The Rudolf Steiner Archive

In the foregoing lectures we have tried to gain some idea of the most important figures in the Gospel of St. Luke. Although far-reaching conceptions of the facts underlying this Gospel have been acquired, it still remains for us to follow the further development of the central Being of our Earth—Christ Jesus Himself.

To begin with it will be necessary to recall that Christ Jesus, as He is afterwards described in the Gospel of St. Luke, was born—or rather His physical body was born—as the Nathan Jesus of the House of David. At about his twelfth year there passed into the body of this child the Ego once incarnated in the Being who had been the inaugurator of the ancient Persian civilization. Thus from the twelfth year onwards, the Ego of Zarathustra was living in the body of the Nathan Jesus, and we must now follow the development of this Being more closely, bearing in mind something for which our previous studies have prepared us.

We know that in normal cases the first and second septenaries of human life are important periods of development; a third period follows, from puberty (the fourteenth year) to the twenty-first year; another from the twenty-first to the twenty-eighth and again another from the twenty-eighth to the thirty-fifth year. These divisions of time are not, of course, to be taken so pedantically that they are thought to end exactly at the ages specified, but when the second dentition takes place an important transition in the development of the human being occurs, approximately at the close of the seventh year.

This transition does not come about suddenly, but gradually, during the period of the change of teeth. During the other periods too, the process is a gradual one. As is described in greater detail in my book >The Education of the Child in the Light of Anthroposophy, the close of the seventh year is marked by a spiritual occurrence which in some respects resembles physical birth: a kind of etheric birth then takes place. In the fourteenth year, at puberty, there is an astral birth: the astral body of the human being becomes free. If followed with close attention and with the eyes of spirit, the development of the human being shows itself to be a very complicated process. Ordinary observation fails to notice many important differences in human life—differences which also become evident in more advanced years. It is usually thought that from a certain point of time onwards, few if any changes take place in the human being, but this idea arises from very rough and ready observation. The truth is that closer scrutiny can perceive certain differences taking place even in the later years of human life.

When the physical environment of the mother's body is abandoned at birth, the part of the human being then born is really his physical body only; what comes to the fore during the first seven years is the physical body. In various lectures on the education of children the great importance of this knowledge for the teacher has been emphasized. Then, when the etheric sheath has been discarded, the etheric body is set free. Again, in the fourteenth year, when the astral sheath is discarded, the astral body is set free. Strictly speaking, however, the constitution of the human being cannot be fully understood unless the organization indicated in my book Theosophy is taken as a basis. There you will find that a further distinction is made in the soul-elements of human nature. Immediately connected with the life-body (etheric body) is what is called the sentient (astral) body which does not become completely free as regards the outer world until about the twenty-first year. Then what is called the sentient soul becomes gradually free. At the twenty-eighth year the intellectual or mind-soul (Gemütseele) becomes free, and later the spiritual soul (or consciousness-soul). This applies, to the human being of to-day. Observation of human life guided by spiritual science clearly reveals these stages of development. The great leaders and leading figures of humanity have also known why the thirty-fifth year is so important. Dante was aware why he made particular mention of his thirty-fifth year as the time when he had the visions set down in his great poem. At the very beginning of the Divine Comedy there is an indication to this effect. At the age of thirty-five man's being has progressed to the point where the can make full use of the faculties dependent upon the sentient (astral) body, the sentient soul and the intellectual or mind-soul.

Those who have spoken of man strictly in accordance with the process of evolution in the West have always recognized this classification. In Orientals the periods are not exactly the same. Hence in the case of Oriental civilization it was quite correct not to make the same classification as in the West where it has always been the right one. The Greeks, for instance, merely used different words to express what now concerns us. When speaking of the element of soul in man, they began with what we call the life-body (etheric body) and called it ‘treptikon’; for what we call the sentient (astral) body they used the very expressive word ‘aisthetikon’; our sentient soul they called ‘orektikon’; the intellectual or mind-soul, ‘kinetikon’, and the most precious possession now being acquired by man, the spiritual soul, they called ‘dianoetikon’. Such is the development of the human being when considered in detail.

Owing to certain conditions that will become clearer to us to-day, the development of the Nathan Jesus was somewhat accelerated—a fact also rendered possible because in those regions puberty was reached at an earlier age.

In the case of the Nathan Jesus there were very special reasons why the change usually occurring in the fourteenth year should take place in the twelfth. So too the other changes connected with the twenty-first, twenty-eighth and thirty-fifth years came about in his nineteenth, twenty-sixth and thirty-third years respectively. This indicates in broad outline the development of the central Figure of our Earth.

It must be borne in mind that up to the twelfth year the physical body was that of the Nathan Jesus, but that after the twelfth year the Ego of Zarathustra was living in that body. What does this mean? It means that from the twelfth year onwards, this mature Ego was working upon the sentient (astral) body, the sentient soul and the mind-soul of the Nathan Jesus, elaborating these members in a way possible only to an Ego of great maturity—an Ego that had undergone the destinies of the Zarathustra-Individuality through many incarnations. We therefore meet with the wonderful fact that the Ego of Zarathustra passed into the body of the Nathan Jesus in the twelfth year of life and elaborated the faculties of the soul to the highest degree of excellence. Thus there developed a sentient body able to gaze into the Cosmos and experience something of the spiritual nature of Ahura Mazdao; there developed a sentient soul able to harbour the knowledge and wisdom based on the teaching concerning Ahura Mazdao; and there developed a mind-soul able to apprehend, to formulate in intelligible concepts and words, that which men had hitherto been able to acquire only through spiritual currents flowing into them from outside.

The Nathan Jesus, having within him the Zarathustra-Ego, lived on until his thirtieth year was approaching. The event that had occurred when he was twelve, when his inmost nature was filled with a new Egohood, now took place again—but this time on an infinitely more sublime, more universal scale. Towards the thirtieth year the Zarathustra-Ego had accomplished its work in the soul of the Nathan Jesus; the faculties of this soul had been developed to the highest possible degree and the mission of the Zarathustra-Ego was thus fulfilled. Having instilled into the soul all the faculties he had acquired through his own previous incarnations, Zarathustra could declare: ‘My task is now accomplished!’—and a moment came when his Ego left the body of the Nathan Jesus.

The Zarathustra-Ego had lived in the body of the Solomon Jesus until the twelfth year. No further development in earthly existence would thereafter have been possible for this boy. Because the Zarathustra-Ego had gone out of him, his development came to a standstill at the point reached at that time, although exceptional maturity had been attained owing to the presence of such a highly advanced Ego. Anyone observing the Solomon Jesus-child would have found him prematurely advanced to a conspicuous degree; but from the moment the Zarathustra-Ego left him he came to a standstill and could make no further progress. And when—comparatively soon—the mother of the Nathan Jesus died and the spiritual part of her being was translated into the spiritual world, she took with her what was of eternal value and formative power in the Solomon Jesus child. This child also died—at about the same time as the mother of the Nathan Jesus.

It was an etheric sheath of utmost value which then left the body of the Solomon Jesus. As we know, the development of the etheric body takes place mainly between the seventh year of life and puberty. This was an etheric body that had been worked upon and elaborated by the forces of the Zarathustra-Ego. In normal human existence, when the etheric body leaves the physical body at death, everything that is of no eternal use is discarded and the human being takes with him a kind of extract of the etheric body. In the case of the child of the Solomon line the etheric body was of eternal use in the fullest possible sense and the whole life-body of this child was taken by the mother of the Nathan Jesus with her into the spiritual world.

Now the etheric body forms and shapes the physical body of man and it is not difficult to realize that there was a very deep connection between this etheric body of the Solomon Jesus which had been translated into the spiritual world, and the Zarathustra-Ego; for this Ego and etheric body had been united until the twelfth year of earthly life. And when the Zarathustra-Ego left the body of Jesus of Nazareth, the power of attraction between this Ego and the original etheric body in the Solomon Jesus asserted itself. The maturity of the Zarathustra-Ego was such that a further passage through Devachan was unnecessary and after a comparatively short time this Ego was able, in conjunction with his former etheric body, to build up a new physical body. This resulted in the birth of the Being who thereafter appeared again and again, always with relatively short intervals between physical death and rebirth; whenever this Being left the physical body at death, he soon appeared again on the Earth in a new incarnation. Having sought and found the etheric body he had once relinquished in the circumstances indicated, this Being went on his way through history as the ‘Master Jesus’, becoming, as you can well imagine, the great helper of those who have endeavoured to understand the Event of Palestine. Thus it was the Zarathustra-Ego, Zarathustra himself, who having found his etheric body again began to move through the evolution of mankind as the Master Jesus, incarnating again and again to give guidance and direction to the spiritual stream of Christianity. He is the Inspirer of those who strive to understand Christianity in its living growth and development; within the esoteric schools he inspired those whose perpetual duty it was to cultivate the teachings of Christianity. He stands behind the great spiritual figures of Christianity, ever teaching what the great Event of Palestine signifies.

Having indwelt the body of the Nathan Jesus from the twelfth to the thirtieth year, the Zarathustra-Ego was hence-forth outside that body and another Being descended into it. This happened, as all the Gospels relate, at the Baptism by John in the Jordan, when an Ego of untold sublimity entered into the Nathan Jesus in place of the Zarathustra-Ego. In the lectures on the Gospel of St. John,¹ attention was drawn to the fact that ‘baptism’ in those olden days was something very different from the mere symbol which it became later on. It was also enacted differently by John the Baptist. The body of one who was baptized was completely submerged in the water. You know from preparatory lectures that a definite experience may be connected with such a happening. Even in everyday existence it may happen that when a man is in danger of drowning, or sustains a violent shock, a tableau of his life hitherto appears before him. This is because something that otherwise takes place only after death, occurs momentarily: the etheric body is lifted out of the physical body and is freed from its power. This happened to most of those who were baptized by John, and in a very special way to the Nathan Jesus. His etheric body was drawn out—and during that moment the sublime Being we call the Christ descended into his body.

Thus from the time of the Baptism, the Nathan Jesus was filled with the Christ Being as is indicated in the words contained in the earlier Gospel records: ‘This is my well-beloved Son; this day have I begotten Him!’—meaning: the Son of Heaven, the Christ, is now begotten—begotten of the all-pervading Godhead and received into the body and whole constitution of the Nathan Jesus who had been prepared to receive the seed from heavenly heights. ‘This is my well-beloved Son; this day have I begotten Him!’—These were the words contained in the earlier manuscripts and this is how they ought still to stand in the Gospels. (Luke III, 22.)

Who is this Being who united at that time with the etheric body of the Nathan Jesus?

The Christ Being cannot be understood if we think of Earth evolution alone. The Christ is the Leader of those spiritual Beings who left with the Sun when it separated from the Earth and established for themselves this higher sphere of action in order to work upon the Earth from outside. If we think back to the pre-Christian period of Earth evolution, from the time of the separation of the Sun until the appearance of Christ, we must say: When men looked up to the Sun with mature faculties they would have recognized the truth of what Zarathustra taught, namely that the light and warmth streaming from the Sun are but the physical vestment of the spiritual Beings behind the Sun's light; for behind the physical phenomena are hidden the spiritual rays of power which stream from the Sun to the Earth. The Leader of all the Beings who send their beneficent influences from the Sun to the Earth is He who was later called Christ. In pre-Christian times, therefore, this Being was not to be sought on Earth but on the Sun. And Zarathustra rightly called Him ‘Ahura Mazdao’, saying in effect: ‘On the Earth we do not find the Light-Spirit; but when we look up to the Sun we behold the spiritual Being—Ahura Mazdao—who has his habitation there. The light that streams to us is the body of the Sun-Spirit, Ahura Mazdao, even as the human physical body is the body of the human spirit. But in the course of great happenings in the Cosmos this sublime Being drew ever nearer to the Earth-sphere; His approach could be perceived more and more distinctly by clairvoyance, and was unmistakable when in the flame of lightning on Mount Sinai the revelations came to Moses, the great forerunner of Christ Jesus.

What did these revelations to Moses signify? They signified that the Christ Being, while approaching the Earth, was revealing Himself—in reflection to begin with—as if in a mirror-image. Let us consider, in its spiritual aspect, the process in evidence at every full Moon. When we look at the full Moon we see the rays of the Sun in reflection. It is sunlight that streams towards us, only we call it moonlight because we see it reflected by the Moon. What Being did Moses behold in the burning bush and in the fire on Sinai? He beheld the Christ! But just as the sunlight is not seen directly but reflected from the Moon, so did Moses see the Christ in reflection. And as we call the sunlight ‘moonlight’ when we see it reflected from the Moon, Christ was called at that time, Jahve, or Jehovah. Jahve or Jehovah is the reflection of the Christ before He Himself appeared on Earth. Christ announced Himself thus indirectly to a humanity as yet unable to behold Him in his immediate reality, just as the sun-light manifests itself through the rays of the Moon in the otherwise dark night of full Moon. Jahve or Jehovah is the Christ—but seen as reflected light, not directly.

The faculties of human cognition and perception were to come within nearer and nearer range of the Christ. Having previously manifested His presence to the Initiates from the Cosmos, He was now Himself to tread the Earth for a season as a man among men. But this could not come to pass until the right time had arrived. That Christ is a reality has always been known wherever men have steeped themselves in the wisdom of the world, and because He has revealed Himself in so many different ways He has been called by diverse names. Zarathustra called Him ‘Ahura Mazdao’ because He revealed Himself in the raiment of the Sun's light. The great Teachers of humanity in ancient India during the first period after the Atlantean catastrophe—the holy Rishis—had known full well of this Being, for they were Initiates. They knew too that in their epoch He was beyond the range of earthly wisdom and would be accessible to it only later on. Hence it was said that this Being was beyond the sphere of the seven Rishis. ‘Vishva Karman’ was the name given to Him. The Rishis taught of the Being whom they called ‘Vishva Karman’ and Zarathustra called ‘Ahura Mazdao’. Vishva Karman and Ahura Mazdao were two of the names for this Being who was gradually approaching the Earth from heights of spirit, from cosmic realms.

But preparation had to be made in the evolution of humanity to ensure the existence of a body fit to receive this Being. It was necessary for a Being such as had lived in Zarathustra to mature from incarnation to incarnation in order that in a body as pure as that of Jesus of Nazareth he could bring the faculties of the sentient body, of the sentient soul and of the mind-soul to the degree of perfection that would render this human being fit to receive into himself so sublime a Being. Such preparation had to be made. Before a sentient soul and a mind-soul could be adequately developed it was necessary that an Ego should first have undergone the many experiences and destinies of Zarathustra and then transform the faculties present in the Nathan Jesus. This would not have been possible at any earlier time, for the Nathan Jesus-child had to be worked upon not only by the Zarathustra-Ego but also by the lofty spiritual power we have characterized as the Nirmanakaya of Buddha. From the child's birth until his twelfth year this power worked chiefly from outside. But the Bodhisattva himself had had first to become Buddha before he was able to develop in himself the spiritual body, the Nirmanakaya, wherewith to work upon the Nathan Jesus during this period of his life. At the time of the incarnation in the course of which he was destined to become Buddha he had not yet acquired this power; the Buddha-life had first to be lived through.

Some day, when humanity understands what deep wisdom has been preserved in many ancient legends, it will be found that everything deciphered from the Akashic Chronicle is contained in a wonderful way in those legends. We are told, and rightly told, that in ancient India too, men were taught of Christ as a cosmic Being beyond the sphere of the seven holy Rishis. The Rishis knew that He dwelt in lofty spiritual regions and was only gradually approaching the Earth. Zarathustra too knew that he must turn his gaze from the Earth to the Sun; and the ancient Hebrews, because of the faculties and attributes indicated in the last lecture, were the first people to whom the proclamation of the Christ Being in His reflection could be made.

We are also told in a legend how the Bodhisattva, when about to become Buddha, came into spiritual contact with Vishva Karman—the Being who was later called Christ. The legend relates that when his twenty-ninth year was approaching the Bodhisattva made his famous exit from the palace where he had been strictly guarded and fostered. Then he saw, first, an old man, then a sick man, then a corpse, thus becoming gradually aware of the miseries of life. Then he saw a monk who had forsaken this life with its accompanying phenomena of old age, sickness and death. Thereupon—so it is related in this profoundly true legend—he resolved not to leave the palace immediately but to return once more. But during this first departure from the palace—so runs the legend—he was invested from spiritual heights with the power which the Divine Artificer, Vishva Karman, who appeared to him, sent down to the Earth. The Bodhisattva was invested with the power of Vishva Karman, of Christ. Thus for the Bodhisattva, Christ was a Being outside—not yet united with him. At that time the Bodhisattva too had nearly reached his thirtieth year but he could not then have made it possible for Christ to be received in the fullest sense into a human body. He had first to become sufficiently mature, and this stage was attained through his Buddha-existence. And when, later on, he appeared in the Nirmanakaya, his task was to make the body of the Nathan Jesus—in which he was not himself embodied—fit to receive Vishva Karman, the Christ.

In this way the forces in earthly evolution had worked in concert to bring about the great Event. It is now on our lips to ask: What is the relationship of Christ, of Vishva Karman, to Beings such as the Bodhisattvas, of whom the Bodhisattva who afterwards became Buddha was one?

This question brings us to the threshold of one of the greatest mysteries of Earth evolution. Generally speaking, it will be difficult for the feelings and perceptive faculties of men at the present time to have even an inkling of what lies behind this mystery. The mission of the Bodhisattva who became Buddha was to incorporate into humanity the principle of compassion and love. Twelve such Beings are connected with the Cosmos to which the Earth belongs. The Bodhisattva who became Buddha in the fifth/sixth century B.C. is one of these Twelve, all of whom have specific missions: Just as the mission of this particular Bodhisattva was to bring to the Earth the teaching of compassion and love, the other Bodhisattvas too have their missions which must be fulfilled in the different epochs of Earth evolution. Gautama Buddha's connection with the mission of the Earth is especially close inasmuch as the development of the moral sense is precisely the task of our own epoch—from the time when the Bodhisattva appeared five to six centuries B.C. to the time when the Bodhisattva who succeeded him in that office will live on Earth as the Maitreya Buddha. That is how Earth evolution advances; the Bodhisattvas descend and have to incorporate into evolution from time to time what constitutes the object of their mission.

A survey of the whole of Earth evolution would reveal that there are twelve such Bodhisattvas. They belong to that great community of Spirits which from time to time sends one of the Bodhisattvas to the Earth as a special emissary, as one of the great Teachers. A Lodge of twelve Bodhisattvas is to be regarded as the Lodge directing all Earth evolution. The concept of ‘Teacher’ familiar to us at lower stages of existence can be applied, in essentials, to these twelve Bodhisattvas. They are Teachers, the great Inspirers of one portion or another of what mankind has to acquire.

Whence do these Bodhisattvas receive what they have to proclaim from epoch to epoch?—If you were able to look into the great Spirit-Lodge of the twelve Bodhisattvas you would find that in the midst of the Twelve there is a Thirteenth—one who cannot be called a ‘Teacher’ in the same sense as the Bodhisattvas, but of whom we must say: He is that Being from whom wisdom itself streams as very substance. It is therefore quite correct to speak of the twelve Bodhisattvas in the great Spirit-Lodge grouped around One who is their Centre; they are wrapt in contemplation of the sublime Being from whom there streams what they have then to inculcate into Earth evolution in fulfilment of their missions. Thus there streams from the Thirteenth what the others have to teach. They are the ‘Teachers’, the ‘Inspirers’; the Thirteenth is himself the Being of whom the others teach, whom they proclaim from epoch to epoch. This Thirteenth is He whom the ancient Rishis called Vishva Karman, whom Zarathustra called Ahura Mazdao, whom we call the Christ. He is the Leader and Guide of the great Lodge of the Bodhisattvas. Hence the content of the proclamation made through the whole choir of the Bodhisattvas is the teaching concerning Christ, once called Vishva Karman. The Bodhisattva who became Buddha five to six centuries before our era was endowed with the powers of Vishva Karman. The Nathan Jesus who received the Christ into himself was not merely ‘endowed’ but ‘anointed’—that is to say, permeated through and through by Vishva Karman, by Christ.

This mystery was portrayed in a symbol or in a picture wherever men had an inkling of the great secrets of evolution or acquired knowledge of them through Initiation. In the little known, enigmatic Trottic Mysteries of Northern Europe before the coming of Christianity, an earthly symbol of the spiritual reality of the Lodge of the twelve Bodhisattvas was created. Those who were Teachers were always associated with a community of twelve. It was for the Twelve to proclaim the message and there was a Thirteenth who did not teach but who through his very presence radiated the wisdom which the others received. This was the picture on Earth of a heavenly, spiritual reality. Again, in Goethe's poem Die Geheimnisse² where the poet has given an indication of his Rosicrucian inspiration, we are reminded how Twelve sit around a Thirteenth who is not necessarily a great Teacher. Brother Mark, in his simplicity, is himself to be addressed by the Twelve as the Thirteenth—when the former Thirteenth shall have left them. He is to be the bringer, not of teaching, but of the spiritual substance itself. And it was the same wherever an inkling or actual knowledge of this lofty spiritual fact existed among men.

The Baptism by John in the Jordan marked the point of time in the evolution of humanity when this heavenly ‘Thirteenth’—as spiritual substance itself—appeared on the Earth. This was the Being of whom all others—Bodhisattvas and Buddhas—had had to teach, and for whose descent into a human body such stupendous preparations had been necessary. That is the mystery of the Baptism in the Jordan. The Being is He who is described in the Gospels: Vishva Karman, Ahura Mazdao, or the Christ as He was called later on when in the body of the Nathan Jesus. As Christ, this Being was to tread the Earth in human form for three years, a man among men, within that purified terrestrial Being who up to his thirtieth year had undergone all the experiences of which we have heard in these lectures. The Being formerly hidden in the light- and warmth-giving rays of the Sun streaming down from the Cosmos, the Being, that is, who had gone with the Sun when it separated from the Earth, now descended into the Nathan Jesus.

We may now ask another question: Why was the union of this Being with the evolution of humanity on the Earth so long postponed? Why had He not descended at an earlier time to the Earth. Why had He not penetrated before into a human etheric body, as He did at tlhe Baptism by John in the Jordan?

This will be intelligible to us if we grasp the nature of the happening described in the Old Testament as the ‘Fall into Sin’. During the epoch of ancient Lemuria, certain beings insinuated themselves into the human astral body—they were beings who had remained at the stage of Old Moon evolution. The human astral body was permeated at that time by the Luciferic beings and this is presented pictorially as the Fall into Sin in Paradise. Because these forces penetrated into his astral body, man became more deeply entangled in the things of the Earth than would otherwise have been the case. Had he not been subject to the Luciferic influence he would have been less deeply entangled in earthly matter. Consequently he descended to the Earth earlier than was originally intended. Now if nothing else had intervened, if nothing had taken place except what has just been indicated, the Luciferic forces anchored in the human astral body would have taken effect in the etheric body as well. But it was essential for the cosmic Powers to take special measures to prevent this. In the book Occult Science—an Outline³ the subject is dealt with from a different aspect. Man might not remain as he was after the Luciferic forces had penetrated into his astral body. He had to be protected against the effect of the forces upon his etheric body. This end was achieved at that time by making it impossible for him to use the whole of his etheric body, part of it being removed from his arbitrary control. If this beneficent deed of the Gods had not been accomplished, if man had retained power over the whole of his etheric body, he could never have found his right path through Earth evolution. Certain parts of the human etheric body had at that time to be withdrawn in order to be preserved for later times. Let us try to picture what this means.

Man's physical body—as everything else that is physical—is composed of the elements also to be found in the world outside: the ‘earthy’ or solid, the ‘watery’ or fluid, and the ‘airy’ or gaseous. The etheric realm begins with the first state of ether—the ‘fire-ether’ or simply ‘fire’. Fire or warmth, regarded by modern physics merely as motion and non-substantial, is the first state of the ether. The second is the ‘light-ether’, or simply ‘light’. And the third state—sound, tone, or number—is one that is not revealed to man in its original form at all; it is only a reflection, as it were a shadow of this ether that can be perceived in the physical world as tone or sound. Behind external ‘sound’, however, there lies something of a finer etheric nature, something spiritual. Physical tone or sound is a mere phantom of spiritual tone, of ‘sound-ether’ or also ‘number-ether’. The fourth etheric realm is the ‘life-ether’—that which underlies actual ‘life’.

As physical man is constituted to-day, everything that is of the nature of soul expresses itself in his physical and etheric constitution, but is also connected with certain etheric substances. What we call ‘will’ expresses itself etherically in what we call ‘fire’. Anyone who is at all sensitive to certain sentient experiences will be aware that there is justification for saying that the will, which expresses itself physically in the blood, lives in the fire-element of the etheric; physically, the will expresses itself in the blood, that is to say in the movement of the blood. What we call ‘feeling’ expresses itself in the part of the etheric body that corresponds to the light-ether. Because this is so, a clairvoyant sees the will-impulses of a man flashing like flames through his etheric body and raying into his astral body; and he sees the feelings as forms of light. But the thinking that is experienced by man in his soul as his own, and expressed in words, is only a phantom of thinking—as you will readily believe, because physical sound too is only a phantom of something higher. Words have their organ in the sound-ether; our thoughts underlie our words; words are forms of expression for thoughts. These forms of expression fill etheric space inasmuch as they send their vibrations through the sound-ether; ‘tone’ or ‘sound’ is only the shadow of the actual thought-vibrations. The inner essence of all our thoughts, that which endows our thoughts with meaning (Sinn), actually belongs; in respect of its etheric nature, to the life-ether itself.

Meaning (Sinn).................... Life-Ether
Thinking ..........................Tone- or Sound-Ether 

 Feeling............................Light-Ether 
 Will ..............................Fire-Ether
................................... Air
................................... Water
................................... Earth

In the Lemurian epoch, after the onset of the Luciferic influence, of these four forms of ether only the two lower (light-ether and fire-ether) were left at the free, abitrary disposal of man; the two higher kinds of ether were withdrawn from him. That is the inner meaning of the passage where it is said that when, as a result of the Luciferic influence, men had become able to distinguish between good and evil (pictorially expressed as eating of the ‘Tree of Knowledge’), the ‘Tree of Life’ was kept out of their reach. That is to say, the power freely and arbitrarily to penetrate the thought-ether and the sense-ether (‘meaning’-ether) was withdrawn from them.

The conditions of man's development were therefore necessarily as follows. His will was given into his power to assert as his ‘personal’ expression; the same applies to his feelings. Both feeling and will are at man's personal disposal. Hence the individual character of the world of feeling and the world of will. This individual character, however, ceases immediately we pass from feeling to thinking—yes, even to the expression of thoughts, to the words on the physical plane. Whereas each man's feeling and will are personal, we immediately come into something universal when we rise into the realm of words and the realm of thoughts. No one individual can form thoughts that are his alone. If thoughts were as individual as feelings we should never understand one another. Thus thought and ‘meaning’ (Sinn) were withheld from the power of arbitrary human will and preserved for the time being in the world of the Gods, in order not to be given to man until a later time. Everywhere on the Earth, therefore, we can find individual men with individual feelings and individual impulses of will; but thinking is uniform everywhere and language is uniform among the several peoples. Where there is a common language, there reigns a common Folk-Deity. This sphere is withheld from the arbitrary power of man, remaining for the time being a field into which the Gods work.

When Zarathustra, with his pupils around him, spoke of the realm of spirit, he could say: ‘Out of heaven there streams down warmth, or fire; out of heaven there streams down light. These are the vestments of Ahura Mazdao. But behind these vestments is hidden that which has not yet descended but has remained above in spiritual heights, casting only a shadow in the physical thoughts and words of men.’ Behind the warmth and light of the Sun is hidden that which lives in tone or sound, in meaning, manifesting itself only to those who are able to see behind the light that which is related to the earthly word as the heavenly Word is related to the part of Life that was withheld for the time being from humanity. Hence Zarathustra said: ‘Look upwards to Ahura Mazdao; see how He reveals Himself in the physical raiment of light and warmth. But behind all that is the Divine, Creative Word—and it is approaching the Earth!’

What is Vishva Karman? What is Ahura Mazdao? What is Christ in His true form? The Divine, Creative Word! Hence in Zarathustra's teaching the momentous communication is made that he was initiated in order not only to apprehend in the light the Being he called Ahura Mazdao, but also the Divine, Creative Word, Honover—which was to descend to the Earth and for the first time did descend into an individual etheric body at the Baptism by John. The Divine-Spiritual Word which had been preserved since the Lemurian epoch came forth from ethereal heights at the Baptism by John and entered into the etheric body of the Nathan Jesus. And when the Baptism was completed, what was it that had happened? The Word had become Flesh!

What had Zarathustra, or those who had knowledge of his Mysteries, proclaimed? As seers they had proclaimed the ‘Word’ that is hidden behind the warmth and the light. They were ‘servants of the Word’. And the writer of the Gospel of St. Luke recorded what the ‘seers’ proclaimed—those who had become ‘servants of the Word’.

This example again shows us that the Gospels must be taken literally. What had been withheld from men for so long because of the Luciferic influence, became flesh in a single personality, descended to the Earth and lived on the Earth. Hence this Being is the great prototype of all those who by degrees will understand His nature. Our wisdom on Earth must follow the lead of the Bodhisattvas, whose unceasing task it is to proclaim the Thirteenth among them. All spiritual science, all our wisdom, all our knowledge, must be devoted to understanding the nature of Vishva Karman, of Ahura Mazdao, of CHRIST.

• 1. Lecture-Course entitled: The Gospel of St. John in relation to the other Gospels, especially to the Gospel of St. Luke.
• 2. See the lecture entitled The Mysteries. Given at Cologne, 25th December 1907.
• 3. See pp. 185–6 in the 1963 edition.

Considering the seriousness of the times, it seems to me that if I were to speak about Pentecost today in the way it is ordinarily spoken of, it would be unchristian—although such unchristian performances are quite the accepted thing. All who have been speaking here for the renewal of our education and school life, have spoken in the real spirit of Pentecost—endorsing as they have, so earnestly, our movement for the threefolding of the social organism. For in the liberation of the spiritual life, in the emancipation of the schools, lies the truest spirit of Pentecost for our present day—that Pentecost spirit which has entirely disappeared from the ordinary so-called religious and confessional streams of this age.

It is our sincere hope that an emancipation of the spiritual life, such as we are striving to achieve, will bring about its renewal—a thing of which mankind is so sorely in need. But one will only be able to comprehend what must be done to our schools and to our education in order to bring about a renewal of the spirit, a pouring out of the true Pentecost spirit, if one realizes how deeply the anti-Pentecost spirit has trickled into public life, into men's so-called spiritual intercourse with one another.

If one speaks in these times as one must on an anthroposophical basis, then one even—I underline it three times—even hears this reproof: that the word “German” and the word “Christian” or “Christ” are never mentioned in the course of one's remarks.

My dear friends, if we cannot find within ourselves the answer to such foolish chatter we have not yet get to the heart of the anthroposophical world-conception! It is the direct result of our distorted pedagogy; it illustrates what absurdities have trickled into our souls through our education. We must above all things gain a knowledge of the connection between the perverted chatter of our age and our perverted educational life; this knowledge must pour down in manifold fiery tongues upon the heads of our contemporaries.

A great deal is being said in our time about the unimportance of the word, and that “in the beginning was the deed”. My dear friends, an age like ours will even find a false use for the Gospel; the word has become mere chattered phrase and the deed, thoughtless brutality. An age like ours turns away from the Word with reason, because in the word that it knows it can only find phrase—and the deed that it knows is only thoughtless brutality.

There is a deep connection between our educational life and this fact which I have mentioned. We bear within us two sources of perverted humanity: a perverted Hellenic and a perverted Romanism. We do not understand Hellenism as it related to its own time and place. We can, hardly comprehend why the noble Socrates and Plato tried with such courage to cure the Greeks of their unconquerable love of illusion. The Greeks always wanted to escape from the seriousness of life, and sought their satisfaction in illusions. Socrates and Plato, the Greek lawgivers, had to point with great severity to the reality of the spirit, to save the Greeks from falling more and more into the failing of their race, that of withdrawing comfortably by means of illusions from the seriousness of life. The Greeks allowed “the loafer Socrates” to go on talking about the seriousness of life as long as he seemed harmless. But as soon an they realized what was really contained in his words they gave him hemlock to drink.

Socrates spirit of earnestness is not the spirit of this age. We inherit rather that spirit of Hellenism that poisoned Socrates; and we revel in it. We even consent to the poisoning of the pearl of world-literature, the beginning of the Gospel of St. John, when we allow the word “Word”—of which the Old Testament said that when man lets it become one of his illusions heaven and earth will fall—we allow it to be taken literally. St. John's Gospel begins, “In the beginning was the Word”. The man of today is content to take the word “Word” as a mere phrase. But something stands written there that is destined to scatter all his illusions which he drags into the phrase. The heaven end earth of our illusions would collapse if we were earnestly willing to understand the “Logos” that shines forth from this sentence, and that should be experienced in it.

Thus our culture has tried to ameliorate the severities of life either by mystic comfort or by brutal action. That is what we must see today, what we must realize above all things. Today we must drive out of men's souls from the first moment of education up through the highest schools, what Socrates and Plato sought to expel from Hellenism when they said to the Greeks: “Beware of illusions; the spirit alone has reality! There is living reality in ideas, which is not what you, with your elusive phrases, want to see in thee?”

We will get no further if we keep chattering about ethics and religion! For the Gospel is itself a fact in the evolution of the world. It has become today mere babble; and therefore it is accompanied by thoughtless, brutal action. We must fill our souls with what can really inspirit us when we speak. We must find a way to make the heart speak behind the lips. We must find a way to penetrate our words with our entire being; otherwise the word becomes a seducer, tempting us with illusion, alluring us from the earnestness of reality. We must put away forever the spirit which lures us to go church in order to be lifted there out of the earnestness of life, and to hear this gratifying phrase trickled out to us: that the Lord God will make it all right, He will deliver us from our evils. We must look within ourselves, within our own souls, for forces which are divine forces, which have been implanted in us during the evolution of the world in order that we shall use them, in order that we shall he able to receive God into our individual souls. We should not be listening to all this preaching about an external God, which allows our souls to lie in indolent repose on Philistine sofas, of which we are so fond when it is a question of spiritual life. Our education must find away out of the “Greek Phrase”, as one may call it today. It must also find a way out beyond the “Roman phrase”.

The “spirit of law” which our age still worships today was right for the Romans. For what was this spirit of law? A deep meaning lies hidden in the legend of the founding of Rome. Brutes were held together in order to combat the worst animal-human instincts. That is what the Roman laws were for, to herd wild animals together. But we should realize that we have become men, and we should not worship that spirit of law which arose from a legitimate Roman instinct to tame brutish human passions. The Roman spirit that still prevails in us today as our “spirit of right” is universally of such a character as to intend that wild human passions shall not rule in freedom, but shall be held in full restraint.

