Karmic Relationships I
GA 235
9 March 1924, Dornach
Lecture VIII
I said yesterday that although it is a somewhat hazardous venture to speak of individual karmic connections, I intended to do so, and that I would take as examples the personalities of whom I gave you certain biographical details. Later on we shall also be able to study the karma of less representative personalities, but I have chosen, in the first place, examples which show clearly how in the karmic course of repeated phases of existence, the evolution of mankind as a whole goes forward. In modern civilisation we speak of history as if it were one continuous stream of happenings: events of the 20th century are related to events of the 19th century, these again to events of the 18th century, and so on. That it is men themselves who carry over things from one epoch of history to another, that the men now living have themselves carried over from earlier epochs what is to be found in the world and in life at the present time—this knowledge alone brings reality to light and reveals the true, inner connections in the historical life of mankind.
If we speak merely of “cause” and “effect,” no real connection comes to light. The connecting threads running through the evolution of humanity are woven as human souls pass over from epochs in the remote past to more recent times, entering again and again into new incarnations on the earth.
These connecting threads can be perceived in all their significance when we study really representative personalities.
In the lecture yesterday I spoke, firstly, of the aestheticist Friedrich Theodor Vischer, the “Swabian Vischer” as he is called, telling you something of his character. I said that I shall choose only examples that I have actually investigated. These investigations are a matter of vision, and are pursued by means of the spiritual faculties of which I have spoken so often and about which you can read in anthroposophical literature. Accordingly the only possible way of describing these things is that of narrative, for in this domain it is only what presents itself to direct vision that can be communicated. The moment we turn from one earthly life to an earlier life in the past, all intellectual reasoning comes to a standstill. Vision alone is the criterion here. A last vestige of intellectual understanding is possible when it is a matter of relating earthly life to the last phase of existence between death and rebirth from which it has directly proceeded—that is, to the life of soul-and-spirit just before the descent to earth. Here, up to a point, an intellectual approach is possible. When, however, it is a matter of showing the relation between one earthly life and a preceding incarnation, this can be done only in the form of narrative, for vision is the sole criterion. And if in contemplating a personality like Friedrich Theodor Vischer one is able to apprehend what is eternal in him—what passes over from one earthly life to another—then such a personality as he was in an earlier incarnation will emerge into one's field of vision, provided always that the right currents can be found in the whole series of earthly lives. Investigation leads back, first of all, of course, to the pre-earthly experiences. But in speaking now I shall give second place to these pre-earthly experiences and indicate how, behind the earthly lives of the three personalities in question, their previous incarnations can be perceived.
In undertaking such investigations it is absolutely essential to get rid of all preconceived notions. If, because of some opinion or view we may hold concerning the present or the last earthly life of a human being, we imagine that it is justifiable to argue intellectually that because of what he is now, he must have been this or that in an earlier incarnation—if we make judgments of this kind, we shall go astray, or at any rate it will be very easy to go astray. To base an intellectual judgment of one incarnation upon another in this way would be just as if we were to go into a house for the first time, look out of the windows facing north, and seeing trees outside were to conclude from these trees what the trees look like from the windows facing south. What must be done is to go to the south windows, see the trees there and look at them with entirely unbiased eyes.
In the same way, all intellectual reasoning must cease when it is a matter of apprehending the Imaginations which correspond to the earlier earthly lives of the personalities in question.
In the case of Friedrich Theodor Vischer, one is led back to the last incarnation of importance—in the intervening time there may have been one or another unimportant or possibly brief earthly life, but for the moment that is of no consequence—one is led back to the incarnation in which the karma of his present life was prepared—I mean “present” in the wider sense, for as you know, Vischer died at the end of the eighties of the 19th century. The incarnation in which the karma of his latest earthly life was prepared lies somewhere about the 8th century A.D. We see him among the Moorish-Arabian peoples who crossed over at this time from Africa to Sicily and there came into conflict with the peoples who were making their way down to Sicily from the north.
The essential point is that in this previous incarnation of importance, the individuality of whom I am speaking had received a thoroughly Arabian education, Arabian in every detail, containing all the artistic, perhaps also the inartistic elements in Arabism; it was characterised, too, by the vital energy with which in those days Arabism forced its way to Europe; and, above all, it brought this individuality into close human relationship with a large number of other men belonging to the same race.
This individuality, who afterwards lived in the 19th century as Friedrich Theodor Vischer, tried in the 8th century to establish close comradeship with many men belonging to the same Arabian stock and the same Arabian culture, who had already made strong contacts with Europe, were endeavouring to establish themselves in Sicily, and had to face heavy fighting; or rather it was really more the Europeans who had to face the fighting. The individuality we are considering took a full share in these conflicts. One may say that he was a person of genius—in the sense in which genius was conceived in those times. This individuality then, is to be found in the 8th century A.D.
Then he passes through the gate of death into the life between death and rebirth, during which there is naturally intimate fellowship with the souls with whom one has been together on earth. Here, in the spiritual world, were the souls with whom this individuality had tried, as I have just told you, to establish close relationship.
Now between these human beings—in language that has been coined for earthly relationships it is difficult to find expressions for describing super-sensible conditions—between the human souls with whom this individuality was now together, after he and they had passed through the gate of death, there existed through all the following centuries, right into the 19th century, a spirit-bond, a spiritual tie.
You will have understood from the lecture I gave here a week ago that what takes place on earth is lived through in advance by the Beings of the highest Hierarchies, by the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones, and that a human being who is passing through the life between death and a new birth looks down to a heaven of soul and spirit as we look up to the heavens. There, in that heaven of soul and spirit, the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones live through what subsequently becomes our destiny, what is brought to realisation as our destiny when we descend again to the earth.
Now, in the conditions obtaining in the spiritual world, it was foreseen by the souls belonging to the community into which the individuality we are studying had been drawn, that through the coming centuries it would be their destiny to preserve a line of progress that would be quite uninfluenced by Christianity. What I am now saying will seem very strange, for the idea often prevails that the ordering of the world is as simple as we humans like to have it in everything we arrange ourselves. But the ordering of the world is by no means so simple. While on the one hand the mightiest of all impulses poured from the Mystery of Golgotha into the whole of Earth evolution, on the other hand it was necessary that what had been contained in earthly evolution before the Mystery of Golgotha should not be allowed at once to perish; it was necessary that what was, I will not say “anti-Christian” but “non-Christian,” should be allowed to stream on through the centuries.
And the task of sustaining this stream of culture for Europe—as it were of enabling a phase of culture not yet Christian to continue on into the Christian centuries—fell to a number of individuals who were born into Arabism in the 7th and 8th centuries A.D. Arabism was not, of course, directly Christian, but neither had it remained as backward as the old heathen religions. In a certain direction it had made steady progress through the centuries. A number of souls born into this stream were to carry forward in the spiritual world, untouched by the conditions prevailing on earth, that which the spirit of man, separated from Christianity, can know, feel and experience. They were to encounter Christianity only later, in later epochs of earthly evolution. And it is in truth an experience of shattering grandeur, full of deep significance, to see how a large community lived on in the spiritual world removed from the development of Christianity, until in the 19th century the majority of these souls came down to incarnation on earth. As you may suppose, they were very different individualities, with every variety of talent and disposition.
Friedrich Theodor Vischer was one of the first souls from this community to descend in the 19th century. [Vischer was born in 1807 and died in 1887] And he was as remote as can be from any possibility of direct experience of Christianity.
On the other hand, while still in his pre-earthly existence, he was able to receive impulses from those leading spirits who had been more or less near to Christianity but whose views of the world and conceptual life had developed in a direction not primarily and intrinsically Christian.
For a soul such as the one we now have in mind, the incarnation in the 7th/8th century was an especially good preparation—(it is of course paradoxical to speak of these things as one speaks of earthly affairs, but as I said, I intend to make the venture)—for coming together in the spiritual world with souls like that of Spinoza and others of a similar type, and with a large number of bearers of non-Christian culture, particularly, too, of Cabbalistic culture, who died during those centuries and came up into the spiritual world.
Thus prepared, this particular soul came into earthly existence in the 19th century, rather earlier than the others. All the others, for the reason that they descended somewhat later, became bearers of the natural-scientific outlook prevailing in the second half of the 19th century. For in point of fact the secret of the peculiar evolution of natural-scientific thinking in the second half of the 19th century is that well-nigh all the bearers of this stream at that time had been Arabians in their previous incarnations of importance; they were companions of the individuality who then came down as Friedrich Theodor Vischer. But Vischer came down earlier than they—it was like a premature birth in the sense of soul-and-spirit.
This, moreover, was grounded deeply in his karma, owing to his association, before his descent to earthly life, with the souls with whom Hegel was connected. With these souls, too, Friedrich Theodor Vischer had been associated in the spiritual world. This expressed itself in a strong personal bent for what Hegelianism became on earth, and protected him from growing into a purely materialistic-mechanistic conception of the world. If he had been born somewhat later, as were his companions in the spiritual life, he too, as an aestheticist, would in the natural course of things have headed straight for materialism. He was protected from this by his experiences in pre-earthly life and by his earlier descent to earth. But he could not adhere permanently to this Hegelian influence. And that is why he came to write the destructive critique of his own aesthetics—because here was something that was not quite in the line of his karma but was the result of a deflection of his karma. It would have been entirely in line with his karma to have been born at the same time as men who were steeped in the natural-scientific thinking of the second half of the 19th century, men who had been his associates in the earlier incarnation, belonging, as he did, to Arabism. His karma would have led him naturally to the same orientation of thinking.
The strange fact is that through a deflection of karma—which will be adjusted in later earthly lives—Friedrich Theodor Vischer was torn away from the straightforward line of his karma. This deflection was determined by his pre-earthly existence, not by his earthly karma. But when he reached a certain age he could no longer sustain it; he was impelled to enter right into his karma. And so he rejects his five-volume work on aesthetics and succumbs to the temptation of approaching the subject in the way of which the natural scientists would approve. In his first work on aesthetics he looks down from above, starting from principles and then passing to sense-phenomena. This he now criticises root and branch. He wants now to build from below upwards, starting from material facts and gradually rising to principles. And we witness a tremendous struggle: Vischer working at the destruction of his own aesthetics! We see how karma had been deflected and how he is hurled back into it, led to those whose companion he had been in a previous earthly life.
It is shattering in its significance to see how Vischer never really makes progress with this second work on aesthetics, how a kind of chaos seems to creep into the whole of his spiritual life. I told you yesterday about his curiously philistine attitude even towards Goethe's Faust. It is all due to the fact that he feels unsure of himself and is striving to get back to his old companions. But we must remember how strongly the unconscious works in karma. At a higher stage, of course, it becomes conscious. We must also remember how deeply certain philistine scientists hated Goethe's Faust! I told you yesterday what du Bois-Reymond said on the subject: that it would have been much more sensible of Goethe to let Faust make some real discovery rather than call up spirits, evoke the Earth-Spirit, associate with Mephistopheles or seduce young girls and not marry them afterwards. du Bois-Reymond regards all this as tomfoolery. According to him, Goethe should have presented a hero who invents an electrical machine or an air pump! Then there would have been social propriety about it all and the hero would have become Mayor of Magdeburg. Above all, there ought to have been no Gretchen-tragedy, and instead of the Prison Scene a correct and proper civic wedding! Well ... it is a point of view that is not without justification; but it was certainly not what Goethe had in mind!
Friedrich Theodor Vischer, as I said, was not completely sure of himself after his karma had been deflected in this way. But something was always pulling him back, and unconsciously, although he was a really free spirit, he was always delighted when he heard the philistines running down Goethe's Faust. He was witty, of course, and clever, and it was like snowballing going on between them. It is precisely when one observes things about a human being that are more a matter of vision, that one lights upon the Imaginations which lead behind the scenes of material existence.
