrible suction force, wants to make us disappear completely into the spiritual world. If we perceive the prime as an absolute, we will feel that we are still too weak spiritually in the physical-sensory world and that we will be absorbed by the spiritual world once we have entered through this window. This will be the moral feeling we may have when ascending into the spiritual world through the prim. But I am only characterizing this in a simple way; it will be a very differentiated feeling, containing infinitely varied details, which we will experience there.
When we then ascend through the secondary as through a window from the physical world into the spiritual world, we will feel as if there were powers in the spiritual world that take pity on our weakness, as it were, saying: Well, you were weak in this physical-sensory world! If you enter the spiritual world only through the prim, I must dissolve you, absorb you, shatter you or smash you. But if you enter through the secund, I want to offer you something from the spiritual world and remind you of something that is also over there. The peculiar thing is that when we enter the spiritual world through the second, it is as if a sum of tones, a number of tones, resound toward us, welcoming us. One enters a completely silent world when one enters the spiritual world through the absolute prime. One enters a world in which, if one listens carefully, soft tones of varying pitches sound, seeking to comfort one about one's weakness, when one enters through the second. But one must enter in this way, just as one must not enter through a window into a physical, sensual house, for the owner would look at one strangely if one entered through the window and took the whole window with one. In the spiritual world, however, one must do this; one must take the windows with one, take the tones with one, and, identified with them, live completely over there in the spiritual world, beyond the membrane that separates us from the physical-sensory world.
When you enter the spiritual world through the third, you will still have the feeling of a strong, a stronger weakness. When you enter the spiritual world in this way, you will feel that you were actually quite weak in the physical-sensory world in relation to its spiritual content. But in relation to the third, one has become sound, one has now become the third oneself, and one will feel that there are friends over there who are not thirds themselves, but who come closer, depending on what one was like in the physical-sensory world. While entering through the second is like a soft sounding of many tones in which one generally lives, when one enters through them, one is met by friendly tones, as it were, through the third. Those who want to become composers will have to enter through the third in particular, for there will be the tone sequences, tone compositions, which will inspire their artistic creation. It will not always be the same tone friends who come to meet you, but their nature will depend on your mood, your experience, your temperament, in short, your whole state of mind when you enter spiritual life through the third: an infinite variety of the world of sound will emerge there.
If you enter the spiritual world through the fourth, you will have a remarkable experience: the experience that no other tones now appear from any side, but that what has already appeared, what you have gone through in your experiences with the third, lives in your soul in easily accessible memories. And one will find, by continuing to live with one's sound memories, once one has entered the spiritual world through the fourth, that these ‘sound memories’ always take on different colors, that they soon develop into the brightest brightness and cheerfulness, soon descend into the utmost sadness, soon become sunny and bright, soon sink sadly into the silence of the grave. The tempering of the voice, the rising and falling of the tone, in short, the course of the mood of a piece of music will result from this path, from these sound memories.
The fifth will yield more subjective experiences and adventures; it will have a stimulating, enriching effect on the soul's experience. It will act like a magic wand, conjuring up the secrets of the world of sound from unfathomable depths.
One will have such experiences when one deals with things, with the phenomena of the world, not merely by looking at them or listening to them, but by experiencing them inwardly. Through this kind of experience, namely in colors and sounds, but also in forms, in short, in the artistic, the path must be found that humanity must take in order to emerge from its merely external attitude toward things and their course — which is the hallmark of a materialistic age — and penetrate into the inner depths of things, into their secrets.
Then a consciousness will come over human beings, an immensely significant consciousness of their connection with the divine-spiritual forces that are subconscious to materialistic consciousness and that guide and lead them through the world. And then, above all, something like an inner experience of those forces will arise, forces that, for example, guide human beings from one incarnation to another.
If we do not heat a locomotive, it cannot pull a train forward. The forces that bring about events in the world must be continually stimulated. In the same way, the forces that drive human beings forward must also be stimulated. And this is what happens. But human beings must learn to know that they are connected to these forces.
I once had the following remarkable experience. There was a legal scholar, a lawyer, who was very famous in the place where I lived for a time, an extraordinarily famous lawyer whom people literally flocked to and who they believed would win even the most difficult cases. This had also happened in many cases. His legal dialectic was extraordinarily great, and the people who knew him had the greatest admiration for this legal dialectic. Then he was once given a difficult case involving a rich man. The outcome of the trial would determine whether this rich man would receive a heavy sentence if convicted. The lawyer displayed the utmost dialectic, the most wonderful legal skill. He gave a long speech, and the audience was left with the impression that if the jury—it was a jury trial—did not acquit the defendant now, then one would not know what else the art of advocacy could possibly achieve. All those who had heard the lawyer's tremendous skill were under the impression that the jury would now retire and acquit the defendant.
However, the court had not only a skilled lawyer, but also a skilled presiding judge, and although it was not yet so late that the verdict could not be reached, the presiding judge said: We will adjourn the session today and continue tomorrow. The next day, in the morning, the jury was to meet, giving them time overnight to think the matter over again. The next day came. This “delay overnight,” as he called it, had been quite unpleasant for the lawyer. The session began, the jury withdrew, and everyone waited with bated breath for their reappearance, but the lawyer in question was the most anxious of all. After only fifteen minutes, the jury returned, and when the lawyer heard the jury returning from the deliberation room after such a short time, he fainted. Yes, he fainted. He recovered, supported by one of his friends. The defendant had indeed been convicted. But the lawyer only found this out after he had recovered from his fainting spell.
