The Rudolf Steiner Archive

From our Studies of such an impulse in human life as is contained in man's calling or vocation and in all that is connected with it, you will have seen how difficult it is to make these matters clear. For in effect, so many things are here involved. We must bear in mind that all that is introduced into our life through the law of Destiny or Karma depends on countless factors. To this, indeed, the manifold nature of human life is due. In describing certain human aspects of our life's destiny by the word ‘calling’ or ‘vocation’ one remark must perhaps be made, namely this: We ought not to confuse what we may describe as man's calling or vocation with what is commonly spoken of as his office or position in the widest sense of the term. For it goes without saying, much confusion would arise, if, having in mind what one man or another represents in his official position, we applied to this the points of view which have here been brought to bear on the vocational life. Frequently, though by no means always, man has to pursue his vocation in some official position, and many an extraneous factor comes into play at this point in human life, mingling other Karmic threads with that one which we may call the ‘Karma of vocation.’ We are living in a time which is slowly undergoing a certain transformation. Nevertheless, in our time, the aspects we are here outlining for the ‘Karma of vocation’ are by no means exclusively predominant in placing a man into this or that position in life. As you are well aware, the Karma of vocation is still cut across in many ways by the Karma of classes, social castes, etc. Within such groupings, ambitions, vanities, the prejudices of himself and other people, and many other factors too, help to determine how a man is placed in his official post. All these things, entering into the Karma of vocation as extraneous factors, make it possible for Ahrimanic influences constantly to interfere with the true course of human activity. A man who has been placed at a certain post in life—who has become a Cabinet Minister for instance, or a Privy Councillor or the like (through circumstances which are well enough known, and need not be gone into here)—such a man need not by any means have the corresponding vocation. He can occupy a high position and yet his vocation may only be that of a ‘pen-pusher’—perhaps not even that. Nor must you imagine that the position then remains unoccupied. That is just the peculiarity of our time. In its materialistic interpretation of the just foundations of Darwinism, it has evolved such a theory of life as the ‘Selection of the Fittest,’ which is now being criticised so vehemently by Haeckel's pupil, Oskar Hertwig. (Our standpoint need not be that of the pessimist who adversely judges his own time and constantly refers back to the ‘good old days.’ We simply take our stand on the real facts.) While on the one hand the people of this age pride themselves on the ‘Selection of the Fittest,’ this age in its reality is dominated by the very opposite tendency—that of selecting the worst, the un-fittest, for the very posts in life which one would think the most important. Bitter as it may be for our time to hear it, this truth would be admitted, were it not for the fact that our time is impressed with a far-reaching belief in authority, combined with the greatest possible opportunism and slackness. I say again, it is a bitter truth, which would be recognised were it not for the prevalence of what is called ‘public opinion.’ (Public opinions, according to a 19th century philosopher, are private stupidities.) We should recognise the fact to which I here refer, were we not so much impressed by the public opinions with which we are fed to-day from such unclean sources. On this we must be clear, our age needs above all to be educated to a more intense grasp of life. The prevalent one-sidedness—the selection of the un-fittest—must be recognised for what it is, albeit these ‘un-fittest’ are overwhelmed with adulation by the aforesaid ‘public opinion.’

The offices are occupied, in fact, only too frequently by Ahriman-Mephistopheles. And you may well see from the further course of Goethe's Faust how Mephistopheles fulfils his office. Not until the end of his life does it become possible for Faust to free himself from Mephistopheles. Faust comes to the imperial court. He even makes an invention—most important for the last few centuries. He invents paper-money. Mephistopheles is the real inventor. Afterwards, Faust is conducted into the world of classical antiquity by Homunculus. Homunculus himself, once more, is brought into being with Mephistopheles' assistance. Faust even becomes a military commander and conducts wars. But from Goethe's manner of description in this act especially, we see that it is really Mephistopheles who conducts them. Only at the very end do we see Faust gradually free himself from Mephistopheles.

Though Faust is roaming through the world without any definite position—having vacated his professorship—nevertheless, we must admit, the whole way in which Mephistopheles stands at his side is not unlike the way the Mephistophelean forces frequently play into the life of mankind to-day.

That is the one thing which must be borne in mind, but there is another thing as well. It is by no means easy rightly to discover in human nature what it is that really works in Karmic evolution. Here, too, the development of natural science has reached a point, which must be attained once more by spiritual-scientific study.

Notably when it tries to enter into the life of the soul, the natural-scientific way of thought makes the most ghastly errors. Witness the rise to-day of a mistaken school of science, which ventures to approach the human life of soul, studying it in the spirit of mere natural science. This school of thought admits that the life of the soul does not merely take its course as it appears to man's present consciousness. It admits that much is there beneath the threshold of consciousness—or as they say, in the unconscious or subconscious—beating-up into the conscious life.

In former lectures we have mentioned specific things which are truly there in the subconscious, and surge up into consciousness like the clouds of smoke which arise in the Solfatara country when one sets a light to a piece of paper. Much indeed is present down below in depths of consciousness.

So we may say: There are those today, who, wishing to pursue a science of the soul, already divine the fact that dark unconscious faculties of soul—and failings of soul—must be included for any true explanation. But as these schools will not yet admit a comprehensive spiritual-scientific world-conception, they can only bring to light mistaken notions. Those who take this standpoint of a purely natural-scientific psychology, observe a human life,—how it has evolved. They have indeed departed from the belief that what a soul feels and wills, wherewith it is happy or unhappy, filled with joy or grief, depends only on what the soul itself has preserved in the immediate consciousness. So now they try to catechise the soul. Somehow they try to get out of human souls the joys and pains, the disappointments of life which they have some time undergone and in their every-day power of thought have forgotten. What is forgotten, so these theorists declare, has not therefore vanished. It is still burrowing on in the subconsciousness.

Cravings, above all, are burrowing in the subconsciousness—cravings which at some earlier time of life remained unsatisfied or were repressed. Take a concrete instance—it is a woman in her 30th year. At the age of 16 she fell in love. She evolved a strongly erotic craving (so says this school of science), but this craving, if she had given herself up to it—if it had been fulfilled—would have led into some bye-way of life. Influenced by education, by the exhortation of her parents, she repressed it. To put it tritely, she ‘swallowed it down’ in her soul's life. Then she lived on. Fourteen years have passed. Perhaps she has married meantime according to her station. For her daily thoughts and feelings it is long forgotten. But the forgotten has by no means disappeared. The soul is not exhaustively contained in what it knows. In the underlying levels of consciousness the thing is still there, and presently it finds expression. For though the lady in her outer life is happy, she suffers from an indefinable, pessimistic leaning, a partial weariness of life or something similar. She is, as they say, ‘nervous,’ neurasthenic, or the like.

Now they seek to introduce this kind of psychology into medical science. They try to cure such souls by catechising them. Such experiences, they say, abiding in the hidden depths of the soul's life and for the surface consciousness apparently forgotten, must be drawn forth. If this be done—if under the influence of a good catechiser (who must of course, after the prevailing notions of to-day, be a physician) the patient gets to grips with the thing—then it will all grow better.

Cures are indeed effected in this manner. Often indeed they are more or less real cures, though in the majority of cases they will prove to be only semblances of cures. (We can explain how this is on some other occasion.)

That is one kind of thing they seek for, down in the depths of the soul's life. Here is another: It is a man of 35 or 40, suffering from a certain weariness of life, a morbid indecision. He does not know why, and the people around him do not know why. He knows it least of all. One who busies himself with the aforesaid ‘science of the soul,’ will try in this case too, to rummage in the forgotten though not vanished depths of the inner life, and will elicit the fact that in his 15th, 16th or 17th year, may be, the man had this or that plan in life, which plan fell through. He was obliged to turn to another plan of life—not according to the one he cherished. In all that he daily feels and thinks and wills, he has apparently been reconciled to the change. But what a man consciously feels and thinks and wills is not the entire life of the soul. In hidden depths the disappointed plan lives on as a real force.

Once more, these people believe that they can effect a cure by catechising and bringing the disappointment to the surface, giving the man an opportunity to discuss the whole matter with his catechiser.

But there are many other things besides, which they believe are resting there in the soul's depths without man's consciousness being aware of it. In short, they have perceived the fact that consciousness is a small circle and the soul's life a far larger circle of which the consciousness comprises only a little part. Not only so, they also look in the very depths of the soul's life for something else which is not of the soul—which, it appears, a theologian recently described—with questionable taste—as ‘the animal slime at the bottom of the soul.’ Thus they find disappointments, suppressed craving's, broken plans of life and finally the ‘animal slime at the very bottom of the soul,’ which means: all that is rooted in life, coming, so to speak, from flesh and blood, from the hidden animal nature, and rising from the soul's foundation in an unconscious way (for the consciousness would naturally rebel against it and does indeed rebel).

There is of course some truth in this theory of the ‘animal slime.’ We often see it happening in life:—Consciousness says to itself, ‘I want nothing more; I want to discover this or that. Therefore I turn to this or that person.’ But the ‘animal slime’ is really at work, for it may well be animal cravings which are only camouflaged and masked by what the consciousness declares.

Moreover this school of science (‘science,’ I say, with a grain of salt) has conjectured that in these same unconscious regions we shall also find what comes from the individual's connection with race and nation, with all manner of historic residues which play their part in the human soul unconsciously, while consciousness behaves quite differently. In view of what is now surging through the world, we cannot even deny that these things are apparently confirmed by multitudinous examples. For who will fail to see how many a man declares by word of mouth lofty ideals of ‘right and freedom for the nations,’ while in his soul's reality that alone is active, which, stirring the slime in the soul's depths, arises out of such connections as the Psycho-analyst would analyse—or pretend to analyse—in the above directions.

Moreover, the theologians among the Psycho-analysts especially, include in the subconscious regions of the soul's life the ‘demonic’ element which, they allege, arises from still more hidden depths—from the mysterious depth of the ‘irrational.’ I am unaware how the natural scientists and the theologians among Psycho-analysts come to terms with one another. But the latter class too undoubtedly exists, and they especially are fond of saying that unknown demons are at work in the subconscious in the human soul, so as to make men Gnostics for example, or Theosophists. ‘Psycho-analyse the soul and penetrate to the foundations where the primeval slime resides and you will find it. Gnosis is a demonic teaching, likewise Psycho-analysis’ ... no, I beg your pardon, not Psycho-analysis. Psychoanalysis, according to these men and women (for ladies, too, are taking part in these things) Psycho-analysis is not included in the black list, but Theosophy and other things.

I do not wish to enter now into any detailed criticism of Psycho-analysis. I only wish to have pointed out that in the Psycho-analytic school we have the evidence, how modern research is driven to observe what works and weaves beneath the conscious portions of the soul. But the prevailing scientific prejudices can only result in the most wrong conclusions on these matters. Meanwhile these people are quite unwilling to consider the investigations of Spiritual Science. Consequently they will not discover how impossible it is truly to analyse what they find in the soul's life, so long as they are unaware that man's existence takes its course in repeated lives on Earth. For in their Psycho-analysis they try to explain, what is there at the bottom of the soul, out of one Earth-life only. No wonder they are then obliged to place it frequently in a distorted light.

For example, suppose we find disappointed plans of life, deep down within the soul. We ought first to consider what kind of meaning this wrecking of a plan in life may have for the human being's existence as a whole, which goes on through repeated lives on Earth. Then perhaps we shall discover that there are also working in the man's subconsciousness certain aspects of his life, which, by a true working of destiny, have prevented the fulfilment of his plan. And then we shall observe that the disappointed plan, which is still there in the soul's depths, is not merely destined to make the man ill in this incarnation, but to be carried through the gate of death when this life is at an end, and to become a potent force in the life between death and new birth. For only in the next life will it play its proper part. It may indeed be necessary for such a broken plan of life to be preserved and nurtured to begin with, in the depths of the soul, so that it may be strengthened and enhanced. Then between death and a new birth it will be able to rise to its true stature, till in the next life on Earth it assumes its predestined form, which, on account of other qualities within the soul, it was not able to assume in this life.

Then as to the so-called ‘animal slime at the bottom of the soul's life’ (though, as I said, the expression is by no means in good taste), undoubtedly such a thing is there. But I beg you to remember what I have explained, of the relation between the head of man and the remainder of his organism. The latter is in many respects connected with man's earthly life, his present incarnation, while the head is the result of former planes of evolution of the Earth itself, and is, moreover, related to the man's former incarnations. If you consider this, then you will understand how many things are working upward from the remainder of the organism (by virtue of the part it plays in the whole karmic connection)—things which are at a different stage of maturity than that which comes from the human head and from the nervous system. But the Psycho-analyst, who to begin with only ‘analyses’ the ‘slime,’ will go completely wrong. Analysing this ‘animal slime,’ as they call it, he is like a man who wants to know what kind of corn will grow on a given soil. He analyses the soil. He digs and finds a certain manure, with which the field was manured. He says, Now I know the manure, and out of this the corn will presently spring forth. But the corn does not grow from the manure, albeit the manure is necessary. The point is, what is imbedded in the basic slime; for that which is imbedded in it is generally destined to work on through the gate of death, into the next evolution on the Earth. It is not a question of investigating the animal slime itself. The point is, what is imbedded in it as a real ‘seed of the soul.’

Psycho-Analysis, so called, gives ample opportunity to observe how perilous are the prejudices of the present time. True, it is entering a realm to which the thought of our time is tending. For the soul can no longer rest satisfied with what the surface experience of consciousness provides. So do the men of our time find themselves driven to the very quarters where they should indeed investigate; but as they cannot understand spiritual science they have no guiding lines for such investigation. Therefore they rummage about in the most clumsy way in these realms which are assigned to them by their profession, or by their own agitations. They put everything in the wrong place, not knowing how to put in it the right. For this they could only do, if they were able to follow up the real Karmic threads as I have tried to indicate them now, in the one case and in the other. Above all when Psychoanalysis begins to burrow in the elemental realms, it proves itself appallingly unsound.

Nevertheless, the desire to pursue the continuous thread of destiny into its finer and more intimate ramifications is important. That which goes on in the conscious life of a man's soul, from the time he awakens until he falls asleep again, reveals very little of the Karmic stream which works on and on through his incarnations. What we experience consciously in waking life largely belongs to the present incarnation, and it is good so. For in the present incarnation man should be healthy and efficient. On the other hand, much of what is carried through the gate of death—as a seed which grows out of our experiences and trials and faculties acquired during the present life—plays a great part in our life from our falling asleep to our awakening, and very largely finds its way into our dreams. We must only be able to estimate the dream-formations truly. We say, Dreams are reminiscences,—and so they often are. But in the stream of our Karma they do not work in a simple and straightforward way. In their inherent forces they often signify the opposite of what appears upon the surface. Let me give you an example from literature to explain what I now mean.

Vischer, the aestheticist, tells a pretty little story in his book, Auch Einer. I quote it here because I am now speaking in a wider sense of the vocational life and all that is connected with it. Vischer relates a conversation between a father and his son. They are going for a walk together, and after the father has asked him many things the boy tells the following story: ‘Teacher told us one should always find out what kind of a job a man has. A man should have a proper occupation. By that you can recognise whether he is a sound and good man altogether.’ ‘Oh,’ said the father. ‘Yes, and after teacher had told us that in school, I dreamt I was walking past yonder lake, and in the dream I asked the lake what kind of a job it had. And the lake said: My job is to be wet.’ ‘Hm,’ said the father.

A witty story, revealing some knowledge of life in him who thought it out. The father said ‘Hm’ because he did not wish to spoil the boy. He did not wish to tell him what nonsense his teacher had been talking. No doubt he kept his thoughts to himself. He should have enlightened his son more wisely than the teacher. He should have said, One must not pass judgments in such a superficial way, for it may well be that one's judgment of what constitutes a ‘decent and proper occupation’ is mistaken, and one will thus be led to misjudge one's fellow-men. Or again, the man's career might somehow have been marred. In short, the father should have instructed the son. But in this case he did not need to do so. For in the young human being the dream can still work helpfully. The dream, which in this instance came to the boy's consciousness, is there as a real inner force, in place of such instruction. In the sub-consciousness the dream is working. And it works in such a way as to expunge from the soul the nonsense which the teacher created by his foolish teaching. This explains the forming of the dream in the boy's sub-consciousness, which is wiser than the surface consciousness. It spreads an atmosphere of laughable absurdity over the teacher's foolish exhortations. The lake says, ‘It is my job to be wet.’ That will work wholesomely. It will drive away the noxious effects to which such teaching might otherwise give rise.

In this case the dream is indeed a reminiscence; it follows in the very next night. But at the same time it is a corrector of life. Indeed the life of the astral body frequently works in this way. Beside the relics of what is there in the soul from the experiences of life, we should frequently find this factor. Especially where a mistaken education is at work, we can frequently detect in the sub-conscious forces of the soul this ‘corrector,’ who often works even in the same incarnation, especially in young human beings. But above all, this corrector is carried through the gate of death and there works on. There is really a kind of self-corrector in the human being. This must be borne in mind.

With all these things I only want to point out how much there is in the soul of man, pressing on from one incarnation to another. There is a whole complex of forces, working across from one incarnation to another. We must now consider what is the relation between this complex of forces and the human being of the present, inasmuch as his life continues between birth and death.

In this respect man is really a four-stringed instrument, on which the above-named ‘complex of Karmic forces’ plays. Physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego are the four strings, and Karma plays on them. According as the one or the other string is played on more or less intensely by the bow of Karma (if we may retain this analogy of the violin which also has four strings), so does the individual life arise. It may be more the etheric body or the astral body, or the etheric and the astral together, or the physical and the astral together, or the physical body and the Ego. In the most manifold ways, the four strings of human life can play together. Therefore it is so difficult if we desire to speak not in general and vague abstractions but in reality. It is so hard to decipher the several melodies of a man's life, for we can only decipher them if we are able to behold how the fiddle-bow of Karma plays on the four strings of Man.

Consider the human being in those years of life when the physical body and especially the etheric body are developing (as indicated in my little book Education of the Child in the Light of Anthroposophy)—from the seventh to the fourteenth year—all these things are approximate. During this time we shall find certain peculiarities emerging, which distinguish this period of life especially. Certain things, we shall observe, are in a way consolidated during this time. True, many of these things already emerge in the first seven years of life—for all these things merge into one another. But it is only between the seventh and about the fourteenth year that we can observe it deeply and accurately. Certain inner characteristics become consolidated in the growing human being, expressing themselves through the corporeality, through the whole conduct and appearance as it expresses itself in the tenure of the body, in the gestures, in the behaviour as a whole. What is thus consolidated (not all, but a great part of it) causing the human being to be short and thickset, or to have shorter or longer fingers, or to tread in a certain way—with a firm step in one case, tripping it lightly in another (to describe the radical contrasts)—in short, all that is connected with the bodily aspect of deportment, is here intended. As I said, not all, but a great part of what thus appears in the growing human being comes from his Karma. It is the effect of his vocation in the former life on Earth. People who do not observe what I have now said, often make a great mistake, especially when they try to be clever, observing the child's behaviour, and wishing somehow to determine his occupation in this life from the way he deports himself. In this way it is easy to make the mistake of wishing to place him into a similar vocation to what he had in his preceding life on Earth. And that would not be wholesome for him. What we observe in this period of life are the effects of the former incarnation; and when this period is at an end, or even before (as I said, these things merge into one another), the astral body emerges in a very peculiar way, and reacts on what has been developing hitherto. Once we are aware of these facts as derived from spiritual science, we can observe them even outwardly on the physical plane. The astral body reacts. According to quite other Karmic forces, it transmutes that which resulted from the pure ‘Karma of vocation’ between the seventh and fourteenth year. Thus there are two forces in the human being in conflict with one another. The one set of forces mould and form him; these arise more from the etheric body. The others, counteracting and partly paralysing the former, come more from the astral body. Through these latter forces, man is impelled to transform what was stamped upon him by his vocational Karma of the former incarnation. We may say therefore: The working of the etheric body is formative. (All that appears as gesture, posture and deportment in the physical body comes from the etheric.) The working of the astral body is transformative. And in the interplay of the two forces, which are very decidedly in conflict with one another, much of the working of the Karma of vocation finds expression.

This, however, is woven together with other Karmic streams. For we must also bear in mind the physical body. As to the physical body, it is especially important to observe in the first epoch of life how the human being places himself through his Karma into the world. The kind of physical body we have depends on this. For by our Karma we place ourselves into a certain family, belonging to a certain nation and so forth. Thus we get quite a definite kind of body. But not only so. Think how much the course of our life depends on the situation into which we place ourselves, in that we enter a certain family. This already gives the starting-point of infinitely much in our life.

In effect, notably in the first seven years of life, when the physical body is developing, forces are working in (or rather, about) the physical body—forces which come not from the vocational aspect of our former incarnation, but from the way in which we lived with other human beings. In our former incarnation we stood in this or that relation to this or that human being. (I mean now, not in a particular part of our life—for that belongs to a different chapter—but throughout our life.) All this we assimilate. We carry it through the gate of death, and through these forces we bring ourselves once more into a certain family, a certain situation or set of circumstances. Thus we may say: That which places our physical body into life and works on through our physical body—that is what shapes the situations of our life. (It goes on working, of course, through our succeeding lives.) And now it receives a counter-force through the Ego. The Ego works so to annul the given situations of our life. It battles against all that determines our circumstances. Thus we may say: The physical body works so to create life's situation; and the Ego works to re-create it. In the working together of these two-battling one with another—another stream of Karma enters our life. For? there is always present in man on the one hand what strives to maintain him in a certain situation, and on the other, what strives to lift him out of it. Thus I would say, primitively speaking, 1 and 4, and 2 and 3, work upon one another. (See the diagram at the end.) And in manifold other ways the four strings play together. The way we come into connection with fresh human beings in a given life according to our Karma, depends on 1 and 4 and their connections. And this leads back in turn to our relationships of life in former lives. The way we find our connections in calling, work and occupation depends on 2 and 3 and on their mutual interplay.

To begin with I beg you to consider these things well. We shall then continue in the next lecture.

If we want to understand the human being in his relationship to the world, we must always bear in mind that the whole reality of the human being contains, on the one hand, everything that, as it were, shines forth from prenatal life, that is, the life that the human being has led between the last death and this birth in the supersensible worlds. This life is naturally of a completely different nature than the life that is led here through the senses and through that will that is bound to the physical organs of man. But this prenatal life does play a part in our earthly life. Regarding this prenatal life, one must ask oneself the question: to what extent does it play a part in this earthly life? One must think of some kind of conclusion to this prenatal life. We must think of some kind of conclusion to this prenatal life. Perhaps we can gain a picture of it through some kind of comparison with earthly life, a picture that arises from spiritual contemplation of this prenatal life. This picture can perhaps best be gained by first thinking of the end of physical life on earth.

What I am about to say now, I say only to give you a picture, because the actual facts on which this picture is based come from spiritual research, from spiritual insight as such. When a person passes through physical death, when his higher organization withdraws from the lower organization, then the corpse remains behind and this corpse is then surrounded by the ordinary earthly laws, while he, let us say, lives on within the whole earthly organization.

What the human being goes through when he enters the sensual life from the supersensible life is to be imagined similarly. From the moment of conception or birth, the supersensible life stands behind the sensual life. This supersensible life is not at first such that man can develop a full consciousness in it. It is filled with the state of consciousness that is a dull, dark one, which man here on earth only goes through between falling asleep and waking up. It can be said that the supersensible nature of man always returns to the region in which man is between death and a new birth when falling asleep. But it is always dull when man remains in this time between falling asleep and waking up. In a sense, he does not live fully consciously in this state. But it is precisely this state of not fully conscious life in his self, into this state man has come by descending into a physical organism. And this dulling of consciousness, this inner darkening of consciousness, that corresponds to the approach to death in the physical life for the time between death and a new birth. Man, as it were, dies for the supersensible life when he moves towards birth, and he then also hands over to human life a kind of corpse. Just as the physical man, when he dies, hands over to earth a kind of corpse, so the man also hands over a kind of corpse to this human life here on earth when he is born. And this creature that we then carry within us, which is, as it were, dead to the supermundane life, is actually our ordinary thinking life, the thinking life that does not allow itself to be fertilized by the supersensible world, by imagination, by inspiration, by intuition.

Thus we can say: In our thinking we actually carry around with us the corpse that we took with us from the supersensible world. That is why this thinking is so very poorly suited to grasp the dead world, because it is actually the corpse of our supersensible being. We must realize that in our thinking we have the only conscious remnant of the supersensible world, but that it is a dead creature, just as it lives in us as thinking. We do indeed carry the dead supersensible world around with us in our thinking.

Now, in every physical human life here on earth, this dead thinking would not only lead to physical death, but also to the death of the soul, if this dead creature were not revived during life. Yes, it is revived! And it is revived by the fact that in our soul life, alongside thinking, the will is activated, as it were in opposition to thinking. The will is that which emerges from our entire organization, from our earthly organization, in order to enliven our dead thinking. And our earthly life is basically the lasting connection between dead thinking and the will that is reborn in us during each earthly life through our life's journey. This will is always being reborn. It then leaves its remnants behind when we pass through the gate of death. And when it is exhausted in the supersensible world, then thinking becomes dead again, and then it must go down again into the physical-sensual world. You see how we human beings are indeed a twofold creature in this respect, how we carry within us the remains of prenatal life and how, due to our organization, we have the young life of will, which must connect with the aged life of thinking, and which we then carry through the gate of death.

The physical expression of the human organization is entirely appropriate to this psychological structure of the human world. On the one hand, the head organization clearly shows anyone who wants to study it impartially that it is a kind of end organization, the most perfect product of the evolution of humanity, but also one that is coming to an end. In the head organization we have the human organization that is constantly wrestling with death, which is completely adapted to dead thinking. In contrast, in the organization of the rest of our human organism, we have that which is adapted to the organization of the will that is always born young. Therefore, everything that is connected with our head organization points us back to the past; everything that is connected with the rest of our organization points us to the future, points us to the future in a physical sense, and also points us to the future in a physical-spiritual sense. Our head is the metamorphosis of the rest of our organism from the previous incarnation, naturally in terms of forces, not physical substances. And the rest of our organism is transformed into the metamorphosis of the head for the next incarnation. This is something we have already explained here several times.

As a result, we as human beings are always confronted on the one hand with that which is more imbued with the life of ideas and which is more organized towards death. From this arises everything that urges us to develop insights. The more perfect a person becomes in their development on earth, the more dead their thinking becomes, so to speak, the more dead their head organization becomes. He will look more and more with this organization at the world that spreads around him, will try to understand this world, but he will also, if he does not want to lose the consciousness of his human dignity, have to look within, at what arises as newly born will and what holds up the moral ideals to him, what holds up the ideals of his actions, of his deeds, to him. But because man is split in two in the way I have indicated, the conflict arises between the world of natural necessity, which he tries to grasp intellectually, and the world of morality, which then elevates itself to the religious and which finds no points of reference to unite with the world, with the world picture that comes from knowledge of nature. This discord has been carried to the highest degree in our age. Just think how, after their knowledge of nature, people today reflect on how the earth was formed out of the primeval nebula, purely through natural causality, and how man also came into being in the course of this earth's development, and how this will then take millions of years. Man is enmeshed in this natural causality according to his physical organization. His moral ideals arise from it. He would like to found a world on the basis of these moral ideals. But what can he think about this moral world when he has to look at the end of the development of the earth, which will fall back into the sun like a cinder, with all that is on it? He must ask himself: What then is the actual state of all that is set up as moral ideals when this moral world has no basis in natural necessity, when it is, so to speak, only the smoke that rises from the processes that result from natural necessity?

