The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Distinguished attendees! There is no doubt that, under the influence of the war catastrophe that has touched humanity so deeply, and the outcome of which is by no means already clear, many circles have already come to the conclusion that the tasks that have arisen from the development of humanity can by no means be solved with small means; above all, it cannot be solved with the means by which one believed, in the various fields of public life, one could cope before this catastrophe, which devastated civilization so much.

Among the victors, however, there still prevails today, I might say, an understandable mood that does not make it seem necessary to move from old habits of thought, from old feelings and will impulses to new ones. And basically there are very few personalities, especially in the victorious countries, who are already somehow willing to depart from the old habits of thinking and feeling about the public affairs of humanity. One would like to say, like a white raven, the man who was present at these important negotiations for part of the time during the negotiations in Versailles, John Maynard Keynes. This John Maynard Keynes has just gained an impression from the negotiations in Versailles that no possible outcome for the shaping of the present civilized world can emerge from the attitudes and schools of thought that prevailed there.

In his introduction today, I would like to mention a very vivid picture painted by John Maynard Keynes of the personalities who were so decisive for the fate of Europe at that time. He points to the one who has long been regarded as a kind of political savior by a large part of the world, whose abstract, unrealistic 14 points were recognized for a short time in Germany as a basis for peace. Keynes points out how this man, when he arrived in Versailles, under triumph that was actually meant for the image that had been made of him, proved to be completely out of touch with the current situation in Europe, as he had absolutely no capacity to engage with what was put to him. It is fair to say – and this is entirely fitting for Keynes's comments, who after all witnessed it all – that he allowed himself to be taken in by those who were so significant for the future of Europe at the time, by Clemenceau and Lloyd George. Woodrow Wilson was seen as a savior of the world. John Maynard Keynes, who left the negotiations in Versailles early despite being an English member of parliament because of the hopelessness of the negotiations, characterizes Wilson as a man whose intentions were not at all suited to providing any kind of impetus for reality. He characterizes Clemenceau as a man who had actually overslept the whole of more recent developments since 1871, who was only still filled with the moods that one had in France at the time, and who, with a wild rage, did everything he could to shape Europe as he had to imagine it according to his old habits of thought, actually national habits.

And Keynes characterized Lloyd George, his own Prime Minister, as follows: Despite his ability to intuitively perceive the thoughts of others, he was only looking for results with which he could shine for a few weeks in England, in London.

Then Keynes wrote his book about the economic consequences of this ill-fated peace treaty. And this book seems to me to be a remarkable symptom of the state of mind, the whole way of thinking and feeling, that is present in our current public life. For this book, if you have carefully gone through it, you get the feeling that it should actually be twice as thick as it is, because the most important thing is only pointed out on the last page, and basically, any elaboration is missing for these references.

John Maynard Keynes is an economic politician. He is well aware that the design of Europe - and this is certainly proven by current events - that the design of Europe, which one imagined in Versailles to be able to achieve, is not lasting at all. He calculates this, so to speak, from the economic measures that were taken in Versailles. And it is remarkable, ladies and gentlemen, that he calculates all this as an Englishman, as an English-thinking person. And then he says something very strange at the end: All signs indicate that if a broad reflection does not occur, we will be led into barbarism within the modern European civilized world. And he says nothing less than this: The affairs of the near future will not be determined by the actions of statesmen, but by currents of thought and feeling and will beneath the surface of what is usually called “public life.” Yes, he says much more. He says: If we do not develop completely new powers of perception and, as he puts it, imagination with regard to public affairs – he means visualizing certain images that we need to shape the future – we cannot move forward. This is how this manifesto of a significant statesman and thinker of the present day concludes. And yet one has to ask the question: Yes, but how is humanity supposed to develop within these intimate currents hinted at by Keynes? Where are they supposed to come from? Where are new forces of knowledge, where are new forces of imagination about the shaping of our economic conditions supposed to come from?

This book concludes with a huge question mark regarding the great tasks of the present day, but so do all the negotiations that have been conducted so far after the provisional outcome of the great world catastrophe in 1918. And only because it has taken on a different form are people calming down a little about it for the time being.

You see, my esteemed audience, the great questions of the present will naturally have to arise in those areas that were actually the basic areas of all public and community life for humanity. They will have to arise in the areas of intellectual life, of state and legal life, and in the area of economic life. Admittedly, we have to say that a large number of people today only see the great tasks of the time in the area of economic life. But anyone who, I might say, with the same objective but somewhat deeper than Keynes, is able to see through public affairs, cannot help but say to himself: the great tasks of the time are not being solved today with what one has been accustomed to thinking, which has led to the catastrophe. Completely new impulses are needed. And these new impulses, where must they come from?

I believe, esteemed attendees, that we will not arrive at an answer to this question if we do not look at it from a certain point of view, which I would like to suggest here, if we do not observe how thinking and feeling and looking at the world has developed in recent times, since the last three to four centuries, especially within Europe, but also within its offshoot, America. We must look at human thinking. Most people in the present still do not want to think about this, that ultimately everything in the state and ultimately everything in economic conditions ultimately comes from human thinking.

If we look a little deeper again, without prejudice, and look at the European situation in particular, we clearly see a kind of declining life, and on the other hand a kind of rising life. The declining life, viewed spiritually, is actually still a kind of inheritance from ancient human cultures. In Europe, we have impulses of world view that express themselves in philosophies, religious beliefs and other things. Today, however, we do not ask ourselves thoroughly enough where these ideological impulses actually come from. We will think more freely about these ideological impulses, which are also present in our economic life, when we are clear about what has actually only been clearly drawn from Western culture into this ancient oriental heritage of a world view culture since the last three to four centuries. Has it not been emphasized often enough – and from a certain point of view one is quite right to do so – that the greatest source of pride in modern times should be the spirit of science that has emerged in the last three to four centuries? Of course, old beliefs and the like are still deeply ingrained in a large part of the population of the civilized world today. These should not be spoken of in a critical way; their value should be fully recognized. But what could be called the greatest authority in the life of thought, feeling and perception in modern times is indisputably that which has emerged as the spirit of science.

When speaking of this scientific spirit, one must not only look at what lives in an upper class, where science as such is practised. The scientific spirit can also mean something else. Today, in an age when popular literature and newspapers reach even the seemingly uneducated, one can speak of the fact that perhaps not the scientific results and insights as such, but their offshoots, that which arises from them as a way of feeling, penetrates into the widest circles. Today, one can be a good Catholic or a good Protestant in one's inner life and in terms of one's religious confession; but when it comes to judging what is immediate reality, what surrounds one in life, then one regards the modern spirit of science as the actual authority. And this spirit of science is, after all, what we can follow in the social views of the present. We can trace it in the social views that have gradually developed among the proletariat throughout Europe since the mid-nineteenth century. Within this social view, people have always been proud of the fact that what they imagined as a social organization should be carried by the spirit of modern “unbiased science”. And to this day, one will find that even such destroyers of public life as appear in Eastern Europe, that even Trotsky and Lenin, when they want to talk about the foundations of their social thinking, then assert this spirit of science. So that one can say: in these social utopias, which, however, gain a very unfortunate reality, this spirit of science wants to be shaped.

This spirit of science has its clearest form in all that has emerged in recent times in the Western, more materialistic way of thinking and looking at things. It is not so much rooted in the Central European way of thinking, because, my dear attendees, if you take such characteristic personalities of Central Europe as Herder, Goethe, Fichte, Schiller, and also the German philosophers, you will find something quite different in their way of thinking from that of an Adam Smith or an English philosopher like Spencer or Darwin. On the other hand, it can be said that the spirit of science, which spread across the civilized world from the west, gradually engulfed the very different ideas that the personalities just mentioned sought to assert in Central Europe. And if we want to grasp what has asserted itself as modern science, then we have to juxtapose this scientific approach with the greatest question that exists for human beings, the greatest question that arises from our desire for knowledge as well as from his longing to gain enlightenment about his place in the world, to gain impetus for his social action, yes, which is also the most significant question when it is about the origin of the noblest in community life, about the activity of love among people. And the most important question is that concerning the essence of the human being itself. Recognizing the human being, understanding the human being, getting along with the human being, being able to live together with people – that is ultimately what all human thought must tend towards if the human being is not to lose the ground from under his feet.

And just look at how little, in the field of knowledge, what can be called the modern spirit of science has actually come to terms with.

It is not at all the intention of anthroposophically oriented spiritual science to belittle what the spirit of natural science or any other scientific spirit has achieved in modern times. No, my dear ladies and gentlemen, with regard to the recognition of the great triumphs and the full significance of modern science for life, I am at least in full agreement with all the eulogists of this spirit of science. That much should be acknowledged from the outset, and I agree from the outset with all those who speak of the importance of this spirit of science. But something else must be said if the highest goal of human beings, as just characterized – knowledge of the human being, insight into the human essence, seeing through to the very foundations of love – if that is to be placed alongside this spirit of science.

Let us take the field of knowledge first. Here we see – let me pick out an example that is well known in the widest circles – here we see how magnificently this science was able to pursue, out of the Darwinian-Spencerian spirit, which was then perfected in a somewhat different way by the German Haeckel, how this scientific spirit was able to follow the whole series of organisms in their development. To follow how that which appears to us as perfect emerges from the imperfect and how, at the pinnacle of this development, humans stand as physical beings. But one should just try to gain an unbiased view of what is actually presented.

How do we understand the human being from this point of view? Well, we follow everything that is found in the human being, in his organization, even in his soul life, through the entire series of animals. Again, with a certain right from one point of view, and by having become acquainted with everything that is organization, with everything that is the condition of organic life, by having become acquainted with this through the series of animals up to man, one understands him as a more perfect animal, but one must actually stop at that. By applying everything we have learned about the non-human world to humans, we can say that humans are at the top of the animal kingdom, but we only characterize them based on what we have learned about the world outside of humans, and we are left powerless in the face of the big question: What is a human being? One is satisfied with this, because one cannot recognize the human being from the human being, but only from the extra-human.

Whoever visualizes the full tragedy of this modern scientific spirit, which by its very nature must stop at nothing, will understand how perhaps today in the subconscious depths of the soul of the majority of humanity, precisely the question of the nature of the human being is gnawing away, and how it works as a longing for something other than what this modern scientific spirit can give.

How do we see this scientific spirit at work, my dear audience, in the field of knowledge? How do we see it at work within social feeling? Within the view of social conditions?

We have to go back a little further, because what is still alive in the present is actually, in this respect, the result of what has developed over a long period of time within the European world. We must bear in mind that our European state structures, which are now crumbling, emerged from the remnants of what I would call “the ancient oriental heritage” in terms of world view. The spirit of science that asserted itself in the West is entirely different from the oriental spirit, which still asserts itself in the Christian creeds – not in Christianity, I will come back to that in a moment.

For this oriental spirit, the question of the essence of man is at the forefront. He does not know the same extent as the Western world, what I just mentioned before as the extra-human. This oriental spirit, which we find today in the Orient only in decadence, in decline, which in older times developed into its special greatness, it thought little of external experience. He did not think much of what we today rightly know as observation of nature and methodically base our world view on. He drew what he wanted to know about man, what he also wanted to implant in social life, from inner human enlightenment, from inner human imagination. If we want to characterize the difference between this oriental spirit and the spirit of western science, we have to say: this oriental spirit actually has a worldview through direct human intuition without science. That is the remarkable thing, and it can still be observed today in the Christian faiths. In later centuries, in medieval centuries, people no longer understood in the right way how the ancient oriental people came to this worldview without a spirit of science; but they took its content, the content they gave to the world, the content of enlightenment, of inner imagination. It has become grafted into European spiritual life. It could not be recognized as coming from there because the spiritual abilities that existed in the ancient Orient were no longer present.

And so the following came about as a development of humanity: let us look at what, for the spiritual researcher, is at the center of all of humanity's development on earth; let us look at the event of Golgotha, at the founding of Christianity. It arose out of spiritual foundations. I will only hint at this today, as I have discussed it in numerous writings, especially in the book 'Christianity as a Mystical Fact'. But the event of Golgotha is one thing as a fact, as something that happened; the way in which this event of Golgotha was understood at the time it happened and in the centuries immediately following is something else. It was understood through what had been handed down from ancient Oriental wisdom, without any spirit of science, from Asia through Greece and Rome. Understanding the mystery of Golgotha is, after all, different from the event of Golgotha itself. People wanted to understand the event of Golgotha with ancient Oriental worldviews, and they understood it for a long time.

And in the Middle Ages, what came into effect then? We see a strange clash between the ancient oriental in the human disposition and that which is already emerging as the dawn of the modern age. We see two powers established in the human soul in the Middle Ages, precisely in the Catholic spirit. We see references to the Revelation, which is said to come to man from transcendental heights, without seeking a human origin for it. And on the other hand, we see what human reason, human experience itself, is supposed to encompass. Both are given equal validity in this period. As newer human development emerges, that which is called revelation, but which is actually only the inheritance of the old, oriental spirit of world view, is increasingly being undermined. This no longer applies to actual public thinking and feeling [as an authority], even if it still asserts its authority within certain limits. And the other authority, which was to some extent only placed alongside the authority of revelation in the Middle Ages, namely the authority of reason, develops into the modern spirit of science. This modern spirit of science – what has it not yet achieved today?

Well, we have seen in the field of knowledge: it fails when it comes from the extra-human to the human. It knows nothing to counter the human yearning for knowledge of the human being. But it also knew nothing of the essence of the human being to bring into human vision in the social field. This development of European science without a worldview, it is basically extremely interesting. It presents itself in such a way that one sees: As the final product of that which basically comes from the ancient Orient, via the detour through the Arabs, and other detours, what then remains as something certain, as something authoritative, which also has an oriental origin , such as the creeds based on revelation, but which are not recognized as such, but are instead attributed to the character of science - what is that?

Dear attendees, that is the content of all mathematics. Just as its confession, the European human being has received his mathematics and the mechanical thinking related to it, which then lived out in the materialism of science, from the Orient, albeit very filtered. And in Europe, that which is, so to speak, the final product of the ancient oriental worldview, that which can arise out of the human being alone, for mathematics cannot be experienced externally, it must arise out of the human being, just like the ancient oriental worldview. And what has come to the European people is recognized by Galileo, by Newton, by the whole Western scientific spirit. It is one wing of the being that flies through the development of modern humanity, carrying the spirit of science to its highest heights. We see the mathematical spirit emerging, penetrating even the atoms with mathematics. The mathematical spirit is one side of modern science. And the other side, the other wing of this creature, which I have symbolically indicated, is what we can call the observation of the external world, the external observation of man himself.

This faithful observation of the external world was unknown to the Oriental. It is therefore not preserved in what remains of the old oriental world view, nor in the creeds. But it was revived within the European spirit of science. It is the other side of this spirit of science. This spirit of science grows out of two things: out of what arises from within the human being as mathematical thinking and observing, and out of what comes from observation. That which has been drawn into the soul of the European human being, especially the Western human being, has now also become decisive for social thinking. Anyone who, for example, can follow Adam Smith, Ricardo, all social thinkers up to Marx, up to the present ones, with an unprejudiced mind, will see that these two elements, which first entered into the scientific spirit, continue to be effective in social thinking as well. One need only survey with an unbiased mind what Adam Smith, and later Marx and others, have expounded, and one will find the thinking of Newton on the one hand, and the thinking of a mind like Spencer on the other, everywhere. And that which inspired Darwin to his theory of evolution can be found everywhere. But just as this spirit of science stopped in its tracks when it came to knowledge, and could not become a worldview in the field of knowledge, it could not become world-shaping in the social field. And so we see how this spirit, which has only been realized in these outstanding personalities, but which is basically inherent in all of European humanity, moves into a practical life that is increasingly becoming a true reflection of this spirit. Just as knowledge stops at the human being, so too does social life, in principle, stop at the human being.

What has this modern scientific spirit, which has educated and trained the leading minds, actually been able to achieve? Well, my dear audience, it has been able to achieve the magnificent modern technology. On the one hand, it introduced mathematical thinking into machines, into modern industrialism, into the modern monetary system, and even into the social organization of modern humanity. In this, this spirit has been great.

We can say that everything that is numerically recorded in the books of modern industry, of modern practice in general, is an image of this spirit that has become technology out of mathematics.

By contrast, little of the other, which is only just beginning to emerge, has been able to penetrate into the human being himself: observation, which is only now taking place on a large scale in the natural sciences. The fact that it has not been possible to penetrate to the human being with knowledge shows that it has not been possible to develop the strength to approach the human being in such a way as to understand the innermost part of the human being. What exists as a mere spirit of science in Adam Smith, in Ricardo and others, is evident in the whole of modern thinking, in that practice has become uninspired, that it has become a mere routine, that great in it is only the technique ; that great in it is everything that can come to the foothills of this technique, that can be great only in the work on the machine, but stops there, like knowledge before the human being, before all practical life, before social life. On the one hand, it stops short of man in knowledge; on the other hand, it stops short of man in social life. A person who today manages a factory, who is involved in a commercial enterprise or some other branch of modern practical life, cannot receive any education from what our scientific spirit in the West is, other than one that allows him to think right down to the very fibers of the technical, but which stops him as a foreman in front of the one who does the work.

It stops before man. It is terribly painful to follow this halting with inner understanding. Whoever looks into the human fabric of the present day sees how the leading and guiding circles, for whom the spirit of science has become authority, stop at nothing. They can enter everything that comes from the mathematical wing into their books, but how the education that comes from it as a people's education, as an education of the spirit, leaves no understanding for the human being as such. And so there is a boundary between people and people. And this boundary has become the terrible fate of modern civilization. Because that which could not be written in any head or cash book, where only the technical outflows are written, right down to the treatment of people, that arose in modern times with the demands of a humane existence, with other demands. And basically, even today there is no understanding to be found for the language that another class speaks in each case, for one class. People have lost their understanding for one another when they are in different classes, because the deeper understanding for the human being with the knowledge-understanding, also with the understanding, with the interest in practical life, has been lost. Today, the practitioner is a routinier, he is not informed by ideas. Why? Because the education that the modern spirit of science has brought with it does not allow him to bring ideas into actual social life at all, but has to stop at technical life.

This, ladies and gentlemen, points to one of the greatest tasks of the present day, because if nothing could be contributed to the solution of this greatest task, then such a fate would have to be fulfilled by modern humanity, as Oswald Spengler, with an ingenious eye but an all the more ingenious error, developed from an insight into almost all of the sciences of the present day. It is painful enough that today we not only see this decline happening, but also that there are brilliant scholars, but also brilliant aberrations, who prove with the same rigorous scientific method that the development will lead to barbarism, just as any historical or scientific thing is rigorously proven today.

My dear attendees, it was the insight into these circumstances that led to what I have been calling for two decades “anthroposophically oriented spiritual science” receiving its special tasks from the catastrophic events of recent times, which have grown together with the great tasks of the present. I may refer to a few specific examples.

In the last few weeks of September and the first of October, we were able to hold a series of university courses at the School of Spiritual Science in Dornach. Thirty lecturers were involved in these university courses, thirty people who have emerged from modern specialized science. Lecturers who worked in the fields of mathematics, linguistics, history, law, psychology, philosophy, economics, practical life – I could list many more areas – and also in the most important areas of medicine, healing and so on. What should these university courses, which differ radically from everything else that is currently presented to the world as intellectual life, seek to demonstrate?

Yes, let us start from what many well-meaning people today have already formed as their view. They think it necessary to renew modern human consciousness out of the spirit; we cannot try to do it with economic and state matters alone. We must take hold of the thinking of humanity, we must take hold of the world view.

Yes, but what do they actually want? They want to take what has been cultivated in modern educational institutions, through popular educational institutions, through adult education centers, and through popular educational associations, and bring it to the broadest sections of the population. They want to be progressive in almost all areas, while remaining conservative in the actual field of ideas. For it is believed that what we have as a modern scientific spirit is good enough. But anyone who looks impartially at modern life must say to themselves: the circles in which this life, this modern scientific spirit, with all its results, even for the practical routine – for that is what it has become under its influence – has affected, they have also sailed into the modern world catastrophe. Do we believe that that which it did not protect from this catastrophe should now be blessed by spreading it throughout the world? The same spirit that caused harm, that was bound to cause harm among a few, would cause even greater harm among many. Therefore, in Dornach, within the spirit of this School of Spiritual Science, on an anthroposophical basis, we do not stand on the conservative ground that the spiritual life that exists in our educational institutions should simply be carried out into the world, but that out of a new spirit, out of a renewal of the spiritual life, the necessary spirit, the spirit of the future, should first be carried into the educational institutions themselves – only then will it be able to take hold of the people.

Now I can well understand how one can be skeptical about what underlies this consideration, what underlay the Dornach college courses: anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. But I believe that a large proportion of those who listened – and there were very many of them, especially from the German student body – that those who listened got the impression: This anthroposophically oriented spiritual science is not something that floats in a cloud cuckoo land of abstract ideas, but something that can have an effect on all branches of scientific, but also on all branches of practical life, which can transform the routine precisely in the field of practical life into reality imbued with ideas. One wants practical spirit in the spiritual life that is at stake.

Now it may seem absurd to modern people – I can understand that quite well, that it seems absurd to the old way of thinking – that something as intimate as anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, which I will describe in its basic features in a moment, should improve the impracticality of more recent times. People have simply become too accustomed to being caught up in routine, in uninspired practice. And they have become accustomed to letting theory be theory, because they basically only knew this theory as a sum of abstractions, and because they could not bring much more into practical life from what remained of the old Oriente as a worldview life than the first page in the account books, where it says “with God”. Whether there is a great deal of this attitude on the other pages, I leave to my contemporaries to judge more precisely.

What is anthroposophically oriented spiritual science? My dear attendees, first of all, it should be mentioned that this anthroposophically oriented spiritual science does not want to abandon the strictly scientific spirit that has asserted itself within modern civilization, but that, on the contrary, it wants to fully develop it. It is no coincidence that the name of the School of Spiritual Science in Dornach is the Goetheanum. The Goethean attitude is to be cultivated, developed, formed further. Goethe already had many elements of this modern anthroposophical spirit. However, he had a feeling that whatever he asserted in the field of science, that everything one says and scientifically means about living beings, for example, must be justifiable before the strictest mathematical spirit; only someone who can conscientiously justify himself before the strictest mathematician can be considered a scientist. That is precisely what this spiritual science wants. But it wants to let that which otherwise only comes to light in mathematics as the last remnant of the ancient oriental world view arise from the human being in a more lively way. There are methods – you can find more details in my “Occult Science”, in “How to Know Higher Worlds” and other writings – there are methods by which the inner human soul life can be treated in such a way that it develops. I would like to illustrate this with the following:

Let us turn our attention to a child who is still imperfect, to a five-year-old child. We put a volume of lyrical poems by Goethe in front of this child. What will he do with it? It will probably tear up the booklet if it is a healthy child. It will have no relationship to what the little book actually means. Ten years later or fifteen years later, the child will already have a different relationship; it will be able to immerse itself in what the little book actually means. It is the same with people in later years of life. However, one must penetrate to an intellectual modesty if one wants to approach anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. Intellectual modesty recognizes that, however old a person has become, they came to methodically develop their inner soul abilities. As I said, I have described the methods in the books mentioned and would just like to indicate that one can, through a particular deepening of the life of the imagination, through such a deepening of the life of the imagination, which, above all, arises from the will in the soul through meditation, that through such a treatment of the life of imagination, which I cannot describe in detail here, one can come to deepen certain forces in the human being that can otherwise be developed through ordinary education. And what I mean by intellectual modesty leads one to the conclusion that through what one develops simply through ordinary education, the world of one's surroundings and the world of the human being itself lies before one, as the Goethe book lies before the five-year-old child. One must develop the inner soul power to a higher level, then one learns to read the book of nature in a different way. Then one approaches this book of nature with different powers of the human soul.

What are these human soul abilities that one develops? In ordinary consciousness, as everyone knows, what we call memory plays an enormous role. We need this ability to remember. If it becomes even slightly ill, if only a small part of what we have in our memory is erased in the human soul, if there is a discontinuity of memory, then the soul suffers shipwreck. The illnesses that can occur as a result of this memory disorder are terrible. Memory is a force for normal theoretical and practical human life, but it can be further developed.

What is it, then, in our ordinary consciousness that makes us who we are in the present moment, in our very soul? After all, we are fundamentally what we are in every age of our lives through our memory. What we have experienced in life since childhood, what has settled in our innermost being, sometimes in the subconscious of our soul life, is what actually makes up our being in the present moment. And we look at this being by looking back from what we are at the present time, remembering what we have experienced since childhood. It is precisely this power, ladies and gentlemen, that can be developed to a higher level of knowledge.

Even today, very few people believe this. In this field, it is just as it was at the time of Copernicus, for example, when very few people believed what Copernicus said about world phenomena. Today, very few people still believe that by immersing oneself in certain ideas through meditation, by not surrendering, as is usually the case in the outer life, to the ordinary course of ideas, but by immersing oneself in ideas that one has first formed or that one has transmitted from a teacher, to remain absorbed in such ideas for years through strict, inwardly regulated exercises, exercises that are regulated like the laws of calculation, mathematics, geometry – few people believe that this can be achieved by strictly scientific methods, just as strictly scientific as work in a chemical laboratory. But it is possible that we can further develop the human capacity for memory through this; develop it in such a way that not only our present mental life appears to us as a result of our experiences and what we have experienced since our birth, but that our whole being appears to us, how it stands with its physical body in the world, how he has entered it through heredity with his physical body at birth, or rather at conception, into this physical world, is the result of events that preceded his conception, not only in the merely human, but within the whole cosmos. Just as one looks back through one's ordinary memory to one's life since childhood, so one learns to look back to something that lies outside this life between birth or conception and death. One learns to look back on what the human being was spiritually before he became physical. One gets to know the reality of spiritual life. One gets to know what the human being still carries within him today as something eternal, from which his cognitive, community and social life radiates, in his experience of a life before birth or conception. And one learns to answer a significant question: Why does such an insight into prenatal life, into the life of a human being in the spirit, appear so absurd to today's Western humanity? And one learns to recognize that the eternal part of the human being has only been cultivated on the other side through centuries, even millennia.

This was not the case during the heyday of worldviews in the Orient. This is how it became in the West. People wanted to speak to the soul life with human selfishness. And human egoism also influenced what was developed as a view of the eternal in man. As a result, no belief, no knowledge, no insight into the eternal was gained, because only the end of life that passes through the gate of death was considered. This is even expressed in outward appearances. We have a word “immortality”, we use it to point to what lies beyond death. But in our present language we have no word that expresses that this eternal was there before birth or conception, we have no word, such as unbirthliness, being unborn or the like as an ordinary word. We have no word that corresponds to the word immortality as the other side of life.

But then, when we use strict methods to develop that which in ordinary life only lives as memory into a [higher] faculty of knowledge, then knowledge becomes not mere belief, but insight, that which the human being has experienced before he was taken up into the hereditary stream of physical life through conception. This will one day become true science, as the Copernican and Keplerian worldviews became true science. But it will become science; it will not be mere belief. For belief arose precisely because people only looked at the afterlife, not at the prenatal life.

In order to be able to look at the prenatal, one cannot remain with the soul life as before; one must develop other powers. Knowledge of the higher worlds is not given as a grace; it is only attained through inner effort. But then what has been discovered about the eternal nature of man spreads like a light, and also to the natural world around us. Then all the laws of nature that we learn about will be imbued with spirit. Then we will no longer speak of a materialistic world of atoms, but of a spirit that also underlies nature and from which we are born.

So you see, in the field of knowledge, anthroposophically oriented spiritual science opens up a perspective on the question: What is the human being? It does not stop at the human being. It goes right to the heart of what is man's deepest yearning for knowledge in relation to his own nature. And that which has been drawn into the modern world as an observing spirit must, so to speak, deepen of its own accord when a person undergoes such inner soul exercises. When a person truly develops within themselves a higher faculty of knowledge that can look beyond birth into the spiritual world, their approach to external observation becomes quite different from that of mere natural science. In this natural science, we are proud, and I emphasize again: with full justification, to observe that in which we have as little human part as possible, where the human interior is not involved. But, my dear audience, anyone who, through the power of imagination, works on their soul in such a way that their ability to remember reaches a higher level, will also be directly encouraged to further develop the other powers of the soul, especially the will. If he does this, if he also develops the will higher under the constant onslaught of the cognitive faculty, as I have just shown in its higher development, then the relationship that we otherwise have to external nature becomes one of inner devotion. Then one does not remain on the surface and merely state material atoms that one invents and that are not found, but one grows together with what is inside things. Only now do we begin to understand Goethe's view, which he wanted to express when he used the words against Haller, which you are well aware of. Haller had said:

No created spirit can penetrate into the innermost part of nature.

Happy he to whom she only shows the outer shell.

And Goethe replied:

“Into the innermost part of nature” - Oh, you philistines —
“No created spirit can penetrate,"
you may mention such a word
only not to me and my brothers and sisters
. We think: place by place
we are within.
“Happy the one who sees
only the outer shell!"
I hear that repeated for sixty years,
I curse it, but furtively,
Tell me a thousand, a thousand times:
She gives everything abundantly and gladly,
Nature has neither core nor
Shell,
She is everything at once;
She only tests you, most of all,
Whether you are core or shell.

This does not come naturally to man either. He must develop his will to a higher level. He must, so to speak, develop in his inner soul being that which is otherwise expressed as will emotions in his outer life. I can express myself in the following way: Our knowledge, namely our knowledge of nature, usually remains what we call objective, impersonal. But when we are in the midst of our ordinary lives, when we are with our friends, when we are dealing with our own destiny, with what we have to do in life, then we are bound to our surroundings with interest. Then our personal life wells up within us. Then we experience joy and pain, pleasure and suffering; in exaltation and in what we feel as depression, as despair, we experience something inwardly. On a higher level, just as objectively as anything else becomes objective in science, one can, if one [develops the will] through the methods I have described in “How to Know Higher Worlds”, delve into the essence of things. With the innermost human being, one is, as it were, immersed in the interior of natural things. One does not, however, discover atoms, but spiritual realities, that which underlies natural phenomena as a spiritual, humanly related supporting force. And one now makes a special discovery in relation to cognition and willful penetration into nature. If one has trained one's memory to look at prenatal life, one notices that everything becomes dark and silent, unclear and uncomfortable if one does not stand on the same strict spirit of science as the external science.

My dear attendees, with mystical ramblings, with all that is expressed in popular theosophy, with all this enthusiasm and all this fantasy, one does not get along with what true spiritual research is. All this rambling mysticism only descends into ambiguity. With the spirit that one has first been educated in modern science, one must seek this development of the soul, as I have indicated. Only then does one understand how science continues into the human being.

But then, when one wants to enter into the inner being of nature through the development of willpower, one then realizes what one is missing if one does not develop it ever further and further. What is so very beautiful in ordinary life, but is influenced by selfishness, must be had; it must be had in the fullest sense if one wants to immerse oneself in the beings of the world through willpower. One must have love for all the beings around one. Anyone who cannot develop love, completely selfless love, the only passion of the human being that is free of selfishness – many a great mind has expressed itself precisely in relation to love – anyone who does not have this true love in their personality will notice how darkness and coldness confront them when they want to immerse themselves, to give themselves to the outer world, to outer nature, when they want to find the spirit in the external world. In this way, through the cultivation of the will, observation can be fathomed, which, due to the modern spirit of science, only remains on the surface. And when one fathoms observation by penetrating into what is to be observed, one learns to recognize yet another.

In the same way that the spirit of knowledge allows us to look at prenatal life, we now learn to look with a new spirit at what has developed since birth as our soul life. At first it takes on abstract forms, just as it appears to ordinary introspection, self-knowledge. But when we develop what I have characterized as immersion in the external world, as a deepened sense of observation, then we come to know what we are in every moment of our lives, what we are at the present moment, as the spiritual soul germ of the future. Then belief in immortality is transformed into the realization of immortality.

But what must be brought to the people if he is to develop this kind of knowledge? I have said that on the one hand, on the side of knowledge, the right spirit of science must be developed. But it does not stop, it does not stop at the human being. This spirit of science becomes a worldview. And we have to establish a science for the future that can be a worldview, just as the old orientalism had a worldview that was free of science. And we have to grasp anew from this science, which can be a worldview again, an experienced worldview, what the mystery of Golgotha, the mystery of Christianity, is. (This mystery of Golgotha is a fact.) It is a calumny when it is said here or there that anthroposophical spiritual science disregards Christianity. No, it is precisely cowardice when one wants to claim that Christianity has something to lose when a new spiritual stage of human development approaches this Christianity, approaches the facts of Christianity. Christianity is so great that it can endure all discoveries in the material and spiritual realms until the end of earthly days. And just as it was once believed that the Copernican spirit could put an end to Christianity, and just as they wanted to eradicate it, so too is this spiritual science being treated today. It is being vilified and they want to wipe it out. But it will not contribute to the belittlement of Christianity, but to its exaltation, in that it will make Christianity, the Mystery of Golgotha, comprehensible again to the modern spirit, to modern striving, as a spiritual event that gives meaning to the evolution of the earth. - That according to the side of knowledge.

And on the practical side of life, if we want to penetrate into observation that does not merely want to remain an observation of nature, we must develop the spirit of love. If we do not have love, it is not possible to deepen our external observation. We educate our scientific spirit by educating ourselves at the same time to become a spirit of love. This, however, gives us the opportunity to connect with things. That was the terribly tragic thing about the modern development of humanity: that in the modern spirit of science, man lived alienated from humanity on abstract heights, that he could not penetrate into practical life because he was also far removed from the spirit of nature itself. By penetrating into the spirit of nature and combining with scientific knowledge in the field of cognition, anthroposophically oriented spiritual science prepares for the coexistence with the reality of outer human life, the human community: the spiritual life of humanity, the legal or state life of humanity, the economic life of humanity. From the way we live with the objects of science, we learn to approach even the most practical external things, right down to the dexterity of the hand. From the routine workers, who only had the spirit of the educational institutions alongside them, which could not be practical because the modern spirit of science was just as I have explained it, a spirit-filled life practice will develop from this kind of modern routine. Then people will no longer say that spiritual life can only be an ideology, a construction based on economic processes, but will recognize how man has always been and must be, who also carries his spiritual life into his social community, who can only shape economic life if he has first educated himself in his spiritual life in such a way that he knows how to live together with reality.

This is what will be recognized more and more: that spiritual science is practical because it helps people to grow together with reality. Therefore, as a practitioner, as an economic practitioner, he will be immersed in reality. Just as one should not stop in the sense of this spiritual science before recognizing the human being, so too should one not, with this attitude, which cannot develop without spiritual science, stand before humanity as a labor leader or as a laborer in social life if one only understands the fundamentals.

People like Keynes demand that we do more than merely carry out the actions of statesmen. On the last pages of his book, this man, despairing of the present, says: What do we have to do in the near future? Spread the truth, destroy illusions, disperse hatred, educate people to live together. - Yes, my dear attendees, how do we do that? But this question cannot be answered by external measures, but only by pointing to the foundation of human life itself and its transformation in the present. What thoughts should we spread? Not those that led to the catastrophe. We should spread those thoughts that do not stop at the human being in the life of knowledge and in the social life. We will not destroy illusions if people [believe] that they can prove these illusions, especially those of social life, from the spirit of modern science. How are we to destroy the illusion that we are sailing into barbarism when someone like Spengler, who is truly brilliant, wants to prove that humanity will inevitably sail into barbarism in the third millennium? How are we to [disperse] hatred if we do not create the bridge, create the bridge in love between person and person, between all people, but in a love that is not preached but that is educated by the intellectual forces?

If science is only cold sobriety, only a cold spirit of science, and love is not also educated, then it will not be able to penetrate public life through any socialist theories, which are only the children of this spirit of science.