Truly it is a grand spectacle! There, on the one side, stand the philistines of the first order, like du Bois-Reymond and the others, saying that Goethe ought to have represented Faust as Mayor of Magdeburg, inventing the electrical machine and the air-pump, and marrying Gretchen—verily these are philistines of the first order! Something is at work in the subconscious, because a karmic connection is in operation here. All these men had been Moors, associated with Vischer in Arabism. He was attracted by it all, he felt related to it ... and yet in another respect he was not. In the intervening time he had come into contact with other streams which had brought about a deflection of his karma. And now when the philistines of the first order threw their snowballs, he threw back his, saying that someone ought to write a thesis on a subject like the relation of Frau Christine von Goethe's chilblains to the symbolic-allegorical figures in the second part of Faust! That, you will agree, is philistinism with a touch of real wit in it, it is philistinism of the second order!
To assess these things at their true value is a matter of vision, not of merely intellectual apprehension.
In what I have told you of Vischer, my aim, to begin with, was to give you some indication—I shall return to these things again—of how the one earthly life can be understood from foregoing earthly lives.
There was something extraordinarily significant about the figure of Vischer going about in Stuttgart. I mentioned to you yesterday the wonderful blue eyes, the reddish-brown beard, the arms held out in the way I described. The Imagination of him, however, did not tally with the physical stature of the Swabian Vischer as he went about Stuttgart, for even to occult sight he did not look like a reincarnated Arabian. Again and again I left the matter alone, because one becomes—I cannot say “sceptical” in regard to one's visions, but one does become distrustful, one wants to have definite confirmation. Again and again I let the matter drop, until the riddle was solved in the following way.
In the 7th/8th century—that was also a male incarnation—this individuality regarded the men from the North, especially those he encountered in Sicily, as his ideal. In those days, as you may imagine, it was very easy to be carried away by people one greatly admired. And so he “caught” as it were, his bodily characteristics in the later incarnation from those against whom he had once waged war. Here is the solution of the riddle in regard to his physical stature.
In the last lecture we considered a second personality, namely, Franz Schubert, in connection with his friend Spaun, and with his own volcanic nature which on rare occasions, such as the one I related to you, could flare up in rage, making him into a thorough brawler; on the other hand he was extraordinarily tender and sensitive; he was like a sleep-walker, writing down his lovely melodies directly after waking in the morning. It was extremely difficult to get a picture of this personality, but the connection with Spaun gave the clue. For in the case of Schubert himself, when one looks back in the occult field and tries to find something definite, one has the feeling that he gives one the slip—if I may use this colloquialism. It is not easy to go back to his former incarnation; he eludes one all the time.
There is in truth something of a contrast here with the destiny of Schubert's works after his death. At the time of Schubert's death his compositions were very little known; only a few people had heard of him. After the lapse of some years, however, he became more and more renowned, until in the seventies and eighties of last century, fresh works of his were published every year. It was very interesting: suddenly, long after his death, Schubert turned out to be a most prolific composer. New works of his were constantly appearing.
When, however, we look back spiritually from Schubert's life in the 19th century into his earlier earthly life, the tracks disappear; it is not easy to find him.
On the other hand it is comparatively easy to find the tracks in the case of Baron von Spaun. And this line also led back to the 8th or 9th century A.D., to Spain. He was a Prince of Castile who had a name for being extraordinarily wise. He busied himself with astrology and with astronomy in the form current in those days, amending and drawing up astronomical tables. At a certain time in his life this Prince was forced to flee from his home, and he found refuge among those who were actually the bitterest enemies of the Castilian population at that time, namely the Moors.
He was obliged to stay here for a considerable time, and he formed a relationship of great tenderness and intimacy with a Moorish personality in whom the individuality of the later Franz Schubert was then incarnated. And this Prince of Castile would certainly have met with his end had it not been for the tender-spirited personality among the Moors who cared for him with every kindness. His earthly life was thus safeguarded for many years, to the great joy of them both.
What I am now relating to you is utterly remote from intellectual deduction in any shape or form. I have indicated the roundabout way which the research had to take. But along this roundabout way one is led to the fact that in Franz Schubert we have a reincarnated Moorish personality, one who had little opportunity of cultivating musical talent in his life among the Moors, but who, on the other hand, steeped himself with impassioned longing in whatever was to be found in the way of art and, I will not say of subtle “thinking” but rather of subtle “reasoning,” which in the train of Arabic culture had come from Asia, passed across Africa and finally reached Spain.
During that incarnation this personality developed the gentle, unassuming and yet vital flexibility of soul which quickened to life the poetic, dreamlike phantasy in the later incarnation as Franz Schubert. On the other hand this personality was obliged to take part in the fierce conflicts now again taking place between the Moors and the non-Moorish inhabitants of Castile, Aragon, and so forth. And this accounted for the suppressed emotion which like a pent-up stream burst forth—but only in unusual circumstances—during the Schubert-existence.
It seems to me that just as the earlier life of Friedrich Theodor Vischer can be understood only when one can view it against the background of Arabism, so the essence of Schubert's music, especially the undertone of many of his songs, can be discerned only when one perceives (I have not constructed anything, it arises from the facts themselves) that there is something spiritual in this music, something Asiatic which was shone upon for a time by the desert sun, took on greater definition in Europe, was carried through the spiritual world between death and rebirth and as something essentially human, removed from all the artificialities of society, came to birth again in a penniless schoolteacher.
The third personality of whom I spoke yesterday was Eugen Dühring. [Born 1833, died 1901.] I shall give brief indications only, for we can always return to these subjects again. Eugen Dühring was of particular interest to me because as a young man I was deeply engrossed in the study of his writings. I was fascinated by his works on physics and mathematics, especially by the treatise Neue Grundmittel und Erfindungen Zur Analysis, Algebra, Funktionsrechnung, and by his treatment of the law of corresponding boiling points. I was irritated to distraction by a book such as Sache, Leben und Feinde which is a sort of autobiography. There is something terribly self-complacent about it, self-complacent to the point of genius; not to mention traits which came out in utterly malicious pamphlets such as Die Ueberschätzung Lessings und dessen Anwaltschaft für die Juden. On the other hand I could admire Dühring's History of Mechanics as long as the lion was not in evidence, but only the lion's claws. There was, however, one unpleasant impression: for a history of mechanics, too much is said about all the gossip associated with Frau Helmholtz; abuse is hurled at Hermann Helmholtz, but the emphasis is upon the gossip that went on in the circle around Frau Helmholtz. Well ... such things do happen; gossip goes on in all kinds of circles! ... As I have said, I experienced every shade of feeling in regard to Dühring and his writings: respect, deep appreciation, criticism, irritation. And you will understand the desire to see how these traits had developed against the background of at any rate the immediately preceding earthly life.
But here again it was not easy, and at first—I have no wish to keep back these things—at first, the pictures were deceptive. Deceptive pictures arise very easily, because everything often depends upon starting from what is actually the most significant feature in some particular life of a human being in order to be led back along the right path. And in the case of Dühring it was a long time before I succeeded in finding any really significant feature.
The procedure I adopted was as follows.—I pictured to myself everything about him that appealed to me most, namely his materialistic-mechanistic conception of the world—materialistic, but yet, in a certain respect, spiritual, intellectually spiritual. I turned over in my mind how it all has to do with a finite world of space, a finite world of time; I constructed Dühring's whole conception of the world again for myself. That is not difficult. But when one has done it and looks back to earlier incarnations, numbers and numbers come into view and again there is delusion. One finds nothing essential; countless incarnations appear, but there cannot, of course, possibly have been so many: they are nothing but reflections of the present incarnation. It is just as if you were to have mirrors in a room, one here and another there: you would see numberless reflections. Then I went on to ponder with all intensity: What is Dühring's world-conception in reality, expressed in terms of clear thought? For the time being I left aside all the spiteful criticism, the abuse and other such non-essentials. I left all that aside and concentrated upon what is really grand and impressive in a world-conception which, as such, has always been antipathetic to me, but which, on account of the way in which Dühring presented it, attracted me. I pictured all this vividly to myself and then tried to get a clear grasp of the reality. From a certain age onwards he was totally blind. A blind man does not see the world, and his mental image of it is quite different from that of a man with sight. In point of fact, ordinary materialists, ordinary mechanistic thinkers, are on a different level altogether from Dühring. In comparison with them, Dühring has genius. All these men who have evolved conceptions of the world, Vogt, Büchner, Moleschott, Spiller, Wiessner and the rest—“twelve to the dozen” as the saying goes—with them it is a very different matter. The way in which Dühring builds up his world-conception is utterly different. We can perceive, too, that the urge to give a certain shape to this view of the world was in him even before he became blind, and it really tallied with the fundamental trend of his mind only when he had lost his sight and space was dark around him. For the principles according to which Dühring builds up his world-conception belong essentially to dark space. It is a fallacy to imagine that this was the work of a man with sight.
But just think of it. In Dühring this is intrinsic truth. Other men—twelve dozen of them if you like—have evolved such conceptions of the world, but with Dühring there is a difference: with Dühring it is true. The others have sight and construct pictures of the world as if they were blind; Dühring is blind and evolves his world-conception as one who is blind. And that is an astonishing thing! If one realises what it means, if one observes this man and knows: here is someone who in his soul-evolution was like a blind man, whose outlook becomes mechanistic because of his blindness—then one finds him again. Two incarnations come into consideration here. We find him associated with the movement in the Eastern Church, about the 8th or 9th century A.D., which at one period was iconoclastic, bent upon the destruction of all images, and then, later on, reinstated them. In Constantinople, particularly, this conflict developed between religion employing pictures and images, and religion in which none were permitted. And there we find the individuality who was born in a later age as Eugen Dühring battling ardently, good fighter as he was, for a cultural life devoid of pictures and images. Here, manifesting in purely physical conflict, one can see all that later comes to expression in words.
One point was extraordinarily interesting to me. A strange word occurs in the second volume of the work on Julius Robert Mayer. One actually sees the whole thing! In the earlier incarnation, when Dühring was engaged in destroying images, he had a special way of brandishing his scimitar, the hooked scimitar which already then was being tried out and developed. In the book on Mayer—these things, you know, often turn on pictorial details—I found a word that seemed to ring in unison with the scimitar. There is a chapter in this book entitled Schlichologisches (“trick-ology”). “Trickology” in German University life and so forth—getting in from the side by a cunning manoeuvre.
Dühring coins the word “Schlichologisches,” as well as the amusing expression “Intellectuaille,” connected with canaille. He invents all kinds of words. As I said, details that seem quite unimportant may be very revealing. And paradoxical as it may appear, one does not really arrive at the connecting links between different earthly lives unless one has an eye and a feeling for symptoms of this kind. Anyone who cannot discern a man's character from the way he walks, how he steps on the soles of his feet, will not easily make progress in such matters as those dealt with in the present lectures. One must be able to see the very swing of the scimitar transferred into words that were coined by this individuality in his subsequent life.
Dühring was always heaping abuse on the savants—“men of unlearning,” as he calls them. He said he would be thankful if there were no more names to remind him of ancient erudition. He wants no logic, he wants anti-logic; no Sophia, but anti-Sophia; no science, but anti-science. He says explicitly that he would like best of all to make everything “anti.” Now in the incarnation before the one when he was a rabid iconoclast, this man who so fiercely abused everything in the way of erudition had belonged to the School of the Greek Stoics, was himself a Stoic philosopher. In days of antiquity Dühring was himself one of the kind of men he now abused so vehemently; in the third incarnation back he was a professed philosopher, a Stoic philosopher at that, therefore one who in a certain sense withdrew from earthly life.
What dawned upon me first of all was that very many of Dühring's thoughts, or rather the forms in which his thoughts are expressed, are to be found in the Stoics! The matter is not, of course, as simple as all that. Indeed a whole course of lectures might be given on the forms of thought in Dühring and in the Stoics.
