| 30. Goethe as the Founder of a New Science of Aesthetics
Rudolf Steiner |
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| If this alleged alteration in my views was connected especially with my spiritual scientific (anthroposophical) activity, my answer is, that on reading through this lecture, the ideas developed in it appear to me to be a healthy foundation for Anthroposophy, and the anthroposophical way of thinking, in particular, to be most suitable for the understanding of these ideas. |
| 30. Goethe as the Founder of a New Science of Aesthetics
Rudolf Steiner |
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[ 3 ] The number of works and treatises that are appearing in our time, with the object of determining Goethe's relation to the most divergent branches of modern Science and modern intellectual life generally, is overwhelming. The mere list of the titles would fill a portly volume. This feature may be ascribed to the fact that we are ever more clearly realising how, in the person of Goethe, a cultural factor confronts us, with which everything that would participate in the intellectual life of the present day must necessarily come to terms. To pass by would mean, in this case, to reject the foundation of our civilisation, to flounder in the depths, with no will to mount to the luminous heights from which all the light of our culture shines forth. It is only on condition that we attach ourselves, at some point or other, to Goethe and his epoch that we can acquire a clear view of the path our civilisation is treading, and realise the goal which humanity, in modern times, must pursue: failure to find this point of contact with the greatest spirit of latter times means simply being led like the blind, or dragged along by our fellowmen. All things appear to us in a different setting, when viewed with vision quickened at this fountain-head of civilisation. [ 4 ] However gratifying may be the efforts of our contemporaries to find some point of contact with Goethe, the way they set about it is admittedly not very felicitous. Only too often is that necessary quality absent—an open mind—permitting us to sink into and fathom the uttermost depths of Goethe's genius, before mounting the pulpit of criticism. The only reason for believing Goethe to have been superseded in many respects is due to the failure to recognise his full significance. We think we have gone far beyond Goethe, whereas, in most cases, the right thing would be for us to apply his comprehensive principles and magnificent way of looking at things to our own now more perfect scientific appliances and scientific facts. Whether the results of his investigations correspond, more or less, with the results of modern Science is, with regard to Goethe, never of so much importance as the way he sets to work. His results bear the stamp of their epoch, that is, they extend only so far as the scientific appliances and experience of his age allowed: his way of thinking, his way of posing the problems is, however, a permanent achievement, and no greater injustice can be committed than to treat it with contempt. But it is a peculiarity of our day that the spiritual productive force of Genius is considered to be almost without significance. How could it be otherwise in a time when any attempt to reach out beyond the limits of physical experience is tabooed. For mere observation in the world of the senses, all that is necessary are healthy organs of sense, and Genius can, for this purpose, be fairly dispensed with. [ 5 ] But true progress in Science, as also in Art, has never been the product of such methods of observation or servile imitation of Nature. What thousands observe and pass by is then observed by one who, as the result of this same observation, discovers a magnificent scientific law. Many before Galileo had seen a lamp swinging in a church, and yet this man of genius had to come and discover from it the laws of the pendulum, which are of so great importance in Physics. ‘Were not the eye of the nature of the sun, how could it behold the sun,’ exclaims Goethe; he means that none can glance into the depths of Nature who lack the necessary disposition and productive force to see more in the realm of fact than the mere outward facts. This is not accepted. The mighty achievements for which we have to thank Goethe's genius should not be confounded with the deficiencies inherent in his investigations, owing to the lower level of scientific experience at that time. How his own scientific results stand in relation to the progress of scientific research has been aptly characterised by Goethe in a picture: he describes them as pawns which he has perhaps moved forward too daringly on the board, but which should allow the plan of the player to be recognised. If we take these words to heart, then the following great task accrues to us in the field of Goethean research: to revert in each case to Goethe's own tendencies. The results which he himself gives us may stand as examples showing how he attempted to solve his great problems with limited means. It must be our aim to solve them in his spirit, but with the greater means at our disposal, and on the strength of our richer experience. In this way a fructification of all the branches of research to which Goethe devoted his attention will be possible, and, what is more, they will all bear the same uniform stamp, and form links within a great uniform conception of the world. Mere philological and critical research, the justification of which it were folly to deny, must await extension and completion along these lines. We must gain possession of the rich store of thoughts and ideas that are in Goethe, and, making this our starting-point, scientifically carry on the work. [ 6 ] It will at this point be incumbent on me to show to what extent the principles just explained may be applied to one of the youngest and most discussed of sciences—the science of Aesthetics. This science, which is devoted to Art and artistic creation, is barely 160 years old. It was with the conscious intention of opening a new field of scientific research that Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten came forward with it in 1750. To this same epoch belong the efforts of Winckelmann and Lessing to attain a basis for judging the fundamental questions in Art. All former attempts in the direction of this science cannot even be described as a most elementary tendency. Even the great Aristotle, that intellectual giant, whose influence on all branches of science was so decisive, remained quite unproductive in Aesthetics. He completely excluded the plastic arts from his sphere of research, thus showing clearly that he had no conception whatever of Art; and, besides, he knew no principle other than that of the imitation of Nature, which again shows that he never understood the task which the spirit of man sets itself in the creation of the work of art.1 [ 7 ] That the science of the Beautiful only came into existence so late is no accident. It could not exist earlier, simply because the necessary conditions were absent. What are these conditions? The desire for Art is as old as man himself, but the desire to grasp the nature of its task only came into evidence much later. The Greek spirit, so happily constituted as to find satisfaction in the reality that immediately surrounds us, brought forth an epoch of Art which stands for a highest culmination; but it was the work of primitive ingenuousness, and the need was not felt to create in Art a world that should offer satisfaction such as could not come to us from any other source. The Greeks found in reality all that they sought; all that their hearts yearned and their spirits thirsted for, Nature supplied to them in abundance. It was never to go so far with them, that a yearning should be born in their heart for a Something which we seek in vain in the world that surrounds us. The Greek did not grow out of and away from Nature, therefore all his needs could be satisfied through Nature. With his whole being he was inseparably united and interwoven with Nature; Nature creates in him and knows quite well what she may implant in him, so as to be able again to satisfy his needs. Art, then, with this ingenuous people, was only a continuation of what lives and surges within Nature; it grew directly out of Nature; Nature satisfied the same needs as a mother, only in a higher sense. Aristotle knew no higher principle of Art than the imitation of Nature. There was no need to go farther than Nature, because in Nature was to be found the source of all satisfaction. The mere imitation of Nature, which, to us, would appear empty and insignificant, was, in this case, fully sufficient. We have forgotten how to see in mere Nature the highest that our spirit craves for; for this reason mere realism, which offers us reality devoid of that highest, could never satisfy us. This epoch had to come. It was a necessity for mankind, as it develops to an ever higher level of perfection. Man could only remain completely within Nature so long as he was unconscious of this fact. The instant he gained full and clear knowledge of his own self, the instant he became aware of a kingdom within his inner self, which was of at least equal standing with that outer world—in that instant he had to break away from the shackles of Nature. [ 8 ] He could now no longer surrender himself to her, for her to bear absolute sway over him, so that she should give rise to his needs and moreover satisfy them. Now he had to confront her, and this meant, in fact, that he had broken away from her, that he had created a new world within himself, and it is in this world that the source must now be sought from which his yearning and his desires flow. Whether these desires, now produced apart from Mother Nature, can also be satisfied by her is left to chance. At any rate, a deep chasm now separates man from reality, and he must restore the harmony formerly existing in its original perfection. Hence all the conflicts of the ideal with reality, of purpose with attainment—in short, everything that leads the soul of man into a veritable spiritual labyrinth. Nature stands there bereft of soul, devoid of everything our inner self tells us is divine. The next consequence is estrangement from everything which is Nature—a flight from direct reality. This is the exact opposite of the Greek spirit, which found everything in Nature.2 The subsequent conception of the world finds nothing at all in Nature. The Christian Middle Ages must appear to us in this light. Just as little as the Greeks could gain a knowledge of the essence of Art, in their inability to grasp how Art reaches out beyond Nature, creating a higher Nature side by side with actual Nature, so little could mediaeval science attain a science of Art, for Art could only work with means offered by Nature, and the scholars could not grasp how works could be created within the pale of godless reality, which could satisfy the spirit striving to attain the divine. But the helplessness of Science did not injure the development of Art. While the scholars did not know just what to think, the most glorious works of Christian Art came into existence. Philosophy, which in those days had Theology in tow, was as incapable as the great idealist of the Greeks, the ‘divine Plato,’ had been, of conceding to Art a place within the progress of civilisation. Plato declared the plastic and dramatic arts to be harmful. He could so little conceive of an independent mission of Art, that he only mercifully spares music, because music promotes courage in war. [ 9 ] At a time when Spirit and Nature were so closely joined, a science of Art could not come into existence, nor was this possible at a time when they faced each other in unreconciled opposition. For the genesis of Aesthetics a time was necessary when man, in freedom and independence from the shackles of Nature, perceived the spirit in its undimmed purity, but a time, also, when a reunion with Nature is again possible. That the standpoint of the Greeks should be superseded, is not without good reason. For in the sum total of accidents constituting the world in which we feel ourselves placed, we can never find the divine, the necessary; we see nothing around us but facts that might equally well be different; we see nothing but individuals, and our spirit strives for the expression of the species, for the archetype; we see nothing but the finite, the perishable, and our spirit strives for the infinite, the imperishable, the eternal. And so if man's spirit, once estranged from Nature, is to return to Nature, it must be to something different from that sum total of accidents. It is for this return that Goethe stands; a return to Nature, but with the rich abundance of a developed spirit, with the level of culture of modern times.3 [ 10 ] The fundamental separation of Spirit and Nature does not correspond with Goethe's views. He sees in the world one great whole—a uniformly progressive chain of beings, within which man is a link, even though the highest. ‘Nature! we are surrounded and embraced by her, unable to withdraw from her and unable to advance more deeply into her. She lifts us unasked and unwarned, into the gyrations of her dance, and whirls with us away, until we are exhausted and fall from her arms.’ (Cp. Goethe's Scientific Works edited by Rudolf Steiner, vol. 2, p. 5.) And in the book on Winckelmann: ‘When man's healthy nature works as a whole, when the harmonious pleasure affords him a pure instinctive joy—then the Universe, if it could feel its own self, would cry out in exultation, as having reached its goal, and admire the pinnacle of its own growth and being.’ Here we have Goethe's characteristic way of reaching out far beyond the immediate in Nature, though without in the least losing sight of what constitutes the inner being of Nature. He is a stranger to a quality he finds in many especially gifted men, ‘of feeling a kind of shyness before real life, of drawing back into oneself, of creating one's own inner world, and in this way of giving the most excellent accomplishments an inward direction.’ Goethe does not fly from reality in order to create an abstract thought-world, having nothing in common with reality; he plunges deep into reality, in its eternal mutation, its genesis and movement, to find its laws that are immutable: he confronts the individual to behold the archetype. Thus were born in his spirit the plant-type and the animal-type, which are nothing but the Ideas of the plant and the animal. These are no empty general ideas that are part of a dry theory; they are the essential foundation of organisms—substantial and concrete, animated and distinguishable. Distinguishable, to be sure, not for the outer senses, but only for that higher contemplative capacity that Goethe discusses in his essay on ‘Contemplative Discernment.’ In the Goethean sense, ideas are just as objective as the colours and the forms of things, but they are only perceivable for those whose perceptive faculty is regulated for this purpose; just as colours and forms are only there for those who see, and not for the blind. If we approach the objective world with a non-receptive spirit, it does not disclose itself to us. Without the instinctive capacity for apprehending ideas, the latter remain an ever-sealed book. Here none saw as deeply as Schiller into the structure of Goethe's genius. [ 11 ] On 23rd August, 1794, he enlightens Goethe, in the following words, on the fundamental qualities of his nature: ‘You gather together the whole of Nature in order to gain light on the single detail; where the forms of the phenomena merge into the universal, there you seek the explanation and the reason for the individual. From the simple organisation you mount, step by step, to the more complicated, in order finally to build up the most complicated of all—Man—genetically, and from the materials of Nature's whole edifice. While thus creating him afresh after Nature's pattern, you seek to penetrate the secret of his construction.’ This re-creation provides a key for the understanding of Goethe's conception of the world. If we wish really to rise to the primal types of things, to the immutable in the general mutation, we must revert to the genesis, we must witness Nature create; we must not consider what has reached completion, for this no longer corresponds wholly to the Idea which comes to expression in it.4 This is the meaning of Goethe's words in his essay on ‘Contemplative Discernment:’ ‘If, in the sphere of morality, through belief in God, virtue and immortality, we seek to raise ourselves to a higher region and draw near to the first Being, the same should be the case in the sphere of the intellect—that, through the contemplation of an ever-creating Nature, we should make ourselves worthy of spiritual participation in her production. So did I press on untiringly to that original primal type.’ Thus Goethe's archetypes are no empty forms; they are the productive forces behind the phenomena. [ 12 ] This is the ‘Higher Nature’ in Nature over which Goethe wished to gain control. We gather from this that the reality spread out before our senses in no case represents something on the level of which a man who has attained a higher standard of culture can remain stationary. Only when man transcends this reality—breaks the shell and makes for the kernel—is that revealed to him, which the world holds together in its innermost recess. Nevermore can we find satisfaction in the isolated event in nature, but only in the law of nature; nevermore in the single and the particular, but only in the general and the universal. With Goethe this fact comes into evidence in the most perfect imaginable form. With him also the fact is established that, to the modern intellect, reality, as the single and the particular, can afford no satisfaction, because not in it but beyond it do we find that in which we recognise the highest, which we can revere as divine, which, in Science, we express as Idea. While mere observation cannot reconcile the opposing extremes, if it has reality but has not yet the Idea, so also is Science unable to effect this reconciliation, if it has the Idea, but no longer the reality. Between both, man needs a new kingdom; a kingdom in which the Idea is represented by the individual and not only by the whole; a kingdom in which the particular appears gifted with the character of the universal and the necessary. Such a world, however, is not present within sense reality; such a world must first be created by man, and this world is the world of Art—a necessary third kingdom by the side of the kingdoms of the senses and of reason. [ 13 ] The comprehension of Art as this third kingdom is the task which the Science of Aesthetics must regard as its own. The divinity which the objects in Nature have lost must be implanted in them by man himself, and therein lies a noble task which accrues to the artist. He has, so to speak, to bring the kingdom of God on to this earth. This religious mission of Art, as it may well be called, is expressed by Goethe (in the book on Winckelmann) in the following glorious words: [ 14 ] ‘In that Man is placed on Nature's pinnacle, he regards himself as another whole Nature, whose task is to bring forth inwardly yet another pinnacle. For this purpose, he heightens his powers, imbuing himself with all perfections and virtues, calling on choice, order, harmony, and meaning, and finally rising to the production of the work of art, which takes a pre-eminent place by the side of his other actions and works. Once it is brought forth, once it stands before the world in its ideal reality, it produces a permanent effect—it produces the highest effect—for as it develops itself spiritually out of a unison of forces, it gathers into itself all that is glorious and worthy of devotion and love, and thus, breathing life into the human form, uplifts man above himself, completes the circle of his life and activity, deifies him for the present, in which the past and the future are included. Such were the feelings of those who beheld the Olympian Jupiter, as we can gather from the descriptions, narratives, and testimonies of the Ancients. The god had become man, in order to uplift man to a god. They beheld the highest dignity and were filled with enthusiasm for the highest beauty.’ [ 15 ] In these words, the significance of Art for the progress of civilisation was recognised. And it is characteristic of the mighty German Ethos, that it was the first to whom the recognition of this fact occurred; it is characteristic that all German philosophers, for the last hundred years, have struggled to find the most suitable scientific form for the peculiar way in which, in the work of art, spirit and object, idea and reality, melt into each other. The task of Aesthetics is none other than to comprehend the nature of this interpenetration, and to study it in detail, in the single forms in which it asserts itself, in the various branches of Art. The merit of having given a stimulus to this problem in the way indicated, and thereby to have set the ball rolling in connection with the chief, central questions of Aesthetics, must be ascribed to Kant's Critique of Judgment which appeared in 1790, and at once created a favourable impression on Goethe. In spite, however, of particularly serious work devoted to this subject, we are bound to admit to-day that an all-round satisfactory solution to these aesthetical problems is not forthcoming. The grand master of Aesthetics, that keen thinker and critic, Friedrich Theodor Vischer, held firmly to the end of his life, to his expressed conviction that the science of Aesthetics was still in its infancy. This amounts to an admission that all efforts in this field, including his own five volumes on Aesthetics, were in a more or less false direction. This is indeed the case, and if I may here express my own conviction, it can only be traced back to the circumstance that the fruitful seeds planted by Goethe were passed over unnoticed, and that he was not regarded as being scientifically competent. Had he, on the contrary, been so regarded, those ideas would merely have received a final development, with which Schiller was inspired in the contemplation of Goethe's genius, and which he set down in his letters on Aesthetical education. These letters, too, are held by writers intent on systems, to be insufficiently scientific, and yet they can be counted among the most important works ever produced in the field of Aesthetics. Schiller sets out from Kant, who determined the nature of the Beautiful in more than one respect. Kant first examines the reason of the pleasure we feel in the beautiful works of art. He finds this feeling of pleasure quite different from any other. Comparing it to the pleasure we feel when concerned with an object to which we owe an element of utility to ourselves, it is quite different. This pleasure is closely bound up with the desire for the existence of the object. Pleasure in the useful disappears when the useful is no longer there. Not so with the pleasure in the Beautiful. This pleasure has nothing to do with the possession, with the existence of the object, for it is not attached to the object but to the idea of the object. Whereas with the expedient and the useful, the need is felt to translate the idea into reality: we are content, in the case of the Beautiful, with the mere image. For this reason, Kant calls the feeling of delight in the Beautiful a feeling that is uninfluenced by any actual interest—a disinterested delight. It would, however, be quite erroneous to hold that conformity to purpose is thereby excluded from the Beautiful; this applies only to an exterior purpose. Hence is derived the second explanation of the Beautiful: It is something formed in itself in conformity to purpose, without, however, serving an exterior purpose. When we perceive an object in Nature, or a product of human skill, our intellect comes and inquires for its use and purpose, and is not satisfied until its question as to the ‘wherefore’ is answered. With the Beautiful, the ‘wherefore’ lies in the object itself, and the intellect does not need to reach out beyond it. At this point Schiller sets in, weaving the idea of Freedom into the sequence of thought in a way that does the greatest honour to human nature. To begin with, Schiller sets in opposition two human instincts which ceaselessly assert themselves. The first is the so-called material impulse, or the need to keep our senses open to the inpouring outer world. A rich gift presses in upon us, but without our being able to exert any determining influence on its nature. Here everything takes place with unconditional necessity. What we apprehend is determined from outside; here we are unfree, in subjection; we must simply obey the commands of physical (natural) necessity. The second is the formative impulse; that is none other than Reason, which brings law and order into the chaotic confusion of sense perceptions (external impressions). Through its work, system is introduced into experience. Here too, Schiller finds, we are not free; for in this work Reason is subjected to the unchanging laws of logic. We submit, in the first case, to necessity as imposed by Nature, and, in the second case, as imposed by Reason. Freedom seeks a haven of refuge from both. Schiller, emphasising the analogy between Art and the play of a child, assigns to Freedom the domain of Art. What is essentially the nature of play? Things possessed of reality are taken, and their general bearing altered at will. In this transformation of reality no law of logical necessity decides the issue—as, for instance, in the construction of a machine, where we must strictly conform to the laws of Reason; here everything is in the service of subjective necessity. The player connects things in a way that gives him pleasure; he imposes on himself no constraint. He pays no heed to physical, natural necessity, for he overcomes this constraint by putting to quite arbitrary use whatever passes into his hands. From Reason, too, and its necessity, he feels independent, for the order he introduces into things is his own invention. Thus the player impresses on reality the stamp of his own subjectivity and endows the latter with objective value. The separation of the activity of the two instincts comes to an end; they become united and thereby gain freedom: in the object is spirit, and the spirit is objective. Schiller, the poet of Freedom, sees in Art a free instinctive play, on a higher level, and exclaims with enthusiasm: ‘Man is fully Man only where he plays, and he only plays where he is Man in the fullest sense of the word.’ Schiller calls the basic instinct in Art, the play-instinct or impulse to play. It produces in the artist works, which, while existing for our senses, satisfy our reason; while the reason of which they partake, is simultaneously present for our senses in objective existence. And man's nature, at this stage, shows such activity, that his physical nature acts spiritually, while his spiritual nature acts physically. Physical nature is raised to the spirit, while the spirit sinks into physical nature. The former is thereby ennobled, and the latter is brought down from its clear height into the visible world. The works which thus come to existence are, to be sure, not fully true to Nature, because, in reality, spirit and object are never fully coincident; therefore when we compare the works of Art with the works of Nature, the former appear to us as mere semblance (appearance). But they must be semblance, because they would otherwise not be true works of Art. With his conception of semblance, in this connection, Schiller occupies a unique position among the writers on Aesthetics: he is unsurpassed and unrivalled. This is where the work should have continued. The one-sided solution to the problem of the Beautiful should have been extended with the help of Goethe's reflections on Art. Instead of this, Schelling appeared on the scene with a completely false theory, and inaugurated an error from which the science of Aesthetics in Germany never recovered. As all modern philosophers, Schelling finds that the highest task human effort can set itself, lies in the perception of the eternal, primal types of things. The spirit sweeps beyond the world of physical reality and rises to the heights where the divine is enthroned. There all truth and all beauty is revealed to him. Only the eternal is true and also beautiful. Thus, according to Schelling, no man can behold actual beauty who does not raise himself to the highest truth, for they are one and the same. All sensuous beauty is merely a weak reflection of that endless beauty which we can never perceive with our senses. We see where this leads to: the work of Art is not beautiful for its own sake and through its own self, but because it reproduces the Idea of Beauty. It follows, then, from this theory, that the purport of Art and Science is the same, since they both adopt as a basis eternal truth, which is also beauty. For Schelling, Art is only Science that has become objective. The important question now is: On what does our feeling of pleasure in the work of Art rest? In this case it rests merely on the expression of the Idea. The sensuous image is only a means of expression, the form in which a super-sensible purport expresses itself. In this respect, all the writers on Aesthetics follow the direction of Schelling's idealism. I cannot agree with the latest writer on this subject, E. von Hartmann, when he says that Hegel essentially improved on Schelling on this point. I say on this point, for in many other respects he towered above him. Hegel says actually: ‘The beautiful is the sensuous appearance of the idea.’ This amounts to an admission that, for him, the essential in Art was the expressed idea. This stands out still more clearly in the following words: ‘The hard crust of Nature and of the ordinary world make it more difficult for the spirit to penetrate to the idea, than is the case with works of Art.’ This is surely a clear statement that the goal of Art is the same as the goal of Science, namely, to penetrate to the Idea: Art seeks only to illustrate what Science expresses directly in forms of thought. Vischer calls beauty the appearance of the Idea, and likewise identifies the purport of Art with truth. In spite of all objections, beauty can never be separated from truth, if its essence is found in the expression of the Idea. But then it is not clear what independent mission Art is to have by the side of Science. What Art offers us, we can attain by way of thought, in a purer, clearer form, with no physical veil to shroud it. If this standpoint in Aesthetics be adopted, there is no escape, except through sophistry, from the compromising conclusion that allegory in the plastic arts, and didactic poetry in the poetic art, are the highest artistic forms. The independent significance of Art cannot be grasped, and Aesthetics, from this standpoint, have proved unproductive. It would be a mistake, however, to go too far, and, in consequence, abandon every attempt to attain a science of Aesthetics that is free from contradiction. They go too far in this direction, who would have Aesthetics assimilated by the history of the fine arts. If unsupported by authentic principles, this science merely becomes a storehouse for collections of notes on artists and their works, to which more or less clever remarks are appended; these, however, originating from arbitrary and subjective reasoning, are without value. On the other hand, a kind of physiology of taste has been set up in opposition to Aesthetics. The simplest and most elementary cases in which pleasure is felt are examined; then, mounting from these to more and more complicated cases, ‘Aesthetics from below’ are set up against ‘Aesthetics from above.’ This is the plan adopted by Fechner in his Introduction to Aesthetics. It is incomprehensible that such a work should have found adherents in a country which produced a Kant. Aesthetics should start from the examination of the feeling of pleasure; as though every feeling of pleasure were aesthetical, and as though the nature of the various feelings of pleasure could be distinguished by any other means than through the object itself which caused them. We only know that pleasure is an aesthetic feeling when we recognise the object to be beautiful, for, physiologically, there is nothing to distinguish aesthetic pleasure from any other. It is always a question of ascertaining the object. By virtue of what does an object become beautiful? This is the basic question in all Aesthetics. [ 13 ] We come much nearer to solving this question if we follow Goethe's lead. Merck describes Goethe's creative activity in the following words: ‘You create quite differently from the rest; they seek to embody the so-called imaginative—this produces only rubbish; you, however, seek to endow reality with a poetic form.’ These words convey about the same meaning as Goethe's own words in the second part of Faust: ‘Consider what thou will'st; still more consider how thou will'st.’ It is clearly stated what Art stands for. Not for the embodiment of the super-sensible, but for the transformation of the physical and the actual. Reality is not to be lowered to a means of expression: no, it is to be maintained in its full independence; only it must receive a new form, a form in which it satisfies us. If we remove any single being from its surroundings and observe it in this isolated condition, much in connection with it will appear incomprehensible. We cannot make it harmonise with the idea, the conception we necessarily apply to it. Its formation within reality is, in fact, not only the consequence of its own conformity to law; surrounding reality had a direct determining influence as well. Had it been able to develop itself independently, and free from external influence, only then would it have become a living presentment of its own Idea. The artist must grasp and develop this Idea on which the object is based, but whose free expansion within reality has been hampered. He must find within reality the point, starting from which, an object can be developed in its most perfect form. Nature falls short of her intention in every single instance; by the side of one plant she creates a second, a third, and so on; in no single plant is the whole Idea represented in concrete life; in one plant one side, in another plant another side is given, as circumstances permit. The artist must revert to Nature's tendency, as this appears to him. This is what Goethe means when he declares of his own creative activity: ‘I seek in everything a point from which much may be developed.’ In the artist's work the whole exterior must express the whole interior; in Nature's product the exterior falls short of the interior, and man's inquiring spirit must first ascertain it. Thus the laws in accordance with which the artist goes to work are none other than the eternal laws of Nature, pure, uninfluenced and unhampered. Artistic creation rests not on what is, but on what might be; not on the actual, but on the possible. The artist creates according to the same principles as Nature, but applies these principles to the individual, whereas, to use Goethe's own words, Nature pays no heed to the individual, ‘She ever builds and ever destroys,’ because her aim is perfection, not in the unit but in the totality. The content of any work of Art is any physical reality—this is what the artist wills; in giving it its form, he directs his efforts so as to excel Nature in her own tendency, and to achieve to a still higher degree than she is capable of, the results possible within her laws and means. [ 18 ] The object which the artist sets before us is more perfect than it is in its natural state, but it contains none other than its own inherent perfection. Where the object excels its own self—though on the basis of what is already concealed within it—there beauty is found. Beauty is therefore nothing unnatural: Goethe can say with good reason, ‘Beauty is a manifestation of secret laws, which, failing beauty, would have ever remained concealed;’ or, in another passage: ‘He to whom Nature reveals her manifest secret, yearns for Art, Nature's worthiest interpreter.’ If it may be said that beauty is unreal, since it represents something which can never be found within Nature in such perfection, so, too, can it be said in the same sense, that beauty is truer than Nature, since it represents what Nature intends to be but cannot be. On this question of reality in Art, Goethe says—and we may extend his words to apply to the whole of Art: ‘The poet's province is representation. This reaches its highest level when it competes with reality, that is, when the descriptions are so lifelike, through the spirit, that they may stand as present for all men.’ Goethe finds that ‘nothing in Nature is beautiful which is not also naturally true, in its underlying motive’ (Conversations with Eckermann, iii. 79). And the other side of appearance or semblance, when the being excels its own self, we find expressed as Goethe's view in the proverbs in prose, No. 978: ‘The law of vegetable growth appears in its highest manifestation in the blossom, and the rose is but the pinnacle of this manifestation. The fruit can never be beautiful, for there the vegetable law reverts to its own self—back to the mere law.’ Here we surely have it plainly stated: Where the Idea develops and unfolds, there beauty sets in—where we perceive the law directly in the outward phenomenon; where, on the other hand, as in the fruit, the outward phenomenon appears formless and gross, because there is no sign in it of the fundamental law underlying vegetable growth—there beauty in the natural product ceases. For this reason the same proverb goes on to say: ‘The law, as it engages itself in the phenomenon with the greatest freedom and according to its own inherent conditions, produces the objective-beautiful, which, to be sure, must find a worthy subject by which to be perceived.’ This view of Goethe's we find most definitely stated in a passage in the Conversations with Eckermann (ii. 106). ‘The artist, to be sure, must faithfully and devotedly follow Nature's pattern in the detail ... only in the higher regions of artistic activity, where actually a picture becomes a picture—there he has free play and may even proceed to fiction.’ Goethe gives as the highest goal of Art: ‘Through semblance to give the illusion of a higher reality. It were, however, a false effort to retain the semblance so long within reality, that finally a common reality were left.’ [ 19 ] Let us now ask ourselves what is the reason of pleasure felt in works of Art. We must realise that pleasure and satisfaction in the object of beauty are in no way inferior to the purely intellectual pleasure which we feel in the purely spiritual. It always points to a distinct decadence in Art when its province is sought in mere amusement and in the satisfaction of lower inclinations. The reason for pleasure in works of Art is none other than the reason for the joyful exultation which we feel in view of the world of Ideas generally, uplifting man out of himself. What is it, then, that gives us such satisfaction in the world of Ideas? Nought else than the heavenly inner tranquillity and perfection which it harbours. No contradiction, no dissonance stirs in the thought-world which rises within our inner self, for it is itself an infinite. Inherent in this picture is everything which makes it perfect. This native perfection of the world of Ideas—this is the reason of our exultation when we stand before it. If beauty is to exalt us in the like manner, then it must be fashioned after the pattern of the Idea. This is quite a different thing from what the German writers on Aesthetics of the idealist school would have. This is not the Idea in the form of a phenomenon; it is just the contrary; it is a phenomenon in the form of the Idea. The content of Beauty, the material basis on which it rests, is thus always an actual positive reality, and the form in which it is presented is the form of the Idea. We see exactly the contrary is true to what German Aesthetics say; the latter simply turned things upside down. Beauty is not the divine in a cloak of physical reality; no, it is physical reality in a cloak that is divine. The artist does not bring the divine on to the earth by letting it flow into the world; he raises the world into the sphere of the divine. Beauty is semblance, because it conjures before our senses a reality which, as such, appears as an ideal world. Consider what thou will'st, still more consider how thou will'st—for on the latter everything turns. What is given remains physical, but the manner of its appearance is ideal. Where the ideal form appears in the physical to best advantage, there Art is seen to reach its highest dignity. Goethe says here: ‘The dignity of Art appears perhaps most eminently in music, because in music there is no material factor to be discounted. Music is all form and figure, exalting and ennobling everything it expresses.’ A science of Aesthetics starting from this definition: ‘Beauty is a physical reality appearing as though it were Idea’—such a science does not exist: it must be created. It can be called straight away the ‘Aesthetics of Goethe's world-conception.’ And this is the science of Aesthetics of the future. E. von Hartmann, one of the latest writers on this subject and the author of an excellent ‘Philosophy of Beauty,’ also cherishes the old error, that the content of Beauty is the Idea. He says quite rightly that the basic conception from which the science of the beautiful should proceed, is the conception of aesthetic semblance. Yes, but how can the manifestation of the world of Ideas, as such, ever be regarded as semblance. The Idea is surely the highest truth: when the Idea appears, it does so out of truth, and not as semblance. It is a real semblance, however, when the natural (physical) and the individual, arrayed in the imperishable raiment of eternity, appear with the character of the Idea; for reality falls short of this. [ 20 ] Taken in this sense, the artist appears as the continuator of the cosmic Spirit. The former pursues creation where the latter relinquishes it. The closest tie of kinship seems to unite the artist with the cosmic Spirit, and Art appears as the continuation of Nature's process. Thus the artist raises himself above the life of common reality, and he raises us with him when we devote ourselves to his work. He does not create for the finite world, he expands beyond it. This conception we find expressed by Goethe in his poem, ‘The Artist's Apotheosis,’ where he makes the Muse call to the Poet in the following words:
[ 21 ] In this poem, Goethe's thoughts on what I may call the cosmic mission of the artist are most aptly expressed. [ 22 ] Who, like Goethe, ever grasped in Art such deep significance? Who ever endowed Art with such dignity? It speaks sufficiently for the whole depth of his conceptions, when he says: ‘The great works of art are brought into existence by men, as are the great works of Nature, in accordance with true and natural laws; all arbitrary phantasy falls to the ground; there is Necessity, there is God.’ A science of Aesthetics in his spirit were certainly no bad thing. And this might apply also to other departments of modern science. [ 23 ] When, at the death of the poet's last heir, Walter von Goethe, 15th April, 1885, the treasures of the Goethe House became accessible to the nation, many, no doubt, shrugged their shoulders at the zeal of the scholars as they seized on the smallest posthumous remnant and handled it as a precious relic—the value of which, in connection with research should by no means be despised. But Goethe's genius is unfathomable; it cannot be taken in at a glance; we can only draw near to it gradually from different sides. And for this purpose we must welcome everything; what appears a worthless detail, gains significance when we consider it in connection with the poet's comprehensive view of the world. Only when we traverse the whole gamut of expressive activity in which this universal spirit gave vent to his life—only then does the essential in him, his own tendency, from which everything with him originated, and which represents a culmination of humanity, appear before our soul. Only when this tendency becomes the common property of all who strive spiritually; when the belief becomes general that we have not only to understand Goethe's conception of the world, but that we must live in it and it must live in us—only then will Goethe have fulfilled his mission. This conception of the world must be a sign for all members of the German people and far beyond it, in which they can meet and know each other in a life of common endeavour.