The fact that this modern anthroposophically oriented spiritual science does not want to stop at what is theory is shown, first of all, in the one area where the great question of the time, the great task of the present, confronts us: in the field of education. The independent Waldorf School in Stuttgart was founded in response to an impulse from Mr. Emil Molt, and is based on the spirit of anthroposophical spiritual science. It was founded not so much in order that the spirit of some abstract worldview might bring a new religious belief into this school, so that children might be educated in anthroposophy, as it were. Not at all. But something else is the case. Those who take up anthroposophy as a living reality in their soul life develop from it the practical tools of education and teaching; they develop a pedagogical art that is no longer connected with what led us into the catastrophe, but with what is longed for as the spirit of the future.

In the field of intellectual life, thanks to Emil Molt's creation, you have something that wants to develop the art of education out of the human being; out of that knowledge of the human being that can only flow from the soil of such a science, which does not stop short of recognizing and willing before the human being. In this way, what grows in the child from week to week can be developed in such a way that the human being presents himself as a being who can truly shape social life in love in practice, that routine is eradicated; that spirit-filled reality and spirit-filled practice are substituted for routine.

And, my dear attendees, when we see today what even well-meaning people intend to do in public life in the face of the great challenges of the time, well, on the one hand there is the revival of parliamentary life – this is not meant as a criticism of parliamentary life, which has its justification – but of that which has borne such fruit, of that economic life which has basically emerged only from the malformation of modern times. We see today how labor participation is introduced in the formation of large trusts, but this will lead to nothing different than national education would lead if it only came from today's educational institutions, where what is left of the old is proclaimed as a new gospel.

Just as I was driving to this lecture, I was given an essay by an English educator who had recently visited the Waldorf School in Stuttgart and become acquainted with what it aims to achieve. Strangely enough, he says: This Waldorf School does not present in its educational system the results of what has been called modern education up to now, but it presents a completely new educational art to the world. Through direct observation, this writer, who is himself an English lecturer, gained the following insight: he says: What is lived out in spiritual science, not in theories but through the art of education itself, shows that this spiritual science is not a confluence of abstract “pathways” — as he puts it — but it is that which, as a living thing, can flow into the shaping of humanity, into direct practical life.

Thus, with our Waldorf School, we have sought to achieve something practical in the spiritual realm, the one realm of the threefold social organism we are striving for, based on the spirit of anthroposophical spiritual science. And what has been achieved in one year, because the Waldorf School has only existed for so long, can of course only be a beginning. But you see, one recognizes in this beginning a new educational spirit, an educational spirit of the future.

Starting from this, this same man says: What is the essential thing here? The essential thing in this Waldorf School is that one cannot say - and he says that the teachers themselves, with whom he has spoken, admit this - that this is an ideal for all time that one only has to imitate. No, what comes from there can only come from spiritual science; it must always flow out of spiritual science in practical ways. And the man looked around further. He saw what other practical things had been dealt with. And it is a lot when it is said from this side of the world: spiritual science gives so many impulses that practical people can be educated for a very practical life in the future.

Spiritual science does not want to go crazy in some unrealistic cloud cuckoo land, but the great tasks of the present are such that they directly approach our most ordinary life. But spiritual science can also deal with this most ordinary life practice, even though it rises to the highest spiritual heights. And we may cherish the hope that what is already being seen in the spiritual realm by those who want to see it will also prove valid in some practical areas, and can prove valid more and more.

That is why the courses at the School of Spiritual Science in Dornach were held on the subject of reforming all of scientific life, because a transformation of thinking, of the whole world view, must be the starting point for anything that can contribute to solving the great questions posed by the present day.

And one will admit from the example that I have just given, but which could be multiplied by numerous others, that it means something when something is recognized by this spirit from abroad in today's world that we are doing in the middle of Germany.

My dear attendees, we must not forget the memory, the living and active memory of that which lived in Goethe and Schiller, the great Germans. We must develop it further. It was with this in mind that we built the Goetheanum in this border area that opens up to the West, to the victors in Switzerland, because we wanted to express the spirit in which even the most practical things should be created. And if we imbibe this attitude, then there will be more examples of the recognition of our achievements from the old German spirit, despite the spirit of the present civilization lying outside of Germany. Outwardly, we could be defeated. But what we will achieve if we remain true to the German spirit, to what is greatest in the German people, will be recognized. And spiritual science can already point to examples of how what is brought before the world today out of the truly German spirit is, after all, recognized.

In this way, spiritual science can also play a practical role in the recovery of national and international life, because it wants to be realistic in relation to all areas and therefore practical in the truest sense of life; it wants to be practical because it does not develop a practice that denies the spirit, does not strive for a spirit that is alien to reality, but because it strives for a true, genuine, eternal spirit, which, however, is not there merely for theoretical or confessional contemplation, but which is able to have an active influence on matter. A material life that does not deny the spirit, a spirit that does not feel too proud to conquer material life - that is what is connected with the great tasks of the present and the future. Thus we will have to solve the great tasks of the present and the near future in the sense of reconciling the true spirit with the material, also with the practical, with the economic life.

Dear attendees! When I published my “Key Points of the Social Question in the Necessities of Life in the Present and the Near Future” in the spring of 1919, the public life of the West was somewhat different from what it is today. It should actually be made perfectly clear how fast the pace of current events is. We should realize how much the configuration of Western civilization has changed again in the last two years. In the spring of 1919, there was sufficient reason to hope that a sufficiently large number of people would unite in the belief that spiritual impulses could counteract the forces of social decline. The terrible experiences of the war years lay behind the Western world's humanity. These terrible experiences, which at the time many people felt were incomparable in the historical life of humanity. And from these terrible experiences had emerged the opinion that something very drastic had to be done, something that had to be brought about from the depths of intellectual life, so that the forces of decline could be paralyzed in an appropriate way and humanity could be brought out of the rising forces through work.

One would like to say: After only a few months, one could see that this opinion, which was very much present in the broadest circles, had actually receded considerably. Therefore, in February, March, April and May of 1919, one could have believed that by asserting such ideas, as they were presented in my “Key Points of the Social Question” and as they were summarized in my appeal “To the German People and to the World of Culture,” one could have believed that by putting forward such ideas one could reach those people who held the opinion just characterized. It was not necessary to cherish the arrogant opinion that the right ideas had been hit upon if they were put forward in this way. It was enough to believe that the ideas had been honestly drawn from the depths of existence, from the legitimate depths of of existence, such ideas had been brought up, and then one could believe that from the experiences that had just arisen, a sufficiently large number of people would be found to support the whole ductus, the whole will of such ideas, with understanding and energy.

One could see how very soon people again believed that humanity would be helped by first gluing together these or those old impulses that had been torn apart. One could see how the energy that had been noticeable for a while back then was gradually paralyzed and so on. At that time, in the spring of 1919, what I called “The Threefold Social Organism” had to be thrown into the situation, as it were. As I said, it might need to be corrected, as always, but it had to be thrown into the situation because it arose out of two presuppositions.

The first prerequisite is an historical one, a spiritual-historical one, one that is gained from observing the course of human development as it emerges from the spiritual-historical observation that is carried out here as anthroposophical.

The other prerequisite arose from decades of observation of the impulses that were striving from the undergrounds of spiritual, state-political and economic life everywhere towards the surface. The second prerequisite arose from the observation of what actually wanted to be realized, to which one should only help to realize, from this observation, from the directly practical observation of the three different formations of life. The first premise was not theoretical either. The purpose of spiritual science, as it is here, is to lead to full reality. Therefore, all its considerations, including those on the development of humanity, are imbued with a sense of reality. Who could not recognize the democratic principle by an unbiased observation of that which has asserted itself more and more intensely in the emergence of modern humanity?

I do not need to define this democratic principle. Of course, one person understands one thing by it and another person something else. But in general, one has a sense of what has been emerging in recent history as the democratic principle, the principle that man, simply by being man, must assert within the social community, that as much as the judgment of the individual human being is worth, this judgment must also mean in social events. This urge for democracy had been there for a long time, expressed through the most diverse movements and convulsions of the newer historical life of Western humanity, with its American offshoot.

But on the other hand, it could be seen that this democratic life cannot actually be realized in all respects. And it becomes apparent to the unbiased observer of human society that there is only one area of social life that can truly become democratic, and that is the political-state area. But the political-state area, if it wants to become democratic, can only include those matters on which every person who has come of age is capable of judgment. And if you think practically, you can clearly define the area of social life that can be subject to the judgment of every person who has come of age. On the other hand, there are two areas that simply cannot be democratized because they can only develop if they develop in terms of the expertise and specialist knowledge of the people, of the individual human individuality. This is, on the one hand, the entire area of intellectual life, namely that area of intellectual life that is actually public, the area of teaching and education, and, on the other hand, that of economic life.

Spiritual life and its main component, the system of teaching and education, can only develop properly if it arises from the professional judgment and expertise of the individuals active in this field and is also administered, administered in complete independence. Not every person who has come of age can judge in this area. Therefore, in this area there can be no such thing as a democratic constitution and democratic administration. Nor can there be democratic constitution and democratic administration in the field of economic life.

In this connection I should like to call attention to a fact which may be multiplied a hundredfold or a thousandfold by the experiences of life, a fact which has taken place in modern times. About the middle of the nineteenth century and towards the last third of it, the question of the gold standard, the actual gold standard, became particularly pressing, I might say. And one can make a very interesting observation if one considers everything that was said for and against the gold standard by very clever people in parliaments, trading companies, associations of entrepreneurs, industrial associations of entrepreneurs, and so on, up to the second half of the nineteenth century and towards the last third of it. I do not mean any irony when I say that in those days a huge amount of cleverness was raised for and against the gold standard. And in particular, a conclusion-type played a major role back then, namely that if one really came to this unified gold currency, then the pursuit of free trade and the realization of free trade would prevail everywhere. Free trade will finally triumph.

You can tell, my dear audience, when you read what was said at the time, what was said at the time, it is really clever, it was not said by stupid people, but it was said by extraordinarily clever people. But reality soon said the opposite. Reality has shown that everywhere the gold standard has led to efforts to establish protective tariff systems and to close the individual national borders. That is to say, the cleverest people, those people who, out of their industrial cleverness, said the most sensible things, had to be taught by reality that, in line with reality, the opposite should have been said! As I said, I am not being ironic when I speak of “cleverness”; I mean it quite seriously. For this fact - and it could be multiplied a hundredfold - points us in many directions. What does it point us to? That in the economic field the individual cannot be decisive at all, that he can only be decisive if his judgment coincides with that of others who, in turn, are experienced and skilled in another area of economic life, that is to say, that the individual with his judgment has only one value within the association.

And so we have two areas: the spiritual area of teaching and education, which must be placed in the power of the individual human individuality; and the economic area, which must be placed in the power of the association, the association of the appropriate cooperation of the individual economic sectors, of production, consumption, and the circulation of goods. The proper form of interaction that results from all of this, from the judgment within the associations, must shape economic life. So that we have three links, not parts; by speaking of the tripartite division of the social organism, one has given rise to many misunderstandings; one cannot speak of the three-part human being either, one cannot divide the human being into head, trunk, limbs and metabolism, whereas the human being really consists of these three parts; so one cannot speak of the three of the social organism, but only of the threefold social organism, because these three members should not go their own way, as it were, the head, the circulation system - the rhythmic one - and the metabolism system can go their own way, but precisely because of their relative independence, they also work together in the most economical and rational way. If you take this threefold social order seriously, you can be honest as a democrat, because then you can really implement democracy in the area where it should be implemented, in the area of state and political affairs, where the mature human being faces the mature human being, and where only that which can be judged by a mature human being is decided and administered. It is entirely possible to find the detailed, concrete form of how to work towards this threefold social organism.

However, you see, conditions have become so unnatural in this respect that sometimes, even back in the spring of 1919, when the threefold social organism was taken much more seriously than it is today, sometimes you had to give strange answers. In one country, for example, where a so-called Ministry of Labor had been set up, I was asked by the Minister of Labor: “Yes, but if the social organism is to be threefolded, where do I actually belong?” He meant as Minister of Labor. Well, if you think about the necessities very concretely, the Ministry of Labor is a hybrid between economic life and political life. That is why I said to the minister in question: Yes, unfortunately for you, you have to be cut in half. - Like the brave Swabian who was not afraid and cut the Turk in half, so a half labor minister should have fallen out of our unnatural present circumstances on both the left and the right. But it is precisely these things that prove how things are, and how everything is mixed up, confounded.

And so we have to say: the necessity of the threefold social order arose out of the historical, spiritual-scientific observation of the emergence of democracy. If we observe the quite radical change that occurred in the second decade of the twentieth century, we can also see that that experiences are now possible that could lead people to take such a thing seriously and understand it. One could also say that it was basically only the final consequence of what had already emerged at the end of the eighteenth century in the call for liberty, equality and fraternity. This appeal for liberty, equality and fraternity, which emerged from the French Revolution, is such that it cuts deep into the hearts of all unbiased people, that it must be taken for granted, that it must be striven for. But anyone who is even slightly familiar with the cultural-political literature of the nineteenth century knows how much has been said – and again not by stupid people, but by very clever ones – against these three ideas of liberty, equality, fraternity.

Just read the extraordinary multi-volume work of the very talented Magyar [Eötvös] from the 1850s, and you will see how it is proved in a very subtle philosophical that the idea of equality cannot be realized alongside [the idea of] freedom, and that, in turn, the idea of fraternity cannot be realized alongside the idea of absolute equality, and so on. It must be said: what is being put forward here is clever. One sees at last that these very ideas, in the course of the historical development of mankind, well up from the underground to the surface as something quite justified, but that nevertheless the whole of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century were still under the sway of the suggestion of the unitary state. This suggestion of the unitary state was so great that people worked more and more, especially in Central Europe and also over Western Europe, with the exception of England, to shape the unitary state more and more intensively in terms of its agents. One was under the suggestion of the omnipotence of the unitary state, which had to extend over everything. And into that one could not then fit the ideas of liberty, equality, fraternity.

If we recognize that this unified state is striving towards threefold order, then we also very soon realize that spiritual life is striving towards freedom, state and political life towards equality of all mature human beings, and economic life towards true brotherhood in associations, and from there out into all of life.

As soon as one has the idea of threefolding, one also has the agent for realizing freedom, equality and fraternity. Now, of course, there have been many people, my dear audience, who, when they heard something like the threefolding of the social organism, spoke of utopia. But it is not utopian. Just as it emerged from a spiritual-scientific-historical observation, on the other hand, it emerged from a practical observation of life itself, and it is simply not true that this threefold social order would be about imposing over humanity, which has become somewhat chaotic, but rather it is a matter of the fact that for the person who understands this threefold social order, it can be tackled from every single point of life. You can start anywhere, and then the individual beginnings will flow together into a whole by themselves. This is how we started with the threefold social order in the realm of spiritual life.

We started at our Stuttgart Waldorf School, because it is just a school like any other, but a school that has been created out of a truly free spiritual life, I want to mention it first. However, it is difficult to get through today, especially with views on the school system. In this regard, one also experiences strange things. I recently read an article in a magazine that was somewhat critical of the 'National Assembly' that took place in the city of Goethe and Schiller, Weimar, after the so-called German Revolution; of course I have nothing against criticizing this National Assembly, because basically one can say: it is really hardly an exaggeration to describe this national chatter – parliamentarism always has something to do with a chattering association or talkativeness, doesn't it, the special way of talking together! I have nothing against holding up a proper image of this National Assembly. But something strange was said. It was said that this Weimar National Assembly had actually only caused havoc in all areas of public life – with the exception of a single area where it had delivered something useful, namely in the area of schools, through the creation of the so-called primary school, the so-called unified school, and so on.

Now, this essay is based on nothing more than the fact that it is easier to see what nonsense the “Weimar National Assembly” has inaugurated in other areas of life than in the field of education, where everyone can prattle on for a very long time before the nonsense is noticed.

Now, when our “Freie Waldorfschule” was founded in Stuttgart, it was important that the spiritual life itself should be the foundation and soil with its own requirements, from which teaching and education are derived here. Of course, anthroposophical spiritual science is the source of the pedagogy and didactics of the Waldorf School. I gave the seminar course for the teachers of this Waldorf School based on anthroposophical spiritual science before the opening of the Waldorf School. But this Waldorf School was not misused to instill dogmatic anthroposophy into children in a school of world view. The founding of the Waldorf School was quite the opposite of this. The aim of the Waldorf School was to apply a pedagogy and didactics in which anthroposophical spiritual science can be practically demonstrated right down to the skill of the fingers; from the application of pedagogy and didactics and from what one did, one wanted to show the fruits of anthroposophical feeling and thinking, not by instilling any dogmas. That is why they almost, I would even say radically, refrained from making the Waldorf school a school of world view. That is why religious education was separated from the other subjects. Religious education for Catholic children was entrusted to the Catholic priest, and for Protestant children to the Protestant pastor.

And then, in the course of the school's effectiveness, it became apparent that there was a large number of children, dissident children, who did not attend any lessons, neither Catholic nor Protestant. What should be done with these children?

Initially, the children's group at the Waldorf School was made up of the children of workers at the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory; after all, it was our friend Emil Molt in Stuttgart who founded this Waldorf School, and initially the children were “the children of workers” at the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory. Now, there were a great many parents who did not want to send their children to any of the religious lessons; but they felt that their children should not grow up without religion, without being introduced to spiritual things. And so we were obliged to set up a kind of anthroposophical free religious education alongside the other lessons, which we then also developed in terms of pedagogy and didactics, and which now stands as a third one, on an equal footing with the other two.

The Protestant religion teachers in particular had to state that they feared that the children would run away from them and run over to the anthroposophical religious education, didn't they? But as I said, it was precisely in this treatment of the religious education questions that it should be shown how far the Waldorf School is from wanting to be a school of world view.

On the other hand, anthroposophical spiritual science is able to answer the question: What are the forces that have taken on physical form in the child after it has descended from the spiritual world, and what are the forces that are particularly active in the child up to the year in which the teeth change, around the age of seven?

They are mainly powers of imitation, and everything that is to be brought to the child at this age must be achieved through a certain study of these childlike powers of imitation.

Other powers then emerge from the background of the child's mind around the seventh year. One has to take these powers into account. One then sees how one has to approach reading, writing and so on; from what one knew from anthroposophically oriented spiritual science, a pedagogy and didactics were formed, a real art of education that works towards not introducing reading and writing to children in an abstract way, but in such a way that reading and writing are brought out of a certain artistic, holistic humanity.

Between the ages of six, seven and nine, teaching is such that nothing abstract, nothing that engages the mere head, the mere intellect, is presented to the child. Our mere numbers and letter signs engage the mere intellect if they are not taken from the full activity of the human being. And so it was particularly important for this childhood age to have a great deal of light shed on it through anthroposophical observation of human development. The corresponding pedagogy and didactics were based on this.

Between the ages of nine and ten, there is an important point in a child's development that must be taken into account by educators and teachers. Something occurs that usually goes unnoticed. Before that, the child hardly differs from his or her surroundings. It is best to teach the child in a way that appeals as little as possible to its sense of self. But between the ages of nine and ten, something breaks into the child's mind, the main development of which lasts only a short time. One must be grown to observe what is happening in the child's development, because sometimes it depends on a few days to find the right words, the right encouragement for the child, to bring the right thing forward in the right way.

And so it is important to know what human nature wants every year, every week. And so you bring the child up, and we have developed this pedagogy and didactics to bring the child up to the age of 13, 14, 15, where something completely different occurs in child development.

Eight days ago, I was obliged to ensure in an evening course for teachers that our so-called tenth class could now be opened in the appropriate way. This is the class that children enter when they have reached sexual maturity, or, as we say in anthroposophical spiritual science, at the age when the childlike astrality, the astral body, as we say, the actual spiritual-soul body, is born. This requires a very special deepening into this important age. And in opening this class, the pedagogical-didactic maxim had to be found again to guide young people into this age.

You see, you have to feel the full weight of the age on your soul in a certain way if you really want to practice contemporary pedagogy and didactics in this way. Because you have seen it: in the last few decades – I would say it is an international affair – the so-called youth movement has emerged in the most diverse forms. What did this youth movement mean? The young suddenly demanded something completely new and were aware that the old could not give them what they were demanding. The wanderer instinct and so on, as they are all called, have become known to people.

Now this youth movement has clearly shown that the old were no longer able to be the right authority for the young. The young no longer expected what had previously been expected of the young by the old, and a terrible yearning went through the young. I would like to say: In this yearning, however mistaken and nebulous it was in certain respects, the call for a new pedagogy and didactics is clearly expressed. There is no need to [see] whether something that comes up with such elementary power from the depths of life, whether it is more or less right or wrong, but you only have to look at it in its actuality, then it can already prove this or that to you. In particular, anyone who has seen the latest phase of these youth movements, which have only emerged in recent years, must admit that this youth movement first expressed itself in such a way that the nebulous, chaotic urge of one person to join another emerged. I would like to say – the young lived out their lives in packs, in cliques. Then suddenly a strange turn occurred, only in the last few years and especially among the best members of this youth movement a colossal turn occurred. They got tired of connecting one to the other in small cliques. And those who had previously had a strong urge to join one another in small cliques began to feel a kind of disgust for being together. A certain hermit-like behavior asserted itself, youthful hermit-like behavior. They closed themselves off, they encapsulated themselves, the young people. A complete turnaround has taken place. This is also deeply significant. And again, it is not a Central European, but an international issue that has taken hold of all possible youth groups in the civilized world today. It is a matter of the necessity today to provide for spiritual life from the very depths of all of life.

Something like this should be created by the Waldorf School in Stuttgart, which, I would like to say, was also created out of social circumstances. All the blustering about the unified school, which arises from all kinds of enmity and antipathy and sympathy, is of course immediately lost in the objective when one teaches and educates out of the nature of the human being. There, of course, people are taught and educated uniformly. But the matter is brought into being appropriately, not out of political proposals or antipathies and ranklings and räsonnements. The fruitful further development of humanity depends on this, that out of the factual the factual be founded.

But to achieve something like this, to really have teachers who can approach young people in such a way with such a pedagogy and didactics, you need a free spiritual life, because you have to be able to use the full power of the teachers. My dear attendees, many a person has thought for a long time, especially in times of liberal ideas, when freedom has been so greatly undermined, many a person has thought: we need programs, we need comprehensive ideas. Many programs have been devised about the best way to teach, especially about curricula.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, when you put five, six, twelve not particularly clever people together – forgive this somewhat delicate or undelicate allusion – when so and so many people sit down and let their abstract minds , then they come up with the most ideal programs, all of it perfect; Clause I, the teacher has to teach this in class, Clause II, the teacher has to treat the students in such and such a way, Clause III, this or that has to happen. For the eighth year, this is how it has to be done, and so on. In the greatest perfection, paragraph I to x, everything can be presented in this way, and you can get an ideal program out of it, with the average intellectual predisposition of the twelve people who sat down together. Not much is needed to define anything in abstracto. Only because these people have the urge to disagree, we have received not one, but many programs. There are programs and cleverness buzzing through the world. When would there have been more programs and cleverness – whereby the word “cleverness” is not even used ironically – buzzing through the world than precisely in the nineteenth century.

But you see, that is not what matters, what matters is what happens in reality. What matters is real, practical life. Well, we have indeed gradually entered into strange realms of abstraction. Today, people even think about very strange theories in theory. For example, they think about the fact that if they travel from point A to point B at ordinary speed, and a cannon is fired at point A and another cannon is fired at point B, they will hear the cannon that was fired later than the one that was fired earlier. But if they move faster and faster, the interval changes; and then they work out that if they move at the speed of sound, they even hear the one cannon that is fired later at the same time. And if they move faster than the speed of sound, they even hear the cannon that is fired later earlier than the one that is fired earlier!

Now, you see, that may seem quite correct in theory, and there is nothing to be said against it. But someone who thinks in a spiritual sense, thinks realistically, not just logically, has something to object to, because that is only one way to get to the truth, and he wants to think realistically, and then he also has to imagine what such a person would look like who would now move faster than sound. Einstein even calculated what a clock would look like if it were to fly out into space at the speed of light and then come back again. Theoretically, all this can be done, and of course it is all theoretically correct. It has been much admired. But just imagine what the clock would look like when it comes back, or what a person would look like if he were to move at the speed of sound! One thing is certain: one would not be able to judge the differences in the speed of sound, because the human being would have to become sound himself. This would lead one to the conclusion that one cannot help but let concrete reality flow into one's soul, not abstract theory. Only then are we on the right path to truth. But then we also realize that a dozen people can work out very beautiful programs. But a dozen teachers can only realize what lies within the power of these teachers. And the most beautiful ideals have no value at all compared to what really lives in people. Therefore, what is to be achieved must be taken from the reality of the human being. You simply have to create this school republic out of the individual personalities of the teachers, you must not want more than the teachers can achieve, who you can put in their place. You have to take the specific teachers into account, and the school program emerges from this specific teaching staff. But this is only possible in a free spiritual life, in a spiritual life such as is striven for in the threefold social organism, where the individual human being is actually directly confronted with the spiritual world, and feels responsible for what he has to achieve in the field of spiritual life, directly responsible to the spiritual world, not to the school inspector, or through him to the minister of education and so on, but directly to the powers of the spiritual world. For an education and training system such as I have just described can only be developed if one does not merely have an abstract, intellectual spiritual life, but a real spiritual life, when it is the spirit itself that reigns on earth through the deeds of men, when one appeals to the living spirit, not merely to concepts and ideas, not merely to the intellectual and the intellectualizing. But you can only bring it out, bring it forth, this living spiritual life, this active spirit, from the individual human personalities themselves. From the teacher of the lowest elementary school class up to the teacher of the highest school system, each one is integrated into the independent spiritual organism, so that each one can only follow himself, and has so much teaching to do that he still has time to perform administrative tasks, so that everything that is administered is done by those who are still teaching, who really still teach, not by those who have retired or been taken out of the school system. The administration of the school system is the responsibility of those who are still actively teaching. There would be no authority, people say. No, that is precisely where the true authority of spiritual life would be found, namely, the self-evident authority. In no other field can authority arise except that which arises of its own accord. I would like to know how authority can fail to arise when someone really has the will to do something beneficial and knows that someone else can give them advice, then it will come, and then the one who can give the advice will have the self-evident authority.

I have the task of running the Waldorf School in Stuttgart. Each teacher is independent in his or her class. The person who does something in class does so on his or her own initiative. The opinion has never been expressed that I have ever ordered anyone to do anything at the Waldorf School. On the other hand, everyone seeks advice on all kinds of matters, and there is a unified spirit in this Waldorf School. The authority is there, as a matter of course. And one could see it grow, this self-evident authority, on the spirit of the Waldorf School in the last two years since this Waldorf School has existed. One could start in this school, which started two years ago with not quite 200 children, which now has over 500 children, who are once again facing difficulties because they do not want to increase the size of the classes, the lower four classes, there should only be as many children admitted as were there before the Elementary School Law was passed. Recently, however, it has become clear that parents will not put up with this. Now, [in] this Waldorf School, there is a place where you can actually realize in a certain area what you can know from the free spiritual life. Sometimes one has strange experiences there, which I perhaps, for easily understandable reasons, in so far as they arise from the interaction, in the social interaction that we do not, however, let into the teaching, with the official life, about which I I prefer not to make any comments on now; but it is already possible to see how the individual things that lie in this threefolding of the social organism can be tackled from the practical, concrete point of view, and how one does not have to deal with some utopia.

Likewise, this can be done in other areas of spiritual life. And in fact, the anthroposophical worldview will not impose itself dogmatically, but will prove its right to exist through its viability. Because, my dear audience, one should not believe at all that someone who writes something like 'The Key Points of the Social Question' from such a basis, from a realistic basis, is thinking of anything utopian. There is no question of that, not even in the choice of expressions: threefold social order. In recent years, when many people have made the threefold order into a sect, which of course it was certainly not meant to be by me, I have had to experience it again and again, especially in Germany: how is it to be organized? How this, how that? It is really quite bad when, even in the post-war period, you are always confronted with the word “organize,” and especially when you call something you would like to see realized an organism, and you still hear the words: “organize, organize”; you organize where there is something mechanical; an organism is precisely there so that you cannot organize it. You cannot organize the organic. That must appear as an organism. Where you want to organize something, you only have the [inorganic] at hand. You cannot organize an organism. You have to let it become.

You can see the thoroughly misunderstood nature of things when such things occur. And so the threefold structure of the social organism is based on the fact that things must form, that one only has to develop the formative forces, that the threefold social organism must arise. Therefore, it cannot be described in the abstract. Especially those who have spoken of utopia would actually always like to have utopias. When speaking of such things, one can hear it asked, well: what then will be the position regarding ownership of a sewing machine in the threefolded social organism? This question has been asked here at this place, and so on.

Now, my dear attendees, a free spiritual life is only possible under the condition of a real spiritual life. Once, when I was talking about such things in a Swiss city, a university teacher replied to me: Yes, but we already have the freedom of the spiritual life, because in all state constitutions it says: Science and its teaching are free. But, ladies and gentlemen, the point is that science, which is free, should only be there as a free science. If, from the outset, science is raised in such a way that people are trained who are suitable for this or that office, and who are taught the program of their office, then you can safely decree that science and its teaching are free. If science itself is enslaved, then enslaved science naturally feels very free when it is allowed to develop as a slave.

And so it was often replied: In such and such a country, the state does not interfere in schools at all. That is the worst thing to say, because then you no longer notice it, and that is much worse than when you notice it and rebel against it, than when you no longer even notice how what flows in is only based on state principles arising without factual or specialized knowledge from the incorrect democratic, when one no longer even notices what should arise from the abilities for each new generation, what the human being still brings with him from the spiritual world by entering into physical existence through birth. We simply need teachers and educators who stand with holy reverence before the child and say to themselves: something from the spiritual world has been entrusted to me in this child, which I have to fathom and solve as a mystery. I must inquire what message from the spiritual world they have given him. Knowledge of the spiritual world must be alive in teaching and education; this spiritual world must be real in teaching and education. When the coming generation is tyrannized by that which is already there, by the living generation, then the spiritual life is made unfree. And to a large extent, the question of teaching and education in a free spiritual life is a question of teachers, the question of finding the right teachers, those who stand before the growing children as I have just characterized it.

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, I wanted to use a few strokes, which of course must always remain fragmentary, to point out how the free spiritual life is to be thought of in the threefold social organism. As I said at the beginning of my talk, today we are actually facing a different time from that in the spring, in the spring of 1919. At that time one could believe that there would really be a sufficiently large number of people who would support the realization of the threefold social order. Today one would be out of touch with the times if one had the same faith as one had then. Threefolding must not become a sect either, something that one can believe in and advocate everywhere and at all times, theoretically as one's opinion. Today it is quite clear, however heavy-heartedly one has to admit it, that within European civilization the people who actually do the economic work have no sense of progress, no insight into real needs, that one is preaching to deaf ears if one wants to work into economic life with reasonable foundations. Today it is clear that one can present individual productive examples to the world, as we tried to do in “The Coming Day” and “Futurum”. These examples will exist as individual white ravens, they will be careful to survive, and they will fulfill the expectations placed on them, at least as individuals. But today we cannot speak of the fact that one comes across an insight in general economic life in order to be able to grasp such things with such ideas, as one could still believe in the first urge of human experiences and results in 1919. In the meantime, people have become accustomed to glossing over the old declining forces. They are still downward forces, after all, and the collapse is still coming. They have only decided to delay the collapse a little, to let everything slide, so that they do not have to expend the energy to move forward to new ideas. And humanity is largely asleep and does not notice how the downward forces are actually raging, and how, with each quarter, civilized humanity is drawing closer to this decline. People would much rather face the convulsions and terrible upheavals that lie in wait for the future in the present if they cannot warm to ideas in the immediate present that could be properly extracted from reality in a calm development, which will nevertheless be needed in the future.

And so we can say that there is little hope to be placed in economic life today. People will have to be forced to take up the new ideas, through their own need, through the effect of the forces of decline. But in the spiritual life we must work unstintingly to develop the free spiritual life as a member of the threefold organism. This is what must not flag, what must be cultivated unconditionally, because the time in which we live is such that people's souls are becoming emptier and emptier, more and more desolate. They are too lazy to admit this to themselves today, but we are heading for terrible times in terms of people's mental state, which will also be reflected in their physical condition.

I have spoken of this often, including in public lectures. The spiritual life must save us through to the times when reasonable people will also see something on the economic front. It is necessary that this spiritual life be cultivated in its freedom wherever it can be cultivated. Anthroposophical soil is the best soil imaginable for this, because then work must be done out of complete freedom. For what needs to be worked out is not yet there. And since it is spirit, it can only be worked out through freedom. And so, especially in the near future, anthroposophical striving and true social striving will increasingly coincide. And we will have to face the souls with the fact that the economic will have to lag behind, that the spiritual simply has to go ahead today.

This is also shown by the qualities of our opponents; in Central Europe, a strange, well-organized opposition is now asserting itself. This well-organized opposition had already worked its way up to the point that at the time, on printed slips of paper distributed to all the people in this packed, largest Stuttgart hall, it was written, not only in allusions, but quite clearly, that it was actually my fault that the Battle of Marnesch was lost in 1914, and that Minister Simons in England has done poorly in recent times. It was not just in innuendo, but it was written on the slips of paper in a very crude way! You could see how it is here with widely extended parties that do not want to admit what has actually happened, that need scapegoats because it no longer works to say that the stab in the back, with which one first wanted to cover up a really eminently lost war, a war that was lost by every trick in the book, they wanted to cover that up with the 'stab in the back'; now they wanted to cover up the absolute incompetence of anyone who has ever led an army, of Ludendorffism, that's what they want to cover up. Today they want to make great geniuses out of people who are quite incapable. A cultural life steeped in lies is a cultural life in decline.

And the situation is no different in the West, no different in America. There, everything is a little more pronounced, where defeat makes things stand out more sharply. Everywhere we need to extract a real, a true, a free spiritual life from the corruption of humanity, which is suffocating in lies and untruthfulness today. For this is identical with truth, and this is at the same time identical with a striving that is in keeping with reality. Therefore, even if there is little prospect of success today, we may still believe that a sufficiently large number of people can warm to a full understanding of the idea of threefolding. Those who can muster the necessary enthusiasm and courage for a free spiritual life will help the threefold social organism to get back on its feet. Then a truly free spiritual life will become a reality. If it becomes a reality in people's hearts, in their powers and in their actions, then the threefold social organism will most certainly follow of its own accord out of the necessity, out of the need of the time. (Lively applause!)

Discussion

Question: How can an ordinary person, who has no influence on public institutions, work in the spirit of threefolding? Rudolf Steiner: The question that was asked here first is: How can an ordinary person, who has no influence on public institutions, work in the spirit of threefolding? Well, firstly, it is not quite clear to me how someone can be without influence on public institutions. Unless he is in prison or in some other place where he can hardly move, he is actually always subject to a certain influence on public institutions. The outside world ensures that one is never completely without influence on public institutions; one has to pay taxes and so on, so one always has some influence on public institutions. So the question cannot really be put that way.