Christian! the complaint is that that word is not used in the lectures we are giving. But we continually forget a very Christian saying of Paul that reads as follows: “Sin came through law, not law through sin. “If there were no law, sin would be dead”. Of course that may be worth nothing for our time, because men have become unchristian. But it is a saying of which one must learn the dear significance. This is the true Christian spirit: to take out of the State—which men regard today as All-containing, All-embracing, and which is our inheritance from Rome—to take out of it the spiritual life and the economic life, and to make them free. But men do not want the Christian spirit, and therefore they want to make themselves feel comfortable by using “Christ” and “Christian” as often as possible as phrases.

Likewise they want to hear the word “German” as a mere phrase as often as possible. A true German spirit prevails in Goethe. The recent un-German spirit of middle Europe has in its enlightened representative, the Berlin Academy of Science, coined a phrase which I have mentioned here before: the glory of these men, the spiritual leaders of today, consists in this, they regard themselves as “the scientific bodyguard of the Hohenzollerns”! The man who coined that phrase has also given a lecture, in the scientific phraseology of the present day, entitled “Goethe and no End”, in which he endeavored to trample to the ground Goethe's whole natural-scientific spirit. He took great pleasure in saying: “Goethe's Faust character might better be inventing an air pump to keep Gretchen upright, than all the silly things he does in that book”. That is in the spirit of the time—trampling on the true German spirit which never takes the word “German” in vain—just as the “modern” Christian spirit (and that means unchristian spirit) has been always to require the words “Christ” and “Christian”, and to disregard this other saying; “Thou shalt not speak the word God is vain”. One should have a feeling for what is Christian, and not be constantly wanting to have one's ears filled with chatter about Christianity.

That is “the spirit of Whitsuntide” today. One can hardly say that if it were not cherished and cultivated it would find much fruitful ground upon which to fall. One has plenty of opportunity to see how this Whitsuntide spirit is everywhere misunderstood. The following fact, for instance, that has actually come to light, in a remarkable illustration of the spirit of our time (if I may descend for a moment to an everyday matter): Our Union for the Threefolding of the social organism started forth to make seed-words grow into deeds, and in order to be understood snatched up the words of a certain person for quotation. Then this person talked also on his side, about socialization, using words which could very well be used if socialization was being talked about, and which at the same time could very well be quoted by our Union for the Threefolding of the social organism, because as words, if they were the thought-seeds of actions, then would actually mean what we want to say. But then, what happened? From the side from which these words originally came, the course of action which should naturally follow these words was violently attacked. What, does this indicate, was under the surface of the man's thought? It was this: Woe to you if you regard our words as anything else but chatter and phrase! The moment you take our words seriously, we are your enemies! That is the outcome of on educational system that has grown up in this age under the wing of the State. That on the one side. On the other hand is this pleasing denunciation: We are in complete agreement with what Steiner says, his whole ides for fighting existing capitalism; we agree with his Threefold Commonwealth; but we are fighting him because we will not be preached to by a spirit-seer!

It does not seem unreasonable to ask ourselves: What can be attempted in an age that wants nothing else but phrases or thoughtless brutal action, that refuses everything else, but that nevertheless bears within it the seed out of which real men can be developed? People do not want to have to think; they prefer thoughtless class war. They utter beautiful phrases and do not want their thoughts to become deeds. And if someone takes their phrases seriously he is violently attacked.

We must ask ourselves noel, seriously: ! Have men who are born in the midst of such a spirit the right to pour out phrases—oily phrases—about the Pentecost wonder? My dear friends, the slime that is poured out today about the Pentecost wonder comes from the dame glands as the poison with which some want to choke everything today that comes from the spirit, poison by which they encourage in themselves on the one hand unreal phrase, and on the other hand thoughtless, brutal action. The unreel phrase is the religious chatter of the world; the brutal unspiritual act is militarism, the fundamental evil of our time. Until one realizes how thoroughly these two things are ingrained in our perverted educational life, one cannot think fruitfully about what ought to be done. Everything else is simply a quack remedy.

What must be done, my friends, must be done out or reality. For reality carries the spirit within it; whereas a denial of the spirit makes everything an absurdity. And if in our time anyone tries to indicate spiritual realities, he is branded a “visionary”, and “spirit-seer”. It is because a feeling for reality is universally lacking.

The comparison of the social organism with the human or any other organism, has also become a phrase, in our time, and avery cheap one at that. If one wants to use a comparison without resorting to phrases, one must present the fundamental knowledge for it as it is given in my book Riddles of the Soul. What sense is there today in speaking of the threefold social organism until its spiritual foundation, the threefold nature of the human organism, consisting of nerve-sense faculties, rhythmic faculties, and metabolic faculties, is presented to men as real natural-scientific knowledge? But men are so indolent that they will not allow the conceptions they have acquired from their perverted school-training of the present day to be corrected by that which originates in true reality.

Our official science, that is, the science that is accepted everywhere as authoritative, cherishes another hoary conception. Even modern science kneels in idolatrous worship before everything that is thrust forward as highest culture. To what else, then, should it have recourse when it wants to explain something especially mysterious, than to something to which just at this time kneels the lowest? Thus, the human nervous system has become for science a collection of “telegraphic lines”; it sees the whole nervous activity of men as a remarkably complicated telegraph system. The eye perceives; the skin perceives. Then what has been perceived on the outside is carried to the telegraph station called “the brain”. And sitting in the brain is some being or other—of course modern science would not have anything to do with a spiritual being—anyway, through some kind or being that has become a phrase because one acknowledges no reality there, the perception announced by the sensory nerves is transformed through the motor nerves into movements of will. And this distinction between sensory and motor nerves is stuffed into our young people, and upon it the whole conception of man is built.

For years I have been fighting this absurd distinction between sensory and motor nerves, first of all because the distinction is nonsense. For, the so-called motor nerves exist for no other reason than that for which the sensory nerves exist. A sensory nerve, a sense-nerve, is the means by which we are to perceive what is going on in our sense-organization. And a so-called motor nerve is not a “motor” nerve but is also a sensory nerve; it only exists so that I shall perceive my own movements, which originate in something quite other than the motor nerves. Motor nerves are inner sensory nerves for the perception of my own will-impulse. The sensory nerves exist in order that I may perceive the external things that are happening to my sense apparatus. And in order that I may not be merely an unconscious being walking, hitting, grasping, without myself knowing anything about it, the so-called motor nerves exist thus not for the exertion of will, but for the perception of what my will is doing. The whole idea of a distinction has been invented by modern science out of the distorted intellectual knowledge of our time, and it is truly scientific nonsense. That is one reason why I have been fighting it for years.

But there is another reason why this nonsense must be uprooted, this superstition about motor and sensory nerves, between which there is no other difference than that one is sensitive to what is outside the body and the other to what is inside the body. This is the other reason.

No one in any kind of social science can acquire a correct understanding of man in his relation to work if he builds up concepts on this false differentiation between sensory and motor nerves. For one will get most curious notions of what human work is, of what happens in man then he works, when he brings his muscles into movement, if one does not know that the man's bringing his muscles into movement does not depend upon his so-called motor nerves but upon the immediate connection of his soul with the outer world. I can do no more then just indicate this fact to you, because today men do not yet have the slightest understanding for it. Education has not yet produced even a primitive capacity for the understanding of such things because it still works on the basis of this mad distinction between sensory and motor nerves. When I confront a machine I must confront it as a whole man; I must set up a relation above all things between my muscles and this machine. This relation is all that a man's work really depends upon. It is this relation that one must understand if one wants to know the social significance of work,—this very special relation of men to work. What is our concept of work today?

The process that goes on in man when he is, as we say, “working” is no different, whether he is exerting himself at a machine, or chopping wood, or engaging in sport for pleasure. He can wear himself out just as thoroughly, he can consume just as much working-power, in some sport that is a social superfluity as in chopping wood which is social necessity. And the illusion of a difference between sensory and motor nerves is the origin psychologically of man's conception of work today—while in reality one can only gain a true conception of work if one considers, not how a man exerts himself in work, but in what sort of relation to his social environment he is placed by his work. I believe you do not really comprehend that, because the concepts one might have today of these things are so distorted by our education that it will be a long time before one can find any transition from the concept of work that is socially absurd and from the concept of sensory and motor nerves that is scientifically absurd. It is in these very things that we must look for the reason why our thinking in so impractical. How can humanity think practically about practical things when it is a victim of this absurd concept: that we have a telegraphic apparatus strung up in us by which wires go to someplace or other in the brain and are then switched on to other wires—sensory and motor nerves! It is from this unscientific science of ours, which arises from a distorted school system, and to which people are intrigued into pinning their faith—it is from this that the impossibility arises of thinking socially.

That is what we should recognize today as the Pentecost spirit. It would be wiser to pour that out in single streams on the men of the present day, than to use the kind of quack ointment that it is thought today will better this thing or that. When one says today that mankind must learn anew and think anew, people believe at most that one is employing that same phrase that they themselves employ—and that is easy to understand because people at once translate what one says into phrases and utopias. But does it not make a difference whether some popular orator says “Mankind must learn new lessons”, or whether someone says it who knows that through the habit of artificial thinking mankind has created such depths of false thoughts that they even reach down into the structure of the human nervous system, so that today men have a deeply rooted superstition about sensory and motor nerves because their authorities impose it upon them. It must be made clear to the world that one is speaking from a basis of reality—and saying very different things about this reality—when one talks on the ground of the anthroposophical movement about “thinking anew” and “learning anew”; it should be the task of the Anthroposophical Society to make that clear. For today the phrase has won such power that as far as the words themselves are concerned anyone who is unable to distinguish between reality and phrase can refer you, for instance, to the editorial of today's Stuttgart Daily and say: Look there, there is also preaching about “learning anew”. But it is not a question of comparing words, for then we fall into word-idolatry; today we must see what the reality is, and protect ourselves fro the danger of falling into phrase idolatry. How many times have I regretfully had to disagree when such phrases as this have been uttered: Look there, someone has again spoken from the pulpit “quite theosophically”—as people say. These things are so bad because they show how little capacity exists today for differentiating between a knowledge of reality and a smug use of phrases. With the Pentecost festival this admonition should pour down upon human souls: “Away from you phrases back to reality!” We talk today in the field of science, the field of art, the field of religion—in fact, we talk everywhere—in phrases which stick in the throat and do not include the whole man; just as man's belief today is that his sense impressions stay somewhere up in his brain and do not also register his motor activities. Everything is connected in the most intimate way, and until there is a change in those thought habits which official science has created in our time, which scientific popery has imposed upon us, there will be o real Pentecostal renewal—for all other renewal is only on the surface and does not pour forth, as it must, from real inner depths. If our school life and education are really to experience a renewal we must become awake to such things as have been discussed here, and protect mankind from the diseases which so easily can arise in it today, because of its inheritance from Romanism.

The love of illusion that is so widespread today must be fought against. The man of today feels comfortable when he can delude himself about reality, when he can say to himself: Not Christ in me, Who arouses my strength, Who liberates powerful forces within me—not that do I profess; but the Christ Who is external to me, and Who mercifully frees me from my sins without my having to do anything about it out of my own earnestness or my own powers!

My dear friends, again and again in numerous letter I have had this Christ-Jesus creed held up to me, in contract to what Anthroposophy must do and wants to do. And again and again I have been confronted by the request to “popularize” in trivial phrases, “so that people can understand it”, that which today must be stamped with severe accuracy out of the reality of the spirit because the time demands it. But the moment anthroposophical truths were cut up into trivial phrases they would become just phrases, such as all the phrases that are so cheap in the present day; they would be brought down either to trivialities of the street or to the Philistinism of modern science. Again and again I have found the courage not to do either—either to reduce anthroposophical teaching to the trivial phrases of the street (which is called “popularizing”) or to talk so that the scientific people would understand me. I have received these two admonitions many times. My dear friends, I should then have to talk so that I would find an echo in the scientific senselessness of the present day. It would be especially agreeable to me when people behave as a professor in Tübingen did recently out of the scientific conviction of the present time. It seems to me, truth reigns in external events, for that affair is the best proof of how necessary it is for the spiritual life to be completely transformed. Especially, if one wants to find a transition to the true Pentecost spirit, from babbling words to seed-bearing words, then one must earnestly again and again examine one's old habitual concepts in order to see what it is that one does not want to make new concepts for—what it is that can be chattered about perhaps while still clinging to one's old concepts, but not comprehended by them.

Apropos of' the value or words today, there is no great sense in pointing out that in certain circles the proletariat has sufficient goodwill to understand the Threefold Commonwealth ideas even better then the middle-class understands them. If the middle class would only have the same “goodwill” is what many would like to say today. The proletariat laughs at this urging the middle-class to have “goodwill”—and he is justified in laughing. He is better prepared to understand than a man of the middle-class. But it is on quite a different basis that he is prepared to understand these things, and he laughs when when anyone says one appeal to the goodwill of the middle-class in order to set understanding; he laughs especially when one says one could expect a result from this appeal. For he knows quite well that his better understanding comes from something quite different: that in the morning if he does not work he finds himself in the street: he is bound up with the social order, I might say, at points only—not throughout a straight line as is the middle-class citizen of today: he understands out of his humanness because the present social order has brought it about that he has other than human interests, for he is nothing else the morning he is thrown out on the street, but just a man. That is what his better understanding springs from.

As to the middle-class citizen, especially the state-official: the state takes him in hand as soon as possible—not too early, because then it is still considered indelicate, and so the state leaves him to mothers and wet-nurses. But as soon as he gets beyond this first indelicate period he is taken at once into the care of the state and trained, prepared—not to be a man, but to be a state-official. Then the strings are tied, so that he is connected with the social order not at points, like the proletarian, but by a long line; through strings on all his interests, he is fastened up to the social order that exists through the state and that is supported by the state. He is trained in all his behavior to be the correct expression of the social order. Then he is fed, and he is satisfied. He is not only fed, but he is so taken care of that he does not have to take care of himself. And then, when he is no longer able to work, the state sees that he gets a pension so that without having to do anything about himself he is properly supported by the Powers that trained him in the first place to be their loyal expression. This lasts until death. Then he is still taken care of, this time by a religion which gets its salvation not from the inner forces of the soul, but from a mercy that comes in from the outside; this religion sees to it that his soul is “pensioned” after death. That is the precise content of state wisdom and religious wisdom. No wonder that a man of the middle-class, citizen of both state and heaven, hangs on to that with which he is bound up so thoroughly.

There is the contrast: personal interest on the one side, but then also personal interest on the nearest corner of the other side. It is in opposition to the personal interest on the other side that that a number of men attain today that which mankind must attain in this age of the consciousness soul, and of which I have often spoken: establishing oneself as an individual human being. The proletarian has only an opportunity of doing that, of establishing the fact that he is first of all an individual, when he has not been drawn into a contract with all the others. The more he is drawn in, the worse it is for him.For here on this side are men who similarly are set up in their positions by the proletarist: they are the the men who have any kind of official position in the labor unions. Even if their positions are called by other names, they succumb easily to the same grand manners as the middle-class citizens, and they fight whatever arises as a possible hindrance to these airs. And so they gradually acquire the habits of the middle-class.

One talks today in the proletarian world of labor unions. In England about a fifth of the whole laboring population is economically organized. That is relatively many. Thus the present English laboring class, in the modern spirit of organizing, has grown quite neatly into the middle-class way of thinking. In Germany only an eighth are organized, the others are unorganized workers. And it is the unorganized workers today who stand on the ground of personality; they are the real driving powers, it is they who have preserved the consciousness of what it means to remain just a man, without the pensions—without even, the pension which I have rationed for one's later spiritual life. These men who stand in the external economic sphere upon their own individuality are, I might say, the psychic channel for that which must arise today as an historical necessity, for that which makes the proletarian demand of today at the same time a world-historical demand.

The modern economic order has harnessed the proletariat to factories and capitalism, where it is easier for them to understand what the demand of the time is, than for the middle-class man who hangs on with all his strings to his maintenance and his pension, and who does not want to think. If he were to think, if he were to analyze the age correctly, it would not be possible to speak as a Tübingen professor did recently, who brought up this argument during the discussion after one of my lectures: It has just been said that the proletarian's “existence worthy of a man” is undermined because the proletarian is paid wages for his work; is not Caruso paid wages when he sings, and at the end of the evening is given 30 or 40 thousand marks for his work? Or—the selfless gentleman continued—do I not also receive wages?—I feel none of this “unworthy of a man” business when I pocket my salary! Nor does Caruso feel it when he collects his 30 or 40 thousand marks… That is the gist of what he said. And he went on to say: the only difference is this, that in one case the wages are more, in the other, lees, but that is of no importance—in reality it is all the same!

My dear friends, that is the spirit which blossoms out of the educational life of today! It is the same spirit that says: We are becoming a poor nation , we will not be able to pay for schools and educations, the state will have to step in and pay for them. Now, to one who thinks so shortsightedly, one will have to reply: But what does the state do when everybody is poor, and it must suddenly become the Croesus who will pay the debts that all of, us cannot pay? First, the state takes away in the form of taxes whatever everybody has: it seems to me it can hardly manufacture as a Croesus what the people themselves do not have. That is what these classes of people have to learn. It is also what those persons must learn to understand who are supported by the state out of the pockets of those who stand economically on the basis of their human individuality. As long as they have not learnt to understand it through the necessity of life, it is impossible to put it into their minds. And so it seems to me, a great number of people today want to conjure up an age in which one can also be thrown on the street if one is not willing to bring about another social order through an impulse of thought. It could very easily happen that the state pensions of which I have spoken could no longer be paid—in which event, I believe, the people would not so much, either, of those other spiritual pensions that are paid today to the soul after death by the religious community that has become so dependent upon the material powers.

But now when something arises that is not willing to be mere phrase, but insists upon being seed-thoughts for action, people cannot accept it as anything other than phrase. They cannot perceive that a real concept of work depends upon actual knowledge of life, even of single details such as the scientific absurdity existing in the distinction between motor and sensory nerves.

It is necessary today that at least a few men see into these depths. Today it is absolutely necessary that individuals should not let themselves be fooled into saying: We will socialize the outer economic life, but we will not touch the schools, especially the high schools and colleges. They must remain as they are. That is the very worst thing that could happen, for the state of affairs that has prevailed until now will, if it remains as it is, will only become worse. Socialize economic life, and leave the spiritual life as it is, and in a short time out of your apparent socialization you will have a much greater tyranny and much worse conditions of life than ever before. Today of course the economic pressure which exists is the cause of frightful eruptions in the social organism. Is this now to be succeeded by place-hunting, by the worst kind of bureaucracy? Do men who have now (although a little late) finally learnt that they cannot depend upon “throne and alter”, actually believe that it would be any safer to depend in the same way upon the state treasury and state budget? Capitalism has known how to bring the altar around gradually to a respect for power that really no longer exists but that lives on in phrase, into corporation idolatry and corporation place-hunting.

What mankind needs for a renewal of the spirit is the courage to realize that the spiritual life of humanity has become today religious chatter on the one hand , and on the other , thoughtless, brutal action, militarism. The typical man of this modern capitalistic age feels most himself when he is engaged in cutting his coupons, averting his eyes while he does it from what really takes place through that action. On the one hand the gospel made into chatter about love of neighbor and brotherliness, and he sits there comfortably with his scissors, cutting it all to pieces: he does not need to see the reality of what he is doing, because on the other hand he knows that he does not have to protect his business himself: the state does that by manufacturing swords. We have experienced this covenant between business life and state life in modern times: it is precisely what brought the world catastrophe upon us. This “state” of which men have been so proud: what has it been else then the great Protector of economic life as it is carried on under capitalism? My dear friends, one would like to hope that the patriots of the past, whose patriotism in their sense one would not question, ( for they were “good” patriots, they coined the word from a patriotic phrase, and it was very disastrous in the age just past to point out that this patriotic phrase had a very real foundation, that the state reverenced by patriots was after all just a protector of banknotes?)—one would like to hope that these patriots do not suddenly “unpatriotize” themselves and now that their gold is probably bettor protected by the Entente powers, speedily trim their patriotism! I will not say anything in particular about such a possibility, but I should like to draw your attention to the ease with which the patriotic phrase can be transformed into its opposite. There are plenty of examples about us.

These are the things that must be said today, while celebrating Whitsuntide, in regard to the necessity of renewing school and educational life. For the unctuous talk that has been given to mankind should he poured out no longer. Men must accustom themselves to words that point to the realities of the present day. Then it will be possible for the real Pentecost spirit to descend among us, for little tongues of fire to reach into all that arises in the future out of the emancipated spiritual life, into the lowest school as well as the highest, so that in the future the liberated spirit, which is the real Holy Spirit, can bring about the spiritual evolution of mankind.

One is talking perhaps of something that the religious chatterer of today does not think of as exactly “Christian”. But mankind will have to decide whether the Christian talk of the man of today originates in that spirit which Peter denied his Lord three times, or whether it crises out of the spirit that said, “What I have revealed to you is not merely confined to one age, but will stand through all ages. And I will not cease to declare the truth to you; I will be with you until the end of the earth, time.” Those who can hear only the spirit of the past today even in Christianity, will be the phrase makers, the chatterers. Those who accept the living spirit today even for the transformation and rebuilding of the social order,' will be those perhaps in whom one will able to see the true Christ.

May this age grow out of a truly comprehended Pentecost spirit.

There is truly great significance in how certain men feel impelled to-day to speak about the present situation of mankind—men who at least try, with the aid of their feelings and perceptions, to see into the heart of social affairs. In this connection I would like to read you a few sentences from the address which Kurt Eisner gave to a gathering of students in Basle, shortly before his death. Perhaps some of you already know these sentences, but they are extraordinarily important for anyone who wants to grasp the symptomatic meaning of certain things to-day.

“Do I not hear and see clearly” (he says, referring to his earlier remarks), “that in our life this very longing strives to find expression—and yet accompanying it is the conviction that our life, as we are compelled to lead it to-day, is plainly the invention of an evil spirit! Imagine a great thinker, knowing nothing of our time and living perhaps two thousand years ago, who might dream of how the world would look after two thousand years—not with the most exuberant imagination would he be able to conceive such a world as that in which we are condemned to live. In truth, existing conditions are the one great mirage in the world, while the substance of our desires and the longings of our spirit are the deepest and final truth—and everything outside them is horrible. We have simply interchanged dreaming and waking. Our task is to shake off this ancient illusion about the reality of our present social existence. One glance at the war: can you imagine a human reason which could devise anything like it? If this war was not what men call reality, then perhaps we were dreaming, and now have woken up.”

Just think of it—in his efforts to understand the present time, this man was driven to make use of the concept of a dream, and to ask himself the question: Is not the reality which surrounds us to-day much better called a bad dream, than true reality?

So we have the remarkable case—and consider how typical it is—of a thoroughly modern man, a man who has felt himself to be a herald of a new epoch, who regards outwardly perceptible reality as nothing else than maya—rather as Indian philosophy does—as in fact a dream; and this man feels impelled by the singular events of the present to raise the question (no matter in what sense but still to raise it) whether this reality is not indeed a dream!

Yes, the whole tenor of Eisner's speech shows that he was using more than a mere phrase when he said that this present reality could be naught else than something inflicted on mankind by an evil spirit.

Now let us recall some of the many things that have passed through our souls in the course of our anthroposophical endeavours, and above all the fact that in general we try not to look on outwardly perceptible reality as the whole of reality, and that over against the perceptible we set the super-sensible, which alone prevents the perceptible from ranking as the true, complete reality. This outlook, however, is no more than a tiny spark in the currents of contemporary thought, for these are widely permeated by materialistic ideas—and yet we see that such a man as Kurt Eisner, who is certainly untouched by this spark (at any rate in his physical life), finds himself driven by the facts of the present day to make this surprising comparison: he compares outward reality, at least in its current manifestation, to a dream! Faced with present-day reality, he is driven to a confession which he can express only by calling to witness the general truth of the unreality, the maya-character, of the reality that is outwardly perceived.

Let us now go rather more deeply into many of the things which our consideration of the social problem has brought before our souls in the last few weeks. Let us observe how the trend of events in the past century has more and more brought men to the point of denying the reality of the spiritual or super-sensible world, so that this denial is, one might say, established in the widest circles. Certainly, in some quarters—you may object—a great deal is said about the spiritual world; churches are still numerous, if not always full, and words which purport to tell of the spirit echo through them. Moreover—to-day and also yesterday evening—you can listen almost all the time to bells, which again should be an expression of something recognised in the world as spiritual life. But in this connection we experience something else, too. If to-day an attempt is made to hear what the Christ is saying for our present age, then it is precisely from the adherents of the old religious communities that the most vehement attacks come. Real spiritual life, one that relies not merely on faith or on an old tradition, but on the immediate spiritual findings of the present—that is something which very, very few people want to-day.

On the other hand, is it not as though modern humanity were being impelled—not perhaps by an evil world-spirit, but by a good world-spirit—to think again of the spiritual side of existence—as witness the fact that people are surrounded by a sense-perceptible reality of such a kind that a man of modern outlook has to say: It is like a dream... even a great thinker of two thousand years ago could not have conceived the shape which outer reality would wear to-day?

In any case, here is a modern man led by such a recognition to form conceptions which are not customary to-day. I know that the conceptions of reality, which to-day I have pointed to as important, are found rather difficult by many of our anthroposophical friends. But, my dear friends, you cannot cope with life to-day unless you have the will to take account of these difficult conceptions. How do people usually form their thoughts in a certain realm to-day? They hold a crystal in their hands: that is a real object. They take a rose, plucked from its stem, and in just the same way they say: that is a real object. They call them both real objects in the same sense.

Natural scientists, in their chancelleries of learning and in every laboratory and clinic, talk about reality in such a way as to grant it only to things which have the same kind of reality as the crystal and the plucked rose. But is there not an obvious and important difference in the fact that for long ages the crystal retains, quite of itself, its existing form? The rose, plucked from its stem, loses its form in a very much shorter time; it dies. It has not the same degree of reality as the crystal. And the rose-stem itself, if we tear it from the earth, has no longer the same degree of reality that it had while it was planted in the earth. This leads us to look at objects in a way quite different from the superficial observation of the present day. We may not speak of a rose or a rose-stem as real objects; in order to speak of reality in the fullest sense we must take the whole earth into account—and then speak of the rose-stem, and its roses, as a kind of hair sprouting out of this reality!

So you see—sense-perceptible reality includes objects which cease to be real, in the true sense of the word, if they are separated from their foundation. It is here, in this great illusion, that we have to search among the appearances of outer reality for what truly is reality. Mistakes of the kind I have mentioned are common in looking at nature to-day. But anyone who makes them, and has got used to them as the result of centuries of habit, will find it extraordinarily hard to think about social questions in a way that corresponds to reality. For this is the great difference between human life and nature: anything in nature which no longer has full reality, such as the plucked rose, is allowed to die. Now something can have an appearance of reality which is not reality: the appearance is a lie. And we can quite well incorporate as a reality in social life something which is in fact not a reality. Only then it need not immediately fade away; it will turn into a source of pain and torment for mankind. Indeed, nothing can bring forth healing for mankind which is not first experienced and thought out in terms of complete reality, and then planted in the social organism. It is not merely a sin against the social order, but a sin against the truth, if—for example—daily work proceeds on the assumption that human labour-power (I have often said this here) is a commodity. It can be made to seem so, indeed: but this seeming results in pain and suffering for human society, and sets the stage for convulsions and revolutions in economic life.

In short, what needs to become a familiar thought for people to-day is this: not everything which is revealed in the outer appearance of reality—revealed within certain limits—is bound to be a true reality; it may be a living lie. And this distinction between living truths and living lies is something which should be deeply engraved in human minds to-day. For the more people there are in whom it is deeply engraved, in so many more will the feeling awake: we must seek for those things which are not lies, but living truths ... and the sooner will the social organism be restored to health. What must be added to this?

Something further is necessary for discerning the true or merely apparent reality of an external object. Imagine a being who comes from a planet with a different organisation from ours, so that this being has never encountered the distinction between a rose, growing on its stem, and a crystal—he might well believe, if a crystal and a rose were placed before him, that their reality was of the same kind. And he would no doubt be surprised to find the rose soon withering, while the crystal remained unchanged. Here on earth we know where we are in face of the realities, because we have followed the course of things through long periods.

But it is not always possible to distinguish true reality in the way one can with the rose. In life we encounter objects which require us to create a foundation for our judgment if we are to lay hold of the true reality in them. What sort of foundation is this—with respect particularly to social life?

Now, in the two preceding lectures I spoke about this foundation; to-day I will add something more. You know from my writings the descriptions I have given of the spiritual world—the world which man lives through between death and rebirth. You are aware that in referring to this life in the super-sensible, spiritual world one must be clear as to the relationships which prevail between soul and soul. For there the human being is free from his body: he is not subject to the physical laws of the world we live through between birth and death. So one speaks of the force or forces which play from soul to soul. You can read in my Theosophy how one must speak in this connection of the forces of sympathy and antipathy, playing between soul and soul in the soul-world. In a quite inward way these forces play from soul to soul. Antipathy sets soul against soul; through sympathy, souls are made gentler towards each other. Harmonies and disharmonies arise from the inmost experiences of souls. And this inward experience by one soul of the inmost experience of another is what determines the true relationship of the super-sensible to the sense-perceptible world. It is only a reflection—a sort of lingering remnant—of this super-sensible experience, the experience which establishes a true connection with the sense-world, that can be experienced here in the physical world during life.

This reflection, however, must be seen in its true significance. We can ask: How, from a social point of view, is our life here between birth and death related to our super-sensible life? From here we are at once led—as we often have been in studying the necessary threefolding of the social organism—to the middle member, frequently described: in fact to the political State. People who in our epoch have reflected on the political State, have always been concerned to understand exactly what it is. Moreover, the various class-interests of modern times have led to everything being jumbled up together in the State, so that without further knowledge it is pretty well impossible to tell whether the State is a reality, or a living lie.

It is a far remove from the outlook of the German philosopher, Hegel, to the very different outlook which Fritz Mauthner, the author of a philosophical dictionary, has lately proclaimed. Hegel regards the State more or less as the realisation of God on earth. Fritz Mauthner says: the State is a necessary evil. He regards the State as an evil, but one men cannot do without—as something required by social life. So are the findings of two modern spirits radically opposed.

Owing to the fact that a great deal which was formerly instinctive is now rising into the light of consciousness, the most variously-minded people have tried to form conceptions of how the State should be constituted and what sort of entity it ought to be. And these conceptions have taken the most manifold forms. On the one hand we have the pious sheep who refuse to grasp what the State really is, but want to portray it in such a way that there is not much to say about it, but a great deal to bewail. And there are the others, who want to change the State radically, so that men may derive from the State itself a satisfying form of existence. Hence the question arises: How can we gain a perception of what the State really is?

If one observes impartially what can be woven between man and man within the context of the State, and compares it with what can be woven between soul and soul in the life after death (as I described it just now), then and only then can one gain a perception of the reality of the State—of its potential reality. For, just as every relationship which arises from the fundamental forces of sympathy and antipathy in the human soul after death lives in the inmost depths of the soul, so everything built between man and man through political State-life is a pure externality, based on law, on the wholly external ways in which men confront one another.

And if you follow this thought right through, you come to see that the State represents the exact opposite of super-sensible life. And it is the more complete in its own way, this State, the more fully it fills this opposite role: the less it claims to incorporate in its own structure anything that belongs to super-sensible life, the more it merely embodies purely external relationships between man and man—those wherein all men are equal in the sight of the law. More and more deeply is one penetrated by this truth: that the fulfilment of the State consists precisely in it’s seeking to comprise only what belongs to our life between birth and death, only what belongs to our most external relationships.

But then we must ask: If the State reflects super-sensible life only by standing for its opposite, how does the super-sensible find its way into all the rest of our sense-life? In the last lecture I spoke of this from another point of view. To-day I must add that the antipathies which unfold in the super-sensible world between death and birth leave certain remnants, and we bring these with us into physical existence. Working against them in physical life is everything which lives in so-called spiritual life, in spiritual culture. This is what draws men together in religious communities, and in other spiritual societies, so that they may create a counterpart of the antipathies which have lingered on from the life before birth.

All our spiritual culture should be justified on its own ground, for it reflects our pre-earthly life and in a certain sense equips mankind for life in the sense-world, and at the same time it should be a kind of remedy for the antipathies which remain over from the super-sensible world. That is why it is so dreadful when people bring about schisms in spiritual life, instead of working for unity—in spiritual life above all. The remaining antipathies are surging in the depths of the human soul and prevent the achievement of what should be the essential aim: true spiritual harmony, true spiritual collaboration. Just where this should prevail, we find sects springing up. These schisms and sectarianisms are in fact the reflections on earth of the antipathies which are bound up with the origins of all spiritual life, and for which spiritual life should really come to serve as a remedy.

We must recognise this spiritual life as something which has an inner connection with our life before birth—indeed, a certain kinship with it. We should therefore never try to organise spiritual-cultural life except as a free life, outside the realm of politics, which in this sense is not a reflection but a counter-image of super-sensible life. And we shall gain a conception of what is real in the State, and in spiritual-cultural life, only if we take super-sensible life into account, as well as the life of the senses. Both together make up true reality, while the life of senses alone is nothing more than a dream.

Economic life has a quite different character. In economic life the single man works for others. He works for others because he, just as much as the others, finds it to his advantage to do so. Economic life springs from needs, and consists in all kinds of work which go to satisfy the ordinary natural needs of human beings on the physical plane—including the finer but more instinctive needs of the soul. And within economic life there is an unconscious unfolding of something whose influence continues on the far side of death.

Men work for one another out of the egoistic needs of economic life, and from the depths of this work come the seeds of certain sympathies which are destined to flower in our souls during the life after death. And so, just as spiritual-cultural life is a kind of remedy for the remains of antipathies which we bring into earthly existence from the life before birth, so are the depths of economic life a seed-ground for sympathies which will develop after death.

Here is a further aspect of the way in which we learn from the super-sensible world to recognise the necessity of a threefold ordering of the social organism. Most certainly, no one can reach this point of view unless he strives to become familiar with the spiritual-scientific foundation of world-knowledge. But for anyone who does this it will become more and more obvious that a healthy social organism must be membered into these three realms, for the three realms are related in quite distinctive ways to the super-sensible world, which—as I have said—is the complement of the sense-world and together with it makes up true reality.

But now observe—in recent centuries no one has spoken any longer of these interconnections of outward physical existence, as it manifests in cultural life, political life, and economic life. People have gone on spinning out the old traditions, but with no understanding for them. They have lost the practice of taking a direct way, through an active soul-life, into the world of the spirit, in order there to seek for the light that is able to illuminate physical reality, so that this reality comes then to be rightly known for the first time. The leading circles of mankind have set the tone of this unspiritual life. And in this way a deep gulf has arisen between the social classes—a gulf which lies at the root of our life to-day and is not to be drowsily ignored.