This conflict weighs very heavily today on those people who have unbiased and internalized ideas about the world. Only a certain levity of life allows people to look past this conflict in life. But there is no way of overcoming this conflict in life other than genuine spiritual science. Natural science, to which people today particularly surrender as an authority when it comes to knowledge, shows that what is the beginning and end of the earth can be calculated: a formless cosmic fog is the beginning, the end of the earth is bleak, and an episode in between is people living in moral, ethical, and moral illusions. But that must be so during our incarnation on earth. The moral laws, as we experience them in our earthly humanity, are not the same as the laws of nature. If they were such laws, we would not be able to organize freedom within us. If freedom were driven like any natural process, you would not be able to develop freedom within you. It is precisely the fact that the organization of the earth is called upon to integrate freedom into the human being that makes it necessary for man, through his own inner being, must look up to the world of natural necessity that surrounds him, and can only absorb into himself the moral ideals, which are not laws such that nature would also carry them out. What we have in our world view of nature does not guarantee that what we want to establish as humanity and world in our moral ideals will be carried out.

But as things stand now, they will not always stand. They will not always stand in such a way that the world of moral ideals and the world of natural necessity stand in stark opposition to each other. After all, the earth is coming to an end, and from the spiritual-scientific point of view, as I have often explained here, this end looks different from the end that the knowledge of nature calculates. This end of the earth will come about when the periods of time have played themselves out that we can imagine correctly by looking, for example, at the period of time that preceded our period of time, which began around 747 BC and ended around 1413 AD. So now we are living in the year 1920. A period of time will occur that will again last as long as this period; that is ours. Then two more will follow, and if we survey these periods spiritually until the next end of our cultural periods and then imagine that something is added that is connected to even larger periods of the length of the Atlantic period, we certainly arrive at an end of the earth that is small compared to the millions or even billions of years that are calculated by correct but unrealistic calculations of natural science.

But when the Earth draws to its close, the relationship between the world of moral ideals and the world that enters into today's human perception will be different. The moral laws and the physical laws will move closer together. Now we live in an age where the two are separate. The spiritual researcher can already perceive how they are drawing together, how, for example, what is experienced in spiritual worlds is already having effects that last just as long as the effects of nature do. A uniting of the spiritual laws of morality and the physical laws of natural phenomena is perceived by the spiritual researcher, and he can see how, at the end of the earth, the whole development of that which goes through this end of the earth and goes to a next planetary embodiment will experience a union between the world of moral ideals and the world of natural laws. The moral ideals will become as the laws of nature are today, and the laws of nature will become as — by drawing near, the two — as the moral laws are today. The world of morality and natural law will not be a duality at the end of the world, but we are going through a period in which the one will be a unity. In this unity, many things will be bound and many things will be loosed that today are thought to be unbindable or unloosable.

The spiritual researcher is confronted with very special things, and I do not want to shrink back from developing such things in more detail, especially at this point, even if it means greater opposition from the outside world, which understands and wants nothing of what is being done here. But it is of no use to become callous to what is to be cultivated on anthroposophical soil. We must fight through what is formed by the fact that so much in the present world fights against a genuine striving for truth. From the point of view of this question, the spiritual researcher is also opposed to all the terrible things that have happened in the last five to six years, for example. We have really experienced things that have never been experienced before in the whole of human evolution, especially not experienced in such a way that knowledge of nature was used to destroy so much. Of course, much has been destroyed in the past; but that was all a trifle, because knowledge of nature was not there to cause such destruction. Just think how enormous areas of the earth have been simply shaved away for long, long times by covering the earth in concrete or the like. Just consider what human 'art' has been able to do in these five to six years to destroy what nature has created into the insubstantial. One need only strike this note and one points to something tremendous, but it also confronts the spiritual researcher in a significant way, in a tragically significant way. What actually goes on in the mind of today's materialist when he looks at these things? He sees the end of the earth when entropy is fulfilled, when everything is transformed by the heat death on earth, when the earth is close to its physical end. Then other people will have lived long ago who in turn dreamt of other moral ideals. But what has been concreted in for the destruction of nature, for the destruction of human creativity and so on, is insubstantial.

The spiritual researcher cannot go along with this realization of the materialist, because something else presents itself to him. He visualizes the moment of the end of the earth, when natural laws and moral laws form a unity, when that which man has morally accomplished, or, let us say in this case better, has immoralized will continue to have its effect as natural law, so that at the end of the earth there will come a point in time when the end of the earth is there, when the earth passes through other stages of formation, but when natural laws and moral laws are one. And then it passes over to the next planetary embodiment, which I have called the Jupiter embodiment in my “Occult Science in Outline”.

There will again be periods of development; but there will no longer be the mineral kingdom, there will be something else in the place of the mineral kingdom. We human beings will not carry within us the inclusions of the mineral kingdom, but at the bottom the inclusions of the plant kingdom, and what has happened in the way of morality or immorality, what has been taken up from the working of nature, will work its way over. And just as in our fifth earthly period, in the fifth earthly period, what we have seen as horrors wafting over the earth have happened, so, after these horrors, that is, the impulses for them, will be taken up by that process, which will be on Jupiter, a natural-moral process, a moral-natural process, so that what has developed in this fifth period of time will recur in the third period of time on Jupiter at a different level.

What will confront humanity in this future from the natural configuration of the next, the Jupiter period of the earth, will be what will then be natural processes. But they will be natural processes. They will be countered by the plant kingdom, which will then be the lowest, by what we can call poisonous plants of a vegetable nature. This has been sown through these last five to six years, which is a poisonous swamp material that will rise, that will grow into the period of Jupiter that will arise from this earthly existence. It is not that the moral or the immoral will pass away; a unity of effect is forming between the moral and the natural law, and that which has worked in terms of moral or immoral impulses in the whole of humanity will be carried over. I would like to say that humanity now has the choice of remaining thoughtless about the great interrelationships in which it is actually involved as humanity, living in the earthly human existence like a stupid animal and thinking: There are the laws of nature, according to which we calculate that a Kant-Laplacean world view corresponds to the beginning of the earth and a heat-death-like state caused by entropy corresponds to the end of the earth, that basically we can do whatever we like, yes, that we can murder millions: when heat-death has occurred, then they have simply been murdered along with us, and the impulses that led to their murder have no significance beyond this heat-death. Man must believe such things because of present-day materialism; but then he lives like a stupid animal. He lives so that he gives no thought to his connection with the whole of cosmic existence. That is the danger today, that man is losing the ability to think about his connection with the cosmic existence. Then insane ideas arise, such as the Kant-Laplacean theory or that of the heat death of the Earth; whereas in fact the Earth is an organization that had its beginning in an age when the moral and the natural law were one, an organization that will find its end in a period when, again, the moral and the natural law will be one. If one does not broaden one's view beyond the immediate present to that which only spiritual science can teach, then one lives just like a stupid animal. Only by allowing one's view to be sharpened to the point where spirit becomes matter and matter becomes spirit, so that they form a unity, only by this means does one come to an awareness of human dignity, that is, to the consciousness of the connection between man and all cosmic forces, which are neither one-sided morality nor one-sided natural law, but are such that morality itself forms a natural order, and the natural order itself permeates morality.

These are also the moral reasons why it is necessary for man in the present time to broaden the horizon of his knowledge. If he does not broaden it, he narrows himself down to an understanding of the world that can only be exhausted in that which cannot go beyond the dualism between the moral conception of the world and the conception of the world in terms of natural law. But in so doing, man narrows his view of the world to such an extent that it is impossible for him to truly understand himself in his entire being.

From this you can see that it is not really a matter of curiosity for knowledge that should be satisfied by what is done in spiritual science, but that there is a moral necessity for the spread of spiritual science. For what has guided people up to their present state has precisely produced the fact that today man cannot grasp how the moral world order and the physical world order are interrelated; they cannot penetrate each other today because man is to become a free being. But man must look at the nodal points of the world in such a way that in them the natural order and the moral order are one. It is basically a terrible thing when today, of all times, it is calculated how our earth would have begun from purely physical conditions, and how it would end up in purely physical conditions again. One should not believe that the traditional creeds, in the form they are, save man from this decline, as it is indicated in the words I have used today. It is these traditional creeds that have made the spiritual more and more abstract and have given rise to dualism, which has brought it to the point that man hardly feels the need to seek the bond between the natural order and the moral order. If he seeks it today, if he seeks it with all his heart, then he can only find it in spiritual science, which points him to the end and the beginning of the earth as the nodes of world evolution where the moral becomes natural and the natural becomes moral.

But then, in fact, all that surrounds us and into which we are integrated is interspersed with moral responsibility for us. We human beings, after all, to a certain extent, live through the image of the whole organization of the earth by having successive embodiments of life in our earthly existence. We live successive earthly lives in that we always seek to balance between birth and death that in which we lapse into one-sidedness between birth and death, seeking balance between death and a new birth. We oscillate back and forth between the life of the senses and the supersensible, seeking balance, and at the end of our earthly existence we will pass through a world that is very similar to the supersensible world, but where everything supersensible will take on the supersensible form that we have developed into at that time.

In the scheme of the world, our thinking is older than our present-day sensory perception. This does not contradict the fact that our sense organs were laid down in the first earth embodiment that we can trace. But this sensory perception, as we have it now, has only developed during the time on earth, while thinking, which is very much pushed back in our organization, was already present during the old moon time, even if in images. The sensory-physical organization has only come into existence during our existence on earth, up to the organs that perceive the sensory, namely how our senses, as they are developed today, perceive it. And what we perceive with our senses today, is that as fleeting as it seems? Yes, you see, man thinks. He looks at the green plant today, he looks at the red rose today. He thinks what is happening between his sense organs and the outer world as a passing thought. It is not a passing thought! It leaves an effect on the whole human organization. It does matter what you have focused your senses on. It is all contained in your human organization, and the entire scope of your sensory perception is seen in the impressions of the etheric body when it passes through the death of the earth and is taken over into the supersensible world in the astral impression. And that which is thus carried by us through death here on earth accumulates and we then carry it further over through this state of the end of the earth. Certainly, we carry nothing of our flesh over into the Jupiter period; but we carry over very much of what the effects of these perceptions are. This is already being prepared in the colorful images we have between death and a new birth, but it will undergo a significant intensification when we live through the state between the earth and Jupiter, which will be a moral-physical and a physical-moral state; through this we will be able to carry that which will become organized in us by our perceiving with our higher senses. That which is being organized within us is capable of passing through a world that is moral-physical and physical-moral, where natural laws are ideal laws and ideal laws are natural laws.

When we look at a rainbow today – and I know that I am speaking only comparatively and that any seemingly trained physicist can correct the way I use it, but that is not the point here – when we look at a rainbow today, spreading a large spectrum before us, the color floating in space appears before us separately. Something similar also forms when we do not see a rainbow, but when we just look at something that evokes the sensation of color in us; but something similar to what objectively forms out there when the rainbow appears to us , something similar happens in us with our etheric body and prepares for that body, which is now colored but then condensed, the transition between the earth and Jupiter. You see, at this point in spiritual science, man today can attain an inner consciousness of the unity of the moral and physical worlds, whereas otherwise the moral and physical worlds fall apart for today's materialistic consciousness. It is morally imperative that spiritual science be spread. For what human morality is evaporates and virtually vanishes if the physical world view alone were to prevail. Once one sees this, it is indeed bitterly disappointing, but the cause of this must be fought with all severity when one sees how people who claim to want to cultivate the spiritual life of humanity are fighting against this necessary, morally necessary cultivation of spiritual life.

There are always new examples of this “clean” fight. A particularly cute one has recently emerged. It ties in with – I don't know which side the things are always being talked about – it ties in with what Dr. Boos had said here about collecting trust notes. It is not for me to talk about this matter; but a supposedly good Christian paper in the local area finds it necessary to emphasize that this whole story is in turn a terrible danger for Swiss national identity. I would like to know whether the person who believes that Swiss national identity is particularly strong really believes that it will be shaken if anthroposophy is practiced? But you see, Swiss national identity is said to be in danger, and it is written about in such beautiful words: “As one can see, the anthroposophical cause stands on shaky ground. A secret circular, the mask of which we have torn off, is supposed to pave the way for Dr. Steiner's work, to make the authorities of the whole of Switzerland favorable to it, yes, to ensure that the immigration of foreign elements is not prevented. What does society care about our terrible housing shortage, what about the disastrous influence of this foreign race on our noble Swissness. They are turning to the Swiss people for help in destroying Swissness."

Now, it is pointed out that it is bad that non-Swiss impulses should play a role here. But now follows a sentence that neatly adds to the whole thing, which raises the question: where does the right come from to make this accusation of supposedly foreign impulses? It says: “For us Catholics, the position is clear. We have received word from Rome that no Catholic, directly or indirectly, may assist this new sect. We therefore consider it our sacred duty to alert wide circles to the new peasant catchers.”

These people, who want to save the Swiss people from foreign influences, get their influences, to which they point with their whole clenched fist, not from Bern or from Zurich from the Swiss people, but from Rome! Strange logic? You see, that is the logic of today. That is how people think - but without realizing it. And they don't realize it because our education, which comes from our educational institutions, allows such thinking. Those people who write this know what they want with it and that is why they can write such stuff. But numerous other sleeping souls, they first have to be made aware with harsh words that such follies are simply accepted today as logic and they are not recognized as follies. They are the hallmarks of the drowsiness of souls today. That is why it is so necessary to keep pointing out in no uncertain terms that souls should wake up, that they should look at what lives in our mired thinking, what things one is allowed to say today without the drowsy souls realizing that it is also a common nonsense in terms of logic.

This also shows us from another side the moral necessity that should spur us on to be a real support for spiritual science, not to continue sleeping, but to wake up and be a real support for spiritual science. You will find the logic that people here are counting on not to notice practiced everywhere in scientific books today. Go through the hypotheses, go through all the stuff that today forms the Kant-Laplace delusion for the faithful followers, then you will find in all of this the reason why people are still allowed to fool humanity with such things today. Look for it in the supposedly exact scientific hypotheses and theories that have been characterized here in recent days. Look for it in them. They force people to send young people to these universities where they are taught experimental knowledge, but their thinking, their whole soul life is thoroughly “de-logicalized”. And people do not want to look at the necessity that spiritual life must indeed stand on its own in the threefold social organism. People do not want to look at the evidence that can be seen everywhere. It must be said: It will not take long, because the powers that be, who use all means to count on people's illogicality, have good ground today. And if those who understand a little of what needs to be done continue to sleep, then it will come to pass that, for the time being, at least, the grave will be dug for European culture, and then a deliverance must come from quite different quarters.

I have often spoken here of the responsibility that exists for the various parts of European humanity. One should become aware of this responsibility. This responsibility is a great one. And it is not enough to think up all kinds of little remedies and believe that you can make your way with them. Today, we must recognize that our entire spiritual life is in need of renewal and that precisely this spiritual life cannot continue as it has developed into our times.

The fifteenth century ushered in an era for the civilized humanity of the Northern Hemisphere, in which the human individuality began to develop more and more in full I-consciousness. The forces which elaborate this I-consciousness will grow increasingly stronger and all the phenomena of life—of life in the broadest sense—will take place in the sign of this development of the individuality. This, however, means that what comes from the spiritual world and plays into our physical world will take such a course that, in humanity as a whole, the individual element of the human being will take on greater importance. For it is not simply a matter of individual human beings thinking in an egotistical way, 'we are individuals': it is rather a matter of the whole development of humanity taking such a course that the individual human element can work into it.

Every age, every epoch, that we can trace in the course of human evolution developed some particular quality, just as now it is that of individuality. These characteristics are impressed into human evolution through the particular action of spiritual powers working into the physical life of humanity on earth. But precisely because of the separateness that we see in the individual human being today when the individuality is developing—when I-consciousness is developing fully, when the consciousness-soul is, as it were, giving itself contour, becoming integrated in itself—the special characteristics of this epoch are not directed from the spiritual world as they were in earlier epochs, and very exceptional things are making their appearance within humanity's evolution. And the human being who, through the development of his individuality is being increasingly educated for freedom, must also take up a conscious stand more and more to what results from this. Above all it is essential that a social life take shape, but a social life which, from our point of view, must have deep inner foundations. This must take shape despite the fact that the strong egoistical forces of the consciousness-soul, which are opposed to a social life, are emerging ever more strongly from the depths of existence. On the one side we have the strong egoistical forces of the consciousness-soul and, on the other, the all-the-greater necessity of founding a social life consciously. And we must take a conscious stand towards everything that can foster this social living together. We have shown in the past,¹ and from the most varied points of view, how differently the human beings of the West, the European Centre, and of the East are placed in the whole course of human evolution. We have pointed to different things that are peculiar to the human beings of the East, Central Europe and the West. And we want now to turn to a phenomenon that can already show us externally how these differentes within humanity express themselves in the civilized world.

We know that, under the influence of our modern scientific way of thinking about social life, a certain view of life has been developed. This comes to expression particularly strongly in the broad masses of the proletariat which has come into being in our technological age, our intellectual age. I have presented all this, insofar as it touches the social question, in the first part of my Towards Social Renewal (Kernpunkt der sociale Frage). Today I want only to indicate the diversity of views among the broad masses of humanity concerning the social question. We have, clearly differentiated, the social views of, let us say, the proletariat, which then, however, colour other strata of the population. We have, distinct from that of other peoples, the conception of life held in die West, especially in the Anglo-Saxon countries. In these countries, under the influence of the modern technology and industry, there has also developed among the broad masses that materialistic concept of life which has often been characterized here. This arose side by side with materialism or was directly produced through the materialism of other classes. This socialist conception of life, however, developed in such a way that it stands entirely under the aegis of economic strife, for it is permeated by economic concepts, thoughts and struggles that are little penetrated by the struggle for a philosophy of life (Lebensanschauungskämpfen). This is the characteristic stamp of what is going on in the socialist world of the Anglo-Saxon West. And because the actual character of modern public life as a whole has hitherto been the economic life, it was from the economic conditions of the Anglo-Saxon proletariat that the impulses of socialism arose.

The impulses coming to expression in the Great Strike movement are significant precisely as a characteristic of what is taking shape in this respect in the West. Even if it seems that the discrepancies which are there could be settled, it only seems so, for such settlements would not be real; very significant effects will issue from the deeper forces playing in these conflicts. And although, by virtue of the whole make-up of the West, no genuine philosophies or concepts of life (Lebensauffassung), develop from these impulses, we can nevertheless dearly perceive how the views of life which do develop, and which have developed in recent times, have taken their incentive from the impulses present there [in the West].

In fact, Karl Marx,² who was born in Central Europe and was nurtured in the Central European stream of thought, had to go to England in order to absorb the practical impulses (Lebensimpulse) which had developed there. He, however, transformed them into a theory, into a conception of life. And Marxism as a theory of life has found little external expression in the West. Where it has come to external expression, however, is in Central Europe. In the aims of the social democracy there, it has taken on fully the nature of a philosophy. What in the West are economic impulses leading to economic conflict, were diverted and fixed into legal-political concepts which lived then in Central Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century and on into the twentieth century as Marxist ideology and took hold of the broad masses of the population. It also found its way into the areas stretching towards the East, to those parts of Europe which begin to take on the character of the East. But here again it expressed itself in another form. Economic in the West; political in the Centre; and in the East it assumes a distinctly religious character. A distortion exists, which occurred with the inundation of the East through Peter the Great³ —,and now Lenin⁴ and Trotsky.⁵ This arises because the Bolshevism making itself felt there is in fact a foreign import. If it were not for that distinction it would be far more evident that, even now, Bolshevism has a strong religious element which, however, is completely materialistic. It works through earlier religious impulses and will continue to do so. And it is precisely in this that its terrible aspect will show itself throughout all Asia, because it works with all the fervour of a religious impulse. The social impulse in the West is economic, in Central Europe is political, and works with a religious fervour eastwards from Russia over into Asia. Over and against these impulses which move through the development of humanity there is a great deal that is utterly unimportant. And anyone who does not see, in the most intense sense, something of symptomatic importance in such things as the present [1920] strike of the British miners simply has no understanding at all of the foment of deeper forces in the whole of our present development.

All this, however, which can be described externally in this way, has deeper causes—causes which lie ultimately in the spiritual world. The more recent life of humanity can only be understood if one understands this differentiation—a differentiation into the Western economic element, the Central European political-legal one, and the religious element—the spiritual element in the East which takes on a religious character but is actually the momentum of a decadent spirituality that still finds expression in the East. This shows itself so strongly that one must say: It is natural for the West—and this is carried out thoroughly by it—to have everything of an economic nature; purely economic aspirations can have no success in the Centre because all economic aims there assume a political character. The great outer failure in Eastern Europe has come about because, through the tradition of Peter the Great, what arises out of a spiritual-religious impulse, i.e. Pan-slavism or Slavophilism, has taken on a political character. Behind this political character, which has produced all the dreadful things that have developed in the European East and has set its characteristic stamp on all the aspirations of the East since Peter the Great, there is, fundamentally, always the spiritual tendency of Byzantium, that is spiritual Byzantine religiosity, and so on. The individual phenomena of history become comprehensible only if they can be seen in this light. One can say: To a certain extent, everything that is still in Europe—also towards the West, even into France—can be reckoned as belonging to the European Centre, for what is characteristic of the West is actually Anglo-Saxon. And, in its basic instincts, this 'Anglo-Saxondom' moves completely with the impulses that have arisen naturally within human development in the last three or four centuries. It was thus precisely in the West that these impulses could best bring about the development of all that was then forced upon the social life through the modern scientific way of thinking and all its achievements. This way of thinking and its achievements, together with the inherent nature of Anglo-Saxondom, was the foundation for the world dominion of the Anglo-Saxon. The brilliant rise of commerce, trade and industry which has come out of modern science, everything which led to the great colonizations, has arisen, in fact, through the confluence of the natural-scientific mode of thought and the character of Anglo-Saxondom. And this was sensed deep down in the instincts of die West.

One can actually point to a significant moment of modern historical development, to the year 1651, when the ingenious Cromwell with his Navigation Act⁶ brought about that configuration in English navigation and in all English trade which was the foundation for everything in the West which later arose. One can also point to how, for outwardly inexplicable reasons, French merchant shipping suffered its greatest decline just as Napoleon's star was in the ascendant. What takes place in the West takes place out of the forces lying in the actual direction of humanity's development. It takes place out of a completely economic way of thinking, out of the impulses of economic ideas. This is why everything which comes from Central Europe and is conceived not out of economic points of view, but out of political-legal-militaristic ones must succumb to them. We have a crude example of how, based an a political-military standpoint, Napoleon, with his 'Continental System',⁷ tried to counteract from the European continent everything that had resulted from Cromwell's Navigation Act. This Navigation Act was conceived and created entirely out of economic instincts. Napoleon's 'Continental System' at the beginning of the nineteenth century was a political conception. But a political conception is something that projects from earlier times into the modern age—it is antiquated, is actually an anachronism. This is why this political conception could be no match for the modern conception from which the Navigation Act arose. On the other hand, in the West where thinking follows the lines of economics in the sense of the new age, political affairs, even if they take an unfavourable course, do not fundamentally.

Consider the fact that from Europe France colonized North America. She lost these colonies to England. The colonies freed themselves again. The first, the French colonization in the eighteenth century, was a political act and bore no fruit. The English colonization in North America was entirely out of economic impulses. The political element could be destroyed—North America freed itself and the political connection no longer existed. But the economic connections remained intact.

Thus are things linked in human evolution. And we can safely say that history also shows that when two do the same thing it is in fact not the same. When Cromwell, at the right time and out of economic impulses, created his Navigation Act—which, for the other powers, was extraordinarily tyrannical and even, one could say, brutal—this arose nevertheless from an economic thinking. When, in modern times, Tirpitz⁸ created the German navy and merchant fleet it was conceived politically, purely politically and without any economic impulse—in fact, against all economic instincts. Today it has been wiped off the face of the earth because it was planned and conceived contrary to the course of human evolution. And thus it could be shown, with regard to all individual phenomena, how this, let us say historical threefoldness, really does exist; in the East, but in a decadent form today, something which points back to ancient times of Eastern evolution and has a spiritual character; in the Centre something which today is also antiquated and always, to a greater or lesser extent, takes an the form of the political-legal-militaristic; in the West the State is really only a decoration, the political has no real significance—what preponderates here is economic thinking. Whereas Germany has gone to pieces because the State has absorbed the economy, because industry and commerce have submerged and bowed down under the power of the State, we see in the West how the State is sucked up by the economic life and everything is flooded by the economic life. This, viewed externally, is the differentiation covering the modern civilized world.

But what one can view in this way externally is, after all, basically brought to the visible surface only from the underlying depths of the spiritual world. Everything in the spiritual development of modern times is designed towards setting up the individuality—the individuality in the West in a Western way, in an economic way; the individuality of the Centre in the already antiquated political-militaristic way; the individuality of the East in an antiquated way, in accordance with the ancient spirituality that is now completely decadent. This has to be borne by the spiritual world, and it is borne by the fact that both in the West and the East—we shall consider only these two regions for the time being—a peculiar and deeply significant phenomenon is appearing. And it is this: very many people—at least relatively many—are being born who do not follow the regular course of reincarnation.

You see, this is why it is so difficult to speak about such a problem as reincarnation, because one cannot speak about it in the abstract sense that is so popular nowadays. For it is a problem pointing indeed to something that is a significant reality in the evolution of humanity, but it can have exceptions. And we see how both in the East and the West—we shall have to speak of the Centre in later lectures—people are born whom we cannot regard in such a way that we can say: There lives in this person, in the completely usual way, an individuality that was there in an earlier life, and then again in a subsequent earlier life, and which will be there in a later life and again in a still later life. Such reincarnations form the regular course of human evolution, but there are exceptions. What confronts us as a human being in human form does not always have to be as it outwardly appears. The outer appearance can, in fact, be just appearance. It is possible for us to confront human beings in human form who only appear to be human beings of the kind that are subject to repeated lives on earth. In reality these are human bodies with a physical, etheric and astral body—but there are other beings incarnated here, beings who use these people in order to work through them. There are in fact a large number of people, for example in the West, who are not simply reincarnated human beings but are the bearers of beings who have taken an extremely premature path of development and who should only appear in the form of humanity at a later stage of their evolution. Now these beings do not make use of the whole human organism but use chiefly the metabolic system of these Western human beings. Of the three members of the human nature they use the metabolic system and do so in such a way that, through these human beings, they work into the physical world. For one who can observe life with a certain accuracy, people of this kind even show outwardly that this is how it is with them. Thus, for example, a large number of those individuals who belong to Anglo-Saxon secret societies and who have great influence—we have spoken on a number of occasions in past years of the roll of these secret societies⁹ —are actually the bearers of premature existences of this kind which, through the metabolic system of certain people, work into the world and seek out a field of action through human bodies and do not live in normal regular incarnations. The leading personalities of certain sects are of this nature, and the overwhelming majority of a very widespread sect that has a great following in the West is made up of individuals of this kind. In this way a completely different spirituality is working into present-day human beings and it will be an essential task to be able to take up a stand towards life from this point of view.