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| 57. Tolstoy and Carnegie in the Light of Spiritual Science
28 Jan 1909, Berlin Rudolf Steiner |
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| Then again the arrangement of both persons with spiritual science or anthroposophy. Indeed, with Tolstoy nobody probably doubts that one can illumine the depths of his soul with the light of spiritual science. |
| 57. Tolstoy and Carnegie in the Light of Spiritual Science
28 Jan 1909, Berlin Rudolf Steiner |
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The basis of our consideration today may seem a weird arrangement to somebody: on one side Tolstoy, on the other side Carnegie, two personalities about whom probably some say, more different, more opposite persons one can hardly find. On one side, the solver of riddles of the highest social and spiritual problems searching from the depths of spiritual life—Tolstoy; and on the other side the steel tycoon, the rich man, the man about whom one knows literally hardly more than that he thought about how the accumulated wealth is to be used best of all—Carnegie. Then again the arrangement of both persons with spiritual science or anthroposophy. Indeed, with Tolstoy nobody probably doubts that one can illumine the depths of his soul with the light of spiritual science. However, with Carnegie some probably say, what has this man to do generally with spiritual science, this man of the only practical, business work?—Spiritual science would be the grey theory, the unrealistic and life-hostile worldview as one regards it is so often, if it does not care a little about the issues of practical life, as one believes sometimes. Therefore, it could appear weird that just such a man of practical life is adduced to illustrate certain issues. If one has understood that this spiritual science is something that can flow into all single fields, yes, into the most mundane fields of practical life, then one does not consider it as something surprising that also this personality is adduced to illustrate something that should be just illustrated within spiritual science. Secondly—to speak in the sense of Emerson—we have two representative personalities of our time before ourselves. The one like the other expresses the whole striving on the one side, the work on the other side typically, as they prevail in our time. Just the opposite of the whole development of personality and soul is so characteristic with these both men on one side for the variety of life and work in our time, on the other side, nevertheless, again for the basic nerve, the real goals of our present. We have, on one side, Tolstoy who has grown out of a distinguished class, of wealth and abundance, of a life sphere in which everything is included that external life can offer as comfort and convenience. He is a human being whom his soul development has brought almost to proclaim the worthlessness of all he got with birth, not only to himself, but also to the whole humankind like a Gospel. We have the American steel tycoon on the other side, a personality that has grown out of hardship and misery, grown out of a life sphere where nothing at all exists of that which external life can offer as convenience and comfort. A person who had to earn dollar by dollar and who ascended to the biggest wealth, who got around in the course of his soul development to regarding this accumulation of wealth as something absolutely normal for the present and to thinking only about it how this accumulated wealth is to be used to the welfare and happiness of humankind. What Tolstoy never desired when he had reached the summit of his soul development he had it abundantly in the beginning of his life. The external goods of life that Carnegie had abundantly acquired last were refused to him in the beginning of his life. This is the expression of their natures, even if in exterior way, however, the characteristic of both personalities to a certain extent at the same time. What can take action with a person in our time, what one can reflect of these external processes in and around the personality shows us with both what prevails in our present in the undergrounds of the social and mental existence generally. We see Tolstoy, as said, born out of a sphere of life in which everything existed that one can call comfort, wealth, and refinement of life. Of course, we can deal only quite cursorily with his life, because today it concerns of characterising our time in these representative personalities and of recognising their needs in a certain way. In 1828, Leo Tolstoy is born in a family of Russian counts about which he himself says that the family immigrated originally from Germany. Then we see Tolstoy losing certain higher goods of life. Hardly he is one and a half years old, he loses the mother, the father in the ninth year. Then he grows up under the care of a relative who is, so to speak, the embodied love, and from her spiritual condition, the marvellous soul condition had to flow in his soul like by itself. However, on the other side, another relative who wants to build up him out of the viewpoints of her circles, out of the conditions of time as they formed in certain circles influences him. She is a person who is completely merged in the outward world activity which later became very odious to Tolstoy and against which he fought so hard. We see this personality striving from the outset to make Tolstoy a person “comme il faut,” a person who could treat his farmers in such a way, as it was necessary in those days, who should receive title, rank, dignity, and medals and should play a suitable role in the society. Then we see Tolstoy coming to the university; he is a bad student as he absolutely thinks that everything that the professors say at the University of Kazan is nothing worth knowing. Only oriental languages can occupy him. In all other matters, he was not interested. Against it the comparison of a certain chapter of the code of Catherine the Great (1729–1796) with The Spirit of the Laws (1748) by Montesquieu (Charles de Secondat, Baron de M., 1689–1755) attracted him. Then he tries repeatedly to manage his estate, and we see him almost getting around to diving head first into the life of luxury of a man of his circles, diving head first into all possible vices and vanities of life. We see him becoming a gambler, gambling big sums away. However, he has hours within this life over and over again when his own activities disgust him, actually. We see him meeting peers as well as men of letters and leading a life, which he calls a worthless, even perishable one at moments of reflection. However, we also see—and this is important to him who looks with pleasure at the development of the soul where this development manifests in especially typical signs—particular peculiarities appearing with him in the development of his soul which can disclose us already in the earliest youth what is, actually, in this soul. Thus, it is of immense significance, what a deep impression a certain event makes on Tolstoy at the age of eleven years. A friendly boy once told him that one has made an important discovery, a new invention. One has found—and a teacher has spoken in particular of the fact—that there is no God that this God is only an empty invention of many human beings, an empty picture of thought. Everything that one can know about the impression that this boy's experience made on Tolstoy shows already how he absorbed it that in him a soul struggled striving for the highest summits of human existence. However, this soul was weird in other ways as well. Those people who like to state outer appearances and do not pay attention to that in the soul, which emerges from the centre as the actual individual through all outer obstacles, they ignore and do not pay attention to anything in such youth experiences that has different effects on the one soul and on the other one. In particular, one has to pay attention if a soul shows a disposition in the earliest youth that one could pronounce with the nice sentence of Goethe in the second part of his Faust: “I love the man who wants what cannot be.” This sentence says a lot. A soul, which desires, so to speak, something that is obvious foolishness to the philistine view, such a soul, if it appears in its first youth as such, shows the width of the scope of view just by such peculiarities. Thus, one must not ignore it, if Tolstoy tells such things in one of his first writings, in which he gives reflections of his own development. We are not allowed to ignore when he says there things, which were absolutely valid for him, for example, when he shaved off his eyebrows and defaced his not very extensive beauty in such a way for a while. This is something that one can regard as a big outlandishness. However, if one thinks about it, it becomes an indication. Another example is that the boy imagines that the human being can fly if he presses the arms against the knees rather stiffly. If he did this, he would be able to fly, he thinks. He goes up once in the second floor and jumps out of the window, retaining the heels. He is saved like by a miracle and carries off nothing but a little concussion, which compensates one another by an 18-hour sleep again. He proved for his surroundings with it to be a strange boy. However, someone who wants to observe the soul and knows what it means to go out in his soul in the earliest youth from the track, which is predetermined on the left and on the right, does not disregard features in the life of a young person. Thus, this soul seems to be great and to have many talents from the start. Hence, we can understand that he was fulfilled with a certain disgust of himself when he was tired of the debaucheries of life, which were due to his social rank, in particular after a gamble affair. When he goes then to the Caucasus, we can understand that there his soul becomes fond of the simple Cossacks, of those people whom he gets to know and recognises that they have, actually, quite different souls than all those people whom he had got to know up to now basically. All the principles of his peers appeared to him so unnatural. Everything that he had believed up to now seemed to him so strange, so separated from the original source of existence. However, the human beings, whom he got to know now, were people whose souls had grown together with the sources of nature like the tree by the roots with the sources of nature, like the flower with the liquid of the ground. It impressed him enormously that they were grown together with nature, that they had not become foreign to the sources of existence, that they were beyond good and evil in their circles. In 1854, when he became a soldier, full of zest for action, to take part in the Crimean War, we see him with the most intensive devotion studying the whole soul life of the simple soldier. However, we see now a more specified feeling taking place in Tolstoy's soul, we see him being deeply moved by the naturalness of the simple human being on the one side, on the other side, also by the misery, poverty, the tortures, and depression of the simple human being. We see how he is fulfilled with love and desire to help, and that the highest ideals of human happiness, human welfare, and progress flash as shades in his mind, how he realises completely on the other side that the natural human beings cannot understand his ideals. This causes a conflict in his soul, something that does not allow him to penetrate to the basic core of his being. Thus, he is thrown back repeatedly from that life he leads and in which he is thrown just with the Danube army from one extreme to the other. A superior says, he is a golden human being whom one can never forget again. He works like a soul that pours out goodness only and, on the other hand, has the ability to amuse the others in the most difficult situations. Everything is different if he is there. If he is not there, everybody hangs his head. If he has plunged into life, he comes back with a terrible remorse, with awful regret to the camp. Between such moods, this great soul was thrown back and forth. From these moods and experiences those views and pictorial descriptions of his literary career come, which caused, for example, the most accepting review even from Turgenev (Ivan T., 1818–1883, Russian author), and which have found recognition everywhere. However, we see at the same time how in a certain way beside the real centre, the centre of his soul, always he looks at the big strength, at the basic spring of life, how he struggles for the concepts of truth and human progress. However, he cannot help saying at a being together with Turgenev: you all do not have, actually, what one calls conviction. You talk, actually, only to hide your conviction. One can say, life made his soul feel low, bringing it into heavy, bitter conflicts. Indeed, something most serious should yet come. At the end of the fifties, one of his brothers fell ill and died. Tolstoy had often seen death in war, had often looked at dying human beings, but he had not yet realised the problem of life to such extent as at the sight of the beloved dying brother. Tolstoy was not so fulfilled at that time with philosophical or religious contents that these contents could have supported him. He was in such a basic mood that expressed itself towards death possibly in such a way that he said, I am incapable to give life a goal. I see life decreasing, I see it running in my peers worthlessly; they do things which are not worth to be done. If one strings up an event to the other and forms ever so long rows, nothing valuable results.—At that time, he could also not see any contents and life goal in the fact that the lower social classes were in distress and misery. He said to himself at that time, such a life whose sense one searches in vain is finished by the futility of death and if the life of everybody and any animal ends in the futility of death, who is generally able to speak about the meaning of life? Sometimes, Tolstoy had already set himself the goal to strive for perfection of his soul, to search contents for the soul. He had not advanced so far that any contents of life could be roused in the soul even from the spirit. Therefore, the sight of death had put the riddle of life in such horrible figure before his spiritual eye. We see him travelling in Europe just in the same time. We see him visiting the most interesting cities of Europe—in France, Italy, Germany. We see him getting to know some valuable persons. He gets to know Schopenhauer (Arthur Sch., 1788–1860, German philosopher) personally shortly before his death, he gets to know Liszt (1811–1882, Austrian-Hungarian composer) and still some others, some luminaries of science and art. He gets to know something of the social life, gets to know the court life at Weimar. Everything was accessible to him; however, he looks at everything with eyes from which the attitude looks that has just been characterised. From all that he had gained only one: as well as it is at home, in the circles, which he has grown out of, it is also in Western Europe. Now a goal faces him in particular. He wanted to found a kind of model school, and he founded it in his hometown where every pupil should learn after his talents where it should not be a stencil. We cannot get involved with the description of the pedagogic principles, which one used there. However, this must be stressed that he had an ideal of education in mind, which should meet the individuality of the child. We see a kind of interregnum taking place, where in certain way the stormy soul experiences a kind of standstill, that soul in which the problems and the questions followed in rapid succession, into which the sensations and emotions have flowed in contradicting way. A calmer life prevails in it. This time begins with the marriage in the sixties. It was the time from which the great novels come in which he gave the comprising tremendous pictures of the social life of the present and the previous time: War and Peace (1869) and Anna Karenina (1873–1877). So much has flowed in from that which he had learnt onto these works. Thus, he lived until the seventies of the last century. Then comes a time of his life where he faces a crucial decision where all qualms, doubts, and problems come to life again which prevailed once like from dark spiritual depths. A comparison, a picture that he forms is rather typical of what his soul experienced. One needs to visualise this picture only and to know that it means quite another matter to a soul like Tolstoy's soul, as for another soul that is much more superficial. You need to visualise this picture only, and you can deeply look into the mind of Tolstoy. He compares his own life to an Eastern fable, which he tells possibly in such a way: There is a man, pursued by a beast. He flees, finds a dried out well and plunges into it to escape from the beast. He holds fast onto the branches, which have grown out on the sides of the well wall. In this way, he thinks he is protected against the pursuing monster. However, in the depth, he sees a dragon, and he has the feeling, he must be devoured by it if he gets tired only a little or if the branch breaks, onto which he holds fast. There he also sees on the leaves of the shrub some drops of honey from which he could feed himself. Nevertheless, at the same time he also sees mice gnawing away at the roots of the shrub onto which he holds fast. Two things to which Tolstoy adhered were family love and art. For the rest, he considered life in such a way that all tantalising worries of life pursue him. He escapes one and is welcomed by the other monster. Then one sees mice gnawing away the few things that one still.—One must take the picture deeply enough to see what goes forward in such a soul, what is shown there and what Tolstoy experienced in all thinking, feeling and willing in the most extensive way. The branches still pleased him. However, he also found various things, which had to gnaw away at the delight in them. If the whole life is in such a way, that one cannot find sense in it, that one looks for the meaning of life in vain, what does it mean to have a family, to build up descendants to whom one transfers the same futility? This was also something he had in mind. And art? If life is worthless, what about art, the mirror of life? Can art be valuable if it only is able to reflect that in which one looks for sense in vain? That just stood before his soul and burnt in him after an interregnum again. Where he looked around with all those who tried to fathom the meaning of life in great philosophies and in the most various worldviews, he nowhere found anything that could satisfy his searching. Recently it was in such a way that he turned his look to those people who were originally connected with the springs of life according to his opinion. These human beings had preserved a natural sense, a natural piety. He said to himself, the scholar who lives like me, who overestimates his reason finds nothing in all researching that could interpret the meaning of life to him. If I look at the usual human being who unites there in sects: he knows, why he lives, he knows the meaning of life. How does he know this, and how does he know the meaning of life? Because he experiences the sensation in himself, there is a will, the everlasting divine will as I call it. What lives in me devotes itself to the divine will. What I do from morning to evening is a part of the divine will. If I move the hands, I move them in the will of the divine. Without being brought by reason to abstractions, the hands move.—That faced him so peculiarly, that grasped him so intensely: if the human is deeply grasped in the soul. He said to himself, there are human beings who can answer the question of the meaning of life to themselves that they can use. It is even magnificent how he contrasts these simple human beings with those who he got to know in his surroundings. Everything is thought out of the monumental of the paradigms. He says, I got to know people who did not understand to give life any meaning. They lived by force of habit, although they could gain no meaning of life, but I got to know those who committed suicide, because they could not find any meaning of life.—Tolstoy himself was before it. Thus, he studied that category of human beings about whom he had to say to himself, it could not be talk of a meaning of life and of a life with a meaning. However, the human being, who is still connected with the sources of nature, whose soul is connected with the divine forces as the plant with the forces of life, can answer to the question: why do I live?—Therefore, Tolstoy came so far to search for a community with those simple human beings in the religious life. He became religious in certain way, although the outer forms made a repellent impression on him. He went to the Communion again. Now it was something in him that one can explain in such a way: he strove with all fibers of his soul to find and to feel a goal. Nevertheless, again his thinking and feeling impeded him everywhere in certain way. He was able to pray together with these human beings, who were believers in the naive sense and answered to the question of the meaning of life to themselves. He could pray—and this is tremendously typical—up to the point of a uniform way of feeling. However, he was not able to go further when they prayed: we confess ourselves to the Father, to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.—This made no sense to him. It is generally typical that he was able to come up to a certain point, looking for a religious life, which was based on brotherly feelings. This life in devoutness should produce a unity of feelings, unity of thoughts. However, he could not rise to the positive contents, the knowledge of the spirit, to the spiritual view, which gives reality. The traditional dogmatics meant nothing to him. He could not connect any sense with the words, which are given in the Trinity. Thus, he came, while all these things flocked together, to the mature period of his life, to the period in which he tried to delve completely into that which he could call true, real Christianity. He strove in such a way, as if he had wanted to comprise, to penetrate the liveliness of Christ's soul with his own soul. With this spirit of Christ's soul, he wanted to penetrate himself. A worldview should arise from it, and from this something like a transformation of all present life should result which he subjected to harsh criticism. Because he believes now to feel in his soul, what Christ had thought and felt, he feels strong enough to issue a challenge to all ways of life, to all ways of feeling and thinking of the present. He criticised harshly that out of which he has grown and which he could see in the farther environment of his time. He feels strong enough to put up the demand, on the other side, to let the spirit of Christ prevail and to get out a renewal of all human life out of the spirit of Christ. With it, we have characterised, so to speak, his maturing soul and have seen this soul having grown out of that which many of our contemporaries call the summits of life. We have seen this soul getting around to harshly criticise the summits of life, and to putting as its next goal the renewal of the spirit of Christ which it finds strange to everything that lives presently, in the renewal of Christ's life which it nowhere finds in reality. Therefore, in certain sense, Tolstoy says no to the present and affirms what he calls the spirit of Christ, which he could not find in the present but only in the first times of Christianity. He had to go back to the historical sources, which came up to him. There we have a representative of our present who has grown out of the present, saying no to this present. Now we have a look at the other man, who affirms most intensely, what Tolstoy denies most intensely, who reaches the same formula but applies it quite differently. There we see Carnegie, the Scotsman, growing out of that dividing line of modern times which we can characterise by the fact that trade, large-scale industry and the like sweep away the small trade from the social order. We really see Carnegie growing out of that dividing line of modern life, which a newer poet so nicely characterised with the words (poem by Heinrich von Reder, 1824–1909, Bavarian officer, poet, and painter):
One needs to wake only such a mood, and one illuminates brightly that dividing line in the cultural development of modern times, which has become so important to life. Carnegie's father was a weaver who had a good living at first. He worked for a factory. This went well up to the time when the large-scale industry flooded everything. Now we see the last day approaching, when Carnegie's father can still deliver the produced to the trader. Then poverty and misery enter in the weaver's family. The father does no longer see any possibility to make a living in Scotland. He decides to emigrate to America, so that both sons do not live in misery and die. The father finds work in a cotton factory, and the boy is employed as a bobbin boy in his twelfth year. He has to perform hard work. However, there is after one week of hard, heavy work a happy day for the 12-year-old boy. He gets his first wage: 1 dollar and 20 cents. Never again—so says Carnegie—he has taken up any income with such delighted soul as this dollar and twenty cents. Nothing made more joy to him later, although many millions went through his fingers. We see the representative of practical pursuit in our present that grows out of distress and misery that is natured in such a way to immerse himself in the present, as it is, and to become the self-made man in it. He struggles. He gains his dollar every week. Then somebody employs him in another factory with a better wage. Here he has to work even more, he must stand in the basement and has to heat and maintain a small steam engine with big heat. He feels that as a responsible post. The fear to turn the tap of the engine wrongly what could lead to an accident for the whole factory is dreadful to him. He often catches himself sitting in his bed at night and dreaming of the tap the whole night which he turned taking care of turning it in the right direction. Then we see him employed as a telegraph messenger in Pittsburgh after some time. There he is already highly happy with the small wage of the telegraph messenger. He has to work at a place where also books are which he had hardly seen before. Sometimes he also has newspapers to read. He has now only one worry: telegraph messengers are not to be needed in the city if they are not able to know all addresses of the companies by heart, which receive telegrams. He really manages to know the names and addresses of the Pittsburgh companies. He also already develops a certain independence. His consciousness is paired exceptionally with cleverness. He goes now a little earlier to the telegraph office, and there he learns to telegraph by own practicing. Thus, he can aim at the ideal that any telegraph messenger is allowed to have in a young, ambitious community: to become a telegraph operator once. He even succeeds in a special trick. When one morning the telegraph operator was not there, a death message comes in. He takes up the telegram and carries it to the newspaper to which it was determined. There are connections where one regards such an action, even if it succeeds, not as favourable. However, Carnegie thereby climbed up to the telegraph operator. Now something else presented itself to him. A man who dealt with railways recognises the talents of the young man and one day he makes the following proposal to him. He said to him, he should take over railway stocks of 500 dollars that had just become available. He can win a lot if he pursues these matters. Carnegie tells now—it is delightful how he tells this—how he raised 500 dollars really by the care and love of his mother, and how he bought his stocks. When he got the first revenue, the first payment of more than five dollars, he went with his fellows out to the wood. They looked at the payment and thought and learnt to recognise that there is something else than to be paid for work, something that makes money from money. That aroused big viewpoints in Carnegie's life. With it, he grew into the characteristic of our time. Thus, we see him immediately understanding when another proposal is made. It is typical how he grasps with complete presence of mind what appears before his soul for the first time. An inventive head shows him the model of the first sleeping car. Straight away, he recognises that there is something tremendously fertile in it, so that he takes part in it. He emphasises now again by what this consciousness, actually, grew. He did not have enough money to take part in suitable way in the enterprise of the first sleeping car society of the world. However, his ingenious head caused that he got money already from a bank: he issued his first bill of exchange. This is nothing particular, he says, but this is something particular that he finds a banker who accepts this bill of exchange. This was the case. Now he needed to develop this only to become completely the man of the present. Hence, we have not to be surprised that he became a steel tycoon when he got the idea to replace the many wooden bridges with iron and steel bridges, that he became the man who set the tone in the steel industry and acquired the countless riches. Thus, we really see the type of the human being in him who grows into the present, the present, which unfolds the most exterior life. He grows into the most outward of appearance. However, he grows into it by his own strength, by his abilities. He becomes the extensively rich person out of distress and misery, while he himself really acquired everything from the first dollar on. He is a pensive person who associates this whole impulse of his life with the progress and life of whole humanity. Thus, we see another strange Gospel growing out of his way of thinking, a Gospel that follows Christ. However, Carnegie immediately says at the beginning of his Gospel, it is a Gospel of wealth (essay Wealth or Gospel of Wealth, 1889). That is why his book shows how wealth is applied best of all to the welfare and to the progress of humanity. He opposes Tolstoy immediately about whom he says: he is a person who takes Christ in such a way as it is not suitable at all to our time, who regards him as a strange being of old past. One must understand Christ in such a way that one transfers Him to the present life.—Carnegie is a person who affirms the whole life of the present completely. He says: if we look back at the times when the human being were more alike than today, they were still less divided into those who had to assign a job and those who have to take a job, and if we compare the times, we see how primitive the single cultures were in those days. The king was not able in that old time to satisfy his needs in such a way as today the poorest person can satisfy them now. What happened had to happen. That is why it is right that one distributes the goods in such a way. Carnegie establishes a strange doctrine of the distribution or application of wealth. Above all, we find with him that ideas of the purely personal efficiency, of the nature of the efficiency of the human being originate in his soul who has worked his way in life up to that which he becomes in the end. At first Carnegie sees outward goods only, then also that the human being must be efficient, externally efficient. Someone has to apply his efficiency not only to acquire wealth but also to manage it in the service of humanity. Carnegie intensely draws the attention to the fact that quite new principles would have to enter, so to speak, in the social construction of humanity if welfare and progress should originate from the new progress and the distribution of goods. He says, we have institutions of former time that make it possible that by inheritance from the father to the son and the grandchildren goods, rank, title and dignities go over. In the life of the old time, this was possible.—He regards it as right that one can substitute with routine what the personal efficiency does not give: rank, title, dignities. Nevertheless, he is convinced by that life he has experienced that it requires personal, individual efficiency. He points to the fact that one had ascertained that five of seven insolvent houses became insolvent, because they demised to the sons. Rank, title, and dignities devolved from the fathers upon the sons, however, never business acumen. In those parts of modern life, where commercial principles prevail, they should not be transmitted simply from the testator to the descendants. It is much more important that someone builds up a personally efficient man, than to bequeath his wealth to his children. That is why Carnegie concludes in the absurd sentence: someone has to make sure that he applies the accumulated wealth to such institutions and foundations by which the human beings are promoted to the largest extent.—The sentence with which he formulates this, which can appear grotesque, which originates, however, from Carnegie's whole way of thinking is this: “Who dies rich dies dishonourably.” One could say in certain sense, this sentence of the steel tycoon sounds even more revolutionary than many a sentence of Tolstoy. ”He who dies rich dies dishonourably” means: someone dies dishonourably who does not apply the accumulated goods to endowments by which the human beings can learn something, can get the possibility to do further studies. If he makes many human beings efficient with his wealth during his life and does not hand it down to descendants, who can use it their way lacking any talent and only to their personal well-being, he dies not dishonourably. Thus, we see with Carnegie a very strange principle appearing. We see that he affirms the present social life and activity, that he gains, however, a new principle from it: the fact that the human being has to advocate not only the use of wealth, but also its management, as a manager of the goods in the service of humanity. This man does not at all believe that anything can devolve from the parents upon their descendants. Even if he knows the outward life only, he realises, nevertheless, that inside of the human being the forces have to originate which make the human being efficient to do his work in life. We see these two representatives of our present: that who harshly criticizes what has developed bit by bit and who wants to lead the soul to higher fields out of the spirit. On the other side, we see a man who takes the material life as it comes, and who is pointed to the fact that within the human being the spring of work and of the health of life is to be found. Nevertheless, one may find something just in this teaching of Carnegie that allows me to remark the following. If anybody does not look thoughtlessly and pointlessly at this soul life, but looks at the forces pouring out of the souls bit by bit, does look at the individual, and is clear in his mind absolutely that it is not handed down,—what has one then to look at? One has to look at the real origin, at that which comes from other sources. One finds if one comes to the sources of the present talents and abilities that these are caused in former lives. By the principle of reincarnation and of spiritual causing, karma, one finds the possibility to process such a principle meditatively that it has forced the practical life upon a practical person. Nobody can hope that from a mere externalisation of life anything could come that the soul satisfies, can bring the civilisation to the highest summits. Never can one hope that on those roads anything else would come than a distribution of wealth salutary in the external sense. The soul would become deserted, it would overexert its forces, but it would find nothing in itself if it could not penetrate to the sources of the spirit, which are beyond the external material life. While the soul is rejected by a material approach to life, it must find the spring, which can flow only from a spiritual approach to life. With such a life praxis, as Carnegie has it, that deepening and spiritualisation coming from spiritual science have to combine, so that the souls do not become deserted. On the one side, Carnegie demands that from the single soul, which makes it fit for the external life, on the other side, Tolstoy wants to give the single soul what it can find from the deep well of the spiritual being. As well as Carnegie grasps the being of the present with sure look from the material life, we find Tolstoy on the other side with sure look grasping the characteristic of the soul. Up to a certain limiting point, we see Tolstoy coming who affects us, indeed, strangely if we compare everything that lives in Tolstoy's worldview to that which faces us in particular in the West-European civilisation. One can examine work by work of Tolstoy and one sees one fact emerging above all. The matters, which one has gathered here in the West with an immense expenditure of philosophical reflection, academic pondering, and moving conclusions from pillars to post, appear to Tolstoy in such a way that they occur in five to six lines like flashes of thought and become conviction to that who can understand such a thing. Tolstoy shows, for example, how we have to find something in the human soul that is of divine nature that can visualise the divine in the world if it lights up in us. Tolstoy says there, around me, the academic naturalists live; they investigate what is real outdoors in the material, in the so-called objective existence. They search the divine primal ground of existence. Then such people try to compose the human being from all principles, substances, atoms et cetera that they search spread out outdoors in the space. Then in the end, they try to understand what the human being is, while they believe to have to combine all external science to find the primal ground of life. Such human beings, he says, appear to me like human beings who have trees and plants of the living nature round themselves. They say, this does not interest me. But there is a wood far away, I hardly see it; I want to investigate and describe this wood, then I also understand the trees and the plants which are around me, and I am able to describe them.—People appear to me that way who investigate the being of the animals with their instruments to get to know the nature of the human being. They have it in themselves; they only need to see what is in close proximity. However, they do not do this. They search the faraway trees, and they try to understand what they cannot see, the atoms. However, they do not see the human being. This way of thinking is so monumental that it is more valuable than dozens of insights and theories that are written out of old cultures. This is typical for the whole thinking of Tolstoy. To such things, he came, and in such things, one must look. To the West European this is extremely unsatisfactory; only by a devious route via Kant he gets around to it. With the assurance of his soul, Tolstoy is driven to pronounce what is not proved, but is true, what is recognised by immediate view and of which one knows if it is pronounced that it is true. His work On Life (1887) shows this monumental original springing of the deepest truth like from the spring of life, which he searched. His last writings just show this and what is in such a way that it can shine like an aurora to a rising future. Therefore, we have to say, the less we are inclined to take Tolstoy dogmatically, the more we are inclined to take up the gold nuggets of a primitive paradigmatic thinking, the more he becomes fertile. Of course, those who accept a personality only in such a way that they swear on their dogmas, who cannot allow to be fertilised by it, they do not have a lot from him. Something does not agree with them. However, someone who can allow to be fertilised by a great personality may receive a lot from Tolstoy. We see truth working in him, paradigmatically, and that this truth flows with strong forces onto his personal life. How does it flow in there? It is rather interesting to see that different views live in his family and tolerate each other. How was he able, however, to introduce his principles in the everyday life? By working, and not only with principles. Thereby he becomes a true pioneer of something that only must sprout in future. On the other side, Tolstoy is also a child of his time, even though he is a pioneer of the future. Perhaps, one can nowhere feel more impressively how he puts himself in the present than in that strange picture of the year 1848, when he was twenty years old. One looks only at the face of the 20-year-old, which expresses energy and willpower, also reticence at the same time. However, the spirited twinkle in the eyes reveals something that faces the riddles of life quizzically. He is volcanic inside but not able to cause the volcano to erupt. Indeed, we see mysterious depths of the soul expressing themselves in his physiognomy, and we get the expression of the fact that something tremendous lives in him but that he cannot yet express it completely in this hereditary organism. It is also that way with the variety of the forces which live in Tolstoy, and which could not be expressed so really. It is in such a way, as if they are expressed as caricatures, distorted in certain respect. One has also to recognise the character in him that is sometimes distorted grotesquely. Hence, it is quite wonderful if he is able to point to that which one calls something transient with the human beings normally: look at the human body. How often its substances have been exchanged! Nothing material is there that was there in the ten-year-old boy. Compare the usual consciousness to the image life of the fifty years old man: it has become completely different, until the soul structure. We cannot call it permanent, but everywhere we find the centre in it, which we may imagine possibly in the following way. The objects of the outside world are there. There is this, there is that, there a third one. Two human beings face the objects. The eyes see the same things, but they are to the one this way, to the other that way. The one says, I like this; the other says: I do not like this.—If in the outside world everything is the same, and if the one soul says, I like it, and the other says, I do not like it, if the way of life is different, a centre is there that is different from all appearance that remains constant, in spite of all change of consciousness and body. Something is there that was there before birth and is there after birth, my particular ego. This my particular ego has not begun with birth. It is not the point that anybody positions himself with the west-European habits to such a remark, but it matters that one has the sensation: one can do such a remark. Therein the greatness of the soul appears. It becomes apparent that the soul lives and how it lives. Immortality is guaranteed therein. Tolstoy just approaches the border of that which we get to know as the innermost being of the soul by spiritual-scientific deepening. He is wedged by the world against which he himself fights so much and cannot penetrate to true cognition of that which is there before birth, and of that which comes after death. He does not come to the teaching of reincarnation and karma. Just as little, he gets to the inner impulse of the soul like Carnegie who almost demands it. Therefore, we see whether now a human being is in contradiction to everything that lives and works in the present or whether someone complies with all life forms of the present: he is led to the gates of the anthroposophic approach to life. Tolstoy would be able to find the way to Carnegie, Carnegie never to Tolstoy. With this talk, I wanted to show that a worldview and an approach to life could be given which introduces into the immediate life praxis, which can transfer the newfound to the known, to the performed. Moreover, we see if we familiarise ourselves deeper and deeper with spiritual science that it brings that to the human beings of the one and the other view which, in the end, Tolstoy has found his way and Carnegie has found his way: a satisfying life. However, it does not depend on it that the immediate viewfinder finds the satisfactory life, and that those who search with him can find it. What Tolstoy and Carnegie have found for themselves as adequate, this can be found for all human beings only impersonally and spiritually if true spiritual knowledge of that is found which goes from life to life, which carries the guaranty of eternity in itself. |
| 58. Buddha and Christ
02 Dec 1909, Berlin Tr. Unknown Rudolf Steiner |
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| But since it is the case that a certain trend of thought which exists within this sphere of Spiritual Science, is being more and more identified with Buddhism, namely, the conception of repeated lives on earth for the whole of humanity, and also the conception concerning that which passes onward from life to life as spiritual cause and effect,—one may as well say at once that it is really astonishing that this idea of Reincarnation should be designated as ‘Buddhism.’ The function of Anthroposophy, or of Spiritual Science is not to acknowledge allegiance to any particular name, but only to what is capable of investigation as a Truth, unconnected in our day with any names whatsoever. |
| 58. Buddha and Christ
02 Dec 1909, Berlin Tr. Unknown Rudolf Steiner |
|---|
The Spiritual Science Movement has often, since its inception, been confused with various other tendencies in existence at the present time. It has been accused, in particular, of desiring to implant one or another of the Oriental spiritual influences—for example the Buddhistic—into western culture. For this reason, the subject of to-day's lecture should have a special interest for spiritual research, for it will present certain observations concerning the respective significance of Buddhism and Christianity from the standpoint of Spiritual Science. Anyone who has made himself in some degree acquainted with the nature of Buddhism, will be aware how its Founder, Gautama Buddha, evaded all questions concerning the evolution of the world, and the foundations of human existence. He would not speak of these. He would speak only of the means by which mankind could enter into a form of existence that was satisfying in itself. Therefore, one cannot, to begin with, regard Spiritual Science, which never avoids these questions concerning the source and origin of existence and the great facts of evolution, as being similar to Buddhism. But since it is the case that a certain trend of thought which exists within this sphere of Spiritual Science, is being more and more identified with Buddhism, namely, the conception of repeated lives on earth for the whole of humanity, and also the conception concerning that which passes onward from life to life as spiritual cause and effect,—one may as well say at once that it is really astonishing that this idea of Reincarnation should be designated as ‘Buddhism.’ The function of Anthroposophy, or of Spiritual Science is not to acknowledge allegiance to any particular name, but only to what is capable of investigation as a Truth, unconnected in our day with any names whatsoever. The fact that the teaching of Reincarnation, or repeated lives on earth, is also to be found in the teaching of Gautama Buddha, although in an entirely different form, is analogous, where present day Spiritual Science is concerned, to the fact that elementary geometry is also to be found in Euclid; and just as little as it is justifiable to accuse every teacher of geometry of perpetrating ‘Euclidism,’ so is it equally unjustifiable to accuse Spiritual Science, when it makes the teaching of Reincarnation its own, of being ‘Buddhism’ just because similar concepts were also taught by Buddha. Nevertheless, it is necessary to point out that Spiritual Science is the instrument which we must use in order to penetrate into and to test the source of every religion, whether it be the religion which is at the foundation of the whole of our European culture—Christianity, or whether it be Buddhism. If we would now, in the sense of Spiritual Science, enter thoughtfully and deeply into the spirit of Buddhism, so as to be able to compare it with the spirit of Christianity, we shall do better if we do not at once turn to the great doctrines—which can so easily be interpreted in different ways—but rather try to construct a picture of the immense significance and far-reaching results of Buddhism from various symptomatic facts which concern its whole disposition and presentment. This can best be done if we consider first of all a Buddhist scripture which is held in high esteem; and that is the questions which were put by King Milinda to the sage Nagasena. Here we are given a conversation which draws out the very spirit of the whole trend of Buddhistic thinking. The powerful, spiritually-minded King Milinda desires to question Nagasena, the sage. The King, who has never been at a loss in the presence of any sage because he always knew how to evade anything that was said in opposition to his own ideas, comes to Nagasena to speak with him about the meaning of the ‘Eternal,’—the meaning of the immortal part of human nature which passes onwards from incarnation to incarnation. Nagasena asks the King:—‘How dids't thou come hither? on foot, or in a carriage?’ ‘In a carriage.’ ‘Well,’ said Nagasena, ‘let us now consider what a carriage, is. Are the shafts the carriage? No. Is the seat you sat upon the carriage? No. Are the wheels the carriage? No. Is the yoke the carriage? No. And thus,’ said Nagasena, ‘one can enumerate all the parts of the carriage, but all the parts are not the carriage. And yet, all that is there enumerated is the carriage, only the carriage consists of all the parts put together; it is no more than a name for that of which all the parts make one whole. If we consider it apart from its separate constituents, it is nothing but a name!’ The sense—and the object—of what Nagasena said is this: that one must turn one's gaze away from everything that the eye can behold in the physical world. Nagasena wished to point out that actually nothing exists in the physical world which in itself constitutes what is collectively designated by a name, in order that he may thus reveal the worthlessness and meaninglessness of all the physical-material constituents of things. And, so as to make his use of this example clear, Nagasena says: ‘It is thus also with all that constitutes Man, and which passes onward from one earth-life to another. Are the hands, and the legs, and the head that which goes from life to life? No! What thou doest to-day, what thou doest tomorrow, is it these things which go from life to life? No! What is it then, which collectively is Man? It is Name and Form. But then, it is even so with the name and form of a wagon. If we gather the different parts together, we have only a Name. There is nothing there in particular except the parts!’ So that we may observe this still better, there is yet another analogy which the sage Nagasena showed to King Milinda. The King said:—‘Thou sayest, O wise Nagasena, that of that which stands before me as Man, Name and Form pass from life to life. Is it then the Name and Form of the self-same Being that appears again in a new embodiment upon the earth?’ And Nagasena replied: ‘See now,—the mango-tree bears a fruit. A thief comes and steals the fruit. The owner of the mango-tree says: “Thou hast robbed me of my fruit,” but the thief answers: “It is not thy fruit. Thy fruit was that which thou didst plant in the ground! it has transformed itself. That which was growing upon the mango-tree simply bears the same name—it is not thy fruit!”’ And then Nagasena continued: ‘It is true that it bears the same name and form; but it is not the same fruit. Still, one can punish the thief in spite of that! And so,’ said the sage, ‘it is even thus with what reappears in a later life on earth in relation to what was there in earlier lives. It is like the fruit of the mango-tree which was planted in the earth. But only because the owner had first planted the fruit in the earth was it possible for a fruit to grow upon a tree. Therefore we must say that the fruit belongs to him who buried the first fruit in the earth. Thus it is with man; his deeds and his destiny are the fruit and the effects of his earlier lives. But what appears is new, as the fruit of the mango-tree is new.’ So Nagasena showed how what is once there in any one earth-life strives to reappear transformed, as effects, in later lives. It is easier to gain a sensitiveness towards the whole spirit of Buddhistic teaching by such examples as this, than by a study of the main principles, for the latter can be interpreted in various ways. If we let the spirit of these analogies work upon us, we see clearly enough that the Buddhist desires to wean his adherents from the idea of what may be regarded as the separate individuality, the definite personality, and to point out above all things, that that which reappears in a new embodiment, is—it is true—the result of this personality, but that one has no right to speak of an uninterrupted ‘I,’ in the true sense of the word, as extending from one incarnation to another. Now if we turn from Buddhism to Christianity, we can—though such a comparison has never been selected before—use this instance of Nagasena in the Christian sense, and represent it somewhat as follows. Suppose we imagine that King Milinda and the Sage are reborn, and that the conversation takes place now. Were it fully dominated by the spirit of Christianity it would necessarily have to proceed as follows. Nagasena would say:—‘Behold the hand! Is this hand a man? No, the hand is not the man. For if there were only a hand, there would be no man. But if you cut the hand off a man's body, it dries up, and in three weeks' time there would be no hand left. Whence then is a hand a hand? By reason of a man! Is the head a man? No! Is the heart anything by itself? No! Because if we remove the heart from a man in a very short time it ceases to be a heart, and the man ceases to be a man. Therefore the heart is a heart by reason of the man; the man is a man by reason of his heart. And moreover, man is only man upon the earth because he possesses the heart as an instrument. So the living organism has parts, which in themselves are nothing, but are only something by reason of their co-existence within us. And when we consider what the separate parts are not, we find we have to fall back upon something which is invisible behind them, which rules them, holds them together and uses them as its instruments. And even when we behold all the separate parts together, still we have not found the Man himself, if we only look for him as the sum of the separate parts.’ And then Nagasena could look back upon the old analogy of the carriage, and could now say, speaking of course, out of the spirit of Christianity:—‘True it is that the shafts are not the carriage, for with the shafts alone thou coulds't not be conveyed. True it is that the wheels are not the carriage, for the wheels could not carry thee. True it is that the yoke is not the carriage, for the yoke could not carry thee. True it is that the seat is not the carriage, for that also could not carry thee! Though it is true that the carriage is only a name for the assembled parts, yet thou art not conveyed by the parts, but thou art conveyed by something that is not the parts, for by their means thou canst not travel.’ But by the ‘Name’ something particular is denoted. And thus we are led to something which is non-existent in any of the parts! Hence arises the striving of the Buddhistic spirit away, so to speak, from what is perceived, in order to surmount it and to deny the possibility that anything particular attaches to what is seen. The spirit which imbues the Christian way of thinking—and this it is that concerns us—perceives the separate parts of a carriage, or of any other object, in such a way that the tendency is to turn from the parts to a recognition of the whole. And because of this difference between the Buddhistic and the Christian conception of things, remarkable consequences arise out of each of them. Out of the Buddhistic, and this is the conclusion we are naturally led to from the foregoing indications, the following arises:— A man stands before us. He is constructed out of several parts. This man busies himself in the world, and performs various actions. And while he appears thus before us, his Buddhistic attitude of thought causes him to feel the worthlessness and unreality of everything around him. But he is led to free himself from his attachment to nothingness, so that he may rise to a higher existence in reality; to turn away from all that his eyes behold, and from everything that he can gain. by means of all possible human knowledge. Away from this world of the sense-perceptions! For everything that it offers, when it is conceived only as Name and Form, reveals itself in all its emptiness! There is no truth in anything belonging to the physical world! Now whither does the Christian conception lead us? It does not regard the separate parts as separate, but regards them in such a way that one indivisible unity and reality is perceived ruling among them. It regards the hand in such a way that it is seen to be a hand only because a man, using it as a hand, makes it a hand. Therefore here is something (a man) which as it stands before us, immediately and inevitably suggests that which stands behind it. Hence, something quite different from the Buddhistic arises from this way of thinking, so that we can say as follows:—‘Here stands a man. That which he is by reason of his different parts, and by means of his acts, can only be, because behind it all there stands, as Man, a Spiritual Being, who not only brings the parts into movement, but performs all the separate acts. That which is revealed in the separate parts, and lives itself out in them, has poured itself into all that is visible of the man; it is that which, within what is seen, will reap the fruits of actions and be able to draw out of the world of the senses something that we may call an ‘event’ and carry it onward into a later incarnation upon earth. There—behind the external appearance—stands the Doer—a Doer who does not spurn the outer world, but so handles it that its fruits are taken up and carried into a future life.’ When we, as knowers of Spiritual Science, consider Reincarnation from the Buddhistic standpoint, we must express it thus:—that that of which man is the unified expression in his earth-life, has no value, for his deeds alone have their effects in the following incarnation; while in the light of Christianity, that which makes man a unity in his earthly life is the fullness of his Ego. That has value; and that it is which carries the fruits of one incarnation onward into the next. Thus we can see that a certain quite definite configuration of thought, which is far more important than theories and principles, cleaves these two great world-conceptions most powerfully asunder. If we were less prone in these days to depend so much upon theories, we should find that we could far more easily arrive at an understanding of the main characteristics of various spiritual tendencies by turning our attention especially to their symptoms, to their methods of presentation. And that holds good both for the Buddhistic and the Christian conceptions. In the conversation described we have the very core of the Buddhistic conception as expressed by the great Founder of Buddhism himself. The theme of the present lecture is certainly not intended to develop a line of opposition against the Founder of the Buddhistic world-conception, but rather to portray his world-conception quite objectively and in, accordance with its true characteristics. The Buddha-legend describes clearly enough, even though in pictorial fashion, what the Founder of Buddhism intended. We are told that Gautama Buddha was born the son of King Suddhodana, and that he was brought up in a royal palace where he was surrounded by everything that could possibly serve to ennoble human life. During his early years he was not allowed to know anything at all of human sorrow and pain, but he lived in the midst of happiness, and joy, and distractions of all kinds. Then we are told how one day, when he was twenty-nine years of age, he left the palace, and for the first time in his life was confronted by sorrow and pain and all the dark shadows of existence. It is described how he met an old, old man whose life was ebbing away, and above all how he saw a corpse. And it dawned upon him that life must after all be utterly different from all that he had experienced in the palace, where he had known nothing but joy, where disease and death had never come near him, and where he had learned to believe that life could never ebb away nor cease. And now he discovered that life embraced both pain and sorrow. Heavily indeed, did this discovery weigh upon the great soul of Buddha! Life contained pain, sorrow and death. He had seen it for himself in the sick man, the aged man, and the corpse. ‘What is the value of life?’ he cried to himself, ‘if it bears sickness, old age, and death within it!’ And out of that cry there arose at last the monumental teaching of Buddha on the Sorrow of Life, which he gathered together in these words: ‘Birth is sorrow! Old age is sorrow! Sickness is sorrow! Death is sorrow! All existence is filled with sorrow!’ And as he later elaborated this theme still further:—‘That we cannot always be united with those we love, that is sorrow. That we must be joined to that which we love not, is sorrow. That we cannot obtain, in every circumstance of life, what we desire, is sorrow.’ Sorrow is everywhere, no matter whither we turn our gaze. And if Buddha's use of the word ‘sorrow’ has not quite the meaning that is imparted to it to-day, still it is intended to express that man is everywhere, and at all times, a prey to everything that comes against him, that assaults him from without, and that he is unable to unfold any active forces to meet it. ‘Life is sorrow,’ said Buddha, ‘therefore we must seek the causes of sorrow.’ There then arose before his soul the picture of what he called ‘the thirst for existence.’ Since we look out upon the world and see that sorrow is everywhere, we are compelled to say: Man is bound to have sorrow if he enters into this world of sorrow; but what is the cause of his suffering? The cause is this: that he desires, that he thirsts to be incarnated in this world. The passionate longing to forsake the Spiritual World and enter into a physical body, and in it to become aware of the outer material world—that is the cause of this sorrow-filled human existence. Hence there is only one way to escape from sorrow, and that is by conquering the thirst for life. And this thirst for existence can actually be overcome when, according to the teaching of Buddha, men can learn to unfold within themselves the so-called ‘Eight-fold Path,’ which, so it is generally said, consists of right judgment, right discrimination, right speech, right deed, right living, right aspiration, right thinking, right contemplation. Thus through the right attitude towards life, according to the great Buddha, there arises by degrees within men's souls something which destroys the passionate longing for existence, something which brings them so far that at last they are no longer compelled to descend into physical incarnation, but are liberated from an existence which is overwhelmed by sorrow. These things, according to Buddha, constitute the Four Noble Truths: viz., the knowledge of sorrow; the knowledge of the causes of sorrow; the knowledge of the necessity for liberation from sorrow; and, lastly, the knowledge of the means of liberation from sorrow. These are the Four Holy Truths which Buddha, after his enlightenment under the Bodhi-tree, gave out in the great sermon at Benares, about the fifth or sixth century before Christ. Liberation from the pain of existence! That is what stands in the forefront of Buddhism, and it is that which makes it possible to describe the religion of Buddha as a ‘religion of redemption’ in the highest sense of the words; a religion of redemption from suffering; and since all existence is bound up with suffering, a redemption above all, from the continuance of rebirth. That is entirely in accordance with the type of the presentation of Buddhism which is embodied in the Nagasena conversations. For in the moment that human thinking, which embraces the outer world of the senses, beholds its worthlessness, when that which is a mere gathering together of parts possesses for the thinker only Name and Form; when nothing passes from incarnation to incarnation save the results of existence, then it must be said that ‘true’ existence is only attained when man is able to overcome and transcend everything that is to be found in the external world of the senses. Now it is not correct—and this can be perceived even by the simplest method of observation—to say that Christianity is a ‘religion of redemption’ in the same sense as Buddhism. If we place Christianity in its correct relation to Buddhism, we can speak of it as a ‘religion of re-birth.’ For Christianity proceeds from the knowledge that everything which in its totality represents man in a single life, is fruitful, and these fruits have importance and value for the innermost being of man, and are carried over by him into a new life and brought, in that life, to a higher state of perfection than in the previous one. Everything that we experience and absorb in a single life always appears again and grows ever more and more perfect until it is revealed at last in its true spiritual form. What is apparently worthless in our existence, when it is taken hold of by the spiritual, has its resurrection in a degree more perfect than before ; is spiritually embodied. Nothing in existence is worthless, because it rises again if the spirit has entered into it rightly. The thought-content of Christianity is a religion of re-birth, a religion of the resurrection of the Best that we have experienced; a religion wherein no single thing that is round about us is a ‘nothingness,’ but wherein all things are building stones for the completion of a great edifice that is to arise through the gathering together of everything spiritual from out of the world of the senses. Buddhism is a religion of liberation from existence; while Christianity is the opposite, a religion of Rebirth upon a more spiritual level. This is revealed in the least as well as in the greatest of the forms of its presentation, no less than in its fundamental principles. And if we look for the actual reasons of this difference between the two religions, we can say that they arise out of the entirely opposite nature of the character of oriental and western culture. There is a very radical difference between the method of presenting things that spring from the culture that gave birth to Buddhism, and the method that springs from that culture into which Christianity poured itself. It is possible to describe this difference quite simply. It lies in the fact that all true oriental culture, which has not been fertilised by the West, is non-historical; whereas western culture is historical. That is the ultimate root of the difference between the Christian and the Buddhistic conceptions. The Christian conception recognises that not only are there repeated lives on earth, but that history rules in them; that is to say, that what to begin with, can be experienced at a higher and more perfect stage, can continue to become more and more perfect throughout the course of the succeeding incarnations. Where Buddhism sees the liberation from earth-existence in the ascent to Nirvana, Christianity sees, as the goal of its evolution, that everything engendered, everything achieved, in each single earth-life, ascends to ever higher and higher degrees of perfection until, spiritualised and transfigured, it consummates its resurrection at the end of the world. Buddhism is non-historical, precisely in accordance with the character of its cultural origin. It is non-historical for the simple reason that it merely places the external world in opposition to mankind, who acts within it. The Buddhist says:—‘We look back at past incarnations, or forward to future ones, but we stand opposed to the outer world!’ He does not ask: ‘Is it possible that man, in earlier days, was differently placed as regards the world? or may be perhaps differently placed in the future?’ Christianity does ask that question. But the Buddhist arrives at the conception that the relationship of man to the world in which he is incarnated is an unchanging one; that driven as he is by the thirst for existence into a physical embodiment, he enters a world of sorrow no matter whether he had been compelled to an embodiment in the past, or whether he is so compelled in the present. Always it is sorrow that the world brings to him. Thus the incarnations succeed each other, and there is no idea of evolution being brought under its true aspect as an historical conception. Thus the conception is clear that fundamentally the Buddhist finds his Nirvana, his state of bliss, solely in the relinquishing of repeated lives on earth; and thus also he sees that the source of misery itself is the external world. He says: ‘It is inevitable that if thou abandonest thyself to the physical world, suffering must be thy lot; for suffering comes from thence.’ That is not Christian. The Christian conception is through and through an historical, sequential one. It does not concern itself with the non-historical relationship of opposition to the physical world. But it says:—‘As man passes from incarnation to incarnation he is indeed placed in opposition to a physical world. But if this world brings him sorrow, if it offers him what does not satisfy him, what does not fill him with an inwardly harmonious life, that does not arise from the fact that earthly existence as a whole is such that suffering is inevitable, but it comes because man himself has brought with him a false relation to the external world, and does not place himself rightly within it.’ Christianity, and the Old Testament also, point to a definite occurrence whereby Man evolved something within himself that causes him, through his inner life, to make the world his source of sorrow. Hence it is not the external world in which we are ‘made flesh,’ not that which enters through our eyes, and echoes in our ears which brings us sorrow; it is that which the human race once unfolded within itself which placed it in a wrong relation to this external world. And this was an inheritance which passed from age to age, so that mankind to-day still suffers pain. Thus Christianity points out that this state of things arose when humanity itself was at the beginning of its earthly existence. We can enlarge upon these two aspects of the foundations of both religions. Buddhism for ever emphasises that the ‘world is Maya, is Illusion!’ Christianity asserts: ‘It is true that, to begin with, what man beholds of the world is illusion; but that arises from man himself, who has so formed his organs of perception that his vision cannot penetrate to the Spiritual World. The outer world is not the illusion, but the human outlook is the source of the illusion.’ Buddhism says: ‘Gaze upon all the events that surround you! They are illusion. Behold what flashes in the lightning, it is illusion I What roars as thunder—it is Maya, it is the Great Deception!’ ‘Not so,’ would the Christian spirit reply: ‘But until now the human race has not found it possible to open—(in Goethe's words)—the “spiritual eyes and ears,” for these would reveal the outer world in its true form!’ No; it is not that we are surrounded by Maya, but that man is so imperfect a being that he cannot perceive the true form of the world. And so Christianity seeks, in pre-historic ages, the event that made the human heart become incapable of creating the true conception of the physical world. Therefore, through many incarnations of development, we have—in the Christian sense—to re-attain the state of spiritual sight and hearing before the true form of the outer world can be perceived. Repeated incarnations are, therefore, not meaningless, but they are the way towards the perception, in the light of the Spirit, of that from which the Buddhist would escape: i.e. the way to the finding of the spiritual within the physical. To overcome this world, which appears to us now as a physical one, to overcome it with something which man does not yet possess, but which he can attain as a spiritual reality; to overcome human Error which sees the world as Maya—that is the inner impulse of Christianity. And so the Teacher of Christianity is not One Who says: ‘The world is the well-spring of sorrow! Escape from it to another that is utterly different—attain Nirvana!’ But Christianity sets before us as the mighty Impulse for the forward evolution of the earth, the Christ, Who pointed, in the strongest possible way, to the inner being of man, where from he could unfold the power to use every incarnation that he has upon earth in such a way that he can carry the fruits of it forward to his future incarnations through his own strength. Not to bring the course of his incarnations to a close and enter Nirvana, but to use all he can of them, to work further upon their results, so that he can spiritually experience Resurrection. There we have the great distinction which makes Buddhism on the one hand a non-historical, and Christianity on the other hand, an historical conception. The Christian idea seeks in the ‘fall’ the origin and source of man's pain and sorrow; and in a ‘resurrection’ the healing of them. ‘You will not be freed from pain and sorrow by departing from earth-existence; but you will be set free when you correct the Error which gives you a false relation to the world. The source of sorrow is in yourselves! If you perceive aright, you will know that the outer world indeed and in truth melts away like mist in the sun, but all the deeds that you have done in the world, all your experiences, it will bring to a resurrection in the Spirit!’ This is Christianity as a ‘religion of Re-birth,’ a religion of Resurrection. And only thus can it be placed beside Buddhism. That is to say, only in the sense of spiritual-scientific thought can these two be compared, and their deepest impulses understood. What has been indicated here can be verified in the minutest particulars. For instance, one can find in Buddhism something like the Sermon on the Mount. He that hears the Law—i.e. what Buddhism communicates as the Law—is blessed. He that can live with all creatures and does no evil towards them, is blessed. We can regard the Buddhistic beatitudes side by side with the Sermon on the Mount as it is given in the Matthew Gospel; but we must understand them aright. Let us compare them for a moment with what we find in St. Matthew. First we hear the mighty words: ‘Blessed are the poor in Spirit,1 for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.’ Here it is not only said ‘blessed are those who hear the Law,’ but another sentence is added: It is said, ‘Blessed are they who are poor in the Spirit, so that they must beg for the Spirit,—for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.’ What does that mean? Now one can only correctly understand such a sentence when one brings the whole of the historically conceived teaching of Christianity before the mind's eye, and then one recognises that all human soul-capacities have passed through a ‘history,’—that they have all evolved. Spiritual Science clearly and truly understands the word ‘evolution’ in the sense that what is present to-day, was not always present. It tells us that what we possess to-day as our reason, our scientific thought, was not in existence in primeval times; but instead, there was present in humanity what might be called a dark, dim clairvoyance. Men did not come to their knowledge of external things in the way they do to-day, but something arose within them like an archetypal wisdom, far surpassing what we ourselves can achieve. Whoever knows history, knows that such a primeval wisdom existed. Though men did not know how to construct machines and railways, and rule the surrounding world by means of the forces of Nature, yet they had a knowledge of the divine-spiritual foundations of the world infinitely transcending our own. But it would be quite wrong to suppose that their knowledge was gained by thinking. On the contrary, it rose up in their souls as though bestowed upon them, as revelation, as dim inspirations rising within them without their co-operation, but so that they were there as real images of the Spiritual World, a really present archetypal wisdom. Human progress, however, consisted in the fact that from incarnation to incarnation this shadowy clairvoyance, this wisdom, had to grow less and less, for it was necessary that it should be lost in order that man might learn at last to grasp the things of the world by his reason. In the future, man will be able to see clairvoyantly into the Spiritual World, and at the same time will possess the forms of his present knowledge. To-day we are in an intermediate state. The old clairvoyance is lost, and what we now possess has been developed through long ages. How has mankind arrived at a knowledge of the world through his reason, and from out of his own innermost self-consciousness? And when, more especially did self-consciousness appear? It was at the time (though as a rule the evolution of humanity is not observed with such exactitude as this) in which Christ-Jesus came to the earth. At that time, humanity stood at a turning-point in evolution when the old clairvoyance had gone, and which was the starting-point of that which has brought about our greatest achievements. The entrance of Christ into the world-evolution was the turning point from the Old age to the New, from the old to the new world-conception! And there is, moreover, a technical expression for that stage of achievement which it was then possible for mankind to experience, when men had begun to know the outer world through their own self-consciousness; an expression which is used by John the Baptist when he proclaims that ‘The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!’ That means: ‘The knowledge of the world in ideas and concepts is at hand.’ In other words: ‘Man is no longer directed to the old clairvoyance, but he must, from out of his own being, learn to know and investigate the world.’ The tremendous impulse for that which man had to gain by means of his own Ego, and not through the Grace of Bestowal, that was given by Christ-Jesus. Thus, there are great depths of meaning hidden even in the first words of the Sermon on the Mount, which might well be expressed as follows. Humanity stands to-day at that stage when it is a ‘beggar for the Spirit.’ Previously, men possessed clairvoyant vision and could behold the Spiritual World. That is now lost. But a time is coming, through the power of the Ego, through the inner revelation of the Word, when men will find a substitute for the old clairvoyance. Therefore—‘blessed’ are not only those who in ancient times attained to the Spirit through dim inspirations, but also those are ‘blessed’ who have no clairvoyance, because to lose it is the course of their evolution. Oh!—they are not unblest, they who are beggars for the Spirit, because they are ‘poor in the Spirit’! Blessed are they, for theirs is that which is revealed to them by their own Ego, is that which they can attain through their own Self-consciousness! And further: ‘Blessed are they that mourn’; for even though the outer world causes suffering by reason of man's wrong attitude towards it, yet the time has now come when man, if he takes hold of his Self-consciousness, and unfolds the forces inherent in his Ego, will know the remedy for his pain. He will find within himself the possibility of comfort. The time has come when external means of comfort have lost their individual significance, because the ‘ I ’ is now to find the healing balm within. Blessed are they who can now no longer find in the external world what was once to be found there. And in this sense also, the fourth beatitude is to be understood: ‘Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.’ The source of that righteousness which shall counterbalance the unrighteousness of the world, is now to be found in the Ego itself. Thus Christ appears as the Guide to the human Self. The Guide who points directly to the Divine in Man, and therewith gives the indication—‘Take that which lives in Christ into your own inner self; then shall ye find the force necessary for carrying the fruits of earthly existence from incarnation to incarnation.’ To this also belongs an event which at first appears as a wholly painful one in the Christian doctrine, namely, the death of Christ-Jesus, the Mystery of Golgotha. This death has not the usual significance of other deaths. On the contrary, Christ reveals the truth that this death is to be the starting point for an immortal and unconquerable Life. It is not merely an event which releases Christ-Jesus from life, but it is an event passed through because it leads to an ascending process, and an eternal and infinite ‘living’ flows from it. This is something (and it was so accepted by those who lived in the first centuries after Christ) that will become more and more recognised when the understanding of the Christ Impulse will have grown greater than it is to-day. When that time comes, men will understand that, six hundred years before the Christian era, one of the greatest of human beings, leaving his palace and finding a corpse-finding Death—could conceive of it thus: ‘Death is sorrow!’ ‘Liberation from death is Redemption,’ and that he could have nothing to do with what lay under the dominion of Death. Six hundred years pass, and we come to the time of Christ. And when yet another six hundred years have passed, a symbol is raised up for that which only the humanity of the future will understand. What is this symbol? It is not a Buddha; it is not any ‘Chosen One.’ No—simple men passing by saw the symbol of the Cross, and upon the Cross, a dead body; and they did not say, ‘Death is sorrow!’ They did not turn away from it, but they saw in this dead body what became for them a bulwark of the eternal in life; they saw what conquers all Death, and points to the transcendence of earthly things. The noble Buddha saw a corpse—and he turned from the material world with the judgment that all death is sorrow; while those men of simple nature who beheld the Cross and its dead burden did not turn away, but gazed upon it because they found in it a witness of the everlasting life that streams from the earthly death! And so six hundred years before the Christian era, Buddha stands before the corpse; and six hundred years after the death of Christ, the simple man of the world beholds that symbol which expressed what had happened with the founding of Christianity. Never in the whole history of human evolution has such a transformation taken place as this! And the more objectively these things are grasped, the more clearly will the great significance of Buddhism emerge. We have shown how mankind once possessed a primeval wisdom, and how in the course of many incarnations, this wisdom gradually declined. The appearance of Buddha marked the close of the old development; it was a mighty world-historical indication that the ancient archetypal wisdom was lost. In the historical sense this explains the ‘turning away’ from life. Whereas Christ marks the commencement of a new development which sees this life as the source of the eternal. Hitherto, there has been no explanation of these immensely important facts of human evolution. Therefore, and because these things are not yet understood, it sometimes happens that in our time there can be such beautiful and noble natures (as for instance, Theodor Schulze, who died at Potsdam in 1889) who, because they cannot find in any external concepts what truly fills their rich inner life, try to find satisfaction in Buddhism. And Buddhism reveals to them how, in a certain sense, the human being when he raises himself by developing his own inner forces above the world of the senses, can transcend his own nature. That, however, is only possible because the greatest impulse, the very essence of Christianity, is still so little understood. Spiritual Science must some day become the means by which the core of the whole presentation of the Christ-Impulse can be more and more deeply penetrated. It is just the evolution-idea which Spiritual Science approaches so honestly that will lead humanity to an exact and intimate grasp of Christianity, so that Spiritual Science may rest in the hope that the rightly comprehended Christian teaching will be unfolded more and more as against that form of it which is incorrectly apprehended, and moreover, without any transplanting of Buddhism into our modern times. It would, in fact, be a very shortsighted policy that would seek to establish Buddhism in Europe! For anyone who knows the conditions of the spiritual life of Europe, knows that even those tendencies which are apparently ranged against Christianity, have borrowed from it its whole arsenal of weapons. A Darwin, a Haeckel, would never have been possible—strange though this may sound—if it had not been for the educational systems of Christendom which alone made it possible for them to think the thoughts they did; if those particular forms of thought had not already been there which they, nourished in the Christian world, could then use, so to say, as weapons of offence against their own Mother. For what they and others, have to say, is often apparently directed against Christianity—that is, in the manner of its utterance. But the thoughts could never have been there without the Christian education. For this reason, a grafting of any oriental system upon our own culture would be of no avail; for it would oppose every condition of the spiritual life of the West. It is only necessary to think clearly about the fundamental teachings of the two religions. If the spiritual life is sufficiently closely observed it will certainly be seen that because of the unclearness that exists about these things, there are souls who, feeling sympathy with Buddhism, and who stand even on the highest of philosophical watch-towers, would like to teach the ‘renunciation of existence.’ Such an one was Schopenhauer. The whole tenour of his life might be described as ‘Buddhistic.’ Thus when he says, for instance, ‘The image of the highest type of mankind stands before us in one whom we call a “saint” ... one who has overcome everything in life that the outer world can give; one who stands there merely as a physical body, who conceals nothing of the Ideal of the World-environment within him; who desires naught, who merely waits until the body itself is destroyed, so that every trace may be wiped out of all that connected him with this physical world; so that, renouncing what is of the earth, he annihilates earth-existence; so that at last, nothing remains that in life leads from desire to pain, from fear to terror, from enjoyment to grief.’ That is an interpolation of Buddhism into our western world. Such a thing happens because of our misapprehensions; because we do not understand clearly enough what the deepest impulses of Christianity are, and what its content and its form denote. What have we achieved through Christianity? If we regard the impulse alone, we have achieved just that which shows what intensity of cleavage can exist between Schopenhauer and one of the most significant personalities of our time. While Schopenhauer sees his ideal in some one who has overcome all enjoyment and pain that proceeds from the outer life, who merely exists waiting until the last threads that bind his physical body together are severed—we find the very opposite in Goethe's picture of the struggling Faust, who strides from desire to enjoyment, and from enjoyment to desire, who at length purges himself so that all his passions are transformed, and that which was to him the highest and holiest that can irradiate human life, became itself a passion. Such was Faust—who did not say ‘I wait until the last traces of my earth-existence are obliterated,’ but who proclaims the stupendous words: ‘The relics of my earthly sojourn are indestructible throughout the Æons of Time.’ That was how Goethe expressed in his “Faust” the meaning and spirit of what, in his old age, he once described to his secretary Eckermann: ‘At least you will admit, that the conclusion of “Faust,” where the redeemed soul ascends, was very hard to portray; so that in dealing with a subject so far above the earthly, and so transcending conception, I might easily have succumbed to mere vagueness, if I had not confined my poetical intentions within the sharp outlines of Christian and ecclesiastical figure and imagery, and so given them a healthy form and solidity.’ And so Faust is made to ascend a rung of the ladder of existence which has its origin in Christian symbolism—the step from the mortal to the immortal, from death to life. In Schopenhauer we see unmistakable interpolations of the Buddhistic element into western thought-culture: ‘I wait till I have attained such perfection that with the death of my body the last traces of my earth-existence are obliterated!’ And he believed, also, that this world-conception would enable him to interpret the pictorial creations of Raphael and Correggio. Goethe, on the other hand, portrayed the upward-striving Individuality, that knew the sum-total of earthly achievements was permanent, was interwoven with Eternity: ‘The relics of my earthly sojourn are indestructible throughout the Æons of Time!’ That, indeed, is the true, the realistic, Christian impulse; for it leads to a re-awakening of earthly deeds as spiritual accomplishment. It is the re-awakening of the Best that can be achieved on earth. It is the Religion of Resurrection! It is in very truth a ‘realistic’ world-conception, which brings down out of spiritual heights, the loftiest content for existence into the world of the senses. Thus we can say that something like the light of a dawn shines out in Goethe—a self-comprehending Christianity of the Future, which, while acknowledging all the greatness and significance of Buddhism, yet negates its renunciation of earthly embodiments, and points upwards to a great acknowledgment of every single incarnation in the whole great sequence. And so Goethe, in the sense of the true Christian of modern times, looks out over a past world from whose womb all have been born, and upon a present world wherein, if its true results are grasped, we achieve something which time cannot annihilate. Thus, in linking mankind in true theosophical fashion with the Universe, he cannot do otherwise than forge the links on the other side which bind it to the true content of Christianity. He says therefore—
By expressing in this way man's connection with the outer world, he is inevitably pointing to this: that as man is born out of the constellations of existence, he becomes, in the world, what is not only indestructible but what must ultimately consummate his resurrection in a form that is spiritual. And so he had to add these words to the rest—
And we can also add.—There is neither any Power nor any Time that can annihilate what is achieved in Time itself and which ripens as Fruit for Eternity.
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| 54. Esoteric Development: Inner Development
07 Dec 1905, Berlin Tr. Gertrude Teutsch, Olin D. Wannamaker, Diane Tatum, Alice Wuslin Rudolf Steiner |
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| Neither should today's lecture be mistaken for a lecture concerning the general fundamentals of the anthroposophic movement. Occultism is not the same as anthroposophy. The Anthroposophical Society is not alone in cultivating occultism, nor is this its only task. |
| 54. Esoteric Development: Inner Development
07 Dec 1905, Berlin Tr. Gertrude Teutsch, Olin D. Wannamaker, Diane Tatum, Alice Wuslin Rudolf Steiner |
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Translated by Gertrude Teutsch The concepts concerning the super-sensible world and its relationship with the world of the senses have been discussed here in a long series of lectures. It is only natural that, again and again, the question should arise, “What is the origin of knowledge concerning the super-sensible world?” With this question or, in other words, with the question of the inner development of man, we wish to occupy ourselves today. The phrase “inner development of man” here refers to the ascent of the human being to capacities which must be acquired if he wishes to make super-sensible insights his own. Now do not misunderstand the intent of this lecture. This lecture will by no means postulate rules or laws concerning general human morality, nor will it challenge the general religion of the age. I must stress this because when occultism is discussed the misunderstanding often arises that some sort of general demands or fundamental moral laws, valid without variation, are being established. This is not the case. This point requires particular clarification in our age of standardization, when differences between human beings are not at all acknowledged. Neither should today's lecture be mistaken for a lecture concerning the general fundamentals of the anthroposophic movement. Occultism is not the same as anthroposophy. The Anthroposophical Society is not alone in cultivating occultism, nor is this its only task. It could even be possible for a person to join the Anthroposophical Society and to avoid occultism altogether. Among the inquiries which are pursued within the Anthroposophical Society, in addition to the field of general ethics, is also this field of occultism, which includes those laws of existence which are hidden from the usual sense observation in everyday human experience. By no means, however, are these laws unrelated to everyday experience. “Occult” means “hidden,” or “mysterious.” But it must be stressed over and over that occultism is a matter in which certain preconditions are truly necessary. Just as higher mathematics would be incomprehensible to the simple peasant who had never before encountered it, so is occultism incomprehensible to many people today. Occultism ceases to be “occult,” however, when one has mastered it. In this way, I have strictly defined the boundaries of today's lecture. Therefore, no one can object—this must be stressed in the light of the most manifold endeavors and of the experience of millennia—that the demands of occultism cannot be fulfilled, and that they contradict the general culture. No one is expected to fulfill these demands. But if someone requests that he be given convictions provided by occultism and yet refuses to occupy himself with it, he is like a schoolboy who wishes to create electricity in a glass rod, yet refuses to rub it. Without friction, it will not become charged. This is similar to the objection raised against the practice of occultism. No one is exhorted to become an occultist; one must come to occultism of one's own volition. Whoever says that we do not need occultism will not need to occupy himself with it. At this time, occultism does not appeal to mankind in general. In fact, it is extremely difficult in the present culture to submit to those rules of conduct which will open the spiritual world. Two prerequisites are totally lacking in our culture. One is isolation, what spiritual science calls “higher human solitude.” The other is overcoming the egotism which, though largely unconscious, has become a dominant characteristic of our time. The absence of these two prerequisites renders the path of inner development simply unattainable. Isolation, or spiritual solitude, is very difficult to achieve because life conditions tend to distract and disperse, in brief to demand sense-involvement in the external. There has been no previous culture in which people have lived with such an involvement in the external. I beg you not to take what I am saying as criticism, but simply as an objective characterization. Of course, he who speaks as I do knows that this situation cannot be different, and that it forms the basis for the greatest advantages and greatest achievements of our time. But this is the reason that our time is so devoid of super-sensible insight and that our culture is so devoid of super-sensible influence. In other cultures—and they do exist—the human being is in a position to cultivate the inner life more and to withdraw from the influences of external life. Such cultures offer a soil where inner life in the higher sense can thrive. In the Oriental culture there exists what is called Yoga. Those who live according to the rules of this teaching are called yogis. A yogi is one who strives for higher spiritual knowledge, but only after he has sought for himself a master of the super-sensible. No one is able to proceed without the guidance of a master, or guru. When the yogi has found such a guru, he must spend a considerable part of the day, regularly, not irregularly, living totally within his soul. All the forces that the yogi needs to develop are already within his soul. They exist there as truly as electricity exists in the glass rod before it is brought forth through friction. In order to call forth the forces of the soul, methods of spiritual science must be used which are the results of observations made over millennia. This is very difficult in our time, which demands a certain splintering of each individual struggling for existence. One cannot arrive at a total inward composure; one cannot even arrive at the concept of such composure. People are not sufficiently aware of the deep solitude the yogi must seek. One must repeat the same matter rhythmically with immense regularity, if only for a brief time each day, in total separation from all usual concerns. It is indispensable that all life usually surrounding the yogi cease to exist and that his senses become unreceptive to all impressions of the world around him. He must be able to make himself deaf and dumb to his surroundings during the time which he prescribes for himself. He must be able to concentrate to such a degree—and he must acquire practice in this concentration—that a cannon could be fired next to him without disturbing his attention to his inner life. He must also become free of all memory impressions, particularly those of everyday life. Just think how exceedingly difficult it is to bring about these conditions in our culture, how even the concept of such isolation is lacking. This spiritual solitude must be reached in such a way that the harmony, the total equilibrium with the surrounding world, is never lost. But this harmony can be lost exceedingly easily during such deep immersion in one's inner life. Whoever goes more and more deeply inward must at the same time be able to establish harmony with the external world all the more clearly. No hint of estrangement, of distancing from external practical life, may arise in him lest he stray from the right course. To a degree, then, it might be impossible to distinguish his higher life from insanity. It truly is a kind of insanity when the inner life loses its proper relationship to the outer. Just imagine, for example, that you were knowledgeable concerning our conditions on earth and that you had all the experience and wisdom which may be gathered here. You fall asleep in the evening, and in the morning you do not wake up on Earth but on Mars. The conditions on Mars are totally different from those on Earth; the knowledge that you have gathered on Earth is of no use to you whatsoever. There is no longer harmony between life within you and external life. You probably would find yourself in a Martian insane asylum within an hour. A similar situation might easily arise if the development of the internal life severs one's connection with the external world. One must take strict care that this does not happen. These are great difficulties in our culture. Egotism in relation to inward soul properties is the first obstacle. Present humanity usually takes no account of this. This egotism is closely connected with the spiritual development of man. An important prerequisite for spiritual development is not to seek it out of egotism. Whoever is motivated by egotism cannot get very far. But egotism in our time reaches deep into the innermost soul. Again and again the objection is heard, “What use are all the teachings of occultism, if I cannot experience them myself?” Whoever starts from this presumption and cannot change has little chance of arriving at higher development. One aspect of higher development is a most intimate awareness of human community, so that it is immaterial whether it is I or someone else having the experience. Hence I must meet one who has a higher development than I with unlimited love and trust. First, I must acquire this consciousness, the consciousness of infinite trust toward my fellow man when he says that he has experienced one thing or the other. Such trust is a precondition for working together. Wherever occult capacities are strongly brought into play, there exists unlimited trust; there exists the awareness that a human being is a personality in which a higher individuality lives. The first basis, therefore, is trust and faith, because we do not seek the higher self only in ourselves but also in our fellow men. Everyone living around one exists in undivided unity in the inner kernel of one's being. On the basis of my lower self I am separated from other humans. But as far as my higher self is concerned—and that alone can ascend to the spiritual world—I am no longer separated from my fellow men; I am united with my fellow men; the one speaking to me out of higher truths is actually my own self. I must get away completely from the notion of difference between him and me. I must overcome totally the feeling that he has an advantage over me. Try to live your way into this feeling until it penetrates the most intimate fiber of your soul and causes every vestige of egotism to disappear. Do this so that the one further along the path than you truly stands before you like your own self; then you have attained one of the prerequisites for awakening higher spiritual life. In situations where one receives guidance for the occult life, sometimes quite erroneously and confusedly, one may often hear that the higher self lives in the human being, that he need only allow his inner man to speak and the highest truth will thereby become manifest. Nothing is more correct and, at the same time, less productive than this assertion. Just try to let your inner self speak, and you will see that, as a rule, no matter how much you fancy that your higher self is making an appearance, it is the lower self that speaks. The higher self is not found within us for the time being. We must seek it outside of ourselves. We can learn a good deal from the person who is further along than we are, since there the higher self is visible. One's higher self can gain nothing from one's own egotistic “I.” There where he now stands who is further along than I am, there will I stand sometime in the future. I am truly constituted to carry within myself the seed for what he already is. But the paths to Olympus must first be illuminated before one can follow them. A feeling which may seem unbelievable is the fundamental condition for all occult development. It is mentioned in the various religions, and every practical occultist with experience will confirm it. The Christian religion describes it with the well-known sentence, , which an occultist must understand completely, “Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.” This sentence can be understood only by he who has learned to revere in the highest sense. Suppose that in your earliest youth you had heard about a venerable person, an individual of whom you held the highest opinion, and now you are offered the opportunity to meet this person. A sense of awe prevails in you when the moment approaches that you will see this person for the first time. There, standing at the gateway of this personality, you might feel hesitant to touch the door handle and open it. When you look up in this way to such a venerable personality, then you have begun to grasp the feeling that Christianity intends by the statement that one should become like little children in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. Whether or not the subject of this veneration is truly worthy of it is not really important. What matters is the capacity to look up to something with a veneration that comes from the innermost heart. This feeling of veneration is the elevating force, raising us to higher spheres of super-sensible life. Everyone seeking the higher life must write into his soul with golden letters this law of the occult world. Development must start from this basic soul-mood; without this feeling, nothing can be achieved. Next, a person seeking inner development must understand clearly that he is doing something of immense importance to the human being. What he seeks is no more nor less than a new birth, and that needs to be taken in a literal sense. The higher soul of man is to be born. Just as man in his first birth was born out of the deep inner foundations of existence, and as he emerged into the light of the sun, so does he who seeks inner development step forth from the physical light of the sun into a higher spiritual light. Something is being born in him which rests as deeply in most human beings as the unborn child rests in the mother. Without being aware of the full significance of this fact, one cannot understand what occult development means. The higher soul, resting deep within human nature and interwoven with it, is brought forth. As man stands before us in everyday life, his higher and lower natures are intermingled, and that is fortunate for everyday life. Many persons among us would exhibit evil, negative qualities except that there lives along with the lower nature a higher one which exerts a balancing influence. This intermingling can be compared with mixing a yellow with a blue liquid in a glass. The result is a green liquid in which blue and yellow can no longer be distinguished. So also is the lower nature in man mingled with the higher, and the two cannot be distinguished. Just as you might extract the blue liquid from the green by a chemical process, so that only the yellow remains and the unified green is separated into a complete duality, so the lower and higher natures separate in occult development. One draws the lower nature out of the body like a sword from the scabbard, which then remains alone. The lower nature comes forth appearing almost gruesome. When it was still mingled with the higher nature, nothing was noticeable. But once separated, all evil, negative properties come into view. People who previously appeared benevolent often become argumentative and jealous. This characteristic had existed earlier in the lower nature, but was guided by the higher. You can observe this in many who have been guided along an abnormal path. A person may readily become a liar when he is introduced into the spiritual world, because the capacity to distinguish between the true and the false is lost especially easily. Therefore, strictest training of the personal character is a necessary parallel to occult training. What history tells us about the saints and their temptations is not legend but literal truth. He who wants to develop towards the higher world on any path is readily prone to such temptations unless he can subdue everything that meets him with a powerful strength of character and the highest morality. Not only do lust and passions grow—that is not even the case so much—but opportunities also increase. This seems miraculous. As through a miracle, the person ascending into the higher worlds finds previously hidden opportunities for evil lurking around him. In every aspect of life a demon lies in wait for him, ready to lead him astray. He now sees what he has not seen before. As through a spell, the division within his own being charms forth such opportunities from the hidden areas of life. Therefore, a very determined shaping of the character is an indispensable foundation for the so-called white magic, the school of occult development which leads man into the higher worlds in a good, true, and genuine way. Every practical occultist will tell you that no one should dare to step through the narrow portal, as the entrance to occult development is called, without practicing these properties again and again. They build the necessary foundation for occult life. First man must develop the ability to distinguish in every situation throughout his life what is unimportant from what is important, that is, what is perishable from the imperishable. This requirement is easy to indicate but difficult to carry out. As Goethe says, it is easy, but what is easy is hard. Look, for instance, at a plant or an object. You will learn to understand that everything has an important and an unimportant side, and that man usually takes interest in the unimportant, in the relationship of the matter to himself, or in some other subordinate aspect. He who wishes to become an occultist must gradually develop the habit of seeing and seeking in each thing its essence. For instance, when he sees a clock he must have an interest in its laws. He must be able to take it apart into its smallest detail and to develop a feeling for the laws of the clock. A mineralogist will arrive at considerable knowledge about a quartz-crystal simply by looking at it. The occultist, however, must be able to take the stone in his hand and to feel in a living way something akin to the following monologue: “In a certain sense you, the crystal, are beneath humanity, but in a certain sense you are far above humanity. You are beneath humanity because you cannot make for yourself a picture of man by means of concepts, and because you do not feel. You cannot explain or think, you do not live, but you have an advantage over mankind. You are pure within yourself, have no desire, no wishes, no lust. Every human, every living being has wishes, desires, lusts. You do not have them. You are complete and without wishes, satisfied with what has come to you, an example for man, with which he will have to unite his other qualities.” If the occultist can feel this in all its depth, then he has grasped what the stone can tell him. In this way man can draw out of everything something full of meaning. When this has become a habit for him, when he separates the important from the unimportant, he has acquired another feeling essential to the occultist. Then he must connect his own life with that which is important. In this people err particularly easily in our time. They believe that their place in life is not proper for them. How often people are inclined to say, “My lot has put me in the wrong place. I am,” let us say, “a postal clerk. If I were put in a different place, I could give people high ideas, great teaching,” and so on. The mistake which these people make is that they do not enter into the significant aspect of their occupation. If you see in me something of importance because I can talk to the people here, then you do not see the importance of your own life and work. If the mail-carriers did not carry the mail, the whole postal traffic would stop, and much work already achieved by others would be in vain. Hence everyone in his place is of exceeding importance for the whole, and none is higher than the other. Christ has attempted to demonstrate this most beautifully in the thirteenth chapter of the Gospel of John, with the words, “The servant is not greater than his lord; neither he that is sent greater than he that sent him.” These words were spoken after the Master had washed the feet of the Apostles. He wanted to say, “What would I be without my Apostles? They must be there so that I can be there in the world, and I must pay them tribute by lowering myself before them and washing their feet.” This is one of the most significant allusions to the feeling that the occultist must have for what is important. What is important in the inward sense must not be confused with the externally important. This must be strictly observed. In addition, we must develop a series of qualities.1 To begin with, we must become masters over our thoughts, and particularly our train of thought. This is called control of thoughts. Just think how thoughts whirl about in the soul of man, how they flit about like will-o'-the wisps. Here one impression arises, there another, and each one changes one's thoughts. It is not true that we govern our thoughts; rather our thoughts govern us totally. We must advance to the ability of steeping ourselves in one specific thought at a certain time of the day and not allow any other thought to enter and disturb our soul. In this way we ourselves hold the reins of thought life for a time. The second quality is to find a similar relationship to our actions, that is, to exercise control over our actions. Here it is necessary to undertake actions, at least occasionally, which are not initiated by anything external. That which is initiated by our station in life, our profession, or our situation does not lead us more deeply into higher life. Higher life depends on personal matters, such as resolving to do something springing totally from one's own initiative even if it is an absolutely insignificant matter. All other actions contribute nothing to the higher life. The third quality to be striven for is even-temperedness. People fluctuate back and forth between joy and sorrow. One moment they are beside themselves with joy, the next they are unbearably sad. Thus, people allow themselves to be rocked on the waves of life, on joy or sorrow. But they must reach equanimity and steadiness. Neither the greatest sorrow nor the greatest joy must unsettle their composure. They must become steadfast and even-tempered. Fourth is the understanding for every being. Nothing expresses more beautifully what it means to understand every being than the legend which is handed down to us, not by the Gospel, but by a Persian story. Jesus was walking across a field with his disciples, and on the way they found a decaying dog. The animal looked horrible. Jesus stopped and cast an admiring look upon it, saying, “What beautiful teeth the animal has!” Jesus found within the ugly the one beautiful aspect. Strive at all times to approach what is wonderful in every object of outer reality, and you will see that everything contains an aspect that can be affirmed. Do as Christ did when he admired the beautiful teeth on the dead dog. This course will lead you to the great ability to tolerate, and to an understanding of every thing and of every being. The fifth quality is complete openness towards everything new that meets us. Most people judge new things which meet them by the old which they already know. If anyone comes to tell them something new, they immediately respond with an opposing opinion. But we must not confront a new communication immediately with our own opinion. We must rather be on the alert for possibilities of learning something new. And learn we can, even from a small child. Even if one were the wisest person, one must be willing to hold back one's own judgment, and to listen to others. We must develop this ability to listen, for it will enable us to meet matters with the greatest possible openness. In occultism, this is called faith. It is the power not to weaken through opposition the impression made by the new. The sixth quality is that which everyone receives once he has developed the first five. It is inner harmony. The person who has the other qualities also has inner harmony. In addition, it is necessary for a person seeking occult development to develop his feeling for freedom to the highest degree. That feeling for freedom enables him to seek within himself the center of his own being, to stand on his own two feet, so that he will not have to ask everyone what he should do and so that he can stand upright and act freely. This also is a quality which one needs to acquire. If man has developed these qualities within himself, then he stands above all the dangers arising from the division within his nature. Then the properties of his lower nature can no longer affect him; he can no longer stray from the path. Therefore, these qualities must be formed with the greatest precision. Then comes the occult life, whose expression depends on a steady rhythm being carried into life. The phrase “carrying rhythm into life” expresses the unfolding of this faculty. If you observe nature, you will find in it a certain rhythm. You will, of course, expect that the violet blooms every year at the same time in spring, that the crops in the field and the grapes on the vine will ripen at the same time each year. This rhythmical sequence of phenomena exists everywhere in nature. Everywhere there is rhythm, everywhere repetition in regular sequence. As you ascend from the plant to beings with higher development, you see the rhythmic sequence decreasing. Yet even in the higher stages of animal development one sees how all functions are ordered rhythmically. At a certain time of the year, animals acquire certain functions and capabilities. The higher a being evolves, the more life is given over into the hands of the being itself, and the more these rhythms cease. You must know that the human body is only one member of man's being. There is also the etheric body, then the astral body, and, finally, the higher members which form the basis for the others. The physical body is highly subject to the same rhythm that governs outer nature. Just as plant and animal life, in its external form, takes its course rhythmically, so does the life of the physical body. The heart beats rhythmically, the lungs breathe rhythmically, and so forth. All this proceeds so rhythmically because it is set in order by higher powers, by the wisdom of the world, by that which the scriptures call the Holy Spirit. The higher bodies, particularly the astral body, have been, I would like to say, abandoned by these higher spiritual forces, and have lost their rhythm. Can you deny that your activity relating to wishes, desires, and passions is irregular, that it can in no way compare with the regularity ruling the physical body? He who learns to know the rhythm inherent in physical nature increasingly finds in it an example for spirituality. If you consider the heart, this wonderful organ with the regular beat and innate wisdom, and you compare it with the desires and passions of the astral body which unleash all sorts of actions against the heart, you will recognize how its regular course is influenced detrimentally by passion. However, the functions of the astral body must become as rhythmical as those of the physical body. I want to mention something here which will seem grotesque to most people. This is the matter of fasting. Awareness of the significance of fasting has been totally lost. Fasting is enormously significant, however, for creating rhythm in our astral body. What does it mean to fast? It means to restrain the desire to eat and to block the astral body in relation to this desire. He who fasts blocks the astral body and develops no desire to eat. This is like blocking a force in a machine. The astral body becomes inactive then, and the whole rhythm of the physical body with its innate wisdom works upward into the astral body to rhythmicize it. Like the imprint of a seal, the harmony of the physical body impresses itself upon the astral body. It would transfer much more permanently if the astral body were not continuously being made irregular by desires, passions, and wishes, including spiritual desires and wishes. It is more necessary for the man of today to carry rhythm into all spheres of higher life than it was in earlier times. Just as rhythm is implanted in the physical body by God, so man must make his astral body rhythmical. Man must order his day for himself. He must arrange it for his astral body as the spirit of nature arranges it for the lower realms. In the morning, at a definite time, one must undertake one spiritual action; a different one must be undertaken at another time, again to be adhered to regularly, and yet another one in the evening. These spiritual exercises must not be chosen arbitrarily, but must be suitable for the development of the higher life. This is one method for taking life in hand and for keeping it in hand. So set a time for yourself in the morning when you concentrate. You must adhere to this hour. You must establish a kind of calm so that the occult master in you may awaken. You must meditate about a great thought content that has nothing to do with the external world, and let this thought content come to life completely. A short time is enough, perhaps a quarter of an hour. Even five minutes are sufficient if more time is not available. But it is worthless to do these exercises irregularly. Do them regularly so that the activity of the astral body becomes as regular as a clock. Only then do they have value. The astral body will appear completely different if you do these exercises regularly. Sit down in the morning and do these exercises, and the forces I described will develop. But, as I said, it must be done regularly, for the astral body expects that the same process will take place at the same time each day, and it falls into disorder if this does not happen. At least the intent towards order must exist. If you rhythmicize your life in this manner, you will see success in not too long a time; that is, the spiritual life hidden from man for the time being will become manifest to a certain degree. As a rule, human life alternates among four states. The first state is the perception of the external world. You look around with your senses and perceive the external world. The second is what we may call imagination or the life of mental images which is related to, or even part of, dream life. There man does not have his roots in his surroundings, but is separated from them. There he has no realities within himself, but at the most reminiscences. The third state is dreamless sleep, in which man has no consciousness of his ego at all. In the fourth state he lives in memory. This is different from perception. It is already something remote, spiritual. If man had no memory, he could uphold no spiritual development. The inner life begins to develop by means of inner contemplation and meditation. Thus, the human being sooner or later perceives that he no longer dreams in a chaotic manner; he begins to dream in the most significant way, and remarkable things reveal themselves in his dreams, which he gradually begins to recognize as manifestations of spiritual beings. Naturally the trivial objection might easily be raised that this is nothing but a dream and therefore of no consequence. However, should someone discover the dirigible in his dream and then proceed to build it, the dream would simply have shown the truth. Thus an idea can be grasped in an other-than-usual manner. Its truthfulness must then be judged by the fact that it can be realized. We must become convinced of its inner truth from outside. The next step in spiritual life is to comprehend truth by means of our own qualities and of guiding our dreams consciously. When we begin to guide our dreams in a regular manner, then we are at the stage where truth becomes transparent for us. The first stage is called “material cognition.” For this, the object must lie before us. The next stage is “imaginative cognition.” It is developed through meditation, that is through shaping life rhythmically. Achieving this is laborious. But once it is achieved, the time arrives when there is no longer a difference between perception in the usual life and perception in the super-sensible. When we are among the things of our usual life, that is, in the sense world, and we change our spiritual state, then we experience continuously the spiritual, the super-sensible world, but only if we have sufficiently trained ourselves. This happens as soon as we are able to be deaf and dumb to the sense world, to remember nothing of the everyday world, and still to retain a spiritual life within us. Then our dream-life begins to take on a conscious form. If we are able to pour some of this into our everyday life, then the next capacity arises, rendering the soul-qualities of the beings around us perceptible. Then we see not only the external aspect of things, but also the inner, hidden essential kernel of things, of plants, of animals, and of man. I know that most people will say that these are actually different things. True, these are always different things from those a person sees who does not have such senses. The third stage is that in which a consciousness, which is as a rule completely empty, begins to be enlivened by continuity of consciousness. The continuity appears on its own. The person is then no longer unconscious during sleep. During the time in which he used to sleep, he now experiences the spiritual world. Of what does sleep usually consist? The physical body lies in bed, and the astral body lives in the super-sensible world. In this super-sensible world, you are taking a walk. As a rule, a person with the type of disposition which is typical today cannot withdraw very far from his body. If one applies the rules of spiritual science, organs can be developed in the astral body as it wanders during sleep—just as the physical body has organs—which allow one to become conscious during sleep. The physical body would be blind and deaf if it had no eyes or ears, and the astral body walking at night is blind and deaf for the same reason, because it does not yet have eyes and ears. But these organs are developed through meditation which provides the means for training these organs. This meditation must then be guided in a regular way. It is being led so that the human body is the mother and the spirit of man is the father. The physical human body, as we see it before us, is a mystery in every one of its parts and, in fact, each member is related in a definite but mysterious way to a part of the astral body. These are matters which the occultist knows. For instance, the point in the physical body lying between the eyebrows belongs to a certain organ in the astral organism. When the occultist indicates how one must direct thoughts, feelings, and sensations to this point between the eyebrows through connecting something formed in the physical body with the corresponding part of the astral body, the result will be a certain sensation in the astral body. But this must be practiced regularly, and one must know how to do it. Then the astral body begins to form its members. From a lump, it grows to be an organism in which organs are formed. I have described the astral sense organs in the periodical, Lucifer Gnosis. They are also called Lotus flowers. By means of special word sequences, these Lotus flowers are cultivated. Once this has occurred, the human being is able to perceive the spiritual world. This is the same world he enters when passing through the portal of death, a final contradiction to Hamlet's “The undiscover'd country from whose bourn no traveler returns.” So it is possible to go, or rather to slip, from the sense world into the super-sensible world and to live there as well as here. That does not mean life in never-never land, but life in a realm that clarifies and explains life in our realm. Just as the usual person who has not studied electricity would not understand all the wonderful workings in a factory powered by electricity, so the average person does not understand the occurrences in the spiritual world. The visitor at the factory will lack understanding as long as he remains ignorant of the laws of electricity. So also will man lack understanding in the realm of the spirit as long as he does not know the laws of the spiritual. There is nothing in our world that is not dependent on the spiritual world at every moment. Everything surrounding us is the external expression of the spiritual world. There is no materiality. Everything material is condensed spirit. For the person looking into the spiritual world, the whole material, sense-perceptible world, the world in general, becomes spiritualized. As ice melts into water through the effect of the sun, so everything sense-perceptible melts into something spiritual within the soul which looks into the spiritual world. Thus, the fundament of the world gradually manifests before the spiritual eye and the spiritual ear. The life that man learns to know in this manner is actually the spiritual life he carries within himself all along. But he knows nothing of it because he does not know himself before developing organs for the higher world. Imagine possessing the characteristics you have at this time, yet being without sense-organs. You would know nothing of the world around you, would have no understanding of the physical body, and yet you would belong to the physical world. So the soul of man belongs to the spiritual world, but does not know it because it does not hear or see. Just as our body is drawn out of the forces and materials of the physical world, so is our soul drawn out of the forces and materials of the spiritual world. We do not recognize ourselves within ourselves, but only within our surroundings. As we cannot perceive a heart or a brain—even by means of X-ray—without seeing it in other people through our sense organs (it is only the eyes that can see the heart), so we truly cannot see or hear our own soul without perceiving it with spiritual organs in the surrounding world. You can recognize yourself only by means of your surroundings. In truth there exists no inner knowledge, no self-examination; there is only one knowledge, one revelation of the life around us through the organs of the physical as well as the spiritual. We are a part of the worlds around us, of the physical, the soul, and the spiritual worlds. We learn from the physical if we have physical organs, from the spiritual world and from all souls if we have spiritual and soul organs. There is no knowledge but knowledge of the world. It is vain and empty idleness for man to “brood” within himself, believing that it is possible to progress simply by looking into himself. Man will find the God in himself if he awakens the divine organs within himself and finds his higher divine self in his surroundings, just as he finds his lower self solely by means of using his eyes and ears. We perceive ourselves clearly as physical beings by means of intercourse with the sense world, and we perceive ourselves clearly in relation to the spiritual world by developing spiritual senses. Development of the inner man means opening oneself to the divine life around us. Now you will understand that it is essential that he who ascends to the higher world undergoes, to begin with, an immense strengthening of his character. Man can experience on his own the characteristics of the sense world because his senses are already opened. This is possible because a benevolent divine spirit, who has seen and heard in the physical world, stood by man in the most ancient times, before man could see and hear, and opened man's eyes and ears. It is from just such beings that man must learn at this time to see spiritually, from beings already able to do what he still has to learn. We must have a guru who can tell us how we should develop our organs, who will tell us what he has done in order to develop these organs. He who wishes to guide must have acquired one fundamental quality. This is unconditional truthfulness. This same quality is also a main requirement for the student. No one may train to become an occultist unless this fundamental quality of unconditional truthfulness has been previously cultivated. When facing sense experience, one can test what is being said. When I tell you something about the spiritual world, however, you must have trust because you are not far enough to be able to confirm the information. He who wishes to be a guru must have become so truthful that it is impossible for him to take lightly such statements concerning the spiritual world or the spiritual life. The sense world corrects errors immediately by its own nature, but in the spiritual world we must have these guidelines within ourselves. We must be strictly trained, so that we are not forced to use the outer world for controls, but only our inner self. We are only able to gain this control by acquiring already in this world the strictest truthfulness. Therefore, when the Anthroposophical Society began to present some of the basic teachings of occultism to the world, it had to adopt the principle: there is no law higher than truth. Very few people understand this principle. Most are satisfied if they can say they have the conviction that something is true, and then if it is wrong, they will simply say that they were mistaken. The occultist cannot rely on his subjective honesty. There he is on the wrong track. He must always be in consonance with the facts of the external world, and any experience that contradicts these facts must be seen as an error or a mistake. The question of who is at fault for the error ceases to be important to the occultist. He must be in absolute harmony with the facts in life. He must begin to feel responsible in the strictest sense for every one of his assertions. Thus he trains himself in the unconditional certainty that he must have for himself and for others if he wishes to be a spiritual guide. So you see that I needed to indicate to you today a series of qualities and methods. We will have to speak about these again in order to add the higher concepts. It may seem to you that these things are too intimate to discuss with others, that each soul has to come to grips with them on its own terms, and that they are possibly unsuitable for reaching the great destination which should be reached, namely the entrance into the spiritual world. This entrance will definitely be achieved by those who tread the path I have characterized. When? One of the most outstanding participants in the theosophical movement, Subba Row, who died some time ago, has spoken fittingly about this. Replying to the question of how long it would take, he said, “Seven years, perhaps also seven times seven years, perhaps even seven incarnations, perhaps only seven hours.” It all depends on what the human being brings with himself into life. We may meet a person who seems to be very stupid, but who has brought with himself a concealed higher life that needs only to be brought out. Most human beings these days are much further than it seems, and more people would know about this if the materialism of our conditions and of our time would not drive them back into the inner life of the soul. A large percentage of today's human beings was previously much further advanced. Whether that which is within them will come forth depends on many factors. But it is possible to give some help. Suppose you have before you a person who was highly developed in his earlier incarnation, but now has an undeveloped brain. An undeveloped brain may at times conceal great spiritual faculties. But if he can be taught the usual everyday abilities, it may happen that the inner spirituality also comes forth. Another important factor is the environment in which a person lives. The human being is a mirror-image of his surroundings in a most significant way. Suppose that a person is a highly developed personality, but lives in surroundings that awaken and develop certain prejudices with such a strong effect that the higher talents cannot come forth. Unless such a person finds someone who can draw out these abilities, they will remain hidden. I have been able to give only a few indications to you about this matter. After Christmas, however, we will speak again about further and deeper things. I especially wanted to awaken in you this one understanding, that the higher life is not schooled in a tumultuous way, but rather quite intimately, in the deepest soul, and that the great day when the soul awakens and enters into the higher life actually arrives like the thief in the night. The development towards the higher life leads man into a new world, and when he has entered this new world, then he sees the other side of existence, so to speak; then what has previously been hidden for him reveals itself. Maybe not everyone can do this; maybe only a few can do it, one might say to oneself. But that must not keep one from at least starting on the way that is open to everyone, namely to hear about the higher worlds. The human being is called to live in community, and he who secludes himself cannot arrive at a spiritual life. But it is a seclusion in a stronger sense if he says, “I do not believe this, this does not relate to me; this may be valid for the after-life.” For the occultist this has no validity. It is an important principle for the occultist to consider other human beings as true manifestations of his own higher self, because he knows then that he must find the others in himself. There is a delicate distinction between these two sentences: “To find the others in oneself,” and “To find oneself in the others.” In the higher sense it means, “This is you.” And in the highest sense it means to recognize oneself in the world and to understand that saying of the poet which I cited some weeks ago in a different connection: “One was successful. He lifted the veil of the goddess at Sais. But what did he see? Miracle of miracles! He saw himself.” To find oneself—not in egotistical inwardness, but selflessly in the world without—that is true recognition of the self.