Thus we are led back, first, to the age of iconoclasm in the east of Europe about the 9th century A.D., when Dühring was a rabid iconoclast; then to the 3rd century B.C., the period of Stoic philosophy in ancient Greece.
And now again it is astounding: this Stoic, who makes no demands upon life, who holds back from everything that is not absolutely essential to life, renounces earthly sight in the second of the subsequent incarnations. And in this he brings truth to expression, for he illustrates in a magnificent way the blindness of the modern conception of the world.
Whatever may be one's attitude to Dühring's conception of the world, the moving tragedy of it is that Dühring personifies what the world-conception prevailing in the 19th century truly is; he expresses it through his very make-up as a man. The Stoic, who would not face the world as it is, becomes blind; the iconoclast, the destroyer of images, who will not tolerate imagery, makes the history of literature and poetry into what it became in Dühring's two volumes on Great Men of Letters, where not only are Goethe and Schiller put aside but where at most a man like Bürger plays any definite rôle. Here we have the truth of what is presented elsewhere in a false light. For men assert that the mechanistic thought, the materialism of the second half of the 19th century, sees. There lies the untruth, for materialism does not see; materialism is blind. And Dühring presents it as it truly is.
And so a representative personality, viewed in the right light, is an illustration of world-historic karma, the karma of civilisation as represented by its conception of the world in the second half of the 19th century.
In the next lecture we will speak further of these matters.
Achter Vortrag
Ich sagte gestern, daß ich, trotzdem die Behandlung einzelner karmischer Zusammenhänge etwas Gewagtes ist, dennoch als Beispiele solche karmischen Zusammenhänge hier in der Darstellung entwickeln möchte, und zwar anknüpfend an diejenigen Persönlichkeiten, von denen ich gestern einzelne biographische charakteristische Daten Ihnen vorgebracht habe. Wir werden später auch weniger repräsentative Persönlichkeiten karmisch betrachten können, aber ich möchte zunächst aus dem Grunde solche Persönlichkeiten wählen, weil an ihnen anschaulich werden kann, wie in dem karmischen Gang des menschlichen Lebens durch wiederholte Daseinsphasen die Gesamtentwickelung der Menschheit dann weitergeht. Wir reden ja in der heutigen Zivilisation von Geschichte wie von einem fortlaufenden Strom von Geschehen, beschreiben die Dinge so, daß wir dasjenige, was im 20. Jahrhundert ist, auf das 19. Jahrhundert beziehen, was im 19. Jahrhundert ist, auf das 18. Jahrhundert beziehen und so weiter. Daß die Menschen selbst es sind, die von einer Epoche der Geschichte in die andere Epoche hinüber die Dinge tragen, daß also die Menschen, die in der Gegenwart leben, herübergetragen haben in diese Gegenwart aus älteren historischen Epochen dasjenige, was heute lebt und da ist, das erst gibt Realität, das erst gibt Leben, gibt wahrhaftigen inneren realen Zusammenhang im geschichtlichen Leben.
Wenn bloß Ursache und Wirkung da ist, ist kein wirklicher Zusammenhang da. Wenn Menschenseelen herüberziehen aus einer uralten Erdenzeit in die jüngeren Erdenzeiten, in immer neue Erdenleben, dann kommt realer Zusammenhang in die Menschheitsentwickelung hinein. Diesen realen Zusammenhang, ihn kann man in seiner Bedeutung gerade ersehen, wenn man solche Persönlichkeiten betrachtet, auf die man eben hinschauen kann, weil sie repräsentative Persönlichkeiten sind.
Und da habe ich gestern eben zu erst den sogenannten SchwabenVischer, den Ästhetiker Friedrich Theodor Vischer angeführt und ihn Ihnen einigermaßen charakterisiert. Nun, ich sagte, ich will nur solche Beispiele wählen, für die mir wirklich die Untersuchungen vorliegen. Die Untersuchungen sind eben solche des Anschauens, solche, die mit denjenigen geistigen Mitteln geführt werden, von denen schon gesprochen worden ist, über die nachgelesen werden kann in der anthroposophischen Literatur. Und deshalb ist keine andere Methode gerade in der Besprechung solcher Dinge möglich als eine Art erzählender Methode. Denn nur dasjenige, was sich der unmittelbaren Anschauung ergibt, kann eben auf diesem Gebiete mitgeteilt werden. Und in dem Augenblicke, wo man von einem Erdenleben auf ein früheres zurückliegendes verweist, hört alles verstandesmäßige Begreifen auf. Da gibt es nur die Möglichkeit des Schauens. Es gibt noch einen letzten Rest von verstandesmäßigem Begreifen, wenn es sich darum handelt, das Erdenleben auf das letzte Erleben zwischen dem Tode und dieser Geburt zu beziehen, das Erdenleben zu beziehen auf dasjenige, aus dem es unmittelbar hervorgegangen ist, auf das GeistigSeelische also vor dem Herabstieg auf die Erde; das geht bis zu einem gewissen Grade verstandesmäßig. Die Zurückführung eines Erdenlebens auf ein anderes geht nur in erzählender Form, denn da ist nur die Anschauung das Maßgebende. Und wer nun eben in der Lage ist, auf solch eine Persönlichkeit hinzuschauen, wie es der SchwabenVischer war, und aufzufassen dasjenige, was in einer solchen Persönlichkeit als Ewiges lebt, das heißt, von Erdenleben zu Erdenleben geht, der kann, wenn er, ich möchte sagen, die rechten Strömungen zurückfindet im ganzen Erdenleben, eine solche Persönlichkeit in einem früheren Erdendasein auftauchen sehen. Allerdings, in bezug auf die Forschung geht man zunächst zurück in das vorirdische Erleben. Aber jetzt in der Darstellung möchte ich dieses Zurückgehen auf das vorirdische Erleben für die drei Persönlichkeiten immer an zweiter Stelle behandeln und zunächst darauf aufmerksam machen, wie hinter dem gegenwärtigen Erdenleben einer solchen Persönlichkeit das vorige Erdenleben auftaucht.
Man muß durchaus, wenn man solche Dinge erforschen will, ohne alles Vorurteil sein. Wenn man irgendwie deshalb, weil man diese oder jene Ansicht über das gegenwärtige Erdenleben eines Menschen oder über das letzte Erdenleben eines Menschen hat, sich einbildet, verstandesmäßig sagen zu können, der muß also, weil er jetzt so ist, in einem früheren Erdenleben so und so gewesen sein; wenn man sich solche Urteile bildet, geht man schon tatsächlich falsch, wenigstens geht man leicht falsch. Es wäre gerade so, solch ein Urteil verstandesmäßig von einer Inkarnation auf die andere zu bilden, wie wenn Sie irgendwo zum erstenmal in einem Hause sind: Sie schauen bei den Nordfenstern hinaus, sehen da draußen Bäume, und Sie wollten nun schließen aus den Bäumen, die Sie durch die Nordfenster sehen, wie die Bäume aussehen, die Sie vor den Südfenstern haben. Da müssen Sie eben hingehen zu den Südfenstern und dort sich die Bäume anschauen und mit aller Unbefangenheit den Bäumen gegenübertreten. So müssen Sie eben wirklich alles verstandesmäßig Intellektualistische dann ausschalten, wenn es sich darum handelt, jene Imaginationen zu begreifen, die eben einfach da sind als die Imaginationen entsprechender früherer Erdenleben für solche Persönlichkeiten.
Bei dem Schwaben-Vischer wird man zurückgeführt zur nächsten maßgebenden Inkarnation — dazwischen kann die eine oder andere gleichgültige, vielleicht auch in kürzerem Erdenleben verbrachte sein, aber das ist jetzt nicht wichtig -, in jene Inkarnation, in der sein gegenwärtiges Erdenleben — gegenwärtig in weiterem Sinne, er ist ja schon Ende der achtziger Jahre gestorben -, also sein letztes Erdenleben karmisch vorbereitet worden ist. Diese Inkarnation liegt etwa im 8. nachchristlichen Jahrhundert. Und zwar schaut man ihn als einen Angehörigen jener maurisch-arabischen Menschen, die in dieser Zeit von Afrika nach Sizilien herüberkamen, auch in Kämpfe kamen mit denjenigen Menschen, die vom Norden herunter nach Sizilien kamen.
Das Wesentliche ist, daß diese Individualität, von der ich hier rede, in dieser vorhergehenden maßgebenden Inkarnation ganz und gar eine arabische Bildung hatte, arabische Bildung mit allen Einzelheiten, und zwar so, daß diese arabische Bildung alles das umfaßte, was, ich möchte sagen, künstlerisch, vielleicht auch unkünstlerisch, im Arabismus drinnen ist, umfaßte zu gleicher Zeit aber alle Energie, mit der damals das Arabertum nach Europa vorgedrungen ist, und namentlich umfaßte eine menschliche Zusammengehörigkeit mit einer ziemlich großen Anzahl anderer, derselben arabischen Bevölkerung angehöriger Menschen.
Diese Individualität, die dann im 19. Jahrhundert als Friedrich Theodor Vischer gelebt hat, diese Individualität hat im 8. Jahrhundert einen engen Anschluß gesucht mit vielen, dem gleichen arabischen Volkstum und der gleichen arabischen Kultur angehörigen Menschen, die damals schon mit Europa stark in Berührung gekommen sind, fortdauernde Versuche gemacht haben, in Sizilien sich festzusetzen und harte Kämpfe bestehen mußten, das heißt, eigentlich mußten mehr die Europäer mit ihnen harte Kämpfe bestehen. An solchen Kämpfen hat diese Individualität in reichlichem Maße teilgenommen. Und man kann sagen, eine geniale Persönlichkeit war sie, in dem Sinne genial, wie man dazumal das Geniale auffassen konnte.
Nun, dies zunächst, diese Individualität im 8. Jahrhundert. Nun geht aber die Sache dann weiter. Als diese Persönlichkeit durch die Todespforte geht und das Leben zwischen dem Tod und einer neuen Geburt weiterlebt, da ist ja dann eine innige Gemeinschaft vorhanden, namentlich mit solchen Seelen, mit denen man auf Erden zusammen war. Das sind also jetzt die, von welchen ich Ihnen eben sagen konnte, daß unsere in Betracht kommende Individualität engere gesellige Zusammenhänge mit ihnen gesucht hat. Aber gerade unter den Menschen es ist schwierig, für diese Dinge aus der Sprache, die ja natürlich für die irdischen Verhältnisse geformt ist, Ausdrücke zu finden, um die übersinnlichen Dinge zu charakterisieren -, mit denen nun unsere Individualität Zusammenhang hatte, nachdem sie und die anderen auch durch die Pforte des Todes gegangen waren, unter diesen Menschen bestand durch die ganzen folgenden Jahrhunderte bis herein ins 19. Jahrhundert ein Geistverband, ein geistiger Zusammenhang.
Sie werden schon aus jenem Karmavortrag, den ich vor acht Tagen gehalten habe, entnehmen, daß dasjenige, was auf Erden geschieht, vorher erlebt wird von den Wesenheiten der höchsten Hierarchien, von Cherubim, Seraphim und Thronen, und daß derjenige, der sein Leben durchlebt zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt, so heruntersieht, so auf einen geistig-seelischen Himmel heruntersieht, wie wir zum Himmel hinaufschauen. Da durchleben Seraphim, Cherubim und Throne, sagte ich Ihnen, dasjenige, was dann unser Schicksal wird, wenn wir wiederum heruntersteigen, was wir schicksalsgemäß realisieren.
