The Rudolf Steiner Archive

My dear friends! Today I would like to say a few words about the third area that you have mentioned, namely the actual content of the sermon. Of course, all three areas are intimately connected. We have given some indications about the nature of the cult, which of course must be very much completed and worked into the concrete, into what is needed today. We have at least been able to give some indications of the cultic aspect, and I would like to start by telling you how this cultic aspect is in turn related to the actual content of the sermon in practice.

You see, the sermon element appeals to the parishioner's imaginative understanding. Of course, the sermon must be delivered in such a way that what enters the person through the imagination passes as quickly and as intensely as possible into the feeling, the emotional, and, above all, the will impulse. But nevertheless we must work on the parishioner indirectly through the power of the imagination in the sermon. In all our teaching and instruction we must work on the human being through the power of the imagination.

But the conceptual has something inherently contradictory about the whole human nature. Here we enter a realm where today's science proves powerless from the outset to understand things. If you say something like that: the conceptual has something contradictory about the full nature of man, then you will meet with no understanding at all in today's scientific world view. And yet it is so. The conceptual tends to be absorbed once and then retained by the memory. You will easily see that this does not correspond to human nature.

If you look at the other extreme in man, at the purely physical processes, you cannot say: I have eaten or drunk today, so it remains in my organism, so I do not need to eat and drink again tomorrow - but food and drink must be repeated in a rhythmic sequence. What a person does must occur in a rhythmic sequence. And this is basically the actual human nature, to be incorporated into the rhythm in a certain way, while it is already a deviation from human nature when a person absorbs something once and then retains it, when it becomes permanent for him. And this permanence is the character of the conceptual. In the extreme, the conceptual becomes boring when it is repeated too often; and there is a fundamental sin against human nature associated with this theoretical-conceptual, namely not wanting to have repetitions anymore. You can follow this purely externally. Read good translations of the Buddha's discourses; you will find that these discourses have countless repetitions, you progress through nothing but repetitions. In the West, the foolish mistake was made of taking only the content of the Buddha-speeches and omitting the repetitions, because it was not known that Buddha had taken human nature into account.

There we come upon the point where, out of human nature itself, the mere content must of necessity pass over into something to be rhythmically assimilated. Of course, in the past this was done quite instinctively, by inserting prayer as the rhythmic element into the teaching, inserting prayer as the repeatedly recurring content of faith, even though the individual prayer has exactly the same content. The conceptual element merges with the volitional element when repetition occurs. In another way, one does not get a [volitional] content at all. Thus we already have the necessary flow of the doctrinal element into the cultic element. We have to bring the doctrinal content into such forms that we can present pictorial representations to the community members in a certain way. We have to let what we teach gradually become established in pictorial representations and to set the main points in a certain monumental way, so that they can be repeated again and again as a formula. Without this, we will not be able to bring the teaching content beyond the theoretical-conceptual into the practical-volitional, and this is what we must do. The more we stick to merely handing down the teaching content, the less we get to the practical religious exercise.

This is what shows you directly how something like cultic practice is already present in the Buddha-Speeches. The working out of the will element from the mere theoretical element of imagination is actually present in these discourses. While we appeal to people to repeat the Lord's Prayer, we are working our way out of the merely theoretical into the practical religious realm. But we will not be able to do this at all if we ourselves are not completely imbued with the supersensible substance of the world. And here I come today to certain characteristics of the teaching material, which one must nevertheless take into account if one wants to become a practical preacher or if one wants to have an effect on people through the teaching material at all.

You see, the greatest harm in today's religious work lies in the fact that the Gospels are no longer taken seriously. I do not mean any slight by this, but I do mean that people are not aware that the content of the Gospels goes beyond our sensory understanding. It is most significant that we can approach the Gospels again through anthroposophy and say to ourselves: an otherworldly content flows in the Gospels. We must understand them, we must do everything possible to really understand them. Today, however, people only criticize the Gospels; they do not really want to understand them, and this criticism is largely based on the fact that one does not take the content of the Gospels seriously at all, but takes it superficially.

I must refer you to the third sentence of the Gospel of John. In this third sentence, one usually hears the following: All things were made through the Word, and without the Word nothing was made that has been made. - What is all included in this third sentence of the Gospel of John! In reality, one would have to say: All things that came into being came into being through the Word, and without the Word nothing of what came into being came into being. This captures the meaning of this sentence. The third sentence points with all its might to what has come into being in the world, to everything that is subject to becoming. And of that which is subject to becoming, it is said, first, that it is tangible. Everything we see as having come into being is created and passes away. And secondly, it is said of this created and passing away that it is made by the word, by the logos.

This sentence would not be there if it were not based on the awareness of a contrast, if it were not subject to the sentence that there is also something in the world that is not created and does not pass away, namely the eternal foundations that merely transform themselves. In our modern education, we have only lost this contrast between what has arisen on the surface and the powers that lie in the depths, which Plato, for example, calls the eternal ideas. We must presuppose these eternal ideas as that which does not pass away and which underlies what has arisen and is passing away, which does not exist in the arising and passing away in the ordinary sense, but subsists.

We must distinguish between existence and subsistence. That which subsists all things is the foundation, that which refers to the Father. We must speak to the community in all popularity in such a way that we bring this Father-God as the content of the absolutely eternal to the consciousness of our community children. That is not as difficult as you think. It is only difficult because today the world is intensively economizing on ideas. I can assure you that the people who understand it most easily are the farmers in the countryside. They understand it immediately, while only the people who have been educated in the current way do not understand it. They do not understand it.

We can learn a great deal by looking at the last remnants of the elementary spiritual that still exist in [unspoilt] human beings. It is relatively easy to convey the most profound ideas to people with an elementary soul life. These ideas are rejected only by those who are spoilt, who have been spoilt for the most part by our schools.

We must understand how to teach people in a popular way the eternal in all things and how to distinguish between what is transient, what has come into being and what is passing away. And we must evoke the idea, in all possible ways and roundabout ways, that the Father-God underlies what is enduring and the Son-God, the Christ as the creative Logos, underlies what is becoming and what is the process of becoming. Therefore, one must also seek understanding of the Father-God before the created and the working of the Christ in the created.

Such things must be worked out again, then we come again to concepts that lie beyond mere scientific concepts. But, my dear friends, you must also be able to speak about them in the right way. You do not learn this through logical speculation, because logical speculation itself suffers from the one-sidedness that it works towards being absorbed once. Logical speculation – if it remains only a matter of speculation – is the worst possible preparation for a sermon. If you want to preach, it is not enough to prepare yourself for the doctrinal content of the sermon; the only possible supplement to this preparation for the content is meditation for the preacher himself.

Anyone who wants to preach must first meditate, that is, call something into their consciousness that brings them into a feeling inwardness so that they feel the God, the divine within them. Those who do not prepare themselves in this meditative way will not be able to let the word resound with the nuance with which it must resound if one is to evoke understanding for what one has to say. You will have to speak of immortality, you will have to speak of the Fall of Man, of Creation, of Redemption and of Grace. But you must not speak of immortality, the Fall of Man, Creation, Redemption and Grace with the consciousness that you have gained from modern scientific education, but you must speak with the consciousness that you have gained from your feeling of the divine existence within you. Then your words will be given the necessary nuance that you need to reach the hearts of those to whom you are to bring the truths about immortality, the Fall of Man, Creation, Redemption and Grace. This is what must be understood by preachers as deeply as possible. They will not come to a deeper understanding of the teaching content unless they prepare themselves meditatively.

The kind of composure that you first acquire in meditation, which brings you to be alone with your whole being – even if only for a short time – that composure is what also prepares you for the proper mood for reading the Gospels. You must assume that only the meditative life can prepare you, on the one hand, for reading the Gospels and, on the other, for the special tone of preaching. This is what the preacher must make a habit of. One should not believe that an understanding of worship, an understanding of the right nuance of preaching, comes through intellectual considerations, through intellectual comprehension of the content of the gospel, but rather that it comes through meditative immersion in the spiritual and volitional element at the same time, which stimulates the human being, thus stimulates the whole human being, and that is what it is really always about.

It is certainly a good thing for the modern preacher to realize, by means of outstanding examples, what inner soul struggles must actually be fought through if one wants to penetrate from what one absorbs today through external education, including external theological education, and what determines the whole form of thought, to a real grasp of the suggested idea about the supersensible.

It is really useful for anyone who wants to become a religious leader today to study such personalities as, for example, Newman, the English Cardinal who started out from Anglicanism and who thus moved within a more modern world view, half consciously, and then fell back into Catholicism, which, even within Catholicism, because such people are only waiting for such people, could make him a cardinal. It is interesting to observe the struggles of such a personality. You see, in the beginning, Newman's struggle was based on wanting to understand Christian truths. But he could not get anywhere with that. In the end, he could not find a way to understand Christian truths in modern terms. He was honest enough not to want to come to the mere “simple man of Nazareth” in Weinel's manner, but there was in him the urge for the supersensible. He could not get along earlier than until he said to himself: Yes, at the starting point of Christianity are not highly educated, scientifically educated people, but there are the fishermen of Galilee, and they actually understood nothing of the sayings they did; they did these sayings without logic, without being imbued with a logical understanding. And then, in fact, everything that is modern theology, which works so hard to be logical, which comes to the point of negation in its criticism imbued with logic, only emerged from the simple words of the fishermen of Galilee. And then Newman comes to say to himself: If there is logic, it can only be born out of illogic, out of that which is lived in such a simple way as Christianity was lived by the people who surrounded Christ Jesus in Galilee. —

And so he comes to a particular conception of the evolution, of the development of that which is experienced [religiously], into the more elaborate. But now he is obliged to take the whole Catholic Church with him, because he remains in the actuality of the unfolding [of religious experience]. Why does he remain? Because he negates the possibility that today, through the logical, one can arrive at the super-logical through beholding. Thus he could, [standing between Scylla and Charybdis,] run the risk, on the one hand, of falling prey to Scylla through a purely rationalistic interpretation, or, on the other hand, of Charybdis through killing the rationalistic way of thinking, but then having to accept the whole tradition and falling back into Catholicism. In fact, everyone who thinks this way falls prey to Catholicism. You only have to consider that people who cannot go along with the contemporary way of entering the supersensible, such as Scheler, who is characteristic of our German education for this matter, fall back into Catholicism. If people seek the supersensible and reject the path that anthroposophy wants to take, [they fall back into Catholicism].