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| 67. The Eternal human Soul: The Historical Life of Humanity and Its Riddles
14 Mar 1918, Berlin Rudolf Steiner |
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| However, a famous historian said the one thing, a crazy representative of anthroposophy said the other, and it goes without saying in the present to whom one listens. The point is to recognise how one has to use the facts which one called history up to now so that it points you to the deeper currents of human development by this coherence between the human soul and that only dreamt spirituality which flows along as historical current. |
| 67. The Eternal human Soul: The Historical Life of Humanity and Its Riddles
14 Mar 1918, Berlin Rudolf Steiner |
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In this time where so many people have the comprehensible need to orientate themselves about the earth-shaking events you often hear, history “teaches” this or that. One means that one could judge about any fact of the present because of similar facts of history. If we ask ourselves, which possibilities present themselves to the human beings to judge this or that on basis of historical experience, then, however, you get to a somewhat dubious judgement about what history “teaches.” I would like to point only to two things, but I could increase them a hundred times. I would like to point to the fact that at the beginning of this world disaster many people were of the opinion that these critical events would last four, in the extreme case six months. One regarded such a judgement as completely entitled. You cannot say that these human beings had not applied all logical precautions to deliver such a judgement. Now, the facts themselves have taught such people rather thoroughly the opposite of that what they have believed. Just at this example, one also sees how narrowly that which history should teach is associated with the judgement of the social or other world relations, so that you can expect from a consideration of the historical life of humanity that also some light falls on the judgement you have to exert for the social and economic living together of the human beings. However, I would like to bring in another example of the limited validity of the sentence, that history “teaches” this or that. An ingenious personality received a professorship of history at a German university more than hundred years ago. Really, from a brilliant conception of that which history gives and which one can apply to the human life, this man spoke the following words approximately: the single nations of Europe have become in the course of the human progress, as history teaches, a big family whose single members are still feuding, but can never tear each other apart. - Really, a significant personality believed to be able to judge in such a way out of his insight into the course of history at his inaugural lecture. This man was Friedrich Schiller (1759-1805). He spoke these words in the eve of the French Revolution which contributed so much to that what one can call the tearing of the European nations, and particularly if he could see what happens in our present. It seems to me that from such facts Goethe got the sensation, which he pronounced in a wonderful sentence: “The best that we have from history is the enthusiasm which it excites.” It seems, as if he did this quotation just to reject the other fruits of the so-called historical knowledge and to appreciate that only which can arise as enthusiasm, as a certain positive mood from the historical documents. Today we want to examine which position spiritual science has to take towards two opinions: history can be the great master of life, and the other: the best what one can have from history is the enthusiasm that it excites. At first it will be interesting just in case of the consideration of the historical life of humanity and the consequences which can be drawn from this consideration for the judgement of the social life to which view one has come in the present about the historical evolution beyond spiritual science. Since the historical life of humanity is attached to that what goes through every single person because every human being is cocooned in the historical evolution. And really, just in the present it is important to look at this judgement of the contemporaries because the judicious viewers of history think that also the judgement is in a crisis how one should found history. I would like to talk not in abstractions, but to attach my considerations to realities. There one must comply with examples that of course are single examples out of many. I would like to comply, for example, with the judgement about history, how it should be anew founded in the present, which the famous Professor Karl Lamprecht (1846-1915) has done. You can find that which one can feel from his monumental German History (1891-1909), in a comfortable way summarised in his lectures What is History? Five lectures on the Modern Science of History (1905) which Lamprecht held partly in St. Louis, partly in New York at invitation of the Columbia University. There he tries to summarise what has arisen to him about the kind how history should be taught out of the requirements of the present. It is even more comfortable to get an idea of that what this famous historian wanted to say, actually, by the fact that he treated a segment of the historical evolution of humanity exceptionally clear in the second of these lectures. Lamprecht briefly told the whole development of the German people from the first Christian centuries up to now to the Americans. He told that in such a way as he meant that science of history has to become according to the requirements of the present. Now you can judge such things, actually, only properly if you can compare them anyhow. There just a lecture by Woodrow Wilson (1856-1924) offers itself which he held on the development of the North American life, so that you can compare two spirits who are emotionally and spatially far from each other how they look as historians at the history of their peoples in each case. Forgive if I let—not by courtesy but for stylistic reasons—the considerations of Woodrow Wilson precede. None who knows me more exactly states that I overestimate Wilson. I am also allowed to point to the fact that I already made my judgement about Wilson in a series of talks, which I held in Helsinki before the war, indeed, at a time when Wilson was already president of the United States (1913). At that time I already said that it is very unfortunate that at a position from which so much depends for humanity a personality is who is so frightfully narrow-minded in his judgement. Since although in those days still numerous people worshipped Wilson enthusiastically, for example, because of his books The New Freedom (1913) and Mere Literature and Other Essays (1896), one could prove that his independent judgement flowing from his personality is very much limited internally. Without being swayed by the present political events, I stress what I said before the war about the so misjudged, that is overestimated personality. I have to say this in advance, so that one does not doubt the objectivity of that which I still want to say about Wilson as a historian. It is very strange if one compares how Wilson considers the history of his people with that what Lamprecht says about the history of Central Europe. One detects that he finds out the most succinct point almost instinctively to answer the question: when have we become, actually, Americans, and how have we become Americans? How has this happened in history? There he makes an exceptionally appropriate distinction between all those who were sooner in the union whom he considers, however, as “Not yet Americans” but as “New Englanders” who are because of their whole disposition, their mood “New Englanders,” and the later “real Americans.” There he distinguishes to a hair's breadth a prehistory of the union and lets the union start its historical becoming when the population crowded together on a narrow space in the east expands to the west of America when the people develop that disposition which he calls the disposition of the frontiersmen. Now he shows how America's history consists externally and mentally of the fact that the east expands to the west, and he shows rather obviously how the regulation of the land distribution, of the tariff question, even the regulation of the slave issue which he ascribes not to some principles of humaneness but to the necessities which arose from the settlement and the conquest of the west. All these questions are put in the development of modern America. The essentials of this talk consist in the fact that he shows how the historical becoming has grasped a sum of human beings from an outer situation, and that that which goes forward with these human beings can be understood strictly speaking from that what they had to undertake under the influence of the described conditions. Various things are interesting if one pursues just these considerations of Wilson, and that what Wilson has performed, otherwise, as a historian. Just to get some thoughts on various things that are associated with the topic of the today's talk, a comparison of that what Wilson says about the most different historical objects with that which the Europeans say is very useful. It has exceptionally astonished me at the most different places of Wilson's explanations that there is a strange correspondence—to me already strange because I would have preferred it would not be this way—of the contents of sentences, of the contents of thoughts what Wilson explains about the most different objects, and of that what, for example, the spirited Herman Grimm, often mentioned by me, said about various things of the historical course of humanity. If one considers Herman Grimm as brilliant as I do and Wilson as prudent, as I must do, it may be quite unpleasant to someone if he reads Wilson sometimes and says to himself: it is peculiar, there I read a sentence that I could also read with Grimm. Although this is in such a way, although I have tested it with judgements that Wilson and Grimm made about the same personalities, like Macaulay, Gibbon and others, nevertheless, in spite of the often almost literal accordance, without having any relation to each other, it is obvious that in reality the attitudes of both men are completely different. Just on such occasion it becomes obvious that two persons can say the same but they do this from quite different mental undergrounds. In this case, it is particularly interesting because the colouring that the judgement receives in the one and the other case is associated with the roots of the one or the other personality in his respective national character. Just while one notices such resemblances, one discovers that the one is American and the other is German. It can strike you quite externally, which difference exists there. There is a volume of essays by Grimm that contains as frontispiece a picture of Grimm as this happens today so often. The German issue of Wilson's essays Mere Literature also contains a picture of Wilson. One can compare the portraits. Already this proves something quite strange to someone who knows to judge such a thing. If you look at Grimm's portrait, after you were engrossed in what he says as a historian, then you can realise that every feature of his face expresses that every sentence and every turn is connected intimately with everything that this man has wrested from his soul. Then you look at the portrait of Wilson, after you have also read his book first: it seems as if this man could not have been present at all with that what was judged there in the book; a certain foreignness appears. If you realise this, a riddle of the way dawns how in this case two persons consider history, and you can ask yourself in what way is this resemblance and the strongly felt basic difference caused? Then there appears something very strange. Just that what Wilson says about the American people makes sense immediately, so that you know, this is true of the historical development of this people as he wants to show it. However, you get on gradually—only the psychological observation can prove that—: Wilson has not grown together so intimately with his judgement as we imagine this within Central Europe. Another relation between judgement and human being exists there than we are used. I know that I say something paradox, but it is intimately connected with that what I would like to explain about the historical development of humanity. If it did not sound so superstitious, I would say, you find out for yourself that somebody like Wilson himself does not judge if he makes such suitable judgements as in this interpretation of history and at other places, but he is possessed by something in his soul. I would like to express myself somewhat different: With such a personality like Wilson, you have the impression that in the soul something is that suggests this judgement from the inside of the soul. You do not have the impression that the own individuality has completely developed it; you rather have the feeling that something like a second personality, a second being is in the soul, which has suggested it. If one looks at Wilson's appropriate judgements about the character of the American people where he says:
if you envisage this characterisation of the Americans by Wilson, then they have something in themselves that oppresses them externally: not the sensibly looking, quiet eye—I could also adduce the other characteristics—, but the quickly movable eye is a sign of the fact that something oppresses the American from the inside, and such suggestions continue to have an effect if the judgement of Wilson is accurate. We compare what I had to say with an interpretation of history, which is spatially and mentally somewhat far away, with that what Lamprecht puts as his ideas about the historical development of Central Europe. These are original ideas. He tries to realise how this being of the Central European people has developed in the course of centuries, since the third century up to now. One notices that he has internally worked for everything that he says. One has not to agree with many things, in particular as a spiritual scientist; we will immediately have to speak of it. However, he gained everything from his immediate personality. It would be complete nonsense to say, any inner force would suggest something. He does not have it so easy. He has to grasp a thought bit by bit, has to overcome thoughts to get to a judgement. Only then, he gets to a conception of the historical development that is relatively new, even in the view of Ranke (Leopold von R., 1795-1886, German historian) and Sybel (Heinrich von S., 1817-1895, German historian), new insofar that Lamprecht understands historical development as the development of the whole soul. Lamprecht tries to pursue the mental dispositions of the people as mental expressions as the psychologist pursues the soul development of every single person. Up to the third century, the German people developed according to Lamprecht in such a way that one can say, this development shows a symbolising tendency. Also the outer actions, also the political development run in such a way that one realises that it comes from the desire to interpret the world phenomena as symbols, to realise symbols everywhere, even to make the heroes symbols and to revere them as living personal symbols. Then comes the period from the third century to the eleventh, twelfth centuries. Lamprecht calls it the categorising one. There is no longer the desire to use symbols, but to establish types. One revers those persons whom one reveres whom one obeys in such a way that they work not like single individualities, but as types of a whole clan, a whole city. Then the time comes from the twelfth to about the thirteenth centuries in which knighthood develops particularly; Lamprecht calls it the conventional time in which one judges and feels his will impulses in such a way as the convention demands it from human being to human being, from state to state, from people to people, the time of conventionalism. Then follows—it is important that Lamprecht notices this, although he does not figure the consequences out—the individualistic age with the turn of the fifteenth century where people really feel as individuals within a community. This lasts about up to the middle of the eighteenth century. There begins the age of subjectivism in which we still live where the human being tries to internalise himself, to work out of the depths of his personality, to work, to think and to want out of the depths of the subject. Lamprecht divides this age into two parts: the first lasts until the seventies of the nineteenth century to which the great classical period of Goethe, Schiller, and Herder belongs, and then since the seventies our time follows. It is strange now, that Lamprecht, as the maybe most significant historian of the present, is completely clear in his mind that he has to look for an impulse first to see how the course of history goes on, and he investigated incessantly how one should start lining up that which the documents, the monuments, and the archives give in such a way how to tell and describe them so that on can call it history. So the most important question of history, the question of existence, became topical to Lamprecht. He said to himself, one can get only to history—for he did not regard the historiography of Ranke, Sybel and others as history—if one tries to describe the mental development of a nation or of the whole humanity. Then one must have the possibility to observe this mental development to find some laws in this mental development. There it is interesting that a strange contradiction faces us in his whole approach after the habitual ways of thinking of the present. After the habitual ways of thinking, Lamprecht said to himself, the former merely individualistic approach cannot remain. How can one put the facts in order generally? There he says to himself, you have to look at the soul development in such a way that you describe it social-psychologically. This arises to him from a necessary way of thinking of modern time to take the social life, the common being together of human beings into consideration. He says this to himself on one side. Now he has no possibility to look at the social in the soul life or at the mental in the social life following a set pattern. He turns to the psychologists, asks how the psychologists look today at the single individual souls. Here they see in the individual soul the thoughts associating, the feelings ascending, the will impulses developing. Then he wants to apply this to the historical events, wants to investigate how the thought of the one human being works on the whole clan how the thoughts associate externally, as, otherwise, in the individual psychology a thought associates with the other. Thus, he wants to consider history social-psychologically according to the model of individual psychology. There arises, as I have already indicated, a very noteworthy contradiction. He wants to get away from the individual interpretation of history and to get to the social-psychological one; but he takes the means from the consideration of the individual psychology. A strange contradiction that he does not notice at all. Something else: if one is engrossed with that which this modern historian performs describing so clearly:
one has the feeling that the man misses the trees for the forest. I do not take stock in the saying that one misses the forest for the trees. I would like to know how somebody wanted to do that while he is in the forest and wanted to see the forest! One has to go far away to see the forest. One has the strange feeling that Lamprecht cannot exactly work out the differences of the single periods. Briefly, one gets to the result that he is a researcher who has gained a view of the historical development for himself who, however, could not find the means to present the question to himself: what is now, actually, this historical development of humanity? Is that already history what one attains from the documents, from the archives, or do we still search anything quite different? Here you have to start if you want to consider the historical life and its riddles spiritual-scientifically. You have to put the question to yourself: is the object of history already found in the usual consciousness? Does one know already what one wants to judge if one approaches history? To answer these questions, however, I have to adduce something from spiritual science that is attached to things, which I have said here in former talks. The human soul life is within the change of being awake and sleeping. However, the alternating states of sleeping and being awake are normally considered one-sidedly, while one says, the human being spends two thirds or also more of his life awake and a third sleeping. However, the things are not so simple. It is only obvious that the sleeping state continues into the awake life that we are only partly awake in a certain sense from awakening to falling asleep. We are in reality consciously awake only with the percepts of the outside world and the mental pictures that we form from these percepts. Compare only how the feelings are experienced. Someone who gradually learns to observe how feelings arise in the human soul,—I will come back to this issue in the next talk on the Revelations of the Unconscious and say something fundamental now only—, learns to compare the emotional life, the affects and passions with the dreams. The dreams put pictures before us that are not penetrated with logic and moral impulses that we have only in the awake life. The visions differ indeed from the feelings from the passions and affects surging up and down, but there is something in which both are similar concerning the soul: it is the degree of consciousness in which we are given away to the visions. We have the same degree of consciousness if we are given away to our feelings, save that we accompany our feelings with mental pictures at the same time. If we get an idea about a vision, the light of the mental picture falls on the dream; then the dream becomes completely conscious, then we integrate it properly into the human life. We are doing this perpetually with our emotional life. We integrate our feelings into life by the mental pictures running parallel, but one experiences these feelings are with similar intensity as the dreams, so that the dreams continue in our wake day consciousness and become our world of feelings. You can easily realise that, however, also the deep, dreamless sleep continues in our awake life, namely as our will impulses. We know in the usual awake consciousness about these will impulses only if they are accompanied by mental pictures. We probably imagine what we should do, but it remains unaware to our usual day consciousness how the mental picture changes into the will impulse and then into the action, as we remain unaware in the deepest sleep. Only because we can imagine our will impulses, we accompany these sleeping impulses with the awake life. Thus, the sleeping life continues perpetually in our awake day life. Even if our feelings, our affects, our passions are only dreamt by us, nevertheless, our emotional life is connected with something objective spiritual-mental as with our own spiritual-mental, with our mental pictures and percepts. However, the connections of the contents of feelings and will impulses with the objective spiritual are in the subconscious. We oversleep this connection with the spiritual-mental, and only that towers above the sea in which we are embedded this way, which we experience by our mental pictures and percepts. If you learn to behold in the spiritual world, you know: indeed, with the usual consciousness you cannot perceive the world in which our feelings submerge just with that part of our soul, which remains unaware to our usual consciousness, but you can it perceive with the beholding one. Since the soul can develop pictures from the contact with this spiritual world by the strengthened will or by the mental capacity strengthened by the will impulses. The Imaginative cognition forms in it. It is the first level of supersensible beholding by which you get to the real spiritual world. This Imaginative cognition is the completely conscious beholding in a spiritual reality, so that the Imaginations are no imaginations, but reproductions of spiritual reality, although the soul does not experience them denser than the visions, save that you know that the visions have no reality value that, however, the Imagination points to an objective spiritual reality beyond us. You learn to recognise that with which the world of human feelings is connected, which is only dreamt for the usual consciousness; you learn to recognise it in its reality with the Imaginative beholding of the world. In the same way, you learn also to recognise that on the second level of higher consciousness, with the Inspirative consciousness in which the will impulses are embedded. You get to know the spiritual world as far as the will impulses that usually remain subconscious are also embedded in an objective spiritual reality. If you have figured these things out and if you ask yourself for the real object of the historical course, then you realise what, actually, the historical development is. You do not experience this as that development which is experienced in the everyday life, while we get into contact with the object personally. No, this historical development is something else in which something strange is contained as it is contained in that, which the human being experiences as a feeling, as a will impulse. As the human being dreams his feelings, he dreams the real stream of the historical development. This knowledge is the stupefying result of that observation which turns away from the human being to historical development, and it shows that we cannot use these mental pictures, which control the outer conscious life, to grasp history anyhow. Since that which you experience in the everyday consciousness as a single human being is experienced in the awake state. However, in this awake day life history is not included at all. The human beings do not consciously experience history, but they dream it. History is the big dream of the development of humanity, and history never enters into the usual consciousness. You may have an astute usual consciousness, you may be the most significant naturalist with that reason which can arrange the things according to cause and effect, and you may have that attitude which is especially appropriate to look properly at nature and to show her lawfulness. If you learn to recognise the real stream of historical development, you say to yourself, with any mental capacity that can understand nature, you cannot look into the historical development. This is not experienced in the usual consciousness like nature, but only on that level of consciousness, which you have also in the dream. It will be once for the interpretation of history one of the most significant results if one gets on
History is in reality only behind the facts; these facts emerge only from the historical development and are not the historical development. Once Herman Grimm said to me, one could consider the historical life only if one pursued the developing imagination of the people. One can say that Herman Grimm was on the brink to doing a discovery, but he did not want to make the transition to spiritual science. Hence, it appeared to him to be the only fertile to look not only at the outer events and to line up them in such a way as the naturalist does it according to the laws of causality but to look at them in such a way that he saw through them really at the developing imagination of humanity. This was an imperfect expression of that which he could have recognised: the fact that the historical development also does not take place in that which imagination experiences, but is still much deeper in the subconsciousness in which the dreams are woven. As well as the depths of the sea surge up in the waves, the single events surge up in the course of history. If we apply our usual reason to the historical development, we strangely meet the forces of decline only. Herman Grimm asked himself once why the historian Gibbon (Edward G., 1737-1794) portraying the first centuries of Christianity describes the decay of the Roman Empire only, but not the rise of Christianity. Grimm made a right aperçu, however, did not get on the reason. The reason is that Gibbon, although he is profound, applied that reason only to the interpretation of history, which one applies, otherwise, to the consideration of nature. There he could look only at the decline, not at the rise since one can only dream the rise. In the course of history that which is rising, growing, and sprouting is connected vividly with that what is declining, what is dying. That is why one can look with the usual reason only at the dead in the course of history. What does you need if you want to recognise the growing, the prospering element in the historical development, that what furthers the human being? In ancient times, one looked deeper in this respect, but just in the ancient form. One did not tell history, one told myths and legends. These myths and legends that should describe the historical dreams of humanity were truer than the so-called pragmatic history. However, we cannot go back in the development of humanity to myths and legends, but we can do something else. We can make up our mind to bring up that what rests for the usual consciousness as dreams in the subconscious, while we apply the Imaginative knowledge to the historical development. With the historical development, humanity and science will recognise that it cannot even reach the object of consideration if it does not want to go over to the spiritual-scientific consideration. Below the consciousness, that remains which works in history, if one does not bring up the dream into the consciousness. Then, however, one has to bring up the dream in the supersensible consciousness that can imagine the spiritual. Imaginative cognition only will create history. Then someone who can get to the heart of spiritual science and gets involved with the struggle of a man like Lamprecht, will realise that there a way is searched to a goal. However, where is this goal? Why does Lamprecht try to adduce everything to find history generally and, nevertheless, gets to nothing but to the usual psychology, although he believes that one has to apply social psychology? However, what the human being experiences as a social being what becomes his history, he dreams this, this also does not penetrate the individual psychology. There one has to apply that new psychology which spiritual science only can give. You find the demand with Lamprecht, you find the answer of the riddle of historical development in spiritual science. What will become, however, from all that for a conception of history? You see that Lamprecht does not get away from the intellectual consideration of the consecutive events. He considers that what happens up to the third, up to the eleventh centuries and so on even if he considers it brilliantly. But he does not get on to judge the events in such a way that he reaches that what the human being only experiences as a dream. One can easily find proofs of that. I want to bring in one example only where Lamprecht advances to the modern time. Among the rest, he asks, which are the most significant cultural phenomena in these modern times? Consider that Lamprecht held the concerning talk in 1904! There he asks, which are the most significant cultural-historical moments that appear as achievements of humanity today? He wants to bring in the most significant soul phenomena of the beginning twentieth century. What does he bring in? The answer is very interesting, just for a man who attaches so much significance to the soul. First, he brings in the attempts to propagate unselfishness, an altruistic life of humanity, various societies for ethical civilisation that came especially from England and America to Europe in those days, and secondly, he brings in the peace movement as something especially outstanding. An approved historian of the present says this. Is such a conception of history on the right way, even if Lamprecht endeavours so much? About at that time I held a talk here about similar ideas and explained that the least of all typical ideas of the beginning twentieth century are just these both movements: the movements of ethical civilisation and especially the peace movement. At that time, I summarised my talk saying: this is just the typical that that time in which the peace movement appears especially loud will be the same time in which the biggest human wars will take place. However, a famous historian said the one thing, a crazy representative of anthroposophy said the other, and it goes without saying in the present to whom one listens. The point is to recognise how one has to use the facts which one called history up to now so that it points you to the deeper currents of human development by this coherence between the human soul and that only dreamt spirituality which flows along as historical current. One can do this only if one replaces Lamprecht's and all other conceptions of history with that which I call symptomatic conception of history if one is aware that one has to use everything that one can find out in the archives, in the documents, briefly, with the usual conscious reason that one evaluates and appreciates it, while one relates it to something that is a symptom, an expression of it. One does not consider the great men of history, their appearances, and actions, for their own sake if one wants to describe the historical development of humanity but only as symptoms. One is aware that one properly describes history if one is able to connect the right symptom with the underlying spiritual current of development. Symptomatic history will look quite different from history, which runs in such a way, that one only strings together the facts and tries to use individual psychology to the explanation and analysis of these facts as Lamprecht does it. Symptomatic history consists of the fact that one becomes aware of this attitude which Goethe had that one can approach, actually, a spiritual being only from all sides, that one can get to know it only by its symptoms if one realises that that at which one has looked as history up to now is only at the surface and positions itself quite strangely in life like dream contents. Observe the dream contents, and you will realise that you often dream something quite different from what is directly attached to the most significant events of your day life. Nevertheless, it is anyhow associated as memory with your life, but in a much-concealed way, and it is associated with deeper forces of life. There is a reason why just this or that which works in the subconscious emerges symptomatically, while we do not dream anything significant that seems to be significant in the awake life, but maybe just something that appears to us as externally unimportant. Symptomatic historical research has to consider events that control the situation for the outer reason as unimportant for the true history and apparently unimportant events as far-reaching symptoms. Only thereby, one will penetrate from the outside to the inside of the historical life. One cannot transfer the individual soul life to the historical development in such an external way. Of course, I can do here no enclosing interpretation of history to show how this symptomatic consideration grasps the essential in the development of humanity, but I can at least indicate something. I have said in a former talk, if the spiritual researcher learns to behold in the spiritual world and its development, then he notices that the results, as one expects them, normally do not happen this way. They happen as a rule different from one could expect them after the judgement that one has gained in the sensory world. I want to bring in an example: One could expect that the historical events run in such a way that one could compare them to the childhood, youth, mature period, and old age of the human being. Indeed, some historians were under this illusion. These analogising considerations can be rather witty but have nothing to do with reality. However, something else appears. The result of which I have to inform you here is attained really with the same seriousness with which another scientific result is attained; I can state it, however, only as a result. Lamprecht tries to find periods of historical development for the German people at first. I have already indicated: it is owed to a right impression that he determines a transition from an age to another around the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It is also very typical that he calls this time the individualistic age. To spiritual-scientific research, an important incision likewise appears around the turn of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. However, while one spiritual-scientifically beholds in the current of the historical development, it becomes obvious that one has to go back further and has to disregard the borders of tribes or peoples. One has to envisage the general historical development of humanity. There the events combine for centuries, namely from the fifteenth century A.D. until the seventh and eighth centuries B.C. This age from the seventh century before the Mystery of Golgotha to the fifteenth century after it has its own character. This character changes from inner reasons in the fifteenth century more than modern people believe. Lamprecht recognises this, but he does not recognise the whole scope of this fact. Others have already pointed out from different viewpoints that one has to explain not for outer reasons, not even because of the emergence of Renaissance et cetera, but because spontaneously that significant reversal arises from historical life, from the souls of the human beings, which asserts itself in this time almost across the whole earth, but particularly across Europe. It is remarkable that the most significant Germanist of the present, Konrad Burdach (1859-1936), has pointed to that in very nice essays. Burdach recognises from wholly literary-historical investigations that from the soul development of humanity something quite new has arisen in the spiritual configuration, in the activities of the human being. Now we live in the period from the fifteenth century on. Spiritual science is able to go further back. Now there something very strange appears. If you look at the impulses that control the human beings since the fifteenth century historically, they are different from those, which controlled the human beings in the preceding period. However, one cannot say, the impulses of the preceding period relate to those of the following period in such a way as in the individual human life any life period relates to the following one. This is not the case. Rather the weird turns out that today the historical works in particular in that in the individual human nature, which develops until the twenties of life. The secret of our present development is that we develop those forces by the historical conditions, which belong to our individual life during the twenties. In the preceding age, the historical life of humanity especially grasped the thirties. One can show the matter also different. One can say, today our souls are organised so that we develop from childhood to the twenties, and that we carry that which we have developed during the twenties into the rest of life, so that the human being feels that his developmental period is finished after the twenties. One can prove this with wholly external things. Scarcely anybody will state that somebody wants to learn earnestly today during his thirties, in a time where already the youngest people write essays in the newspapers. However, one will experience very easily that people say, one reads Goethe's Iphigenia, generally the classical writers, in the youth, nobody does that in his later life. One could still bring in other symptoms. However, if one goes back to the preceding period, one finds that the growing life lasted until the thirties. As paradox as it sounds today, it is in such a way, and one will once have this as a backed historical achievement. The Greek and Roman developed unlike the modern human being develops, and history happened in those days different because the human being remained longer able of development. Spiritual science shows that one gets, going back even further, to times where the human beings remained capable of development until the forties. So that one can say, one finds three consecutive periods in the historical life of humanity: one behind the eighth pre-Christian century in which we find human beings who feel young until the forties; then the period of the Greek and Roman cultures comes when the human beings remained young until the thirties; then the period in which they are capable of development until the twenties. If you reflect about that, you recognise that you cannot compare the historical development of humanity possibly with the course of the single individual life. In the individual life one grows older and older, humanity as such develops in reverse direction; it grows younger and younger, that is it remains younger and younger; it carries youth less and less into the later individual age. Hence, the civilisation makes a younger and younger impression in the consecutive periods; that means, the human being carries that which he gains to himself in his youth more and more into the old age. One could have believed that in the time before the eighth pre-Christian century, if one had taken prejudices as starting point, one just finds a younger humanity, then an older one, and that we have now become much riper and older. One has to answer the question first what in the course of development, not in the single life, maturity and age do mean. However, you can consider this developmental process of humanity only in such a way as I have indicated now. You see, something quite different results from what one normally imagines as inner laws of cultural development if one looks really symptomatically at the historical development. I want only to emphasise one thing in the end. One can also go into the whole attitude of the human beings in two consecutive periods. There you recognise that in the period which began with the eighth pre-Christian century another attitude was there than in the present period. If you consider the human soul spiritual-scientifically, you do not have the same comfort as the trivial psychology has it. Then you have to realise that there are three quite different shadings of the whole soul, and, hence, one distinguishes three soul members. I call one of them the sentient soul. In it the desires and passions are anchored, but it also connects the human being with the outer nature by his senses; then one distinguishes the intellectual or mind soul, and thirdly the consciousness soul in which the real self-consciousness is anchored. While now in the course of the historical development always other forces intervene in the human soul, the following turns out: during the period which lasts from the eighth pre-Christian up to the fifteenth post-Christian centuries where the European civilisation is coloured especially by the influence of the Greek-Latin culture particularly the intellectual or mind soul is working. Hence, everything faces us that the human being accomplishes in the course of the historical development and in the outer life, in the social and economic life, as if his mind worked instinctively, as if he grasped the outer world with body and mind equally strongly. The human body and mind are balanced in this time, and the mind itself works instinctively. This becomes different with the big reversal in the fifteenth century. There the self-consciousness appears. There the consciousness soul becomes especially strong, there the human being does no longer have the mind instinctively, but he has to reflect everywhere. There the individuality starts forming. There he does no longer feel instinctively if he meets another human being: you have to behave to him this or that way. There he reflects, there he turns to the inside of his personality. So that we can say, the whole historical structure since the fifteenth century is characterised by the fact that the consciousness soul works since that time, while before the more instinctive intellectual or mind soul has worked. You cannot understand the Roman Law, nothing that comes from antiquity properly if you do not envisage this difference between the instinctive mind and that what in modern times works in intellectualistic way. It arises that that which Lamprecht searches up to the fifteenth century is just the preparation of the consciousness soul in the German people. The German folk soul carried that into the coming period what flowed from the south, while it was just minded to further the stream of historical development from the intellectual or mind soul to the consciousness soul and its various nuances. If one learns to recognise what really works there, then this shines into the details. Then you can ask yourself again, what is that, for example, what Wilson describes as the real nature of the American people? This is another nuance of the consciousness soul. The western nuance is experienced in its archetypal phenomenon, in its original characteristic here in Central Europe. Here the struggling egoity of the human being is really experienced which relates to the consciousness soul quite consciously which wants to penetrate with all forces of personality that what wants to enter life wholly consciously. This appears in another nuance in the American people where the human soul is like possessed by itself. It is sometimes disagreeable to face the truth. However, just the catastrophic events of our time necessitate a certain objectivity. Into the character of the historian Wilson, the light shines which spiritual science can spread. Only in principle I could show which direction science of history has to take if it is fertilised by spiritual science in the same sense as I tried to show it for natural sciences eight days ago. Only if you consider history in such a way, you will realise how the human being is associated with that dreamt stream of the historical development that stirs him up. Then, however, it will appear that that which becomes known Imaginatively by the symptomatic interpretation of history is internally related to the human being as a historical being. Then you will realise that not the reason, but the subconsciousness, the dreamlike emotional life is connected with the historical development. Imagination will teach what works in the mood and in the will impulses of the human beings, while they are in the stream of the historical development. Then something else will arise than the belief that history can teach this or that. If it were able to teach as one normally imagines, then one would be able to find a connection between history and this usual reason. However, it does not exist. The connection is there with that what works in the depths of the soul, in the subconsciousness. The human being cannot learn, indeed, for his usual reason from history, but from the true history if he develops it more and more by the view of the spirit in history, then the historical impulses settle down in the feeling of the human being. If he faces a fact, if he is called for action or for the right feeling towards a fact within the social life, then his feeling will lead him properly. Then not his reason, but his whole soul is taught by such an interpretation of history. With it let me summarise this consideration briefly. Goethe suspected that history, if it is recognised truly, works in the mood, in the feeling that it works if enthusiasm originates in the right way if antipathies or sympathies originate for what should be done or be omitted in a social situation. Briefly, Goethe said out of a right notion of that which spiritual science has to bring to light: the best that we can have from history is the enthusiasm, which it excites. Certainly, we cannot feel the intellectual judgement but the enthusiasm as a fruit of history if we can recognise the real historical development. |
