The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Wilhelmstraße 92/93, Architektenhans

report in the “Mitteilungen für die Mitglieder der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft (theosophischen Gesellschaft), herausgegeben von Mathilde Scholl”, Nr. 1/1913

Dr. Steiner: Perhaps I may say that at the present time we are at the starting point of a significant, not new work; but at the starting point of a significant effort to consolidate and expand the old work. I have already brought into what I had to say yesterday all the feelings that I would like to place in your hearts and souls as a new color of our work. I hope that we will find ways and means to cultivate what we have cultivated in the old form, not in a new form, but in this new coming time, even more strongly, even more devotedly. That which has been saved from such difficulties must grow close to your hearts, and it would be a beautiful thing if each of us could truly feel this, that we can grow together with what we actually want. If we feel how what we call anthroposophy is a necessity for our time, and feel it in the way it must flow into our present cultural life, so that it wants to become a ferment in all individual fields; if we feel that all this wants to be and can be anthroposophy, then we will find the possibility of working in the right way. And the best contribution we can make today is not words, but our feelings and perceptions, our intentions, the principles we take within us to develop our individual powers.

What is at stake is to find the right ways to allow everyone who wants to approach to find access to us. No one should or must be denied access to us, even if we must also carefully guard the sanctity and inviolability of our resolutions. Perhaps more than usual, it will be necessary for us to be able to fully rely on each other, for us to be sure that those who step onto our spiritual path will find the right thing from their hearts, and that those who do not want something for their soul will be deterred, so that all who come to us are really with us in some way. If we maintain a sense of seriousness and dignity in all our actions, we can be sure that we really have trust in each other, that we drop the personal everywhere, and that we look at people only from an objective point of view. It is not easy to let go of the personal. However, this should lead us not to be indulgent towards ourselves and others, but rather to examine ourselves again and again to see if this or that personal thing is not speaking after all. And we will find to a greater extent than we think how difficult it is for a person to go beyond what lives in his soul as personal. Many a person will be convinced that the judgment they had was based not so much on objective reasons as on sympathy and antipathy. Self-examination is part of it if you want to participate in a spiritual movement.

I would like to emphasize not so much what these words mean literally, but what they can become if they are taken up by your hearts as they are meant to be. Perhaps they can serve as a starting point for the path, for the use of the means we need if we want to progress along the path we have once set for ourselves.

Dr. Unger: As we are about to open the first General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society, we would like to express our heartfelt thanks for the words of welcome that have just been spoken. It is my duty to inform you that Dr. Steiner has accepted the honorary presidency of the Society at the request of the Central Committee and with the unanimous approval and enthusiasm of the large committee.

If we now want to enter the General Assembly, it is only so that we can share some information about the current state of the Society. Today, I ask only to receive a few communications, and to see the value of this first meeting in the fact that, on the basis of these communications, we have proof that the work of the committee has since been applauded by our friends. It will now be my task to ask you at this opening whether you can give your approval to the actions of the Central Committee and the large committee.

Fräulein von Sivers: Although not all the applications for membership have arrived yet, the number of our members is already quite large. The society already has 2557 members. How the individual groups are distributed will only become clear over time.

I still have to read out a letter of welcome from the Anthroposophical Working Group in Sweden. The Scandinavian General Secretary, Lieutenant Colonel Kinell, has been forced to resign as a result of his experiences and has taken over the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society in Sweden.

Dr. Rudolf Steiner.

The Swedish Section of the Anthroposophical Society, which has now been founded, presents its compliments and sends its greetings.

Stockholm, January 31, 1913.

Gustaf Kinell, Anna Wager-Gunnarsson, Gustaf Ljungquist.

Fräulein Marie von Sivers.

The newly formed Swedish Section sends its warmest greetings and best wishes for the future to you and to the first General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society.

Stockholm, January 31, 1913.

Gustaf Kinell, Anna Wager-Gunnarsson, Gustaf Ljungquist.

The following telegram of greeting has arrived from France:

Au nom des membres français de la Société Anthroposophique nous exprimons au docteur Steiner notre profond attachement et notre adhésion résolue au programme de la Société.

Edouard Schuré, Alice Bellecroix, Eugène Lévy.

From Prague:

The first General Assembly warmly welcomes the Prague Circle.

Krkavec.

From the remaining members of the Anglo-Belge branch in Brussels:

46a, Boulevard de la Cambre, Brussels, January 29, 1913.

The members of the Anglo-Belge branch in Brussels, who, obeying their duty, could not follow the impulse of their hearts to be among you today, send their most respectful greetings to the beginning of a new theosophical era - to the highly esteemed teacher and thinker Dr. Rudolf Steiner - to the courageously and faithfully tested board of the Anthroposophical Society!

The leaders of our study group present in Berlin will be able to tell you that under the pressure of the difficult circumstances here, our life force is strengthened by looking up to him who guides us so wonderfully through writing and word.

The greater the external challenge, the more intimate our intimate association becomes! Loving spiritually is life in the higher sense - we include the circle of anthroposophical friends in this bond - may the small seed unfold into a glorious flower!

With grateful devotion, the remaining members of the Anglo-Belge branch in Brussels:

Mathilde Schollmeyer, E. Kuneman,
E. Hagemann, R. H. Alexander, Cato Voûte,
for two members who are currently unavailable, Frau Lotsy,
Mrs. A. de Fritsch.
(E. Hgm.)

Weimar:

The Theosophical Society,
Anthroposophical Society

Weimar Branch.

Weimar, February 1, 1913.

To the esteemed board of directors of the German Section of the Theosophical Society, Berlin.

The Weimar branch requests that the honorable board of the German section of the Theosophical Society read the following statement at the general assembly:

"The members present at the meeting held on January 30, 1913, recognize the approach taken by the entire board of the German section against the president of the Theosophical Society, Mrs. Annie Besant, the only possibility to ensure the continued existence of the Society on the basis intended by its founders H. P. Blavatsky and H. S. Olcott. They consider it the President's duty to sacrifice Dr. Steiner, whose activities are opposed to the aims of the Society, in particular his leadership of the Order of the Star in the East, and to resign from the presidency as quickly as possible and voluntarily. Theosophical Society has become impossible, and to resign from the presidency as quickly as possible and voluntarily. They therefore fully support all the numerous protests by other domestic and foreign branches of the Theosophical Society against the attempts, which are incompatible with a love of truth and a theosophical attitude, to hinder and undermine Dr. Steiner's beneficial and self-sacrificing work, and consider membership of the Order of the Star in the East to be incompatible with membership of the Theosophical Society due to the unbrotherly antagonistic attitude towards the person and teachings of Dr. Steiner expressed in the aforementioned order, which contradicts the principle of true tolerance and honesty.

The members of the Weimar branch therefore agree in advance with all further measures of the executive committee of the German Section that are aimed at helping the truth to prevail, and express their full and unconditional confidence in the executive committee of the German Section and their warmest thanks for its courageous approach to date in this unfortunate crisis of the Theosophical Society.

Weimar, February 1, 1913,
the Weimar Branch
On behalf of
Horst von Henning, 1st Chairman,
Grand Ducal $ Court Concertmaster,
Arthur Rösel, 2nd Chairman,
Mrs. Lina Schliephak-Uttner, Secretary.

From the Bochum branch:

Warmest congratulations and blessings.

Bochum branch.

From the Paulus branch in Mulhouse:

The Paulus branch sends Dr. Steiner, the Executive Council and the General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society our warmest greetings.

Two friends sent us the following telegram: Budapest.

Two members of the Anthroposophical Society living abroad, who unfortunately were unable to come to Berlin, ask the first General Assembly to express their warmest wishes for a dignified and uplifting course of the unspeakably significant assembly. May it always be possible for all members to maintain that attitude, even in the event of any unpleasant disputes that may arise, which alone is appropriate for those souls who want to devote themselves to truth, which is above partisanship, praise and blame.

Valborg and Louis Werbeck-Svärdström.

We have just received a letter from Moscow in which the working group there declares its affiliation with us. And, strangely enough, we received several warm letters of welcome from Spain, which had not previously been in contact with us, as a result of our “announcements”.

Dr. Unger: It should be noted that many questions will probably still arise, but that these will resolve themselves over time. It would be good if the individual groups were to register with Fräulein von Sivers in the near future in order to be recognized as branches of our Society. The other provisions are, of course, contained in the 'Draft Principles of an Anthroposophical Society'. There will be no difficulties if we stick to the fact that working is the most important thing. The goals we have had so far remain our goals.

It is planned to charter the individual groups so that, for the time being, we can have a full picture of the Society before us at the next General Assembly. We must all remember to ensure that messages about what has happened here, what the Anthroposophical Society wants and means, are disseminated as widely as possible. There are many people who are being deceived. Many have no idea where they are going when they pin on the asterisk, for example, out of good nature or other harmless considerations. Gradually, however, enlightenment must come.

My question is therefore whether the assembly agrees with the results that are available so far; whether the printed preliminary statutes meet with your approval.

Unanimous approval of the meeting.

Mr. Günther Wagner: I just want to make an announcement about the library. At the board meeting in December of last year, the board of the former Theosophical Society transferred the library to me as my property, with the purpose of saving it for those whose dues created this library and for the movement to which we remain loyal. What is at issue today has already taken place once, and has a precedent. In the Minutes No. 4, January 1907, it says:

Regarding Item IV: Final settlement of the matter of the library of the German Theosophical Society, the General Secretary reports that the matter has taken a gratifying turn; namely, that Graf Brockdorjf has transferred all rights to the library to Mr. Günther Wagner. After a lengthy debate, Mr. Günther Wagner in turn transfers these rights to the German Section.

The following resolution was adopted by the General Assembly: “The German Section takes over the library of the former German Theosophical Society on the basis of the transfer of the 'rights that Count Brockdorff held in it to Herm Günther Wagner. The Section's board of directors will consider itself the library commission and transfers Mr. Günther Wagner the measures for the desirable installation of the library and for its further administration.

At the request of Mr. Tessmar, Mr. Günther Wagner is appointed by the German Section as the lifelong custodian of the library in recognition of his generous actions.

I would just like to say that this case has already occurred once. The Society has now reimbursed me for the library, and I hereby transfer the library to the Anthroposophical Society.

Dr. Unger: We thank Mr. Wagner for his generous action. That was the only matter before me. Is there any other urgent matter? This is not the case.

So we may close the first General Assembly of the Anthroposophical Society with the expression of our wish and hope that we may make progress in our work.

I hereby close the first General Assembly and hope that our anthroposophical affairs will flourish.

Motto: Wisdom is only in truth.

To lead a satisfying and healthy life, human nature requires the knowledge and cultivation of its own supersensible essence and the supersensible essence of the extra-human world. The scientific research of recent times cannot lead to such a goal, although within their tasks and their limits they are called upon to achieve unspeakable things for human culture. The Anthroposophical Society will pursue this goal by promoting genuine and healthy research directed towards the supersensible and by cultivating its influence on human conduct. True spiritual research and the attitude that follows from it should give the society its character, which can be expressed in the following guiding principles:

1. All those people can work together fraternally in the society who, as the basis for a loving cooperation, consider a common spiritual element in all human souls, however these may differ in terms of faith, nation, class, gender, etc.

2. The study of the supersensible hidden in all that is sensual is to be promoted and the dissemination of genuine spiritual science is to be served.

3. The recognition of the kernel of truth in the different world views of peoples and times is to be cultivated.

The first of these three guiding principles is necessary for the Anthroposophical Society because lofty spiritual goals can only be pursued together by people if a spirit of brotherhood bridges the differences that all too easily arise from what separates people in their thinking, their beliefs, and their particular interests in life. These differences will never interfere with the cooperation if the basis of the latter is the common spiritual in all human souls and therefore the differences remain untouched and fully respected in their individuality within society. In this way, society will be characterized by the attitude that is necessary for it to strive for the ideal of human coexistence, which, with complete appreciation of the thoughts and feelings of the individual, will find the soil in which mutual love and brotherhood can flourish. Society will only be able to achieve its spiritual goal if its members dedicate themselves to an ideal of life that can be a universal human ideal of conduct. The Society must have absolutely nothing to do with working for or against this or that religious belief, since it is dedicated to spiritual research, not to any particular confession. Therefore, any religious propaganda is completely alien to it. But it will also never fight against any. Likewise, all kinds of political or socio-political activity are strictly excluded from the Society's activities.

Its work is devoted to ways and means that can serve man in the sense of the development of our time, to lead the great riddles of human existence to such a solution that expands research beyond the sensual into the supersensible, without going astray, which cannot satisfy the genuine sense of truth. It will show that humanity in the present time possesses such spiritual research that it leads into the supersensible world and that its cultivation and dissemination can be just as much a task for a society as any other science.

The noblest fruits of human spiritual development, the various world views and creeds of peoples and times, are not considered by this spiritual research in terms of their confessional value, but rather in so far as they express humanity's struggle for the great spiritual questions of existence. Therefore, the basic character of society cannot be given a name that is taken from a specific confession. If, for example, the research of the Christ impulse within the development of humanity is cultivated through spiritual research, this is not done in the sense of a religious confession, but so that the adherent of any religious direction can relate to the corresponding spiritual-scientific result, just as the adherent of the Hindu religion or of Buddhism relates to Copernican astronomy, despite the fact that Copernicus is not mentioned in its religious texts. The Christ Impulse is presented as a result of research in such a way that it can be accepted by every follower of a religious creed, not just by the Christian confessor. The founding of the Society has been carried out by a committee of three individuals, namely Dr. Carl Unger, Fräulein Marie von Sivers and Michael Bauer, who have initially taken over the overall management of the Anthroposophical Society. They are supported by an executive council, which is initially considered to be the founding council.

The members of the founding committee will appoint trusted individuals who will be responsible for accepting applications from members and who will guarantee to the board the members they propose.

The appointment of a trusted person will either be made on the initiative of the founding committee or by a member being designated by seven other members or personalities seeking admission as their representatives and being recognized as such by the central committee.

Membership is acquired by notification either directly to the board or to one of the trusted individuals. Membership is only recognized by the central board of directors prior to the designation of the three founders.

The board or committee itself is responsible for co-opting new members, and proposals for this can be made at the annual general meeting.

The work of the Society is carried out in free groups that can form independently in any place in any country in the world. These groups will be able to form individually or join together, will be able to form associations or loose federations, etc., depending on the circumstances of the respective areas in which they form. The Anthroposophical Society is not an association as such; its cohesion is not based on an association organization or the like, but on the cultivation of spiritual science as such, and membership does not imply anything association-like, but for example the right to obtain certain spiritual-scientific writings that are intended only for members, and the like. In the external sense, therefore, the bond of the Anthroposophical Society will be no different than it would be, for example, for an anthropological or similar society.

Each working group forms its own statutes, etc. and elects its own board. The general membership, which must be acquired individually by each member, means that the central board recognizes an individual as belonging to the Anthroposophical Society.

The permanent seat of the Anthroposophical Society will be Berlin for the time being. The business management will be the responsibility of the members of the Central Executive Council resident in Berlin. This business management consists of nothing other than measures that can serve the spiritual goals stated above.

Each member shall pay a one-time entrance fee of five marks and an ongoing annual contribution of six marks for the administration of the Anthroposophical Society. In special cases, the annual contribution may be reduced.

Notes by Ida Knoch with additions by Lidia Gentilli-Arenson-Baratto and memories by Karl Rittersbacher

Father on a chair wreathed with roses and greenery; Gretchen, Paula and I beside him.

One to seven hammer blows at the beginning and end, otherwise always seven instead of the usual three. Prayer and so on as usual.

I know that I speak from the heart and feelings of all when I first address these words to our dear brother Günther Wagner. (Reading of the mantric lines):

The soul's pilgrimage on earth
leads to steep mountain peaks
where the sharp stones of life
They are her words, nothing else
But riddles and questions,
Which awaken longing mightily:
Only when in the soul's mountain huts
Where a calm spirit reigns
The solution to the riddles beckons
And calm the forces of desire:
Then spiritual fruits ripen
Into seeds for the eternities.

In your pilgrimage of life
Directing the spiritual eye
These words appear to me
As a sign of your being.

Many weeks ago I was already quite certain that such an intimate ceremony would take place today, but I did not know what I would say until this morning, when I opened my heart to the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings to ask for their blessing for our dear brother Günther Wagner. Before what was seen there is related, I know that I am one with you, my dear sisters and brothers, in the expression of the love and loyalty we feel for our dear and loyal brother Günther Wagner.

Dr. Steiner emphasizes how Father advised and helped everyone who approached him seeking comfort, strength and courage, how he worked everywhere in harmony, seeking harmony, with the same love and faithfulness as his soul, how he radiated all that he had gained through a long, hard, truth-seeking life as love; how he consecrated his strength to our Theosophical Society. Dr. Steiner fondly remembers many moments when he was able to be close to Father — and so on, and so on.

It was not so much words that came to Dr. Steiner from the wise masters of the East when he opened his heart to them in meditation this morning, but more images, indirect images, so to speak. In a community like the one gathered here, he could tell something like what he would say now.

First, images appeared, from which others emerged. There Dr. Steiner saw a member of the Order of St. Benedict, surrounded by other members of the same order; these were the abbot - Sinibald - and the elders of this monastic order. They were sitting together, as rarely happens, not absorbed in exercises or other prescriptions, but exchanging more personal thoughts. And the abbot, who became abbot of this order in 1227, told his elders about his father, how much he had clung to him, that this father had gone to Palestine with the leader of the Third Crusade, how the father had told of the many hardships, how he had gone through privations and suffering, how he had fought; but the father also told of life in the Orient, and for example how glass was made there, how the color purple was produced. And these stories of life in the Orient and its peculiarities made a great impression on the listening boy, even more than the stories of the battles.

The father of the abbot also spoke of the fact that he and his fellow fighters had a strong feeling that what Frederick Barbarossa did in the crusade meant more than just the outward events would suggest. The father, who was a knight of St. John of Jerusalem, stood by as the body of the red-bearded emperor was pulled out of the Saleph River, and he knew that even though three distinct parts of the body were buried near Tyre, near Antioch, and near Tarsus, the birthplace of Paul, his soul had nevertheless flown back to Europe. The father had been a knight of St. John of Jerusalem, and the abbot always had a great affection for them, as well as for the Teutonic knights, although his uncle, his father's brother (?), was opposed to the order.

During his theological studies, the abbot often wondered whether the idea was behind things, about this Aristotelian idea, or whether the idea existed before things, as Plato says. — He entered the Order of St. Benedict, prompted by long-standing family connections, and was also destined from the outset for a leading position in it.