Nun, in jenen Zusammenhängen, die sich da in der geistigen Welt ergeben, erlebte eben diese ganze Gesellschaft - die jetzt natürlich eine Geistgesellschaft war, in welche jene Individualität hineinversponnen war —, daß sie durch die Jahrhunderte hindurch zu bewahren hatten einen Fortschritt der Menschheit, ohne vom Christentum beeinflußt zu sein. Es wird Ihnen das, was ich damit sage, als etwas außerordentlich Merkwürdiges erscheinen; denn man hat so die Vorstellung, daß die Weltregierung auch so einfach ist, wie man als Mensch alles haben will und irgend etwas anordnen will. Die Weltregierung ist aber nicht so, sondern wenn auf der einen Seite mit dem Mysterium von Golgatha der allerkräftigste Impuls in die ganze Erdenentwickelung hineinversenkt wird, so ist auf der anderen Seite auch wiederum die Notwendigkeit da, nicht dasjenige, was vor dem Mysterium von Golgatha in der Erdenentwickelung war, sogleich zugrunde gehen zu lassen, sondern es fortströmen zu lassen, also das, ich will nicht sagen Antichristliche, aber Achristliche, das, was sich gar nicht kümmert um das Christentum, doch noch durch die Jahrhunderte fortströmen zu lassen.
Und die Aufgabe, diese Strömung für Europa zu tragen, gewissermaßen fortzusetzen die noch nichtchristliche Zeit in die Jahrhunderte des Christentums hinein, ist einer Anzahl von Leuten zugefallen, die im 8. Jahrhunderte, im 7., 8. Jahrhunderte in den Arabismus hineingeboren wurden, weil der eben nicht unmittelbar christlich war, aber auch nicht etwa so zurückgeblieben war wie die alten heidnischen Religionen, sondern immerhin mit den Jahrhunderten nach einer gewissen Richtung vorwärtsgegangen ist. Da waren eine Anzahl von Seelen hineingeboren, die sollten nun, unberührt von den irdischen Verhältnissen, in der geistigen Welt vorwärtstragen dasjenige, was der Menschengeist wissen kann, was der Menschengeist fühlen und empfinden kann, abgesondert vom Christentum. Die sollten gewissermaßen das Christentum erst später treffen, in späteren Epochen der Erdenentwickelung. Und das ist ja wirklich etwas außerordentlich Bedeutsames, etwas erschütternd Großartiges, eben zu sehen, wie da eine verhältnismäßig große Gesellschaft nun im Geistigen weiterlebt, und zwar abseits von der Entwickelung des Christentums, bis eben im 19. Jahrhundert diese Seelen in ihrer Mehrzahl herunterstiegen zur irdischen Inkarnation. Nun, das waren natürlich verschiedene Individualitäten, Individualitäten mit den allermannigfaltigsten Anlagen.
Der Schwaben-Vischer, Friedrich Theodor Vischer, war eine der ersten Seelen, die im 19. Jahrhunderte aus dieser Gesellschaft heruntergestiegen ist. Und er war eigentlich entzogen, stark entzogen der Möglichkeit, viel vom Christentum überhaupt zu erfahren. Dagegen war, als er noch im vorirdischen Dasein war, bei ihm die Möglichkeit vorhanden, gerade bei denjenigen geistigen Führern der Menschheit Impulse zu erlangen, die zwar dem Christentum mehr oder weniger nahegestanden haben, aber in einem nicht eigentlich innerlich christlichen Sinne ihre Weltanschauung, ihre Lebensimpulse ausgebildet haben.
Es ist natürlich paradox, wenn man über diese Dinge so redet wie über irdische Dinge, aber ich sagte ja, ich will das Wagnis unternehmen. Für solch eine Seele wie diejenige, die wir jetzt im Auge haben, ist das Durchgehen durch diese Inkarnation im 7., 8. Jahrhundert eine ganz besonders gute Vorbereitung gewesen, um mit Seelen zusammenzuwachsen in der geistigen Welt wie mit der Seele Spinozas oder ähnlicher, namentlich einer großen Anzahl von nichtchristlichen Kulturträgern, die in jenen Jahrhunderten gestorben sind und in die geistige Welt hinaufgekommen sind, namentlich auch kabbalistischen Kulturträgern.
Und so vorbereitet, kam diese Seele - die anderen kamen nur etwas später - im 19. Jahrhundert ins irdische Dasein. Die anderen wurden alle, und zwar dadurch, daß sie etwas später kamen, "Träger der naturwissenschaftlichen Gesinnung in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts. Denn tatsächlich, das ist das Geheimnis, meine lieben Freunde, für die sonderbare Entwickelung des naturwissenschaftlichen Denkens in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts, daß fast sämtliche Träger dieser mehr ursprünglich denkenden und fühlenden naturwissenschaftlichen Strömung in der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts in ihrem vorigen Erdenleben, in ihrem bestimmenden Erdenleben, Araber waren, Genossen jener Individualität, die dann als Friedrich Theodor Vischer heruntergekommen ist. Nur ist Friedrich Theodor Vischer — gewissermafßen wie eine seelisch-geistige Frühgeburt — früher heruntergekommen.
Das ist auch tief begründet in seinem Karma durch seinen Zusammenhang mit denjenigen Seelen, mit denen Hegel Zusammenhang hatte, bevor er ins Erdenleben heruntergestiegen ist. Mit diesen Seelen hatte auch Friedrich Theodor Vischer schon im geistigen Leben Zusammenhang. Das übte auf ihn durch seine besondere individuelle Richtung einen Einfluß aus, namentlich für dasjenige, was Hegeltum auf der Erde war. Er wurde durch sein Hegeltum davor bewahrt, in eine mehr oder weniger ganz materialistisch-mechanistische Weltanschauung hineinzuwachsen. Wäre er etwas später geboren worden, wie die anderen Geistgenossen von ihm, so wäre er eben mit seiner Ästhetik auch in eine ganz gewöhnliche materialistische Richtung gekommen. So wurde er davor bewahrt durch dasjenige, was er durchgemacht hat im vorirdischen Leben und durch sein früheres Herunterkommen. Aber er konnte auch nicht daran festhalten. Deshalb hat er eben diese vernichtende Kritik seiner eigenen Ästhetik geschrieben, weil das ja nicht ganz seinem Karma entsprach, sondern als eine Wendung seines Karmas eingetreten ist. Ganz hätte es entsprochen seinem Karma, mit den entschieden bloß naturdenkerisch gesinnten Menschen der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts, die seine Genossen im vorigen Erdenleben waren und dem Arabismus angehörten, geboren zu werden, mit denen derselben Gedankenrichtung zu sein.
Nun tritt das Eigentümliche ein: Durch eine Biegung des Karmas, die sich ausgleichen wird in späteren Erdenleben von Friedrich Theodor Vischer, wird er zunächst Hegelianer, das heißt, er wird herausgerissen, allerdings vorherbestimmt durch das vorirdische Dasein, aber nicht durch das Erdenkarma, herausgerissen aus der geradlinigen Richtung seines Karmas. Aber in einem gewissen Lebensalter hält er es nicht mehr aus. Er muß in sein Karma hinein. Er verleugnet seine fünfbändige Ästhetik, findet es ungeheuer verführerisch, die Ästhetik so aufzubauen, wie die Naturforscher es wollen. Er hat seine erste Ästhetik von oben nach unten geschaut, ist von den Prinzipien ausgegangen und dann zu dem Sinnlichen übergegangen. Das kritisiert er selber in Grund und Boden hinein. Er will jetzt die Ästhetik von unten nach oben bauen, von den Tatsachen ausgehend allmählich zu den Prinzipien aufsteigen. Und wir sehen ein ungeheures Ringen, sehen, wie er an der Vernichtung seiner eigenen ersten Ästhetik arbeitet. Wir sehen sein abgebogenes Karma, und wie er zurückgeworfen wird in sein eigentliches Karma, das heißt, zusammengeführt wird mit jenen, deren Genosse er war in einem vorigen Erdenleben.
Und ganz erschütternd bedeutsam ist es wirklich, zu sehen, wie eigentlich Friedrich 'Theodor Vischer niemals fertig wird mit diesem zweiten Bau seiner Ästhetik, wie auch etwas Chaotisches in sein ganzes Geistesleben hineinzieht. Ich habe Ihnen das Philiströse, dieses eigentümliche philisterhafte Verhalten auch zum Goetheschen «Faust» erzählt. Das alles kommt hinein, weil er sich unsicher fühlt und doch wiederum zurück will zu seinen alten Genossen. Man muß nur in Betracht ziehen, wie stark das Unbewußte arbeitet im Karma, dieses Unbewußte, das natürlich für einen höheren Grad des Anschauens dann ein Bewußtes ist. Aber man muß sich nur klar sein darüber: Wie haben gewisse naturforscherische Philister den Goetheschen «Faust» gehaßt! Erinnern Sie sich des Ausspruchs, den ich Ihnen gestern von Du BoisReymond vorgeführt habe: daß Goethe gescheiter getan hätte, den Faust etwas erfinden zu lassen, statt ihn Geister beschwören zu lassen, den Erdgeist beschwören zu lassen, dann mit dem Mephisto zusammenzuführen, Mädchen zu verführen und sie nicht zu heiraten. Ja, das alles sind eigentlich für Du Bois-Reymond Kinkerlitzchen, und es handelt sich ihm darum, daß Goethe hätte sollen einen Helden zeichnen, der die Elektrisiermaschine, die Luftpumpe erfindet! - Gewiß, es würde dann auch ein richtiger sozialer Rückhalt gewesen sein, der Betreffende hätte ja auch Bürgermeister von Magdeburg dabei werden können. Und es wäre vor allen Dingen notwendig gewesen, daß nicht die Gretchen-Tragödie, diese anrüchige, dastünde, sondern daß eine richtige bürgerliche Hochzeit etwa statt der Kerkerszene da wäre. Nun, gewiß, es hat ja schon von einem gewissen Gesichtspunkte aus seine Berechtigung, selbstverständlich; aber Goethe hat das ja ganz sicher nicht gemeint.
Nicht wahr, Friedrich Theodor Vischer ist eben nicht mehr in völliger Sicherheit gewesen, als er, wie ich sagte, diese Abbiegung des Karmas erfahren hatte. Aber es drängte ihn immer wieder und wiederum zurück, und es war für sein Unbewußtes, trotzdem er dabei ein freier Geist war, immer ein Entzücken, wenn er die Philister auf den Goetheschen «Faust» schimpfen hörte. Dabei wird er natürlich geistreich; es ist wie ein Schneeballwerfen hinüber und herüber. Und gerade wenn man einen Menschen an den Dingen betrachtet, wo man mehr mit der Anschauung herankann, dann bekommt man die Imaginationen, die einen führen müssen hinter die Kulissen des sinnlichen Daseins. Die bekommt man heraus.
Es gibt zum Beispiel ein feines Bild. Da sind auf der einen Seite die Philister erster Ordnung, wie also zum Beispiel Du Bois-Reymond: Goethe hätte sollen den Faust als Bürgermeister von Magdeburg darstellen, die Elektrisiermaschine und die Luftpumpe erfinden, Gretchen heiraten lassen — nicht wahr, das sind die Philister erster Ordnung! Nun, das ist im Unterbewußten, weil ein karmischer Zusammenhang da ist. Das waren alles auch maurische Leute, die im Arabismus mit Friedrich Theodor Vischer drinnenstehenden Leute. Nun, es war anziehend für ihn, er fühlte sich verwandt, aber so war er es wiederum nicht; er war in der Zwischenzeit berührt worden von anderen Strömungen, die eben sein Karma abgebogen haben. Und nun, wenn die Philister erster Ordnung hinüberwarfen mit ihren Schneebällen, dann warf er zurück und sagte: Es soll einer eine Dissertation machen zum Beispiel über den Zusammenhang der Frostbeulen der Frau Christiane von Goethe mit den symbolisch-allegorisch-mythologischen Figuren im zweiten Teil des «Faust». Nicht wahr, das ist genial-philiströs, Philistrosität zweiter Ordnung.
Diese Dinge in ihrer Wertigkeit nehmen, das ist dann dasjenige, was einen hinwegführt von dem bloß Intellektuellen und einen dann eher an die Anschauung herankommen läßt. Nun, ich wollte Ihnen zunächst einen Hinweis darauf geben — ich werde auf diese Dinge noch weiter zurückkommen -, wie man das eine Erdenleben begreifen kann an vorhergehenden Erdenleben.
