The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Goethe attempts to penetrate from the knowledge and awareness of the dead to the knowledge and awareness of the living. He asserts the power of observation over theory. The individual leaf is the whole plant, the plant is only the complicated elaboration of the individual limb. This can be applied again to the human being, who is only one limb of the whole world. We produce speech through our larynx, and it is received through the ear. But it is also possible to observe these movements with supersensible organs. These are artistic movements that can be seen when speaking. And these movements can be transferred to the whole human being, to the whole moving human being, who reveals the movements that otherwise underlie the larynx and its neighboring organs: speech that has become visible. The joy, suffering, etc. that resonates through the soul when speaking can be transferred to groups and expressed there.

In eurythmy, it is the sequence of movements that is important – just as it is the sequence of tones in music.

If one and the same poem were to be presented in two different ways, it would only be presented in an individually different way to the extent that a Beethoven sonata is performed differently by a particular player in two different places. There is nothing arbitrary about this art of movement; everything follows laws, rhythm, harmony and so on. The content of the poem is only one opportunity, like rhythm, to bring out the artistic side. With Schiller, for example, it was not the content of a poem that came first, but in his play something musical, rhythmic trembled, and only then did it become poetry. Goethe rehearsed 'Iphigenia' with the baton with the performing artists.

It is particularly appealing when a person not only creates works of art but also turns themselves into a work of art. This is how eurythmy is to be understood.

Through spiritual scientific investigation, we see how the world and all nature surrounding us becomes intelligible. It also becomes increasingly clear to us how the outer facts of our surroundings can have a more-or-less profound significance for the inner being of man. Today we will develop further the theme of why music affects the human soul in such a definite, unique way. In doing this, we will cast light on the very foundations of the soul.

To begin with we must ask how a remarkable hereditary line such as we see in the Bach family, for example, can be explained. Within a period of 250 years, nearly thirty members of this family exhibited marked musical talent. Another case is the Bernoulli family, in which a mathematical gift was inherited in a similar way through several generations, and eight of the family members were mathematicians of some renown. Here are two phenomena that can be understood by heredity, yet they are totally different situations.

To those who have sought to penetrate deeply into the nature of things, music appears to be something quite special. Music has always occupied a special place among the arts. Consider this from Schopenhauer's viewpoint. In his book, The World as Will and Idea, he speaks of art as a kind of knowledge that leads more directly to the divine than is possible for intellectual knowledge. This opinion of Schopenhauer's is connected with his world view, which held that everything surrounding us is only a reflection of the human mental image or idea. This reflection arises only because outer things call forth mental images in the human senses, enabling man to relate to the things themselves. Man can know nothing of that which is unable to make an impression on the senses. Schopenhauer speaks physiologically of specific sense impressions. The eye can receive only light impressions; it can sense only something that is light. Likewise, the ear can sense only tone impressions, and so on. According to Schopenhauer's view, everything observed by man as the world around him reflects itself like a Fata Morgana within him; it is a kind of reflection called forth by the human soul itself.

According to Schopenhauer, there is one possibility of bypassing the mental image. There is one thing perceptible to man for which no outer impression is needed, and this is man himself. All outer things are an eternally changing, eternally shifting Fata Morgana for man. We experience only one thing within ourselves in an immutable manner: ourselves. We experience ourselves in our will, and no detour from outside is required to perceive its effects on us. When we exercise any influence on the outer world, we experience will, we ourselves are this will, and we therefore know what the will is. We know it from our own inner experience, and by analogy we can conclude that this will working within us must exist and be active outside us as well. There must exist forces outside us that are the same as the force active within us, as will. These forces Schopenhauer calls “the world will.”

Now let us pose the question of how art originates. In line with Schopenhauer's reasoning, the answer would be that art originates through a combination of the Fata Morgana outside us and that within us, through a uniting of both. When an artist, a sculptor, for example, wishes to create an ideal figure, say of Zeus, and he searches for an archetype, he does not focus on a single human being in order to find the archetype in him; instead, he looks around among many men. He gathers a little from one man, a little from another, and so on. He takes note of everything that represents strength and is noble and outstanding, and from this he forms an archetypal picture of Zeus that corresponds to the thought of Zeus he carries. This is the idea in man, which can be acquired only if the particulars the world offers us are combined within man's mind.

Let us place Schopenhauer's thought alongside one of Goethe's, which finds expression in the words, “In nature, it is the intentions that are significant.” We find Schopenhauer and Goethe in complete agreement with one another. Both thinkers believe that there are intentions in nature that she can neither bring completely to expression nor attain in her creations, at least not with the details. The creative artist tries to recognize these intentions in nature; he tries to combine them and represent them in a picture. One now comprehends Goethe, who says that art is a revelation of nature's secret intentions and that the creative artist reveals the continuation of nature. The artist takes nature into himself; he causes it to arise in him again and then lets it go forth from him. It is as if nature were not complete and in man found the possibility of guiding her work to an end. In man, nature finds her completion, her fulfillment, and she rejoices, as it were, in man and his works.

In the human heart lies the capability of thinking things through to the end and of pouring forth what has been the intention of nature. Goethe sees nature as the great, creative artist that cannot completely attain her intentions, presenting us with something of a riddle. The artist, however, solves these riddles; he thinks the intentions of nature through to the end and expresses them in his works.

Schopenhauer says that this holds true of all the arts except music. Music stands on a higher level than all the other arts. Why? Schopenhauer finds the answer, saying that in all the other creative arts, such as sculpture and painting, the mental images must be combined before the hidden intentions of nature are discovered. Music, on the other hand, the melodies and harmonies of tones, is nature's direct expression. The musician hears the pulse of the divine will that flows through the world; he hears how this will expresses itself in tones. The musician thus stands closer to the heart of the world than all other artists; in him lives the faculty of representing the world will. Music is the expression of the will of nature, while all the other arts are expressions of the idea of nature. Since music flows nearer the heart of the world and is a direct expression of its surging and swelling, it also directly affects the human soul. It streams into the soul like the divine in its different forms. Hence, it is understandable that the effects of music on the human soul are so direct, so powerful, so elemental.

Let us turn from the standpoint of significant individuals such as Schopenhauer and Goethe concerning the sublime art of music to the standpoint of spiritual science, allowing it to cast its light on this question. If we do this, we find that what man is makes comprehensible why harmonies and melodies affect him. Again, we return to the three states of consciousness that are possible for the human being and to his relationship to the three worlds to which he belongs during any one of these three states of consciousness.

Of these three states of consciousness, there is only one fully known to the ordinary human being, since he is unaware of himself while in either of the other two. From them, he brings no conscious recollection or impression back into his familiar state of consciousness, that is, the one we characterized as waking day-consciousness. The second state of consciousness is familiar to an extent to the ordinary human being. It is dream-filled sleep, which presents simple daily experiences to man in symbols. The third state of consciousness is dreamless sleep, a state of a certain emptiness for the ordinary human being.

Initiation, however, transforms the three states of consciousness. First, man's dream-life changes. It is no longer chaotic, no longer a reproduction of daily experiences often rendered in tangled symbols. Instead, a new world unfolds before man in dream-filled sleep. A world filled with flowing colors and radiant light-beings surrounds him, the astral world. This is no newly created world. It is new only for a person who, until now, had not advanced beyond the lower state of day-consciousness. Actually, this astral world is always present and continuously surrounds the human being. It is a real world, as real as the world surrounding us that appears to us as reality. Once a person has been initiated, has undergone initiation, he becomes acquainted with this wonderful world. He learns to be conscious in it with a consciousness as clear—no even clearer—than his ordinary day-consciousness. He also becomes familiar with his own astral body and learns to live in it consciously. The basic experience in this new world that unfolds before man is one of living and weaving in a world of colors and light. After his initiation, man begins to awaken during his ordinary dream-filled sleep; it is as though he feels himself borne upward on a surging sea of flowing light and colors. This glimmering light and these flowing colors are living beings. This experience of conscious dream-filled sleep then transmits itself into man's entire life in waking day-consciousness, and he learns to see these beings in everyday life as well.

Man attains the third state of consciousness when he is capable of transforming dreamless sleep into a conscious state. This world that man learns to enter shows itself to him at first only partially, but in due time more and more is revealed. Man lives in this world for increasingly longer periods. He is conscious in it and experiences something very significant there.

Man can arrive at perception of the second world, the astral world, only if he undergoes the discipline of so-called “great stillness.” He must become still, utterly still, within himself. The great peace must precede the awakening in the astral world. This deep stillness becomes more and more pronounced when man approaches the third state of consciousness, the state in which he begins to have sensations in dreamless sleep. The colors of the astral world become increasingly transparent, and the light becomes ever clearer and at the same time spiritualized. Man has the sensation that he himself lives in this color and this light, and if they do not surround him but rather he himself is color and light. He feels himself astrally within this astral world, and he feels afloat in a great, deep peace. Gradually, this deep stillness begins to resound spiritually, softly at first, then louder and louder. The world of colors and light is permeated with resounding tones. In this third state of consciousness that man now approaches, the colorful world of the astral realm in which he dwelt up to now becomes suffused with sound. This new dimension that opens to man is Devachan, the so-called mental world, and he enters this wondrous world through the portals of the “great stillness.” Through the great stillness, the tone of this other world rings out to him. This is how the Devachanic world truly appears.

Many theosophical books contain other descriptions of Devachan, but they are not based on personal experiences of the reality of the world. Leadbeater, for example, gives an accurate description of the astral plane and of experiences there, but his description of Devachan is inaccurate. It is merely a construction modeled on the astral plane and is not experienced personally by him. All descriptions that do not describe how a tone rings out from the other side are incorrect and are not based on actual perception. Resounding tone is the particular characteristic of Devachan, at least essentially. Of course, one must not imagine that the Devachanic world does not radiate colors as well. It is penetrated by light emanating from the astral world, for the two worlds are not separated: the astral world penetrates the Devachanic world. The essence of the Devachanic realm, however, lies in tone. That which was light in the great stillness now begins to resound.

On a still higher plane of Devachan, tone becomes something akin to words. All true inspiration originates on this plane, and in this region dwell inspired authors. Here they experience a real permeation with the truths of the higher worlds. This phenomenon is entirely possible.

We must bear in mind that not only the initiate lives in these worlds. The only difference between the ordinary human being and the initiate is that an initiate undergoes these various altered conditions consciously. The states that ordinary man undergoes unconsciously again and again merely change into conscious ones for him. The ordinary human being passes through these three worlds time after time, but he knows nothing about it, because he is conscious neither of himself nor of his experiences there. Nevertheless, he returns with some of the effects that these experiences called forth in him. When he awakens in the morning, not only is he physically rejuvenated by the sleep, but he also brings back art from those worlds. When a painter, for example, goes far beyond the reality of colors in the physical world in his choice of the tones and color harmonies that he paints on his canvas, it is none other than a recollection, albeit an unconscious one, of experiences in the astral world. Where has he seen these tones, these shining colors? Where has he experienced them? They are the after-effects of the astral experiences he has had during the night. Only this flowing ocean of light and colors, of beauty and radiating, glimmering depths, where he has dwelt during sleep, gives him the possibility of using these colors among which he existed. With the dense, earthy colors of our physical world, however, he is unable to reproduce anything close to the ideal that he has experienced and that lives in him. We thus see in painting a shadow-image, a precipitation of the astral world in the physical world, and we see how the effects of the astral realm bear magnificent, marvelous fruits in man.

In great art there are wonderful things that are much more comprehensible to a spiritual scientist, because he discerns their origin. I am thinking, for instance, of two paintings by Leonardo da Vinci that hang in the Louvre in Paris. One portrays Bacchus, the other St. John. Both paintings show the same face; evidently the same model was employed for both. It is not their outward narrative effect, therefore, that makes them totally different from each other. The artistic mysteries of light contained in the paintings are based more purely on their effects of color and light. The painting of Bacchus displays an unusual glistening reddish light that is poured over the body's surface. It speaks of voluptuousness concealed beneath the skin and thus characterizes Bacchus's nature. It is as if the body were imbibing the light and, permeated with its own voluptuous nature, exuded it again. The painting of John, on the other hand, displays a chaste, yellowish hue. It seems as if the color is only playing about the body. The body allows the light only to surround its forms; it does not wish to absorb anything from outside into itself. An utterly unselfish corporeality, fully pure and chaste, addresses the viewer from this painting.

A spiritual scientist understands all this. One must not believe, however, that an artist is always intellectually aware of what is concealed in his work. The precipitations of his astral vision need not penetrate as far as physical consciousness in order to live in his works. Leonardo da Vinci perhaps did not know the occult laws by which he created his paintings—that is not what matters—but he followed them out of his instinctive feeling. We thus see in painting the shadow, the precipitation, of the astral world in our physical realm.

The composer conjures a still higher world; he conjures the Devachanic world into the physical world. The melodies and harmonies that speak to us from the compositions of our great masters are actually faithful copies of the Devachanic world. If we are at all capable of experiencing a foretaste of the spiritual world, this would be found in the melodies and harmonies of music and the effects it has on the human soul.