Today, in order to avoid falling between Scylla and Charybdis, we have no other choice than to follow the anthroposophical path, even to accept anthroposophy as a supporting element of religious life, in order to access the supersensible truths. Then you will also find — and this is necessary for you because it occurs in community building — the popular, simple form for that which we cannot do within anthroposophy because something else must come first. We still have to express ourselves too strongly in modern forms of education [for the presentation of supersensible truths], because we speak to those who belong to modern education. But if you are a number of people, then it is quite possible to find the simple form to speak to the people in such a way that the high concepts of the supersensible that have been hinted at become concrete again.

I will only hint at the following. You see, do not disdain to speak to people in such a way that you say to them: Look at the stone, look at the rock crystal, look at a mineral object shaped like this, and you will be able to say to yourself: This mineral object, how was it formed? It has been formed out of the earth; you have no reason to think otherwise than that it has been formed out of the earth. It is a piece of the earth, the earth can create such forms, that is a piece of the earth. But now look at the plants; look at what you can always see around you. Can you imagine that the earth produces plants [on its own]? No; what the earth has as seeds within itself must wait until spring comes, until the sun's rays penetrate from outside, and when the sun's rays lose their strength, the earth also loses the strength to produce plant growth. Look at the growth of plants, and you will notice that when plants try to survive the winter season, they take on a woody, mineral quality; they become trees, which in turn lose the sprouting and budding power in their wood, and take on something of the mineral world themselves. The Earth could never produce what is plant-like out of itself; for that it needs what surrounds the Earth. It is necessary to rise above this, to really teach people that the earth could only be a rocky body if it had only its own forces, but that it would never have vegetation and would be permeated by it if the earth did not form a unity with the cosmos, if the cosmic forces did not play a role and have an effect on the earth. The earth would not have a plant kingdom without the spatial heaven.

And if it was possible in ancient times to teach the slave masses in ancient Egypt such truths as, for example, the transition from solar power to the power of Sirius, if it was possible to teach people that at that time, then we need not despair that today, when we can speak to the simplest people about the fact that the Earth owes what it has as a vegetative being to the extraterrestrial cosmos with its forces. And so we can rescue human beings from their tendency towards the merely earthly by teaching them to feel what the earth draws from the cosmic heavens.

I therefore believe that we must work towards directing the soul's gaze to the whole of cosmic space, and that this can be achieved simply by considering the plant world in a way that can be understood by everyone. It is of great help to us to realize how completely innocent nature actually is. It is impossible to speak of anything in the mineral or plant world that is guilt or sin. And if we work through these concepts well, if we really present the innocence of nature and the possible becoming guilty of man in a concrete way, then we can work out what leads people to understand that something comes into the world with man that cannot be found in space at all. Once man has understood that plants owe their existence to space and are innocent, then we have a way of realizing that that which can make man guilty cannot come from space at all, that we are all compelled to seek the essential soul of man outside of space. We must seek this way to go beyond space. And you see, when we have found the way to go beyond space, then we will find further ways.

You can see how difficult it has become for people with a modern education to go beyond space, from the fact that the most intelligent people in the 19th century opposed the idea of immortality on the grounds that souls would have no place in the universe. They could not get beyond the spatial with the concept of the soul. With the concept of the soul, one must get beyond the spatial. And when one has come this far, one turns one's attention to the animal world and tries to bring to life a concept that one gets there, which not only seizes our imaginative life but also our deepest feelings.

We find that minerals and plants cannot become guilty, but they cannot suffer either. Man must suffer, but can also become guilty. And then we turn our gaze to the animal world; they cannot become guilty either, but they must suffer. And when we gradually learn to understand repeated lives on earth, especially when it is not a theory but a clear understanding, when we feel that there is a connection between guilt and suffering, even if it is not trivially practical, and we just cannot find this connection because we direct our attention to innocent nature and would also like to harness man to this unity of innocent nature, then the great world tragedy becomes clear to us, which consists in the fact that we have chained the animal world to us, that the animals must suffer with us, although they cannot be guilty. Then one arrives at the tragic realization that the animal world exists because of man, must share in his suffering, although it cannot be to blame. Feel this concept through, empathize that the animal world shares in evil, although it cannot go along with evil.

When we form a vivid picture of evil in this way – a picture that is also intuitive – we come into contact with the world. We only have to feel the tragedy of existence in the world, which consists in the fact that the animals around us suffer with us, and then we come to realize that there are duties that go beyond the ordinary legal obligations. This is a point where you can lead the human being completely out of the immediate sense world. For in the immediate sense world you find nothing but the legal concepts that regulate the sensual, the external relationships between human and human. The obligation to redeem the animals comes to us from a completely different world. We cannot do this at all in our present existence. We cannot do anything in our present existence to redeem the animals that suffer for our sake. We can only redeem them if we look ahead to a final state of the earth that no longer prevents us from intervening in the laws of nature to relieve the suffering of the animal world. And so we are moving towards understanding a final state of the earth, in which physics has no right to interfere. We are expanding that which lives in us humans to include an understanding of the interconnection of the world.

We must speak to the people of today, because if we speak in terms of the old religious ideas, people will object that from a scientific point of view none of this is possible. But we must try to find such a way that simply cannot be said by science. Because the suffering of the animal world is there, without the animal world being able to be guilty. And here we come directly to the transition; the possibility exists of knowing something about supernatural obligations, or rather, extra-terrestrial obligations, about duties that can be fulfilled when the earth has found its end, the end of its present physical state. We will be able to lead [people] to an understanding of this state of the earth by overcoming purely scientific thinking in an appropriate way.

But we cannot do this if we merely appeal to people's selfishness in our preaching. And that is what has gradually arisen in humanity and has actually made religious conviction so difficult that today, with the best sermons, we basically appeal to human selfishness; and that has come about because we only speak of immortality and not of being unborn.

What is the situation regarding immortality? From anthroposophy it becomes clear. It becomes clear through knowledge. But how does today's preacher speak about immortality? He shakes up — look at the facts — the selfish needs of people, and in doing so he speaks entirely to the deepest soul egoisms; and he would not reach the hearts at all if the desire did not beat towards him: I may not perish with death. Of course, man will not perish with death. But this view must not arise from desire. The preacher does stir up these desires; he speaks to desire and fear, even if he does not do so consciously, because that is how he is accustomed to speaking. You cannot speak of life before conception in the same way. You cannot speak of life before birth from an egoistic point of view; you can make a person indifferent to it, because deep down he does not care about it. Since he is experiencing existence, he is not interested in whether he has lived before. This interest must be instilled in man, and that can only be done by awakening in him the consciousness that he has been given a mission with his earthly existence, that he is a co-worker in the divine world order, which could not achieve its goal if it had to work without the sensual world. That the Deity has released man, that is one thing. What can be grasped is that the human being experiences freedom, which he could not experience if he had not descended into the body. We have to present the human being as something that has been sent down by God. Without realizing the pre-existence, you do not come to a sermon that takes hold of the whole person and not just the desiring person. And that is a great defect of our [present-day] preaching, that it appeals to the desiring on the one hand and to the fearful on the other, and not to that which represents man as an image of the Godhead, which has released man to work in earthly existence.

You see, that word that comes to us from ancient times, that plays such a great role in the Catholic Church, the Gloria, is inserted into the mass between the Gospel and the offertory. Gloria in excelsis Deo – Glory be to God in the highest, and peace on earth, and goodwill toward men. – This is how it is translated in modern times. Now this translation is somewhat misleading, because the concept of glory is not based on the concept of being worshipped; rather, it is based on the same concept as the Greek exusiai: the concept of shining outwards, of revealing itself. And the saying actually means: May the Divine in the Heights reveal Itself, and on earth may Its reflection be the peace of men of good will. — We must arrive at a new concept of glory, then we will also come to an understanding of these things.

Just think how terribly blasphemous it actually is when the Gospel of the Blindborn is translated: Why was this man born blind? Did he sin or his parents? — And the answer: Not he has sinned nor his parents, but the works of God shall be made manifest in him. Is this not blasphemy, that the man born blind was healed so that the works of God might be seen in him? While it is always translated that the works of God are revealed through him, the truth lies in the fact that he preformed blindness for himself in a pre-existent life, so that God might be revealed in him.

We must eliminate this erroneous concept, which appears in many forms; then we can begin to make it clear that the human being stands as an image of God, that he is there to allow the Godhead to work in him. We cannot arrive at this understanding if we rely only on the hope of a post-existent life and not on pre-existence. We must grasp radically that we are here on earth the continuation of the pre-existent life, not merely the beginning of the post-existent life, and that human minds cannot find the way to selflessness if we speak only of immortality and not of pre-existence. These things must be the subject of glowing preaching, then there will be a possibility of reconnecting human consciousness to the supersensible; and then the rest will follow of itself.