Von einer ungeheuren, erschütternden Bedeutung ist tatsächlich für mich einfach die Figur gewesen, die in Stuttgart herumgegangen ist. Ich habe Sie Ihnen gestern beschrieben: die wunderbaren blauen Augen, den etwas rötlich-bräunlichen Vollbart, die Arme etwa so haltend, diese Gestalt habe ich Ihnen beschrieben. Sehen Sie, nun war diese Anschauung da, auf die ich Sie jetzt hingewiesen habe, aber die physische Statur des Schwaben-Vischers, wie er in Stuttgart herumgegangen ist, die stimmte damit nun nicht, denn er sah wirklich auch für einen okkulten Blick nicht wie ein wiederverkörperter Araber aus. Und ich habe es immer wieder und wiederum fallengelassen, weil man schon tatsächlich auch gegen seine Schauungen einfach, skeptisch kann ich nicht sagen, sie sind ja da, aber mißtrauisch wird. Man will sie in der entschiedensten Weise bekräftigt haben. Ich habe es immer wieder und wieder fallenlassen, bis das Rätsel sich in der folgenden Weise löste:
Dieser Mann - es handelte sich auch in der damaligen Inkarnation um einen Mann -, dieser Mann hat diejenigen Menschen, die ihm vom Norden entgegenkamen, namentlich von Sizilien entgegenkamen, als sein Ideal betrachtet. Nun war in der damaligen Zeit die Möglichkeit, sich gewissermaßen zu ver-sehen an einem Menschen, der einem besonders gefiel, diese Möglichkeit war besonders groß. Und so bekam er seine Figur in der nächsten Inkarnation von denen, die er bekriegte. Das ist dasjenige, was dann, wie gesagt, von seiten der Statur die Lösung des Rätsels herbeigeführt hat.
Wir haben gestern eine zweite Persönlichkeit vor unsere Seele gerückt, Franz Schubert, im Zusammenhang mit seinem Freunde und Gönner, dem Freiherrn von Spaun, und im Zusammenhange mit seinem elementarischen Wesen, das auf der einen Seite in solch seltenen Fällen, wie ich Ihnen einen vorgeführt habe, aufbrausen konnte, zum Raufbold werden konnte, und das auf der anderen Seite außerordentlich zart war, wie ein Nachtwandler morgens beim Aufstehen seine schönsten Melodien hinschrieb. Man kommt außerordentlich schwer zu einem Bilde von dieser Persönlichkeit. Aber gerade der Zusammenhang mit Spaun ergibt in diesem Falle ein Bild. Denn bei Franz Schubert hat man durchaus, wenn man — wenn ich mich des Ausdrucks bedienen darf — im okkulten Felde rückschauend ihn finden will, das Gefühl, wenn ich mich trivial ausdrücken darf: der Schubert, der entschlüpft einem immer, wenn man in seine vorige Inkarnation zurückgehen will. Man kommt nicht leicht zurück, er entschlüpft einem.
Es ist wirklich etwas vom Gegenteil zu dem Schicksal, ich möchte sagen, der Schubert-Werke nach dem Tode von Franz Schubert, etwas, was wie der Gegensatz davon auftritt. Bei den Werken von Schubert, bei den Kompositionen war es ja so, daß, als Schubert eben gestorben war, ganz wenig von ihm bekannt war, ganz wenig den Leuten geläufig war. Dann vergingen immer Jahre, er wurde immer mehr und mehr bekannt, und es war schon ganz spät, in den siebziger Jahren, achtziger Jahren des 19. Jahrhunderts, da brachte jedes Jahr immer wiederum neue Werke von Franz Schubert. Es war interessant, denn Schubert wurde plötzlich, nachdem er lange tot war, der fruchtbarste Komponist. Es erschienen immer neue Werke von ihm. Da kam man eben immer wiederum auf den Schubert zurück.
Wenn man aber von Schuberts Leben im 19. Jahrhundert geistig zurückschaut in sein früheres Erdenleben, dann verlieren sich die Spuren. Man findet ihn nicht leicht.
Dagegen ist es immerhin möglich, verhältnismäßig leicht die Spuren zu finden für den Freiherrn von Spaun. Und diese Linie, die führt zurück in die Zeit auch des 8., 9. Jahrhunderts, aber nach Spanien. Und zwar war der Freiherr von Spaun ein kastilischer Fürst, der als außerordentlich weise galt, sich mit Astrologie, Astronomie im Sinne der damaligen Zeit beschäftigt hat, sogar astronomische Tafeln reformiert und geformt hat, und der in einer bestimmten Zeit seines Lebens aus seiner Heimat fliehen mußte, und gerade bei den stärksten Feinden der kastilischen Bevölkerung der damaligen Zeit, bei den Mauren, seine Zuflucht gefunden hat.
Und da muß er sich einige Zeit aufhalten nach seiner Flucht, und da entwickelt sich ein außerordentlich zartes Verhältnis zu einer maurischen Persönlichkeit, in der die Individualität des späteren Franz Schubert steckt. Und ganz gewiß wäre jener kastilische Fürst zugrunde gegangen, wenn dazumal nicht diese feingeistige Persönlichkeit unter den Mauren sich seiner angenommen hätte und ihm entgegengekommen wäre, so daß er doch eben einige Zeit noch das Erdenleben fortsetzen konnte, zur tiefsten Befriedigung der beiden.
Das, was ich Ihnen erzähle, ist so weit wie möglich von aller intellektualistischen Grübelei entfernt. Ich habe Ihnen sogar angedeutet, wie der Umweg war. Aber auf diesem Umweg wird man tatsächlich geführt dazu, daß in Franz Schubert eine wiederinkarnierte maurische Persönlichkeit steckt, und eine solche maurische Persönlichkeit, eine Persönlichkeit aus dem Kreise der Mauren, die damals ja ziemlich weit davon entfernt war, Musikalisches in der Seele zu verarbeiten, dagegen mit innerstem Hang alles dasjenige gerade verarbeitete, was in arabischer Kultur an feinem Künstlerischem und feinem, ich will nicht sagen Denkerischem, aber feinem Grübelndem herübergebracht worden ist von Asien, durch Afrika gegangen ist und dann in Spanien endlich gelandet ist.
Da bildete sich bei jener Persönlichkeit in der damaligen Inkarnation vor allen Dingen jene anspruchslose und doch wieder energische Seelenweichheit aus, die das, man möchte sagen, künstlerisch Phantasievolle, Somnambule, in der nächsten Inkarnation, in der Inkarnation von Franz Schubert, hervorzauberte. Auf der anderen Seite mußte diese Persönlichkeit aber auch an den schweren Kämpfen teilnehmen, die nun wiederum zwischen den Mauren und der nichtmaurischen Bevölkerung, der kastilischen, aragonischen Bevölkerung und so weiter waren. Und da bildete sich jene zurückgehaltene emotionelle Ader aus, die dann, ich möchte sagen, wie verhalten nur bei besonderen Gelegenheiten im Schubert-Dasein herauskam.
Und mir scheint, daß ebenso, wie man das letzte Erdenleben von Friedrich Theodor Vischer erst begreift, wenn man es auf dem Hintergrunde seines Arabismus schauen kann, man auch das ganz Eigentümliche der Schubertschen Musik, namentlich des Untergrundes mancher seiner Liederkompositionen, nur begreifen wird, wenn man eben da schon die Anschauung hat - ich habe sie nicht konstruiert, sie ergibt sich aus den Tatsachen -, wenn man schon die Anschauung hat: da ist Geistiges, Spirituelles, Asiatisches eine Weile durch die Wüstensonne beschienen worden, dann abgeklärt worden in Europa, dann durch die geistige Welt durchgegangen zwischen dem Tode und einer neuen Geburt, und dann in reiner Menschlichkeit, abgesehen von allen künstlichen sozialen Zusammenhängen, in einem armen Schullehrer wiedergeboren worden.
Die dritte Persönlichkeit, von der ich gestern gesprochen habe wie gesagt, ich will jetzt zunächst diese Dinge andeuten, wir können auf manches noch zurückkommen -, die dritte Persönlichkeit, von der ich gesprochen habe, Eugen Dühring, sie war mir wirklich interessant aus dem Grunde, weil ich mich als junger Mann außerordentlich viel mit Dühringschen Schriften befaßt habe. Ich war von Dührings physikalischen und mathematischen Schriften, insbesondere seinen Schriften: «Neue Grundmittel und Erfindungen zur Analysis, Algebra, Funktionsrechnung und zugehörigen Geometrie», von seiner Behandlung des Gesetzes von korrespondierenden Siedetemperaturen, ich war von diesen Dingen entzückt. Ich habe mich rasend geärgert bei solch einem Buch wie «Sache, Leben und Feinde», wo er eine Art Selbstbiographie schreibt. Das ist eigentlich etwas schrecklich Selbstgefälliges, aber wirklich Genial-Selbstgefälliges; gar nicht zu reden von etwas, was an die wüstesten Pamphlete erinnert, wie «Die Überschätzung Lessings und dessen Anwaltschaft für die Juden». Wiederum konnte ich die «Kritische Geschichte der allgemeinen Prinzipien der Mechanik» bewundern, solange noch nicht der Löwe drinnen war, sondern nur die Klauen des Löwen. Es wirkte doch etwas unangenehm, es ist zuviel in einer Mechanikgeschichte, nicht wahr, von all den Klatschereien, sagen wir, der Frau Helmholtz geredet, denn es kam bei dem Betreffenden weniger an auf den Hermann Helmkoltz, den Dühring so viel beschimpft, sondern es kam eigentlich an auf das Schwätzen — ja, des Kreises der Frau Helmholtz. Aber gut; das sind solche Dinge. Schwätzen tun selbst die verschiedensten Kreise. Schwätzen tun ja selbst die verschiedensten Kreise der Anthroposophen. Trotzdem seit Weihnachten ein neuer Zug sein sollte, kann man verschiedenes, was da und dort geschwätzt wird in Anthroposophenkränzchen, was recht sehr überflüssig ist, und unter Umständen schon noch auch für die betreffenden Schwätzer und Schwätzerinnen unangenehm werden könnte, man kann es selbst da erfahren. Aber wie gesagt, ich habe alle Nuancen, einen Menschen zu verehren, zu schätzen, zu kritisieren, über ihn mich zu ärgern, durchlebt an den Schriften von Dühring. Daß man da sehen möchte auf den Hintergrund wenigstens des nächstvorigen Erdenlebens, wie sich so etwas entwickelt hat, das werden Sie begreiflich finden.
Aber auch hier war es wiederum nicht leicht, und es traten zunächst — ich möchte auch nicht damit zurückhalten, diese Dinge zu erwähnen -, es traten zunächst Blender auf. Man kriegt ja immer, wenn man gerade an solche Untersuchungen herangeht, allerlei Impressionen, manchmal auch furchtbare Impressionen. Ich saß selbst einmal an einem Kaffeehaustisch in Budapest, da waren versammelt der wiederverkörperte Joseph II., Friedrich der Große, die Marquise von Pompadour, Seneca, der Herzog von Reichstadt, Marie Antoinette, und dann kam noch Wenzel Kaunitz während des Abend dazu. Die waren an diesem Kaffeehaustisch, das heißt, die Leute hielten sich dafür, waren der Meinung, daß sie das seien. Also ich meine, es kommt ja immer so irgend etwas heraus, wenn die Leute grübeln, oder anfangen, mit irgendeinem hellseherischen Unfug die Sache zu machen oder dergleichen. Wie gesagt, es kommen leicht Blender, weil es sich da manchmal wirklich darum handelt, von dem prägnantesten Punkt im Leben irgendeines Menschen, das heißt in einem bestimmten Erdenleben, auszugehen, um angemessen zurückgeführt zu werden. Und bei Dühring wollte mir das lange nicht gelingen, irgendeinen prägnanten Punkt zu finden.