Perhaps I may again recall how, before the time of July and August, 1914, drew on, people who belonged to the leading classes—the former leading classes—were accustomed to praise the stage which our civilisation, as they called it, had at last reached. They spoke of how thought could be carried like an arrow over great distances by the telegraph and telephone, and of the other fabulous achievements of modern technique which culture and civilisation had carried to such an advanced stage. But this culture, this civilisation, was already rushing towards the abyss, out of which have come the frightful catastrophes of to-day. Before July and August, 1914, the statesmen of Europe, especially those of Central Europe—this can be established from the documents—declared times without number: Under present conditions, peace in Europe is assured for a long time. That is literally what was said, by the statesmen of Central Europe especially, in their party speeches. I could show you speeches made as late as May, 1914, when it was said: Through our diplomacy, the relationships between countries have been brought to a point which permits us to believe in enduring peace. That, in May, 1914! But anyone who at that time saw through those relationships, had to speak in a different vein. In lectures I gave then in Vienna, (See: The Inner Nature of Man and Life Between Death and Rebirth.) I repeated, before the war, what I have often said in the course of recent years: We are living in the midst of something which can be called only a cancerous social disease, a carcinoma of the social organism. This carcinoma, this ulcer, duly broke out, and became what people call the World War.

At that time, of course, the statement—we live in a carcinoma, a social ulcer—was for most people a mere way of talking, a phrase, for the World War was still in the future. People had no notion that they were dancing on a volcano! For many it is just the same to-day, if attention is now called to the other volcano—and it certainly is one—which lies in all that is now coming to expression out of the social question, as it has long been called. Because people are so fond of sleeping in face of reality, they fail to recognise in this reality the forces which alone turn it into true reality.

You see, that is why it is so hard to bring home to people to-day what is so necessary—to bring home the point of the threefold ordering of a healthy social organism, and the necessity of working towards this threefold ordering! What is it, then, that distinguishes this way of thinking, which comes to expression in the demand for a threefold social order, from other ways of thinking? You see, these other ways spring from trying to work out what would be the best social order for the world, and what must be done in order to reach it. Now observe how different is the way of thinking which is founded on a threefold ordering of the social organism! There is no question here of asking: What is the best way of arranging the social organism? We start from reality by asking: How must human beings themselves be interrelated, so that they will be free members of the social organism and be able to work together for what is right and just?

This way of thinking makes its appeal, not to theories or social dogmas, but to human beings. It says: Let people find themselves in the environment of a threefold social order, and they will themselves say how it should be organised. This way of thinking makes its appeal to actual human beings, not to abstract theories or social dogmas.

Anyone who lived entirely alone would never develop human speech—human speech arises only in a social community. In the same way, anyone who lives alone cannot arrive at a social way of thinking; he will have no social perceptions and no social instincts. Only in a rightly formed community is it possible to build up social life in face of the happenings of the present time.

But a great deal stands in contradiction to that. Because of the rise of materialism in recent centuries, men have moved away from the true reality. They have become estranged from it, and lonely in their inner lives. And most lonely of all are those who have been torn out of the context of their lives and are connected with nothing but the dreary machine—on the one hand, the factory; on the other, soulless capitalism. The human soul has indeed become a desert. But out of the desert there struggles up whatever can proceed from the single individual. And this consists of inner thoughts, inner visions of the super-sensible world, and also visions which throw light on external nature.

Now it is just when we are quite alone, when we are thrown back entirely on ourselves, that we are best disposed in soul for all the knowledge that can be gained by the single individual concerning his relationships with the worlds of nature and of spirit. In contradistinction to that, we have everything that should flow from social thinking. Only if we reflect on this can we form a right judgment of the momentous hour of history in which we are now living. It was necessary, once in the course of world evolution, that men should have this experience of loneliness, in order that out of their loneliness of soul they should develop a life of the spirit. And the loneliest of all were the great thinkers, who to all appearance lived in abstract heights, and sought from there the way to the super-sensible world.

But of course men must not seek only the way to the super-sensible world and to the world of nature; they must also find a way that unites their thinking with social life. Social life, however, cannot be developed in loneliness, but only through genuine living together with other men; and so the lonely individual who emerged in our modern epoch was not well fitted for social thinking. Just when he rightly wanted to make something worth while out of his inner life, the fruits of his inner life turned out to be anti-social, not social thinking at all! The present-day inclinations and cravings of mankind are the outcome of spiritual forces which are bound up with loneliness, and are given a false direction by the overwhelming influence of Ahrimanic materialism.

The importance of this fact comes out clearly if one asks about something which many people find terrible. Suppose one asks: What do you mean by “bolshevistic”? Most people will say: “Lenin, Trotsky.” Now, I can tell you of a Bolshevist who is no longer alive to-day, and he is none other than the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte. You will have heard and learnt a great deal about Fichte's idealistic, spiritual way of thinking. But you will not know much about the sort of man Fichte was unless you are familiar with the outlook he expressed in his Geschlossenen Handelstaat (A Closed National Economy), which can be bought very cheaply in the Reclam Library. Read how Fichte conceives the social ordering of the masses of mankind, and compare it with the writings of Lenin and Trotsky—you will find a remarkable agreement. Then you will become critical of merely external representations and judgments, and you will be impelled to ask: What really lies at the bottom of all this? And if you try to enter into it more closely and to get clear about its foundations, you will come to the following.

Suppose you try to make out the particular spiritual orientation of the most radical men of the present day, and endeavour perhaps to penetrate into the souls of the Trotsky’s and Lenin’s, their ways of thinking and forms of thought, and then you ask: How are we to think of such men? And you get this answer: One can imagine them first in a different social setting, and then again in our own social order, in this social order of ours which has developed in the light—or, more truly, in the darkness, the gloom—of the materialism of recent centuries. Now consider, if Lenin and Trotsky had lived in a different social order—what might they have become, with their spiritual forces unfolding in a quite different way? Deep mystics! For in a religious atmosphere the content of such souls might have developed into the deepest mysticism. In the atmosphere of modern materialism it has become what you know it to be.

Take Johann Gottlieb Fichte's Geschlossenen Handelstaat: we have here the social ideal of a man who in truth sought most earnestly to tread the highest path of knowledge who put forth a way of thinking which was constantly inclined towards the super-sensible world. When he conceived the wish to work out for himself a social ideal also, this was indeed a pure impulse of the heart, the human heart. But the very thing which fits us to pursue inwardly the highest ideals of knowledge is a handicap if we want to apply it to social life; it unfits us for developing a social way of thinking. Along the spiritual path taken by Fichte, a man has to make his way alone. Social thinking has to be developed in the community of other human beings. And then the social thinker's task is above all to consider how the social order must be laid out if men are to work together rightly at the task of founding social life on the direct experience of social fellowship. Therefore I never say to people: this is how you should organise private property as a means of production, or public property as a means of production. I am bound to say, rather: Try to work towards a threefold ordering of the social organism; then the operations of capital will be regulated from the spiritual realm, and infused with human rights from the political realm. Then spiritual life and the life of rights will flow together with economic life in an orderly way. And then will come in that socialisation which, in accordance with certain concepts of justice, will see to it that whatever a man acquires, beyond his own needs as a consumer, shall continually pass over into the spiritual realm. It returns once more to the spiritual realm.

At the present time this arrangement applies only to spiritual property, where it shocks nobody. A man cannot preserve his spiritual property for his descendants for more than a certain period—thirty years after his death at most. Then it becomes public property. We have only to take this as a possible model for the return flow of everything that is produced by individual effort, and indeed of everything embraced by the capitalist system—a model for the leading back of all this into the social organism. The question then is simply—how is it all to be divided up? In such parts as will do justice to the immediate spiritual and individual abilities, and also the former individual abilities, of the human beings concerned: it will be a question for the spiritual realm. Men will arrange it like that, if they are rightly situated within the social order. That is what this way of thinking assumes.

In every century, I daresay, these things would be done differently; in such matters no arrangements are valid for all time. But our epoch is accustomed to judging everything from a materialistic standpoint, and so nothing is seen any longer in the right light. I have often pointed out how in modern times labour-power has become a commodity. Ordinary wage contracts are based on that; they derive from the assumption that labour-power is a commodity, and they are determined by the amount of labour which the workman renders to the employer. A healthy relationship will arise only under the following conditions: the contract must by no means be settled in terms of so much labour; the labour must be treated as a rights-question, to be fixed by the political State; and the contract must be based on a division of the goods produced between the manual workers and the spiritual workers. Such a contract can be based only on the goods produced, not on the relationship between workmen and employer. That is the only way to put the thing on a healthy footing.

People ask: whence come the social evils which are associated with capitalism? They say, these evils come from the capitalist economic system. But no evils can arise from an economic system: they arise first of all because we have no real labour laws to protect labour; and further because we fail to notice that the way in which the worker is denied his due share amounts to a living lie. But what does this denial depend on? Not on the organisation of economic life, but on the fact that the social order permits the individual capacities of the employer to be unjustly rewarded, at the worker's expense. The division of proceeds ought to be made in terms of goods, for these are the joint products of the spiritual and the manual workers. But if you use your individual capacities to take from someone something which ought not to be taken, what are you doing? You are cheating him, taking advantage of him! One need only look these circumstances straight in the face to realise that the trouble does not he in capitalism, but in the misuse of spiritual capacities.

There you have the connection with the spiritual world. First make the realm of society healthy, so that spiritual capacities are no longer enabled to take advantage of the workers: then you will bring health into the social organism as a whole. It all turns on perceiving everywhere what is right and just.

In order to perceive this, one needs a principle of justice. To-day we have reached a stage when principles of justice can be derived only from the spiritual world. And again and again it must be pointed out that nowadays it is not enough to keep on and on declaring: People must recover belief in the spirit. Oh, there are plenty of prophets ready to speak of the necessity of belief in the spirit! But it gets nowhere for people merely to say: “In order to bring healing into the unhealthy conditions of our time, men must turn from materialism to the spirit.” ... No, mere belief in the spirit brings no healing to-day! Any number of celebrated prophets may go round the country saying over and over again: “People must turn inwardly” ... or, “The Christ used to be the concern of a man's personal life only; now He must be brought into social life”... with such phrases absolutely nothing is accomplished! For what matters to-day is not merely to believe in the spirit, but to be so filled with the spirit that through us the spirit is carried directly into material existence. It is useless to-day to say. Believe in the spirit ... what is necessary is to speak of a spirit which is in truth able to master external reality, and can truly declare how the membering of the social organism is to be accomplished. For the cause of the unspiritual character of the present day is not that men do not believe in the spirit, but that they cannot reach such a relationship with the spirit as would enable the spirit to seize hold of matter in real life.

How many men there are to-day who think it extraordinarily fine to say: “Oh, there is nothing spiritual in mere material existence—one ought to withdraw from it: our duty is to turn away from material existence to the set-apart life of the spirit.” Here is material reality: you clip your coupons ... and then you sit down in the room reserved for meditation, and off you go to the spiritual world. Two beautifully distinct ways of living, kept gracefully apart! That leads nowhere to-day. What is wanted to-day is that the spirit should wax so strong in human souls that it does not merely find expression in talk about how men are to be blessed or redeemed, but penetrates right into what we have to do in material existence—so that we enable the spirit to flow into and penetrate external reality. To talk habitually about the spirit comes very easily to human beings. And in this connection many people slip into strange contradictions. The character in Anzengruber's play, who denies God, illustrates this; it is specially emphasised that he denies God by saying: “As truly as there is a God in heaven, so am I an atheist.” This type of self-contradicting person, even though it may not take so crass a form as in Anzengruber's play, is far from rare to-day. For it is very common to talk in this style: As truly as there is a God in heaven, so am I an atheist!

All this gives us further warning not to think merely of belief in the spirit, but to try above all to make such an encounter with the spirit that it gives us strength to see through the reality of the material, external world. Then indeed people will stop using the word spirit, spirit, spirit... in every sentence. Then a man will prove by the way he looks at things, that he is seeing them in the light of the spirit. This is what matters to-day: that people should see things in the light of the spirit, and not merely keep on talking about the spirit.

This is what needs to be grasped, so that anthroposophical spiritual science may not be constantly confused with all the talking about the spirit which is so popular nowadays. Again and again, when some Sunday afternoon preacher of the worldly sort has merely spoken in a better style than usual, one hears that someone has said: “He speaks quite in the spirit of Anthroposophy!” Usually, in such cases, he is doing the very opposite! This is the point that needs attention; this is what counts.

Whoever recognises this is not far from perceiving that such a well-intentioned remark—I might say, a remark spoken from a presentiment of tragic death—as the one I quoted from Kurt Eisner, is particularly valuable, because it strikes one like the confession of a man who might say: “To be honest, I don't believe seriously in the super-sensible—at least I have no wish to give it any active attention. Those who speak about the super-sensible have certainly always said: the reality we perceive here with our senses is only a half-reality; it is like a dream! But I am bound to scrutinise the form which this sense-perceptible reality has assumed in the social life of the present—and then it does look to me very like a dream! The effect is that one is forced to say: this reality is clearly the invention of some kind of evil spirit ...”

Certainly a noteworthy confession! But might it not be otherwise? This tragic, terrible guise in which present-day reality presents itself to humanity, could it not be the educative work of a good spirit, urging us to seek in what looks like an evil nightmare for the true reality, which is compounded of the sense-perceptible and the super-sensible? We must not take an exclusively pessimistic view of the present; we can also draw from it the strength to achieve a kind of vindication of contemporary existence.

Then we shall never again allow ourselves to stop at the sense-perceptible: we shall feel impelled to find the way out of it to the super-sensible. Anyone who refuses to seek for this way will indeed be unable to think far without saying: this reality is the invention of an evil spirit! But whoever develops the resolve to rise from this reality to a spiritual reality, will be able to speak also of education by a good spirit. And in spite of everything we see around us to-day, we should remain convinced that humanity will find a way out of the tragic destiny of the present. But, of course, we must attend to the clear injunction that bids us work together for social healing.

This I wished to add to what I have said recently.

In addressing a public audience today on the most important question of our time, it makes a great difference if one speaks from a knowledge of the deeper forces of world-historical evolution, that is, from initiation-science, or if one speaks without such knowledge. It is relatively easy to speak about modern questions if one relies upon data of external knowledge which are considered scientific, practical, and so on. It is, however, extraordinarily difficult to speak about these questions from the standpoint of initiation-science—from which indeed everything is derived with which we have to deal at such gatherings as ours today. For he who speaks from that standpoint about problems of the time knows that he is opposed not only by the casual, subjective opinions of those to whom he speaks. He knows too that a great part of mankind today is already under the control, from one side or another, of Ahrimanic forces of a cosmic nature which are growing stronger and stronger. To explain what I mean by this, I must give you a kind of historical survey of a fairly long period of human history.

From various statements which have been made here and which you will also find in some of my lecture-courses, you know that we have to place the beginning of our modern age in the middle of the fifteenth century. We have always called this period—of which we are really only at the beginning—the Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch. It has replaced the Greco-Latin Epoch, which we reckon from the middle of the eighth century B.C. to the middle of the fifteenth century; and further back still, we have the Egyptian-Chaldean epoch. I have merely indicated this so that you may remember where, in human evolution as a whole, we place the epoch in which we feel ourselves standing as modern men.

Now you know that at the close of the first third of the Greco-Latin Epoch, the Mystery of Golgotha took place. And from many different aspects we have characterized what really came about for human evolution through the Mystery of Golgotha, in fact for the whole evolution of the earth. Today, into this broad historical survey, we will place various things concerning mankind which are connected with this Mystery.

With this in view, let us glance back into far earlier times, let us say, into the ages about the beginning of the third millennium B.C. You are aware how little is said in external historical tradition about this early evolution of the human race on earth. You know, too, how external documents point over to Asia, to the Orient. From many anthroposophical sources, you will know that the further we go back in mankind's evolution, the more we find a different constitution of the human soul, and something like an ancient, original wisdom underlying the whole evolution of humanity. You know, further, that certain traditions of an ancient wisdom of mankind were preserved in close, secret circles, right into the nineteenth century. They have even been preserved into our own time—but not, for the most part, at all faithfully.

When a man of today learns to know something of this original wisdom, he is astounded at the depths of the realities to which it points. Yet in the course of the studies we have been pursuing for many years, it has been shown that this widespread wisdom-teaching of ancient times must always be contrasted with the understanding of life and the world that was possessed by the old Hebrew people and bore a completely different character. With a certain justice the widespread original wisdom is described as the heathen, pagan element, and to this is opposed the Hebrew, Jewish element. From external traditions and literature you are aware how the Christian element then arose out of the Jewish.

You can already gather from these external facts something that I beg you to bear in mind, namely, that it was essential in humanity's evolution to confront the ancient heathen element and its wisdom with the Jewish element out of which Christianity evolved partially, at all events. The primeval heathen or pagan wisdom in its totality was not destined to have the sole influence on the further evolution of mankind. And now the question must arise: Why had the ancient pagan wisdom, which is in many respects so wonderful, to experience a new form, a transformation, through Judaism and Christianity? This question inevitably arises.

The answer is supplied for Initiation-wisdom only through a very, very weighty fact, through an event which took place far over in Asia at the beginning of the third millennium of the pre-Christian era. Clairvoyant vision finds in looking back that an incarnation of a super-sensible Being in a human being had taken place there, just as in the Event of Golgotha an incarnation of the super-sensible Christ Being had taken place in the man Jesus of Nazareth. The incarnation that took place at the beginning of the third millennium B.C. is extraordinarily difficult to follow up, even with the science of seership, of initiation. It gave humanity something of immense brilliance, having an incisive effect. What it gave to humanity, in fact, was the primeval wisdom.

Viewed externally, one can say that it was a wisdom penetrating deep into reality; cold, based purely on ideas, permeated little by feeling. The actual inner nature of this wisdom can be judged only by going back to that incarnation which took place over in Asia at the beginning of the third pre-Christian millennium. It is revealed to the retrospective clairvoyant gaze that this was an actual human incarnation of the Luciferic Power.

And this incarnation of Lucifer in humanity, which in a certain way has been achieved, was the origin of the widely extended ancient wisdom based on the Third Post-Atlantean civilization.

There was still an after-effect, even in Grecian times, of the widespread cultural impulse that was derived from this Asiatic, Luciferic human being. Luciferic wisdom was of the utmost benefit to man in that epoch of evolution—brilliant in a certain way, graduated according to the different peoples and races among which it was spread. It was plainly recognizable throughout the whole of Asia, then in the Egyptian civilization, the Babylonian civilization and even in the culture of Greece.

All that was possible to the humanity of that time in thought, in the realm of poetry, in deeds, was in a certain way determined through the entry of this Luciferic impulse into human civilization.

It would, of course, be extraordinarily philistine to wish to say: That was an incarnation of Lucifer, hence we must flee from it! Such philistinism could make one also flee from the beauty and greatness that has come to mankind from this Luciferic stream, for the fruits of Greek culture with all their beauty, proceeded, as already said, from this stream of evolution. The whole of Gnostic thought existing at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, an impressive wisdom shedding light deep into cosmic realities—this whole Gnostic knowledge was inspired by the impulse coming from Luciferic forces. One must not say that Gnostic thought is therefore false; one is merely characterizing it by saying that it is permeated by Luciferic forces.

Then, considerably more than two thousand years after the Luciferic incarnation, came the Mystery of Golgotha. It may be said that the men among whom the impulse of this Mystery spread were still fully imbued in their thinking and feeling with what had come from the impulse of Lucifer. And now there entered into the evolution of civilized humanity an entirely different impulse, the impulse proceeding from the Christ. We have often spoken of what this Christ Impulse signifies within civilized humanity. The Christ-Impulse—I will only touch on this today—was taken up by the hearts and minds that I have just characterized. One might say that it shone into all the best that came to man from Lucifer. And in the first Christian centuries, men understood the Christ through what they had received from Lucifer. These things must be faced without prejudice; otherwise it is not really possible to understand the particular way in which the Christ Impulse was received in the first centuries of our era.

As the Luciferic impulse began to fade more and more, men were also increasingly unable to absorb the Christ Impulse in the right way. Consider how much has become materialistic in the course of modern times. But if you ask yourself what in particular has become materialistic, you must receive the answer: a great part of modern Christian theology. For it is simply the starkest materialism to which a great part of modern Christian theology succumbs when it no longer sees the Christ in the man Jesus of Nazareth. It sees only the human being, the ‘simple man of Nazareth,’ the man whom one can understand if one will only raise one's self a little to some sort of higher understanding. The more the man Jesus of Nazareth could be regarded as an ordinary human being, one belonging to the ranks of other noted human personalities, the better it pleased a certain materialistic trend of modern theology. Of the super-sensible element of the Event of Golgotha, modern theology is willing to recognize little, very little.

The impulses entering humanity from a Luciferic source sank down gradually into the soul. On the other hand, however, another impulse, which we call the Ahrimanic, is growing stronger and stronger in modern times. It will become increasingly strong in the near future and on into future ages. The Ahrimanic impulse proceeds from a super-sensible Being different from the Being of Christ or of Lucifer. Equally with ‘super-sensible’ one can say ‘subsensible’—but that is not the point here. The influence of this Being becomes especially powerful in the Fifth Post-Atlantean Epoch. If we look at the confused conditions of recent years we shall find that men have been brought to such chaotic conditions mainly through the Ahrimanic powers.

Just as there was an incarnation of Lucifer at the beginning of the third pre-Christian millennium, as there was the Christ Incarnation at the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, so there will be a Western incarnation of the Ahriman being some little time after our present earthly existence, in fact, in the third post-Christian millennium. To form a right conception of the historical evolution of mankind during approximately 6000 years, one must grasp that at the one pole stands a Luciferic incarnation, in the center, the incarnation of Christ, and at the other pole the Ahrimanic incarnation. Lucifer is the power that stirs up in man all fanatical, all falsely mystical forces, all that physiologically tends to bring the blood into disorder and so lift man above and outside himself. Ahriman is the power that makes man dry, prosaic, philistine—that ossifies him and brings him to the superstition of materialism. And the true nature and being of man is essentially the effort to hold the balance between the powers of Lucifer and Ahriman; the Christ Impulse helps present humanity to establish this equilibrium.

Thus these two poles—the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic—are continuously present in man. Viewed historically, we find that the Luciferic preponderated in certain currents of cultural development of the pre-Christian age and continued into the first centuries of our era. On the other hand the Ahrimanic influence has been at work since the middle of the fifteenth century and will increase in strength until an actual incarnation of Ahriman takes place among Western humanity.

Now it is characteristic of such things that they are prepared long in advance. Ahrimanic powers prepare the evolution of mankind in such a way that it can fall a prey to Ahriman when he appears in human form within Western civilization—hardly then to be called ‘civilization’ in our sense—as once Lucifer appeared in human form in China, as once Christ appeared in human form in Asia Minor. It is of no avail to give oneself illusions today about these things. Ahriman will appear in human form and the only question is, how he will find humanity prepared. Will his preparations have secured for him as followers the whole of mankind that today calls itself civilized, or will he find a humanity that can offer resistance. It does not help at all to give oneself up to illusions. People nowadays flee the truth, and one cannot give it to them in an unvarnished form because they would ridicule it and scoff and jeer. But if one gives it to them through the “Threefold Social Organism” as one now tries to do, then they will not have it either—not the majority, at any rate. The fact that people reject these things is just one of the means which the Ahrimanic powers can use and which will give Ahriman the greatest possible following when he appears in human form on earth. This disregard of the weightiest truths is precisely what will build Ahriman the best bridge to the success of his incarnation. And nothing will help us to find the right position in regard to the part played by Ahriman in human evolution except an unprejudiced study of the forces through which Ahriman's influence works, as well as learning to know the forces through which mankind can arm itself against being tempted and led astray. For this reason we will cast a brief glance today at various things which would foster support of Ahriman and which Ahrimanic powers, working out of super-sensible worlds through human minds down here, will particularly employ in order to make his following as numerous as possible.

One of the means is this—that it is not realized what is the actual significance for man of certain kinds of thought and conception which predominate in modern times. You know, indeed, what a great difference there is between the way a man felt himself to be within the whole cosmos in the Egyptian age, let us say, and even in the time of Greece, and how he feels since the beginning of the modern age, since the close of the Middle Ages. Picture to yourselves a well-instructed ancient Egyptian. He knew that his body was constituted not merely of the ingredients which exist here on earth and are embodied in the animal kingdom, plant kingdom, mineral kingdom. He knew that the forces which he saw in the stars above, worked into his being as man; he felt himself a member of the whole cosmos. He felt the whole cosmos not only quick with life, but ensouled and imbued with spirit; in his consciousness there lived something of the spiritual beings of the cosmos, of the soul-nature of the cosmos and its life. All this has been lost in the course of later human history. Today man gazes from his earth up to the star-world and to him it is filled with fixed stars, suns, planets, comets, and so on. But with what means does he examine all that looks down to him out of cosmic space? He examines it with mathematics, with the science of mechanics. What lies around the earth is robbed of spirit, robbed of soul, even of life. It is a great mechanism, in fact, only to be grasped by the aid of mathematical, mechanistic laws. With the help of these mathematical, mechanistic laws we grasp it magnificently! A student of spiritual science is undoubtedly just the one to value the achievements of a Galileo, a Kepler, and others, but what penetrates human understanding and consciousness through the tenets of these great spirits in human evolution merely shows the universe as a great mechanism.

What this means is only revealed to one who is able to grasp man in his whole nature. It is all very well for astronomers and astro-physicists to present the universe as a mechanism which can be understood and calculated by mathematical formulae. This indeed is what a man will believe in the time from waking in the morning till going to sleep again at night. But in those unconscious depths which he does not reach with his waking consciousness but which yet belong to his existence and in which he lives between going to sleep and waking, something quite different concerning the universe flows into his soul. There lives in the human soul a knowledge which, although unknown to the waking consciousness, is yet present in the depths and moulds the soul—a knowledge of the spirit, of the life of the soul, of the life of the cosmos. And although in his waking consciousness man knows nothing of what goes on there in communion with the spirit, soul and life of the universe while he sleeps—in the soul the things are there; they live within it. And much of the great discord felt by modern man is derived from the disharmony between what the soul experiences and what the waking consciousness acknowledges as its world-conception.

And what does the whole spirit and purport of anthroposophical spiritual science say about such things? It says: What the ideas of Galileo, Copernicus, have brought to mankind is grand and mighty, but not an absolute truth, by no means an absolute truth. It is one aspect of the universe, one side from a certain standpoint. It is only through the arrogance of modern man that people say today: “Ptolemaic world-system—childishness; that is what men had when they were still children. We have made such great strides—right ‘to the stars’ and that is what we now take as the absolute.” It is just as little an absolute as the Ptolemaic system was an absolute, it is one aspect. The only right view—according to spiritual science—is to realize that all that is accepted by way of mere world-mathematics, mere world-schematism of a mechanical order, does not furnish man with absolute truth about the universe, but with illusions. The illusions are necessary because mankind goes through varied forms of education in its different stages of evolution. For modern education we need these illusions of a mathematical nature about the universe, we must acquire them, but we must know that they are illusions. And most of all they are illusions when we transpose them into our daily environment, when, in accordance with the atomic or molecular theories, we even endeavour to create a kind of astronomy for the substances of the earth. A right attitude in regard to the whole of modern science, insofar as it thinks along these lines, will recognize that its knowledge is illusion.

Now, in order that his incarnation may take the most profitable form, it is of the utmost interest to Ahriman that people should perfect themselves in all our illusory modern science, but without knowing that it is illusion. Ahriman has the greatest possible interest in instructing men in mathematics, but not in instructing them that mathematical-mechanistic concepts of the universe are merely illusions. He is intensely interested in bringing men chemistry, physics, biology and so on, as they are presented today in all their remarkable effects, but he is interested in making men believe that these are absolute truths, not that they are only points of view, like photographs from one side. If you photograph a tree from one side, it can be a correct photograph, yet it does not give a picture of the whole tree. If you photograph it from four sides, you can in any case get an idea of it. To conceal from mankind that in modern intellectual, rationalistic science with its supplement of a superstitious empiricism, one is dealing with a great illusion, a deception—that men should not recognize this is of the greatest possible interest to Ahriman. It would be a triumphant experience for him if the scientific superstition which grips all circles today and by which men even want to organize their social science, should prevail into the third millennium. He would have the greatest success if he could then come as a human being into Western civilization and find the scientific superstition.

But I ask you not to draw false conclusions from what I have just said. It would be a false conclusion to avoid the science of the day; that is the very falsest conclusion which could be drawn. We must get to know science; we should get an exact knowledge of all that comes from this direction—but with the full consciousness that we are receiving an illusory aspect, an illusion necessary for our education as men. We do not safeguard ourselves against Ahriman by avoiding modern science, but by learning to know its character. For modern science gives us an external illusion of the universe, and we need this illusion. Do not imagine that we do not need it. We must only fill it in from quite another side with actual reality gained through spiritual research, we must rise from the illusory character to the true reality. You will find reference in many of my lecture-courses to what I am telling you today, and you will see how everywhere it has been sought to enter fully into the science of our time, but to lift it all to the sphere where one can see its real value. You cannot wish to get rid of the rainbow because you know it to be an illusion of light and color! You will not understand it if you do not realize its illusory character. But it is just the same with all that modern science gives you for your imagination of the universe, it gives only illusions and that must be recognized. It is by educating oneself through these illusions that one arrives at the reality.

This, then, represents one of the means used by Ahriman to make his incarnation as effective as possible—this keeping of man back in scientific superstition.

The second means that he employs is to stir up all the emotions that split men up into small groups—groups that mutually attack one another. You need only look at all the conflicting parties that exist today, and if you are unprejudiced you will recognize that the explanation is not to be found merely in human nature. If men honestly try to explain this so-called World War through human dis-harmonies, they will realize that with what they find in physical humanity they cannot explain it. It is precisely here that “super-sensible” powers, Ahrimanic powers, have been at work.

These Ahrimanic powers are working, in fact, wherever dis-harmonies arise between groups of men. Now the question arises on what foundation is most of what we are considering based?

Let us proceed from a very characteristic example.—The modern proletariat has had its Karl Marx. Observe closely how the doctrines of Karl Marx have been spread among the proletariat, with Marxist literature reaching practically immeasurable proportions. You will find all the methods of our present-day science used in the books; everything is strictly proved, so strictly proved that many people, of whom one would never have supposed it, have fallen victim to Marxism. What was the actual destiny of Marxism? It spread at first, as you know, among the proletariat and was firmly rejected by university science. Today there are already a number of university scientists who have veered round to acknowledging Marxist logic. They adhere to it because its literature has proved that its conclusions are in excellent accord, that from the standpoint of modern science Marxism can be quite neatly proved. Middle-class circles have unfortunately had no Karl Marx who could have proved the opposite for them; for just as one can prove the ideological character of right, morality, and so forth, the theory of surplus value and materialistic historical research from the Marxist standpoint, so is it possible to prove their exact opposite. A middle-class, bourgeois-Marx would be fully able to prove the exact opposite by the same strict method. There is no sort of swindle or humbug about it; the proof would work out right.

Whence does this come? It comes from the fact that present human thinking, the present intellect, lies in a stratum of being where it does not reach down to realities. One can therefore prove something quite strictly, and also prove its opposite. It is possible today to prove spiritualism on the one hand and materialism on the other. And people may fight against each other from equally good standpoints because present-day intellectualism is in an upper layer of reality and does not go down into the depths of being. And it is the same with party opinions. A man who does not look deeper but simply lets himself be accepted into a certain party-circle—by reason of his education, heredity, circumstances of life and State—quite honestly believes—or so he thinks—in the possibility of proving the tenets of the party into which he has slipped, as he says. And then—then he fights against someone else who has slipped into another party! And the one is just as right as the other. This calls forth chaos and confusion over mankind that will gradually become greater and greater unless men see through it. Ahriman makes use of this confusion in order to prepare the triumph of his incarnation and to drive men with increasing force into what they find so difficult to realize—namely, that by intellectual or modern scientific reasoning today, one can prove anything and equally well prove its opposite. The point is for us to recognize that everything can be proved and for that reason to examine the proofs put forward in science today. It is only in natural science that reality is shown by the facts; in no other field can one consider intellectual proofs valid. The only way to escape the danger that threatens if one accepts the lures of Ahriman and his desire to drive men deeper and deeper into these things, is to realize through anthroposophical spiritual science that human knowledge must be sought for in a stratum deeper than that in which the validity of our proofs arises. And so, in order to create dissensions, Ahriman also makes use of what develops from the old conditions of heredity which man has really outgrown in the Fifth Post-Atlantean Epoch. The Ahrimanic powers use all that is derived from old circumstances of heredity in order to set men against each other in conflicting groups. All that comes from old differences of family, race, tribe, peoples, is used by Ahriman to create confusion. “Freedom for every nation, even the smallest ...” These were fine-sounding words. But the powers hostile to man always use fine words in order to bring confusion and in order to attain the things that Ahriman wishes to attain for his incarnation.

If we inquire: Who stirs up nations against each other? Who raises the questions that are directing humanity today?—the answer is: the Ahrimanic deception which plays into human life. And in this field men very easily let themselves be deceived. They are not willing to descend to the lower strata where reality is to be found. For, you see, Ahriman skillfully prepares his goal beforehand; ever since the Reformation and the Renaissance, the economist has been emerging in modern civilization as the representative governing type. That is an actual historical fact. If you go back to ancient times, even to those that I have characterized today as the Luciferic—who were the governing types then? Initiates. The Egyptian Pharaohs, the Babylonian rulers, the Asiatic rulers—they were initiates. Then the priest-type emerged as ruler and the priest-type was really the ruler right up to the Reformation and the Renaissance. Since that time the economist has been in command. Rulers are in fact merely the handymen, the understrappers of the economists. One must not imagine that the rulers of modern times are anything but the understrappers of the economists. And all that has resulted by way of law and justice—one should only study it carefully—is simply a consequence of what economically oriented men have thought. In the nineteenth century the “economical” man is replaced for the first time by the man thinking in terms of banking, and in the nineteenth century there is created for the first time the organization of finance which swamps every other relationship. One must only be able to look into these things and follow them up empirically and practically.

All that I stated in the second public lecture here (The Social Future, October 25, 1919) is profoundly true. One could only wish that it were followed up in all details; it would then be seen how fundamentally true these things are. But just because this rulership of the mere ‘symbol for solid goods’ (that is to say, money—quotation from the lecture) has arisen, Ahriman has been given another essential medium for the deception of mankind. If men do not realize that the rights-state and the organism of the Spirit must be set against the economic order called up through the economists and the banks, then again, through this lack of awareness, Ahriman will find an important instrument for preparing his incarnation. His incarnation is undoubtedly coming, and this lack of insight will enable him to prepare it triumphantly.

Such means can be used by Ahriman for a certain type of man. But there is another type—indeed the two are often mixed in one personality—and this also, from a different direction, provides Ahriman with an easy way to success.

Now it is a fact that in real life, total errors are not so harmful as half- or quarter-truths. Total errors are soon seen through, whereas half- and quarter-truths mislead people. They live with them, these partial truths become a pan of life and cause the most horrible devastation.