One should not think in an abstract way that everywhere and without exception human beings are subject to repeated lives on earth. This would mean that we do not attribute to external semblance the quality of semblance. To face the truth means even in cases like these, to seek truth; to seek reality where outer appearance is so deceptive that beings other than human beings are incorporated in human form, in a part of the human being, namely in the metabolic system. But they also work in the trunk, in the rhythmic system and in the sensory-nervous system. There are in fact three kinds of beings of this nature who incarnate in this way through the metabolic system of different people of the West.

The first kind of beings are beings that have a particular attraction to what, in a sense, are the elemental forces of the earth; that have an inclination towards, a feeling for the elemental forces of the earth and are thus able to sense how, in any particular place, colonization could be carried out in accordance with the conditions of the climate and any other conditions of the earth, or how a trading connection can be established there, and so on.

The second kind of spirits of this nature are those that set themselves the task within their sphere of action of suppressing consciousness of self, of preventing full consciousness of the consciousness-soul from emerging, and thus produce in other people around them, amongst whom something like this spreads like an epidemic, a certain desire not to call themselves to account concerning the real motives behind their actions. One could say that such an utterly untrue report, or such an utterly untrue document, as the one by the Oxford professors that has been published in the last few days¹⁰—such an utterly, even absurdly, untruthful document—must be accounted to the pupilship of this untruthful element which does not wish to look into the real impulses, but glosses over them; uses beautiful words, and all the while there is beneath it nothing, basically, but untruthful impulses. I am not suggesting here that these Oxford professors—who are probably perfectly upright men in themselves (I do not impute strong Ahrimanic impulses to them)—are themselves bearers of such premature beings; but the pupilship to such beings lies within them. These [second kind of] beings, therefore, incarnate through the rhythmic system of certain people in the West.

The third kind of beings that work in the West are those which make it their task to cause the individual abilities in the human being to be forgotten—those abilities which we bring with us from the spiritual worlds when, through conception and birth, we come into physical existence—and to turn human beings more or less into a stereotyped replica of their nation. This is what this third kind of being gives itself as its special task: to prevent the human being from coming to individual spirituality.

So, while the first kind of beings had an affinity with the elemental nature of the ground of the earth, of the climate and so on, the second kind has a particular tendency to breed a certain superficial, untruthful element, and the third type of being the tendency to root out individual abilities and to turn people more or less into a stereotype, a copy of their nation, their race. This last class of beings incarnates in the West through the head system, through the sensory-nervous system. Thus we have here, observed from different angles, the characteristic of the Western world. We have characterized it, if I may put it so, by getting to know a fairly large number of people who are scattered in secret societies, in sects and the like, but whose humanity is constituted in the fact that it is not simply a matter of repeated incarnations, but the incarnation, in a way, of beings who in their development are prematurely here an the earth and who, therefore, attract particular followers or radiate like an epidemic their own exceptional qualities onto other human beings. These three different types of beings do indeed work through human beings and we understand human character only if we know what I have just related—if we know that what lives in public life cannot be simply explained superficially but has to be explained in terms of the intrusion of spiritual forces of this kind.

The appearance in Western human beings of these three kinds of forces, of beings at this particular stage of development, is encouraged by the fact that it is given to the West to develop a specifically economic way of thinking. The economic life is, as it were, the ground and soil from which something like this can spring up. And what then, in total, is the task these beings have set themselves?

They have set themselves the task of keeping life as a whole restricted to the mere life of economics. They seek gradually to root out everything else—everything of the spiritual life which even where it is most active, has shrunk into the abstractness of Puritanism—to root out spiritual life, to chip away the political life and to absorb everything into the life of economics. In the West the people who come into the world in this way are the real enemies and opponents of the threefold impulse. The beings of the first type prevent die emergence of an economic life that stands as an independent entity alongside the political-legal and spiritual facets of the social organism. The beings of the second type, who make superficiality, phrase-mongering and untruthfulness their task, seek to prevent the establishing, alongside the economic life, of an independent democratic life of the State. And the third kind of being those that suppress the individual abilities of the human being and do not want the human being to be anything other than a kind of stereotype of his race, his nation—work against the emancipation and independence of the spiritual life.

Thus in the West there are such forces which work in this way against the impulse of the threefold social organism. And anyone who, in a deeper sense, wishes to work for the spread of this threefold impulse must be aware that he has also to take into account spiritual factors like these that are present in human evolution. Indeed the powers on which one must call when one wants to bring something new into the development of humanity are faced not only with the things that any hard-headed philistine notices but also with things that are only laid open to a spiritual knowledge. What use is it when people of today regard this as superstition and do not want to hear that such spiritual beings intrude through human beings? They are nevertheless there, these spiritual beings! And anyone who does not merely want to go through life with a sleeping soul, but with a fully awake soul, can observe the influences of these beings everywhere. If only, from the presence of the effects, people would allow themselves to be convinced a little of the existence of the causes!

This is the characteristic we find when looking towards the West. The West takes on this form because it lives completely in the most fundamental expression of the present epoch—in economic concepts, economic thinking.

The East had once a grand and lofty life of spirit. All spirituality—with the exception of what is striven for in Anthroposophy and is trying to give itself new form—all spirituality of the civilized world is, in actual fact, a legacy of the East. But the real glory of this religious-spiritual life was present in the East only in ancient times. And today the Eastern human being, even in Russia, finds himself in a strange disharmony because on the one hand he still lives in the ancient spiritual element of his heritage and, on the other, there is also working in him that which comes out of the present epoch of human development; namely the training towards becoming an individuality. This brings about a situation such that, in the East, there is a strong decadence in humanity; that, in a sense, the human being cannot become a full human being; that hard on the heels of this Eastern human being, as far west as Russia, is the spiritual heritage of ancient times. And this has the effect that when today the consciousness of this Eastern human being is lowered, when he is in a condition of sleep or dreaming, or in some kind of mediumistic trance state which is so very frequent in the East, he is then, indeed, not entirely impregnated by another being as in the West, but this being works into his soul nature; these beings, as it were, appear to him. Whereas in the West it is premature beings of three kinds that are at work (which I have ennumerated), in the East it is retarded beings, beings that have remained behind from an earlier evolutionary stage of perfection and who now appear to human beings of the East in a mediumistic state, in dreams, or simply during sleep, so that the human being in a waking state then bears within him the inspirations of such beings; is inspired during the day by the after-effects of beings of this kind who come over him during the night.

And here again there are three types of beings working in the East who likewise have a great influence. Whereas in the West one has to draw attention to individual human beings through whom these beings incarnate, in the East one must point to a kind of hierarchy that can appear to the most varied people. Again it is three types of beings; not, however, beings that incarnate through people but beings that appear to people and also inspire them during sleep at night.

The first type of these beings prevents the human being from taking full possession of his physical body, hinders him from finding a connection with the economic element, with the public conditions of the present-day in general. These are the beings who seek in the East to hold back the economic life as it is needed in the threefold social order.

The second type of beings are those that produce over-individualization—a kind of, if I may put it so paradoxically, unegoistic egoism. This is all the more subtle in the way it is so frequently found in people, particularly of the East, who fancifully attribute to themselves all possible selflessness—a selflessness which, however, is in fact a particularly subtle form of self-seeking, a particulary subtle egoism. They want to be absolutely good, they want to be as good as it is ever possible to be. This, too, is an egoistic sentiment. This is something that can be called, paradoxically, an unegoistic egoism, an egoism arising from an imagined selflessness.

The third type of being that appears, in the way described, to human beings of the East are those beings that hold back the spiritual life from the earth; that spread, as it were, a dull mystical atmosphere over human beings, as can be found so frequently today, particularly in the East. And again, these three types of spiritual beings, which work down from the spiritual world and do not incarnate into human beings, are the enemies of the threefold social organism. In this way the threefold impulse is hemmed in from the spiritual side in the East and from the human side, as described, in the West. Thus we see here the spiritual foundations underlying the differen-tiation.

We still have to add to this what is hostile to the threefolding in the European Centre so that, from a spiritual point of view, we gradually gain an idea of how one must equip oneself in order that the opposing powers—whether from the spiritual world, as in the East, or from human beings, as in the West, or from the Centre of Europe, in a way which I shall relate tomorrow—can be met by the threefold idea with an impulse that is of the greatest conceivable importance for humanity's evolution. And in order to know how one must act with regard to these things one must be equipped with an armour of thoughts.

• 1 . See Die soziale Grundforderung unserer Zeit—In geänderter Zeitlage, twelve lectures, Dornach and Bern 1918, (GA 186).
• 2 . Karl Marx (1818–1883), founder of scientific capitalism.
• 3 . Peter the Great (1672–1725), Tsar of Russia.
• 4 . Lenin, actually Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov (1870–1924).
• 5 . Trotsky, actually Leib Bronstein (1879–1940).
• 6 . Cromwell's Magna Charta Maritima strengthened the position of the English fleet by decreeing that foreign goods could be imported only on English ships or ships of the country of origin. This measure struck a blow primarily at the Dutch hegemony in international carrying trade.
• 7 . Napoleon's decree from Berlin on 21 November 1806 imposed the strictest blockade of the British Isles by closing the entire Continent to trade and commerce with England.
• 8 . Alfred von Tirpitz (1849–1930), German Admiral of the the Fleet and statesman, creator of the German naval fleet.
• 9 . See, et al., the lectures from 20 to 22 January 1917, Das Geheimnis des Lebens nach dem Tode in Zeitgeschichtliche Betrachtungen. Das Karma der Unwahrhaftigkeit, Zweiter Teil, twelve lectures, Dornach 1917, (GA 174); Individuelle Geistwesen und ihr Wirken in der Seek des Menschen, nine lectures in different cities, 1917, (GA 178); and Die okkulte Bewegung im neunzehnten Jahrhundert and ihre Beziehung zur Welikultur, thirteen lectures, Dornach 1915, (GA 254).
• 10. In October 1920, professors and doctors of Oxford University sent an appeal to the professors of art and science in Germany and Austria, in order, as it says there, '...to remove the bitter enmity that has arisen under the influence of patriotism...' and to find a reconciliation through the 'brotherly feelings of study'—article entitled Die Völkeruersühnung (The Reconciliation of Peoples) in the Basel Nationalzeitung of 20 October 1920.

When it is a question of understanding the Event of Golgotha in the sense of the Christmas Mystery we may look in two directions: Towards the starry heavens with all their secrets on the one side and towards the inner being of man with all its secrets on the other. During these lectures I have spoken of how the Magi from the East recognised, from the starry heavens, the Coming of Christ Jesus upon the earth and of how from the visions arising out of man's inner being the simple shepherds in the field received the proclamation of this Saviour of mankind. And once again today we will turn our attention to these two directions whence, in reality, all knowledge comes to man—whence the highest knowledge of all, the knowledge of the very meaning of the earth, had to come.

In the epochs which preceded the Mystery of Golgotha the attitude of the human soul to the universe and to itself was quite different from what it was after the Mystery of Golgotha. This fact, of course, is not very vividly apparent to an external study of history because the ancient form of knowledge belongs to ages lying long, long before, thousands of years before the Mystery of Golgotha. By the time the Mystery of Golgotha was drawing near, this form of knowledge had already become feebler, and truth to tell it was only individual, very outstanding men like the three Magi from the East who possessed such far-reaching knowledge as was then manifest. And on the other side it was only possible for men particularly sensitive to inner things like the shepherds—men of the people—to bring such visions out of sleep as these shepherds brought. But in both the Magi and the shepherds it was a legacy of that ancient knowledge through which men had once been related to the universe. Even in our time we could not say, especially not in regard to the actual present, that men give very clear expression to that form of knowledge which has entered into the evolution of humanity since the Mystery of Golgotha. Speaking generally, however, what we are going to speak about this evening, holds good. The pre-Christian attitude to the starry heavens was such that men did not regard the stars in the prosaic, abstract way that is current nowadays. The fact that these men of olden times spoke of the stars as if they were living Beings was not due, as an imperfect science believes, to mere fantasy, but to a spiritual, although instinctive, atavistic perception of the starry heavens. Looking at the starry heavens in olden times men did not merely see points or surfaces of light but something spiritual, something that made them able to describe the constellations as they did, for to them the several planets of our system were ensouled by living beings. Men beheld the spiritual in the wide heaven of the stars. They saw the starry heavens as well as the mineral and plant kingdoms in their spiritual reality. It was with one and the same faculty of knowledge that men of old beheld these three regions of existence. They spoke of the stars as beings endowed with soul and also of the minerals and the plants as beings endowed with soul.

We must not think that the faculties of knowledge in olden times were similar to ours. A little while ago I spoke to you about a stage of knowledge which, although it was not so very different from our own, is nevertheless difficult for many people today to picture. I said that the Greeks, in the earliest period of their culture, did not see the colour blue, that the heavens were not blue to them. They perceived the colours that lie more towards the active side, towards the side of red-yellow. Nor did they paint in the shades of blue known to us. Blue came only later into the range of human perception.

Think of all shades of blue being absent from the world, and therefore of green looking different from what it does today, and you will realise that the world around the Greek did not appear to him as it appears to humanity today. For the men of much earlier times the surrounding world differed still more. And then from the world seen by men of old, the spiritual withdrew—withdrew from the worlds of stars, of minerals, of plants. The vivid active colours became duller and out of the depths there appeared what is experienced as blue. As the faculty for the perception of blue, of the darker colours arose, what the men of old experienced in the astrology which spoke to them in a living language, active and full of colour, changed into the grey, colourless geometry and mechanics which, drawing it as we do from our inner being, no longer enables us to read from the environment the secrets of the starry worlds. The ancient astrology was transformed into the world we picture today in the sense of Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, into the world of celestial mechanics, of mathematics.

That is the one side. The other side is that in those olden times men possessed a deep, inner faculty for perceiving what was streaming around them out of the earth—the fluids of the earth. The fluids of the earth, the qualities of earth announced themselves as the counterpart of the starry heavens to certain inner faculties of perception. Man in olden times was highly sensitive to the characteristics of the climate of his country, of the soil on which he lived. A chalk or granite soil was experienced as different radiations from the Earth. But this was not a dim feeling or experience; it arose like colours or clouds inwardly felt, inwardly experienced. Thus man experienced the earth's depths; thus, too, the soul in his fellow-man and the life of animals. The experiences were more living, more intense. It was with a faculty of external knowledge that man gazed into the spirituality of the starry heavens, into the spirituality of the minerals and plants, with his atavistic, instinctive clairvoyance; and it was with instinctive inner vision that he perceived what was living spiritually in the earth's depths. He spoke not merely of chalk soil but he experienced specific elemental beings: one kind from chalk soil, other kinds from granite or gneiss. He felt what was living in other human beings as an aura but an aura bestowed upon man from the earth; particularly did he feel the animals with their aura as beings of the earth. It was as though the ground, soil and the inner warmth of the earth continued on in the whole animal world. When a man of old saw the butterflies over the plants he saw them drawing along with them what was rising from the earth; as in an auric cloud he saw animal life flowing over the earth.

All this gradually withdrew and the prosaic world remained for man's faculty of perception which now became external He began now to behold the world around him as we behold it, in its colours and so forth—without perceiving the spiritual. And what man had once seen through faculties of inner perception was transformed into our modern knowledge of nature; what he had seen spiritually through faculties of external knowledge was transformed into our modern mathematics and mechanics.

Thus out of the qualities which the simple shepherds in the field brought to their inner vision we have developed the modern view of nature; and out of what the Magi from the East brought to their faculty of perceiving the Star, we have developed our dry mathematics and mechanics. The faculties of outer and inner perception were still so rich in individual men at that time that the mystery of the birth of Jesus could announce itself from these two sides.

What really underlay this faculty of perception? During the period between death and a new birth, during the time through which we lived before entering through birth into earthly existence we have literally passed through the cosmic expanses. Our individuality was not then bound to the space enclosed by the skin; our existence was spread over cosmic expanses. And the faculty of magical vision still possessed by the wise men from the East was essentially a faculty which entered strongly into the human being from the period between death and birth—that is to say, it was a ‘pre-natal’ faculty. What the soul lived through before birth within the world of stars awakened to become a special faculty in those who were pupils of the Magi. And when the pupils of the Magi developed this particular faculty they were able to say: “Before I came down to this earth I had definite experiences with Mercury, with Sun, with Moon, with Saturn, with Jupiter.” And this cosmic memory enabled them to behold the spiritual in the whole external world as well, to see the destiny of man on earth. They saw it out of their memory of existence before birth within the world of stars.

The faculties by means of which the earth's depths, the mysteries of the souls of men and of the nature of the animals were perceived, were faculties which at first developed in germinal form in the human being and which manifested for the first time after death—but they were youthful faculties, potentially germinal. Although it is after death that these faculties become particularly creative, in earthly life they arise as potentially germinal forces during the first period of earthly life, in the child. The forces of growth in the child which bud and sprout forth from the spiritual, these forces of the child withdraw in later life from the human being. They withdraw and we are then filled more with those forces which were there before birth. But after death these child forces appear again. It was only specially gifted men who retained them on into old age. I have already said here that such faculties of genius as we have in the later years of life are due to the fact that we have remained more childlike than those who do not have these faculties or have them in a lesser degree. The maintenance of childlike faculties on into later life equips us with inventive faculties and the like. The more we can retain childlike faculties in mature years, the more creative we are. But these creative forces appear again more particularly after death.

Among individual peoples of pre-Christian times it had been possible for the after-death faculties to be fructified by those that had remained from before birth. Because such men allowed the kind of knowledge possessed by the Magi from the East to withdraw and the after-death knowledge to come more to the fore, and because the pre-birth faculties were able to fructify the after-death faculties, the gift of prophecy developed in these men, the gift of foretelling the future prophetically with the after-death faculties. Those whom we call the Jewish Prophets were men in whom the after-death faculties were particularly developed; but these faculties did not remain merely in the instinctive life as in the simple shepherds in the field to whom the annunciation was made, they were penetrated by those other faculties which had developed to greater intensity among such people as the Magi from the East, and which led to special knowledge relating to the secrets of the stars and the happenings in the heavens.

 Starry heavens ................................ 

 Earth's depths

 Mineral world ................................. 

 Human soul

 Plant world ................................... 

 Animal life

 Pre-birth faculties ........................... 

 After-death faculties

It will now be clear to you that the proclamation to the shepherds in the field and the knowledge of the Magi from the East were necessarily in agreement. The knowledge possessed by the Magi from the East was such that they were able to behold deep secrets of the starry heavens. Out of those worlds in which man lives between death and a new birth, out of those worlds whence came the faculties enabling them to penetrate the starry heavens, out of an enhancement of this knowledge this vision came to them: From that world which does not primarily belong to life between birth and death but to the life between death and a new birth—from that world a Being, the Christ, is coming down to the earth. The approach of Christ was revealed to the Magi out of their knowledge of the stars.

And what was the revelation to the shepherds in the field whose special faculty was to experience the Earth's depths?—The Earth became something different when the Christ was drawing near. The Earth felt this approach of Christ, bore in herself new forces because of Christ's approach. The pure-hearted shepherds in the field felt, from out of the depths, what the Earth was reflecting, the way in which the Earth was reacting to the approach of Christ. Thus the cosmic expanses proclaimed to the Magi from the East the same as the earth's depths proclaimed to the shepherds.

This happened at a time when remains of the old knowledge were still in existence. We are concerned here with men who were exceptional, even in those days, with men like the three. Magi from the East and these particular shepherds in the field. Both had retained, each in their own way, what had more or less disappeared from humanity in general. This was the reason why the Mystery of Golgotha, when its time was drawing near, could be proclaimed to them as it was.

In studying these things we must add to the ordinary, historical view, the knowledge that comes from Spiritual Science. We must try, as it were, to fathom the expanses of space and the depths of the life of the soul. And if we fathom the expanses of space in the right way we begin to understand how the wise men from the East experienced the approach of the Mystery of Golgotha. If we try to plumb the depths of the life of soul we begin to understand how the shepherds received the tidings of what was coming so near to the earth that the earth herself became aware of the approach of these forces. The faculties connected with existence before birth, which were manifested in the Magi, correspond more to an intellectual element—different, of course, in those times from what it is today; they correspond more to knowledge. What worked in the shepherds corresponds more to will, and it is the will that represents the forces of growth in the universe. The shepherds were united in their will with the Christ Being Who was approaching the earth. We feel, too, how the stories of the wise men from the East—although they are so inadequately recorded in the modern Bible—we feel how they express the kind of knowledge with which the wise men approached the Mystery of Golgotha; it came from their consciousness to the external universe. We feel that the story of the proclamation to the shepherds points to the will, to the heart, to the life of inner emotion. “Revelation of the God from the heavens and Peace to those men on Earth who are of good will.” We feel the streaming of the will in the proclamation to the shepherds. The light-filled knowledge possessed by the Magi is of a quite different character.

We realise the profundity and significance of the knowledge in the Magi and the proclamation to the shepherds as narrated in the New Testament when we try to fathom the nature of human knowledge and of human will—faculties connected with existence before birth and after death.

Starry heavens		Earth's depths
Mineral world		Human soul
Plant world		Animal life
Pre-birth		After-death
faculties		faculties
Intellect		Will

I have said that what was a world of spirit to the men of old—the stars, the minerals, the plants—I have said that this has become for us the tapestry of the sense-world; what was formerly inner knowledge has drawn to the surface. If we picture to ourselves the knowledge in the shepherds as being inward and what manifested in the Magi as being outward, it was this outward external knowledge in the Magi which reached out into space and there perceived the spirit The inner life leads to perception of the earth's depths.

The inner kind of knowledge manifested in the shepherds (red in diagram) grows, during the further evolution of humanity, more and more outwards and becomes the external perception of today, becomes what we call empirical perception. What gave the Magi their knowledge of the world of stars draws inwards, more backwards towards the brain and becomes our mathematical, mechanistic world (green in diagram). A crossing took place; what was inner knowledge, pictorial, naive, instinctive imagination in pre-Christian times becomes our external knowledge, perception through the senses. What was once external knowledge encompassing the world of stars draws inwards and becomes the dry, geometrical-mathematical, mechanistic world which we now draw forth from within us.

Through inner enlightenment man of today experiences a mathematical, mechanistic world. It is only outstanding persons like Novalis who were able to feel and give expression to the poetry and deep imagination of this inner, mathematical world. This world of which Novalis sings the praises in such beautiful language is, for the ordinary man of today, the dry world of triangles and quadrangles, of squares and—sums and differences. The ordinary human being is prosaic enough to feel this world to be barren, dry; he has no love for it. Novalis, who was an outstanding person, sings its praises because there was still alive in him an echo of what this world was before it had drawn inwards. In those times it was the world out of which the Jupiter Spirit, the Saturn Spirit, the Spirit of Aries, of Taurus, of Gemini was perceived. It was the ancient light-filled world of stars which has withdrawn and in the first stage of its withdrawal becomes the world which seems to us to be dry, mathematical, mechanistic.

The faculty that intensified in a different form in the shepherds in the field to a perception of the voice of the Angel in the heights has become dry, barren and feeble in us—it has become our perception of the external world of sense; with it today we perceive minerals and plants, whereas with the old faculty, although it was hardly articulate, men perceived the earth's depths or the world of men and animals.

What today has faded into the mathematical-mechanistic universe, what was once astrology, contained such a power that the Christ was revealed to the Magi as a Being of the Heavens. What today is our ordinary knowledge through the senses, with which we see nothing but the green surface of grass, the brown skins of animals and the like—to this kind of knowledge when it was still inward, when it had not yet drawn outwards to the eyes, to the skin, there was revealed to the shepherds in the field the deep influence on the earth, the power with which the Christ would work in the earth, what the Christ was to be for the earth.

We, my dear friends, must find the way whereby the inner faculty that is now dry mathematics may intensify pictorially to Imagination. We must learn to grasp the Imagination given us by Initiation Science. What is contained in these Imaginations? They are in truth a continuation of the faculty with which the Magi from the East recognised the approach of Christ. The Imaginations are the budding, the offspring of what the men of old saw in the starry constellations, the star-imaginations, the mineral imaginations, in gold, silver, copper. The men of old perceived in Imaginations, and their offspring are the mathematical faculties of today. The mathematical faculties of today will become those faculties which understand the Imaginations. Thus by the development of the inner faculties men will have to seek for the understanding of the Christ Being.

But external perception must also be deepened, become more profound. External perception has itself descended from what was once the life of inner experiences, of instinct in man. The power which among the shepherds in the field was still inward, in their hearts, is today only in eyes and ears; it has shifted entirely to the external part of man and therefore perceives only the outer tapestry of the sense-world. This power must go still further outwards. To this end man must be able to leave his body and attain Inspiration. This Inspiration—a faculty of perception which can be attained today—will then, out of Initiation Science, be able to give the same as was given in the proclamation to the naive, inner knowledge of the shepherds in the field.

Astrology as it was to the Magi, heart-vision as it was in the shepherds. With the knowledge that comes from Initiation Science through Imagination and Inspiration modern man will rise to the spiritual realisation to the living Christ. Men must learn to understand how Isis, the living, divine Sophia, had to disappear when the time came for the development which has driven astrology into mathematics, into geometry, into the science of mechanics. But it will also be understood that when living Imagination resurrects from mathematics, phoronomy and geometry, this means the finding of Isis, of the new Isis, of the divine Sophia whom man must find if the Christ Power that is his since the Mystery of Golgotha is to become alive, completely alive, that is to say, filled with light within him.

We are standing before this very point of time, my dear friends. The outer earth will not provide man with those things which he has become accustomed to desire in modern times. The conflicts called into being by the terrible catastrophes of recent years have already changed a large part of the earth into a field where culture lies in ruins. Further conflicts will follow. Men are preparing for the next great world war. Culture will be wrecked in more ways. There will be nothing gained directly from what seems to modern humanity to be of most value for knowledge and the will External earth life, insofar as it is a product of earlier times, will pass away—and it is an entirely vain hope to believe that the old habits of thought and will can continue. What must arise is a new kind of knowledge, a new kind of willing in all domains. We must familiarise ourselves with the thought of the vanishing of a civilisation; but we must look into the human heart, into the spirit dwelling in man; we must have faith in the heart and the spirit of man in order that through all we are able to do within the wreckage of the old civilisation, new forms may arise, forms that are truly new.

Nor will these forms arise if we do not bear in mind with all seriousness what it is that must happen for the sake of humanity. Read in the book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and you will find it said that a man when he desires to attain higher knowledge must understand what is there called the meeting with the Guardian of the Threshold. It is said that this meeting with the Guardian of the Threshold means that willing, feeling, thinking separate in a certain way, that a trinity must arise out of the chaotic unity in man. The understanding that must come to the pupil of Spiritual Science through his knowledge of what the Guardian of the Threshold is, must come to the whole of modern mankind in regard to the course of civilisation. In inner experience, though not in outer consciousness, humanity is passing through the region that can also be called a region of the Guardian of the Threshold.