But then, if perhaps what is meant is: How can one work in the sense of the threefold social order, when one perhaps does not have the opportunity to speak, to speak freely somehow, when one does not have the opportunity to be, let's say, a member of parliament or something similar, how can one work in the sense of the threefold social order of the social organism? Then you have to say: Well, this impulse for threefolding is something very concrete. And that is why you can actually only talk about it in concrete examples. You see, I want to say the following, for example. There are institutions everywhere in the sense of nationalization, partial or more or less extensive nationalization - let's say, of medical matters, of nursing. Now, it has happened time and again that good people – who, in their own opinion, are “good” followers of our philosophy – come and say that they would like to have this or that remedy, and so on! So they would actually like to encourage quackery and to violate the law! They can be won over for that, those people! They don't need to have any influence on public institutions, but when they lack something, they don't recognize - perhaps with more or less justification - the state-recognized doctor and want to cure somehow from behind. I have even known ministers who appeared in public parliament to speak out against quackery and for the protection of the medical profession by law, and afterwards, when they themselves became ill, or anyone else became ill, they turned to someone who was not a state-recognized doctor! It is terribly difficult to persuade people to really join those movements that simply correspond to the introduction of such institutions, which are necessary if one wants to have a free spiritual life, or in general, if one wants that which one professes! Many such examples could be cited, where everyone, in their place, by not being afraid to speak out wherever it is possible for them, takes a stand against what they recognize as evil. If you recognize the state protection of medicine as an absurdity, then speak up for it! Or, ladies and gentlemen, is it not an absurdity that over there, across the border, at Leopoldshöhe, there must be a different art of healing than here just a few steps away? But a doctor who is licensed over there is not allowed to help here. If you give in to reason, you will immediately see the matter as an absurdity. But if, let us say, for example, you are a member of the Federal Council or something similar, then you do not see this absurdity! And if you do see it, then you do not find it opportune to represent it. But if one person finds another, there will eventually be enough people to really come to reason. And instead of asking: How can an ordinary person, who has no part in public affairs, become active in the spirit of threefolding, do what one finds in every step and turn of life, in order to carry it out in the spirit of threefolding. Then one will see that every hour, every day, one finds opportunities to become active in the spirit of threefolding.

Question: In Holland, the constitutional ban on official Catholic processions is now to be lifted, which is causing quite a stir. Would this actually be a question of the free spiritual life or also of the public legal life? Rudolf Steiner: With some questions it is so with the threefold social organism, although the idea is quite right, of course: How does the blood of the chest or the head come to play this or that role in the migraine? The blood simply circulates, and so one cannot say that the blood of the chest organism is different from the blood of the head, but one can only speak of the blood in general. And so it is not easy to categorize things again. The threefold social organism is precisely manifested in the fact that things cannot be categorized. However, one does experience very strange things. In recent years I have always had to speak of the three-part human organism, the sensory organism, the rhythmic organism and the metabolic-limb organism, and in recent years a great deal has been done by myself and our medical and scientific friends to develop this idea of the three-part human being. But recently a book was written by someone called Kurt Leese, I believe. He has now, because I said that things should not be put together in boxes, but that the whole human being is head, nevertheless the human being is mainly head in the head, the whole human being is head. Things go into each other. The head is also taken care of and dependent on the limbs. Things all go into each other. Kurt Leese can no longer think this. He can only think of three if it is nicely next to each other, but he cannot think it when it goes into each other. He says: It's a shocking idea.

But we will have to get used to such shocks, even in the tripartite social organism, if we are to imagine, through the effect of abstractions, what a clock looks like when it flies away at the speed of sunlight and returns after years, is difficult to verify for a variety of reasons: firstly, because of the nature of the clock; secondly, because of the person who would then have to check it when the clock returns, and so on. So the present is not shocked at all by such ideas of the abstract. But it is shocked when something that is in line with reality is placed before it. So it is necessary not to press things so much that one now asks: Is this a matter of the free spiritual life or of the legal life? One can say: If one begins to prohibit any expressions or revelations of the spiritual life at all, to make legal provisions about it, then one is on a slippery slope with regard to the spiritual life. I must say, you see, with regard to those institutions, that I once showed you here – those who were there – a peculiar document, the document that was once issued as a patent in 1847, I believe, in Switzerland, where it says: It was through the power of the Almighty that the brave Swiss general Dufour succeeded in expelling the Jesuits from the country. Then it is explained in more detail. Today, in free Switzerland, it seems a little strange that the eradication of the Jesuits is attributed to the grace of God and the power that God has given! But it is preserved that way; I had the document photographed because it is so beautiful. I will show the photograph again on occasion. It is, after all, quite good to occasionally bring things home to people face to face. But even with regard to Jesuitism, I am not in favor of combating it by law. Those who want to fight it should fight it with intellectual weapons. One should not spare oneself the inconvenience of having to fight against everything intellectual with intellectual weapons, not by making laws. Laws can be made with majority decisions. One does not need to say that the majority is always nonsense, because then reality, social reality, would always be nonsense. Now, as I said, one does not need to go that far, but in any case one cannot say that the majority is always wisdom. And laws can be made in a democratic state, especially with majority decisions. But certain things just cannot be done by majority vote. They have to live out. And so everything that is regarded as the erring spiritual must also live out. Therefore, one must say: It is a matter of freedom and not of compulsion when efforts are made to reintroduce the banned Catholic processions and to lift the bans against Catholic processions. The only remedy is to show that these processions are not reasonable, and to educate people to this effect, so that they do not take part in them; then they will stop of their own accord! This is the only remedy in spiritual life, just as one can teach a person good taste and he will do the right thing of his own accord, but not by passing laws against it.

That is what a free spiritual life must demand. The one who has to resort to laws in the spiritual realm is on the path that I once described in Nuremberg in 1908 in a lecture cycle, where I said - it is not said without significance, using strong inks, but these strong inks should characterize adequately – I said at the time: Actually, today's humanity no longer strives to go out on the street without a doctor on the right and a police officer on the left, the doctor for physical protection, the police officer, well, for protection in materialistic times, yes, for physicality too! That has gradually become the ideal. I have heard many things in my life, but time and again I had to shrink back a little inside when I heard, with increasing frequency, over and over again: “That should be prohibited by law.” That had gradually become an awfully common saying – instead of taking the trouble to teach people good taste themselves, so that these things would stop of themselves – 'it should be banned by law', 'by majority decision' or something like that should be done. That is the one thing that must be asserted in principle. Therefore, all prohibitions against processions and the like should be lifted, and things should be allowed to run their course. Then spiritual life will also be able to express itself freely

It is absolutely essential that stupidity, folly and evil be conquered by cleverness and kindness, that ugliness be conquered by beauty, and that nothing be legally eradicated in the realm of spiritual life.

Question of the youth movement: The speaker explains that the individual members of the youth movements want and need to experience truth and reality; the economic sphere seems to them to be the area where everyone has a say, where everyone should be active and engaged. Later, the individual often withdraws again to reflect or simply to get away from society. It is almost impossible to reach a solution. Soon it is the economic that provides a value system; there is no recognition of the state or the political, but everything is conditioned by the economic. Individuals are diverted from their spiritual nature by economic life - or they withdraw into solitude].

Rudolf Steiner: In essence, the Lord has characterized what I have already said in the lecture: the phenomena of the youth movements of recent decades. But it would not be entirely correct to stop at this phenomenon of the youth movement. I have already found some understanding among members of this youth movement when I have struck what lives in the deeper foundations of the whole development of time. I had to say to some members of the youth movement, to which you yourself seem to belong and know very well: Yes, the year 1899, for example, is an extraordinarily important one for the development of humanity as a whole, and in particular for the development of Western civilization. And anyone who has an eye for such things knows how fundamentally different those people are who either lived through their childhood before 1899 was around, so they were a few years or ten years old, or those people who, let's say, were even born later, so they are hardly in their twenties now, and those people who were born before 90 and so on. At the bottom of their souls, very important things were going on, I would say, from the very source of existence, and that is connected with the fact that at the end of the nineteenth century, gates to the supersensible world were opened for the first time in the Western world. It was no longer possible, let us say, in the 1880s, to lead a different life, even with a powerful urge for the spiritual life; the Nietzschean life is more or less that life, which one must present as one that has become ill from the decline of Western culture because it could not find what it was looking for: the spiritual basis in everything phenomenal, in everything external, in everything sensual. The life of Nietzsche is therefore extraordinarily interesting to study from this point of view. He participates in Schopenhauerism, becomes ill from Schopenhauerism; he participates in historicism, becomes ill from historicism; he participates in Wagnerism, becomes ill from Wagnerism. He participates in naturalism, in positivism, becomes ill from it. He participates in the Darwinian molding of the idea of humanity, becomes ill from it, and so on, and so on. Instead of the idea of repeated earthly lives, he comes to the idea of the return of the same, becomes ill from it. Nietzsche could not help but fall ill from his urge for the supernatural world. It was simply not possible to achieve this directly and fundamentally at the end of the nineteenth century or before the end of the nineteenth century. The gates have opened, and today we cannot help but turn to the revelations of the spiritual world if we want to achieve an inwardly satisfied existence. Speaking of nature in the way that was justified in the 1880s is no longer justified today. Today we can point out how there was a current of opinion favoring an 'ignorabimus', how a naturalist, Du Bois-Reymond, spoke of 'ignorabimus', how Ranke, the historian, by seeking to present history as an event with the exception of the Christ event; that this comes from the primal forces, that history does not belong there - so 'ignorabimus'. Today we cannot do that. Today we are on the threshold of the supersensible world wanting to enter, and it is only the dull reluctance that is still bracing itself against the acceptance of a spiritual world view. And what is rumbling in the youth, that is the deeper thing, that is rumbling inside. And therefore, no matter how much individual members of the youth movement may say, “We do not want the abstract, we want the emotional,” they will still have to realize: What spiritual science in anthroposophy wants to be is precisely not something abstract, it is the full human being, it is what comes out of the whole human being, it is what expresses itself as art and as religion and as science, and it is the point at which the whole, full human being can come to his inner realization. And today we are only suffering from the fact that economic routine does not want to take leave of economic reason and that we must first begin to work on the recovery of spiritual life, until the unreasonableness of economic life must follow through necessity. And I am convinced that something good and right will come out of the youth movement, just as I do not despair when people keep saying, for my sake, that they cannot distinguish between expressionism and a windmill, a towel just pulled out of the water and hung up to dry, or a human portrait, say, for example, a boot heel. Of course, sometimes you can't distinguish that with the expressionists, but nevertheless, there are approaches to something in it, which, if it is refined in the most diverse places where it appears, will lead to that in which spiritual science, as it is represented here, only wants to be a guide and a leader and to work from the very most elementary.

But of course, sometimes you experience the fact that, despite the fact that you mean it to be so concrete, the opposite is held against you. I just want to say that last as a joke. The day before yesterday I had a lecture in Zurich. I spoke with slides about this building here. Then afterwards, one of the audience stood up and said: Yes, why do we need such a building, why do we need a Christ's head and Christ at all, why do we need it today? I was walking on the street this afternoon, there was a very drunk person, I followed him, and I joined him. This is a temple of God, this is a real temple and we do not need built temples. — On this occasion, I only regretted that no friendly spirit was found to find the right door with the person in question. But in view of the unnatural conditions of the present time, one may meet people who do not mean, as I say, that we should not build temples, but who mean that we should follow drunkards. They really want to work from the elementary, and they deserve, so to speak, to have spiritual science brought to their full understanding, because they can understand it. For the youth movement is connected with a very great change that occurred at the end of the nineteenth century and that is actually based not only on superficial historical forces but on profound cosmic forces.

It is an oft-repeated and a justifiable opinion, with regard to all the realms of human spiritual life, that man's greatest riddle here in our physical life is man himself. And we may truly say that a large part of our scientific activity, of our reflection, and of much besides in man's life of thought, is applied to the solving of this human riddle, to discerning a little wherein the essence of human nature consists. Natural science and spiritual science try to solve from different sides this great riddle comprised in the word Man. In the main, all the more profound natural scientific research seeks to attain its final goal by bringing together all the processes of nature, and so forth, in order to comprehend the external laws. And all spiritual science seeks the sources of existence for the sake of comprehending, of fathoming, man's being and destiny. If then, on the one hand, it is unquestioned that in general man's greatest riddle is man himself, we may say that in relation to life this expression may have a still deeper significance, in that it is necessary on the other hand to emphasize what each of us feels upon meeting another person: namely, that fundamentally each single person is in turn an enigma for others and for himself because of his special nature and being. Ordinarily, when we speak of this human enigma, we have in mind man in general, man without distinction regarding this or that individuality; and certainly many problems appear for us when we wish to understand human nature in general. But today we have not to do with the general riddles of existence, but rather with that enigma, not less significant for life, which each person we meet presents to us. For how endlessly varied are human beings in their deepest individual essence!

When we survey human life we shall have to be especially attentive to this riddle which each person presents, for our entire social life, our relation of man to man, must depend more upon how in individual cases we are able to approach with our feeling, with our sensibility, rather than merely with our intelligence, that individual human enigma which stands before us so often each day, with which we have to deal so often. How difficult it is regarding the people we meet to come to a clear knowledge of the various sides of their nature, and how much depends in life upon our coming to such clear knowledge regarding those people with whom we come in touch. We can of course only approach quite gradually the solution of the whole riddle of the human individual, of which each person presents a special phase, for there is a great gap between what is called human nature in general and that which confronts us in each human individual.

Spiritual science, or as we call it more recently, Anthroposophy, will have a special task precisely regarding this individual enigma—man. Not only must it give us information about what man is in general, but it must be, as you know, a knowledge which flows directly into our daily life, into all our sensibilities and feelings. Since our feelings and sensibilities are unfolded in the most beautiful way in our attitude toward our fellow men, the fruit of spiritual science, of spiritual scientific knowledge, will be revealed the most beautifully in the view we take of our fellow men because of this knowledge.

When in life a person stands before us, we must always, in the sense of this spiritual science, or Anthroposophy, take into consideration that what we perceive outwardly of the person is only one part, only one member, of the human being. To be sure, an outer material view of man regards as the whole man what this outer perception and the intellect connected with it are able to give us. Spiritual science shows us, however, that the human being is something very, very complicated. And often, when one goes more deeply into this complexity of human nature, the individual is then also seen in the right light. Spiritual science has the task of showing us what the innermost kernel of the human being is; what we can see with the eyes and grasp with the hands is only the outer expression, the outer shell. And we may hope to come to an understanding of the external also if we are able to penetrate into the spiritual inner part.

In the great gap between what we may call human nature in general and what confronts us in each individual, we see nevertheless many homogeneous characteristics in whole human groups. To these belong those human qualities which today form the subject of our consideration, and which we usually call the temperament. We need only utter the word ‘temperament’ to see that there are as many riddles as men. Within the basic types, the basic colorings, we have such a multiplicity and variety among individuals that we can indeed say that the real enigma, of existence is expressed in the peculiar basic disposition of the human being which we call temperament. And when the riddles intervene directly in practical life, the basic coloring of the human being plays a role. When a person stands before us, we feel that we are confronted by something of this basic disposition. Therefore it is to be hoped that spiritual science is able to give also the necessary information about the nature of the temperaments. For though we must admit that the temperaments spring from within, they nevertheless express themselves in the whole external appearance of the individual. By means of an external observation of nature, however, the riddle of man is not to be solved; we can approach the characteristic coloring of the human being only when we learn what spiritual science has to say about him.

It is of course true that each person confronts us with his own temperament, but we can still distinguish certain groups of temperaments. We speak chiefly of four types, as you know: the sanguine, the choleric, the phlegmatic, and the melancholic temperament. And even though this classification is not entirely correct in so far as we apply it to individuals—in individuals the temperaments are mixed in the most diverse way, so we can only say that one temperament or another predominates in certain traits—still we shall in general classify people in four groups according to their temperaments.

The fact that the temperament is revealed on the one side as something which inclines toward the individual, which makes people different, and on the other side joins them again to groups, proves to us that the temperament must on the one side have something to do with the innermost essence of the human being, and on the other must belong to universal human nature. Man's temperament, then, is something which points in two directions; and therefore it will be necessary, if we wish to solve the mystery, to ask on the one hand: In how far does the temperament point to what belongs to universal human nature? and then again on the other: How does it point to the essential kernel, to the actual inner being of the individual?

If we put the question, it is natural that spiritual science seems called upon to give enlightenment, for spiritual science must lead us to the innermost essential kernel of the human being. As he confronts us on earth, he appears to be placed in a universality, and again on the other side he appears as an independent entity. In the light of spiritual science man stands within two life streams which meet when he enters earth existence. And here we are at the focal point of the consideration of human nature according to the methods of spiritual science. We learn that we have in the human being, first of all, that which places him in his line of heredity. The one stream leads us from the individual man back to his parents, grandparents, and further ancestors. He shows the characteristics inherited from father, mother, grandparents, and all preceding ancestors farther and farther back. And these attributes he transmits again to his descendants. That which flows down from ancestors to the individual man we designate in life and in science as inherited attributes and characteristics. A man is placed in this way within what we may call the line of heredity; and it is known that an individual bears within him, even in the very kernel of his being, qualities which we must certainly trace back to heredity. Very much about an individual is explicable if we know his ancestry, so to speak. How deeply true are the words uttered with regard to his own personality by Goethe, who had such a deep knowledge of the soul:

My father gave my build to me,
Toward life my solemn bearing,
From mother comes my gayety
And my delight in yarning.

Here we see how this great knower of human nature has to point even to moral qualities when he wishes to refer to inherited characteristics. Everything we find as transmitted from ancestors to descendants interprets for us the individual person in a certain respect, but only in a certain respect; for what he has inherited from his ancestors gives us only one side of the human being. Of course the present-day materialistic conception would like to seek in the line of ancestry for everything under the sun, would like even to trace back a man's spiritual being (his spiritual qualities) to ancestry; and it never wearies of declaring that even a man's qualities of genius are explicable if we find signs, indications, of such characteristics in this or that ancestor. Those who hold such a view would like to compile the human personality, so to speak, from what is found scattered among the ancestors. Anyone who penetrates more deeply into human nature will of course be struck by the fact that beside these inherited attributes, in each man something confronts us which we cannot characterize otherwise than by saying: That is his very own; we cannot say, as a result of close observation, that it is transmitted from this or that ancestor. Spiritual science comes in here and tells us what it has to say about it. Today we are able to present only sketchily what is involved in these questions, to indicate only sketchily the findings of spiritual science.

Spiritual science tells us: Certainly it is true that the human being is placed in the stream which we may call the stream of heredity, the stream of inherited attributes. Besides that, however, something else appears in an individual, namely, the innermost spiritual kernel of his being. In this are united what the individual brings with him from the spiritual world and what the father and mother, the ancestors, are able to give to him. With that which flows down in the stream of the generations is united something else which has its origin, not in the immediate ancestors, the parents, and not in the grandparents, but which comes from quite other realms, something which passes from one existence to another. On the one side we may say: A man has this or that from his ancestors. But if we watch an individual develop from childhood on, we see how from the center of his nature something evolves which is the fruit of foregoing lives, something he never can have inherited from his ancestors.

What we see in the individual, when we penetrate to the depths of his soul, we can only explain to ourselves when we know a great comprehensive law, which is really only the consequence of many natural laws. It is the law of repeated earth lives, so greatly tabooed at the present time. This law of re-embodiment, the succession of earth lives, is only a specific case of a general cosmic law.

It will not appear so paradoxical to us when we think the matter over. Let us observe a lifeless mineral, a rock crystal. It has a regular form. If it is destroyed, nothing of its form remains which could pass over to other rock crystals. The new rock crystal receives nothing of its form. Now if we rise from the world of minerals to the world of plants, it becomes clear to us that a plant cannot originate according to the same law as a rock crystal. A plant can originate only when it is derived from the parent plant. Here the form is maintained and passes over to the other entity. If we rise to the animal world, we find that a development of species takes place. We see that the 19th century considered this discovery of the development of the species as among its greatest results. Not only does one form proceed from another, but each animal in the body of the mother repeats the earlier forms, the lower evolutionary phases of his ancestors. Among the animals we have a rising gradation of species. Among human beings, however, we have not only a gradation of species, a development of kinds, but we have a development of the individual. What a man acquires in the course of his life through education, through experience, is just as little lost as the animal's succession of ancestors.

A time will come when a man's essential core is traced back to a previous existence. It will be recognized that the human being is a fruit of an earlier existence. This law will have a peculiar destiny in the world, a destiny similar to that of another law. The opposition against which this teaching has to assert itself will be overcome, just as the opinion of the scientists of earlier centuries was overcome: that the living can originate from the lifeless. Even into the 17th century the learned and the unlearned had no doubt whatever that from ordinary lifeless things not only lower animals could be evolved, but that earthworms, even fish, could originate from ordinary river slime. The first who declared energetically that the living can originate only from the living was the great Italian natural scientist, Francesco Redi (1627 to 1697), who showed that the living derives only from the living. That is a law which is only the forerunner of another: namely, that the soul-spiritual derives from the soul-spiritual. On account of this teaching he was attacked, and only with difficulty escaped the fate of Giordano Bruno. Today burning is no longer the custom; but anyone who appears with a new truth today, for instance, anyone who wishes to trace back the soul-spiritual element to the soul-spiritual, would not be burned, to be sure, but would be looked upon as a fool. A time will come when it will be considered nonsense to think that a man lives only once, that there is not something permanent which unites itself with his inherited characteristics.

Spiritual science shows how that which is our own nature unites with what is given to us by heredity. That is the other stream into which the individual is placed, the stream with which the present civilization does not wish to have anything to do. Spiritual science leads us to the great facts of so-called re-embodiment, of reincarnation, and of karma. It shows us that we have to take into consideration the innermost essential kernel of man as that which descends from the spiritual world and unites with something which is given by the line of heredity, unites with what it is possible for the father and mother to give to the individual. For the spiritual scientist that which originates from the line of heredity envelops this essential kernel with outer sheaths. And as we must go back to father and mother and other ancestors for what we see in the physical man as form and stature, and so forth, for the characteristics which belong to his outer being, so we must go back to something entirely different, to an earlier life, if we wish to comprehend a man's innermost being; perhaps far, far back, beyond all hereditary transmission, we may have to seek the human being's spiritual kernel which has existed for thousands of years, and which during these thousands of years has entered again and again into existence, again and again has led an earth-life, and now in the present existence has united itself again to what it is possible for father and mother to give. Every single human being, when he enters into physical life, has a succession of lives behind him. And this has nothing to do with what belongs to the line of heredity. We should have to go back more than centuries if we wished to investigate what was his former life when he passed through the gate of death. After he has passed through the gate of death he lives in other forms of existence in the spiritual world. And when again the time comes to experience a life in the physical world, he seeks his parents. Thus we must go back to the spirit of man and his earlier incarnations, if we wish to explain what in him confronts us now as the soul-spiritual part. We must go back to his earlier incarnations, to what he acquired in course of them. We have to consider how he lived at that time, what he brought with him, as the causes of what the individual possesses today in the new life as tendencies, dispositions, abilities for this or that. For each person brings with him from his former life certain qualities of his life. Certain qualities and his destiny he brings with him to a certain degree. According as he has performed this or that deed, he calls forth the reaction, and feels himself thus to be surrounded by the new life. So he brings with him from earlier incarnations the inner kernel of his being and envelops it with what is given him by heredity.

Certainly this one thing should be mentioned, because it is important, since actually our present time has little inclination to recognize this inner kernel of being, or to look upon the idea of reincarnation as anything but a fantastic thought. It is considered today to be poor logic, and we shall hear materialistic thinkers objecting over and over again that what is in man arises entirely through heredity. Just look at the ancestors, he says, and you will discover that this or that trait, this or that peculiarity, existed in some ancestor, that all the individual traits and qualities can be explained by tracing them in the ancestors. The spiritual scientist can also point to that fact, and he has done so. For example, in a musical family musical talent is inherited, etc. That is all supposed to support the theory of heredity. Indeed, the law is expressed point blank, that seldom does genius appear at the beginning of a generation; genius stands at the end of a line of heredity. And that is supposed to be a proof that genius is inherited. Here one proceeds from the standpoint that some person has a definite characteristic—he is a genius. Someone traces back the peculiar abilities of the genius, seeks in the past among his ancestors, finds in some ancestor signs of a similar characteristic, picks out something here and there, finds this quality in one, that in another, and then shows how they finally flowed together in the genius who appeared at the end of the generation; and he infers from it that genius is transmitted. For anyone whose thinking is direct and logical that could at best prove the opposite. If finding qualities of genius among the ancestors proves anything, what does it prove? Surely nothing else than that man's essential being is able to express itself in life according to the instrument of the body. It proves nothing more than that a man comes out wet if he falls into the water. Really it is no more intelligent than if some one wishes to call our special attention to the fact that if a man falls into the water he gets wet. It is only natural that he takes up something of the element into which he is placed. Surely it is quite self-evident that the qualities of the ancestors would be carried by that which has flowed down through the line of heredity, and has finally been given through father and mother to the particular human being who has descended from the spiritual world. The individual clothes himself in the sheaths which are given to him by his ancestors. What is intended to be presented as proof of heredity could much better be looked upon as proof that it is not heredity. For if genius were inherited, it would have to appear at the beginning of the generations and not stand at the end of a line of heredity. If anyone were to show that a genius has sons and grandchildren to whom the qualities of genius are transmitted, then he would be able to prove that genius is inherited; but that is just not the case. It is limping logic which wishes to trace back man's spiritual qualities to the succession of ancestors. We must trace back spiritual qualities to that which a man has brought with him from his earlier incarnations.

If now we consider the one stream, that which lives in the line of heredity, we find that there the individual is drawn into a stream of existence through which he gets certain qualities: We have before us some one possessing the qualities of his family, his people, his race. The various children of the same parents have characteristics conditioned in this way. If we consider the true individual nature of a human being, we must say that the soul-spiritual essential kernel is born into the family, the people, the race; it envelops itself with what is given by the ancestors, but it brings with it purely individual characteristics. So we must ask ourselves: How is harmony established between a human essence which perhaps has acquired centuries earlier this or that quality and the outer covering with which it is now to envelop itself, and which bears the characteristics of family, people, race, and so forth? Is it possible for harmony to exist here? Is it not something in the highest sense individual which is thus brought into earth life, and is not the inherited part at variance with it? Thus the great question arises: How can that which has its origin in quite other worlds, which must seek father and mother for itself, unite with the physical body? How can it clothe itself with the physical attributes through which the human being is placed within the line of heredity?

We see then in a person confronting us the flowing together of two streams; of these two streams each human being is composed. In him we see on the one side what comes to him from his family, and on the other what has developed from the individual's innermost being; namely, a number of predispositions, characteristics, inner capacities and outer destiny. An agreement must be effected. We find that a man must adapt himself to this union, in accordance with his innermost being on the one side, and on the other in accordance with that which is brought to him from the line of heredity. We see how a man bears to a great degree the physiognomy of his ancestors; we could put him together, so to speak, from the sum of his various ancestors. Since at first the inner essential kernel has nothing to do with what is inherited, but must merely adapt itself to what is most suitable to it, we shall see that it is necessary for a certain mediation to exist for that which has lived perhaps for centuries in an entirely different world and is again transplanted into another world; the spirit being of man must have something here below to which it is related; there must be a bond, a connecting link, between the special individual human being and humanity in general, into which he is born through family, people, race.

Between these two, namely what we bring with us from our earlier life and what our family, ancestors and race imprint upon us, there is a mediation, something which bears more general characteristics, but at the same time is capable of being individualized. That which occupies this position between the line of heredity and the line which represents our individuality is expressed by the word TEMPERAMENT. In that which confronts us in the temperament of a person we have something in a certain way like a physiognomy of his innermost individuality. We understand thus how the individuality colors, by means of the qualities of temperament, the attributes inherited in the succession of generations. Temperament stands right in the middle between what we bring with us as individuals and what originates from the line of heredity. When the two streams unite, the one stream colors the other. They color each other reciprocally. Just as blue and yellow, let us say, unite in green, so do the two streams in man unite in what we call temperament. That which mediates between all inner characteristics which he brings with him from his earlier incarnation, on the one side, and on the other what the line of heredity brings to him, comes under the concept temperament. It now takes its place between the inherited characteristics and what he has absorbed into his inner essential being. It is as if upon its descent to earth this kernel of being were to envelop itself with a spiritual nuance of that which awaits it here below, so that in proportion as this kernel of being is able best to adapt itself to this covering for the human being, the kernel of being colors itself according to that into which it is born and to a quality which it brings with it. Here shine forth the soul qualities of man and his natural inherited attributes. Between the two is the temperament—between that by which a man is connected with his ancestors and that which he brings with him from his earlier incarnations. The temperament balances the eternal with the transitory.

This balancing occurs through the fact that what we have learned to call the members of human nature come into relation with one another in a quite definite way. We understand this in detail, however, only when we place before our mind's eye the complete human nature in the sense of spiritual science. Only from spiritual science is the mystery of the human temperament to be discovered.

This human being as he confronts us in life, formed by the flowing together of these two streams, we know as a four-membered being. So we shall be able to say when we consider the entire individual: This complete human being consists of the physical body, the etheric body or body of formative forces, the astral body, and the ego.

In that part of man perceptible to the outer senses, which is all that materialistic thought is willing to recognize, we have first, according to spiritual science, only a single member of the human being, the physical body, which man has in common with the mineral world. That part which is subject to physical laws, which man has in common with all environing outer nature, the sum of chemical and physical laws, we designate in spiritual science as the physical body.

Beyond this, however, we recognize higher super-sensible members of human nature which are as actual and essential as the outer physical body. As first super-sensible member, man has the etheric body, which becomes part of his organism and remains united with the physical body throughout the entire life; only at death does a separation of the two take place. Even this first super-sensible member of human nature—in spiritual science called the etheric or life body; we might also call it the glandular body—is no more visible to our outer eyes than are colors to those born blind. But it exists, actually and perceptibly exists, for that which Goethe calls the eyes of the spirit, and it is even more real than the outer physical body, for it is the builder, the moulder, of the physical body. During the entire time between birth and death this etheric or life body continuously combats the disintegration of the physical body. Any kind of mineral product of nature—a crystal, for example—is so constituted that it is permanently held together by its own forces, by the forces of its own substance. That is not the case with the physical body of a living being; here the physical forces work in such a way that they destroy the form of life, as we are able to observe after death, when the physical forces destroy the life-form. That this destruction does not occur during life, that the physical body does not conform to the physical and chemical forces and laws, is due to the fact that the etheric or life-body is ceaselessly combating these forces.

The third member of the human being we recognize in the bearer of all pleasure and suffering, joy and pain, instincts, impulses, passions, desires, and all that surges to and fro as sensations and ideas, even all concepts of what we designate as moral ideals, and so on. That we call the astral body. Do not take exception to this expression. We could also call it the “nerve-body.” Spiritual science sees in it something real, and knows indeed that this body of impulses and desires is not an effect of the physical body, but the cause of this body. It knows that the soul-spiritual part has built up for itself the physical body.

Thus we already have three members of the human being, and as man's highest member we recognize that by means of which he towers above all other beings, by means of which he is the crown of earth's creation: namely, the bearer of the human ego, which gives him in such a mysterious, but also in such a manifest way, the power of self-consciousness.

Man has the physical body in common with his entire visible environment, the etheric body in common with the plants and animals, the astral body with the animals. The fourth member, however, the ego, he has for himself alone; and by means of it he towers above the other visible creatures. We recognize this fourth member as the ego-bearer, as that in human nature by means of which man is able to say “I” to himself, to come to independence.

Now what we see physically, and what the intellect which is bound to the physical senses can know, is only an expression of these four members of the human being. Thus, the expression of the ego, of the actual ego-bearer, is the blood in its circulation. This “quite special fluid” is the expression of the ego. The physical sense expression of the astral body in man is, for example, among other things, the nervous system. The expression of the etheric body, or a part of this expression, is the glandular system; and the physical body expresses itself in the sense organs.

These four members confront us in the human being. So we shall be able to say, when we observe the complete human being, that he consists of physical body, etheric body, astral body, and ego. That which is primarily physical body, which the human being carries in such a way that it is visible to physical eyes, clearly bears, first of all, when viewed from without, the marks of heredity. Also those characteristics which live in man's etheric body, in that fighter against the disintegration of the physical body, are in the line of heredity. Then we come to his astral body, which in its characteristics is much more closely bound to the essential kernel of the human being. If we turn to this innermost kernel, to the actual ego, we find what passes from incarnation to incarnation, and appears as an inner mediator, which rays forth its essential qualities.

Now in the whole human nature all the separate members work into each other; they act reciprocally. Because two streams flow together in man when he enters the physical world, there arises a varied mixture of man's four members, and one, so to speak, gets the mastery over the others, and impresses its color upon them. Now according as one or another of these members comes especially into prominence, the individual confronts us with this or that temperament. The particular coloring of human nature, what we call the actual shade of the temperament, depends upon whether the forces, the different means of power, of one member or of another predominate, have a preponderance over the others. Man's eternal being, that which goes from incarnation to incarnation, so expresses itself in each new embodiment that it calls forth a certain reciprocal action among the four members of human nature: ego, astral body, etheric body and physical body; and from the interaction of these four members arises the nuance of human nature which we characterize as temperament.

When the essential being has tinged the physical and etheric bodies, that which arises because of the coloring thus given will act upon each of the other members; so that the way an individual appears to us with his characteristics depends upon whether the inner kernel acts more strongly upon the physical body, or whether the physical body acts more strongly upon it. According to his nature the human being is able to influence one of the four members, and through the reaction upon the other members the temperament originates. The human essential kernel, when it comes into re-embodiment, is able through this peculiarity to introduce into one or another of its members a certain surplus of activity. Thus it can give to the ego a certain surplus strength; or again, the individual can influence his other members because of having had certain experiences in his former life.

When the ego of the individual has become so strong through its destiny that its forces are noticeably dominant in the fourfold human nature, and it dominates the other members, then the choleric temperament results. If the person is especially subject to the influence of the forces of the astral body, then we attribute to him a sanguine temperament. If the etheric or life-body acts excessively upon the other members, and especially impresses its nature upon the person, the phlegmatic temperament arises. And when the physical body with its laws is especially predominant in the human nature, so that the spiritual essence of being is not able to overcome a certain hardness in the physical body, then we have to do with a melancholic temperament. Just as the eternal and the transitory intermingle, so does the relation of the members to one another appear.

I have already told you how the four members express themselves outwardly in the physical body. Thus, a large part of the physical body is the direct expression of the physical life principle of man. The physical body as such comes to expression only in the physical body; hence it is the physical body which gives the keynote in a melancholic.

We must regard the glandular system as the physical expression of the etheric body. The etheric body expresses itself physically in the glandular system. Hence in a phlegmatic person the glandular system gives the keynote in the physical body.

The nervous system and, of course, what occurs through it we must regard as the physical expression of the astral body. The astral body finds its physical expression in the nervous system; therefore in a sanguine person the nervous system gives the keynote to the physical body.

The blood in its circulation, the force of the pulsation of the blood, is the expression of the actual ego. The ego expresses itself in the circulation of the blood, in the predominating activity of the blood; it shows itself especially in the fiery vehement blood. One must try to penetrate more subtly into the connection which exists between the ego and the other members of the human being. Suppose, for example, that the ego exerts a peculiar force in the life of sensations, ideas, and the nervous system; suppose that in the case of a certain person everything arises from his ego, everything that he feels he feels strongly, because his ego is strong—we call that the choleric temperament. That which has received its character from the ego will make itself felt as the predominating quality. Hence, in a choleric the blood system is predominant.

The choleric temperament will show itself as active in a strongly pulsating blood; in this the element of force in the individual makes its appearance, in the fact that he has a special influence upon his blood. In such a person, in whom spiritually the ego, physically the blood, is particularly active, we see the innermost force vigorously keeping the organization fit. And as he thus confronts the outer world, the force of his ego will wish to make itself felt. That is the effect of this ego. By reason of this, the choleric appears as one who wishes to assert his ego in all circumstances. All the aggressiveness of the choleric, everything connected with his strong will-nature, may be ascribed to the circulation of the blood.

When the astral body predominates in an individual, the physical expression will lie in the functions of the nervous system, that instrument of the rising and falling waves of sensation; and that which the astral body accomplishes is the life of thoughts, of images, so that the person who is gifted with the sanguine temperament will have the predisposition to live in the surging sensations and feelings and in the images of his life of ideas.