There are people today who do not realize the one-sidedness of the Galileo-Copernican world-conception, or who at least do not see its illusory character, or are too easygoing to examine it. We have just shown how wrong that is. But there are also people today, numberless people who acknowledge a certain half-truth, a very significant half-truth, and who do not go into the question of the purely hypothetical justification of it. Strange as it may appear to many people, it is just as one-sided to view the world solely through the Gospel and reject any other search into true reality, as it is to view the world from the standpoint of Galileo and Copernicus, or of university materialistic science in general.

The Gospel was given to those who lived in the first centuries of Christianity, and to believe that today the Gospel can give the whole of Christianity is simply a half-truth. It is therefore also a half-error which befogs people and thus furnishes Ahriman with the best means of attaining the goal and the triumph of his incarnation.

How numerous are those who think they are speaking out of Christian humility, but in reality out of dreadful arrogance, when they say: “Oh, we need no spiritual science! The homeliness, the simplicity of the Gospels leads us to what men need of the eternal!” A frightful arrogance is expressed, for the most part, in this apparent humility, which can very well be used by Ahriman in the sense I have indicated. For do not forget what I explained at the beginning of today's lecture, how in the time in which the Gospel falls, men were still permeated by the Luciferic impulse in their thought, feeling and general views, and that they could understand the Gospel by a certain Luciferic Gnosis. But the grasp of the Gospel in this old sense is not possible today. No real understanding of the Christ can be gained if one relies merely on the Gospel, especially in the form in which it has been handed down. There exists nowhere today a less true understanding of Christ than in the various faiths and confessions.

The Gospel must be deepened by spiritual science if we wish to gain an actual grasp of the Christ. It is then interesting to examine the separate Gospels and arrive at their real content. To accept the Gospel as it is and as numberless people accept it today, and particularly as it is taught today, is not a path to Christ; it is a path away from Christ. Hence the confessions are moving further and further away from Christ. To what sort of Christ-conception does a man come who will accept the Gospel and only the Gospel, without the depth given by spiritual science? He comes ultimately to a Christ—but that is the utmost that he can reach through the Gospel alone. It is not a reality of the Christ, for today only spiritual science can lead to that. What the Gospel leads to is an hallucination of the Christ, a real inner picture or vision, yet only a picture. The Gospel today provides the way to come to a vision of the Christ, but not to the reality of Christ. That is just the reason why modern theology has become so materialistic. Theological commentators and expounders of the Gospel have asked themselves: What is to be made of the Gospel? They decide at length that in their view the result is similar to what one gets when one examines the case of Paul before Damascus. And then these theologians, who are supposed to confirm Christianity, but who really undermine it, say: Paul was simply ill, suffering from nerves and he had a vision before Damascus.

The point is that through the Gospel itself one can come only to hallucinations, to visions, but not to realities; the Gospel does not give us the real Christ, but only an hallucination of the Christ. The real Christ must be sought today through all that can be gained from a spiritual knowledge of the world.

These very people who swear by the Gospel alone and reject every kind of real spiritual knowledge, form the beginning of a flock for Ahriman when he appears in human shape in modern civilization. From these circles, from these members of confessions and sects who repulse the concrete knowledge brought by spiritual endeavor, whole hosts will develop as adherents of Ahriman. Now this is all beginning to come into existence. It is there, it is at work in present humanity and one who speaks to men today with the knowledge of spiritual science speaks into it, no matter whether he is speaking on social or other questions. He knows where the hostile powers lie, that they live supersensibly and that men are their poor misguided victims. This is the call to humanity: “Free yourselves from all these things that form such a great temptation to contribute to Ahriman's triumph!”

Many people have felt something of this sort. But there is not yet courage everywhere to come to an understanding with the historical impulses of the Christ, Lucifer and Ahriman in the urgent way that is necessary and that is emphasized by Anthroposophy. Even those who have an idea of what is necessary will not go far enough. For instance, look at examples where there arises some knowledge that the secular materialistic science with this Ahrimanic character must be permeated with the Christ Impulse, and how, on the other hand, the Gospel must be illuminated through the explanations of spiritual science. Consider how many people struggle to the point of really shedding light in either of these directions by means of spiritual-scientific knowledge! Yet humanity will only acquire the right attitude to the earthly incarnation of Ahriman if it sees through these things and has the courage, will and energy to illumine both secular science and the Gospel by the Spirit. Otherwise the result is always superficialities. Think, for example, of how Cardinal Newman—who, after all, was an enlightened man, one who followed modern religious development—at the time of his investiture as Cardinal in Rome stated openly in his address that if the Christian Catholic teaching was to survive, a new revelation was necessary. We have no need, however, of a new revelation; the time of revelations in the old sense is over. We need a new science, one that is illumined by the Spirit. But men must have the courage for such a new science.

Think of a literary phenomenon like the Lux Mundi movement that originated with certain eminent theologians, members of the English High Church, at the end of the eighties and beginning of the nineties of the last century. It consisted of a series of studies, imbued throughout with the endeavor to build a bridge from secular science to the contents of dogma. One might call it a floundering hither and thither, never a bold grasping of secular science, never an illumination of it with the spirit. There was no unprejudiced examination of the Gospel with the knowledge that the Gospel of itself is not enough today, that it must be elucidated and illumined. But mankind must be courageous in both directions and say: secular science by itself leads to illusion, the Gospel by itself leads to hallucination. The middle way between illusion and hallucination is found only by grasping reality through the Spirit. That is the point.

We must see through such things as these today. Purely mundane science would make men entirely subject to illusion; in fact ultimately they would commit only follies. Quite enough folly is perpetuated today already, for surely the World War catastrophe was a great folly! Yet many people were involved in it who were thoroughly saturated with the official secular science of our time. And if you notice what remarkable psychological phenomena at once crop up when some sect or other places one of the four Gospels in the foreground, then you will more easily understand what I have been saying about the Gospels today. See how strongly inclined to all sorts of hallucinations are sects that pay heed solely to the Gospel of St. John, or solely the Gospel of St. Luke! Fortunately there are four Gospels, which outwardly contradict one another, and this has so far prevented the great harm which such one-sidedness would cause. By being faced with four Gospels people do not go too far in the direction of the one, but have the others beside it. One Gospel is read aloud on one Sunday and another on another Sunday and so the illusory power of the one is counterbalanced by that of another. A great wisdom lies in the fact that these four Gospels have come down to the civilized world. In this way man is protected from being caught up by some one stream, which will take possession of him—as in the case of so many members of sects—if he is influenced by one Gospel alone. When solely one Gospel works upon him it is particularly clear how this leads at last to hallucination.

In fact, it is essential today to give up much of one's subjective inclination, much of what one is attached to and thinks pious or clever. Mankind must above all seek universality and the courage to look at things from all sides.

I wished to say this to you today so that you may realize that what one tries now to bring about within humanity has truly deeper grounds than just some sort of subjective prejudice. In fact one can say that it is read from the signs of the times and that it must be brought about.

Those of you who heard the last lectures given here will have understood from what was said in them that it is an absolute necessity of our time that the Science of Initiation, the real science of the spiritual life, should permeate the whole evolution of our present civilized society. I have already said much concerning the obstacles which hinder the permeation of our civilization, both present and in the future, by the science of the spiritual worlds. First, above all things, there is that feeling which I have often characterized as fear of spiritual knowledge. At the present time one has only to say such a thing openly for it to be received on all sides as a kind of insult. According to the views of most people, how can it be conceivable that in this age in which such splendid progress has been made, men should be afraid of any kind of knowledge? People today undoubtedly believe that with their powers of cognition they are in a position to comprehend everything, practically everything. The fear, however, of which I am speaking and of which I have so often spoken, does not lie within the consciousness of mankind. In his consciousness man persuades himself that he is courageous enough to face any kind of knowledge. But deep down in that part of the soul of which men know nothing, and of which indeed they wish today to know nothing, there lies this unconscious fear. And because men have this unconscious fear, all kinds of reasons rise up from the depths of their soul which they call logical, and they give out these reasons as logical objections to Spiritual Science. These are not logical objections. They are only the outcome of that fear of the science of the spirit, a fear which rules unconsciously in human souls. As a matter of fact, in the hidden depths of his soul-life everyone knows far more than he thinks, but he does not want this knowledge, which is rooted in the depths of his soul-life, to come to the surface, because in the presence of it he is afraid. Above all things man surmises one thing about the super-sensible worlds; he surmises that in all that he calls his thinking, in all that he designates as his world of thought, there is something contained of a super-sensible world. At the present time, even persons of a materialist turn of mind cannot altogether drive away the dim feeling that in the life of thought there is something contained which somehow indicates a super-sensible world. And at the same time man surmises something else about this thought-world. He divines that this world of thought relates itself to an actual reality, just as the image seen in a looking glass relates itself to the reality reflected by the looking glass. Just as the image in the looking glass is no reality, so man has to admit that his own world of thought is no reality. In that moment where man has the courage, the fearlessness, to admit that the world of thought is not a reality, in that moment he is also seized with yearning for a knowledge of the spiritual world. For after all, one would like to know what it is that is really there, but of which one only sees the reflection.

What I have just said has an important polaric counterpart. When through the Science of Initiation we cross the threshold of the super-sensible world, over into the spiritual world, then everything which man experiences here as sensible reality is transformed to a mere picture, to an appearance. We mount up into the super-sensible world and just as, let us say, here on earth the super-sensible world is a mirror-picture, existing only as a mirror-picture, so in the super-sensible world the earthly world exists only as a mirror-picture. He, therefore, who speaks from the Science of Initiation, speaks quite naturally of the realities of the sense world as of “pictures”. Now, human beings feel this; they feel that that on which they can stand so comfortably, that which they can breathe in so comfortably, which they can see so comfortably without having to do anything else than, at most, open their eyes when they get up in the morning and rub them—all this becomes a mere picture. They feel this and they begin to feel insecure, much as a man might who, taken for a walk, is led to the edge of an abyss and is then seized by the dizziness of fear. On the one side therefore, the human being feels that his thinking in the sense-world is a mere sum-total of pictures. On the other side he feels—and he feels it even if he deceives himself through that unconscious fear—that that which is told him of the super-sensible world makes this physical world a mere picture. As I have said, this is felt by men, and therefore they struggle against that which comes from the Science of Initiation. They rebel because they think that the secure foundation of existence falls away from them when their soul-life is, as it were, transformed to a mere picture.

Of course, it is not everybody in our present age who, quite unprepared, can go through that which has to be gone through by one who actually directly enters the world of Initiation. For anyone who enters the world of Initiation must not only know in it what every human being today should strive to know, but he has to live in it as well. He has to live in it, just as a man lives with his body in the physical sense world. That means he has to go through, as it were, by proxy what is only to be gone through in the physical sense-world at the moment of death. He has to gain the power to live in a world for which the physical, sensible part of him is not adapted. If we cut our finger we feel a certain pain, a discomfort. Why do we feel discomfort when we cut our finger? For the simple reason that the knife cuts the skin and muscle and nerve, but does not cut the super-sensible etheric body. If we have an uninjured finger, our super-sensible etheric body is adapted to it. If we cut the finger (and we cannot cut the etheric body) the super-sensible uncut etheric body is not adapted to it. That is the reason why the astral body then feels pain. The pain comes from non-adaptability to the sensible corporality. But when man crosses the threshold and enters the super-sensible world, then in his whole body he is no longer adapted to the sensible body. He gradually feels something similar to what he felt locally when he cut his finger. And this, my dear friends, this has to be thought of as enhanced to an unlimited degree.

Naturally, then, one cannot imagine what would come over human beings of the present-day, who often are so brave in their consciousness, and so sorry for themselves in their souls, if they suddenly received the power to live in the super-sensible world, if they had to experience everything which comes from non-adaptability to the super-sensible world.

But not only are human beings today so far advanced that with their healthy human understanding they can comprehend everything related by those who know the life in the super-sensible, but this knowledge of the super-sensible, this receptivity towards the science of the super-sensible, is an absolute, an unconditional, necessity for the healthy human understanding of the present age. Only this knowledge of the super-sensible can throw light upon all that is so chaotic, so destructive, in our modern surroundings. We are living in a world in which things are making their appearance, in which things are working themselves out, of which we must say: “They cannot go on like this, they must undergo transformation.” But human beings today have absolutely no insight into that which lives around them. To see through that which lives around man today is only possible through the Science of Initiation, is only possible when all the life of our present age can be compared with all the phenomena of life which have marked the evolution of mankind in the course of centuries, of millennia.

There has come a time when it must be said publicly that if any fruitful impulse is to be brought into life, into life with its modern destructive phenomena, it can be no other than the principle of the Three-fold Division of the Social Organism. By this means the eyes of men's souls will be directed to the three basic streams of our present life of civilization.

These three basic streams, as most of you today are fully aware, are the stream of the Spiritual Life (in the full meaning of the word spiritual), and that of the Political Life of Rights, and that of the external Life of Economy and Industry.

When these three basic streams of life are placed before the soul of man, when the name for each of these streams is uttered, in each case a great sum-total of the phenomena of Life is really included.

Let us now pass briefly before our spiritual vision these three streams in their sequence. We have today a Spiritual Life. In one way or another each individual has a part in this spiritual life: One, perhaps because his way of life is conditioned by economic circumstances or civic status, goes only to an elementary school; another perhaps is taken further on in our educational institutions. And that which is learnt in this way by human beings lives on at work amongst us in our social life. By this means we are linked to our fellow man.

Today the time has come when the question has to be put searchingly: “Where has this whole spiritual life come from, and what was it in the course of its descent, in the course of its evolution, which gave to it the character which it bears today?” If we go back to the real origin of this spiritual life, we must pass through certain stages on the way. That which characterizes the life of our schools, elementary and higher—I am leaving out the intermediate stages for the present—all goes back to a far-distant past. People usually do not know how far it goes back, e.g., in the case of the elementary school, that that goes back to the time of ancient Greece. Fundamentally our spiritual life today is nourished by impulses which existed in ancient Greece in a somewhat different form, and which have only been changed since then. But these impulses did not originate even in ancient Greece. They originated far away in the East. Thousands of years ago at their source in the East they had certainly another form than they had in ancient Greece. In the East these impulses belonged to the Wisdom of the Mysteries. If we leave aside our legal-political life, which is entangled chaotically as in a knot with the spiritual life, and also leave aside the life of industry, of economics; if we separate, abstract from these our spiritual life, then we can go back, mounting the path to certain Mysteries of the East, the origin of which lies undoubtedly thousands of years ago. That, however, which for us today in educational institutions is a dry barren abstraction, devoid of life, was then something altogether living. And if we transport ourselves in spirit back to those Mysteries of the East to which I am now referring, we meet as the leaders of these Mysteries men who may be designated as a kind of union of priest, of king, and at the same time, strange as it may sound to people today, of industrialists, economists. For in those Mysteries—I shall call them the “Mysteries of Light or of the Spirit”- an all-embracing knowledge of life was pursued, a knowledge which, in the first place, aimed at directing the study of the nature of man by means of the facts of the world of the Heavens, and the world of the Stars. But this knowledge was also a wisdom which aimed at regulating the rights of man's communal life in accordance with the knowledge thus acquired. Thus from these Mystery centres instruction was given for the tending of the cattle, for ploughing the fields, for laying the water courses, and so on. This Science of Initiation of hoary antiquity had an impelling power for social life; it was something which gave scope to the whole man. It was in a position not merely to say lovely things about the good and the true, but also by the Spirit itself it could rule practical life, could organize it and give it form.

Now the path which these Mystery leaders took and, which so far as was possible to them, showed to the people who belonged to such a Mystery, was a path leading from above downwards. First, these Mystery leaders strove for a revelation of the spiritual world, then grasping the spirit in the concrete in accordance with the basic principles of atavistic clairvoyance, they worked down to the political life, to the political shaping of the social organism, then down to economy and industry. That was Wisdom, with impelling force for life itself. By what road did this wisdom with its impelling life-force actually come among mankind?

If we go back to the ages before the Mysteries to which I am now referring became authoritative, we find in the regions of civilized humanity people with a primeval atavistic clairvoyance, human beings who, if they spoke of the needs of life, could invoke the impressions of their heart, of their soul, of their inner vision. These people were spread over the regions now called India, Persia, Armenia, North Africa, South Europe, etc. One thing, however, we do not find in the souls of these human beings. It is that which today we consider our proudest soul-treasure—Intellect, Reason. The inhabitants of the civilized world of that time did not yet need reason. What our reason does today, was done by those human beings out of the promptings of their souls, and these promptings were guided and directed by the leaders whom these men had. Later there came into these regions another human race, quite a different race from the earlier population. In the Sagas and Myths, and indeed also in history, we are told that from the highlands of Asia certain people came down in very ancient times who brought a form of civilization to the south and south-west. Spiritual Science is required to establish what kind of men these were who came down upon those earlier human beings, who simply from their own inner promptings received the guiding powers for daily life. Through investigation by Spiritual Science we find that those who brought in a new population-element combined two qualities, one of which the earlier people did not possess. The original inhabitants had atavistic clairvoyance without reason, without intelligence. Those who came down amongst them also had something of the clairvoyant power, but at the same time in their souls they had received the first germ of intelligence, of reason. They brought, therefore, into the civilization of that time, a clairvoyance impregnated with reason. These were the first Aryans, of whom history tells us, and out of the mutual opposition of the ancient early people living by atavistic powers of the soul, and those who impregnated the ancient soul-powers with reason, out of that opposition there arose the first distinction into Caste, external, physical and empirical, which still works on in Asia, and of which Tagore, for instance, speaks.

The most prominent members of the race, who possessed at the same time ancient soul-vision and the intellect which was dawning in humanity, were the leaders of those Mysteries of which I have just spoken, the Mysteries of Oriental Light. From these proceeded the Mysteries of Greece. Thus we may say: From the Mysteries of the East there went forth later the stream of the Spirit, that living wisdom with its living practical impulse of which I have just spoken. In the course of time it came over to Greece. Its influence is still to be traced in the most ancient Greek civilization. But in the progress of Greek civilization the influence became weakened, the leaders lost their ancient soul-vision, and reason more and more freed itself from the old clairvoyance. Thereby the leadership of this civilization lost its meaning, because this once only had meaning as long as the leaders were endowed with spiritual soul-vision as well as intelligence. History tells us that that which had a meaning in ancient times is preserved into a much later epoch. Thus we find humanity in the later Greek civilization still grouped in a way which had a meaning for that ancient time, when the leaders of the Mysteries were actually messengers of the Gods. That which once was wisdom with an impulse for life, was transformed into Greek logic and dialectic, into the wisdom of the Greeks, wisdom which is already strained thin compared with its old Oriental origin. In the old Oriental times every one knew why there were people who obeyed when the leaders gave them directions in economics. In Greece we find the division into masters and slaves. The division of mankind was still there, but the meaning had been gradually lost. And that which for the Greeks still had much meaning, for at least they knew that it came from the ancient Mysteries, was still more weakened as it passed into our modern life of education. In our modern life of education, everything has become devoid of living connection. We pursue today an abstract science. We find no longer a connection between this abstract science and external life. The stream from Greece has gone into our Colleges, into our elementary and secondary schools, into the whole popular cultural life of modern humanity. One curious thing may be observed today. We meet among the men with whom we are surrounded some whom we call “noblemen”, “aristocrats”. We try in vain to find the reason why one person is an aristocrat and another is not, for mankind has long stripped off that which distinguishes the aristocrat from the non-aristocrat. The aristocrat was the leader in the old Oriental Mysteries of Light. He could be the aristocrat, because from him came everything which had a real living impulse in political and economic affairs. The wisdom has become watered thin, the divisions into which it made groups of people have become an external abstraction without meaning for those whose lives are cast in it. From that stream proceeded what we call Feudalism. In external social life this Feudalism lives on, tolerated by some, perhaps vexatious to others, meaningless. No one thinks any more about the meaning, because it is not to be found in life today, but in our modern age of chaos the feudal origin of our abstract science and knowledge shows itself pretty clearly. And when our modern Spiritual life became entirely the spiritual life of the journalistic world, a term was invented which really is a verbal atrocity. Through this term men sought to bring about a transformation of our life, but it was merely the expression of an utterly rickety spiritual life—they invented the term, “spiritual aristocracy”. If anyone tried to explain exactly what is meant by this term he could only say: “It is that which now squeezed dry to the uttermost had once upon a time in the Mysteries of the East, an impelling force which worked down into the furthest limits of practical life.” The term in those days had a meaning, but today it has lost all meaning. And if anyone wishes to describe our Spiritual life, he has to think of a desperately tangled coil of wool where all the threads are twisted together. There are three threads in particular which are entangled. One of them I have just described to you. Our essential task is to unravel the tangle.

Let us now turn the eyes of our soul to the second stream. This second stream had another origin, which also lies far back in the evolution of mankind; it, too, was essentially united with the Mysteries, and in particular with the Mysteries of Egypt. I called the first stream “the Mysteries of the East” or “the Mysteries of Light”. I shall call this second stream “the Mysteries of Man”. These Mysteries were directed above all to obtaining at the Egyptian source, that Wisdom which gives the power to organize human communal life, to establish a relation between one human being and another. This stream from the Mysteries spread through the South of Europe, and then, just as the first stream went through the life of Greece, this second stream found its way to the people of Rome, a people lacking in imagination. I might call it “the stream of Rights”. It took its path through Rome. All that which, bit by bit, in the course of human evolution has been inoculated as Jurisprudence, as legal distinctions in Equity, is the attenuated remnant of knowledge of these Mysteries of Man.

The second thread in our tangle of civilization has come to us in this way, but very much changed, transformed after having passed through the unimaginative mind of Rome. We shall not understand modern life, until we know that men even today are still unproductive both in the life of Spirit and in the life of Rights; until we know that both of these have been received by us from outside—the first after it had traveled the long way from the Mysteries of the East through the Mysteries of Greece, the second, the long way from the Mysteries of Egypt through Rome. Present-day humanity has been sterile with regard to both the life of Spirit and the life of Rights. We could bring forward many cases to prove this assertion, but it will suffice if I point out paths taken by Christianity.

When Christianity sought to enter the world, where had Christ Jesus to appear so that what He had to give to the world could find a foothold? He had to appear in the East. It was in that which lived in the East that He had to place what He had to give to humanity. The Mystery of Golgotha is a fact. What mankind knows about it is in process of evolving. What people first had to say about the Mystery of Golgotha was clothed in that which was still left to them from the Mysteries of the East. They surrounded the Mystery of Golgotha with the Science and Wisdom of the Mysteries of the East, and with that Wisdom they tried to understand it. In the early Greek Fathers of the Church we find there is still something of this Christianity.

To point to another manifestation of the same kind, when the civilization of the West had spiritually become utterly sterile, and a spiritual restorative was sought for, through one of its representatives, what happened? In England and America a few people came together and borrowed the Wisdom from the conquered and enslaved people of India. That is to say, they went once more to the East to seek there the spiritual stream, to seek in the East what remained of that ancient spiritual stream. From this arose Theosophy of the English-American dye, which sought to draw water from this source, but in the form it has assumed at the present day. It is the sterility of modern Spiritual life which strikes one most forcibly, especially in Western lands.

The second stream, then, is that which is concerned with Politics and Rights, and which passed through Rome. In it we find the origin of our life of Politics and Rights. This stream which has flowed into, and is still active in our life of Rights, only came by the side-channel of the Roman world. Hence, in our civilization, that which passed into our Spiritual life also has been received by way of the Roman political-legal system. This accounts for so many anomalies. Even Christianity, which spread in the West on Roman lines, took on a form conditioned by this fact. What did the religious element become on its passage through the Roman world? It became that great System of Law which we call the Roman Catholic religion. There, God with his attendant gods, is essentially a Being who rules according to the Roman conception of justice, only He is in the super-sensible world. Here we find established the ideas of debt, of default, which are really only legal ideas, ideas which never existed in the Mysteries of the East or in the Greek philosophy of life. In this Christianity the juristic concepts of Rome are established. It is a religious stream saturated with legalities. Everything which finds expression in life can assume a form of beauty, but we must confess that even that juristic-political scene in which the God of the World becomes the Judge of the World, and winds up the whole evolution of the earth by a legal Act, even that magnificent painting of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, is only a glorious expression of Christianity saturated by legalism. It is just this Christianity saturated by legalism, which finds its culmination in the “Last Judgment”.

We must unwind the tangle of our spiritual, political, and industrial life so that we may see what is really contained inside it. For we live in a chaotic civilization. Three streams are working in it; we must separate them from one another.

The third stream which has come into our chaotic civilization, originated more in the North. Much has filtered into it also, but in another way. This stream has been preserved till today, especially in the social organization of England and America. I shall speak of this stream as “the Mysteries of the Earth”, the Mysteries of the North or of the Earth. Now this stream which developed first as primitive spirituality out of the Mysteries of the Earth, took a different course from that of the essentially Spiritual life of the East. I have said that in the East the path led from above downwards, first revealing itself as the Mysteries of the Heavens and of the Light, then passing down into Politics and Economics. Here, in the North things rose out of Economics, out of the life of Industry. The origin has, of course, vanished from ordinary modern life. We notice it at most in ancient customs which still survive here and there; such customs as are described in accounts of ancient Nordic civilization, of which the English civilization is a branch, e.g., processions through the villages at a certain season of the year, with the bull, which has to fertilize the herd of cows, crowned with wreaths. That is to say, from below upwards there arose a longing after the Spiritual life. The path leads from below upwards. Everything, even that which existed as primitive spirituality, was taken from the industrial-economic life. All the festivals originally were connected with the life of Economy, of Industry, all expressed something of the meaning of the life of Economy. Just as in the Oriental civilization the path led from above downwards, so here, in the North, the path had to lead from below upwards. Mankind had to be raised from below, out of Economics, through the life of Rights, into the Mysteries of the Spirit. Mankind has not as yet advanced very far on this path from below upwards.

If we investigate the Legal life, the life of law and justice, as it has developed in the regions of Western Europe, we find it completely orientated to Rome. If we investigate the Spiritual life, we do not find it so plainly orientated to the East as that Indian Theosophy is of which I have just spoken. But we do find that that which has survived as innate Spiritual life which was not taken from the East, nor saturated with legalities from Rome, we do often find this original Spiritual life struggling to release itself from the Economic life, and with hard labour working itself free.

Let us take a characteristic example. Such philosophers, such students of natural science as Newton, Darwin, Hume, Mill, Spencer, can only be understood if we see how they developed out of the Economic life, how they endeavoured to take an upward path. Mill, for example, as a national economist, can only be understood if we understand the economic conditions surrounding him. We can only understand the English philosophers if we clearly grasp the economic basis of their environment. That basis is something inseparable from the third stream, the stream of “the Mysteries of the Earth”, the stream which works its way from below upwards. This, the third stream, is as yet quite unrefined.

Here then, in the tangle of our so-called civilization, we have the three threads chaotically at work. Always in a certain sense there has been a revolt against this tangle, in the West at least. In America, where the Economic life is derived from the Mysteries of the North, we find theories built up scientifically, but devoid of Spirit, alien to Spirit. America obtained her Legal-Political life by way of Rome. Spiritual concerns were borrowed from the East. In Central Europe, too, there was a good deal of revolt, and various endeavours were made to grasp these things in their primitive clarity; in the Spiritual life with most penetration in what I must call Goetheanism. Goethe, who sought to get rid of a Law-code in the sphere of natural science, Goethe is characteristic of this revolt against the purely Oriental life of Spirit. For the legal element has entered into natural science too. We speak of “Laws of Nature”. The Oriental would never have spoken of the Laws of Nature, but of the Rule of Cosmic Will. The term “Natural Law” was derived from the side-stream of Jurisprudence. It crept into nature knowledge as through a window and became “natural law”. Goethe wanted to grasp the pure phenomenon, the pure fact, the primal phenomenon. Until we purge our Natural Science from its dependence on Jurisprudence, we can never reach a purified cultural life. For this reason Spiritual Science everywhere lays hold on facts, and indicates so-called “laws” as secondary phenomena only.

We find also a certain revolt against the Roman system of Rights, a revolt which is still in the minds of many persons inclined to socialism. For instance, a Prussian minister, Wilhelm van Humbold, in his fine treatise on “The Limits of State Action”, shows stirring within him something of this impulse to free the Cultural life and the life of Economics from the mere life of the State. In that little book there lives the impulse to strip off the political from the other directing forces. Thus in German philosophy, too, there lives this revolt against that which is merely “old”. But only through a healthy insight into that which the Science of Initiation can give concerning the origin of our present cultural life, can man gain a sure foot-hold; only through such insight can healing, can health, come into the evolution of human civilization.

In the East of Europe especially, there has always been a feeling for the necessity of a right co-operation of the three elements in our present life of culture. Of these three streams the one most characteristic in expression is that which came from the North to the West. In the West everything is overpowered by the Economic-industrial life. Of the legal element there is much in Central Europe, whilst much of that which arose from the Mysteries of the East, the Mysteries of Light, is to be found in Eastern Europe and Asia. There, where the caste system still prevails, we find something of the meaning of that old Feudalism which came forth from the Spirit. The life permeated with legalities has bred the modern Bourgeoisie. The Bourgeoisie is the outcome of the stream of Rights. These things have to be seen with perfect clarity now; and the impulse towards this clear recognition lies already in the unconscious part of man, but it is only Spiritual Science which can bring this longing, this impulse, to real clarity.

In the nineteenth century, again and again, we can see how men strove amid all the confusion of very indefinite impulses, to reach ideals for the future. Men wanted especially to put an end to the abstract relations which prevail today between man and man. The life of the Spirit has been watered down so that it lives in us as an abstraction; and the life of Economics is grasping and struggling to find the way upward from below.

In Eastern Europe, where things of such disturbing, devastating significance are now working themselves out, it was shown for the first time in the much-confused nineteenth century how men attempted to prepare for the revolt against this chaos of civilization. The Russian revolutionaries of the second and last third of the nineteenth century, attempted in particular to fertilize the remnant still left in the East of an early stage of Spiritual life, with that element in Central Europe which had already revolted against tradition. We find among such Russians in their correspondence with each other, how they point out that already in Central Europe, the intellect, the pure abstract life of reason has endeavoured to permeate itself with a certain spirituality. Again and again there appears some such sentence as the following: “In German philosophy the attempt has been made once more to raise the intellect, which has lost its ancient soul-vision, to a certain spirituality.” In Eastern Europe they wanted to make themselves intimately acquainted with this attempt in Central Europe, and this intimate knowledge reflects itself in the way these Russian revolutionaries write to one another. They greatly esteemed the philosopher Ivan Petrovitch. They spoke much of his philosophy, how he had raised himself to pure thought, attempting to bring Spirit again into the dialectic play of thought of Western Culture. They tried to draw conclusions from his philosophy. The better to mark their own feeling of relationship to him, they called him not “Hegel”, but “Ivan Petrovitch”. In their endeavours we see foreshadowed that which later on had to work so destructively.

In our age, clear thinking must spread over the whole earth. Everything must be done to help forward the victory of clear thinking. But we must be quite conscious of all that is against us when we make the attempt to reach this clear thinking, and that, amongst many other things, we have against us man's love of ease. We must wean ourselves from the habit of regard for the comfort of men. For mankind needs the Spirit, and the triumph of the Spirit is not brought about by the comfortable paths so often trodden today. Today men fight against the coming in of Initiation with the most significant weapons.

I was recently informed of something which is significant in historic culture. You will correct me if I make a mistake, for I was not there myself. At a meeting where a Protestant clergyman was in the chair, one of our friends made some quotations from the Bible. The truth of these did not please the chairman, who then used the expression, “Here Christ is wrong!” Have I repeated that correctly? (Assent.) Today when one can no longer justify one's own view, it is man who is infallible, and the Christ who is wrong! We have come as far as this.

All these things bear witness to the true character of that which is stirring as Spiritual life in mankind today. Where Spiritual life has reached the most utter abstraction, it can no longer keep within the sphere of truth. But we must become aware of what really exists.

The periodical, The Threefold Social Organism, recently published a notice of a gathering held here at Stuttgart, where from the Roman Catholic side, but in harmony with the Protestant, opposition was made to the teaching given as Spiritual Science. And the leading cleric is reported to have said that no discussion was necessary because people can inform themselves concerning the doctrines of Dr. Steiner from the writings of his opponents, but the writings of Dr. Steiner himself may not be read because the Pope has forbidden it. In fact, this is the latest decree from the Holy Congregation, and it applies especially to Catholics—the decree that it is forbidden to Catholics to read Anthroposophical writings. Roman Catholics, therefore, are officially bound to seek information upon what I teach from the writings of my opponents, but they are not allowed to read what I write myself. Anyone on the other side who knows the whole constitution of the Roman Catholic Church, how the individual is so dovetailed into it that he is only a representative of the whole organization, must in all earnestness, out of the depths of his soul, bring forward the question regarding the moral aspect of such a procedure. Is such a procedure to be reconciled in any way with human morality? Is it not profoundly immoral? Such questions must be put bravely today, without any leniency. We are living in a serious time, and may not go on sleeping in the easy comfort-loving, lazy way. We must express ourselves unreservedly about these things. If we show the immorality of modern untruth in the right light, it will bring about a healing.

Recently an article by a doctor in Sociology was brought to me. It began somewhat as follows: “What a distance there is between the clear thoughts of Waxweiler and the obscure thoughts of Dr. Steiner! But then, this Dr. Steiner was the intimate of William II, and it has been suggested that he helped William II with important advice, especially in recent years. So one can even call this man the Rasputin of William II.” His next sentence runs: “We will not make ourselves the transmitters of such a rumour.” And there are today many people with this mentality, people forsaken by every spirit of truthfulness, and whatever they say is beyond the sphere of truth.

We see two things here. First, the moral degradation of a man who makes himself the bearer of this rumour, and then his fine logic when he says, “Because I spread this rumour among my readers, I do not make myself a spreader of this rumour.” Countless people think in this way. What they say has no reality in it. I cannot say, “I say something because I do not say it.” This is what Monsieur Ferriere says, the man who wrote the article from which I have just read. We cannot enter into relationship with such morally degenerate individuals. I can only maintain, and I hope that it will be brought before this writer's notice, that I have had the following relationships with William II. Once about 1897, I was sitting in a theatre in Berlin, in the middle of the front row, above, and William II sat in the Royal Box, and I saw him, as far away as from here to the end of this room. The second time was when he walked behind the coffin of the Grand Duchess of Weimar, and that was quite far away. The third time was in the Friedrichstrasse in Berlin, where, with his following, with the Marshal's baton in his hand, he rode through the streets, all the people shouting “Hurrah!” after him. These are all the relationships with William II, I have ever had. I have never had any others nor sought them. Thus assertions arise today, and much of what you read on paper in printer's ink is of no more value than that dirty rumour which is used to make Anthroposophy a heresy in Latin countries. Today such things have to be traced to their origin. It is not enough to take them as mere parlance. People must accustom themselves to go to the origin of what is affirmed.

A sense for the true origin of facts in the external world will only develop in mankind out of a deepening in real Spiritual Science.