It is so indeed, my dear friends; modern humanity is passing over a threshold at which stands a Guardian, a Guardian full of meaning, and grave. And this grave Guardian speaks: “Cling not to what has come as a transplant from olden times; look into your hearts, into your souls, that you may be capable of creating new forms. You can only create these new forms when you have faith that the powers of knowledge and of will for this spiritual creation can come out of the spiritual world.” What is an event of great intensity for the individual who enters the worlds of higher knowledge, proceeds unconsciously in present-day mankind as a whole. And those who have linked themselves together as the anthroposophical community must realise that it is one of the most needed of all things in our days to bring men to understand this passing through the region which is a threshold.

Just as man, the knower, must realise that his thinking, feeling and willing separate in a certain sense and must be held together in a higher way, so it must be made intelligible to modern humanity that the spiritual life, the life of rights, and the economic life must separate from one another and a higher form of union created than the State as it has been up to now. No programmes, ideas, ideologies can bring individuals to recognise the necessity of this threefoldness of the social organism. It is only profound knowledge of the onward development of mankind that reveals this development to have reached a threshold where a grave Guardian stands. This Guardian demands of an individual who is advancing to higher knowledge: Submit to the separation in thinking, feeling and willing. He demands of humanity as a whole: Separate what has up to now been interwoven in a chaotic unity in the State idol; separate this into a Spiritual Life, an Equity State, and an Economic State ... otherwise there is no progress possible for humanity, and the old chaos will burst asunder. If this happens it will not take the form that is necessary to humanity but an ahrimanic or luciferic form. It is only through spiritual-scientific knowledge of the passing of the threshold in our present day that can give the Christ-form to this chaos.

This, my dear friends, is something that we must say to ourselves at the time of Christmas too, if we rightly understand Anthroposophy. The little child in the crib must be the child representing the spiritual development towards man's future. Just as the shepherds in the field and the Magi from the East went after the proclamation to see how that which was to bring humanity forward appeared as a little child, so must modern man make his way to Initiation Science in order to perceive, in the form of a little child, what must be done for the future by the Threefold Social Organism based on Spiritual Science. If the old form of the state is not made threefold it will have to burst—and burst in such a way that it would develop on the one side a wholly chaotic spiritual life, completely ahrimanic and luciferic in character, and on the other side an economic life again luciferic-ahrimanic in character. And both the one and the other would drag the state in rags after them. In the Orient there will take place the development more of ahrimanic-luciferic spiritual states; in the West there will be the development more of ahrimanic-luciferic economic life—if man does not realise through the permeation of his being by Christ how he can avoid this, how out of his knowledge and out of his will he can proceed to bring about the ‘threefolding’ of what is striving to separate.

This will be human knowledge permeated by Christ; it will be human willing permeated by Christ. And it will express itself in no other way than that the idol of the unitary state will become threefold. And those who stand properly in the spiritual life will recognise, as did the shepherds in the field, what it is that the earth experiences through the Christ. And those who stand rightly within the economic life, within the economic associations will unfold, in the true sense, a will that brings a Christ-filled social order.

I would like to devote in these considerations which will be continued next Friday, the possible all inclusive image on the one side of the link humanity has to the entire universe, to the cosmos, as well as the physical aspect to the spiritual cosmos, and on the other hand to show how we can gradually, through spiritual scientific studies arrive at an actual bridge between what can be called the order of nature and the moral world order. Today I want to offer a kind of Intermezzo which will show how, with reference to humanity itself, the spiritual must be linked to physicality, if it is to come to an all embracing examination including human evolution. That which prohibits the creation of a bridge between the physical and the spiritual also prevents, for the traditional world view in its various forms, reaching a total conception of what is working within human evolution. We can approach spiritual science in such a manner that it isn't an abstract theory, only a sum of imaginations which should solve the question of the immortality, the question of repeated earthly lives in an abstract form. We can't accept spiritual science in this way. It would be a misunderstanding to take it this way. We must imagine spiritual science as penetrating our lives and take what is given in the area of spiritual science in its specific abstract, theoretical form, and apply it quite concretely in our lives. From this I would like to give you an example which has certainly come from true spiritual scientific studies which one can not only refer to but which is verifiable in life itself.

The precursor is this: a spiritual researcher presents certain interrelationships. He expresses these interrelationships. He applies them to life. The course of every person's life can be externally observed. An impartial examination of life is then verified which the spiritual researcher offers from his observations. Something like this must be somewhat retained with such an example of spiritual scientific examination, which I'm presenting as reference to you today.

An historic angle on examination methods has actually strongly influenced what we call the natural scientific way of thinking today. Historical examinations have gradually been capitulated by scientific studies and it is believed that the historical progression of humanity as such should be discovered by the effects reverting back to the causes and then finding an interrelationship between historical causality and causes reflected in events of nature. When single historic examiners turn radical in this regard, the tendency, at least gradually, will direct history in a similar examination method as is applied to science.

In particular, when one observes the unfolding of everyday life and includes individuals in this unfolding from one generation to the next, one gradually arrives at considering things, I might say, merely from outside, as threads of scientific necessity. Even though for many it is somewhat depressing today, yet necessary as part of their appearance, we need to refer to physically inherited features. We are continuously considering how a person has more of this, or less of that, outer or inner physical or soul traits simply inherited from his forbearers and thus we create personal history daily. We extend our history with it. We look at it to a certain extent, as if we live within the present generation, and how this branches off from the foregoing, this again from what was before it and so on. We become accustomed to considering historic development by actually looking at the events of generations.

Let's take a region, say Central Europe. Let's examine it by considering the characteristics of the central European people in the last decades. Then go further back to previous decades and try where possible to get a feel for what we usually do with sensory examination, let's say regarding the characteristics of today's Germans, the characteristics of today's French and take these back to the Germans of the 18th century, the French to the 18th century and so on. We see to a certain extent a straight stream of mankind's development and we are content. The scientist would say the need for causality is satisfied when one finds spiritual-soul qualities in a particular human trait of the present day which can be traced back to spiritual-soul qualities of earlier generations of the same nation, the same race and so on, when therefore a specific causal relationship in the straight line of the course of time can be established.

How can the world view of those who in the course of time during the three to fourth century and even longer have developed and even remain religious, spiritual, yet, as soon as they are let free to abstractions, feel the soul-spiritual life tightly bound to the physical, how can such a method of examination rise above the pure progression of the generation line, the evolution of generations? Here we have to become serious regarding anthroposophic wisdom. From this viewpoint we need to not merely look back at people or the number of people in the present, insofar this person or these people directly have inherited characteristics from their forebears, but we need to be practical and clear that in every one of these people there is a soul-spiritual element which had lived for a long time in the soul-spiritual world before it came in to a particular physical body. When we have a person present in front of us, we need to say to ourselves: we look lovingly at him, he actually displays inherited qualities from previous generations. We also observe him soul-spiritually. He has a soul which has absolutely nothing directly to do with previous generations, which also have not had much to do with generations even further back, who in a much earlier time than now had been on the earth, and who, during an entire row of generations, developed in such a way that he didn't stand directly in relation to the earth's evolution, who, during the course of generations, had been in the soul-spiritual world. It is one-sided to consider mankind only according to inherited characteristics of generations. It is finally also only an illusion to consider mankind or historical origins this way. It is argued that one would understand these things, but in fact they are not understood at all in reality. There is theorizing about this and that, what mankind is doing at present, how they live there, the affect of this or that inherited quality. Yet if we could be sufficiently impartial we would in innumerable situations, yes, everywhere, say: what a person takes on from generation to generation of further developing physical qualities, is not by any means clear in one or other area, whether with individuals or with some kind of nation, or race type of relationship. If one wants to come to the reality, if one doesn't allow the continuation of abstraction, when one is also a materialist—which is after all only an abstraction, even a materialistic abstraction—then one must consider how someone living in the present had taken what had been in his bloodline, and be clear about the forces within his soul, which had lived for a long time in the spiritual world before his reincarnation into this body.

During recent years I have made indications regarding these things. I have made indications what, particularly in our time, before the disastrous events of the European peoples being intermixed, what the soul carried within itself from the first Christian decades. The world is however complicated and by giving such details, one only actually find a part. Such details must be taken further in order to gradually reach a total view. This may not at all be understood as when something previously stated in all truthfulness, even applied to several people, should now be corrected; so to add to this, the following must be said.

Relatively speaking it is not the greatest number of the central European population who carry souls who had lived in the first Christian decades, in the manner we imagine the common history of the first Christian decades to have been. Things are far more complicated. What appears through spiritual scientific research sometimes seem paradoxical; yet this is the way it is, and so things which appear for the spiritual scientific researcher only through real observation, which must be reached through real super sensible experience, will be piling error upon error when mere speculation is used, when one is given over to philosophising or speculating. The resulting experience is revealed in a different way and this is just that which the spiritual researcher finds so intensive: that he or she is actually surprised by the outcome. He expects nothing throughout, that this or that will be the result, but is surprised by the results.

To represent such results I would like your souls to glance back to those peoples who were in America during the time Europeans started their American conquest and continued ever more. You know it was a people which from a civilized European view was regarded as wild. One such a wild population in America, the Indians, was wild in comparison to the civilization designated as living in the last centuries in the European world, and yet there lived in them in relation to other soul forces which excludes the intellect, something the so-called civilized people would wish to have returned to them. Above all, the Indian population had an inherent regard for the spiritual forces of the world which actually, at closer inspection, presented something impressive. This population venerated a Great Spirit. This was already becoming decadent during the times of the conquests, but this decadent revelation pointed back to the veneration of a Great Spirit, which flowed and wove through everything and had its lower forces within separate elemental spirits.

Within this, let me say, religious pantheistic image lived this American people. Above all we must emphasize: this American folk had not participated in the outer sense in what the European population had participated in during the course of the so-called Christian development. What European Christianity brought had not been shared by the American Indians. The entire soul constitution of this folk developed intensive pantheistic feelings and based their behaviour on these impulses. In addition what developed in these souls was their ability to spend a relatively short time between death and a new birth. They needed no great period of time but it was intensive, unbelievably simple, elementary what these souls lived through in processing the spiritual world. So not only the souls of the Indian population, as they lived in the time of the conquest of the West—in this case nearly all—but also later souls, have already essentially returned into the western European population.

By studying—in reverse—the course of generations from the present time into the Middle Ages, we could discover physically inherited features. Taking this as the total reality, we lull ourselves into illusions. It is an abstract observation to say that the present western peoples of Europe are very far away from Central Europe and continuing to Eastern Europe and further, can only be examined so that we may say: these nations received their features from previous generations, and so on. This is actually not only the case, because these bodies carrying the ancestral blood have drawn western souls into them like the majority of the people; souls therefore, which through their inner development had not experienced the Christ impulse but in essence carried a kind of pantheistic impulse. Already in the first weeks of their upbringing spent in their environment—because even outer culture, outer civilization propagates in a straight line from generation to generation, but excluding inner soul impulses—these people outwardly adopt Christianity and then from outside they are moulded which we today often encounter as singular and unique. By our impartial observation these people may be seen, if our glance is penetrated thoroughly into its spiritual-intellectual-characteristic aspect, as if something is pulsing within them, something which had been conveyed by their soul from the past.

I said that things revealed through spiritual scientific research are often paradoxes. These things can't be solved by speculation. They have to come about through presented experiences and are often found in established literary methods. Whoever verifies this outwardly will find that light is shed on the outer world, based on knowledge like this.

We will now refer to people who lived during the time of migration in Europe; who emigrated from Europe. These souls were similar to those who had spread Christianity from the south to the north, they were souls who grew into the externalised Christianizing impulse. These souls who accepted Christianity like those living in Europe during the first century—and were quite different to those living with Christianity today—didn't incarnate again into the Central European population. These souls certainly needed longer to return after death into a new birth than did the American Indian souls; it involved souls who had gone through their physical existence earlier than those others who we considered as the last Indian souls, actually the Indian souls during the time of conquest. What the destiny of these earlier Indian souls was, we will not explore now. However, these souls who incarnated in the first Christian century in Europe and who were present in the cultural spread of Christianity from the south to the north, these incarnated now more towards Asia. What I am now describing reveals, particularly clear in these times, how the dreadful catastrophe of the second decade of the twentieth century is so closely stitched into it. In our study of the present earth civilisation now appears something extraordinarily meaningful, for we notice that these souls have incarnated into the Japanese population; that the kind of Christianising a soul had undergone through Europe's Christianizing, who now hear no sound of Christianity from infancy, who only through the subconscious carry a certain nuance of Asian decadence as a result of the then Christianising impulse which they still carry within them, now turn against the present Europe. It is essentially a result of the total decadence of declining oriental wisdom—which at one time was so great, as I have depicted for you—in harmony with the first primitive Christian impulses, how they originated when Christianity in Europe spread from the south to the north under the barbaric populations. This is how it was essentially in the major part of the population. Certainly it complicated things as a result, that this population was thus originated—the souls of the American ancient population like the Central European population both moving eastwards—intermixing into many unique bodies now occupied by souls who had lived during the first Christian centuries more towards the south. These are now right within the populations which originated in this way as I have described to you.

Then we have, when we study the present civilisation, a large number of souls who already in the first centuries AD lived before the founding of Christianity in Asia, in the near East, or in general over the entire Asia. This was not the time of great blossoming of the oriental culture of nature, but it was the time when ideas and concepts were being created which would help understand the Mystery of Golgotha. I'm talking about souls who stood far from the Mystery of Golgotha but who had a particular culture of wisdom which could not be transplanted into the West, and from which the Mystery of Golgotha could be understood as coming out of Hellenism, out of the Roman culture.

We must always differentiate between the Mystery of Golgotha, according to facts, and the various interpretations which have been brought about in the course of centuries. These facts can be interpreted in a different way in every age, and it would be nonsense to identify some or other teaching of the Mystery of Golgotha with the actual facts of this Mystery. I can explain this with a comparison. Imagine we have a very ingenious person. We also have a child, and next, a mediocre person, balancing everything out, somewhat middle class, even an average person, and thirdly a person with a disposition of brilliance. All three are presented with the same thing: the actual reality of the ingenious individual. The child will have some or other explanation of the genius' actions. The philistine who wants to balance everything out, will also have an explanation, and the person with a disposition of having ingenious qualities will have another explanation. All three are confronted with the same reality but their explanations are completely different and one is not justified to identify either the one or the other as the actual reality. In the same way one may not identify the teachings of the first Christians with the reality of Christianity. These teachings of the first Christian centuries came out of the Orient. One actually learnt what the teachings of oriental wisdom were and they were used to illuminate the Mystery of Golgotha. It is naturally terribly tyrannical when progressive churches take this teaching as the only valid interpretation of the Mystery of Golgotha, because it is nothing other than an interpretation according to the preconditions of a certain age. Other times could interpret the Mystery of Golgotha differently. We must explain it spiritual scientifically to justify the demands of the present time.

Therefore, what lived in the Christ teaching impulse in the first centuries, we find—but not applied to Christianity, rather more or less disregarding the Mystery of Golgotha—in the more contemporary intellectual people but less in the majority of people, the teaching studied in the Far East. Those souls who lived just before and also during the time of the Mystery of Golgotha and who were actual oriental souls, experienced a long stretch of time between their death and rebirth while the oriental culture, even in its decadent form, presented extraordinary images to these souls.

These souls appeared in the people who became the American nation, as a conquered people, while Europeans flooded America. The entire American culture with its materialistic aspect, essentially originated out of this appearance of souls who were essentially oriental souls during the time which I have just characterized for you, and who now penetrated bodies with the experience that this embodiment was strange, allowing themselves to be sucked into this embodiment which they did not understand, but took as primitively materialistic and appeared strange because they had basically lived in strong abstractions in their previous earthly life. They could not enter into themselves in their present incarnation but carried over from their previous life what had then been experienced as outer nature observation in an attitude of secluded, often sectarian religiosity. This exists in the denial of matter with Mrs Eddy, with the Scientologists and so on. Everything which appears in the outer world can verify these things, if we consider them with enough impartiality.

By adding what anthroposophic spiritual science offers to what outer anthropological methods of examination supply, we may obtain an image of reality. However we should be serious with what anthroposophic spiritual science can offer. We should not be satisfied with the mere theory of repeated earthly lives. We should observe reality, the outer reality, practically, in relation to this knowledge and then this knowledge can gradually carry its fruits into a practical social life.

We must consistently realize that those who cling to a viewpoint which only considers outer laws of nature, who direct people towards only considering the merely anthropological, only observing what is physically inherited from one generation to the next, that they will always face more and more riddles. Illusions can be entered into for a long time, regarding such riddles. We can believe in some understanding in the course of humanity but we only enter into such illusions while theory, crammed in from earliest youth, is taken as the basis, until we can gradually only observe what comes visibly to the eye, what expresses itself as physically inherited results. However it will probably eventually happen that someone says: yes, but there are facts after all which cannot be ignored, and which are inexplicable in the context of mere anthropological causality. We need to take into consideration that in some or other generation of some or other nation are souls at present who have come from somewhere else than from the great-great-great grandfathers of this nation. To the nation's egoism that might not sound very good but without it this egotism will dwindle when humanity goes through a similar development in future. It has been pointed out already that the largest part of the European population certainly had been propagated through their ancestral blood, but carry Indian souls amongst then, and that these souls lived here in Europe—a largest part of the same in the time of the Attilas—and who had embraced Christianity, which we now meet over in Asia. Even in some educated souls we can see this through unprejudiced examination. Certainly, so correct, so pedantically abstract as we are used to considering things today, they cannot be considered when we search for the reality as it is meant here. However, when we don't build our concepts as abstractly as we are used to, but if we want to come to the reality, then we must go out from such points of view which are mentioned here. Various things will be discovered which appear paradoxical but which actually clarifies reality.

It is for example curious, partly in the coquettish statements of Rabindranath Tagore to observe this strange flavour. One might say here is the possibility to grasp with spiritual hands the Christian descended soul and the oriental descended body. This provides an orientalising coquetry. That which appeared specifically as something well-meaning dribbling into the soul of Rabindranath Tagore, comes from having once sailed into a Christian soul but who did not become a Christian, while living in an outer, non-Christian civilization.

The Greek saying “Know Thyself” is not only directed at single people and above all not merely destined for trivial self contemplation but it is also directed at mankind. However, humanity finds this observation uncomfortable as a rule. Still, we won't make progress in our civilization, but go progressively backwards if we don't become serious about the Apollonian words “Know Thyself”. It is certainly something uncomfortable—such people as Kurt Leese, to whom I've referred in open lectures in Basel, found it “annoying” and “provocative” if one can't merely get to know a person according to what his nose looks like, what his mouth looks like, or how his eyes appear, but that one gets to know him by what his soul looks like. Will we practically accomplish an entry into a spiritual world view if we utter empty abstractions about repeated earthly lives and the repeated earthly lives expressed as destiny, and shrink back from the practical application in life when we can't learn any more about people than if they are blond or dark, have this or that form of eyebrow, this or that form of a nose? If we want to be serious about broadening our spiritual world view then everything indicating “Knowledge of Humanity” must be permeated by spiritual impulses, then we need not shrink from the discomfort in our soul qualities as well as those of others by really getting to know them. Then we need even so, as we did with the nose, look at the soul qualities and as a result the progress of humanity from the present into the future will be touched, for we don't merely look at the outer form of the nose but that soul-to-soul relationships develop between people, focussing on soul knowledge. What is called the social question is something more profound than is imagined by many. This social question can basically not be considered from afar if a study of mankind needs to be continued, which I stated yesterday at the end of my lecture, where the human being is completely missing and there is only arguments about private property and its cultivation, and of economizing machines. Since the decline, humanity has forgotten instinctive soul knowledge and today the social life is experienced by looking actually at one another externally. This drives the wildest instincts to the surface. Humanity would decline into the most savage instincts if the soul spiritual did not breathe through our human life directly. Added to this it is necessary to take note that besides the outer historic causality, the reality of earthly humanity being there throughout and right up to the present, and actually what follows is not merely their physicality brought forward, but that it also applies to the soul, which had lived in some or other soul-spiritual entity in this or that earlier time on the earth. This results in there being qualities in the reincarnated soul and in physical features which are truly expressed in the reality of the human civilization in the present time.

The previous reaction against a spiritual world view doesn't only apply to the mechanical materialistic way of thinking along scientific and theoretical lines but go much deeper. They justify themselves today also by directing their world view in a way which avoids everything soul-spiritual and only focuses on the physical-anthropological results of generations. A map of Europe will develop purely according to the blood relationships of peoples, purely according the chauvinistic, folk egotistic impulses. That is the practical social reaction against the soul spiritual world view coming in. One could say: By Europe accepting the rhetoric of Wilson based on the autonomy of blood related peoples it is declared: we want to know nothing about soul-spiritual impulses.—It is an opposition against the inclusion of the soul-spiritual.

This is not criticism but simply a description of the evidence because what makes itself valid is actually the social practice, the kind of racial opposition against the validity of the self in the soul-spiritual. This soul-spiritual however, by apprehending the fundamental attitude of people, also grips practical life. This is an urgent necessity which can't be seized quickly enough by people of the present day: those who start to understand something about the practical meaning of anthroposophically orientated spiritual science through transforming ideas of this spiritual science into vigorous business impulses for people, must make every effort, wherever possible, to work against that which is purely anthropological. We notice today how the world through anthropology—in the widest sense of anthropology—rattles into a decline. It must be shielded from this decline through Anthroposophy.

These are actually the two streams in the evolution of humanity, which must fight a hard battle between them. On the one side is the purely anthropological which goes through political measures even in its most diverse forms, and on the other, the Anthroposophical, which is still being frowned upon today. We see everywhere how contemporary people gradually need to develop themselves towards strong inner initiatives through which they can feel called into making a choice to the one or the other side. This choice is not to merely, I might say, be secluded in a little theory chamber, in a little world-view chamber, it needs to find its application throughout our world view in practice. In particular it is taken amiss that whoever can really not remain steady as an anthroposophical world view supporter to a certain degree, but who see the meaning of the spiritual specifically in the spirit as controlling matter, learning to dive into matter, everyday life is also seen from this same point of view. A real awakening of humanity—I have often said this—is necessary, such an awakening that humanity will develop inner courage to come to a decision. That is needed in humanity today.

In this regard real depressing impulses are to be found at the basis of so-called civilized humanity today. We have ample opportunity in the present time to notice how everything is still rejected when people are demanded to make some or other decision within themselves. We need not decline into some kind of convention when drawn into everyday life, but need to draw into everyday life that which will become the future signature of development directly before us, in order to examine it from a higher perspective.

Haven't we actually yet again seen an event which basically really elucidates the sleeping character of the present-day soul? I have not felt embarrassed for having referred for many years to the love of abstraction which has made the largest part of humanity into Wilsonians, and I have characterised what that really means at present. Now, we have lately experienced, also even with smaller populations, what to a certain extent belongs to civilization, that a decision should have been made. It is presented in many ways as problematic in character but which was needed by this nation to wake up to some extent. We have experienced, I might say, how through a real paradox this personality would be eliminated and the nation had decided to call for a nobody, a person regarded as a nothing to be their leader.

These things certainly affect the most everyday aspects, but this is it, something which is so close that one fails to grasp them as symptoms, that one disregards them with a cold heart and do not see what kind of symptoms of decline exist in humanity and how necessary it is to call up the forces which will enable humanity to wake up their souls. It has already been necessary for educated people today to research current events and take part in them with greater liveliness to what happens within them.

A person is not regarded as great by indifferently passing by these events which are so deeply symptomatic, but by allowing these events to show them what really works from within. How often have I pointed out how the ahrimanic powers currently course through humanity? This influence of ahrimanic powers through humanity can outwardly be seen when one is unprejudiced. But how can one penetrate to the truth when historical events which could verify outer truth, is indifferently and sleepily passed by and taken note of in this manner people are used to do today? Spiritual science will certainly not want to go according to convention; spiritual science must bear the reality of life within it. Today the world must be seen by how strong ahrimanic powers rise up in opposition to everything which is emphasized by the spirit. It is needed in these days—which of course include years—to decide if the Father was right, who abolished the Spirit in 869 during the Ecumenical Council, if it should remain like this or if the Spirit should again be included in the evolution of humanity. This however will not be enlivened again through mere theoretical observations but through it becoming a practice in life.

Our consideration during my presence this time will be to contemplate the vital earnestness embedded in anthroposophical knowledge needed for the great task of our time. When we say “with regard to the great task of our time” we don't need to think of something drifting over our heads which has been organized by some person in authority but we should be clear today that whatever weaves between people in everyday life contains, or is permeated to some extent, with something which belongs to the great task of our time. This should obviously be one of the primary implications of the Anthroposophic world view moving through our souls. This Anthroposophic world view directs us towards recognizing the existence of the spirit within everything, not existing somewhere in abstract heights, but living within the existence surrounding our everyday lives. This is what we must learn to apply to the great task of life and to every small daily experience and action.

When we consider life today from this angle we can ask ourselves: what are the components of life surrounding us from the reference point of spirituality? We have the remnants of ancient knowledge in various forms which was passed traditionally by word of mouth to adherents gathered in communities and their faith in the everlasting nature of the human being. In the most varied forms, most differentiated nuances, this most varied knowledge of this faith was brought to people. Humanity lived within this faith with the belief that all their soul needs were satisfied through this way. Besides this belief of confessions respective to their followers of that time, we have a popular addition today which originated from science, attributed to the present educational institutions. This science was gradually skilled by only considering sense-physical matter, at most penetrating it with inadequate spiritual suggestions, the latter now on the wane. The tendency is increasing towards regarding science as the only physical sense perceptible observation which at best can be combined with the mind.

Wherever we look at today's civilized world we get the impression that people create from two sources: on the one hand out of what is taught as so-called serious, exact knowledge, accepted on authority because on authority everyone accepts knowledge if they have not themselves worked within the subject of the knowledge in question, and therefore this knowledge is mostly accepted. Besides this, people surrender to their popular publications regarding how they should think about facts regarding astronomy, physics and chemistry, about biology, zoology, mineralogy, botany, history and so on, and more besides, submitting to it all and agreeing to be informed in such a way that they can say: All this must be true because it originates from the people who are in control of things through familiar instances of authority and so we accept whatever else flows from their various declarations. Proposing the creation of a bridge between the two is kicked out, because these declarations mostly instruct people to keep knowledge and faith separate and in no way try and merge them. Rising out towards a conscious penetration of these facts is rarely found. Efforts are necessary throughout to recognize scientific authorities arriving through the usual channels to presenting exact knowledge. However, one is inclined not to research these things in order to prove how they really relate to their creation through their scientific methodology.

On the other hand one is disinclined to research the origins of knowledge propagated through tradition which today is offered by official representatives. Awakening fully consciously towards what actually is presented rarely happens. When it does happen it very seldom results in seeing the issue in its true light. Should we accept it offends someone if we oppose what is termed dogma within the Catholic or Protestant denomination, regarding this dogma as “nonsense,” then we are opposing it for the sake of it and at the same time rejecting traditional confession, without finding the possibility to replace it with an alternative.