| 175. Building Stones for an Understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha: Lecture X
08 May 1917, Berlin Tr. A. H. Parker Rudolf Steiner |
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| And it is the duty of the spiritual scientist who is really honest and sincere to be aware of the forces that are hostile to the development of Anthroposophy. For there are deep underlying reasons for this hostility and they stem from the same sources which are responsible for all the forces which are today in active opposition to the true progress of mankind. |
| 175. Building Stones for an Understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha: Lecture X
08 May 1917, Berlin Tr. A. H. Parker Rudolf Steiner |
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It might seem at first sight that in the centuries immediately following the Mystery of Golgotha mankind had not been touched by the light of spiritual illumination; that this was the normal condition of mankind and increasingly so up to the present day. This is not so, however. If we wish to see these things in perspective we must distinguish between the prevailing spirit of mankind and that which occurs here and there in the life of mankind and may play a decisive part in the different spheres of life. It would be most discouraging for many today to be told of the existence of a spiritual world, but that the doors to this world were closed to them. And there are many at the present time who have come to this depressing conclusion. The reason for this is not far to seek. Where there is a clear possibility of gaining insight into the spiritual world they refuse to commit themselves unreservedly. Nor have they the courage to pass an objective judgement on this issue. It may seem therefore—but in reality it is only apparently so—that today we are far removed from those early times when the spiritual world was revealed to the whole of mankind through atavistic clairvoyance, or from the later times when the few could find access to the spirit through initiation into the Mysteries. We must draw together certain strands which link early periods of human evolution with the present if we wish to arrive at a full understanding of the mystery of man's destiny and especially of those phenomena we have discussed in these lectures in connection with the nature of the Mysteries. I should like to select an example from recent times which is accessible to all and which will lend encouragement to those who are faced with the decision of choosing paths leading to the spiritual world. From the many examples at our disposal I would like to take an example which demonstrates at the same time how these phenomena are none the less misjudged from the materialistic point of view of the present day—and will also be misjudged in the immediate future. No doubt you have all heard of Otto Ludwig (note 1) who was born in 1813, in the same year as Hebbel and Richard Wagner. Otto Ludwig was not only a poet—some may feel perhaps that he was not in the front rank of poets, but that does not concern us at the moment—but he was a man given to introspection, who sought self-knowledge and who succeeded in penetrating into the inner life which is veiled from the majority today. Otto Ludwig describes very beautifully what he experiences in the process of poetic composition or when he reads the poetry of others and surrenders to its appeal. He then realizes that he does not read or compose like other men, but that an extraordinary ferment is set up within him. And Otto Ludwig gives a beautiful description of this in a passage I will now read to you because it reveals a piece of self-knowledge of a typically modern man who, in the course of this self-revelation, speaks of things which our present materialistic age regards as the wildest fantasy. But Otto Ludwig was no visionary or idle dreamer. By nature he was perhaps introspective, but if we take into consideration the information we have about his life, we shall find that alongside this introspective tendency there was something eminently sane and balanced in his make-up. He describes his own creative experience and his response to the poetry of others in these words:
Here then we have the remarkable case of a man who experiences crimson-red on reading Schiller, or golden yellow passing over into golden brown on reading the dramas or poems of Goethe, who experiences a colour sensation with every drama of Shakespeare; who, when he composes or reads a poem sees figures like those of a copper engraving printed on a parchment-coloured background, or three-dimensional miming figures on which the sun falls through a veil which diffuses the light that evokes the total mood. Now we must understand this experience in the correct way. It is not yet a clairvoyant perception, but it is a step towards spiritual vision. In order to have a right understanding of this mood from the standpoint of Spiritual Science we must realize that Otto Ludwig was no stranger to spiritual vision. For if he were to advance further along this path he would not only experience these visions, but, just as physical objects are visible to the physical eye, spiritual beings would be visible to his spiritual eye and he would know them as an inner experience. Just as we see scattered light when we gently rub our eyes in the dark, light that seemingly radiates from the eye and fills the room, so from his inner life Ludwig radiates impressions of colour and tone. As he rightly says, he experiences them first as musical impressions. He does not exploit them in order to gain spiritual insight; but we perceive that he is mature enough spiritually to embark on the path leading to the spiritual world. It is no longer possible to deny that there exist people who are aware that “spiritual vision” is a reality, the vision that the neophytes learned to develop in the Mysteries in the way described in earlier lectures. For the real purpose of these ceremonies was primarily to call attention to the eye of the soul, to awaken man to the fact of its existence. That the phenomena which I have just described to you are not rightly understood today is evident from the observations of Gustav Freytag (note 3). When speaking of Otto Ludwig, he says:
This statement is perfectly correct, but has nothing to do with poetic composition. For the experiences of Otto Ludwig were not only shared by poets in ancient times, but by all men, and were shared in later times by those who had been initiated into the Mysteries irrespective of whether they were poets or not. These experiences have therefore no connection with poetic invention. Behind the barrier which the materialist of today has erected in his own soul there is to be found that which Otto Ludwig describes. It is found not only in the poet, but in every man today. The fact that he was a poet has nothing to do with the phenomenon of poetic vision, but is something that accompanies it. One may be a far greater poet than Otto Ludwig and that which one is able to describe may remain entirely in the subconscious. It is present in the substratum of the subconscious, but need not manifest itself. For poetry, indeed art as a whole today, is something other than the conscious fashioning of clairvoyant impressions. I quote the case of Otto Ludwig as an example of a man—and men of his type are by no means rare today—who stands on the threshold of the spiritual world. If one practises the exercises given in my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds, that which already exists in the soul is raised into consciousness, so that one learns to use it or to apply it consciously. It is important to bear this in mind. The problem is not so much that it is difficult to reach the hidden depths of the soul, but that people today lack the courage to embark upon a spiritual training; and that for the most part those who would willingly do so from a heartfelt need to know and to understand, none the less feel constrained to admit this need, albeit somewhat shamefacedly in their own intimate circle, but conceal it when they later find themselves in the company of contemporary intellectuals. What we should characterize today as the right path, perhaps because we live in the Michael Age since 1879, need not of necessity be regarded as the only right path. Looking back over the recent past it is possible that many may have attained a high degree of clairvoyance, genuine clairvoyance; there is no need for us therefore either to recognize fully or to accept this clairvoyance unreservedly, nor to regard it as something dangerous and to be rejected. There are certainly many factors which for some time have undermined our courage to accept the validity of clairvoyance, and for this reason the assessment of Swedenborg (who has often been mentioned in your circle) has been so strange. He could act as a stimulus to many, in that people might see in him an individuality who had lifted to some extent the veils that concealed the spiritual world. Swedenborg had developed a high degree of Imaginative cognition which is a necessity for all who would penetrate to the spiritual world. It was indispensable to him; it was simply a kind of transition to higher stages of knowledge. And it was especially his clairvoyant sense for Imaginative cognition that he had developed. But precisely because this Imaginative cognition was stirring and pulsating in him he was able to make observations about the relations between the spiritual world and the phenomenal world, observations which are highly significant for those who seek to clarify their ideas about clairvoyance by studying the development of particular personalities. I should like to take Swedenborg as an example in order to illustrate how he came to self-understanding, how he thought and felt in order to keep his inner life attuned to the spiritual world. He was not motivated by egoism in his search for the spirit. He was already fifty-five years old when the doors of the spiritual world were opened to him (note 4). He was therefore a man of ripe experience; he had received a sound scientific training and had long been active in this field. The most important scientific works of Swedenborg have just been published in many volumes by the Stockholm Academy of Sciences and they contain material that may well determine the course of science for many years to come. But people today have learned the trick of recognizing a man such as Swedenborg (who was the leading scientist of his day) only in so far as they agree with him; otherwise they label him a fool. And they perform this trick with consummate skill. They attach no importance to the fact that from the age of fifty-five Swedenborg bears witness to the reality of the spiritual world—a man whose scientific achievement not only compares favourably with that of others—in itself no mean feat—but who, as a scientist, stood head and shoulders above his contemporaries. Swedenborg was particularly interested in the question of the interaction of soul and body. After his spiritual enlightenment he wrote a superb treatise on this subject. The content was approximately as follows: In considering the interrelation of body and soul there are three possibilities. First, the body is the decisive factor; sense-impressions are mediated by the body and react upon the soul. The soul therefore is to some extent dependent upon the body. The second possibility is that the body is dependent upon the soul which is the source of the spiritual impulses. The soul fashions the body and makes use of the body during its lifetime. In this case one must speak not of a physical influence, but of a psychic influence. The third possibility is as follows: body and soul are contiguous, but do not interact; a higher power brings about a harmony or agreement between them just as two clocks which are independent of each other agree when they show the time. When therefore an external impression is made upon the senses, a thought process is set up within the soul, but both are unrelated; a corresponding impression is made upon the soul from within by a higher power, just as an impression is made upon the soul through the senses from without. Swedenborg points out that the first and third possibilities are impossible for those who are able to see into the spiritual world, that it is evident to the spiritually enlightened that the soul by virtue of its inner forces is related to a spiritual sun in the same way as the (physical) body is related to the physical sun. And he also shows that everything of a physical nature is dependent upon soul and spirit. He throws fresh light upon what we called the Sun mystery (when speaking of the Mysteries), that mystery of which Julian the Apostate had a dim recollection when he spoke of the sun as a spiritual being. It was this which was the cause of his hostility to Christianity because the Christianity of his day sought to deny Christ's relation to the sun. Through Imaginative cognition Swedenborg restored the Sun mystery as far as was possible for his time. I have placed these facts before you in order to show what Swedenborg experienced inwardly in the course of developing his spiritual knowledge. His reflections upon the question I have just touched upon were embodied in a kind of philosophical treatise—the kind of treatise written by one who has insight into the spiritual world, not the kind of treatise written by the academic philosopher who is devoid of spiritual vision. At the conclusion of his treatise Swedenborg speaks of what he calls a “vision”. And by this vision he does not imply something he has conjured up, but something he has actually perceived with the eye of the spirit. Swedenborg is not afraid to speak of his spiritual visions. Furthermore he recounts what a particular angel said to him because he is certain of the fact. He no more doubts it than another doubts what a fellow human being has told him. He said: “I was once ‘in the spirit’; three Schoolmen appeared to me, disciples of Aristotle, advocates of his doctrine that attributes a physical influence to all that streams into the soul from without. They appeared on the one side. On the other side appeared three disciples of Descartes who spoke of spiritual influences upon the soul, albeit somewhat inadequately. And behind them appeared three disciples of Leibnitz who spoke of the pre-established harmony, i.e. of the independence of body and soul, of dissimilar monads existing and moving together in a state of absolute harmony pre-established by God. And I perceived nine figures who surrounded me. And the leaders of each group of the three figures were Leibnitz, Descartes and Aristotle, suffused in light”. Swedenborg spoke of this vision as one speaks of an event in everyday life. Then, he said, from out of the abyss there rose up a spirit with a torch in his right hand and as he swung the torch in front of the figures they immediately began to dispute amongst themselves. The Aristotelians defended, from their standpoint, the primacy of physical influences, the Cartesians defended spiritual impulses, and likewise the Leibnitzians defended, with the support of Leibnitz himself, the idea of preestablished harmony. Such visions may describe even the smallest details. Swedenborg tells us that Leibnitz appeared dressed in a kind of toga and the lappets were held by his disciple Wolf. Such details always accompany these visions in which such peculiarities are very characteristic. These figures, then, began to dispute amongst themselves. They all had a good case—and any and every case can be defended. Thereupon, after prolonged conflict, the spirit appeared a second time. He carried the torch in his left hand and lit up their heads from behind. Then the battle of words was really joined. They said: “We cannot distinguish which is our body and which is our soul.” And so they agreed to cast three slips of paper into a box. On the one slip was written “physical influence”, on the second, “spiritual influence” and on the third, “pre-established harmony”. Then they drew lots and drew out “spiritual influence” and said: “Let us agree to recognize spiritual influence.” At that moment an angel descended from the upper world and said: “It is not fortuitous that you drew out the slip of paper labelled ‘spiritual influence’; that choice had already been anticipated by the powers who in their wisdom guide the world because it accords with the truth.” This is the vision described by Swedenborg. It is open to anyone to regard this vision as of no importance, perhaps even as naive. The salient question however is not whether it is naive or not, but that he experienced it. And that which at first sight seems perhaps extremely naive has profound implications. For that which in the phenomenal world appears to be arbitrary, the vagary of chance, is something totally different when seen symbolically from the spiritual angle. It is difficult to come to an understanding of chance, because chance is only a shadow-image of higher necessities. Swedenborg wishes to indicate something of special importance, namely that it is not he who wills it, but “it” is willed in him. This vision arises because “it” is willed in him. And this is an accurate description of the way in which he arrived at his truths, an accurate description of the spirit in which the treatise was written. How did the Cartesians react? They sought to demonstrate the idea of spiritual influence on purely human and rational grounds. It is possible to arrive at the spirit in this way but that seldom happens. The Aristotelians were no better than the Cartesians; they defended the idea of the spiritual influence, again on human grounds. The Leibnitzians were certainly no better than the other two for they defended the idea of “pre-established harmony”. Swedenborg rejected these paths to the spirit; he did everything possible to prepare himself to receive the truth. And this waiting upon truth, not the determination of truth, this passive acceptance of truth was his aim and was symbolized by the drawing of the slips of paper from the box. This is of vital importance. We do not appreciate these things at their true worth when we approach them intellectually. We only appreciate them in the right way when they are presented symbolically, even though intelligent people may regard the symbol as naive. Our response to symbols is different from our response to abstract ideas. The symbol prepares our soul to receive the truth from the spiritual world. That is the essential. And if we give serious attention to these things we shall gradually understand and develop ideas and concepts which are necessary for mankind today, ideas which they must acquire by effort and which appear to be inaccessible today simply because people are antipathetic towards them—and for no other reason—an antipathy that springs from materialism. The whole purpose of our investigations was to study the course of human evolution, first of all up to a decisive turning-point—and this turning-point was the Mystery of Golgotha. Then evolution continues and takes on a new course. These two courses are radically different from each other. I have already described in what respects they differed from each other. In order fully to understand this difference let us recall once again the following: in ancient times it was always possible for man without special training of his psychic life (in the Mysteries this was connected with external ceremonies and cult acts) to be convinced of the reality of the spiritual world through the performance of these rites and ceremonies and thereby of his own immortality, because this certainty of immortality was still latent in his corporeal nature. After the Mystery of Golgotha it was no longer possible for the physical body to “distil” out of itself the conviction of immortality; it could no longer “press” out of itself, so to speak, the perception of immortality. This had been prepared in the centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha. It is most interesting to see how Aristotle, this giant among philosophers, made every effort a few centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha to grasp the idea of the immortality of the soul; but the idea of immortality he arrived at was a most remarkable conception. Man, in Aristotle's opinion, is only a complete man when he possesses a physical body. And Franz Brentano, one of the best Aristotelians of recent time, says in his study of Aristotle that man is no longer a complete man if some member is lacking; how can he be a complete man when he lacks the whole body? Therefore, to Aristotle, when the soul passes through the gates of death it is of less significance than it was when in the body here on Earth. This shows that he had lost the capacity still to perceive the soul, whilst on the other hand the original capacity to accept the immortality of the soul still persisted. Now, strange to relate, Aristotle was the leading philosopher throughout the Middle Ages. All that can be known, said the Schoolmen, is known to Aristotle and as philosophers we have no choice but to rely upon him and follow in his footsteps. They had no intention of developing spiritual powers or capacities beyond the limits set by Aristotelianism. And this is very significant, for it explains clearly why Julian the Apostate rejected the Christianity that was practised by the Church during the age of Constantine. One must really see these things from a higher perspective. Apart from Franz Brentano, one of the leading Aristotelians of our time, I was personally acquainted with Vincenz Knauer, a Benedictine monk, whose relationship to Aristotle as a Roman Catholic was identical with that of the Schoolmen. In speaking of Aristotle he sought to discover at the same time what could be known of the immortality of the soul by purely human knowledge. And Knauer gave the following interesting summary of his opinion:
It is very significant that those who are well versed in Aristotle admit that human knowledge could arrive at no other conclusion. And a certain effort therefore is demanded of us to resist the consequences of this attitude of mind. The materialism of the present time is unwittingly influenced by the Conciliar decree of 869 which abolished the spirit and declared that man consisted of body and soul only. Modern materialism goes even further; it proposes to abolish the soul as well. That of course is the logical sequel. We need therefore both courage and determination in order to find our way back again to the spirit in the right way. Now Julian the Apostate who had been initiated into the Eleusinian Mysteries was aware that a specific spiritual training could lead to the realization that the soul is immortal. This Sun mystery was known to him. And he now became aware of something that filled him with alarm. He was unable to grasp the fact that what he feared so much was a necessity. When he looked back to ancient times he realized that directly or indirectly through the Mysteries man was guided by Cosmic Powers, Beings and Forces. He realized that this may happen on the physical plane, that it is ordained from spiritual spheres because men have insight into these spiritual spheres. In Constantinism he saw a form of Christianity emerge which modelled Christian society and the organization of Christianity on the original principles of the Roman empire. He saw that Christianity had infiltrated into that which the Roman empire had intended for the external social order only. And he saw that the divine-spiritual had been harnessed to the Imperium Romanum. And this appalled him; he was unable to bring himself to admit that this was a necessity for a brief period. He realized that there was wide disparity between the mighty impulses of human evolution and what happened historically. I have often called attention to the need to bear in mind the golden age of the rise of Christianity before the era of Constantine. For at that time powerful spiritual impulses were at work which had been obscured solely because man's independent search for knowledge which he owed to the Christ Impulse had been harnessed to the Conciliar decrees. If we look back to Origen and to Clement of Alexandria we find men who were open-minded, men still imbued with the Greek spirit: yet they were also conscious of the significance of what had been accomplished through the Mystery of Golgotha. Their conception of this Mystery and of the crucified Christ is considered to be pure heresy in the eyes of all denominations today. In reality the great Church Fathers of the pre-Constantine age who are recognized by the Church are the worst heretics of all. Though they were aware of the significance of the Mystery of Golgotha for the evolution of the Earth, they gave no indication of wishing to suppress the path to the Mystery of Golgotha, the gate to the Mysteries or the path of the old clairvoyance, which had been the aim of the Christianity of Constantine. In Clement of Alexandria especially we see that his works are shot through with great mysteries, mysteries which are so veiled that it is even difficult for contemporary man to make head or tail of them. Clement speaks of the Logos for example, of the wisdom that streams through and permeates the Universe. He pictures the Logos as music of the spheres fraught with meaning, and the visible world as the expression of the music of the spheres, just as the visible vibration of the strings of a musical instrument is the expression of the sound waves. Thus, in the eyes of Clement, the human form is made in the image of the Logos; that is, to Clement the Logos is a reality and he sees the human form as a fusion of tones from the music of the spheres. Man, he says, is made in the image of the Logos. And in many of Clement's utterances we find traces of that supernal wisdom that dwelt in him, a wisdom illuminated by the Christ Impulse. If you compare these utterances of Clement of Alexandria with the prevailing attitude today then the claim to recognize a man such as Clement of Alexandria without understanding him will appear as more than passing strange. When it is said that the aim of Spiritual Science is to follow in the main stream of Christianity, to be a new flowering of Christianity to meet the needs of our time, then the cry is raised—the ancient Gnosis is being revived! And at the mention of Gnosis many professing Christians today begin to cross themselves as if faced by the devil incarnate. Gnosis for today is Spiritual Science; but the more developed gnosis of the present time is different from the gnosis known to Clement of Alexandria. What were the views of Clement of Alexandria who lived in the latter half of the second century? Faith, he says, is our starting-point—the orthodox Christian of today is satisfied with faith alone and asks no more. Faith, according to Clement, is already knowledge, but concise knowledge of what is needed; gnosis however confirms and reinforces what we believe, is founded on faith through the teaching of Our Lord and so leads to a faith that is scientifically acceptable and irrefutable. In these words Clement of Alexandria expresses for his time what we must realize today. Christianity therefore demands that gnosis, the Spiritual Science of today, must actively participate in the development of Christianity. But the modern philistine protests: “We must distinguish between science (which he would limit to sense experience) and faith. Faith must have no part in science.” Clement of Alexandria however says: To faith is added gnosis, to gnosis love, and to love the “Kingdom”. This is one of the most profound utterances of the human spirit because it bears witness to an intimate union with the life of the spirit. First we are nourished in faith; but to faith is added gnosis, that is, knowledge or understanding. Out of this living knowledge, i.e. when we penetrate deeply into things, there is first born genuine love through which our Divine inheritance operates. Mankind can only be the vehicle of the influx of the Divine as it was in the “beginning” if to faith is added gnosis, to gnosis love and to love the “Kingdom”. We must look upon these utterances as bearing witness to the deep spirituality of Clement. Difficult as it may seem we must make the true form of Christian life once again accessible to mankind today. It is important to see certain things for what they are today and we shall then know where to look for the real cause of our present tribulations (i.e. the War of 1914). The effect of these calamities is such that, as a rule, no attempt is made to discover what really lies behind them. When, for example, an Alpine village is buried beneath an avalanche, everyone sees the avalanche crash down; but if we want to discover the cause of the avalanche we must look for it perhaps in an ice-crystal where the snow-slip began. It is easy enough to observe the destruction of the village by the avalanche, but it is not so easy to provide tangible evidence that the disaster was caused by an ice-crystal. And so it is with the great events of history! It is evident that mankind is now caught up in a terrible catastrophe; this is the conflagration that has overwhelmed us. We have to look for the sparks—and they are many—which first set the conflagration alight. But we do not pursue our enquiries far enough in order to ascertain where the conflagration first began. Today we are afraid to see things for what they are. Let us assume that we wish to form an opinion about a certain field of science. Usually we rely upon the opinion of the specialist in that particular field. Why is his opinion accepted as authoritative? Simply because he is an expert in this field. Generally speaking it is the specialist or university professor who determines what is accepted as scientific today. Let us take a concrete case. I am well aware that it does not make for popularity to call a spade a spade, but that is no matter. But unless an increasing number of people is prepared to get to the root of things today we shall not overcome our present tribulations. Let us assume that a leading authority says the following: people are always talking about man in terms of body and soul. This idea of the dualism of body and soul is fundamentally unsatisfactory. That we still speak of body and soul today is due to the fact that we are dependent on a language that is already outmoded, which we have inherited from an earlier epoch when people were far more stupid than today. These people were so foolish as to believe that the body and soul were separate entities. When we speak of these matters today we are compelled to make use of these terms; we are victims of a language which belongs to the past. And our authority continues: we have to accept body and soul as separate entities, but this is quite unjustified. Anyone speaking from the present standpoint and wholly uninfluenced by the views of ancient times would perhaps say: let us assume here is a flower and here is a man. I see his form and complexion, his external aspect, just as I see that of the flower. The rest must be inferred.—Now someone might come along and object: that is true, but the man in question also sees the flower in his soul. But that is pure illusion. What I really receive from the perception of a flower or a stone is a sense-impression and the same is true of the man in question. The idea that an inner image persists in the soul is pure illusion. The only things we know are external relationships. You will say that you can make nothing of this argument! And a good thing too, because it is a farrago of nonsense, it is the acme of stupidity. This crass stupidity is supported by all kinds of careful laboratory investigations into the human brain and sundry clinical findings and so on. In short the man is a fool. He is in a position to provide good clinical results because laboratories are at his disposal; but the conclusions which he draws from these findings are pure nonsense. Men of this type are a commonplace today. To say these things does not make for popularity. The cycle of lectures which has appeared in book form by the man I am referring to—strangely enough his name is Verworn, [original note 1] I take this to be pure coincidence—is called “The Mechanism of the Spiritual Life”. It would be about as sensible to write about the “ligneousness of iron” as about “the mechanism of spiritual life”. Now if this is typical of the intellectual acumen of our most enlightened minds it is not in the least surprising that if those disciplines which are far from being accurate at least in relation to external facts—and in this respect Verworn is capable of accurate observation because he describes what he sees, but unfortunately muddies everything with his own foolish ideas—that if those disciplines which are unsupported by external evidence such as political science, for example, are exposed to the scientific mode of thinking, then the greatest nonsense results. Political science should be supported by thoughts that are rooted in reality, but lacks these thoughts for reasons I have indicated in my last lecture. And people are forcibly reminded of this fact. I referred earlier in this lecture to Kjellén, one of the leading Swedish thinkers. His book The State as Organism is ingenious; towards the end of the book he puts forward a remarkable idea, but neither he, nor others today, can make anything of it. He quotes a certain Fustel de Coulanges (note 5), author of La Cité antique, who showed that when we analyse pre-Christian political and social institutions we find that they are entirely founded on religious rites and observances; the entire State has a social and spiritual foundation. Thus people are willy-nilly brought face to face with the facts, for I pointed out in my last lecture that the social order stemmed from the Mysteries and had a spiritual origin. In studying the body politic or political science people are faced with these questions but are at a loss to understand them. They can make nothing of what even history reports when they can no longer rely upon documents. And still less can they make anything of the other idea which I indicated as a new path to the Christ. This idea which we find especially in the Mysteries and in Plato's writings, that remarkable echo of the Mystery teachings must arise once again. The central figure of Plato's dialogues is Socrates surrounded by his disciples. In the debate between Socrates and his disciples Plato unfolds his teachings. In his writings Plato was in communion with Socrates after the latter's death. Now this is something more than a literary device. It is the continuation, the echo of what was practised in the Mysteries where the neophytes were gradually prepared for communion with the souls of the dead who continue to direct the sensible world from the spiritual world. Plato's philosophy is developed out of his communion with Socrates, after the death of Socrates. This idea must be revived again and I have already indicated what form it must take. We must get beyond the dry bones of history, beyond the mere recording of external events. We must be able to commune with the dead, to let the thoughts of the dead arise in us once again. It is in this sense that we must be able to take seriously the idea of resurrection. It is through personal inner experience that Christ reveals Himself to mankind. It is by following this path that the truth of the Christ can be demonstrated. But this path demands of us that we develop the will in our thinking. If we can develop only such thoughts as are suited to the observation of the external world we cannot arrive at those thoughts which are really in touch with the dead. We must acquire the capacity to draw thoughts from the well of our inmost being. Our will must be prepared to unite with reality, and then the will which is thus spiritualised by its incorporation in our thinking will encounter spiritual beings, just as the hand encounters a physical object in the external world. And the first spiritual beings we encounter will, as a rule, be the dead with whom we are in some way karmically connected. You must not expect to find guidance in these abstruse matters from a set of written instructions which can be carried about in one's waistcoat pocket. Things are not as simple as that. One encounters well-intentioned people who ask: How do I distinguish between dream and reality, between phantasy and reality? In the individual case one should not attempt to distinguish between them in accordance with a fixed rule. The whole soul must be gradually attuned so that it can pass judgement in the individual case, just as in the external world we seek to pass judgement irrespective of the individual case. We must develop a wider perspective in order to form a judgement about the particular case. The dream may be a close approximation to reality, but it is not possible in the individual case to state categorically: this is the right and proper way to distinguish a mere dream from reality. Indeed what I am saying at the moment may not apply in specific cases, because other points of view must be taken into consideration. It is important to develop in ourselves the power to discriminate in spiritual matters. Let us take the familiar case of a person who is dreaming or who imagines he is dreaming. Now it is not easy to distinguish between dream and reality. People who study dreams today follow in the footsteps of Herr Verworn. He says that one can undertake an interesting experiment. He quotes the following example. Someone taps with a pin on the window of a house where the occupant is asleep. He is dreaming at the time, wakes up and says he had heard rifle-fire. The dream, according to Verworn, exaggerates. The tappings of the pin on the window-pane have become rifle-shots. Verworn explains this in the following way: we assume that in waking consciousness the brain is fully active. In dream consciousness the brain activity is diminished; only the peripheral consciousness is active. Normally the brain plays no part; its activity is diminished. That is why the dream is so bizarre and why, therefore, the tappings of the pin turn into rifle-fire. Now the public is highly credulous. They are first told in the relevant passage in Verworn's book that the dream exaggerates and then, later on, they are told (not precisely in the words I have used) that the brain is less active and therefore the dream appears bizarre. The reader has meanwhile already forgotten what was told in the first place. He is unable to relate the two statements and simply says: the State has appointed an expert in these matters and so we must accept his word. Now, as you know, belief in authority is taboo today. He who does not hold these views about the dream may none the less feel that the following way of thinking might well be the right approach. Let us assume you are dreaming of a friend who is dead. You dream, or believe you are dreaming that you are sharing some situation in common with him—and then you wake up. Your first thought on awakening is of course: but he died some time ago! But in the dream it never occurred to you that he was dead. Now you can find many ingenious explanations of this dream if you refer to Verworn's book, The Mechanism of the Spirit. But if this is a dream, and a dream is only a memory of everyday life, you will have difficulty in understanding why the foremost thought in your mind, namely the death of your friend, plays no part in the dream when you have just experienced a situation which you know for certain you could not have shared with him when alive. You are then justified in saying: I have now experienced with X something I could not have experienced in life, something that I have not only not experienced, but which would have been impossible in our normal relationship. Assuming that the soul of X, the real soul, which has passed through the gates of death is behind this dream-picture, is it not self-evident that you do not share his death experience? There is no reason why X's soul should appear to be dead since it still lives on. If you take these two factors into consideration—perhaps in conjunction with other factors—you will conclude: my dream-picture veils a real meeting with the soul of X. The thought of death never occurs to me because the dream is not a memory of everyday life: in the dream I receive an authentic visitation from the deceased (i.e. X). I now experience the visitation in the form of a dream-picture, a situation which could not have arisen under the normal circumstances of everyday life. Furthermore the thought of death never occurs to me because the soul of the deceased persists. And then you have every reason for saying: when I experience this apparent dream I inhabit a realm where physical memory does not operate—and what I am about to say is most important—for it is characteristic of our physical life that our physical memory remains unimpaired. This memory does not exist to the same extent, nor is it of the same nature in the world of spirit which we enter at death. The memory which we need for the world of the spirit we must first develop in ourselves. The physical memory is tied to the physical body. Therefore anyone who is familiar with the super-sensible realm knows that the physical memory cannot enter there. It is not surprising that we have no memory of the deceased; but we are aware that we are in communion with the living soul of X. Those who are acquainted with this fact maintain that what we call memory in the physical life is something totally different in the spiritual life. Anyone who has succumbed to the impact of Dante's great work, the “Divine Comedy” will never doubt, if he has spiritual discernment, that Dante experienced spiritual visions, that he had insight into the world of the spirit. He who comprehends the language of those who were familiar with the world of the spirit will find convincing proof of this in Dante's introduction to the “Divine Comedy”. Dante was well versed in spiritual knowledge; he was no dilettante in matters of the spirit; he was, so to speak, an expert in this field. He was aware that normal memory does not operate in the realm where we are in communion with the dead. He often speaks of the dead, of how the dead dwell in the “Light”. In the “Divine Comedy” you will find these beautiful lines on the theme of memory:
Thus Dante was aware that it is impossible with normal memory to grasp that which could originate in the spiritual world. There are many today who ask: why should we aspire to the spiritual world when we have enough to contend with in the physical world; the ordinary man seeks a practical answer to the problems of this life!—But have these people any reason to believe that those who were initiated into the Mysteries in ancient times were any less concerned with the physical world? The initiates knew that the spiritual world permeates the physical world, that the dead are unquestionably active amongst us even though people deny it. And they knew that this denial merely creates confusion. He who denies that those who have passed through the gates of death exercise an influence on this world resembles the man who says: “Nonsense! I don't believe a word you say”—and then proceeds to behave as if he did believe it. It is not so easy, of course, to give direct proof of the havoc that is wrought when the influx of the spiritual world into the physical world is not taken into account, when people act on the assumption that this interaction can be ignored. Our epoch shows little inclination to bridge the gap that separates us from the kingdom where the dead and the higher Beings dwell. In many respects our present epoch harbours a veritable antipathy towards the world of the spirit. And it is the duty of the spiritual scientist who is really honest and sincere to be aware of the forces that are hostile to the development of Anthroposophy. For there are deep underlying reasons for this hostility and they stem from the same sources which are responsible for all the forces which are today in active opposition to the true progress of mankind.