We must understand clearly the relation of the astral body to the ego. The astral body functions between the nervous system and the blood system. So it is perfectly clear what this relation is. If only the sanguine temperament were present, if only the nervous system were active, being quite especially prominent as the expression of the astral body, then the person would have a life of shifting images and ideas; in this way a chaos of images would come and go. He would be given over to all the restless flux from sensation to sensation, from image to image, from idea to idea. Something of that sort appears if the astral body predominates, that is, in a sanguine person, who in a certain sense is given over to the tide of sensations, images, etc., since in him the astral body and the nervous system predominate. It is the forces of the ego which prevent the images from darting about in a fantastic way. Only because these images are controlled by the ego does harmony and order enter in. Were man not to check them with his ego, they would surge up and down without any evidence of control by the individual.

In the physical body it is the blood which principally limits, so to speak, the activity of the nervous system. Man's blood circulation, the blood flowing in man, is that which lays fetters, so to speak, upon what has its expression in the nervous system; it is the restrainer of the surging feelings and sensations; it is the tamer of the nerve-life. It would lead too far if I were to show you in all its details how the nervous system and the blood are related, and how the blood is the restrainer of this life of ideas. What occurs if the tamer is not present, if a man is deficient in red blood, is anemic? Well, even if we do not go into the more minute psychological details, from the simple fact that when a person's blood becomes too thin, that is, has a deficiency of red corpuscles, he is easily given over to the unrestrained surging back and forth of all kinds of fantastic images, even to illusion and hallucination—you can still conclude from this simple fact that the blood is the restrainer of the nerve-system. A balance must exist between the ego and the astral body—or speaking physiologically, between the blood and the nervous system—so that one may not become a slave of his nervous system, that is, to the surging life of sensation and feeling.

If now the astral body has a certain excess of activity, if there is a predominance of the astral body and its expression, the nerve-system, which the blood restrains to be sure, but is not completely able to bring to a condition of absolute balance, then that peculiar condition arises in which human life easily arouses the individual's interest in a subject, but he soon drops it and quickly passes to another one; such a person cannot hold himself to an idea, and in consequence his interest can be immediately kindled in everything which meets him in the outer world, but the restraint is not applied to make it inwardly enduring; the interest which has been kindled quickly evaporates. In this quick kindling of interest and quick passing from one subject to another we see the expression of the predominating astral element, the sanguine temperament. The sanguine person cannot linger with an impression, he cannot hold fast to an image, cannot fix his attention upon one subject. He hurries from one life impression to another, from perception to perception, from idea to idea; he shows a fickle disposition. That can be especially observed with sanguine children, and in this case it may cause one anxiety. Interest is easily aroused, a picture begins easily to have an effect, quickly makes an impression, but the impression soon vanishes again.

When there is a strong predominance in an individual of the etheric or life-body—that which inwardly regulates the processes of man's life and growth—and the expression of this etheric body—that system which brings about the feeling of inner well-being or of discomfort—then such a person will be tempted to wish just to remain in this feeling of inner comfort. The etheric body is a body which leads a sort of inner life, while the astral body expresses itself in outer interests, and the ego is the bearer of our activity and will, directed outward. If then this etheric body, which acts as life-body, and maintains the separate functions in equilibrium, an equilibrium which expresses itself in the feeling of life's general comfort—when this self-sustained inner life, which chiefly causes the sense of inner comfort, predominates, then it may occur that an individual lives chiefly in this feeling of inner comfort, that he has such a feeling of well-being, when everything in his organism is in order, that he feels little urgency to direct his inner being toward the outer world, is little inclined to develop a strong will. The more inwardly comfortable he feels, the more harmony will he create between the inner and outer. When this is the case, when it is even carried to excess, we have to do with a phlegmatic person.

In a melancholic we have seen that the physical body, that is, the densest member of the human being, rules the others. A man must be master of his physical body, as he must be master of a machine if he wishes to use it. But when this densest part rules, the person always feels that he is not master of it, that he cannot manage it. For the physical body is the instrument which he should rule completely through his higher members. But now this physical body has dominion and sets up opposition to the others. In this case the person is not able to use his instrument perfectly, so that the other principles experience repression because of it, and disharmony exists between the physical body and the other members. This is the way the hardened physical system appears when it is in excess. The person is not able to bring about flexibility where it should exist. The inner man has no power over his physical system; he feels inner obstacles. They show themselves through the fact that the person is compelled to direct his strength upon these inner obstacles. What cannot be overcome is what causes sorrow and pain; and these make it impossible for the individual to look out upon his contemporary world in an unprejudiced way. This constraint becomes a source of inner grief, which is felt as pain and listlessness, as a sad mood. It is very easy to feel that life is filled with pain and sorrow. Certain thoughts and ideas begin to be enduring; the person becomes gloomy, melancholic. There is a constant arising of pain. This mood is caused by nothing else than that the physical body sets up opposition to the inner ease of the etheric body, to the mobility of the astral body, and to the ego's certainty of its goal.

And if we thus comprehend the nature of the temperaments through sound knowledge, many a thing in life will become clear to us; but it will also become possible to handle in a practical way what we otherwise could not do. Look at much which directly confronts us in life! What we see there as the mixture of the four members of human nature meets us clearly and significantly in the outer picture. We need only observe how the temperament comes to expression externally.

Let us, for instance, take the choleric person, who has a strong firm center in his inner being. If the ego predominates, the person will assert himself against all outer oppositions; he wants to be in evidence. This ego is the restrainer. Those pictures are consciousness-pictures. The physical body is formed according to its etheric body, the etheric body according to its astral body. This astral body would fashion man, so to speak, in the most varied way. But because growth is opposed by the ego in its blood forces, the balance is maintained between abundance and variety of growth. So when there is a surplus of ego, growth can be retarded. It positively retards the growth of the other members; it does not allow the astral body and the etheric body their full rights. In the choleric temperament you are able to recognize clearly in the outer growth, in all that confronts us outwardly, the expression of what is inwardly active, the actual deep inner force-nature of the man, of the complete ego. Choleric persons appear as a rule as if growth had been retarded. You can find in life example after example; for instance, from spiritual history the philosopher, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, the German choleric. Even in external appearance he is recognizable as such, since in his outer form he gave the impression of being retarded in growth. Thereby he reveals clearly that the other members of his being have been held back by the excess of ego. Not the astral body with its forming capacity is the predominant member, but the ego rules, the restrainer, the limiter of the formative forces. Hence we see as a rule in those who are preeminently men of strong will, where the ego restrains the free formative force of the astral body, a small compact figure. Take another classical example of the choleric: Napoleon, the “little General,” who remained so small because the ego held back the other members of his being. There you have the type of the retarded growth of the choleric. There you can see how this force of the ego works out of the spirit, so that the innermost being is manifest in the outer form. Observe the physiognomy of the choleric! Take in comparison the phlegmatic person! How indefinite are his features; how little reason you have to say that such a form of forehead is suited to the choleric. In one organ it is shown especially clearly whether the astral body or the ego works formatively, that is in the eye, in the steady, assured aspect of the eye of the choleric. As a rule we see how this strongly-kindled inner light, which turns everything luminously inward, sometimes is expressed in a black, a coal-black eye, because, according to a certain law, the choleric does not permit the astral body to color that very thing which his ego-force draws inward, that which is colored in another person. Observe such an individual in his whole bearing. One who is experienced can almost tell from the rear view whether a certain person is a choleric. The firm walk proclaims the choleric, so to speak. Even in the step we see the expression of strong ego-force. In the choleric child we already notice the firm tread; when he walks on the ground, he not only sets his foot on it, but he treads as if he wanted to go a little bit farther, into the ground.

The complete human individual is a copy of this innermost being, which declares itself to us in such a way. But naturally, it is not a question of my maintaining that the choleric person is short and the sanguine tall. We may compare the form of a person only with his own growth. It depends upon the relation of the growth to the entire form.

Notice the sanguine person! Observe what a strange glance even the sanguine child has; it quickly lights upon something, but just as quickly turns to something else; it is a merry glance; an inner joy and gaiety shine in it; in it is expressed what comes from the depths of the human nature, from the mobile astral body, which predominates in the sanguine person. In its mobile inner life this astral body will work upon the members; and it will also make the person's external appearance as flexible as possible. Indeed, we are able to recognize the entire outer physiognomy, the permanent form and also the gestures, as the expression of the mobile, volatile, fluidic astral body. The astral body has the tendency to fashion, to form. The inner reveals itself outwardly; hence the sanguine person is slender and supple. Even in the slender form, the bony structure; we see the inner mobility of the astral body in the whole person. It comes to expression for example in the slim muscles. It is also to be seen in his external expression. Even one who is not clairvoyant can recognize from the rear whether a person is of sanguine or choleric temperament; and to be able to do this one need not be a spiritual scientist. In a sanguine person we have an elastic and springing walk. In the hopping, dancing walk of the sanguine child we see the expression of the mobile astral body. The sanguine temperament manifests itself especially strongly in childhood. See how the formative tendency is expressed there; and even more delicate attributes are to be found in the outer form. If in the choleric person we have sharply-cut facial features, in the sanguine they are mobile, expressive, changeable. And likewise there appears in the sanguine child a certain inner possibility to alter his countenance. Even to the color of the eyes we could confirm the expression of the sanguine person. The inwardness of the ego-nature, the self-sufficient inwardness of the choleric, meets us in his black eye. Look at the sanguine person in whom the ego-nature is not so deep-rooted, in whom the astral body pours forth all its mobility—there the blue eye is predominant. These blue eyes are closely connected with the individual's invisible inner light, the light of the astral body.

Thus many attributes could be pointed out which reveal the temperament in the external appearance. Through the four-membered human nature we learn to understand clearly this soul riddle of the temperaments. And indeed, a knowledge of the four temperaments, springing from a profound perception of human nature, has been handed down to us from ancient times. If we thus understand human nature, and know that the external is only the expression of the spiritual, then we learn to understand man in his relation even to the externalities, to understand him in his whole process of becoming; and we learn to recognize what we must do concerning ourself and the child with regard to temperament. In education especially notice must be taken of the kind of temperament that tends to develop in the child. For life's wisdom, as for pedagogy, an actual living knowledge of the nature of the temperaments is indispensable, and both would profit infinitely from it.

And now let us go further. Again we see how the phlegmatic temperament also is brought to expression in the outer form. In this temperament there predominates the activity of the etheric body, which has its physical expression in the glandular system and its soul expression in a feeling of ease, in inner balance. If in such a person everything is not only normally in order within, but if, beyond this normality, these inner formative forces of ease are especially active, then their products are added to the human body; it becomes corpulent, it expands. In the largeness of the body, in the development of the fatty parts, we see that which the inner formative forces of the etheric body are especially working on. The inner sense of ease of the phlegmatic person meets us in all that. And who would not recognize in this lack of reciprocal action between the inner and the outer the cause of the ofttimes slovenly, dragging gait of the phlegmatic person, whose step will often not adapt itself to the ground; he does not step properly, so to speak; does not put himself in relation to things. That he has little control over the forms of his inner being you can observe in the whole man. The phlegmatic temperament confronts one in the immobile, indifferent countenance, even in the peculiarly dull, colorless appearance of the eye. While the eye of the choleric is fiery and sparkling, we can recognize in that of the phlegmatic the expression of the etheric body, focused only upon inner ease.

The melancholic is one who cannot completely attain mastery over the physical instrument, one to whom the physical instrument offers resistance, one who cannot cope with the use of this instrument. Look at the melancholic, how he generally has a drooping head, has not the force in himself to stiffen his neck. The bowed head shows that the inner forces which adjust the head perpendicularly are never able to unfold freely. The glance is downward, the eye sad, unlike the black gleam of the choleric eye. We see in the peculiar appearance of the eye that the physical instrument makes difficulties for him. The walk, to be sure, is measured, firm, but not like the walk of the choleric, the firm tread of the choleric; it has a certain kind of dragging firmness.

All this can be only indicated here; but the life of the human being will be much, much more understandable to us if we work in this way, if we see the spirit activating the forms in such a way that the external part of the individual can become an expression of his inner being. So you see how significantly spiritual science can contribute to the solution of this riddle; but only if you face the whole reality, to which the spiritual also belongs, and do not stop merely with the physical reality, can this knowledge be practically applied in life. Therefore only from spiritual science can this knowledge flow in such a way as to benefit the whole of humanity as well as the individual.

Now if we know all that, we can also learn to apply it. Particularly it must be of interest to learn how we can handle the temperaments pedagogically in childhood. For in education the kind of temperament must be very carefully observed; with children it is especially important to be able to guide and direct the developing temperament. But later also it is still important, for anyone in self-education. For the person who wishes to train himself it is invaluable that he observe what is expressed in his temperament.

I have pointed out to you here the fundamental types, but naturally in life they do not often appear thus pure. Each person has only the fundamental tone of a temperament, besides which he has something of the others. Napoleon, for example, had in him much of the phlegmatic temperament, although he was a choleric. If we would govern life practically, it is important to be able to allow that which expresses itself physically to work upon our soul.

How important this is we can see best of all if we consider that the temperaments can degenerate, that what may appear to us as one-sidedness can also degenerate. What would the world be without the temperaments—if people had only one temperament? The most tiresome place you could imagine! The world would be dreary without the temperaments, not only in the physical, but also in the higher sense. All variety, beauty, and all the richness of life are possible only through the temperaments. Do we not see how everything great in life can be brought about just through the one-sidedness of the temperaments, but also how these can degenerate in their one-sidedness? Are we not troubled about the child because we see that the choleric temperament can degenerate to malice, the sanguine to fickleness, the melancholic to gloom, etc.?

In the question of education in particular, and also in self-education, will not the knowledge and estimation of the temperaments be of essential value to the educator? We must not be misled into depreciating the value of the temperament because it is a one-sided characteristic. In education the important thing is not to equalize the temperaments, to level them, but to bring them into the right track. We must clearly understand that the temperament leads to one-sidedness, that the most radical phase of the melancholic temperament is madness; of the phlegmatic, imbecility; of the sanguine, insanity; of the choleric, all those explosions of diseased human nature which result in frenzy, and so forth. Much beautiful variety results from the temperaments, because opposites attract each other; nevertheless, the deification of the one-sidedness of temperament very easily causes harm between birth and death. In each temperament there exists a small and a great danger of degeneracy. With the choleric person there is the danger that in youth his ego will be determined by his irascibility, by his lack of self-control. That is the small danger. The great danger is the folly which wishes to pursue, from the impulse of his ego, some kind of individual goal. In the sanguine temperament the small danger is that the person will lapse into fickleness. The great danger is that the rising and falling tide of sensations may result in insanity. The small danger for the phlegmatic is lack of interest in the outer world; the great danger is stupidity or idiocy. The small danger in the melancholic is gloominess, the possibility that he may not be able to extricate himself from what rises up within him. The great danger is madness.

When we contemplate all that, we shall see that a tremendously significant task in practical life lies in the directing and guiding of the temperaments. It is important for the educator to be able to say to himself: What will you do, for example, in the case of a sanguine child? Here one must try to learn from the knowledge of the entire nature of the sanguine temperament how to proceed. If other points of view must be considered concerning the education of the child, it is also necessary that temperament, as a subject in itself, be taken into account. But in order to guide the temperaments the principle to be observed is that we must always reckon with what is there and not with what is not there.

We have a child of sanguine temperament before us, which could easily degenerate into fickleness, lack of interest in important things, and, instead, become quickly interested in other things. The sanguine child is the quickly comprehending, but also the quickly forgetting child, whose interest it is difficult to hold upon anything whatever, just because interest in one subject is quickly lost and passes over to another. This can grow into the most frightful one-sidedness, and it is possible to notice the danger if we look into the depths of human nature. In the case of such a child a material-minded person will immediately come forward with a prescription and say: If you have a sanguine child to bring up, you must bring it into reciprocal activity with other children. But a person who thinks realistically in the right sense says: If you begin with the sanguine child by working upon forces which it does not at all possess, you will accomplish nothing with it. You could exert your powers ever so seriously to develop the other members of human nature, but these simply do not predominate in this child. If a child has a sanguine temperament, we cannot help him along in development by trying to beat interests into him; we cannot pound in something different from what his sanguine temperament is. We should not ask, What does the child lack? What are we to beat into him? But we should ask, What as a rule does a sanguine child possess? And that is what we must reckon with. Then we shall say to ourselves: We do not alter these characteristics by trying to induce any sort of opposite quality in this child. With regard to these things which are rooted in the innermost nature of man we must take into consideration that we can only bend them. Thus we shall not be building upon what the child does not possess, but upon what he does possess. We shall build exactly upon that sanguine nature, upon that mobility of the astral body, and not try to beat into him what belongs to another member of human nature. With a sanguine child who has become one-sided we must just appeal to his sanguine temperament.

If we wish to have the right relation with this child, we must take special notice of something. For from the first it becomes evident to the expert that if the child is ever so sanguine, there is still something or other in which he is interested, that there is one interest, one genuine interest for each sanguine child. It will generally be easy to arouse interest in this or that subject, but it will quickly be lost again. There is one interest, however, which can be enduring even for the sanguine child. Experience shows this; only it must be discovered. And that which is found to hold a special interest must be kept in mind. And whatever it is that the child does not pass by with fickle interest we must try to bring before him as a special fact, so that his temperament extends to something which is not a matter of indifference to him. Whatever he delights in, we must try to place in a special light; the child must learn to use his sanguineness. We can work in such a way that we begin first of all with the one thing that can always be found, with the forces which the child has. He will not be able to become lastingly interested in anything through punishment and remonstrance. For things, subjects, events, he will not easily show anything but a passing, changeable interest; but for one personality, especially suited to a sanguine child—experience will show this—there will be a permanent, continuous interest, even though the child is ever so fickle. If only we are the right personality, or if we are able to bring him into association with the right personality, the interest will appear. It is only necessary to search in the right way. Only by the indirect way of love for one personality, is it possible for interest to appear in the sanguine child. But if that interest, love for one person, is kindled in him, then through this love straightway a miracle happens. This love can cure a child's one-sided temperament. More than any other temperament, the sanguine child needs love for one personality. Everything must be done to awaken love in such a child. Love is the magic word. All education of the sanguine child must take this indirect path of attachment to a certain personality. Therefore parents and teachers must heed the fact that an enduring interest in things cannot be awakened by drumming it into the sanguine child, but they must see to it that this interest is won by the roundabout way of attachment to a personality. The child must develop this personal attachment; one must make himself lovable to the child; that is one's duty to the sanguine child. It is the responsibility of the teacher that such a child shall learn to love the personality.

We can still further build up the education upon the child's sanguine nature itself. The sanguine nature reveals itself, you know, in the inability to find any interest which is lasting. We must observe what is there. We must see that all kinds of things are brought into the environment of the child in which he has shown more than the ordinary interest. We should keep the sanguine child busy at regular intervals with such subjects as warrant a passing interest, concerning which he is permitted to be sanguine, so to speak, subjects not worthy of sustained interest. These things must be permitted to affect the sanguine nature, permitted to work upon the child; then they must be removed so that he will desire them again, and they may again be given to him. We must cause these things to work upon the child as the objects of the ordinary world work upon the temperament. In other words, it is important to seek out for a sanguine child those objects toward which he is permitted to be sanguine.

If we thus appeal to what exists rather than to something which does not exist, we shall see—and practical experience will prove it—that as matter of fact the sanguine force, if it becomes one-sided, actually permits itself to be captured by serious subjects. That is attained as by an indirect path. It is good if the temperament is developed in the right way during childhood, but often the adult himself has to take his education in hand later in life. As long, indeed, as the temperaments are held in normal bounds, they represent that which makes life beautiful, varied, and great. How dull would life be if all people were alike with regard to temperament. But in order to equalize a one-sidedness of temperament, a man must often take his self-education in hand in later life. Here again one should not insist upon pounding into oneself, as it were, a lasting interest in any sort of thing; but he must say to himself: According to my nature I am sanguine; I will now seek subjects in life which my interest may pass over quickly, in which it is right that the interest should not be lasting, and I will just occupy myself with that in which I may with complete justification lose interest in the very next moment.

Let us suppose that a parent should fear that in his child the choleric temperament would express itself in a one-sided way. The same treatment cannot be prescribed as for the sanguine child; the choleric will not be able easily to acquire love for a personality. He must be reached through something else in the influence of person upon person. But in the case of the choleric child also there is an indirect way by which the development may always be guided. What will guide the education here with certainty is: Respect and esteem for an authority. For the choleric child one must be thoroughly worthy of esteem and respect in the highest sense of the word. Here it is not a question of making oneself loved through the personal qualities, as with the sanguine child, but the important thing is that the choleric child shall always have the belief that the teacher understands the matter in hand. The latter must show that he is well informed about the things that take place in the child's environment; he must not show a weak point. He must endeavor never to let the choleric child notice that he might be unable to give information or advice concerning what is to be done. The teacher must see to it that he holds the firm reins of authority in his hands, and never betray the fact that he is perhaps at his wits' end. The child must always keep the belief that the teacher knows. Otherwise he has lost the game. If love for the personality is the magic word for the sanguine child, then respect and esteem for the worth of a person is the magic word for the choleric.

If we have a choleric child to train we must see to it before everything else that this child shall unfold, bring to development, his strong inner forces. It is necessary to acquaint him with what may present difficulties in the outer life. For the choleric child who threatens to degenerate into one-sidedness, it is especially necessary to introduce into the education that which is difficult to overcome, so as to call attention to the difficulties of life by producing serious obstacles for the child. Especially must such things be put in his way as will present opposition to him. Oppositions, difficulties, must be placed in the path of the choleric child. The effort must be put forth not to make life altogether easy for him. Hindrances must be created so that the choleric temperament is not repressed, but is obliged to come to expression through the very fact that certain difficulties are presented which the child must overcome. The teacher must not beat out, educate out, so to speak, a child's choleric temperament, but he must put before him just those things upon which he must use his strength, things in connection with which the choleric temperament is justified. The choleric child must of inner necessity learn to battle with the objective world. The teacher will therefore seek to arrange the environment in such a way that this choleric temperament can work itself out in overcoming obstacles; and it will be especially good if these obstacles pertain to little things, to trifles; if the child is made to do something on which he must expend tremendous strength, so that the choleric temperament is strongly expressed, but actually the facts are victorious, the strength employed is frittered away. In this way the child gains respect for the power of facts which oppose what is expressed in the choleric temperament.

Here again there is another indirect way in which the choleric temperament can be trained. Here it is necessary first of all to awaken reverence, the feeling of awe, to approach the child in such a way as actually to arouse such respect, by showing him that we can overcome difficulties which he himself cannot yet overcome; reverence, esteem, particularly for what the teacher can accomplish, for his ability to overcome objective difficulties. That is the proper means: Respect for the ability of the teacher is the way by which the choleric child in particular may be reached in education.

It is also very difficult to manage the melancholic child. What must we do if we fear the threatened one-sidedness of the melancholic temperament of the child, since we cannot cram in what he does not possess? We must reckon with the fact that it is just repressions and resistance that he has power within himself to cling to. If we wish to turn this peculiarity of his temperament in the right direction, we must divert this force from subjective to objective activity. Here it is of very special importance that we do not build upon the possibility, let us say, of being able to talk him out of his grief and pain, or otherwise educate them out of him; for the child has the tendency to this excessive reserve because the physical instrument presents hindrances. We must particularly build upon what is there, we must cultivate what exists. With the melancholic child it will be especially necessary for the teacher to attach great importance to showing him that there is suffering in the world. If we wish to approach this child as a teacher, we must find here also the point of contact. The melancholic child is capable of suffering, of moroseness; these qualities exist in him and we cannot flog them out, but we can divert them.

For this temperament too there is one important point: Above all we must show the melancholic child how people can suffer. We must cause him to experience justifiable pain and suffering in external life, in order that he may come to know that there are things concerning which he can experience pain. That is the important thing. If you try to entertain him, you drive him back into his own corner. Whatever you do, you must not think you have to entertain such a child, to try to cheer him up. You should not divert him; in that way you harden the gloominess, the inner pain. If you take him where he can find pleasure, he will only become more and more shut up within himself. It is always good if you try to cure the young melancholic, not by giving him gay companionship, but by causing him to experience justifiable pain. Divert his attention from himself by showing him that sorrow exists. He must see that there are things in life which cause suffering. Although it must not be carried too far, the important point is to arouse pain in connection with external things in order to divert him.

The melancholic child is not easy to guide; but here again there is a magic means. As with the sanguine child the magic word is love for a personality, with the choleric, esteem and respect for the worth of the teacher, so with the melancholic child the important thing is for the teachers to be personalities who in some way have been tried by life, who act and speak from a life of trial. The child must feel that the teacher has really experienced suffering. Bring to his attention in all the manifold occurrences of life the trials of your own destiny. Most fortunate is the melancholic child who can grow up beside a person who has much to give because of his own hard experiences; in such a case soul works upon soul in the most fortunate way. If therefore at the side of the melancholic child there stands a person who, in contrast to the child's merely subjective, sorrowful tendencies, knows how to tell in a legitimate way of pain and suffering that the outer world has brought him, then such a child is aroused by this shared experience, this sympathy with justified pain. A person who can show in the tone and feeling of his narration that he has been tried by destiny, is a blessing to such a melancholic child.

Even in arranging the melancholic child's environment, so to speak, we should not leave his predispositions unconsidered. Hence, it is even advantageous if—strange as it may sound—we build up for the child actual hindrances, obstructions, so that he can experience legitimate suffering and pain with regard to certain things. It is the best education for such a child if the existing tendency to subjective suffering and grief can be diverted by being directed to outer hindrances and obstructions. Then the child, the soul of the child, will gradually take a different direction.

In self-education also we can again use this method: we must always allow the existing tendencies, the forces present in us, to work themselves out, and not artificially repress them. If the choleric temperament, for example, expresses itself so strongly in us that it is a hindrance, we must permit this existing inner force to work itself out by seeking those things upon which we can in a certain sense shatter our force, dissipate our forces, preferably upon insignificant, unimportant things. If on the other hand we are melancholic, we shall do well to seek out justifiable pain and suffering in external life, in order that we may have opportunity to work out our melancholy in the external world; then we shall set ourselves right.

Let us pass on to the phlegmatic temperament. With the phlegmatic child it will be very difficult for us if his education presents us with the task of conducting ourselves in an appropriate way toward him. It is difficult to gain any influence over a phlegmatic person. But there is one way in which an indirect approach may be made. Here again it would be wrong, very wrong indeed, if we insisted upon shaking up a person so inwardly at ease, if we thought we could pound in some kind of interests then and there. Again we must take account of what he has.

There is something in each case which will hold the attention of the phlegmatic person, especially the phlegmatic child. If only through wise education we build up around him what he needs, we shall be able to accomplish much. It is necessary for the phlegmatic child to have much association with other children. If it is good for the others also to have playmates, it is especially so for the phlegmatic. He must have playmates with the most varied interests. There is nothing to appeal to in the phlegmatic child. He will not interest himself easily in objects and events. One must therefore bring this child into association with children of like age. He can be trained through the sharing of the interests—as many as possible—of other personalities. If he is indifferent to his environment, his interest can be kindled by the effect upon him of the interests of his playmates. Only by means of that peculiar suggestive effect, only through the interests of others, is it possible to arouse his interest. An awakening of the interest of the phlegmatic child will result through the incidental experiencing of the interest of others, the sharing of the interests of his playmates, just as sympathy, sharing of the experience of another human destiny, is effective for the melancholic. Once more: To be stimulated by the interest of others is the correct means of education for the phlegmatic. As the sanguine child must have attachment for one personality, so must the phlegmatic child have friendship, association with as many children as possible of his own age. That is the only way the slumbering force in him can be aroused. Things as such do not affect the phlegmatic. With a subject connected with the tasks of school and home you will not be able to interest the little phlegmatic; but indirectly, by way of the interests of other souls of similar age you can bring it about. If things are reflected in this way in others, these interests are reflected in the soul of the phlegmatic child.

Then also we should particularly see to it that we surround him with things and cause events to occur near him concerning which apathy is appropriate. One must direct the apathy to the right objects, those toward which one may rightly be phlegmatic. In this way quite wonderful things can sometimes be accomplished in the young child. But also one's self-education may be taken in hand in the same way in later life, if it is noticed that apathy tends to express itself in a one-sided way; that is, by trying to observe people and their interests. One thing more can also be done, so long as we are still in a position to employ intelligence and reason at all: we can seek out the very subjects and events which are of the greatest indifference to us, toward which it is justifiable for us to be phlegmatic.

We have now seen again how, in the methods of education based upon spiritual science, we build upon what one has and not upon what is lacking.

So we may say that it is best for the sanguine child if he may grow up guided by a firm hand, if some one can show him externally aspects of character through which he is able to develop personal love. Love for a personality is the best remedy for the sanguine child. Not merely love, but respect and esteem for what a personality can accomplish is the best for the choleric child. A melancholic child may be considered fortunate if he can grow up beside some one who has a bitter destiny. In the corresponding contrast produced by the new insight, by the sympathy which arises for the person of authority, and in the sharing of the justifiably painful destiny,—in this consists what the melancholic needs. They develop well if they can indulge less in attachment to a personality, less in respect and esteem for the accomplishment of a personality, but can reach out in sympathy with suffering and justifiably painful destinies. The phlegmatic is reached best if we produce in him an inclination towards the interests of other personalities, if he can be stirred by the interests of others.

The sanguine should be able to develop love and attachment for one personality.

The choleric should be able to develop esteem and respect for the accomplishments of the personality.

The melancholic should be able to develop a heartfelt sympathy with another's destiny.

The phlegmatic child should be led to the sharing of the interests of others.

Thus do we see in these principles of education how spiritual science goes right into the practical questions of life; and when we come to speak about the intimate aspects of life, spiritual science shows just in these very things how it works in practice, shows here its eminently practical side. Infinitely much could we possess of the art of living, if we would adopt this realistic knowledge of spiritual science. When it is a case of mastering life, we must listen for life's secrets, and these lie behind the sense perceptible. Only real spiritual science can explain such a thing as the human temperaments, and so thoroughly fathom them that we are able to make this spiritual science serve as a benefit and actual blessing of life, whether in youth or in age.

We can also take self-education in hand here; for when it is a question of self-education, the temperaments can be particularly useful to us. We become aware with our intellect that our sanguineness is playing us all kinds of tricks, and threatens to degenerate to an unstable way of life; we hurry from subject to subject. This condition can be countered if only we go about it in the right way. The sanguine person will not, however, reach his goal by saying to himself: You have a sanguine temperament and you must break yourself of it. The intellect applied directly is often a hindrance in this realm. On the other hand, used indirectly it can accomplish much. Here the intellect is the weakest soul-force of all. In presence of the stronger soul-forces, such as the temperaments, the intellect can do very little; it can work only indirectly. If some one exhorts himself ever so often: “For once now hold fast to one thing”—then the sanguine temperament will again and again play him bad tricks. He can reckon only with a force which he has. Behind the intellect there must be other forces. Can a sanguine person count upon anything at all but his sanguine temperament? And in self-education too it is necessary to try to do also what the intellect can do directly. A man must reckon with his sanguineness; self-exhortations are fruitless. The important thing is to show sanguineness in the right place. One must try to have no interest in certain things in which he is interested. We can with the intellect provide experiences for which the brief interest of the sanguine person is justified. Let him try to place himself artificially in such situations; to put in his way as much as possible what is of no interest to him. If then we bring about such situations in ever such small matters, concerning which a brief interest is warranted, it will call forth what is necessary. Then it will be noticed, if only one works at it long enough, that this temperament develops the force to change itself.

The choleric can likewise cure himself in a particular way, if we consider the matter from the point of view of spiritual science. For the choleric temperament it is good to choose such subjects, to bring about through the intellect such conditions as are not changed if we rage, conditions in which we reduce ourselves ad absurdum by our raging. When the choleric notices that his fuming inner being wishes to express itself, he must try to find as many things as possible which require little force to be overcome; he must try to bring about easily superable outer facts, and must always try to bring his force to expression in the strongest way upon insignificant events and facts. If he thus seeks out insignificant things which offer him no resistance, then he will bring his one-sided choleric temperament again into the right course.

If it is noticed that melancholia is producing one-sidedness, one must try directly to create for himself legitimate outer obstacles, and then will to examine these legitimate outer obstacles in their entire aspect, so that what one possesses of pain and the capacity for suffering is diverted to outer objects. The intellect can accomplish this. Thus the melancholic temperament must not pass by the pain and suffering of life, but must actually seek them, must experience sympathy, in order that his pain may be diverted to the right objects and events.

If we are phlegmatic, have no interests, then it is good for us to occupy ourselves as much as possible with quite uninteresting things, to surround ourselves with many sources of ennui, so that we are thoroughly bored. Then we shall completely cure ourselves of our apathy, completely break ourselves of it. The phlegmatic person therefore does well to decide with his intellect that he must take interest in a certain thing, that he must search for things which are really only worthy to be ignored. He must seek occupations in which apathy is justified, in which he can work out his apathy. In this way he conquers it, even when it threatens to degenerate into one-sidedness.

Thus we reckon with what is there and not with what is lacking. Those however who call themselves realists believe, for example, that the best thing for a melancholic is to produce conditions that are opposed to his temperament. But anyone who actually thinks realistically will appeal to what is already in him.

So you see spiritual science does not divert us from reality and from actual life; but it will illuminate every step of the way to the truth; and it can also guide us everywhere in life to take reality into consideration. For those people are deluded who think they can stick to external sense appearance. We must go deeper if we wish to enter into this reality; and we shall acquire an understanding for the variety of life if we engage in such considerations.

Our sense for the practical will become more and more individual if we are not impelled to apply a general prescription: namely, you must not drive out fickleness with seriousness, but see what kind of characteristics the person has which are to be stimulated. If then man is life's greatest riddle, and if we have hope that this riddle will be solved for us, we must turn to this spiritual science, which alone can solve it for us. Not only is man in general a riddle to us, but each single person who confronts us in life, each new individuality, presents a new riddle, which of course we cannot fathom by considering it with the intellect. We must penetrate to the individuality. And here too we can allow spiritual science to work out of the innermost center of our being; we can make spiritual science the greatest impulse of life. So long as it remains only theory, it is worthless. It must be applied in the life of the human being. The way to this goal is possible, but it is long. It becomes illuminated for us if it leads to reality. Then we become aware that our views are transformed. Knowledge is transformed. It is prejudice to believe that knowledge must remain abstract; on the contrary, when it enters the spiritual realm it permeates our whole life's work; our entire life becomes permeated by it. Then we face life in such a way that we have discernment for the individuality, which enters even into feeling and sensation and expresses itself in these, and which possesses great reverence and esteem. Patterns are easy to recognize; and to wish to govern life according to patterns is easy; but life does not permit itself to be treated as a pattern. Only insight will suffice, insight which is transformed into a feeling one must have toward the individuality of man, toward the individuality in the whole of life. Then will our conscientious spiritual knowledge flow into our feeling, so to speak, in such a way that we shall be able to estimate correctly the riddle which confronts us in each separate human being.

How do we solve the riddle which each individual presents to us? We solve it by approaching each person in such a way that harmony results between him and us. If we thus permeate ourselves with life's wisdom, we shall be able to solve the fundamental riddle of life which is the individual man. It is not solved by setting up abstract ideas and concepts. The general human riddle can be solved in pictures; this individual riddle, however, is not to be solved by this setting up of abstract ideas and concepts; but rather must we approach each individual person in such a way that we bring to him direct understanding.