An example of dogma—I want to refer to a central dogma—is for instance that of the Trinity, the threefold personality of the godly Being. Whoever finds a dogma such as this presented through the denominations, finds it easy to some extent to oppose it according to today's scientific way of thinking. This expression can easily be revealed as “nonsense” in such a dogma. Whoever does go back to the way such a dogma was created will find that dogmas of common confessions have for a long time been propagated within humanity and that the point of origin of these dogmas, often characterized as humanity's earlier evolutionary steps according to instinctive clairvoyance, atavistic clairvoyance, are there, by looking into the spiritual world. Out of such clairvoyance these dogmas have emerged and one can say that something like the Trinity dogma has emerged out of deep, thorough insights within the structure of world existence. At one time this dogma of the Trinity was a deeply recognized truth. It presented a deep insight into the relationship of reality. However this was during ancient times when within the soul's abilities the powers of an instinctive clairvoyant knowledge fitted within such a dogma. This dogma then spread itself. It no longer fits into the current teachings of human soul forces. As a rule each person who has experienced this dogma from its origins has since then gone through several earthly incarnations. Souls had various experiences during these incarnations. In the outer world this dogma has been retained, transmitted from one generation to the next. Today it has taken on a form through words used to proclaim it which no longer can be understood. Now these souls are born again and come across this dogma in church. There is no human relationship between on the one side what the confession of the human soul is met with and on the other side what the soul from within itself strives to experience and to know. What works so badly at present is not that the dogmas are false but that the dogmas are in a form trapping the truth which in today's time are obsolete and thus the dogmas no longer offer what the soul of today needs. Thus we can say: these dogmas are preached today as if breathed by the wind.—Even those who inwardly confess to them do not apply these confessions as soul truths because they don't understand them for the most part. By accepting something which is not understood, creates an inner falsehood. As a result of this inner untruth so much damage has been done through the falsehoods in the world.

The results of untruthfulness within humanity in the last few years have really been immeasurable. Basically it shouldn't surprise us that this is so, from the simple basis that when the soul lives in falsehood the ego can be recognised as not having any sense of truthfulness in outer life. This should be kept in mind by all those who believe today that they should uphold traditional declarations. This is quite a serious situation with which we need to deal in this area.

Regarding dogmas, one could say the souls who have experienced various earthly lives where these dogmas were current, have grown out of them since they were formulated. Just as I have mentioned in the last two lectures that we need to be serious about these things, so we must during the examination of repeated earthly lives be serious. Vitally serious.

Just look from the same point of view at what humanity is given today through physical science. Here knowledge is being formed from purely physical sense perceptions. This has to be joined with what lives in the soul which has to fill itself with something which is merely sense perceptible material.

Examine how a living person stands within his or her life. They carry within them a soul which has gone through earthly lives and now don't find any connection to outer religious declarations. They connect however in certain areas of their life with what today is recognized as scientific. The question must be asked: What happens in the human soul when it connects with this recognised, merely physical sensory aspect of observable science? The soul, now integrated in the physical organism, had during an earlier incarnation incorporated quite a different relationship to nature, to the environment and the relevant world which cannot today be found in this knowledge. Only relatively few presently incarnated souls can be discovered who were not sufficiently incorporated in their former life in such a way as to relate to a definite knowledge containing spiritual imaginations, as I mentioned about natural phenomena, by incorporating a spiritual element. The sheer abstract science which has developed over the last three to four centuries didn't exist before. Not so very far back the kind of natural science existing then was such, even though it contained a sense perceptible element, it also contained within it something permeated by the spiritual. As a result many people who don't accredit it with anything special, presently with physical sense perceptible science don't find anything satisfactory about science, so they leave it lying and don't bother about it, or go digging and researching all kinds of tomes, what Basilius Valentinus or some or other person had handed out for natural science. It is true that all kinds of spirituality lived within the imagination about nature it at that time, but today, deep respect is only stirred within those who engage with it and just because it is not understood it is regarded most profound.

The important thing here is that even today's incarnated soul has no real relationship with ancient wisdom and with what goes on through the rest of life which is already fed, even grafted in school, in some or other form coming from sense perceptible observations. What is really presenting itself here if one considers the inner aspect?

Within our body we have the soul which has been in previous lives yet we come to some extent into our body without having any relationship to what the soul had experienced in a previous life. Throughout various earthly lives—as a necessity for the development of freedom—the soul developed in such a way that it was emptied of all it had absorbed before, in order not to have a relationship any longer to anything taken up earlier and thus have available capacity for what is actually living in the world at present. Our soul no longer brings with it anything from former earthly lives. We do bring results of our moral qualities with us but basically not what has lived in us from earlier earthly lives from which any kind of innate knowledge of world secrets could result. Today souls do not enter bodies in the same way it happened in Greek times. Souls who incarnated during the Hellenistic time entered life with still some old empowered knowledge which enlivened the body with soul spiritual life forces. Today this is not the case. Today the soul enters the body in a way which is consumptive. To an ever increasing degree this is the case; the souls which are born today has some destructive influence and lame the body, gradually dragging death forces through it. If evolution is to continue this way it will lead to the undermining and decline of earthly life. People would become weaker and weaker in their will forces. People will appear less and less able to have a grasp for detecting active impulses. People will gradually go through life like automatic detectors. How sad this is that we have to see the future in this way, and how seldom it happens that people are inwardly fired up through lively ideas. How often we find that people at present can be said to suffer from a soul sclerosis, turning out dead ideas and only allowing their minds to accept tradition and thus becoming machines.

It is really like this: if we go with an unprejudiced attitude through life and observe how people are placed in life, we can basically not differentiate, one person from another, amongst dozens of them. We can actually not tell them apart. We talk to A, to B, and then with C and they all say the same thing. Each one individually believes in having said something particular, but we can't find any particular difference between them, they all say the same thing. We actually only have one kind of human being in a variety of copies, and we can ask ourselves: Are we not being deceived—isn't what we talked about today the same as yesterday's conversation?—This corresponds completely to the observation of consecutive earthly lives in relation to our present earthly life. The soul no longer brings with it what it had in earlier lives, which went from one earthly life to the next and ever again appear, although with a decreasing power which is like an innate wisdom. That is no longer there. When we consider such souls and their connection to the external, sense perceptible scientific observation, then we see they are packed with transitory wisdom; with a wisdom which when expressed in imaginative ideas, is regarded as transitory. In order to conceal this fact by a terrible illusion, the old “Law of conservation of matter” in the nineteenth century was reinvented by the “Law of the conservation of energy.” This law was made up to conceal that there is nothing which can be conserved in nature, that everything is transient, even matter and energy. Nothing is left over for the soul when it is reincarnated in the future as a human machine; the soul being crammed with sensory observation and scientific material, because this fails to exercise anything alive and gives no fructifying power to the soul.

The soul born today comes over from an earlier earthly life, eager to be fructified by something which in turn will help it progress in its next earthly life. However the absorption of knowledge stemming only from the perishable offers a soul death; murders the soul. This is something which must be considered in all earnestness today, when the idea continues that non-understanding can relate to obsolete dogma, that only laming, deadening can come through non-spiritually penetrated scientific knowledge, and that the soul must experience a second death, suffer a soul death. It depends on individuals and on humanity, to rejuvenate their souls. Humanity dare not choose some comfortable passive attitude and say: I am an everlasting being, and the everlasting kernel of my being will preserve me forever through all circumstances.—This doesn't correspond to the effect of reality. The everlasting kernel within human beings exists of course but it has to be fructified in this decisive age if it doesn't want to be destroyed. There is no other way to keep the soul alive than to break free of mere sensory scientific observations and to justify a true spiritual science and to see how in all sensory observations the spirit is alive even in relation to physical facts. It comes down to not only registering purely sensory material but to promote what lives in everything that is sensory and penetrate it with spiritual imagination which actually lives within it and must not be excluded. As a result the souls coming out of a previous earthly life can take up this spirit-filled natural science, become fructified and thereby enable their vitality to be carried forward to the next incarnation. The continued existence of the soul, its health, in fact the continued existence of the soul life itself, the aversion to the soul death of humanity depends upon the spiritualization of our natural knowledge!

From of these facts and not out of any kind of prejudice today we are required to spiritualize natural science. When so many human beings turn against this spiritualization then this attitude, while ignorant about the actual meaning of these facts, are spurred on by minds we all well know about, in order to assert themselves so much more in their human nature, thus reducing what souls bring with them from earlier incarnations. Out of the entire grain of our present lives where the spiritual is being composed out of not only spiritual science but also sense perceptible knowledge, it is apparent in the most absurd sense that repeated antagonistic acts are against the intention to spiritualize natural science. It can't be stressed often enough how necessary it is in our time to deeply and inwardly understand such things—and if I dare use such a word—modify such facts. We can't take this seriously enough that today there's a rejection of spiritually permeated scientific knowledge, whether it comes across in the manner which I've heard mentioned—I don't know to what extent it is connected to the truth—through a decision by colour supporting students who boycotted lectures in the last weeks or if it appears in some other form. Today one can collect a whole jolt of writings opposing spiritual science. Dark, unsavoury streams validate that these things like to slumber and yet relatively soon they will become strongly apparent. Today it is much more comfortable to be unaware of things than being aware of them. However we no longer stand at a point where we can undo the past and remain uncommunicative to the world. This can no longer be allowed. The only way now is forwards. However this forward striving is connected to an active participation which can take on ever more evil forms—one can no longer call them discussions, but let us do so—“discussions” of the time. Only if we succeed from a strong basis, only if each one does his or her part and can come together, representing spiritual science and not be shy, everywhere unreservedly characterize it in an unconcealed manner where hidden aspects let hostility rise against spiritual science, only then can we hope to survive. It deals far less with only the literal interpretation of hostility against spiritual science, being caught up and acting defensively against it. It is certainly in one way or another necessary but it is not enough. Ultimately it is only a secondary appearance—when out of foolish misleading or misunderstanding ill-willed hostility rises against spiritual science. This is to some extend something secondary which naturally needs to be placed in the right light. Secondary it's obvious—I have recently mentioned it in an open lecture—what such people like Frohnmeyer have to say regarding the main statue group in Dornach, which can be experienced as a Christ figure: “In Dornach can be found a `Statue of the ideal human being' with above a `luciferic' trait and below one with animal characteristics.”—It is certainly necessary to point this out but ultimately not only to merely defend spiritual science but from a far deeper, more meaningful foundation. Whoever is capable of presenting such a terrible falsehood in the world, damages humankind in everything which is written and spoken, where it works instructively on mankind. Not only is it most significant that such a bludgeon of a lie is spoken but it is most significant that a person today is capable of such a strong lie as a symptom of paths mankind followed earlier. Attacks on spiritual science are recognisable according to how today's sense of truth is grasped. As a result, wider field work should be carried out in the spiritual realm. This is what it comes down to. We dare not shrink back from encountering this lack of a sense of truth on all fronts. Humanity must learn to understand that only with a real sense of truth can one work into the future when the soul has to find the way through this incarnation into the incarnation of the next age. Today this doesn't involve some kind of formality but actually the real life of the soul through consecutive earthly lives. If you search you will find the connection between every earlier characterized falsehood in thinking—in outer encountered confessions of the soul, without an inner connection with the truth—and the falsehood of the outer world. Actually it is quite an amazing phenomenon that such falsehoods come to the fore so strongly particularly in those—which doesn't mean I want to say they are not present in colleagues of other faculties—who pose as teachers of mankind, who should be the great Keepers of the Seals of religious truths.

This is the primary responsibility of today's humanity who strives for some kind of relationship with a spiritual life: to seek out cultural historical falsehoods. It is extraordinary how deeply these cultural historical falsehoods are taken up. They are a characteristic of our time. From out of politics where it has sown its foul marsh plants it has finally penetrated into other areas. Already the condition has arisen that people can hardly differentiate between truthfulness and falsehood in relation to certain phenomena of life. You see, step by step a certain life phenomenon plays into falsehood in daily life which plays a role in both daily life as well as in the greater affairs of life. Finally falsehood today itself has sprung from the same tendency, unconcerned whether it appears amongst enlightened men—certainly lit by a strange light—who gather in Geneva, or whether it appears in various bourgeois and proletarian coffee-gossipers. Whatever has lived as spirit in Geneva's various bourgeois and proletarian coffee-gossiping found it a popular falsehood, and I might mention in parenthesis—those present should not take it as evil—those who are within the Anthroposophical movement haven't quite been ratted out. This untruthfulness is a cultural phenomenon of the present and needs to be examined. Above all it should in no circumstances be excused but should be characterized before the contemporaries are revealed. We repeatedly experience that when something appears out of a pressing urgency and point to these things, that individuals within the anthroposophical movement, while finding these things uncomfortable, while they must live within this falsehood and as a result experience the characteristics of falsehood and find if highly uncomfortable some way or another, always take this characteristic of untruth as evil.

These things I have spoken about today should be thought about in relation to my two or three previous lectures related to the reincarnation of souls into today's civilised world, as well as to the interests present in part of humanity, that decisive element which wants to connect with humanity in the present age, and not to allow it to come close to humanity, can give an understanding of the immense seriousness of the task of our time within which we stand.

These present tasks are permeated with the deepest earnestness. Because of this, because it is so essential to examine these points of view on our home ground, I had spoken about things in conclusion and how painful it is for me that today so much time is taken into account without the simultaneous possibility of continuing the earlier anthroposophical work, as it was accessible just before this need—a requirement it is indeed—to work through these things which have often been spoken about and even today do actually exist. If we should want to place ourselves really in the right relationship with these things then it is necessary, imperative from out of the spiritual beings of present tasks.

Today we must make it increasingly clear: Our friends have engaged themselves in the anthroposophical movement in manifold ways since its inception at the start of the twentieth century. The anthroposophical movement is something which is not only a reality on the physical plane but which forms an uninterrupted ingredient of the spiritual worlds, a direct part of the spiritual world. Obviously outer practical participation is also a part of the spiritual worlds but not in the sense as it is within the anthroposophical movement. Regarding this, I want to say a few words.

The anthroposophical movement continues in its spiritual aspects whether the people representing it are hardworking or lazy; whether they make the effort to work progressively or against progress, going forward quicker or slower, yet they remain present in their spiritual reality. Because it has become necessary to bring about practical things in life which have grown out of the demands of the present, it appears different with these things. These things must be done at their allotted time, because it is impossible to cope with them when they are not completed at the right time. For things in practical life it can be so that when done in a slow trot, they simply happen too late. Within the anthroposophical movement one has in many cases become accustomed to things happening slowly or quickly. It is becoming more often the practice that what has been acquired here is being applied to things where the same practice is unsuitable. This is precisely what lies at the foundation of what I have recently wanted to characterise, by my indication to create a renewed possibility for that from which everything finally flows namely the anthroposophical movement, and maintaining it as such. How long have I already pointed out that it is not possible to have personal interviews now? Yes my dear friends, we have in the last days of the past week—very few people really work in practical matters—we have filled our days until three in the morning. People still turn indignant when their wishes are not taken into account after a personal meeting. However I'd like to know where the time should come for that. It has to be understood. For this reason no kind of casual manner should exist in anthroposophical life—just the opposite—a life enforcing strength comes from the anthroposophical life. As you are guaranteed that such empowerment comes from anthroposophical life, then other necessities will impact on practical life by themselves. Above all else this re-strengthening must come. This empowerment must come in such a way as to drive out all dreaminess from the soul. Whatever is brewing in some or other island of life, not bothered by what is going on in life today, is exactly what lames the pursuit of real tasks. These tasks are paralyzed when people on the one hand remain blind, sleepy towards what is happening in outer events around them and on the other, their salvation, even though this is more the lust of their soul becoming involved in all kinds of alien mystical problems on their island of life.

I'm touching on something extraordinarily important, something which is a direct application of ideas regarding the great tasks of our time and our own movement.

Every one of us must work together towards the enlivening of the anthroposophical movement. We can only work towards the strengthening of the anthroposophical movement when we cultivate a free and open insight for what causes decline in the greatest part of our cultural life. Anthroposophists for the most part don't worry about the appearances of decline. They don't get anything out of turning to the force permeating our civilization today which steers it towards the abyss. Despite it not wanting to be heard on the one side, on the other side it is again forgotten, I have to ever again point out that things do not improve on their own. Today's contemplative brooding, which is a kind of transcendental demonstration with many, is something which harms us tremendously. Instead of shaking up the will and saying to yourself: `I will do this'—contemplation persists whether here or there the relationships are such that something could be done.

My dear friends, at the beginning of the (20th) century the way the anthroposophical movement was thought about is not the way you would think about it today. Clever people who appeared at that time would have stipulated how things must work, and the cleverer ones would have distinguished between Schwabing and Munich, and everyone could hear the grass grow which indicated who could procure which area. Then some came who had discovered extraordinary relationships in Hannover and Frankfurt. This was encountered all over the place. If someone had really listened then no one would have taken a single step. At the time it was already a wicked thing but today, where much is dealt with in everyday practical life, it is even more evil because today it is not about tracking down such grass growing but that we engage our will forces to do something, to really work. It is of course tremendously easy to say: `I sense the transcendental atmosphere of this or that place, that one could do this or that ...' It is much easier than doing something. One should hardly ever apply the external and as far as possible bring about the inner approach. This is something which of course can't be stressed enough.

With anthroposophical seriousness encouraged, the real power can be cultivated in our relationship to external things and these must be encountered with real interest. We need to know after all what is going on in the world—and there are many things that do advance. Yet in our circles it is amazing how few are concerned with what is happening.

I want to highlight a deplorable fact. This fact has many causes but there is only enough time today to list a few. Clearly the subscription to our magazine for three-foldness hasn't increased by a single one. In addition our membership comprises thousands and thousands of members. It is really very sad that such a fact must be recorded. Yet this is a fact and this is only one of them. Do you believe that it is quite true to say that the opponents are the other guys and they are at their posts everywhere? These machinations are spreading around us. I say these things not without care and not without caution for what we should incur today, when we don't summon all the individual strengths we have. We need them. We must be steeped in so much anthroposophy that we can get to it or we will be too late. On the other hand I don't see that what has to be undertaken is being done, to then only lapse by saying that we got to it too late.

There is much beauty in the advancing, above all in the participation, of some students in our striving. From this very area the most fruit can develop when these things are met with real, true understanding but we must be clear about how these things should be met. Nebulous mysticism is out of the question. It depends on how something is met out of one's inner life's diligence.

So this and much more can be said today but I think that whatever else you need can be discover within yourselves when you develop a train of stimulated thought and take it further. In order for you to develop further is the issue I want to pose as my preliminary wish at the conclusion of this last agreement. Now the times are such that I can't express such a wish in what is to be fulfilled in years to come but that I can only look for the weeks when I can be here again. Basically the situation is like this, that we really use our time, that actually not a single week can be lost because we have not used it.

Therefore my dear friends, I would like to say two things in conclusion: first I want to express the wish that what I have said today must be understood until our next meeting, and secondly, that our next meeting can take place as a result of things which have been aligned with this wish. With this in mind I wish you farewell!

From the whole character of these presentations of anthroposophical Spiritual Science you will see how essential it is to understand that in the various spheres of existence different Spiritual Beings have inserted themselves, taking part in the work of those spheres, giving force and direction. It is necessary that humanity in our present age should be fully alive to the knowledge of this—that different spheres of existence are guided and directed by different spiritual Beings; for our civilisation has in the course of recent years lost this consciousness of the presence of concrete Spirit in life. In general, people will willingly talk of the Divine permeating everything, but such talk does not help to an understanding of the world which can provide a sufficient basis for life. It is, of course, quite true that in the last resort, every recognition of the spiritual must tend towards a unity: but if one perceives that unity too soon, one simply loses all real insight into the course of world-happenings. It is necessary, therefore, to leave off speaking in general in such an abstract way about the Divine, and learn to know the concrete spiritual guiding Beings in Nature and History, as we have done over and over again in the course of time. It is from this point of view that I should like to point today to certain really important and significant things at the basis of the constitution of our world.

I pointed out in the last lecture that certain Beings find themselves together in the world for the purpose of building up and animating man, but that they find themselves in conflict. The old truth of the opposition coming from the Luciferic and Ahrimanic spiritual forces—this we put before our souls in the last lecture from a certain point of view, and now we will look at the matter once more from another aspect.

If we take our modern civilisation, which is now involved in such catastrophic events and manifests in such decadent forces, we shall find that what is essentially characteristic of it is the extension of intellectual thinking throughout the whole of humanity. One must really try to acquire an insight into the quite different constitution of man's soul throughout civilised Europe seven or eight centuries ago. It is intellectual thought which today is so prevalent everywhere, which permeates the entire soul-life of man and, from a certain aspect, will still continue to permeate it. The point now is that one must seek to unite with what is externally comprehensible concepts that belong more to the soul and spirit; for it is well if, from the aspect of the spirit, one really seeks to grasp and permeate external and material existence itself.

That which underlies thought in our organism consists in purely mineral processes that take place within us. Please understand me aright; those processes in us which are specifically of a human character, and those which we have in common with the animal and plant-nature, these are all connected only indirectly, and not directly, with the fact that we have become intellectual thinking human beings according to the modern idea of the development of nan. The fact that we have in us a firmly consolidated mineral constitution gives us the capacity for intellectual thought.

When we look at all those kingdoms of nature which are outside us in cosmic space, and which are also within us, we must say: Let us first of all contemplate the sphere of Warmth, of the warmth-Ether; we carry the effect of this Warmth-Ether in our own blood, and the activity of our blood consists essentially in the fact that our blood, aa the carrier of warmth, guides these warmth-processes through our entire organism. Now our intellectual thinking does not depend in any way upon what happens in the sphere of warmth. Thus, when we consider the warmth-processes in the cosmos, we can say: These warmth-processes are also continued within the skin of our organism; but that which meets us in the cosmos as warmth-processes—and specially meets one who is able to regard the cosmos in the condition when it showed itself exclusively in warmth processes, during the Saturn evolution—none of that stimulates us to intellectual thinking. Then if we look to the kingdom of the Air, there too we find events taking place; these processes are continued in our organism through our breathing process; but that again has nothing directly to do with our intellectual thinking.

As a third sphere we can look to the phenomenon of water; we see outside in the cosmos the processes in the fluid sphere. These too are continued in our metabolism, in so far as it occurs in the fluids. Outside in nature we see the circulation of fluids, and in ourselves too we see a kind of circulation of fluids. All that takes place in us in that way has again nothing to do with what is our intellectual thinking. But when we look out into the cosmos and see how water condenses to ice, how certain mineral substances are deposited as sediments, how stones and crystals take form—in short, when we consider the processes of the mineral sphere and their corresponding processes in our own organism, then we find that the mineral processes in us have to do with all that finally culminates in our intellectual thinking. We, therefore, as human beings, are incorporated into the cosmos in these various spheres; but if we were only incorporated in all these different spheres without being involved in any special degree with the mineral kingdom, with those forces which appear in crystallisation and in the deposits of salts, and which meet us in these manifestations in the external world, we should never have become the thinking beings we have become, especially since the middle of the fifteenth century. It is an absolute fact that since the middle of the fifteenth century, it is this working of the mineral forces in the human organism that has become predominant. Previous to that, other forces, those of water, air and so on, were dominant to a special degree in man. Hence intellectual thinking was not then the most significant element in human activity.

Now, in everything which surrounds us in the various realms in which we live, the realm of solid earth, of flowing water, of air and of warmth—for a moment we will disregard the higher kinds of ether—in all these are working divine spiritual beings. These realms consist not only in what we call material world-forces and entities, but they are all permeated by different spiritual beings. I will therefore make a diagram to represent this important fact in our connection with the cosmos. Suppose I sketch here (see diagram) the realm of the mineral world (black); I will then here characterise the realm of the water (red), the realm of the air here (blue), and then finally the warmth-ether (reddish-violet).

[IMAGE REMOVED FROM PREVIEW]

Now this is the characteristic of all those spiritual beings whom the pre-Christian age—and especially pre-Christian Judaism—conceived as standing under the guidance of Jahve or Jehovah, and who were regarded by the Hebrew initiates as belonging to the Realm of Jahve or Jehovah. They extended their dominion essentially over the three first realms—warmth, air, water. And so if I am to draw that region in the cosmos that was under the rulership of Jehovah, I must say: It is this region (the three upper layers). It was really the case that the Jehovah rulership embraced the realms of Nature as we have enumerated them, with the exception of the physical-mineral realm. You must be quite clear that when in the ancient Jewish writings, reference is made to the Divine, this always refers to the Jehovah realm of warmth-ether, air and water. That was a deep initiation-truth of the pre-Christian age, and is very cleverly indicated in the story of Creation. One has merely to understand the meaning of the Bible words aright to see how this is plainly brought to expression. Jehovah betook himself, so to speak, to the earth, and formed man out of the dust of the earth. He took that which was not his own kingdom, for the forming of external man. The Bible expresses that fact quite clearly. As I have said, in the pre-Christian Jewish initiation, it was known as an initiation-truth that Jehovah did not form external man out of his own sphere of power, but turned to the earth, and from out of the earthly dust, which was foreign to him, he formed the human sheath which could not come from his own kingdom. Then he breathed into it that which comes from him—the animal soul, the Nephesch. That it is which he gave forth from himself and it came from the three realms over which he ruled. The superficial Bible investigators really do not, for the most part, understand what stands in the Bible at all. If one understands the Bible, one sees that it speaks with extraordinary exactitude, one only has to take its sentences quite exactly. “Jehovah formed man out of the dust of the earth,” that means out of the mineral kingdom foreign to him, and then he gave to man out of his own sphere the breath of the soul. Thus, what lives in man as an emanation from Jehovah is indicated when it is said that Jehovah breathed the living Odem into man.

Man developed, and as he evolved further in the mineral kingdom, he developed in an element foreign to Jehovah. And it was that kingdom which then, in more modern times, since the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, became especially dominant in man, because it formed the basis for his intellectual civilisation. We can say, therefore, that as long as the intellectual civilisation was not predominant in man, so long could a rulership prevail such as that of Jehovah. Then, however, the mineral nature began to make itself felt, from the founding of Christianity up to the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. Humanity had then to be helped from another side. Now you can see how necessary it was for man at the time when the mineral nature became so important to him that he should receive the Christ Impulse, because the old Jahve or Jehovah-impulse was no longer sufficient.

You must connect what I have just told you with certain definite facts. Just consider the fact that man would not think intellectually, with a fully waking consciousness, if he were merely subject to the Jehovah influence, which has no influence on his mineral nature. And so, if we wish chiefly to consider the activity of Jehovah in man, we must not look to what is in our external intellectual culture, but to what expresses itself in our dreams. That which is dreamt, which does not pass into sharply contoured intellectual concepts such as can be grasped by the soul but is dreamt—that is our Jehovah-life. Everything which moves in the fluidic elements of the more fantastic or imaginative nature, everything which can be compared externally with the Moon-influence on man, that is his Jehovah-nature. Opposed to the Jehovah-nature is man's clear-cut thinking; but that he owes to the circumstance that there are salt deposits in him, that there is in him a mineral activity.