We return once again to the nature of the human being. We find first of all the physical world, then the etheric body, then the astral body, and finally the “I” of which man first became conscious at the end of the Atlantean age.¹

When man sleeps, the astral body and the sentient soul release themselves from the lower nature of man. Physical man lies in bed connected with his etheric body. All his other members loosen and dwell in the astral and Devachanic worlds. In these worlds, specifically in the Devachanic world, the soul absorbs into itself the world of tones. When he awakens each morning, man actually has passed through an element of music, an ocean of tones. A musical person is one whose physical nature is such that it follows these impressions, though he need not know this. A sense of musical pleasure is based on nothing other than the right accord between the harmonies brought from beyond and the tones and melodies here. We experience musical pleasure when outer tones correspond with those within.

Regarding the musical element, the cooperation of sentient soul and sentient body is of special significance. One must understand that all consciousness arises through a kind of overcoming of the outer world. What comes to consciousness in man as pleasure of joy signifies victory of the spiritual over merely animated corporeality [Körperlich-Lebendige], the victory of the sentient soul over the sentient body. It is possible for one who returns from sleep with the inner vibrations to intensify these tones and to perceive the victory of the sentient soul over the sentient body, so that the soul feels itself stronger than the body. In the effects of a minor key the sentient soul vibrates more intensely and predominates over the sentient body. When the minor third is played, one feels pain in the soul, the predominance of the sentient body, but when the major third resounds, it announces the victory of the soul.

Now we can grasp the basis of the profound significance of music. We understand why music has been elevated throughout the ages to the highest position among the arts by those who know the relationships of the inner life, why even those who do not know these relationships grant music a special place, and why music stirs the deepest strings of our soul, causing them to resound.

Alternating between sleeping and waking, man continuously passes from the physical to the astral and from these worlds to the Devachanic world, a reflection of his overall course of incarnations. When in death he leaves the physical body, he rises through the astral world up into Devachan. There he finds his true home; there he finds his place of rest. This solemn repose is followed by his re-entry into the physical world, and in this way man passes continuously from one world to another.

The human being, however, experiences the elements of the Devachanic world as his own innermost nature, because they are his primeval home. The vibrations flowing through the spiritual world are felt in the innermost depths of his being. In a sense, man experiences the astral and physical as mere sheaths. His primeval home is in Devachan, and the echoes from this homeland, the spiritual world, resound in him in the harmonies and melodies of the physical world. These echoes pervade the lower world with inklings of a glorious and wonderful existence; they churn up man's innermost being and thrill it with vibrations of purest joy and sublime spirituality, something that this world cannot provide. Painting speaks to the astral corporeality, but the world of tone speaks to the innermost being of man. As long as a person is not yet initiated, his homeland, the Devachanic world, is given to him in music. This is why music is held in such high esteem by all who sense such a relationship. Schopenhauer also senses this in a kind of instinctive intuition and expresses it in his philosophical formulations.

Through esoteric knowledge the world, and above all the arts, become comprehensible to us. As it is above so it is below, and as below so above. One who understands this expression in its highest sense learns to recognize increasingly the preciousness in the things of this world, and gradually he experiences as precious recognition the imprints of ever higher and higher worlds. In music, too, he experiences the image of a higher world.

The work of an architect, built in stone to withstand centuries, is something that originates in man's inner being and is then transformed into matter. The same is true of the works of sculptors and painters. These works are present externally and have taken on form.

Musical creations, however, must be generated anew again and again. They flow onward in the surge and swell of their harmonies and melodies, a reflection of the soul, which in its incarnations must always experience itself anew in the onward-flowing stream of time. Just as the human soul is an evolving entity, so its reflection here on earth is a flowing one. The deep effect of music is due to this kinship. Just as the human soul flows downward from its home in Devachan and flows back to it again, so do its shadows, the tones, the harmonies. Hence the intimate effect of music on the soul. Out of music the most primordial kinship speaks to the soul; in the most inwardly deep sense, sounds of home rebound from it. From the soul's primeval home, the spiritual world, the sounds of music are borne across to us and speak comfortingly and encouragingly to us in surging melodies and harmonies.

• 1. A note in the German edition states that a brief description followed here concerning the various members of the human organization but that the transcript was too poor to be reproduced. They were similar to those given in Steiner's Theosophy in the chapter “The Being of Man.” In particular, the separation of the astral body into sentient body and sentient soul was emphasized.

To characterize the theme of today's lecture, we shall begin with an observation already made in the previous lecture. We explained how, in the same way that a man's shadow appears on the wall, a shadow-image of the Devachanic life is given to us on the physical plane in music and generally in the life of tones. We mentioned that twenty-nine more-or-less gifted musicians were born into the Bach family within a period of 250 years and that the mathematical talent was handed down through the generations just as mathematical talent was handed down in the Bernoulli family. Today we shall illuminate these facts from the esoteric standpoint, and from this standpoint we will receive various answers to important questions about karma. Something that lives as a question in many souls is what the relationship of physical heredity is to what we call an ongoing karma.

In the Bach family, the great-great-grandfather of Johann Sebastian was an individuality who lived on earth some fifteen or sixteen hundred years ago, when the human being was constituted quite differently. In Bach's grandfather another individuality was incarnated. The father is yet again a different individuality, and another incarnates itself in the son. These three individualities have absolutely nothing directly to do with the inheritance of musical talent. Musical talent is transmitted purely within physical heredity. The question of physical heredity is superficially resolved when we realize that man's musical gift depends on a special configuration of the ear. All musical talent is meaningless if a person does not have a musical ear; the ear must be specially adapted for this talent. This purely bodily basis for musical talent is handed down from generation to generation. We thus have a musical son, father, and grandfather, all of whom had musical ears. Just as the physical form of the body—of the nose, for instance—is handed down from one generation to another, so are the structural proportions of the ear.

Let us assume we are dealing with a number of individualities who happen to find themselves in the spiritual world and who bring with them from the previous incarnation the predisposition for music that now wishes to come to expression on the physical plane. What significance would the predisposition have if the individuals could not incarnate in bodies possessing a musical ear? These individualities would have to go through life with this faculty remaining mute and undeveloped. Hence, these individualities naturally feel themselves drawn to a family with a musical ear, with a bodily predisposition that will enable them to realize their potential. The family below on the physical plane exerts a power of attraction on the individuality above in Devachan. Even if the individual's spiritual sojourn perhaps has not been completed and he might have remained another 200 years in Devachan, if a suitable physical body is available on the physical plane, he may incarnate now. Chances are that the individuality will make up the 200 years during his next time in Devachan by remaining there that much longer. Such laws lie at the basis of incarnation, which depends not only on the individuality ready for incarnation but also on the force of attraction being exerted from below. When Germany needed a Bismarck, a suitable individual had to incarnate, because the circumstance drew him down to the physical plane. The time in the spiritual world thus can be cut short or extended depending on the circumstances on earth that either do or do not press for reincarnation.

To comprehend how the human being is organized, we must look at the nature of man in more detail. Man has a physical, an etheric, and an astral body. He has the physical body in common with all beings one calls inanimate and the etheric body in common with all plants. Then comes the astral body, in itself quite a complicated entity, and finally the “I.”

When we examine the astral body closely, we have first the so-called sentient body. This man has in common with the entire animal kingdom, so that all higher animals, just like the human being, possess a physical body, an etheric body, and a sentient body below on the physical plane. Man has an individual soul here on earth, whereas the animal has a group soul. Thus, the animals of a particular species share a common group soul, which can be studied only by ascending to the astral plane. In man's case, however, the soul is here on the physical plane. With the human being, the sentient body is only one part of his astral body. The fourth member of man's organization is the “I,” which is active from within.

Let us imagine ourselves back in a distant age, the Lemurian age. Something extremely significant took place during that period. Man's ancestors who existed on earth millions and millions of years ago were completely different from human beings today. On the physical plane of the earth at that time, there was a kind of strangely shaped higher animal, of which nothing remains any longer on the earth today, since it became extinct long ago. The higher animals of today are descendants of those completely differently shaped beings, but they are descendants that have degenerated. Those beings of the ancient past are the ancestors of present-day physical human nature. They possessed only a physical body, an etheric body, and a sentient body. During that age, the “I” gradually united with these beings; it descended from the higher worlds. Animality developed itself upward, while the soul descended.

As a whirling cloud of dust spirals up from the earth and a rain cloud descends to meet it, so did the animal body and the human soul unite. The sentient body of this animal living below on earth—man's ancestor—had developed itself to the point where it could receive the “I.”

This “I” was also composed of various members, namely the sentient soul, the intellectual soul, and the consciousness soul. Imperceptible to the outer senses, this “I”-body [Ich-Leib] descended to meet the upwardly evolving physical body, etheric body, and sentient body.

Had beings possessing a physical body, an etheric body, and a sentient body existed a million years earlier, they would have been able to feel these “I's” hovering above. They would have been forced, however, to say, “A union with such beings is impossible, for the sentient souls hovering above are so delicately spiritual that they are unable to unite themselves with our coarse bodies.” Gradually, however, the soul above became coarser and the sentient body below more refined. A kinship came into being between the two, and now the soul descended. Like a sword fits into a scabbard, so the sentient soul fits into the sentient body. We must understand in this sense the words of the Bible: “God breathed into man the breath of life, and he became a living soul.” In order to understand these words fully, one must know the various states of matter that exist on earth. First, we have the solid state. The esoteric term for it is the “earth.” In using this term, however, the esotericist does not refer to the actual soil of the fields but to its solid condition. All solid components of the physical body—the bones, the muscles, and so forth—are termed “earth.” The second state is fluidity; the esoteric term for it is “water.” Everything fluid—blood, for instance, is called “water.” Third, we have the gaseous state, “air” in esoteric terminology.

The esotericist goes on to consider higher and subtler substances, more delicate states beyond air. In order to understand this better, we must consider, for example, a metal such as lead. In esoteric terminology, lead is “earth.” If subjected to intense heat it melts and becomes “water” in the esoteric sense. When it vaporizes it becomes in the esoteric sense, “air.” Any substance thus can become “air” in its final state. If “air” is more and more diffused, it becomes increasingly delicate and reaches a new state. The esotericist calls it “fire.” It is the first state of ether. “Fire” is related to “air” in the same way that “water” is related to solidity. A still more delicate state than “fire” is called “light ether” by the esotericist. Continuing to a still higher state, we come to what esotericists call “chemical ether,” which is the force that enables oxygen, for example, to link itself with hydrogen. A still more delicate state than “chemical ether” is “life ether.”

We thus have seven different states in esotericism. Life in any substance ultimately can be attributed to the life ether. In esoteric language, what lives in the physical body consists of earth, water and air. What lives in the etheric body consists of fire, light ether, chemical ether, and life ether. While physical body and etheric body are united, they are at the same time separated. The physical body is permeated by the etheric body; similarly the astral body permeates the etheric body. The astral element can descend as far as the state of “fire,” but it can no longer mix with “air,” “water,” and “earth.” The physical, on the other hand, can ascend only as far as “fire.” Let us make it clear that the physical as vapor or esoteric “air” ascends to “fire”; in the vapor we sense the “fire's” diffusing force. The physical ascends to “fire,” the astral descends to “fire,” and the etheric body occupies the central position between the two.

In the Lemurian age, a time long before the seven members of man had united, we find beings existing on the physical plane who had not yet brought the physical body to the state of “fire.” They were as yet incapable of developing warm blood. Only a physical body capable of developing warm blood links a soul to itself. As soon as those beings had evolved to the level of fire ether, the “I” soul [Ich-Seele] was ready to unite itself with the physical body. All the animals that remained behind as stragglers, such as the amphibians, have blood with variable temperatures.

We must keep in mind this point in time from the Lemurian age. It was a moment of the utmost importance, when the being consisting of physical body, etheric body, and sentient body could, through the warm blood, be fructified with a human soul.

Evolution continued from the Lemurian to the Atlantean age. In the Lemurian age, body and soul came in contact with each other only in the element of warmth. At the beginning of the Atlantean age, something new took place. The soul element penetrated more deeply into the physical body, mainly to the level of “air.” In the Lemurian age, it had progressed only as far as “fire”; now it penetrated to “air.” This is very important for human evolution since it marks the beginning of the ability to live in the element of air. Just as there were only cold-blooded creatures at the outset of the Lemurian age, so up to now all creatures had been mute and incapable of uttering sound. They had to master the domain of air before they could emit sounds. Now, the first, most elementary beginnings of singing and speaking took place.

The next stage will bring about the soul's descent into the fluid element. The soul will then be capable of guiding consciously the flow of blood, for example, in the arteries. We will encounter this stage of evolution in the distant future.

One could argue that the cold-blooded insect also “speaks,” but in the sense used here, where speaking is the soul resounding outward from within, this is not the case. The sounds made by the insect are of a physical nature. The chirping of the cricket, the whirring of its wings, are outer sounds; it is not the soul that resounds. We are concerned here with the soul's expression in tone.

At the point in time just described, man became capable of pouring forth his soul in sound. He could not emit from within the same element that reached him from outside. Man came to receive tone from outside through the ear and to return it as such to his surroundings. The ear is thus one of the oldest organs and the larynx one of the youngest. The relationship between ear and larynx is different from that between all other organs. The ear itself reverberates; it is like a kind of piano. There are a number of delicate fibers inside the ear, each of which is tuned to a certain tone. The ear does not alter what comes to it from outside, or at least it does so only a little. All the other sense organs, like the eye, for example, alter the impressions received from the environment. All the other senses must develop in the future to the stage of the ear, for in the ear we have a physical organ that stands at the highest level of development.