That is possible, however, only when we know what lies in the depths of the soul. Spiritual science is something which slowly and gradually pours itself into our entire soul so that it renders the soul receptive not only to the large relations but also to the finer details. In spiritual science it is a fact that, when one soul approaches another, and this other requires love, love is given. If it requires something else, that will be given. Thus by means of such true life wisdom we create social foundations, and that means at each moment to solve a riddle. Anthroposophy works not by means of preaching, exhortation, harping on morals, but by creating a social basis on which one man is able to understand another.

Spiritual science is thus the sub-soil of life, and love is the blossom and fruit of such a life, stimulated by spiritual science. Therefore spiritual science may claim that it is establishing something which will provide a base for the most beautiful goal of the mission of man: genuine, true, human love. In our sympathy, in our love, in the manner in which we approach the individual human being, in our conduct, we should learn the art of living through spiritual science. If we would permit life and love to stream into feeling and sensibility, human life would be a beautiful expression of the fruit of this spiritual science.

We learn to know the individual human being in every respect when we perceive him in the light of spiritual science. We learn to perceive even the child in this way; we learn little by little to respect, to value, in the child the peculiarity, the enigmatic quality of the individuality, and we learn also how we must treat this individual in life, because spiritual science gives to us, so to speak, not merely general, theoretical directions, but it guides us in our relation to the individual in the solving of the riddles which are there to be solved: namely, to love him as we must love him if we not merely fathom him with the mind, but let him work upon us completely, let our spiritual scientific insight give wings to our feelings, our love. That is the only proper soil which can yield true, fruitful, genuine human love; and this is the basis from which we discover what we have to seek as the innermost essential kernel in each individual. And if we permeate ourselves thus with spiritual knowledge, our social life will be regulated in such a way that each single person, when he approaches any other in esteem and respect and understanding of the riddle “man,” will learn how to find and to regulate his relation to the individual. Only one who lives in abstractions as a matter of course can speak from prosaic concepts, but he who strives for genuine knowledge will find it, and will find the way to other people; he will find the solution of the riddle of the other person in his own attitude, in his own conduct.

Thus we solve the individual riddle according as we relate ourselves to others. We find the essential being of another only with a view of life which comes from the spirit. Spiritual science must be a life-practice, a spiritual life-factor, entirely practical, entirely living, and not vague theory.

This is knowledge which can work into all the fibers of man's being, which can rule each single act in life. Thus only does spiritual science become the true art of living—and that could be particularly shown in the consideration of those intimate peculiarities of man, the temperaments. Thus the finest relation is engendered between man and man when we look a person in the face and understand not only how to fathom the riddle, but how to love, that is, to let love flow from individuality to individuality. Spiritual science needs no theoretical proofs; life brings the proofs. Spiritual science knows that something can be said “for” and “against” everything, but the true proofs are those which life brings; and only step by step can life show the truth of what we think when we consider the human being in the light of spiritual-scientific knowledge; for this truth exists as a harmonious, life-inspired insight which penetrates into the deepest mysteries of life.

In dealing with the human senses in our first lecture we merely enumerated them, though in a manner gleaned from the human being himself. We did not confuse and jumble them, as inevitably occurs in the external physiology of the senses where their relationships are not known, but rather, we enumerated them all in the order that accords with the nature of man. Today it shall be our task to examine the realm of the human senses more closely, as this is most important for a deeper fathoming of the human being.

We began with the sense we called the sense of life—the feeling of life, the vital sense. What is this sense based upon, in the true spirit of the word? In order to visualize its source we must delve rather deep down into the subconscious mind, into the substrata of the human organism. This method of spiritual-scientific research discloses first a peculiar co-operation of the physical and etheric bodies. The lowest member of the human being, the physical body, and the second, the etheric body, enter a certain mutual relationship whereby something new occurs in the etheric body. Something that is different permeates and flows through the etheric body, and actually, men of our time don't in the least know in a conscious way what this “something” is. It saturates the etheric body as water does a sponge. Spiritual science can tell us what it is that acts thus in the etheric body. It is what corresponds today to what men will develop in a far distant future as spirit man, or atma. At present, man does not possess this atma as his own. It is bestowed upon him, so to speak, by the surrounding outer spiritual world, without his being able to participate in it. Later on, in the distant future, he will himself have developed it within him. That which saturates the etheric body, then, is spirit man, or atma, and at the present stage of human evolution it is in a sense a superhuman being.

This superhuman atma, or spirit man, expresses itself by contracting the etheric body—cramping it, as it were. Using an analogy from the sense world, we can compare the effect to that of frost, which cramps and contracts the physical body. Man is as yet not ripe for what one day will be his most precious possession, and therefore, in a sense, it destroys him. The result of the contraction described is that the astral element is pressed out, squeezed out. In proportion as the etheric body is pressed together the physical body as well undergoes tension, whereby the astral body makes room for itself. You can visualize it approximately by imagining a sponge being squeezed out. Now, the activities in the astral body are all emotional experiences—pleasure, distaste, joy, sorrow—and this process of being squeezed out communicates itself to sentience as the sense of life. This is the process that takes place in the astral body, and it expresses itself as a feeling of freedom, of strength, of lassitude, etc.

Now let us ascend a bit. As the second sense, we listed the sense of our own movements. In this case, again, an extraneous principle is at work in the etheric body, and again it is one not yet indigenous in man. He has not achieved it through his own efforts; it flows into him out of the spiritual world, and, as with atma, the etheric body is saturated with it as a sponge with water. It is the life spirit, or buddhi, which in time will permeate him, but which for the present he holds as a gift, as it were, from the life spirit of the world. Its action is different from that of atma. As water seeks its level, so buddhi effects proportion, equilibrium, in the etheric and physical bodies, and hence in the astral body as well. This condition operates in such a way that when the balance is disturbed it can re-establish itself automatically. If we stretch out an arm, for example, destroying the balance through this change of position, the balance is immediately restored because the astral body is in a state of equilibrium. In proportion as we stretch out an arm the astral current streams in the opposite direction, thereby re-adjusting the balance. With every physical change of position, even merely blinking, the astral current in the organism moves in the opposite direction. In this inner experience of a process of equalization the sense of movement manifests itself.

We come now to a third element that can permeate man's etheric body, and this, too, is something that has entered human consciousness only to a negligible extent: manas, or spirit self. But inasmuch as precisely at this period it is incumbent upon man to develop manas, this being his earth task, manas acts differently upon the etheric body than do atma and buddhi, which are to be developed in the distant future. Its action is to expand the etheric body, effecting the opposite of what was designated “frost” in connection with the sense of life. This activity could be compared with a pouring, a streaming, of warmth into space, and this expands the elastic etheric body. We have something like streaming warmth when this semi-conscious expansion of the etheric body occurs. The consequence of this elastic expansion of the etheric body is a corresponding rarefaction of the astral body, which can thus expand as well. It need not be pressed out; by having more room it can remain in the expanding etheric body. While the sense of life becomes conscious through the contraction of the astral body, the static sensation results from the expansion of the etheric body, which thus makes more room for the astral body. In the way of a comparison it can be said that the texture of the astral body becomes rarefied, less dense. This thinning of the etheric and the astral bodies offers the possibility for the physical body to expand as well—in a sense, to extend itself.

Through the action of atma the physical body is contracted, through the action of buddhi it is stabilized, through the action of manas it is unburdened. The result is that at certain points it pushes out tiny particles, and this occurs in those three marvelous organs, the semi-circular canals of the ear. Such spreading out of physical matter does not arise from a forcing from within, but from a cessation or diminution of pressure from without, through the unburdening of the physical matter in question. This in turn enables the astral body to expand more and more. It makes contact with the outer world and must achieve equilibrium with it, for when this is not the case we cannot stand upright; we even fall over. If we would move in space we must take our bearings, and for this reason those three little canals are arranged in the three dimensions of space at right angles to each other. If these canals are injured we lose our sense of balance, we feel dizzy, we faint.

In the animal kingdom we find that everything of the kind in question results from the animal's premature descent into physical matter. A certain hardening is the consequence. We even find little stone formations in them, the so-called otoliths, that lie in such a way as to indicate the measure of balance.

A study of these three senses shows us clearly the difference between the factual results of spiritual-scientific research and the opinions held by the present-day inadequate thinking of the savant group soul, which clings to externals. Thus far we have considered three senses, passing outward from within, and the last of them lies close to the boundary line between what we experience within us and what must be experienced without if we are to identify ourselves with the outer world. We must distinguish clearly between facts and the inadequate thinking of the savant group soul. Just here, for example, the latter has shown us how we must not think. Quite recently, special events have brought external science face-to-face with the necessity for at last recognizing these three sense regions, but its failure to do so has proved how badly it must stray without the right guiding thread. These formations that signify a human sense organ were promptly compared with certain organs in the plant kingdom; in certain plants there appear formations that up to a point can be compared with the semi-circular canals in the human ear. Modern thinking, which as a rule is abandoned by logic precisely at the moment when adequate judgment is called for, infers from the appearance of these similar formations in plants that the latter, too, have a sense of equilibrium. It is not difficult to carry such logic ad absurdum. If you maintain that a plant has a sense on the grounds that it purposefully rolls up its leaves, a sense that goes so far as to entice and snap up its nourishment by means of certain contrivances, I can suggest a being that can do all that just as efficiently, that is, a mousetrap. What science has put forth concerning the human sense organs can be applied quite as logically to the mousetrap as to the plant. With equal propriety it could be maintained that scales have a sense of equilibrium. Mental derailments of this type derive from an inflexible sort of thinking that cannot really penetrate into the nature of things.

Until modern science learns to illuminate the edifice of the human organism with the light of theosophy, it will not be able to master the nature of these three senses. Theosophy enables us to understand the entire structure of the human organism anthroposophically. By means of spiritual-scientific observation, man in his entirety must be comprehended through his own inner nature.

We pass to the sense of smell. The reason for not occupying ourselves particularly with what science calls the sense of touch has already been indicated. As generally described, it is a mere figment of the imagination, an invention of physiology, hence we will disregard it. Because I can give but four lectures at this time I must pass rapidly over certain matters and utter many a paradox. In dealing with a number of senses we can speak of touch sensations, but not of a special touch sense in the way modern physiology does. All that takes place when we touch something is wholly comprised in the concept “sense of equilibrium.” If we press down on a table, stroke a velvet surface, pull a cord, everything that there manifests itself in pressure, stroking and pulling as a process of touch is nothing but a change of equilibrium within ourselves. While all this can be found in the sense of touch, the sense of touch proper must be sought higher up in the sense of equilibrium—there where this sense comes to fullest expression. An unimpaired sense of equilibrium provides the sense of touch. In science the most distressing theories prevail concerning this sense of touch.

Pressure is something that does not interest the ordinary human being. He speaks of “pressing,” but does not enquire further into the nature of the phenomenon. But from the spiritual-scientific point of view the question must arise. What takes place in pressing? What occurs in the sense of equilibrium? What compensation is effected by the astral body? The extent of misconception connected with the sensation of being pressed is revealed in physics. Physics talks of atmospheric pressure, and when some alert boy asks his teacher how we can stand the high atmospheric pressure without being squeezed to death, he receives the answer that pressure and counter-pressure are always equal; we are filled with air, so the outer pressure is canceled. But if the boy is bright enough he will object that he has often sat in the bathtub, completely surrounded by water, and although he was not filled with water he wasn't squeezed to death.

If the state of affairs were as represented by the physicists, an enormous atmospheric pressure would be exerted on the body's surface, and they explain our unawareness of it by the counter-pressure, by our being filled with air. This is one of the absurdities resulting from purely materialistic explanations. No, what we have to deal with here is an eminently spiritual process. The human being is so strong that he can push the astral body into the constricted portions and thereby re-establish equilibrium. When pressure is exerted, a little lump, as we may call it, always results, and this effect is so strong in the astral body that the latter, from within, overcomes the whole pressure of the outer air. In this realm the spirit is literally tangible.

After this short digression we will now return to the sense of smell. Here the human organism is taken in hand and affected by something other than was the case in the senses just dealt with, something less remote from human consciousness, that is, by the consciousness soul itself, which comes into action in the process of smelling. We shall see why all such things are accomplished by means of special organs. The consciousness soul not only effects an expansion and rarefaction at a certain place in the organism, but causes the astral body to extend its impulses beyond the organism. In proportion as the gaseous substance penetrates the mucous membrane of the nose, the astral substance presses outward, leaves the organism, penetrates the gaseous substance, and experiences something in it, not only in itself but in the substance. What it thus experiences it calls aroma, pleasant or unpleasant scent, etc., as the case may be. It is an antenna of the consciousness soul, projected by the latter through the agency of the astral body.

In the fifth sense, taste, the mental soul is active. It pours its astral currents outward through the organ of taste, sending the astral substance to meet whatever matter comes in contact with the tongue. The resulting process in the astral body is of a special nature. Let us first recall and examine the sense of smell. What is the nature of the stream emanating from the astral body in smelling? It is none other than the nature of will. The impulse of will that you feel within you streams forth to meet the inflowing matter. The process of smelling is one of resistance, an impulse to force back the instreaming matter. Spiritual science can tell you that this substance flowing in is but maya; it is external will. Your inner and your outer will attack each other and fight. Smelling is a conflict of will forces. Schopenhauer, who had an inkling that the interior and the exterior wills hinder and obstruct each other in the activity of the senses, built a philosophy of will upon it. But that is unsound metaphysics because this interplay of the two wills actually occurs only in smelling. In the other cases it is merely read into the processes.

Now, while in the sense of smell the outgoing stream is of the nature of will, it pertains to feeling when the current results from tasty food. What enters as food is also mere maya, an external image that is experienced as feeling. In the process of tasting, the interplay is between feeling and feeling. That is the real process of tasting; the rest is merely an outward image, and we shall see that the tongue is formed accordingly. For this reason this sense of taste is a sense of touch [TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: It is perhaps not without significance that Gefühl can mean “touch” as well as “feeling.” With this in mind let the student now read the sentence as follows: “For this reason the sense of taste is a Gefühlssinn.” It is most suggestive but unfortunately untranslatable, a sort of higher play on words. Cf. also footnote on p. 16.], notably of feeling, agreeable or disagreeable, repulsive, and the like. The point, however, does not center in feeling as such, but in the clash of feelings and their interaction.

In the sixth sense, sight, it is the sentient soul that works on the etheric body and flows into it, but strange to say, this effect partakes of the nature of thought. It represents a mental principle, and the thoughts constitute the subconscious element of the process. The sentient soul subconsciously bears within it what the consciousness soul then raises to consciousness as thought. What flows out of the eyes is a thinking in the sentient soul. Real thought substance streams out of the eyes from the sentient soul. This thought substance has far greater elasticity than the other substances that flow out when the sense of smell or of taste is active. It can reach out much farther toward its objects—indeed, it is a fact that something of an astral substance streams forth from men to far distant objects, unchecked until some other astral element offers resistance.

The scientific explanation that in seeing, ether waves enter the eye and the latter then projects the image outward, can mean nothing to sound thinking. Somebody would have to be inside to work the projecting business, wouldn't he? What a horribly superstitious notion, this “Something that busily projects!” When in trouble, science, so proud of its “naturalism,” does not disdain the assistance of that “imagination” it professes to scorn.

It is something astral, then, thought substance, that flows toward the object. An astral element leaves the body, streams toward the object, and continues onward until opposed by another astral element. The conflict between these two astral elements engenders color, which we sense as pertaining to objects. Actually, the genesis of color occurs at the boundary of objects, where the astral element emanating from the human being collides with that of the object. Color comes into being where the inner and the outer astral elements meet.

Here spiritual science leads us to a strange phenomenon. We learned that really a kind of thinking resides in the sentient soul, but that its first appearance is in the intellectual soul and that it only becomes conscious in the consciousness soul. In the sentient soul it is subconscious. Now, when we look at an object with both eyes, we have two impressions that in the first instance do not reach our consciousness, although they originate in an unconscious thought process. Two mental efforts must be made, because we have two eyes. If we are to become conscious of these mental efforts, however, we must travel from the sentient soul by way of the mental soul to the consciousness soul. This path can be readily visualized by means of a simple analogy from the sense world. We have two hands and we feel each one individually, but if we wish this feeling to become conscious, that each hand should feel the other, they must touch each other, cross. If the impressions gained in the sentient soul through mental effort are to enter our consciousness, they must cross. In that way you feel your own hand; you render conscious what you ordinarily do not feel. Just as you must touch an external object to become conscious of it, so contact is here necessary if objects are to enter our consciousness. That is also the reason why the two optic nerves in the physical brain are crossed. Through this crossing, an effort made subconsciously in the sentient soul is raised into the consciousness soul; one effort can be sensed by means of the other. That is an illustration of the way anthroposophy teaches us to know the human being down to the most intricate anatomical details.

Seventh among the senses is that of temperature, and again there is something in man that transmits it. It is the sentient body itself, which is of an astral nature. It transmits the sense of temperature by sending its astral substance outward. An experience of warmth or cold occurs only when the human being is really able to ray his astral substance outward, that is, when nothing prevents this. Such an experience of warmth does not occur when, for example, we sit in a bath of the same temperature as our own body, when equilibrium exists between ourselves and our surroundings. We experience temperature only when warmth or cold can flow out of or into us. When our surroundings are at a low temperature we let warmth flow into them; when our own temperature is low we let warmth flow into us. Here again it is obvious that an inflowing and outflowing takes place, and always the effects of the human sentient body are involved. If we are in contact with an object whose temperature is steadily increasing, our sentient body will stream out more and more strongly, until the limit is reached. When the object has become so hot that nothing corresponding to it can flow forth from us, then we can bear the heat no longer, and we are burned. When it is no longer possible for the sentient body to stream out, the heat becomes unendurable and we are burned. When we lack sufficient astral substance to equalize the outstreaming warmth ether, when we can send out no more sentient substance because the object cannot absorb it, it would seem as though in touching an extremely cold object we should have a burning sensation; as a matter of fact, that is exactly what occurs. In touching a very cold object we have a burning sensation that can even raise blisters.

Now we enter the realm of hearing, the eighth sense. What active principle is it, we ask, that participates in the process of hearing? The human etheric body. But this human etheric body, as constituted today, is in reality unable to serve us, as the sentient body still can, without incurring a permanent loss. Ever since the Atlantean time the etheric body has been so constituted that it cannot possibly give off anything, so that a more powerful action must be brought about by means other than through the sense of temperature. The human being can contribute nothing; he possesses nothing by means of which he might develop out of himself a sense higher than that of temperature. No higher senses, therefore, could come into being were it not that at this point something special takes place in man that provides what he lacks. Higher beings permeate him—the Angeloi, the Angels—that send their own astral substance into him. They place their own astral substance at his disposal, and what he cannot ray forth they supply for him. Essentially, then, it is foreign astral substance that permeates man and is active in him. He appropriates it and lets it stream out. The beings active here, the Angels, absolved their human existence in the past. Their astral substance enters us, and then streams forth from the sense of hearing to meet what the tone brings. On the wings of these beings we are carried into the innermost nature, the soul, of objects, so that we may know them. Beings of an order higher than man are here active, but they are of the same nature as his own astral substance.

As a still higher sense, the ninth, we mentioned the sense of speech, the word sense, the sound [TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Throughout this exposition the term “sound” (Laut) refers to the kind of sounds of which spoken language consists, notably, but not exclusively, the vowels. Articulation in the narrower sense.] sense. To the functioning of this sense the human being can again contribute nothing by himself, can produce nothing. He has nothing to give, hence he must be entered and helped by beings of a substance similar in its nature to that of the human etheric body. These beings possess the corresponding astral substance as well, but this is forced out into the surrounding world during the process in question. They are the Archangels, who permeate the human being with their etheric bodies, which he can then pour out into his surroundings. The Archangels play a far more important role than the Angels. They enable man to hear a sound. They are in man. They enable him not only to hear a tone—say a G or a C-sharp—but to perceive a sound, like “ah,” together with its meaning. Thus we can experience the inner nature of a sound we hear. These beings are at the same time the Spirits of the several folk individualities, the Folk Spirits.

In the sense of hearing the Angels give outer expression to their activity through the medium of the air. They work with the air in the ears, and this results in external activity of the air. The Archangels, on the other hand, produce activity in the lymphatic fluids, as in a watery substance. They guide the circulation of these fluids in a certain direction, enabling us to perceive, for example, the sound “ah” in its full significance. The outer expression of this work is the forming of folk physiognomies, the creation of the particular expression of the human organism as related to a certain people. From all this we can infer that the lymphatic fluids in man flow in a different manner, that the whole organism makes a different impression, according to the way in which the Archangels of the people in question have imparted a certain sense of sound by means of the lymphatic current.

When a people designates the ego with the word Adam (irrespective of the theories it holds regarding the human ego), the Folk Spirit speaks through the two a's that succeed each other in consecutive syllables. A certain basic organization results. A member of that people must feel the nature of the ego to be such as corresponds to the two a's, to “Adam.” The consequences are different when a people expresses the ego with the word “ich.” [TRANSLATOR'S NOTE: Ich means I (or also, ego). As the vowel sounds are so important it should be kept in mind that the i in ich is pronounced as in the word “if.”] Such a people must have a different conception of the ego. A different feeling results when, in place of the two a's, the sounds “i” and “ch” are linked. A certain nuance, a certain color, is inherent in the “i,” suggesting what the Folk Spirit infuses into the individual organism in connection with the conception of the ego.

Through the sequence a-o something different is infused into a people than through the sequence i-e. The words amor and Liebe are very different things. When the Folk Spirit says amor we have one shade of feeling, and quite a different one when he says Liebe. Here we see the Folk Spirit at work, and we also see why the differentiation of sounds came into being. It is by no means immaterial, for example, that the word “Adam” was used in old Hebrew to denote the first human form, but by the ancient Persians to designate the ego. The fact shows that quite different feelings and quite definite trends of these feelings are expressed in this way.

Here we have the first hint of the mystery of speech, or rather, of its first elements. What is involved is the activity of spirits of the order of Archangels, who penetrate man with the sense of sound and vibrate in his whole watery substance. One of the greatest experiences vouchsafed him who ascends to higher cognition occurs when he begins to feel the difference between the various sounds in relation to their creative force.

Tone force manifests its pre-eminent activity in the air, sound force only in the watery element.

Here is another example. When you designate some being with the word Eva, and then wish to express something more, something that is related to this word as the spiritual is to the material, you can apply the reflected image, Ave. This sequence of syllables by which the Virgin is addressed actually affects in the human organism the exact opposite of the word Eva. Here we also find the reason for another variant of E-v-a; place a j before Ave, and you have Jave. When progressing to higher cognition, penetrating the secret of sound, you can learn to know all the connections between Jave and Eva. You will know what a higher being of the order of Archangel has inspired in man. The truth concerning the nature of speech is that it is based upon a real sense, the sense of sound.

Speech did not arise arbitrarily. It is a spiritual product, and in order to perceive it in its spiritual aspect we have the sense of sound, which in a systematic enumeration of the senses is exactly as justified as the others. There are still deeper reasons why the senses must be listed in just this manner. In the next lecture we will ascend to the sense of concept and the higher senses in order to understand the microcosm anthroposophically.

We shall begin by discussing something of a general character. And since we are a small intimate circle, we can then elaborate on any aspect that especially interests you. I would like to make some general statements about the being of man in connection with World Being, with the Macrocosm. And I will not approach it so much in the style of my book Theosophy—you can all get sufficient knowledge from that—but I invite you to consider especially man's inner nature.

If now and then we contemplate ourselves as human beings, we are immediately struck by the fact that we experience the world about us through our senses, and then think about the impressions we have received. We constantly observe these two attributes of man's being. If, for instance, we have put the light out at night and review the day's impressions before going to sleep, we are conscious that all day long the world has worked upon us. Now only the memory pictures of the day's impressions surge up and down in our souls. We know that we are thinking about them, our soul is now within the after-effects of what has taken place in us through the outer impressions. Apart from trivial matters, we call these memories of the day our own individual impressions. It is only because we are intelligent, individual human beings, beings with an intellect, that we are capable of receiving impressions of the world in this way.

Now, in our spiritual life this individual aspect is closely connected with external impressions. During the day, whilst we observe the world, our sense impressions and our thoughts intermingle. And at bedtime, when we no longer have any fresh sense impressions, but let those we have had pass through our soul, then we know very well that these are our pictures of what is outside. Our impressions of the outer world merge with what we are as individuals. They become one. Now, as we all know, one can make this inner, individual element within us more and more alive, more and more exact, by the means already known to us and described for instance in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. What you can experience first of all in your inner life, is that you feel you are not absolutely dependent in your thoughts on the external world. If, for instance, someone can think about what happened on Saturn, Sun and Moon, then he has higher thoughts of this kind. For of course nobody can have external impressions of what happened on old Saturn, old Sun and old Moon. We do not even need to go so far. If we ask ourselves in a quiet moment: ‘How many of my concepts have changed since my youth?’ this in itself is taking an independent individual stand with regard to the world. When we form views about life, we feel ourselves becoming more independent in our intellect. Becoming independent in the individual element of the intellect is of great importance for the human being. For what does this mean? What does it mean for the human being to grasp general truths about life—not just in theory—but through experience, even of things that are independent of external impressions? It means that he is becoming more independent in his etheric body. That is the first step of a long process. At the beginning he does not even notice that to some extent he is lifting out his etheric body; ultimately he can make it completely independent of the physical body.

Whilst the beginning is just a tiny step towards becoming independent, the end is a total drawing out of the etheric body and a perceiving with it. We then have perceptions in the environment with this independent etheric body. We can even perceive in this way when we are not yet very advanced in inner mystical experience. We can grasp this and to a certain extent understand it if we remember what our perception is like in the physical body. With our physical body we perceive by means of our senses, which are independent. Our eyes are independent and so are our ears. We can perceive the world of colour and the world of sound independently. We can no longer do this when we perceive with our intelligence. In the case of intelligence everything is a unity, nothing is divided into separate spheres. We cannot perceive with etheric eyes and etheric ears as though they were separate sense realms, we perceive the etheric world in general. And when we begin to say something about it we can describe how etheric experience works as a comprehensive whole. I will not discuss how much further this experience can lead, but only point out that when the human being perceives how general truths are formed he can perceive something of the etheric elements.

Whoever perceives the etheric world and can gradually realise that a higher world of this kind exists, can have an inner conviction that an etheric body is the basis of the physical body. As soon as we speak of such a being as an etheric body we must take our lead from significant disclosures and from direct experience. As soon as we know that the physical body is interpenetrated by an etheric body we will readily understand the occultist describing in his way that paralysis is an abnormal occurrence of what otherwise happens through normal training. It can happen that a man's etheric body withdraws from his physical body. Then the physical body becomes independent. Paralysis could possibly result, for the physical body has been deprived of its enlivening etheric body. But we do not need to go as far as the appearance of paralysis, for we can understand its appearance in everyday life even better. For example, what is a lazy person? He is someone who has a weak etheric body from birth or who has let it grow weak through neglect. We try to correct it by relieving the physical body of its leaden heaviness and by some means making it lighter. A thorough cure, however, can only arise by way of the astral body, for it can stimulate the etheric body to fresh life. But you have to realise something else. The etheric body is actually the bearer of our whole intellect. When we go to sleep at night all our thought pictures and memories actually remain in the etheric body. The human being leaves his thoughts behind in the etheric body and does not return to them until morning. By laying aside the etheric body we lay aside the whole web of our experiences.

This etheric body, however, is constructed so that when we investigate it in a Spiritual Scientific way we can quite clearly perceive that the human being is subjected to a far greater number of changes in the course of time than we would imagine. We all know, of course, that man has passed through a series of incarnations. It is not for nothing that we are incarnated again and again. Man's vision is limited. It is a general belief that man's Organisation has always been like it is today. In fact, the human Organisation changes from one century to another, only we cannot perceive this externally. In the frontal lobe of the brain there is an organ with delicate convolutions, that has only been developed since the fourteenth to fifteenth centuries. It is an organic form for the purely intellectual life of the present centuries. We can well imagine that it is impossible for a detail of this kind to alter in the brain without in fact the whole human Organisation altering, even if only slightly. So that in very truth the human Organisation shows signs of changes as the centuries pass by. But it is only through reading the Akashic Record that these changes can be confirmed. And that is where the changes in the etheric body can be best followed up. We see that the people of ancient Greece or ancient Egypt had etheric bodies that were quite different. All the movements in them were different.

Now, in order to arrive at a thought that can be fertile for us, I would like to make a short digression and draw your attention to the fact that even in ordinary life you can assume the existence of more than one world. The human being goes to sleep without knowing that he is in another world. But the fact that he is asleep and does not know anything about it does not prove that this other world does not exist. Other worlds do impinge in a certain way. The human being perceives with his senses when he is in the physical world but not when he withdraws into himself: then he has an intellectual world which borders on the physical. And he finds within himself, in addition to the already developed intellectual element, two other elements as well that are quite different again. Can the human being develop these other elements?

A simple reflection can show that there is a more characteristic world in the inner life than that of the mere having of thoughts. It is there whenever we say to ourselves: as human beings we feel ourselves to be moral. That is the world where we connect a feeling of sympathy or antipathy with certain definite experiences. This goes beyond intellectual experience. Someone shows goodwill to another and we are pleased, or he shows ill will and we are displeased. That is something quite different from what is experienced purely intellectually. Mere reflection does not produce in us the feeling of whether a deed is moral or not. A person can be highly intelligent in an intellectual way, without feeling the repulsive nature of a purely egotistical action. That is another realm of experience, which we also become aware of when we admire what is beautiful and elevating in works of art, or are repulsed by what is ugly. What elevates us in works of art cannot be grasped by the intellect but only by our life of soul. So we can say: something comes into our life in this way which is beyond the intellect. If an occultist observes a soul at the moment when it is experiencing aversion from an immoral deed, or pleasure in a moral one, he perceives a higher level of soul life. The mere having of thoughts is on a lower level of soul life than pleasure in or aversion from moral or immoral deeds. If the human being develops a more intensified feeling in this way for what is moral or immoral in his strengthened etheric body, this can be, seen to bring not only a constant increase of strength in his etheric body but an increase of strength in his astral body too, an especial intensification of the astral forces. So that we can say: a person who has particularly sensitive feelings about moral and immoral deeds will acquire especially strong forces in his astral body, whilst a person who only improves his etheric body intellectually—with exercises, say, that strengthen the memory—can certainly develop his clairvoyance very far, but he will not get beyond the etheric-astral world, because the intellectual element alone is active within him. If we want to get beyond the astral world we must do the kind of exercises in which we develop sympathy for moral deeds and antipathy for immoral deeds. Then we do indeed ascend to a world that is behind our world in a different sense than purely astrally. We then ascend to the heavenly world. So that we can say: in the cosmic world of the invisible, the heavenly world of the macrocosm corresponds to what relates in us to impressions of morality and immorality, and the astral world of the macrocosm corresponds to what relates in us to the intellectual sense perception of the physical world. All that develops within the intellectual element corresponds to the astral world, whilst what can be developed in relation to moral or immoral deeds corresponds to the heavenly world, the world of Devachan.

Then there is yet another element in the human soul. There is a difference between feeling happy about moral deeds and feeling responsible enough to carry out what thus appeals to you, and to withstand doing what is not moral. A feeling of responsibility for his actions is the highest level a man can reach in the world today.

So the human being's soul stages can be set out like this:

1. The sense man.
2. The intellectual man, who relates to the first invisible world.
3. The aesthetic man with moral feelings, who is attracted or repelled by moral and immoral deeds. This corresponds externally to the lower Devachanic world.
4. The morally active man.

The actual carrying out of what he feels within himself to be the highest moral ideals corresponds externally to the higher Devachanic world, the world of reason, ruled by those beings who represent absolute reason in the world. When the human being can grasp that his moral impulses give a shadow picture of the highest world from which he comes, he has understood a great deal about the macrocosm.

So we have the physical world and the world of the intellect, the moral world or the heavenly world of lower Devachan, and the world of reason or higher Devachan. Cosmic worlds cast into us shadow pictures of the sense world: i.e. the intellectual world; intellectual clairvoyance; the aesthetic world; moral feeling; the world of reason; moral impulses for deeds. Through a kind of self-knowledge man can perceive these different stages within himself.

Now this whole configuration of the human being has altered in the course of time. In ancient Greek or Egyptian times the human being was not at all as he is today. In the Greek age man was so constituted that higher beings ruled over the soul element within him, and so he felt a kind of natural obligation towards those beings. We now live in the age when man is ruled by his intellect, and so he feels something like an aesthetic-moral obligation. In those olden times however, it would have been impossible for anyone to have thought it possible to act in a way contrary to a moral impulse that presented itself. In Greece they still felt pleasure and displeasure so strongly that they had to act accordingly.

Then came the modern age where men do not feel any obligation, even where the aesthetic element is concerned, as is expressed in the saying: ‘You cannot argue about tastes’—though people who have a developed taste can probably agree among themselves.

What was felt in earlier times to be a necessity in the moral and aesthetic sphere is nowadays felt to be so in the intellectual sphere: to have a certain line of conduct so that you cannot think as you like but you have to conform to the laws of logic. This brings us, however, to the lowest level of human experience. At the moment we are at the transitional level, as we can well see. For if we look at the past millennia we see the physical body of man drying up more and more, until he has become quite different. One and a half millennia ago the physical body was considerably softer and more pliable. It has become harder and harder. On the other hand something quite different has occurred in the etheric body too, something that the human being could have less experience of because this etheric body has passed through an upward development. It is significant that we stand at the important moment when the human being must grow aware that his etheric body should become different. That is the event that will take place just in this twentieth century. Whilst on the one hand an intensification of the intellectual element is making itself felt, on the other hand the etheric body will become so much more independent that human beings are bound to become aware of it. For a period of time after the Christ Event people did not think as intellectually as they do today. Strengthening the intellectual element causes the etheric body to become more and more independent, so that it can also be used as an independent instrument. And during this process it can be seen to have gone through a hidden development which makes possible the perception of the Christ in the etheric body. Just as the Christ could formerly be seen physically, He can now be seen etherically, so that in this twentieth century a beholding of the Christ will occur like a natural event, in the way Paul saw Him. A number of people will be able to see the Christ in the etheric, which means that we shall know Him even if all the Bibles are destroyed. We shall not need any records then, for we shall see Him. And that is an event equal in importance to what occurred on Golgotha. In the centuries to come a greater and greater number of people will reach the stage where they can see the Christ. The next three millennia on earth will be devoted to the kind of development whereby the etheric body becomes more and more sensitive, so that certain people will experience this and other events. I will just mention one more event: there will be more and more people who want to do something and then have an urge to hold back. Then a vision will follow, and these people will perceive increasingly clearly: that which will happen in the future is the karmic result of what I have done. A few people who are ahead of the rest already feel such things. It happens especially with children.

There is a tremendous difference between what trained clairvoyants experience and what is described here as something that will come about in the natural course of events. Since time immemorial the trained clairvoyant experienced the Christ by means of certain exercises. On the physical plane, if I meet a man, he is there is front of me; with Clairvoyant vision I can perceive him in quite different places and we do not actually meet. It has always been possible to see the Christ clairvoyantly. But to meet Him, now that He stands in a different relationship to humanity, that is, that He helps us from out of the etheric world, is something which is independent of our clairvoyant development. From the twentieth century onwards, in the next three thousand years, certain people will be able to meet Him, meet Him objectively as an etheric form. That is very different from experiencing a vision of Him through inner development.

This places the exalted Being that we call the Christ altogether in a different series of evolution from that of the Buddha. The Bodhisattva who became Buddha, was born into the royal house of Suddhodana and became Buddha in the twenty-ninth year of his life, so that he did not need to undergo further incarnations. When such a being, a Bodhisattva, becomes a Buddha or Master, this signifies a higher form of inner development that any human being can pass through. The esoteric training of a human being is a start in the direction that can lead to Buddha-hood. That has nothing to do with what happens round about us human beings. Such people appear at certain times to help the world forward. But those events are different from the Christ Event. Christ did not come from another human individuality, He came from the macrocosm, whilst all the Bodhisattvas have always been connected with the earth.