During the exercises, which lasted from four o'clock in the morning until sunset, it was very rare for the abbot and the elders of his order to come together for such a personal exchange of ideas, and everyone left, reflecting on what they had heard. The abbot sat alone for a long time, pondering what had been said. And when he then walked back along the path, the meditation path, with a look of kindness and love, he met an eight-year-old boy who also wore the robe of St. Benedict. Perhaps the boy was inspired by the mild gaze he saw in the abbot's eyes to ask a question that we can only describe as impertinent. — The image is strongly emotional at this point. — This eight-year-old boy in the robes of St. Benedict said to the abbot: “Reverend Father, I cannot form a mental image of God.” The abbot looked kindly at the boy after this bold speech; he did not answer, but walked away in silence. And only when he was so far away that the boy could no longer hear him did the abbot say, as if to himself: “It will take a long time before one can form a correct mental image of God.”

My dear sisters and brothers, this is what occurred to me when I turned to the wise masters of the East, asking for blessings for our dear brother Günther Wagner. Everyone can now think of what they believe to be right according to their disposition.

When the Rosicrucian conclusion was reached, Dr. Steiner placed three red roses next to the box with the blessed water and so on, and at the end he waved the censer over them several times extra. Then he said: “Now our dear Sister Helene Lehmann will take these three roses to our dear brother Günther Wagner as a token of our love and loyalty.”

When Dr. Steiner had finally carried the box away and then passed by father again, he kissed him on each cheek.

In a transcription of Ida Knoch's notes by Lidia Gentilli-Arenson-Baratto, the following additional personal comment can be found at the end:

The red book from which Dr. Steiner read was a red book that Paula Hübbe-Schleiden had given him (said Gretchen Wagner). She then asked me who the boy would have become, which she never knew. I asked her in return whether she believed or had heard who the boy would be in this life. She replied very firmly that everyone knew at the time, and it was generally said that it was Dr. Steiner himself, only she would like to know who the boy had become, she didn't know, and no one told her at the time. That concluded our conversation, which took place today. - February 27, 1960.

In addition, the following personal memories of Karl Rittersbacher of conversations with Günther Wagner are available, which he added to his typewritten transcription of Ida Knoch's notes of this hour by Nelly von Lichtenberg:

I had several personal encounters with Mr. Günther Wagner through Miss Mathilde Hoyer, who founded the first class of the Freie Waldorfschule Hannover (1926) at Easter 1926 (I have written a report about this in the newsletter of the General Anthroposophical Society “What is happening in the Anthroposophical Society”, No. 43 and 44 of October 21 and 28, 1928, following a suggestion by Mrs. Marie Steiner).

Mr. Wagner had founded a paint factory in Hannover. During a visit to his home in the fall of 1927, he told me that the colors were still rubbed by hand and that he had 20 employees. I also learned that at the age of 50, he handed over the factory, which had grown to around 200 workers, to his son-in-law, who had been his senior traveler: Fritz Beindorff, who later became a senator in Hannover. This grand master of a freemason association had no time for the newly founded Free Waldorf School. I learned this drastically during a personal visit to his office.

Mr. Günther Wagner, as he told me, lived on a pension he received in Berlin and Lugano. In Berlin, he worked as a librarian for the Theosophical Society, translating literature from Indian into German. He and some friends became aware of Dr. Rudolf Steiner and reported how he was instrumental in helping the Theosophical Society in Germany come into being. To do so, seven branches had to exist, each with at least seven members. This was achieved by recruiting in Leipzig. Then Dr. Rudolf Steiner was appointed as Secretary General. When Günther Wagner and his nurse, Paula Hübbe-Schleiden, née Stryczek, separated in 1912/13, it was clear to them that they could only go with Rudolf Steiner (literally to me!).

After the above conversation – as Günther Wagner said during a visit – Rudolf Steiner asked him into the next room and said: “You were the abbot and I was the boy, your student. And so we meet again. And I then went from Monte Cassino, where this happened, to Cologne later.

Günther Wagner added: “I went to Monte Cassino, but I had no memories whatsoever. I told Emil Bock all this. He said to me: But Mr. Wagner, you should have put on a Benedictine robe and climbed up the old serpentine paths to remember something.”

Mr. Wagner had a calm, bright look in his eyes that radiated kindness and bore witness to a deep inner peace. Even in old age, he still enjoyed playing the piano (Schubert, Impromptu by heart). He had a package of letters from Rudolf Steiner.

In a late lecture on karma, Rudolf Steiner called him the “doyen of the Anthroposophical Society” (literally: “... and perhaps the oldest member of the Anthroposophical Society, who is here today to our great joy – Mr. Günther Wagner, whom I would like to warmly welcome [like a kind of senior of the Anthroposophical Society here] – will remember how strong the resistance was at the time for much of what I incorporated into the Anthroposophical Society from the beginning. —- It was particularly about “practical karma exercises”. - See the karma lecture of September 5, 1924, beginning, volume IV, esoteric considerations, complete edition!).

Rudolf Steiner is said to have given several members karmic hints earlier on the 70th birthday.

Günther Wagner regretted that he could not financially support the newly founded school, since he only had the pension granted to him by his son-in-law. He also lived in the Black Forest in Frauenalb, where Fräulein Hoyer and I also visited him.

When Mrs. Marie Steiner visited the then small school (two classes) in September 1927, Günther Wagner and Paula Hübbe-Schleiden were present. (See report in the newsletter!)

Marie Steiner invited the small college to lunch at the hotel.

A personal word: the content shared here, especially regarding karmic facts, meant for us at the time a concretization of our thinking about destiny and the laws of destiny. It sounded simple and seemed unmythically realistic.

For many years past we have been studying anthroposophical truths, details of anthroposophical knowledge, trying to approach them from different sides and to assimilate them. In the course of the lectures now being given, and those yet to come, it will be well to ask ourselves what Anthroposophy should and can give to the men of our time. We know a good deal of the content of Anthroposophy and we can therefore approach the question with a certain basis of understanding.

We must above all remember that the anthroposophical life, the anthroposophical Movement itself, must be clearly distinguished—in our minds at any rate—from any kind of special organisation, from anything to which the name “Society” might be given. The whole character of modern life will of course make it more and more necessary for those who want to cultivate Anthroposophy to unite in a corporate sense; but this is made necessary more by the character of life outside than by the content or attitude of Anthroposophy itself. Anthroposophy in itself could be made known to the world in the same way as anything else—as chemistry, for instance—and its truths could be accessible just as in the case of the truths of chemistry or mathematics. How an individual assimilates Anthroposophy and makes it a real impulse in his life could then be a matter for the individual himself. A Society or any kind of corporate body for the cultivation of Anthroposophy is made necessary because Anthroposophy as such comes into our epoch as something new, as entirely new knowledge, which must be received into the spiritual life of men. Those who have not entered the sphere of anthroposophical life need a special preparation of their souls and hearts as well as the constitution of soul belonging to the present age. Such preparation can be acquired only through the life and activities in our groups and meetings. There we adapt ourselves to a certain trend of thinking and feeling, so that we realise the significance of matters which people in the outside world who know nothing of Anthroposophy will naturally regard as fantastic nonsense. It might, of course, be argued that Anthroposophy could also be made more widely known through public lectures given to entirely unprepared listeners; but those who belong to our groups in a more intimate sense will realise that the whole tone, the whole manner of delivering a lecture to an unprepared public must necessarily be different from that of a lecture given to those who through an inner urge and through their whole attitude, are able to take seriously what the general public would not yet be able to accept. Quite certainly this state of things will not improve in the immediate future—on the contrary, the opposition will become stronger and stronger. Opposition to Anthroposophy in every domain will increase in the outside world, just because it is in the highest degree necessary for our age, and because what is the most essential at any particular time always encounters the strongest resistance.

It may be asked: Why is this so? Why do human hearts resist so vehemently just what is most needed in their epoch? An anthroposophist should be able to understand this, but it is too complicated a matter to be made even remotely clear to an unprepared public.

The student of Anthroposophy knows of the existence of Luciferic forces, of Luciferic beings who have lagged behind the general process of evolution. They work through the hearts and souls of men and it is to their greatest advantage to launch their fiercest attacks at times when, in reality, there is the strongest urge towards the spiritual life. Because the opposition of the human heart against the progressive impulse in evolution originates from the Luciferic beings, and because these beings will launch their attacks when as it were they already have men by the throat, the resistance of human hearts will inevitably be strongest at such times. Hence we shall understand that the very reason why the most important truths for humanity have lived on from earlier times is that the strongest opposition had to be contended with. Anything that differs only slightly from what is customary in the world will rarely encounter fierce opposition; but what comes into the world because humanity has long been thirsting for but has not received it, will evoke violent attacks from the Luciferic forces. Therefore a “Society” is really nothing more than a rampart against this understandable attitude of the outside world. [1] Some form of association is necessary within the framework of which these things can be presented, with the feeling that in those to whom one speaks or with whom one is in contact there will be a certain measure of understanding, whereas others who have no link with such an association are oblivious of it all.

Everyone believes that what is given out in public is his own concern and that he has to pass judgment upon it; he is instigated, of course, by the Luciferic forces. From this we realise that it is indeed necessary to promulgate Anthroposophy and that Anthroposophy is bringing something essential into our age, something that is longed for by the present thirst and hunger for spiritual nourishment and—whatever the circumstances—will come in some form or other; for the Spiritual Powers who have dedicated themselves to the goals of evolution see to it that this shall happen.

We can therefore ask: What are the most important truths that should be implanted in humanity at the present time through Anthroposophy? Those for which there is the most intense thirst are the most essential. The answer to such a question is one that can very easily be misunderstood. For this reason it is necessary, to begin with, to make a distinction in our minds between Anthroposophy as such and the Anthroposophical Society. The mission of Anthroposophy is to bring new truths, new knowledge, to humanity, but a society can never—least of all in our age—be pledged to any particular tenets. It would be utterly senseless to ask: “What do you anthroposophists believe?” It is senseless to imagine that an “anthroposophist” means a person who belongs to the Anthroposophical Society, for that would be to assume that a whole society holds a common conviction, a common dogma. And that cannot be. The moment a whole society, according to its statutes, were pledged to a common dogma, it would cease to be a society and begin to be a sect. Here is the boundary where a society ceases to be one in the true sense of the word. The moment a man is pledged to hold a belief exacted by a society, we have to do with pure sectarianism. Therefore a society dedicated to the principles described in these lectures can be a society only from the aspect that it is under the right and natural spiritual impulse. It may be asked: “Who are the people who come together to hear something about Anthroposophy?” To this we may reply: “Those who have an urge to hear about spiritual things.” This urge has nothing dogmatic about it. For if a person is seeking for something without saying, “I shall find this or that,” but is really seeking, this is the common element which a society that does not wish to become a sect must contain. The question: What does Anthroposophy as such bring to humanity? is quite independent of this. Our reply must be: Anthroposophy as such brings to humanity something that is similar to all the great spiritual truths that have been brought to humanity, only its effect upon the human soul is more profound, more significant.

Among the subjects we have been studying in our lectures there are many that might be considered less distinctive from the point of view of something entirely new being presented to modern humanity. Nevertheless they are fundamental truths which do indeed penetrate into humanity as something new. We need not look very far to find this new element. It lies in the two truths which really belong to the most fundamental of all and bring increasing conviction to the human soul: these are the two truths of reincarnation and karma. It may be said that the first thing a really serious anthroposophist discovers along his path is that knowledge of reincarnation and karma is essential. It cannot, for example, be said that in Western culture, certain truths—such as the possibility of becoming conscious of higher worlds—present themselves through Anthroposophy as something fundamentally new. Anyone who has some knowledge of the development of Western thought knows of mystics such as Jacob Boehme or Swedenborg, or the whole Jacob Boehme school, and he knows too—although there has been much argument to the contrary—that it has always been considered possible for a man to rise from the ordinary sense-world to higher worlds. This, then, is not the element that is fundamentally new. And the same applies to other matters. Even when we are speaking of what is absolutely fundamental in evolution, for example, the subject of Christ, this is not the salient point as regards the Anthroposophical Movement as such; the essential point is the form which the subject of Christ assumes when reincarnation and karma are received as truths into the hearts of men. The light thrown upon the subject of Christ by the truths of reincarnation and karma—that is the essential point.

The West has been profoundly concerned with the subject of Christ. We need only be reminded of men in the days of the Gnosis, and of the time when esoteric Christianity was deepened by those who gathered under the sign of the Grail or of the Rose Cross. This, then, is not the fundamental question. It becomes fundamental and of essential significance for Western minds, for knowledge and for the needs of the religious life only through the truths of reincarnation and karma; so that those whose mental horizons have been widened by the knowledge of these truths necessarily expect new illumination to be shed on old problems. With regard to the knowledge of reincarnation and karma, however, all that can be said is that tentative indications are to be found in Western literature, for example, at the time of Lessing, who speaks of the subject in his essay, The Education of the Human Race. There are also other examples of how this question has dawned upon minds of a certain profundity. But for the truths of reincarnation and karma to become an integral part of human consciousness, assimilated by the hearts and souls of men, as in Anthroposophy—this is something that could not really happen until our own time. Therefore it can be said that the relation of a man of the modern age to Anthroposophy is characterised by the fact that certain antecedents have enabled reincarnation and karma to become matters of knowledge to him. That is the essential point. Everything else follows more or less as a matter of course if a man is able to acquire the right insight into the truths of reincarnation and karma.

In considering this aspect of the subject, we must also realise what it will mean for Western humanity and for humanity in general when reincarnation and karma become matters of knowledge which take their place in everyday life as other truths have done. In the near future, reincarnation and karma must pass into the consciousness of men far more deeply than was the case, for example, with the Copernican view of the universe. We need only remind ourselves of how rapidly this theory penetrated into the human mind. Only a comparatively short period in world-history has elapsed since the Copernican view of the universe first became generally known, yet it is now taught even in the elementary schools. As far as the effect upon the human soul is concerned, however, there is an essential difference between Copernicanism and the anthroposophical world-conception, in so far as the latter is based on the fundamental principles of reincarnation and karma. To be able to characterise the difference, one really needs a group of anthroposophists, of people who come together with good will to understand, for things would have to be said that would cause too great a shock to those outside the anthroposophical Movement.

Why is it that the Copernican view of the universe has been accepted so readily? Those who have heard me speak of it or of modern natural science in general know well that I pass no derogatory judgment on the modern scientific mode of thinking. Therefore in characterising the difference I shall not be misinterpreted when I say that for the acceptance of this world-picture, limited as it is to the presentation of external relationships and conditions of space, an epoch of superficiality was necessary! The reason why the Copernican theory took root so rapidly is none other than that for a certain period of time men became superficial. Superficiality was essential for the adoption of Copernicanism. Depth of soul—that is to say, the exact opposite—will be necessary for acceptance of the truths of Anthroposophy, especially of the fundamental truths of reincarnation and karma. If, therefore, the conviction grows in us to-day that these truths must become a much stronger and more widespread influence in the life of mankind, we must realise at the same time that we are standing at the boundary between two epochs: one, the epoch of superficiality, and the other, the epoch when the human soul and human heart must be inwardly deepened. This is what must be inscribed in our very souls if we are to be fully conscious of what Anthroposophy has to bring to humanity at the present time. And then comes the question: What form will life take under the influence of the knowledge of reincarnation and karma?

Here we must consider what it really means for the human soul and heart to recognise that reincarnation and karma are truths? What does it mean for the whole of man's consciousness, for his whole life of feeling and thinking? As anyone who reflects about these things can realise, it means no less than that through knowledge the Self of man grows beyond certain limits to which knowledge is otherwise exposed. In past times it was sharply emphasised that man could know and recognise only what lies between birth and death, that at most he could look up with faith to one who penetrates into a spiritual world as a knower. Such conviction grew with increasing strength. But this is not of very great significance when regarded merely from the aspect of knowledge; the subject becomes really significant when we pass from the aspect of knowledge to the moral aspect. It is then that the whole greatness and significance of the ideas of reincarnation and karma are revealed. A very great deal could be said in confirmation of this but we will confine ourselves to one aspect.

Think of the people belonging to earlier epochs of Western civilisation and the great majority of those living at the present time. Although they still cling to the belief that the being of man remains intact when he passes through the Gate of Death, it is imagined—because no thought is given to reincarnation and karma—that man's spiritual life after death is entirely separate from earthly existence. Apart from exceptional phenomena to which credence is given by those with spiritualistic leanings, when the dead are alleged to be working into this world, the current idea is that whatever takes place when a man has passed through the Gate of Death—be it punishment or reward—is remote from the earth as such, and that the further course of his life lies in a quite different sphere, a sphere beyond the earth.

Knowledge of reincarnation and karma changes this idea entirely. What is contained in the soul of a man who has passed through the Gate of Death has significance not only for a sphere beyond the earth, but the future of the earth itself depends upon what his life has been between birth and death. The earth will have the outer configuration that is imparted by the men who have lived upon it. The whole future configuration of the planet, as well as the social life of men in the future, depends upon how men have lived in their earlier incarnations. That is the moral element in the ideas of reincarnation and karma. A man who has assimilated these ideas knows: According to what I was in life, I shall have an effect upon everything that takes place in the future, upon the whole civilisation of the future! Something that up to now has been present in a limited degree only—the feeling of responsibility—is extended beyond the bounds of birth and death by knowledge of reincarnation and karma. The feeling of responsibility is intensified, imbued with the deep moral consequences of these ideas. A man who does not believe in them may say: “When I have passed through the Gate of Death I shall be punished or rewarded for what I have done here; I shall experience the consequences of this existence in another world; that other world, however, is ruled over by spiritual Powers of some kind or other, and they will prevent what I have within me from causing too much harm to the world as a whole.” A man who realises that the ideas of reincarnation and karma are based upon reality will no longer speak like this, for he knows that men's lives will be shaped according to what they have been in earlier incarnations.

The important point is that the fundamental ideas of the anthroposophical conception of the world will pass over into the souls and hearts of men and arise as moral impulses undreamed of in the past times. The feeling of responsibility will be intensified to a degree that was formerly impossible, and other moral insights will necessarily follow. As human beings learning to live under the influence of the ideas of reincarnation and karma we shall come to know that our life cannot be assessed on the basis of what has taken expression in one life between birth and death, but that a period extending over many lives must be taken into account.

When we encounter another human being with the attitude that has prevailed hitherto, we feel sympathy or antipathy towards him, strong or moderate affection, and the like. The whole attitude of one man to another in the present age is in reality the outcome of the view that life on the earth is limited to the one period between birth and death. We live as we should after all be bound to live if it were true that man is on the earth only once. Our attitude to parents, brothers, sisters, friends, is coloured by the belief that we have only one life on the earth.