The ear is also related to a sense that is still older, the sense of spatial orientation that enables one to experience the three dimensions of space. Man is no longer aware of this sense. It is intimately connected with the ear. Deep in the ear's interior we find three remarkable loops, three semi-circular canals that stand perpendicular, one on top of the other. Science does not know what to make of them. When they are injured, however, man's sense of balance is upset. They are the remnants of the sense of space, which is much older than the sense of hearing. Formerly, man perceived space in the same way he perceives tone today. Now the sense of space has become entirely part of him, and he is no longer conscious of it. The sense of space perceives space; the ear perceives tone, which means that which passes from space into time.

Now one will understand how a certain kinship can exist between music and the mathematical sense, which is tied to these three semi-circular canals. The musical family's distinguishing feature is the musical ear. The mathematical family shows a special development of the three semi-circular canals in the ear to which is linked the talent for grasping spatial relationships. These semi-circular canals were particularly developed in the Bernoulli family and passed from one member to another, just like the musical ear in the Bach family. In order to be able to live fully in their predispositions, individualities descending to incarnation had to seek out the family in which this hereditary trait existed. Such are the intimate relationships between physical heredity on the soul, which seek one another out even after many hundreds and hundreds of years. In this way we see how man's outer nature is connected with his inner being.

The Munich Congress, the fourth – after Amsterdam, London and Paris – should in a certain respect be a stage in the development of our Theosophical movement. It will create a kind of connection between the different nations, also in relation to our Theosophical cause within Europe. I do not want to give a proper report of the congress today, but just a few remarks for those who could not attend.

It should show one thing that I have emphasized over and over again with regard to our Theosophical cause – it should show that Theosophy should not be just a matter of personal brooding and introspection. The Theosophical cause should intervene in practical life, should be a matter of education, a matter of becoming immersed in all branches of practical existence. Only those who have a deeper understanding and a deeper concept of the actual impulses of the theosophical cause already know today what possibilities this 'theosophy will offer in the future. It will be the harmony between what we see and look at and inwardly feel. For those who can see more deeply, an important reason for the distraction of people lies in the disharmony between what is and what Theosophy wants. Not only Theosophists have felt this, but also other important natures, such as Richard Wagner.

In earlier times, every door lock, every house, every structure was a structure of the soul. Soul substance had flowed into it. In ancient times, the work of art belonged to human feeling and thinking. The forms of Gothic churches were in ancient times corresponding to the mood of those who made the pilgrimage to the Kitchen. They were the expression of their own spiritual mood. Those who made a pilgrimage to the church felt at that time that the forms were like the folding of hands, just as the ancient Teuton felt in the folding of the trees a folding of hands. In those times, everything was more familiar to people. You can still see this wonderfully expressed in Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci. The gathering of the entire village around the church was nothing more than an expression of the life of its soul. The whole ether currents gathered at the place where the church stood. The materialistic age has cleft all that. Those who cannot contemplate life do not know that. But the seer knows that today, when you walk through a city, there is almost nothing to see but things that concern the stomach or the obsession with cleanliness. He who can follow the secret threads of life also knows what materialistic culture has brought to this cleft. A recovery of the outside world can arise from the fact that it becomes an expression of what our most inner soul moods are. One cannot immediately reach for the most perfect, but an example of this was given in Munich. The theosophical world view was expressed in the room. There was nothing but theosophy to be seen. The whole hall was decorated in red. There is often a great misunderstanding about the color red, but the red could not be mistaken in its deeper meaning.

The development of humanity is a process of ascent and descent. Look at the original peoples. They live in a natural environment of green. And what do they love most? Red. The occultist knows that red has a special effect on the healthy soul. It releases the active forces in the healthy soul, those forces that inspire action, those forces that are to move the soul from the comfort into the discomfort of doing. A room with a festive atmosphere must be papered in red. Anyone who papers a living room in red shows that they no longer know what a festive atmosphere is and profane the red color. Goethe has said the most beautiful words about such things: “The effect of this color is as unique as its nature. It gives an impression of both seriousness and dignity as well as of grace and charm. It does this in its dark, condensed state, and in its light, diluted state. And so the dignity of age and the loveliness of youth can be clothed in one color.”

These are the moods that are triggered by red; moods that can be proven in an occult way. Look at the landscape through a red glass and you get the impression: this is how it must look on Judgment Day. Red makes you happy about what man has achieved in his further development. Red is an enemy of retarding moods, of sinful moods.

Then there were seven column motifs for the time when a building could also be built for Theosophy. The motifs of the columns are taken from the teachings of the initiates, from ancient times. Theosophy will have the opportunity to give architecture truly new column motifs. The old columns have actually no longer meant anything to people for a long time. The new ones relate to Saturn, the Sun, the Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus. The laws were expressed in the capitals. Between the columns we had placed the seven apocalyptic seals in the Rosicrucian manner. The Grail seal has been revealed to the public for the first time.

Theosophy can also be built: it can be built in architectonics, in education and in the social question. The principle of Rosicrucianism is to introduce the spirit into the world, to do fruitful work for the soul. We will also succeed in elevating art to a mystery art, for which Richard Wagner had such a great longing. An attempt has been made in Edouard Schuré's mystery drama. Here Edouard Schur has tried to recreate the Greek mystery plays.

The program showed the festive color red and bore a black cross with roses entwined in the blue field. Rosicrucianism carries forward into the future what Christianity has given. The initials on the program reflect the basic ideas.

The underlying intention was to crystallize theosophy in the construction of the world.

The subject of our study today will appear at first comparatively remote; nevertheless, these things can interest us in a certain sense even for our everyday life. The motif of today's lecture will be what is called by a name borrowed from ancient times; namely, Chaos. What this word really refers to lies even beyond what we understand as Heaven. Not only the wonderful old Grecian myth speaks of Chaos when it says that the most ancient Gods were born out of the Chaos; the legends and myths of other nations, too, are acquainted with this Chaos, albeit under a different name. In the Norse Saga we find it designated as Ginnungagap, the Yawning Abyss, from which there arises on the one hand the cold Niflheim, and on the other hand, the hot Muspelheim. The beginning of the Bible also refers to it in the words: “In the Beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth; and the Earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the waters. Then there resounded the Word of the Godhead: “May Light become.” And it became light. And the Godhead perceived the Light and perceived that it was beautiful, and severed the World of Light from the World of Darkness.”

“The earth was without form and void”—these are only other words for the Chaos out of which the highest Spiritual Beings are born. What is the Chaos? With these old words for very lofty concepts things have taken a strange course in human evolution. For a long time past men have lost the right feeling and right conception of them; they no longer know what was meant when such words were said. The materialistic age scarcely has words any more to truly characterize what underlies such concepts as of Chaos. Indeed, many words have assumed quite a different meaning. Formerly it was different; the word corresponded to the spiritual meaning of the object; that is to say, to the concept. Our words today have been divided and distributed, so to speak, into so many materialistic meanings, referring, as they do, to the outer and material objects. They are no longer applied to the spiritual meaning. Whoever hears a word today applies it to what it represents in the sense world, and no longer thinks of relating it to the Spiritual World. Among the manifold reasons for the founding of this spiritual movement is one that is connected with the transmutation of the word. If this spiritual movement, this spiritual stream, did not find entry into the world before the end of this century, such a movement would probably be quite impossible in a hundred years' time. We have just been able to catch at the favourable conditions. Why so? In a hundred years' time it would be no longer possible at all to express in the words of ordinary language the ideas of super-sensible facts in their true nature. We should no longer understand them, for the words are more and more assuming the character where they can only be applied to material things and conditions. So it would gradually have come about that people would no longer understand the spiritual teachings at all, because everything would at once be applied to the material world. Spiritual knowledge must bring about an actual renewal of language. The words must be given a new stamp; new values must be lent to the words once more. Men must once more gain the feeling that there is something inherent in these words, that certain words intend something that points to higher worlds. It is the task of this spiritual movement to carry up into the higher worlds not only deeds, but words. In former ages this was done; and we must try to find again the feelings of those human beings who were far more directed to the non-material ideas—far more attracted to the Spiritual World than the feelings of our time.

It is very interesting to take up an old book and enter into it, and transplant one's feelings into such an ancient work, and read out of it the spirit of the author. Take, for instance, the Physica by Amos Comenius, who lived from 1592–1671. His Physica are physics of which the man of today will not be able to make very much in his way of thinking. He speaks of physical things, yet always referring to the spiritual background of spiritual forces and beings. Many things are described in this book, which were objects of real knowledge at that time. Comenius, the great educationist and thinker of the 17th Century, not only comprised all the knowledge of his time, but developed deep and original thoughts of his own on men and events, and discovered deep spiritual relationships. He is a remarkable and very strange personality.

In the 14th and 15th centuries there were quite a number of such people. In that time the Rosicrucian Order was founded; it guarded and preserved the occult secrets in their form for the New Age. Originally it consisted of seven members only. Down to our own times it has secretly carried on and handed on the great occult teachings. No one in the outer world ever discovered anything about Rosicrucians—no one who was not a Rosicrucian himself; no one could write about it. Whatever has been published on it is either quite unreliable, or if correct, came out of betrayal. Only today has the time come when something of the teachings of the Rosicrucians can be published and can be communicated to the world in general. But there are, and there were in those times, many ways and means of letting such spiritual movements flow into the general life of culture. It was, for instance, through such an influence, from a secret Rosicrucian stream, that Lessing said at the conclusion of his essay, The Education of the Human Race, that man is born again and again in the world: “Is not the whole of Eternity mine?” For one who knows, this is a sign that something of the Rosicrucian Movement worked upon Lessing, albeit in a way of which he himself remained unconscious, when he wrote these words on reincarnation. There are, in fact, many ways and means whereby this influence was poured out on men without their even knowing it. Nor does it matter if the work that is done, the influence that is wielded, is or is not attached to a name. Nowadays lawsuits are enacted against the stealing of thoughts, of the spiritual property of others. Lawsuits against plagiarism were never instituted by the Rosicrucians. They did not mind what the personal source was from which such things went out; the main thing was that they came into the world. It is a vicious custom of our time to institute legal proceedings against the stealing of thoughts.

Amos Comenius, the great educationalist, was among those who possessed higher knowledge as a result of a high spiritual development, and who, in consequence of the Rosicrucians, raised himself into the higher worlds by a strong and energetic will. It is very useful for mankind to enter into the thoughts of Comenius. Likewise it is useful to enter deeply into the thoughts of John van Helmont, a contemporary of Amos Comenius, who was also a Rosicrucian.

We all of us are familiar with the word which many people believe to be very old—the word ‘gas’. Many people today are only familiar with it as the gas we use for lighting. But we know from Physics that most substances can be transformed into gas. Without further thought one might imagine that the word was as old as any other. Gas and ‘gaseous’ were unknown concepts before the time of Comenius and Helmont. Helmont was the first; he invented the word ‘gas’. It was in 1615 that he wrote the work in which this word first occurs.

When one uses a new word, one must have some definite occasion to do so. Helmont was the first to give to mankind the idea, the concept of a gas which is current today. What occasion had he for the concept of a gas? When you heat water, and cause it to evaporate, water vapour or steam arises in the first place. Steam is not yet a gas; it is something you can still see with your eyes. It is the same substance which was formerly there in the water, divided there into finer particles. You can divide the great majority of substances into vapour. But you can heat them still further. By further heating you can get a condition where the substance is no longer visible; it passes over into quite another form. This new condition, the vapourous state in a higher form of development, is what we call the gaseous state; it is a vapourous condition at a higher level of temperature. Helmont, who was also a Rosicrucian, worked like Comenius, and with similar results. Before the Rosicrucians Helmont and Comenius, the gaseous state was unknown in this form. It was in the case of carbonic acid gas that Helmont first realized the nature of the gas. Helmont came to the idea that among the states of substance there is also the gaseous state, and in his work Ortus Medicinale we find the following sentence: “This spirit which was hitherto unknown, I will name with a new name: ‘Gas’.” We can learn a great deal from this sentence. Helmont calls what he describes as gas, “Spiritum”; that is, a Spirit. That is to say, the transparent substance he has constituted is for him the instrument for a spiritual being. He sees in it the expression for a spiritual being, and he calls this Spirit by a new name: Gas. He was well aware that when the gas was cooled, strange, cloud-like phenomena appeared. The gas became vapourous and watery again. To him the gas was a transparent and clear foundation from out of which something more dense and condensed arises. To him the gas was a parable in the sense of Goethe's saying: “Everything transient is but a parable.” Hence we can understand how much Van Helmont recognized in the process wherein a gas is cooled and condensed. Miniature worlds went forth from the gas, for Helmont. A human being who could feel in this way could also say: This unknown Spirit, I name “Gas.’ In contemplating this world he said to himself: How did all this that is here, originally come to be? Originally it arose from something that one cannot see, from out of which, however, as from a gas, the Universe was formed. Once upon a time, the whole Universe was Spiritum, purely spiritual. As the clouds of misty vapour are formed out of the gas, so out of the transparent, radiant, unclouded infinity of the Spiritual, all things that now exist emerged.