So we have to be clear that in so far as we speak about Bodhisattvas or Buddhas we do not come near to the Christ. For Christ is a macrocosmic being who became connected with the earth for the first time through the baptism by John. That was the physical manifestation. Now the etheric manifestation is coming, then will come the astral one and a higher one still after that. Human beings will first have to be far advanced before they experience this higher stage. What human beings can experience belongs to the general laws of the earth. The Being whom we call by the name of Christ or by other names will also bring about what we can describe as the saving of all the souls on earth for the Jupiter existence, whilst everything else will fall away with the earth. Anthroposophy is not something arbitrary, but something of importance that had to come into the world. The world must learn to understand the Christ Being who lived for three years on the earth. That was at the beginning of our present era.

In my book The Spiritual Guidance of Man and Humanity you will find details about the two Jesus boys. The Christ Event was prepared for by a personality connected with the sect of the Essenes, Jeshu ben Pandira, who was born a hundred years before the two Jesus boys were born in Palestine. So you have to distinguish between them and Jeshu ben Pandira, of whom Haeckel,⁸ among others, has spoken in a most derogatory way. The Matthew Gospel,⁹ in the main, originated from this most exalted person, Jeshu ben Pandira, as a preparation for what was to come.

In what way should we understand the relationship of Jeshu ben Pandira to Jesus of Nazareth?

To begin with the individualities have nothing to do with one another, except that one prepared the way for the other; as individualities they are in no way related. The facts are that in one of the Jesus boys, the one described in the Luke Gospel, we have a somewhat indefinable individuality, so far difficult to understand in that He could speak immediately after birth in such a way that His mother could understand Him. He was not intellectual, this individuality of the Luke Gospel, but tremendously vital and elemental in the realm of moral feelings. The astral body of this being was influenced by the individuality of the Buddha.

When he had reached the Buddha stage, Buddha did not need to incarnate on earth any further. As long as he was a Bodhisattva he continued to incarnate. After he had become Buddha he was active from the higher worlds, and his activity flowed through—the astral body of the Jesus of the Luke Gospel. The forces emanating from Buddha are in the astral body of this Jesus boy. Thus the Buddha stream is contained within the Jesus of Nazareth stream.

On the other hand, what is told in Eastern writings and is also known to be correct by Western occultists, is that in the moment when the Bodhisattva becomes Buddha a new Bodhisattva appears. In the moment when Gautama Buddha became Buddha this Bodhisattva individuality was taken from the earth, and a new Bodhisattva became active. He is the Bodhisattva who is to become a Buddha in due time. In fact the time is exactly determined when the successor of Gautama Buddha, Maitreya, will become a Buddha: five thousand years after the enlightenment of Buddha beneath the bodhi tree. Roughly three thousand years after our time the world will experience the Maitreya Buddha incarnation, which will be the last incarnation of Jeshu ben Pandira. This Bodhisattva, who will come as Maitreya Buddha, will also come in a physical body in our century in his reincarnation in the flesh—but not as Buddha—and he will make it his task to give humanity all the true concepts about the Christ Event.

Genuine occultists recognise the incarnations of the Bodhisattva, the Maitreya Buddha-to-be. In the same way as other human beings, this individuality will also go through a development of the etheric body. When humanity becomes more like him who is to become the Maitreya Buddha, then this individuality will go through a special development that in a certain respect in its highest stages will be something like the baptism of Jesus of Nazareth: he will undergo an exchange of individuality. In both cases another individuality comes in. They grow up as children in the world, and after a certain number of years their individuality is exchanged. It is not a continuous development, but a development that undergoes a break, as was the case with Jesus. In His case there was an exchange of individuality of this kind in the twelfth year and then again at the baptism by John. This kind of exchange occurs, too, with the Bodhisattva who is to become the Maitreya Buddha. These individualities are suddenly as it were fructified by another. The Maitreya Buddha, in particular, will live with a certain individuality until his thirtieth year, and then an exchange will occur in him, as we find with Jesus of Nazareth during the baptism in Jordan. We will always recognise the Maitreya Buddha, however, in that nothing will be known of him prior to the exchange of individuality, even though he is present. And then he will suddenly reveal himself.

The leading of an unknown life is the characteristic of all Bodhisattvas that are to become Buddhas. The human individuality in the future will have to be more and more self-reliant. It will be a characteristic of his that he will pass unknown in the world for many years, and it will only be possible to recognise him then through the fact that he works from out of his own inner strength as a self-reliant individual. For thousands of years past, and now by occultists of the present day, it is recognised as an essential that the nature of his being remain unknown throughout his youth until the time of the birth of the intellectual soul, indeed even until the birth of the consciousness soul, and that he will come into his own with the help of nobody but himself.

That is why it is so important to be to a certain degree uncompromising. Any true occultist would find it strange for a Buddha to appear in the twentieth century, as every occultist knows that he can only come five thousand years after Gautama Buddha. However a Bodhisattva can and will be incarnated.

It is part of an occultist's basic knowledge that the Maitreya Buddha will be unknown in his youth. That is why I have been emphasising for years that we should bear this principle of occultism in mind: before a certain age nobody should be given the duty from certain central places to speak about occult matters. This has been stressed for years. When younger people speak, they may do this for good reasons, but they do not do it as an occult duty.

The Maitreya Buddha will make himself known through his own power. He will appear in such a way that he can receive no help except from the power of his own soul being.

To approach true theosophy, understanding for the whole of earth development is a necessity. Those who do not develop this understanding will destroy the life in the modern theosophical movement.¹⁰

• 8. Jeshu ben Pandira, whom Haeckel, among others, has spoken of in a most derogatory way: Ernst Haeckel, 1834 – 1919, German natural scientist. His remarks about Jeshu ben Pandira are in his work ‘Die Weltratsel’ (‘World Secrets’); Bonn, 1899.
• 9. The Matthew Gospel, in the main, originated from ... Jeshu ben Pandira: Matthai was a pupil of Jeshu ben Pandira. See Rudolf Steiner's ‘The Gospel of St. Matthew’, twelve lectures; Berne, September, 1910; Rudolf Steiner Press 1965.
• 10. the modern theosophical movement: see Marie Steiner's preface, p. 1.

If we wish to pursue the studies we carried on in our lectures last year, it will be necessary to acquire still other concepts and views than those that have so far been discussed. We know that what we have to say about the Gospels and other spiritual documents of humanity would not suffice if we did not pre-suppose the evolution of our whole cosmic system, which we describe as the embodiments of our planet itself, through the Saturn-existence the Sun-existence, the Moon-existence on to our present Earth-existence. Anyone who recollects how often we have had to start from these fundamental conceptions will know how necessary they are for all occult observations of human evolution. If you now turn to the accounts given, for instance, in my Occult Science about Saturn, Sun and Moon evolution, to that of the Earth, you will admit that nothing but a sketch could be given (indeed even if it were much more amplified it would still be no more), nothing but a sketch from one side, from one point of view. For just as the Earth-existence comprises an infinite wealth of detail, it is quite obvious that the former embodiments are equally detailed, and that it would never be possible to give more than a merely rough charcoal drawing, just an outline of these. It is, however, necessary for us to describe evolution from yet another side.

If it be asked, whence arise all the accounts given here, we know that they arise from the so-called entries in the Akashic Record. We know that what has once taken place in the course of the world's evolution is in a sense to be read as though registered in a delicate spiritual substance, the Akashic substance. There is a register there of everything that has taken place, by which we can discover how things once were. Now it is natural that just as the ordinary vision, contemplating anything of our physical world, sees the details of objects in its vicinity more or less clearly, and that the further away they are the less clear do they appear, so we may also admit that those things that are near us in time, belonging to the Earth or the Moon evolutions can be more minutely observed; while on the other hand those further removed from us in time take on more or less indistinct outlines—as for instance when we look back clairvoyantly into the Saturn or Sun existence.

Why do we do this at all, why do we set value on following up an age so far behind our own? It might well be objected: for what reason do students of Spiritual Science bring up such primeval subjects for discussion at the present day? We really do not need to trouble ourselves about these ancient matters, we have quite enough to do with what is going on now in the world!

It would be wrong to speak in this way. For what has once happened is fulfilling itself continuously even at the present day. What occurred in the time of Saturn did not only take place then—it goes on even to-day; only it is covered over and made invisible by what to-day surrounds man on the physical plane. And the ancient Saturn-existence which played its part so long ago, has been made utterly invisible to us; but it still somewhat concerns man even now, this old Saturn-existence. And in order that we may form a conception of how it concerns us to-day, let us place the following before our souls.

We know that the innermost core of our being meets us in what we call our Ego. This ego, the innermost core of our being, is, in reality, for people of the present day an absolutely super-sensible and imponderable entity. This can be seen in the fact that there are to-day teachings regarding the soul, so-called official psychologies which no longer have the slightest inkling that such an ego is to be alluded to. I have often drawn your attention to the fact that in the German psychology of the nineteenth century the following expression has come into use: “Soul-teaching without soul.” In the celebrated School of Wundt, which is considered decisive not only in German countries, but everywhere where psychology is discussed, it is mentioned with great respect. This school was well known for the “soul-teaching without soul” although it did not coin the expression. This teaching insisted, without taking an independent soul-being into consideration, that all the qualities of the soul are gathered into a sort of focus—into the ego. It would be impossible to think of greater nonsense, yet the psychology of the present day is absolutely under the influence of this nonsense. This “soul-teaching without soul” is to-day famous throughout the world. Future writers on the history of civilisation will have much to do to make it appear plausible to our successors that in the nineteenth century and well on into the twentieth it was possible that such a thought could have arisen as the greatest production of the psychological field. This is only mentioned to point out how vague is official psychology respecting what we designate as the central point of the human being.

If we could have a clear grasp of the ego and place it before us like the external physical body; if we could look for the environment upon which the ego depends in the same way as the physical body is dependent upon what is seen by the eyes and perceived by the senses—if we could look for the environment of the ego in the same way as we do for that of the physical realm, in the clouds, mountains, etc., or, in the same way as the physical body does for its means of nourishment, we should come even to-day to an expression of the cosmos, to a cosmic tableau in which, as it were, our environment is imprinted invisibly and which is similar to the cosmic tableau of ancient Saturn. This means that a man who wishes to learn to know the ego in its own world must represent to himself a world such as ancient Saturn. This world is hidden; to man it is a super-sensible world. At the present stage of his evolution man could not possibly bear the perception of it. It is veiled by the Guardian of the Threshold Who conceals it from him. And it requires a certain grade of spiritual development to support such a vision. It is indeed a vision to which we must first become accustomed. And above all you must form a conception of what is necessary, to be able to feel such a cosmic tableau as reality. You must think away everything that can be perceived by the senses, you must even think away your own inner world, in so far as this consists of the wonted working of the mind. Further you must think away from everything that is in the world, all the concepts you have within you. Thus you must remove from the external world all that the senses can perceive, and from the inner world all the workings of the mind, all conceptions. And now, if you wish to form an idea of that soul-disposition which a man must have if he really holds the thought that everything is taken away and man alone remains, we cannot say otherwise than that he must learn to feel dread and fear of the infinite emptiness yawning around us. He must be able to feel, as it were, his environment tinged and saturated with that which inspires dread and fear wherever he turns, and at the same time he must be able to overcome this fear by inner firmness and certainty.

Without these two frames of mind—dread and fear of the infinite emptiness of existence and the overcoming of this fear—it is impossible to have the faintest conception of the ancient Saturn-existence underlying our own world. Neither of these feelings is much cultivated by people in themselves. Hence, even in literature we find but few descriptions of this condition. It is naturally known to those who in course of time endeavour to seek the origin of things by means of clairvoyant forces. In external literature, however, whether written or printed, you will find but few indications of man having felt anything like the dread of the infinite emptiness or the overcoming of this. In order to obtain a sort of insight into this, I have tried to investigate some of the more modern literature where the consciousness of this dread of the immeasurable emptiness might be found. The philosophers are as a rule extremely clever and speak in clear concepts—they avoid speaking of the mighty, awe-inspiring impressions; it will not be easy to find anything of the sort in their writings. Now I shall not speak of those in which I have found nothing. But I once found one small echo of these feelings, and this was in the diary of Karl Rosenkrantz, the writer on Hegel, in which he sometimes describes intimate feelings produced in him by engrossing himself in the Hegel philosophy. I came upon a remarkable passage, which is simply expressed and noted in his diary. It had become clear to Karl Rosenkrantz that this philosophy proceeds from pure being. This “pure being “of Hegel is much discussed in philosophical literature of the nineteenth century—but we must say that it was very little understood. We might almost say (though, of course, this can only be said in the most intimate circles) that the philosophy of the second half of the nineteenth century understood just as little of the “pure being “of Hegel as the ox understands of Sunday, when he has eaten grass all the week. This concept of the “pure being” of Hegel is one that has been sifted again and again (not existing but Absolute Being); it is a concept which indeed is not quite what I have described as the dreadful emptiness into which flows fear. But all space in Hegel's sense is tinged with the quality containing nothing that can be experienced by man; it is infinity filled with “being.” Karl Rosenkrantz once felt this to be as a dreadful shuddering recoil from a coldness, tinged with nothing but “being.”

In order to understand what underlies the world it does not suffice to speak of it in concepts, or to form concepts and ideas on it; it is far more necessary to call up an impression of the feeling aroused by the infinite emptiness of the ancient Saturn-existence. A feeling of horror accompanies the mere hint of it. If we wish to ascend clairvoyantly to the state of Saturn, we must prepare ourselves by acquiring a feeling, more or less known to everyone, that may be compared to the giddiness experienced on a mountain, when a man stands at the edge of an abyss and feels that he has no sure footing under him, that he cannot retain it in any place and wants to give way to forces over which he has no longer any control. But that is only the most elementary of these apprehensive feelings. For he loses not only the ground beneath him, but also what eyes can see, ears hear and hands grasp; in fact all spatial environment. And he can do no other than lose every thought that may come to him, in a sort of condition of dimness or sleep; and then he can arrive at having no perception at all. He may be so deeply absorbed in this impression that he can do no other than come to the condition of dread, which often is like a giddiness not to be overcome.

Man of to-day has two possibilities. The first is that he may have understood the Gospels, or the Mystery of Golgotha. Anyone who has really understood these in their full depths—naturally not as modern theologians speak of them, but in such a way that he has drawn from them the deepest that can be expressed in them—will take something with him into that emptiness, which seems to expand from a given point and fills emptiness with something similar to courage. It is a feeling of courage, of protection through being united with that Being Who accomplished the sacrifice on Golgotha. The other way is to penetrate into the spiritual worlds without the Gospels through a genuine true Spiritual Science or Anthroposophy. This is also possible. (You know that we emphasise the fact that we do not start from the Gospels when we consider the Mystery of Golgotha, but that we should arrive at it even if there were no Gospels at all.) That would not have been possible before the Mystery of Golgotha took place; but it is the case to-day, because something entered the world through the Mystery of Golgotha which enables a man to understand the impressions of the spiritual world directly through his own impressions. This is what we call the ruling of the Holy Spirit in the world, the ruling of cosmic thought in the world. Whether we take one or the other of these with us, we cannot lose ourselves and we cannot, so to say, fall into the bottomless abyss when we stand before the dreadful emptiness. If we now approach this dreadful emptiness with the other preparations given us by the various methods, for instance, those in my book, The Knowledge of Higher Worlds, etc., and other methods dependent on these—and enter a world born from that which can shake our minds, which can seize upon our conceptions, when we live into that world, when we place ourselves, so to say, in the Saturn-existence, then we learn to know Beings—not in the least similar to those we perceive in the animal, plant or mineral kingdoms but Beings. This is a world where there are no clouds, no light, where it is quite devoid of sound, but we become acquainted with Beings—indeed those Beings called in our terminology Spirits of Will or Thrones. We learn so to know them that it becomes a true objective reality for us—a surging sea of courage.

What at first can only be pictured in thought, becomes through clairvoyance, objective reality. Think of yourself as immersed in this sea—but now immersed as a spiritual being, feeling one with the Christ-Being, carried by the Christ-Being, swimming—though not in a sea of water but in a sea filling infinite space, a sea (there is no other description for it) of flowing courage, flowing energy. This is not simply a uniform and undifferentiated sea, but we meet here with all the possibilities and diversities of what we call a feeling of courage. We become acquainted with beings who, to be sure, consist of courage, but although they consist of courage alone, we meet them as really concrete beings. Naturally it may appear strange to say that we meet beings just as real as man who is made of flesh, and yet they are not of flesh but consist of courage. Yet such is the case. Of such a nature are the Spirits of Will. To begin with, we shall only designate as Saturn-existence what the Spirits of Will, consisting of courage, represent—and nothing else. This, in the first place is “Saturn.” It is a world of which we cannot say that it is spherical, hexagonal or square. None of these definitions of space applies to it, for there is no possibility of any end being discoverable. If we revert to the simile of swimming, we may say it is not a sea in which one would come to any surface, but on all sides and in all directions are to be found Spirits of Courage or Will.

In later lectures I shall describe how we do not at once come to this: for the present I will keep to the same order as formerly: Saturn—Sun—Moon; though it is much better to keep to the reverse direction, from Earth to Saturn. I am now describing the other way round, but it is of no importance.

When we have lifted ourselves to this vision, something meets us of which it is extremely difficult to form an idea, except for one who has taken the trouble, slowly and gradually to attain to such conceptions. For something ceases, which is more intimately connected with our ordinary human ideas than anything else: space ceases! It no longer has any meaning to say—we swim “up or “down,” “forward “or “backward,” “right or left,” these have no longer any meaning. In this respect it is everywhere the same. But the important thing is when we reach these first ages of the Saturn-existence time, too, ceases; there is no longer “earlier “or “later.” It is naturally very difficult for man to imagine this to-day, because his ideas themselves flow in time. On Saturn no thought is before or after another. This again can only be described by a feeling that time ceases. This feeling is certainly not pleasant. Imagine that your concepts are benumbed, that everything that you can remember, everything which you undertake is benumbed into a rigid rod, so that you feel yourself held in your conceptions and are no longer able to move, then you will no longer be able to say that what you formerly experienced you experienced “formerly”; you are fastened to it; it is there, but it is benumbed: time ceases to be of significance, it is absolutely no longer there. On this account it is rather foolish for anyone to say: “you describe the Saturn-existence, the Sunexistence, etc., now tell us what was before Saturn.” “Before” has no longer any meaning because time ceases to exist; we must also cease all definitions of time. In the old Saturn-existence, speaking very comparatively—the world is really boarded up, inasmuch as thought must stand absolutely still. It is the same with clairvoyance, ordinary thoughts must be left behind, they do not extend so far. By way of a comparison and expressing it in image, we must say that our brain is frozen. And when we realise this condition of rigidity, we shall have a comparative conception of the consciousness no longer enclosed in time.

Now when we have got as far as this we become aware of a remarkable alteration in the whole picture. It can now be observed that out of this rigidity, this timeless character of the infinite sea of courage with its Beings whom we call the Spirits of Will, come the Beings of other Hierarchies, as though striking into it and playing into it. We can only notice that other Beings here play into it when we become aware of the cessation of time. We notice an indefinite experience of which we cannot say that we ourselves experience it, but that it is there. We can only say that it is within the whole infinite sea of courage. We observe something passing through this like a flashing-up, like a becoming lighter, but not a real illumination, more like a glimmer. This glimmer does not give the impression of a glimmering light, but as we must understand these things in various ways and we desire to make this comprehensible, we must imagine the following: Suppose a man says something to you and you think, “how clever he is!” and as he talks on further, this feeling increases and the thought comes: “he is really wise, he must have had endless experience, to say such wise things.” ... Besides this feeling, the person makes an impression upon you like a breath of enchantment. Imagine this breath of enchantment enormously enhanced—and within it clouds, which do not flash up but glimmer; if you take this altogether you will have a conception of how Beings consisting entirely of Wisdom interact with the hierarchy of the Spirits of Will. Their Wisdom is not Wisdom alone, but streams which are actively radiant. In short, you then obtain clairvoyantly the conception of what the Cherubim are. The Cherubim play into it.

Now imagine yourself surrounded by nothing but what I have described. I have already said, and have laid certain stress upon it, that we cannot say of it: “we have it around us,” we can only say, “it is there.” We must think ourselves into this. And concerning the conception that something is there flashing up, I said it was not a flash but a glimmering. It is not as though something arose and vanished again; everything is simultaneous. Now, however, the feeling comes that there is some connection between these Spirits of Will and the Cherubim. The feeling comes to us that they have established a relationship to one another; we become conscious of this. And indeed we become conscious that the Spirits of Will or Thrones sacrifice their own being to the Cherubim. That is the last conception to which we can attain when we approach Saturn in retrospect, that of the sacrificing Spirits of Will offering their sacrifice to the Cherubim. There the world is ‘boarded up’. And inasmuch as we can experience the sacrifice that the Spirits of Will make to the Cherubim, something looses itself from our being. This we can express by saying: through the sacrifice made by the Spirits of Will to the Cherubim, time is born. But “time” here is not the abstract time of which we usually speak, but independent being. We can now first speak of something that begins. Time begins with the birth of time-beings--whose nature is pure time. Beings are born consisting only of time. These are the Spirits of Personality, known to us as Archai in the hierarchy of spiritual beings. In the Saturn-existence they are nothing but time. We have also described them as Time-Spirits, as Spirits who rule time. But there they are born as spirits, they are really beings consisting of nothing but time.

To take part in this sacrifice of the Spirits of Will to the Cherubim, and in the birth of time is something of extraordinary importance. For it is only now, when time is born, that something else appears—something that makes it possible for us to speak of the Saturn condition as having anything in the least similar to our environment. What we call the element of warmth in Saturn is, as it were, the sacrificial smoke of the Thrones giving birth to time. Hence I have always said, in describing the Saturn-condition, that it was one of warmth. Of all the elements we have around us now, the only one we can speak of as being on ancient Saturn is warmth. And this warmth arises as sacrificial heat offered by the Spirits of Will to the Cherubim. This should give us an indication of how we should really look upon fire. Where-ever we see fire, wherever we feel warmth, we should not think in so materialistic a fashion as is natural and usual to the man of to-day. But wherever we see and feel warmth appear we should feel that what is at the spiritual foundation of our life is present, though it is still invisible, namely the sacrifice of the Spirits of Will to the Cherubim. The world only acquires its truth when we know that behind every development of heat, there is sacrifice.

In Occult Science, in order not to shock people outside unduly, I have begun by describing the more external condition of ancient Saturn. They are quite shocked enough by this, and people who can only think in accordance with modern science look upon the book as pure nonsense. Just think what it would mean if we were to say, “Ancient Saturn has in its innermost being—in its very foundation—this fact, that the beings belonging to the Spirits of Will offered sacrifice to the Cherubim, that in the smoke of their sacrifice time came to birth as the sacrifice they brought to the Cherubim, and that from this have proceeded the Archai, the Time-Spirits, and that external heat is nothing but a maya as compared with the sacrifice of the Spirits of Will!” But so it is. Externally heat is really only a maya. And if we wish to speak truly we must say that wherever there is heat we have in reality sacrifice, sacrifice of the Thrones to the Cherubim.

And now an excellent “imagination” is the following: In Knowledge of Higher Worlds and elsewhere it is frequently said that the second stage of Rosicrucian initiation is the forming of imagination. The Anthroposophist must build up these imaginations from the right conceptions of the world. Thus we can think of what we have discussed to-day as transformed into an “imagination “: we can imagine the Thrones, the Spirits of Will, kneeling in absolute devotion before the Cherubim, but so that their devotion does not proceed from a feeling of littleness but from a consciousness that they have something to offer. Imagine the Thrones, with this desire of sacrifice founded upon their strength and courage as kneeling before the Cherubim and sending up their sacrifice to them. ... And they send up this sacrifice as foaming heat, so that the sacrificial smoke ascends to the winged Cherubim. So might we picture it. And proceeding from this sacrifice (just as though a word of ours spoken into the air became time—in this case it is time-beings) and emerging from this whole proceeding the Spirits of Time—Archai. This sending forth of the Archai gives a grand and powerful picture. And this picture placed before our souls is extremely impressive for certain imaginations, which can then lead us further and further into the realm of occult knowledge.

This is precisely what we have to attain; we must be able to transform the ideas we receive into imaginations, into pictures. Even if the pictures are clumsily formed, even if they are anthropomorphic, even if the beings appear as winged angels, etc., that does not signify. The rest will be given to us later; and what they ought not to have will fall away. When we yield ourselves to these pictures we penetrate into imaginative perception.

If you take what I have just endeavoured to describe you will see that the soul will soon have recourse to all kinds of pictures unconnected with intellectual ideas. These latter owe their existence to a much later period, so that we should not at first take such things intellectually. And you must comprehend what is meant when some minds describe things differently from the intellectualists; the intellectualist will never be able to understand such minds. I will give a hint to anyone who wishes for instruction on this point: take out of the public library a book—which is quite a good one—the so-called “Old Schwegler,” formerly much used by students for examinations, but now no longer applicable since the “soul” is dethroned; although this book has been mutilated by way of improvement, it is not quite spoilt. You can take old Schwegler's History of Philosophy and you will have quite a good book. If you read there about the philosophy of Hegel you will find everything splendidly described. But now read the short chapter on Jacob Boehme, and try to obtain a correct idea of how helpless a man is who writes an intellectual philosophy when confronted with a spirit such as Jacob Boehme! Paracelsus—thank goodness—he left out entirely; for concerning him he would have written completely unjustifiable things. But just read what he says about Jacob Boehme. Here Schwegler comes to a spirit to whom there objectively appeared—not the Saturn picture—but the recapitulation of the Saturn picture taking place in the Earth period; this he can only do in words and concepts that cannot be approached by the intellect. To the intellectual man all comprehension here ceases. It is not as though these things were impossible of comprehension, but they cannot be understood if the standpoint of the dry philosophic intellect is insisted upon.

You see, precisely the most important thing for us is that we lift ourselves to what the ordinary intellect is unable to grasp. Even though the ordinary intellect produces something as excellent as The History of Philosophy by Schwegler (for I have expressly called this a good book), it is still an example by which we must see how a splendid intellect is completely at a standstill before a spirit such as Jacob Boehme.

Thus to-day we have endeavoured in our consideration of ancient Saturn to penetrate more inwardly, so to say, into this old planetary embodiment of our Earth. We shall presently do the same with the Sun- and the Moon-existence. And in doing so we shall see that there too we come to ideas which perhaps may not appear less impressive than the glimpse afforded us when we look back to the old Saturn condition, and to the Thrones sacrificing to the Cherubim and resulting in the creation of the Beings of Time. For time is a result of sacrifice, and first arises as living time, as a creation of sacrifice. Then we shall see how all these things are transformed on the Sun, and other glorious events of the cosmic existence will confront us, when we pass from Saturn to the Sun, and then to the Moon-existence.

If you enter into the spirit of the lectures given here in the last few days you will be able to accept the idea that not only do the Beings and forces of the various Hierarchies guide and direct events upon our Earth and especially the course of human evolution, but also that the Beings of these Hierarchies themselves undergo evolution or development. We spoke of how the Beings of a particular Hierarchy intervene in order to direct the evolution of a particular race, how, for example, as normal and abnormal Spirits of Form they cooperate to organize the various races.

Now the question which confronts us is whether these spiritual Beings themselves advance to a higher rank. When we look back over the post-Atlantean times we are conscious that in the course of their development certain spiritual Beings advance to the next higher rank. Since the Atlantean catastrophe, since the beginning of the post-Atlantean evolution, we are living in an Age when certain Archangels, certain Beings of the Hierarchy of the Archangeloi, advance to the rank of the Archai or Time Spirits. This is a most interesting phenomenon, for when we observe how the Folk Spirits, or Archangels in our terminology, rise to a higher rank, only then do we have a true understanding of cosmic events. This advance in rank is connected with the fact that in late Atlantis and for some time after, the distribution of mankind, the distribution of races, has been followed by a second migration of peoples. If we wish to understand the period when the division of mankind into the five root races of which we have already spoken took place, we must look far back into early Atlantean times. If we wish to ascertain when those who became the black or Ethiopian race migrated to a particular geographical area in Africa, when those who became the Malayan race migrated to Southern Asia, then we must look back to early Atlantean times. Later on, other migrations followed upon these early migrations.

Whilst, therefore, the Earth was already colonized by the nuclei of these peoples, other peoples were dispatched to those geographical areas of the Earth already colonized. Thus we meet with a second migration in later Atlantean times. If we wish to understand the pattern and extent of the distribution of races in Europe, Africa, and America at the time of the gradual submergence of Atlantis, and the later great migration towards the end of the Atlantean epoch, when a small band first set out during the post-Atlantean epoch, then we must clearly realize that we are here dealing with that mighty stream of humanity which pushed forward into Asia, into Indian territory, and that, as has often been pointed out, the nuclei of future peoples remained behind at different points and from these nuclei were developed the various peoples of Asia, Africa and Europe. We are here concerned therefore with an earlier distribution and a later expansion, with a second wave. The purpose of this second wave was to dispatch in a West-East direction those folk communities who were each under the guidance of an Archangel. But these Archangels who were the spiritual Powers directing these tribes or folk communities were at different stages of development; in other words, some were nearer than others to the rank of a Time Spirit or Spirit of the Age. We have to look to the Far East for that movement of peoples whose Archangel was the first to attain the rank of a Time Spirit. This was the stream which merged with the original inhabitants of India and formed the ruling class of that country and so laid the foundations of the first post-Atlantean civilization after their Archangel had been promoted to be the first Time Spirit or Archai-being of the post-Atlantean civilization. Now this Time Spirit directed the sacred culture of ancient India and made it the leading culture of the first post-Atlantean epoch. Meanwhile the other peoples of Asia who were gradually developing, were for a long time simply under the direction of Archangels.

The peoples of Europe also who had remained behind during the migration from West to East had long been under the guidance of Archangels when the Archangel of India had already risen to the rank of an Archai-being who then worked through intuition upon those great teachers of India, the Holy Rishis. Through the mediation of this exalted and important Spirit the Rishis were able to fulfil their high mission in the manner already described. This Time Spirit worked on for a long time, whilst the people lying to the North of ancient India were still under the guidance of the Archangel. After the Time Spirit of India had fulfilled his mission he was promoted to lead the entire evolution of post-Atlantean humanity.

In the Old Persian epoch the Archangel became the Spirit of Personality, the Time Spirit, from whom the great Zarathustra or Zoroaster, the original Zarathustra, received his inspiration. This again is an example of an Archangel, a Folk Soul who has risen to the rank of Time Spirit. As we stated at the beginning of this lecture, we are experiencing the same situation today) namely, that the Archangels, in the course of fulfilling their mission, advance to the rank of guiding and ruling Spirits of the Age.

In the Egypto-Chaldean epoch, the Archangel of the Egyptian people and the Archangel of the Chaldean people, both rose to a higher rank. During this epoch the Archangel of the Egyptian people rose to the rank of a leading Time Spirit and took over the guidance and control of that which formerly devolved upon the Chaldean Archangel. The leader in the Egypto-Chaldean age thus became the third mighty, guiding Time Spirit who had gradually advanced beyond the rank of the Egyptian Archangel But this was also the epoch in which another important development took place, a development which ran parallel with the Egypto-Chaldean civilization and is related to the development to which we drew special attention in our last lecture.

We have seen that everything associated with the Semitic tribes assumed a special significance, and that from amongst the Semitic race Jahve or Jehovah had chosen a Semitic people to be his chosen people. Since he had chosen a particular race to be his special people, He needed at first, whilst this race was gradually developing, a kind of Archangel to act as his vice-regent. In ancient times, therefore, the evolving Semitic people was guided by an Archangel who was under the continuous inspiration of Jahve or Jehovah and afterwards this Archangel himself grew to be a Time Spirit. Apart from the ordinary evolving Time Spirits of the Old Indian, Old Persian and Old Chaldean peoples therefore, there was yet another Time Spirit who played his own special part by working within a particular people. This is a Time Spirit who, in a certain respect, appears in the mission of a Nation Spirit, a Time Spirit whom we must call the Semitic Nation Spirit. His task was of a very special kind ‘ You will understand this if you bear in mind that, in reality, this particular people was singled out from the normal course of evolution for special guidance. Through these special arrangements this people was entrusted with a mission which was of particular importance for the post-Atlantean epoch and which was distinguished from the missions of all other peoples. One can best understand this mission of the Semitic people by comparing it with the missions of the various peoples of the post-Atlantean epoch.

Mankind is subject to two spiritual currents. The one has its starting-point in monadology or pluralism¹ to give it its correct name. This theory recognizes more than one ultimate principle in ontology. Wherever you turn you will find that in some form or other the peoples of the post-Atlantean epoch started from a plurality of aspects of the Divine—the trinity of ancient India, later symbolized in the figures of Brahma, Shiva and Vishnu; the trinity of Odin, Hönir and Lödur of German mythology. You will find a trinity everywhere and this trinity subdivided into a plurality. This characteristic is peculiar not only to myths and teachings about the Gods, but also to philosophies where we meet it again in the form of monadology. This is the one current which, because it starts from pluralism or monadology can offer the greatest possible variety. It was in the post-Atlantean epoch that, starting from the farthest East in India and following a wide curve through Asia to Europe, this doctrine of pluralism which after all is expressed in Anthroposophy by our recognition of a number of widely differing Beings and Hierarchies, has been represented in the most diverse ways and in a wide variety of forms.

The polarity to pluralism was monism, the doctrine that one principle of being or ultimate substance constitutes the underlying reality of the physical world. The real inspirers of the worship of a single divinity, those who gave the impulse towards monotheism and monism are the Semitic peoples. It is natural to them, and if you recall what I said in this morning's lecture, it is their mission to represent the one God, the Monon.

He who, surveying the Universe, persisted in explaining the phenomena of the Cosmos by a single ultimate principle, a monon, would remain prisoner of his limitations. Monism or monotheism in itself can only represent an ultimate ideal; it could never lead to a real understanding of the world, to a comprehensive, concrete view of the world. Nevertheless, in the post-Atlantean age the current of monotheism also had to be represented, so that the urge, the impulse towards monotheism devolved upon a single people, the Semitic people. The monistic principle is reflected in this people by a certain rigidity or inflexibility, whilst all the other peoples, in so far as their different divinities are comprehended in a unity, receive the impulse towards monism from them. The monistic impulse has always come from the Semitic people. The other peoples are inclined to pluralism.

It is extremely important that this should be borne in mind and whoever is concerned with the continuance of the old Hebraic impulse will find the extremes of monotheism at the present day amongst the learned Rabbis, in Rabbinism. The task of this particular people is to propagate the doctrine that Single ultimate principle underlies the world. The task of all other nations, peoples and Time Spirits was analytic; to represent the one World-Principle as articulated into different Beings. In India, for example, the ultimate abstraction of the Unity underlying all things was divided into a tri-unity, just as the one God of Christianity is divided into Three Persons. The task of the other nations was to ‘analyse’ ultimate Reality and so to furnish particular aspects of it with plentiful content, to fill themselves with rich material for those representations which can apprehend phenomena with sympathetic understanding’ The task of the Semitic people was to eschew all pluralism and to devote itself to synthesis, to the doctrine of one substance. Hence the power of speculation, the power of synthetic thought which is illustrated by Cabbalism is unsurpassed precisely because it stems from this impulse.