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| 176. Aspects of Human Evolution: Lecture V
03 Jul 1917, Berlin Tr. Rita Stebbing Rudolf Steiner |
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| If you want to pursue the science of the spirit, anthroposophy, theosophy—call it what you will—only with the unclear, confused concepts with which so much is pursued nowadays, then you may go a long way in satisfying egoistical longings, gratifying personal wishes. |
| 176. Aspects of Human Evolution: Lecture V
03 Jul 1917, Berlin Tr. Rita Stebbing Rudolf Steiner |
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As you may have realized, a basic feature of the various considerations in which we have been engaged in recent weeks is the effort to gather material that will help us understand the difficult times we live in. Such understanding can only come about through a completely new way of looking at things. It cannot be sufficiently emphasized that a healthy development of mankind's future depends upon a new understanding taking hold in a sufficiently large number of human beings. I should like these discussions to be as concrete as possible, in the sense in which the word, the concept “concrete,” has been used in the lectures of past weeks. Great impulses at work in mankind's evolution at any given time take effect through this or that personality. Thus it becomes evident in certain human beings just how strong such impulses are at a particular time. Or, one could also say that it becomes evident to what extent there is the opportunity for certain impulses to be effective. In order to describe certain characteristic aspects of our time I have here and elsewhere drawn attention to a man who died recently. Today I would like once more to speak about the philosopher Franz Brentano who died a short time ago in Zürich.1 He was certainly not a philosopher in a narrow or pedantic sense. Those who knew him, even if only through his work, saw him as representing modern man, struggling with the riddle of the universe. Nor was Brentano a one-sided philosopher; what concerned him were the wider aspects of essential human issues. It could be said that there is hardly a problem, no matter how enigmatic, to which he did not try to find a solution. What interested him was the whole range of man's world views. He was reticent about his work and very little has been published. His literary remains are bound to be considerable and will in due course reveal the results of his inner struggles, though perhaps for someone who understands not only what Franz Brentano expressed in words but also the issues that caused him such inner battles, nothing actually new will emerge. I would like to bring before you what in our problematic times a great personality like Franz Brentano found particularly problematic. He was not the kind of philosopher one usually meets nowadays; unlike modern philosophers he was first and foremost a thinker, a thinker who did not allow his thinking to wander at random. He sought to establish it on the firm foundation of the evolution of thought itself. This led to his first publication, a book dealing with Aristotle's psychology, the so-called “nus poetikos.”2 This book by Brentano, which is long out of print, is a magnificent achievement in detailed inquiry. It reveals him as a man capable of real thinking; that is, he has the ability to formulate and elaborate concepts that have content. We find Franz Brentano, more especially in the second half of his book about Aristotle's psychology, engaged in a process of thinking of a subtlety not encountered nowadays, and indeed seldom at the time the book was written. What is especially significant is the fact that Franz Brentano's ideas still had the strength to capture and leave their mark in human souls. When people nowadays discuss things connected with the inner life, they generally express themselves in empty words, devoid of any real content. The words are used because historically they have become part of the language, and this gives the illusion that they contain thought, but thinking is not in fact involved. Considering that everywhere in Aristotle one finds a distinct flaring up of the ancient knowledge so often described by us as having its origin in atavistic clairvoyance, it is rather odd that people who profess to read Aristotle today should ignore spiritual science so completely. When we speak today about ether body, sentient body, sentient soul, intellectual soul, consciousness soul, these terms are coined to express the life of soul and spirit in its reality, of which man must again become conscious. Many of the expressions used by Aristotle are no longer understood. However, they are reminders that there was a time when the individual members of man's soul being were known; not until Aristotle did they become abstractions. Franz Brentano made great efforts to understand these members of man's soul precisely through that thinker of antiquity, Aristotle. It must be said, however, that it was just through Aristotle that their meaning began to fade from mankind's historical evolution. Aristotle distinguishes in man the vegetative soul, by which he means approximately what we call ether body, then the aesthetikon or sensitive soul, which we call the sentient or astral body. Next, he speaks of orektikon which corresponds to the sentient soul, then comes kinetikon corresponding to the intellectual soul, and he uses the term dianoetikon for the consciousness soul. Aristotle was fully aware of the meaning of these concepts, but he lacked direct perception of the reality. This caused a certain unclarity and abstraction in his works, and that applies also to the book I mentioned by Franz Brentano. Nevertheless, real thinking holds sway in Brentano's book. And when someone devotes himself to the power of thinking the way he did, it is no longer possible to entertain the foolish notion that man's soul and spirit are mere by-products arising from the physical-bodily nature. The concepts formulated by Brentano on the basis of Aristotle's work were too substantial, so to speak, to allow him to succumb to the mischief of modern materialism. Franz Brentano's main aim was to attain insight into the general working of the human soul; he wanted to carry out psychological research. But he was also concerned with an all-encompassing view of the world based on psychology. I have already drawn your attention to the fact that Franz Brentano himself estimated that his work on psychology would fill five volumes, but only the first volume was published. It is fully understandable to someone who knew him well why no subsequent volumes appeared. The deeper reason lies in the fact that Brentano would not—indeed according to his whole disposition, he could not—turn to spiritual science. Yet in order to find answers to the questions facing him after the completion of the first volume of his Psychology he needed spiritual knowledge. But spiritual science he could not accept and, as he was above all an honest man, he abandoned writing the subsequent volumes. The venture came to a full stop and thus remains a fragment. I would like to draw attention to two aspects of the problem in Brentano's mind. It is a problem which today every thinking person must consciously strive to solve. In fact, the whole of mankind, insofar as people do not live in animal-like obtuseness, is striving, albeit unconsciously, to solve this problem. People in general are either laboring in one direction or another for a plausible solution, or else suffering psychologically because of their inability to get anywhere near the root of the problem. Franz Brentano investigated and pondered deeply the human soul. However, when this is done along the lines of modern science one arrives at the point that leads from the human soul to the spirit. And there one may remain at the obvious, and recognize the human soul's activity to be threefold in that it thinks; i.e., forms mental pictures, it feels and it wills. Thinking, feeling and willing are indeed the three members of the human soul. However, no satisfactory insight into them is possible unless through spiritual knowledge a path is found to the spiritual reality with which the human soul is connected. If one does not find that path—and Franz Brentano could not find it—then one feels oneself with one's thinking, feeling and willing completely isolated within the soul. Thinking at best provides images of the external, spatial, purely material reality. Feeling at best takes pleasure or displeasure in what occurs in the spatial physical reality. Through the will, man's physical nature may appease its cravings or aversions. Without spiritual insight man does not experience through his thinking, feeling and willing any relationship with a reality in which he feels secure, to which he feels he belongs. That was why Brentano said: To differentiate thinking, feeling and willing in the human soul does not help one to understand it, as in doing so one remains within the soul itself. He therefore divided the soul in another way, and how he did it is characteristic. He still sees the soul as threefold but not according to forming mental pictures of thinking, feeling and willing. He differentiates instead between forming mental pictures, judging or assessing, and the inner world of fluctuating moods and feelings. Thus, according to Brentano, the life of the soul is divided into forming mental pictures, judgments, and fluctuating moods and feelings. Mental pictures do not, to begin with, lead us out beyond the soul. When we form mental pictures of something, the images remain within the soul. We believe that they refer to something real, but that is by no means established. As long as we do not go beyond the mental picture, we have to concede that something merely imagined is also a mental picture. Thus, a mental picture as such may refer to something real or to something merely imagined. Even when we relate mental pictures to one another, we still have no guarantee of reality. A tree is a mental picture; green is a mental picture. To say, The tree is green, is to combine two mental pictures, but that in itself is no guarantee of dealing with reality, for my mental picture “green tree” could be a product of my fantasy. Nevertheless, Brentano says: When I judge or make assessments I stand within reality, and I am already making a judgment, even if a veiled one, when I combine mental pictures as I do when I say, The tree is green. In so doing I indicate not only that I combine the two concepts “tree” and “green,” but that a green tree exists. Thus I am not remaining within the mental pictures, I go across to existence. There is a difference, says Brentano, between being aware of a green tree and being conscious that “this tree is green.” The former is a mere formulation of mental pictures, the latter has a basis within the soul consisting of acceptance or rejection. In the activity of merely forming mental pictures one remains within the soul, whereas passing judgment is an activity of soul which relates one to the environment in that one either accepts or rejects it. In saying, a green tree exists, I acknowledge not merely that I am forming mental pictures, but that the tree exists quite apart from my mental picture. In saying, centaurs do not exist, I also pass judgment by rejecting as unreal the mental picture of half-horse, half-man. Thus according to Brentano, passing judgment is the second activity of the human soul. Brentano saw the third element within the human soul as that of fluctuating moods and feelings. Just as he regards judgment of reality to consist of acknowledgments or rejections, so he sees moods and feelings as fluctuating between love and hate, likes and dislikes. Man is either attracted or repelled by things. Brentano does not regard the element of will to be a separate function of the soul. He sees it as part of the realm of moods and feelings. The fact that he regards the will in this way is very characteristic of Brentano and points to a deeply rooted aspect of his makeup. It would lead too far to go into that now; all that concerns us at the moment is that Brentano did not differentiate will impulses from mere feelings of like or dislike. He saw all these elements as weaving into one another. When examining a will impulse to action, Brentano would be concerned only with one's love for it. Again, if the will impulse was against an action, he would examine one's dislike for it. Thus for him the life of soul consists of love and hate, acknowledgment and rejection, and forming mental pictures. Starting from these premises Brentano did his utmost to find solutions to the two greatest riddles of the human soul, the riddle of truth, and the riddle of good. What is true (or real)? What is good? If one is seeking to justify the judgment of thinking about reality or unreality, the question arises, Why do we acknowledge certain things and reject others? Those we acknowledge we regard as truth; those we reject we regard as untruth. And that brings us straight to the heart of the problem: What is truth? The heart of the other problem concerning good and evil, good and bad, we encounter when we turn to the realm of fluctuating moods and feelings. According to Brentano, love is what prompts us to acknowledge an action as good, while hate is the rejection of an action as evil. Thus ethics, morality, and what we understand by rights, all these things are a province of the realm of moods and feelings. The question of good and evil was very much in Brentano's mind as he pondered the nature of man's life of feelings fluctuating between love and hate. It is indeed extremely interesting to follow the struggle of a man like Brentano, a struggle lasting for decades, to find answers to questions such as What right has man to assess things, judging them true or false, acknowledge or reject them? Even if you examine all Brentano's published writings—and I am convinced that his as yet unpublished work will give the same result—nowhere will you find him giving any other answer to the question What is true? In other words: What justifies man to judge things except what he calls the “evidence,” the “visible proof”? He naturally means an inner visible proof. Thus Brentano's answer amounts to this: I attain truth if I am not inwardly blind, but able to bring my experiences before my inner eye in such a way that I can survey them clearly, and accept them, or by closer scrutiny perhaps reject them. Franz Brentano did not get beyond this view. It is significant indeed that a man who was an eminent thinker—which cannot be said about many—struggled for decades to answer the question What gives me the right to acknowledge or reject something, to regard it as true or false? All he reached was what he termed the evidence, the inner visible proof. Brentano lectured for many years in Vienna on what in Austrian universities was known as practical philosophy, which really means ethics or moral philosophy. Just as Brentano was obliged to give these lectures, so the law students were obliged to attend them, as they were prescribed, compulsory courses. However, during his courses Brentano did not so much lecture on “practical philosophy,” as he did on the question How does one come to accept something as good or put something down as bad? Due to his original views, Franz Brentano did not by any means have an easy task. As you know, the problem of good is always being debated in philosophy. Attempts are made to answer the question: Have we any right to regard one thing as good and another as bad? Or the question may be formulated differently: Where does the good originate, where is its source, and what is the source of the bad or evil? This question is approached in all manner of ways. But all around Brentano, at the time when he attempted to discover the criterion of good, a peculiar moral philosophy was gaining ground, that of Herbart, one of the successors of Kant's.3 Herbart's view of ethics, which others have advocated too but none more emphatically than he himself, was the view that moral behavior, in the last resort, depends upon the fact that certain relationships in life please us, whereas others displease us. Those that please us are good, those that displease us are bad. Man as it were is supposed to have an inborn natural ability to take pleasure in the good and displeasure in the bad. Herbart says, for example: Inner freedom is something which always, in every instance, pleases us. And what is inner freedom? Well, he says, man is inwardly free when his thinking and actions are in harmony. This would mean, crudely put, that if A thinks B an awful fellow but instead of saying so flatters him, then that is not an expression of inner freedom. Thinking and action are not in the harmony on which the ethical view of inner freedom is based. Another view on ethics is based on perfection. We are displeased when we do something we could have done better, whereas we are pleased when we have done something so well that the result is better, more perfect than it would have been through any other action. Herbart differentiates five such ethical concepts. However, all that interests us at the moment is that he based morality on the soul's immediate pleasure or displeasure. Yet another principle of ethics is Kant's so-called categorical imperative, according to which an action is good if it is based on principles that could be the basis for a law applying to all.4 Nothing could be more contrary to morality! Even the example Kant himself puts forward clearly shows his categorical imperative to be void of moral value. He says: Suppose you were given something for safekeeping, but instead you appropriated it. Such an action, says Kant, cannot be a basic principle for all to follow, for if everybody simply took possession of things entrusted to them, an orderly human society would be an impossibility. It is not difficult to see that in such a case, whether the action is good or bad cannot be judged on whether things entrusted to one are returned or not. Quite different issues come into question. All the modern views on ethics are contrary to that of Franz Brentano. He sought deeper reasons. Pleasure and displeasure, he said, merely confirm that an ethical judgment has been made. As far as the beautiful is concerned, we are justified in saying that beauty is a source of pleasure, ugliness of displeasure. However, we should be aware that what determines us when it is a question of ethics, of morality, is a much deeper impulse than the one that influences us in assessing the beautiful. That was Brentano's view of ethics, and each year he sought to reaffirm it to the law students. He also spoke of his principle of ethics in his beautiful public lecture entitled “Natural Sanction of Law and Morality.”5 The circumstances that led Franz Brentano to give this lecture are interesting. The famous legislator Ihering had spoken at a meeting about legal concepts being fluid, by which he meant that concepts of law and rights cannot be understood in an absolute sense because their meaning continually changes in the course of time.6 They can be understood only if viewed historically. In other words, if we look back to the time when cannibalism was customary, we have no right to say that one ought not to eat people. We have no right to say that our concepts of morals should have prevailed, for our concepts would at that time have been wrong. Cannibalism was right then; it is only in the course of time that our view of it has changed. Our sympathy must therefore lie with the cannibals, not with those who refrained from the practice! That is, of course, an extreme example, but it does illustrate the essence of Ihering's view. The important point to him was that concepts of law and morality have changed in the course of human evolution which proves that they are in a state of flux. This view Brentano could not possibly accept. He wanted to discover a definite, absolute source of morality. In regard to truth he had produced “the evidence” that what lights up in the soul as immediate recognition is true, i.e., what is correctly judged is true. To the other question, what is good, Brentano, again after decades of struggle, found an equally abstract answer. He said: Good and bad have their source in human feelings fluctuating between love and hate. What man genuinely loves is good; i.e., what is worthy of love is good. He attempted to show instances of how human beings can love rightly. Just as man in regard to truth should judge rightly, so in regard to the good he should love rightly. I shall not go into details; I mainly want to emphasize that Brentano, after decades of struggle, had reached an abstraction, the simple formula that good is that which is worthy of love. Instead, it has to be said that Brentano's greatness does not lie in the results he achieved. You will no doubt agree that it is a somewhat meager conclusion to say, Truth is what follows from the evidence of correct judgment; the good is what is rightly loved. These are indeed meager results, but what is outstanding, what is characteristic of Brentano, is the energy, the earnestness of his striving. In no other philosopher will you find such Aristotelean sagacity and at the same time such deep inner involvement with the argument. The meager results gain their value when one follows the struggle it cost to reach them. It is precisely his inner struggles that make Franz Brentano such an outstanding example of spiritual striving. One could mention many people, including philosophers, who have in our time tried to find answers to the questions, What is truth? What is the good? But you will find their answers, especially those given by the more popular philosophers, far more superficial than those given by Brentano. That does not alter the fact that Brentano's answers must naturally seem meager fare to those who have for years been occupied with spiritual science. However, Brentano had also to suffer the destiny of modern striving man, lack of understanding; his struggles were little understood. A closer look at Brentano's intensive search for answers to the questions, What is true? What is good? reveals a clarity and comprehensiveness in outlook seldom found in those who refuse spiritual science. What makes him exceptional is that without spiritual science no one has come as far as he did. Nowhere will you find within the whole range of modern philosophical striving any real answers concerning what truth is or what the good is. What you will find is confusion aplenty, albeit at times interesting confusion, for example in Windelband.7 Professor Windelband, who taught for years at Heidelberg and Freiburg, could discover nothing in the human soul to cause man to accept certain things as true and reject others as false. So he based truth on assent, that is, to some extent on love. If according to our judgment of something we can love it, then it is true; conversely, if we must hate it, then it is untrue. Truth and untruth contain hidden love and hate. Herbartians, too, judge things to be morally good or morally bad according to whether they please or displease, a judgment which Brentano considered to be applicable only to what is beautiful or ugly. Thus there is plenty of confusion, and not the slightest possibility of reaching insight into the soul's essential nature. All that is left is despair, which is so often all there is left after one has studied the works of modern philosophers. Naturally they do pose questions and often believe to have come up with answers. Unfortunately that is just when things go wrong; one soon sees that the answers, whether positive or negative, are no answers at all. What is so interesting about Brentano is that, if only he had continued a little further beyond the point he had reached, he would have entered a region where the solutions are to be found. Whoever cannot get beyond the view ordinarily held of man will not be able to answer the questions What is true? What is false? It is simply not possible, on the one hand to regard man's being as it is regarded today, and on the other to answer such questions as What is the meaning of truth in relation to man? Nor is it possible to answer the question What is the good? You will soon see why this is so. But first I must draw your attention to something in regard to which mistaken views are held both ways, that is the question concerning the beautiful. According to Herbart and his followers, good is merely a subdivision of beauty, more particularly beauty attributed to human action. Any questions concerning what is beautiful immediately reveal it to be a very subjective issue. Nothing is more disputed than beauty; what one person finds beautiful another does not. In fact, the most curious views are voiced in quarrels over the beautiful and the ugly, over what is artistically justified and what is not. In the last resort the whole argument as to whether something is beautiful or ugly, artistic or not, rests on man's individual nature. No general law concerning beauty will ever be discovered, nor should it be; nothing would be more meaningless. One may not like a certain work of art, but there is always the possibility of entering into what the artist had in mind and thus coming to see aspects not recognized before. In this way, one may come to realize that it was lack of understanding which prevented one from recognizing its beauty. Such aesthetic judgment, such aesthetic acceptance or rejection, is really something which, though subjective, is justified. To confirm in detail what I have just said would take too long. However, you all know that the saying “taste cannot be disputed” has a certain justification. Taste for certain things one either has or has not; either the taste has been acquired already or not yet. We may ask, why? The answer is that every time we apply an aesthetic evaluation to something we have a twofold perception. That is an important fact discovered through spiritual investigation. Whenever you are inclined to apply the criterion of beauty to something, your perception of the object is twofold. Such an object is perceived in the first place because of its influence on the physical and ether bodies. This is a current that streams, so to speak, from the beautiful object to the onlooker, affecting his physical and ether bodies regardless whether a painting, a sculpture or anything else is observed. What exists out there in the external world is experienced in the physical and ether bodies, but apart from that it is experienced also in the I and astral body. However, the latter experience does not coincide with the former; you have in fact two perceptions. An impression is made on the one hand on the physical and etheric bodies and on the other an impression is also made on the I and astral body. You therefore have a twofold perception. Whether a person regards an object as beautiful or ugly will depend upon his ability to bring the two impressions into accord or discord. If the two experiences cannot be made to harmonize, it means that the work of art in question is not understood; in consequence, it is regarded as not beautiful. For beauty to be experienced the I and astral body on the one hand, and the physical and ether body on the other must be able to vibrate in unison, must be in agreement. An inner process must take place for beauty to be experienced; if it does not, the possibility for beauty to be experienced is not present. Just think of all the possibilities that exist, in the experience of beauty, for agreement or disagreement. So you see that to experience beauty is a very inward and subjective process. On the other hand what is truth? Truth is also something that meets us face to face. Truth, to begin with, makes an impression on the physical and ether bodies and you, on your part, must perceive that effect on those bodies. Please note the difference: Faced with an object of beauty your perception is twofold. Beauty affects your physical and ether bodies and also your I and astral body; you must inwardly bring about harmony between the two impressions. Concerning truth the whole effect is on the physical and ether bodies and you must perceive that effect inwardly. In the case of beauty, the effect it has on the physical and ether bodies remains unconscious; you do not perceive it. On the other hand, in the case of truth, you do not bring the effect it has on the I and astral body down into consciousness; it vibrates unconsciously. What must happen in this case is that you devote yourself to the impression made on the physical and ether bodies, and find its reflection in the I and astral body. Thus, in the case of truth or reality you have the same content in the I and astral body as in the physical and ether bodies, whereas in the case of beauty you have two different contents. Thus the question of truth is connected with man's being insofar as it consists of the lowest members, the physical and ether bodies. Through the physical body we participate only in the external material world, the world of mere appearance. Through the ether body we participate solely in what results from its harmony with the whole cosmos. Truth, reality, is anchored in the ether body, and someone who does not recognize the existence of the ether body cannot answer the question Where is truth established? All he can answer is the question Where is that established which the senses reflect of the external world; where is the world of appearance? What the senses reflect in the physical body only becomes full reality, only becomes truth, when assimilated by the ether body. Thus the question concerning truth can only be answered by someone who recognizes the total effect of external objects on man's physical and ether bodies. If Franz Brentano wanted to answer the question What is truth? he would have been obliged to investigate the way man's being is related to the whole world through his ether body. That he could not do as he did not acknowledge its existence. All he could find was the meager answer he termed “the evidence.” To explain truth is to explain the human ether body's relation to the cosmos. We are connected with the cosmos when we express truth. That is why we must continue to experience the ether body for several days after death. If we did not we would lose the sense for the truth, for the reality of the time between death and new birth. We live on earth in order to foster our union with truth, with reality. We take our experience of truth with us, as it were, in that we live for several days after death with the great tableau of the ether body. One can arrive at an answer to the question What is truth? only by investigating the human ether body. The other question which Franz Brentano wanted to answer was What is the good? Just as the external physical object can become truth or reality for man only if it acts on his physical and etheric bodies, so must what becomes an impulse towards good or evil influence man's I and astral body. In the I and astral body it does not as yet become formulated into concept, into mental picture; for that to happen it must be reflected in the physical and etheric bodies. We have mental pictures of good and evil only when what is formless in the I and astral body is mirrored in the physical and ether bodies. However, what expresses itself externally as good or evil stems from what occurs in the I and astral body. Someone who does not recognize the I and astral body can know nothing about where in man the impulse to good or evil is active. All he can say is that good is what is rightly loved; but love occurs in the astral body. Only by investigating what actually happens in the astral body and I is it possible to attain concrete insight into good and evil. At the present stage of evolution the I only brings to expression what lives in the astral body as instincts and emotions. As you know, the human “I” is as yet not very far in its development. The astral body is further, but man is more conscious of what occurs in his I than he is of his astral body. As a consequence man is not very conscious of moral impulses, or, put differently, he does not benefit from them unless the astral impulses enter his consciousness. As far as the man of today is concerned, the original, primordial moral impetus is situated in his astral body, just as the forces of truth are situated in his ether body. Through his astral body man is connected with the spiritual world, and in that world are the impulses of good. In the spiritual world also holds sway what for man is good and evil; but we only know its reflection in the ether and physical bodies. So you see it is only possible to attain concepts of truth, goodness and beauty when account is taken of all the members of man's being. To attain a concept of truth the ether body must be understood. Unless one knows that in the experience of beauty the ether and astral bodies distinctively vibrate in unison—the I and physical body do too, but to a lesser degree—it cannot be understood. A proper concept of the good cannot be attained without the knowledge that it basically represents active forces in the astral body. Thus Franz Brentano actually came as far as the portal leading to the knowledge he sought. His answers appear so meager because they can be properly understood only if they are related to insight of a higher order. When he says of truth that it must light up and become directly visible to the eye of the soul, he should have been able to say more; namely, that to perceive truth rightly one must succeed in taking hold of it independently of the physical body. The ether body must be loosened from the physical body. This is because the first clairvoyant experience is that of pure thinking. You will know that I have always upheld the view, which indeed every true scientist of the spirit must uphold, that he who grasps a pure-thought is already clairvoyant. However, man's ordinary thinking is not a pure thinking, it is filled either with mental pictures or with fantasy. Only in the ether body can a pure thought be grasped, consequently whoever does so is clairvoyant. And to understand goodness one must be aware that it is part and parcel of what lives in the human astral body and in the I. Especially when he spoke about the origin of good, Franz Brentano had an ingenious way of pointing to significant things; for example, that Aristotle had basically said that one can lecture on goodness only to those who are already habitually good. If this were true, it would be dreadful, for whoever is already in the habit of being good does not need lectures on it. There is no need to instruct him in what he already possesses. Moreover, if those words of Aristotle's were true, it follows that the converse is true also, that those not habitually good could not be helped by hearing about it. All talk about goodness would be meaningless; attempts to establish ethics would be futile. This is also a problem to which no satisfactory solution can be found unless sought in the light of spiritual science. In general it cannot be said that our actions spring from pure concepts and ideas. But, as those who have studied The Philosophy of Freedom will realize, only an action that springs from a pure concept, a pure idea, can be said to be a free action, a truly independent action.8 Our actions are usually based on instincts, passions or emotions, only seldom if ever on pure concepts. More is said about these matters in the booklet Education of the Child in the Light of Spiritual Science.9 I have also elaborated on it in other lectures. In the first two seven-year periods of life—the first lasting up to the change of teeth, to about the seventh year, the second lasting till puberty—a human being's actions are predominantly influenced by instincts, emotions and the like. Not till the onset of puberty does he become capable of absorbing thoughts concerning good and evil. So we have to admit that Aristotle was right up to a point. He was right in the sense that the instincts towards good and evil that are in us already during the first two periods of life, up to the age of 14, tend to dominate us throughout life. We may modify them, suppress them, but they are still there for the whole of our life. The question is, Does it help that with puberty we begin to understand moral principles, and become able to rationalize our instincts? It helps in a twofold manner, and if you have a feeling and sense for these things, you will soon see how essential it is that this whole issue is understood in our time. Consider the following example: Let us say a human being has inherited good tendencies, and up to the age of puberty he develops them into excellent and noble inclinations. He becomes what is called a good person. At the moment I do not want to go into why he becomes a good person, but to examine more external aspects. His parents we must visualize as good, kind people and so, too, his grandparents. All this has the effect that he develops tendencies that are noble and kind, and he instinctively does what is right and good. But let us now assume that he shows no sign, after having reached puberty, of wanting to rationalize his natural good instincts; he has no inclination to think about them. The reason for this we shall leave aside for the moment. So up to the age of 14 he develops good instincts but later shows no inclination to rationalize them. He has a propensity for doing good and hardly any for doing bad. If his attention is drawn to the fact that certain actions can be either good or bad he will say, It does not concern me. He is not interested in any discussions about it; he does not want to lift the issue into the sphere of the intellect. As a grown man he has children—whether the person is man or woman makes of course no difference—and the children will not inherit his good instincts if he has not thought about them. The children will soon show uncertainty in regard to their instinctive life. That is what is so significant. Thus, such a person may get on well enough with his own instincts, but if he has never consciously concerned himself about good and evil, he will not pass on effective instincts to his children. Furthermore, already in his next life he will not bring with him any decisive instincts concerning good and evil. It is really like a plant which may be an attractive and excellent herb, but if it is prevented from flowering no further plants can arise from it. As single plant it may be useful, but if the future is to benefit from further plants, it must reach the stages of flower and fruit. Similarly a human being's instincts may, unaltered, serve him well enough in his own life, but if he leaves them at the level of mere instincts, he sins against posterity in the physical as well as spiritual sense. You will realize that these are matters of extreme importance. And, as with the other issues, only spiritual science can enlighten us about them. In certain quarters it may well be maintained that goodness is due solely to instincts; indeed, that can even be proved. But anyone who wants to do away with the necessity for thoughtful understanding of moral issues on this basis is comparable to a farmer who says: I shall certainly cultivate my fields, but I see no point in retaining grains for next year's sowing—why not let the whole harvest be used as foodstuff? No farmer speaks like that because in this realm the link between past and future is too obvious. Unfortunately, in regard to spiritual issues, in regard to man's own evolution, people do speak like that. In this area great misconceptions continuously arise because people are unwilling to consider an issue from many aspects. They arrive at a onesided view and disregard all others. One can naturally prove that good impulses are based on instinct. That is not disputed, but there are other aspects to the matter. Impulses for the good are instincts active in the I and astral body; as such they are forces acting across from the previous life. Consequently one cannot, without spiritual knowledge, come to any insight concerning the way human lives are linked together either now or in the course of man's evolution. If we now pass from these more elementary aspects to some on a higher level, we may consider the following: On the average, people living today are in their second incarnation since the Christian chronology began. In their first life it was sufficient if they received the Christ impulse from their immediate environment in whatever way possible. In their present, or second incarnation that is no longer enough; that is why people are gradually losing the Christ impulse. Were people now living to return in their next incarnation without having received the Christ impulse anew they would have lost it altogether. That is why it is essential that the impulse of Christ find entry into human souls in the form presented by spiritual science. Spiritual science does not have to resort to historical evidence but is able to relate the Christ impulse directly to the kinds of issues we are continually discussing in our circles. This enables it to be connected with the human soul in ways that ensure it is carried over into future ages when the souls incarnate once more. We are now too far removed from the historical event to absorb the Christ impulse the way we did in our first incarnation after the Christ event. That is why we are going not only through an external crisis, but also an inner crisis in regard to the Christ impulse. Traditions no longer suffice. People are honest who say that there is no proof of historical Christ. But spiritual knowledge enables man to discover the Christ impulse once more as a living reality in human evolution. The course of external events shows the necessity for the Christ impulse to arise anew on the foundation of spiritual science. We have been witnessing so very many ideals on which people have built their lives for centuries suffering shipwreck in the last three years. We all suffer, especially the more we are aware of all that has been endured these last three years. If the question is asked, What has suffered the greatest shipwreck? there is only one answer: Christianity. Strange as it may seem to many, the greatest loss has been to Christianity. Wherever you look you see a denial of Christianity. Most things that are done are a direct mockery of Christianity, though the courage to admit this fact is lacking. For example, a view widely expressed today is that each nation should manage its own affairs. This is advocated by most people, in fact by the largest and most valuable part of mankind. Can that really be said to be a Christian view? I shall say nothing about its justification or otherwise, but simply whether the idea is Christian or not. And is it Christian? Most emphatically it is not. A view based on Christianity would be that nations should come to agreement through human beings' understanding of one another. Nothing could be more unchristian than what is said about the alleged freedom, the alleged independence—which in any case is unrealizable—of individual nations. Christianity means to understand people all over the earth. It means understanding even human beings who are in realms other than the earth. Yet since the Mystery of Golgotha not even people who call themselves Christian have been able to agree with one another even superficially. And that is a dreadful blow, especially in regard to feeling for and understanding of Christianity. This lack has led to grotesque incidents like the one I mentioned, of someone speaking about German religion, German piety, which has as much sense as speaking about a German sun or a German moon. These things are in reality connected with far-reaching misconceptions about social affairs. I have spoken about the fact that nowadays no proper concept of a state exists. When people who should know discuss what a state is or should be, they speak about it as if it were an organism in which the human beings are the cells. That such comparisons can be made shows how little real understanding there is. As I have often pointed out, what is lacking, what we need more than anything else, are concepts and views that are real and concrete, concepts that penetrate to the reality of things. The chaos all about us has been caused because we live in abstractions, in concepts and views that are alien to the reality. How can it be otherwise when we are so estranged from the spiritual aspect of reality that we deny it altogether? True concepts of reality will be attained only when the spirit in all its weaving life is acknowledged. There was something tragic in Franz Brentano's destiny right up to his death—tragic, because he did have a feeling for the direction modern man's spiritual striving should take. Yet, had he been presented with spiritual science he would have rejected it, just as he rejected the works of Plotinus as utter folly, as quite unscientific.10 There are, of course, many in the same situation; their spirit's flight is inhibited through the fact that they live in physical bodies belonging to the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. This provokes the crisis we must overcome. Such things do, of course, have their positive side; to overcome something is to become stronger. Not till the concrete concepts of spiritual science are understood and applied can things be done that are necessary for a complete revision of our understanding of law and morality, of social and political matters. It is precisely spirits like Brentano that bring home the fact that the whole question of jurisprudence hangs in the air. Without knowing the super-sensible aspect of man's being, such as the nature of the astral body, it is impossible to say what law is or what morality is. That applies also to religion and politics. If wrong, unrealistic ideas are applied to external, material reality, their flaws soon become apparent. No one would tolerate bridges that collapse because the engineer based his constructions on wrong concepts. In the sphere of morality, in social or political issues wrong concepts are not spotted so easily, and when they are discovered, people do not recognize the connection. We are suffering this moment from the aftereffect of wrong ideas, but do people see the connection? They are very far from doing so. And that is the most painful aspect of witnessing these difficult times. Every moment seems wasted unless devoted to the difficulties; at the same time one comes to realize how little people are inclined nowadays to enter into the reality of the situation. However, unless one concerns oneself with the things that really matter, no remedy will be found. It is essential to recognize that there is a connection between the events taking place now and the unreal concepts and views mankind has cultivated for so long. We are living in such chaotic times because for centuries the concepts of spiritual life that were at work in social affairs have been as unrealistic as those of an engineer who builds bridges that collapse. If only people would develop a feeling for how essential it is, when dealing with social or political issues, indeed with all aspects of cultural life, to find true concepts, reality-permeated concepts! If we simply continue with the same jurisprudence, the same social sciences, the same politics, and fill human souls with the same religious views as those customary before the year 1914, then nothing significant or valuable will be achieved. Unless the approach to all these things is completely changed, it will soon be apparent that no progress is being made. What is so necessary, what must come about is the will to learn afresh, to adjust one's ideas, but that is what there is so little inclination to do. You must regard everything I have said about Franz Brentano as an expression of my genuine admiration for this exceptional personality. Such individuals demonstrate how hard one must struggle especially when it concerns an impulse to be carried over into mankind's future. Franz Brentano is an extremely interesting personality, but he did not achieve the kind of concepts, ideas, feelings or impulses that work across into future ages. Yet it is interesting that only a few weeks before his death he is said to have given assurances that he would succeed in proving that God exists. To do so was the goal of his lifelong scientific striving. Brentano would not have succeeded, for to prove the existence of God he would have needed spiritual science. Before the Mystery of Golgotha, before mankind's age had receded to the age of 33, it was still possible to prove that God exists. Since then mankind's age has dropped to 32, then 31, later 30 and by now to 27. Man can no longer through his ordinary powers of thinking prove that God exists; such proof can be discovered only through spiritual knowledge. Saying that spiritual science is an absolute necessity cannot be compared to a movement advocating its policies. The necessity for spiritual science is an objective fact of human evolution. Today I wanted to draw your attention once more to the absolute necessity for spiritual science and related philosophical questions. However, it will be fruitful only if you are prepared to enter into such questions. What mankind is strongly in need of at the present time is the ability to enter into exact, clear-cut concepts and ideas. If you want to pursue the science of the spirit, anthroposophy, theosophy—call it what you will—only with the unclear, confused concepts with which so much is pursued nowadays, then you may go a long way in satisfying egoistical longings, gratifying personal wishes. You will not, however, be striving in the way the present difficult times demand. What one should strive for, especially in regard to spiritual science, is to collaborate, particularly in the spiritual sense, to bring about what mankind most sorely needs. Whenever possible turn your thoughts, as strongly as you are able, to the question: What are human beings most in need of, what are the thoughts that ought to hold sway among men to bring about improvement and end the chaos? Do not say that others, better qualified, will do that. The best qualified are those who stand on the firm foundation of the science of the spirit. What must occupy us most of all is how conditions can be brought about so that human beings can live together in a civilized manner. We shall discuss these things further next time.
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| 173a. The Karma of Untruthfulness I: Lecture III
10 Dec 1916, Dornach Tr. Johanna Collis Rudolf Steiner |
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| He also enthuses about Goethe's scientific writings and shows that he has drawn a little nearer to what we are coming to know as Anthroposophy; but in his case it is only a beginning. I might add, by the way, that his recent book about expressionism is full of praise for his Danzig friends—of course, so that they should stand out favourably in comparison with the Berliners. |
| 173a. The Karma of Untruthfulness I: Lecture III
10 Dec 1916, Dornach Tr. Johanna Collis Rudolf Steiner |
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In order to examine, from our point of view, the subject we are dealing with at present, we must never lose sight of the manner in which spiritual-scientific observation—with all its significance for mankind's development in the fifth post-Atlantean period and for the preparation of the sixth—makes its appearance. For without paying attention to how materialistic man today is negligent with regard to a spiritual-scientific observation of the world, we cannot proceed to the source of present-day events. As a starting point for further discussions I want to show you the manner in which, in some individuals, a kind of compulsion comes about to look up to those worlds with which our spiritual science is concerned. It is important to realize that this compulsive winning-over of these people to a certain view of the world is only sporadic so far. Yet, even so, there is much in it that is extremely characteristic. A short time ago I mentioned to you that a certain Hermann Bahr had published a drama, The Voice, in which he attempts—though rather after the manner of the Catholics—to link the world that surrounds us and is accessible to our physical senses with spiritual events and processes. Not long before writing this drama, Hermann Bahr wrote a novel Ascension and this novel is really in some respects a historical document of today. I do not want to overstate its artistic and literary merit, but it is certainly a historical document of our time. As is the way with karma, it so happens that I have known Hermann Bahr, an Austrian, for a very long time, since he was a young student. This novel, Ascension, describes a romantic hero, as literary criticism would say. He is called Franz and he seems to me to be a kind of likeness—not a self-portrait, but a kind of likeness—of Hermann Bahr himself. A lot of interesting things take place in this novel, which was written during the war. It is obviously Hermann Bahr's way of taking issue with present-day events. Imagine that the hero of this novel represents a kind of likeness of a person living today, now fifty-two or fifty-three years old. He has joined in all the events of his day, being involved very intensely from a young age in all sorts of contemporary streams. As a student he was sent down from two different universities because of his involvement in these various streams, and he was always intent on joining his soul forces to all sorts of spiritual and artistic streams. This is not a self-portrait; the novel contains no biographical details of Hermann Bahr's life. But Bahr has definitely coloured his hero, Franz. A person is described who endeavours to come to grips with every spiritual direction at present to be found in the external world, in order to learn about the meaning of the universe. Right at the beginning we are told about all the places Franz has frequented in order to gain insight into universal matters. First he studies botany under Wiesner, a famous professor of botany at the University of Vienna. Then he takes up chemistry under Ostwald, who took over from Haeckel as president of the Monist Society. He studies in Schmoller's seminar, in Richet's clinic, and with Freud in Vienna. Obviously someone who wanted to experience present-day spiritual streams would have to meet psychoanalysis. He went to the theosophists in London and he met painters, engravers, tennis players and so on. He is certainly not one-sided, for he has been in Richet's laboratory as well as with the theosophists in London. Everywhere he tries to find his way about. His fate, his karma, continues to drive him hither and thither in the world, and we are told how here or there he notices that there is something in the background behind human evolution and discovers that he ought to pay attention to what goes on behind the scenes. I told you yesterday about one such background and I now want to show you how someone else was also won over to recognize such things. So I shall now read a passage from the book. Franz has made the acquaintance of a female person. She is particularly pious—Klara has her own kind of piety—but just now all I want to do is point out that this is of importance to Franz:
The pious men in this connection are Catholic priests, and he does attempt to discover whether their opinions and knowledge can help him find his way in the affairs of the universe. The book continues:
He had met a canon who had shown himself to be a man with few prejudices in any direction.
forgive me for reading this, but Hermann Bahr wrote it
You see, he is searching! We are shown a person who is a seeker. And although this is not an autobiography you may be quite certain that Hermann Bahr met this Englishman! All this is told from life.
As you see, Franz did not want to undertake these theosophical exercises; he did not want to find a transition to knowledge of the spiritual worlds by this means. But something about which we had to speak yesterday is beginning to dawn. People are being won over into recognizing the course of certain threads and they are beginning to notice that certain people make use of these threads. If only people like Hermann Bahr would approach this matter even more seriously than they do. Even the canon encountered by Franz did so more seriously. Franz was once invited to the home of this canon together with some rather unusual company which is described. We discover that the canon associates with all sorts, not only pious monks but also cynics and frivolous people of the world. He invites them all to his table. Franz noticed a number of things. The canon led him into his study while the others were conversing together. As we know, when dinner is over, something else always follows. So the canon led him into his study:
of course a canon needs theology least of all for himself
We can forgive the canon, can we not, for wanting everything to be ‘Catholic’; what is important for us is that he has turned to the natural scientific writings of Goethe.
Let us forgive the canon.
Goethe has good reason for this, of course!
You notice, even in these circles a different Goethe is sought, one who can follow the path into the spiritual world, a different Goethe for sure than that ‘insipidly jolly, common or garden monist’ described and presented to the world today by the Goethe biographers. As you see, the path trodden by Franz is not so very different from those you find interwoven in what we call our spiritual science and, as you also see, a certain modicum of necessity can be present. May I remind you—I have often mentioned it—that the death of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria is one of those concealed events of the present day, despite all that occurred on the external physical plane. I have stressed especially that if the physical and spiritual worlds are taken together, then for them as a totality there was something present before the assassination of Franz Ferdinand that became different after that event. It does not matter in such cases what things look like in external maya! What occurs inwardly is the important thing. As I told you: What rose up as the soul of Franz Ferdinand into the spiritual worlds became a focal point for very strong, powerful forces, and much of what is now happening is connected with the very fact that a unique transition took place between life and so-called death, so that this soul became something quite different from what other souls become. I said that someone who has lived through recent decades in a state of spiritual consciousness must know that one of the main causes of today's painful events is the fear in which the whole world was drenched, the fear that individuals had of each other, even though they did not know it, and above all the fear that the different nations had of one another. If people had seeing eyes with which to track down the cause of this fear, they would not talk as much nonsense as they do about the causes of the war. It was possible for this fear to be so significant because it is woven as a state of feeling into what I described to you yesterday by means of examples. Please regard this as a kind of sketch. But, drenching everything is this aura of fear. That soul was connected in a certain particular way with this aura of fear. Therefore that violent death was in no way merely an external affair. I told you this because I was able to observe it, because for me it was a particularly significant event that is connected with many aspects of what is going on at present. I do not suppose that such things, which obviously ought to be kept within our circle, have been talked about all over the place outside our circle. The fact is, however, that I have been speaking about these things in various branches since the beginning of the war. There are witnesses who could verify this. Hermann Bahr's book appeared much later, only quite recently. Yet in it there appears a passage that I shall quote in a moment, and I would ask you to pay attention to the following fact: Within the circle of our anthroposophical spiritual science, indications are given about an event that is spiritually very important; then a novel written at a later date is published, in which is found a character who always appears to be rather foolish. He is actually a prince in disguise, but he appears as a foolish person who performs lowly tasks. From a poster—he is living in a rural area—he learns of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, whereupon he makes a remark which almost causes him to be lynched and leads to his being locked up; for any police force would naturally be convinced that somebody making such a remark immediately after an assassination must be a party to the plot. Though there are many miles in between, the one event having happened in Sarajevo and the other taking place in Salzburg, nevertheless to the police, in its wisdom, that man must be a party to the plot. It now emerges that this person is a prince in disguise and that he owns a deeply significant mystical diary. The reason for the remark he made also emerges. He was actually a prince, but had found the whole business of being a prince irksome and so had disguised himself as old Blasl who performed lowly tasks, behaved stupidly, even let himself be beaten by his master, and hardly ever spoke a word; he became talkative on certain occasions but usually he said nothing. Then when he was being investigated he was found to possess a mystical manuscript which he had written himself. The book continues:
‘The manner usual here’ denotes the manner usual on the physical plane: We were in communication with one another, though not after the manner of the physical plane.