Already in primeval times and among primitive peoples we find good parables and comparisons for that which we have just described. Primitive peoples sometimes see even the material world still in a spiritual way. In the breath that flows from the mouth, that turns to steamy vapour by contact with the outer air, they see something arising out of the soul's nature, and condensing. This was regarded as a parable of the origin of the world out of the Spirit. The breath, for them, came from the inner being, from the soul; thus the whole world to them was the result of the outbreathing of the Godhead. This ancient idea contains quite another concept of Spirit than man has today. Space, to them, was not a great infinite void in which there is absolutely nothing, as it is to the man of today. For those who stood on the ground of Occult Science, space was the all-spreading spirit whose parable they saw in the unclouded gas. In it they saw the source from out of which all seeds of things are created, and spring forth through the Word of the original Divine Spirit. Not endless emptiness is space; space is originally Spirit. We are ourselves condensed space, for space is Spirit. If all things were dissolved again, seemingly there would be an endless void around us; but this apparent void would contain all things that have ever been. It is no empty nothingness. The visible world is space condensed. This was clear to Helmont, too; he knew the world foundation, the world origin, from out of which all beings are condensed. Van Helmont had this thought: the gas is very thin, transparent; the light goes through. You do not even divine its existence. But in relation to the world origin, even the gas is a condensation. Nevertheless, one can understand, one can conceive the cosmic origin thereof. You can gain an idea of the Spiritual if you imagine that the gas is itself a vapour of the Spirit, just as the steam is vapour of the gas. With this conception in his soul, Van Helmont said: “I have described this vapour by the name ‘gas;’ it is not far removed from the Chaos of the ancients. Helmont coined the word ‘gas’ from the word ‘chaos.’ It is an extremely interesting connection in the world order. We are thus led by Helmont to a living conception of space, not empty and infertile like the concept of space for the man of today, but a concept of space appearing infinitely fertile, bearing countless seeds. The infinitude that is spread out is the seed from out of which we issue. Everything that is in the world is space condensed; it is the infinite Spirit who shows Himself to us in place of a mere empty space.

When we transplant ourselves into the condition of space (when space was still altogether spiritual) and we trace its condensation out of the laws of this space itself, then we shall clearly feel the beautiful words of the Bible: “In the beginning God created Heaven and Earth, and the Earth was without form and void, and the Spirit of the Godhead brooded and weaved over the depths.”

Imagine how originally the pure, spiritual transparent space was there. What happened in this pure transparent space? In this same space is also the extended gaseous air. As the thoughts that rise from our soul, when they are spoken in the word, bring the air around us into vibration, and every word shapes itself into forms in the air, quite silently and unseen by us, so did the Spirit of God hover over the waters. Into the waters the creating words of the Godhead were spoken. Now let us imagine the empty widespread cosmic space; fertile, rich in seeds, and resounding into it, the Word of the Godhead, working formatively into this space. Then we hear the words of the Bible. This Chaos, this cloud mist of the earth that was emerging was still waste and void: and the Spirit of the Godhead worked and wove, brooding thereover. First was the Spiritual World; then the Chaos revealed to begin with, in a kind of cloudiness, all that was to become. So do we recognize the depths of the religious documents. Human beings must gradually regain the feelings with which we understand such things.

But the Chaos works not only in the beginning of world evolution; it works on and on; it is present even today. Just as around us are the harmonies of the spheres, the harmonious heaven, so all around us is the Chaos, all things are permeated by it. It was the first and original foundation. Then it became cloudy; the seeds were formed; the shapes and forms arise; worlds were formed out of the Chaos. But just as when a gaseous mass condenses, something remains behind that works on between the single condensing particles, so likewise of the original Spirit something remained behind. And so the Chaos works on and lives on, along with the world. Everything is still permeated by the Chaos—every stone, every plant, every animal is permeated by the Chaos. Our soul and our Spirit are permeated with the Chaos. Such as he here is, the soul and the Spirit of man also partake in the Chaos.

This Chaos is at the same time the essential reason of the constant and ever-present fertility in nature. Let us take a simple example: the working of Chaos appears wherever animal excrements occur. The New Year's crop springs from the ploughed land, after manure has been put into it—manure which lends the land fertility and causes the crop to spring and thrive. What has happened in such a case? What was the manure, to begin with? The manure, too, was perhaps at one time a beautiful, marvelously-formed plant, an entity in the world that had also once been formed out of the Chaos. Then it served as nourishment for the animals, and the useless substances were excreted again. Now the manure mingles with the soil; it is a return of beings into Chaos. Chaos is working in manure, in all that is cast out; and unless, at some time or other, you mingle Chaos with the Cosmos, further evolution is never possible. The process we here have before us on its lowest level will enable us to rise to an understanding of the word ‘chaos’ with respect to higher realms. Cosmos cannot work alone. Everything in the Cosmos has grown from causes, from things that went before—not only all physical things, but intellectual and moral teachings, too, arise from causes that were planted once before.

It is Cosmos when a Goethe, a Schiller, a Lessing have done their work. When a schoolmaster comes and assimilates and passes on all the beautiful things that are found in the works of these great men, he can only do so because the causes are already there for him. But with the man of genius it is not so; he works out of the Chaos. New impulses, new entries into evolution, new concepts arise and begin to take effect. Genius is like a fresh spark; it is out of the ordinary just because a union there takes place between the Cosmos and the Chaos; thereby a new thing arises not connected with the laws of evolution that come from olden time. It enters in from other worlds like a Divine spark. Genius is the marriage of the past with the present, of the Cosmos with the Chaos. Hence the peculiar feeling and influence which the occult pupils of olden times experienced when the name ‘Chaos’ was spoken. It is only felt as merely waste and void by those human beings who stand entirely on the ground of what is working from the past. But something new must arise out of the Chaos; there must be a union with something new to work in this spiritual movement. This movement has arisen because mankind needs to be fertilized with a fresh spiritual seed; and we must realize that it is not a question here of carrying on and merely evolving existing things and past things, but that entirely new seeds must spring forth from the Chaos. He who would understand this movement must understand that in this movement we cannot work out of the Cosmos of our worthy forebears, but that new things must come into the world as if out of the Chaos. Thereby humanity is spiritually fertilized. Spiritual Science realizes concepts and ideas that are not taken from the past, as when the geologist, for instance, derives his knowledge from the past of our earth. For Spiritual Science the future form is the important thing. There are laws of the future that must flow out of the Chaos into the Cosmos. It is important for man to receive into himself ideas, feelings and impulses of will, taken directly from that form which the Spirit had, before it took shape out of the Chaos. Such ideas out of the Chaos, taken from the higher worlds, are the signs and symbols. Such symbols and signs were intended to be given to us among those things that underlie all occult science, all imaginative knowledge. In the Cosmos that is about to become, there are the Spiritual Beings. Out of the Chaos they work in upon the human soul in new impulses; new condensations arise and take effect.

That which is presented in the Seven Seals is not yet in the Cosmos, but it is in the Chaos. Out of the Chaos they work upon the human soul. If they work in the right way, then the Chaos works livingly, and leads the human being into worlds that lie beyond the Cosmos. This is what it means when the human being has recourse to such pictures. We feel the overwhelming influence of the Chaos that contains the seed of all things, when we let these things work upon us. Thus we can see how comprehensive the idea of Chaos is for anyone who understands it in the right way. It is the Chaos from out of which the physical arises. Whether it be the Greek Philosophy or the Bible, or the Indian Philosophy of the A-Chaos, the Akasha—all this shall remind us that that which was in the Beginning works throughout all time. To him who is bound to the sense world, the Chaos appears waste and void. But he who penetrates it in a spiritual sense can hear the harmonies of the spheres resounding through it. Today it is still possible for single human beings to get a feeling for some of these words that come from the spiritual world. Hence it is the time to speak of these things.

... What we were also responsible for in international terms was the holding of the Munich Congress. You were able to get an idea of our intentions from the design of the congress hall, the images of the seals and columns with which the hall was decorated, and the nature of the entire program. The intention was to make a start, to allow Theosophy to be more than just a collection of abstract dogmas, but to give it influence over the life that surrounds us. No one can be under the illusion that the way in which we have succeeded in harmonizing the entire organization of the congress was more than a weak beginning compared to what lives as Theosophical thought. But everything has to start somewhere. If the German Section has only shown what intentions could prevail at such a congress, shown how the life that lives in the soul can also be expressed in form, in art and in being together, then the German Section has done what it was able to contribute on this particular occasion. From such inspiration, the strength can arise that will gradually make it possible for the Theosophical Society to be not just a place for spreading these or those dogmas, but to intervene deeply in the whole life of the human being.

What also needs to be mentioned is the fact that the budgeted expenditure for the congress, which amounted to 4,500 marks, has been greatly exceeded. The congress has become all the more beautiful as a result. It is deeply gratifying to note that on this occasion in particular there has been such a spirit of understanding, especially in the German Section. We needed a lot of money; but it has been shown that where it matters to sustain the Theosophical life, there is also understanding and a willingness to make sacrifices. Therefore, there is no deficit to report.

No less emphasis should be placed on the deeply satisfying fact that those who were able to have worked in an incredibly dedicated manner. Everything that had to be done was done by our dear friends in Munich in a way that was not only dedicated but also thoroughly understanding, so that what is called Theosophical unity and harmony was most beautifully realized in this work. There was no one who was not willing to do the most demanding spiritual work alongside the most menial work, which is necessary at such a congress. People who had never done such work in their entire lives carried large items that were intended for this or that purpose; others hammered, others painted large columns; in short, it was all dedicated work. Donations ranging from the thousand-mark note to the ten-pfennig piece were collected. The administration, which had been taken over from Munich, was prudent in everything except the work that showed how real achievement, real cooperation, harmonizes people. We brought it to the point where the deeply satisfying performance of the Mystery Drama of Eleusis could take place. If you could realize what had to be done to make it happen, from the translation from the French to the sandals on the feet of the actors, who were all members and had to undergo weeks of rehearsals; if you knew how it all went , how beautifully and harmoniously everything went, how the work was carried by the common idea and the devotion of the feeling, then you could appreciate the practical value that arises when a common bond of work embraces everyone. Just as the plant harmoniously strives towards the sun, so people become harmonious when they are ruled by the same feelings.

We have the good spirit of this corps of contributors to our Munich Congress to thank for the fact that everything has turned out as it has. The spirit of harmony really did live in the Munich working group during all these preparations, and in this respect it could, to a certain extent, serve as a model for the way in which people in the Theosophical Society can work together and collaborate in general. It is to be hoped that this somewhat different way of working, which the German Section has been trying to achieve for five years, will not only be recognized in the International Theosophical Society, but will also have a somewhat fruitful effect. The International Theosophical Society can only flourish if each section contributes its share on the altar of joint, theosophical international activity.

It hardly needs saying that the most heartfelt thanks of the German Section of the Theosophical Society go to Fdonard Schure, the author of the mystery drama. However, it should be emphasized that we are deeply indebted to Bernhard Stavenhagen, the famous pianist and sensitive composer, who, in the midst of his busy and demanding workload, took it upon himself to provide the musical part of the dramatic performance at my request. The deep impression that this composition made on all those present will remain in their memories. The beautiful harmony between the musical creation and the mystery was felt by everyone.

An Introduction to the Portfolio with Fourteen Images

The fourteen plates presented here are reproductions of the “seals and symbols” used to line the interior of the building where the Congress of the “Federation of European Sections of the Theosophical Society” took place on May 18, 19, 20 and 21, 1907 (in Munich). They are not arbitrary “symbols” that can be interpreted rationally, but spiritual-scientific “characters” that must be taken as befits true spiritual science. These do not invent such “signs” out of their own minds or arbitrary imagination, but only reflect in them what is really present as a vision to the spiritual perception in the supersensible worlds. No speculation, no intellectual explanation, however ingenious, is appropriate in the presence of such signs, because they are not invented, but merely provide a description of what the so-called “seer” perceives in the invisible worlds. The signs reproduced here are a description of experiences in the “astral” and “spiritual” (devachanic) worlds. The “seals” of the first seven tablets represent such real facts of the astral world and the seven “columns” represent similar facts of the spiritual world. However, while the seals directly reflect the experiences of “spiritual vision”, this is not the case with the seven columns. For the perceptions of the spiritual world cannot be compared to “seeing”, but rather to “spiritual hearing”. In this, it must be borne in mind that one should not think of it as too similar to “hearing” in the physical world, for although it can be compared to it, it is nevertheless very unlike it. The experiences of this spiritual hearing can only be expressed in an image if they are translated from “sounding” into form. This has been done with these “columns”, but their essence can only be understood if the forms are thought of as plastic (not painterly).

In the sense of spiritual science, the causes of the things of the physical world are to be found in the supersensible, invisible. What manifests itself physically has its archetypes in the astral world and its spiritual primal forces (primal sounds) in the spiritual world. The seven seals give the astral archetypes of human development on earth in the sense of spiritual science. When the “seer” on the “astral plane” follows this development into the distant past and distant future, it presents itself to him in the given seven seal images. He has nothing to invent, but merely to understand the facts he perceives spiritually.