A vast transformation will take place in life when the ideas of reincarnation and karma are no longer theories held by a few people as is the case nowadays—for they are still largely matters of theory. It can truly be said that there are numbers of people to-day who believe in reincarnation and karma; but they act as if there were no such realities, as though life were actually confined to the one period between birth and death. Nor can it be otherwise, for habits change less quickly than ideas. Only when we introduce into our lives right and concrete ideas of reincarnation and karma, only then shall we find how life can be fertilised by them.

As human beings we begin life in the circle of our parents, brothers and sisters, and other relatives; in our early years those around us are there owing to natural factors such as blood-relationship, proximity and the like. Then, as we grow up, we see how these circles expand, how we enter into quite different connections with human beings, connections that are no longer dependent on blood-relationship. These things must be seen in the light of karma and then they will illumine life in an entirely new way. Karma becomes of significance only when we grasp it as a concrete factor, when we apply to life itself the facts brought to light by spiritual-scientific investigation. These facts can, of course, be discovered only by such investigation, but then they can be applied to life.

An important question in connection with karma is the following: How does it come about that at the beginning of the present life, for example, we are drawn to certain others through blood-relationship? Spiritual-scientific investigation of this question discovers that as a rule—for although specific facts come to light there are countless exceptions—the human beings with whom we came to be associated involuntarily at the beginning of our life, were close to us in a former life—in most cases the immediately preceding one—in middle life, in the thirties; then we chose them voluntarily in some way, drawn to them perhaps by our hearts. It would be quite erroneous to think that the people around us at the beginning of our present life are those with whom we were also together at the beginning of a former life. Not at the beginning, not at the end, but in the middle of one life we were associated, by our own choosing, with those who are now our blood-relations. It is frequently the case that a marriage partner whom someone has chosen deliberately will be related to him in the next life as father or mother, or brother or sister. Spiritual-scientific investigation shows that speculative assumptions are generally incorrect and as a rule contradicted by the actual facts.

When we consider the particular case just mentioned and try to grasp it as a finding of the unbiased investigations of Spiritual Science, our whole relation to life is widened. In the course of Western civilisation things have reached the point where it is hardly possible for a man to do otherwise than speak of ‘chance’ when thinking about his connection with those who are his blood-relations. He speaks of chance and in many respects believes in it. How indeed could he believe in anything else if life is thought to be limited to one period only between birth and death? As far as the one life is concerned a man will of course admit that he is responsible for the consequences of what he himself has brought about. But when he leads the Self beyond what happens between birth and death, when he feels this Self to be connected with other men of another incarnation, he feels responsible in the same way as he does for his own deeds in this life.

The general view that a man has himself karmically chosen his parents is not of any special significance, but we gain an idea of this ‘choosing’ which can actually be confirmed by other experiences of life when we realise that those whom we have chosen so unconsciously now, were chosen by us in a former life at an age when we were more conscious than at any other, when we were fully mature.

This idea may be unpalatable to some people to-day but it is true nevertheless. If a person is not satisfied with his kith and kin he will eventually come to know that he himself laid the basis of this dissatisfaction and that he must therefore provide differently for the next incarnation; and then the ideas of reincarnation and karma will become really fruitful in his life. The point is that these ideas are not there for the sake of satisfying curiosity or the like, but for the sake of our progress. When we know how family connections are formed, the ideas of reincarnation and karma will widen and enhance our feeling of responsibility.

The forces which bring down an individual human being into a family must obviously be strong. But they cannot be strong in the individual now incarnated, for they cannot have much to do with the world into which he has actually descended. Is it not comprehensible that the forces working in the deepest depths of the soul must stem from the past life when he himself brought about the connections by the strong impulse of friendship, of ‘conscious love,’ if it may be called so? Conscious forces prevailing in one life work as unconscious forces in the next. What happens more or less unconsciously is explained by this thought. It is most important, of course, that the facts should not be clouded by illusions; moreover the findings of genuine investigation almost invariably upset speculations. The logic of the facts cannot be discovered until afterwards and nobody should allow himself to be guided by speculation, for that will never bring him to the right vantage-point. He will always arrive at a point of view that is characteristic of a conversation of which I have already spoken. In a town in South Germany a theologian once said to me: “I have read your books and have realised that they are entirely logical; so the thought has occurred to me that because they are so logical their author may perhaps have arrived at their content through pure logic.” So if I had taken pains to write a little less logically I should presumably have gone up in the estimation of that theologian, because he would then have realised that the facts presented were not discovered through pure logic! Anyone, however, who studies the writings thoroughly will perceive that the contents were put into the form of logic afterwards but were not discovered through logic. I at any rate could have done no such thing, of that I assure you! Perhaps others might have been capable of it.

Regarded in this way, these things bring home to us the deep significance of the idea that the most important impulses proceeding from Anthroposophy must necessarily be moral impulses. Emphasis has been laid to-day upon the feeling of responsibility. In the same way we might speak of love, of compassion and the like, all of which present different aspects in the light of the ideas of reincarnation and karma. That is why through the years it has been considered of such importance, even in public lectures, always to relate Anthroposophy to life, to the most immediate phenomena of life. We have spoken of “The Mission of Anger,” of “Conscience,” of “Prayer,”² of the different ages in the life of the human being, approaching all these things in the light in which they must be approached if we assume that the ideas of reincarnation and karma are true. The transforming power of these ideas in life has thus been brought home to us. In reality the main part of our studies has been to consider the effect of these fundamental ideas upon life. Even if it is not always possible in abstract words to convey the significance of reincarnation and karma for the heart, for conscience, for the character, for prayer, in such a way that we are able to say: “If we accept the ideas of reincarnation and karma, it follows that ...”—nevertheless all our studies are illumined by them. The important thing for the immediate future is that everything—not only the science of the soul but the other sciences too—shall be influenced by these ideas.

If you study a lecture such as the last public one on “Death in Man, Animal, and Plant,” you will see that it was a matter of showing how men will learn to think of death in plant, animal and man when they discern in themselves that which stretches beyond the single human life. It was made clear that the Self is different in each case. In man there is an individual Ego, in the animal there is a group-soul, and in the plant we have to do with part of the whole planetary soul. In the case of the plant, what we see outwardly as dying and budding is to be conceived of simply as a process of falling asleep and waking. In the animal there is again a difference; here we find a certain degree of resemblance to man inasmuch as in a single incarnation a self comes into some kind of evidence. But in man alone, who himself brings about his incarnations, we realise that death is the guarantee of immortality and that the word ‘death’ can be used in this sense only in the case of man. In using the word ‘death’ in the general sense, therefore, it must be emphasised that dying has a different signification according to whether we are speaking of man, or animal, or plant.

When the anthroposophist is able to accept the ideas of reincarnation and karma in the form in which we must present them, as distinct from earlier conceptions such as are found, for example, in Buddhism, his studies will lead him quite naturally to other things. That is why our work has been mainly devoted to studying what effect the ideas of reincarnation and karma can have upon the whole of human life. In this connection it is obvious that the work of any anthroposophical association or society must be in conformity with the mission of Anthroposophy. It is therefore understandable that when we speak about questions which may seem to those outside Anthroposophy to be the most important, the fundamental truths are the basis upon which we speak of matters closely concerning every Western soul. It is quite conceivable that a man might accept from Anthroposophy those things that have been described to-day as fundamentally new and not concern himself at all with any of the differences between the various religions, for the Science of Comparative Religion is by no means an essential feature of modern Spiritual Science. A great deal of research is devoted to the subject of Comparative Religion to-day and in comparison with it the studies pursued in certain societies connected with Spiritual Science are by no means the more profound. The point of real importance is that in Anthroposophy all these things shall be illumined by the ideas of reincarnation and karma.

In another connection still the feeling of responsibility will be essentially enhanced under the influence of these ideas. If we consider what has been said to-day about blood-relationship and companions once freely chosen by ourselves, a certain antithesis comes into evidence: What in one life is the most inward and intimate impulse, is in the next life the most outwardly manifest. When in one incarnation our deepest feelings of affection go out to certain human beings, we are preparing an outer relationship for another incarnation—a blood-relationship, maybe.

The same principle applies in another sphere. The way in which we think about some matter that may seem to us devoid of reality in one incarnation will be the most determinative factor in the impulses of the next; the quality of our thinking, whether we approach a truth lightly or try to verify it by every means at our command, whether we have a sense for truth or a tendency to fanaticism—all this, as the result of assimilating the ideas of reincarnation and karma, will have a bearing upon our evolution. What is hidden within our being in the present incarnation will be most in evidence in the next. A person who tells many untruths or is inclined to take things superficially will be a thoughtless character in the next or a later incarnation; for what we think, how we think, what attitude we have to truth, in other words what we are inwardly in this incarnation, will be the standard of our conduct in the next. If, for example, in this incarnation, we too hastily form a derogatory judgment of someone who if really put to the test might prove to be a good or even a moderately good man, and we carry this thought through life, we shall become unbearable, quarrelsome people in the next incarnation. Here is another illustration of the importance of widening and intensifying the moral element in the soul.

It is very important that special attention should be paid to these things and that we should realise the significance of taking into our very soul what is really new, together with everything else that with the ideas of reincarnation and karma penetrates as a revitalising impulse into the spiritual development of the present age . . .

My aim has been to bring home to you the importance of reflecting upon what constitutes the fundamentally new element in Anthroposophy. This of course does not mean that an anthroposophical society is one that believes in reincarnation and karma. It means that just as an age was once ready to receive the Copernican theory of the universe, so is our own age ready for the ideas of reincarnation and karma to be brought into the general consciousness of humanity. And what is destined to happen in the course of evolution will happen, no matter what powers rise up against it. When reincarnation and karma are truly understood, everything else follows of itself in the light of these truths.

It is certainly useful to have considered the fundamental distinction between those who are interested in Anthroposophy and those who oppose it. The distinction does not really lie in the acceptance of a higher world, but in the way thoughts and conceptions change in the light of the ideas of reincarnation and karma. And so to-day we have been studying something that may be regarded as the essential kernel of anthroposophical thought.

• 2. See: Metamorphoses of the Soul. Vol 1 and Metamorphoses of the Soul. Vol 2

It is beautiful that circumstances permit of our uniting here this evening at this festival. For though the vast majority of our friends are able to celebrate the festival of love and peace outside in the circle of those with whom they are united by the ties of ordinary life, there are many among our anthroposophical friends who to-day are alone in a certain sense. It also goes without saying that those of us who are not thus drawn into this or that circle are, considering the spiritual current in which we stand, least of all excluded from taking part in the festival of love and peace. What should be more beautifully suited to unite us here this evening in the atmosphere, in the spiritual air of mutual love and peace that radiates through our hearts than an anthroposophical movement? And we may also regard it as a happy chance of fate that it is just in this year that we are able to be together on this Christmas Eve, and to follow out a little train of thought which can bring this festival near to our hearts. For in this year we ourselves stand before the birth of that which, if we rightly understand it, must lie very close to our hearts: I mean the

Birth of our Anthroposophical Society.

If we have lived the great ideal which we want to express through the Anthroposophical Society, and if we are accordingly inclined to dedicate our forces to this great ideal of mankind, then we can naturally let our thoughts sweep on from this our spiritual light or means of light to the dawn of the great light of human evolution which is celebrated on this night of love and peace. On this night—spiritually, or in our souls—we really have before us that which may be called the Birth of the Earthly Light, of the light which is to be born out of the darkness of the Night of Initiation, and which is to be radiant for human hearts and human souls, for all that they need in order to find their way upwards to those spiritual heights which are to be attained through the earth’s mission.

What is it really that we should write in our hearts—the feeling that we may have on this Christmas night?

In this Christmas night there should pour into our hearts the fundamental human feeling of love—the fundamental feeling that says: compared with all other forces and powers and treasures of the world, the treasures and the power and the force of love are the greatest, the most intense, the most powerful. There should pour into our hearts, into our souls, the feeling that wisdom is a great thing—that love is still greater; that might is a great thing—that love is yet greater. And this feeling of the power and force and strength of love should pour into our hearts so strongly that from this Christmas night something may overflow into all our feelings during the rest of the year, so that we may truthfully say at all times: we must really be ashamed, if in any hour of the year we do anything that cannot hold good when the spirit gazes into that night in which we would pour the all-power of love into our hearts. May it be possible for the days and the hours of the year to pass in such a way that we need not bo ashamed of them in the light of the feeling that we would pour into our souls on Christmas night!

If such can be our feeling, then we are feeling together with all those beings who wanted to bring the significance of Christmas, of the ‘Night of Initiation,’ near to mankind: the significance and the relation of Christmas night to the whole Christ-Impulse within earthly evolution.

For this Christ Impulse stands before us, we may say, in a threefold figure; and to-day at the Christ-festival this threefold figure of the Christ-Impulse can have great significance for us. The first figure meets us when we turn our gaze to the Gospel according to St. Matthew. The Being who is born—or whose birth we celebrate—on this Christmas Eve, enters human evolution in such a way that three heads of mankind, three representatives of high magic come to pay homage to the kingly Being who is entering man’s evolution. ‘Kings’ in the spiritual sense of the word: magic kings come to pay homage to the great spiritual King Who appears in the high form that He has attained. For as high a being as Zarathustra once was, passed through his stages of development in order to reach the height of the spiritual King whom the magic kings came to welcome. And so does the Spirit-King of St. Matthew’s Gospel confront our spiritual gaze: He brings into human evolution an infinite fount of goodness and an infinite fount of mighty love, of that goodness and that love before which human wickedness feels itself challenged to battle. Thus again do we see the Spirit-King enter human evolution: that which must be enmity against the Spirit-King feels itself challenged in the figure of Herod; and the spiritual King must flee before that which is the enemy of spiritual kingship. So do we see Him in the spirit, in His majestic and magic glory. And before our soul there arises the marvellous image of the Spirit-King, of Zarathustra reincarnate, the flower of human evolution, as He has passed from incarnation to incarnation on the physical plane, and as wisdom has reached perfection, surrounded by the three magic spirit-kings themselves, by flowers and heads of human evolution.

In yet another figure the Christ-Impulse can come before our souls, as it appears in the Gospel according to St. Mark, and in St. John’s Gospel. There we seem to be led towards the cosmic Christ-Impulse, which expresses how man is eternally related to the great cosmic forces. We have this connection with the great cosmic forces when, through an understanding of the cosmic Christ, we become aware how through the Mystery of Golgotha there entered into earthly evolution itself a cosmic impulse. As something yet infinitely more great and mighty than the Spirit-King Whom we see in the spirit surrounded by the magicians, there appears before us the mighty cosmic Being who will take hold of the vehicle of that man who is himself the Spirit-King, the flower and summit of earthly evolution. It is really only the short-sightedness of present day mankind which prevents men from feeling the full greatness and power of this incision into human evolution, wherein Zarathustra became the the bearer of the cosmic Christ-Spirit. It is only this short-sightedness which does not feel the whole significance of that which was being prepared in the moment of human evolution which we celebrate in our ‘night of initiation,’ in our Christmas. Everywhere, if we enter but a little more deeply into human evolution, we are shown how deeply the Christ-Event penetrated into the whole earthly evolution. Let us feel this as we follow this evening a relevant fine of thought, whence something may stream out into the rest of our anthroposophical thought, deepening and penetrating into the meaning of things.

Many things might be brought forward for this purpose. It could be shown how, in times which were still nearer to the spiritual, an entirely new spirit appeared before mankind: new in comparison with the spirit that held sway and was active in earthly evolution in pre-Christian times. For instance, there was created a figure, a figure, however, which lived, which expresses to us how a soul of the early Christian centuries was affected when such a soul, having first felt itself quite immersed in the old Pagan spiritual knowledge, then approached the Christ-Impulse simply and without prejudice, and felt a great change in itself. To-day we more and more have a feeling for such a figure as Faust. We feel this figure, which a more modern poet—Goethe—has, so to speak, reawakened. We feel how this figure is meant to express the highest human striving, yet at the same time the possibility of deepest guilt. It may be said, apart from all the artistic value given to this figure by the power of a modern poet, we can feel deep and significant things of what lived in those early Christian souls, when for example we sink into the poem of the Greek Empress Eudocia. She created a revival of the old legend of Cyprian, which pictures a man who lived wholly in the world of the old heathen gods and could become entwined in it—a man who after the Mystery of Golgotha was still completely given up to the old heathen mysteries and forces and powers. Beautiful is the scene in which Cyprian makes the acquaintance of Justina, who is already touched by the Christ-Impulse, and who is given up to those powers which are revealed through Christianity. Cyprian is tempted to draw her from the path, and for this purpose to make use of the old heathen magical methods. All this is played out between Faust and Gretchen, in the atmosphere of this battle of old Pagan impulses with the Christ-Impulse. Apart from the spiritual side of it, it works out magnificently in the old story of the Cyprian and of the temptation to which he was exposed over against the Christian Justina. And even though Eudocia’s poetry may not be very good, still we must say: there we see the awful collision of the old pre-Christian world with the Christian world. In Cyprian we see a man who feels himself still far from the Christian faith, quite given up to the old Pagan divine forces. There is a certain power in this description.- To-day we only bring forward a few extracts, showing how Cyprian feels towards the magic forces of pre-Christian spiritual powers. Thus in Eudocia’s poem we hear him speak: (‘Confession of Cyprian.’)

‘Ye faithful ones in Christ, who in your hearts
Do cherish true and warm our Saviour great in praise:
Behold my tears outpouring and then hear
While I relate the fountain of my grief.
And ye, who still are lost in dark illusion bound
To idol images, pay heed, ye too, to that
Which I shall tell of their deceit and falsehood.
For never lived a man, who to false Gods
Was given up as I was; never one
So deeply versed in all the demon’s arts.

‘Yea, I am Cyprianus, whom, a child,
My parents brought unto Apollo dedicate.
The orgies’ hue and cry became my lullaby,
What time the fearsome dragon’s feast was celebrate.
At seven years they consecrated me
Unto the Sun-God Mithras. Then I lived
In Athen’s noble city, as a citizen—
Such was my parents’ wish. When I was ten,
I lit Demeter’s torches, and I sank myself
In Kora’s mournful death-complaint. Then as a temple-child
I nourished Pallas’ serpent in the castle’s walls.

‘Then I ascended on the forest-mount,
Olympus’ height, where fools would make believe
The radiant dwelling-place of Gods sublime.
I saw the Horse and the hustling winds,
The days’ long chorus, wafted on on wings
Of fantasy, to speed through life on magic wings.
I saw the spirits’ fiery headlong fray,
And ambuscades deceitful. Some of them anon
Bluster and burst with ridicule and glee,
While others petrified in terror rooted stand.
I saw the ranks of Goddesses and Gods;
For forty days or more I lingered there.
And as the sun did set, I ate the fruits
Of leafy shady bowers. And there, like messengers
From kingly castles, sped the spirit-beings,
Then to descend to earth with thousand ills
To vex the race of men.