You see, if you want to arrive at a concept such as that of Creation, then you have to evoke in people an awareness of the following: if you look at the mineral nature today, you see that the law of the conservation of matter and of force prevails in it. And this world that we are looking at seems to be eternal. But if you realize that this world is only in space and that only minerals from the earthly and plants from the extra-earthly space have been added to space, that something is already coming in with the animal from a pre-earthly state – because what is natural law on earth today cannot of course, cannot make the animal into a human being – if you realize that the laws of nature themselves have a beginning, then you will be able to understand that the concept of creation also includes the emergence of the laws of nature, whereas today we simply extend the laws of nature forward and backward into infinity. This is how we arrive at the concept of creation. It is intended to draw attention to something that can prove to you that, when speaking to simple minds, one can always find a certain understanding for the highest things. When I was young, if one went to an Austrian farmer who had not been educated at school but had only learned to read and write in his village school and spoke to him about nature as one had learned at school, he would stare at one. He could not reconcile this concept of nature with what he knew at all. You couldn't say to him in the usual way, you look at nature, it produces plants and animals, it is beautiful, nature appears in the light - and so on; you might as well have said something Chinese. There was an Austrian dialect poet who used the word “d'Naduar”. But when the Austrian farmer, who had only learned to read and write, who had no sense of the concept of nature as it appears in modern science, spoke of nature, he had a different concept of nature. For him, “nature” was the male seed and without this connotation he could not understand the word nature. He understood that what lives innocently in nature is in him, but it is drowned out in him by what can become guilty. He regarded nature as a part of himself, which is connected with it if one can speak of birth, and he also had the concept that something else enters into man at birth than nature, which is why he calls the male seed nature, the natural thing, however, that is connected with being born. He had this mysterious connection between our being born and being a work of nature.

And as is the case with this striking concept, if one only seeks, even if one wants to move on to the concept of creation, one can still find the possibility of connecting to concepts that are understandable to the simplest mind. The concept of creation can become something thoroughly understandable, but one must really try to move beyond what modern education gives us with good will. And so one gradually comes to make man understand that the creation of man comes before the creation of nature, that man has entered the world at a time when nature had not yet taken effect, when there was no such thing as heredity, fertilization and so on. One returns to a state where heredity and fertilization did not yet exist, where our present world was not yet an external world order, where the apostasy of the spiritual beings could take place, which then later dragged man along with them; one returns to a state in the pre-natural time, where the fall into sin was not yet a possibility for man.

One can and must come to these things if one wants to find a content for the sermon. For this it is not enough for you to present these concepts of the Fall, redemption, and so on, to people in a theoretical way. You will see that if you only count on formal understanding, if you count on mere doctrinal content and not on varied repetition, then you will not be able to hold the community together. If you count on varied repetition, then you can hold the community together. Then you also bring them to an understanding of grace, then you also bring them to the possibility of understanding a new sense of freedom, and you can teach people that man can come to develop, at least in his consciousness, concepts of the innocent and of non-evil [...] gap], freedom [... gap], and that through all our efforts we can indeed become good people inwardly, but that we can only find our connection to the world of the good when grace is at work, when grace comes to meet us.

I can only hint at this, because I don't have the time to discuss these things properly. But to put it briefly: there are ways, if only they are sought, to get out of the conceptual system of today's education and into a fully human system of ideas that has access to the supersensible world; and to do all this, it is absolutely necessary to allow oneself to be fertilized by anthroposophy in a certain sense. People are quite capable of understanding what you say if you find the right tone by first putting yourself in a meditative state.

In recent times, there has been too much abstract, lifeless preaching. And you see, I can say this to you for further reflection — I do not want to impose it on you like a dogma — I can only say: the worst manner of preaching is to stick to abstractions and then become unctuous. To believe that one speaks to the heart by presenting the abstract in a very inward way is poison for the heart. If one speaks of the “simple man of Nazareth”, if one tries to preach about Christ without taking the supersensible into account, if one allows everything Christian to rest, as it were, on his humanity, and wants to teach this to people by adopting an untrue sentimental tone, then one poisons the minds, because then one lives untruthfully about that which should permeate the sermon.

What should permeate the sermon through the feelings is the connection between the preacher and the supersensible content and impulse of the world itself, and the supersensible content and impulse is never given through the abstract. The preacher must be deeply imbued with the humility that the mere use of logical reason is itself a sin, and that the pursuit of science in modern times is killing the religious, that we must redeem the world from the scientific view through religion, that it belongs to the religious to overcome science, and that it is a commandment of Christ Jesus himself to overcome science, that Christ Jesus lives among us precisely for this reason, and that we express his mission to overcome science when we connect with him.

On the one hand, we must be clear about one thing: the human being must work in the world, and so he must already sin by grasping the world with his senses. We see sin as being necessary. And we see that the pendulum, because there is rhythm in the world, must swing to the other side, to the side of redemption from natural science. We will not be able to eradicate it, because we recognize the necessity for man to make the acquaintance of Ahriman, but we must realize that the pendulum must swing to the other side. But we must realize the rhythm, that only in a state of equilibrium can the two things work together. And for that, you see, I must draw your attention to something that may surprise you, but which must enter your consciousness if you want to find the necessary tone for a future sermon.

You see, we actually live today in a consciousness that is a kind of continuation of the ancient Persian world consciousness, which lived in Ahriman and Ormuzd. In Ahriman, he sees the evil god who opposes Ormuzd, and in Ormuzd he sees the good god who destroys the works of Ahriman. It is not known that the ancient Persian was aware that one must follow neither Ahriman nor Ormuzd [alone], but their interaction. And their interaction manifests itself in a figure such as Mithras. Ormuzd is a Lucifer-like figure who frees us from the world when we surrender to her, who wants to snatch us from heaviness and let us burn in the light. Man must find the way between light and heaviness, between Lucifer and Ahriman, and therefore we must have the possibility to think not in any dualism, but to think in the Trinity. We must have the possibility to say: the Persian duality of Ormuzd and Ahriman is today Lucifer and Ahriman, and the Christ stands in the middle of them, the Christ is the one who brings about the balance. Now all religious development so far, especially the theological, has set up a very pernicious equation, it has brought the Christ-figure as close as possible to the Lucifers. It is almost a resurrection of the old Persian Ormuzd when one experiences how Christ is spoken of today. One always thinks only of duality, thus of evil in contrast to good. The world problem is not solved by duality, but solely and exclusively by the Trinity. For as soon as you have duality, you not only have good and evil, but you have the battle between light and darkness, the battle that must not end with the victory of one over the other, but must end with the harmonization of the two. That is actually what must be brought into the concept of Christ. It is not for nothing that Christ sits with the tax collectors and sinners.

You see, my dear friends, the world in which we live has come about in such a way that it was originally formed by all the influences that were at work in the configuration that we experience as the echoes of race, as the echoes of the individual peoples and the like. Consider this world as it emerges from the element of birth, and consider the mission of Christ. The mission of Christ is to overcome all this naturalness, to plant the love of universal humanity in the place of racial life. That which was there at the beginning of the earth, the Adamite, is to be eradicated by Christ. The particularism of a nation, the national egoism, is to be overcome by the Christ, by the general humanity. Redemption does not consist in being in an equally real way as the natural itself, working against the natural, but in taking up the natural and bringing about a balance between the purely spiritual and the natural.

The concept of Christ has not yet been worked out in its purity between Ormuzd and Ahriman, between Lucifer and Ahriman. The concept of the Christ must be grasped as that which leads us to harmonize the opposing poles. For general humanity, human love, is something other than what arises out of families, peoples, races, nations, and so on. But the one is not to be eradicated by the other; rather, race and individual must be harmonized. The mission of Christ on earth will only be understood when it is known that the Father God is connected with the eternal alone, not with the created and the passing; the Christ impulse has come into temporality because it is connected with the created and the passing, and it makes the temporal into the eternal.

We must learn to take literally again what is written in the Gospels: Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away. - Let us translate it into a language that can be spoken today. That which the expanse of space - heaven in the external spatial sense - evokes through the stars in the plants of the Earth, that which the Earth itself brings forth in the minerals, that is, the whole earthly world, will pass away. But when it has passed away, when plants and stones have passed away, then, after this earth has disappeared, that which has come to earth in the Christ will live, that which lives on in the word. And when the Christ is taken up in our word, then, after the destruction of the earth, that which is alive in us through the Christ will continue to live in time, according to the Pauline word: “Not I, but the Christ in me.”

We must rise to the belief that the laws of nature are not eternal, but that the earth will come to an end, and that what exists can only continue to exist because a creative force will carry it beyond when our earth has perished. Stone and plant will perish, but what is in us must not perish, it must be carried out, and that can only be done if the Christ is in us. Only the animals will come with us, and we will then have to release them. Because they are on earth because at the moment when the possibility of becoming sinful entered the world, they were at a stage of development where they had to be seized by that which was only suitable for people. Before this possibility of sin entered the world, there could be no suffering in the world. Minerals and plants do not need to suffer as such, but minerals and plants will pass away. Animals were at a stage of development when they were dragged along by people into suffering. They must be released from it again when this stage of development is over and the earth no longer exists. The laws that now rule our natural world will then rule the world of the soul, which we now only experience inwardly. We cannot comprehend this if we do not also know that man came before the earth.

We must open up access to understanding of these things to people. This must be reflected in our preaching. You do not need to believe that what I have said today you have to say to the congregation in similar words. But you must understand it, then it is already alive in your sermon, even if you preach in the simplest way. For there is not only the ponderable understanding of things, which consists in your mouth speaking and your ear listening, but there is also the imponderable understanding that works from person to person.

Unfortunately, I could only give you these few hints, my dear friends, but I hope that you will have heard many things in my words that want to come from the human being. Without this will, we will not make any progress. It is not a matter of merely stimulating our intellect; we must stimulate the whole human being.

I shall not go into all the “attacks” that have been made recently, not against anthroposophy, but against me personally. This is not appropriate here partly because these attacks lack any true scientific character; and for the other part, they are of a purely personal nature, are not based on any factual foundation but upon hatefulness, and in the great majority of cases the attackers know quite well that their assertions are objective untruths.