SEAL I comprehensively represents the entire evolution of man on earth. This seal, as well as other seals in the series, can also be found, in a sense, described in the “Revelation of St. John” (Apocalypse). For anyone who is able to understand this writing in a spiritual-scientific sense sees in it nothing other than the description given in words of what the “seer” perceives in an archetypal way as the development of humanity on the astral plane. Thus, such a person also understands the first words of this writing, which (approximately correctly rendered) read as follows: “The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God has offered him to illustrate to his servants how the necessary events will shortly take place; this is sent in ‘signs’ by God's angel to his servant John. He has expressed the 'Word' of God and its revelation through Jesus Christ in the way he saw it.” The ‘signs’ that he saw have been depicted by the recorder of the ‘secret revelation.’ — One can see that the following seals are in many ways similar to what is described in the Apocalypse, but not quite. For our pictures are based on a spiritual-scientific method which, although it is in harmony with all traditions, has been developed in its own form since the 14th century in those circles that have had the task of cultivating these things since that time, in accordance with the modern spiritual needs of humanity. Nevertheless, the description here, where it matters, is given with reference to the “Revelation of St. John”. It should be expressly noted that some of the seven seals have already been published in this or that work of modern times; but the initiate in such matters will be able to find that these other renderings differ in some respects from the form given here, which seeks to present the genuine spiritual-scientific basis.

The description of the first seal can be compared with that in the Apocalypse. “And I turned to hear the sound that came to me; and I saw seven golden lamps, and in the midst of the lamps the image of the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the foot and girded about the loins with a golden girdle. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. And his feet were like glowing coals of a fiery furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. And in his right hand were seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp two-edged sword, and his face in its brightness was like the shining sun.” In general images, the most comprehensive secrets of human development are pointed out. If one wanted to present in detail what the seer can see from these images, one would have to write a thick book. Only a few hints are made. Every sign, every form on the seal images is meaningful, and what is said here can only be a little of much. Among the organs and means of expression in the human being, there are some which, in their present form, represent the downward stages of development of earlier forms, and which have thus already passed their degree of perfection. Others, however, represent the initial stages of a development that moves in an ascending direction. Such members in the human being are still imperfect today and will have to fulfill completely different, higher tasks in the future. The organ of speech represents an organ that will be something much higher and more perfect in the future than it is at present, with all that belongs to it in a human being. In touching on this, one touches on a great secret of existence, which is also called the “mystery of the creative word”. This gives a hint of the future state of this organ, which will one day, when man has spiritualized, become a productive (creative) organ.

In myths and religious stories, this future spiritualized form of production is indicated by the appropriate image of a fiery “sword” coming out of the mouth. The first stages of man's development on earth took place at a time when the earth was still “fiery”; and it was out of the element of fire that the first human embodiments took shape; at the end of his earthly career, man himself will radiate his inner being creatively outwards through the power of the element of fire. This progressive evolution from the beginning to the end of the Earth is revealed to the “seer” when he beholds the archetype of the evolving human being on the astral plane, as depicted in the first seal. The beginning of the evolution of the earth is represented by the fiery feet, the end by the fiery countenance, and the complete power of the “creative word” to be attained last of all by the fiery sword that comes out of the mouth. During this process of development, the becoming of the human being and the powers that are thereby unfolded are successively influenced by forces that are expressed in the seven stars of the right. Thus, each line and each point in the picture represents something that is connected with the comprehensive developmental secret of the human being.

SEAL II represents one of the first developmental stages of humanity on earth, with everything that goes with it. In distant prehistoric times, the human being on earth did not yet have what is called an individual soul. In those days, what was present in him was what animals, which are still at an earlier stage of human development, still have today: the group soul. When, through imaginative clairvoyance, human group souls are traced on the astral plane in retrospect to prehistoric times, it becomes clear that the various forms of these can be traced back to four basic types. And these are represented in the four apocalyptic animals of the second seal: the lion, the bull, the eagle and that figure which also approaches the individual soul of the present man as the group soul and which is therefore also called: the “human being”. This touches on the truth of what is often so dryly allegorized in the four animals.

SEAL III represents the secrets of the so-called harmony of the spheres. Man experiences these secrets in the interim between death and a new birth (in the “spirit realm” or what is called “Devachan” in the common theosophical literature). However, it should be noted that all these seals only represent the experiences of the astral world. But other worlds than the astral world itself can be observed in it. Our physical world can be observed in its astral-plane counterparts. And the spiritual world can be seen in its after-images on this plane. Thus, the third seal represents the astral after-images of the “spirit world”. The angels blowing trumpets represent the spiritual primal beings of the world phenomena; the sounds of the trumpets themselves represent the forces that flow from these primal beings into the world and through which the beings and things are built and sustained in their becoming and working. The “apocalyptic riders” represent the main points of development through which an individual human being passes in the course of many embodiments, and which are represented on the astral plane by the riders on their horses: a horse shining white, expressing a very early stage of soul development; a horse of fiery color, pointing to the warlike ; a black horse, corresponding to that stage of the soul where only the outer physical perception of the soul is developed; and a green shimmering horse, the image of the mature soul, which has mastery over the body (hence the green color, which results as an expression of the life force working from the inside out).

SEAL IV represents, among other things, two columns, one rising from the sea and the other from the earth. These columns hint at the secret of the role played by red (oxygen-rich) blood and blue-red (carbon-rich) blood in human development. The human 'I' undergoes its development in the cycle of the earth by physically expressing its life in the interaction between red blood, without which there would be no life, and the blue blood, without which there would be no knowledge. Blue blood is the physical expression of the powers that give knowledge, but which in their human form are connected with death; and red blood is the expression of life, which in its human form could not give knowledge by itself. Both in their interaction represent the tree of knowledge and the tree of life, or also the two columns on which life and the knowledge of the ego develop further to that degree of perfection where man will become one with the universal earth forces. This latter state of the future is shown on the seal by the upper body, which consists of clouds, and by the face, which has appropriated the spiritual powers of the sun. Man will then no longer absorb “knowledge” from outside into himself, but will have “swallowed” it into himself, which is indicated in the book in the middle of the seal. Only through such “devouring” on a higher level of existence do the seven seals of the book open, as they are also indicated on Seal III. In the “Revelation of St. John” we find the significant words about this: “And I took the little book out of the angel's hand and ate it...”

SEAL V represents a higher stage of human development, which will occur when the earth has united with the sun again and man will no longer work merely with the forces of the earth, but with the forces of the sun. The “Woman who gives birth to the sun” refers to this future human being. Certain forces of a lower nature, which live in man and prevent him from fully developing his higher spirituality, will then have been expelled from him. These forces are represented in the seal, on the one hand, by the beast with the “seven heads and ten horns” and, on the other, by the moon at the feet of the solar man. For spiritual science, the moon is the center of certain lower forces that still work in the human being today and that the man of the future will subjugate.

SEAL SIX represents the purified human being, not only spiritualized but also having become strongly spiritual, who has not only overcome the lower forces but transformed them so that they are at his service in an improved form. This is expressed by the tamed “beast”. In the Book of Revelation we read: “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, who is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years.”

SEAL VII is the reproduction of the “mystery of the Holy Grail”. It is the astral experience that reflects the universal meaning of human development. The cube represents the “space world”, which is not yet permeated by any physical being or physical event. For spiritual science, space is not just the “void”, but is the carrier that holds the seeds of all physicality in an as yet invisible way. Out of it, the whole physical world precipitates, as a salt precipitates out of a still completely transparent solution. And what, in relation to the human being, is formed out of the world of space, undergoes a development from the lower to the higher. Out of the three spatial dimensions, which are expressed in the cube, the lower human powers first develop, visualized by the two serpents that give birth to the purified higher spiritual nature, which is represented in the world spirals. Through the upward growth of these higher forces, the human being can become a recipient (chalice) for the reception of the pure spiritual world, expressed by the dove. Thus man becomes the ruler of the spiritual powers of the world, of which the rainbow is the image. This is only a very sketchy description of this seal, which contains within itself immeasurable depths that can reveal themselves to him who, in devoted meditation, allows it to take effect upon him. This seal is circumscribed by the truth saying of modern spiritual science: “Ex deo nascimur, in Christo morimur, per spiritum sanctum reviviscimus,” “From God I am born; in Christ I die; through the Holy Spirit I am reborn.” In this saying, the meaning of human development is fully indicated.

In the congress hall, one of the seven columns reproduced in the second series of pictures was placed between every two of these seals. As already indicated above, the capitals of these columns depict the experiences of the “seer” (which is actually no longer an appropriate name in this field) in the “spiritual world”. It is about the perception of the primal forces that exist in spiritual tones. The plastic forms of the capitals are translations of what the “seer” hears. But these forms are by no means arbitrary, but rather as they naturally arise when the “seeing man” allows the “spiritual music” (harmony of the spheres), which flows through his entire being, to act on the forming hand. The plastic forms here are truly a kind of “frozen music” that expresses the secrets of the world. That these forms appear as column capitals seems self-evident to anyone who understands the situation. The basis of the physical development of earthly beings lies in the spiritual world. From there it is “supported”. Now all development is based on a progression in seven stages. (The number seven should not be understood as the result of “superstition”, but as the expression of a spiritual law, just as the seven colors of the rainbow are the expression of a physical law.) The earth itself passes through seven states in its development, which are designated by the seven planetary names: Saturn, Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter and Venus. (For an understanding of this, see my “Occult Science” or the essays “From the Akasha Chronicle” in “Lucifer-Gnosis”. But it is not only a heavenly body that advances in its evolution; every evolution passes through seven stages, which, in the sense of modern spiritual science, are designated by the terms for the seven planetary conditions. The spiritual supporting forces of these conditions are reflected in the forms of the Capitals of the Columns in the manner described above. But we shall not arrive at a true understanding of this matter if we base our observation of the forms only on a rational explanation. We must look into the forms with a feeling and intuitive perception and let the capitals act on us as forms. If we fail to do this, we shall believe that we have before us only allegories or, at best, symbols. We shall then have misunderstood everything. The same motif runs through all seven captains: a force from above and one from below, which first strive towards each other, then, reaching each other, work together. These forces can be felt in their fullness and in their inner life and then the soul itself can experience how they expand, contract, embrace, devour, unlock and so on, in a lively, formative way. We will be able to feel this complication of forces, just as we feel the plant's “shaping” from its living forces, and we will be able to sense how the line of force first grows vertically upwards in the column, how it unfolds at the bottom in the plastic forms of the capitals, which open and unlock to the forces coming towards them from above, so that a meaningful capital becomes. First the power from below develops in the simplest way, and you strive just as simply towards the power from above (Saturn column);

He who can feel all that is expressed in these “columns” of world events feels the all-embracing laws of all being, which solve the riddles of life in a very different way from abstract “laws of nature”.

These pictures are intended to show how spiritual insight can take shape, come to life and be artistically expressed. Note that the pictures depict living forces of existence in the higher world; and these higher spiritual forces have a profound effect on the observer of the pictures. They act directly on forces that, corresponding to them, lie dormant in every human being. But their effect is only right if one looks at these pictures with the right inner soul disposition. Those who look at the pictures with theosophical mental images and theosophical feelings in their hearts will receive the most sacred from them. If you want to hang them anywhere or put them anywhere, where you will encounter them with everyday thoughts and feelings, you will feel an unfavorable effect, which can go as far as a bad influence on your physical life. You should act accordingly and only enter into a relationship with the pictures that is in harmony with a devotion to the spiritual worlds. Such pictures should serve as decoration for a room that serves a higher life; they should never be found or viewed in places where people's thoughts are not in harmony with them.

A study of two of the most significant pictures in the world can help us to see the way in which the Theosophist should make his life's ideal into the very content of his soul. By means of these two pictures Raphael was able, in an age of great artistic development, to give utterance to the impressions and feelings which passed through his soul concerning the evolution of mankind through many centuries. The picture called “The School of Athens” (so-called in Baedeker, but it would be better if this name were allowed to disappear), and the picture called the “Disputa”—what do these, pictures represent when we study them in order to discover the great thoughts that underlie them, as well as the artistic impression they make upon us?

I have had the opportunity of seeing these pictures several times; as you know, they are in Rome, at the Vatican, in the famous Raphael Room ... You can always see people standing there with their guide-books and reading: This is Socrates, that is Plato, that other is Aristotle, and so on. They are immensely pleased when Baedeker enables them to discover whom this or the other figure represents, whether this one here is a bishop or an early Father of the Church, whether another is Paul or Peter or Moses … But how little has all this to do with the artistic value of the pictures! I should like to suggest by rather a grotesque supposition how one can approach such pictures in an artistic way. In this case the artistic and theosophical methods of approach are one and the same.

We know that there are inhabitants of Mars, although they are of course very different in appearance from the inhabitants of Earth. For us however they are very real beings. To be sure, we do not interest ourselves in that wild idea of some modern visionaries as to whether it might not be possible to draw the theorem of Pythagoras in lines of electric light over a great tract of Siberia and in this way set up communication with the inhabitants of Mars. We will leave such dreaming to the materialistic visionaries of our day. Anyone who takes his stand on the ground of reality knows that the inhabitants of Mars are of quite a different nature from those of Earth. But now let us suppose that one of these Mars inhabitants were to descend to Earth and let us imagine that he visited the Vatican picture-galleries and saw there these two pictures by Raphael. We could not expect that he should at once study the whole history of Greek philosophy and the whole spiritual development of the Middle Ages, in order that we might be able to converse with him in our own way. For it would, you know, seem quite ridiculous to him if we were to begin explaining, “Here is Augustine, there is Ambrose,” and so on. If he could speak an earthly language at all, he would probably reply, “I do not know these gentlemen!” We have a general acquaintance with them, having assimilated certain ideas about them—whether right or wrong need not concern us now. The artistic impression produced upon one by these pictures is not altered in the least because the beholder happens to be an inhabitant of Mars, who knows nothing of Mr. Aristotle or Mr. Plato or Mr. Socrates; for the artistic impression depends solely and entirely upon what confronts us in the picture, and makes itself best felt when we pay no attention at all to anything but what speaks from the picture itself. The inhabitant of Mars would therefore really be the best observer from a purely artistic point of view.