For Franz was the only person in that town who could understand Spanish, and since the notebooks were written in Spanish he was asked to help out. There is a little gentle irony here too, since in Austria anything not immediately understandable is said to be ‘Spanish’. Since Blasl, or rather the Infante, was suspected of being a party to the plot, it was necessary to read the notebooks, and since Franz had once been in Spain, it was he who had to read them. For Hermann Bahr had also once been in Spain. So you see, since we must assume that Hermann Bahr had not been tipped off about this, that we have here an example of a remarkable winning-over of an invidual to a recognition of these things, of an inner need growing in him today to occupy himself with these things. I think it is justifiable to be somewhat astonished that such things appear in novels these days; it is something to do with the undercurrent of our time. Admittedly, to begin with, only people like Hermann Bahr are affected, people whose lives have been similar to that of Hermann Bahr, who went through all kinds of experiences during the course of time. Now that he is older, having for a long time been a supporter of impressionism, he is endeavouring to comprehend expressionism and other similar things. He is a person who has truly been capable in his soul of uniting himself outwardly and inwardly with the most varied streams. He really immersed himself in Ostwald's thoughts, in those of Richet, in those of the theosophists in London, struggling to enter fully into them. Only finally, when his perseverance failed him, did he happen upon Canon Zingerl, whom he now considers to be a Master. He did indeed immerse himself to the full in internal and external streams. When I first knew him he had just written his play Die neuen Menschen, of which he is now very ashamed; its mood was strictly social-democratic, and there was at that time no more glowing social-democrat than Hermann Bahr. Then he wrote a short one-act play which is rather insignificant. He then converted to the German nationalist movement and wrote Die grosse Sünde from their point of view. Again, there existed no more radical German nationalist than Hermann Bahr. Meanwhile, he had reached his nineteenth year and was called up to serve in the army; now he was filled to the brim with militaristic views and soldierly pride. He understood, you see, how to unite his soul with external streams, yet he never shirked coming to grips entirely seriously with those that are more inward as well. After his period as a soldier he went to Berlin for a short while and there edited a modern weekly journal, Die freie Bühne. Chameleon-like, he could turn himself into anything—except a Berliner! Then he went to Paris. He had hardly arrived, could not even conjugate a reflexive verb with être but used avoir with everything, when he started to write enthusiastic letters about the sunlike being Boulanger who would surely show Europe what true, genuine culture is. Then he went to Spain, where he became a burning opponent of the Sultan of Morocco against whom he wrote articles in Spanish. Finally he returned, not exactly a copy of Daudet but looking very like him. He told us about all this in the famous Griensteidl Café which has offered hospitality to all sorts of famous people since 1848 when Lenau, Anastasius Grün and others went in and out there. Even the waiters in this cafe were famous; everybody knew Franz, and later Heinrich, of Griensteidl's! Now it has been demolished, but because Hermann Bahr talked so much there about the way in which his soul had entered into the spirit of France and about that sunlike being Boulanger, someone else had grown rebellious, and when Griensteidl's was pulled down Karl Kraus wrote a pamphlet Literature Demolished. I still remember vividly how Hermann Bahr told us about the grand impressions he had gained and how he, the lad from Linz, had been the proud owner of the handsomest artist's face in the whole of Paris. He spoke enthusiastically about Maurice Barrès and stood up in the most intense way for the French youth movement; through the outpouring of a single heart filled with ardour we gained an experience of the total will-force of a whole literary movement. Then, in Vienna together with others, he founded a weekly journal himself, to which he contributed some really important articles. He became increasingly profound yet, with him, superficiality always seemed to go hand in hand with profundity. Thus he never stopped changing: from social democrat to German nationalist, from a militaristic disposition to a glowing admiration for Boulanger, then discipleship of Maurice Barrès and others; and after a later transformation he began to appreciate impressionist art. From time to time he returned to Berlin, but always departed again as quickly as possible; it was the one place he could not tolerate. Vienna, on the other hand, he loved dreadfully, and he expressed this love in many ways. In more recent years his beloved friends in Danzig have invited him a number of times to lecture on expressionism, something they are said to have understood exceedingly well; and the lectures are included in his book on expressionism. He also enthuses about Goethe's scientific writings and shows that he has drawn a little nearer to what we are coming to know as Anthroposophy; but in his case it is only a beginning. I might add, by the way, that his recent book about expressionism is full of praise for his Danzig friends—of course, so that they should stand out favourably in comparison with the Berliners. Lately it has been said that Hermann Bahr has converted to Catholicism. I don't suppose he will be all that Catholic though—perhaps about as much as he was boulangistic in days gone by. But he is a human being! You have now seen in his most recent novel that through his very worldliness, through his longing to learn about everything in his own way, he has now been touched by the necessity to discover something about man's ascent into the spiritual world and about the links between human beings that are different from those ordinary physical links; in other words, links of the kind we described yesterday. You can understand why I find it to some extent significant that such a novel should contain not only general echoes but should lead to a point as concrete as the death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. This shows that these things are far more real than is generally supposed. Just such things as this must show us that what takes place on the physical plane is often no more than a symbol of what is really happening ‘behind the scenes of earthly life’. For if you read about what has occurred in connection with these events, in connection with this assassination, without appealing to the spiritual aspect, it will be impossible for you to understand that someone can be led to place such significance on the matter. But it is not yet possible today to speak about these things without some reservation; as yet, not everything connected with these things can be expressed. Attention may be drawn to some aspects only; to begin with, perhaps, the more external ones. Let us recall what was said yesterday about the world of the Slavs, about the soul of the Slavs. The testament of Peter the Great appeared on the scene in 1813, or perhaps a little earlier, and was disseminated for good reason as though it stemmed from Peter the Great himself. This document is used to seize hold of a natural stream, such as the stream of the Slav soul, in order to guide and lead it by means of suggestion. Whither is it to be led? It is to be led into the orbit of Russianism in such a way that the ancient Slav stream should become, in a way, the bearer of the idea of a Russian state! Because this is so, a clear distinction must be made between the spiritual Slav stream, the stream that exists as the bearer of the ancient Slav tradition, and that which strives to become an external vessel to encompass the whole of this Slav stream: Russianism. We must not forget that a large number of Slav peoples, or sections of these peoples, live within the boundaries of the monarchy of Austria-Hungary. The Austro-Hungarian monarchy encompasses—let me use my fingers to help me count—Germans, Czechs, Slavonians, Slovacs, Serbo-Croats, Croats, Poles, Romanians, Ruthenians, Magyars, Italians and Serbs; as you see, many more than Switzerland has. What really lives there can only be recognized by someone who has lived for quite a long time among these peoples and has come to understand the various streams that were at work within what is known as Austria-Hungary. As far as the Slav peoples are concerned there was, during the last decades of the nineteenth century, a paramount endeavour to find a way in which the various Slav peoples could live together in peace and freedom. The whole history of Austria-Hungary in recent decades, with all those bitter battles, can only be understood if it is seen as an attempt to realize the principle of the individualization of the separate peoples. This is of course exceedingly difficult, since peoples do not live comfortably side by side but are often enmeshed in complicated ways. Among the Germans in Austria there are very many who consider that their own well-being would be served by the individualizing of the various Slav peoples in Austria, that is, by finding a form in which they could develop independently and freely. Obviously such things need time to come about; but such a movement certainly does exist. Then, apart from the Slavs in Austria-Hungary, there are the Balkan Slavs who lived for a long time under Turkish dominion, which they have thrown off in recent decades in order to found individual states: Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro and so on. Yesterday I mentioned the Polish Slavs as those who have developed furthest in their spiritual life. I am mentioning only the more important sub-divisions, for I too can only work these things out gradually. In all these Slav peoples and tribes there lives what I called yesterday a consistent, primal folk element, which is something that is preparing for the future. Seen quite externally, why was Franz Ferdinand rather important? He was important because in his being, in all his inclinations—you must take the external manifestation as a symbol of what lived within—he was the external expression of certain streams. In him there lived something which, if only it had been able to free itself, bore the deepest understanding for the individual development of the Slav peoples. You might indeed call him an intense friend of all that belongs to the Slavs. He understood—or perhaps I should say: something living in him of which he was not fully aware understood—what forms would be necessary for the social life of the Slavs if they were to develop as individual peoples. We have to realize that karma had decreed that this karmic path should be extremely unusual. Let us not forget that there was once an heir to the throne, Archduke Rudolf, on whom great hopes were pinned, especially as regards the direction in which many liberal and free-thinking people of the day were tending. Those who knew the circumstances and the person, understood that something was working through his soul which would have brought about the application to the Austrian situation of what I yesterday called English political thinking, English ideas concerning the way in which states should be administered. This is what was expected of him and it was also what he himself was inclined to do. But you know how karma worked and how what should have happened was made impossible. So then something else became possible instead. Now a man tending in quite another direction grew in importance. It is indeed not without significance if our attention is drawn to this: ‘Here he could only promise; his life was only a prediction. Only now can it really happen. I have never been able to imagine him as a constitutional monarch, with parliamentarianism and all that humbug.’ Yet this is just how we should have imagined the other one to be! You see that karma is at work and we must see how this karma works in order to achieve further heights of understanding. The circumstances which could and should have been brought about—not because of the wishes of some person or other but because of the purpose of world evolution—by this soul who looked upon the Slav folk element with understanding (for the moment I am giving a purely abstract description), would truly have had a liberating effect on the Slav folk element. But it would, at the same time, have destroyed what Russianism wants to do with the Slav element. For Russianism wants to confine the Slav element within its own framework and use it as its tool. It wants to contain it within the confines of the testament of Peter the Great. The speed with which such things come to realization depends, of course, on all kinds of side-currents and peripheral circumstances. But it is important to have an eye for what is gathering momentum in any particular direction. Obviously, therefore, only those who understood the Slav element more deeply could understand what web was really being woven, and also that those who wanted to destroy the Slav element through Russianism had to work against more healthy endeavours. Matters become particularly delicate and tricky if they start interfering with streams and counting on methods that are connected in some way with the occult streams using the secret brotherhoods which exist all over the world. Some are more profound, as are those about which I shall speak tomorrow. Others only touch on these things but, even then, as they do touch on them, they must be seen as vessels through which occult streams flow. The society whose dissolution was demanded after the death of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the Serbian society ‘Narodna Odbrana’, was the actual successor of an earlier secret brotherhood, having changed its methods only slightly. I am stating no more than facts. Here, then, is a contact between political strivings and a secret society which, though centred in Serbia, had threads leading in every direction to wherever Slavs were to be found, and also links with all kinds of other societies, but in particular an inner connection with western societies. In such a society things can be taught which are connected with occult workings throughout the world. Why do we have to make so many detours in order to reach even a partial understanding of what we actually have to understand? Do not be surprised that so many detours are necessary, for a superficial judgement is all too easily reached if insight is directed to immediate events in which we are involved with sympathy or antipathy; all too easily misunderstandings and false ideas come about. What often happens to all of us? We are perfectly entitled to have sympathies and antipathies in our soul; but often there are reasons why we do not admit this to ourselves. Perhaps we do not actually convince ourselves on purpose, but autosuggestion often gives us good reason to believe that our judgements are objective. If only we would calmly admit to sympathies or antipathies, we would also accept the truth. But because we want to judge ‘objectively’ we do not admit the truth but, instead, delude ourselves in regard to the truth. Why do people have this tendency? It is simply because, when they endeavour to understand reality, they easily meet with extraordinary contradictions. And when they meet these contradictions they attempt to come to terms with them by accepting one half of what is contradictory and rejecting the other half. Often this means a total lack of any desire to understand the truth. I will give you an example of how we can become entangled in a serious contradiction if we fail to understand the living connection between the contradiction and the full truth of the reality. In our anthroposophical spiritual science we understand Christianity to be something that is filled with the meaning of the Mystery of Golgotha, with the fact that Christ was condemned, died, was buried, but then also rose again in the true sense and lives on as the Risen One. This is what we call the Mystery of Golgotha and we cannot concede the right to anyone to call himself a Christian unless he recognizes this too. What, though, had to happen so that Christ was able to undergo, for human evolution, what I have just described? Judas had to betray Him and He had to be nailed to the cross. If those who nailed Him to the cross had not done so, then the Mystery of Golgotha would not have taken place for the salvation of mankind. Here you have a terrible, actual contradiction, a contradiction of gigantic proportions! Can you imagine someone who might say: You Christians owe it to Judas that your Mystery of Golgotha took place at all. You owe it to the executioner's men, who nailed Christ to the cross, that your Mystery of Golgotha ran its course! Is anyone justified in defending Judas and the executioner's men, even though it is true that the meaning of earthly history is owed to them? Is it easy to answer a question like this? Is one not immediately faced with contradictions which simply stand there and which represent a terrible destiny? Think about what I have placed before you! Tomorrow we shall continue. What I have just said is spoken only so that you can think about the fact that it is not so easy to say: When two things contradict one another I shall accept the one and reject the other. Reality is more profound than whatever human beings may often be willing to encompass with their thinking. It is not without reason that Nietzsche, crazed almost out of his mind, formulated the words: ‘The world is deep, deeper than day can comprehend.’ Now that I have endeavoured to indicate the nature of a real contradiction, we shall tomorrow attempt to penetrate more deeply into the subject matter we have so far touched on in preparation. |
| 173c. The Karma of Untruthfulness II: Lecture XXIII
22 Jan 1917, Dornach Tr. Johanna Collis Rudolf Steiner |
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| So how can we arrive at concepts which gradually rise above the ethnic elements which are almost exclusively based on language? In this, too, Anthroposophy must rise above mere anthropology, which has really no other means of answering this question except by referring to the differentiations of language. |
| 173c. The Karma of Untruthfulness II: Lecture XXIII
22 Jan 1917, Dornach Tr. Johanna Collis Rudolf Steiner |
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In the cycle of lectures in Vienna on The Inner Nature of Man and the Life between Death and New birth, you will remember that I described concepts—or rather, inner experiences of soul—through which the human being can approach those worlds of which we have spoken and which we share with the disembodied souls of those who have passed the portal of death and are preparing themselves for a new life on earth. On the basis of those lectures, you will be able to imbue with life a concept which is indispensable if we seek to arrive at a true understanding of the spiritual world, and that is that many things—I say many things, not everything—are, from the point of view of the spiritual world, entirely the opposite of what is revealed in the physical world. On this basis, let us consider the way the human being steps over, and also looks over, into the life of the spiritual world. Here on earth, bound to our physical body as we are between waking up and going to sleep, using this physical body as a tool for our experiences in the world, we feel a lack of ability to comprehend the spiritual world and grasp its revelations. As long as we are enclosed within our physical body, and in order to perceive anything, we have to use the rough and ready instruments of this physical body. We cannot avoid using them. And when we are unable to use them, as is the case between going to sleep and waking up, our astral body and our ego-being—which are recent additions from the time of ancient Moon and the earlier periods of Earth—are too attenuated, too intimate, to detect anything. Of course the spiritual world is ever about us, just as the air surrounds us constantly. And if our astral body and our ego-being were—let me say—sufficiently dense, we should always be able to perceive, to grasp, what is all around us in the spiritual world. We cannot do so because in our astral body and our ego-being we are too attenuated; they are not yet fully-formed instruments, like the physical senses or the brain, which our capacity for forming ideas uses in order to attain waking experiences in the soul. Having stepped through the portal of death, human beings find themselves on the whole, as you know—at least for the first few decades—endowed with a degree of substance similar to that of our sleeping state while on earth. This substance cannot remain quite so attenuated as that pertaining to the time of our physical incarnation, otherwise all experiences between death and a new birth would remain totally unconscious. They do not, as we know. On the contrary, a certainly different, but much brighter and more powerful consciousness than that which prevails while we are in our physical body comes about between death and a new birth. So we must ask how this form of consciousness emerges while we dwell in our astral body and ego-being. In physical life here on earth we possess our physical instrument which permeates us—or we could say envelops us—with all the ingredients which make up the physical world: that is, the mineral, the plant and the animal kingdoms. The physical body thus prepared for us is our tool for waking life. In a similar way a tool is prepared for us which serves us between death and a new birth. Because we are human beings, the first thing to be prepared for us after death, as soon as we have laid aside our etheric body, is something that comes from the hierarchy of the angeloi. We are mingled with the substance of the hierarchy of the angeloi. One being from this hierarchy actually belongs to us, is the leading being of our human individuality. As we now grow upwards into the spiritual world this being from the hierarchy of the angeloi who belongs to us is joined by other beings from this hierarchy, and together they mould in us—or rather for us—a kind of angeloi organism, the structure of which differs from that of our physical organism. To make a diagram of this, we could say: We grow upwards through the portal of death into the spiritual world. This is a sketch of our own individuality (mauve in the diagram). Linked with it is the one angel being who, we feel, is given to us by the hierarchy of the angeloi (red). But when we lay aside our etheric body, this angel being forms a relationship with other beings of the hierarchy of the angeloi—it links up with them, and we feel the whole of the world of the angeloi within ourselves. We feel it to be within ourselves, it is an inner experience—except, of course, for the external experiences which also result.  This permeation by the world of the angeloi makes it possible for us to relate to other disembodied human beings who have passed through the portal of death before us. Let me put it like this: Just as here our senses link us to the external world, so the condition of being embedded in the world of the angeloi links us to the spiritual beings, including human beings, whom we find in the spiritual world. Just as here in the physical world, in accordance with the prevailing conditions, we receive an organism which is organized in a certain way, so do we receive an organism of spirit which is brought into being by this network of angeloi substances. How this network of angeloi substances is structured, however, depends very much on the manner in which we work our way up to the spiritual world. If we work our way up in such a way that we have little sensitivity for the spiritual world because we have far too many echoes of physical pleasures, urges and instincts, physical sympathies and antipathies, then the formation of our angeloi organism is difficult. This is why we tarry for a while in the soul world, as we called it, so that we can free ourselves from all that permeates us from the physical world and prevents us from forming our angeloi organism properly. It is gradually developed while we tarry in the soul world. We grow towards this angeloi organism. But concurrently another necessity arises—the necessity to permeate ourselves not only with this angeloi organism but also with another substance, that of an archangeloi organism. Our consciousness in the spiritual world between death and a new birth would remain exceedingly dull if we could not permeate ourselves with the archangeloi organism. If we were to be permeated only with the angeloi organism, we would be dreamers in the spiritual world. We would be woven out of all kinds of Imaginative substances belonging to the spiritual world, but we would dream away our time between death and a new birth. So that we do not dream this time away, so that a strong, clear consciousness can come about, we have to be permeated by the archangeloi organism (blue in the diagram). This gives our consciousness the right clarity. Only through this do we wake up in the spiritual world. Now the degree to which we wake up in the spiritual world determines the degree to which we can have a free relationship with the physical world. And a free relationship with this physical world is something we must have. Let us ask what is the relationship of the physical world with the excarnated human beings who have passed through the portal of death. You can find the answer to this, too, in the lectures given in Vienna. Here in the physical world it is difficult for human beings, however strong their yearning, to rise up in thought and feeling to a perception of the spiritual, heavenly world. Human beings thirst for ideas about the heavenly world, but they cannot easily unfold the powerful capacity for forming ideas necessary to bring this heavenly world into their reach. In a certain sense the situation is the opposite during life in the spiritual world between death and a new birth. Into this world we are followed by what we experience in the physical world; we are followed by what was important in the physical world, by what we perceived here. We are followed by all this in a very extraordinary way. The examples I give will show you how complicated these things are. In the light of our capacity to form ideas in the physical world, these examples will sometimes appear grotesque—even paradoxical—but it is impossible to enter in a concrete way into the spiritual world without also taking account of precisely these ideas. Perception of all that exists in the mineral kingdom is lost almost as soon as we step through the portal of death. Here in the physical world, because we have senses, our capacity for perception is greatest with regard to the mineral kingdom. Indeed, we could almost say it is virtually exclusive, for other than the mineral kingdom there is not much that we can perceive as long as we are confined to our senses. You might say that we perceive animals and plants as well. Why do we? A plant is full of minerals, and what we perceive in the plant is everything mineral that streams and pulsates through it. The same goes for the animals. So it is true to say that here on earth human beings perceive with their senses almost exclusively what belongs to the mineral kingdom. When we die this mineral kingdom, so clearly perceived here, disappears. Take an example. Every day you perceive salt on your table, you perceive it as an external mineral product. But someone who has left his body and gone through the portal of death cannot see this salt in the salt-cellar. However, when you sprinkle the salt in your soup, and then swallow it, a process takes place within you, and that process, which is accompanied by the sensation of the salty taste, is perceived by the one who has died. From the moment when your tongue begins to taste the salt, from the moment when a process takes place within you, the one who has died can perceive the salt in the way it works. This is how things are. So those who have gone through the portal of death cannot perceive the mineral kingdom unless it has an influence in some way on a human or animal or plant organism. This shows that what might be called the external environment of the dead is quite different from what we are accustomed to calling our environment here between birth and death. One thing, however, always remains perceptible to the dead, and it is important to pay attention to this. It is whatever has been filled with human thoughts and feelings; it is the human thoughts which are perceived. Salt in a salt-cellar, as a product of nature, is not perceived by the dead. Nor do they perceive the salt-cellar, whether it is made of glass or any other material. But in so far as human thoughts have come to rest in the salt-cellar during the process of its manufacture, these human thoughts are perceived by the dead. When you consider how everything around us, except what is purely the product of nature, bears the signature of human thoughts, you will have a good idea of what the dead can perceive. They also perceive all relationships between beings, including those between human beings. All this is alive for them. There are certain things in the physical world, however, of which the dead endeavour to rid themselves; they want to expel them from their ideas and soul experiences—as it were, wipe them out. Their desire to do this is comparable to the longing on the part of human beings here on earth to gain certain insights about the world beyond. Here we long to achieve ideas about the next world. After death, as regards certain human matters here on earth—the world beyond, from the viewpoint of the dead—we long to extinguish them, to wipe them away. But to do this it is necessary to be filled with the substances of the higher hierarchies of angeloi and archangeloi. Once the dead are filled with these substances they can extinguish from their consciousness what must be extinguished. This, then, gives you an idea of how the dead grow into the spiritual world by filling their individuality through and through with the substances of beings of the higher hierarchy. It is very important to understand that in order to remove from consciousness all the things with which they are more or less personally connected—and that means everything manufactured and consequently bearing within it human thoughts which enable the dead to perceive it—the dead must, above all else, fill themselves with the substance of the angeloi. Other things, too, must be cast aside, must be extinguished, so that the dead can find their way to a proper sojourn in the spiritual world. Strange though it may sound from our standpoint here on earth, there is an obstacle to growing into what gives us a clear, enlightened consciousness in the spiritual world. This obstacle standing in the way of growing easily into the spiritual world is, strangely enough, human language, the language we use here on earth for the purpose of a physical understanding from one human being to another. The dead have to gradually grow away from language, otherwise they would remain stuck in the affinities which bind them to language and which would prevent them from growing into the kingdom of the archangeloi. Language is definitely only suitable for earthly conditions. And within earthly conditions the human being has, in his soul, become very strongly linked with language. For many people, especially now in this materialistic age, thinking has come to be virtually contained in language. People today think hardly at all in thoughts but very strongly indeed in language, in words. That is why they find it so satisfying to find the right term for something. But such terms, such definitions in words, are only valid here in physical life, and after death our task is to extricate ourselves from definitions in words. In such matters, too, spiritual science gives us a certain possibility to find our way into the realm of the super-sensible. How often do I say to you that to reach a genuine concept we can only approximate; we can only, so to speak, feel our way all around the actual words. How often have I not shown you how we have to endeavour to reach the concept by approaching it from all sides, by experimenting with the use of different expressions in order to free ourselves of the actual words. Spiritual science in a certain sense emancipates us from language. Indeed it does this very fully, thus bringing us into the sphere which we share with the dead. Emancipation from language is intimately bound up with the way the dead grow into the substance of the archangeloi. By emancipating ourselves from language in spiritual science, by creating concepts in spiritual science which are more or less independent of language, we build a bridge between the physical and the spiritual world. Take a clear look at what I have just said. You will then find that you have understood an important connection between the physical and the spiritual world. And if you think the thought through in a living way you will discover an important means by which to understand all kinds of impulses that emanate from those brotherhoods about which we have spoken on numerous occasions in the past weeks. From various things I have said you will have gathered that these brotherhoods make it their business to fetter human beings to the material world. Just recently we spoke of how these brotherhoods are eager to make materialism super-materialistic or, in a way, to create a kind of ahrimanic immortality for their members. They can do this most strongly by representing group interests, group egoisms, and they certainly do this outstandingly. One way of representing a group interest is followed by the most influential among these brotherhoods, whose point of departure is something I have already described to you. It is their aim to thoroughly immerse the fifth post-Atlantean cultural period in everything connected with the English language. To these brotherhoods the very definition of the fifth post-Atlantean period is that every English-speaking element belongs to the fifth post-Atlantean period. Thus, even in their primary principle, they restrict things to an egoistic group interest. This involves something extremely important from the spiritual point of view. It means that their intention is nothing less than the aim of influencing not only human individuals while they are incarnated in physical bodies between birth and death, but indeed all human individuals, including those who are living between death and a new birth. They are striving to let human individualities enter into the spiritual world and become immersed in the hierarchy of the angeloi, but then to prevent them from becoming immersed in turn in the hierarchy of the archangeloi. The aim is, one could say, to depose the hierarchy of the archangeloi from the evolution of mankind! Perhaps not those of you who have recently joined us, but certainly those who have been with us for some considerable time will discover, if you pay close attention to many things you have been told, that there are clear signs of such things, even in the Theosophical Society. Those of you who shared in the life of the Theosophical Society will surely remember that certain leading members of that society, especially the notorious Mr Leadbeater, said in so many words that in many ways the life between death and a new birth was a kind of dream-life. Those of you who had been members of the Theosophical Society for some time will know that such things were circulated. It is not extraordinary that such things have been said, for in the case of some souls, who had been successfully influenced in this way and who were found by Leadbeater in the spiritual world, this had actually happened. These souls had indeed been prevented from contact with the world of the archangeloi and they therefore lacked any strong, clear consciousness. So in his way Leadbeater was observing souls who had fallen prey to the machinations of those brotherhoods, only he did not go so far as to observe what became of those souls after a while. Such souls cannot spend their whole time between death and a new birth without the ingredients which would normally be given to them by the world of the archangeloi, so they have to receive something else instead. And they do indeed receive something that is an equivalent; they are indeed permeated by something; but what? They are permeated by something that comes from archai who have remained behind at the stage of the archangeloi. So, instead of being permeated by the substance of the real archangeloi—as would be normal—they are permeated by archai, by time spirits, but by those who have not ascended to the level of the time spirits but have remained behind at the level of the archangeloi. They would have become archai if they had evolved normally, but they have remained behind at the level of the archangeloi. That means that these souls are permeated by ahrimanic influences in the strongest manner. You need to have a proper idea of the spiritual world in order to comprehend the full significance of a fact such as this. When occult means are used in an endeavour to secure for a single folk spirit the rulership over the whole world, this means that the intention is to influence even the spiritual world. It means that in the place of the legitimate rulership of the dead by the archangeloi, is put the illegitimate rulership by archai who have remained at the stage of the archangeloi and who are, therefore, illegitimate time spirits. With this, ahrimanic immortality is achieved. You might ask why human beings can be so foolish as to allow themselves to be programmed away from normal evolution and into quite another evolutionary direction. This is a short-sighted judgement, for it fails to take into account that out of certain impulses human beings can indeed come to long for immortality in worlds other than those that would be normal. It is well and good that you do not long for any part in some kind of ahrimanic immortality! But just as all kinds of things are incomprehensible, so you will have to admit that it must be allowed to remain incomprehensible, if people in the normal world—including life between death and a new birth—want to escape from this normal world, saying—as it were: We do not want Christ to be our guide, Christ, who is the guide for the normal world; we want a different guide, for we want to oppose this normal world. From the preparations they undergo—I have described these to you—from the preparations brought about by ceremonial magic, they gain the impression that the world of ahrimanic powers is a far more powerful spiritual world and that it will above all enable them to continue what they have achieved in the physical world—making immortal their materialistic experiences in physical life. The time is ripe for looking into these things, because those who do not know about them, those who do not know that such endeavours exist today, are not in a position to understand what is going on. Behind everything visible in the physical world there lies something that is supernatural, something physically imperceptible. And there are today not a few who work, either for good or for bad, with means, with impulses that are hidden behind what the senses can perceive. It can be said that the world in which we live will follow its proper evolution if human beings place themselves in the service of Christ. But there are many and varied means by which this can be avoided, and some of these are so close to home that it is not easy to speak about them. People have no idea of what can spread through human souls, yet at the same time work as an immeasurably strong occult impulse. You know—now this is close to home—that at a certain point of time the doctrine of infallibility was declared. This doctrine of infallibility—and this is the important aspect—is accepted by many people. But someone who is a true Christian might wonder about this doctrine of infallibility. He could ask himself what the early fathers of the Church, who were much closer to the original meaning of Christianity, would have said about it. They would have called it a blasphemy! In a truly Christian sense, this would hit the nail on the head. And at the same time it would point to an exceptionally effective occult method of stimulating faith by means of something eminently anti-Christian. This faith represents an important occult impulse in a particular direction, away from normal Christian evolution. As you see, we can touch on something quite close to home, and wherever we do so in the world we find occult impulses. A similarly powerful occult impulse, which failed, was sought by Mrs Besant when she launched the Alcyone fiasco. If a belief in the incarnation of Jesus in Alcyone had taken hold, this would have become a strong occult impulse. So you see that even the mere spread of certain concepts, certain ideas, can contain strong occult impulses. And since those brotherhoods of whom I have spoken have set themselves the task of making the fifth post-Atlantean period—in the egoistic interest of their group—into the long-term aim of earthly evolution, eliminating what ought to come into this earthly evolution in the sixth and seventh post-Atlantean periods, you will understand why these brotherhoods send out into the world the things that I have described. To achieve their aims they have to create impulses which are meaningful not only for incarnated human beings but also for those who are not incarnated. The time has come when it is necessary that at least a few solitary individuals understand these things so that they can gain an idea of what is actually going on and being accomplished. For this to be possible, concepts about the life of mankind on earth must come into being which are ever more and more right. It is unthinkable that those concepts can continue which are causing so much harm in our time. For the more human beings there are who have the right concepts, the less will certain occult trends be able to stir up trouble. However, as long as the things which are being said continue to be said in Europe today, things deliberately distorting the truth about the relationships of nations with one another, this is a sign that many occult impulses are at work with the aim of distracting earthly evolution away from the sixth post-Atlantean period. After all, important things are going to be brought about by the sixth post-Atlantean period. I have stressed very strongly that Christ died for the individual human being. We must see this as an essential aspect of the Mystery of Golgotha. He has an important task during the fifth post-Atlantean period which we shall leave aside for the moment. But He also has an important task in the sixth period. This is to help the world to overcome the last vestiges of the principle of nationality. That this should not happen, that steps should be taken in good time to prevent any influence by Christ in the sixth post-Atlantean period—this is the purpose served by the impulses of those brotherhoods who want to preserve the fifth post-Atlantean period in the manner I have shown. The only counter-measure is to create the right concepts and gradually imbue them ever increasingly with life. These right concepts must live. Nations could dwell so peacefully side by side if only they would endeavour to discover the right concepts and ideas about their relationships. As I have said, no programme, no abstract idea, but solely the right concrete concepts, can lead to what must come about. Difficult though it is in the face of current ideas, by which our friends, too, have of course been not a little infected, nevertheless it is necessary to draw people's attention to various aspects which can lead to the right concepts. You all have at your disposal the necessary materials on which to base these right concepts, but these materials are not illuminated properly. As soon as they are correctly illuminated you will arrive at the correct, concrete ideas. Let us now take up something we have already discussed from a certain viewpoint. Here on this globe, in the Europe we inhabit, the relationships between nations are spoken about in a way that inflicts utter torture on the dead, for all the ideas and concepts are based on the peculiarities of language. By forming concepts about nationality based on the peculiarities of language, people persistently torture the dead. One way of torturing the dead, one way of failing to show them love, is to participate in spiritualist seances. For this forces them to manifest in a particular language. The dead person is expected to speak a particular language, for even with table-rapping the signs have to refer to a particular language. What is done to the dead by forcing them to express themselves in a particular language might very well be compared with pinching someone living in the flesh with red-hot tongs. So painful for the dead are spiritualist seances which expect them to express themselves in a particular language. For in their normal life the dead are striving to free themselves from the differentiations between languages. So, simply by speaking about the relationships between the peoples of Europe in concepts based on language, we are doing something about which we are barely able to communicate with the dead. That is why I could say that it is necessary today, or beginning to be necessary, to form concepts of a kind which can be discussed with the dead, or about which we can have communication with the dead. Of course there is no need to inundate the world with Volapuk or some other constructed language, for though it is true that all people wear clothes, they need not all wear the same clothes. On the other hand, though, we cannot be expected to see our clothes as part of ourselves. Similarly something we need for the physical world, namely the differentiation between languages—which serve the purpose of bringing the spiritual realm into the physical world—cannot be seen as belonging to our inmost archetypal being. We must be clear about this. So how can we arrive at concepts which gradually rise above the ethnic elements which are almost exclusively based on language? In this, too, Anthroposophy must rise above mere anthropology, which has really no other means of answering this question except by referring to the differentiations of language. As I said, the peoples of Europe could easily live in peace if only they could find suitable concepts, concepts which are alive. We took a step towards this when we discussed Grimm's law of sound-shifts. There I showed you how some languages have remained behind at an earlier stage. We spoke of the sequence of stages: Gothic, Anglo-Saxon—present-day English—and then High German. High German has continued to advance while English has remained at a certain stage. This is not a value judgement but merely a fact which has to be observed as objectively as a law of nature. In English we have d where in High German there is t, and we saw that this conforms with a certain law, the law of sound-shifts. However, this law of sound-shifts is, in a certain sphere, an expression of more profound conditions prevailing in the whole of European life. In this connection it is worth noting that certain concepts and ideas work with a vengeance, albeit unconsciously, to bring about misunderstandings. These things, too, must be seen entirely objectively. Taking our departure from what we have said so far, we could state that in Central Europe there existed what we might call the ‘primordial soup’ for what later streamed out to the periphery, particularly towards the West. Let us take a closer look at this ‘primordial soup’ (see diagr, below). For a very long time it has been customary for the nation which represents this ‘primordial soup’ to call itself ‘das deutsche Volk’. The peoples of the West have exercised a kind of revenge on this nation by refusing to call them by the name they have chosen for themselves, a name which signifies a profound instinct. They are called ‘Teutons’, ‘Allemands’, ‘Germans’, all kinds of things, but never, by those who speak a western language, ‘Deutsche’. Yet this is the very name that has deep links with the nature of this people which is, in a way, the ‘primordial soup’. One stream of this went southwards. We described it as the papal, hierarchical cultic element. Another stream went towards the West. We described this when we spoke of the diplomatic, political element. And a third stream went towards the North-west. We described it in connection with the mercantile element. At the centre there remained something that has retained a fluidity which allows for further evolution. You need only remember that in the periphery even language has stopped developing, whereas in the German language of Central Europe there still exists, in the sound-shifts, the possibility of growing beyond the sounds and ascending to the next stage of sound-evolution. What is the basis for this? The ‘primordial soup’ was still virtually undifferentiated, bearing within it all the elements which then streamed outwards. They really did stream outwards. The migrating peoples moved right down through Italy. Present-day Italians are not the descendants of the Romans; they are the result of all that arose through the mingling of the Germanic tribes as they moved southwards. The whole process began when the Romans used the Germans whom they had absorbed to wage war on other Germans, for these were their best warriors. Things then continued in the manner familiar to us from history. Similarly, the Franks migrated westwards and the Anglo-Saxons north-westwards. How can we gain a proper conception of what it was that migrated outwards in this way? The undifferentiated ‘primordial soup’ of humanity was not quite without structure, even though it was undifferentiated. It is right to distinguish between what was at first undifferentiated and what later became differentiated. The ‘primordial soup’ contains what migrated down towards the south; it is there as one of the parts. This part (red in the diagram) migrated southwards with all its one-sidedness. Drawing an analogy to what people meant by the ancient castes, we could say that a caste migrated southwards, a caste with a capacity for priestly things—a priestly caste. Since then a priestly element has always emanated from that part of the periphery. This has taken many forms and, although in an extraordinary way, even the latest phase has a kind of priestly character. Not only is the impulse called ‘holy egoism’, sacro egoismo, but also, d'Annunzio, for instance, could not have used words of a more priestly nature. Right down to the rephrased ‘Beatitudes’, everything that came from that quarter was clothed in priestly robes. Whether good or bad, everything was of a priestly nature. What remained in the ‘primordial soup’ became the opposition to all this, in the way I have described. What appeared in the Reformation was the element which had remained in the ‘primordial soup’; it came to be the opponent of the one-sided priestly element. The fact that today nothing more can be detected of this priestly element, or that all that can be detected is what is obviously there, is simply the result of that hollowing-out of which I have spoken. The second element migrated westwards: the warrior caste, the kingly caste, the element of kingship. We have spoken of this, too. This western part only fell into republicanism because of an anomaly. In actual fact it is inwardly structured through and through in a warlike, kingly manner and it will ever and again fall back into this warlike, kingly element. Again we have something that has streamed out, so that a part of this element which has streamed out towards the West has also remained in the ‘primordial soup’ and will in turn have to provide the opposition to what takes place in the West (blue).  