Da habe ich denn folgendes gemacht. Ich vergegenwärtigte mir dasjenige, was mir zunächst das Allersympathischste an ihm war: das ist seine mechanistisch-materialistische, aber doch eigentlich wiederum in einem gewissen Sinne wenigstens intellektuell-geistige Weltauffassung. Ich überlegte mir, wie das alles mit einer endlichen Raumeswelt, mit einer endlichen Zeitwelt zu tun hat, konstruierte also die ganze Dühringsche Weltanschauung nach. Das kann man ja leicht tun. Wenn man damit nun geht und in der Rückwärtsbetrachtung nach früheren Inkarnationen sieht, da ergeben sich unzählige Inkarnationen und wiederum Blendung. Ja, man findet nichts; es ergeben sich unzählige Inkarnationen, die sind natürlich nicht und können nicht in solcher Anzahl da sein: es sind bloße Spiegelungen der gegenwärtigen Inkarnation. Denn geradeso wie wenn Sie in einem Saale hier einen Spiegel haben und dort einen, so sehen Sie da ins Endlose hinein gespiegelt. Da kam ich denn darauf, mir intensiv die Vorstellung zu bilden: Wie nimmt sich, ganz klar gedacht, diese Weltanschauung aus, die der Dühring hat? Ich lasse jetzt alles weg, was aus gehässiger Kritik, Schimpfiererei oder sonstigem Trivialismus besteht, ich lasse das alles weg, ich nehme das Großartige, das mir noch immer als Weltanschauung genügend antipathisch ist, das mir aber durch die Art und Weise, wie Dühring es vertrat, sympathisch war — ich stelle mir das lebhaft vor. Aber nun gehe ich daran, mir klar die Realität bei Dühring zu bilden. Er sieht das doch alles von einem bestimmten Jahre an als Blinder! Ein Blinder sieht die Welt eben gar nicht! Er stellt sie daher anders vor als ein Sehender. Und in der Tat, die gewöhnlichen, ich möchte sagen, Alltagsmaterialisten, Alltagsmechanisten, die unterscheiden sich von Dühring. Der Dühring ist ihnen gegenüber genial. Wirklich, alle diese Leute, die da Weltanschauungen aufgebaut haben, der dicke Vogt, Büchner, Moleschott, Spiller, Wießner, wie sie alle heißen ja, nicht wahr, zwölf Dutzend geben eben zwölf Dutzend -, das alles ist doch noch etwas anderes als die Art und Weise, wie Dühring diese Weltanschauung aufbaut. Man sieht auch, daß er schon die Anlage, das Hinstoßen gehabt hat auf eine besondere Gestalt von dieser Weltanschauung, als er noch sehen konnte, und daß diese Weltanschauung eigentlich erst für ihn paßte, als er nicht mehr sehen konnte, als der Raum um ihn herum verfinstert war. Denn in den finsteren Raum paßt eigentlich alles das hinein, aus dem sich Dühring die Welt konstruiert hat. Man hat etwas Unrichtiges, wenn man sich vorstellt: Das hat einer gemacht, der gesehen hat.
Nun denken Sie sich, es ist jetzt bei Dühring eine ungeheure Wahrheit — wie gesagt, andere haben auch solche Weltanschauungen aufgebaut, hundertvierundvierzig gehen auf zwölf Dutzend von solchen Leuten, die solche Weltanschauungen bauen -, aber bei Dühring ist es doch anders, bei Dühring ist es eine Wahrheit: Die anderen sehen und machen Weltanschauungen wie die Blinden; Dühring ist blind und macht die Weltanschauung wie ein Blinder. Das ist nun etwas ungeheuer Frappierendes. Und kommt man einmal darauf, sieht man diesen Menschen an und weiß: Hier war einer innerlich aus seelischer Entwickelung wie ein Blinder, der nun mechanistisch wird deshalb, weil er blind ist. Dann findet man ihn wiederum zunächst — und zwar kommen hier zwei Inkarnationen in Betracht -, man findet ihn inmitten derjenigen Bewegung im christlichen Osten als einen, der, so um das 8., 9. Jahrhundert herum, bald den Abbau alles Bildhaften protegiert, Bilderstürmer wird, bald wiederum die Bilder in ihre Rechte einsetzt. In Konstantinopel namentlich entwickelt sich dieses Kämpfen um eine Bilderreligion oder bilderfreie Religion. Da finden wir nun die spätere Dühring-Individualität als einen Menschen, der mit allem Enthusiasmus für ein bilderfreies Kulturleben stürmt, mit einer richtigen Landsknechtnatur. Und ich möchte sagen, rein im physischen Kampf sieht man nun alles das bei ihm, was später in Ausdrücken zutage tritt.
Mir war etwas ungeheuer interessant: Im zweiten Bändchen der Julius Robert Mayer-Schrift, da findet sich ein eigentümliches Wort. Man bekommt ja die Sache anschauungsgemäß! Dühring hatte als Bilderstürmer eine besondere Art, den Säbel zu bewegen, diesen eigentümlichen Krummsäbel, der ja auch dazumal sich schon nach und nach ausbildete. Ich fand einen Einklang - nicht wahr, es kommt da wirklich auf bildhafte Einzelheiten an —- mit einem Wort in dem Julius Robert Mayer-Buch. Das ist ein Kapitel, das heißt: «Schlichologisches», Schlichologisches im deutschen Universitätsleben und so weiter! Da wo man Streiche macht, wo man von der Seite hineinkommt: Schlichologisches!
Geradeso, wie er den schönen Ausdruck «Intellektuaille» gebildet hat im Anklang an Kanaille, so bildet er «Schlichologisches». Er erfindet die mannigfaltigsten Worte. Man kann, wie gesagt, an solchen scheinbar untergeordneten Dingen viel sehen. Und so paradox es scheinen mag, man kommt eigentlich nicht auf den Zusammenhang der verschiedenen Erdenleben, wenn man nicht einen Sinn hat, in Symptomen etwas zu sehen. Wer nicht aus der Art und Weise, wie ein Mensch geht, oder wie ein Mensch auftritt mit den Sohlen, auf seinen Charakter schließen kann, der wird nicht leicht in solchen Dingen, wie ich sie jetzt vortrage, Fortschritte machen. Man muß schon die Art und Weise, wie da diese Individualität den Säbel dazumal bewegt hat, hineinspringen sehen in die Worte, die er dann bildete.
Und nun ist es gerade dieser Dühring, der eigentlich so viel schimpfte, namentlich auf die gelehrten «Verlehrten»! Er sagte, lieb war es ihm schon, wenn er gar nicht mehr Namen haben müßte, die an die alte Wissenschaftlichkeit erinnern. Er will keine Logik haben, will eine Anti-Logik haben, keine Sophia, eine Anti-Sophia, er will keine Wissenschaft haben, will eine Anti-Wissenschaft haben. Das wäre ihm eigentlich am liebsten, alles «anti» zu machen; er spricht das ausdrücklich aus. Nun, dieser Mann, der also so furchtbar geschimpft hat auf alles Gelehrte, war gerade in der Inkarnation, die wiederum wie hinter dieser landsknechtmäßigen Bilderstürmer-Inkarnation dasteht, in der dahinterstehenden Inkarnation also, noch innerhalb der Schule der griechischen Stoiker, ein richtiger griechischer stoischer Philosoph. Gerade Dühring war im Altertum das, über was er am meisten schimpft: Er war in der dritten, zweitvorangehenden Inkarnation durchaus Philosoph, und zwar stoischer Philosoph, also einer derjenigen Philosophen, die sich zurückzogen vom Erdenleben.
Aber mir war das dazumal zunächst aufgegangen: Ungeheuer viele Gedankenformen, die bei Dühring sich finden, finden sich bei den Stoikern! Es ist nur nicht immer so einfach! Über die Form von Gedanken bei den Stoikern und bei Dühring könnte ein ganzes Seminar Dissertationen machen.
Man kommt also zunächst auf das Bilderstürmer-Zeitalter, im 9. Jahrhundert etwa, im europäischen Osten, wo Dühring eben ein Bilderstürmer war, und dann ins 3. vorchristliche Jahrhundert, in die alte stoische Zeit des Griechentums zurück.
Und nun ist es wirklich wiederum erschütternd: Der Stoiker, der anspruchslos wird im Leben, sich zurückzieht vor demjenigen, was nicht unmittelbar für das Leben notwendig ist, der resigniert, der resigniert im Laufe des zweitnächsten geistigen Lebens auf das Augenlicht im Erdenleben. Und darinnen wird er wahr. Und er ist es dann, der die Blindheit der modernen Weltanschauung in einer grandiosen Weise zur Darstellung bringt.
Wie man sich auch stellt zu der Dühringschen Weltanschauung, das ist das Tragisch-Erschütternde, daß Dühring in seiner Persönlichkeit die Wahrheit der Weltanschauung des 19. Jahrhunderts ist, und diese Wahrheit spricht Dühring durch seinen Menschen aus. Dieser Stoiker, der in die Welt nicht schauen wollte, wurde blind; dieser Bilderstürmer, der die Bilder vernichten wollte, kann nicht leiden irgendein Bild, macht die Literaturgeschichte, macht die Dichtung zu dem, was sie eben geworden ist in seinen zwei Büchern über Literaturgrößen, wo nicht nur Goethe und Schiller herausfallen, wo höchstens noch Bürger eine bestimmte Rolle spielt. Da wird wahr, was sonst verlogen ist. Denn sonst wird behauptet durch die Menschen: Der Mechanismus, der Materialismus der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts, der sieht! Nein, das ist die Unwahrheit, er sieht nicht, er ist blind, und Dühring stellt ihn in seiner Wahrheit dar!
So stellt denn eine repräsentative Persönlichkeit, richtig betrachtet an ihrem Ort, zu gleicher Zeit das welthistorische Karma dar, das Karma, das die Zivilisation selber in ihrer Weltanschauung der zweiten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts hatte.
Von diesen Dingen werden wir dann das nächste Mal weiterreden.
Eighth Lecture
Yesterday I said that, although the treatment of individual karmic connections is something daring, I would nevertheless like to develop such karmic connections here in the presentation as examples, and to do so by taking up those personalities of whom I presented individual biographical characteristic data to you yesterday. Later we will also be able to look at less representative personalities in karmic terms, but I would first like to choose such personalities because they can illustrate how the overall development of humanity continues in the karmic course of human life through repeated phases of existence. In today's civilization we speak of history as a continuous stream of events, describing things in such a way that we relate what is in the 20th century to the 19th century, what is in the 19th century to the 18th century and so on. That it is people themselves who carry things over from one epoch of history to another, that people living in the present have carried over into this present from older historical epochs that which is alive and present today, that only gives reality, that only gives life, gives true inner real connection in historical life.
If there is only cause and effect, there is no real connection. When human souls move from an ancient time on earth into the more recent times on earth, into ever new lives on earth, then a real connection comes into the development of mankind. This real connection can be seen in its significance when you look at such personalities, whom you can look at because they are representative personalities.
And yesterday I first mentioned the so-called Swabian Vischer, the aesthete Friedrich Theodor Vischer, and characterized him for you to some extent. Well, I said that I only want to choose examples for which I really have the research. The investigations are precisely those of contemplation, those that are conducted with the spiritual means that have already been mentioned and can be read about in the anthroposophical literature. And therefore no other method is possible in the discussion of such things than a kind of narrative method. For only that which arises from direct observation can be communicated in this field. And at the moment when one refers from an earthly life to a previous one, all intellectual comprehension ceases. There is only the possibility of seeing. There is still a last remnant of intellectual comprehension when it is a question of relating the earth-life to the last experience between death and this birth, of relating the earth-life to that from which it emerged directly, to the spiritual-soul before the descent to earth; this can be done intellectually to a certain degree. The tracing back of one earthly life to another is only possible in narrative form, because only the perception is the decisive factor. And whoever is able to look at such a personality, as was the Swabian Vischer, and to grasp that which lives in such a personality as eternal, that is, which passes from earth life to earth life, can, if he, I would like to say, finds the right currents back in the whole earth life, see such a personality appear in a previous earth existence. However, with regard to research, one first goes back to the pre-earthly experience. But now in the presentation I would like to treat this going back to the pre-earthly experience for the three personalities always in second place and first draw attention to how the previous earthly life emerges behind the present earthly life of such a personality.