Let us try to enter into the feelings of such a one on his first descent to Earth, who has not been given a handbook of Greek and Mediaeval philosophy. He would say to himself: “I see figures, human figures, in these pictures—but I see no figures like them among the men of to-day.” For indeed it is hardly likely that among the people standing there with him and looking at the pictures he should recognise any as being persons of like dignity and importance.

He would however become aware in the pictures of something that must have grown out of the life of Earth itself. He would read in them that the inhabitants of Earth desire to say something which is not connected with any particular moment of time, but with the whole of Earth. He could contemplate the one picture and say “Here I see very remarkable forms,—two figures in the centre, and on their right and left other figures. I notice a certain expression—the uplifted hand of the one, the hand of the other pointing to the ground,”—and so on. (He would see all this without having any knowledge of Plato or Aristotle.) “There are also persons doing something or other in various parts of the picture. And around all these human beings is nothing but quite simple architectural forms. It can however also be seen that in the hearts and souls of these people something is living. That can quite clearly be noticed!”

Now suppose the inhabitant of Mars turns his attention to the other picture. It has quite a different appearance. There he sees, down below, a world which looks much the same as our external world to-day. Up above, he finds a scene that could only be represented by bringing together things which do not belong together in the external world. For there we behold human forms among the clouds—and yet in such a way as to recall something quite real and true. And higher up still, above this interweaving of the forms of clouds and men, figures are to be seen on a golden background which have little left to remind one of the human form. What would the visitor from Mars say,—who knows nothing of the spiritual life of Earth, and only judges the pictures by what they themselves tell him?

He would be compelled to say: “These men have the Earth around them; but there are times when they feel the need to express a world the physical eyes do not see, a world completely remote from the senses, and which they can only represent by clouds and human forms interwoven together, and by forms on a golden background that bear no resemblance to man. There must therefore be something by means of which these men are able to raise themselves; they must have inner forces, stronger than all, they meet with in the world of sense. That other world must have come into some relation with them.” And he would ask himself the question: “How did these men come into touch with that other world?”

He would then see the wonderful group which we call “God the Father,” “God the Son,” and “The Dove” as the expression of the Spirit; and, below, an Altar, and upon it the Host, the symbol of the Lord's Supper. Since the evolution of Mars is not yet so far advanced as the evolution of Earth, there is nothing on Mars like what we have on Earth in the two thousand years' tradition of Christianity. The visitor from Mars would accordingly not know what this picture represents. But from the relation of the groups on the right and left to the central group he could see that through the power of the symbol something is being given to the souls which opens to them the higher worlds.

Our visitor would then examine the pictures more closely and discover that in the first picture there are all manner of figures, but among them in particular two female figures, one on the right hand and one on the left. And remarkable figures they are! As one looks at them it is evident that they differ totally in their expression and even in their dress. Let us study them a little.

Looking at the one on the left (we are standing in front of the so-called “School of Athens”), we see in the whole expression something indicative of the Earthly kingdom of sense here below, and of what the senses directly give us. Male figures stand all around; and one dimly feels that what dwells in the heads of these men belongs to the world of sense. What presents itself to us in the female figure? Her expression conveys to us that which is living in the heads and souls of the men, until we come to her white garment, the garment of innocence, showing us that the force which comes from the mere working of the things of sense has not yet been active in her. We understand the countenances of the men when we understand what this female figure expresses.

And now let us pass to the other female figure on the right-hand side of the same picture. She is quite different, and already begins to notice what the men are doing. Whereas the left-hand figure indicates only the physical environment, the right-hand figure is following what the men have done, her gaze follows what the human spirit has brought forth. Even if we know nothing of Greek Philosophy, we can quite clearly see that there is an advance from the left to the right side of the picture. On the right hand we see what the men have made of their environment. (It really goes much further; it is expressed also in the colour.)

Now these two women appear also in the other picture, which is called the “Disputa.” Here again we see the figure first on the left, where people are standing, contemplating with rapture the symbol in the centre. We are looking into early times when the Christian religion was still entirely a religion of feeling, when Wisdom itself was still nothing but feeling. On every countenance we can see a kind of enthusiasm for Christianity, and all hearts are filled with warm feeling. This is reflected too in the female figure. And now when we pass to the other side of the picture we see again a progress. Here we have the Christian philosophers who have brought their knowledge to bear on the whole content of the Christian Wisdom.

There is St. Augustine dictating, and the woman writing it down. We could really reconstruct a great part of the history of man from the whole way in which Raphael has worked out this motif, with his great knowledge and understanding and his wonderful artistic powers. All that is living in the souls of the men is brought to expression in this woman figure, which we find four times repeated in the pictures.

The above is no more than a first rough sketch for a consideration of these pictures. The two paintings have to be studied together one after the other. They are an expression of what happened from the pre-Christian age down to the later part of the Middle Ages, and they express it in artistic form. Just imagine how great and mighty must have been the impression made upon a really sensitive soul who saw these pictures, first one and then the other, and said to himself:—“I am myself inter woven into this onward path of Wisdom, which mankind follows in the course of evolution; I am part of it, I belong to the march of events as it is shown in these pictures.” For the man who understood the sense of evolution in those days really felt this. He looked back to the pre-Christian age when men were surrounded only by the world of sense, just as the architecture surrounds the people in the picture; and he beheld too a time when through the entrance of Christ Jesus into human evolution the spiritual was revealed to mankind. He felt that he belonged to all this; he felt how his own existence takes part in the life of thousands and thousands of years. What lived in men's souls was borne along the flow of fantasy and streamed into the hand of the painter, who painted these pictures in order that men should meet in the outer world that which dwells in the inner world. For the Theosophist these pictures can he an earnest call and summons to inscribe the great ideal into his soul.

Let us look with the eye of the spirit at the “Disputa.” In the centre we see “God the Father,” then “God the Son” or Christ, and below, the Dove or the Holy Spirit. And now let us recall many other pictures that are to be found in various galleries. Whenever you have opportunity to visit picture galleries, you will find pictures of this kind, created out of good and great traditions. You will often meet with the following motif,—Christ coming forth from a figure like a bird, Christ being born as it were from a winged being. For the whole mystery of Christ, His whole descent from the higher worlds was formerly felt as a kind of breaking loose from a nature which had itself been born as a higher world,—higher even in the spatial sense. Hence the descent out of a birdlike form. Christ born from the bird,—let us hold the motif before our soul, and with that study the “Disputa.”

Here we find another “bird-being,”—the. Dove of the Spirit. The Dove of the Spirit, what a great riddle that is among all the Christian symbols! Much, very much is contained within it. The painters of the future will have to paint what comes to birth from out of this Dove of the Spirit. This Dove of the Spirit is a transitory symbol; something else will take its place in the Trinity. The day will come when from the Dove of the Spirit will be born, as it were, the human soul that is liberated by the wisdom of Theosophy. Every human soul that has the will to receive the spirit of Theosophy will be born again at a higher stage—spiritually, in a new form. This Dove of the Spirit will break its form, and from it will come forth the human soul which will have for its life-blood the spiritual conception of the world which meets us to-day in its first form as Theosophy. Other figures, new figures, will be around the symbol. And these liberated ones will show in their countenances what is living in their souls,—how through the events of the spiritual world as they reveal themselves to one who can rise above the world of sense, the soul is set free, and how then these liberated souls can each confront every other with real brotherly love.

And so it seems to me good that we should sometimes have these pictures before us, inasmuch as they are at the same time a prophetic foreshadowing of a third picture, A pre-Christian conception of the world is expressed in the first picture; the second expresses what has come about through Christ in the world of form; and what will come about through the Spirit, which has been sent by Christ and will divest itself of its coverings, will be expressed in the third picture that can stand before the soul of every Theosophist as a great and mighty ideal. This picture cannot be painted yet, for the models are not yet here; but in our own souls the two pictures must already be finding their completion in the third …

My dear friends! When the Johannesbau-Verein followed on from our last General Assembly of the German Section of the Theosophical Society here in Berlin, I addressed a few words to you about the way in which the Johannesbau is to be placed in the whole development of art, especially architectural art; that it in the sense in which we also otherwise consider that which we want to achieve in the field of theosophy or anthroposophy - as something necessary in the whole spiritual development of humanity; so that what is to happen through theosophy or anthroposophy does not appear as some kind of arbitrariness, not as something that we give birth to out of ourselves as some kind of arbitrary ideal, but appears as we see it as a necessity, as it were, in that writing that reveals to us the necessary path of the human spirit through the evolution of the earth.

Now, one can choose many points of view to present this necessity that has just been characterized. At that time, I showed from a certain point of view how this necessary placing in human history of what is intended by the Johannesbau is to be understood. Today, I would like to choose a different point of view, so that my present considerations may, in a certain respect, supplement what was presented here in December 1911.

Architecture is actually bound to a very specific premise if we understand architecture in the sense that man wants to create a shell, as it were, using some material, through some forms or other measures, be it for profane living and working, be it for religious activities or the like. In this sense, the art of building, architecture, is definitely bound up with what we can call the soul, is connected with the concept of the soul, arises from the soul and can be grasped by grasping the whole extent of the soul.

Now, over the years of working in spiritual science, the soul has always presented itself to us from three points of view: from the point of view of the sentient soul, from the point of view of the mind or emotional soul, and from that of the consciousness soul. But then this soul-life also presents itself to us when it first announces itself, as it were, but does not yet really exist as soul-life when we speak of the sentient or astral body. And again, the soul-life presents itself to us when we say that the soul-life has developed to such an extent that it seeks a transition to the spirit-self or manas. If you look at my Theosophy, you will find the threefold soul in it: the sentient soul, the mind or emotional soul, and the consciousness soul. But you will find the sentient soul bordering on the sentient body, so that the sentient soul and sentient appear as two sides of one and the same, the one side more soul-like, the other more spiritual; and then you will find, joining together again, consciousness soul and spirit self; the consciousness soul representing the more soul-like side, the spirit self, on the other hand, the more spiritual side.

Those who, as anthroposophists, gradually find their way into such an understanding of these terms, as our esteemed friend Arenson has very beautifully explained in these days, will not be able to stop at the words sentient soul, mind or soul, and consciousness soul, and only seek to find one or the other definition for these words , but as a true anthroposophist will long to gradually develop in his mind many, many concepts, feelings and insights, which lead from one feeling to another and so on, in order to arrive at a more comprehensive understanding, which in the case of these concepts is structured in the most diverse directions.

For the seer himself, the words quoted include, one might say, entire worlds. Therefore, in order to understand such concepts, one must also take into account what has been presented about human development, for example, in the post-Atlantic period: that the sentient body has particularly developed in the ancient Persian culture, the sentient soul in the Egyptian-Chaldean culture, the mind or emotional soul in the Greco-Roman period, the consciousness soul in the time in which we ourselves live, and that we see the next period, so to speak, as already approaching in its development, yes, that we ourselves, with what we want as anthroposophy, theosophy, are working on the approach of this next period, which in a certain way should show us the connection between consciousness soul and spirit self or manas.

Architecture, it was said, is closely linked to the concept of the soul. Someone might ask: Should architecture not then also be linked to the development of the soul, as it has just been characterized? And should not the forms, the designs of architecture show certain peculiarities in their succession, which are connected to this development of sentient body, sentient soul and so on? And would we not then have no justification at all for speaking of architecture in the case of certain periods – for example, the first post-Atlantean period, which particularly brought forth the etheric body – so as to be right in speaking of architecture? For if architecture is bound to the soul, then it should only begin to dawn when it begins to develop. Therefore, one would assume that it begins to emerge in the sentient body, because that is, as it were, the other side of the soul; and before that, one would have to refer to times when an actual architecture - in the sense in which we characteristically understand architecture - would not exist at all.

Now it is difficult enough to answer this question from the standpoint of external history; for everything that goes back beyond the Egyptian-Chaldean period can hardly be gained from historical monuments and traditions, but can only be derived from clairvoyant research. Even the time of Zarathustra, which we call the original Persian period, lies so far back that historical research is out of the question, let alone the time period that we know to be connected with the development of the etheric body, namely the original Indian period.

However, one can also have strange experiences with this matter if one approaches the very clever people of the present day with it. Recently, for example, one of these clever people said that these post-Atlantean periods, as they are recorded, for example, in my “Occult Science”, are untenable, because anyone who is familiar with the linguistic monuments of India would never believe that Indian culture had progressed as far ahead of Egyptian and Chaldean culture as it is presented in the sense of this “Occult Science”. Well, one can only be surprised that such very clever people of the present day have not yet managed to read a book written in their mother tongue with understanding, even if they can sometimes read Sanskrit. For it is expressly stated in “Occult Science” that the culture of India, including the Vedic culture, which is the subject of external science, is not the culture of ancient India, the first culture of the post-Atlantic period, but that in the case of the Vedic culture we are dealing with a time that can be counted as belonging to the third post-Atlantic cultural period, which thus runs parallel to the Egyptian-Chaldean culture. The original Indian culture, on the other hand, was one of which no external documents and no external monuments and the like exist and of which only the last echoes are contained in the Vedas. I do not want to dwell on this any further, but say this only because one or the other of you might hear this objection and perhaps not immediately have the concepts and ideas at hand that can dispel such an objection.