In connection with the Congress held by the “Federation of European Sections of the Theosophical Society” in Budapest in the year 1909, Dr. Steiner gave a Lecture-Course entitled: “Theosophy and Occultism of the Rosicrucians.” The Mystery of Golgotha is there indicated as the great turning-point between the old, now already fading Mystery-wisdom and the wisdom in its new form of revelation wherein account is taken of the faculty of thought possessed by a maturer humanity and of the advance of culture and civilisation. Theosophia, the Divine Wisdom, could not, as in earlier times, flow as inner illumination into the hardened constitution of man. Intellect, the more recent faculty of the soul, was directed to the world of sense and its phenomena. Theosophy was rejected by the scholars with a shrug of the shoulders and the very word brought a supercilious smile from the monists. Dr. Steiner, however, was trying to restore to this word its whole weight and spiritual significance and to show how the roots of all later knowledge lie in Theosophy, how it unites East and West, how in it all the creeds are integral parts of one great harmony.

This had also been the fundamental conception of the Founder of the Theosophical Society but she understood nothing of the essence of Christianity and disputed its unique significance. Her tendency to place too much reliance upon spiritualistic communications drew her into the net of an oriental stream only too ready to use this instrument for its own ends—to begin with under the cloak of Neo-Buddhism then represented in the person of Charles Leadbeater, a former priest of the Anglican Church. Annie Besant, a pupil of Charles Bradlaugh, a free-thinker and the most brilliant orator of the day in the field of political and social reform, had also been so deeply influenced by spiritualistic communications that on the advice of William Stead she went to Madame Blavatsky towards the end of the latter's life and became her ardent follower. Stead's spiritualistic circle was influential and the Theosophical Society, with its much purer spiritual foundations, had here a dangerous rival.

Dr. Steiner brought light to bear upon all these developments, upon their aims and aberrations, and raised Theosophy to heights far transcending the narrow sphere of the Theosophical Society. Alarmed by this, the Indian inspirers behind the Adyar Society, with their nationalistic aims, took their own measures.—The imminence of a return of Christ was announced and the assertion made that he would incarnate in an Indian boy. A newly founded Order, the “Star in the East,” using the widespread organisation of the Theosophical Society, was expected to achieve the aim that had met with failure in Palestine.

Not very long after the Budapest Congress, these developments began to be felt in the sphere of Dr. Steiner's lecturing activities. Disquieted by the beginnings of the propaganda for the Star in the East, Groups begged Dr. Steiner to speak about these matters. This caused alarm to the organisers of the Genoa Congress, who thought that the scientific as well as the esoteric discussions with Dr. Steiner would be too dangerous a ground, and for extremely threadbare reasons the Congress was cancelled at the last moment. Many of those taking part were already on their way—we too. A number of Groups in Switzerland took advantage of this opportunity to ask Dr. Steiner for lectures. They wanted to understand the meaning and significance of the Michael Impulse which denotes the turning-point in the historic evolution of the Mystery-wisdom. The Intelligence ruled over in the spiritual world by the hierarchy of Michael had now come down to humanity. It was for men to receive this Intelligence consciously into their impulses of will and thenceforward to play their part in shaping a future wherein the human “I” will achieve union with the Divine “I.” For this goal of the future men must be prepared, a transformation wrought in their souls; they must “change their hearts and minds.” To bring this about was the task of Rudolf Steiner. The moment had arrived for treading the path which liberates the Spirit from the grip of the material powers. The first healthy step to be taken along this path by the pupil of spiritual knowledge, is study.

As the theme chosen for Genoa had been “From Buddha to Christ,” it was natural that the lectures now given in Switzerland should shed the light of Spiritual Science not only upon the earlier connections between the Buddha and Christ Jesus but also upon the lasting connections indicated by the Essene wisdom contained in the Gospels. This is the theme which gives these studies their special character—which could only be brought out by outlining the historical development of the Mystery-wisdom. The ancient revelations of the Mysteries had shed light into many forms of culture, but were now spent; symptoms of decay and increasing sterility of thought were everywhere in evidence. Then, from heights of Spirit, the Michael Impulse came down to the Earth—in order gradually to stir and flame through the hearts of men. The intellect was pervaded by spiritual fire, the lower human “I” lifted nearer to the ideal of times to come: union with the Divine “I.” To awaken understanding of these goals, to establish them firmly on the ground of their spiritual origins and to place them in living pictures before the souls of men—such was the task of Rudolf Steiner.

This brought the inevitable counterblow from the opposing powers; into this they knew they must drive their wedge. The development of the human being in freedom, this gift bestowed by Michael, must be checked and the hearts and minds of men incited to resistance. In his Four Mystery Plays, Rudolf Steiner has given us living pictures of this: the human being between Lucifer and Ahriman—now succumbing to their promptings, now overcoming them, but nevertheless bearing them in the soul like a poison that may at any time begin to work. We too shall continue to bear this picture and its substance in our souls.

The full content of the lectures, however, has not been preserved, for we possess no good transcriptions. The fact that no really reliable and expert stenographist was available at the time seems like a counterblow from the opposing powers. Besides the abbreviated reports of the Cassel lectures, we have in some cases only fragments, in others, scattered notes strung together. But the essential threads have been preserved and an attempt at compilation has been made. The attempt does not always succeed from the point of view of convincing style, but the impetus for effort in thought and study will be all the stronger.

The activities of the Star in the East led, finally, to the exclusion of the German section from the Theosophical Society; this, however, had been preceded by the forming of a Union which included people in other countries who opposed this piece of Adyar sectarianism and led to the foundation of the Anthroposophical Society. For a time, care was necessary to prevent confusion as between the two Societies and so for the Movement associated with him, Rudolf Steiner chose the name Anthroposophy—the Divine Wisdom finding its fulfilment in man. Theosophy and Anthroposophy are one, provided the soul has cast away its dress. And Rudolf Steiner showed us how this can be done.

The new Indian Messiah soon cast off the shackles of the renown that had been forced upon him and retired to private life in California. Annie Besant was obliged to renounce her cherished dream and died at a very great age. It is rumoured that the question of the dissolution of the Adyar Society was considered but that this proved impossible owing to the extensive material possessions. Jinarajadasa, my good friend from the days of the founding of the Italian Section, succeeded Annie Besant as President. The branch of the Theosophical Society which had seceded at the time of the Judge conflict and to which Madame Blavatsky's niece belonged, had found in Mrs. Catharine Tingley a leader of energy and initiative, but she too had died.

The old conditions have now faded away. Those grotesque edifices of phantasy can no longer be associated with the Anthroposophical, formerly Theosophical, Movement, for they have crumbled to pieces. We can allow the word Theosophy again to come to its own, as did Rudolf Steiner when he was trying to restore to this word its primary and true significance.

Besides laying emphasis on the essential character of Spiritual Science in the post-Christian era, the aim of the lectures given in 1911 and 1912 was to explain karma as the flow of destiny and to point to its intimate workings. The lines of development running through the lectures have survived only as pictures of memory; the transcriptions often failed to catch the threads of the logical sequence and the notes or headings jotted down and collected here and there are really no more than indications. But the direction of the spiritual impulses given by Dr. Steiner has been preserved, and justifies, maybe, the attempt at compilation. Through meditative study these impulses will be able to work in us and deepen our souls.

[ 1 ] When Man looks back over his own evolution and reviews in spirit the peculiar character which his spiritual life has assumed during the last five centuries, he cannot but recognize—even in his ordinary consciousness, however dimly—that in these five centuries he has come to a critical turning-point in the whole earthly evolution of mankind.

[ 2 ] In the last letter I pointed out this critical turn in evolution from one of its aspects. One may look back namely into earlier ages of this evolution; then we observe how a transformation took place in that soul-force in Man which to-day is employed as the force of Intelligence.

[ 3 ] Thoughts now appear within the field of human consciousness—dead, abstract Thoughts. These Thoughts are tied to the physical human body. Man must recognize them as his own progeny.

[ 4 ] When, in days of yore, Man turned his soul's gaze in the direction where now his own Thoughts appear to him, he then beheld divine Spirit-beings. He saw his whole existence bound up with these Beings, in all that he was, down to his physical body. He must confess himself the product of these Beings,—not only their product in all that he was, but also in all that he did. Man had no Will of his own; all that he did was a manifestation of Divine Will.

[ 5 ] Step by step—as described in the last letter—the stage has been reached of a personal Will of Man's own for which the time began about five hundred years ago.

[ 6 ] The last stage, however, differs more markedly from all the preceding ones than these do from one another.

[ 7 ] As the Thoughts pass over into the physical body, they lose their aliveness; they become dead—spiritual dead constructions. Previously, whilst pertaining to Man, they were yet at the same time organs of the Divine Spirit-beings, to whom Man himself pertained. They willed in Man as living forms of Being. And hence Man felt himself through them livingly bound to the spiritual world.

[ 8 ] With his dead Thoughts, he feels himself released from the spiritual world,—he feels himself planted down completely into the physical world.

[ 9 ] But hereby he is at the same time brought into the sphere of the Ahrimanic Mind. The Ahrimanic form of mind has no great power in those regions, where the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies keep Man within their own immediate sphere,—either by working within him themselves, as in primeval times, or, as later, by the brightness of their ensouled or living reflection. So long as the workings of super-sensible Beings continue in this way to enter into all the workings of Man,—until, that is, about the fifteenth century A.D.—the powers of Ahriman find within the field of human evolution only a faint echo, one might say, of their strength.

[ 10 ]
The picture drawn by the Persian world-view of the workings of Ahriman, is in no contradiction to the above statement. For what is meant in the Persian view of Ahriman's workings, is not something going on in the evolution of the human soul, but within the neighbouring world, that borders on Man's soul-world. From this neighbouring world of spirit the web of Ahriman's weaving undoubtedly sent it s threads across into the world of the human soul, but did not directly encroach upon it.

[ 11 ] Any such direct encroachment only became possible in the period that began some five hundred years ago.