‘I numbered fifteen years, already knew
The power and work of spirits and of Gods;
And of high priests my teachers there were seven—
It was my parents’ will that I should gain
Science of all that bides upon the earth,
And in the airy realms, and in the oceans’ depths.
I searched through that which in the human breast
Destruction brews—what ferments in the herb,
In flowery juices; and what sickening creeps
Around the wearied body; nor did I neglect
That which the gaudy snake, prince of the world, conceives
To challenge the eternal goals of God.

‘I wandered on in Argos’ fairest land—
Argos that nourished the rose.
’Twas just the season’s round of Eos’ feast,
Eos white-raimented, Tithonos’ spouse,
There I became their priest.
I learned to know what windy brothers speed
Through airy spaces and this pole’s long round;
What binds the ploughland with the waters’ flood,
And darkens o’er the skies with showering rain.’

Thus had Cyprian learned to know everything that was to be learned by being, so to speak, initiated into the pre-Christian mysteries. Oh! he describes them exactly—those powers to whom those could look up who were entrusted with the ancient traditions of initiation in a time when those traditions no longer held good; his description of them and of all their fruits which were no longer suitable to that age is fascinating.

‘Myself I saw the demon face to face,
When I had won him by my sacrifice.
I spake to him, and he did answer me
With words of flattery. He praised my youth,
My fairness and my skill unto his works,
Assigned to me dominion o’er this world
And spirits to accomplish my behests;
He greeted me by name, what time we parted,
And all his great ones looked on us amazed.
His countenance is like unto the flower
Of purest gold: and on his head a diadem
Of glittering stones; his raiment’s like a flame,
And all the earth doth shiver as he moves.
In dense array around his mighty throne
Spear-bearers stand, their eyes cast on the ground.
Thus he makes up to be a God; he imitates
The Great One’s works, whom boldly challenging,
He yet creates but powerless fantasies—
For all their demons’ being is emptiness.

And then it goes on to describe how the temptation approaches him, and how all this works on him before he comes to know the Christ-Impulse-

‘I wandered from the Persian land away,
And came to Antioch, great town of Syria.
Here I accomplished many a miracle
Of hellish mystery and of enchantments’ crafts.
Here a fair youth, Aglaidas, once sought me out;
And others with him, fired with passionate love.
Towards a maiden was his heart aglow,
Justina was her name. He now entreated me,
Clasping around my knees, to conjure her
Into his arms by means of magic craft.
I hearkened to his prayers and then at first
Appeared to me the demon’s powerlessness.
Many as were the spirit-throngs he ruled,
So many he sent out to tempt her soul;
And every one returned from her abashed.
Me too, who pleaded for Aglaidas, Justina’s faith
And purity and piety could put to shame.
She shewed me then the vanity of mine arts,
And many a sleepless night I fingered on
With manifold enchantments’ drudgery.
Ten weeks the prince of spirits stormed the heart
Of yonder maiden. Till Eros, alas,
Not only sped his shaft to wound Aglaidas:
I too was seized and tom with frenzied love.

And from this confusion into which the old world brought him, Cyprian is healed through the Christ-Impulse, in that he cast aside the old magic to understand the Christ-Impulse in its full greatness. We have later in the Faust poem a kind of shadow of this legend, but filled with greater poetic power. In such a figure as this, it is brought home to us very strongly how the Christ-Impulse, which, with some recapitulations we have just brought before our souls in a twofold figure, was felt in the early Christian centures.

A third figure, as it were a third aspect of the Christ-Impulse, is one which can especially bring home to us how, through that which in the full sense of the word we may call Anthroposophy, we can feel ourselves united with all that is human. This is the aspect which is most uniquely set forth in St. Luke’s Gospel, and which then worked on in that representation of the Christ-Impulse which shows us its preparation in the ‘Child.’ In that love and simplicity and at the same time powerlessness, with which the Christ Jesus of St. Luke’s Gospel meets us, thus it was suited to be placed before all hearts. There all can feel themselves near to that which so simply, like a child—and yet so greatly and mightily—spake to mankind through the Child of St. Luke’s Gospel, which is not shown to the magic kings, but to the poor shepherds from the hills. That other Being of St. Matthew’s Gospel stands at the summit of human evolution and paying homage to him there come spiritual lungs, magic kings. The Child of St. Luke’s Gospel stands there in simplicity, excluded from human evolution, as a child received by no great ones—received by the shepherds from the hills. Nor does he stand within human evolution, this Child of St. Luke’s Gospel, in such a way that we were told in this Gospel, for example, how the wickedness of the world felt itself challenged by his kingly spiritual power. No! but—albeit we are not at once brought face to face with Herod’s power and wickedness—it is clearly shown to us how. that which is given in this Child is so great, so noble, so full of significance, that humanity itself cannot receive it into its ranks. It appears poor and rejected, as though cast into a corner by human evolution and there in a peculiar manner it shows us its extra-human, its divine, that is to say, its cosmic origin. And what an inspiration flowed from this Gospel of St. Luke for all those who, again and again, gave us scenes, in pictures and in other artistic works—scenes which were especially called forth by St. Luke’s Gospel. If we compare the various artistic productions, do we not feel how those, which throughout the centuries were inspired by St. Luke’s Gospel, show us Jesus as a Being with whom every man, even the simplest, can feel akin? Through that which worked on through the Luke-Jesus-Child, the simplest man comes to feel the whole event in Palestine as a family happening, which concerns himself as something which happened among his own near relations. No Gospel worked on in the same way as this Gospel of St. Luke, with its sublime and happy flowing mood, making the Jesus-Being intimate to the human souls. And yet—all is contained in this childlike picture—all that should be contained in a certain aspect of the Christ-Impulse: namely, that the highest thing in the world, in the whole world, is love: that wisdom is something great, worthy to be striven after—for without wisdom beings cannot exist—but that love is something yet greater; that the might and the power with which the world is architected is something great without which the world cannot exist—but that love is something yet greater. And he has a right feeling for the Christ-Impulse, who can feel this higher nature of Love over against Power and Strength and Wisdom. As human spiritual individualities, above all things we must strive after wisdom, for wisdom is one of the divine impulses of the world. And that we must strive after wisdom, that wisdom must be the sacred treasure that brings us forward—it is this that was intended to be shown in the first scene of The Soul's Probation, that we must not let wisdom fall away, that we must cherish it, in order to ascend through wisdom on the ladder of human evolution. But everywhere where wisdom is, there is a twofold thing: wisdom of the Gods and wisdom of the Luciferic powers. The being who strives after wisdom must inevitably come near to the antagonists of the Gods, to the throng of the Light-Bearer, the army of Lucifer. Therefore there is no divine all-wisdom, for wisdom is always confronted with an opponent—with Lucifer.

And power and might! Through wisdom the world is conceived, through wisdom it is seen, it is illumined; through power and might the world is fashioned and built. Everything that comes about, comes about through the power and the might that is in the beings and we should be shutting ourselves out from the world if we did not seek our share in the power and might of the world. We see this mighty power in the world when the lightning flashes through the clouds; we perceive it when the thunder rolls or when the rain pours down from heavenly spaces into the earth to fertilise. it, or when the rays of the sun stream down to conjure forth the seedlings of plants slumbering in the earth. In the forces of nature that work down on to the earth we see this power working blessing as sunshine, as forces in rain and clouds; but, on the other hand, we must see this power and might in volcanoes, for instance, which seem to rise up and rebel against the earth itself—heavenly force pitted against heavenly force. And we look into the world, and we know: if we would ourselves be beings of the world-all, then something of them must work in us; we must have our share in power and in might. Through them we stand within the world: Divine and Ahrimanic powers live and pulsate through us. The all-power is not ‘all-powerful,’ for always it has its antagonist Ahriman against itself.

Between them—between Power and Wisdom—stands Love; and if it is the true love we feel that alone is ‘Divine.’ We can speak of the ‘all-power,’ of ‘all-strength,’ as of an ideal; but over against them stand Ahriman. We can speak of ‘all-wisdom’ as of an ideal; but over against it stands the force of Lucifer. But to say ‘all-love’ seems absurd; for if we love rightly it is capable of no increase. Wisdom can be small—it can be augmented. Power can be small; it can be augmented. Therefore all-wisdom and all-power can stand as ideals. But cosmic love—we feel that it does not allow of the conception of all-love; for love is something unique.

As the Jesus-Child is placed before us in St. Luke’s Gospel, so do we feel it as the personification of love; the personification of love between wisdom or all-wisdom and all-power. And we really feel it like this, just because it is a child. Only it is intensified because in addition to all that a child has at any time, this Child has the quality of forlornness: it is cast out into a lonely comer. The magic building of man—we see it already laid out in the organism of the child. Wherever in the wide world-all we turn our gaze, there is nothing that comes into being through so much wisdom as this magic building, which appears before our eyes—even unspoiled as yet—in the childlike organism. And just as it appears in the child—that which is all-wisdom in the physical body, the same thing also appears in the etheric body, where the wisdom of cosmic powers is expressed; and so in the astral body and in the ego. Like wisdom that has made an extract of itself—so does the child lie there. And if it is thrown out into a comer of mankind, like the Child Jesus, then we feel that separated there lies a picture of perfection, concentrated world-wisdom.

But all-power too appears personified to us, when we look on the child as it is described in St. John’s Gospel. How shall we feel how the all-power is expressed in relation to the body of the child, the being of the child? We must make present in our souls the whole force of that which divine powers and forces of nature can achieve. Think of the might of the forces and powers of nature near to the earth when the elements are storming; transplant yourself into the powers of nature that hold sway, surging and welling up and down in the earth; think of all the brewing of world-powers and world-forces, of the clash of the good forces with the Ahrimanic forces; the whirling and raging of it all. And now imagine all this storming and raging of the elements to be held away from a tiny spot in the world, in order that at that tiny spot the magic building of the child’s body may lie—in order to set apart a tiny body; for the child’s body must be protected. Were it exposed for a moment to the violence of the powers of nature, it would be swept away I Then you may feel how it is immersed in the all-power. And now you may realise the feeling that can pass through the human soul when it gazes with simple heart on that which is expressed by St. Luke’s Gospel. If one approached this ‘concentrated wisdom’ of the child with the greatest human wisdom—mockery and foolishness this wisdom! For it can never be so great as was the wisdom that was used in order that the child-body might lie before us. The highest wisdom remains foolishness and must stand abashed before the childlike body and pay homage to heavenly wisdom; but it knows that it cannot reach it. Mockery is this wisdom; it must feel itself rejected in its own foolishness.

No, with wisdom we cannot approach that which is placed before us as the Jesus-Being in St. Luke’s Gospel. Can we approach it with power?

We cannot approach it with power. For the use of ‘power’ can only have a meaning where a contrary power comes into play. But the child meets us—whether we would use much or little power—with its powerlessness and mocks our power in its powerlessness! For it would be meaningless to approach the child with power, since it meets us with nothing but its powerlessness.

That is the wonderful thing—that the Christ-Impulse, being placed before us in its preparation in the Child Jesus, meets us in St. Luke’s Gospel just in this way, that—be we ever so wise—we cannot approach it with our wisdom; no more can we approach it with our power. Of all that at other times connects us with the world—nothing can approach the Child Jesus, as St. Luke’s Gospel describes it—neither wisdom, nor power—but love. To bring love towards the child-being, unlimited love—that is the one thing possible. The power of love, and the justification and signification of love and love alone—that it is that we can feel so deeply when we let the contents of St. Luke’s Gospel work on our soul.

We live in the world, and we may not scorn any of the impulses of the world. It would be a denial of our humanity and a betrayal of the Gods for us not to strive after wisdom; every day and every hour of the year is well applied, in which we realise it as our human duty to strive after wisdom. And so does every day and every hour of the year compel us to become aware that we are placed in the world and that we are a play of the forces and powers of the world—of the all-power that pulsates through the world. But there is one moment in which we may forget this, in which we may remember what St. Luke’s Gospel places before us, when we think of the Child that is yet more filled with wisdom and yet more powerless than other people’s children and before whom the highest love appears in its full justification, before whom wisdom must stand still and power must stand still.

So we can feel the significance of the fact that it is just this Christ-Child, received by the simple shepherds, which is placed before us as the third aspect of the Christ-Impulse; beside the Spirit-Kingly aspect and the great Cosmic aspect, the Childlike aspect. The Spirit-Kingly aspect meets us in such a way that we are reminded of the highest wisdom, and that the ideal of highest wisdom is placed before us. The cosmic aspect meets us, and we know that through it the whole direction of earthly evolution is re-formed. Highest power through the cosmic Impulse is revealed to us—highest power so great that it conquers even death. And that which must be added to wisdom and power as a third thing, and must sink into our souls as something transcending the other two, is set before us as that from which man’s evolution on earth, on the physical plane, proceeds. And it has sufficed to bring home to humanity, through the ever-returning picture of Jesus’ birth at Christmas, the whole significance of love in the world and in human evolution. Thus, as it is in the Christmas ‘night of initiation’ that the birth of the Jesus-Child is put before us, it is in the same night as it comes round again and again that there can be born in our souls, contemplating the birth of the Jesus-Child, the understanding of genuine, true love that resounds above all. And if at Christmas an understanding of the feeling of love is rightly awakened in us, if we celebrate this birth of Christ—the awakening of love—then from the moment in which we experience it there can radiate that which we need for the remaining hours and days of the year, that it may flow through and bless the wisdom that it is ours to strive after in every hour and in every day of the year.

It was especially through the emphasising of this love-impulse that, already in Roman times, Christianity brought into human evolution the feeling that something can be found in human souls, through which they can come near each other—not by touching what the world gives to men, but that which human souls have through themselves. There was always the need of having such an approaching together of man in love. But what had become of this feeling in Rome, at the time when the Mystery of Golgotha took place? It had become the Saturnalia. In the days of December, beginning from the seventeenth, the Saturnalia took place, in which all differences of rank and standing were suspended. Then man met man; high and low ceased to be; every one said ‘thou’ to the other. That which originated from the outer world was swept away, but for fun and merriment the children were given ‘Saturnalia presents,’ which then developed into our Christmas presents. Thus ancient Rome had been driven to take refuge in fun, in joking, in order to transcend the ordinary social distinctions.

Into the midst of all this, there entered about that time the new principle, wherein men do not call forth joking and merriment, but the highest in their souls—the spiritual. Thus did the feeling of equality from man to man enter Christianity in the time when in Rome it had assumed the merrymaking form of the Saturnalia, and this also testifies to us of the aspect of love, of general human love which can exist between man and man if we grasp man in his deepest being. Thus, for example, we grasp him in his deepest being, when at Christmas Eve the child awaits the coming of the Christmas child or the Christmas angel. How does the child wait at Christmas Eve? It awaits the coming of the Christmas child or angel, knowing: He is coming not from human lands, he comes from the spiritual world I It is a kind of understanding of the spiritual world, in which the child shows itself to be like the grown-up people. For they too know the same thing that the child knows—that the Christ-Impulse came into earthly evolution from higher worlds. So it is not only the Child of St. Luke s Gospel that comes before our souls at Christmas, but that which Christmas shall bring near to man’s heart comes near to every child’s soul in the loveliest way, and unites childlike understanding with grown-up understanding. All that a child can feel, from the moment when it begins to be able to think at all—that is the one pole. And the other pole is that which we can feel in our highest spiritual concerns, if we remain faithful to the impulse which was mentioned at the beginning of this evening’s thoughts, the impulse whereby we awaken the will to the spiritual light after which we strive in our now to be founded Anthroposophical Society. For there, too, it is our will that that which is to come into human evolution shall be borne by something which comes into us from spiritual realms as an impulse. And just as the child feels towards the angel of Christmas who brings it its Christmas presents—it feels itself, in its childlike way, connected with the spiritual—so may we feel ourselves connected with the spiritual gift that we long for on Christmas night as the impulse which can bring us the high ideal for which we strive. And if in this circle we feel ourselves united in such love as can stream in from a right understanding of the ‘night of initiation,’ then we shall be able to attain that which is to be attained through the Anthroposophical Society—our anthroposophical ideal. We shall attain that which is to be attained in united work, if a ray of that man-to- man love can take hold of us, of which we can learn when we give ourselves in the right way to the Christmas thought.

Thus those of our dear friends who are united with us to-night may have a kind of excellence of feeling. Though they may not be sitting here or there under the Christmas-tree in the way that is customary in this cycle of time, our dear friends are yet sitting under the Christmas-tree. And all of you who are spending this ‘initiation night’ with us under the Christmas-tree: try to awaken in your souls something of the feeling that can come over us when we feel why it is that we are here together—that we may already learn to realise in our souls those impulses of love which must once in distant and yet more distant future come nearer and nearer, when the Christ-Impulse, of which our Christmas has reminded us so well, takes hold on human evolution with ever greater and greater power, greater and greater understanding. For it will only take hold, if souls be found who understand it in its full significance. But in this realm, ‘understanding’ cannot be without love—the fairest thing in human evolution, to which we give birth in our souls just on this evening and night when we transfuse our hearts with that spiritual picture of the Jesus- Child, cast out by the rest of mankind, thrown into a comer, born in a stable. Such is the picture of Him that is given to us—as though he comes into human evolution from outside, and is received by the simplest in spirit, the poor shepherds. If to-day we seek to give birth to the love-impulse that can pour into our souls from this picture, then it will have the force to promote that which we would and should achieve, to assist in the tasks that we have set ourselves in the realm of Anthroposophy, and that karma has pointed out to us as deep and right tasks in the realm of Anthroposophy.

Let us take this with us from this evening’s thoughts on the Christmas initiation night, saying that we have come together in order to take out with us the impulse of love, not only for a short time, but for all our striving that we have set before us, inasmuch as we can understand it through the spirit of our anthroposophical view of the world.

The following lecture was given by Rudolf Steiner at Berlin, on the 24th of December, 1912. It is from the unpublished lecture series entitled, Experiential Knowledge of the Supersensible, published in Germas as, Erfahrungen des Uebersinnlichen. Die wege der Seele zu Christus. This lecture is known by two titles, The Birth of the Light, and Thoughts on Christmas Eve. The latter title can be found in the 1928 edition of the book, The Festivals of the Seasons.

This lecture was translated from shorthand reports, unrevised by the lecturer, by Harry Collison. It is presented here with the kind permission of the Rudolf Steiner Nachlassverwaltung, Dornach, Switzerland.