So the question remains, as indicated earlier, that in the first post-Atlantic period we would have to go back to times when an actual art of building, as for later times, could not yet be possible. But then we come to a strange boundary point, to which external research also points; we come, so to speak, to a preliminary stage of architecture: the building of spaces for religious, for worship in caves, carved into the rock, as one finds in India or Nubia. This is indeed the epoch that stands on the boundary of the development of the soul out of the physical. These cave structures confirm what spiritual research indicates regarding the development of the soul: Only in the period of human evolution in which we see the development of the soul out of the physical development do we also see the real higher art of building evolving out of what were previously rock caves, underground rock caves that had been hewn into the earth itself.

In this respect, the earth appears like the physical realm into which the human soul first works, as it also happens in the development of the human being itself, where the soul works into the physical realm, the sentient soul into the sentient body. And in the transition from cave rooms to architectural works that encompass human activities, we see at the same time the importance of the transition from the culture of the sentient body to that of the sentient soul.

There will come a time when the insights of Theosophy and Anthroposophy will be developed for all branches of human knowledge and for all branches of human development. And it will be found that everything that other human worldviews present one-sidedly has been cobbled together from some inadequate concepts and ideas, while spiritual science or anthroposophy shows the whole picture, with which one will be able to shine in everywhere. We can be completely reassured, even if people today do not yet believe it. That is not important, but that time will provide the evidence for it. We just have to give it time. The confirmations will gradually emerge in all areas of life and development. Also in the field of architecture.

And if we now go through the post-Atlantean development, we see that in the course of time the individual developmental epochs are, so to speak, bound to the soul, to the development of the sentient soul, then to that of the mind or mind soul and then to that of the consciousness soul, right up to our time. And in our own time we see, still in the preparatory stage, the time when the consciousness soul is being worked out of the spiritual self or manas, so that we are, as it were, standing before a reversal of the process that took place in the post-Atlantic epoch, when we passed from the bodily to the soul realm. Just as the sentient soul was worked out of the sentient body in those days, so we are now facing a time in which we have to work our way out of the soul and into a spiritual realm. For architecture, this means that we can expect the opposite again. That is to say, just as in those earlier times caves were hewn out of the rocks as the preliminary stages of human architectural works, so now, in the present rising time, we have to work into the spirit in order to create the complement, the counterpart to this.

Let us now try to visualize the following, initially without more precise details of time, for everyone can form for themselves what is necessary for parallelism.

Let us take the development through the sentient soul, the mind or intellect soul and the consciousness soul; first, therefore, the development through the sentient soul.

Through being endowed with the sentient soul, the human being enters into a reciprocal relationship with the world around him. Through the sentient soul, so to speak, what is present in the world as reality enters into the human soul, into the human inner self. The 'outside becomes an inside by way of the experience in the sentient soul. Therefore, in the development of architectural art, there should be something that emerges quite naturally from cave construction and shows something in itself that is characteristic of the sentient soul. That is to say, it should be built in such a way that one wants to represent an exterior as well as an interior. Here we need only recall the construction of the pyramids and similar buildings, and we can even think of more recent scientific research that has shown how astronomical-cosmic relationships are reflected in the dimensions of the pyramid construction. More and more will be discovered about the pyramid's strange structure based on cosmic conditions. Astronomical dimensions can be found in the ratio of the base to the height, for example. And anyone who studies the pyramid gradually comes to the conclusion that with the pyramid, the pyramid priests expressed everything that could be expressed in a structure as a perception of cosmic conditions. The pyramid was built as if the earth wanted to experience within itself what is perceived from the cosmos. Just as the sentient soul brings the outer reality to life within itself and presents what is outside as an inner reality, repeating in its own way what is outside, so the pyramid repeats in its proportions and forms outer cosmic relationships, for example, in the way sunlight falls within it. Just as external reality finds a kind of representation in the human being through the sentient soul, so the pyramid looks like a large sentient organ of all earthly culture in relation to the cosmos.

Let us move on. How should architecture behave in a cultural stage in which the characteristic is the intellectual or mind soul?

The mind or mind soul is the inner soul in man, which has the most work to do within itself, which, on the already inner foundation of the sentient soul, further develops this inner soul , but does not go so far as to reunite it into the actual I; thus it spreads and expands the soul-life without allowing it to culminate in the center of the I. The person who has developed precisely this soul element comes to us through the richness of his soul life, through the many inner soul contents and experiences that he has fought for and achieved; he has less of a need to build systems out of his inner experiences, but rather gives himself over to the breadth of these inner experiences. The soul of mind or feeling is a life of the soul that bears itself inwardly, closes itself inwardly, and totalizes itself inwardly.

What kind of architecture would be needed to correspond to such a soul? It would have to be an architecture that, unlike the construction of a pyramid, does not so much resemble or represent cosmic conditions, but is more of a self-contained, complete being in itself; something that is self-supporting and, in accordance with the intellectual soul or the soul of feeling, shows the breadth of development in the way the individual parts are supported, and is less concerned with uniting what already exists in the breadth of development. No one who is familiar with the nature of the intellectual soul or the soul of feeling, as it has just been characterized, can doubt that Greek and also Roman architecture can be understood as an external image of the life of the soul of intellect or of the soul of feeling.

If we look at Greek architecture, for example Greek temple architecture, as we have done many times before, by understanding it as the house of the god himself, so that the god dwells within it and the whole house presents itself as the dwelling of the god, the whole inwardly rounded as an inward totality. From our contemplation of the Greek temple, we have even been able to say: This Greek temple does not claim that a person or a community of people is within it. It is the dwelling place of the god and can stand alone, closed, as a totality in itself, just as the intellectual or emotional soul is an inner totality, a self-contained inner life, which does not yet lead to egoity, but which, even if unconsciously, is the manifestation of the god in man. And when we see how in Greek temple architecture each part supports the other, how everything is based on the columns striving upwards and supporting the beams, how the mutual forces are joined together into a totality without the whole any way systematically toward a unity, toward a pinnacle, we find in it – and in Roman architecture the same is actually the case – that breadth, that expanse, which we find in the intellectual or emotional soul itself.

'This is precisely what is striking about Greco-Roman architecture: it is based on statics, on the pure statics of the individual forces that unfold in a supporting or burdening way. But there is one thing you can forget about a Greek temple: you can forget that it has a sense of 'heaviness'. For anyone who feels in harmony with nature will, or at least can, feel that the columns are something that grows out of the earth. And with that which really does grow out of the earth, with plants, there is no sense of oppressive heaviness. That is why the column in the Greek temple gradually strives to become similar to the stem of a plant, even if this only becomes visible in the Corinthian column. And so, in our perception, the burden is not on the column, but for our perception the column is a carrier. But when we then come to the beam, to the architrave, we have the direct feeling that this weighs on the column, that is, the structure is inwardly permeated by static equilibrium. And anyone who has developed their inner life will also have the feeling that the perceptions, feelings and concepts they have arrived at, which they have worked towards inwardly, are supported inwardly in the same way that the column supports the beam. Because at the time when Greco-Roman architecture originated, the intellectual soul or soul of mind was particularly developed in humanity, therefore, when the soul wanted to express itself in the language of architecture, it naturally strove to express its inner experiences in static form. It was not intentional, but rather a natural expression of the human soul, to create a reflection of the soul in architecture.

And then gradually the development passed over to the consciousness soul. It is essential to the consciousness soul to summarize what the soul experiences in the total feeling: “You are! And you are this one human being, this one personality, this one individuality.” By living in the intellectual or emotional soul, God lives in you; but you allow God to live in all the vibrations of your soul, you are so certain of him that you do not need to summarize them as in one point and not to bring yourself to consciousness: “You are identical with your divine.” But you have to do that in the consciousness soul. In this soul, it is not the case that man rests inwardly in himself as in the soul of understanding or of feeling; but in the consciousness soul man strives out of himself to unfold his ego arbitrarily to reality, to existence.

If you have a feeling for the formation of words, you can literally see how the words that have just been spoken as the characteristic of the consciousness soul form themselves as if by magic into the Gothic pillar pillar and the Gothic arch, where the enclosures give us a structure that no longer expresses calm self-reliance, but rather the striving to escape from mere internal stasis through its forms. How great the difference is between the beam, which is carried in full static calm by its column, and the mutually supporting arches, which come together at the apex and hold each other, where everything pushes towards a point, just as the power of the human soul is concentrated in the consciousness soul.

And anyone who can empathize with the ongoing process of human development feels, especially when observing Italian or French architecture, that during the transition from the development of the intellectual or emotional soul to the development of the consciousness soul, it is no longer a matter of calm, static support and carrying it out of the inner totality, and one no longer strives for inward unity in form, as in Greek architecture, but seeks to pass over into the dynamic, as it were, to emerge from one's skin, in order to enter into connection with the reality of the outer world, as in the consciousness soul. The Gothic arches open up to the light of heaven in long windows. This is not the case in Greek architecture. In a Greek temple, it would make no difference to the perception whether light fell into it or not. The light is only incidental. This is not irrelevant to the Gothic cathedral; the Gothic cathedral is inconceivable without the light refracting in the stained glass windows.

There one can feel how the consciousness soul enters into the totality of the world and strives out again into general existence. The Gothic style is therefore the architectural striving that is characteristic of the age of the development of the consciousness soul.

And now we come to our own age, in which a world view that does not arise out of arbitrariness but out of the necessities of human development must realize that the human being must work his way out of the soul and into the spiritual, that the human being in the spiritual self rests in himself spiritually. The Gothic building, with its special architecture of the wall broken through by the windows, with its opening up for that which can come in, for that which must now come! Like the harbinger of what is to come – where the wall necessarily leads to a structure and in this respect is also only a filler, a decoration, not an enclosure, like the walls of the Greek temple – this Gothic building appears as a harbinger of what what the new building must now become for the envelopment of the coming Weltanschhauung, the new building whose essential peculiarities I have already hinted at here and there and of which some essentials have even already been attempted, for example in the Stuttgart building.

The essential thing will be that the complement to the preliminary stage of architecture, to cave construction, where the rock itself materially closed off what was hewn into it; that our new building opens up in all directions, that its walls are open on all sides, not to the material, but open to the spiritual. And we will achieve this by designing the forms in such a way that we can forget that there is any city or the like besides our building. In the Stuttgart Bau, such an attempt has already been made; its walls are open despite the material closure, open to the spirit. In the new building, too, we will shape the forms, the decorative, the picturesque, so that the wall is broken through, so that we can feel our way through color and form: even though we are closed off, the spiritual and mental view expands into the world. Just as the proportions of the cosmos were taken up in the pyramid, so we take what we can experience through anthroposophy and theosophy and create forms, colors, outlines and figures for it, but we create all this in such a way that precisely through what we create on the walls and , these walls themselves disappear, and we experience the closed space in such a way that we can feel the illusion everywhere: it expands out into the cosmos, into the universe, just as the consciousness soul, when it merges with the spiritual self, lives itself out of the merely human into the spiritual.

Thus in the new architecture the significance of the individual column will also advance to something quite different. If, as in the Greek temple, we are dealing with static relationships, with relationships in which inwardness is of primary importance, then it is natural that the forms of the columns and the capitals should repeat themselves. For how could one think of a column in one place as being different from another in the neighborhood if they have exactly the same function? It must be shaped in the same way as the other. It cannot be any different, because every column has the same function.

If we are now dealing with the new art of building in the cosmos, which is differentiated in the most diverse ways on all sides, we should forget that we are in an inner space, so the columns take on a completely new task, a task that is somewhat like that of a letter that points beyond itself by forming a word with the other letters. Thus the columns join together, not in their diversity, but like the individual letters of a weighty writing, pointing outward to the cosmos, from the inside out. And so we will build: from the inside out! And just as one capital letter follows the other, so they will join together and express something as a totality. This will be something that leads beyond the room. And what else we will add, for example inside the dome, will be added in such a way that we will not have the feeling: we are closed in by a dome – but that the whole painting seems to pierce the dome, to take it away into infinity. To do this, however, one will have to learn to paint a little in the way that Johannes Thomasius paints for Strader's sensibility, so that Strader gets the feeling: “The canvas, I want to pierce it to find what I am supposed to seek.”

One can see that in the mystery plays not a single word is written in vain, but always from the perspective of the whole, and that all the things we want from the preconditions of our culture necessarily come together. Today I just wanted to evoke a feeling for the fact that in the overall treatment of walls, architectural motifs, columns, and in the use of all decorative elements, the new architecture must aim at the destruction of the material, so to speak, overcome the wall and , so that the pictorial must also overcome the wall; I wanted to evoke a feeling that all this must occur and be attempted through the new architecture and that this is a necessity in view of the course of human development, as we recognize it as a necessary one.

However, in view of the necessity of such a building from the course of human development, it seems pathetic that it is so difficult to actually carry out the building, and pathetic are also all the objections that are being made by the authorities in Munich, and also by the artists who have been called upon to judge it and who have said that the building would overwhelm the neighborhood. Perhaps they had a slight feeling of unease about the building overwhelming the neighborhood, about it growing out of it into a very wide environment. They will feel it as oppressive at first.

Such objections, raised by artists who believe themselves to be at the cutting edge of their time, seem grotesquely comical when considered in the context of human evolution.