[ 12 ] Thus Man stands at the end of a stream of evolution in which his own human being has been built up by a form of Divine spirit-being which passes finally into the abstract Intelligence-Personality of Man, and there, so far as itself is concerned, died out.

[ 13 ] Man has not remained in those spheres where he had his own first source in the Divine Spirit-being.

[ 14 ] What was thus accomplished five hundred years ago for Man's consciousness, had already taken place on a broader scale throughout his general being at the time when the Mystery of Golgotha entered upon its earthly manifestation. This was the time when human evolution began—imperceptibly as yet for the consciousness of most people of that period—to slide gradually down, out of a world where Ahriman has but little power, into one where he has very much. It was in the fifteenth century that this downslide, from one world-stratum into another, reached its final completion.

[ 15 ] Here, in this world-stratum, it becomes possible for Ahriman to exert his influence upon Man, and with disastrous effects, because in this stratum the divine influences congenial to Man have died out. But there was no other possible way for Man to arrive at the development of his free will, save by withdrawing to a sphere in which those Divine Spirit-beings had no life, who were involved with him from his origin.

[ 16 ] In the very essence of this human evolution, cosmically viewed, lies the Mystery of the Sun. With the Sun, and all that Man—down to the important turning-point in his evolution—could see in the Sun, were involved the divine-spiritual Beings of his origin. These Beings have detached themselves from the Sun, and left on it only their extinct remains. So that what Man now receives through the sun, taken up into his bodily system, is the power of dead Thoughts only.

[ 17 ] But these Divine Beings have sent Christ from the Sun to Earth. He, for the salvation of mankind, has united His own living Being with the deadness of divine existence in the kingdom of Ahriman. Mankind have thus the twofold possibility, which is the pledge of their freedom: Either to turn to Christ in that mind and spirit which was theirs subconsciously when they came down from the vision of supersensible life in the Spirit until they could use Intelligence,—but to do this now in consciousness. Or else, in their detachment from Spirit-life, to seek to enjoy the sense of themselves—and thereby fall a prey to the Powers of Ahriman and be carried in the Ahrimanic direction of evolution.

[ 18 ] Such is the situation of mankind since the beginning of the fifteenth century. It has been preparing—for everything proceeds gradually in evolution—ever since the time of the Mystery of Golgotha, that greatest of all earthly events, which is designed to save Man from the destruction to which he is unavoidably exposed in order to become a free being.

[ 19 ] Now it is true to say: what has been done by mankind in this situation hitherto has been achieved half unconsciously. In this half-conscious way it has led to what is good in a view of Nature living in abstract ideas, and also to many equally beneficent principles in the conduct of practical life. [ 20 ] But the age has gone by, when Man could afford to pursue his existence unconsciously in the dangerous Ahrimanic sphere.

[ 21 ] The scientific observer of the spiritual world is to-day obliged to rouse mankind's attention to the spiritual fact that Michael has now succeeded to the guidance of human affairs. Whatever Michael performs, is performed in such a way as to exert no influence from his part upon man; but they are free to follow him, and so, in freedom, with the Christ-Power to find their way out again from Ahriman's sphere, which they entered of necessity.

[ 22 ] Whoever honestly, from the innermost core of his soul, can feel himself one with Anthroposophy, is a true interpreter of this Michael-Phenomenon. Anthroposophy is intended to be the message of this Michael-Mission.

Leading Thoughts

[ 23 ] 1. Michael travels upwards again over the paths which Mankind traveled downwards through the successive steps of the spirit's evolution to the exercise of Intelligence. Only, by Michael, the Will will be led up the track, which was descended by Wisdom until she came to Intelligence, her final stage.

[ 24 ] 2. From this point in the world's evolution, Michael merely shows his road, so that Mankind may walk on it in Freedom. And this is what distinguishes this particular regency of Michael's from the previous regencies of all other archangels—indeed from all those of Michael himself until now. These other regencies worked as active forces within Man, and did not merely show him their own workings; so that Man in those times could not be free in his.

[ 25 ] 3. To recognize this, is the task of Man at this present day, so that with his entire soul he may find his own right spiritual road during the age of Michael.

[ 1 ] The downfall of the Roman Empire, accompanied by the appearance on the scene of peoples moving on from the East (the so-called Migration of the Peoples,) is an historic phenomenon on which the eyes of Man must be turned again and again in enquiry. For the present time still contains much that is after-effect of those tremendous occurrences.

[ 2 ] But it is just here that an understanding of what happened is not possible through a mere external study of history. One must look into the souls of the human beings engaged in this ‘migration’ and in the downfall of the Roman Empire.

[ 3 ] Greece and Rome are at the flower of their civilization during the period when in mankind at large the Intellectual or Mind-Soul is developing. The Greeks and Romans are indeed the more especial bearers of this development. But the evolution of this stage of the soul amongst these peoples is not such as to have in it a living seed which could properly evolve out of itself the Spiritual Soul. Every treasure of the soul and spirit latent in the Intellectual or Mind-Soul is brought in living profusion to the light of day in the civilization of the Greeks and Romans. But to carry its life-stream by its own innate power over into the Spiritual Soul—that it cannot do. [ 4 ] The stage of the spiritual soul naturally emerges in due course. Only it is as though this Spiritual Soul were not able to arise spontaneously out of the personality of the Greek or Roman, but rather, as though it had to be implanted in him from without.

[ 5 ] The state of union with, and again of detachment from, the divine spiritual beings—so often spoken of in these letters—takes place in the course of the ages with varying intensity. In old days, it was a power that intervened with very forcible effect in the evolution of human affairs. As it enters into the Greek and Roman life of the first centuries of Christianity, the power is a weaker one. Nevertheless it is there. So long as he was developing to the full the Intellectual or Mind-Soul within him, the Greek or roman experienced—not consciously, but with important effects for the soul—a feeling of detachment from the divine-spiritual form of being, an emancipation of his own human being. This came to an end in the first centuries of Christianity. The first glimmering dawn of the Spiritual Soul, because the Spiritual soul itself was not yet able to be received into the human being.

[ 6 ] And so they felt this Christian content as something that came ready-given to them from without, from the spiritual outer world, not as something with which they grew together and became identified through their own inherent powers of knowledge.

[ 7 ] It was otherwise with the peoples now coming into history out of the North-East. They had passed through the stage of the Intellectual or Mind-Soul in a condition which, in their case, was felt as one of dependence on the spirit-world. They first began to feel something of human independence when the nascent powers of the Spiritual Soul dawned in their first Christian beginnings. Amongst these people, the Spiritual Soul made its appearance as something closely bound up with the very being of Man. They felt themselves in the full joyous expansion of inward power when the Spiritual Soul was awakening to life within them.

[ 8 ] Into the first, fresh life of the dawning Spiritual Soul amongst these peoples fell the inner content of Christianity. They felt it as something coming to life within their souls, not as something ready-given from without.

[ 9 ] Such was the tone of mind in which these people came to the Roman Empire and all that this involved. Such was the Arian mood as contrasted with the Athanasian. A profound contrast was here emerging in human history and evolution.

[ 10 ] In the Spiritual Soul of the Greek and Roman, external to the man himself, the divine spirit-being began its work, not completely uniting with the earthly life but only raying in upon it. In the just dawning Spiritual Soul of the Franks, the Germanic tribes, etc., there was at work—but as yet faintly—so much of divine spirit, as was able to unite itself with the human being.

[ 11 ] What happened next was that the form of Christian content which dwelt in the Spiritual Soul hovering over and outside of Man, spread abroad in life; whilst that which was united with men's souls remained something that abode in the inner mind as an incentive, an impulse biding the time of its full development, which can only come with the attainment of a certain stage in the Spiritual Soul's evolution

[ 12 ] The period from the first centuries of Christianity down to the Age of the Spiritual Soul is a time when the dominant spiritual life of mankind is one which hovers above Man. It is a spiritual content with which he cannot connect himself knowingly, through the exercise of his own powers of mind. Accordingly, he establishes an external connection; he ‘explains’ this spiritual content, and examines in thought the precise limits where the soul's powers fall short of uniting with it in clear knowledge. He draws a boundary line between the province over which his knowledge reaches, and that where it does not reach. The result is a deliberate abstention from the employment of those soul-powers which rise with knowledge into the world of spirit. And so at last there comes a time, at the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when with the very powers that should be directed to spiritual realities men repudiate all spiritual reality, and turn away from the spirit with their life of knowledge altogether. They begin to live in those soul-powers only, which are directed to things perceptible by the outer senses.

[ 13 ] Dull grew men's powers of knowledge, blunted to spiritual things, in the eighteenth century more especially.

[ 14 ] The thinkers lose the spiritual content to their Ideas. In the Idealist philosophy of the first half of the nineteenth century, they represent the spirit-void ideas themselves as the creative reality and content of the World—thus Fichte, Schelling, Hegel. Or else they refer to a Supersensible which fades away because the spirit is not in it—thus Spencer, John Stewart Mill and others. Ideas are dead when they do not seek the living Spirit.

[ 15 ] The spiritual eye for the Spiritual is, in fact, lost.

[ 16 ] A continuation of the old way of spirit-knowledge is not possible. The soul's powers, as the Spiritual Soul develops in them, must strive through to their own newly generated union, living and direct, with the spirit-world. This very striving is the essence and intention of Anthroposophy.

[ 17 ] In the spiritual life of the present age it is precisely the leading people who are most at a loss to know the meaning of Anthroposophy, or what its object is. And in this way large circles, who follows these leaders, are also kept aloof. The leaders live amid a content of soul and mind which has gradually lost the habit of using man's spiritual powers. With these people, it is as though one were to try and induce a man who is paralyzed to make use of his paralyzed organ. For it was paralysis that set in during the time from the sixteenth century to the second half of the nineteenth—paralysis of the higher powers of knowledge. And men remained all-conscious of it; they regarded the one-sided application of their powers of knowledge to the sense-world as an important step in human progress.