Now just consider the fact that, fundamentally, the old Jehovah religion lost its significance with the Mystery of Golgotha. It had lost its significance because the time had come in the evolution of man when the mineral nature became predominant in him. But when the Mystery of Golgotha appeared, there was still enough left of the ancient Dream Wisdom through which it could be understood. And those persons who had somewhat transcended the ancient Dream-Wisdom and who through various kinds of initiation had, like Saul (Paul), already attained some intellectual culture—for them a special influence was necessary, such as Paul received through the Event of Damascus, in order to grasp the Mystery of Golgotha. It is of great and deep significance, that in the Christian tradition we are told that in order to understand the Mystery of Golgotha it was necessary for Saul, who had in a certain sense been initiated before the Mystery of Golgotha into the Hebraic Mysteries—it was necessary for him that he should be carried away into that knowledge which did not work in sharp contours, but which expressed itself in the more flowing element of the dream; for it was in this way that Paul experienced the certainty that Christ had been present in Jesus through the Mystery of Golgotha. With the old Dream Wisdom, it was still possible to grasp something of the Event of Golgotha, and if, through a special influence ouch as was the case with Paul, a man was snatched into that Dream region, he could then understand the Mystery of Golgotha. But now the old Dream Wisdom more and more decreased; it only remained in man's dreams, and even there in a completely decadent form. As the fifteenth century approached, the culture of Europe was tending increasingly to the purely intellectual element; and under the influence of this intellectual element our modern natural science has developed.

Now consider the following. The old Jewish religion must not be grasped merely with reference to the external words—that would only be a materialistic understanding of religion; we must grasp it in its inner spirit. As an historical phenomenon the point that strikes us is that the Jehovah-God was simply the God of one people, and outside the borders of the Jewish people Jehovah was no longer the Jehovah-God. That is the essence of the Jehovah Divinity; he did not embrace the whole of humanity, but only one portion of mankind. In fact, this perception of God has passed over to our own age, and in particular one could, see it again during the World War when every nation spoke of how Divine Providence or, as many said, the Christ, was helping them. Each nation wanted, so to say, to go forth under the guidance of Christ against every other. But because one utters the Name of `Christ', that does not mean that one has met, has contacted, the Christ; for the Christ is only contacted when in one's whole feeling one turns to that Being Who has the Christ Nature. One may say a thousand times over: “We will fight in the Name of Christ”; but as long as one is fighting for one nation alone, one is giving a false name to the Being of Whom one speaks; one calls the Being Christ, but one means only the Jehovah-God. In the great catastrophe of the War (1914-1918) all the peoples fell back into a Jehovah religion—only, there were a great many Jehovahs; each people worshipped a God who was honoured entirely in the character of a Jehovah; Christ completely disappeared from the consciousness of humanity. One could see in those catastrophic events how utterly Christ had disappeared out of the consciousness of man.

We can see this also in other things. An altogether scientific civilisation has now grown up. Our modern scientific culture, how far does it extend? Fundamentally, it is limited to what is mineral and physical. Just consider how uncomfortable a modern scientist immediately becomes if one asks him to speak of anything but what is mineral or physical. As soon as the conversation turns to anything else—for instance, to the principle of life—the modern scientist asserts that one can only explain the mineral and chemical processes in the living. He will not enter into the element of life itself, and still less into the element of soul. Thus, this modern science has developed entirely within just that sphere which was not included in the Jehovah religion, in an element foreign to Jehovah—the element of the mineral physical. This science, in order that it might become an element of civilisation had, as it were, to depend on receiving the Divine Spiritual from another side.

When one spoke among the ancient Jews of any sort of knowledge, it was always a dream-knowledge. The Prophets who had the very highest knowledge are described as the Dreamers of prophetic dreams. It is all connected with just this very fact. It was through this Dream-Wisdom that men even comprehended the Mystery of Golgotha itself. But this Dream-Wisdom disappeared. The Mystery of Golgotha was indeed still transmitted historically and spoken of in the traditional Church communities, but a true understanding of it could no longer be found. In place of it, modern science has grown up in the element foreign to Jehovah, a spirit-less, God-less element; and, because its understanding could not yet expand to the Christ-element, it developed entirely within that physical mineral element—utterly devoid of spirit.

Now this science must, to its uttermost particle, again be permeated by a spiritual element. It is empty of spirit because it can no longer be Jehovistic. External civilisation has attempted to carry on some sort of religious culture by means of a religious `false coinage,' as when it gave the name of Christ to Jehovah during the War. But science has turned entirely away from the Spirit, it gives descriptions of the physical-sensible alone, because man has not yet been able to press forward to an understanding of the Christ. At most the old Jehovah understanding still prevails when men storm against each other as they did in the War; but not when they investigate facts of nature, for then we have a spirit-less science, an intellectual science devoid of spirit. Thus we are surrounded by a sphere in which the Jehovah element still rules. It permeates us; but we are not aware of it, because it permeates us chiefly through those conditions which are our sleeping conditions. If, when we withdraw into the element of sleep, we could suddenly wake up outside our body, we should clearly perceive around us a spiritual nature, under the leadership of Jehovah. Then, as it were, on the waves of a Jehovah-Sea, we should see our dreams coming to us out of this Jehovah element.

Again in our Will—I have often told you that we are asleep within it—there again the Jehovah nature rules. In the whole metabolism of man, the Jehovah nature rules. As feelings arise out of the metabolic system and permeate the rhythmic system, so do certain feelings emerge, coming out of the waves of the Jehovah-Sea—like our dreams. But when we live in that realm which can only become comprehensible to us through our intellect, our understanding, there Jehovah has no share. When the Moon rises slowly in a dream-like light and pours this dream-light over everything, one might say: “Man has spread a Jehovah character over the fields of the world.” When the Sun rises, shining clearly on every stone, spreading over every object and giving it sharp contours, so that we are able to grasp it with our understanding, then the Sun-nature—which is not a Jehovah-nature—expresses itself. We can only permeate the world with spirit if we can perceive the Christ-Being, if we so look into this world as to see the Christ-Being in it. Modern science has had no eye for this Christ-Being. That which is not Jehovistic but Sun-illumined and can be grasped in the sharp contours of the intellect—this has been seen by modern science as devoid of spirit. That is the deeper connection.

[IMAGE REMOVED FROM PREVIEW]

What kind of a realm is it, then, which meets man in the mineral? Now, I told you in the last lecture that on the one side, within the realm of Jehovah, because they have remained at an earlier stage of evolution, the Luciferic beings appear. When we are present in the Jehovah sphere, let us say in sleep, then the Luciferic beings make themselves felt in our feelings and impulses of Will. That realm which we must dominate with our intellect is spread out around us as the mineral kingdom. That is a kingdom foreign to Jehovah, and into it those beings have penetrated who belong to the Ahrimanic realm. The Ahrimanic beings, however, because Jehovah could not, so to speak, keep them away, have penetrated into that mineral realm (see diagram—green). And so, when we turn our gaze to this realm, we are every moment in danger of being taken by surprise, to our confusion, because of the Ahrimanic beings. These Ahrimanic beings—I have tried to present an image of this in the carved wooden Group which is to stand in our Goetheanum—these Ahrimanic beings can in reality only feel at home in the realms which surround us in the mineral world. They are predominantly intellectually-gifted beings. The Mephistophelean figure which you see below in our wooden Group, that Mephistophelian-Ahrimanic figure is extremely clever, utterly end wholly permeated with intellect. But with what is really Jehovistic—with what lives in the human metabolic system, in so far as it does not deposit salts or is of a mineral nature but of a fluid nature, consisting in the metabolism of fluids, with all that lives in our breathing and in our warmth condition—with all this the Ahrimanic element has no direct relationship.

These Ahrimanic beings strive, however, to get into man. Man was created out of the dust of the earth. The mineral element is the true sphere of Ahriman, he can enter that sphere, and feel comfortable there; he feels very comfortable whenever he can permeate us through whatever is mineral in us. You secrete salts, and through this you are able to think; through the deposit of salts, through all the mineral processes prevailing in you, you become a thinking being. Ahriman seeks to enter that sphere, but in reality he has a definite relation only to the mineral. Therefore he is fighting to get a share also in man's blood, in his breathing, and in his metabolism. He can only do this if he can inject certain characteristics into man's soul; if, for instance, he can inject into the human soul a special tendency to a dry, barren understanding which seeks an outlet in materialism and mocks all truths permeated by feeling. If he can permeate man with intellectual pride, then he can make the human blood, the breath and metabolism also inclined to him, and then he can, as it were, slip out of the salts and mineral in man and slip into his blood and breathing.

That is the conflict in the world being fought on the part of Ahriman through the very being of man. You see, when Jehovah turned to the earth and created man out of the earth in order to develop him further than he could have done within his own realm, he created man out of an element foreign to himself, and only implanted, breathed, his own element into him. But in so doing, Jehovah had to take something to his aid, something to which these Ahrimanic beings have access. Jehovah has thereby become involved, as regards earthly evolution, in this conflict with the Ahrimanic element which, with the help of man, seeks to get the world for itself by means of the mineral processes.

As a matter of fact, much has been attained by the Ahrimanic beings in this sphere, because when man is born into physical existence, or is conceived, he descends from the worlds of soul and spirit and surrounds himself with physical matter. But in the present state of our civilisation and according to the customs of the traditional Churches, man would like to forget his existence in a sphere of soul and spirit before birth. He does not wish to admit it; he would like, in a sense, to wipe out of human life any prenatal existence. Pre-existence has gradually been declared heretical in the traditional Confessions. It is desired to restrict man to the belief that he begins with physical birth or conception, and then to link on to that what follows after death. If this belief in a mere after-death condition were to be fully and finally forced on to mankind, the Ahrimanic powers would then have won their conflict; because if man regards only what he experiences from his earthly nature between birth and death and does not look to a pre-existence, to a life before birth, but only to a continuance of life after death, the Ahrimanic element in his mineral processes would gradually overpower him. Everything of a Jehovistic nature would be thrown out of earthly evolution, everything which has come over from Saturn, Sun and Moon would be wiped away. A new creation would thus begin with the earth, which would deny everything that had preceded it.

For that reason, the perception which denies pre-existence must be fought with all possible energy. Man must realise that he existed before he was born or conceived into physical life. In all veneration and holiness, he must receive that which was allotted to him from divine spiritual worlds before his earthly existence. If he adds to the belief of the after-death condition a knowledge of pre-birth existence, he can prevent his soul from being devoured by Ahriman. It follows therefore from what I have said that we need gradually to take into our speech a certain word which we have not yet got. Just as we speak of immortality (deathlessness) when we think of the end of our physical existence, so we must learn to speak of un-bornness, for even as we are immortal, so also are we, as human beings, in reality unborn, look where you will in the language of civilised peoples for a practicable word for “birthlessness!” We have the word “immortal” everywhere, but “unborn” we have not got. We need that word; it must be just as valid a word in civilised languages as the word “immortal” is today. It is just in this that the Ahrimanising of our modern civilisation reveals itself; for it is one of the most important symptoms of the Ahrimanising of modern civilisation that we have no word for “not being born.” For as we do not fall a prey to the earth with death, just as little do we first originate with our birth or conception. We must have a word which points clearly to pre-existence.

One must not undervalue the significance which lies in the word. For no matter how much and how clearly one thinks, that is something in yourself, something in man, of an intellectual nature. But the moment the thought is expressed in a word, even the moment the word as such is only thought, as in the words of a meditation, that same moment the word is imprinted into the ether of the cosmos. Thought as such does not imprint itself into the ether of the cosmos, otherwise we could never become free beings in the sphere of pure thought. We are bound, we are no longer free, the moment something imprints itself into the ether. We are not made free through the word, but through pure thought. You can read further about this in my “Philosophy of Spiritual Activity”; the word, however, imprints itself into the ether.

Now consider this. Initiation science knows it to be true that because in civilised languages there is no word for “unbornness,” therefore this “birthlessness,” which is so important for humanity, is not imprinted into the cosmic ether. Now everything which in great significant words is imprinted in the cosmic ether referring to originating, to all that concerns man in his childhood, youth, signifies for the Ahrimanic powers a terrific fear. The word “immortality” the Ahrimanic beings can very well bear to find inscribed in the world ether; they are quite pleased, because immortality means that they can start a new creation with man and carry it forward. It does not irritate the Ahrimanic beings when they shoot through the ether to play their game with man and find that from every pulpit immortality is being spoken of; that thoroughly pleases them. But it is a terrible shock for them if they find the word “unbornness” inscribed in the world ether; it entirely extinguishes the light in which these Ahrimanic beings move. Then they can go no further, they lose their direction, they feel as though they were falling into an abyss, a bottomless pit. You can see by this that it is Ahrimanic action that restrains humanity from speaking of unbornness. No matter how paradoxical it may appear to modern humanity that one should speak of these things, modern civilisation requires that they should be spoken of. Just as meteorology describes the wind, or geography the Gulf Stream, so one must describe what is going on around us spiritually, and how these Ahrimanic beings are moving through our environment; one must describe how well they feel in everything connected with death, even when dying is denied; and how they are filled with a terrible fear of darkness when one speaks of anything connected with being born, connected with growth and thriving. We must learn to speak scientifically of these things, just as that Jehovah-forsaken mineral sphere can be spoken of scientifically in our modern science.

You see, this is in reality nothing less than the conflict with the Ahrimanic powers which we must take upon ourselves. Ultimately, whether people like to know it or not, that which is so often brought against Anthroposophical Spiritual Science is at the same time the fight of Ahriman against what must be repeated ever more emphatically by Spiritual Science as necessary to modern humanity.

When one experiences such things as the recent attacks that have been made upon Spiritual Science, is it not obvious that these people themselves simply do not approach it? I have spoken to you of the especially ruthless and hateful attack which appeared recently in Germany, in the highly respected paper “Frankfurter Zeitung,” when that paper took up a really disgraceful attitude. It did indeed insert our rejoinder, but only in order to put before it a whole column of its own nonsensical remarks. These things are all characteristic of those people who would like the science of Anthroposophy to disappear, who are either too lazy to study or not capable of it. These people seize upon such attacks as the recent one in Germany in order to cast suspicions on what they cannot refute.

When you consider the matter in the light of what I have told you in connection with these Ahrimanic beings, you will see through things a little. In scientific circles today there are a great number of persons who can apparently think quite clearly, and why? Because Ahriman permeates the mineral world; and you therefore need not be surprised that these people develop a great deal of intellect. That is Ahriman within them; it is far more comfortable to allow Ahriman to think in one than to think for oneself. A man can pass his examinations far more easily, he can become a tutor or university professor with far greater facility if he allows Ahriman to think for him. And because so many people allow Ahriman to think in them, these attacks naturally come from an Ahrimanic direction. These things have an inner spiritual connection, which we must see through. Therefore, people must not be so foolish as to blame us over and over again if we are forced to strike back with very cutting remarks at what would fain nullify Spiritual Science from its very roots.

In an introductory way, I will touch shortly upon a few facts that have already been considered, because we shall need them in the further course of our considerations. I have said that what we may call the threshold between the usual physical world of the senses and the soul-spiritual world lies in man himself, also psychically. It lies in him in such a way that in the usual everyday consciousness with which man is endowed between birth and death, he is really awake only as far as his sense-perceptions, or his perceptive activity, are concerned; he is awake in all that comes to him in the form of ideas—ideas concerning that which he perceives through his senses, or ideas arising out of his own inner being; they make the world intelligible and alive for him. Even a very ordinary self-recollection teaches us (clairvoyant endowment is in no way necessary for this) that when usual human consciousness is fully awake it cannot embrace more than the sphere of the life of ideas and the sphere of sense perceptions. However, we experience in our soul also the world of our feelings and the world of our will. But we have said that we live through this world of our feelings only as we live through a dream; the life of dream enters the ordinary waking consciousness and, inasmuch as we are feeling human beings, we are, in reality, mere dreamers of life. Things occur in the depths of our feeling life, of which our waking consciousness, contained in our ideas and sense perceptions, knows nothing at all. The waking consciousness knows less still concerning the real processes of the life of our will. Man dreams away his feeling life in his usual consciousness, and he sleeps away the life of his will.

Consequently, beneath the life of our thoughts lives a realm in which we ourselves are embedded, and which is only partly known to us; it is only known to us through the waves that break up through the surface.

We have emphasized further, that in this realm, which we dream and sleep away, we live together with human souls that are passing through the existence between death and a new birth. We are only separated from the so-called dead through the fact that we are not in a position to perceive with our ordinary consciousness how the forces of the dead, the life of the dead, the actions of the dead, play into our own life. These forces, these actions of the dead, continually permeate the life of our feeling and the life of our will. Therefore we can live with the dead. And it is indeed important to realize at the present time that the task of Anthroposophy is to develop this consciousness—that we are in touch with the souls of the dead.

The earth will not continue to evolve in the direction of the welfare of humanity unless humanity develops this living feeling of being together with the dead. For the life of the dead plays into the life of the so-called living in many ways.

During the course of these public lectures I have purposely drawn your attention to the historical course of life—what man lives through historically, what he lives through socially, what he lives through in the ethical relationships between people. All this really has the value of a dream, of sleep; the impulses which man develops when he surpasses his personal existence and is active within the community, are impulses of dream and sleep.

People will consider history in quite another way when this has reached their living consciousness; they will no longer consider as history the fable convenue that is usually called history today; but they will realize that historical life can only be understood when that which is dreamed and slept away in usual consciousness, and contains the influences of the deeds, impulses and activities of the so-called dead, is sought in this historical life. The deeds of the dead are interwoven with the impulses of feeling and will of the so-called living. And this is real history.

When the human being has gone through the Gate of Death, he does not cease to be active
within the human community. He continues to be active, although his activity is of another kind. We live under the illusion that our actions are our own, because they flow out of our feelings, out of our impulses of will; in reality they flow out of the deeds of those who have departed, even in the very moment in which we are carrying out our actions.

In the future development of man it will be of great importance to know that when we do something connected with our life in common with other men, we do this together with the dead. But of course, such a consciousness, which is related essentially to the life of the feeling and of the will, must be grasped also by the feeling and by the will. Abstract and dried-out ideas will never be able to grasp this. But ideas that have been taken from the sphere of spiritual science will be able to grasp this. Indeed, people will have to accustom themselves to form quite different conceptions about many things.

You all know that he who is firmly rooted in the comprehension of spiritual-scientific impulses may undertake to remain connected with those who have passed through the Gate of Death. The thoughts of spiritual science, the ideas that we form about the events in the spiritual world, are thoughts that are intelligible to us on earth, but are also intelligible to the souls of the dead. This may result in what we may call “reading to the dead.” When we think of the dead, and in doing so read to them, especially the contents of spiritual science, this is a real intercourse with the dead. For spiritual science speaks a language common to both the souls of the living and of the dead. But what is essential is to approach these things more and more, particularly with the life of feeling, with the illuminated life of feeling.

Man lives, between death and a new birth in an environment which is essentially permeated through and through, not only with living forces, but with living forces full of feeling. This is his lowest sphere. As the insensible mineral kingdom surrounds us during our sense life, so a realm surrounds the dead, which is of such a nature that, when he comes in contact with anything within it, he calls forth pain or joy. Thus, with the dead it is as if we were forced to realize, during life, that as soon as we touch a stone, or the leaf of a tree, we call forth feelings. The departed one can do nothing that does not call forth feelings of joy, feelings of pain, feelings of tension, relaxation, etc., in his surroundings. When we come into contact with the departed human being—this is the case when we read to him—he himself experiences this communion as already mentioned; he becomes aware of this when we read to him; he experiences it in this particular case. In this way the departed one comes in connection with that soul who reads to him, that soul with whom he is in some way related through Karma. The dead is connected with his lowest realm (which we had to bring in connection with the animal kingdom) in such a way that everything he does calls forth joy, pain, etc; he is connected with all that calls forth a relationship with human souls (whether they are human souls living here on the earth, or souls already disembodied and living between death and a new birth) in such a way that his feeling for life is either increased or diminished through what takes place in other souls.

Please realize this clearly. When you read to a so-called living person, you know that he understands what you read to him, in the sense in which we speak of human understanding; but the departed one lives in the contents, the departed one lives in each word that you read to him. He enters into that which passes through your own soul. The departed one lives with you. He lives with you more intensely than was ever possible for him in the life between birth and death. When this companionship with the dead is sought, it is really a very intimate one, and a consciousness endowed with insight intensifies this existence in common with the dead.

If man enters consciously into the realm that we inhabit together with the dead, the intercourse with the dead is such that when you read or speak to the departed one, you hear from him, like a spiritual echo, what you yourself are reading. You see, we must become acquainted with such ideas as these if we wish to gain a real conception of the concrete spiritual world. In the spiritual world things are not the same as here. Here you can hear yourself speak when you are speaking, or you know that you are thinking when you think. If you speak to the dead, or if you enter into a relationship with the dead, your words, or the thoughts you send to him, come to you out of the departed one himself, if you consciously perceive your connection with the dead.

And when you send a message to the dead, you feel as if you were intimately connected with him. If he replies to this message, it seems at first as if you were dimly conscious that the departed one is speaking. You are dimly conscious that the departed one has spoken, and you must now draw out of your own soul what he has spoken. This will make you realize how necessary it is for a real spiritual intercourse to hear from the other one what you yourself think and conceive, to hear out of yourself what the other one says. This is a kind of inversion of the entire relationship between one being and another being. But this inversion takes place when we really enter the spiritual world.

Because the spiritual world is so entirely different from the physical, and because—since about the fifteenth century—people only wish to form conceptions based on the physical world, they displace and obstruct their entrance to the spiritual world. If people would only realize that a world can exist which is, in certain respects—not in all—the direct opposite of what we call the true world; if people would be willing to form ideas which, perhaps, appear most absurd to those who insist upon living only in a materialistic world—then they will transform their souls and attain the possibility of seeing into the spiritual world, which is always around us. It is not that human beings, through their nature, are separated from the spiritual world; but that through habit, through the circumstances of inheritance, they have become entirely unaccustomed, since the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, to forming other ideas than those borrowed from the physical world. This applies even to art. What other scope has modern art than to copy, from the model, what Nature forms outside? Even in art people no longer attach value to what arises freely out of the spiritual life of the soul, and is also something real. But in the free reality that thus arises, people cannot efface what is effective and active in historical events, in the ethical, moral and social life of the community—except that they dream and sleep away this active element. As soon as man goes beyond his own personal concerns, even in the smallest measure—and in every moment of life he goes beyond these—the spiritual world, the world—I must emphasize this again and again—which we share with the dead works through his arm, through his hand, his word, his glance.

As the departed one grows familiar with the realm I have already spoken of, with the lowest one connected with the animal kingdom (just as we become familiar with the mineral, vegetable, animal, and human physical world in the life between birth and death during our gradual growth)—as the departed one continues to develop in the second region, where companionship with all those souls arises, with whom he is karmically connected either directly or indirectly, he evolves to the point of becoming familiar with the kingdom of the Beings who stand above man, if I may use this expression, although it is merely figurative—with the kingdom beginning with the Angeloi and Archangeloi.

Here in the physical world man is, as it were, the crown of creation—many like to emphasize this; he feels himself as the highest of all beings. The minerals are the lowest, then the plants, then the animals, and then man himself He feels that he belongs to the highest kingdom. It is not thus with the dead in the spiritual realm; the dead feels himself connected with the Hierarchies above him, the Hierarchies of the Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai, etc. As man here in the physical world feels, in a certain sense, that the physical kingdom of man evolves and grows out of the mineral, plant and animal kingdoms, so the departed one feels himself sustained and carried by the Hierarchies above him, in the life between death and a new birth.

The way in which the human being gradually becomes familiar with this kingdom of the Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai, etc., can be described as follows:—It is like a liberation from Self. Again we must acquire a conception of these things that cannot be won in the physical world of the senses. In this world of the senses, as we grow up from childhood, we gradually become acquainted with things, first with our nearest surroundings, then with what is to be our life experience in a wider sense, etc. We become acquainted with things in such a way that we know—they approach us little by little. This is not the case between death and a new birth. From the moment on, in which we know that we are connected with the Angeloi, we feel as if we had been united with them since eternity, as if we belonged to them, were one with them; yet we are only able to develop our consciousness by reaching the point of separating the idea of the Angeloi from ourselves. Here in the physical world we make our experiences by taking up ideas. In the spiritual world we make our experiences by separating the ideas from ourselves. We know that we carry them within us—and we know that we are entirely filled by them, but we must separate them from ourselves in order to bring them to consciousness. And so we set free the ideas of Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai.

In the lowest kingdom, man is, as it were, connected with the animalic, which he must strive to conquer, as I have already explained. Then he is connected with the kingdom immediately above this one—the kingdom of the souls with whom he is directly or indirectly linked up through Karma. In this kingdom man experiences his relationship with the Angeloi. His relationship with the kingdom of the Angeloi gives rise, at first, to a great deal of that which creates a right connection with the kingdom of human souls. Hence, in the life between death and a new birth, it is difficult to distinguish between the experiences which man has in common with other human souls and those with the Beings belonging to the kingdom of the Angeloi. There are many links between human beings and the Beings belonging to the kingdom of the Angeloi. Although we can speak of these things merely in comparison, and although we can only allude briefly to them, we may however say:—Just as here, in our physical life, memory leads us back again to some event which we have experienced, so does a Being belonging to the kingdom of the Angeloi lead us to something which we must experience in our life between death and a new birth. Beings belonging to the kingdom of the Angeloi are really the mediators for everything that arises in the life of the so-called dead. And the Angeloi help man in everything that he must do between death and a new birth in connection with the conquest of the animalic (he must raise his animal nature into the spiritual part of his being in order to prepare himself for his next incarnation). If you grasp this in its right meaning you will say:—Because man associates with the Angeloi between death and a new birth, he can form the right kind of relationships in connection with the souls with whom he must come into touch. And because man is in contact with the kingdom of the Angeloi, he can prepare rightly the things that must take place during his next incarnation. The tasks of the Archai, or the Beings belonging to the Spirits of the Time, are common both to the dead and to the living. My explanations will show you that the departed one has more to do with the Angeloi, who regulate his connection to other souls, and with the Archangeloi, who regulate his successive incarnations. But in his association with the Beings of the Hierarchy of the Archai, the dead works together with the so-called living, with those who are incarnated here in the physical body. The dead who is passing through the life between death and a new birth, and the so-called living, in his life between birth and death, are embedded alike in something which the Spirits of the Time weave as an unceasing stream of universal wisdom and universal activity of the will. What the Spirits of the Time thus weave is history, is the ethical-moral life of an age, the social life of an age.

We might say that we can look into the spiritual kingdom and realize:—The so-called dead are there; what they experience in this kingdom—inasmuch as these experiences are their own—is regulated by the Angeloi and Archangeloi; what they experience in common with the so-called living is woven by the Beings who belong to the Hierarchy of the Archai. We cannot fulfill any fruitful work in the social, historical, and ethical-moral life unless we realize this work must come from an element that we share with the dead—the element of the Archai, or Spirits of the Time.