If you want to investigate such things, you must be without prejudice. If somehow, because one has this or that opinion about a person's present life on earth or about a person's last life on earth, one imagines that one can say intellectually that because he is like this now, he must have been like this or that in a previous life on earth; if one forms such judgments, one is actually going wrong, at least one is easily going wrong. It would be just the same to form such a judgment intellectually from one incarnation to the next as when you are somewhere in a house for the first time: You look out of the north windows, see trees outside, and now you want to deduce from the trees you see through the north windows what the trees you have in front of the south windows look like. So you have to go to the south windows and look at the trees there and face the trees with complete impartiality. In this way you really have to switch off everything intellectual when it comes to understanding those imaginations that are simply there as the imaginations of corresponding earlier earthly lives for such personalities.
In the case of the Swabian Vischer, one is led back to the next decisive incarnation - in between there may be one or two indifferent incarnations, perhaps spent in shorter earth lives, but that is not important now - to that incarnation in which his present earth life - present in a broader sense, since he already died at the end of the eighties - that is, his last earth life was karmically prepared. This incarnation was around the 8th century AD. And he is seen as a member of those Moorish-Arabic people who came over from Africa to Sicily at this time, who also came into conflict with those people who came down to Sicily from the north.
The essential thing is that this individuality of which I speak here had, in this previous authoritative incarnation, an entirely Arab education, an Arab education with all its details, and in such a way that this Arab education embraced everything that was, I might say, artistic, perhaps also inartistic, in Arabism, but at the same time it encompassed all the energy with which Arabism penetrated into Europe at that time, and in particular it encompassed a human affinity with a fairly large number of other people belonging to the same Arab population.
This individuality, which then lived in the 19th century as Friedrich Theodor Vischer, this individuality sought a close connection in the 8th century with many people belonging to the same Arab people and the same Arab culture, who had already come into close contact with Europe at that time, had made continuous attempts to establish themselves in Sicily and had to fight hard battles, that is, actually the Europeans had to fight hard battles with them. This individuality took part in such battles in abundance. And one can say that it was a brilliant personality, brilliant in the sense in which genius was understood at the time.
Now, first of all, this individuality in the 8th century. But now the matter goes further. When this personality passes through the gate of death and lives on between death and a new birth, there is then an intimate communion, especially with those souls with whom one was together on earth. So these are the ones of whom I have just been able to tell you that our individuality in question has sought closer social connections with them. But it is difficult to find expressions for these things from language, which is naturally formed for earthly conditions, in order to characterize the supersensible things - with which our individuality now had a connection after it and the others had also passed through the gate of death, among these people a spiritual association, a spiritual connection, existed through the whole of the following centuries up into the 19th century.
You will already gather from the karma lecture I gave eight days ago that what happens on earth is experienced beforehand by the beings of the highest hierarchies, by cherubim, seraphim and thrones, and that the one who lives through his life between death and a new birth looks down in this way, looks down on a spiritual-soul heaven, just as we look up to heaven. There seraphim, cherubim and thrones, I told you, live through that which then becomes our destiny when we descend again, which we realize according to destiny.
Now, in those contexts that arise in the spiritual world, this whole society - which was now of course a spiritual society into which that individuality was woven - experienced that they had to preserve a progress of humanity through the centuries without being influenced by Christianity. What I am saying will appear to you as something extraordinarily strange, for you have the idea that world government is as simple as a human being wanting to have everything and wanting to order something. But the world government is not like that, but if on the one hand, with the Mystery of Golgotha, the most powerful impulse is sunk into the whole development of the earth, then on the other hand there is again the necessity not to do that, not to let that which was in earthly development before the Mystery of Golgotha perish at once, but to let it flow on, that is, to let that which is, I do not want to say anti-Christian, but Achristian, that which does not care at all about Christianity, still flow on through the centuries.
And the task of carrying this current for Europe, of continuing, so to speak, the still non-Christian time into the centuries of Christianity, fell to a number of people who were born into Arabism in the 8th century, in the 7th, 8th century, because it was not directly Christian, but also not as backward as the old pagan religions, but at least progressed with the centuries in a certain direction. A number of souls were born into it who, untouched by earthly conditions, were now to carry forward in the spiritual world what the human spirit can know, what the human spirit can feel and sense, separated from Christianity. In a sense, they were only to meet Christianity later, in later epochs of earthly development. And that is really something extraordinarily significant, something shatteringly great, to see how a relatively large society now lives on in the spiritual, and indeed apart from the development of Christianity, until in the 19th century the majority of these souls descended to earthly incarnation. Now, of course, these were different individualities, individualities with the most diverse dispositions.
The Swabian Vischer, Friedrich Theodor Vischer, was one of the first souls to descend from this society in the 19th century. And he was actually deprived, severely deprived of the opportunity to experience much of Christianity at all. On the other hand, when he was still in pre-earthly existence, he had the opportunity to gain impulses precisely from those spiritual leaders of humanity who were more or less close to Christianity, but who had developed their world view, their life impulses, in a sense that was not actually inwardly Christian.
It is of course paradoxical to talk about these things in the same way as about earthly things, but I said I wanted to take the risk. For such a soul as the one we have in mind now, the passage through this incarnation in the 7th, 8th century was a particularly good preparation to grow together with souls in the spiritual world such as the soul of Spinoza or similar, namely a large number of non-Christian culture bearers who died in those centuries and came up into the spiritual world, namely also Kabbalistic culture bearers.
And so prepared, this soul - the others came only a little later - came into earthly existence in the 19th century. The others all became "carriers of the natural-scientific attitude in the second half of the 19th century, because they came a little later. For indeed, that is the secret, my dear friends, of the strange development of scientific thought in the second half of the 19th century, that almost all the bearers of this more originally thinking and feeling scientific current in the second half of the 19th century were Arabs in their previous life on earth, in their determining life on earth, comrades of that individuality which then came down as Friedrich Theodor Vischer. Only Friedrich Theodor Vischer came down earlier - to a certain extent like a soul-spiritual premature birth.
This is also deeply rooted in his karma through his connection with those souls with whom Hegel had a connection before he descended into earthly life. Friedrich Theodor Vischer also had a connection with these souls in his spiritual life. This exerted an influence on him through his particular individual direction, especially for that which was Hegelianism on earth. He was protected by his Hegelianism from growing into a more or less completely materialistic-mechanistic world view. If he had been born a little later, like his other spiritual comrades, his aesthetics would have taken him in a completely normal materialistic direction. Thus he was protected from this by what he had gone through in his pre-earthly life and by his earlier descent. But he could not hold on to it either. That is why he wrote this scathing criticism of his own aesthetics, because it did not entirely correspond to his karma, but occurred as a twist in his karma. It would have been entirely in keeping with his karma to be born with the people of the second half of the 19th century, who were his comrades in his previous life on earth and belonged to Arabism, who were decidedly only nature-minded, to be of the same school of thought.
Now the peculiar occurs: Through a bend in karma, which will even itself out in Friedrich Theodor Vischer's later earthly life, he first becomes a Hegelian, that is, he is torn out, albeit predestined by the pre-earthly existence, but not by earthly karma, torn out of the straight line of his karma. But at a certain age he can no longer stand it. He must enter into his karma. He denies his five-volume aesthetics, finds it tremendously tempting to build aesthetics the way the naturalists want it. He looked at his first aesthetics from the top down, starting from the principles and then moving on to the sensual. He himself criticizes this down to the ground. He now wants to build aesthetics from the bottom up, starting from the facts and gradually ascending to the principles. And we see a tremendous struggle, we see how he works on the destruction of his own first aesthetics. We see his karma turned aside, and how he is thrown back into his actual karma, that is, brought together with those whose comrade he was in a previous life on earth.
And it is really quite shatteringly significant to see how Friedrich 'Theodor Vischer is actually never finished with this second construction of his aesthetics, how something chaotic also pervades his entire spiritual life. I have told you about the philistine, this peculiar philistine attitude to Goethe's Faust. It all comes in because he feels insecure and yet wants to return to his old comrades. One only has to consider how strongly the unconscious works in karma, this unconscious, which is of course conscious for a higher degree of perception. But you only have to be clear about it: How certain naturalistic philistines hated Goethe's Faust! Remember the quotation I gave you yesterday from Du Bois-Reymond: that Goethe would have done better to have Faust invent something instead of having him conjure up spirits, conjure up the earth spirit, then bring him together with Mephisto, seduce girls and not marry them. Yes, for Du Bois-Reymond all these are actually trifles, and his point is that Goethe should have drawn a hero who invents the electrifying machine, the air pump! - Certainly, it would have been a real social support, the person concerned could have become mayor of Magdeburg. And, above all, it would have been necessary to have not the Gretchen tragedy, that disreputable one, but a real bourgeois wedding instead of the dungeon scene. Well, certainly, from a certain point of view it is justified, of course; but Goethe certainly didn't mean that.
Not true, Friedrich Theodor Vischer was no longer in complete safety when, as I said, he experienced this twist of karma. But it pushed him back again and again, and it was always a delight for his unconscious, even though he was a free spirit, when he heard the philistines scolding Goethe's Faust. He naturally becomes witty; it's like throwing snowballs back and forth. And it's precisely when you look at a person through the lens of things, where you can get closer to them with your own eyes, that you get the imaginations that must lead you behind the scenes of sensual existence. You get them out.
For example, there is a subtle image. On the one hand, there are the philistines of the first order, such as Du Bois-Reymond: Goethe should have portrayed Faust as the mayor of Magdeburg, invented the electric machine and the air pump, had Gretchen married - not true, these are the philistines of the first order! Well, that's in the subconscious, because there's a karmic connection. They were all Moorish people too, the people in Arabism with Friedrich Theodor Vischer. Well, it was attractive to him, he felt related, but then again he wasn't; in the meantime he had been touched by other currents that had bent his karma. And now, when the philistines of the first order threw their snowballs at him, he threw them back and said: "Someone should write a dissertation, for example, on the connection between the chilblains of Mrs. Christiane von Goethe and the symbolic-allegorical-mythological figures in the second part of Faust. Not true, that is brilliantly philistine, philistrosity of the second order.
Taking these things in their value, that is what leads you away from the merely intellectual and lets you get closer to the contemplative. Well, I first wanted to give you a hint - I will come back to these things later - as to how one can understand the one earth life from previous earth lives.
The figure that went around Stuttgart was indeed of tremendous, shattering significance for me. I described it to you yesterday: the wonderful blue eyes, the somewhat reddish-brownish full beard, holding his arms like this, I described this figure to you. You see, this image was there, which I have now pointed out to you, but the physical stature of the Swabian Vischer, as he walked around Stuttgart, did not match it, because he really did not look like a reincarnated Arab, even to an occult eye. And I let it go again and again, because you really do become skeptical of his visions, I can't say skeptical, they are there, but suspicious. One wants to have them confirmed in the most decisive way. I dropped it again and again until the riddle was solved in the following way:
This man - it was also a man in the incarnation of that time -, this man regarded those people who came to meet him from the north, namely from Sicily, as his ideal. Now, in those days, the possibility of seeing oneself in a person one particularly liked was particularly great. And so he received his character in the next incarnation from those he fought against. That is what then, as I said, brought about the solution to the riddle on the part of the stature.