What could one say when looking at the course of events from the outside, based on what was apparent to human perception? One could say: The lawyer is a very ambitious man, because he cared so much about winning this case that he lost consciousness before the verdict was announced. When he saw how long the jury had deliberated, he was certain that the defendant would be convicted, because if they had acquitted him, they would naturally have needed much longer.
But that was not the case, even though it might have appeared so to an outside observer. There was, as it were, another layer of events behind what I have just recounted. This other layer, or story, is as follows: the lawyer in question—I knew him well—had been seized, in the period before this trial, by what might be called a gambling addiction. He took the money entrusted to him as a deposit and gambled it on the stock market. It was a pure passion for him, and shortly before the start of this trial, he had gambled away large sums of money that had been entrusted to him. However, he had been promised that if he won the trial, he would receive enough to make up for the difference.
So he did not faint out of mere wounded pride, but he fainted when, after fifteen minutes, the judges came out with a guilty verdict, because his existence was indeed destroyed. For now he could never again think of replacing what he had gambled away from the deposit funds. His entire existence depended on the outcome of this trial. He fainted as a symbolic indication that he was now completely ruined for this incarnation. He then had to flee to America and had to endure a not very enviable existence for the rest of his incarnation in America.
We see the following in such a case. We see that very often in life, judgments are wrong, because there could well have been people who never knew anything about what was going on behind the scenes. If they had only heard and seen the dialectically trained lawyer at the trial as he fainted, they could very well have judged: There are people who are so ambitious that they lose consciousness when they make a mistake in a speech. —- One could have left it at that judgment.
In order to judge correctly here, one would have had to know one more layer of facts. For many things, one must know many more layers, because otherwise one can be right about the one layer that one overlooks and still make a wrong judgment. That is the external aspect. But there is another background to the matter. The man also had to find a way from this incarnation into the next. And so we have here an example of how the wise guidance of the world transfers into the soul the forces that are necessary to carry the soul from one incarnation to the next. The man had come into such a conflict in life that this conflict had consumed his possibility of existence. A terrible situation had been created; a situation had been created in which there were no longer any forces available that could carry him over into the next incarnation. But it also created a situation in which such forces could not be brought into his consciousness. This meant that his consciousness had to be briefly extinguished. And during the time when consciousness is briefly extinguished in the human soul, the most diverse forms of external spirituality can penetrate the human soul. At that moment, forces penetrated him that were capable of giving him the impulse, the drive for the transition to the next incarnation. Of course, the giving of the drive, the impulse, happens in many different ways. What I have described was such a special case.
These impulses are always there. But I only wanted to show you how human conscious life is linked to an unconscious process, and how there really are points in the conscious process where consciousness is suppressed so that something can enter from the unconscious. These unconscious moments do not always have to be long; they can be brief, faint-like states. Nevertheless, an enormous amount of spiritual-vital forces can radiate into human nature in such moments, both good and evil forces that are capable of this or that.
I cited this latter example and what I want to explain in it in order to show how, in its view of the world, humanity must try to observe connections that are meaningless for a materialistic understanding of the world.
We will gradually come to understand the connections in life in such a way that we recognize the moments when the spiritual approaches each human being. In the future, the world will no longer be portrayed as clearly as it is now, by explaining it from material causes, but will be portrayed in such a way that the material will be placed in its proper place, while at the same time recognizing that there is more than just the material appearance, and that the spiritual shines through the material appearance.
If we have seen colors and tones as windows through which we pass, spiritually, into the spiritual world, then life in turn brings us windows through which the spiritual world enters our physical world. The lawyer's fainting spell was such a window. If we interpret this event correctly, we must say: spiritual life flows into us through this window. We see that forces are at work within us that we cannot interpret solely through our senses. So there are windows in the tones through which we ascend from the physical-sensory world into the spiritual world. And there are windows through which, when we remain in the physical-sensory world, the spiritual descends into us.
If we do not notice that the spiritual enters us through such windows, then it is like a person who cannot read opening a beautiful book. He has the same thing in front of him as someone who can read, but someone who cannot read sees only scribbles on white paper that he cannot interpret; at most, he can describe them. Only those who can read are able to follow in this book a destiny or a wisdom that has been placed in these strange symbols. Those who cannot read the phenomena of the world stand before them like illiterates of the cosmos. But those who can read can read the course of the spiritual world from these things. What is characteristic of the current materialistic age is that, through materialism, people are illiterate in relation to the cosmos, almost one hundred percent of them. At a time when people are so proud of having reduced the percentage of illiteracy in civilized countries, they are enthusiastically heading toward illiteracy in relation to the cosmos.
It is the task of spiritual science to overcome this cosmic illiteracy. Nowadays, there are few people who are illiterate in the usual sense. In the days of ancient clairvoyance, people were much less spiritually illiterate. But that should not make us proud. It is true that if we sense our task in the spiritual-scientific movement, we should become readers of the cosmos from being illiterate. But we should not lose our humility in doing so, for as things stand today, we are still very much in need of elementary schooling. We are hardly able to read properly, but only to spell. But we can still be moved by the impulse of transformation that this brings about for human development. And when we are moved by this, we take the right attitude to what the signs of the times demand of us, so to speak, and enter into the spiritual-scientific worldview as its rightful members.