You will easily believe what very deep satisfaction it gives me to take up work again among you all on this building of ours. It is a fact that anyone coming into intimate contact with the whole aura of this building today would be able to receive the impression, as a result not only of deep reflection but also of quite superficial thought; that something connected with the most significant, the most weighty tasks of man's future is bound up with this building. And it goes without saying that after long, forced absence one is profoundly satisfied on finding oneself once more at this place where this building stands as a symbol of our cause.

To this I would add that particularly for me, my dear friends, it is a matter of infinite gratification every time I now return after long absence to be able to see how beautifully and significantly the work on the building has progressed through the active devotion of the workers. In these months of my recent absence in particular, when work has been carried out under such difficult conditions, part of the artistic work has gone forward in an unprecedented way; it has made progress in the spirit that should permeate the whole.

With deep pleasure too, I see, as a consequence of the spirit in our work, as consequence of all that is originating here, the real feeling of solidarity among many of our friends—the genuine feeling towards all that this building incorporates. What reveals itself to the soul when one lets this whole matter renew its effect upon one is that here we have a place with which is united such a true sentiment in a number of the friends of our spiritual movement, so sincere a sentiment that it promises a continuance of the best impulses in this movement for the future of mankind for which they are so necessary. In the work devoted to this building there is already something that could serve as a model for all that, in common with what we call today the Anthroposophical Society, is actually intended.

On the other hand, I have a strong feeling that what is favourable, what is so significantly good found here in our building, in the harmony of human work, and human feeling consists in this building being able through its objective nature to free what our movement wills from the subjective interests of individual men.

Concerning what we have just touched upon, my dear friends, there have been indeed, and still are, in all similar societies as well as in the Anthroposophical Society, certain remarkable views, that to be more exact, are remarkable illusions. A great deal is preached about selflessness and universal love between men; this is often, however, a mere mask for certain artful egoistic interests of individual human beings. It true that these individuals do not know that this is a question of mere egoistic interest; in face of their own consciousness they are innocent nevertheless, the fact remains.

The building itself, however, claims from a relatively large number of our friends a selfless devotion to something objective, to something standing out as a symbol of our cause, and free from all that is personal. And what is connected with our building can to that extent very well be, the model for what is sought in our Movement.

My dear friends! When, as today, we greet each other again, we need especially to dwell upon what if fruitful and all-embracing in the spiritual movement of ours. Meeting thus again, we need to reflect upon how earnestly we can believe that however it may happen—and the manner in which it does so depends upon how conditions take their course—man will never find his way out of the appalling blind alley into which he has come today until he decides in some way to seek a starting point for fruitful work, fruitful action, within a spiritual movement such as ours. We shall certainly not insist egoistically that the truth is to be found only in our small confined circle where it is recognised, through the very nature of the matter, that man has landed himself in the present terrible situation by neglecting his own spiritual substance. We should be able to recognise ourselves as men who are united in those ideas that alone can lead mankind out of this blind alley.

In the soul of modern men there is indeed very much that is not clear. When it has been possible to renew our knowledge here or there about the needs prevailing in our spiritual movement the following may be said on one hand: Yes indeed, the number of souls of those who are thirsting for spiritual life in our sense has very greatly increased. The longing for such spiritual life can well be said to have become infinitely greater; the attention given to our impulses has recently become undeniably greater, at least in those spheres that have been outwardly accessible to me in these last years and especially in recent months. It is not without meaning that I remark upon this distinct increase and strengthening of man's longing for the spiritual life. It is true that over against this strengthening and sharpening of the desire for spirit life there stands the terrible confusion from which the greater part of mankind is suffering. This terrible confusion among men comes about through the outworn ideas, or it would be better to say the outworn lack of ideas, the easy-going comfort where all keen vigorous thought concerned, the comfort that comes from the laxity, the indolence, with which during many decades, the thought-life on earth has been carried. This laxity, this laziness, leads souls astray in the present yearning after spiritual life. On the one hand, men are immersed in a genuine longing for spirituality, for strong supersensible impulses. On the other hand, these souls are fettered by the old powers that do not wish to withdraw from the scene of human activity, but should be able to see from this very activity how far they are removed from having any further place there. It might be said that one finds everywhere this dark impression, this impression of a cleft.

In many places in connection with repeated lectures with lantern slides, I have talked a great deal with our members about the Group that will take the chief place in our building. It could be seen on the one hand what powerful impulses have actually entered those souls who, by reason of the conditions during past years, have not even had a glimpse of what is going on here. A new human understanding is already arising from the very way in which what is ahrimanic and what is luciferic has been thought out in connection with what belongs to the Christ and has been represented and revealed in our Group. It makes a deep impression on souls when they are approached by all that is thus given. On the other hand, however, my dear friends, we find everywhere the obstructive influences of what is widespread among men in the remnants of what is old, rotten, in their so called cultural life.

This could be seen particularly in what might be called in a real sense the humorous frame of mind with which the lectures were received that were given at the art centre of our friend Herr von Bernus in Munich, when I tried to show a large audience the inner impulses active here in our conception of art. That did indeed arouse interest in people to an extraordinary degree, for I held lectures of this kind in Munich in February and in May and had to give each of them twice. Herr von Bernus assured me there were so many enquiries that I should have been able to give four times over each of the public lectures dealing with the principles of my conception of art, as they have found expression in the building here. Interest was certainly there, but it goes without saying one could find less reason to be pleased in the agreement shown with what was said by the critic of a Munich newspaper, which might be called a showing of teeth though politely and humorously. It was particularly facetious since inner resentment made itself felt against what could not be understood. It was all—not spoken,—but spat out, if you forgive the inelegant expression. And it was shown up by the very interest aroused by the matter where honesty and sincerity spoke in opposition to what was otherwise noticeable in this artistic centre (that is Munich, it goes without saying; it is a well-known fact). Thus was shown how in this centre of artistic activity the most intelligible as well as the unintelligible stuff was talked... It is just in this sort of discrepancy that we get an example of how today the two streams of which I have been speaking are present, and how we need to stand consciously within what is essential and important, towards which we must struggle for the sake of the world and its future.

I am certainly not saying all this because when our matters have publicity anywhere I would strive for what is called a “good press” for the moment we had a “ good press” I should think there must be something wrong, something of ours must have been untrue.

All these things are suitable for calling up in us a consciousness that it is very necessary for us to take a decided stand on the grounds of our cause. For nothing could promote greater confusion among us than our wishing to make any kind of compromise with—well with what the external world would consider it right for us to do. In what we do it is only towards the principles for which we stand that must look for guidance.

Another example of what we have been discussing, less directly connected with our cause, nevertheless connected inwardly, is the recent increasing interest shown in the most varied places for Eurythmy. And when we who were present remember how Eurythmy was received particularly in one place, where it had scarcely been seen before, it was partly something entirely new to the audience, namely in Hamburg, we have really to remember this reception with the deepest satisfaction. The significance of the impulses going out from even an affair of that kind was especially evident in Hamburg. People were there who to all intents and purposes were witnessing a proper performance of Eurythmy for the first time. And the possibility will yet arise perhaps for Eurythmy to be performed publicly. It is just at this juncture, however, that we must stand on the very firmest ground with our cause and do nothing that is not entirely consistent with it.Otherwise, my dear friends, it would soon be seen that, from a certain point of view, it must not be thought that I shall yield when some particular matter is in question that depends upon me. Most of you already know that where no principle is concerned, when some purely human affair comes to the fore, it goes without saying that I am always in it all with best of you. When it is a question, however, of approaching the boundary where any principle whatever has to be forsworn—even in the smallest degree—I shall show myself inflexible. Therefore, at the present time, when so much dancing can be seen—for there is dancing everywhere, it is quite dreadful, if you live in a town any night you join in a dance evening—when there is show-dancing everywhere, if it should be thought (I do not say all this without good reason; although I do not specify any particular instance, I have good reason to speak) if it should be thought that by giving public performances of Eurythmy, we meant to identify ourselves with any kind of journalistic stunt to put forward some kind of claim for attention, then I should take precautions against this in the most determined manner. A feeling for what is in good taste must be forthcoming solely out of our cause.

You see my dear friends, we have sometimes also to remember, especially on meeting again, to conduct according to the standard of spiritual impulses the necessary direct activity resulting from the will. These spiritual impulses will have to fight against a great deal of what today we can no longer call prejudice, for things work too powerfully be described by such a weak term. I do not say in a conceited, egoistical way “We” have to fight, but these impulses will have to fight against many different things. Now over and over again we have to refer to the terrible malady of our age, that consists in lack of control where the life of thinking is concerned. For, rightly conceived, the life of thought is already a spiritual life. It is because men give so little heed to their life of thinking that they seldom find their way into the spiritual worlds.

There is one thing upon which I must repeatedly touch from the most varied sides, namely, what an appalling value is put today upon the mere content of thoughts. The content of thoughts, however, is what is of least importance! The content of thoughts—Look! a grain of wheat is a grain of wheat, this cannot be gainsaid. Even though a grain of wheat is a grain of wheat, however, when you put it into suitable, good, fruitful ground you get a juicy ear, and when you, put it into ground that is barren and stony, you get either nothing at all or a rotten ear. But each time you are dealing with a grain of wheat.

Let us speak of something other than a grain of wheat. Let us say instead of ‘grain of wheat ’, ‘idea of free man’ which is so much discussed today. Some will say ‘idea of free man’ is the ‘idea of free man.’ It is just the same as a grain of wheat is a grain of wheat. But there is a difference in whether ‘idea of free man’ flourishes in a heart, in soul where this heart and soul is fruitful ground, or whether the ‘idea of free man’, exactly the same idea with the same foundation, flourishes in Woodrow Wilson's head! It matters not in the least if a grain of wheat is sown in stony ground or right into the rock, and it is just true that all the so called beautiful ideas that we are given in the programmes of Woodrow Wilson signify nothing if they come out of his head. But this is something that modern man comes to understand with such infinite difficulty, for he holds the view that it is the content of a programme, the content of the idea, has as little significance as the germinating power of a grain of wheat before it is planted in fertile ground.

To think with reality! Man has the greatest need of this. And something else is connected with the present unreality in thinking namely, men are taken unawares by almost all that happens. Indeed one might ask when has that not occurred in these last years?. Men are surprised by everything, and they will go on being more and more surprised. But they will not have anything to do with what is really working in the world, and this today makes it impossible for them to bring any foresight to bear on their affairs.

Working merely with ideas, one can from any side base anything upon anything. If one works with the content of ideas alone it is actually possible to base everything on anything. This is also something it is necessary to see into increasingly and ever more deeply; it is necessary but there is little will for it.

Generally, when such things are spoken of, and examples of them given, one meets with no real response because the examples seem too grotesque. But our whole life of soul and spirit today fairly hums with these things that give so grotesque an impression on being brought to light—my dear friends, they buzz around us! I know that many of you may feel resentment if I give you a really outstanding idea as an example—I will, however, quote this instance.

Now it is a case here of a University professor, an old respected professor at a university, who lit on the fact that Goethe during his long life was attracted by various women. Yes, our professor came up against this idea and took upon himself the task of making a real study of both the life of Goethe and that of the spirits connected with him. And we see how he obviously makes it his business, in spite of not being professor at a European university, to go to work as thoroughly as a mid-European professor usually does, and he made to pass before his soul the whole procession of Goethe's ladies in their relation to Goethe. What did he discover? I can quote this for you almost in his very words.

He discovered that each woman Goethe loved momentarily during his life can be said to have been for him a kind of Belgium, the neutrality of which he violated and then bemoaned that his heart bled for having been obliged to assail shining innocence. Neither did he forget to assert, each time, like the German Chancellor, that this sphere of violated neutrality had deserved a better fate but that he, Goethe, could not do otherwise since his destiny and the rights of his spiritual life obliged him to sacrifice the loved one—yes, even to offer up the pain of his very heart on the altar of the duty he owed to his own immortal ego.

Now I could give you here many other ideas that come in this book. You might ask for, what purpose? But, my dear friends, there is very good reason. For you find this kind of idea all over the world. The ideas of modern men are like that! And it is not without reason that such ideas should show themselves in literature where the essence of human thinking appears. This conception is upheld by Santayana, a professor at Harvard University in America, a much esteemed Spaniard who is, however, completely Americanised. His book was written during this present catastrophe, or at least Boutroux has translated it into French during the war. Shortly before this Boutroux gave a lecture in Heidelberg in which he eulogised German Philosophy in the most flattering terms! The book is called The Errors of German Philosophy and is entirely characteristic of present-day thinking. The appearance of this book was certainly not just a casual event but is very characteristic of modern thought and compares man with what is very far removed from him, with the same facility we find in Professor Santayana when he compares Belgian neutrality with Goethe's treatment of various women. For, if you have eyes to see it, this kind of thinking meets you in every sphere of so-called modern science. It is a fact; you come across it everywhere.

Now it is just the task of the spiritual impulse to which our Anthroposophy is devoted, to make a stand against three fundamental evils in the present so-called culture of mankind. There is nothing for it but to fight against these fundamental evils. One fundamental evil shows itself in the sphere of thinking, another in the sphere of feeling and the third fundamental evil is seen in the sphere of the will.

In the sphere of thinking we have gradually reached the point where men can only think in the way the thinking takes its course when it is strictly bound up with the brain. But this thinking, so closely connected with the brain, this thinking that refuses to make a flight to the spiritual, is condemned in all circumstances to be narrow and confined. And the most significant symptom of present scientific thinking in particular is narrowness and limitation. In the field of his narrowness and limitation great things can certainly be done. It is done for example, in modern science. But the thought applied to science today has no need of genius, my dear friends! Thus, narrowness, limitation, is what must be striven against, especially in the intellectual sphere. Today I will simply give these things in outline, but later we shall be describing them more in detail.

In the sphere of feeling it is a question of men having gradually arrived at a certain philistinism—we can only call it so—philistinism, lack of generosity, and being bound to a certain confined circle. It is the chief characteristic mark of the philistine that he is incapable of being interested in the big affairs of the world. Village pump politicians are always philistines. Naturally, in the sphere of Spiritual Science this does not suffice, for here one cannot confine oneself to a narrow circle, we have to be interested in what is outside the earth, therefore in a very wide circle indeed. And people get quite annoyed at the mere suggestion that there should be a desire to know something about a circle wide enough to embrace Moon, Sun, Saturn. In all spheres, however, philistinism must soften into non-philistinism if Spiritual Science is to penetrate. Sometimes that is not convenient or comfortable, for it means facing up unreservedly to the matter. It demands a more unprejudiced facing up to the matter.

Recently an awkward thing happened in our midst—but I stopped it because otherwise perhaps—well, nothing actually happened but something could have happened. Now you will remember the Zurich lectures of last fear; among various examples I gave then of how Darwinism can be overcome through the growth of natural science itself, I pointed to the excellent book by Oskar Hertwig called Des Werden der Organismen (How Organisms come into Being). Here, and every time the opportunity occurred, I referred to this excellent book. Very soon after this work a shorter book appeared by this same Oskar Hertwig, in which the same Oskar Hertwig spoke about the social, the ethical and the political life. And I then thought to myself: it may happen that some of our members having heard me call Oskar Hertwig's book about organisms an outstanding book will assume that this second volume is excellent also, when it is actually a worthless book, a book written by a man who in this particular sphere—in the sphere of the social life, the ethical life and the political life—cannot put into shape a single orderly thought. I feared lest certain of our members might already have judged that since it came from Hertwig this book too would have some kind of merit. So I had to step in and again whenever I could seize the opportunity I availed myself of it to point out that I considered this second book of the author, who had previously written so well about natural science, to be the worthless and foolish effort of a man who had no ability to speak of the things of which he spoke here.

Our Spiritual Science does not admit of one thing conveniently following from another, without each new fact being confronted and judged impartially. Spiritual Science demands from men actual proof of the concrete nature of every single case. Philistinism is something that will vanish when the impulse of Spiritual Science spreads. So much for the sphere of feeling.

And in the sphere of the will there is something that recently has particularly and in the widest sense taken hold of mankind, something I can only term lack of skill. As a rule, a man today is very able within the narrow circle of what he learns, but he is considerably inept about everything outside this circle. One comes across people who can't even sew on a button—that is only one example. There are men who are unable to sew on a button! Lack of skill in anything beyond a narrow circle is what is specially prevalent in the sphere of the will. Whoever takes what we call Spiritual Science with his whole soul, and not just with abstract thinking, will see that it makes a man more dexterous and fits him actually to spread his interest over a wider area, to extend his will over a wider world. Naturally it is just where this lack of skill is concerned that spiritual science is still too weak; but the more intensively we take it the more will it contend with unskillfulness.

This is what confronts the present-day acceptance of Spiritual Science with what might be called a trinity: narrowness in the intellectual sphere; philistinism, which means a lack of generosity, in the sphere of feeling; unskillfulness in the sphere of will.

And the three are loved nowadays even if loved unconsciously. Nothing in the world today is more loved than unskillfulness, philistinism and narrow-mindedness. Because they are loved it will not be easy for men to progress to the wide views to which they must come—to the way in which we must look at all that is connected with the names Ahriman and Lucifer. And it is just here that something important must understood today. For today among many other things there is an important transition from the luciferic to the ahrimanic. And as this transition is shown not simply elsewhere but also here in Switzerland one may well speak of it here. In this region the first has perhaps less significance owing to the very habits of the Swiss. The second, however, shows every prospect of attaining more importance precisely in this country. Where certain things are concerned mankind is indeed in a state of transition from faults that are luciferic to those that are ahrimanic, from luciferic impulses that run counter to human development to ahrimanic counter-impulses.

Now certain impulses of earlier days holding good in educational matters were of a thoroughly luciferic nature. Ambition and vanity were counted on in educational matters. (All of us when young, with the exception of the youngest among us, have known this quite well.) Perhaps this applies less to Switzerland but elsewhere it is pretty prevalent—this reckoning on ambition and vanity—orders, titles, and so on and so forth! Some people's whole career was based on the luciferic impulses of vanity and ambition, on the being worth more than other men. Just try to think back to how educational affairs were indeed built up on such luciferic impulses.

At the present time there is an endeavour to put ahrimanic impulses in the place of those that are luciferic. Today they hide themselves behind the elegant term “ability tests”. In the ahrimanic sphere this corresponds to what in the luciferic sphere was boasting about vanity and ambition even among children. Today there is an endeavour to seek out those the most gifted, or those who apart from that are most successful in class; out of these again individuals are taken. Among these gifted ones tests are made, intelligence tests, memory tests, perception tests and so on. This is something very suited to the Swiss disposition. And should the luciferic play a very small part here, the ahrimanic shows itself nicely in bud in the understanding for these ability tests. For these ability tests proceed from the intelligence, from science, from the present-day psychology of the learned. Then these gifted ones who are to be tested are made to sit down and are given the written words: murdered, looking-glass, the murderer's victim. And they sit there, poor lambs, in front of the three words murderer, looking-glass, the murderer's victim, and are supposed to look for a connecting link between them. One child finds that the murderer steals upon his victim, but the victim has a looking-glass in which the murderer is reflected so that the victim is able to save himself. So much for the first child. His gift of perception takes him as far as connecting the three words in this way.

Now comes another:—A murderer is creeping on his victim and sees himself in a looking-glass. His face appears to him in it as the face of somebody with a bad conscience, so he leaves his victim on account of seeing the reflection of his own face. That is the second child.

The third child makes yet another combination. A murderer comes creeping, he finds a mirror and falls against it so that the mirror falls down with a terrible noise, it makes a regular disturbance. The victim hears the noise and is in time to defend himself against the murderer.

The last child is the most talented! The first only found the nearest combination of ideas; the second an obvious matter of morals; the third child found a very complicated connection of ideas, and this one is the most talented!—That is more or less how it is. When describing things briefly one naturally gives them a little colouring of one's own. But this is how the ability of children is henceforward going to be tested to find out who is the most talented.

One thing is certain, my dear friends—if the men who invent these methods would just think of the great people they revere, Helmholtz for instance, and so on, Newton and so on, these great ones would one and all, if given these tests, have been looked upon as the most untalented little rascals. Nothing would have come of it. For Helmholtz who is certainly considered by those who give these tests today as a very great physicist—as I think you will agree—was a hydrocephalic and not at all gifted in his youth, and so on and so forth.

What is it that people want to test? Simply the outer organism, entirely what may be counted as the physical instrument of man, what is purely ahrimanic in human nature. If ever the fruits of these ability tests are to come to anything, more ghastly thought-pictures will arise than those that have led to the present human catastrophe. When, however, one speaks today about anything that may lead to catastrophic events in perhaps a hundred years, this does not interest man. For we live now in this transition from a luciferic educational system to an educational system that is ahrimanic; and we must belong to those who understand how to see clearly into such matters:

Men must change what is active force for the future into forces of the present. For this is what is demanded from us today—to confront concrete reality in a true, genuine, unprejudiced way.

Here one may have very strange experiences. I do not remember if I have already mentioned here a very interesting experience of mine. There are writings of Woodrow Wilson's—one about “Freedom”, another just called “Literature”. These writings have been very much admired—are still very much admired. In the publication called “Literature” an interesting lecture appears again which Woodrow Wilson once gave about the historical evolution of America. And elsewhere, too, interesting lectures by Woodrow Wilson have been repeated having wide historic standpoints. And reading these writings I had an interesting experience. In them one finds isolated sentences which appeared to me extraordinarily familiar yet certainly not copied from anywhere—certainly not copied they nevertheless seemed to me wonderfully familiar. And the idea soon struck me that these sentences of Woodrow Wilson's might just well have been written by Herman Grimm, that quite a number of these sentences indeed are found word for word in Grimm. Herman Grimm I love; Woodrow Wilson—Well, you know by now that I do not exactly love him! Nevertheless I cannot on that account conceal the objective fact that where the content of the subject is concerned one could simply take over whole sentences from Herman Grimm's lectures and articles and transpose them into those of Wilson—and, vice versa, transpose sentences of Wilson's into the works of Herman Grimm. Here are two people who as far as the actual text is concerned are saying just the same thing. We have, however, to learn today that when two people say the same thing it is not the same! For the interesting fact meets us that Herman Grimm's sentences are personally striven for, bit by bit they are wrenched from the soul. The sentences of Woodrow Wilson that sound so similar come from a kind of characteristic frenzy. The man is possessed by a subconscious ego forcing these sentences into the conscious life.

Whoever can judge of such things realises that this is the point here! A grain of wheat is a grain of wheat: The difference, however, lies in where it is sown, in what kind of soil. There is a difference in whether an idea becomes so much part of a personality because he has striven for it bit by bit in his own particular way, or whether one gets the idea by being possessed by the subconscious, everything sounding out of a possessed subconscious, out of a consciousness that is possessed by the subconscious.

Thus it is a question today of understanding that the content of thoughts, the content of programmes, are not of importance—the important thing is the livingness of the life lived by mankind.

My dear friends! We can teach materialistic philosophy, we can teach the philosophy of mere ideas; we can teach a science that is merely materialistic, and in this merely materialistic science become a most excellent European teacher, a credit to the university and a good citizen of the State. The type is not so rare, I fancy you can find them anywhere, these ornaments and lights of science, who at the same time are quite exemplary good citizens; one can well be this, my dear friends! But take some ideas, I should say an idea of a definite kind, let us take as a trivial idea the struggle for existence, for instance, or those ideas that are advocated by more peaceable people such as Oskar Hertwig, and so on, or ideas upheld by Spencer, Mill, Boutroux or Bergson who certainly are not wishing to press forward to the spiritual life, but are confined to the philosophy of mere ideas. But still more, take the materialistic ideas of science, take these ideas! It is true they might be able to spring up in the brain of the good subjects of the State. Very well. But, my dear friends, a grain of wheat is a grain of wheat; nevertheless it makes a difference whether it grows in soil that is fertile for it or in rocky soil, and it makes a difference whether these scientific ideas which can be striven for in Europe as a credit to science, and hold good in the universities, thrive in the brains of the university students, or whether they spring up in the brain of a man whose brother already as a young man at the end of the eighties was counted a shining light in science at the Petersburg laboratory... Such facts certainly like a flash of lightning illumine things that are working at the present time! Take this young man who was there in the Petersburg laboratory about the year already a shining light in science, full of productive ideas in chemistry with a medal—a very rare thing—distinguished by this special medal from all those working with him, and highly esteemed even as a young man—and suddenly he disappears! Even marked out by the university authorities—he is suddenly no longer there! In all manner of roundabout ways his colleagues have to find out that meanwhile he has been hanged for taking part in a conspiracy against the reactionary Alexander III. It makes a difference whether the same idea enters the brain of a worthy university professor of Western Europe, or the brain of the brother of the man who was hanged under such conditions. When it enters the brain of this brother it changes this brother into a Lenin—for the hanged mans brother is Lenin—then this idea becomes the driving force behind all that you now see in Eastern Europe.

Idea is idea, as grain of wheat is grain of wheat; one has, however, to realise whether something is the same idea that arises either in the brain of a university professor or in the brain of the brother of this man they hanged. We must have the will to see into the background of existence where lie the actual impulses behind events. And we must have the courage to reject all the empty nonsense about programmes, ideas, sciences, of those who believe in them. Something depends on what they uphold. This or that may be upheld according to its content, nevertheless it is of consequence in what sphere of actual life what is thus upheld lies, just as it is of consequence where the grain of wheat falls, whether in fertile or unfertile ground. In every sphere man must find the way out of the abstraction that in the present grave conditions is everywhere leading to illusion or to chaos; he must find the way to the reality that can be found in spirituality alone! And however long it be, this is the only road by which man can find his way out of the present confusion to what can bless and heal him.

This is what should be written on our hearts, my dear friends, something in which we can all be united. this is something with which we should greet each other in earnest, associating ourselves in this knowledge with what must be the cure for man's failings. For it is possible to cure them. But, my dear friends, this may not be done with quack remedies, they must be healed by something the lack of which has brought mankind into this chaos.

Leninism would never have taken hold of the East had not materialistic science—not always recognised as such—been taught in the West. For what has been produced in the East is the direct child of materialistic science. It is just a child of materialistic science. Through Karl Marx a changeling has arisen; the real child of materialistic science already exists in the East. But we must have the will really to see into these things.

This, my dear friends, is as it were the background against which our building is being erected. And individual men who work here at this building think about it quite apart from the ideas today affecting men in so many lands. We can well imagine that outside, in other countries, there may be people who consider that men are living here who keep aloof from what concerns the world and, as these people believe, should concern it. It is easy to imagine people looking reproachfully at this place. Those who have their whole heart and soul in this building need not worry themselves about being thus reproached. For even if this building does not perhaps fulfil its task, if it never reaches its goal, what works on the building, my dear friends, and what proceeds from those working with devotion on the building, is today the most important thing of all; it is what must rescue men from everything into which they have fallen. And when people outside believe that here men are working with no thought for the task of present-day mankind, the answer must be that here we are working on what is of supreme importance today, on what is preeminently essential, only others know nothing of it, it is something of which as yet they are ignorant. But the important point is that mankind will want to know something of what is happening here.

Once again let it be emphasised. It is not important whether this building attains its goal—although it would be good were it to do so. What is important is that this building should be worked upon out of certain ideas that men have discovered for this work. It is not the content of these ideas but the way in which they live that gives them their impulses for the future, whereas the ideas so many believe in today are simply and solely ideas that incline towards the grave, ideas of a former age which are passing into dissolution and are ripe for dissolution.

I have already indicated a few of the symptomatic forces that play a part in the development of contemporary history. I have only time to discuss a few of these impulses. To discuss them all—or even the most significant—would take us too far. I have been asked to give special attention to specific impulses of a symptomatic nature. This can be deferred until next week when I will willingly speak of those symptoms which have special reference to Switzerland and at the same time I will attempt to give a sketch of Swiss history.

Today, however, I propose to continue the studies we have already undertaken. I concluded my lecture yesterday with a picture, albeit a very inadequate picture, of the development in recent times of one of the most significant Symptoms of contemporary history—socialism. Now for many who are earnestly seeking to discover the real motive forces of evolution, this social, or rather socialist movement occupies the focus of attention; apart from socialism they have never really considered the Claims of anything else. Consequently people have failed in recent times to give adequate attention to the very important influence of something which tends to escape their notice. Even where they searched for new motives they paid no attention to those of a spiritual nature. If we ask how far people were aware of the impulses characteristic of modern evolution we can virtually discount from the outset those personalities who in the nineteenth century, and more especially in the twentieth century, were largely oblivious of contemporary evolution, who belonged to those circles which were indifferent to contemporary trends. The historians of the old upper classes were content to plough the old furrows, to record the genealogy of dynasties, the history of wars and perhaps other related material. It is true that studies in the history of civilization have been written, but these studies, from Buckle to Ratzel, take little account of the real driving forces of history. At the same time the proletariat was thirsting for knowledge and felt an ever-increasing desire for education. And this raised the three questions I mentioned yesterday. But the proletariat lacked the will to explore the more subtle interrelations of historical development. Consequently, up to the present, a historical symptom that has not been sufficiently emphasized is the historical significance of the natural scientific mode of thinking.

One can of course speak of the scientific mode of thinking in terms of its content or in relation to the transformation of modern thinking. But it is important to consider in what respect this scientific thinking has become a historical symptom like the others I have mentioned—the national impulse, the accumulation of insoluble political problems, etcetera. In fact, since the beginning of the epoch of the Consciousness Soul, the scientific mode of thinking has steadily increased amongst wide sections of the population. It is a mistake to imagine that only those think scientifically who have some acquaintance with natural science. That is quite false; in fact the reverse is true. Natural scientists think scientifically because that is the tendency of the vast majority of people today. People think in this way in the affairs of daily life—the peasant in the fields, the factory worker at his bench, the financier when he undertakes financial transactions. Everywhere we meet with scientific thinking and that is why scientists themselves have gradually adopted this mode of thought. It is necessary to rectify a popular misconception on this subject. It is not the mode of thinking of scientists or even of monistic visionaries that must engage our attention, but the mode of thinking of the general public. For natural science cannot provide a sufficiently powerful counterpoise to the universalist impulse of the church of Rome. What provides this counterpoise is a universal thinking that is in conformity with the laws of nature. And we must study this impulse as symptom in relation to the future evolution of modern man.

Text-books of history, rather thoughtlessly, usually date the birth of modern times from the discovery of America and the invention of gunpowder and printing, etcetera. If we take the trouble to study the course of recent history we realize that these symptomatic events—the discovery of America, the invention of gunpowder, and the art of printing, etcetera—did in fact inspire seamen and adventurers to pioneer voyages of exploration, that they popularized and diffused traditional knowledge, but that fundamentally they did not change the substance of European civilization in the ensuing centuries. We realize that the old political impulses which were revived in the different countries nonetheless remained the same as before because they were unable to derive any notable benefit from these voyages of discovery. In the newly discovered countries they simply resorted to conquest as they had formerly done in other territories: they mined and transported gold and so enriched themselves. In the sphere of printing they were able increasingly to control the apparatus of censorship. But the political forces of the past were unable to derive anything in the nature of a decisive impulse from these discoveries which were said to mark the birth of modern times. It was through the fusion of the scientific mode of thinking—after it had achieved certain results—with these earlier inventions and discoveries in which science had played no part that the really significant impulse of modern times arose. The colonizing activities of the various countries in modern times would be unthinkable without the contributions of modern science. The modern urge for colonization was the consequence of the achievements of natural science in the technical field. It was only possible to conquer foreign territories, as colonization was destined to do with the aid of scientific inventions, with the application of scientific techniques. These colonizing activities therefore first arose in the eighteenth century when natural science began to be transformed into technics.

Applied science marks the beginning of the machine age, and with it a new era of colonization which gradually spreads over the whole world. With technics an extremely important impulse of modern evolution is born in the Consciousness Soul. Those who understand the determinative factors here are aware that the impulses behind worldwide colonial expansion, that these colonizing activities and aspirations are directly related to the epoch of the Consciousness Soul. This epoch, as you know, will end in the third millenium, to be followed by the epoch of the Spirit Self, and will as the result of colonization bring about a different configuration of mankind throughout the world. Now the epoch of the Consciousness Soul recognizes that there are so-called civilized and highly civilized men, and others who are extremely primitive—so primitive that Rousseau was captivated by their primitive condition and elaborated his theory of the ‘noble savage.’ In the course of the epoch of the Consciousness Soul this differentiation will cease—how it will cease we cannot now discuss in detail. But it is the function of the Consciousness Soul to end this differentiation which is a heritage from the past.

Armed with this knowledge we see the connection between wars such as the American Civil War and modern colonizing activities in their true light. When we bear in mind the importance of these colonizing activities for the epoch of the Consciousness Soul then we gain insight into the full significance of isolated symptoms in this field. And these colonizing activities are inconceivable without the support of scientific thinking.

We must really give heed to this scientific thinking, if, from the point of view of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, the epoch of the Consciousness Soul, we wish to penetrate to the true reality of human evolution. It is a characteristic of this modern scientific thinking that it can only apprehend the ‘corpse’ of reality, the phantom. We must be quite clear about this, for it is important. The scientific method starts from observation and proceeds to experimentation, and this applies in all spheres. Now there is a vast difference between the observation of nature and the knowledge which is confirmed by experimental proof. Observation of nature—with different nuances—was common to all epochs. But when man observes nature he becomes one with nature and shares in the life of nature. But, strangely enough, this communion with nature blunts the consciousness to some extent. One cannot live the life of nature and at the same time know or cognize in the sense in which the modern Consciousness Soul understands this term. One cannot do both at the same time any more than one can be asleep and awake at the same time. If one wishes to live in communion with nature one must be prepared in a certain sense to surrender one's consciousness to nature. And that is why the observation of nature cannot fathom its secrets, because when man observes nature his consciousness is somewhat dimmed and the secrets of nature escape him. In order to apprehend the secrets of nature he must be alive to the super-sensible.

One cannot develop the Consciousness Soul in a semiconscious state, a state of diminished consciousness, and therefore modern natural science quite instinctively attempts to dispense with observation and to depend upon experimentation for its findings. Experiments have been undertaken even in the fields of biology and anthropology. Now in experimentation the first consideration is to select and assemble the material, to determine the order of procedure. In experimental embryology for example, the order of procedure is determined not by nature but by intellection or human intelligence; it is determined by an intellectual faculty which is detached from nature and is centred in man. ‘We murder to dissect’—our knowledge of nature is derived from experimental investigation. Only what is acquired experimentally can be exploited technically. Knowledge of nature only becomes ripe for technical exploitation when it has passed through the indirect process of experimentation. The knowledge of nature which hitherto had been introduced into social life had not yet reached the stage of technics. It would be monstrous to speak of technics unless it is concerned purely with the application of experimentation to the social order or to what serves the social order.