Let us hope, dear friends, and let us do our part, because it could be good for our cause, that our guardian spirit takes pity on us and turns his gaze to us, so that we, recognizing the necessity of our structure, may soon be able to truly create this covering for anthroposophy or spiritual science, which corresponds to the development of humanity.

My dear friends! In connection with the building of our Johannesbau in Dornach, a number of our friends and members have felt the desire to create some kind of home around or near the Johannesbau. A number of members have already registered and considered the purchase of property there in order to create permanent homes for the whole year or for some of the time. Of course, my dear friends, the words I would like to say at this moment, following on from what I have just said, are not meant as if I wanted to interfere in any way with what these colonists are undertaking around our Johannesbau in Dornach. It is self-evident that, in view of the whole way we understand our anthroposophical movement, the freedom of each individual member must be preserved to the greatest possible extent. I have no right to speak in favor of the least hint of compulsion in either direction; but I may perhaps have the right to express a wish.

So, in Dornach we shall now have the Johannesbau as such, for which we have endeavored to find a truly new kind of architecture , to express in architectural forms what we want, and to create something that can represent, in the sense already often hinted at, a not only dignified but also correct embodiment of our cause.

Dr. Grosheintz has shown you in various illustrations the efforts that have been made to achieve this goal. If the funds are sufficient, buildings will be found immediately around the Johannesbau, individual houses, some of which you have already seen, that they will be in the immediate vicinity of the Johannesbau. And these houses will be built in such a way that they can really form a whole with the artistic design of the Johannesbau itself.

It takes a lot to create such a whole. We have, of course, only had the opportunity to implement the idea just characterized for the small house that you see there (in the model ) at one point and which is initially intended to serve as a place where the glass windows are to be made; so that Mr. Rychter and perhaps someone else can work in it, and the glass windows can be made in the other rooms. The second building, which already has a very definite form, is the so-called “Kesselhaus”. This boiler house had to be designed using the modern material of reinforced concrete. And so the problem was how to construct such a giant chimney – which would of course be an eyesore if it were to be built as chimneys are built today near buildings – how to construct such a chimney in connection with the building, architecturally, using the corresponding material.

In the small figure form that you see here (in the model), and in what Dr. Grosheintz showed as an image of this boiler house, you will have seen that an attempt has been made to solve the architecture of this structure as well. And when it is finally built, and especially when it is heated – because the smoke emerging from the chimney is incorporated into the architecture – then people will perhaps be able to feel that these forms have intrinsic beauty despite their prosaic purpose. Perhaps it is precisely because the building's function is truly expressed in its forms that one can sense that these forms have not only been purely formed according to the principles of the old utilitarian architecture, but at the same time in such a way that an inner aesthetic formation has taken place. By thinking of the two domes together, with an expansion that is shaped differently on each side, and by the chimney with its “leaf-like” structures (one member who saw this model found them to be “ear-like”), but it is not necessary to define them as define them as such, they need only be correct. It will probably be possible to achieve, through all these forms, a feeling that even a building like this, which serves a very modern purpose of heating – the Johannesbau and the buildings immediately around it will be heated from here – can be given aesthetically satisfying forms.

For a matter like this – the other matters are therefore only provisional, and it will become clear to what extent they are provisional – in order to know what is needed for this shaping, it is necessary to first know a precise, specified indication of everything that is to take place in the building, for which purpose it is to serve. I would like to say: Do we know how many rooms, for what purposes rooms are needed, how many types of staircase, how many types of view and so on someone wants, and do we also know exactly the location of the building in question in relation to the Johannesbau, to the north or south, then we can find a corresponding architecture for each such specification.

Therefore, it will be necessary for all those friends who want to become colonists and are thinking of building something near the Johannesbau to really follow, at least in a broader sense, what must be pursued for the buildings in the immediate vicinity of the Johannesbau if we do not want to be unfaithful to our principles. For the first thing to be borne in mind is that the external structure, the overall style, should make it clear to the outside world that all these houses belong together, so to speak, and form a whole. Even if other houses are situated between them, it would still be desirable that the houses built by the colonists be built in such a way that it is clear from their appearance that they belong to this whole. People outside might say: These people are warped! Well, but one should feel it - whether one looks at it affirmatively or negatively - and we should give cause for feeling that in this way - even if perhaps disturbed by many other things in between - the complex of buildings built towards the Johannesbau forms an ideal whole.

This is the one point of view that really needs to be taken into account. But the other aspect is that we really want something that has a certain significance in the cultural development of the present day. We want, my dear friends – and you can see this from the forms of the Johannesbau itself – that our spiritual-scientific attitude should actually be incorporated into the architectural style and into the artistic forms in all fields. Just as we would not be able to say, if someone were to ask us today: how can one best practise the art of dance? to say: go to such and such a person who has such and such a method. Just as we would be compelled to seek our own in eurythmy, so we must also learn to understand how to seek our own in the other art forms and thereby create something for those who want to understand, something that is perhaps only possible for such a productive spiritual current as is given by the spirit of spiritual science.

I have often pointed out how it remains in my ears, what the architect Heinrich von Ferstel said after he had built the Votive Church in Vienna and was elected rector of the Vienna University of Technology, when he gave a lecture on architecture; what his actual tenor was in this lecture: architectural styles are not invented! One can object to this statement in many ways, one can also prove it, both can be equally correct. They are not invented, the architectural styles, but from the correctness of the statement that they are not invented, it does not follow at all that one simply takes the Gothic architectural style, as Ferstel took it, and sets up the somewhat enlarged confectionery, this sugar work of the Viennese Votive Church. Nor does it follow at all from that sentence that architectural styles in our own time can only be formed by modifying old architectural styles in an eclectic sense, welding them together again and again, and in this way bring about this or that.

A spirit-scientific attitude should show that it is possible to bring real art forms into the architectural style from the inner life of spiritual life. And we should prove to the world that this is also possible in a private house. We should be able to gain understanding for our cause from this point of view. By being able to proceed from this point of view, we will create an enormously significant ideal value for our culture.

So it would certainly be nice, without wanting to exert any influence on the freedom of any member, if the colonists came together and, out of their own free will but with the knowledge of our principles, achieved something unified. Since this cannot be changed for the time being – it may be different later – we have to take into account the factor that there is a house near the Johannesbau that cannot be removed yet and will not enhance the beauty; but it is there and it does not matter that we do not make everything ” beautiful, but that we make what we do beautiful in our own way.

Therefore, I have to say, I was really saddened when, in the past few weeks, I saw construction plans and proposals for houses that the colonists are supposed to build there. They were, of course, conceived with the very best of intentions, but they exhibited all the ugliness and monstrosity of a terrible architectural style. It really can be done differently if you have the good will to do so. It goes without saying that a number of obstacles and hindrances will have to be reckoned with, but what new movement that has to find its place in the world does not encounter obstacles or hindrances?

I do not want to interfere in what might arise from the members of the colony – that is, the colonists themselves – uniting tomorrow; but it would sadden me if something different were to arise than what was intended by the words just spoken. It will certainly be possible if we all take care to ensure that what has just been characterized comes to pass. Of course, if colonists do not have the patience to wait until the time comes when it may be possible to indicate how one or the other could be done well, then nothing favorable can be done.

As much as it is understandable that some of the colonists may be in a hurry to get their construction project , it would still be desirable for the colonists who are serious about our cause to exercise a little patience in order to let things develop in accordance with the intentions, which I cannot say are ours through our will, but that they arise from what we have to extract from the spiritual scientific attitude. Something might actually come of it, which might at first make an impression on the world, and it might laugh at it. Let them laugh! But the time for laughter will come to an end. If we never undertake anything of this kind, we will never advance in human development.

No one need fear the slightest inconvenience in their household if the principles I have mentioned are observed. But one thing will certainly be necessary: that not every colonist goes his own way, so to speak, but that what is done is done in a certain harmony, so that people can discuss and support each other.

What the architectural style of the colonists' houses will make the whole colony appear as an ideal unity will be an external expression of a harmony that will be an internal one. I say what I now say partly as a wish, partly as a hypothesis, partly as something, yes, I myself do not know what word to choose: it should just be an impression of the inner harmony of those living in this colony!

It will be of the Anthroposophical Society that there will never be the slightest discord or mutual incompatibility in this colony, nor even a single harsh word from one member of the colony to another, nor even a frown from one to another. And it will be wonderful if this is also expressed outwardly, as it were, so that peace will be poured out over everything. But even if it should ever happen that a little thing might cause one or the other to have a crooked mouth or face, because outward forms stimulate thoughts, he will and will turn his eyes to the common, peaceful forms, and a peaceful smile will immediately spread over his twisted face.

If we consider all this, then we really have the reasons for the impulse to create something unified there. Do not think that this unity will mean that one house will be like another. On the contrary. The houses will be very different from each other and everything will have to have a very individual character. After all, a human organism is not created by saying: an arm is like this, a hand is like this... [gap]. If an arm or a hand had ever been placed at the top instead of a head, an organism would never have been able to develop. Likewise, the shape of a house that is correct on one side will not be correct on the other. But all this will have to be deeply thought through for our purposes.

And then, when we are in a position to really put it all into practice, there are other aspects to consider. Just think, we were united here this week. On Monday some Theosophical Society was meeting in the next room with a lecture by so-and-so; on another day another Society was meeting with something else, and on a third day an “Anthropos-Society” was meeting and so on. Just think, if it could happen that the son, daughter, grandson, or nephew of one of our members would join some “Anthropos” society or even some theosophical society, and it came to that later on houses in our colony would be inherited by such members of a family, we would not only have the lectures of the other societies in a neighbourly way, but we would also have the attitudes and so on of these societies right in the middle of us.

We must therefore consider today what difficulties may arise over time and how we can counter them. We will only be able to counter them if we create such an association of colonists through which ways and means can be found to ensure that the possessions of members of the Anthroposophical Society really do remain with members of the Anthroposophical Society in the future. That this will only be possible through the most diverse means will become clear to you tomorrow when you discuss the practical principles. Of course, heirs must never be affected, but it is also possible to create the possibility that what one owns in the colony will never pass to heirs who are not members of the Anthroposophical Society, without affecting the heirs.

It would be highly desirable to maintain this colony as one for members of the Anthroposophical Society in the future would be highly desirable; but not just thinking about how nice it is for oneself to live there, how nice it is not to have far to go to the events in the Johannesbau and to be there with anthroposophists. To think only of that would be even less in line with our spiritual current than to think only of something else in this matter. The fact that our spiritual current still has to be connected with certain sacrifices is particularly evident when the principles and impulses of our spiritual current have to be translated into practical reality. It should be more or less self-evident that we cannot have our houses built by just any architect who is completely outside our movement. That we want to express the anthroposophical character of the colony should also be self-evident.

These are certain points of view that I would like to present to you, of course, as I said, not to exert any pressure, but as something that you will that it cannot be avoided if anything is to come of the whole matter of our Johannesbau and thus serve our anthroposophical cause.

You see, we had to leave Munich because we found no understanding there, at first purely for what we wanted artistically. Out there in Dornach, where we can now be, we can put ourselves in a position to become, in a certain respect, a model for what our spiritual movement should bring in the future. And it would be a misunderstanding of our movement if we did not want to do it, if we let ourselves be deterred by petty considerations or by anything else from keeping to the points of view that have been discussed. Basically, everyone who wants to build there should realize that it is necessary for them to actually join a colonists' association. Perhaps it would be best if the artistic side of things were subject to a kind of committee or commission. There is no need to force this matter, but it would be wonderful if all the colonists were to agree that it is best to submit to a kind of commission what is to be built in the way of houses and so on. If we can really carry this out, showing that we, as colonists, can imbue a number of us with a common will and give this will the direction that is prescribed by our anthroposophical ethos, then we will create something exemplary there. And what is created there will be a test of how well or how poorly our cause has been understood. Of every house that is built as a monster by any architect, people will say: a new proof of how little our present is still understood in relation to our anthroposophical movement! And of every house that is a formal expression of our anthroposophical attitude, people will say: How glad it can make you that there is already an inner understanding in one or the other for what we want!

I would have been so very happy if what I had intended for this General Assembly could have come about. Let us see what can still be achieved tomorrow if a very stimulating discussion arises from this General Assembly in free debate, based on the theses: How should we, each and every one of us, best work anthroposophically among our fellow human beings and how can we best show our anthroposophical attitude and put our experience at the service of the world? But, my dear friends, by endeavoring to merely bring the wisdom of the anthroposophical movement to the people, we alone do not do what we must do if we want to establish our movement in the world. We must really ensure that the spiritual knowledge given to us is properly presented to the world in the embodiment of what is created externally by us, just as the old architectural styles were embodiments of the old cultural ideas.

If we succeed in creating something truly unified there and in legally safeguarding this unity as something to be preserved for the anthroposophical movement, then we will have provided proof that we understand our movement. Would it really be the case that quite a number of such artistic elements, including architectural and other forms, provide us with proof on this occasion, where it can, that the Anthroposophical Movement is understood!

Truly, we do not want to be a sect or any kind of community that represents and spreads these or those dogmas. We want to be something that takes cultural tasks seriously. However, we can only do so for the Johannesbau and the associated colony if we act in the spirit of what has just been said.

I think, my dear friends, that these few words may have provided some insights for your colonization efforts around the Johannesbau.