It is beautiful that circumstances permit of our uniting here this evening at this festival. For though the vast majority of our friends are able to celebrate the festival of love and peace outside in the circle of those with whom they are united by the ties of ordinary life, there are many among our anthroposophical friends who to-day are alone in a certain sense. It also goes without saying that those of us who are not thus drawn into this or that circle are, considering the spiritual current in which we stand, least of all excluded from taking part in the festival of love and peace. What should be more beautifully suited to unite us here this evening in the atmosphere, in the spiritual air of mutual love and peace that radiates through our hearts than an anthroposophical movement? And we may also regard it as a happy chance of fate that it is just in this year that we are able to be together on this Christmas Eve, and to follow out a little train of thought which can bring this festival near to our hearts. For in this year we ourselves stand before the birth of that which, if we rightly understand it, must lie very close to our hearts: I mean the

Birth of our Anthroposophical Society.

If we have lived the great ideal which we want to express through the Anthroposophical Society, and if we are accordingly inclined to dedicate our forces to this great ideal of mankind, then we can naturally let our thoughts sweep on from this our spiritual light or means of light to the dawn of the great light of human evolution which is celebrated on this night of love and peace. On this night—spiritually, or in our souls—we really have before us that which may be called the Birth of the Earthly Light, of the light which is to be born out of the darkness of the Night of Initiation, and which is to be radiant for human hearts and human souls, for all that they need in order to find their way upwards to those spiritual heights which are to be attained through the earth's mission.

What is it really that we should write in our hearts—the feeling that we may have on this Christmas night?

In this Christmas night there should pour into our hearts the fundamental human feeling of love—the fundamental feeling that says: compared with all other forces and powers and treasures of the world, the treasures and the power and the force of love are the greatest, the most intense, the most powerful. There should pour into our hearts, into our souls, the feeling that wisdom is a great thing—that love is still greater; that might is a great thing—that love is yet greater. And this feeling of the power and force and strength of love should pour into our hearts so strongly that from this Christmas night something may overflow into all our feelings during the rest of the year, so that we may truthfully say at all times: we must really be ashamed, if in any hour of the year we do anything that cannot hold good when the spirit gazes into that night in which we would pour the all-power of love into our hearts. May it be possible for the days and the hours of the year to pass in such a way that we need not be ashamed of them in the light of the feeling that we would pour into our souls on Christmas night!

If such can be our feeling, then we are feeling together with all those beings who wanted to bring the significance of Christmas, of the ‘Night of Initiation,’ near to mankind: the significance and the relation of Christmas night to the whole Christ-Impulse within earthly evolution.

For this Christ Impulse stands before us, we may say, in a threefold figure; and to-day at the Christ-festival this threefold figure of the Christ-Impulse can have great significance for us. The first figure meets us when we turn our gaze to the Gospel according to St. Matthew. The Being who is born—or whose birth we celebrate—on this Christmas Eve, enters human evolution in such a way that three heads of mankind, three representatives of high magic come to pay homage to the kingly Being who is entering man's evolution. ‘Kings’ in the spiritual sense of the word: magic kings come to pay homage to the great spiritual King Who appears in the high form that He has attained. For as high a being as Zarathustra once was, passed through his stages of development in order to reach the height of the spiritual King whom the magic kings came to welcome. And so does the Spirit-King of St. Matthew's Gospel confront our spiritual gaze: He brings into human evolution an infinite fount of goodness and an infinite fount of mighty love, of that goodness and that love before which human wickedness feels itself challenged to battle. Thus again do we see the Spirit-King enter human evolution: that which must be enmity against the Spirit-King feels itself challenged in the figure of Herod; and the spiritual King must flee before that which is the enemy of spiritual kingship. So do we see Him in the spirit, in His majestic and magic glory. And before our soul there arises the marvellous image of the Spirit-King, of Zarathustra reincarnate, the flower of human evolution, as He has passed from incarnation to incarnation on the physical plane, and as wisdom has reached perfection, surrounded by the three magic spirit-kings themselves, by flowers and heads of human evolution.

In yet another figure the Christ-Impulse can come before our souls, as it appears in the Gospel according to St. Mark, and in St. John's Gospel. There we seem to be led towards the cosmic Christ-Impulse, which expresses how man is eternally related to the great cosmic forces. We have this connection with the great cosmic forces when, through an understanding of the cosmic Christ, we become aware how through the Mystery of Golgotha there entered into earthly evolution itself a cosmic impulse. As something yet infinitely more great and mighty than the Spirit-King Whom we see in the spirit surrounded by the magicians, there appears before us the mighty cosmic Being who will take hold of the vehicle of that man who is himself the Spirit-King, the flower and summit of earthly evolution. It is really only the short-sightedness of present day mankind which prevents men from feeling the full greatness and power of this incision into human evolution, wherein Zarathustra became the bearer of the cosmic Christ-Spirit. It is only this short-sightedness which does not feel the whole significance of that which was being prepared in the moment of human evolution which we celebrate in our ‘night of initiation,’ in our Christmas. Everywhere, if we enter but a little more deeply into human evolution, we are shown how deeply the Christ-Event penetrated into the whole earthly evolution. Let us feel this as we follow this evening a relevant line of thought, whence something may stream out into the rest of our anthroposophical thought, deepening and penetrating into the meaning of things.

Many things might be brought forward for this purpose. It could be shown how, in times which were still nearer to the spiritual, an entirely new spirit appeared before mankind: new in comparison with the spirit that held sway and was active in earthly evolution in pre-Christian times. For instance, there was created a figure, a figure, however, which lived, which expresses to us how a soul of the early Christian centuries was affected when such a soul, having first felt itself quite immersed in the old Pagan spiritual knowledge, then approached the Christ-Impulse simply and without prejudice, and felt a great change in itself. To-day we more and more have a feeling for such a figure as Faust. We feel this figure, which a more modern poet—Goethe—has, so to speak, reawakened. We feel how this figure is meant to express the highest human striving, yet at the same time the possibility of deepest guilt. It may be said, apart from all the artistic value given to this figure by the power of a modern poet, we can feel deep and significant things of what lived in those early Christian souls, when for example we sink into the poem of the Greek Empress Eudocia. She created a revival of the old legend of Cyprian, which pictures a man who lived wholly in the world of the old heathen gods and could become entwined in it—a man who after the Mystery of Golgotha was still completely given up to the old heathen mysteries and forces and powers. Beautiful is the scene in which Cyprian makes the acquaintance of Justina, who is already touched by the Christ-Impulse, and who is given up to those powers which are revealed through Christianity. Cyprian is tempted to draw her from the path, and for this purpose to make use of the old heathen magical methods. All this is played out between Faust and Gretchen, in the atmosphere of this battle of old Pagan impulses with the Christ-Impulse. Apart from the spiritual side of it, it works out magnificently in the old story of the Cyprian and of the temptation to which he was exposed over against the Christian Justina. And even though Eudocia's poetry may not be very good, still we must say: there we see the awful collision of the old pre-Christian world with the Christian world. In Cyprian we see a man who feels himself still far from the Christian faith, quite given up to the old Pagan divine forces. There is a certain power in this description. To-day we only bring forward a few extracts, showing how Cyprian feels towards the magic forces of pre-Christian spiritual powers. Thus in Eudocia's poem we hear him speak: (‘Confession of Cyprian.’)

‘Ye faithful ones in Christ, who in your hearts
Do cherish true and warm our Saviour great in praise:
Behold my tears outpouring and then hear
While I relate the fountain of my grief.
And ye, who still are lost in dark illusion bound
To idol images, pay heed, ye too, to that
Which I shall tell of their deceit and falsehood.
For never lived a man, who to false Gods
Was given up as I was; never one
So deeply versed in all the demon's arts.

‘Yea, I am Cyprianus, whom, a child,
My parents brought unto Apollo dedicate.
The orgies' hue and cry became my lullaby,
What time the fearsome dragon's feast was celebrate.
At seven years they consecrated me
Unto the Sun-God Mithras. Then I lived
In Athena's noble city, as a citizen—
Such was my parents' wish. When I was ten,
I lit Demeter's torches, and I sank myself
In Kora's mournful death-complaint. Then as a temple-child
I nourished Pallas' serpent in the castle's walls.

‘Then I ascended on the forest-mount,
Olympus' height, where fools would make believe
The radiant dwelling-place of Gods sublime.
I saw the Horae and the hustling winds,
The days' long chorus, wafted on wings
Of fantasy, to speed through life on magic wings.
I saw the spirits' fiery headlong fray,
And ambuscades deceitful. Some of them anon
Bluster and burst with ridicule and glee,
While others petrified in terror rooted stand.
I saw the ranks of Goddesses and Gods;
For forty days or more I fingered there.
And as the sun did set, I ate the fruits
Of leafy shady bowers. And there, like messengers
From kingly castles, sped the spirit-beings,
Then to descend to earth with thousand ills
To vex the race of men.

‘I numbered fifteen years, already knew
The power and work of spirits and of Gods;
And of high priests my teachers there were seven—
It was my parents' will that I should gain
Science of all that bides upon the earth,
And in the airy realms, and in the oceans' depths.
I searched through that which in the human breast
Destruction brews—what ferments in the herb,
In flowery juices; and what sickening creeps
Around the wearied body; nor did I neglect
That which the gaudy snake, prince of the world, conceives
To challenge the eternal goals of God.

‘I wandered on in Argos' fairest land—
Argos that nourished the rose.
'Twas just the season's round of Eos' feast,
Eos white-raimented, Tithonos' spouse,
There I became their priest.
I learned to know what windy brothers speed
Through airy spaces and this pole's long round;
What binds the ploughland with the waters' flood,
And darkens o'er the skies with showering rain.’

Thus had Cyprian learned to know everything that was to be learned by being, so to speak, initiated into the pre-Christian mysteries. Oh! he describes them exactly—those powers to whom those could look up who were entrusted with the ancient traditions of initiation in a time when those traditions no longer held good; his description of them and of all their fruits which were no longer suitable to that age is fascinating.

‘Myself I saw the demon face to face,
When I had won him by my sacrifice.
I spake to him, and he did answer me
With words of flattery. He praised my youth,
My fairness and my skill unto his works,
Assigned to me dominion o'er this world
And spirits to accomplish my behests;
He greeted me by name, what time we parted,
And all his great ones looked on us amazed.
His countenance is like unto the flower
Of purest gold: and on his head a diadem
Of glittering stones; his raiment's like a flame,
And all the earth doth shiver as he moves.
In dense array around his mighty throne
Spear-bearers stand, their eyes cast on the ground.
Thus he makes up to be a God; he imitates
The Great One's works, whom boldly challenging,
yet creates but powerless fantasies—
For all their demons' being is emptiness.

And then it goes on to describe how the temptation approaches him, and how all this works on him before he comes to know the Christ-Impulse.

‘I wandered from the Persian land away,
And came to Antioch, great town of Syria.
Here I accomplished many a miracle
Of hellish mystery and of enchantments' crafts.
Here a fair youth, Aglaidas, once sought me out;
And others with him, fired with passionate love.
Towards a maiden was his heart aglow,
Justina was her name. He now entreated me,
Clasping around my knees, to conjure her
Into his arms by means of magic craft.
I hearkened to his prayers and then at first
Appeared to me the demon's powerlessness.
Many as were the spirit-throngs he ruled,
So many he sent out to tempt her soul;
And every one returned from her abashed.
Me too, who pleaded for Aglaidas, Justina's faith
And purity and piety could put to shame.
She shewed me then the vanity of mine arts,
And many a sleepless night I lingered on
With manifold enchantments' drudgery.
Ten weeks the prince of spirits stormed the heart
Of yonder maiden. Till Eros, alas,
Not only sped his shaft to wound Aglaidas:
I too was seized and torn with frenzied love.

And from this confusion into which the old world brought him, Cyprian is healed through the Christ-Impulse, in that he cast aside the old magic to understand the Christ-Impulse in its full greatness. We have later in the Faust poem a kind of shadow of this legend, but filled with greater poetic power. In such a figure as this, it is brought home to us very strongly how the Christ-Impulse, which, with some recapitulations we have just brought before our souls in a twofold figure, was felt in the early Christian centuries.

A third figure, as it were a third aspect of the Christ-Impulse, is one which can especially bring home to us how, through that which in the full sense of the word we may call Anthroposophy, we can feel ourselves united with all that is human. This is the aspect which is most uniquely set forth in St. Luke's Gospel, and which then worked on in that representation of the Christ-Impulse which shows us its preparation in the ‘Child.’ In that love and simplicity and at the same time powerlessness, with which the Christ Jesus of St. Luke's Gospel meets us, thus it was suited to be placed before all hearts. There all can feel themselves near to that which so simply, like a child—and yet so greatly and mightily—spake to mankind through the Child of St. Luke's Gospel, which is not shown to the magic kings, but to the poor shepherds from the hills. That other Being of St. Matthew's Gospel stands at the summit of human evolution and paying homage to him there come spiritual kings, magic kings. The Child of St. Luke's Gospel stands there in simplicity, excluded from human evolution, as a child received by no great ones—received by the shepherds from the hills. Nor does he stand within human evolution, this Child of St. Luke's Gospel, in such a way that we were told in this Gospel, for example, how the wickedness of the world felt itself challenged by his kingly spiritual power. No! but—albeit we are not at once brought face to face with Herod's power and wickedness—it is clearly shown to us how that which is given in this Child is so great, so noble, so full of significance, that humanity itself cannot receive it into its ranks. It appears poor and rejected, as though cast into a corner by human evolution and there in a peculiar manner it shows us its extra-human, its divine, that is to say, its cosmic origin. And what an inspiration flowed from this Gospel of St. Luke for all those who, again and again, gave us scenes, in pictures and in other artistic works—scenes which were especially called forth by St. Luke's Gospel. If we compare the various artistic productions, do we not feel how those, which throughout the centuries were inspired by St. Luke's Gospel, show us Jesus as a Being with whom every man, even the simplest, can feel akin? Through that which worked on through the Luke-Jesus-Child, the simplest man comes to feel the whole event in Palestine as a family happening, which concerns himself as something which happened among his own near relations. No Gospel worked on in the same way as this Gospel of St. Luke, with its sublime and happy flowing mood, making the Jesus-Being intimate to the human souls. And yet—all is contained in this childlike picture—all that should be contained in a certain aspect of the Christ-Impulse: namely, that the highest thing in the world, in the whole world, is love: that wisdom is something great, worthy to be striven after—for without wisdom beings cannot exist—but that love is something yet greater; that the might and the power with which the world is architected is something great without which the world cannot exist—but that love is something yet greater. And he has a right feeling for the Christ-Impulse, who can feel this higher nature of Love over against Power and Strength and Wisdom. As human spiritual individualities, above all things we must strive after wisdom, for wisdom is one of the divine impulses of the world. And that we must strive after wisdom, that wisdom must be the sacred treasure that brings us forward—it is this that was intended to be shown in the first scene of The Soul's Probation, that we must not let wisdom fall away, that we must cherish it, in order to ascend through wisdom on the ladder of human evolution. But everywhere where wisdom is, there is a twofold thing: wisdom of the Gods and wisdom of the Luciferic powers. The being who strives after wisdom must inevitably come near to the antagonists of the Gods, to the throng of the Light-Bearer, the army of Lucifer. Therefore there is no divine all-wisdom, for wisdom is always confronted with an opponent—with Lucifer.

And power and might! Through wisdom the world is conceived, through wisdom it is seen, it is illumined; through power and might the world is fashioned and built. Everything that comes about, comes about through the power and the might that is in the beings and we should be shutting ourselves out from the world if we did not seek our share in the power and might of the world. We see this mighty power in the world when the lightning flashes through the clouds; we perceive it when the thunder rolls or when the rain pours down from heavenly spaces into the earth to fertilise it, or when the rays of the sun stream down to conjure forth the seedlings of plants slumbering in the earth. In the forces of nature that work down on to the earth we see this power working blessing as sunshine, as forces in rain and clouds; but, on the other hand, we must see this power and might in volcanoes, for instance, which seem to rise up and rebel against the earth itself—heavenly force pitted against heavenly force. And we look into the world, and we know: if we would ourselves be beings of the world-all, then something of them must work in us; we must have our share in power and in might. Through them we stand within the world: Divine and Ahrimanic powers live and pulsate through us. The all-power is not ‘all-powerful,’ for always it has its antagonist Ahriman against itself.

Between them—between Power and Wisdom—stands Love; and if it is the true love we feel that alone is ‘Divine.’ We can speak of the ‘all-power,’ of ‘all-strength,’ as of an ideal; but over against them stand Ahriman. We can speak of ‘all-wisdom’ as of an ideal; but over against it stands the force of Lucifer. But to say ‘all-love’ seems absurd; for if we love rightly it is capable of no increase. Wisdom can be small—it can be augmented. Power can be small; it can be augmented. Therefore all-wisdom and all-power can stand as ideals. But cosmic love—we feel that it does not allow of the conception of all-love; for love is something unique.

As the Jesus-Child is placed before us in St. Luke's Gospel, so do we feel it as the personification of love; the personification of love between wisdom or all-wisdom and all-power. And we really feel it like this, just because it is a child. Only it is intensified because in addition to all that a child has at any time, this Child has the quality of forlornness: it is cast out into a lonely corner. The magic building of man—we see it already laid out in the organism of the child. Wherever in the wide world-all we turn our gaze, there is nothing that comes into being through so much wisdom as this magic building, which appears before our eyes—even unspoiled as yet—in the childlike organism. And just as it appears in the child—that which is all-wisdom in the physical body, the same thing also appears in the etheric body, where the wisdom of cosmic powers is expressed; and so in the astral body and in the ego. Like wisdom that has made an extract of itself—so does the child lie there. And if it is thrown out into a corner of mankind, like the Child Jesus, then we feel that separated there lies a picture of perfection, concentrated world-wisdom.

But all-power too appears personified to us, when we look on the child as it is described in St. John's Gospel. How shall we feel how the all-power is expressed in relation to the body of the child, the being of the child? We must make present in our souls the whole force of that which divine powers and forces of nature can achieve. Think of the might of the forces and powers of nature near to the earth when the elements are storming; transplant yourself into the powers of nature that hold sway, surging and welling up and down in the earth; think of all the brewing of world-powers and world-forces, of the clash of the good forces with the Ahrimanic forces; the whirling and raging of it all. And now imagine all this storming and raging of the elements to be held away from a tiny spot in the world, in order that at that tiny spot the magic building of the child's body may lie—in order to set apart a tiny body; for the child's body must be protected. Were it exposed for a moment to the violence of the powers of nature, it would be swept away! Then you may feel how it is immersed in the all-power. And now you may realise the feeling that can pass through the human soul when it gazes with simple heart on that which is expressed by St. Luke's Gospel. If one approached this ‘concentrated wisdom’ of the child with the greatest human wisdom—mockery and foolishness this wisdom! For it can never be so great as was the wisdom that was used in order that the child-body might lie before us. The highest wisdom remains foolishness and must stand abashed before the childlike body and pay homage to heavenly wisdom; but it knows that it cannot reach it. Mockery is this wisdom; it must feel itself rejected in its own foolishness.