Everything that could possibly be distilled from the unitary principle by the synthesizing activity of the ‘I’ has been distilled by the Semitic spirit in the course of thousands of years. This is the significance of the Semitic influence in the world and illustrates the polarity between pluralism and monism. Monism is not possible without pluralism. Pluralism is not possible without monism. We must recognize the necessity for both.

The language of objective fact often leads to quite different conclusions from those which are motivated by the prevailing sympathies or antipathies. Therefore we must have a clear understanding of the tasks of the individual Folk Spirits. Whereas the leaders of the several peoples in Asia and Africa had long since risen to the rank of Time Spirits or Spirits of Personality and indeed some of them were expecting to transform themselves from Time Spirits to the next higher rank, to Spirits of Form—just as, for example, that Time Spirit who was active in ancient India bad already risen in certain respects to the rank of the Spirits of Form—the several peoples of Europe were for a long time still under the direction of their individual Archangels. It was not until the fourth post-Atlantean epoch that the Archangel of ancient Greece rose above the various peoples of Europe who were still under the guidance of their Archangels to the rank of a Time Spirit. He became the leading Time Spirit of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, the Graeco-Latin epoch. Thus the Archangel of Greece advanced to the rank of an Archai-being, a Spirit of Personality. After he had become a Time Spirit, the influence of this Greek Archangel extended far and wide through Asia, Africa and Europe who looked to Hellas for their culture.

Whilst the Archangel of the Greeks had developed into an Archai-being, the Time Spirit of the Egyptians and of the Persians had advanced in evolution towards the Hierarchy of the Spirits of Form. We are now about to touch upon something exceptionally interesting in the course of post-Atlantean evolution. As a consequence of his earlier development the Greek Archangel was able to pass relatively quickly through that stage of development which qualified him for a specially prominent position as Spirit of the Age (Time Spirit). Something therefore of the greatest significance occurred in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch.

Now at that time there took place, as we know, the Mystery of Golgotha through which mankind received the Christ Impulse. This Impulse was destined in the course of the following centuries and millennia to spread gradually over the whole Earth. Without this consummation of Golgotha, without the activity of certain guiding and directing Beings from the ranks of the Hierarchies, this could not have been achieved. A most remarkable and interesting event now occurred. At a definite moment of time which coincided approximately with the descent of Christ upon Earth, the Greek Time Spirit renounced for our present epoch the possibility of rising into the Hierarchy of the Spirits of Form and became the guiding Time Spirit who then works on through the successive epochs. He became the representative guiding Spirit of exoteric Christianity, so that the Archai-being himself, the guiding Spirit of the Greeks, himself formed the vanguard of the Christ Impulse. In consequence, ancient Greece rapidly declined at the time of the expansion of Christianity because it had surrendered its guiding Time Spirit in order that he might become the leader of exoteric Christianity. The Greek Time Spirit then became the missionary, the inspirer or rather the intuiting Spirit of the expanding exoteric Christianity. Here we have a concrete example of an act of renunciation such as we have spoken of. Because the Greek Time Spirit had fulfilled his mission in the fourth post-Atlantean age so admirably, he could now advance in evolution towards a higher Hierarchy. But he renounced this possibility and by so doing became the guiding Spirit of the expanding exoteric Christianity, and in that capacity he continued to work among the various peoples.

A similar act of renunciation took place on another occasion, and this second instance is of particular interest to students of Spiritual Science. Whilst in Asia, including Egypt and Greece, the several Archangels were advancing to the rank of Time Spirits, there existed in Europe isolated peoples and tribes who were guided by their several Archangels. Thus, whilst the corresponding Archangels who had been sent in ancient times from the West towards the East had advanced to the rank of Time Spirits, there still existed in Europe an Archangel who worked in the Germanic and especially in the Celtic peoples, in those peoples who, at the time of the founding of Christianity, were still spread over a large area of Western Europe extending into Hungary, Southern Germany and the Alpine countries. These peoples had the Celtic Folk Spirit as their Archangel. The peoples belonging to the Celtic Folk Spirit also inhabited an area extending far into the North East of Europe. They were guided by an important Archangel who, soon after the Christian impulse had been bestowed on mankind, had renounced the possibility of becoming an Archai-being, a Spirit of Personality and elected to remain at the Archangel stage and to subordinate himself in future to the different Time Spirits who might arise in Europe. Hence the Celtic peoples also declined as a united people because their Archangel had made a special act of renunciation and had undertaken a special mission. This is a typical example of how, in such a case, an act of renunciation helps to initiate particular missions.

Now what became of the Archangel of the Celtic peoples after he had renounced the possibility of becoming a Spirit of Personality? He became the inspirer of esoteric Christianity. All the underlying teachings and impulses of esoteric Christianity, especially of the real, true esoteric Christianity, have their source in his inspirations. The hidden sanctuary for those who were initiated into these Mysteries was situated in Western Europe and there the spiritual impulse was imparted by this guiding Spirit who had originally undergone an important training as Archangel of the Celtic people, had renounced his promotion to a higher rank and had undertaken another mission—that of becoming the inspirer of esoteric Christianity which was destined to live on further in the Mysteries of the Holy Grail, in Rosicrucianism. Here is an example of an act of renunciation, a sacrifice on the part of one of these Beings of the Hierarchies. At the same time it offers a concrete example illustrating the significance of this sacrifice. Although this Archangel could have advanced to the rank of an Archai-being, he remained at the Archangel stage and in consequence was able to guide the important current of esoteric Christianity whose influence is destined to be furthered through the medium of the different Time Spirits. No matter how these Time Spirits may work, this esoteric Christianity will remain a living source, able to be renewed and metamorphosed ever and again under the influence of different epochs. Here then is another example illustrating an act of renunciation, whilst we, on the other hand, are witnessing in our age especially the mighty spectacle of Folk Spirits advancing to the rank of Time Spirits.

Now the various Germanic peoples of Europe had originally been guided by a single Archangel-being and were destined to come gradually under the guidance of many different Archangels in order to become differentiated. It is of course extremely difficult to speak impartially of these things without arousing jealousy and emotional prejudice. Consequently certain mysteries pertaining to this evolution can only be touched upon lightly. From among these Archangels emerged the Archai-being, the leading Time Spirit of our fifth post-Atlantean epoch, long after one of the Archangels of the Germanic peoples had undergone a certain preparatory training. The Time Spirit who was the Folk Spirit in the Graeco-Latin age became, as you know, that Time Spirit who was later concerned in the expansion of exoteric Christianity. Later Roman history was also guided by a kind of Time Spirit who had risen from the rank of Archangel of the ancient Romans and had joined forces with the Christian Time Spirit in order to coordinate their activities. Both of these were the teachers of that Archangel who guided the Germanic peoples, had been one of their guiding Archangels and had then risen to the rank of the Time Spirit of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. But much still remained to be done. It was essential that the different folk elements in the peoples of Europe should be mingled and individualized. This was only possible for the following reasons:—whereas, in Asia and Africa the Archangels had long since advanced to the rank of Time Spirits, Europe was still under the guidance of the Archangels themselves. The individual peoples, indifferent to the Time Spirits and guided by their several Folk Souls, were wholly given up to the impulses of the Folk Spirit. At the time when the Christian impulse began to pervade mankind, Europe was the scene of the simultaneous activity of many Folk Spirits, filled with a spirit of liberty, each acting independently and who therefore made it difficult for a Time Spirit of the fifth epoch to arise who could direct the several Folk Spirits. The French people, for example, was the product of the intermixture of Celts, Franks and Latins, and in consequence the entire guidance naturally followed a clearly defined pattern. It passed from the several guiding Archangels, who had been given other tasks, into the hands of others. We have already indicated what was the mission of the guiding Archangel of the Celts; in the same way we could indicate what were the missions of the Archangels of the other peoples. Hence amongst the peoples who were products of miscegenation, other Archangels appeared who took over when the various elements intermingled. Thus, over a long period of time—and even in the Middle Ages—the leadership in Central and Northern Europe was chiefly in the hands of the Archangels who were only gradually influenced by that common Time Spirit who was in the vanguard of the Christ Impulse. The several Folk Spirits in Europe frequently became the servants of the Christian Time Spirit. The European Archangels placed themselves in the service of this universal Christian Time Spirit whilst the several peoples were hardly in a position to permit any of the Archangels to advance to the rank of a Time Spirit. Starting from the twelfth century, it was not until the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that the first steps were undertaken towards the development of the guiding Time Spirit of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch who still directs us today. He belongs to the great leading Time Spirits, equally with those who were the great directing Time Spirits during the Egypto-Chaldean-Babylonian, Old Persian and Indian epochs. But this Spirit of our fifth post-Atlantean epoch worked in a very unique manner. He had, in effect, to enter into a kind of compromise with one of the former Time Spirits who were active before the birth of the Christian impulse, namely, with the Time Spirit of ancient Egypt, who as we have heard, had risen in a certain respect to the rank of a Spirit of Form. Thus, our present fifth post-Atlantean epoch is really governed by a Time Spirit who in a certain way is very much subject to the influence and impulses of the Time Spirit of ancient Egypt and who is a Spirit of Form at an elementary stage.

This was the source of the many cleavages and divisions of our time. In the fifth post-Atlantean epoch our Time Spirit is striving to lift himself to the Spiritual, and to raise the fifth post-Atlantean epoch to a higher stage. But this does not exclude a tendency or inclination to materialism. According as the various Archangels, the various Folk Souls are more or less inclined towards this materialist tendency, so there emerges under the guidance of this Time Spirit of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch a more or less materialistic people who inclines the Spirit of the Age more in the direction of materialism. On the other hand an idealistic people inclines the Spirit of the Age more towards idealism.

Now from the twelfth to the sixteenth century something gradually developed, working (in a certain respect) parallel with the Christian Time Spirit—who continues the activity of the Greek Time Spirit—so that in fact, in a remarkable manner, there streamed into our culture the Christian Time Spirit united with a Time Spirit proper of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch; and again there was an influx of impulses from ancient Egypt whose Time Spirit had advanced to a certain rank among the Spirits of Form. Now precisely because such a trifolium is at work in our whole culture it has been possible for Folk Souls and cultural patterns of widely differing kinds and complexions to emerge in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. It became possible for the Time Spirit to manifest the greatest diversity. The Archangels who took their orders from the Time Spirit worked in many different ways.

Those of you who live in Scandinavia will be interested in something which we shall go into closely in our next lectures. The following question will be of particular interest to you: What form did the activity of that Archangel take who was once upon a time sent to Norway with the Nordic peoples, the Scandinavian peoples, and from whom the various Archangels of Europe, especially those of Western, Central and Northern Europe, received their inspirations? In the eyes of the world it would be regarded as the height of folly to speak of that spiritual centre on the continent of Europe which at one time radiated the most powerful spiritual impulses, the centre which was the seat of exalted Spirits before the Celtic Folk Spirit as Celtic Archangel had established a new centre in the High Castle of the Grail. The Archangel of the Northern peoples first received his mission from that place which in ancient times had been the spiritual centre of Europe. It must seem the height of folly, as I said, if we were to indicate as the central source of inspiration for the various Germanic tribes that district which now lies over Central Germany—not actually on the Earth, but hovering above it. If you were to describe an arc to include the towns of Detmold and Paderborn, you would then delimit the region from where the most exalted Spirits were sent on their several missions to Northern and Western Europe. Hence, because the great centre of spiritual inspiration was situated there, legend tells of Asgard having been actually located at this place on Earth. There, in the remote past, was the great centre of inspiration; in later years its spiritual mission was taken over by the Castle of the Grail.

The peoples of Scandinavia, with their first Archangels, were at that time endowed with quite different potentialities, potentialities which at the present time are reflected only in the peculiar configuration of Scandinavian mythology. If we compare in the occult sense, Scandinavian mythology with other mythologies, we may know that this Norse mythology depicts the native predisposition of the Archangel who was sent upon his mission to Scandinavia, that native predisposition which has retained its original form and which is peculiar to a child whose particular talents, latent gifts, etc., remain at a childlike stage. The Archangel who was sent to Scandinavia embodies those potentialities which were later expressed in the peculiar configuration of Scandinavian mythology. Here lies the signal importance of Scandinavian mythology for the understanding of the real, inner being of the Scandinavian Folk Soul. Herein, too, lies the great significance which the understanding of this mythology has for the further development of this Archangel who certainly has the potentiality to rise to the rank of an Archai-being. But to this end he must develop in a specific way those native potentialities which (in certain respects) have been overshadowed by the rising influence of that Time Spirit who was in the vanguard of exoteric Christianity. Although Germanic-Scandinavian mythology and Greek mythology are in many respects curiously alike, I must point out nevertheless that there is no other mythology which, in its peculiar composition and characteristic development, gives a deeper or clearer picture of cosmic evolution than does this Scandinavian mythology, so that this picture may serve as a preliminary sketch for the anthroposophical view of world-evolution.

Thus Germanic mythology, from the way in which it was developed out of the native powers of the Archangel, is in its pictures closely akin to the anthroposophical conception of the world such as it shall grow to be in the course of time for all mankind. The problem will be how those original, native potentialities of an Archangel can be developed after be has been nurtured by the Christian Time Spirit. These potentialities will be able to become an important element in the guiding Time Spirit when, at a later stage in the evolution of a people, this people has learned how to develop and perfect the potentialities with which it was endowed at an earlier epoch. In this connection we have only indicated an important problem, an important evolution of an European Archangel. We have indicated to what extent he has the potentiality to develop into a Time Spirit. We shall stop at this point for the moment. We shall then continue our investigations, when we shall endeavour, by analysing the configuration of the Folk Soul, to undertake an esoteric study of mythology, and a special section will be devoted to a description of the very interesting characteristics of Germanic mythology, and also of Scandinavian mythology in particular.

• 1. Note by translator—Pluralism: the theory which recognizes more than one ultimate principle in ontology. Monadology: doctrine of monads as formulated by Leibnitz. Monism: the doctrine that attempts to explain the phenomena of the Cosmos by one ultimate substance.

Yesterday we described the spirit of the Apocalypse of John in a general way. We tried to give a few broad outlines showing that in this Apocalypse is described what may be called a Christian initiation. To-day it will be my task to present to you in general the nature of initiation, to describe what takes place in a man when through initiation he is enabled to see for himself those spiritual worlds which lie behind the sense worlds; and further it will be my task to give in broad outline a description of the experiences in initiation. For only by entering a little more closely into the nature of initiation can we gradually understand this significant religious record known as the Apocalypse.

First of all we must again consider closely the two states of human consciousness, the one lasting from morning when a person awakes until evening when he goes to sleep, and the other which begins when he goes to sleep and ends when he awakes. We have often brought to mind that man as we know him in his present form is, to begin with, a fourfold being; that he consists of the physical, etheric and astral bodies and the “I.” To spiritual vision these four principles appear in their external form as if the human physical body is enclosed in the centre like a kind of kernel. During the day this physical body is permeated by the so-called etheric or life-body which projects very slightly round about the head as a luminous halo, but which also completely permeates the head; further down it becomes more cloudy and indistinct and the more it approaches the lower parts of man the less definitely does it show the form of the physical body.

Now these two principles of the human being are during the day enveloped by what we call the astral body, which projects on all sides like an ellipse, in the shape of an egg, and in its fundamental form it has luminous rays which look as if their direction really were from outside inward, as if they would penetrate from outside to the inner part of the man. Within this astral body are outlined a great number of different figures, every possible kind of lines and rays, many like flashes of lightning, many in curious twists; all this surrounds the human being in the most varied manifestations of light. The astral body is the expression of his passions, instincts, impulses and desires, as also of all his thoughts and ideas. The clairvoyant consciousness sees portrayed in this astral body all that one calls soul-experiences, from the lowest impulses to the highest ethical ideals.

Then we have the fourth principle of the human being, which one might sketch as if something were sending in rays to a point lying about one centimetre (3/8 inch) behind the forehead. That would be the diagrammatic representation of the fourfold man. In the course of these lectures we shall see how the several parts are distinguished in the whole.

This is a picture of man during the day from moving when he wakes, until night when he goes to sleep. Now, when he goes to sleep, the physical and etheric bodies remain on the bed and a kind of streaming-out of the astral body takes place. “Streaming-out” does not express it quite exactly; it is really as if a kind of mist formed. So that in the night we see the astral body which has withdrawn from the physical and the etheric bodies like a kind of spiral mist around the man, while the fourth principle of the human being disappears almost entirely towards one side, that is, it disperses and becomes vague. The lower part of the astral body can only just be seen; it is the upper part which is indicated as the “astral body which has withdrawn.”

Yesterday we emphasized what has to happen to a person if he is to receive initiation. If he occupies himself only with the customary activities of the present day he is unable to receive initiation. He must be so prepared that during ordinary daily life he performs the exercises of meditation, concentration, etc., prescribed for him by the schools of initiation. The effect produced by these exercises is, on the whole, the same in all kinds of initiation. They only differ in that the further we go back into pre-Christian schools of initiation, they are directed more to the training of thought, to the exercise of the power of thinking. The nearer we approach to Christian times the more are these exercises directed to train the forces of feeling; and the nearer we come to modern times the more we see how, in the so-called Rosicrucian training—conditioned by the demands and requirements of humanity—a particular kind of will culture, the exercise of the will is introduced. Although the meditations are at first similar to those of pre-Christian schools, there nevertheless prevails everywhere at the basis of the Rosicrucian exercises a particular training of the element of Will. The chief aim is, so to influence a person during the day—even if only for a short time, perhaps five to fifteen minutes—that the effect continues when the pupil falls asleep and the astral body withdraws. This effect was produced by the exercises given in the Oriental Mysteries, in the Egyptian Mysteries, in the Pythagorean schools, and it also resulted from the exercises of meditation based chiefly upon the Gospel of John. The astral body of a man who performs such, shall we say, occult exercises, gradually manifests many different changes at night. It manifests different light-effects; it shows that plastic formation of the organs of which we have already spoken and this becomes ever more distinct. The astral body gradually acquires an inner organization such as the physical body possesses in its eyes, ears, etc.

Yet this would never lead one to see much, particularly in the case of the man of the present day; the pupil, however, has some slight perception when his inner organs have been developed to a certain extent. He begins to become conscious during sleep. A spiritual environment gleams forth from the otherwise universal darkness. He perceives wonderful pictures of plant life; this was more especially the case in ancient times: to-day it takes place more seldom. These are the most primitive achievements of clairvoyance. Where previously there had been only the darkness of unconsciousness there now arises something of a dreamlike plant structure yet living and real. Much of what is described in the mythologies of ancient peoples was seen in this way. When we read in legends that Woden, Willy and Weh found a tree on the seashore and that from it they created man, this indicates that it was first seen in such a picture. In all the mythologies you may perceive this primitive kind of sight, this vision of plants. Paradise is also the description of such a vision, Paradise with its two trees of knowledge and of life. It is the result of this astral vision. It is not without cause that in Genesis itself is indicated that Paradise, together with all that is described in the beginning of the Bible, was seen in this manner. First we must learn to read the Bible, then we shall understand how closely and significantly it portrays this mysterious condition in its descriptions. In former times they did not teach of Paradise, of the beginning of the Bible, as we do now. The early Christians were told that “Adam fell into a sleep,” and that this was the sleep in which Adam, looking back, perceived the visions described in the beginning of Genesis. It is only in our day that the belief has grown that such words as “Adam fell into a sleep” are just an accident. They are no accident. Every word in the Bible has a deep meaning and only he can understand the Bible who knows how to value every single word.

That is the first thing. Then, however, in the pre-Christian Mysteries something special had to take place. When the pupil had performed his exercises for a long period—and this lasted for a very long time—when he had received what was necessary to produce order in the soul., when he had absorbed what we now call Anthroposophy, then he was at last able to participate in the old initiation proper. In what did this old initiation consist?

It is not sufficient that organs be formed in the astral body. They must be imprinted in the etheric body. Just as the letter of a seal is imprinted in sealing wax, so must the organs of the astral body be imprinted in the etheric body. For this purpose the neophyte in ancient initiations was brought into a particular condition. For three and a half days he lay in a death-like condition. We shall see more and more that this condition cannot and may not be brought about in our day, but that there are now other means of initiation. I am now describing the pre-Christian initiation, in which the neophyte was for three and a half days put into a death-like condition by the hierophant. Either he was laid in a kind of small chamber, a kind of grave where he lay in a death-like sleep, or he was bound in a particular position with outstretched hands on a cross, for this facilitated the arrival of the condition aimed at.

From many different lectures we know that death takes place in a man through the etheric withdrawing together with the astral body and the “I,” and only the physical body remaining behind, At death something takes place which otherwise has never occurred between birth and death in the ordinary course of life. The etheric body never, even in the deepest sleep, leaves the physical body, but is always within it. At death it leaves the physical body. Now during the death-like condition part at least of the etheric body leaves the physical body, so that a part of the etheric body which was within it before, in this condition finds itself outside. This is described, as you know, in more exoteric lectures by saying that the etheric body is withdrawn. That is not actually the case, for we can only now make the necessary fine distinctions. In the three and a half days during which the Priest-Initiate carefully watched over the neophyte, only the lower part of the body of the pupil was united with the etheric body. This is the stage when the astral body, with all the organs formed in it, imprints itself in the etheric body. At this moment illumination takes place. When the neophyte was awakened after three and a half days, what is called illumination had come to him, that which had to follow after purification, which consists merely in the development of the organs of the astral body. The pupil was now a “knower” in the spiritual world; what he had previously seen was only a preparatory stage of vision. This world consisting of forms somewhat resembling plants was now supplemented by essentially new structures.

We have now to describe more exactly what the initiate then began to see. When he had been led to illumination it was clear to him when he was awakened, that he had seen something which he had previously never been able consciously to grasp. What then had he seen? What was he able to call up in a certain sense before his soul as an important memory-picture of his vision? If we wish to understand what he had seen we must cast a glance at the evolution of man. We must remember that man has only gradually gained the degree of individual consciousness he now possesses. He could not always say “I” to himself as he does to-day. We need only go back to the time when the Cherusci, the Heruli, etc., lived in the parts now inhabited by the Germans. The different human beings did not then feel themselves as separate human egos, but as members of the tribe. Just as a finger does not feel itself to be something existing independently, so each Cheruscan did not feel that he could unconditionally say “I” to himself; his “I” was the “I” of the whole tribe. The tribe represented a single organism and a group of men who were related by blood had one “I”-soul in common. In those days you yourselves were members of a great community, just as to-day your two arms belong to your “I.” This may be clearly seen in the case of the people dealt with in the Old Testament. Each single member felt himself to be a member of the race. The individual did not speak of himself in the highest sense when he uttered the ordinary “I,” but he felt something deeper when he said “I and the Father Abraham are one.” For he felt a certain “I”-consciousness which descended from Abraham through all the generations to each member of the race. That which was related by blood was included in one “I.” It was like a common group-soul-“I” which included the whole race and those that understood the matter said: That which really forms our inmost immortal being dwells not in the separate members but in the entire race. All of the several members belong to this common “I.” Hence one who understood the matter knew that when he died he united himself with an invisible being which reached back to Father Abraham. The individual really felt that he returned into Abraham's bosom. He felt that his immortal part found refuge, as it were, in the group-soul of the race. This group-soul of the entire race could not descend to the physical plane. The people themselves saw only the separate human forms, but these were to them not the reality, for this was in the spiritual world. They dimly felt that that which flowed through the blood was the Divine. And because they had to see God in Jehovah they called this Divinity “Jahve” or also his Countenance, “Michael.” They considered Jahve as the spiritual group-soul of the people.

The individual human being on the physical plane could not see these spiritual beings. The initiate, on the other hand, who experienced the great moment when the astral body was imprinted in the etheric body, was able to see first of all the most important group-souls. When we look back into ancient periods of humanity we everywhere find that the present “I” has developed from such a group-consciousness, a group-ego; so that when the seer looks back he finds that the individual human beings flow together more and more into the group-souls. Now there are four chief types of group-souls, four prototypes. If we observe all the various group-souls of the different souls we notice a certain similarity but there are also differences. If we classify them there are four groups, four types. The spiritual observer sees them clearly when he looks back to the time when man was not yet in the flesh, when he had not descended to the earth. We must now consider more exactly the moment when from the spiritual regions man descended into flesh. This can only be represented in great symbols.

There was a time when our earth was composed of very much softer material than it is now, when rock and stone were not so solid, when the forms of the plants were quite different, when the whole was as if embedded like a primeval ocean in water-caves, when air and water were not separated, when all the beings now dwelling on the earth, the animals and plants, were developed in water. When the minerals began to assume their present form, man emerged from invisibility. The neophyte saw it in this way: Surrounded by a kind of shell, man descended from the regions which are now the regions of air. He was not yet as physically condensed when the animals already existed in the flesh. He was a delicate airy being even in the Lemurian epoch and he so developed that the spiritual picture presents the four group-souls: On one side something like the image of a Lion, on the other the likeness of a Bull, up above something like an Eagle and below something similar to Man. Such is the spiritual picture. Thus man moves forth from the darkness of the spirit-land. And the force which formed him appears as a kind of rainbow. The more physical powers surround the entire structure of this human being like a rainbow (Rev. 4). We have to describe this development of man in various realms and in various ways. The above description represents the way it appears to the investigator when he looks back and sees how these four group-souls have developed out of the common Divine-human which descends. From time immemorial this stage has been symbolized in the form represented in the second of the so-called seven seals.¹ That is the symbolic representation, but it is more than a mere symbol.

There you see these four group-souls emerging from an indefinite background, the rainbow surrounding it and the number twelve. Now we must understand what this number twelve signifies. When that which has just been described is seen coming forth, there is a clairvoyant feeling that it is surrounded by something of an entirely different nature from that which emerges from the indeterminate spiritual. In ancient times that by which it is surrounded was symbolized by the Zodiac, by the twelve signs of the Zodiac. The moment of entering into spiritual vision is connected with many other experiences. The first thing perceived by one whose etheric body goes forth is that it seems to him as if he grew larger and larger and extended himself over what he then perceives. The moment comes when the initiate says: “I do not merely see these four forms, but I am within them, I have expanded my being over them.” He identifies himself with them. He perceives that which is symbolized by the constellations, by the number twelve. We shall best understand that which spreads itself around, that which reveals itself, if we remember that our earth has passed through previous incarnations. We know that before the earth became earth it went through the condition of Saturn, then through that of Sun, then through that of Moon, and only then did it become our present earth. This was necessary, for only in this way was it possible for the beings we see on the earth around us to come forth as they have done. They had gradually to work through those changing forms.

So when we look back into the primeval past we see the first condition of our earth, that of ancient Saturn which at the beginning of its existence did not even shine. It consisted of a kind of warmth. You would not have been able to see it as a shining globe, but had you approached you would have come into a warmth space, because it then consisted only of warmth.

Someone might now ask: Did then the development of the world begin with Saturn? Have not perhaps other conditions brought about that which became Saturn? Was not Saturn preceded by other incarnations? It would be difficult to go back before Saturn because only with Saturn begins something without which it is impossible to go beyond Saturn, namely, that which we call time. Previously there were other forms of being; that is to say, we cannot really speak of a “before,” because time did not yet exist. Even time had a beginning! Before Saturn there was no time, there was only eternity, duration. All was then simultaneous. Only with Saturn did it come about that events followed one another. In that state of the world where there is only eternity, duration, there is also no movement. For time belongs to movement. There is no circulation, no revolution; there is duration and rest. As one says in Spiritual Science: there is blissful rest in duration. That is the expression for it. Blissful rest in duration preceded that Saturn condition. The movement of the heavenly bodies only entered with Saturn. The path indicated by the twelve signs of the Zodiac was conceived of as signs, and the time during which a planet passed through one of these constellations was spoken of as a cosmic hour; twelve cosmic hours, twelve hours of day and twelve of night! To each cosmic body, Saturn, Sun and Moon, is reckoned a consecutive number of cosmic hours which are grouped into cosmic days; and of these periods of time seven are outwardly perceptible and five are more or less outwardly imperceptible. We distinguish there-fore seven Saturn revolutions or seven great Saturn days and five great Saturn nights. We might also say five days and seven nights, for the first and last “days” are twilight days. We are accustomed to call these seven revolutions, these seven cosmic days, Manvantaras, and the five cosmic nights, Pralayas. If we wish to have it exactly correspond to our reckoning of time, we reckon two planetary conditions together, that is, Saturn and Sun, Moon and Earth; and we then get twenty-four revolutions. These twenty-four revolutions form important epochs in the representation of the world and we picture these twenty-four revolutions ruled by beings in the universe who are represented in the Apocalypse as the twenty-four Elders, the twenty-four rulers of the cosmic revolutions, the cosmic periods. In the seal (shown by Dr. Steiner) they are typified as the cosmic clock. The numbers on the clock are here only interrupted by the double crowns of the Elders to indicate that these are the Time-Kings because they rule the revolutions of the cosmic bodies. The initiate sees this when he first looks back into the picture of the past.

We must now ask: Why does the initiate see this picture? Because in it are represented symbolically in astral pictures the forces which have formed the human etheric body in its present shape, and corresponding with this the physical body. Why this is so you may easily imagine. Imagine a man lying in bed. With his astral body and “I” he leaves the physical body and etheric body. But now the physical and etheric bodies as they are to-day, belong to the present physical human body; and to the present etheric body belong the astral body and the “I.” This physical and this etheric body cannot exist alone. They have become what they are because the astral body and “I” have been membered into them. Only a physical body which contains neither blood nor nerves can exist without an astral body and “I.” That is the reason why the plant can exist without astral body and “I,” because it has neither blood nor nervous system, for the nervous system is connected with the astral body and the blood with the “I.” There is no being having a nervous system in the physical body which is not permeated by an astral body and there is no human being having a blood system in the physical body into which the “I” has not entered. Think of what you do every night. You callously desert your physical and etheric bodies and leave them with the blood and nervous systems to themselves. If it merely depended upon you, your physical body would have to die every night through your deserting your nervous and blood systems; it would die the very moment the astral body and “I ” left the physical and etheric bodies. But the spiritual investigator sees how other beings, higher spiritual beings, then occupy it. He sees how they pass into it and do what man does not do in the night, namely, take care of the blood and nervous systems. These are the same beings, however, who have created man, in so far as he consists of a physical body and etheric body, not only to-day but from incarnation to incarnation. They are the same beings who caused the first rudiments of the physical body to originate upon ancient Saturn and who formed the etheric body upon the Sun. These beings who from the very beginning of the Saturn and Sun periods have ruled in the physical and etheric bodies, now rule every night while man is asleep and basely leaves his physical and etheric bodies, surrendering them to death, so to speak; they penetrate and take care of his blood and nervous systems.

Hence, too, it is comprehensible that at the moment when the astral body touches the etheric body in order to imprint itself in it, man is then pervaded by those forces which have formed him; he then sees the picture of the forces which are symbolized in the seal. That which upholds him in life and connects him with the whole universe flashes out at this moment of initiation. He sees what has formed the two members of his being, the physical body and etheric body, that which preserves their life every night; but he himself has still no share in it for he cannot yet work into these two principles of his being. If it depended upon man, the physical body and the etheric body, which during the night lie on the bed, would be condemned to a plant existence, for he leaves them to themselves. Hence to man the state of sleep is an unconscious condition such as the plant always possesses.

Now what has happened, in the case of an ordinary man, with that which has withdrawn during sleep? What has become of the astral body and the “I”? These also are unconscious during the night. The ordinary man experiences nothing in his astral body during sleep at night. But suppose a person were passing through the seven stages of the John-initiation—those important stages in Christian initiation—he experiences not merely what has been described up to now; quite apart from the fact that when the astral body touches the etheric body he is able to develop clairvoyant power, something else would come about. He becomes conscious of the soul-peculiarities, the human soul-qualities of the astral and devachanic worlds from which his soul is really born. To this picture is added a still higher symbol which seems to fill the whole world. To this symbol of the old initiation there is added for one who passes through the stages of the initiation of John something else which may best be represented by the first seal. The Christian initiation possessed this as the symbol of the old initiation. We are now presenting these things from the standpoint of Christianity, which, however, has to receive then and change them into something different. He sees a spiritual vision (Rev. i, 12) of the Priest-king with the golden girdle, with feet which seem to consist of cast metal, his head covered with hair as of white wool, out of his mouth a fiery sword flaming and in his hand the seven cosmic-stars, Saturn, Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus.

The form in the centre of the second picture seal was only indicated in the old initiation as the fifth of the group-souls. It is that which only existed germinally in ancient humanity and only came forth as what is described as the Son of Man who rules the stars when he fully appears to man in his true form.

Thus from this symbolical representation we must first of all clearly understand that the separation of the various principles in present-day humanity—physical body and etheric body on the one hand and astral body and “I” upon the other—may be so considered, that each may contribute its part, as it were, to initiation, first of all through the form of initiation when the astral body touches the etheric body, when the four group-souls flash out, and then in the treatment of the astral body so that this too acquires the ability to see. Previously the highest vision in the super-sensible world had only reached as far as a kind of plant experience of the world. Through the Christian initiation a higher stage of initiation is reached in the astral body. Here you have the two things mentioned at the beginning of the Apocalypse described from the principle of initiation itself. The writer of the Apocalypse has, however, described them in the reverse order, and rightly so. He first describes the vision of the Son of Man, the appearance of Him Who is, Who was and Who is to come—and then the other. Both are symbols of what the initiate experiences during initiation.

Thus we have described what happens in certain cases of initiation and what at first is experienced. In our next lecture we shall proceed further to the details of these real, actual experiences and we shall find them reflected in the mighty presentation given in the Apocalypse of John.

• 1. Dr. Steiner is referring to the seven symbolic Seals which had been drawn from his indications. They showed stages of human evolution visible in the astral world to the seer. See Occult Seals and Columns with introduction by Rudolf Steiner.

Today let us look at one of those aspects of spiritual science that show us how well qualified anthroposophy is to throw light on life in the widest sense. Not only does this knowledge help us understand everyday life, it also throws light on the great span of human existence that includes the time between death and a new birth.

Spiritual science can be of great help to us just where daily life is concerned; it can help us solve many problems and show us how to cope with life. Those people who cannot see into the depths of existence fail to understand many things they are encountering every moment of the day. The questions that cannot be answered out of sense experience mount up, and, being unanswered, remain problems that have a disturbing effect on life, breeding discontent. Being discontented in life, however, can never serve man's evolution nor his true welfare. We could enumerate hundreds of such life problems that are far more deeply illuminating than people usually imagine.

A word that contains many such problems is the word ‘forgetting’. You all know it as the word indicating the opposite of what we call the retaining of a mental image or a thought or impression. Certainly you will all have had some distressing experiences with what is conveyed by the word forgetting. You will all know the annoying experience you often have if one or another idea or impression has, as we say, slipped your memory. You may then have wondered why such a thing as forgetting has to belong to the phenomena of life.

Now it is only with the help of the facts of occult life that you can get answers to a thing like this, that is, answers that are of any value. You know, of course, that memory or remembering has something to do with what we call man's etheric body. So we can also assume that the opposite of memory, namely forgetting, will have something to do with the etheric body. Perhaps we are justified in asking if there is any significance in the fact that the things a human being has had at some time in his life of thought can also be forgotten? Or do we have to be satisfied with characterising forgetting in a purely negative way, as so often happens, and say that it is a defect of the human soul not to be able to remember everything all the time? We shall only throw light on forgetting by turning our attention to its opposite and considering the nature and significance of memory.

If we say that memory has something to do with the etheric body, we ought to ask ourselves how it happens that the etheric body acquires this task of retaining the impressions and thoughts in man, when the etheric body is present in plants where it has an essentially different task? We have often spoken of the fact that in contrast to the stone a plant has its whole material nature permeated by an etheric body. And this etheric body in the plant is the principle of life in a restricted sense, and also the principle of repetition. If the plant were only subject to the activity of the etheric body, then, beginning from the root of the plant, the leaf principle would repeat indefinitely. It is due to the etheric body that the parts of a living entity repeat again and again, for it is the etheric body that wants to keep on reproducing the same thing. That is why life has such a thing as so-called propagation, the bringing forth of its own kind, for this is due fundamentally to an activity of the etheric body. Everything depending on repetition in man or animal is attributable to the etheric principle.