Leading Thoughts

[ 18 ] The Greeks and Romans are the peoples specially predisposed for the evolution of the Intellectual or Mind-Soul. They develop this stage of the soul to full completion. But they have not the living seed within themselves, through which to pass on in direct line to the Spiritual Soul. Their soul-life is completely merged in the Intellectual or Mind-Soul.

[ 19 ] What comes instead—during the time from the rise of Christianity to the age of evolving the Spiritual Soul—is the reign above of a spirit-world which does not unite with the human soul-powers. These soul-powers ‘explain’ the spirit world, but do not experience it.

[ 20 ] The peoples moving down upon the Roman Empire from the North-East in the so-called ‘Migration of the Peoples,’ take hold of the Intellectual or Mind-Soul more in the life of Feeling. Meanwhile, embedded in this Feeling element, the Spiritual Soul is developing its powers in their souls. The inner life of these peoples is waiting for the time when a complete union of the human soul with the spiritual world will once more be possible.

[ 1 ] Our view about the sources of our knowing activity cannot help but affect the way we view our practical conduct. The human being does indeed act in accordance with thought determinants that lie within him. What he does is guided by the intentions and goals he sets himself. But it is entirely obvious that these goals, intentions, ideals, etc., will bear the same character as the rest of man's thought-world. Dogmatic science will therefore offer a truth for human conduct of an essentially different character than that resulting from our epistemology. If the truths the human being attains in science are determined by a factual necessity having its seat outside thinking, then the ideals upon which he bases his actions will also be determined in the same way. The human being then acts in accordance with laws he cannot verify objectively: he imagines some norm that is prescribed for his actions from outside. But this is the nature of any commandment that the human being has to observe. Dogma, as principle of conduct, is moral commandment.

[ 2 ] With our epistemology as a foundation, the matter is quite different. Our epistemology recognizes no other foundation for truths than the thought content lying within them. When a moral ideal comes about, therefore, it is the inner power lying within the content of this ideal that guides our actions. It is not because an ideal is given us as law that we act in accordance with it, but rather because the ideal, by virtue of it s content, is active in us, leads us. The stimulus to action does not lie outside of us; it lies within us. In the case of a commandment of duty we would feel ourselves subject to it; we would have to act in a particular way because it ordered us to do so. There, “should” comes first and then “want to,” which must submit itself to the “should.” According to our view, this is not the case. Man's willing is sovereign. It carries out only what lies as thought-content within the human personality. The human being does not let himself be given laws by any outer power; he is his own lawgiver.

[ 3 ] And, according to our world view, who, in fact, should give them to him? The ground of the world has poured itself completely out into the world; it has not withdrawn from the world in order to guide it from outside; it drives the world from inside; it has not withheld itself from the world. The highest form in which it arises within the reality of ordinary life is thinking and, along with thinking, the human personality. If, therefore, the world ground has goals, they are identical with the goals that the human being sets himself in living and in what he does. It is not by searching out this or that commandment of the guiding power of the world that he acts in accordance with its intentions but rather through acting in accordance with his own insights. For within these insights there lives that guiding power of the world. It does not live as will somewhere outside the human being; it has given up all will of its own in order to make everything dependent upon man's will. In order for the human being to be able to be his own lawgiver, he must give up all thoughts of such things as extra-human determining powers of the world, etc.

[ 4 ] Let us take this opportunity to call attention to the excellent article by Kreyenbuehl in Philosophische Monatshefte, vol. 18, no. 3, 1882.¹ This explains correctly how the maxims for our actions result altogether from the direct determinations of our individuality; how everything that is ethically great is not imposed by the power of moral law but rather is carried out under the direct impulse of an individual idea.

[ 5 ] Only with this view is true spiritual activity possible for the human being. If man does not bear within himself the grounds for his actions, but rather must conduct himself according to commandments, then he acts under compulsion, he stands under necessity, almost like a mere nature being.

[ 6 ] Our philosophy is therefore pre-eminently a philosophy of spiritual activity.^a9 First it allows theoretically how all forces, etc., that supposedly direct the world from outside must fall away; it then makes the human being into his own master in the very best sense of the word. When a person acts morally, this is not for us the fulfillment of duty but rather the manifestation of his completely free nature. The human being does not act because he ought, but rather be cause he wants to. Goethe had this view in mind when he said: “Lessing, who resentfully felt many a limitation, has one of his characters say, ‘No one has to have to.’ A witty, jovial man said, ‘Whoever wants to, has to.’ A third, admittedly a cultivated person, added, ‘Whoever has insight, also wants to.’” Thus there is no impetus for our actions other than our insight. Without any kind of compulsion entering in, the free human being acts in accordance with his insight, in accordance with commandments that he gives himself.

[ 7 ] The well-known Kant-Schiller controversy revolved around these truths. Kant stood upon the standpoint of duty's commandments. He believed it a degradation of moral law to make it dependent upon human subjectivity. In his view man acts morally only when he renounces all subjective impulses in his actions and bends his neck solely to the majesty of duty. Schiller regarded this view as a degradation of human nature. Is human nature really so evil that it must completely push aside its own impulses in this way when it wants to be moral? The world view of Schiller and Goethe can only be in accord with the view we have put forward. The origin of man's actions is to be sought within himself.

[ 8 ] Therefore in history, whose subject, after all, is man, one should not speak about outer influences upon his actions, about ideas that live in a certain time, etc., and least of all about a plan underlying history. History is nothing but the evolution of human actions, views, etc. “In all ages it is only individuals who have worked for science, not the age itself. It was the age that executed Socrates by poison; the age that burned Hus; ages have always remained the same,” says Goethe. All a priori constructing of plans that supposedly underlie history is in conflict with the historical method as it results from the nature of history. The goal of this method is to become aware of what human beings have contributed to the progress of their race, to experience the goals a certain personality has set himself, the direction he has given to his age. History is to be based entirely upon man's nature. Its willing, its tendencies are to be understood. Our science of knowledge totally excludes the possibility of inserting into history a purpose such as, for example, that human beings are drawn up from a lower to a higher level of perfection, and so on. In the same way, to our view it seems erroneous to present historical events as a succession of causes and effects like facts of nature the way Herder does in his Ideas for a Philosophy of the History of Mankind. The laws of history are in fact of a much higher nature. A fact of physics is determined by another fact in such a way that the law stands over the phenomena. A historical fact, as something ideal, is determined by something ideal. There cause and effect, after all, can be spoken of only if one clings entirely to externals. Who could think that he is giving an accurate picture by calling Luther the cause of the Reformation? History is essentially a science of ideals. Its reality is, after all, ideas. Therefore devotion to the object is the only correct method. Any going beyond the object is unhistorical.

[ 9 ] Psychology, ethnology, and history ^a10 are the major forms of the humanities. Their methods, as we have seen, are based upon the direct apprehension of ideal reality. The object of their study is the idea, the spiritual, just as the law of nature was the object of inorganic science, and the typus of organic science.

• 1. Ethical-Spiritual Activity in Kant, Mercury Press, 1986. –Ed.
• a9. The ideas of this philosophy have been developed further in my later Philosophy of Spiritual Activity (1894). (Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, Anthroposophic Press, 1986)
• a10. After having worked through the different areas of what I call “anthroposophy,” I would now have to add anthroposophy to these were I writing this little book today. Forty years ago, as I was writing it, there stood before my mind's eye as “psychology”—in an unusual sense of the word, to be sure—something that included within itself the contemplation of the whole “spirit world” (pneumatology). But one should not infer from this that I wanted to exclude this “spirit world” from man's knowledge back then.

The lectures in this volume were given by Rudolf Steiner at different points in his lifetime. At the time when the earlier lectures were given, Rudolf Steiner was still actively participating in the German Section of the Theosophical Society and was using the terms “theosophy” and “theosophical,” although often in the sense of the anthroposophical science of the spirit presented by him from the beginning. In accordance with a suggestion he made later, after forming the Anthroposophical Society, these designations for the most part have been replaced by “anthroposophy” and “anthroposophical,” except in instances where he is referring historically to the theosophical movement.

An Introduction by Hella Wiesberger Concerning Rudolf Steiner's Place in the History of the Occult Movement

Rudolf Steiner has become the pioneering leader in the field of esotericism, in which man should be given freedom through him.¹

As the first modern scientist of the supersensible, Rudolf Steiner was completely on his own. He only ever taught what he could give and take responsibility for from personal experience. Far ahead of his time, he recognized that the turn of the 19th to the 20th century would usher in not just a new century, but a completely new era in which humanity would be confronted with social upheavals of unimaginable proportions. With the ever-increasing individual consciousness, a tremendous struggle for freedom would begin; great technical and economic progress will be achieved through the increasingly life-dominant agnostic-pragmatic way of thinking of the mechanical-materialistic sciences, but at the same time the last remnants of the ancient knowledge of the connection with the world of the creative-spiritual as the true origin and goal of all existence will be lost. The inevitable consequence of this must be worldwide spiritual desolation and a feeling of meaninglessness in life.

From this insight, Rudolf Steiner gained the conviction that this historical process, necessary for the sake of general progress, can only be met by one thing: by a new world and life view rooted in modern individual consciousness, but oriented towards the Creative-Spiritual. And so, from his personal experiential knowledge of the supersensible world and life purpose, he developed the modern spiritual science of “Anthroposophy” and lived and taught in accordance with the spirit of the new age, according to the principle: freedom through the modern spirit of science, also in the field of the supersensible, of esotericism.