Yesterday we brought a second personality before our souls, Franz Schubert, in connection with his friend and patron, Baron von Spaun, and in connection with his elemental nature, which on the one hand, in such rare cases as I have presented to you, could flare up, could become a ruffian, and on the other hand was extraordinarily tender, like a night-walker writing his most beautiful melodies when he gets up in the morning. It is extremely difficult to get a picture of this personality. But it is precisely the connection with Spaun that creates a picture in this case. For in the case of Franz Schubert, if I may use the expression, if one wants to look back and find him in the occult field, one has the feeling, if I may express myself trivially: Schubert always slips away when one wants to go back to his previous incarnation. It's not easy to get back, it slips away.
It really is something of the opposite of the fate, I would say, of the Schubert works after Franz Schubert's death, something that appears like the opposite of it. With Schubert's works, with his compositions, it was the case that when Schubert had just died, very little was known about him, very little was familiar to people. Then years went by, he became more and more famous, and it was already quite late, in the seventies, eighties of the 19th century, when every year brought new works by Franz Schubert. It was interesting, because Schubert suddenly became the most prolific composer after he had been dead for a long time. New works by him kept appearing. So you always came back to Schubert again.
But if you look back mentally from Schubert's life in the 19th century to his earlier life on earth, the traces get lost. It is not easy to find him.
In contrast, it is relatively easy to find traces of Baron von Spaun. And this line leads back to the time of the 8th, 9th century, but to Spain. The Baron of Spaun was a Castilian prince who was considered to be extraordinarily wise, who dealt with astrology and astronomy in the sense of the time, who even reformed and formed astronomical tables, and who at a certain time in his life had to flee his homeland and found refuge with the strongest enemies of the Castilian population of the time, the Moors.
And that is where he has to stay for some time after his escape, and that is where an extraordinarily tender relationship develops with a Moorish personality in whom the individuality of the later Franz Schubert is to be found. And that Castilian prince would certainly have perished if this subtle personality among the Moors had not taken care of him and met him, so that he was able to continue his life on earth for a while, to the deepest satisfaction of both of them.
What I am telling you is as far removed as possible from all intellectualistic musings. I have even indicated to you what the detour was like. But this detour actually leads to the fact that Franz Schubert is a reincarnated Moorish personality, and such a Moorish personality, a personality from the Moorish circle, who at that time was quite far removed from processing musical matters in his soul, but who, on the other hand, processed with the deepest inclination everything that was brought over from Asia in Arab culture in terms of fine artistic and fine, I don't want to say intellectual, but fine brooding, and then went through Africa and finally landed in Spain.
That personality in that incarnation developed above all that unpretentious and yet again energetic softness of soul which, one might say, conjured up the artistically imaginative, the somnambulistic, in the next incarnation, in the incarnation of Franz Schubert. On the other hand, this personality also had to take part in the serious battles that were now taking place between the Moors and the non-Moorish population, the Castilian, Aragonese population and so on. And that's when that restrained emotional vein developed, which then, I would like to say, only came out on special occasions in Schubert's life.
And it seems to me that just as Friedrich Theodor Vischer's last life on earth can only be understood if one can see it against the background of his Arabism, one will only understand the very peculiar nature of Schubert's music, especially the background of some of his song compositions, if one already has the view - I have not constructed it, it arises from the facts - if one already has the view: the spiritual, the Asiatic was illuminated for a while by the desert sun, then clarified in Europe, then passed through the spiritual world between death and a new birth, and then was reborn in pure humanity, apart from all artificial social contexts, in a poor schoolteacher.
The third personality of whom I spoke yesterday, as I said - I will now first indicate these things, we can come back to some things - the third personality of whom I spoke, Eugen Dühring, was really interesting to me for the reason that as a young man I dealt with Dühring's writings an extraordinary amount. I was enchanted by Dühring's writings on physics and mathematics, especially his writings: “Neue Grundmittel und Erfindungen zur Analysis, Algebra, Funktionsrechnung und zugehörigen Geometrie”, by his treatment of the law of corresponding boiling temperatures. I was furiously annoyed by such a book as “Sache, Leben und Feinde”, where he writes a kind of self-biography. It's actually something terribly self-congratulatory, but really brilliantly self-congratulatory; not to mention something reminiscent of the wildest pamphlets, such as “Die Überschätzung Lessings und dessen Anwaltschaft für die Juden”. Again, I could admire the “Critical History of the General Principles of Mechanics” as long as the lion was not yet inside, but only the lion's claws. It did seem a bit unpleasant, it's too much in a history of mechanics, isn't it, talking about all the gossip, let's say, of Mrs. Helmholtz, because the person in question was less concerned with Hermann Helmkoltz, whom Dühring insults so much, but it was actually the gossip - yes, of Mrs. Helmholtz's circle. But well; these are such things. Even the most diverse circles gossip. Even the most diverse circles of anthroposophists gossip. Despite the fact that since Christmas there should be a new trend, one can experience for oneself the various things that are gossiped about here and there in anthroposophical circles, which are quite superfluous and could possibly become unpleasant for the gossipers concerned. But as I said, I have experienced all the nuances of revering, appreciating, criticizing and being annoyed by a person in Dühring's writings. You will find it understandable that you want to see how something like this has developed against the background of at least the next previous life on earth.
But here again it was not easy, and at first - and I don't want to hold back from mentioning these things - at first there were deceivers. You always get all kinds of impressions, sometimes terrible impressions, when you approach such investigations. I myself once sat at a coffee house table in Budapest, where the reincarnated Joseph II, Frederick the Great, the Marquise of Pompadour, Seneca, the Duke of Reichstadt, Marie Antoinette, and then Wenzel Kaunitz joined us for the evening. They were at this coffee house table, that is, people thought they were, thought they were. Well, I mean, something always comes out when people are brooding or start to do things with some clairvoyant nonsense or something like that. As I said, it's easy to get fooled, because sometimes it really is a matter of starting from the most striking point in someone's life, that is, in a particular earthly life, in order to be appropriately led back. And with Dühring, I didn't want to succeed for a long time in finding any concise point.
So I did the following. I visualized what I initially found most appealing about him: his mechanistic-materialistic, but in a certain sense at least intellectual-spiritual view of the world. I thought about how all this had to do with a finite world of space and a finite world of time, so I reconstructed Dühring's entire world view. That's easy to do. If you now go backwards and look for earlier incarnations, you will find countless incarnations and again dazzle. Yes, you find nothing; there are innumerable incarnations, which of course are not and cannot be there in such numbers: they are mere reflections of the present incarnation. For just as if you had a mirror in a hall here and one there, so you see reflected into the infinite. That's when I came to form the idea intensively: How does this view of the world that Dühring has look, if you think about it clearly? I am now leaving out everything that consists of spiteful criticism, invective or other trivialism, I am leaving it all out, I am taking the greatness that is still sufficiently antipathetic to me as a world view, but which was sympathetic to me because of the way Dühring represented it - I imagine it vividly. But now I'm trying to form a clear picture of Dühring's reality. He sees it all from a certain age as a blind man! A blind man does not see the world at all! He therefore imagines it differently than a sighted person. And indeed, the ordinary, I would say, everyday materialists, everyday mechanists, they differ from Dühring. Dühring is brilliant compared to them. Really, all these people who have built up world views, the fat Vogt, Büchner, Moleschott, Spiller, Wießner, whatever they're all called, aren't they, twelve dozen give twelve dozen - all that is something else than the way Dühring builds up this world view. You can also see that he already had the disposition, the push towards a particular form of this world view when he could still see, and that this world view only really suited him when he could no longer see, when the space around him was darkened. For everything that Dühring used to construct the world actually fits into the darkened space. There is something wrong when you imagine: This was done by someone who saw.
Now think to yourself, it is now a tremendous truth with Dühring - as I said, others have also built up such world views, one hundred and forty-four go to twelve dozen of such people who build such world views - but with Dühring it is different, with Dühring it is a truth: the others see and make world views like the blind; Dühring is blind and makes the world view like a blind man. That is something tremendously astonishing. And once you realize it, you look at this man and know: here was someone who, inwardly, out of spiritual development, was like a blind man, who now becomes mechanistic because he is blind. Then you find him again at first - and two incarnations come into consideration here - you find him in the midst of that movement in the Christian East as someone who, around the 8th and 9th centuries, soon protected the dismantling of all things pictorial, became an iconoclast, and soon reinstated the rights of images. In Constantinople in particular, this struggle for an image religion or image-free religion developed. There we find the later Dühring individuality as a man who stormed with all his enthusiasm for an image-free cultural life, with a real Landsknecht nature. And I would like to say that, purely in the physical struggle, you can now see everything in him that later emerges in expressions.
I found something incredibly interesting: In the second volume of Julius Robert Mayer's writings, there is a peculiar word. You get the idea! As an iconoclast, Dühring had a special way of moving the sabre, this peculiar scimitar, which was already gradually developing at the time. I found a harmony - not true, it really depends on pictorial details - with a word in the Julius Robert Mayer book. It's a chapter called “Schlichology”, Schlichology in German university life and so on! Where you make pranks, where you come in from the side: Schlichology!
Just as he formed the beautiful expression “Intellektuaille” in reference to Kanaille, so he forms “Schlichologisches”. He invents the most diverse words. As I said, you can see a lot in such seemingly subordinate things. And paradoxical as it may seem, one does not actually arrive at the connection between the various earthly lives if one does not have a sense of seeing something in symptoms. If you cannot deduce a person's character from the way he walks or the way he walks with his soles, you will not easily make progress in such things as I am now presenting. You have to see the way in which this individuality moved the sabre at that time leap into the words he then formed.
And now it is precisely this Dühring who actually scolded so much, especially the learned “scholars”! He said that he would prefer it if he no longer had to have names that were reminiscent of the old scientific approach. He doesn't want to have logic, he wants to have anti-logic, no Sophia, an anti-Sophia, he doesn't want to have science, he wants to have anti-science. That would actually be his favorite thing, to make everything “anti”; he says so explicitly. Now, this man, who thus railed so terribly against all scholarship, was a true Greek Stoic philosopher precisely in the incarnation that stands behind this Landsknecht-like iconoclast incarnation, in the incarnation behind it, still within the school of the Greek Stoics. In antiquity, Dühring in particular was what he scolds most: in the third, second preceding incarnation, he was indeed a philosopher, a Stoic philosopher, i.e. one of those philosophers who withdrew from earthly life.
But I realized that at first: An enormous number of thought forms found in Dühring can be found in the Stoics! It's just not always that simple! An entire seminar could write a dissertation on the form of thought in the Stoics and Dühring.
So we first come to the age of iconoclasm, in the 9th century or so, in the European East, where Dühring was an iconoclast, and then back to the 3rd century before Christ, to the old Stoic period of Greek thought.
And now it is really shocking again: the Stoic who becomes undemanding in life, who withdraws from that which is not immediately necessary for life, who resigns, who resigns in the course of the second spiritual life to the sight of life on earth. And in this he becomes true. And it is then he who brings the blindness of the modern world view to light in a grandiose way.
Whatever one's attitude towards Dühring's world view, the tragically shattering thing is that Dühring in his personality is the truth of the world view of the 19th century, and Dühring expresses this truth through his man. This stoic, who did not want to look into the world, became blind; this iconoclast, who wanted to destroy images, cannot suffer any image, makes literary history, makes poetry what it has just become in his two books on literary greats, where not only Goethe and Schiller stand out, where at most Bürger still plays a certain role. There, what is otherwise a lie becomes true. For otherwise it is claimed by people: The mechanism, the materialism of the second half of the 19th century, that sees! No, that is an untruth, it does not see, it is blind, and Dühring presents it in its truth!
So then a representative personality, correctly viewed in his place, represents at the same time the world-historical karma, the karma that civilization itself had in its world view of the second half of the 19th century.
We will talk more about these things next time.