No, with wisdom we cannot approach that which is placed before us as the Jesus-Being in St. Luke's Gospel. Can we approach it with power?

We cannot approach it with power. For the use of ‘power’ can only have a meaning where a contrary power comes into play. But the child meets us—whether we would use much or little power—with its powerlessness and mocks our power in its powerlessness! For it would be meaningless to approach the child with power, since it meets us with nothing but its powerlessness.

That is the wonderful thing—that the Christ-Impulse, being placed before us in its preparation in the Child Jesus, meets us in St. Luke's Gospel just in this way, that—be we ever so wise—we cannot approach it with our wisdom; no more can we approach it with our power. Of all that at other times connects us with the world—nothing can approach the Child Jesus, as St. Luke's Gospel describes it—neither wisdom, nor power—but love. To bring love towards the child-being, unlimited love—that is the one thing possible. The power of love, and the justification and signification of love and love alone—that it is that we can feel so deeply when we let the contents of St. Luke's Gospel work on our soul.

We live in the world, and we may not scorn any of the impulses of the world. It would be a denial of our humanity and a betrayal of the Gods for us not to strive after wisdom; every day and every hour of the year is well applied, in which we realise it as our human duty to strive after wisdom. And so does every day and every hour of the year compel us to become aware that we are placed in the world and that we are a play of the forces and powers of the world—of the all-power that pulsates through the world. But there is one moment in which we may forget this, in which we may remember what St. Luke's Gospel places before us, when we think of the Child that is yet more filled with wisdom and yet more powerless than other people's children and before whom the highest love appears in its full justification, before whom wisdom must stand still and power must stand still.

So we can feel the significance of the fact that it is just this Christ-Child, received by the simple shepherds, which is placed before us as the third aspect of the Christ-Impulse; beside the Spirit-Kingly aspect and the great Cosmic aspect, the Childlike aspect. The Spirit-Kingly aspect meets us in such a way that we are reminded of the highest wisdom, and that the ideal of highest wisdom is placed before us. The cosmic aspect meets us, and we know that through it the whole direction of earthly evolution is re-formed. Highest power through the cosmic Impulse is revealed to us—highest power so great that it conquers even death. And that which must be added to wisdom and power as a third thing, and must sink into our souls as something transcending the other two, is set before us as that from which man's evolution on earth, on the physical plane, proceeds. And it has sufficed to bring home to humanity, through the ever-returning picture of Jesus' birth at Christmas, the whole significance of love in the world and in human evolution. Thus, as it is in the Christmas ‘night of initiation’ that the birth of the Jesus-Child is put before us, it is in the same night as it comes round again and again that there can be born in our souls, contemplating the birth of the Jesus-Child, the understanding of genuine, true love that resounds above all. And if at Christmas an understanding of the feeling of love is rightly awakened in us, if we celebrate this birth of Christ—the awakening of love—then from the moment in which we experience it there can radiate that which we need for the remaining hours and days of the year, that it may flow through and bless the wisdom that it is ours to strive after in every hour and in every day of the year.

It was especially through the emphasising of this love-impulse that, already in Roman times, Christianity brought into human evolution the feeling that something can be found in human souls, through which they can come near each other—not by touching what the world gives to men, but that which human souls have through themselves. There was always the need of having such an approaching together of man in love. But what had become of this feeling in Rome, at the time when the Mystery of Golgotha took place? It had become the Saturnalia. In the days of December, beginning from the seventeenth, the Saturnalia took place, in which all differences of rank and standing were suspended. Then man met man; high and low ceased to be; every one said ‘thou’ to the other. That which originated from the outer world was swept away, but for fun and merriment the children were given ‘Saturnalia presents,’ which then developed into our Christmas presents. Thus ancient Rome had been driven to take refuge in fun, in joking, in order to transcend the ordinary social distinctions.

Into the midst of all this, there entered about that time the new principle, wherein men do not call forth joking and merriment, but the highest in their souls—the spiritual. Thus did the feeling of equality from man to man enter Christianity in the time when in Rome it had assumed the merrymaking form of the Saturnalia, and this also testifies to us of the aspect of love, of general human love which can exist between man and man if we grasp man in his deepest being. Thus, for example, we grasp him in his deepest being, when at Christmas Eve the child awaits the coming of the Christmas child or the Christmas angel. How does the child wait at Christmas Eve? It awaits the coming of the Christmas child or angel, knowing: He is coming not from human lands, he comes from the spiritual world! It is a kind of understanding of the spiritual world, in which the child shows itself to be like the grown-up people. For they too know the same thing that the child knows—that the Christ-Impulse came into earthly evolution from higher worlds. So it is not only the Child of St. Luke's Gospel that comes before our souls at Christmas, but that which Christmas shall bring near to man's heart comes near to every child's soul in the loveliest way, and unites childlike understanding with grown-up understanding. All that a child can feel, from the moment when it begins to be able to think at all—that is the one pole. And the other pole is that which we can feel in our highest spiritual concerns, if we remain faithful to the impulse which was mentioned at the beginning of this evening's thoughts, the impulse whereby we awaken the will to the spiritual light after which we strive in our now to be founded Anthroposophical Society. For there, too, it is our will that that which is to come into human evolution shall be borne by something which comes into us from spiritual realms as an impulse. And just as the child feels towards the angel of Christmas who brings it its Christmas presents—it feels itself, in its childlike way, connected with the spiritual—so may we feel ourselves connected with the spiritual gift that we long for on Christmas night as the impulse which can bring us the high ideal for which we strive. And if in this circle we feel ourselves united in such love as can stream in from a right understanding of the ‘night of initiation,’ then we shall be able to attain that which is to be attained through the Anthroposophical Society—our anthroposophical ideal. We shall attain that which is to be attained in united work, if a ray of that man-to-man love can take hold of us, of which we can learn when we give ourselves in the right way to the Christmas thought.

Thus those of our dear friends who are united with us to-night may have a kind of excellence of feeling. Though they may not be sitting here or there under the Christmas-tree in the way that is customary in this cycle of time, our dear friends are yet sitting under the Christmas-tree. And all of you who are spending this ‘initiation night’ with us under the Christmas-tree: try to awaken in your souls something of the feeling that can come over us when we feel why it is that we are here together—that we may already learn to realise in our souls those impulses of love which must once in distant and yet more distant future come nearer and nearer, when the Christ-Impulse, of which our Christmas has reminded us so well, takes hold on human evolution with ever greater and greater power, greater and greater understanding. For it will only take hold, if souls be found who understand it in its full significance. But in this realm, ‘understanding’ cannot be without love—the fairest thing in human evolution, to which we give birth in our souls just on this evening and night when we transfuse our hearts with that spiritual picture of the Jesus-Child, cast out by the rest of mankind, thrown into a corner, born in a stable. Such is the picture of Him that is given to us—as though he comes into human evolution from outside, and is received by the simplest in spirit, the poor shepherds. If to-day we seek to give birth to the love-impulse that can pour into our souls from this picture, then it will have the force to promote that which we would and should achieve, to assist in the tasks that we have set ourselves in the realm of Anthroposophy, and that karma has pointed out to us as deep and right tasks in the realm of Anthroposophy.

Let us take this with us from this evening's thoughts on the Christmas initiation night, saying that we have come together in order to take out with us the impulse of love, not only for a short time, but for all our striving that we have set before us, inasmuch as we can understand it through the spirit of our anthroposophical view of the world.

We stand today, as it were, at the starting-point of the foundation of the Anthroposophical Society in the narrower sense, and we should take this opportunity of once more reminding ourselves of the importance and significance of our cause. It is true that what the Anthroposophical Society wishes to be for the newer culture should not in principle differentiate it from that which we have always carried on in our circle under the name of theosophy. But perhaps this giving of a new name may nevertheless remind us of the earnestness and dignity with which we intend to work in our spiritual movement, and it is with this point in view that I have chosen the title of this course of lectures. At the very outset of our anthroposophical cause we shall speak on a subject which is capable of indicating in manifold ways the remarkable importance of our spiritual movement for the civilisation of the present day.

Many people might be surprised to find two such apparently widely different spiritual streams brought together, as the great Eastern poem of the Bhagavad Gita and the Epistles of one who was so closely connected with the founding of Christianity, the Apostle Paul. We can best recognise the nearness of these two spiritual streams to one another if, by way of introduction, we indicate how at the present day, is to be found, on the one hand, that which appertains to the great Bhagavad Gita poem, and on the other the Paulinism which originated with the beginning of Christianity.

Certainly much in the spiritual life of our present time differs from what it was even a comparatively short time ago, but it is just that very difference that makes a spiritual movement such as Anthroposophy so necessary.

Let us reflect how a comparatively short time ago if a man concerned himself with the spiritual life of his own times he had in reality, as I have shown in my Basle and Munich courses, to study three periods of a thousand years each; one pre-Christian period of a thousand years, and two other millennia, the sum of which is not yet quite completed; two thousand years permeated and saturated with the spiritual stream of Christianity. What might such a man have said only a short time ago when contemplating the spiritual life of mankind when, as we have said, there was no question of a theosophical, or anthroposophical movement as we now understand it? He might have said: “At the present time something is making itself prominently felt which can only be sought for in the thousand years preceding the Christian era.” For only during the last thousand years before the Christian era does one find individual men of personal importance in spiritual life. However great and powerful and mighty much in the spiritual streams of earlier times may appear to us, yet persons and individuals do not stand out from that which underlies those streams. Let us just glance back at what we reckon in not too restricted a sense, as the last thousand years before the Christian era. Let us glance back at the old Egyptian or the Chaldean-Babylonian spiritual stream; there we survey a continuity so to speak, a connected spiritual life. Only in the Greek spiritual life do we find individuals as such standing out as entirely spiritual and living. Great, mighty teachings, a mighty outlook into the space of the Cosmos; all this we find in the old Egyptian and Chaldean-Babylonian times, but only in Greece do we begin to look to separate personalities, to a Socrates or Pericles, a Phidias, a Plato, an Aristotle. Personality, as such, begins to be marked. That is the peculiarity of the spiritual life of the last three thousand years; and I do not only mean the remarkable personalities themselves, but rather the impression made by the spiritual life upon each separate individuality, upon each personality. In these last three thousand years it has become a question of personality, if we may say so; and the fact that separate individuals now feel the need of taking part in the spiritual life, find inner comfort, hope, peace, inward bliss and security, in the various spiritual movements, gives these their significance. And since, until a comparatively short time ago, we were only interested in history inasmuch as it proceeded from one personality to another, we got no really clear understanding of what occurred before the last three thousand years. The history, for which alone we had, till recently, any understanding, began with Greece, and during the transition from the first to the second thousand years, occurred what is connected with the great Being, Christ Jesus. During the first thousand years that which we owe to Greece is predominant, and those Grecian times tower forth in a particular way. At the beginning of them stand the Mysteries. That which flowed forth from these, as we have often described, passed over into the Greek poets, philosophers and artists in every domain. For if we wish rightly to understand AEschylus, Sophocles, Euripides we must seek the source for such understanding in that which flowed out of the Mysteries. If we wish to understand Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, we must seek the source of their philosophies in the Mysteries, not to speak of such a towering figure as that of Heraclitus. You may read of him in my book, Christianity as Mystical Fact, how entirely he depended upon the Mysteries.

Then in the second thousand years we see the Christian impulse pouring into spiritual development, gradually absorbing the Greek and uniting itself with it. The whole of the second thousand years passed in such a way that the powerful Christ-impulse united itself with all that came over from Greece as living tradition and life. So we see Greek wisdom, Greek feeling, and Greek art slowly and gradually uniting organically with the Christ-impulse. Thus the second thousand years ran its course. Then in the third thousand years begins the cultivation of the personality. We may say that we can see in the third thousand years how differently the Greek influence is felt. We see it when we consider such artists as Raphael, Michael Angelo and Leonardo da Vinci. No longer does the Greek influence work on together with Christianity in the third thousand years, as it did in the culture of the second; not as something historically great, not as something contemplated externally was Greek influence felt during the second thousand years. But in the third thousand we have to turn of set purpose to the Greek. We see how Leonardo da Vinci, Michael Angelo and Raphael allowed themselves to be influenced by the great works of art then being discovered; we see the Greek influence being more and more consciously absorbed. It was absorbed unconsciously during the second thousand years, but in the third millennium it was taken up more and more consciously. An example of how consciously this Greek influence was being recognised in the eyes of the world is to be found in the figure of the philosopher, Thomas Aquinas; and how he was compelled to unite what flowed out from Christian philosophy with the philosophy of Aristotle. Here the Greek influence was absorbed consciously and united with Christianity in a philosophic form; as in the case of Raphael, Michael Angelo and Leonardo da Vinci, in the form of art. This whole train of thought rises higher through spiritual life, and even takes the form of a certain religious opposition in the cases of Giordano Bruno and Galileo. Notwithstanding all this, we find everywhere Greek ideas and conceptions, especially about nature, cropping up again; there is a conscious absorption of the Greek influence, but this does not go back beyond the Greek age. In every soul, not only in the more learned or more highly educated, but in every soul down to the simplest, a spiritual life is spread abroad and lives in them, in which the Greek and Christian influences are consciously united. From the University down to the peasant's cottage Greek ideas are to be found united with Christianity.

Now in the nineteenth century something peculiar appeared, something which requires Anthroposophy to explain it. There we see in one single example what mighty forces are at play. When the wonderful poem of the Bhagavad Gita first became known in Europe, certain important thinkers were enraptured by the greatness of the poem, by its profound contents; and it should never be forgotten that such a thoughtful spirit as William von Humboldt, when he became acquainted with it, said that it was the most profoundly philosophical poem that had ever come under his notice; and he made the beautiful remark, that it was worth while to have been allowed to grow as old as he to be enabled to become acquainted with the Bhagavad Gita, the great spiritual song that sounds forth from the primeval holy times of Eastern antiquity. What a wonderful thing it is that slowly, although perhaps not attractive as yet to large circles, so much of Eastern antiquity was poured out into the nineteenth century by means of the Bhagavad Gita. For this is not like other writings that came over from the ancient East which ever proclaim Eastern thoughts and feelings from this or that standpoint. In the Bhagavad Gita we are confronted with something of which we may say that it is the united flow of all the different points of view of Eastern thought, feeling and perception. That is what makes it of such significance.

Now let us turn back to old India. Apart from other less important things, we find there, in the first place, three shades, if we may so call them, of spiritual streams flowing forth from the old Indian pre-historic times. That spiritual stream which we meet with in the earliest Vedas and which developed further in the later Vedantic poems, is one quite definite one—we will describe it presently—it is, if we may say so, a one-sided yet quite distinct spiritual stream. We then meet with a second spiritual stream in the Sankhya philosophy, which again goes in a definite spiritual direction; and, lastly, we meet a third shade of the Eastern spiritual stream in Yoga. Here we have the three most remarkable oriental spiritual streams placed before our souls. The Vedas, Sankhya, and Yoga.

The Sankhya system of Kapila, the Yoga philosophy of Patanjali and the Vedas are spiritual streams of definite colouring, which, because of this definite colouring, are to a certain extent one-sided, and which are great because of their one-sidedness. In the Bhagavad Gita we have the harmonious inter-penetration of all three spiritual streams. What the Veda philosophy has to give is to be found shining forth in the Bhagavad Gita; what the Yoga of Patanjali has to give mankind we find again in the Bhagavad Gita; and what the Sankhya of Kapila has to give we find there too. Moreover, we do not find these as a conglomeration, but as three parts flowing harmoniously into one organism, as if they originally belonged together. The greatness of the Bhagavad Gita lies in the comprehensiveness of its description of how this oriental spiritual life receives its tributaries from the Vedas on the one side, on another from the Sankhya philosophy of Kapila, and again on a third side from the Yoga of Patanjali.

We shall now briefly characterise what each of these spiritual streams has to give us.

The Veda stream is most emphatically a philosophy of unity, it is the most spiritual monism that could be thought of; the Veda philosophy which is consolidated in the Vedanta is a spiritual monism. If we wish to understand the Veda philosophy, we must, in the first place, keep clearly before our souls the fact that this philosophy is based upon the thought that man can find something deeper within his own self, and that what he first realises in ordinary life is a kind of expression or imprint of this self of his; that man can develop, and that his development will draw up the depths of the actual self more and more from the foundations of his soul. A higher self rests as though asleep in man, and this higher self is not that of which the present-day man is directly aware, but that which works within him, and to which he must develop himself. When man some day attains to that which lives within him as “self,” he will then realise, according to the Veda-philosophy, that this “self” is one with the all-embracing self of the world, that he does not only rest with his self within the all-embracing World-Self, but that he himself is one with it. So much is he one with this World-Self that he is in two-fold manner related to it. In some way similar to our physical in-breathing and out-breathing does the Vedantist picture the relationship of the human self to the World-Self Just as one draws in a breath and breathes it out again, while outside there is the universal air and within us only the small portion of it that we have drawn in so outside us we have the universal, all-embracing, all-pervading Self that lives and moves in all things, and this we breathe in when we yield ourselves to the contemplation of the spiritual Self of the World. Spiritually one breathes it in with every perception that one gets of this Self, one breathes it in with all that one draws into one's soul. All knowledge, all thinking, all perception is spiritual breathing; and that which we, as a portion of the world-Self, draw into our souls (which portion remains organically united to the whole), that is Atman, the Breath, which, as regards ourselves, is as the portion of air that we breathe in, which cannot be distinguished from the general atmosphere. So is Atman in us, which cannot be distinguished from that which is the all-ruling Self of the World. Just as we breathe out physically, so there is a devotion of the soul through which the best that is in it goes forth in the form of prayer and sacrifice to this Self. Brahman is like the spiritual out-breathing. Atman and Brahman, like in-breathing and out-breathing, make us sharers in the all-ruling World-Self. What we find in the Vedantas is a monistic spiritual philosophy, which is at the same time a religion; and the blossom and fruit of Vedantism lie in that which so blesses man, that most complete and in the highest degree satisfying feeling of unity with the universal Self powerfully weaving through the world. Vedantism treats of this connection of mankind with the unity of the world, of the fact of man's being within a part of the whole great spiritual cosmos. We cannot say the Veda-Word, because Veda means Word, but the Word-Veda as given is itself breathed forth, according to the Vedantic conception, from the all-ruling unitary Being, and the human soul can take it into itself as the highest expression of knowledge. In accepting the Veda-Word the best part of the all-mighty “Self” is taken in, the consciousness of the connection between the individual human self and this all-mighty World-Self is attained. What the Veda speaks is the God-Word which is creative, and this is born again in human knowledge, and so leads it side by side with the creative principle which lives and weaves throughout the world. Therefore, that which was written in the Vedas was valued as the Divine Word, and he who succeeded in mastering them was considered as being a possessor of the Divine Word. The Divine Word had come spiritually into the world and was to be found in the Veda-Books; those who mastered these books took part in the creative principle of the World.