Thus modern man introduces into the social order the results of experimental knowledge in the form of technics; that is to say, he brings in the forces of death. Let us not forget that we bring forces of death into our colonizing activities; that when we construct machines for industry, or submit the worker to the discipline of the machine we are introducing forces of death. And death permeates our modern historical structure when we extend our monetary economy to larger or smaller territories and when we seek to build a social order on the pattern of modern science as we have instinctively done today. And whenever we introduce natural science into our community life we introduce at all times the forces of death that are self destructive.

This is one of the most important symptoms of our time. We can make honest and sincere pronouncements—I do not mean merely rhetorical pronouncements—about the great scientific achievements of modern times and the benefits they have brought to technics and to our social life. But these are only half truths, for fundamentally all these achievements introduce into contemporary life an unmistakably moribund element which is incapable of developing of itself. The greatest acquisitions of civilization since the fifteenth century are doomed to perish if left to themselves. And this is inescapable. The question then arises: if modern technics is simply a source of death, as it must inevitably be, why did it arise? Certainly not in order to provide mankind with the spectacle of machines and industry, but for a totally different reason. It arose precisely because of the seeds of death it bore within it; for if man is surrounded by a moribund, mechanical civilization it is only by reacting against it that he can develop the Consciousness Soul. So long as man lived in communion with nature, i.e. before the advent of the machine age, he was open to suggestion because he was not fully conscious. He was unable to be fully self-sufficient because he had not yet experienced the forces of death. Ego-consciousness and the forces of death are closely related. I have already tried to show this in a variety of ways: In ideation and cognition, for example, man is no longer in contact with the life-giving, vitalizing forces within him; he is given over to the forces of organic degeneration. I have tried to show that we owe the possibility of conscious thought to the process of organic degeneration, to the processes of destruction and death. If we could not develop in ourselves ‘cerebral hunger’, that is to say, processes of catabolism, of degeneration and disintegration, we could not behave as intelligent beings, we should be vacillating, indecisive creatures living in a semiconscious, dream-like state. We owe our intellection to the degenerative processes of the brain. And the epoch of the Consciousness Soul must provide man with the opportunity to experience disintegration in his environment. We do not owe the development of modern, conscious thinking to a superabundant vitality. This conscious thinking, this very core of man's being grew and developed because it was imbued with the forces of death inherent in modern technology, in modern industry and finance. And that is what the life of the Consciousness Soul demanded.

And this phenomenon is seen in other spheres. Let us recur to the impulses to which I drew attention earlier. Let us consider the case of England where we saw how a specific form of parliamentary government develops as a certain tendency through the centuries, how the self-dependent personality seeks to realize itself. The personality wishes to emancipate itself and to become self-sufficient. It wishes to play a part in the life of the community and at the same time to affirm its independence. The parliamentary system of government is only one means of affirming the personality. But when the individual who participates in parliamentary government asserts himself, the moment he sacrifices his will to the vote he surrenders his personality. And, rightly understood, the rise of parliamentary government in England in the centuries following upon the civil wars of the fifteenth century provides ample evidence of this. In the early years of the democratic system society was based upon a class structure, the various classes or ‘estates’ not only wishing to affirm their class status, but to express their views through the ballot-box. They were free to speak; but people are not satisfied with speeches and mutual agreement, they want to vote. When one votes, when speeches are followed by voting, one kills what lives in the soul even whilst one speaks. Thus every form of parliamentary government ends in levelling down, in egalitarianism. It is born of the affirmation of the personality and ends with the suppression of the personality. This situation is inescapable; affirmation of the personality leads to suppression of the personality. It is a cyclic process like life itself which begins with birth and ends in death. In the life of man birth and death are two distinct moments in time; in the life of history, the one is directly related to the other, birth and death are commixed and commingled. We must never lose sight of this.

I do not wish you to take these remarks as a criticism of parliamentary government. That would be tantamount to insinuating that I said: since man is born only to die he ought never to have been born—which is absurd. One should not impute to the world such foolishness—that it permits man to be born only to die. Please do not accuse me of saying that parliamentary government is absurd because the personality which gives birth to this system proceeds to destroy the system which it has itself created. I simply wish to relate it directly to life, to that which is common to all life—birth and death, thus showing that it is something that is closely associated with reality. At the same time I want to show you the characteristic feature of all external phenomena of a like nature in the epoch of the Consciousness Soul, for they are all subject to birth and death.

Now in the inner circles of the occult lodges of the English speaking world it has often been said: let us not reveal to the world the mystery of birth and death, for in so doing we shall betray to the uninitiated the nature of the modern epoch! We shall transmit to them a knowledge that we wish to reserve for ourselves. Therefore it was established as the first rule of the masonic lodges never to speak openly of the mystery of birth and death, to conceal the fact that this mystery is omnipresent, above all in historical phenomena. For to speak of this is to open the eyes of the public to the tragedy of modern life which will gradually be compelled—a compulsion to which it will not easily submit—to divert man's attention from the results of work to the work itself. One must find joy in work, saying to oneself: the external rewards of work in the present epoch serve the purposes of death and not of creative life. If one is unwilling to further the forces of death, one cannot work with modern techniques, for today man is the servant of the machine. He who rejects the machine simply wishes to return to the past.

Study the history of France and the attempts made to thrust inwards the emancipation of the personality, ending in that disastrous suppression of the personality which we observe in the final phase of the French Revolution and in the rise of Napoleonism. Or take the case of Italy. From what hidden springs did modern Italy derive that dynamic energy which inflamed the nationalism to the point of sacro egoismo? One must probe beneath the surface in order to discover the factors underlying world events. Recall for a moment that important moment before the birth of the Consciousness Soul. This dynamic energy peculiar to modern Italy is derived in all its aspects from that which the Papacy had implanted in the Italian soul. The significance of the Papacy for Italy lies in the fact that it has gradually imbued the Italian soul with its own spirit. And, as so often happens to the magician's apprentice, the result was not what was intended—a violent reaction against the Papacy itself in modern Italy. Here we see how that for which one strives provokes its own destruction. Not the thoughts, but the forces of sensibility and enthusiasm, even those which inspired Garibaldi, are relics of the one-time Catholic fervour—but when these forces changed direction they turned against Catholicism.

People will understand the present epoch only if they grasp the right relationship between these things. Europe witnessed those various symptomatic events which I have described to you. And in the East, as if in the Background, we see the configuration of Russia, welded out of the remnants of the Byzantine ecclesiastical framework, out of the Nordic-Slavonic racial impulse and out of Asianism which is diffused in a wide variety of forms over Eastern Europe. But this triad is uncreative; it does not emanate from the Russian soul itself, nor is it characteristic of that which lives in the Russian soul. What is it that offers the greatest imaginable contrast to the emancipation of the personality?—The Byzantine element. A great personality of modern times who is much underrated is Pobjedonoszeff. He was an eminent figure who was steeped in the Byzantine tradition. He could only desire the reverse of what the epoch of the Consciousness Soul seeks to achieve and of what it develops naturally in man. Even if the Byzantine element had made deeper inroads into Russian orthodoxy, even if this element which stifles everything personal and individual had gained an even stronger hold ... the sole consequence nonetheless would have been a powerful age for the emancipation of the personality. If, in the study of modern Russian history, you do not read of those events which it has always been forbidden to record, then you will not have a true picture of Russian history, you will be unaware of the really living element. If however you read the official version, the only version permitted hitherto by the authorities, you will find everything which pervades Russian life as an instrument of death. It appears here in its most characteristic form because Russian life is richest in future promise. And because Russian life bears within it the seeds of the development of the Spirit Self, all the external achievements of the era of the Consciousness Soul hitherto bring only death and destruction. And this had to be, since what seeks to develop as Spirit Self needs the substratum of death.

We must recognize that this is a necessity for the evolution of the Consciousness Soul, otherwise we shall never grasp the real needs of our time. We shall be unable to form a clear picture of the destructive forces which have overtaken mankind if we are unaware that the events of these last four years are simply an epitome of the forces of death that have pervaded the life of mankind since the birth of the epoch of the Consciousness Soul.

Characteristically the dead hand of scientific thinking has exercised a strange influence upon one of the most prophetic personalities of recent time. In contemporary history the following incident is symptomatic and will always remain memorable. In the year 1830 in Weimar, Soret¹ visited Goethe who received him with some excitement—I mean he betrayed excitement in his demeanour—but not with deep emotion. Goethe said to Soret: ‘At last the controversy has come to a head, everything is in flames’. He made a few additional remarks which led Soret to believe that Goethe was referring to the revolution which had broken out in Paris in 1830 and he answered him accordingly. But Goethe replied: ‘I am not referring to the revolution; that is not particularly important. What is important is the controversy between Cuvier and Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire in the Academy of Sciences of Paris’—Cuvier was a representative of the old school which simply compares and classifies organisms—a way of looking at nature that is concerned above all with technique—whilst Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire has a living conception of the whole course of evolution. Goethe saw Saint-Hilaire as the leader of a new school of scientific thinking, different from that of Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo. Cuvier belongs to the old school of thought; Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire is the representative of a scientific outlook which sees nature as a living organism. Therefore Goethe saw the dawn of a new epoch when Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire prepared the ground for a new scientific thinking which, when fully developed, must lead to a super-sensible interpretation of nature and ultimately to super-sensible, clairvoyant knowledge. For Goethe this was the revolution of 1830, not the political events in Paris. Thus Goethe showed himself to be one of the most prescient spirits of his time. He showed that he sensed and felt what was the cardinal issue of our time.

Today we must have the courage to look facts squarely in the face, a courage of which earlier epochs had no need. We must have the courage to follow closely the course of events, for it is important that the Consciousness Soul can fulfil its development. In earlier epochs the development of the Consciousness Soul was not important. Because the Consciousness Soul is of paramount importance in the present epoch, everything that man creates in the social sphere must be consciously planned. Consequently his social life can no longer be determined by the old instinctive life; nor can he introduce solely the achievements of natural science into social life for these are forces of death and are unable to quicken life; they are simply dead-sea fruit and sow destruction such as we have seen in the last four years. In the present epoch the following is important.

Sleep, of course, is a necessity for man. In waking life he is in control of his normal free will ... he can make use of this free will for the various things he encounters through Lucifer and Ahriman, in order to develop guide-lines for the future. When he falls asleep this so called free will ceases to function; he continues to think without knowing it, but his thinking is no less efficacious. Thinking does not cease on falling asleep, it continues until the moment of waking. One simply forgets this in the moment of waking up. We are therefore unaware of the power of those thoughts that pour into the human soul from the moment of falling asleep until the moment of waking up. But let us remember that for the epoch of the Consciousness Soul the gods have abandoned the human soul during sleep. In earlier epochs the gods instilled into the human soul between sleeping and waking what they chose to impart. If they had continued to act in this way man would not have become a free being. Consequently he is now open to all kinds of other influences between sleeping and waking. At a pinch we can live our waking life with natural science and its achievements, but they are of no avail in sleep and death. We can only think scientifically during our waking hours. The moment we fall asleep, scientific thinking is meaningless—as meaningless as speaking French in a country where no one understands a word of French. In sleep only that language has significance which one acquires through super-sensible knowledge, the language which has its source in the super-sensible. Supersensible knowledge must take the place of what the gods in former times had implanted in the instinctive life. The purpose of the present epoch of the Consciousness Soul is this: man must open himself to super-sensible impulses and penetrate to a knowledge of reality. To believe that everything that our present age has produced and still produces without the support of super-sensible impulses is something living and creative and not impregnated with the forces of death is to harbour an illusion, just as it is an illusion to believe that a woman can bear a child without fecundation. Without impregnation a woman today remains sterile and dies without issue. Modern civilization in the form it has developed since the beginning of the fifteenth century and especially in respect of its outstanding achievements, is destined to remain sterile unless fertilized henceforth by impulses from the super-sensible world. Everything that is not fertilized by spiritual impulses is doomed to perish. In this epoch of the Consciousness Soul, though you may introduce democracy, parliamentary government, modern finance economy, modern industrialism, though you may introduce the principle of nationality the world over, though you may advocate all those principles on which men Base what they call the new order—a subject on which they descant like drunken men who have no idea what they are talking about—all these things will serve only the forces of death unless they are fructified by spiritual impulses. All that we must inevitably create today, forces that bring death in all domains, will only be of value if we learn how to transform these forces by our insights into the super-sensible.

Let us realize the seriousness of this situation and let us remember—as we have learnt from our study of the symptoms of recent history—that what man considers to be his greatest achievements, natural science, sociology, modern industrial techniques and modern finance economy, all date from the fifteenth century. These are destructive agents unless fructified by spiritual impulses. Only then can they advance the evolution of mankind. Then they have positive value; in themselves they are detrimental. Of all that mankind today extols, not without a certain pride and presumption, as his greatest achievements, nothing is good in itself; it is only of value when permeated with spirit.

This is not an arbitrary expression of opinion, but a lesson we learn from a study of the symptoms of modern history. The time has now come when we must develop individual consciousness. And we must also be aware of what we may demand of this consciousness. The moment we begin to dogmatize, even unwittingly, we impede the development of the consciousness. I must therefore remind you once again of the following incident. I happened to be giving a course of lectures in Hamburg on The Bible and Wisdom.^T1 Amongst the audience were two Catholic priests. Since I had said nothing of a polemical nature which could offend a Catholic priest and since they were not the type of Jesuit who is a watchdog of the Church and whose function is to stick his fingers in every pie, but ordinary parish priests, they approached me after the lecture and said: we too preach purgatory; you also speak of a time of expiation after death. We preach paradise; you speak of the conscious experience of the Spirit; fundamentally there are no objections to the content of your teaching. But they would certainly have found ample grounds for objection if they had gone more deeply into the matter—a single lecture of course did not suffice for this. And they continued: You see the difference between us is this: You address yourself to a certain section of the population which is already familiar with the premises of anthroposophy, people who are educated and are conversant with certain concepts and ideas. We, on the other hand speak to all men, we speak a language which everyone can understand. And that is the right approach—to speak for all men. Whereupon I replied: Reverend fathers (I always believe in respecting titles) what you are saying is beside the point. I do not doubt that you believe you speak for all men, that you can choose your words in such a way as to give the impression that you are speaking for all men. But that is a subjective judgement, is it not? that is what one usually says in self-justification. What is important is not whether we believe we speak for all men, but the facts, the objective reality. And now I should like to ask you, in an abstract, theoretical way: what evidence is there that I do not speak for all men? You claim to speak for all men and no doubt there are arguments that would support your claim. But I ask you for the facts. Do all those for whom you think you are able to speak still attend your church today? That is the real question. Of course my two interlocutors could not claim that everyone attended their church regularly. You see, I continued, that I am concerned with the facts. I speak for those who are outside the church, who also have the right to be led to the Christ. I realize that amongst them there are those who want to hear of the Christ impulse one way or another. That is a reality. And what matters is the reality, not personal opinions.

It is most desirable to base one's opinions on facts and not on subjective impressions; for, in the epoch of the Consciousness Soul nothing is more dangerous than to surrender to, or show a predilection for personal opinions or prejudices. In order to develop the Consciousness Soul we must not allow ourselves to become dogmatists unwittingly; the driving forces of our thoughts and actions must be determined by facts. That is important. Beneath the surface of historical evolution there is a fundamental conflict between the acceptance of what we consider to be right and the compulsion of facts. And this is of particular importance when studying history, for we shall never have a true picture of history unless we see history as a truly great teacher. We must not force the facts to fit history, but allow history to speak for itself. In this respect the whole world has forgotten much in the last four years. Facts are scarcely allowed to speak for themselves; we only hear what we deem to be facts. And this situation will persist for a long time. And it will be equally long before we develop the capacity to apprehend reality objectively. In the epoch of the Consciousness Soul what matters in all spheres of life is an objective apprehension of reality; we must strive to acquire an impartial attitude to reality.

What our epoch demands—if we wish gradually to look beyond the Symptoms of history (I will speak more of this in my next lectures)—is that we turn our attention to those spiritual forces which can restore man's creativity. For, as we have seen, the most characteristic feature of all phenomena today is a decline in creativity. Man must open himself to the influences of the super-sensible world so that what his Spirit Self prepares may enter into his ego; otherwise the paths to the Spirit Self would be closed to him. Man therefore must familiarize himself with that which is pure spirit, with that which can penetrate to the centre of his psychic life. The moment he is prepared to turn his attention to this centre of his soul life through a sensible study of the symptoms in history, he will also be prepared to examine more objectively the events at the periphery.

In man there exists a polarity—the psychic centre and the periphery. As he penetrates ever more deeply into his psychic and spiritual life he reaches this centre. In this centre he must open himself to those historical impulses which I have already described to you. Here he will feel an ever increasing urge for the spirit if he wishes to become acquainted with historical reality. In return however, he will also feel a desire to strive towards the opposite pole at the periphery. He will develop an understanding for what is pressing towards the periphery—his somatic nature. If in order to understand history we must look inward, as I have indicated, to the underlying symptoms, then in order to understand medicine, for example, hygiene and medical health services we must look outwards, to cosmic rhythms for the source of pathological symptoms.

Just as modern history fails to penetrate to spiritual realities, so modern medicine, modern hygiene and medical health services fail to penetrate to the symptoms which are of cosmic provenance. I have often emphasized the fact that the individual cannot help his neighbour, however deep his insight into current problems, because today they are in the hands of those who are looking for the wrong solution. They must become the responsibility of those who are moving in the right direction. Clearly, just as the external facts are true that the outward aspect of James I was such and such, as I pointed out earlier, so, from the external point of view it is also true that a certain kind of bacillus is connected with the present influenza epidemic. But if it is true, for example, that rats are carriers of the bubonic plague, one cannot say that rats are responsible for the plague. People have always imagined that the bubonic plague was spread by rats. But bacilli, as such, are of course in no way connected with disease. In phenomena of this kind we must realize that just as behind the symptoms of history we are dealing with psychic and spiritual experiences, so too behind somatic symptoms we are dealing with experiences of a cosmological order. In other cases the situation of course will be different! What is especially important here is the rhythmic course of cosmic events, and it is this that we must study. We must ask ourselves: In what constellation were we living when, in the nineties, the present influenza epidemic appeared in its benign form? In what cosmic constellation are we living at the present time? By virtue of what cosmic rhythm does the influenza epidemic of the nineties appear in a more acute form today? Just as we must look for a rhythm behind a series of historical symptoms, so we must look for a rhythm behind the appearance of certain epidemics.

In the solfatara regions of Italy one need only hold a naked flame over the fango hole and immediately gases and steam escape from the dormant volcano. This Shows that if one performs a certain action above the surface of the earth nature reacts by producing these effects. Do you regard it as impossible that something takes place in the sun—since its rays are directed daily towards the earth—which has significance for the earth emanations and is related to the life of man, and that this reaction varies according to the different geographical localities? Do you think that we shall have any understanding of these matters unless we are prepared to accept a true cosmology founded upon a knowledge of the soul and spirit? The statement that man's inclination to resort to war is connected with the periodic appearance of sun spots is, of course, regarded as absurd. But there comes a point when statements of this kind cease to be absurd, when certain pathological manifestations in the emotional life are seen to be connected with cosmological phenomena such as the periodic appearance of sun spots. And when tiny creatures, these petty tyrants—bacilli or rats—really transmit from one human being to another something that is related to the cosmos, then this transmission is only a secondary phenomenon. This can be easily demonstrated and consequently finds wide public support—but it is not the main issue. And we shall not come to terms with the main issue unless we have the will to study the peripheral symptoms as well.

I do not believe that men will acquire a more reasonable and catholic view of history unless they study historical symptomatology in the light of super-sensible knowledge which is so necessary for mankind today. Men will only achieve results in the sphere of health, hygiene and medicine if they study not historical, but cosmological symptoms. For the diseases we suffer on earth are visitations from heaven. In order to understand this we must abandon the preconceived ideas which are prevalent today. We have an easy explanation: a God is omnipresent ... but whilst recognizing the presence of God in history mankind today is unable to explain the manifold retardative or harmful phenomena in history. And when we are faced with a situation like the last four years (1914–1918), then this business of the single God in history becomes extremely dubious, for this God of history has the curious habit of multiplying, and each nation defends its national God and provokes other nations by claiming the superiority of its own God. And when we are expected to look to cosmology and at the same time remain comfortably attached to this single God, then this same God inflicts disease upon us. But when we can rise to the idea of the trinity, God, Lucifer and Ahriman, when we are aware of this trinity in the super-sensible world behind the historical symptoms, when we know that this trinity is present in the cosmic universe, then there is no need to appeal to the ‘good God’. We then know that heaven visits disease upon us by virtue of its association with the earth, just as I can evoke sulphur fumes by holding a naked flame over a solfatara. We can only advance the cause of progress in the epoch of the Consciousness Soul, when men recognize the validity of spiritual realities. Therefore everything depends upon this one aim: the search, the quest for truth.

• 1. Frédéric Jean Soret (1795–1865). Scientist and author. A frequent visitor in Goethe's house. Notes from his journal were used by Eckermann for his ‘Conversations with Goethe’.
• T1. 5th December, 1908. See Bibl. Nr. 68.

Before turning to other matters I must speak of certain wider conceptions that follow from our consideration of the recent development of human history. We attempted to examine this development from the stand-point of a symptomatology; we tried to show that what are usually called historical facts are not the essential elements in history, but that they are symbols of the true reality that lies behind them. This true reality, at least in the sphere of the historical evolution of mankind, is thus detached from what can be perceived in the phenomenal world, i.e. the so-called historical facts. If we do not regard the so-called historical facts as the true reality but seek in them manifestations of something that lies behind them then we discover of course a super-sensible element.

In studying history it is not easy to show the true nature of the super-sensible because people believe, when they discover certain thoughts or ideas in history, or when they record historical events, that they are already in touch with the super-sensible. We must be quite clear that whatever the phenomenal world presents to the senses, to the intellect or emotions cannot in any way be regarded as super-sensible. Therefore everything that is normally depicted as history belongs to the sensible world. Of course when we study the symptomatology of history we shall not regard the symptoms as having equal value; the study itself will show that, in order to arrive at the super-sensible reality behind the events, a particular Symptom is of capital importance, whilst other symptoms are perhaps of no importance.

I have already mentioned many of the more or less important symptoms manifested since mankind entered the epoch of the Consciousness Soul. I should now like to try to describe to you, step by step, a few characteristics of the super-sensible present in the background. Some I have already described. For of course a fundamental feature pulsing in the super-sensible is the entrance of mankind into the civilization of the Consciousness Soul, that is to say, the acquisition of the organs necessary for the development of the Consciousness Soul. That is the essential. But we have recently seen that the other pole, the complement to this inner elaboration of the Consciousness Soul, must be the aspiration to a revelation from the spiritual world. Men must realize that henceforth they will be unable to progress spiritually unless they open themselves to the new revelation of the super-sensible world.

Let us now consider these two poles of evolution. To a certain extent they have come to the fore in the centuries since 1413 when mankind entered the epoch of the Consciousness Soul. These two impulses will continue to develop, will assume a wide diversity of forms in the different epochs up to the third millennium and will be responsible for the manifold vicissitudes that befall mankind. Individuals will gradually become aware of this. In considering these two impulses in particular, we learn that fundamental changes have occurred since the fifteenth century. Today we are in a position to draw attention to these important developments. In the eighteenth century, and even in the early nineteenth century it would not have been possible to show the operation of these two impulses purely from the observation of external phenomena. They had not yet been operative for a sufficient length of time to show their full effect. Now such is their dynamic power that it is perceptible in external phenomena.

Let us now consider an essential fact which has an important bearing today. Whilst early indications were apparent only to those who were more or less acquainted with the true state of affairs—I am referring to the Russian Revolution in its last phase, namely from October 1917 to the peace negotiations of Brest-Litovsk—this extraordinarily interesting development which can easily be followed, since it lasted only a few months, is of immense importance to those who seriously wish to understand the historical symptoms, for this development is of course a historical symptom. In the final analysis the origin of the Russian Revolution is to be found in the deeper impulses of contemporary evolution. In this revolution it is a question of new ideas. For when we speak of real evolution in mankind we are concerned only with new ideas. Everything else—as we have already indicated, and we will recur to this later—is subject to a certain extent to the symptoms of death. It is a question of making new ideas effective. As you will have gathered from the many discussions which I have had upon this subject over recent decades—these new ideas must be able to capture the broad masses of peasantry in Eastern Europe. Of course we are dealing here with a passivity of soul, but a soul that, as you know, is receptive especially to new and modern ideas, for the simple reason that it bears within it the seed of the Spirit Self. Whereas, on the whole, the rest of the world's population bears within it the impulse to develop the Consciousness Soul, the broad mass of the Russian population, together with a few satellites, bears within it the seed from which the Spirit Self will be developed in the course of the sixth postAtlantean epoch. This necessitates, of course, very special circumstances. But this has an important bearing on what we are about to study next.

Now this idea—partly correct, partly false or wholly mistaken—this modern idea of something entirely new which was destined to capture the broad mass of the population could only come from those who had had the opportunity to be educated, namely from the ruling classes.

After the fall of Czarism the centre of the state was at first occupied by an element that was closely connected with a totally sterile class, the upper middle class—called in the West, heavy industry, etcetera. This could only be an interlude which we need not discuss, for this class is destitute of ideas and, as a class, is of course quite incapable of developing ideas. (When speaking of these matters I never indulge in personalities.)

Now at first those elements which were of middle class origin, together with a sprinkling of working class elements, formed the party of the left. They formed the leading wing of the so-called Social Revolutionaries and were gradually joined by the Mensheviks. They were men who—purely in terms of their numbers—could easily have played a leading part in determining the future course of the Russian Revolution. As you know events took a different course. The radical wing of the Russian Social Democratic party, the Bolsheviks, took over the helm. When they (the Bolsheviks) came to power, the Social Revolutionaries, the Mensheviks and their followers in the West were quite sure that the whole charade would not last more than a week before everything collapsed. Well, the Bolsheviks have now been in power more than a week and you can rest assured of this: if many prophets are bad prophets, then those who today base their predictions of historical events upon the outmoded world conceptions of certain middle classes are certainly the worst! What is the cause of this situation? This problem of the October Revolution, throughout the months following its outbreak and until today, is, in the terminology of physics, not a problem of pressure, but of suction. It is important that we can infer from the historical situation that we are dealing here not with a problem of pressure, but of suction. What do we understand by a problem of suction? As you know, when we create a vacuum by sucking out the air in the glass jar of an air pump and then remove the stopper, the air rushes in with a hissing sound. The air rushes in, not of its own volition, but because a vacuum has been created.

This was the situation of those elements which to some extent stood midway between the peasantry and the Bolsheviks, between the Social Revolutionaries, the Mensheviks, and the radical revolutionary groups of the extreme left, i.e. the Petrograd Soviet. What had happened was that the Mensheviks, though they had an overwhelming majority in the Provisional Government were totally destitute of ideas. They had not a word to say about the future of mankind. No doubt they cherished touching ethical sentiments and other romantic ideals, but, as I have often pointed out, ethical good intentions do not provide the impulses which can further the development of mankind. Thus a vacuum was created, an ideological vacuum, and the radical left wing rushed in. It is impossible to believe that, by their very nature, the most radical socialist elements who were alien to Russian tradition and culture were destined to take over in Russia. They could never have done so if the Social Revolutionaries and the various groups associated with them had had any ideas of how to give a lead. But you will ask: what ideas ought they to have had? A fruitful answer can only be found today by those who are no longer afraid to face this fact: for this section of the population the only fertile ideas are those which spring from spiritual experience. Nothing else avails.

It is true that these people have become more or less radical and will now deny their middle class origin, many at least will deny it, but there is no mistaking their origin. But the essential point is that this section of the population which created a vacuum, who were bereft of ideas, simply could not be induced to develop anything in the nature of positive ideas.

And this applies, of course, not only to Russia. But the Russian Revolution in its final phase—provisionally the final phase—demonstrates this fact with particular clarity to those who are prepared to study the matter. We see how, day after day, these people (i.e. the Mensheviks and their supporters) who have created a vacuum are gradually forced back and how others rush in to fill the vacuum, i.e. to replace them. But today this phenomenon is world-wide. The fact is that the section of the population which today stands politically between the right and the left has steadily refused to make the slightest effort to develop a positive Weltanschauung. In our epoch of the Consciousness Soul a creative Weltanschauung must of necessity be one which also promotes social cohesion.

It was this which from the very beginning permeated our Anthroposophical movement. It was not intended in any way to be a sectarian movement, but endeavoured to come to terms with the impulse of our time, with everything that is essential and important for mankind today. This was increasingly our goal. It is this which is most difficult to bring to men's understanding today for the simple reason that the belief persists (not in all, but in the majority) that what they are looking for in Anthroposophy, as they understand it, is a little moral uplift, something necessary for one's private and personal edification, something which insulates one from the serious matters which are settled in Parliament, in the Federal Councils, in this or that Corporation, or even round the beer table. What we must realize is that the whole of life must be impregnated with ideas which can be derived only from spiritual science.

Whilst this section of the population, i.e. the bourgeoisie, was indifferent to spiritual ideas, the proletariat showed and still shows today a lively interest in them. But as a consequence of the historical evolution of modern times the horizon of the proletariat is limited purely to the sensible world. It is prisoner of materialistic impulses and seeks to steer the evolution of mankind into utilitarian channels. The bourgeoisie knows only empty rhetoric, what it is pleased to call its Weltanschauung is simply verbiage, because it has no roots in contemporary life and is a survival from earlier times. The proletariat, on the other hand, because it is motivated by a totally new economic impulse lives therefore in realities, but only in realities of a sensible nature.

This provides us with an important criterion. In the course of the last few centuries the life of mankind has undergone a fundamental change; we have entered the machine age. The life of the middle class and the upper middle class has scarcely felt the impact of the machine age. For the new and powerful influences which have affected the life of the bourgeoisie in recent centuries belong to the pre-machine age ... for example, the introduction of coffee as the favourite beverage for cafe gossip. Equally the new banking practices, etcetera, introduced by the bourgeoisie are wholly unsuited to the new impulses of today. They are simply a hotchpotch of the ancient usages formerly practised in commercial life.

On the other hand the proletariat of today is the caste or class which is dominated by a modern impulse in the external life and to a certain extent is the creation of modern impulses themselves. Since the invention of the spinning jenny and the mechanical loom in the eighteenth century, the entire political economy of mankind has been transformed, and these inventions have been largely responsible for the birth of the modern proletariat. The proletariat is a creation of the modern epoch, that is the point to bear in mind. The bourgeois is not a creation of modern times. For the class or group which existed in earlier times and which could be compared with the proletariat of today did not belong to the third estate; it still formed part of the old patriarchal order. And the patriarchal order is totally different from the social order of the machine age. In this new order the proletarian is surrounded by a completely mechanized environment wholly divorced from living nature. He is entirely engaged in practical activities, but he thirsts for a Weltanschauung and he has endeavoured to model his conception of the universe on the pattern of a vast machine. For men see the universe as a reflection of their own environment. Now I have already pointed out there is an affinity between the theologian and the soldier. They see the universe as a battleground, the scene of the clash between the forces of good and evil, etcetera and leave it at that. Equally there is a close affinity between the jurist and the civil servant; they and the metaphysician see in the universe the realization of abstract ideas. Small wonder then that the proletarian sees the universe as a vast machine in which he is simply a cog. That is why he wishes to model the social order on the pattern of a vast machine.

But there was and still is a vast difference between, for example, the modern proletarian and the modern bourgeois—we can ignore the class which is already in decline. The modern bourgeois has not the slightest interest in deeper ideological questions, whereas the proletarian is passionately interested in them. It is true the modern bourgeois holds frequent meetings for an exchange of views, but for the most part they are so much hot air; the proletarian on the other hand discusses his daily life and working conditions and the daily output of mass production. When one passes from a middle class reunion to a proletarian meeting one has the following impression—In the former they spend time in discussing what a fine thing it would be if men lived in peace, if all were pacifists for example, or other fine sentiments of alike nature. But all this is merely verbal dialectic seasoned with a pinch of sentimentality. The bourgeoisie is not imbued with a desire to open a window on the universe, to realize their objectives from out of the mysteries of the Cosmos. When you attend a proletarian meeting you are immediately aware that the workers are talking of realities, even if they are the realities of the physical plane. They have the history of the working class at their finger-tips, from the invention of the mechanical loom and the spinning jenny until the present day. Every man has had dinned into him the history of those early beginnings and their subsequent development, and how the proletariat has become what it is today. How this situation arose is familiar ground to every worker who is actively involved in this development and who is not completely stupid, and there are few amongst this section of the population who haven't a good head on their shoulders.

One could give many typical instances of the obtuseness of the present bourgeoisie with regard to ideological questions. One need only recall how these people react when a poet presents on the stage figures from the super-sensible world (those who are not poets dare not take this risk for fear of being labelled visionaries). The spectators half accept these figures because there is no need to believe in them, because they are totally unreal—they are merely poetic inventions! This situation has arisen in the course of the development of the epoch of the Consciousness Soul. If we consider this situation spatially, we see the growth of a section of the population which, unless it takes heed, is increasingly in danger of ending completely in empty talk. But one can also consider this same situation in relation to time, and in this respect I have repeatedly called attention from widely different angles to certain important moments in time.

The epoch of the Consciousness Soul began approximately in 1413. In the forties of the nineteenth century, about 1840 or 1845, the first fifth of this era had already run its course. The forties were an important period. For the powers impelling world evolution foresaw a kind of crisis for this period. Externally this crisis arose because these years in particular were the hey-day of the so called liberal ideas. In the forties it seemed as if the impulse of the Consciousness Soul in the form of liberalism might breach the walls of reactionary conservatism in Europe. Two things concurred in these years. The proletariat was still the prisoner of its historical origins, it lacked self-assurance, confidence in itself. Only in the sixties was it ready to play a conscious part in historical evolution; before this one cannot speak of proletarian consciousness in the modern sense of the term. The social question of course existed before the sixties, but the middle class was totally unaware of it. At the end of the sixties an Austrian minister¹ of repute made the famous remark: ‘The social question ends at Bodenbach!’ Bodenbach, as you perhaps know, lies on the frontier between Saxony and Austria. Such was the famous dictum of a bourgeois minister!

In the forties therefore the proletarian consciousness did not yet exist. In the main, the bearer of the political life at that time was the bourgeoisie. Now the ideas which could have become a political force in the 1840's were exceedingly abstract. You are all familiar (at least to a certain extent I hope) with what are called the revolutionary ideas—in reality they were liberal ideas—which swept over Europe in the forties and unleashed the storm of 1848. As you know, the bearer of these ideas was the middle class. But all these ideas which were prevalent at the time and which were struggling to find a place in the historical evolution of mankind were totally abstract, sometimes merely empty words! But there was no harm in that, for in the epoch of the Consciousness Soul one had to go through the abstractive phase and apprehend the leading ideas of mankind first of all in this abstract form.