These Spirits of the Time do their work alternately. We have often spoken of this. Through several centuries, one of the Time Spirits weaves the events contained in the stream of historical and social life and in the ethical-moral stream of human events; then another Time Spirit relieves him. The moment in which a Time Spirit relieves another one is most important of all, if we wish to observe what really takes place within the evolution of mankind. We cannot understand this evolution unless we bear in mind the living active influence of the Time Spirits and, in general, of the entire spiritual world. We cannot understand what takes place between man and man unless we consider the kingdom of the Spirit.

Very abstract are man's thoughts concerning that which is social, ethical-moral and historical. He thinks that history, or the stream of events taking place in the course of time, is a continuous current, where one event follows upon the other. He asks:—Why did certain events happen at the beginning of the twentieth century?—Because they were caused by events at the end of the nineteenth century.—Why did certain events happen at the end of the nineteenth century?—Because they were caused by events in the middle of the nineteenth century. And events in the middle of the nineteenth century were caused again by events at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and so on.

This way of considering historical events as the result of immediately preceding events is just the same as if a peasant were to say:—The wheat that I shall harvest this year is the result of the wheat of last year. The seeds remained, and the wheat of last year is again the result of the wheat of the year before last. One thing depends on the other—cause and effect. Except that the peasant does not really follow this rule: he must of course interfere personally in the growth of the wheat. He must first sow the seeds in order that an effect may follow the cause. The effect does not come of itself. From a certain point of view this is one of the most terrible illusions of our materialistic age, for people believe that the effect is the result of the cause; they do not wish to form the simplest thoughts concerning the real truth of these things.

I have already given you an example, by relating to you a sensational event in the life of a human being. It is indeed so, that people prefer to contemplate sensational events rather than consider the other events, which are of exactly the same kind and take place every hour and every moment of our life. I have told you how such an event can occur: A man is accustomed to take his daily walk to a mountainside. He takes this walk every day for a long time. But one day during his walk, on reaching a certain spot, he hears a voice calling out to him:—Why do you go along this path? Is it necessary that you should do this? The voice says more or less these words. On hearing them he becomes thoughtful, steps aside and thinks for a while about the curious thing that has happened to him. Suddenly a piece of rock falls down, which would have killed him had he not stepped aside after hearing the voice. This is a sensational event. But one who considers the world calmly, yet spiritually, will see in this event one of the many which take place every moment of our life. In every moment of our life something else, too, might happen, if this or that would occur.

A very clever man—we know that especially modern people are very clever—would say: Why was this man spared? Because he went away. This is the cause. Very well—but suppose he had not gone away; in this case he would have been killed, and a very clever modern man would argue:--the falling stone is the cause of the man's death. Indeed—seen from outside and in an abstract and formal way—it is true that the falling stone is the cause, and the man's death the effect: but the cause has nothing to do with the effect; it is quite an indifferent matter to the falling stone, where the man was standing. This cause has nothing whatever to do with the effect. Ponder this matter and try to understand what is really contained in all this talk of cause and effect. The so-called cause need not have anything to do with the effect.

The stone would have taken exactly the same course had the man been standing elsewhere. As far as the stone is concerned, nothing has been changed owing to the fact that the man was warned and went away. I gave you an example that, even in outer quite formal things, the so-called cause need have nothing to do with the so-called effect. The whole way of looking at cause and effect is based entirely on abstraction. It is only possible to speak of cause and effect within certain limits. Take this example, for instance: Here you have a tree with its roots. What takes place in the roots can certainly be considered, in certain respects, as the cause of the growing tree; what takes place in the branches can, to a certain extent, be designated as the cause of the growing leaves. You see, the tree is, to a certain extent, a whole; and a concrete way of looking at life considers totalities and the aspect of the whole; an abstract way of looking at life always links up one thing with another, without considering the complete whole. But for a spiritual way of looking at things it is important to bear in mind the whole. You see, where the outer leaves end, the tree ceases to exist, as well as the inner causes of its growth. Where the leaves end, also the forces of their growth end; but something else begins there. Where these forces end, the spiritual eye can see spiritual beings playing around the tree, spiritual elementary beings. Here begins, if I may say so, a negative tree, which stretches out into infinity, but only apparently so, because after a while it disappears. An elementary existence meets what comes out of the tree; where the tree ceases, it comes into contact with the elementary existence, which grows toward it. It is thus in Nature.

The plant ceases to exist when it grows out of the soil, and the causes of its growth cease when the plant ceases. But an elementary existence from the universe grows toward the plant.

In the lecture on human life from the aspect of spiritual science, I have mentioned some of these things. The plants grow out of the soil from below. A spiritual element grows toward the plant from above. It is thus with all beings. What you observe in Nature is contained in all existence. Above all, there is a stream of social, ethical-moral and historical life. Events do not consist in a continuous stream, but a Time Spirit reigns for a while; another one replaces him; a third one replaces him; a fourth one replaces him; and so on. When a Time Spirit replaces another one, there is a difference also in the stream of continuous events. When such a new period begins, it is not possible to say that its events are the immediate effect of preceding events. They are not the effect of the preceding ones, in the sense in which we imagine this.

There is indeed an order of law in the successive course of events, but what we generally call necessity is an illusion, if we look upon it as it is often looked upon today. In the course of continuous events, we have something similar to what we find when we look at the tree—where the tree ceases, the elementary tree begins; but in Nature, a being belonging to the visible kingdom of the senses touches a being that remains invisible to the senses, a super-sensible being; the world of the senses and the super-sensible world touch. There is something similar also in the course of Time. Just as the physical tree ceases and an elementary tree begins, so also in the course of Time, something ceases and something new begins. There are epochs in which old events and old impulses cease, as it were, and are replaced by new ones. At such points of time, people like to keep to Lucifer and Ahriman, who help them to maintain what is really dead. It is possible to keep alive in human consciousness impulses and forces that are, in reality, dead. This is not possible in Nature. If someone cultivates exactly the same kind of ideas in 1914 that were justified in 1876, he can do so of course. He can do this because, in the continuous stream of human events, which is seized by Ahriman and Lucifer, the old can be maintained even if it is already dead. It is the same as if someone were to make a tree grow on and on without ceasing, after it had reached its natural limits. In the course of history we generally find that people cannot face a new epoch rightly; in other words, that they cannot place themselves at the service of the new Time Spirit.

In our age this is particularly important. During the last weeks we have spoken of the spiritual events of 1879. This was the end of an epoch. Something died and ceased to exist, just as the tree ceases. From 1879 onward it became necessary (this is of course still necessary today and will be so for a long time) that people should open themselves to the ideas and impulses coming from the spiritual world. Otherwise the old impulses become Ahrimanic or Luciferic.

These remarks contain something very important. The last third of the nineteenth century was an important time in the evolution of humanity. It was necessary, and it is still necessary, that people should become accessible to the influence of inspired ideas. People must open themselves to these. But looked upon from outside (we shall not only look upon this from outside, but study the deeper inner meaning), looked upon from outside, things have a very hopeless aspect. Impulses did come from the spiritual world. They came streaming in and worked in order that men might be led beyond this point, beyond the year 1879, and in order that they might open themselves to inspired ideas. They were impulses that could give men thoughts enabling them to become conscious, even at the end of the nineteenth century, that whenever we fulfill actions of a historical, social or ethical-moral value within the life of the community, we fulfill them together with our dead, and with the Archangeloi, Angeloi, and Archai. These impulses were there; they were there, but went past many people without leaving a trace. I have said that today I will first consider these things from an outer aspect, and it is good if you realize how apparently everything went past without leaving a trace. In the second half of the nineteenth century important things and important impulses already existed, and there were people who proclaimed and wrote significant thoughts. If we look at these thoughts today they may seem abstract. This is indeed so. But they are not abstract thoughts and they should not remain as they were then. (I repeat once more that this is looked upon from outside, tomorrow we shall consider these things from an inner aspect.) This was the case more or less in all spheres of modern civilized life. For instance—who studies the life of this country, Switzerland, in such a way as to say: In the fifties of the nineteenth century a man lived here in Switzerland, a man with great ideas, that were indeed of a philosophical kind. But had they been accepted by two or three, had they been popularized, would they not have had a very fruitful, spiritualizing influence on the entire history of Switzerland? Who considers, for instance, that in the middle of the nineteenth century a high spirit lived in Otto Heinrich Jäger? He is one of the greatest men of Switzerland. But who knows his name now, and who names him? Who is aware of the fact that although his thoughts had an abstract appearance they were only apparently abstract. They might have become concrete, they might have blossomed and borne fruit, because something very great was in this man, who taught at the Zurich University and wrote books on great thoughts, thoughts that should enter the life of the present. He wrote on the idea of human liberty and its connection with the entire spiritual world. Otto Heinrich Jager wrote, here in Switzerland, a kind of “Philosophy of Spiritual Activity,” from another point of view than my own The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, which arose in the nineties.

Innumerable examples like this one could be given. The most fruitful ideas germinated and greened, but what is recounted today as the spiritual history of the nineteenth century leading into the twentieth century is the least significant part of all that really took place, and the most important part, that influenced it most of all, has not been considered at all.

This is how matter stand, from an exterior aspect, to begin with. Perhaps they will look more hopeful when we shall look at them from an inner standpoint.

An Introduction to the Winter's Lectures, 1918

I need not tell you what pleasure it gives me to be with you again at this difficult time so full of trials. As this is the first occasion for a long time that we have had the opportunity of discussing subjects connected with spiritual science, it is obvious that we should call to mind that spiritual science is far from being merely a theory, rather should it be a firm and substantial support, uniting the souls of men; not only the souls of those living here on the physical plane, but also the souls of those living in the spiritual world. This is a question we have very much at heart at the present time when innumerable souls have left the physical plane under circumstances to which we have often alluded, a time when so many are being subjected to the severest trials perhaps ever inflicted on man in the whole history of the world. Besides all the usual ideas which flow through our souls at the beginning of these lectures here and elsewhere, we will to-day try individually to direct our sentiments and feelings to those who are outside, as well as to those who, in consequence of these events have passed through the portals of death.

‘Ye who watch o'er souls on earth,
Ye who weave in souls on earth,
Ye Spirit-guardians of the souls of men
Working lovingly in Cosmic wisdom,
Hear ye our request
Look upon our love
Which with your helping, strengthening rays
Would fain unite
In spiritual devotion, sending forth our love.’

With reference to those too who have passed through the portal of death.

‘Ye who weave in the souls now in the spheres,
Ye spirit-guardians of the souls of men,
Working lovingly in Cosmic Wisdom,
Hear ye our request;
Look upon our love
Which with your helpful, strengthening rays
Would fain unite
In spiritual devotion, sending forth our love.’

May that spirit Whom we have sought to approach by means of the spiritual science we have striven to acquire, He who willed to pass through the Mystery of Golgotha for the salvation of the Earth, and for the freedom and progress of humanity, may He be with you in your heavy tasks.

The severe time of trial through which humanity is now passing may perhaps be one which will bring home to us more and more closely the significance of a spiritual deepening of the human soul. If so it will not have been in vain for the present and future of humanity; but the feeling arises that the time has not yet come, that mankind has not yet learnt lessons enough from the seriousness of the events of the present time. This is not said by way of criticism, but to appeal to right and true feeling. One feels that the Spirit of the Age must speak more and more distinctly to human hearts and souls; for not only do human voices speak to-day, other voices are heard too, ringing forth mysteriously from weighty and significant events as well as from other sources.

I shall endeavour to put before you to-day what has particularly struck me during my recent journey through Switzerland, with respect to the relation of our spiritual movement to the tasks of the age. Anyone who has carefully studied the course of lectures I gave in Vienna before the war, on the experiences of human beings between death and rebirth, and what I said with respect to human life as a whole, will know that reference was being made—before the war—to the deeper causes, the deeper-lying foundations of what has lately worked out in the terrible events of the times. We may say that everything that can be experienced below the surface then, is to-day externally revealed as living proof of the correctness of what was said at that time. The universal disease of the age was then unequivocally described, as you know, as a social cancer. Here and there it can be seen that some few lessons have been learnt from the great events that have occurred; but on the other hand, it is clearly evident, particularly when apparently insignificant things are taken together, how rigid human thought has become on the physical plane during the last few centuries, and how slow men are to arrive at decisions of any weight. By way of introduction I should like to tell you some of my experiences during my Swiss tour, for it seems to me necessary that those who are interested in our Movement should form some idea of its connection as a whole. I shall only give a few points.

It must be regarded as a very satisfactory sign that during my recent stay in Switzerland a number of young students from the High School at Zurich desired a course of lectures referring to and combining the various branches of academic science. I therefore gave four lectures in Zurich; the first of which referred to the relation of our anthroposophical spiritual science to Psychology, the science of the soul; the second referred to the relation of spiritual science to History; the third referred to its relation to Natural Science, and the fourth to its relation to Social Science, to the great social and judicial problems of the people in our day. Though far from being all that we might wish, one cannot but see that a certain interest was shown in this drawing together of the threads of academical sciences. It was evident that these latter were awaiting completion, as one might say awaiting that which can only come from anthroposophical spiritual science, and that the part-sciences of the present day will remain but half or even quarter sciences, unless they can have that completion. Wherever I was allowed to give lectures in Switzerland I did not fail to let it be seen what it is that is lacking in this respect, and what it is our age must acquire for these tendencies to be guided in the right direction. One may say that although at first there was in Switzerland a strong opposition to our endeavours—and certainly this opposition is not growing less but rather increasing—yet side by side with this a lively interest is developing; and it may well be that karma has placed our building in Switzerland because the work may have a special significance for that land; particularly if our work is directed, as I hope it will be, in such a way that our activity will also bear witness to the sources of spiritual scientific investigation, which, alas, are in many respects disregarded and unnoticed in the spiritual life of Germany. That is a feeling which, while on the one hand it stirs one to-day with a certain tragic feeling of sorrow, yet, on the other, fills one with deep satisfaction. We may say that anyone who takes into consideration the fact that in four-fifths of the world the spiritual life, of which Germany is so proud, is to-day much calumniated and really abused, and if he seriously considers the gravity of this fact, as is not always done, while on the one hand he may feel sorrowful, yet on the other he may feel satisfaction in the hope that anthroposophical science may yet render it possible for the German spiritual life to make its voice heard in the other world—as it must, if the development of the world is not to be injured. A way can be found to speak to all men, no matter what their nationality, if one speaks to them in the true meaning of the word, of the spirit, that is, of the true sources of spiritual life.

It may strike a sorrowful note, too, that while the efforts made by spiritual science are successful in winning a little ground in some places, such a country as Switzerland is finding it increasingly difficult to stand up against the attacks made to-day. It is no easy matter in the face of the pressure exercised by four-fifths of the world, to form an impartial opinion; nor indeed is it easy to find the right words in which to say all that must be said, in a country in which, although neutral itself, those four-fifths of the world still play an important part. This has now reached a very acute crisis.

One great advantage to us in that country is that the mere words and teaching are there supported by the forms and creations of our building at Dornach, which place before the outer vision what it is that our spiritual science desires, and how it is able to show that when allowed to intervene in practical life and not crudely rejected, it is capable both of mastering and utilizing life, which at the present time makes such great demands on humanity.

In speaking to-day of the relation between the Spiritual Science of anthroposophy and other knowledge and wants of the world, it is really necessary to place quite new and unaccustomed ideas before one's hearers. In the profoundest depths of their consciousness people are dimly convinced that something new must come from somewhere or other. They are, however, extremely rigid as regards thinking, extremely slow to take in new ideas. Indeed it is a characteristic feature of our age that while life is lived at so rapid a pace, people are so dreadfully slow in thinking. We come across this in the smallest things. For instance, the threads of anthroposophical science were drawn towards the academical sciences in Zurich, although I had spoken publicly in Basel before I did so in Zurich. Just before I had to leave Switzerland, a request came from Basel, asking me to speak in an academical assembly on the relation of anthroposophical Spiritual Science to the other sciences. It was then, of course, too late to do so; the subject could not then be discussed. I mention this for two reasons: First because it would have been of great importance to speak of Spiritual Science in a hall dedicated to academical science and established by the students of Basel; and secondly because those people were so slow as to come to a conclusion only at the eleventh hour. That is characteristic, for elasticity of thought, capacity for quick decision might have brought about an earlier decision. It is necessary to discuss these things among ourselves, so that we may behave accordingly. To-day I need only refer to one of the subjects of which I have been speaking lately, to make clear the significance of what has to come about.

In Zurich I spoke, among other things, of the threads that can unite anthroposophical Spiritual Science and the science of history, the historical life of man. We to-day possess a history, which is taught to children and in college; but what is this history of ours? It is something which has not the remotest idea of the forces governing the historical life of mankind, for the simple reason that the whole object of the intellectual life of the present day is to set man's intelligence in motion, to set the ordinary so-called fully conscious concepts and ideas going, and with the help of these, to understand all things. External perceptible nature can certainly be understood by these means, so too can that thought which has triumphed in the domain of natural science; but if this mode of thought is applied to history, that means making history a natural science. Endeavours were being made in the nineteenth century to regard history in the same way as natural science regards the things perceptible to the senses. This, however, is not possible—for the simple reason that the facts of history are quite differently related to life. What is it that we meet in historical life? What are the impulses at work in history?

Anyone who believes that historical impulses can be grasped by means of the intellect, which can very well serve us in natural science, will never discover the historical impulses; for these work in human evolution in a similar way to the dreams in our own dream-life. They do not enter the ordinary consciousness which we use in everyday life or in natural science; but these impulses work like that which only plays into our dream-life. We may say: Historical becoming is a great dream of mankind, but what plays into our dreams like transient pictures becomes clear and distinct in the imaginations of spiritual science. Therefore there is no history which is not a spiritual science, and the history taught to-day is not history at all.

Hermann Grimm was struck with the fact that the historian, Gibbon, in describing the early days of the Christian era, describes the fall of the Roman Empire, but not the gradual ascent of Christianity, its growth and prosperity.

Of course he did not know the reason why a good historian can always describe a decline, but not a growth and a becoming. The reason is that the present-day method of learning history can only lead to an understanding of what is declining, not of what is growing. Growth plays a like part in the development of mankind as do dreams in the life of man; it can therefore only be described by a person able to have Imaginations. If a man does not possess this power, even though he be a Ranke or a Lamprecht, he can only depict the corpse of history, not the reality of its growth. The impulses of historical growth only enter our consciousness in dreams; if the ordinary consciousness tries to grasp the historical, it can only do so when the historical has already passed into the subconsciousness. Modern times present interesting examples of this. If we follow these up, we see how in the last few decades, interest in the great questions of the world as one coherent whole has practically died out—or become mere pedantry, which is almost the same thing. There is a deep connection between the pedantry of the age and the fact that a schoolmaster, at present at the head of the greatest republic, wants to lay down the law to mankind. If we ask ourselves: Where, during the last few decades, has there been a feeling for a great drawing together of mankind, for ideas having almost a religious character although of a crude kind, when everything else was more or less moribund? The answer, if we look the circumstances in the face, must be: in socialism. Ideas were there, but such as never tended to a spiritual life, only to a crude material life and alas, these ideas encountered no other world of ideas to stand against them. If we really understood the ideas which have come to the surface in socialism, we should find that they are in a sense historical ideas, dreams of humanity;—but what kind of dreams? One must have a feeling for this ‘being dreamt’ of the historical events of humanity. I tried to make this clear to the people in Switzerland by saying: If one seeks as leading and guiding personalities only those who are very clever but are without any understanding whatever for what I call dream impulses, it will be seen how far this leads. In this respect one should try to answer practically the question: How quickly can a commonwealth be systematically ruined? Contrive to set up therein a parliament of scholars! They need not be skilled professors, they might even be socialistic leaders;—in that movement there are professors enough. With a perception for such things, one will ask oneself: How has the whole comprehensive theory of socialism come about? If it could really be put into practice, it could only bring about ruin (and perhaps a sorrowful proof of this may yet be found in the East, if it does not stop, but tries to proceed with it further). How has it come about that these socialistic ideas have taken root in men's minds? What exactly are these theories?

To know this, one must be acquainted with the history of the last four centuries, especially that of the 18th and 19th. One must know that real history is very different from that contained in history books; one must know that such books, especially in regard to the last two centuries form a picture of human class and social contention; Karl Marx, for instance, has simply set up as theories what humanity dreamt in those centuries, something which actually did exist, but which, like a dream, ceased in the new period and gave place to theories. The theories of socialism which arose as soon as the fact of it was lost in dream, show that the intellect uses what has already perished, what has already become a corpse, directly it takes the matter in hand with such means of knowledge as are quite valid—e.g., in natural science. From such cognitions one must see that the world really stands at a turning point in time where the comprehension of the historical development (for the present has also become historical, and as man lives into the future he also experiences historical development) must be understood in the sense of Spiritual Science. One does not obtain a true picture of even the most recent events if Spiritual Science is left out of account. I shall relate an oft-quoted example.

(Among ourselves as members such matters may be discussed; though people outside often laugh at such things—they will not always do so however). An important incident of European life in the Middle Ages is the fact that at that time the knowledge of the Western quarter of the globe was lost to Europe. There was indeed always an inner connection, especially between Ireland and England, and the territory now called America. A certain connection was always kept up between Europe and the West, and only in the century following the “discovery of America,” intercourse with that continent was forbidden by a Papal document (of course it was not called ‘America’ then). This connection with America only ceased with its so-called ‘discovery’ by a Spaniard, but outer history is so inaccurate that people are under the impression that in Europe America was not known at all before the year 1492. Almost everyone believes this. Many similar facts can be brought forward which Spiritual Science has to make valid from its own sources. We are standing at a turning point in time when historical life must be considered from the aspect of Spiritual Science.

Someone might ask: If Spiritual Science as we understand it can only unfold in our time, how then was it in earlier times?

When we look back into earlier times, we find something different, something comparable with what in Spiritual Science is called Imaginations; we find myths and legends, and from their forces, which were pictures, impulses could be derived; even political impulses, which were more real, more in accordance with facts, than the abstract teaching of modern history, social economy, and so forth. It is not necessary to understand in abstract ideas what holds people together and makes the conditions of communal life. In earlier times this was brought to expression in myths. We to-day can no longer produce myths; we must come to Imaginations, and with these comprehend historical life, and from that again coin political impulses which will be truly different from the fantastic impulses of which so many dream to-day, which are, as we might say, impulses of the schoolmaster.

It is certainly very difficult to tell people that historical life is something which, as regards the ordinary ideas, runs its course in the subconsciousness; but on the other hand, this hidden life of mankind knocks at the door of events, at the door indeed of all human impulses. It may be said—as the Zurich lectures have shown—that everywhere to-day one would like to meet this pursuit of knowledge, which also aims at the spirit, though with wholly inadequate means. In Zurich we made acquaintance with psycho-analysis, the analytical psychology, already qualified as academical; and, connected with those very lectures, the most remarkable discussions have taken place on psycho-analysis in relation to anthroposophical Spiritual Science. The psycho-analyst, however, comes to the world of Spiritual Science spiritually blindfold, and can find nothing in it. Yet this world raps at the door which ought now to be opened to man.

In Zurich there is a professor named Jung, who has quite recently written another pamphlet on psycho-analysis and the many problems connected with it. He is the author of many works on the subject: he shows, however, that he can only lay hold of it with inadequate means. One fact will show what is meant. Jung brings forward an example cited by the greater number of psychoanalysts.

The following happened to a woman. She was invited to an evening party. As soon as supper was over, her hostess, not being very well, was to start for one of the spas. Supper came to an end and the hostess started, the guests leaving with her. They walked, as people sometimes do on leaving an evening party, not on the pavement, but in the middle of the road. Presently a cab came round the corner. The guests all beat a retreat to the pavement, except the lady of the story, who ran to the middle of the road just in front of the horse; the driver shouted at her, but she ran on until she came to a bridge across a river. Then, in order to escape from this unpleasant situation, she decided to throw herself from the bridge into the river. This she did, and was rescued by the guests, who ran after her, and the house where the party had been held being the nearest, she was taken back there. She met there her hostess's husband and spent a few hours with him.

Let us reflect what a man with insufficient data can make of such an occurrence. If he approaches the matter with the methods of the psycho-analyst, he discovers those mysterious provinces in the soul which tell us that this soul, in the seventh year of her life, had an experience with horses, so that the sight of the cab horses called up an earlier experience from her subconsciousness and so bewildered the lady that she did not spring to the side but ran on before the cab. Thus to the psycho-analyst, the whole transaction is the result of the connection of a present experience with ‘unsolved riddles of the soul,’ from the domain of education, and so forth. This is a pursuit of the subject with inadequate means, because the psycho-analyst does not know that the subconscious ruling in man has more real existence than is supposed; it is also much more subtle and much more clever than anything man gets from his conscious intellect. This subconsciousness is often much braver and more determined. The psycho-analyst does not know that a ‘daimon’ dwelt in the soul of this lady who started out, from the first, with the unconscious intention of being alone with the husband after his wife had started on her journey. This was all arranged in the most subtle manner by the subconsciousness, for one does everything with far greater certainty if the consciousness has nothing to do with it. The lady ran before the horse simply in order to be intercepted when matters had reached a certain point; and she conducted herself to that end. Into these things the psycho-analyst does not penetrate because he does not suppose that there is a spiritual psychic world everywhere, to which the human soul stands in relation. Jung, however, has some inkling of this. From innumerable things that appear before him, he divines that the human soul stands in relation to numberless others. Still he must remain a materialist, or cease to be one of the clever men of the day. What then does he do? He says that the human soul stands everywhere in connection with spiritual facts outside itself (this is shown, he said, by the things which take place within), it is in connection with super-psychic, spiritual facts. But as a materialist he cannot admit the existence of these facts and therefore falls back upon the following theory:—The soul has a body, derived from other bodies which again are derived from others. Then there is heredity, and Jung construes that the soul in accordance with that conforms to all that has been experienced in relation to the heathen Gods, for instance. Through inheritance these experiences remain in the soul, creating an ‘isolated province of the soul,’ which only needs to be questioned if man desires to be rid of it. Jung even conceives that it is necessary for the human soul to have connection with this isolated province, and that it ruins the nervous system if it is not drawn up into the consciousness. Therefore he enunciates the proposition, which is quite justifiable according to the modern philosophy of life; that unless the soul is in relation to a divine being, it must inwardly perish. He is just as sure of this as he is that there is no divine being at all. The question of the relation of the human soul to God has not the least connection with the question of the existence of God in his mind.

So it is written in his book. Let us think what is really under consideration. It is scientifically proved that the human soul must construct a relation to God, but it is equally certain that it would be foolish to assume the existence of a God. Thus the soul for its own health is condemned to invent a God for itself. Pretend that there is a God, or thou wilt be ill! That is actually stated in the book.

We see from this what great enigmatic problems knock at the door, and how the present time opposes these things. If men were courageous enough, this truth would gradually come to be perceived to-day, but they are not so courageous. I do not say all this in hostility to Jung, for I believe he is more courageous in his thinking than all the others. He says what he has to say according to the assumptions of the present. Others do not say it; they have less courage.