With this basic intention, he also brought about a turning point in the history of the occult movement. For the wisdom of the occult movement came from other sources of consciousness. It went back to the so-called original wisdom that had been revealed to mankind in the days of the primeval world and had enabled it to gain a very extensive mastery of the material forces of existence. As long as man still acted without personal responsibility in full agreement with the intentions of the spiritual worlds, this wisdom formed a common fund of knowledge. But when, in the course of the development of personality, egotism made its appearance and the natural connection with the supersensible worlds gradually disappeared, the supersensible knowledge conferring power had to be protected against misuse. It was withdrawn into the mysteries. But from there it continued to influence public cultural life well into the early days of the Christian era. It was only when, through Christianity and the rise of intellectualism, progressive cultural awareness became increasingly focused on the knowledge of material laws of the world that the old mysteries gradually lost their dominant position and were finally eradicated as public institutions. Since then, the old mystery wisdom could only be cultivated in secret, small circles. There it was strictly guarded until in the 19th century the signs of the times demanded that a spiritual counterpole be created to counter the exclusively materialistic-agnostic cultural thinking.

This task had raised a question that had become a serious problem for the occult movement of the 19th century. It was the question of whether the wisdom should continue to be kept secret under these circumstances, or whether it would not be more correct to popularize it. This question touched so deeply on the lifeblood of the working method practiced so far - since one was obliged from time immemorial to pass on the higher truths only to those who were prepared to receive them, in order to protect them from abuse - that one could not immediately decide to popularize it. They tried a compromise solution, first of all to test, so to speak, how public awareness would react to the knowledge of the existence of spiritual worlds and beings. This is how the manifestations of the spiritualist mediumistic movement of the forties to the seventies of the 19th century came about. The result was, however, different than expected, but the dam of strict secrecy had been breached and so it became inevitable to at least popularize the basic truths. This happened through the Theosophical Society, founded in 1875 by the Russian Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and the American Henry Steel Olcott.

Although these two attempts had led to sensational movements, in the deeper sense they had to be considered a failure, mainly because the culturally dominant scientific thinking rejected the mediumistic path as unscientific. This was justified to the extent that the mediumistic path not only meant a return to earlier levels of consciousness, but also an impairment of the free right of self-determination. On the other hand, mediumship was the only method for supersensible research that had existed until then.²

While the occult movement was still facing this dilemma at the end of the 19th century, Rudolf Steiner had already solved the problem on his own spiritual path. Not through the traditional teachings preserved in the secret societies, but through his own experiences since childhood, he was quite naturally connected to the supersensible and, as a result of his scientific education, also mastered the mechanical-materialistic way of thinking of the sciences, he had gained the decisive insight that supersensible knowledge and beings can only be beneficially combined with modern cultural consciousness if the method can guarantee the same certainty and independence as is the case in modern natural science.

On the basis of this realization, he made it his first task to develop a method for supersensible research that was based entirely on scientific principles. Through a process of strict self-education, he transformed his thinking from a sensual to a supersensible level, and in so doing, he attained the necessary certainty of knowledge about the spiritual realm. At the same time, he discovered freedom as a real experience and as the basis of morality. Thus, for him, thinking free of sensuality became the starting point for a scientifically clear connection to the supersensible world and to a science of freedom as the basis of an “ethical individualism”.

The consistently further developed experience of the nature of the I led in turn to the realization of the macrocosmic representative of the I, the spirit of Christ, whose nature reveals itself in true freedom and love. Thus Rudolf Steiner had also paved the way for a contemporary understanding of the two greatest Christian ideals, freedom and love, as they are later repeatedly expounded by him as the basic impulses of the central event of human development, the mystery of Golgotha and the deepest task of humanity connected with it: to shape the earth into a cosmos of freedom and love (Düsseldorf, April 18, 1909).

The later statement that the ethical individualism of the “Philosophy of Freedom” is already built upon the Christ impulse, even if this is not directly expressed there (Dornach, May 24, 1920), as well as the other statement that there is no other way at present to “impart original wisdom of initiation directly than by keeping fellowship with the Christ” (Stuttgart, March 7, 1920).

On the basis of this community with the “emancipation of the higher consciousness of humanity from the fetters of all authority” achieved through thinking free of the senses, ³ Rudolf Steiner had created the conditions for a healthy liberation of esotericism from the era of its ties to particular circles. Whereas in the past it was only possible to penetrate to the world of spiritual realities with a subdued consciousness under the guidance of a spiritual leader whose authority had to be unconditionally recognized, today, through Rudolf Steiner's pioneering work, every serious seeker, in a clear consciousness and in free self-responsibility, can do so.

The only requirement for this, which everyone has to set for themselves, is spiritual activity. This is essential not only for individual but also for general progress, to such an extent that civilization must perish if each individual is not willing to give civilization a new impetus through the new spiritual knowledge. This was already stated by Rudolf Steiner more than six decades ago (Dornach, July 2, 1920).

It is precisely this aspect of activating the will of the individual with regard to social co-responsibility that fundamentally distinguishes anthroposophically oriented spiritual science from the ancient wisdom preserved in the occult movement. For no new fundamental social impulses can come from the ideas of the occult movement, which arose from the revelations of an epoch of humanity that was still rooted in group consciousness. On the other hand, social thinking cannot be developed without knowledge gained through initiation. For this social necessity, anthroposophy sees itself as an instrument of new revelations of the spirit that take personality consciousness into account. To make these new revelations, which have begun especially since the end of the Kali Yuga in 1899, understandable to humanity and to open up anew through them the meaning of the greatest human event, the mystery of Golgotha, has become a cultural-historical task that Rudolf Steiner took on and about which he once said: “Anyone who does not understand anthroposophy in this sense does not understand it at all.” (Dornach, December 20, 1918). That is why, at the time when he began to present his social insights, he appealed to the ability to distinguish within his own ranks by pointing out:

“Where, then, can one find a truly modern and effective way of addressing the burning issues of the present day that is in touch with reality? You will not be able to find these things in the rituals and precepts of one or other masonic or confessional community. One would like to see discernment taking place!” (Dornach, December 15, 1918).

In this same connection, he also asserted that the spiritual movement he represented had never been dependent on any other and that he was therefore under no obligation to anyone to keep silent about something he himself felt should be said in the present time.

“There is no commandment of silence for one who is not indebted to anyone for his spiritual knowledge.” This alone is enough to distinguish this movement from all others. Anyone who claims that the teachings of anthroposophical spiritual science are proclaimed differently from the sense in which the word “theosophy” , that I stand up for it purely personally, may not know the circumstances for my sake and often not have been there, but look at it from the outside, but he proclaims untruth, out of malevolence or not out of malevolence. But anyone who has been here often and says something different, for example, asserts some kind of past or a connection between this spiritual movement and another, when he knows the conditions here, is lying. That is what it is about. Either he will tell an untruth out of ignorance of the circumstances, or he will lie when he knows the circumstances. All opposition to this movement is to be understood in this way.

Therefore, I must emphasize again and again: I have only to withhold that which I know cannot yet be communicated to present humanity because of its immaturity. But I have nothing to withhold for any reason because a vow or the like would have been made to someone. Nothing has ever been taken into this movement that came from another side. This movement was never spiritually dependent on any other; the connections were only external.

On the basis of this statement, the question arises as to why Rudolf Steiner then joined other movements at all, if he felt obliged to reject both the old practice of secrecy and the old method of research?

This contradiction can only be resolved if the two main laws of esoteric life are taken into account, which Rudolf Steiner always tried to follow as far as possible. These are the two commandments of absolute truthfulness and the maintenance of continuity. Rudolf Steiner repeatedly presented these two laws to his esoteric students.⁴ He himself followed the commandment of unconditional truthfulness by teaching only what he had recognized as true through his own research, and the commandment of continuity by not simply replacing something incomplete with something completely new and more perfect, but by building on what already existed and seeking to transform it into something more perfect. For him, this meant bringing to life the most profound Christian idea, that of resurrection, in the realm of the imagination. If we experience the living continuation of the present in this way and thereby fulfill the words of Christ, not only to bind the bodies with the blood, but to the souls with the spirit, then this can become a path to the knowledge of the mystery of Golgotha (Berlin, April 24, 1917).

According to Rudolf Steiner, much would be gained if those who lived later were to orient themselves in this way towards the deceased, in order to consciously maintain continuity in development. When he wrote about Goethe, he himself had completely disregarded his own opinion and tried only to express the thoughts that could come from Goethe; he had written an epistemology of Goethe's, not his worldview. Just as he had delved into the world of Goethe's thoughts, so had he also delved into those of Nietzsche and Haeckel, since one can only arrive at real insight if one does not want to represent one's own point of view absolutely, but rather delves into foreign currents of thought. And only after he had endeavored for two decades to work from such insight, to acquire, so to speak, the right to influence the living, he advocated the public dissemination of spiritual science. For now no one could rightly claim that “this occultist speaks of the spiritual world because he does not know the philosophical and scientific achievements of the time.” ⁵

This path of Rudolf Steiner's, which is so unusual for ordinary thinking and feeling, could not be understood at all by opponents, and only with difficulty by friends of his spiritual-scientific worldview. Aware of this difficulty, he repeatedly endeavored from time to time to make it clear, at least to his anthroposophical friends, that the spiritual current he represented was never dependent on any other and that certain connections had only been superficial. He admitted that the distinction was complicated by historical events. But even if, from an external point of view, it might have been wiser to found the Anthroposophical Society without any relationship to other societies, the relationships were nevertheless justified by fate (Dornach, December 15, 1918).

This remark makes it clear that the connection with other societies at that time was founded on the tension between the polarities of freedom and love in their form of truthfulness and continuity as applied to esoteric life. The striving for truth and knowledge requires freedom, but at the same time what is recognized as true should connect fraternally with what already exists in the world. It is obvious that even Rudolf Steiner's strong power was not always able to balance the pole of a free, truthful life of knowledge with the pole of continuity as brotherhood. This was objectively impossible because the world is involved at the pole of continuity and this was respected by him to an extent far beyond the norm, based on his ideals of freedom and love. However, he was unable to cultivate brotherhood at the expense of truthfulness. When this became a problem in the Theosophical Society, it led to a split.