Sankhya philosophy is different. When one first meets with this, as it has come down to us through tradition, we find in it exactly the opposite of the teaching of the Unity. If we wish to compare the Sankhya philosophy to anything, we may compare it to the philosophy of Leibnitz. It is a pluralistic philosophy. The several souls mentioned therein—human souls and the souls of Gods—are not traced back by the Sankhya philosophy to unitary source, but are taken as single souls existing, so to speak, from Eternity; or, at any rate, their origin is not traced back to Unity. The plurality of souls is what we find in the Sankhya philosophy. The independence of each individual soul carrying on its development in the world enclosed within its own being, is sharply accentuated; and in contrast to the plurality of souls is that which in the Sankhya philosophy is called the Prakriti element. We cannot well describe this by the modern word “matter,” for that has a materialistic meaning. But in Sankhya philosophy we do not mean to convey this with the “substantial” which is in contrast to the multiplicity of souls, and which again is not derived from a common source. In the first place, we have multiplicity of souls, and then that which we may call the material basis, which, like a primeval flood, streams through the world, through space and time, and out of which souls take the elements for their outer existence. Souls must clothe themselves in this material element, which, again, is not to be traced back to unity with the souls themselves. And so it is in the Sankhya philosophy that we principally find this material element, carefully studied. Attention is not so much directed to the individual soul; this is taken as something real that is there, confined in and united with this material basis, and which takes the most varied forms within it, and thus shows itself outwardly in many different forms. A soul clothes itself with this original material element, that may be thought of like the individual soul itself as coming from Eternity. The soul nature expresses itself through this material basic element, and in so doing it takes on many different forms, and it is in particular the study of these material forms that we find in the Sankhya philosophy. Here we have, in the first place, so to speak, the original form of this material element as a sort of spiritual primeval stream, into which the soul is first immersed. Thus if we were to glance back at the first stages of evolution, we should find there the undifferentiated material elements and immersed therein, the plurality of the souls which are to evolve further. What, therefore, we first find as Form, as yet undifferentiated from the unity of the primal stream, is the spiritual substance itself that lies at the starting-point of evolution. The first thing that then emerges, with which the soul can as yet clothe itself individually, is Budhi. So that when we picture to ourselves a soul clothed with the primal flood-substance, externally this soul is not to be distinguished from the universal moving and weaving element of the primeval flood. Inasmuch as the soul does not only enwrap itself in this first being of the universal billowing primal flood but also in that which first proceeds from this, in so far does it clothe itself in Budhi. The third element that forms itself out of the whole and through which the soul can then become more and more individual, is Ahamkara. This consists of lower and lower forms of the primeval substance. So that we have the primeval substance, the first form of which is Budhi, and its second form which is Ahamkara. The next form to that is Manas, then comes the form which consists of the organs of the senses; this is followed by the form of the finer elements, and the last form consists of the elements of the substances which we have in our physical surroundings. This is the line of evolution according to Sankhya philosophy. Above is the most super-sensible element, a primeval spiritual flow, which, growing ever denser and denser, descends to that which surrounds us in the coarser elements out of which the coarse human body is also constructed. Between these are the substances of which, for instance, our sense organs are woven, and the finer elements of which is woven our etheric or life-body. It must be carefully noticed that according to the Sankhya philosophy, all these are sheaths of the soul. Even that which springs from the first primeval flood is a sheath for the soul; the soul is at first within that; and when the Sankhya philosopher studies Budhi, Ahamkara, Manas, the senses, the finer and the coarser elements, he understands thereby the increasingly dense sheaths within which the soul expresses itself.

We must clearly understand that the manner in which the philosophy of the Vedas and the Sankhya philosophy are presented to us is only possible because they were composed in that ancient time when an old clairvoyance still existed, at any rate, to a certain extent. The Vedas and the contents of the Sankhya philosophy came into existence in different ways. The Vedas depend throughout on a primeval inspiration which was still a natural possession of primeval man; they were given to man, so to speak, without his having done anything to deserve them, except that with his whole being he prepared himself to receive into his inner depths that divine inspiration that came of itself to him, and to receive it quietly and calmly. Sankhya philosophy was formed in a different way. That process was something like the learning of our present day, only that this is not permeated by clairvoyance as the former then was. The Veda philosophy consisted of clairvoyant knowledge, inspiration given as by grace from above. Sankhya philosophy consisted of knowledge sought for as we seek it now, but sought for by people to whom clairvoyance was still accessible. This is why the Sankhya philosophy leaves the actual soul-element undisturbed, so to say. It admits that souls can impress themselves in that which one can study as the super-sensible outer forms, but it particularly studies the outer forms, which appear as the clothing of those souls. Hence we find a complete system of the forms we meet with in the world, just as in our own science we find a number of facts about nature; only that in Sankhya philosophy observation extends to a clairvoyant observation of facts. Sankhya philosophy is a science, which although obtained by clairvoyance, is nevertheless a science of outer forms that does not extend into the sphere of the soul: the soul-nature remains in a sense undisturbed by these studies. He who devotes himself to the Vedas feels absolutely that his religious life is one with the life of wisdom; but Sankhya philosophy is a science, it is a perception of the forms into which the soul impresses itself. Nevertheless, it is quite possible for the disciples of the Sankhya philosophy to feel a religious devotion of the soul for their philosophy. The way in which the soul element is organised into forms-not the soul element itself, but the form it takes-is followed up in the Sankhya philosophy. It defines the way in which the soul, more or less, preserves its individuality or else is more immersed in the material. It has to do with the soul element which is, it is true, beneath the surface, but which, within the material forms, still preserves itself as soul. A soul element thus disguised in outer form, but which reveals itself as soul, dwells in the Sattva element. A soul element immersed in form, but which is, so to say, entangled in it and cannot emerge from it, dwells in the Tamas-element; and that in which, more or less, the soul element and its outer expression in form, are, to a certain extent, balanced, dwells in the Rajas-element. Sattva, Rajas, Tamas, the three Gunas, pertain to the essential characteristics of what we know as Sankhya philosophy.

Quite different, again, is that spiritual stream which comes down to us as Yoga. That appeals directly to the soul-element itself and seeks ways and means of grasping the human soul in direct spiritual life, so that it rises from the point which it has attained in the world to higher and higher stages of soul-being. Thus Sankhya is a contemplation of the sheaths of the soul, and Yoga the guidance of the soul to higher and ever higher stages of inner experience. To devote oneself to Yoga means a gradual awakening of the higher forces of the soul so that it experiences something not to be found in everyday life, which opens the door to higher and higher stages of existence.

Yoga is therefore the path to the spiritual worlds, the path to the liberation of the soul from outer forms, the path to an independent life of the soul within itself. Yoga is the other side of the Sankhya philosophy. Yoga acquired its great importance when that inspiration, which was given as a blessing from above and which inspired the Vedas, was no longer able to come down. Yoga had to be made use of by those souls who, belonging to a later epoch of mankind, could no longer receive anything by direct revelation, but were obliged to work their way up to the heights of spiritual existence from the lower stages. Thus in the old primal Indian times we have three sharply-defined streams, the Vedas, the Sankhaya, and the Yoga, and today we are called upon once more to unite these spiritual streams, so to say, by bringing them to the surface in the way proper for our own age, from the foundations of the soul and from the depths of the Cosmos.

You may find all three streams again in our Spiritual Science. If you read what I have tried to place before you in the first chapters of my Occult Science about the human constitution, about sleeping and waking, life and death, you will find there what in our present-day sense we may call Sankhya philosophy. Then read what is there said about the evolution of the world from Saturn down to our own time, and you have the Veda-philosophy expressed for our own age; while, if you read the last chapters, which deal with human evolution, you have Yoga expressed for our own age. Our age must in an organised way unite that which radiates across to us in three so sharply-defined spiritual streams from old India in the Veda-philosophy, the Sankhya philosophy, and Yoga. For that reason our age must study the wonderful poem of the Bhagavad Gita, which, in a deeply poetical manner, represents, as it were, a union of these three streams; our own age must be deeply moved by the Bhagavad Gita. We should seek something akin to our own spiritual strivings in the deeper contents of the Bhagavad Gita. Our spiritual streams do not only concern themselves with the older ones as a whole, but also in detail. You will have recognised that in my Occult Science an attempt has been made to produce the things out of themselves. Nowhere do we depend on history. Nowhere can one who really understands what is said find in any assertion about Saturn, Sun, and Moon, that things are related from historical sources; they are simply drawn forth from the matter itself. Yet, strange to say, that which bears the stamp of our own time corresponds in striking places with what resounds down to us out of the old ages. Only one little proof shall be given. We read in the Vedas in a particular place, about cosmic development, which can be expressed in words somewhat like the following: “Darkness was enwrapt in darkness in the primal beginning, all was indistinguishable flood-essence. Then arose a mighty void, that was everywhere permeated with warmth.” I now ask you to remember the result of our study of the evolution of Saturn, in which the substance of Saturn is spoken of as a warmth-substance, and you will feel the harmony between the so-called “Newest thing in Occult Science,” and what is said in the Vedas. The next passage runs: “Then first arose the Will, the first seed of Thought, the connection between the Existent and the Non-existent, ... and this connection was found in the Will ...” And remember what was said in the new mode of expression about the Spirits of Will. In all we have to say at the present time, we are not seeking to prove a concord with the old; the harmony comes of itself, because truth was sought for there and is again being sought for on our own ground

Now in the Bhagavad Gita we find, as it were, the poetical glorification of the three spiritual streams just described. The great teachings that Krishna himself communicated to Arjuna are brought to our notice at an important moment of the world's history—of importance for that far-distant age. The moment is significant, because it is the time when the old blood-ties were loosening. In all that is to be said in these lectures about the Bhagavad Gita you must remember what has again and again been emphasised: that ties of blood, racial attachment and kinship, were of quite special significance in primeval times, and only grew less strong by degrees. Remember all that is said in my pamphlet, The Occult Significance of Blood. When these blood-ties begin to loosen, on account of that loosening, the great struggle began which is described in the Mahabharata, and of which the Bhagavad Gita is an episode. We see there how the descendants of two brothers, and hence, blood relations, separate on account of their spiritual tendencies how that which, through the blood, would formerly have given them the same points of view, now takes different paths; and how, therefore, the conflict then arises, for conflict must arise when the ties of blood also lose their significance as a help for clairvoyant perception; and with this separation begins the later spiritual development.. For those to whom the old blood-ties no longer were of significance, Krishna came as a great teacher. He was to be the teacher of the new age lifted out of the old blood-ties. How he became the teacher we shall describe tomorrow; but it may now be said, as the whole Bhagavad Gita shows us, that Krishna absorbed the three spiritual streams into his teaching and communicated them to his pupil as an organised unity.

How must this pupil appear to us? He looks up on the one side to his father, and on the other side to his father's brother the children of the two brothers are now no longer to be together, they are to separate now a different spiritual stream is to take possession of the one line and the other. Arjuna's soul is filled with the question: how will it be when that which was held together by the ties of blood is no longer there? How can the soul take part in spiritual life if that life no longer flows as it formerly did under the influence of the old blood-tie? It seems to Arjuna as if everything must come to an end. The purport of the great teachings of Krishna, however, is to show that this will not be the case, that it all will be different. Krishna now shows his pupil—who is to live through the time of transition from one epoch to another, that the soul, if it is to become harmonious, must take in something of all these three spiritual streams. We find the Vedistic unity interpreted in the right way in the teachings of Krishna, as well as the principles of the Sankhya teaching and the principles of Yoga. For what is it that actually lies behind all that we are about to learn from the Bhagavad Gita? The revelations of Krishna are somewhat to this effect: There is a creative Cosmic Word, itself containing the creative principle. As the sound produced by man when he speaks undulates and moves and lives through the air, so does the Word surge and weave and live in all things, and create and order all existence. Thus the Veda principle breathes through all things. This can be taken up by human perception into the human soul-life. There is a supreme, weaving Creative-Word, and there is an echo of this supreme, weaving Creative-Word in the Vedistic documents. The Word is the creative principle of the World; in the Vedas it is revealed. That is one part of the Krishna teaching. The human soul is capable of understanding how the Word lives on, in the different forms of existence. Human knowledge learns the laws of existence by grasping how the separate forms of being express, with the regularity of a fixed law, that which is soul and spirit. The teachings about the forms in the world, of the laws which shape existence, of cosmic laws and their manner of working, is the Sankhya philosophy, the other side of the Krishna teaching. Just as Krishna made clear to his pupil that behind all existence is the creative cosmic Word, so also he made clear to him that human knowledge can recognise the separate forms, and therefore can grasp the cosmic laws. The cosmic Word, the cosmic laws as echoed in the Vedas, and in Sankhya, were revealed by Krishna to his pupil. And he also spoke to him about the path that leads the individual pupil to the heights where he can once again share in the knowledge of the cosmic Word. Thus Krishna also spoke of Yoga. Threefold is the teaching of Krishna: it teaches of the Word, of the Law and of reverent devotion to the Spirit.

The Word, the Law, and Devotion are the three streams by means of which the soul can carry out its development.

These three streams will for ever work upon the human soul in some way or another. Have we not just seen that modern Spiritual Science must seek for new expression of these three streams? But the ages differ one from the other, and in many different ways will that which is the threefold comprehension of the World be brought to human souls. Krishna speaks of the Cosmic Word, of the Creative Word, of the fashioning of existence, of the devotional deepening of the soul,—of Yoga. The same trinity meets us again in another form, only in a more concrete, more living way—in a Being who is Himself to be thought of as walking the Earth—the Incarnation of the Divine Creative Word! The Vedas came to mankind in an abstract form. The Divine Logos, of whom the Gospel of St. John speaks is the Living and Creative Word Itself! That which we find in the Sankhya philosophy, as the law to which the cosmic forms are subject, that, historically transposed into the old Hebrew revelation, is what St. Paul calls the Law. The third stream we find in St. Paul as Faith in the risen Christ. That which was Yoga in Krishna, in St. Paul was Faith, only in a more concrete form—Faith, that was to replace the Law. So the trinity, Veda, Sankhya and Yoga were as the redness of the dawn of that which later rose as sun. Veda appears again in the actual Being of Christ Himself now entering in a concrete, living way into historical evolution, not pouring Himself out abstractly into space and the distances of time, but living as a single Individual, as the Living Word. The Law meets us in the Sankhya philosophy, in that which shows us how the material basis, Prakriti, is developed even down to coarse substance. The Law reveals how the world came into existence, and how individual man develops within it. That is expressed in the old Hebrew revelation of the Law, in the dispensation of Moses. Inasmuch as St. Paul, on the one hand, refers to this Law of the old Hebrews, he is referring to the Sankhya philosophy; inasmuch as he refers to faith in the Risen One, he refers to the Sun of which the rosy dawn appeared in Yoga. Thus arises in a, special way that of which we find the first elements in Veda, Sankhya and Yoga. What we find in the Vedas appears in a new but now concrete form as the Living Word by Whom all things were made and without Whom nothing is made that was made, and Who, nevertheless, in the course of time, has become Flesh. Sankhya appears as the historical representation based on Law of how out of the world of the Elohim, emerged the world of phenomena, the world of coarse substances. Yoga transformed itself into that which, according to St. Paul, is expressed in the words; “Not I, but Christ in me,” that is to say when the Christ-force penetrates the soul and absorbs it, man rises to the heights of the divine.

Thus we see how, in a preparatory form, the coherent plan is present in world-history, how the Eastern teaching was a preparation, how it gives in more abstract form, as it were, that which, in a concrete form, we find so marvelously contained in the Pauline Christianity. We shall see that precisely by grasping the connection between the great poem of the Bhagavad Gita and the Epistles of St. Paul, the very deepest mysteries will reveal themselves concerning what we may call the ruling of the spiritual in the collective education of the human race. As something so new must also be felt in the new age, this newer age must extend beyond the time of Greece and must develop understanding for that which lies behind the thousand years immediately before Christ—for that which we find in the Vedas, Sankhya and Yoga. Just as Raphael in his art and Thomas Aquinas in his philosophy had to turn back to Greece, so shall we see how in our time, a conscious balance must be established between that which the present time is trying to acquire and that which lies further back than the Greek age, and stretches back to the depths of oriental antiquity. We can allow these depths of oriental antiquity to flow into our souls if we ponder over these different spiritual streams which are to be found within that wonderfully harmonious unity which Humboldt calls the greatest philosophical poem the Bhagavad Gita.

Friends have expressed the wish that I should speak today on the subject of the lecture here a year ago,⁵⁹ when it was said that the initiation of Christian Rosenkreutz took place in very special circumstances in the thirteenth century, and that since then this individuality has worked unceasingly throughout the centuries. Today we shall hear more about the character and the person of Christian Rosenkreutz as we study the great task which devolved upon him at the dawn of the intellectual age in order that provision might be made for the future of humanity.

Anyone who makes his mark in the world as a leading occultist, like Christian Rosenkreutz, has to reckon with the conditions peculiar to his epoch. The intrinsic nature of spiritual life as it is in the present age, developed for the first time when modern natural science came upon the scene with men like Copernicus,⁶⁰ Giordano Bruno,⁶¹ Galileo⁶² and others. Nowadays people are taught about Copernicus in their early schooldays, and the impressions thus received remain with them their whole life long. In earlier times the soul experienced something different. Try to picture to yourselves what a contrast there is between a man of the modern age and one who lived centuries ago. Before the days of Copernicus everyone believed that the earth remains at rest in cosmic space with the sun and the stars revolving around it. The very ground slipped from under men's feet when Copernicus came forward with the doctrine that the earth is moving with tremendous speed through the universe. We should not underestimate the effects of such a revolution in thinking, accompanied as it was by a corresponding change in the life of feeling. All the thoughts and ideas of men were suddenly different from what they had been before the days of Copernicus. And now let us ask: What has occultism to say about this revolution in thinking?