We must reflect on all these things in order to understand the real meaning of the statement, ‘Spiritual science brings forward a truth such as: What takes place in the historical life of man, and consequently in the life of political impulses, has nothing to do with the ordinary consciousness, it can have nothing to do with it; but can only be understood and applied through imaginative consciousness.’ We might even say as regards the most distinctive representatives of the anti-social historic conception, that President Wilson's view must be replaced by an imaginative knowledge of the truth. And Wilson's ideas are very widespread (far more people are of his way of thinking than is supposed). Names are of no moment, only the facts under which men live are of consequence. I may be allowed to be somewhat outspoken about Wilson, because in the course of lectures given in Helsingfors before the war, already then I pronounced my judgment of him and did not need to wait for the war to learn of what spirit he is who sits on the throne of America. At that time fulsome praise of Woodrow Wilson could be heard everywhere; it has not long ceased. The world is now very much wiser, and knows that the man who now occupies the throne of America drafted his most powerful republican document from one issued by the late Emperor of Brazil, Don Pedro, in 1864. Wilson copied this exactly except that the passage, ‘I must intervene in the interests of South America’ is altered to ‘I must intervene in the interests of the United States of America,’ etc., with the necessary recasting.

When in their time Wilson's two books, The New Freedom and Mere Literature appeared in our own country, there was no less fulsome praise. This was only about five or six years ago. In this matter of Wilson's influence people have certainly learned a few things; but as regards many other things they could only be learnt from the incisive events of the present time. For this reason it is necessary that many things which can only flourish on the ground of spiritual scientific cognition, should be taken very earnestly. People lightly reproach anthroposophical Spiritual Science as being merely ‘theoretical;’ and concerning itself with cosmic evolution rather than with love. They do not see that cosmic evolution is the expression of love, but prefer to talk of ‘love,’ of universal love, of how and what man should love, and they have been talking thus thousands of years. Many do not understand that at the present time the fruition of love is to be comprehended through the study of cosmic evolution. Let us for a few moments allow Spiritual Science to take hold of the human soul, and we shall see how love will arise in the human heart. Love cannot be preached; it grows if properly cultivated; it is a child of the spirit. Even among men it is a child of true knowledge—knowledge reaching to the spirit, not to matter only.

In this introductory lecture I have wished to do no more than indicate a few perceptions which will be very significant at this period. All that can awaken power, courage, and hope in the human soul is to be reviewed in these lectures, and I should like especially to speak of all the gifts mankind can receive from Spiritual Science, other than those which have been given during past centuries. I should like to speak of Spiritual Science as something living, as something which is no theory, but which brings to birth in us a second man, a spiritual man who bears and maintains the other in the world. I believe above all that the, present time needs this. There was a time, in the Middle Ages, when many had a fantastic longing to make gold. Why did they wish to make gold? They wanted something which may not be realised under ordinary earthly conditions. Why? Because they perceived that ordinary earthly conditions, unless spiritualised and permeated by spiritual impulses, cannot give man any true satisfaction. In the end that is the content of the teaching of the Gospels also, only people usually overlook the most important points; they criticise the view of the Gospels that the Kingdom of God has come; yet is it not present? It is, but not to outward appearances. It must be understood inwardly. It must not be denied, as is done in our time. We shall speak of this descent of the Kingdom of the Spirit in our next lecture.

To-day I only wished to strike the keynote. Our epoch is directed to build the bridge to the kingdom in which the dead are living. The number of those now passed through the gate of death can be reckoned by millions. They live among us and we can find them. The way in which we can find them will be discussed from another point of view.

I spoke last time about the fact that, had evolution run its intended course, earthly man would not have strayed from his appointed place in the cosmic order. This is well known and is imaginatively expressed in various religions in such symbols as that of original sin and the like. Viewed in the light of spiritual science this aspect of mankind's evolution is directly connected with the fact that man's essential nature—that is, earthly man's essential nature—manifests itself through breathing. I indicated last time that the rhythm of the breath, and with it knowledge, cognition, was predestined to be man's most significant experience during his earth-existence. Last time I summarized briefly things spoken about on earlier occasions, namely that the rhythm of breathing is in wonderful harmony with the cosmos. I mentioned how, in a normal human life, the number of days equals the number of breaths drawn in one day. And I pointed to other numerical relationships which give evidence of the harmonious agreement that exists between our microcosmic breathing process and the great cosmic processes within which we are placed.

It can be shown, not only through the findings of spiritual science, but also through external observation, that the rhythm of breathing, more than anything else, shows man to be a microcosm, a little world. Man's breathing copies the processes of the Great World, the macrocosm. However, in regard to man, far too little attention is paid to slight differences, to individual characteristics. The fact is that there are no two people whose breathing is exactly the same, because each individual sounds, as it were, a different chord within the cosmos. However, in man's present earth-existence everything connected with the rhythm of the breath remains unconscious. Only under abnormal conditions or through some illness does the process of breathing become conscious. Our normal consciousness functions at a level above the process of breathing and is, as a consequence, not so closely bound up with the cosmos. If cognition had been based on the rhythm of breathing instead of processes in the brain our whole relation to, and knowledge of, the world would be different. It is because our cognition is dependent on the brain that we were forced out of what should have been our normal relationship with the macrocosm.

This secret of the breath is indicated in religious records, such as the Old Testament, when it says that the Divine Spiritual Being, concerned with the guidance of mankind, breathed into man the breath of life and he became a living soul. In the sense of ancient atavistic clairvoyance this is an absolutely true rendering of the facts. As far as his intellect is concerned man has a different relationship to the cosmos before and after the Mystery of Golgotha. This is because the brain and not the breath became the bodily foundation for knowledge.—In order to deepen our understanding we have considered the Mystery of Golgotha from many aspects; today we shall approach it from yet another.

It is true to say that before man was exposed to the influence of Lucifer, his knowledge, indeed his whole relation to the world, was intended to be different. Knowledge was to have been based on the rhythm of the breath. But before the Mystery of Golgotha, due to the Luciferic influence, the process of cognition developed higher up in man's organism and became related to the head and sense organs instead of to the chest and breathing. This is looking at it purely from the point of view of the body but in this connection the body itself has a deeper significance. The difference in man before and after the Mystery of Golgotha is not likely to be perceived or acknowledged by natural science. For although the difference is considerable it can be ascertained only by subtler means Before the Mystery of Golgotha, as Anthroposophy explains, man had as a matter of course a relationship with spiritual beings in the cosmos, with the beings of the higher Hierarchies. But what was the relationship? Among the beings of the Hierarchies we distinguish to begin with, immediately bordering on the human realm, the Angeloi, the Archangeloi and so on. Therefore the nearest beings to whom we look up, when we turn to the spiritual world are the Angeloi. As human beings we have a relationship to the Angeloi and they in turn feel their relationship to man. It is not a matter of indifference to the Angeloi what kind of relationship they have to man. When we turn our attention to this relationship we can begin to understand the difference in human beings before and after the Mystery of Golgotha.

The remarkable fact is that before the Mystery of Golgotha an intimate relation existed between the activity and being of the Angeloi and the human intellect. One could say that before the Mystery of Golgotha the Angeloi dwelt mainly in man's intellect. Man knew nothing of this but as a consequence he had, though in decreasing strength, atavistic, imaginative clairvoyance. When I said that before the Mystery of Golgotha the Angeloi dwelt in man's intellect, this holds good for his life between birth and death. It was different in man's life between death and new birth. Then the Angeloi, and especially the Angels belonging to individual human beings, dwelt in the memory man had of his sense impressions. They dwelt in pictures of what had surrounded man in the world of the senses on earth. The result was that in his life between death and new birth—before the Mystery of Golgotha—man had a vivid knowledge of what took place on earth. In a sense one could say that the Angeloi carried up to man knowledge of what was happening on earth.

This gives an idea of man's relation to the Angeloi before the Mystery of Golgotha. Afterwards this relationship gradually changed. So what relationship does man have now to the beings of the Hierarchy of the Angeloi? Now it is the case that, although we are not conscious of it, the Angeloi dwell in our sense perceptions between birth and death. When we open our eyes and look around at everything that surrounds us affecting our senses we are not aware that our Angel dwells in the sun rays which penetrate our eyes making objects visible. The beings of the Angeloi live in waves of sound, in the rays of light and color and in other sense perceptions. The reason man does not know he is surrounded by the Angeloi is because he transforms his perceptions into mental pictures and into these the Angeloi do not enter. It has often been emphasized in our lectures that the spiritual world must be visualized all around us and not in some far away cloud-cuckoo-land. The spiritual world is literally everywhere about us and it is possible to explain quite concretely in what sense it surrounds us as in this case in regard to the Angeloi. Yet no consciousness of the Angeloi enters our intellect between birth and death. By contrast man is at present very conscious of his relation with the Angeloi between death and new birth because then the Angeloi dwell in his intellect.

What I have just explained has significant consequences for human life. Let us go back for a moment to man as he was before the Mystery of Golgotha. Then the Angeloi, particularly his own Angel dwelt in his intellect; this made his senses in particular accessible to luciferic powers. In ancient times man's consciousness in general was accessible to luciferic influences. This has changed since the Mystery of Golgotha. As I have just explained the beings of the Hierarchy of the Angeloi who weave and move—borne on rays of light and color and on wings of sound—do not penetrate our intellect. As a consequence our intellect is exposed to the attacks of ahrimanic powers during our life between birth and death. Whereas before the Mystery of Golgotha man was exposed essentially to the attacks of Lucifer; since the Mystery of Golgotha the intellect is particularly exposed to the influence of ahrimanic powers. Their main objective is to stifle man's consciousness of his connection with the spiritual world. All the tendencies to materialism that man develops in his life of thought stem from this direct relationship between his intellect and the attacks of Ahriman. And if the materialistic tendencies, which are fully described in these lectures, have the upper hand in our time, we must not forget that they originate in the confusion which Ahriman strives to promote in the human intellect.

What is the real significance of these things? As already mentioned the process of breathing is subconscious, but that to which I have just referred; i.e. man's connection with the Angeloi, is not conscious either. That however lies above our consciousness. What happens in our breathing lies below our consciousness; what happens within us through the interaction with the spiritual world nearest to us lies above our consciousness. Within this process above our consciousness is actively working the force that entered the world through the Mystery of Golgotha, whereas earlier it was the force of Jehovah that worked in man. If we deepen our insight into the spirit—I say expressly into the spirit—of a writing such as the Book of Job, and realize how graphically it depicts the sway of the Jehovah force in human evolution, it gives us a picture of how the force worked which gave man life through the breath. As described there it worked in the forces of heredity down to the third and fourth generations.

In order to discover the corresponding force at work after the Mystery of Golgotha we must turn to the Christ. Just as the force of Jehovah is related to man's process of breathing so is the force of Christ, indeed the whole Mystery of Golgotha, related to that process I have just described as lying above man's consciousness. One could say that man's breathing has been deprived of consciousness through the luciferic influence. In compensation man is given the possibility to attain that higher consciousness of which I spoke; this will mean for man to unite with the Angeloi through the senses and the intellect. To compensate as it were for that which was taken from him; i.e., cognition through the rhythm of the breath, man is to be given, through the impulse flowing from the Mystery of Golgotha, cognition through a higher consciousness. There were people of deeply religious natures in the Orient who strove, before the Mystery of Golgotha, to bring consciousness into their breathing. To imitate this procedure today is harmful. The aim of the breathing exercises, described in Oriental writings, was to irradiate the process of breathing with consciousness. But in regard to certain higher knowledge man's earthly consciousness is doomed to be powerless. These ancient practices are being imitated today because it is not realized that through Lucifer man has been deprived of the possibility to irradiate his breathing with knowledge.

He is instead, since the Mystery of Golgotha, to attain a connection with the spiritual world through the development of a higher consciousness. If we were able to cognize; i.e. attain knowledge through our breath, then with every inhalation we would be conscious, not of inhaling air, but of taking in the force of Jahve; and with every exhalation we would know we exhaled Jahve. In a similar way man is now to become conscious that the beings of the Hierarchy of the Angeloi approach him and retreat from him rhythmically; that the spiritual world flows towards him and again ebbs away as it were. But man will attain this higher consciousness only if the impulse of the Mystery of Golgotha influences him more and more.

Fundamental issues can sometimes only be characterized by the use of strange words. In order to describe truth one must not shrink from using appropriate terms. Through Lucifer's influence the process of breathing became dulled as I have just described. True, it is meant pictorially, but if rightly understood one will feel the objective reality in the picture. Jahve's original intention was for man to be conscious of Him in every breath drawn into the body and conscious of His withdrawal with every exhalation. But Lucifer became Jahve's opponent and the consciousness, inherent in the force of Jahve, was shut off from man's consciousness. And now comes the point where one perforce must use strange, severe words in order to give a true description: Jahve had to forget human beings, insofar as their life on earth is concerned, because He could not enter their consciousness. It really did happen that the Being from whom the Jahve-force issued and other spiritual beings within the spiritual world forgot man, just as we may forget something. They forgot man, lost him from their consciousness. The consciousness was rekindled through the Mystery of Golgotha. If from primordial times, up to the Mystery of Golgotha, the tragic words were spoken: And the Gods forgot mankind; then since the Mystery of Golgotha we must say: And it is once more the Gods' will, by and by, to remember mankind. For the sake of human beings the Gods gradually will penetrate with their forces just that from which man otherwise would grasp none of the spirit: the wisdom connected with the human brain, the life of ideation connected with the human nervous system. Heaven wishes to behold the earth, to behold from above what is below. The necessary window was opened when the Being of Christ, through the baptism in the Jordan, entered the personality of Jesus. The words: “This is my beloved Son, this day have I begotten him” denotes the fact that what is above will once more behold what is below, that the forces from above can now stream in and out of that which is below, not however through man's breathing but through his thoughts and ideation. The time, since the Mystery of Golgotha, has been essentially a time of preparation. We are now at the turning point when something else must come, than was previously in the working of the Mystery of Golgotha. That we should become aware of this is of immense importance.

Everything that has taken place so far has been in the nature of preparation. Up till now only exceptional individuals have been able—through spiritual knowledge—to draw near the Mystery of Golgotha. The time has come when a greater part of mankind, through spiritual science, must come to understand the Mystery of Golgotha. Why is this so essential?

Many secrets are connected with an understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. People often ask: How can I find a relationship to Christ? Certainly it is a question that is justified. But anyone with insight will know that it is a question that cannot be answered just like that. Let me make a comparison: we see objects by means of our eyes, but the eyes we do not see. For the eyes to be able to see they must be unable to see themselves. They see mirror images but not themselves. That which does the seeing cannot itself be seen. Since the Mystery of Golgotha man must see the spiritual world through the impulse coming from Christ just as he sees external colors through his eyes. We do not see the eyes through which the colors, etc. are seen, nor do we see the Christ impulse through which we see the spiritual world. This is why the Mystery of Golgotha is veiled in mystery and the history of the event is also veiled. Since the Mystery of Golgotha the historical event associated with it cannot be discovered by historic means. To seek for Christ historically like any other event in history would be like trying to induce the eye to see itself. It is inherent in the Mystery of Golgotha that Christ Jesus cannot be found like Plato, Socrates or any other historical personality, through historical documents. It lies in its very nature that accounts of it are not historical, they were given by human beings who were inspired. Accounts of the Mystery of Golgotha can always be proved not to be historical records in the usual sense. We would become spiritually ill in the course of human evolution in the moment it became possible to include the Mystery of Golgotha among other historical events. Nor in that case would we be able to see it rightly; if we saw it historically it would be like an injured eye seeing itself. A healthy eye sees objects but not itself. If a chip has become embedded in the eye it will see a dark space before it and begin to perceive itself; but that is abnormal perception. Similarly an abnormal perception of the Mystery of Golgotha would come about if it did not have an aspect which externally is imperceptible and therefore enables man to perceive spiritually. This is a secret connected with the Mystery of Golgotha. The remarkable thing is that this strange situation did not exist for man before the Mystery of Golgotha. In ancient times before Christ had descended to the earth man knew, through his atavistic clairvoyance, that Christ was there above in the spiritual world and that He would come. Hence there is remarkable prophetic evidence which shows there were human beings who were conscious, through direct personal experience, of the Christ who was to come. It is a paradox that man could know of Christ as long as He had not yet come to the earth. From the moment He had come man could no longer know of Him in the same way. Just as one experiences the eye when one perceives, so the Christ-event had to be experienced in the time after the Mystery of Golgotha, and not known historically.

It is interesting to see how these things, which I am now explaining in the light of spiritual science, are dealt with in the Gospels. But we must leave that to some other occasion.

Thus it was inevitable that from early on, in the development of Christianity, faith was emphasized rather than knowledge. Christians were not to expect knowledge concerning the Mystery of Golgotha but experience it inwardly through faith. Yet the Mystery of Golgotha is meant to illumine our world of concepts, for ideas born of faith are also concepts, are also our mental pictures. Furthermore, that is the realm in which the impulse from the Mystery of Golgotha meets all the attacks of Ahriman. Our intellect is the arena where the impulse of Christ fights the impulse of Ahriman. Man's evolution, his purely external evolution on earth, will take its course and Ahriman will not be as fettered as he is now. The “Thousand Years” will elapse and man will need a different force, he must have something over and above mere faith with which to establish the Christ impulse in his earthly consciousness. What is this different force?

This different force is spiritual knowledge through which man spiritually should make his own what we call the impulse of Christ. It will enable him to find within himself the strong force with which to protect the Christ impulse in his consciousness against the attacks of Ahriman. The Christ impulse is established in the world and Ahriman cannot abolish it. That is beyond his strength. Ahriman cannot alter the fact that Christ came into the world through the body of Jesus of Nazareth. But what he can do is so to transform the concept, the mental picture of Christ in the human intellect that man experiences a pretense, instead of the Christ impulse. This means he creates a false picture of Christ. Man is exposed to the danger that while he may talk about Christ his intellectual picture of Christ is inspired by Ahriman. Those who are able to review modern cultural developments in their true forms seldom find any accurate picture of Christ in men's mind; more often than not they are distorted by Ahriman. By no means is it always the real Christ whom the adherents of Christianity call Christ. Ahriman clouds and confuses the human intellect in many ways in order to attain his goal, not least in those places where men are apt to seek religious counsel. There one can encounter peculiar views. Suppose one asks a Catholic theologian about his real opinion concerning the Virgin Mary. Certainly most would only give the reply he had been instructed to give, but let us leave that aside. There are some who have developed theological cognition beyond the level of mere instruction. In such cases one invariably finds a strange similarity between the cosmic picture of the heavenly church and the earthly woman Mary. This view comes about because for the Catholic theologian the Virgin Mary is identical with the symbolic woman in the Apocalypse who has the moon beneath her feet, the sun at her breast and the seven stars above her head. Thus, in order to visualize the meaning of the spiritual concept it is transposed into an earthly reality. Certain passages in Catholic writings demonstrate that Catholic theologians still look upon the Virgin Mary as identical with the woman in the sun with the moon at her feet and the stars above her head. Here the spiritual, the cosmic-spiritual is seen completely in terms of the earthly; and in fact the cosmic aspect is disappearing more and more through Ahrimanic influence. Nowhere does it disappear more thoroughly than from man's conception of Christ. There is very little inclination today to acknowledge Christ as the Great Cosmic Spirit who descended from cosmic heights to dwell in the human body of Jesus of Nazareth. Many people have an aversion to admit it; they believe it truly Christian to bring as little as possible of a cosmic aspect into the concept of Christ. This attitude would have been quite impossible for a theologian in the 14th century. This fact may not be demonstrated by history because external history is itself distorted.

Ahriman's whole interest lies in diverting man away from the spiritual, towards the material. What is material is indeed also spiritual but its spirit lies hidden within the earth. Ahriman does need much cunning and the use of many a trick in order to prevent man from seeing any cosmic aspect in the personality of the Christ. Nevertheless one finds descriptions of Christ which are strikingly ahrimanic; they are bereft of everything supersensible and are deliberately made to appear purely human. Particularly in social-democratic literature is this very common; not to mention painters who have done everything possible to eliminate every suggestion of a cosmic quality from their figure of Christ. Some years ago there was an exhibition here in Berlin of paintings of Christ, a whole series of ahrimanic paintings one after the other. And then there are all the self-appointed preachers who officially or unofficially speak in a sectarian manner about the Christ with no awareness that Ahriman has them by the collar and induces them to present his version of the Christ impulse and not one in which the true impulse of Christ is effective.

The true and therefore effective Christ impulse can in our time be presented by no other means than spiritual science. For spiritual science is concerned with spiritual perception which is attained outside the body and therefore where the possibility exists of beholding again the Christ in His true form. As long as one is within the body the eye can indeed behold colors but it cannot behold itself. When one betakes oneself out of the body in spiritual perception one beholds the impulse of Christ through the Christ impulse itself; just as when one sees oneself from the outside one sees the eye. What man can find in spiritual science he cannot find in any historical account to be a description of Christ in His spiritual form. Just as spiritual science can describe a faculty of sight which is on a level higher than that of the eye, so it can describe the Christ impulse through which the spiritual world becomes visible. It is therefore possible to attain insight into the Christ impulse, but insight does not prevent attacks from Ahriman. They must be met with courage. The reason people do not want to know about the concept of Christ attained through spiritual science is because of a subconscious fear that as soon as the Christ impulse is understood it will arouse Ahriman's opposition. How can this ahrimanic opposition be recognized at the present time?

In the future it will take other forms. Today it comes to expression in the fact that we have a natural science and accounts of history both of which are ahrimanic and they consequently present cultural development and historical events their way. The very nature of concepts developed on this basis excludes the Christ impulse. In these concepts Ahriman must inevitably work because he works in man. With concepts such as these it is indeed possible to evolve a philosophy of life which includes a general concept of God but they can never lead to an understanding of Christ. Christ may be spoken of but is not understood. That is the case even in a philosopher like Lotze.¹² And Harnack,¹³ having no ideas of his own on the subject, mentions the name of Christ only because it appears in religious documents in the Bible and so on. Other theologians fail to speak of the real Christ for similar reasons. Thus Harnack's Christ has no other attributes than those applicable to a universal Godhead; or he may go to the other extreme and simply describe the man Jesus.

To understand Christ through spiritual science it is necessary to grasp the spiritual-scientific concept of Christ in the full awareness that all external knowledge—whether in the form of natural science or history—far from leading to an understanding of the Christ impulse actually opposes it. This opposition is there in anti-Christians today who, in contrast to mere belief, attempt to apply natural-scientific or historical concepts to the Christ event. It is essential to understand that there has to be an inner opposition because here two worlds are in conflict. We must enter courageously into the conflict between Christ and Ahriman. A comprehensive view of life will accept that the conflict exists and expresses itself for example in the fight between Christ and Ahriman.

I have often said that Lucifer acts in partnership with Ahriman. They work together. They both have great interest in deluding man concerning the necessity of this inner conflict. They therefore go all out to eliminate the realm that opposes them. To this end they conjure up in man's mind ideas such as: “In tune, in harmony with the infinite.” Why do such mental pictures arise in man? They do because he is inwardly too much of a coward to face the conflict and much prefers Lucifer-Ahriman to invent “harmony with the infinite” for him. However it is an attitude that is the equivalent of going through life blindfolded, seeking only appeasement. Modern man shrinks from the many-sided battle to attain spiritual insight; this attitude is bound to call up opposing forces just as they appear when something right, which ought to be furthered is left neglected. It is because man, during recent centuries, has endeavoured to avoid the inner battle between powers which must of necessity oppose one another, that this battle assumes such a terrible form in the external world today. This consequence is as inevitable as the expulsion from Paradise was a consequence of the luciferic temptation. We see man today, in all spheres of life, being satisfied with creating a mere semblance of inner peace for himself. It is an inner peace which has a meaning only between birth and death. In so doing he prevents one side of the inner conflict to come to expression, of course that to which he prevents expression is always the Christ impulse. Thus the natural conflict has to find an outlet some other way. Now, when you find in various publications descriptions of the so-called contradictions supposed to exist in my writings you will now be able to view these with deeper insight and recognize the ahrimanic impulse in them.

Instead of overcoming the forces he necessarily must overcome, by facing them, man tries to avoid the conflict. This has all kinds of adverse effects. If one tries to avoid the conflict it will make its appearance in a different form. Nothing pleasant is prepared by those who strive to do away with the conflict. Working with spiritual science one continuously meets people who, out of their deepest needs, ask: Why is there evil, why is there pain in the world? These questions are often asked in an attempt to grasp how it can be that a good God allows evil to exist. In an attempt to answer such questions one may draw attention to the fact that no one will deny that all the good in the world, all that is excellent and full of wisdom is a manifestation of the Godhead. Thus if it is felt that God's goodness must be vindicated then we already stand on the premise that wisdom is to be ascribed to a good God. But why does a good, wise God allow evil to exist? To this the following may be said: Begin by visualizing a minute pain, let us say you cut yourself and feel a slight pain. Every pain arises when something is exposed to any kind of destruction. It is just that it is not always so obvious how the pain first came about. Let us now imagine that it is not a question of a cut by a knife but that a particularly sensitive spot on the body is exposed to very hot sun rays. This may not at once result in actual blisters but the beginning is there. Therefore a change in the tissue has occurred which is felt as a slight pain. If now the heat of the sun acted more strongly on an even more sensitive spot a greater injury would result. And now imagine that two particularly sensitive places in our head were, aeons ago, exposed to the rays of the sun. Man at that time had not the faculty of sight but the two places in his head became painful whenever the sun rose. At these places the tissue was injured and pain arose in consequence. This process went on for long ages and the healing resulted in the formation of the eyes; they came into being as a result of injury. True as it is that the eyes convey to us the beauty of the world of color so is it also true that they could only come into being through injury caused by the heat of the sun to places particularly sensitive to light.

Nothing in the way of joy, happiness, blessedness has come about except through pain. To refuse pain and opposition is to refuse beauty, greatness and goodness. Here one enters a domain where one can no longer think as one pleases; here one is subject to what in the Mysteries was called “iron necessity.” True as it is that great harmony exists in the world, true as it is that the present harmony had of necessity to arise through pain, it is equally true that the Christ impulse cannot be attained through painless, sensuous feelings of well-being such as those conveyed by the idea of being “in tune with the infinite.” The Christ impulse can only be reached by courageously facing the conflict that plays itself out in our intellect—or in our consciousness in general—between the Christ impulse and the ahrimanic impulse. It is a conflict we cannot lightheartedly distance ourselves from by saying “without harmony we remain unfulfilled; in order to attain the Christ impulse we must rise above the conflict in our understanding.” This can be seen quite concretely in the most diverse instances. For example someone may strive to understand the world through natural science; as a consequence he fails to find the Christ impulse. He may later learn to understand the world through spiritual science and as a consequence he now does find the Christ impulse. In such a case it is essential to recognize that one is faced with a contradiction, but in the very contradiction there is also agreement. Contrary to the belief of many it is not a question of adhering solely to one or the other science, nor can one be substituted for the other. Rather could they be compared with the right and left ear; both are necessary for proper hearing for the very reason that the hearing in one ear does not coincide with that of the other ear. What matters is not whether two things can be made to agree but in what sense there is harmony between them.

• 12. Rudolf Lotze 1817–1881 German Physician and Philosopher
• 13. Adolf von Harnack 1851–1930 Professor of Theology