Now you know from your own experience and that of others that the human being does not learn to read or write overnight. In order to develop certain potentialities mankind also needs time to prepare the ground. And mankind was given until the end of the seventies to develop new ideas. Let us look at this a little more closely. Starting from the year 1845, add thirty-three years and we arrive at the year 1878. Up to this year, approximately, mankind was given the opportunity of becoming acclimatized to the reality of the ideas of the forties. The decades between the forties and the seventies are most important for an understanding of modern evolution, for it was in the forties that what are called liberal ideas, albeit in an abstract form, began to take root and mankind was given until the end of the seventies to apprehend those ideas and relate them to the realities of the time.

But the bearer of these ideas, the bourgeoisie, missed their opportunity. The evolution of the nineteenth century is fraught with tragedy. For those who listened to the speeches of the outstanding personalities of the bourgeoisie in the forties (and there were many such throughout thc whole civilized world) announcing their programme for a radical change in every sphere, the forties and fifties seemed to herald the dawn of a new age. But, owing to the characteristics of the middle class which I have already described, hopes were dashed. By the end of the seventies the bourgeoisie had failed to grasp the import of liberal ideas. From the forties to the seventies the middle class had been asleep and we cannot afford to ignore the consequence. The tide of events is subject to a pattern of ebb and flow and mankind can only look forward to a favourable development in the future if we are prepared to face frankly what occurred in the immediate past. We can only wake up in the epoch of the Consciousness Soul if we are aware that we have hitherto been asleep! If we are unaware when and how long we have been asleep, we shall not awake up, but continue to sleep on.

When the Archangel Michael took over his task as Time Spirit at the end of the seventies the bourgeoisie had not understood the political impact of liberal ideas. The powers which in this epoch intervened in the life of mankind began by obscuring the nature of these ideas. And if you take the trouble, you can follow this very clearly. How different was the configuration of the political life at the end of the nineteenth century from that envisaged in the forties! One cannot imagine a greater contrast than the ideas of 1840–1848 (which were certainly abstract, yet lucid despite their abstract nature), and the ‘lofty human ideals’, as they were called, in the different countries in the nineteenth century and even up to our own time, when they ended in catastrophe.

The temporal complement therefore to the spatial picture is this: in the most productive and fertile years for the bourgeoisie, from the forties to the end of the seventies, they had been asleep. Afterwards it was too late, for nothing could then be achieved by following the path along which the liberal ideal might have been realised in this period. Afterwards only through conscious experience of spiritual realities could anything be achieved. There we see the connection between historical events.

In the period between the forties and the seventies the ideas of liberalism, though abstract, were such that they tended to promote tolerance between men. And assuming for the moment that these ideas were realized, then we should see the beginning, only the first steps it is true, but nonetheless a beginning of a tolerant attitude towards others, a respect for their ideas and sentiments which is so conspicuously lacking today. And so in social life a far more radical, a far more powerful idea, an idea which has its source in the spirit, must lay hold of men. I propose first of all, purely from the point of view of future history, to indicate this idea and will then substantiate it in greater detail.

Only a genuine concern of each man for his neighbour can bring salvation to mankind in the future—I mean to his community life. The characteristic feature of the epoch of the Consciousness Soul is man's isolation. That he is inwardly isolated from his neighbour is the consequence of individuality, of the development of personality. But this separative tendency must have a reciprocal pole and this counterpole must consist in the cultivation of an active concern of every man for his neighbour.

This awakening of an active concern for others must be developed ever more consciously in the epoch of the Consciousness Soul. Amongst the fundamental impulses indicated in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds. How is it achieved? you will find mentioned the impulse which, when applied to social life, aims at enhancing understanding for others. You will find frequent mention of ‘positiveness,’ the need to develop a positive attitude. The majority of men today will certainly have to foreswear their present ways if they wish to develop this positive attitude, for at the moment they have not the slightest notion what it means. When they perceive something in their neighbour which displeases them—I do not mean something to which they have given careful consideration, but something which from a superficial angle meets with their disapproval—they immediately begin to criticize, without attempting to put themselves in their neighbour's skin. It is highly anti-social from the point of view of the future evolution of mankind—this may perhaps seem paradoxical, but it is none the less true—to harbour these tendencies and to approach one's neighbour with undisguised sympathy or antipathy. On the other hand the finest and most important social attribute in the future will be the development of a scientific objective understanding of the shortcomings of others, when we are more interested in their shortcomings than in our concern to criticize them. For gradually in the course of the fifth, sixth and seventh cultural epochs the individual will have to devote himself increasingly and with loving care to the shortcomings of his neighbour. On the pediment of the famous temple of Apollo in Greece was inscribed this motto: ‘Know thyself’. Self knowledge in the highest sense could still be achieved at that time through introspection. But that is becoming progressively less possible. Today man has made little advance in self knowledge through introspection. Fundamentally men know so little of each other because they are concerned only with themselves, and because they pay so little attention to others, especially to what they call the shortcomings of others.

This can be confirmed by a purely scientific fact. Today when the scientist wants to discover the secrets of human, animal and plant life he does two things. I have often spoken of this and it is most important. First of all he carries out an experiment, following the same procedure for inorganic life as for organic life. But by experimentation he loses touch with living nature. He who is able to follow with true insight the results of experimentation knows that the experimental method is shot through with the forces of death. All that experimentation can offer, even the patient and painstaking work of Oskar Hertwig² for example, is dead-sea fruit. It cannot explain how a living being is fertilized, nor how it is born. By this method one can only explain the inorganic. The art of experimentation can tell us nothing of the secrets of life. That is the one side.

Today however there is one field of investigation which operates with very inadequate means and is as yet in its very early stages, but which is calculated to give valuable information about human nature, namely, the study of pathological conditions in man. When we study the case history of a man who is not quite normal we feel that we can be at one with him, that with sympathetic understanding we can break through the barrier that separates us from him and so draw nearer to him. By experimentation we are detached from reality; by the study of what are called today pathological conditions—malformations as Goethe so aptly called themwe are brought back to reality. We must not be repelled by them, but must develop an understanding for them. We must say to ourselves: the tragic element in life—without ever wishing it for anybody—can sometimes be most instructive, it can throw a flood of light upon the deepest mysteries of life. We shall only understand the significance of the brain for the life of the soul through a more intensive study of the mentally disturbed. And this is the training ground for a sympathetic understanding of others. Life uses the crude instrument of sickness in order to awaken our interest in others. It is this concern for our neighbour which can promote the social progress of mankind in the immediate future, whereas the reverse of positiveness, a superficial attitude of sympathy or antipathy towards others makes for social regression. These things are all related to the mystery of the epoch of the Consciousness Soul.

In every epoch of history mankind develops some definite faculty and this faculty plays an important role in evolution. Recall my words at the end of the last lecture. I said: men must be prepared to recognize more and more in the events of external history creation and destruction, birth and death, birth through impregnation with a new spiritual revelation, death through everything that we create. For the fundamental characteristic of the epoch of the Consciousness Soul is that, on the physical plane, we can only create if we are aware that everything we create is destined to perish. Death is inherent in everything we create. On the physical plane the most important achievements of recent time are fraught with death. And the mistake we make is not that our creations are fraught with death, but that we refuse to recognize that they are vehicles of death.

After the first fifth of the epoch of the Consciousness Soul has elapsed, people still say today: man is born and dies. They avoid saying, for it seems absurd: to what end is man born if he is destined to die? Why bring a man into the world when we know that death is his lot. In that event birth is meaningless! Now people do not say this, because nature in her wisdom compels them to accept birth and death in the sphere of external nature. In the sphere of history, however, they have not yet reached the stage when they accept birth and death as the natural order of things. Everything created in the domain of history, they believe, is without exception good and is destined to subsist for ever. In the epoch of the Consciousness Soul we must develop a sense that the external events of history are subject to birth and death, and that, whatever we create, be it a child's toy or an empire, we create in the knowledge that it must one day perish. Failure to recognize the impermanence of things is irrational, just as it would be irrational to believe that one could bear a child which was entitled to live on earth for ever.

In the epoch of the Consciousness Soul we must become fully aware that the works of man are impermanent. In the Graeco-Latin epoch this was not necessary, for at that time the course of history followed the natural cycle of birth and death. Civilizations rose and fell as a natural process. In the epoch of the Consciousness Soul it is man who weaves birth and death into the web of his social life. And in this epoch man can acquire a sense for this because in the GraecoLatin epoch this seed had been implanted in him under quite specific circumstances.

For a man of the middle Graeco-Latin epoch the most important moment in his development was the early thirties. These years were to some extent the focal point of two forces which are active in every man. The forces which operate in the symptoms of birth are active throughout the whole period from birth to death; but their characteristic features are manifested at birth. Birth is only one significant symptom of the activity of these forces; and the other occasions when the same forces are active throughout the whole of physical life are less important. In the same way, the forces of death begin to act at the moment of birth and when man dies they are especially evident. These two polar forces, the forces of birth and the forces of death, always maintain a kind of balance. In the Graeco-Latin epoch they were most evenly balanced when man reached the early thirties. Up to this age he developed his sentient life and afterwards, through his own efforts, his intellect. Before the thirties his intellectual life could only be awakened through teaching and education. And therefore we speak of the Graeco-Latin epoch as the era of the Rational or Intellectual Soul because the sentient life up to the age of thirty and the intellectual life which developed later were united. But this no longer applies in the epoch of the Consciousness Soul. Today intellectual development ceases before middle life. The majority of people one meets today, especially amongst the middle classes, do not mature after the age of twenty-seven; thereafter they are content to plough the same furrow. You can easily see what I mean by looking around you. How few people today have radically changed in any way since the age of twenty-seven. They have aged physically, their hair has turned grey, they have become decrepit ... (perhaps that is going a little too far), but, on the whole, man reckons that he has reached maximum potentiality by the age of twenty-seven. Let us take the case of a member of the so-called intellectual class. If he has had a sound training up to the age of twenty-seven he wants to establish himself; if he has gained a qualification he wants to make use of it and advance his career potential. Would you expect a man of average intelligence today to become a second Faust, that is to say, to study not only one faculty, but four faculties in succession up to the age of fifty? I do not mean that he should of necessity go to the university, perhaps there are better possibilities than the four faculties. A man who is prepared to continue his studies, to expand his knowledge, a man who remains plastic and capable of transformation is a rarity today. This was far more common amongst the Greeks, at least amongst the intellectual section of the population, because development did not cease in the early thirties. The forces inherited at birth were still very active. They began to encounter the forces leading to death; a state of equilibrium was established at the midway stage of life. Today this situation has come to an end; the majority hopes to be ‘made’ men, as the saying goes, by the age of twenty-seven. Yet at the end of their thirties they could recapture something of their youthful idealism and go forward to wider fields if they really wished to do so! But I wonder how many there are today who are prepared to make the readjustment necessary for the future evolution of mankind: to develop a constant readiness to learn, to remain plastic and to be ever receptive to change. This will not be possible without that active sympathy for others of which I have already spoken. Our hearts must be filled with a tender concern for our neighbour, with sympathetic understanding for his peculiarities. And precisely because this compassion and understanding must take hold of mankind it is so rarely found today.

What I have just described throws light upon an important fact of man's inner psychic development. The thread linking birth and death is broken to some extent between the ages of twenty-six to twenty-seven and thirty-seven to thirty-eight. In this decade of man's evolution the forces of birth and death are not fully in harmony. The disposition of soul which man needs, and which he could still experience in the Graeco-Latin epoch because the forces of birth and death were still naturally conjoined, this disposition of soul he must develop in the epoch of the Consciousness Soul because he is able to observe birth and death in the external life of history. In brief, our observation of external life must be such that we can face the world around us fearlessly and courageously, saying to ourselves: we must consciously create and destroy in all domains of life. It is impossible to create forms of social life that last forever. He who works for social ends must have the courage constantly to build afresh, not to stagnate, because the works of man are impermanent and are doomed to perish, because new forms must replace the old.

Now in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, the epoch of the Intellectual or Rational Soul, birth and death were active in man in characteristic fashion; as yet there was no need for him to be aware of them externally. Now, in the epoch of the Consciousness Soul he must perceive them externally; to this end he must again develop in himself something else, and this is very important.

Let us look at man schematically in relation to the fourth, fifth and sixth cultural epochs.

In the fourth post-Atlantean epoch (the Graeco-Latin epoch) man was conscious of birth and death when he looked within himself. Today he must first perceive the forces of birth and death externally, in the events of history, in order to discover them within himself. That is why it is so vitally important that in the epoch of the Consciousness Soul man should have a clear understanding of forces of birth and death in their true sense, i.e. a knowledge of repeated lives on earth, in order to acquire an understanding for birth and death in the unfolding of history.

But just as man's consciousness of birth and death has passed from an inner experience to an external realization, so in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch he must develop within himself something which in the sixth post-Atlantean epoch beginning in the fourth millennium will once again be experienced externally, namely, evil. In the fifth post-Atlantean epoch evil is destined to develop in man; it will ray outwards in the sixth epoch and be experienced externally just as birth and death were experienced externally in the fifth epoch. Evil is destined to develop in man's inner being.

That is indeed an unpleasant truth! One can accept the fact that in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch man was familiar with birth and death as an inner experience and then perceived them in the cosmos as I pointed out in my lectures on the Immaculate Conception and the Resurrection, and the Mystery of Golgotha. Therefore mankind of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch is brought face to face with the phenomenon of the birth and death of Christ Jesus because birth and death were of vital importance in this epoch.

Today when Christ is destined to appear again in the etheric body, when a kind of Mystery of Golgotha is to be experienced anew, evil will have a significance akin to that of birth and death for the fourth post-Atlantean epoch! In the fourth epoch the Christ impulse was born out of the forces of death for the salvation of mankind. We can say that we owe the new impulse that permeated mankind to the event on Golgotha. Thus by a strange paradox mankind is led to a renewed experience of the Mystery of Golgotha in the fifth epoch through the forces of evil. Through the experience of evil it will be possible for the Christ to appear again, just as He appeared in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch through the experience of death.

In order to understand this—we have already given here and there a few indications of the Mystery of Evil—we must now say a few words about the relationship between the Mystery of Evil and the Mystery of Golgotha. This relationship will be the subject of our next lecture.

• 1. The Austrian Minister was Dr. Giskra (1820–79).
• 2. Oskar Hertwig (1849–1922). Director of the Anatomical-biological Institute in Berlin (1888–1921). Author of works on biology, zoology. Rejected Darwin's theory of sexual selection.

We have once more pointed out in these lectures that in the most recent cultural period of human evolution, the fifth post-Atlantean period, the main force governing human soul life is the force of the intellect, the force of ideas living in thoughts. To this we had to add the statement that the force of thoughts is actually the corpse of our life of spirit and soul as it was before birth. More and more strongly in recent times this force of thought has emancipated itself from the other forces of the human being, and this was clearly felt by those spirits who wanted to attain a full understanding of the Christian impulse.

Yesterday I endeavoured to describe this, using the example of Calderón's Cyprianus. That drama depicts, on the one hand, the struggles which arise out of the old ideas of a nature filled with soul and, on the other, the strong sense of helplessness encountered by the human being who distances himself from this old view and is forced to seek shelter in mere thoughts. We saw how Cyprianus had to seek the assistance of Satan in order to win Justina—whose significance I endeavoured to explain. But in consequence of the new soul principle, which is now dominant, all he could receive from Satan was a phantom of Justina.

All these things show forcefully how human beings, striving for the spirit, felt in this new age, how they felt the deadness of mere thought life and how, at the same time, they felt that it would be impossible to enter with these mere thoughts into the living realm of the Christ concept. I then went on yesterday to show that the phase depicted in Calderon's Cyprianus drama is followed by another, which we find in Goethe's Faust. Goethe is a personality who stands fully in the cultural life of the eighteenth century, which was actually far more international than were later times, and which also had a really strong feeling for the intellectual realm, the realm of thoughts. We can certainly say that in his young days Goethe explored all the different sciences much as did the Faust he depicts in his drama. For in what the intellectual realm had to offer, Goethe did not seek what most people habitually seek; he was searching for a genuine connection with the world to which the eternal nature of man belongs. We can certainly say that Goethe sought true knowledge. But he could not find it through the various sciences at his disposal. Perhaps Goethe approached the figure of Faust in an external way to start with. But because of his own special inclinations he sensed in this Faust figure the struggling human being about whom we spoke yesterday. And in a certain sense he identified with this struggling human being.

Goethe worked on Faust in three stages. The first stage leads us back to his early youth when he felt utterly dissatisfied with his university studies and longed to escape from it all and find a true union of soul with the whole of cultural life. Faust was depicted as the struggling human being, the human being striving to escape from mere intellect into a full comprehension of the cosmic origins of man. So this early figure of Faust takes his place beside the other characters simply as the striving human being. Then Goethe underwent those stages of his development during which he submerged himself in the art of the South which he saw as giving form on a higher plane to the essence of nature. He increasingly sought the spirit in nature, for he could not find it in the cultural life that at first presented itself to him. A deep longing led him to the art of the South, which he regarded as the last remnant of Greek art. There, in the way the secrets of nature were depicted artistically out of the Greek world view, he believed he would discover the spirituality of nature.

And then everything he had experienced in Italy underwent a transformation within his soul. We see this transformation given living expression in the intimate form of his fairy-tale¹ about the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily, in which, out of certain traditional concepts of beauty, wisdom, virtue and strength, he created the temple with the four Kings.

Then, at the end of the eighteenth century, we see how, encouraged by Schiller, he returns to Faust, enriched with this world of ideas. This second stage of his work on Faust is marked particularly by the appearance of the ‘Prologue in Heaven’, that wonderful poem which begins with the words: ‘The sun makes music as of old, Amid the rival spheres of heaven.’² In the drama as Goethe now conceives it, Faust no longer stands there as a solitary figure concerned solely with himself. Now we have the cosmos with all the forces of the universe ascending and descending, and within this cosmos the human being whom the powers of good and evil do battle to possess. Faust takes his place within the cosmos as a whole. Goethe has expanded the material from a question of man alone to a question encompassing the whole of the universe.

The third stage begins in the twenties of the nineteenth century, when Goethe sets about completing the drama. Once again quite new thoughts live in his soul, very different from those with which he was concerned at the end of the eighteenth century when he composed the ‘Prologue in Heaven’, using ancient ideas about nature, ideas of the spirit in nature, in order to raise the question of Faust to the level of a question of the cosmos. In the twenties, working to bring the second part of the drama to a conclusion, Goethe has returned once more to the human soul out of which he now wants to draw everything, expanding the soul-being once more into a cosmic being.

Of course he has to make use of external representations, but we see how he depicts dramatically the inner journeyings of the soul. Consider the ‘Classical Walpurgis-Night’ or the reappearance of the Helena scene, which had been there earlier, though merely in the form of an episode. And consider how, in the great final tableau, he endeavours to bring to a concluding climax the soul's inner experience, which is at the same time a cosmic experience when it becomes spiritual. Finally the drama flows over into a Christian element. But, as I said yesterday, this Christian element is not developed out of Faust's experiences of soul but is merely tacked on to the end. Goethe made a study of the Catholic cultus and then tacked this Christianizing element on to the end of Faust. There is only an external connection between Faust's inner struggles and the way in which the drama finally leads into this Christian tableau of the universe. This is not intended to belittle the Faust drama. But it has to be said that Goethe, who wrestled in the deepest sense of the word to depict how the spiritual world should be found in earthly life, did not, in fact, succeed in discovering a way of depicting this finding of spirituality in earthly life. To do so, he would have had to come to a full comprehension of the meaning of the Mystery of Golgotha. He would have had to understand how the Christ-being came from the expanses of the cosmos and descended into the human being, Jesus of Nazareth, and how he united himself with the earth, so that ever since then, when seeking the spirit which ebbs and flows in the stormy deeds of man, one ought to find the Christ-impulse in earthly life.

Goethe was never able to make the link between the spirit of the earth, ebbing and flowing in stormy deeds, in the weaving of time, and the Christ-impulse. In a way this may be felt to be a tragedy. But it came about of necessity, because the period of human evolution in which Goethe stood did not yet provide the ground on which the full significance of the Mystery of Golgotha could be comprehended. Indeed, this Mystery of Golgotha can only be fully comprehended if human beings learn to give new life to the dead thoughts which are a part of them in this fifth post-Atlantean period. Today there is a tremendous amount of prejudice, in thought, in feeling and in will, against the re-enlivening of the world of thought. But mankind must solve this problem. Mankind must learn to give new life to this world of thought which enters human nature at birth and conception as the corpse of spirit and soul; this corpse of thoughts and ideas must be made to live again. But this can only happen when thoughts are transformed—first into Imaginations, and then the Imaginations transformed into Inspirations and Intuitions. What is needed is a full understanding of the human being. Not until this becomes a reality, will what I told you yesterday be fully understood: That the world around us must come to be seen as a tremendous question to which the human being himself provides the answer. This is what was to have been given to mankind with the Mystery of Golgotha. It will not be understood until the human being is understood.

Let us look at a diagram of threefold man once more: the human being of the head or of the nerves and senses as discussed yesterday;

Earth

the human being of the rhythmic system or of the chest; and the human being of the metabolism and limbs.

Looking at the human being today, we accept him as the external form in which he appears to us. Someone dissecting a body on the dissecting table has no special feeling that the human head, for instance, is in any way very different from, say, a finger. A finger muscle is considered in the same way as is a muscle in the head. But it ought to be known that the head is, in the main, a metamorphosis of the system of limbs and metabolism from the preceding incarnation; in other words, the head occupies a place in evolution which is quite different from that of the system of limbs that goes with it.

Having at last struggled through to a view of the inner aspect of threefold man, we shall then be in a position to come to a view of what is linked from the cosmos with this threefold human being. As far as our external being is concerned, we are in fact only incarnated in the solid, earthly realm through our head organization. We should never be approachable as a creature of the solid earth if we did not possess our head organization, which is, however, an echo of the limb organization of our previous incarnation. The fact that we have solid parts also in our hands and feet is the result of what rays down from the head. But it is our head which makes us solid. Everything solid and earthly in us derives from our head, as far as the forces in it are concerned.

In our head the solid earth is in us. And whatever is solid anywhere else in our body rays down through us from our head. The origin of our solid bones lies in our head. But there is also in our head a transition to the watery element. All the solid parts of our brain are embedded in the cerebral fluid. In our head there is a constant inter-mingling vibration of the solid parts of our brain with the cerebral fluid which is linked to the rest of the body by way of the spinal fluid. So, looking at the human being of nerves and senses, we can say that here is the transition from the earthly element (blue) to the watery element. We can say that the human being of nerves and senses lives in the earthy-watery element. And in accordance with this, our brain consists of an intercorrespondence between the earthy and watery elements.

Now let us turn to the chest organism, the rhythmic organism. This rhythmic organism lives in the interrelationship between the watery and the airy element (yellow). In the lungs you can see the watery element making contact with the airy element. The rhythmic life is anintermingling of the watery with the airy element, of water with air. So I could say: The rhythmical human being lives in the watery-airy element.

And the human being of metabolism and limbs then lives in the transition from the airy element to the warmth element, in the fiery element (red, next diagram). It is a constant dissolving of the airy element in the warmth, the fiery element, which then seeps through the whole human being as his body heat. What happens in our metabolism and in our movements is a reorganization of the airy, gaseous element up into the warm, fiery element. As we move about, we constantly burn up those elements of the food we have eaten which have become airy. Even when we do not move about, the foods we eat are transformed airy elements which we constantly burn up in the warmth element. So the human being of limbs and metabolism lives in the airy-fiery element.

Human being of nerves and senses: earthy-watery element

Rhythmical human being: watery-airy element

Human being of limbs and metabolism: airy-fiery element

From here we go up even further into the etheric parts, into the light element, into the etheric body of the human being. When the organism of metabolism and limbs has transferred everything into warmth, it then goes up into the etheric body. Here the human being joins up with the etheric realm which fills the whole world; here he makes the link with the cosmos.

Ideas like this, which I have shown you only as diagrams, can be transformed into artistic and poetic form by someone who has an inner sense for sculpture and music. In a work of poetry such as the drama of Faust such things can certainly be expressed in artistic form, in the way certain cosmic secrets are expressed, for instance, in the seventh scene of my first Mystery Drama.³ This leads to the possibility of seeing the human being linked once more with the cosmos. But for this we cannot apply to the human being what our intellect teaches us about external nature. You must understand that if you study external nature, and then study your head in the same way as you would external nature, you are then studying something which simply does not belong to external nature as it now is, but something that comes from your former incarnation. You are studying something as though it had arisen at the present moment; but it is not something that has arisen out of the present moment, nor could it ever arise out of the present moment. For a human head could not possibly arise out of the forces of nature which exist. So the human head must not be studied in the same way as objects are studied with the intellect. It must be studied with the knowledge given by Imagination. The human head will not be understood until it is studied with the knowledge given by Imagination.

In the rhythmical human being everything comes into movement. Here we have to do with the watery and the airy elements. Everything

is in surging movement. The external, solid parts of our breast organization are only what our head sends down into this surging motion. To study the rhythmical human being we have to say that in this rhythmical surging the watery element and the airy element mingle together (see diagram, green, yellow). Into this, the head sends the possibility for the solid parts, such as those in the lungs, to be present (white). This surging, which is the real rhythmical human being, can only be studied with the knowledge given by Inspiration. So the rhythmical human being can only be studied with the knowledge given by Inspiration.

And the human being of limbs and metabolism—this is the continuous burning of the air in us. You stand within it, in your warmth you feel yourself to be a human being, but this is a very obscure idea. It can only be studied properly with the knowledge given by Intuition, in which the soul stands within the object. Only the knowledge given by Intuition can lead to the human being of metabolism and limbs.

The human being will remain forever unknown if he is not studied with the knowledge given by Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition. He will forever remain the external shell which is all that is recognized today, both in general and in science. This situation must not be allowed to remain. The human being must come once more to be recognized for what he is. If you study only the solid parts of the human being, the parts which are shown in the illustrations in anatomy textbooks, then, right from the start, you are studying wrongly. Your study ought to be in the realm of Imagination, because all these illustrations of the solid parts of the human organism ought to be taken as images brought over from the previous incarnation. This is the first thing. Then come the even more delicate parts which live in the physical constituents. These can only be studied with the knowledge given by Inspiration. And the airy-watery element can only be studied with the knowledge given by Intuition. These things must be taken into European consciousness, indeed into the whole of modern civilization. If we fail to place them in the mainstream of culture, our civilization will only go downhill instead of upwards.

When you understand what Goethe intended with his Faust, you sense that he was endeavouring to pass through a certain gateway. Everywhere he is struggling with the question: What is it that we need to know about this human being? As a very young man he began to study the human form. Read his discourse on the intermaxillary bone and also what I wrote about it in my edition of his scientific writings.⁴ He is endeavouring so hard to come to an understanding of man. First he tried by way of anatomy and physiology. Then in the nineties he explored the aspect of moral ideas which we find in the fairy tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily. Then, in Faust, he wants to depict the human being as he stands in the world. He is trying to pass through a gateway in order to discover how the human being does, in fact, stand in the world. But he lacks the necessary prerequisites; he cannot do it.

When Calderón wrote his drama about Cyprianus, the struggle was still taking place at a previous level. We see how Justina tears herself free of Satan's clutches, how Cyprianus goes mad, how they find one another in death, and how their salvation comes as they meet their end on the scaffold. Above them the serpent appears—on it rides the demon who is forced to announce their salvation.

We see that at the time when Calderon was writing his Cyprianus drama the message to be clearly stated was: You cannot find the divine, spiritual realm here on earth. First you must die and go through the portal of death; then you will discover the divine spiritual world, that salvation which you can find through Christ. They were still far from understanding the Mystery of Golgotha through which Christ had descended to earth, where it now ought to be possible to find him. Calderon still has too many heathen and Jewish elements in his ideas for him to have a fully developed sense for Christianity.

After that, a good deal of time passed before Goethe started to work on his Faust. He sensed that it was necessary for Faust to find his salvation here on earth. The question he should therefore have asked was: How can Faust discover the truth of Paul's words: ‘Not I, but Christ in me’?⁵ Goethe should have let his Faust say not only, to ‘Stand on free soil among a people free’,⁶ but also: to ‘stand on free soil with Christ in one's soul leading the human being in earthly life to the spirit’. Goethe should have let Faust say something like this. But Goethe is honest; he does not say it because he has not yet fully understood it. But he is striving to understand it. He is striving for something which can only be achieved when it is possible to say: Learn to know man through Imagination, Inspiration, Intuition. That he is striving in this way gives us the feeling that there is much more in his struggle and in his endeavour than he ever managed to express or than has filtered through into today's culture. Perhaps he can only be fully recognized by doing what I did in my early writings when I endeavoured to express the ‘world view which lived almost unconsciously in him. However, on the whole, his search has met with little understanding amongst the people of today.

When I look at this whole situation in connection with modern civilization, I am constantly reminded of my old teacher and friend, Karl Julius Schröer.⁷ I think particularly of how, in the eighties of the last century, Schröer was working on Faust and on Goethe's other plays, writing commentaries, introductions and so on. He was not in the least concerned to speak about Goethe in clearly defined concepts but merely gave general indications. Yet he was at pains to make people understand that what lived most profoundly in Goethe must enter into mainstream modern culture. On the fiftieth anniversary of Goethe's death, in 1882, Schröer gave an address: ‘How the future will see Goethe’. He lived with the dream that the time had already come for a kind of resurrection of Goethe. Then we wrote a short essay in Die Neue Freie Presse which was reprinted in the booklet ‘Goethe and Love’. This and other of his writings have now been acquired by our publisher, Der Kommende Tag, so remaindered copies can be acquired there, and there will also be new editions eventually. This essay ‘Goethe after 50 Years’ is a brief extract from that lecture, at which I was present. It contains a good deal of what Schröer felt at that time regarding the need for Goethe to be assimilated into modern culture. And then in this booklet ‘Goethe and Love’ he endeavoured to show in the notes how Goethe could be made to come alive, for to bring Goethe to life is, in a sense, to bring the world of abstract thoughts to life. In the recent number of Das Goetheanum I referred to a beautiful passage about this in the booklet ‘Goethe and Love’. Schröer says: ‘Schiller recognized him. When an intuitive genius searches for the character of necessity in the empirical realm, he will always produce individuals even though these may have a generic aspect. With his intuitive method of seeing the eternal idea, the primeval type, in the mortal individual, Goethe is perhaps not as alone as one might assume.’

While Schröer was writing this booklet in 1882 I visited him a number of times. He was filled to the brim with an impression he had had. He had heard somewhere how Oppolzer, a physician in Vienna, used a rather vague intuitive faculty when making his diagnoses. Instead of examining the patient in the usual way, he allowed the type of the patient to make an impression on him, and from the type of the patient he deduced something of the type of the illness. This made a strong impression on Schröer, and he used this phenomenon to enlarge on what he was trying to explain: ‘In medicine we extol the ability of great diagnosticians to fathom the disease by intuitively discerning the individual patient's type, his habitude. They are not helped by chemical or anatomical knowledge but by an intuitive sense for the living creature as a whole being. They are creative spirits who see the sun because their eyeis sunlike. Others do not see the sun. What these diagnosticians are doing unconsciously is to follow the intuitive method which Goethe consciously applied as a means of scientific study. The results he achieved are no longer disputed, though the method is not yet generally recognized.’

Out of a conspectus which included Oppolzer's intuitive bedside method, Schröer even then was pointing out that the different sciences, for example, medicine, needed fructifying by a method which worked together with the spirit.

It is rather tragic to look back and see in Schröer one of the last of those who still sensed what was most profound in Goethe. At the beginning of the eighties of the last century Schroer believed that there would have to be a Goethe revival, but soon after that Goethe was truly nailed into his coffin and buried with sweeping finality. His grave, we could say, was in Central Europe, in the Goethe-Gesellschaft, whose English branch was called the Goethe Society. This is where the living Goethe was buried. But now it is necessary to bring this living element, which was in Goethe, back into our culture. Karl Julius Schroer's instinct was good. In his day he was unable to fulfil it because his contemporaries continued to worship the dead Goethe. ‘He who would study organic existence, first drives out the soul with rigid persistence.’⁸

This became the motto, and in some very wide circles this motto has intensified into a hatred against any talk of spiritual things—as you can see in the way Anthroposophy is received by many people.

Today's culture, which all of you have as your background, urgently needs this element of revival. It is quite extraordinary how much talk there is today of Goethe's Faust, which after all simply represents a new stage in the struggle for the spirit which we saw in Calderón's Cyprianus drama. So much is said about Faust, yet there is no understanding for the task of the present time, which is to bring fully to life what Goethe brought to life in his Faust, especially in the second part. Goethe brought it to life in a vague, intuitive sensing, though not with full spiritual insight. We ought to turn our full attention to this, for indeed it is not only a matter of a world view. It is a matter of our whole culture and civilization. There are many symptoms, if only we can see them in the right light.

Here is an essay by Ruedorffer⁹ entitled ‘The Three Crises’. Every page gives us a painful knock. The writer played important roles in the diplomatic and political life of Europe before the war and on into the war. Now, with his intimate knowledge of the highways and byways of European-life, and because he was able to observe things from vantage points not open to most, he is seeking an explanation of what is actually going on. I need only read you a few passages. He wants to be a realist, not an idealist. During the course of his diplomatic career he has developed a sober view of life. And despite the fact that he has written such things as the passages I am going to read to you he remains that much appreciated character, a bourgeois philistine.

He deals with three things in his essay. Firstly he says that the countries and nations of Europe no longer have any relationship with one another. Then he says that the governing circles, the leaders of the different nations, have no relationship with the population. And thirdly he says that those people in particular who want to work out and found a new age by radical means most certainly have no relationship with reality.

So a person who played his part in bringing about the situation that now exists writes: ‘This sickness of the state organism snatches leadership away from good sense and hands responsibility for decisions of state to all sorts of minor influences and secondary considerations. It inhibits freedom of movement, fragments the national will and usually also leads to a dangerous instability of governments. The period of unruly nationalism that preceded the war, the war itself, and the situation in Europe since the war, have made monstrous demands on the good sense of all the states, and on their peace and their freedom to manoevre. The loss of wealth brought about by necessary measures has completed the catastrophe. The crisis of the state and the crisis in world-wide organization have mutually exacerbated the situation, each magnifying the destructive effect of the other.’ These are not the words of an idealist, or of some artistic spirit who watched from the sidelines, but of someone who shared in creating the situation. He says, for instance: ‘If democracy is to endure, it must be honest and courageous enough to call a spade a spade, even if it means bearing witness against itself. Europe faces ruin.’