Anyone who asks from the standpoint of occultism what kind of world conception can be derived from the Copernican tenets will have to admit that although these ideas can lead to great achievements in the realm of natural science and in external life, they are incapable of promoting any understanding of the spiritual foundations of the world and the things of the world, for there has never been a worse instrument for understanding the spiritual foundations of the world than the ideas of Copernicus—never in the whole of human evolution. The reason for this is that all these Copernican concepts are inspired by Lucifer. Copernicanism is one of the last attacks, one of the last great attacks made by Lucifer upon the evolution of man. In earlier, pre-Copernican thought, the external world was indeed maya, but much traditional wisdom, much truth concerning the world and the things of the world still survived. Since Copernicus, however, man has maya around him not only in his material perceptions but his concepts and ideas are themselves maya. Men take it for granted nowadays that the sun is firmly fixed in the middle and the planets revolve around it in ellipses. In the near future, however, it will be realised that the view of the world of the stars held by Copernicus is much less correct than the earlier Ptolemaic view.⁶³ The view of the world held by the school of Copernicus and Kepler is very convenient, but as an explanation of the macrocosm it is not the truth.

And so Christian Rosenkreutz, confronted by a world conception which is itself a maya, an illusion, had to come to grips with it. Christian Rosenkreutz had to save occultism in an age when all the concepts of science were themselves maya. In the middle of the sixteenth century, Copernicus' Book of the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres⁶⁴ appeared. At the end of the sixteenth century the rosicrucians were faced with the necessity of comprehending the world system by means of occultism, for with its materially-conceived globes in space the Copernican world-system was maya, even as concept. Thus towards the end of the sixteenth century one of those conferences took place of which we heard here a year ago in connection with the initiation of Christian Rosenkreutz himself in the thirteenth century. This occult conference of leading individualities [See ‘East in the Light of the West’, Chapter IX, etc. Rudolf Steiner Publication Co. and Anthroposophic Press, N.Y., 1940.] united Christian Rosenkreutz with those twelve individualities of that earlier time and certain other great individualities concerned with the leadership of humanity. There were present not only personalities in incarnation on the physical plane but also some who were in the spiritual worlds; and the individuality who in the sixth century before Christ had been incarnated as Gautama Buddha also participated.

The occultists of the East rightly believe—for they know it to be the truth—that the Buddha who in his twenty-ninth year rose from the rank of Bodhisattva to that of Buddha, had incarnated then for the last time in a physical body. It is absolutely true that when the individuality of a Bodhisattva becomes a Buddha he no longer appears on the earth in physical incarnation. But this does not mean that he ceases to be active in the affairs of the earth. The Buddha continues to work for the earth, although he is never again present in a physical body but sends down his influence from the spiritual world. The Gloria heard by the shepherds in the fields intimated from the spiritual world that the forces of Buddha were streaming into the astral body of the child Jesus described in the St. Luke Gospel. The words of the Gloria came from Buddha who was working in the astral body of the child Jesus. This wonderful message of peace and love is an integral part of Buddha's contribution to Christianity. But later on too, Buddha influences the deeds of men—not physically but from the spiritual world—and he has co-operated in measures that have been necessary for the sake of progress in the evolution of humanity.

In the seventh and eighth centuries, for example, there was a very important centre of initiation in the neighbourhood of the Black Sea, in which the Buddha taught, in his spirit body. In such schools there are those who teach in the physical body; but it is also possible for the more advanced pupils to receive instruction from one who teaches in an ether-body only. And so the Buddha taught those pupils there who were capable of receiving higher knowledge. Among the pupils of the Buddha at that time was one who incarnated again a few centuries later. We are speaking, therefore, of a physical personality who centuries later lived again in a physical body, in Italy, and is known to us as St. Francis of Assisi. The characteristic quality of Francis of Assisi and of the life of his monks—which has so much similarity with that of the disciples of Buddha—is due to the fact that Francis of Assisi himself was a pupil of Buddha.

It is easy to perceive the contrast between the qualities characteristic of men who like Francis of Assisi were striving fervently for the spirit and those engrossed in the world of industry, technical life and the discoveries of modern civilisation. There were many people, including occultists, who suffered deeply at the thought that in the future two separate classes of human beings would inevitably arise. They foresaw the one class wholly given up to the affairs of practical life, convinced that security depends entirely upon the production of foodstuffs, the construction of machines, and so forth; whereas the other class would be composed of men like Francis of Assisi who withdraw altogether from the practical affairs of the world for the sake of spiritual life.

It was a significant moment, therefore, when Christian Rosenkreutz, in the sixteenth century, called together a large group of occultists in preparation for the aforesaid conference, and described to them the two types of human beings that would inevitably arise in the future. First he gathered a large circle of people, later on a smaller one, to present them with this weighty fact. Christian Rosenkreutz held this preparatory meeting a few years beforehand, not because he was in doubt about what would happen, but because he wanted to get the people to contemplate the perspectives of the future. In order to stimulate their thinking he spoke roughly as follows: Let us look at the future of the world. The world is moving fast in the direction of practical activities, industry, railways, and so on. Human beings will become like beasts of burden. And those who do not want this will be, like Francis of Assisi, impractical with regard to life, and they will develop an inner life only. Christian Rosenkreutz made it clear to his listeners that there was no way on earth of preventing the formation of these two classes of men. Despite all that might be done for them between birth and death, nothing could hinder mankind being divided into these two classes. As far as conditions on the earth were concerned it is impossible to find a remedy for the division into classes. Help can only come if a kind of education could be brought about that did not take place between birth and death but between death and a new birth.

Thus the rosicrucians were faced with the task of working from out of the super-sensible world to influence individual human beings. In order to understand what had to take place, we must consider from a particular aspect the life between death and a new birth.

Between birth and death we live on the earth. Between death and a new birth man has a certain connection with the other planets. In my Theosophy you will find Kamaloka described. This sojourn of man in the soul world is a time during which he becomes an inhabitant of the Moon. Then one after the other, he becomes an inhabitant of Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, and then an inhabitant of the further expanses of heaven or the cosmos. One is not speaking incorrectly when one says that between two incarnations on the earth lie incarnations on other planets, spiritual incarnations. Man at present is not yet sufficiently developed to remember, whilst in incarnation, his experiences between death and a new birth, but this will become possible in the future. Even though he cannot now remember what he experienced on Mars, for example, he still has Mars forces within him, although he knows nothing about them. One is justified in saying: I am not an earth inhabitant, but the forces within me include something that I acquired on Mars. Let me consider a man who lived on earth after the Copernican world outlook had become common knowledge. Whence did Copernicus, Galileo, Giordano Bruno and others acquire their abilities in this incarnation? Bear in mind that shortly before that, from 1401–1464, the individuality of Copernicus was incarnated as Nicholas of Cusa,⁶⁵ a profound mystic. Think of the completely different mood of his docta ignorantia. How did the forces that made Copernicus so very different from Nicholas of Cusa enter this individuality?

The forces that made him the astronomer he was, came to him from Mars! Similarly, Galileo also received forces from Mars that invested him with the special configuration of a modern natural scientist. Giordano Bruno too, brought his powers with him from Mars, and so it is with the whole of mankind. That people think like Copernicus or Giordano Bruno is due to the Mars forces they acquire between death and a new birth.

But the acquisition of the kind of powers which lead from one triumph to another is due to the fact that Mars had a different influence in those times from what it exercised previously. Mars used to radiate different forces. The Mars culture that human beings experience between death and a new birth went through a great crisis in the earth's fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It was as decisive and catastrophic a time on Mars in the fifteenth and sixteenth century as it was on the earth at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha. Just as at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha the actual ego of man was born, there was born on Mars that particular tendency which, in man, comes to expression in Copernicanism. When these conditions came into force on Mars, the natural consequence would have been for Mars to continue sending down to earth human beings who only brought Copernican ideas with them, which are really only maya. What we are seeing, then, is the decline of the Mars culture. Previously, Mars had sent forth good forces. But now Mars sent forth more and more forces that would have led men deeper and deeper into maya. The achievements that were inspired by Mars at that time were ingenious and clever, but they were maya all the same.

So you see that in the fifteenth century you could have said Mars' salvation, and the earth's too, depended on the declining culture of Mars receiving a fresh impulse to raise it up again. It was somewhat similar on Mars to what it had been like on the earth before the Mystery of Golgotha, when humanity had fallen from spiritual heights into the depths of materialism, and the Christ Impulse had signified an ascent. In the fifteenth century the necessity had arisen on Mars for the Mars culture to receive an upward impulse. That was the significant question facing Christian Rosenkreutz and his pupils; how this upward impulse could be given to the Mars culture, for the salvation of the earth was also at stake. Rosicrucianism was faced with the mighty task of solving the problem of what had to happen so that, for the earth's sake, the Mars culture should be brought once more onto an ascending path. The beings on Mars were not in a position to know what would bring about their salvation, for the earth was the only place where one could know what the situation on Mars was like. On Mars itself they were unaware of the decline. Therefore it was in order to find a practical solution to this problem that the aforesaid conference met at the end of the sixteenth century. This conference was well prepared by Christian Rosenkreutz in that the closest friend and pupil of Christian Rosenkreutz was Gautama Buddha, living in a spirit body. And it was announced at this conference that the being who incarnated as Gautama Buddha, in the spiritual form he now had since becoming Buddha, would transfer the scene of his activities to Mars. The individuality of Gautama Buddha was as it were sent by Christian Rosenkreutz from the earth to Mars. So Gautama Buddha leaves the scene of his activity and goes to Mars, and in the year 1604 the individuality of Gautama Buddha accomplished for Mars a deed similar to what the Mystery of Golgotha was for the earth. Christian Rosenkreutz had known what the effect of Buddha on Mars would signify for the whole cosmos, what his teachings of Nirvana, of liberation from the earth, would signify on Mars. The teaching of Nirvana was unsuited to a form of culture directed primarily to practical life. Buddha's pupil, Francis of Assisi, was an example of the fact that this teaching produces in its adepts complete remoteness from the world and its affairs. But the content of Buddhism, which was not adapted to the practical life of man between birth and death, was of great importance for the soul between death and a new birth. Christian Rosenkreutz realised that for a certain purification needed on Mars the teachings of Buddha were pre-eminently suitable. The Christ Being, the essence of divine love, had once come down to the earth to a people in many respects alien, and in the seventeenth century Buddha, the prince of peace, went to Mars—the planet of war and conflict—to execute his mission there. The souls on Mars were warlike, torn with strife. Thus Buddha performed a deed of sacrifice similar to the deed performed in the Mystery of Golgotha by the bearer of the essence of divine love. To dwell on Mars as Buddha was a deed of sacrifice offered to the cosmos. He was as it were the lamb offered up in sacrifice on Mars, and to accept this environment of strife was for him a kind of crucifixion. Buddha performed this deed on Mars in the service of Christian Rosenkreutz. Thus do the great beings who guide the world work together not only on the earth but from one planet to another.

Since the mystery of Mars was consummated by Gautama Buddha, human beings have been able, during the period between death and a new birth, to receive from Mars different forces from those emanating during Mars' cultural decline. Not only does a man bring with him into a new birth quite different forces from Mars, but because of the influence exercised by the spiritual deed of Buddha, forces also stream from Mars into men who practise meditation as a means of reaching the spiritual world. When the modern pupil of Spiritual Science meditates in the sense indicated by Christian Rosenkreutz, forces sent to the earth by Buddha as the redeemer of Mars stream to him.

Christian Rosenkreutz is thus revealed to us as the great servant of Christ Jesus; but what Buddha, as the emissary of Christian Rosenkreutz, was destined to contribute to the work of Christ Jesus—this had also to come to the help of the work performed by Christian Rosenkreutz in the service of Christ Jesus. The soul of Gautama Buddha has not again been in physical incarnation on the earth but is utterly dedicated to the work of the Christ impulse. What was the word of peace sent forth from the Buddha to the child Jesus described in the Gospel of St. Luke? ‘Glory in the heights and on the earth—peace!’ And this word of peace, issuing mysteriously from Buddha, resounds from the planet of war and conflict to the soul of men on earth.

Because all these things had transpired it was possible to avert the division of human beings into the two distinct classes, consisting on the one hand of men of the type of Francis of Assisi, and on the other of men who live wholly as materialists. If Buddha had remained in direct and immediate connection with the earth, he would not have been able to concern himself with the ‘practical’ people, and his influence would have made the others into monks like Francis of Assisi. Through the deed of redemption performed by Gautama Buddha on Mars, it is possible for us, when we are passing through the Mars period of existence between death and a new birth, to become followers of Francis of Assisi without causing subsequent deprivation to the earth. Grotesque as it may seem, it is nevertheless true that since the seventeenth century every human being is a buddhist, a franciscan, an immediate follower of Francis of Assisi for a time, whilst he is on Mars. Francis of Assisi has subsequently only had one brief incarnation on earth as a child; and he died in childhood and has not incarnated since. From then onwards he has been connected with the work of Buddha on Mars and is one of his most eminent followers.

We have thus placed before our souls a picture of what came to pass through that great conference at the end of the sixteenth century, which resembles what happened on earth in the thirteenth century when Christian Rosenkreutz gathered his faithful around him. Nothing less was accomplished than that the possibility was given of averting from humanity the threatened separation into two classes, so that men might remain inwardly united. And those who want to develop esoterically despite their absorption in practical life can achieve their goal because the Buddha is working from the sphere of Mars and not from the sphere of the earth. Those forces which help to promote a healthy esoteric life can therefore also be attributed to the work and influence of Buddha.

In my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, I have dealt with the methods that are appropriate for meditation today. The essential point is that in rosicrucian training, development is such that the human being is not torn away from the earthly activities demanded of him by his karma. Rosicrucian esoteric development can proceed without causing the slightest disturbance in any situation or occupation in life. Because Christian Rosenkreutz was capable of transferring the work of Buddha from the earth to Mars it has become possible for Buddha also to send his influences into men from outside the earth.

Again, then, we have heard of one of the spiritual deeds of Christian Rosenkreutz; but to understand these deeds of the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries we must find our way to their esoteric meaning and significance. It would be good if it were generally realised how entirely consistent the progress of theosophy in the West has been since the founding of the Middle European section of the Theosophical Society.⁶⁶ Here in Switzerland we have given lecture cycles on the four Gospels.⁶⁷ The substance of all these Gospel cycles is potentially contained in my book Christianity as Mystical Fact, written twelve years ago. The book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment describes the Western path of development that is compatible with practical activities of every kind. Today I have indicated that a basic factor in these matters is the mission assigned to Gautama Buddha by Christian Rosenkreutz, for I have spoken of the significant influence which the transference of Buddha to Mars made possible in our solar system. And so stone after stone fits into its proper place in our Western philosophy, for it has been built up consistently and in obedience to principle, and everything that comes later harmonises with what went before. Inner consistency is essential in any world conception if it is to stand upon the ground of truth. And those who are able to draw near to Christian Rosenkreutz see with reverent wonder in what a consistent way he has carried out the great mission entrusted to him, which in our time is the rosicrucian-christian path of development. That the great teacher of Nirvana is now fulfilling a mission outside the earth, on Mars—this too is one of the wise and consistent deeds of Christian Rosenkreutz.

A Concluding Indication

In conclusion, the following brief practical indication will be added for those who aspire to become pupils of Christian Rosenkreutz.

A year ago we heard how the knowledge of having a certain relationship to Christian Rosenkreutz may come to a man involuntarily. It is also possible, however, to put a kind of question to one's own destiny: ‘Can I make myself worthy to become a pupil of Christian Rosenkreutz?’ It can come about in the following way: Try to place before your soul a picture of Christian Rosenkreutz, the great teacher of the modern age, in the midst of the twelve, sending forth Gautama Buddha into the cosmos as his emissary at the beginning of the seventeenth century, thus bringing about a consummation of what came to pass in the sixth century before Christ in the sermon of Benares.⁶⁸

If this picture, with its whole import, stands vividly before the soul, if a man feels that something streaming from this great and impressive picture wrings from his soul the words: O man, thou art not merely an earthly being; thou art in truth a cosmic being!—then he may believe with quiet confidence: ‘I can aspire to become a pupil of Christian Rosenkreutz.’ This picture of the relationship of Christian Rosenkreutz to Gautama Buddha is a potent and effective meditation.

And I wanted to awaken this aspiration in you as a result of these considerations. For our ideal should always be to take an interest in world happenings and then to find the way, by means of these studies, to carry out our own development into higher worlds.

• 59. a year ago, when it was said: see pages 36 et seq. [27 Sep 1911]
• 60. Nicholas Copernicus: 1473 – 1543.
• 61. Giordano Bruno: 1548 – 1600.
• 62. Galileo Galilei: 1564 – 1642.
• 63. earlier Ptolemaic view: Claudius Ptolemy, circa 100 to 180 AD., astronomer, mathematician and geographer in Alexandria.
• 64. Copernicus: Book of the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres: De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium Libri VI, Nurnberg 1543.
• 65. before that, from 1401 – 1464, the individuality of Copernicus was incarnated as Nicholas of Cusa: the relationship of these two individualities was presented in greater detail in the lectures given in 1909, ‘Das Prinzip der spirituellen Oekonomie im Zusammenhang mit Wiederverkoerperungsfragen. Ein Aspekt der geistigen Führung der Menscheit’ (The Principle of Spiritual Economy in Relation to Questions of Reincarnation. An Aspect of the Spiritual Guidance of Mankind), GA 109/111 Dornach, 1965. Nicholas of Cusa: 1401 – 64. Wrote his work ‘De docta ignorantia Libri III’ in 1440.
• 66. since the founding of the Middle European section of the Theosophical Society: see Rudolf Steiner ‘The Anthroposophical Movement, its History and Life-Conditions in Relation to the Anthroposophical Society; an Occasion for Self-Recollection’, 8 lectures Dornach, June, 1923; London, 1933.
• 67. Here in Switzerland we have given lecture cycles on the four Gospels: ‘Das Johannes-Evangelium’ (The Gospel of St. John), 8 lectures, Basle, November 1907, in ‘Menschheitsentwicklung und Christuserkenntnis’ (Human Evolution and Knowledge of Christ) GA 100 Dornach, 1967; ‘The Gospel of St. Luke’. 10 lectures, Basle, September, 1909, Rudolf Steiner Press London, 1975; ‘The Gospel of St. Matthew’, 12 lectures, Berne, September 1910, Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1965; ‘The Gospel of St. Mark’, 10 lectures, Basle, September, 1912, Rudolf Steiner Press, London, 1977.
• 68. sermon of Benares: Buddha's first sermon after his enlightenment: ‘The eightfold path, the cause of suffering and the alleviation of suffering.’