The repetition of one vertebra after another in the spine comes from this activity of the etheric body. The termination of the plant's growth at the top, and the gathering up of its whole growth in the blossom is due to the astrality of the earth descending from without into the growth of the plant. The fact that in man the vertebrae of the spine widen and become the hollow bones of the cranium arises through the activity of man's astral body. So we can say that everything which brings things to a conclusion is subject to the astral principle and all repetition to the etheric principle. The plant has this etheric body, and man has it too. Of course there can be no question of memory in the plant. For to assert that the plant has a kind of unconscious memory with which it notes what the leaf it produced was like, grows a little further and then produces the next leaf on the pattern of the first, this kind of assertion leads to the strange illusions seen today in a recent trend of natural science. Some people even say that heredity is due to a kind of unconscious memory. We could almost call this bringing nonsense into natural scientific literature, for to speak of memory in the plant is actually sheer dilettantism on a higher level.

It is with the etheric body, which is the principle of repetition, that we are concerned. To be able to grasp the difference between the plant's etheric body and man's, which, in addition to the qualities of the plant's etheric body also has the capacity to develop memory, we shall have to become clear about the fundamental difference between a plant and a human being. Imagine planting a seed in the earth; out of it a quite definite plant will arise. From a grain of wheat a wheat stalk and ears will grow, and out of a bean will come a bean plant. You will have to admit that the plant's development is in a certain way irrevocably determined by the nature of the seed. It is true that the gardener may bring his influence to bear on it and alter and improve the plant by means of all sorts of horticultural methods. But that is really an exception to the rule, and is only of minor significance compared with the fact that a particular seed will produce a plant of a definite shape and growth. Is this also the case with man? Up to a point this is certainly so, but only up to a certain point. When a human being arises out of the embryo we see that his development is also enclosed within certain limits. Negroes come from negro parents, white children from white parents, and we could add various other examples to show that human development, just like the plant's, is also enclosed within certain limits. This limit, however, only extends as far as the physical, etheric and astral nature. Certain things can be traced in the permanent habits and temperamental nature of a child that show similarities with the temperament and instincts of his ancestors. But if the human being were just as enclosed within the limits of a certain form of growth as the plant is, then there would be no such thing as education, as the development of soul and spiritual qualities. If you imagine two children who have different parents but who are very similar with regard to ability and external characteristics, and then imagine that one of these children is neglected and does not have much education, while the other is carefully brought up and sent to a good school where his capacities are properly developed, you could not possibly say that this development of the child's capacities was already there in embryonic form as with a bean. The bean grows from the seed in any case without our needing to educate it. That belongs to its nature. Plants cannot be educated, but human beings can. We can pass something on to the human being and put something into him, whereas we cannot put anything of the kind into a plant. Why is this? Because the etheric body of the plant always has a certain finite number of inner laws which unfold from one seed to the next and have a definite round beyond which they cannot go. Man's etheric body is different. Besides the part that is used for growth, which is that part of his being that is also enclosed within certain limits like the plant, man's etheric body has as it were another part too, a free part, which does not have a natural use unless the human being is taught all kinds of things through his education, and things are thereby put into his soul which this free part of the etheric body deals with. So there is actually a part of man's etheric body that is not used by his organic nature. Man keeps this part of the etheric body for his own use; he uses it neither for growth nor for his natural organic development, but keeps it as a free organ with which he can take in the ideas of education.

Now the first thing that happens in this process of acquiring ideas is that man receives impressions. Man always has to receive impressions, for the whole of education is based on impressions and on the co-operation between etheric body and astral body. To receive impressions we need the astral body, but in order to retain these impressions, so that they do not disappear again, we need the etheric body. Even the minutest, apparently most trivial memory-picture needs the activity of the etheric body. To perceive an object you need the astral body, but to remember it when you turn your head away you have to have the etheric body. The astral body is necessary for perception, but to have an idea, a mental image, you need the etheric body. Even though very little activity of the etheric body is necessary for the retaining of ideas, so little that it hardly need be taken into account until it comes to permanent habits, inclinations, changes of temperament and so on, you still need the etheric body for remembering. It must be there for you to so much as remember one single mental image. For all retaining of mental images is based in a certain sense on memory.

Now through the impressions of education, through man's spiritual development, we have put all sorts of things into this free etheric organ, and we can now ask ourselves whether this free etheric organ has any significance at all for a person's growth and development. Yes it has! The older a man becomes—not so much in his youth—all that has been incorporated into the etheric body through the impressions of education gradually begins to participate in the whole life of the human body, also in an inward way. And the best way of forming an idea of this participation is to get to know a fact that is not usually taken into account. People think that what is of a soul nature is not of much importance for man's life in general. Yet the following can happen: Suppose a man gets ill simply because he has been exposed to an unsuitable climate. Now let us imagine that this man could be ill in two different situations. One might be that he does not have much to work upon in the free part of his etheric body. Let us assume that he is a lazy fellow, on whom the outside world does not make much impression, and whose education has presented great difficulties, because things go in through one ear and out through the other. A person like this will not have so much to help him recover as another person who has an alert, lively mind, and who in his youth took in a great deal and worked well, and has therefore provided well for the free part of his etheric body. It will, of course, still have to be proved by external medicine why the process of recovery meets with greater difficulties in the one than in the other. This free part of the etheric body that has grown energetic through many impressions asserts itself, and its inner mobility contributes to the healing process. In innumerable cases people owe their rapid or painless recovery to the fact that when they were young they received impressions with lively interest. There you see the influence the mind has on the body! In the case of recovery from an illness, it makes the world of difference if we have to deal with a man who goes through life with a dull mind, or with a man whose free etheric body, instead of being heavy and lethargic has remained alive. You can see this for yourself if you look at the world with your eyes open and notice how mentally lazy and mentally active people behave when they are ill.

You see then that man's etheric body is something quite different from a mere plant's. The plant lacks this free part of the etheric body which furthers the development of man, in fact man's whole development depends on his having this free part of the etheric body. If you compare the beans of thousands of years ago with the beans of today, you will notice a certain difference, of course, but beans have basically retained the same form. If, however, you compare the people of Europe in the time of Charlemagne with people today: why do present day people have such different thoughts and feelings? It is because they have always had a free part of their etheric body with which they could take something in and transform their nature. All this holds good in general. Now we must look at the way all that we have been describing works in particular instances.

Let us take the case of a man who cannot obliterate from his memory an impression he receives, and so the impression just stays there. It would be a strange thing if you had to think that everything that had made an impression on you since your childhood, every day of your life, from morning till night, were always in your mind. You know of course that it is only present after death for a certain time. And there is a good reason for it then. But man forgets it during life. All of you have not only forgotten innumerable things that happened to you when you were little, but also a lot of things that happened last year, and even a certain amount that happened yesterday. A mental image that has gone from your memory, that you have “forgotten”, has by no means disappeared from your whole being, your whole spiritual organism. Far from it. If you saw a rose yesterday and have now forgotten it, the picture of the rose is still in you, as well as all the other impressions you have received, even though they have been forgotten by your immediate consciousness.

Now there is a tremendous difference between a mental image whilst it is in our memory and after we have forgotten it. So let us imagine a mental picture we have formed of an external impression, and now have in our consciousness. Then let us see with our soul's eye how it gradually disappears and is forgotten. It is there nevertheless, and remains within the whole spiritual organism. What does it do there? What does this so-called forgotten image do? It has a very important function. From the moment of being forgotten it begins to work in the right way on the free part of the etheric body we have been speaking about, and make it serviceable for man. It is as though it were not digested until then. As long as the human being uses it for acquiring knowledge it does not yet work inwardly to bring life into the free etheric organ. The moment it sinks into oblivion it begins to work. So it can be said that work is continually in progress in and upon the free part of the etheric body. And what is it that does the work? It is the forgotten ideas! That is the great blessing of forgetting! As long as a mental image remains in your memory you connect it with an object. If you observe a rose and carry the mental image of it in your memory, you connect the image of the rose with the outer object. The image is thus chained to the external object and has to send it its inner force. The moment you forget the image, however, you set it free. Then it begins to develop germinal forces which work inwardly on man's etheric body. So our forgotten memories have great significance for us. A plant cannot forget. It cannot receive impressions either, of course. It would not be able to forget, anyway, because its whole etheric body is used for growth, and there is nothing left over. If mental pictures could enter into the plant, it would still have nothing there to be developed.

Everything that happens, however, happens in conformity to law. Everything that is meant to develop and yet is not helped in its development creates a hindrance to development. Everything in an organism that is not included in its development becomes a hindrance to development. If, for instance, all kinds of substances were secreted inside the eye and could not be absorbed by the general fluid of the eye, then sight would be impaired. Nothing must be allowed to remain that cannot be taken in and absorbed. It is the same with mental impressions. If, for instance, a man could receive impressions and never get them out of his consciousness, it could easily happen that the free part of the etheric body would be undernourished and would consequently be more of a handicap than a help to a man's development. There you have the reason why it is bad for a person to lie awake at night and not be able to get certain impressions out of his mind because he is worried about something. If he could forget them they would work beneficially on his etheric body. In this case it is obvious what a blessing it would be to forget, and at the same time you have an indication of the necessity not to force yourself to remember something, but rather learn to forget it. It is the worst thing possible for a man's inner health if there are certain things he just cannot forget.

What we can say about everyday things of the moment also applies to things of an ethical-moral nature. A warm-hearted disposition that does not bear grudges is really based on this, too. Bearing resentment preys on a person's health. If someone has done us a wrong and we remember the impression it made on us every time we see him, then we relate this image to him and let it stream outwards. But if we could manage to greet him warmly next time we meet him, just as though nothing had happened, that would really do some good. It is a fact and not a fantasy that it does some good. A resentful thought like this is dull and ineffective when turned outwards, but no sooner is it turned inwards than it becomes soothing balm for many a thing in man. These things are facts, and they help us see even more meaning in the blessing of forgetting. Forgetting is not a mere defect in man but one of the most salutary things in human life. If man were only to develop his memory, and if everything that makes an impression on him were to remain in his memory, his etheric body would have more to carry, and its contents would become more and more extensive, but at the same time it would become more and more dried up. It is thanks to forgetting that man is capable of developing. Besides, no mental image is completely lost to man. This is seen best in that mighty memory picture we have immediately after death. There it becomes apparent that no impression is entirely lost.

Having touched shortly on the blessing of forgetting both in the neutral and the moral sphere of daily life, let us now consider how forgetting works in the large span of life between death and a new birth. What actually is Kamaloca, that period of transition human beings go through before entering Devachan, the spiritual world proper? Kamaloca exists because immediately after death the human being cannot forget the inclinations, desires and pleasures he had in life. At death man first of all leaves his physical body behind him. Then the mighty memory tableau I have often described stands before his soul. After two, three or at the most four days this has completely finished. Then a kind of extract of the etheric body remains. Whilst the greater part of the etheric body withdraws and dissolves in the general ether, a kind of essence or framework of the etheric body remains behind, but in a concentrated form. The astral body is the bearer of all the instincts, desires, passions, feelings, sensations and pleasures. Now the astral body would not be able to be conscious of the tormenting privations in Kamaloca if it were not for the fact that it is still connected with the remainder of the etheric body, which gives it the continued possibility of remembering what it enjoyed and desired in life. And the breaking of habit is really nothing else but a gradual forgetting of all that chains the human being to the physical world. So if man wants to enter Devachan, he must first learn to forget all that binds him to the physical world. Thus we see that man is tormented here, too, because he still has memories of the physical world. Just as worries can torment man when they refuse to leave his memory, so likewise can the inclinations and instincts that remain after death torment him, and this tormenting memory of the connections with life expresses itself in all that the human being has to pass through during his Kamaloca period. Not until he has succeeded in forgetting all his wishes and desires for things of the physical world do the achievements and fruits of his previous life appear, in readiness for the work of Devachan. There they become sculptors and overseers working on the form of the life to come. For man largely spends his time in Devachan working on the new form he is to have when he re-enters earthly life. This work of preparing his future being gives the feeling of bliss which he has throughout Devachan. When man has passed through Kamaloca he begins the groundwork for his future form. The life in Devachan is always spent in using that extract he has brought with him for constructing the prototype of his next form. He forms this prototype by working into it the fruits of the past life. He can only do this, however, by forgetting the things that made Kamaloca so difficult for him.

We have seen that the suffering and privation in Kamaloca is caused by the human being's inability to forget certain connections with the physical world, and then the physical world hovers in front of him like a memory. However, when he has passed through the waters of ‘Lethe’, the River of Forgetfulness, and has learnt to forget, the achievements and experiences of his past incarnation can be put to work to build up bit by bit the prototype of the coming life. Now the joyful bliss of Devachan begins to take the place of suffering. When worries torment us in ordinary life, and particular images remain stuck in our memory, we introduce something hard and lifeless into our etheric body which undermines our health. Similarly, after death we have something in our being which contributes to our sufferings and privations, until, through forgetting, we have rid ourselves of all connection with the physical world. Just as these forgotten memories can become a source of health in man, so can all the experiences of the past life become a source of bliss in Devachan when the human being has passed through the River of Forgetfulness and has forgotten everything that binds him to life in the world of the senses.

So we see then that these laws of forgetting and remembering are also absolutely valid for life in its broadest sense.

Now you might ask: How can a man after death have any memory pictures at all of what happened in his past life, if he must forget this life? Someone might say: Can you talk about forgetting at all, seeing that man has laid aside the etheric body with which remembering and forgetting are connected? After death, of course, remembering and forgetting assume a slightly different form. They change in such a way that a reading of the Akashic Record takes the place of ordinary remembering. The happenings of the world have not disappeared, of course, they just appear objectively. When the memory of connections with physical life vanishes in Kamaloca, these events appear in quite another form, and arise before man in the Akashic Record. Then he does not need the connection with life which comes from ordinary memory. Every question of this kind that might be asked will find an answer. But we must leave ourselves time to do this gradually, for it is impossible to have all the answers straight away at our finger tips.

Now we shall understand many a thing in everyday life, if we know about the things just discussed. Much of what belongs to the human etheric body is shown in the way the temperaments react upon man. We have said that this enduring characteristic that we call temperament also has its origin in the etheric body. Let us imagine a person who has a melancholic temperament and who never gets away from certain mental images that he is always thinking about. This is something quite different from a sanguine or a phlegmatic temperament, where the images just disappear. A melancholic temperament works detrimentally on a man's health, in the sense we have been considering, whilst a sanguine temperament can in a certain way be extremely beneficial. Of course these things must not be taken in such a way that you come to the conclusion the human being must try to forget everything. But you can see that the healthy and beneficial side of a sanguine or phlegmatic temperament and the unhealthy side of a melancholic temperament can be explained by these very things we have just learnt. It is natural to ask whether a phlegmatic temperament is also working in the right way. A phlegmatic who only takes in trivial thoughts will easily forget them. That will be good for his health. But if, on the other hand, he takes in no other thoughts than these, it will not be good for him at all. This gets rather complicated.

The question as to whether forgetting is just a defect in human nature or something useful is answered by spiritual science. And we see, too, that strong moral impulses can follow from the knowledge of such things. If a man believes it is for his good—and this has to be taken quite objectively—to be able to forget insults and injuries done to him, then quite a different impulse will work in him. But as long as he believes that it does not make any difference, then no amount of preaching will help. When he knows, however, that he ought to forget for the sake of his well-being, he will let this impulse work on him in quite a different way. You need not immediately call it egoistic; it would be better to express it this way: If I am ill and feeble, and if I ruin my health spiritually, psychologically and physically, I am of no use to the world. We can also consider the question of well-being from an entirely different point of view. If a man is a thoroughgoing egoist he will not profit much from such considerations. But whoever has the good of humanity at heart and is therefore intent on working for it—and also, indirectly, has his own good at heart—if he is in a position to think about this, he will also draw moral fruits from such considerations. And we shall see that if spiritual science works into human life by showing man the truth about specific spiritual circumstances, it will give man the greatest ethical-moral impulses, such as no other knowledge and no merely external moral commands can do. Knowledge of the facts of the spiritual world, as imparted by spiritual science is, therefore, a powerful impulse which also in regard to the moral realm can bring about the greatest progress in human life.

If we wish to understand what lies at the foundation of the two impulses that penetrate so deeply into human life—that of the so-called free will and of the so-called necessity—then we must add still other thoughts to the various ideas already gained as a foundation. This I will do today, in order that tomorrow we may be in a position to draw the conclusion, or inference, in regard to the concept of free will and necessity in the social, ethical-moral, and historical processes of human life. In discussing such things it becomes more and more evident that people—especially modern people—strive to embrace the highest, most important and significant things with the most primitive kinds of thoughts. It is taken for granted (I have often mentioned this) that certain things must be known in order to understand a clock; someone who has not the slightest idea of how the wheels of a clock work together, etc., will hardly attempt to explain, on the spur of the moment, the details of a clock's mechanism. Yet we wish to be competent judges of free will and necessity in all situations of life without having learned anything fundamental about these things. We prefer to remain ignorant concerning the most important and most essential things, which can only be understood if we consider their whole relationship to human nature, and we wish to know and judge everything imaginable of our own accord. This is particularly the desire of our times. When it is shown that the human being is a complicated being, organized in manifold ways, a being that penetrates deeply, on the one hand, into all that is connected with the physical plane, and on the other, into all that is connected with the spiritual world, then people often object that such things are dry and intellectual, and that the most important and essential things must be grasped in quite another way.

The world will have to learn (perhaps just the present catastrophic events may teach us something) how much lies hidden in man and in his relationship with the course of the world's evolution. For years we have emphasized that we can differentiate roughly in man what we may call his physical nature, or his physical body; his etheric body, or the body of formatives forces, as I have called it; his astral body, which is already psychic; and the actual ego.

We have emphasized recently from the most varied points of view that—in reality—man, as he lives between waking and sleeping, in his usual waking day-consciousness, has some knowledge only of the impressions given to him by his senses, and of his thoughts; but he dreams away the real contents of his life of feeling, and sleeps away the real contents of his life of the will. Dream and sleep stretch into the world of waking life; during our usual waking consciousness, our feeling life is hardly more than a dream, and the real contents of our will reach our consciousness just as little as a dreamless sleep. Through our feelings, through the contents of our will, we dive down into the world (we have pointed this out specially during these considerations) in which we live together with the dead, in the midst of the Beings of the higher Hierarchies, the Angeloi, the Archangeloi, Archai, etc. As soon as we live in a feeling—and we live constantly in feelings—all that lives in the kingdom of the dead lives with us in the sphere, or in the realm of feeling.

Now something else must be added to this. In the life of ordinary waking consciousness we speak of our ego. But in reality we can only speak of this ego in a very unreal sense as far as our usual waking consciousness is concerned. For what is the real nature and being of this ego? The usual waking consciousness cannot gain knowledge of this. When the clairvoyant dives down consciously into the true being of the ego, he will find that the true ego of man is of a will-like nature. What man possesses in his everyday consciousness is only an idea of the ego. This is why it is so easy for the scientific psychologists to do away entirely with this ego although, on the other hand, this is really nonsense. These scientists and psychologists say that the ego develops gradually and that the human being acquires this ego in the course of his individual development. In this way he does not acquire the ego itself, but only the idea of the ego. It is easy to eliminate the ego, because for the everyday consciousness it is merely a thought, a reflection of the true, genuine ego. The real ego lives in the world in which the true reality of our will also lives. And what we call our astral body, what we designate as the actual soul life, lives in the same sphere as our life of feelings. If you bear in mind the things that we have thus considered, you will see that we dive down with our ego and our astral body into the same region that we share with the dead. When we penetrate clairvoyantly into our true ego, we are also among the egos of the dead, as well as among the egos of the so-called living.

We must realize such things quite clearly, in order to grasp to what an extent man lives, with his everyday consciousness, in the so-called world of appearance, or in Maya, as it is called by a oriental term. We are consciously awake in the world of our senses, in the world of our thoughts; but the sense impulses give us only that portion of the world that is spread out as Nature. And our world of thoughts gives us only that which is in us and corresponds to our own nature between birth and death. That which is our eternal nature remains in the world that we share with the dead. When we enter the life of the physical plane through incarnation, it remains indeed in the world in which also the dead live.

In order to understand these things fully we must grasp thoughts which are not so easy to digest (but these things must be said because they are so)—thoughts that cost us an effort to think out. Man has no such thoughts in the course of his everyday waking consciousness. He prefers to limit his knowledge to that which is stretched out in space and that which takes its course in Time. A frequent pathological symptom is this one: to imagine even the spiritual world spatially, although these thoughts may be nebulous, thin and misty; yet we somehow wish to imagine is spatially; we wish to think of souls flying about in space, and so on. We must go beyond the ideas of space and time to more complicated ideas, if we really wish to penetrate into these things. Today I wish to draw your attention to something that is very important for the understanding of the whole of human life.

Let us bear in mind once more the fact that—roughly speaking—we possess this four-fold nature—the physical body, the body of formative forces or etheric body, the astral body, and the ego.

Now, when someone speaks from the standpoint of the usual waking consciousness, he may ask:—How old is a person—How old is a certain person A? Someone may give his age, let us say 35, and he may believe that he has made an important statement. In stating that a certain person is 35 years old he has, in fact, said something of importance for the physical plane and for the usual waking consciousness; but for the spiritual world, in other words, for the etheric being of man, this implies only a part of the reality. When you say: I am 35 years old—you only say this in regard to your physical body. You must say: My physical body is 35 years old—then this will be correct. But these words express nothing at all as far as the etheric body, or the body of formative forces is concerned, and nothing at all as far as the other members of the human being are concerned. For it is an illusion, it is indeed quite fantastic to think that your ego, for instance, is 35 years old, when your physical body is 35 years old. You see, here we must bear in mind different speeds, different rapidities in the development of the various members.

The following figures will make you realize this. A human being is, let us say, 7 years old; this means nothing less than this:--his physical body has reached the age of 7 years. His etheric body, his body of formative forces, is not yet 7 years old, for his body of formative forces does not maintain the same speed as the physical body and has not yet reached this age. We are not aware of such things just because we imagine time as one continuous stream, and thus we cannot form the thought that different things maintain different speeds within the course of time. This physical body that is 7 years old has developed according to a certain speed. The etheric body develops more slowly, the astral body still more slowly, and slowest of all, the ego. The etheric body is only 5 years and 3 months old when the physical body is 7 years old, because it develops more slowly. The astral body is 3 years and 6 months old, and the ego, 1 year and 9 months. Thus you must say to yourself—when a child is 7 years old, its ego is only 1 year and 9 months old. This ego undergoes a slower development on the physical plane. On the physical plane this ego develops at a slower pace; it is a slower pace, the same pace that we find in our life with the dead. Why do we not grasp what takes place in the stream of the experiences of the dead? Because we do not grow accustomed to the slower pace of the dead, and do not admit this into our thoughts and especially into our feelings, in order to hold them fast.

Hence, if someone is 28 years old as far as his physical body is concerned, then his ego is only 7 years old. As far as your ego is concerned, which is the essential part of your being, you thus maintain a much slower pace in the course of development than that of the physical body. You see, the difficulty consists in the fact that, generally, we consider speed, or velocities, merely as outer velocities. When things move one beside another, we say that one thing moves more quickly and the other one more slowly because we use Time as a comparison. But here the speed within Time is different. Without this insight into the fact that the different members of the human being have different speeds in their development, it is impossible to grasp the connections with the true deeper being of man.

From this you will see how in everyday consciousness people simply throw together entirely different things contained in human nature.

Man consists of this four-fold being, and the four members of this being are so different from one another that they even have different ages. But man is under a great illusion in making everything depend on his physical body. He says something that has absolutely no meaning whatever for the spiritual world, in stating that his ego is 28 years old, when he is 28 according to his physical body. His statement would only have a meaning if he would say:—My ego is 7 years old—in the case of the ego, a year is naturally four times as long as in the case of the physical body. One might also say that the age of the four different members of the human being must be reckoned according to four entirely different measurements of time; for the ego, a year is simply four times as long as for the physical body.

Pictorially you might conceive this as a projection from the physical plane—for instance, one human being may normally become 28 years old, while another child may grow more slowly and after 28 years be like a child of 7. Thus the whole matter appears at first like an abstract truth. But it is a fundamental reality in man. Just consider that our ego is the bearer of what we call our understanding, or our thinking consciousness of self. When our understanding and our conscious thinking are within our ego, then this understanding and conscious thinking are really essentially younger than we ourselves apparently are, according to our physical body. This is indeed so.

But this will show you that when a human being of 28 gives the impression of one whose understanding has developed to the age of 28, only one fourth of this understanding is really his own. It cannot be helped; when we have a certain quantity of understanding at 28, only a quarter of this is our own; the rest belongs to the universe, to the world in which we are submerged through our astral body, through our etheric body, and through our physical body. But we only know directly something of these bodies through ideas, through sense perceptions, in other words, again within the ego. This means that during our development as human beings between birth and death we are indeed mere apparitions of a reality. We make the impression of being four times as clever as we really are. This is true. All we possess, in addition to this one fourth, we owe to what holds sway in the historical, social, and moral processes within that world we dream away and sleep away. Dream and sleep impulses, which we have in common with the universe, seethe up, above the horizon of our being and fructify this fourth part of our understanding and soul, and make it four times as strong as it really is.

You see at this point arises the illusion concerning the freedom of man. Man is a free being; he is, indeed. But only the real, true man is a free being. That fourth part, of which I have just spoken, is a free being. Other beings play into the remaining three fourths; these cannot be free. This gives rise to the delusion in regard to freedom so that we continually ask:—Is man free or is he not free? Man is free when he connects this idea of freedom with the one fourth of his being, in the sense in which I have just explained it. If the human being wishes to have this freedom as an impulse of his own, then he must develop this fourth part in a corresponding, independent way. In usual life, this fourth part cannot assert itself, for the simple reason that it is overpowered by the other three fourths. In the remaining three fourths is active all that man calls his desires, his appetites, his emotions and passions. These slay his freedom, for what is contained in the universe in the form of impulses works through these desires, emotions and passions.

Now the question arises:—What shall we do to make this one fourth of our soul-life, which is a reality within us, really free? We must place this one fourth in relationship with that which is independent of the remaining three fourths.

I have tried to answer this question philosophically in my The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, by attempting to show how man can only realize the impulse of freedom within himself, when he places his actions, his deeds, entirely under the influence of pure thought, when he reaches the point of transforming impulses of pure thought into impulses of action, into impulses which are not in any way dependent upon the outer world for their development. All that which is developed out of the outer world does not allow us to realize freedom. Only that which develops in our thinking, independently of the outer world, as the motive of our actions, enables us to realize freedom.

Where do such motives come from? Where does that which does not come from the outer world come from? It comes out of the spiritual world. The human being need not be clairvoyantly conscious in every situation of life of how these impulses come from the spiritual world; they may nevertheless be within him all the same. But he will necessarily conceive these impulses in a somewhat different way than they must be conceived in reality. When we rise in clairvoyant consciousness to the first stage of the spiritual world, we come to the imaginative world; the second stage is the world of inspiration, as you know; the third stage, the world of intuition. Instead of allowing the impulses of our will or of our actions to rise out of our physical body, our astral body, and etheric body, we can receive them as imaginations, behind which stand inspirations and intuitions. That is, if we receive no impulses from our bodies, but only from the spiritual world. This does not need to be the conscious clairvoyant perception: “Now I will something and behind this stand intuition, inspiration, and imagination.”—but, instead, the result appears as an idea, as a pure thought, and has the appearance of an idea created within the element of fantasy. Because this is so, because such an idea, which lies at the foundation of free actions must appear to everyday consciousness as an idea created out of the element of fantasy, I call it moral fantasy in my The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity. (That which lies at the foundation of free actions.) What, then, is this moral fantasy? This moral fantasy is the reverse of a mirrored reflection. What lies spread out around us as the outer physical reality is a mirrored reflection; physical reality sends us reflections of things. Moral fantasy is the image, through which we do not see. For this reason, things appear to us as fantasy. Behind them, however, stand the real impulses—imagination, inspiration, intuition—which are active. When we do not know that they are active, but only receive the influences into our usual consciousness, then this appears as fantasy. And these results of moral fantasy, these incentives to action, which do not lie in desires, passions and emotions—are free. But how can we attain them?

Moral fantasy can also be developed by a human being who is not clairvoyant. Everything that implies a real progress for humanity has always been born out of moral fantasy, insofar as this progress lay within the ethical sphere. The point in question is that man first develops a feeling, and then an enhanced feeling (we shall hear immediately, what is to be understood exactly by “enhanced feeling”)—that he is not merely here on this earth in order to accomplish things which concern him personally, or individually, but in order to accomplish things through which the will of the Time Spirits can be realized.

It appears as if something quite special were implied when one says: Man must realize the will of the Time Spirits. But a time will come when people will understand this much better than now. And a time will come when the contents of human teaching will not be that of the present. At present only ideas dealing with nature can be conveyed even to the most educated people; for what is imparted to people in regard to ethical and social life is in most cases an unreal, schematic abstraction; indeed, the greatest abstraction.

In this connection we have not yet attained what earlier ages already possessed. Only with great difficulty can a modern man immerse himself in earlier times. Earlier times possessed myths—myths that were connected with the vital life of the people, myths that penetrated into poetry, into art, into all manner of things. In Greece one spoke of Oedipus, of Hercules, and of other heroes, one tried to emulate those who had done things which were exemplary deeds, and first deeds, and one wished to tread in their footprints. Everyone wished to tread in these footprints. The thread of ideas, the thread of thought and feeling, led backwards. One felt at one with those long dead. What went out as an impulse from those who had died was told in myths; and these men lived in experiencing, in becoming one with the impulses of these myths.

Something similar must again be created and will be created if the impulses of spiritual science are rightly understood. Except that, in the future, souls will gaze forward much more than backward. The contents of public teaching must be that which binds human beings together with the creative activity of the Time, and above all, with the impulses of the Time Spirit, the corresponding Being from the Hierarchy of the Archai, concerning whom I have said, in an earlier description, that the so-called dead, as well as the living, are connected with him. People will learn in the public teaching of the future the meaning of such a period of culture as the one that began in the 15th century and closed the Greco-Latin period; in this fifth post-Atlantean period people will learn to know the real intentions of the universal World-All. They will take up the impulses of this fifth post-Atlantean period and they will know:—This must be realized between the 15th century and one of the centuries in a coming millennium. They will know: We belong to our period of culture in such a way that the impulses of this coming age stream through us. In future, even the children, as they learn to name the flowers and the stars (they do this less today—but it is at least something outwardly real) will learn to take up the real, spiritual impulses of the period. First they must be educated to do this. What is told as “history” today must first cease to be called “history.” In not too distant a future, instead of speaking of all the things contained in history as it is told today, people will speak of the spiritual impulses standing behind the historical evolution, impulses which are dreamed by human beings. These are the spiritual impulses that call man to freedom, and make him free, because they raise him to the world from which intuition, inspiration, and imagination come. For what happens outwardly on the physical plane, what constitutes outer history (I have explained this even in public lectures) loses its meaning as soon as it has occurred; in reality it does not justify our saying that the former event is always the cause of the latter. There is nothing more senseless than to recount history by describing, for instance, the deeds of Napoleon at the beginning of the 19th century, and then assuming that the events after Napoleon's exile are the consequence of Napoleon's actions. Nothing is more senseless than this! Descriptions of Napoleon imply exactly the same, as far as reality is concerned, as the description of a human corpse three days after death, as far as the dead man's life is concerned. What is now called “history” is a “corpse-history” compared with reality, even though this “corpse-history” has a great importance in the minds of many people.

What happens outwardly becomes a reality only when it is revealed in its development from spiritual impulses. Then it will be seen clearly that a human being's deeds, let us say, in a certain decade of a certain century, are the consequence of what he experienced before entering into his incarnation on earth; they are in no sense the consequence of events that occurred in the course of decades of physical experience on the earth, and so on. Spiritual Science, in the meaning of Anthroposophy, will have to bring more depth and more life—especially in regard to historical, social, and moral life—into the sphere of history above all. When this knowledge of the spiritual impulses will have become one of the essential demands of our time—it will then correspond to the living reality of the myths in ancient times—it will permeate human beings with impulses leading them to deeds and actions that will make them free. These things must first be understood; they will indeed influence real life when this understanding spreads over an ever-wider sphere.

But these considerations will show you something else besides. You will realize that the impulses of feeling, the impulses of will, which place us within the same sphere of life as the so-called dead, are a higher and more intensive reality than the one we know through our waking consciousness, in the form of ideas and sense impressions. For this reason, what has just been brought forward as a demand of our age, as something that must become an object of public teaching, can only be truly fruitful when it is grasped not merely with the understanding, but goes over into the impulses of feeling and into the impulses of will.

This can only come about when spiritual science is really seen as a reality, and not simply as a teaching. spiritual science is easily looked upon merely as a teaching, as a theory; but spiritual science is not a mere teaching, a mere theory, spiritual science is a living Word. For what is given out as spiritual science is the revelation from the world which we share with the higher Hierarchies and with the so-called dead. This very world speaks to us through spiritual science. And he who really understands spiritual science knows that the soul music of the spiritual world continues to resound in spiritual science. What we read, not from the dead letters, but from the real happenings in the spiritual world, can indeed permeate our feeling with true life, when we grasp spiritual science in this sense, as something which speaks to our inner being from out the spiritual world. I have emphasized at different times how the matter stands, when I described how, on the one hand, since 1879, spiritual life has the opportunity of streaming down to the physical plane in an entirely new way, and how, on the other hand, it must indeed face an opponent in the Spirits of Darkness, of whom we have spoken. Everything must still be achieved, before the content of spiritual science really enters the life of our feeling and will. And this can be achieved when certain things change fundamentally, in regard to which modern man has reached a cultural blind alley.

Something else must also work its way through; namely, evolution must develop in such a way that, on the one hand, the events of history may be compared to a growing tree (I have already used this picture during these considerations): but when the leaves have grown as far as the periphery, the tree ceases to grow. Here the dying process begins. It is the same with historical events. A certain group of events takes shape—let us describe it quite schematically:—Certain historical events have their roots. A definitive group of historical events may have their roots in the last third of the 18th century. I shall speak of this more clearly tomorrow. Other influences are added to these in the course of the 19th century, and so on. But you see, these historical events expand and reach their extreme boundaries. In this case the boundary is not the same as in the case of a tree or a plant, which does not grow beyond its periphery; but here a new root of historical events must begin. For decades, already, we have been living in a time in which such new historical events must spring out of direct intuition. But in the historical life of man, illusion can easily spread also over these things. To be sure, you can watch the growth of a plant, which grows according to its inner laws until it reaches a certain periphery and cannot grow beyond it. But now you can call forth an illusion—you can take wires, hang paper leaves on them, and give yourself the illusion that the plant continues to grow up to this point.

Such wires do indeed exist where historical events are concerned. While historical events should long ago have adopted another course, such wires are there instead; except that in historical evolution these wires are human prejudices, human indolence, which continue to maintain, on dead wires, what has died long ago. Certain people place themselves at the ends of these dead wires—in other words, at the outermost ends of human prejudice—and these people are often considered historical personalities; indeed, the true historical personalities. And people do not realize to what an extent these personalities sit on the wires of human prejudice. One of the most important tasks of the present is to begin to understand how certain personalities who are looked upon as “great” are, in reality, merely hanging on the wires of human prejudice; this is indeed one of the chief tasks of the present.