So it is not only pessimistic idealists who say that Europe is faced with ruin. The same is said especially by those who stood in the midst of practical life. One of these very people says:

‘Europe faces ruin. There is no time to waste by covering up mistakes for party political reasons, instead of setting about putting them to rights. It is for this reason alone, and not to set myself up as laudator temporis acti, that I have to stress that democracy must, and will, destroy itself if it cannot free the state from this snare of minor influences and secondary considerations. Pre-war Europe collapsed because all the countries of the continent—the monarchies as well as the democracies and, above all, autocratic Russia—succumbed to demagogy, partly voluntarily, partly unconsciously, partly with reluctance because their hand was forced. In the confusion of mind, for which they had only themselves to thank, they were incapable of recognizing good sense, and even if they had recognized it they would have been incapable of acting on it freely and decisively. The higher social strata of the old states of Europe—who, in the last century, were certainly the bearers of European culture and rich in personalities of statesmanlike quality and much world experience—would not have been so easily thrown from the saddle, rotten and expended, if they had grown with the problems and tasks of new times, if they had not lost their statesmanlike spirit, and if they had preserved any more worthwhile tradition than that of the most trivial diplomatic routine. If monarchs claim the ability to select statesmen more proficiently and expertly than governments, then they and their courts must be the centre and epitome of culture, insight and understanding. Long before the war this ceased to be the case. But indictment of the monarchs’ failures does not exonerate the democracies from recognizing the causes of their own inadequacies or from doing everything possible to eliminate them. Before Europe can recover, before any attempt can be made to replace its hopeless disorganization with a durable political structure, the individual countries will have to tidy up their internal affairs to an extent which will free their governments for long-term serious work. Otherwise, the best will in the world and the greatest capability will be paralysed, tied down by the web of the disaster which is the same wherever we look.’

I would not bother to read all this to you if it had been written by an idealist, instead of by someone who considers his feet to be firmly on the ground of reality because he played a part in bringing the current situation about.

‘The drama is deeply tragic. Every attempt at improvement, every word of change, becomes entangled in this web, throttled by a thousand threads, until it falls to the ground without effect. The citizens of Europe—thoughtlessly clutching the contemporary erroneous belief in the constant progress of mankind, or, with loud lamentations trotting along in the same old rut—fail to see, and do not want to see, that they are living off the stored-up labour of earlier years; they are barely capable of recognizing the present broken-down state of the world order, and are certainly incapable of bringing a new one to birth. On the other hand, the workers, treading a radical path in almost every country and convinced of the untenability of the present situation, believe themselves to be the bringers of salvation through a new order of things; but in reality this belief has made them into nothing more than an unconscious tool of destruction and decline, their own included. The new parasites of economic disorganization, the complaining rich of yester-year, the petit bourgeois descending to the level of the proletariat, the gullible worker believing himself to be the founder of a new world—all of them seem to be engulfed by the same disaster, all of them are blind men digging their own grave.’

Remember, this is not written by an idealist, but by one who shared in bringing about this situation!

‘But every political factor today—the recent peace treaties of the Entente, the Polish invasion of the Ukraine, the blindness or helplessness of the Entente with regard to developments in Germany and Austria—proves to the politician who depends on reality that although idealistic demands for a pan-European, constructive revision of the Paris peace treaties can be made, although the most urgent warnings can be shockingly justified, nevertheless, both demands and warnings can but die away unnoticed while everything rolls on unchanged towards the inevitable end—the abyss.’

The whole book is written in order to prove that Europe has come to the brink of the abyss and that we are currently employed in digging the grave of European civilization. But all this is only an introduction to what I now find it necessary to say to you. What I have to say is something different. Here we have a man who was himself an occupant of crucial seats of office, a man who realizes that Europe is on the brink of the abyss. And yet—as we can see in the whole of his book—all he has to say is: If all that happens is only a continuation of older impulses, then civilization will perish; it will definitely perish. Something new must come.

So now let me search for this new thing to which he wants to point. Yes, here it is, on page 67; here it is, in three lines: ‘Only a change of heart in the world, a change of will by the major powers, can lead to the creation of a supreme council of European good sense.’

Yes, this is the decision that faces these people. They point out that only if a change of heart comes about, if something entirely new is brought into being, can the situation be saved. This whole book is written to show that without this there can be no salvation. There is a good deal of truth in this. For, in truth, salvation for our collapsing civilization can only come from a spiritual life drawn from the real sources of the spirit. There is no other salvation. Without it, modern civilization, in so far as it is founded in Europe and reaches across to America, is drawing towards its close. Decay is the most important phenomenon of our time. There is no help in reaching compromises with decay. Help can only come from turning to something that can flourish above the grave, because it is more powerful than death. And that is spiritual life. But people like the writer of this book have only the most abstract notion of what this entails. They say an international change of heart must take place. If anything is said about a real, new blossoming of spiritual life, this is branded as ‘useless mysticism’. All people can say is: Look at them, bringing up all kinds of occult and mystical things; we must have nothing to do with them.

Those who are digging the grave of modern civilization most busily are those who actually have the insight to see that the digging is going on. But the only real way of taking up a stance with regard to these things is to look at them squarely, with great earnestness—to meditate earnestly on the fact that a new spiritual life is what is needed and that it is necessary to search for this spiritual life, so that at last a way may be found of finding Christ within earthly life, and of finding Him as He has become since the Mystery of Golgotha. For He descended in order to unite with the conditions of the earth.

The strongest battle against real Christian truth is being fought today by a certain kind of theology which raises its hands in horror at any mention of the cosmic Christ. It is necessary to be reminded again and again that even in the days when Schröer was pointing to Goethe as a source for a regeneration of civilization, a book appeared by a professor in Basel—a friend of Nietzsche—about modern Christian theology. Overbeck¹⁰ considered at that time that theology was the most un-Christian thing, and as a historian of theology he sought to prove this. So there was at that time in Basel a professor of theological history who set out to prove that theology is un-Christian!

Mankind has drifted inevitably towards catastrophe because it failed to hear the isolated calls, which did exist but which were, it must be said, still very unclear. Today there is no longer any time to lose.

Today mankind must know that descriptions such as that given by Ruedorffer are most definitely true and that it is most definitely necessary to realize how everything is collapsing because of the continuation of the old impulses. There is only one course to follow: We must turn towards what can grow out of the grave, out of the living spirit.

This is what must be pointed out ever and again, especially in connection with the things with which we are concerned.

• 1 . Floris Books, Edinburgh 1979. See, for instance, Rudolf Steiner, The Portal of Initiation & The Character of Goethe's Spirit as Shown in the Fairy Story (incl. a translation of the Fairy Story by Thomas Carlyle), Rudolf Steiner Press, New Jersey 1961.
• 2 . Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust, Part One, ‘Prologue in Heaven’. The English versions of the quotations from Faust are taken from the translation by Bayard Taylor, with the exception of these lines from the ‘Prologue in Heaven’, which are translated by Shelley. (Tr.)
• 3 . The Portal of Initiation. A Rosicrucian Mystery through Rudolf Steiner, transl. Ruth and Hans Pusch, Steiner Book Centre, Toronto, 1973.
• 4 . Rudolf Steiner Goethes Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften, mit Einleitungen, Fussnoten und Erlauterungen im Text (Goethe's Natural Scientific Writings) in Kürschners Deutsche National-Litteratur. On the intermaxillary bone see Volume 1.
• 5 . Galatians 2, 20
• 6 . Part Two, Act 5, Great Outer Court of the Palace.
• 7. Karl Julius Schröer, 1825-1900. On his booklet Goethe und die Liebe (Goethe and Love) see Rudolf Steiner's collected essays 1921-1925 in Der Goetheanumgedanke inmitten der Kulturkrisis der Gegenwart, p.111. GA 36.
• 8 . Faust Part One. The Study.
• 9 . J.J. Ruedorffer, Die drei Krisen. Eine Untersuchung fiber den gegenwartigen politischen Weltzustand (The Three Crises. A consideration of the present state of world politics.) Stuttgart/Berlin 1920.
• 10. Franz Overbeck, 1837-1905.

My dear Friends,

The theme proposed for our lectures is: Supersensible Man, as he can be perceived and understood out of Anthroposophical wisdom. We shall try to give expression to this knowledge and understanding of man from many different sides; and as the number of lectures has unavoidably to be small, I will plunge at once into the heart of the subject.

To speak of man as a super-sensible being at once raises the question of the way in which man is regarded at the present day. For a long time now there has been no mention of super-sensible man, not even among persons of an idealistic turn of mind. The ordinary culture and knowledge of our age never speaks of the man who passes through births and deaths. In the course of centuries it has become quite natural to us to believe and even to teach our children in the schoolroom that the Earth is no more than a speck of dust, as it were, in the Cosmos, while upon this speck of dust, as an infinitely smaller speck of dust, man moves through the Universe with a delirious rapidity—man, who is utterly insignificant in relation to the great Universe. Because this conception of the Earth as a speck of dust has permeated every mind and heart, men have completely lost the possibility of relating the human being to what lies beyond the earthly realm. Something is, however, speaking to men to-day, even if they do not realise it, even if it remain in the realm of the unconscious—speaking to them to-day in clear and unmistakable tones, urging them to turn their attention once again to the super-sensible nature of their own being, and therewith of the universe. For in the course of the last few centuries, my dear friends, materialism has found its way into our very knowledge of man. What is this materialism, in reality?

Materialism is the kind of thought which regards man as a product of the substances and forces of the Earth. And although there are many who declare that the human being is not composed entirely of earthly substances and forces, we have, truly speaking, no science which concerns itself with whatever it is in man that does not originate from earthly substances; and when people declare to-day—in all good faith from their point of view—that the eternal in man can, none the less, be in some way apprehended, the statement is not really quite honest. It is not a matter simply of contradicting materialism. It is dilettantism to imagine that this is what we should be doing on every possible occasion. Theories based upon materialism, which either cast doubt upon or deny altogether the existence, or at any rate the possibility of knowledge, of a spiritual world, are not of first importance; what is significant is the tremendous weight and power of materialism. Of what use is it in the long run, when people say, either out of some inner perception or out of religious tradition, that the thinking, feeling and willing of man must surely have an existence independent of the brain, if then modern science comes along and by one means or another—and it is generally, as you know, in pathological cases that research into the brain is instituted—disposes of the brain bit by bit and gives the appearance of disposing at the same time bit by bit of the human soul' Or what sense is there again in allowing intuitive feelings or religious tradition to speak of the immortality of the life of soul, and then, when a man is ill in his soul, be unable to think of anything that will help him except cures for the brain or the nervous system? It is materialism that has brought us all this knowledge and research. Many of those who are ready to refute materialism to-day do not really know what they are doing. They do not appreciate the tremendous significance of the detailed knowledge which materialism has brought in its train; they have no notion of the consequence of materialism for our whole understanding of man.

Let us then take this for our starting point. We will look at the human being and study him quite honestly from the aspect of what modern science knows about him. Such a study will reveal much. From all that physiology, biology, chemistry and other sciences can contribute towards an understanding of the human being, we shall learn how the different known substances and forces of the world and the Earth come together to build up muscle, bone, nervous system, blood system, the several senses—in short, the whole human being of whom modern science speaks. Approaching modern science in this way in its most successful manifestation, we come upon a remarkable fact. Take, for instance, the knowledge comprised in what a medical student has to learn as the foundation for his work of healing. Having acquainted himself with certain preparatory sciences, he passes on to those which are fundamental to medicine. Let us imagine that we have before us, collected together in a handbook, everything he has to learn about the human organism, until he arrives at the point where he must pass on to specialised knowledge. If we now ask ourselves:—To what does all this knowledge amount? What does the student know of man?—we must answer:—He knows a great deal, he knows everything that can be known to-day. (For, when we turn to the psychologists, to those who set out to understand the life of soul, we find an atmosphere of doubt and uncertainty.) In natural science we have no hesitation in recognising sound and valuable results of research,—so good indeed that the scientific lecturers are often unequal to their task. If students are apt to be bored by what they have to listen to in preparation for their medical studies, it is not the fault of the natural science but of those who expound it. We should never speak of science as “boring,” but rather of “boring” professors! Truly the fault does not lie with science, for science has undoubtedly good solid matter to offer. However God-forsaken are many of those who expound science to-day, science herself has the co-operation of good Spirits. When, however, we turn from these achievements of genuine and scholarly research and listen to what psychologists and philosophers have to say about the soul or the eternal part of man, we very soon realise that, apart from what has come from earlier traditions, it is all words, words, words, which lead nowhither. If out of the deepest needs of his soul a man turns to-day to psychology or philosophy, he will not merely be bored, he will find nothing whatever to answer his questions. In our present age it is natural science alone that has something to offer to those who are seeking knowledge.

But now what does this natural science teach us about man? It speaks of that in man which comes into existence at conception or birth and passes away at death. Nothing more! If we are honest, we must admit that science has not anything more to offer. The only course left open to one who is a genuine seeker in this domain is therefore to turn his attention to what cannot, in our day, be attained by the accustomed methods of science, namely, to the founding of a real science of the soul and spirit, based, as was ancient spiritual knowledge, upon experience in and observation of the spiritual. Such a science is to be attained only by methods indicated in my books “Knowledge of the Higher Worlds,” “Occult Science” and others,—methods which enable a man actually to perceive the spiritual, and to speak of it as he speaks of that which lies before him in the world of sense and has led to the development of a genuine and sound natural science. What the Earth has to offer to the eyes of sense, what can be made the object of experiment has not, of course, by any means been exhausted,—although it is well on the way! But this can at most yield knowledge of man as a transient, material being, living in time. To look out beyond the earthly realm is not possible, so long as we are trying to understand the human being by the methods of natural science. For if we have eyes only for the earthly we can see nothing but the transient part of man.

As we shall find, however, even this transient part of man can never be explained in and from itself. Even here we are led, perforce, to look away from the Earth to the Earth's cosmic environment. When modern science does this, it does little more than calculate the distances of the stars, describe their courses, examine them with a spectroscope and state how far the phenomena of light which reveal themselves there admit of the conclusion that the stars contain the same substances as are found on Earth. This science of the world that is beyond the Earth does not, in point of fact, get beyond the Earth at all! It is powerless to do so. To-day, therefore, I want to begin our study by placing before you certain facts for which we shall find detailed confirmation in the later lectures of the course.

If, instead of limiting our observation to the Earth, as is customary in science to-day, we direct our gaze to what lies beyond the Earth, to the world of the Stars, we have, first, the planetary system, those heavenly bodies which are manifestly connected in some way with the Earth, and which are involved both in movements which man thinks he has discovered to be movements around the Sun, similar to the movement of the Earth around the Sun, and also in movements which are performed together with the Sun in one direction or another in cosmic space. Such are the results that can be attained by observation and calculation; but they afford nothing that can be applied to the being of man himself. This kind of observation has indeed nothing to offer us for our knowledge of man.

Supersensible sight leads us at once to something new. We turn our gaze to the planetary bodies outside the Earth: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, then the Earth herself, Venus, Mercury, Moon—regarding the Moon not merely as a satellite but as a planet. Modern science calculates that Saturn, for example, with its immense orbit, takes a long time, thirty years, to move around the Sun; Jupiter needs a much shorter time; Mars still less, and so on. Let us say, we look out into the star-strewn heavens and see a star, a planet at a particular spot in the sky; somewhere else we see a different star—Saturn, Jupiter, or whatever it may be. Now what is thus revealed to the eyes of sense—Jupiter here, Saturn there—has also an ether sphere. It is embedded in a fine, delicate ether-substance. If we can perceive the ether as well, we see that Saturn, for instance—this curiously formed planet, looking like a globe surrounded with rings—accomplishes something in the ether around it. Saturn is not inactive in relation to the ether in which the whole planetary sphere is contained and enclosed. Seen with the eye of the spirit, Saturn rays out forces. From Saturn radiates something that can be perceived as form. The physical planet Saturn is only one part of the picture—a part that gradually fades away before the eye of the spirit. One has the feeling that the Spirits of the World have placed Saturn there in this position in the heavens on our behalf as it were, in order that we may have a direction in which to focus our gaze. To the eye of the spirit, it is as if someone were to make a dot on the black-board, draw something around it and then rub the dot out again. This is actually what happens in spiritual sight. Saturn is blotted out, but what is around Saturn becomes clearer and clearer and tells a marvellous story. If we have reached the point where Saturn itself is blotted out and we behold the “form” or “figure” that has been worked into the ether, we find that this form extends as far as Jupiter, where the same process is repeated. Jupiter is blotted out and what comes into being in the ether spreads out, spreads out very far; until once again a form arises in the ether, which combines with the form from Saturn to produce a picture in the heavens. We come to Mars, and the same thing happens again. Then we come to the Sun. Whereas the outer, physical Sun blinds and dazzles, we find it is not so with the spiritual Sun. All the dazzling quickly dies away when we gaze at the spiritual Sun, and a great, majestic, living picture arises from all that is inscribed into the ether—a picture that extends also to Venus, Mercury, Moon. We have, now, a complete picture with its different parts.

Some of you may here suggest that there will be occasions when Saturn, for instance, is standing at a place in the heavens where he cannot come in contact with the picture formed by Jupiter. In a wonderful way, this too is provided for. The contact is brought about in the following manner. If you were to start from a certain point lying in the East, in Asia, and draw a line right through the centre of the Earth to the other side and then extend it out into the Cosmos, you would have drawn a line that is of the greatest significance for the whole field of spiritual sight. When Saturn lies outside this line, we must carry over the picture that arises from Saturn to the line; this fixes it. The pictures are fixed by means of this line. Wherever we may have found the Jupiter-picture or the Saturn-picture—and they have to be sought for—they are fixed for our sight by being brought to this line. We have thus, finally, one single picture. Our planetary system presents a complete picture. Do you know what this picture is? We unriddle it and discover what it is—a great cosmic picture of the human skin with the sense-organs. If you take the skin of a human being, including with it the sense-organs, and try to draw the picture which corresponds to it in the heavens, it proves to be what I have just described. The planetary system inscribes into the cosmic ether what is present in the human being—differentiated and specialised by earthly conditions—in the spatial picture of the surface of the skin including the sense-organs. That, then, is the first thing. We discover a connection between the human being, on Earth, in respect to the form given him by the skin which encloses him, and the planetary system which shapes, forms, and builds into the ether, the archetypal, heavenly picture of earthly man.

Now we make a second discovery. We look at the planets in movement. If we watch any particular planet, then the Ptolemaic and the Copernican systems will give us each a different picture of its course. That can very well be; the pictures of planetary movements can be interpreted in many ways. But what is far more important is that we should now be able to behold all these movements together. Suppose we are looking at Saturn, the planet that has the longest way to go and needs the longest time in which to complete his orbit. The movement of Saturn seen in conjunction with the movement of Jupiter gives a picture. Looking now at all the planets together in this way in their several movements, we have before us once again one complete picture, arising this time from the movements of the planets. The picture does not tally with the astronomical descriptions of the planetary movements. Strange to say, spiritual sight does not find the pictures of ellipses which you can see drawn in astronomical maps. When we follow Saturn, for example, with spiritual sight, he reveals to us something which, in conjunction with other movements, forms itself into a figure of eight, a kind of lemniscate. Into this form enter manifold other planetary movements. So, once again, we have a picture. This picture arising from all the planetary movements reveals itself to us as the heavenly picture of what comes to expression in the human being in the nerves and the neighbouring glands. The archetypal picture of the human skin and sense-organs is found by spiritual sight in the order and grouping of the planets. We have now seen what happens when we pass from this to the picture of the planetary movements. If we draw an outline of the human form, we can have the feeling: This outline represents the form of the planetary system; but when we draw in the nervous system and the secreting glands, then with every stroke we are drawing a physical picture of the movements of the planetary system as they are seen with the eye of the spirit.

We can now take another step forward in our spiritual observation of the Cosmos. Having reached the point where we obtain a picture of the movements of the planets by drawing into our outline of the human form the nerves and neighbouring glands, we can go further. The several movements fade away. As we rise from Imagination to Inspiration, the movements vanish. This is of extraordinary significance. “Seeing” in the narrower sense ceases, and we begin to “hear” in the spirit. What was previously movement becomes dim and confused, until it is like a picture seen in a mist. But out of this misty picture the Music of the Cosmos begins to form—the Cosmic Rhythms become audible for us in the spirit. And we ask ourselves: What is it we must now add to our outline of the human form, to correspond with these Cosmic Rhythms?

In the sphere of Art, as you know, all manner of transformations are possible. When we have drawn our outline of man and then drawn within it the nervous system, we have the feeling that we have been literally painting or drawing. But now it is not so easy to paint what we hear in the realm of Cosmic Music, for it is all rhythm and melody. If we are to represent it in our picture, we must take a brush and, following the nervous system, quickly make here a dab of red, there a dab of blue, here again red, there again blue, and so on, all along the lines of the nervous system. Then at certain places we shall feel impelled to stop, we can go no further; we must now paint into the picture a definite “form,” to express what we have heard in the spirit. We can indeed transform it into drawing, but if we want to place it within the contour-line, we find that at certain points we are obliged to go beyond the line and paint a new and different form, because here the rhythm blue-red, blue-red, blue-red, suddenly becomes melody. We feel we must paint in this form—and the form is what the melody sings to us! Cosmic Rhythm—Cosmic Melody. When we have completed the picture, we have before us Cosmic Music made perceptible in space, the Cosmic Music which becomes audible to the ear of the spirit when the picture of the planetary movements grows dim and disappears. And what we have now drawn into our picture is none other than the path along which the blood flows. When we come to an organ—to heart or lung, or to organs which take into themselves either something from the outside world or substances from within the body itself—at these points we must paint a form which attaches itself in some way to the channels of the blood. Then we get heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, stomach. From the Cosmic Music we learn how to draw these organs of secretion, and how to insert them into the blood system in our picture.

Now we go a stage further. We pass from Inspiration to Intuition. Something new arises out of the Cosmic Music. The tones begin to blend with one another; one tone works upon another and we begin to hear meaning in this Cosmic Music. The Cosmic Music changes into speech—Cosmic Speech that is spoken forth by the Universe. At the stage of Intuition, what was known in earlier times as the Cosmic Word becomes audible. We must now draw something else into our picture of the human being. Here we must proceed just as we proceed in ordinary everyday writing, where we express something by means of words that are formed of letters. In our picture of man, we must express the meaning of the single Cosmic Words. We find that when we give expression to these Cosmic Words and bring that expression into the drawing, we have before us a picture of the muscular and bony systems in the human being, It is just as though someone were to tell us something which we then write down. Cosmic Speech tells us something—and we draw it into the picture. In what the world beyond the Earth tells us, we have thus been able to find the human being in his totality.

But now there is another and essentially different experience that comes to us in the course of this spiritual observation. Let us return to what was said at the beginning of the lecture about the form that is inscribed in the ether by the planetary bodies. While we are engaged in this spiritual observation, knowledge of the earthly vanishes for us; it remains as a memory only. But it must be there as memory; if it were not, we should have no stability, no balance, and these are essential if we are to be knowers of the spirit. A knowledge of the spirit that excludes physical knowledge is not good. Just as in physical life we must be able to remember—for if the faculty of remembering what we do and experience is lacking, we are not in good health—so, in the realm of spiritual knowledge we must be able always to remember what is there in the physical world. In the sphere where we experience the formative activities of the planetary system, the other kind of knowledge which we had on Earth—all that is given us in the wonderful achievements of physical science—is for the moment entirely forgotten. However well and thoroughly we have known our Natural Science here on Earth, in every act of spirit-knowledge we have always again and again to remember it, we have to recall to our consciousness what we have learnt in the realm of the physical. We must say to ourselves at every turn: That is the solid ground upon which I have to stand. But it withdraws from us, it becomes no more than a memory. On the other hand, we begin now to have a new perception, which is as vivid in comparison with physical knowledge as is immediate present experience compared with remembered experience. We perceive that while we are beholding the form-giving power of the planetary sphere we are within an entirely new environment. Around us are the Beings of the Third Hierarchy: Archai, Archangels, Angels. In this form-creating activity lives the Third Hierarchy. A new world arises before us. And now we do not merely say: From the world of the planets has come the human form in its Cosmic Archetype! Now we say: Beings of the Third Hierarchy, Archai, Archangels and Angels, are working and weaving at this cosmic archetype of the form of man!

It is possible here in earthly existence to attain to perception of the world of the Hierarchies, by means of super-sensible knowledge. After death, every human being must necessarily experience such knowledge, and the better he has prepared himself—as he can prepare himself—during earthly existence, the easier it will be for him. On Earth, when a man wants to know what he is like in his form and figure, he can look at himself in a mirror, or he can have his photograph taken. After death no such means exist,—either for himself or in regard to his fellowmen. After death he has to look away to the formative working and weaving of the planets. In what the planets reveal, he beholds the building up of his form. There we recognise our own human form. And working and weaving through it all are the Beings of the Third Hierarchy,—the Angels, Archangels and Archai.

We can now progress further on our upward path. When we have recognised that the weaving life of Angels, Archangels and Archai is connected with the form of the human skin and the sense-organs that belong to it, we can advance a step further in our knowledge of man's relation with the world beyond the Earth. Only, let us first be quite clear how differently we have now to think of the human form or figure. Here on Earth we describe a man's figure, or perhaps his countenance. One man's forehead, we say, is of such and such a shape; another has a nose of a particular shape; a third has mournful eyes; a fourth laughing eyes,—and so on. But there we stop. Cosmic knowledge on the other hand reveals to us in everything that goes to make up the human form the working and weaving of the Third Hierarchy. The human form is in truth no earthly creation, The Earth merely provides the substance for the embryo. The Archai, Archangels and Angels work in from the Cosmos, building up the human form. If we now advance further and come to perceive the confluence of the planetary movements, of which confluence the nervous system and the secreting glands are an after-copy, we find, interwoven with the movements of the planets, the Beings of the Second Hierarchy: Exusiai, Kyriotetes, Dynamis. Beings of the Second Hierarchy are active in the shaping of the cosmic archetype of the nervous and glandular systems in man. It is thus at a later period after death—that is to say, some time after we have learned to understand the human form from its cosmic archetype—that we ascend to the world of the Second Hierarchy, and realise that the earthly human being to whom we now look back as a memory was fashioned and created in his nervous and glandular systems by the Exusiai, Kyriotetes and Dynamis. Then we no longer regard the human being as the product of forces of electricity, magnetism and the like; we take knowledge of how he as physical man has been built up by the Beings of the Second Hierarchy.

We go still further and ascend to the sphere of Cosmic Music—Cosmic Melody and Cosmic Rhythm, where we find yet another cosmic archetype of the being of man. This time we do not move onward in the Hierarchies. It is the same Beings—the Beings of the Second Hierarchy—who are at work here too, but they are engaged in a different kind of activity. It is difficult to express in words wherein their first work—upon the nervous system—differs from their work upon the rhythmic blood-system, but we may think of it in the following way. In their work upon the nervous system, the Beings of the Second Hierarchy are looking downwards, towards Earth. In their work upon the blood system they are looking upwards. Both the nervous system, and the blood system (as well as the organs connected therewith) are created by the same Hierarchy, but their gaze is at one time turned towards the Earth and at another upwards to the spiritual world, to the heavens.

Finally, at the stage of Intuition where we behold how the muscular and bony system of man is woven into being by the world of the Cosmic Word, the Cosmic Speech, we come to the First Hierarchy—the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones. We have now reached the stage which corresponds approximately to the middle point of the life between death and a new birth, spoken of in my Mystery Plays as the “Midnight Hour of Existence.” Here we have to see how all those parts of man's organism which enable him to move about in the world are woven and created by the Beings of the First Hierarchy.

Thus, when we look at the human being with super-sensible knowledge, behind every part of him we see a world of spiritual, cosmic Beings. When in our present age we try to understand man, we are accustomed to study first the bony system. We begin, do we not, with the skeleton,—although even from a superficial point of view there is not much sense in that, for the skeleton has been formed and built out of the fluids in the human organism. The skeleton was not there first! It is merely a residue from the fluids, and can only be understood in that sense. But what is the usual method of procedure? We have to learn the various parts of the skeleton—arms, hands, bones of the upper arm, bones of the lower arm, bones of the hands, bones of the fingers and so on. With most of us it is a question merely of learning it all by heart. We do the same with the muscles—although this is decidedly more difficult. Then we come to the various organs and learn about them too in the same way. And all these things we have learnt go round in our minds in a most confused way,—a fact, let me say, that is not without significance! There lurks, however, in all healthy minds a longing to know more, a longing to know what is behind it all, to know something of the mystery of the world. A real study of man should begin with the skin and the sense-organs. This would lead us to the Hierarchy of Angels, Archangels, Archai. We should then go on to the nerves and glandular system; this would lead us to the Second Hierarchy, to Exusiai, Kyriotetes, Dynamis. And we would find these same Beings at work when we came to consider the blood system and the organs directly connected with it. Then, passing on to what enables man to move—to his muscular and bony systems, we would reach the realm of the First Hierarchy, and see in the muscles and bones of the earthly human being the deeds of Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones.

It is possible thus to describe ascending ranks of Hierarchical Beings—from the Third to the Second to the First. As we describe all the influences that pour down upon the Earthly world from the world beyond the Earth, and behold therein the deeds of the Hierarchies, a wonderful and amazing picture rises up before us. Gazing upon the ranks of the Hierarchies we see at work, below, Beings of the Third Hierarchy—Angels, Archangels, Archai; then we behold Beings of the Second Hierarchy—Exusiai, Kyriotetes, Dynamis—working and weaving together in the Cosmos; finally, Beings of the First Hierarchy—Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones. Only now at last does an intelligible picture of the human body rise up before our sight. We gaze upon the ranks of the Hierarchies and upon Their deeds; and as we let the eye of the spirit dwell upon Their deeds,—lo, MAN stands there before us!

As you see, a mode of observation opens up here which begin at the very point where ordinary observation ends. Yet it is this kind of observation alone that can lead us beyond the gates of birth and death; no other can tell of what stretches beyond birth or beyond death. For, all that has now been described becomes a matter of experience. In what way it becomes actual experience the coming lectures will show. On Earth we have around us the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms and also what the physical human kingdom accomplishes in the earthly sense. We direct our gaze to all that proceeds from mineral, plant, animal and physical man. But when we have passed through the gate of death and are living between death and a new birth, we gaze upon activities of the spiritual world that are directed upon the being of man, we behold man verily as a product of the activity and deeds of the Spiritual Hierarchies. Moreover, as we shall come to see later, only in this light do the forms and structures of the other beings on Earth besides man become intelligible.

In preparation for the further lectures, let me also add the following. Think of the animal. There is something about an animal that is reminiscent of the human form—but reminiscent only to a limited extent. How is this? It is because the animal cannot be an after-copy of the planetary form that is inscribed in the ether. Man alone can become an after-copy of this form, because he follows the direction of that line which, as I told you, focuses for him the planetary form. If the human being were to remain a little child who never learns to walk but always crawls, if he were destined to this—which of course he is not—then he could not become an earthly image of the planetary forms. He must, however, become an image of them, he must grow up into the planetary forms. This the animal cannot do. The animal can only unfold its life in accordance with the movements of the planets; it can copy only their movements. You can see this revealed in every single part of the animal's body. Take the skeleton of a mammal. You have the bones of the spine with their typical vertebra form. These are a faithful copy of the planetary movements. However many vertebrae a snake has, for example, every single one is an earthly copy of planetary movements. The Moon, as the planet nearest to the Earth, exercises a particularly strong influence upon one part of the animal: the skeleton develops, forming the different limbs; then it is all drawn together, as it were, in the vertebra form. After the Moon come the other planets, Venus and Mercury, moving in spiral forms. Then comes the Sun. The Sun influence tends, as it were, to finish off and complete the structure of the skeleton. We can even indicate a definite point in the spine where the Sun is working. It is where the spine begins to show a tendency to change into head-structure. In the head-structure we have the spinal vertebrae transformed. At the point where the bones of the spine rise up, become “puffed out” as it were—this is how Goethe and Gegenbaur describe it—to become head-bones, there work Saturn and Jupiter. When, therefore, we follow the direction of the skeleton from behind forwards, we must pass from Moon right through to Saturn if we are to understand the bony structure of the animal. We cannot relate the form of an animal to the ether form of the planets; we must go to the movements of the planets if we are to understand it. That which is worked by the human being into his glandular system is, in the case of the animal, worked into its whole form and structure. Of the animal, then, we have to say: It is not possible for the animal to arrange and order its being in accordance with the form or figure radiated by the planets. The animal can copy only the movements of the planets.

In ancient times men visualised this movement of the planetary bodies by saying: The paths of the planets go through the Zodiacal constellations. The Ancients knew how to describe the courses of Saturn and the other planets as each takes its way through the constellations of the Zodiac. From their knowledge of the animal, they understood the connection between the forms of animals and the Zodiac,—which is rightly called “Zodiac” (animal circle). The essential point for us is that the animal does not copy the forms inscribed in the ether by the planets; it is man alone who does this. Man can do it because his organism is adapted to take the upright posture. Therefore does the planetary form become in him an archetype, whereas what we find in the animal is only an imitation of the planetary movements.

We have, then, before us a spiritual, super-sensible picture of man. For in everything I have described—skin, nervous system, blood system, muscles, bones—there are, to begin with, only forces. At first it is all a kind of picture of forces. At conception and birth it joins with the physical embryo provided by the Earth and receives into itself earthly forces and substances. This picture—a purely spiritual but at the same time definite picture—is then filled out with earthly substances and forces. Man comes down to Earth as a being formed and fashioned by the Heavens. He is at first wholly super-sensible, he is a super-sensible being to his very bones. Then he unites with the embryonic germ; he takes it up. At death he lets it fall again; he passes through the gate of death—once more a spirit-form.

In conclusion, let us look once again at the human being as he passes through the gate of death. The physical form he could see when he looked into a mirror or at a photograph of himself, is no longer there. Neither is it of any interest to him. The cosmic archetypal picture, inscribed in the ether,—upon that he now turns his gaze. During his earthly life this archetypal picture was present in him; it was anchored, as it were, in his ether body. He was not conscious of it, but it was there all the time within his physical being. Now, after death, he sees what his own form really is. The picture he now sees is radiant and shining. The forces streaming from this archetypal picture have the same effect as a radiant body—only, here it is to be understood in the etheric sense. The Sun shines physically. This cosmic picture of man shines spiritually; and because it is a spiritual picture it has power to illuminate quite other things. Here, in earthly life, a man who has done good or evil deeds may stand in the Sun for as long as he will, his hair and so forth will be lighted up by the rays of the Sun, but not his good and evil deeds, as qualities. The luminous picture of his own form which a man experiences after death, sends out a spiritual light which lights up his moral deeds. And so, after death, the human being discovers in the cosmic picture which is there before him something that illumines his own moral deeds. This cosmic picture is within us during earthly life, sounding faintly as conscience. After death we behold it objectively. We know that it is our own self, and that we must have it there. We are inexorable with ourselves after death. This luminous picture does not relent or react to any excuses such as we are wont to make in earthly life, where we are only too ready to make light of our sins and flaunt our good deeds. An inexorable judge shines out from man after death, shedding a brilliant light upon the worth of his actions. Conscience becomes, after death, a cosmic impulse which works outside us.

Such are the paths that lead from earthly man to super-sensible man. Earthly man—the being who comes into existence at birth and passes away at death—can be understood in the light of Anthropology. Supersensible man, who merely permeates himself with earthly substances in order to manifest in the outer world, can only be understood in the light of Anthroposophy. And this is what we have set out to do in the course of these lectures.