And north-westwards went the mercantile element. It, too, remains as a part (orange) and will have to stand in opposition to what has developed one-sidedly. No moral evaluation is meant by this, for let no one believe that I in any way share the opinion, expressed so frequently, that the mercantile element is something despicable in comparison with the priestly element. All these things must be seen in their dissimilarity, but they must not be labelled and evaluated. Indeed, for the fifth post-Atlantean period, as we have seen, the mercantile element is something utterly essential. But we really must see the realities as they exist. If people cannot see them now, then they will come to see them in the future. From one quarter many occult impulses have emanated which have used the priestly element in the interests of certain groups, and from another quarter have come occult impulses which have used the warlike element. In the same way, from a third quarter, occult impulses are emanating today which prefer to use the mercantile element as their vehicle. They will be stronger than the others, for numbers I and II are only repetitions of the third and fourth post-Atlantean periods, whereas number III belongs fully to the fifth post-Atlantean period. Therefore, all the impulses that come from the third quarter will be stronger than those coming from the first and second quarters because they coincide with the fundamental character of the fifth post-Atlantean period. They will be as strong as certain impulses were during the Egyptian civilization in the third post-Atlantean period, and others which emanated from the Near East and transplanted themselves through the cultures of Greece and Rome during the fourth post-Atlantean period. The sorcery of the ancient Egyptians and the blood sacrifices—these are the forerunners of what comes from the secret brotherhoods of which we have been speaking, though what comes from them will be something different. Because it makes use of the mercantile element it will have a more common-or-garden character in the ordinary human sense. We really must be clear about these things. Only if human beings feel themselves to be immersed in a living way in what truly exists can healing come to evolution. Through this alone is it possible, within what happens, to learn to distinguish what is true from what is untrue. We have heard how necessary it is to learn to distinguish between truth and falsehood—that falsehood which is the cause of the huge groundswell of impulses now running through the world. So many false ideas bear within them a powerful occult force if they are believed by human beings. Just as in earlier times other media served the impulses which were at work, so in our own time, in the fifth post-Atlantean period, the art of printing books and everything that exists in the mercantile element serves these purposes. We have a foretaste of the terrible things to come in people's strong dependence on everything put out in the Press by mercantile groups by means of the medium of printing. The aims of these groups are anything but what they say they are in their newspapers. They want to make profits, or achieve certain things through doing business, and for this they possess the means by which they can disseminate views whose truthfulness is irrelevant but which serve the purpose of entering into certain kinds of business. In the case of much of the printed matter distributed around the world today the right question to ask is not: What does this person mean? but: In whose service does this person stand? Who is paying for this or that opinion? This is often the crucial question these days. The secret brotherhoods about whom we have been speaking are not concerned with suppressing these things, but rather promoting them as an important occult means of which they can make use. An important aim is achieved by them when what is said no longer matters, as long as it exercises influence over people in the interests of certain groups. The important thing is to see these things as clearly and soberly as possible. And we can only discern the nuances sufficiently if we see them properly in their connections with the spiritual worlds. I am referring to the symptoms, to the symptoms of history, as I have said. Of course you must not expect to find black magic behind every phenomenon. But there are phenomena which are used in the service of grey or black magic. It is also not necessary to pass moral judgements on everything; you must simply see things in the proper light. For someone who wants to see things in the proper way, certain words spoken by Sir Edward Grey will surely be unforgettable and startling—words appearing among other, less important, things which nevertheless also had to be said in order to make the whole thing credible. These words were part of the great speech he made to introduce England's entry into this European war, and they are saturated with the blood—I mean the soul blood—of the fifth post-Atlantean period. These words are not only true but more than true; their truth is drawn from what lives in a materialistic way in the fifth post-Atlantean period. ‘We are going’, says Grey, ‘to suffer, I am afraid, terribly in this war whether we are in it or whether we stand aside. Foreign trade is going to stop, not because the trade routes are closed, but because there is no trade at the other end. Continental nations engaged in war—all their populations, all their energies, all their wealth, engaged in a desperate struggle—they cannot carry on the trade with us that they are carrying on in times of peace, whether we are parties to the war or whether we are not,’ and so on. The whole of western Europe stands today under the dominion of a single question of power. This talk of trade, and that it is for considerations of trade that it is important not to remain detached from the war—this is far more profoundly truthful than all the other things contained in this speech, things which only had to be said in order to make this speech credible. It no longer matters what people say, as long as it is believed. They might even say it unconsciously. Neither am I passing a moral judgement on anyone. What does matter is the ability to recognize—on the basis of the inner truth of human evolution—where the truth is being expressed. And this was a point at which the truth in the truest sense was spoken. The same facts, the same truths are truthfully expressed which, once they have been suitably developed by those brotherhoods of whom we have spoken, lead to the impregnation of the mercantile trend with occult impulses. This must become known to mankind; it must be experienced by mankind. If human beings were not to experience this, they would not grow sufficiently strong. They must harden themselves by opposing what lies in the impulses we have described. In an earlier age there existed a tyranny which forced people to believe only what was recognized by Rome. A far greater tyranny will come about when neither philosophers nor scientists decide what should be believed but when the tools of those secret brotherhoods alone specify what is to be believed, when they alone make sure that no human soul may harbour any beliefs other than those dictated by them, when nothing new is done in the world except what is stipulated by them alone. This is the goal of these brotherhoods. And though I have nothing against idealists—for idealism is always something good—certain idealists are naive if they believe that these things are only temporary and will disappear again once the war comes to an end. The war is only the beginning of the way things are tending to go. And the only possibility of getting beyond this lies in the clear and proper understanding of what is going on. Nothing else is of any use. Therefore—although certain quarters will not be pleased to hear and see them and will take steps against them—there will always have to be people who clearly point out the full intensity of what is really going on, people who cannot be deterred from pointing out the full intensity of what is happening. At the beginning of these considerations I said that the Germans called themselves ‘Deutsche’, but that they met with no understanding on the part of those who call them ‘Germans’, or whatever else. Seen from their own point of view, ‘German’ is exactly what they are not, for those who call themselves ‘Deutsche’ consider that ‘Germanic’ refers to all those whose languages are at the same stage historically, and this does not include High ‘German’ or anything that is ‘Deutsch’. From their point of view the Scandinavians, the Anglo-Saxons, the Dutch are ‘Germans’, and they mean by this nothing more than that below the surface their languages are related. So ‘Germans’ no longer means much to those who call themselves ‘Deutsche’ because all of this no longer has any reality today. Thus, when outside Germany the phrase ‘pan-Germanic’ is coined, this is quite meaningless to those who call themselves ‘Deutsche’ because for them ‘Germanic’ can no longer have any real substance. Different national structures have formed, and to use the purely theoretical expression ‘pan-Germanic’ is simply to regress to an earlier age; it expresses nothing that has any connection with the future or even with the present. The designation ‘Deutsch’, however, is based on a profound instinct. Differentiated out of what I called the ‘primordial soup’ came the three castes, the first, the second and the third caste. They developed and migrated. The fourth caste I have already described as those who simply wanted to be human beings, and nothing else. They always remained where they were and, as a result, underwent developments which to the others seemed grotesque—for instance, in relation to the first sacramental stage of alliteration, which went on to develop into the sound-shift. This is most interesting because it is a link among many others. Let us put it this way: Those who migrated were various differentiations of ‘the people’; and those who remained were ‘the people’ per se, the ‘volk’, the ‘diet’. The name Dietrich, for instance, means ‘he who is rich in people’. ‘Diet’ later became ‘deutsch’, and to be ‘Deutsch’ means nothing other than to be ‘the people’. The people who remained where they were are the fourth caste. The other three migrated, ‘the people’ remained. So this is the profound instinct that lies behind the designation ‘Deutsch’; it simply denotes the human element. Therefore, what stayed where it was as ‘the people’ has the capacity to be felt, not as something that has developed organically, but as something that has remained fluid in its development so that it can go beyond all the differentiations. Certainly the priestly element is there, but there is the possibility of going beyond the priestly element. The warlike element is there, but there is the possibility of going beyond the warlike element. The mercantile element is also there, but there is the possibility of going beyond the mercantile element. Similarly in language; the older form was there, but there was the possibility of going beyond it. Connected with this, though, is a phenomenon which understandably has led to endless misunderstandings. Seen at a deeper level, these are tragic misunderstandings, but they come about because, of course, in the ‘primordial soup’ there is much which contains the germs of what later reappears in the periphery. Yet whereas in the periphery it is seen as characteristic and fitting, when it is discovered in the ‘primordial soup’ it is thought to be totally abnormal. Let us take militarism. This does not belong to the nature of the German people at all, it belongs to the French. In France no fault is found with it, because there it has developed organically. But when it is discovered in Germany it is seen as something improper which ought not to be there. Fault is found with it when it comes to the fore as a result of some emergency situation such as the geographical situation we discussed at length earlier. Or take the German ‘Junker’; all he represents is what developed in the British Empire into something absolutely acceptable, the aristocratic squire. Simply because it developed in its own way in Central Europe it stands out like a sore thumb and is seen as a provocation. Thus there arise endless misunderstandings; indeed the world is full of things that are misunderstood, it is full of subjective interpretations of reality. Wherever you look, you find all kinds of ideas which crumble on closer inspection. Those who really understand what is going on have no use for these things, those whose thinking is based on reality have no use for them, and yet they work as impulses; in public opinion they act like dynamite. They elbow their way into public opinion. Some would be infinitely funny if they were not so infinitely tragic. Here is an example. Treitschke is described by the nations of the Entente as a monster, as a person whose views are an abomination for Europe. He is presented as typifying those views about Central Europe which justify inflicting on Central Europe its just deserts. But let us look at some of Treitschke's views. What does he think, for instance, of the Turks? He thinks that they should depart from Europe, that they should not be allowed to live in Europe but should scatter themselves across Asia. What we read today in the note to Wilson exactly expresses Treitschke's view! Fault is found with Treitschke, but in this matter, as in countless others, his opinion is taken up and even acted upon. His views on Turkey might just as well have been copied straight down in the note to Wilson. This is what I mean by an idea which crumbles; as soon as you apply any knowledge or understanding it disintegrates. Other concepts disintegrate, too, as soon as a little knowledge is applied. But most people today make statements without any knowledge, much to the advantage of those who want to spread their ideas in the dark. How often do we hear today that it is perfectly ‘humane’ to surround and starve out Central Europe. Among the various reasons given for this most humane method of warfare is the justification that in 1870 the Germans did just the same. They found it perfectly ‘humane’ to surround and starve out Paris; and the relative size of the territories in question is irrelevant. Only someone who knows nothing of history can talk like this—of course I do not mean the history you can read in the newspapers! But what were the facts? In 1870/71 Bismarck, who was responsible for starving Paris out, was totally against doing any such thing. You can read in his book how distressed he was that the impulse came from England, via the English princess who later became the Empress Friedrich, to conquer Paris by starvation rather than by any other means. He writes that unfortunately they were forced by the Englishwoman to apply ‘this humane method’ to Paris; he speaks of the humane English method. That is the real historical context. But, of course, you have to know about it if you want to judge things without using ideas which crumble. Comparing the two situations, they seem so truly alike. But very often things are not at all alike when they are compared against the full background. In this case the ‘humane’ method of starving Paris out is an English invention of recent history. So the objection now being made should not be made, if reality is to be the basis. To work with reality, to understand things on the basis of reality—this alone can lead to salvation today. To be able to meet the request of many of our friends to investigate current events, we have had to discuss things we usually discuss in other connections, in order that our souls might experience the deep seriousness with which the reality of events must be seen. If just a few people can be found who are willing to see things as they really are, then the grim times we are about to face will be followed by better times. The seeds take a while to ripen. But if you sow thoughts of reality in your souls today, these are real seeds capable of ripening, and we can add that these are thoughts about which one can be in agreement with the dead. It is so painful to hear on all sides these days that ‘we owe this or that to the dead’. This event, which for convenience sake is still termed ‘war’, though it has long since become something utterly different—how often do those who want to prolong this event proclaim all the things we are supposed to owe to the dead, to those who have fallen! If people only knew how they blaspheme against God when they maintain that we owe it to the dead to prolong these bloody events; if only they knew the position of the dead in this matter, they would quickly distance themselves from this blasphemy! So, my dear friends, from all these things which come about through human beings, you see how necessary it is to build a bridge between the living and the dead. Spiritual science will build this bridge. Spiritual science will bring about a possibility of reaching an understanding, even with those who have passed through the portal of death. A life of community will embrace all human souls—those embodied on the earth and those living between death and a new birth—when the fundamental nature of the human being is understood, when it is understood that life in the body and life without the body are simply two forms of one and the same all-embracing life. This knowledge, that the human being has two forms of life, one in the body and one without the body—this knowledge, if it is fundamentally understood, bears within it salvation for the future, but only if human beings fill themselves with these ideas in a truly living way. |
| 173c. Man's Position in the Cosmic Whole
28 Jan 1917, Dornach Tr. Unknown Rudolf Steiner |
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| Anthropology is a materialistic, external manner of contemplating things; it will be the task of Anthroposophy to reveal the truth, the real connections and true aspects. Since the human beings are now so far away from truth in their materialism, it is not surprising that people should talk in such an arbitrary and consequently untrue way of things, which to-day are even raised to the level of world-programmes! |
| 173c. Man's Position in the Cosmic Whole
28 Jan 1917, Dornach Tr. Unknown Rudolf Steiner |
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To-day I shall endeavour to speak of more general things, perhaps in the form of aphoristic considerations, and on Tuesday I shall describe the significance of our anthroposophical spiritual science for the present time, and for the evolution of humanity. On that occasion, I would also like to speak of something which is indeed worthy of our consideration, for, on the one hand, it will be a kind of retrospection of our activity and, on the other hand, it will be a description of certain things which may be important for the whole way of judging our spiritual-scientific movement and of the way in which we stand within it. I think that at the present moment it is necessary to consider such things more closely and to give them our best attention. I shall begin to-day with the description of some of the things which enable us to feel, as it were, our position in the universe. The human being of the materialistic age really feels himself, as it were, abandoned and lonely in the midst of the universe. You see, if we cut off a finger, or a hand, or if we amputate a leg of a human being, or if we take away from him something which is connected with his physical, bodily being, he will feel that the single part belongs to the whole body. In earlier times of human evolution, the human beings had different kinds of feelings. Not only did they feel that the hand, the arm or the leg formed part of their being, but they also felt that they themselves formed part of a whole. In regard to these earlier times, one could speak of a group-ego in an entirely different way than we do now; the families and tribes felt, throughout many generations, that they were a unity, a whole. We have often explained these things. But in these earlier times of human evolution still other feelings existed in regard to external physical life: the human beings felt, as it were, that they were standing within the whole universe, that they had been formed from out the whole universe. Just as we now feel that the finger or the hand are parts of our whole organism, so the human beings of a remote past felt: The sun is up there, in the sky; it travels along its course; that which constitutes the sun, is not entirely disconnected with us; we are a portion of that space through which the sun travels. And we are a portion of the universe which the moon brings into a certain rhythm. In short, the universe was experienced as a great organism and the human beings felt that they formed part of it, just as the finger now feels that it forms part of the body. The fact that this feeling and sensation has more or less been lost, is connected to a great extent with the gradual rise of materialism. At the present time, modern science in particular scorns to attribute any special value to the fact that we are standing within the cosmos. Science looks upon the human being, such as he presents himself as an individual corporality, investigates his single parts anatomically and physiologically and describes the observations which have thus been made. Science no longer has the habit of considering the human being as a member of the whole organism of the universe, in so far as this may be perceived physically. Human observation, and also scientific observation, must return to a manner of contemplation which once more incorporates the human being with the whole universe, with the cosmos. The human being must feel once more that he is standing within the whole cosmos. He will no longer be able to do this in the same way in which this has been done in the past; he must achieve this by enlarging the abstract science of the present time and by contemplating the individual human being with the aid of certain definite ideas and considerations; I shall indicate a few of these ideas, in order to show the direction of a future scientific manner of thinking, but this future scientific thought will, at the same time, be far more human than our modern scientific thought, and this new manner of thinking must arise if we are to find once more our consciousness within the cosmic whole. You know that the so-called vernal point, that is to say, the point where the sun rises in the spring, cannot always be found at the same place, but that it advances. It advances along that circle which we designate as the Zodiac. We know that this vernal point is designated.—and has always been designated for a long time, ever since humanity is able to think—by indicating that place in the Zodiac which coincides with the vernal point. In the 8th century before the Mystery of Golgotha, until about the 15th century after the Mystery of Golgotha, the sun could be seen rising in the spring in the sign of Aries, but not always at exactly the same place, for the vernal-point, the point where the sun rises, kept on advancing. Throughout the above-mentioned length, of time, it traveled through the sign of Aries. Since that time, the vernal point has advanced to the sign of Pisces. I must point out expressly that modern astronomy does not make its calculations upon the foundation of these signs, so that the calendars still indicate the vernal point in the sign of Aries, where it does not stand, in reality. Astronomy has maintained the accepted ideas of a former cycle of time and simply divides the whole Zodiac circle into twelve parts, completely ignoring the signs themselves and simply designating every twelfth part of the circle as a Zodiac sign; this subdivision will be maintained even though the vernal point advances. Our own calendar, instead, shows how matters really stand. But this is not so important, just now. The essential thing to bear in mind is that the vernal point advances along the whole Zodiac circle, so that the point where the sun rises is always a little further on. The vernal point must travel along the whole Zodiac and it will then return to its point of departure. The time required for this will be about 25,920 years. These 25,920 years are also designated as the so-called PLATONIC YEAR. Thus, the platonic year is a year of great duration. It embraces the time employed by the vernal point, by the point where the sun rises in the spring, to travel through the Zodiac. The time during which the sun's rising point has once more returned to its point of departure consequently embraces 25,920 years. The indications vary according to the various calculations, but just now the exact figures do not matter so much; the essential point to be borne in mind is the rhythm which these figures contain. It is possible to imagine that a great world-rhythm is contained in the fact that this movement, resulting from the explanations which I have just now given to you, always returns to its point of departure after 25,920 years. Thus we may say: These 25,920 years are most important for the life of the sun, because during that period the sun's life passes through a unity, through a real unity, a complete whole. The next. 25,920 years are a repetition. Thus we obtain a rhythmic repetition of this unity, consisting of 25,920 years. After having considered this great world-year, let us now consider something which is quite small and is intimately connected with our life between birth and death, that is to say, with our life, in so far as we are human beings of the physical cosmos. Let us consider this, to begin with. Undoubtedly, a respiration, consisting of one inspiration and of one expiration, is most important for our life within a physical body; our physical life is, after all, based upon the fact that the breath is drawn in and that it is sent out again. If our respiratory process were to be interrupted, we would not be able to live, physically. A respiration is indeed something very significant. Our breath brings us the air, which fills us with life, in the form in which it is able to do so; through our organism, we transform this air, so that it becomes a deathly air, which would kill us if we were to breathe it in again, in the condition in which it is immediately after we have breathed it out. On the average, a human being breathes 18 times a minute. This may, of course, vary, for our breathing is different in our youth, and in old age, but if we take an average, we obtain as a normal figure for the respiration, 18 breaths a minute. We thus renew our life rhythmically 18 times a minute. Let us now see how often we do this in one day. In one hour this would be equal to 18 x 60 = 1080. In 24 hours: 1080 x 24 = 25,920, that is to say, 25,920 times. You see, the way in which our life takes its course in one day, has a most peculiar rhythm. If we take one respiration as a unity, as a life-unity, this is very significant for us, since our life is maintained by the rhythmical repetition of the respiration. One day gives us exactly the same number of respiratory rhythms, as the number of years which the sun employs in order to lead back its vernal point to its point of departure. That is to say: if we imagine that one respiration is one year in miniature, we pass through one platonic year in miniature, so that in one day we have a reproduction, a microcosmic reproduction, of one platonic year. This is extremely important, for it shows us that our respiratory process, that is to say, something which takes place within our human being, is subjected to the same rhythm—differing only in time—as the rhythm which, on a large scale, lies at the foundation of the rhythm of the sun's course. It is important to place such a fact before our soul. For if we transform into a feeling what these explanations convey, this feeling will be of such a kind that it tells us: We are a reproduction of the macrocosm. It is not just a phrase, not only empty talk, if we say that man is an image of the macrocosm, for this can be proved in detail. This can also make you feel the sound foundation of all the laws which come from spiritual science, because they are all based upon this intimate knowledge of the inner connections, existing in the universe, but it is not always possible to set forth clearly every detail. When considering such things, we should, of course, realise, above everything else, that the human being is in part torn out of the whole universe. Seen as a whole, he stands within the rhythm of the universe, but at the same time he is, in a certain way, free; he modifies certain things, so that there is not an EXACT harmony, in every case. But the possibility of human freedom lies in the very fact that a perfect harmony does not always exist. The harmony, however, which exists as a whole, contains the fact that man stands within the whole cosmos. The observations which I have made just now, had to be made for a special reason, so that the things which I shall now tell you may not be misunderstood. After having considered the respiration, let us now consider a greater life-element, the next greatest life-element, namely, the alternating conditions of WAKING and SLEEPING. Our respiration may be looked upon as the smallest life-element. But let us now consider the alternating states of sleeping and waking. Indeed, in a certain way, we may consider the alternation of sleeping and waking in analogy with the breathing process. You know that I have frequently described how the astral body and the ego are taken up by us when we awake, and how we let them out when we fall asleep; I have frequently described this as a respiration, as a breath which is drawn in and sent out again during the course of one day and of one night. We may even contemplate this in a far more materialistic sense. When we breathe, the air goes in and it goes out. The air is therefore drawn in and it is breathed out again, so that this process simply sets forth an oscillation of material substance: in and out, in and out. In an entirely similar way, we may see a rhythmical process in the alternating conditions of sleeping and waking. For when we take up in ourselves our ego and our astral body, upon awakening in the morning, our etheric body is pushed back ... it is pushed back from the head, more into the other members of our organism. And when we fall asleep once more, and send our astral body and ego out of our body, then we may find, for instance that the etheric body spreads out in our head, in the same way in which it also spreads out in the whole inferior part of our body. Thus we have an incessant rhythmic process. The etheric body is pushed down—and we wake up; it remains down there while we are awake. When we fall asleep, it is once more pushed up into the head. And so it goes up and down, up and down, in the course of 24 hours, just as our breath goes in and out, in and out. Thus, we have a movement of the etheric, taking place in the course of 24 hours. Of course, also here irregularities may be found in the human being, for his capacity of freedom, his degree of freedom, are based upon this; but, on the whole, the things which I have explained to you may be taken as valid. Now we might say: Something, therefore, breathes within us, yet it is another kind of breathing, it is something which rises and falls ... it breathes within us in the course of one day, in the same way in which something breathes within us during the 18th part of a minute. Something breathes within us in the course of one day. Let us now see if that which breathes within us in the course of one day, if the rising and falling of our etheric body, which thus breathes within us, also sets forth something which resembles a circular movement, a return to a point of departure. In that case, we would have to investigate what 25,920 days really are. For 25,920 of these breaths, in which the etheric rises and falls, would have to correspond, in their rise and fall, to a reproduction of the platonic year. Just as one day corresponds to 25,920 respirations, so 25,920 days should also correspond to something in human life. How many years are 25,920 days? Let us see. Let us take the year with an average of 365¼ days, let us make a division and then we shall obtain as a result of the division 25,920 ÷ 365.25 = about 71 that is to say, about 71 years, which is the average duration of human life. Of course, the human being has his freedom and frequently he may grow much older. But you know that the patriarchal age is indicated as 70 years. Thus you have the duration of human life equal to 25,920 days, 25,920 of such great breaths! Once more, we obtain a cycle which reproduces microcosmically in a wonderful way the macrocosmic happenings. Thus we may say: If we live one day, we reproduce the platonic world-year with our 25,920 respirations; if we live 71 years, we again reproduce the platonic year with 25,920 great breaths, with the rising and falling pertaining to our waking up and our falling asleep. We may now pass on from this to something which would lead us too far, if I would explain it in detail to-day; but I shall indicate what may be felt occultly. We are enveloped by the air. The air supplies the possibility for our nearest life-element, which takes place in the rhythm of our respiration. We therefore obtain this rhythm from the air, which exists upon the earth. Who gives us the other rhythm?—The earth itself. For this rhythm is regulated through the fact that the earth turns round its own axis, if we wish to speak in the modern astronomic sense; it turns round its own axis during the change of day and night. Thus we may say: The air breathes within us when our breath goes in and out. Through the movement round its own axis, through the change of day and night, the earth breathes within us and causes us to wake up and to fall asleep, the earth breathes and pulses within us. In respect to the earth, the duration of our life may now be considered as one day of a living being, that draws its breath during the course of one day and of one night, not during the 18th part of a minute. For such a Being, 70 years would be equal to one day; in 70 years it would live through one of its days. And the changes of day and night, in the ordinary sense are the respiration of that Being. You see, this enables us to feel that we are standing within a more encompassing life, which merely has a longer respiration; that is to say, a respiration which takes its course in 24 hours—and a longer day, namely, 70–71 years. We may thus experience ourselves within a living Being, whose pulse and breathing rhythms are much longer than ours. This shows you that it is absolutely justified to speak of the microcosm as an image of the macrocosm, for the reproductiveness can be demonstrated with figures. When we therefore say: The air breathes within us, it uses itself up whilst breathing within us, and the earthly element breathes within us, in so far as we belong to that greater life-Being, we might eventually throw up the question: Perhaps we are not only connected with the air on the earth, and with the whole earth and its rhythms of day and night, but also with the rise of the sun, with its return to the point of departure in the course of one platonic year? Perhaps we are in some way also connected with this? These things are of greatest interest. But modern science passes them by, as if they did not exist at all, because such things are not taken into consideration by modern science. In a very tangible way, I have once come across the difference between modern science and that science which must arise one day. Perhaps I have already told you that in the autumn of 1889 I was summoned to collaborate in the Goethe and Schiller Archives at Weimar, for the preparation of Goethe's scientific writings, which I have then brought out for the larger Weimar edition of Goethe's works, the so-called “Sophia Edition.” My task was to study in the documents left by Goethe—everything connected with his anatomical, physiological, zoological, botanical, mineralogical, geological and also meteorological studies. Goethe made extraordinarily numerous observations on the weather, in the course of one year. He made observations on the weather particularly in connection with the heights of the barometer, and it is really surprising to see the great number of charts which Goethe drew up for meteorological purposes. Not many of these charts have been published, some of these have been reproduced in my edition, but very little of this material has been published. Just as fever curves are now registered, so Goethe registered the barometrical heights of one particular place, indeed, of several places, upon charts, by marking the barometrical heights on one particular day. He then observed them a few hours later, again a few hours later, and so forth. He did this for whole months, and thus endeavoured to discover the corresponding curves for various localities. Modern science has not yet advanced very far in the handling of barometrical curves. Goethe studied these curves, for he saw in them almost an analogue of the pulse which is registered on fever charts; that is to say, he wished to trace a kind of pulse of the earth, its constant regular pulse, of course. What did Goethe really aim at?—He wished to prove that the oscillations of the barometrical heights in the course of one year are not so irregular as ordinary meteorology assumes them to be, but that they contain a certain regularity, which is merely modified by inferior time-conditions. Goethe wished to prove that the gravitation of the earth represents its respiration, in the course of one year; he wished to indicate the very thing which also comes to expression in the human respiration. That is what he wished to re-discover in the barometrical heights. In future, THESE kinds of scientific observations will arise, for the microcosmic and the macrocosmic processes will once more be investigated. Goethe drew up quite a number of charts, in order to study the pulse of the earth, its respiration, the breath of the earth which goes in and out, as he himself designated it. Also in this connection you may therefore see that in Goethe we may find an endeavour to work in the direction of a science which will only arise in future. At the same time, we obtain a picture of the enormous diligence applied by Goethe; in order to reach the results which he actually did reach. In Goethe, we never discover mere statements, as is so frequently the case in other people. When others frequently speak of the pulse of the earth, they merely have in mind an image, a metaphor, and this is nothing but an aperçu for them. But when Goethe advances a statement, which he often recapitulates in three or four sentences ... for instance, when he says that the earth breathes in and out ... then he always draws up quite a number of tables and charts upon which he bases his statements, and there is always real experience behind them, whereas the majority of people say: “Real experience! This is but an echo, a fog!” Goethe in particular may show us that it is necessary to have something behind us whenever we advance a statement. Also in this way, we may therefore reach the point of recognising that the earth itself breathes just as if it were a great living being. Let us now try to see if it is possible to speak of a similar breathing process when we place ourselves within the whole platonic year of the sun. In that case, we would have 25,920 years. Let us now consider these 25,920 years as ONE year and investigate its relationship to one day. If we wish to consider the whole platonic year as one year and if we then wish to discover what would constitute one of its days, we would have to divide it by 365¼, and this would give us one day. If the whole represents one year and if we then divide it by 365¼, we obtain ONE day. Let us see what result we reach when we divide 25,920 years by 365¼. We obtain 71 years, which is the duration of a human life. In other words: the duration of a human life is equal to one day within the whole platonic year. In relation with the length of a human life, a whole platonic year may therefore be considered in such a way that we ourselves, as physical beings that pass through the length of our human life, are breathed out by that which is active within a whole platonic year, and in that case, 71 years, considered as ONE DAY, would correspond to one breath of that Being who passes through the platonic year. Within the 18th part of a minute, we are therefore a life-member of the air; within one day, we are a life-member of the earth; within the duration of our life, we may consider ourselves in such a way that at the moment of our birth we are breathed out by that great Being for whom a platonic year is equivalent to one year; we are breathed out and breathed in again in one of its days. If we consider, our physical body, we have within this physical body which passes through its patriarchal age, one breath of that great Being, whose life is so long, that 25,920 years correspond to one year. Our patriarchal age (71 years) is in that case equivalent to one day of that Being. If we therefore think of a Being that lives together with our earth, alternating day and night in the course of 24 hours, this would represent one respiration for our etheric body; the true respiration of our astral body would be equivalent 1/18th part of a minute. There you have an analogue for a very ancient statement. Consider the following fact: In ancient times, people imagined something which was designated as the days and nights of Brahma. There you have the analogue. Now imagine a spiritual Being, for whom our 71 years are equivalent to one breath of our air; in that case, we would be the breath of that Being. Through the fact that we are placed into the world, as tiny mites when we are born, we are breathed out by that Being who passes through the platonic year, as if it were one year, a Being who therefore measures its age in platonic years. That Being consequently breathes us out into the universe and when we die, it breathes us in again. We are thus breathed out and we are breathed in again. Let us now return to the earth. It breathes us in and out in the course of one day. And let us now go to the air, which forms part of the earth. It breathes us in and out in 1/18th of a minute; yet the number 25,920 always constitutes a return to the point of departure. This shows us a regular rhythm; we feel that we are standing within the universe; we learn to know that human life, and one day of human life, are, for greater and more encompassing Beings, equivalent to one of the breaths which we ourselves draw in our own life. And if we take up this knowledge through our feeling; the old saying, according to which we repose in the bosom of the universe, acquires an extraordinary significance. Such things undoubtedly lie in the direction of a scientific way of looking at things, and in order to make the right use of these figures, which are known to everybody and which may be found in every encyclopædia, we shall only require a. spiritual-scientific attitude. If these figures are once used in the right way and if their true value is recognised, a connection with spiritual science, with the anthroposophical spiritual science, will be found from out our ordinary science. In a similar way, we shall find that everything, indeed everything, is ordered according to the laws of number and measure. The biblical words, that everything in the universe is ordered according to the laws of number and measure, will in that case acquire a deep meaning through human science. Let us proceed. What is connected with our breathing, almost depends upon our breathing? It is our SPEECH. Indeed, from an organic standpoint, speech is connected with our breathing process. Speech does not only come from the same organ, but it is also connected with our breathing; that is to say, with what is contained in the rhythm of 1/18th of a minute. This is how we speak, and our fellow-men beside us speak in the same way. As far as the respiratory rhythm is concerned, the human beings in our environment speak in accordance with the air which is upon the earth and which envelops us. We might now deduce from this that also the breathing rhythm which is connected with day and night must be related in a definite way to speech, to a spoken intercourse, but in this case with Beings who belong to the organism of the earth; they belong to the earth's organism in the same way in which the human beings belong to the air—a spoken intercourse with Beings of that particular kind. The wisdom which has been transmitted to the human beings of a remote past by higher Beings, has not been transmitted to them in such a way that it was connected with the breathing rhythm of 1/18th of a minute, but it was connected with that breathing rhythm which has one day as its unity. In those ancient times, the human beings could not learn so quickly; they were obliged to wait, until words of such length had been spoken, corresponding to a breath which takes up 24 hours. This is how the ancient wisdom arose, and even to-day this fact lies at the foundation of things and may be recognised in various traditions. The ancient wisdom came from higher Beings, who are connected with the earth in the same way in which we are connected with the air, and these higher Beings approach the human beings. Those who are now working their way up to initiations, may still perceive something of this. For the things which are transmitted by the spiritual world approach us far more slowly than the things which are transmitted to us upon the wings of our ordinary air-processes. For this reason, it is so important that those who strive after initiation should learn to feel within themselves the great significance of the transition stages of falling asleep and of waking up. When we fall asleep and when we wake up, in these transitions, we may feel more than anywhere else that spiritual Beings are mysteriously conferring with us; only at a later stage this passes over, to a certain extent, into our own control. If we wish to gain access to the world which is the dwelling place of the dead, we shall be following a good path also if we grow conscious of the fact that the dead speak with us most easily during the moments in which we fall asleep and in which we awake. It is more difficult for them to reach us when we fall asleep, for then, as a rule, we immediately pass over into an unconscious state, so that we do not hear what the dead wish to tell us. But when we wake up, and if we have reached the point of bearing in mind clearly the moment of waking up, this moment will be the best one for entering into communication with the dead—particularly the moment of waking up. We must try, however, to gain full control of the moment of waking up. To gain full control of the moment of waking up, means, in other words, that we should endeavour to wake up, without passing over immediately into the light of daytime. You will perhaps be acquainted with the special rule—you may call it a superstitious rule, if you like—according to which we should not look out of the window and into the light if we wish to bear in remembrance a dream, for if we look into the light we would easily forget our dream. This applies in particular to the fine observations which flow out to us from the spiritual world. We should endeavour, as it were, to wake up in the dark, but in a darkness which has been produced consciously, by avoiding to listen to noises and by avoiding to open the eyes. We should endeavour, consciously, yet without going out immediately into the life of daytime, to wake up, and this will best of all enable us to notice the communications which come to us from the spiritual world. Now you might say: In that case, we would, receive very little in the form of communications during the course of our life. Just imagine how difficult it would be, if during the course of our life we only had the possibility of receiving as many communications as we normally receive in one day! This would suffice, but we cannot make the right use of it, for there is our childhood, etc. But the earth participates and (please bear this in mind) takes up these communications within its etheric body, and since these things remain inscribed in the ETHER OF THE EARTH they may be studied there. Other encompassing communications which are transmitted to us by the Beings whose life-element is the platonic year, may be studied in the ETHER OF THE SUN which fills the whole world; they may be studied in the way described in various parts of KNOWLEDGE OF THE HIGHER WORLDS and in other books. You may therefore see that a band can be woven, which connects ordinary science and spiritual science. But of course, one who is not acquainted with spiritual science, will hardly be able to make the right use of the knowledge which ordinary science can supply. Those, however, who have a spiritual-scientific mentality, have not the slightest doubt when approaching these things, that the time will come when the ordinary external science and spiritual science will really be completely at one. I have told you that I have only explained to you one. aspect of these things, namely, their rhythmical course, which is contained in the respiration. Now there are many things which could be demonstrated in figures, thus showing the harmony and correspondence between microcosm and macrocosm. Indeed, it is possible to acquire a deep feeling for this harmonious correspondence. This kind of feeling was still transmitted in the Mysteries to the older disciples, up to the fifteenth century. Before that time, they were only able to take up anything in the form of science, when their teachers had tried to make them feel that they were standing in the midst of the universe. This, again, characterizes the materialistic age, that to-day we can acquire knowledge without being in any way prepared for this knowledge as far as our feelings are concerned. In the introduction to the first chapter of CHRISTIANITY AS A MYSTICAL FACT, have already drawn attention to this fact by indicating that in the Mysteries, certain feelings were first cultivated, before taking into consideration the acquisition of knowledge. Particularly important is the feeling relating to the harmony between microcosm and macrocosm1,and if we once more wish to acquire real concepts in regard to things for which mere abstractions exist to-day, it will be important to cultivate that feeling. What is a nation considered to be, in the present abstract, materialistic age? As a number of people who speak the same language. The materialistic age is, of course, unable to judge the true essence and being of a nation, seen as a definite individuality—a fact which we have frequently considered. When we speak of the essence and being of a nation, we speak of a definite individuality, of a real individual Being. This is how WE speak of a nation's character. But, materialism merely sees in a nation a number of men who speak the same language. That is an abstract concept, which has nothing to do with the nation's real and concrete Being. What results from the fact that we really do not refer to an abstract concept, but to an actual Being, when we speak of a nation, or of a nation's character? What results from this?—You will say: Theosophy enables us to study the human being: his physical body, his etheric body, his astral body, his ego—this is how we contemplate the human being; If a nation is also a real Being, also the Being of a nation might be studied in this way, and even for the Being of a nation we might assume the existence of certain parts and members. This is the argument which you may advance. This can really be done! Also the other Beings, that exist besides the human being and that are just as real and concrete as man, are studied in genuine occultism. But the various members of these Beings should be sought elsewhere than in the case of man. For if a Folk-Soul had the same members as a human being, it would be a human being; but a Folk-Soul is not a human being, it is an entirely different kind of Being. In the case of Folk-Souls, we must really study the individual Folk-Souls and then we shall have an idea of what they are really like. We cannot generalize, for this would lead us to abstractions. We cannot generalize, and for this reason, we can only speak, as it were, in the form of examples. Let us, therefore, consider one particular Folk-Soul, the one which now governs, for instance, the Italian nation, in so far as a nation is governed in all its details by a Folk-Soul. Let us consider one particular Folk-Soul and ask: How can we speak of this particular Folk-Soul?2If we were to speak of it in the same way in which we speak of the human being, that he has, for instance, a physical body, we really mean, when speaking of man's physical body, that it contains certain alkaline substances, certain mineral substances, and that 5% of it is solid, whereas the rest is liquid and gaseous. All this constitutes man's physical body. When we speak of a Folk-Soul, for instance, of the Italian Folk-Soul, we cannot say that it has a human body, nevertheless it has something which, may be compared with a physical body. But its physical body does not contain alkaline substances, nor any solid parts; the physical body of the Italian Folk-Soul does not even contain any liquid parts (which does not exclude that other Folk-Souls may contain liquid parts); the Italian Folk-Soul has no liquid parts, but it begins with gaseous parts. It has no liquid parts, or other more solid parts, but the body of the Italian Folk-Soul is woven out of air, which is its DENSEST material substance; everything else in it is less compact. Thus, when we say that the human being contains EARTHLY substance, we must say, in the case of the Italian Folk-Soul, that it contains, to begin with, AERIFORM substances. And where the human being has WATERY substances, there the Italian Folk-Soul has HEAT, WARMTH. The human being breathes AERIFORM substances in and out—the Italian Folk-Soul LIGHT. In the case of the Italian Folk-Soul, light corresponds to the air of human beings. Where man has heat or warmth, there the Italian Folk-Soul has TONES, namely, the MUSIC OF THE SPHERES. Now you have more or less that which corresponds to the physical body, except that its ingredients are different. Instead of saying, as we do in the case of man: Solid substance, liquid substance, aeriform substance, warmth, we must say, in the case of the Italian Folk-Soul, if we take for granted something analogous to the physical body (for then, it is not in the same meaning of the word, a physical body): Air, Warmth, Light and Tone.—This shows you that when the Italian Folk-Soul really animates the human being to whom it belongs, it chooses the respiration as its channel, because its lowest and densest ingredient is the air. In fact in the Italian nation, the correspondence between the individual human being and the Folk-Soul takes place through the respiration. The Italian Folk-Soul communicates with man through the breath. This [is] an actual and real process. Of course, one breathes through entirely different means, but the influence of the Folk-Soul steals into the breathing process. In the same way, we might depart from that which corresponds to the etheric body. In that case, we would have to begin with the life-ether and instead of the light-ether it would have that element which has been characterized in my THEOSOPHY as the “burning desires,” and to the tone-ether would correspond that element which has been described in THEOSOPHY as “mobile susceptibility,” etc. You may therefore find the ingredients in my THEOSOPHY but you must know how to apply them. And if you were to continue studying the nature of the correspondence which takes place between the Folk-Soul and the individual human being, if you were to continue by studying this upon the foundation of the things which I have now indicated, you would realise that this is connected with all the qualities which are contained in the character of a nation; We should study these things thoroughly and concretely. These things can only be given in the form of examples. Let us now, for instance, say that we wish to study the Russian Folk-Soul. In the lowest member of the Russian Folk-Soul we would find nothing material, in the way in which solid, liquid, gaseous substances, or heat are material, but we would find that the lowest member of the Russian Folk-Soul, which it has in the same way in which the human being has his alkaline, solid substances, is the LIGHT ETHER, the ether of light. And we would also find that the Russian Folk-Soul has the TONE ETHER in the same way in which the human being has within him liquid substances, and it has the LIFE ETHER in the same way in which the human being has air; moreover, we would find in that part which corresponds to the physical body of the Russian Folk-Soul the BURNING DESIRES, which it has in the same way in which the human being has heat, or warmth. We might then ask: How does the Russian Folk-Soul communicate. With individual Russians?—This takes place in such a way, that the light reverberates in a certain way from that which constitutes the earth. The light exercises certain influences upon the earth; it does not only reverberate, I might say, physically, but it reverberates in particular from the vegetation, from that which the soil bears upon it. The light does not influence the individual Russians in a direct way, but the influence of the light first penetrates into the earth; of course, not into the coarse, physical earth, but into the plants, into everything which grows and flourishes upon the earth. And all this reverberates. What thus reverberates, contains the medium through which the Russian Folk-Soul can communicate with the individual Russians. This explains the Russian’s connection with his land, which is far stronger in him than in others, the strong connection of the Russian with his soil, with everything that the earth brings forth. This is contained in the peculiar attitude of the Russian Folk-Soul. The “mobile-susceptibility”—and this is extremely important—is the first etheric ingredient of the Russian Folk-Soul; it-corresponds, to a certain extent, to the light, to what the light is for us human beings. Thus you may reach a real Being, the true nature of a nation, and you may also reach the point of studying the question: “How does a spirit communicate with another spirit” ... one of the spirits being the Folk-Soul and the other one man. This communication takes place in the sub-consciousness. When the Italian breathes and maintains his life through breathing—in his consciousness he therefore has in mind something quite different, that is to say, he breathes in and out in order to maintain his life—when the Italian breathes, then the Folk-Soul whispers and talks to him in his sub-consciousness. He does not hear it, but his astral body perceives it and lives in these communications which are being exchanged below the threshold of his consciousness between the Folk-Soul and the individual human being. What the Russian soil rays out, through the fact that the light of the sun-fertilizes it, contains the mystical runes, the whispering runes, through which the Russian Folk-Soul speaks with the individual Russian, while he walks over his land, or feels the life which rays out of the light. But again, do not think that these things should be taken materialistically. A Russian may be living in Switzerland, but the light which the earth throws back is also to be found in Switzerland. If you are Italian, you may hear your Folk-Soul whispering through your breathing; if you are Russian, you will find that even from the Swiss soil comes up what you are able to hear as a Russian. These things must not be taken materialistically. They are not chained to a particular place, although materialistically, and seeing that the human being is, in a certain way, in a materialistic frame of mind, he will obtain more from his-Folk-Soul when he lives in his own country. The Italian air, with its whole climate, naturally facilitates and furthers that manner of speaking which I have just now characterized. The Russian soil facilitates and furthers the other kind—but these things must not be considered materialistically, for a Russian can just as well be a Russian outside Russia, although the Russian soil particularly favours all that pertains to the Russian nature. You will therefore see that, on the one hand, materialism is borne in mind, but, on the other hand, materialism is something relative and nothing absolute. For the light which is spread over the Russian soil is not only contained in the body of the Russian Folk-Soul, but there is light everywhere. A Russian Folk-Soul has the rank of an Archangel. (You know that I have frequently described this). An Archangel is not chained to a particular place; he is above the limits of space. These kinds of thoughts, these kinds of concrete ideas, must lie at the foundation of our consideration's, if we wish to speak objectively of the connections between the individual human being and his nation. Consider the fact that modern mankind is far from having even an inkling of the concrete reality which is contained in the name which we give a nation! Nevertheless world-programmes are strewn out to-day, in which one continually toys with the names of nations! To what an extent all that which pullulates in the world is empty talk, may be clearly seen and judged through the fact that a nation is a real Being, and the Being of every nation is, after all, different. What is air for the Italian Folk-Soul, is light for the Russian Folk-Soul, and this, in its turn, calls for an entirely different way of communication between the Folk-Soul and the individual human being. Anthropology is a materialistic, external manner of contemplating things; it will be the task of Anthroposophy to reveal the truth, the real connections and true aspects. Since the human beings are now so far away from truth in their materialism, it is not surprising that people should talk in such an arbitrary and consequently untrue way of things, which to-day are even raised to the level of world-programmes! On Tuesday we shall therefore speak of the character of our anthroposophic spiritual science.3 In this connection I shall also deal with certain [things] pertaining to the present time, which can only be grasped from a spiritual-scientific standpoint. For the sufferings which humanity must now bear, is connected to a great extent with the fact that people do not wish to have a clear insight into the things which they say, that they send out furious words into the world, which are far away from every knowledge of the real connections. This may be clearly evident if we take hold, for instance, of a book, such as the pamphlet which has recently been published in Switzerland, entitled “Conditions de la Paix de l'Allemagne,” by an author who has chosen the name of “Hungaricus.” With the aid of a spiritual-scientific attitude, it will suffice to glance through this pamphlet, in order to detect all the deficiencies of the present, distorted way of thinking of materialism. For this reason, I also wish to say a few word's next Tuesday on this pamphlet, but only from a methodical aspect, only in regard to its way of thinking, because this publication, “Les Conditions de la Paix de l’Allemagne” by Hungaricus so clearly characterizes the distorted way of thinking of materialism.
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