Only by ignoring Rudolf Steiner's subtle behavior towards the two poles of esoteric life can misunderstandings and misjudgments regarding his spiritual independence arise. But beyond all such passing judgments, the historical significance of his cultural achievement will be more and more confirmed, which lies precisely in having created a science for the study of supersensible realities, through which freedom also became possible in the field of esotericism.

It could be objected here that Rudolf Steiner also practised secrecy with his Esoteric School. This objection would not be justified, however, because for Rudolf Steiner, even in the Esoteric School, it was never a matter of secrecy in the usual sense. He was always concerned only with maintaining a genuine scientific spirit, which in public education quite naturally requires that serious knowledge can only be imparted in stages. For example, higher geometry cannot be presented to anyone if they do not know the basics. While this is clear with regard to geometry, there is a widespread belief in relation to supersensible knowledge that one can understand and judge everything in this field without any prerequisites.

Rudolf Steiner's teaching activity was structured solely in terms of this factually determined, gradual teaching, from public teaching with no prerequisites at all to teaching with prerequisites. All levels of teaching had their common root in what he described as his “inaugural act” before the public beginning of his work for a science of the supersensible:

"I will build on the strength that enables me to bring spiritual students onto the path of development. That alone must be the significance of my inauguration act.⁶

The Esoteric School served this purpose in a special way, because here the students were taught according to their individual predispositions and needs. But when the Esoteric School was re-established as the “Free University for Spiritual Science” in 1924, the esoteric teaching was also structured in a strictly methodical and generally valid way. However, this could only be done for the first class. The failure of his physical strength in the fall of 1924 made it impossible for Rudolf Steiner to complete his last great work.

• 1. Marie Steiner, Foreword to Rudolf Steiner “The Stages of Higher Knowledge”, GA 12.
• 2. Described in detail in 'The Occult Movement in the 19th Century and its Relationship to World Culture', CW 254. Cf. also 'Spiritual Soul Teaching and World View', CW 52.
• 3. Letter to Rosa Mayreder dated December 14, 1893, in “Letters I”, Dornach 1953 (GA 39).
• 4. As related by a member of the esoteric working groups, Adolf Arenson, in a letter dated December 24, 1926, to Albert Steffen.
• 5. See the autobiographical sketch from 1907 in “Briefwechsel und Dokumente 1901–1925”, GA 262; also the lecture Zurich, December 3, 1916.
• 6. Letter of August 16, 1902, to Wilhelm Hübbe-Schleiden, then representative of the German Theosophists (in “Briefe II”, so far only in the 1953 Dornach edition).

No minutes were taken of the proceedings, only of the remarks made by Rudolf Steiner at the end of the meeting. The shorthand notes record that the following had spoken beforehand in succession: Uehli, Vreede, Vacano, Unger, Uehli, Leinhas, Steffen, Vreede, Kaufmann-Adams, Erikson, Moser, Frau Grosheintz.

It is highly satisfying that this evening there have been repeated references to the fact that must never be forgotten within the circles of the Anthroposophical Society: It is the fact that a part, and indeed, I openly admit, even the most essential part of what is supposed to be embodied in the Anthroposophical Society, has shown its existence in the most important, decisive moments. It has already been rightly pointed out today that this consistency was shown when the idea for this now lost building was conceived and how it was truly tackled and carried forward in the hearts and souls of those involved, after our dear friends had made unlimited sacrifices for the work, for the restoration of the work, both at the beginning and in the further course — sacrifices whose extent could only be measured if one were to point out in detail how difficult they have become for some. But that is not necessary. They really did come from the anthroposophical spirit in the sense that they were made in love, in heartfelt love, and that is most certainly one of the main parts of the impulses that are to work within the Anthroposophical Society. And on the night of the fire, we saw these impulses at work again in a truly outstanding way. There can hardly be a truly feeling heart that does not feel the most intimate gratitude to all friends and to fate for what has been revealed in this way. And I would like to go further. I would like to say: The more I have come to know the Anthroposophical Society from this side, the more I have become convinced that this love will certainly not be lacking in the future either. It has revealed itself so powerfully over the past ten years of building this house, and it revealed itself so wonderfully during the night of the fire, that it can simply be taken as a promise of continuity in the future. Everyone here has done their part in their own way. I really would not have needed to call for the young and the old to work together if it had been a matter of what can be achieved and what is basically still being achieved out of this love; because it also takes a certain sacrificial effort to spend many nights here on guard duty and the like, and it is up to us to recognize all the details. And basically, when we look at the work of the young people during the last few days here, we have to say: after this work, they have truly become complete anthroposophists, just like the old ones, in relation to the point I have just emphasized.

So with regard to this first part, my dear friends, I can only express my deepest gratitude to each and every one of our friends, and you will believe me when I say that I feel these thanks deeply.

But now, since we are here together today to my satisfaction, I would like to briefly shed light on the situation from a different perspective, one that I consider to be just as important. You see, the situation is this: this building has been erected; by virtue of the fact that this building stands here, the anthroposophical cause has in fact become something different in relation to the world than it was before. Perhaps not everyone needs to appreciate this other thing that the anthroposophical cause has become. Those who appreciate more the inner, purely spiritual aspect of the anthroposophical movement alone may not feel that the construction of the building, which has made anthroposophy into something quite different in the eyes of the world, is such an extraordinarily important matter for them. But the building arose out of an inner necessity. It was there and as such it made the Anthroposophical Movement into something different from what it was before; it made it into something that has now been judged, sometimes extraordinarily well, sometimes extraordinarily foolishly, by a large part of the world.

Now, my dear friends, I am the very last person to care much about the judgments that come from outside to anthroposophy; for in relation to anthroposophy, one still has so much to achieve in the positive, in the truly creative, that it is understandable if one has no particular interest in the judgments that come from outside. But the world is the world. The world is physical reality. And even if one is not at all interested in the world's judgment, the work is, at least in many respects, dependent on it, in that this judgment can create enormous obstacles. And here I must say that with the building for the Anthroposophical Society, the task has arisen of also keeping an eye on the flourishing of the anthroposophical cause as a matter of contemporary civilization as such.

One might say: just as it happens with an individual person that when he reaches a certain age, he needs adult clothes, so too have special conditions of existence arisen for the Anthroposophical Society, in that the building here was such an enormous outward sign speaking to the world – I do not mean its inner value, but simply its size – an external sign for this anthroposophical movement that speaks so powerfully to the world. This had to be taken into account. And I can tell you that I simply had to experience this from the rib pushes that have come much more frequently since then than before.

So it is a matter of not just looking at how things have to be done today in order to rebuild the structure; that is certainly something that should actually happen once it has been erected; and I remain grateful that our friends have such a serious and holy will to build it. But today, in the face of this catastrophe, we are also faced with the task of rebuilding precisely that which has given the Anthroposophical Society a new form. Today we must also consider: How can the Anthroposophical Society do justice through its inner spiritual strength, through its energetic will, how can it do justice to that which, after all, has emerged as a renewed form for it in a certain respect?

Now, my dear friends, let me say one thing – you must not take it amiss, since you have just heard me say that I feel everything that has been so beautifully expressed today, I feel it most deeply in my heart — that I actually consider the reality of the Anthroposophical Society to be realized in terms of the love that works together, to the extent that I am completely convinced that no obstacles to the reconstruction of the Goetheanum will arise from this side. I already recognize this love as something so enduring that we can build the Goetheanum with it. But just as I am saying this, you will not mind if I attach a few other conditions to it, without the fulfillment of which I cannot imagine today, the way things have become, that the necessary reconstruction of the Goetheanum can lead to more than just an immeasurable increase in the jolts I have spoken of, the jolts that I do not mean personally, but which I mean for the cause, for the Anthroposophical cause.

My dear friends, we worked for the Anthroposophical cause until 1914. This work then culminated in the intention to erect this building, and culminated in the realization of this intention. Then came the world war. Mr. Kaufmann, for example, has rightly emphasized the influence of the world war on our work, both at the Goetheanum and in the anthroposophical movement in general. But my dear friends, these obstacles were external. We can say, for example, that we were perhaps unable to come together from the individual countries that were at war with each other as we would have been able to do without the war; but here we have truly worked together internationally. Here all the warring nations found each other in love, and in Dornach itself something was realized that, in view of the painfulness of the war, every reasonable and feeling human being should have seen as an ideal. Due to external circumstances, there were of course some interruptions. But I can say: As I see it, the world war has not actually made a breach in our inner spiritual structure as an Anthroposophical Society. In many respects, it has even forged the individual members of the various nations here in Dornach and thus across the world more closely together. This could still be seen when they came together again here or elsewhere after the war. Even before the war, the Anthroposophical Society was so firmly established from within that the world war did not actually shake its essential core. The shocks came from outside. So that basically in 1918 [at the end of the war] we were in a position to say: Nothing has come from the anthroposophical movement that we would have to discuss today in such a way that we would have to say: consolidation of the Anthroposophical Society is necessary.

And as for the opposition: most of our friends know how little I actually identify with this opposition internally and how I only give way to the necessities when it comes to dealing with it externally. But one must deal with it when it comes to the internal conditions of the existence of the anthroposophical movement. Until 1918, the hostilities were bearable, quite bearable, however ugly they may have appeared here and there.

Then came the years after the war. And when you ask me, my dear friends, when the lack of consolidation of the Anthroposophical Society began, when the great difficulties for me began, I answer: These are the years since the end of the world war. And then I cannot help but speak to you quite sincerely, but in a sincerity full of love: These are the years after the world war in which individual friends have felt obliged to justify one thing or another in order to graft it, so to speak, onto the Anthroposophical Society.

Now, my dear friends, I do not use the term “grafting” in a derogatory sense, because nothing has been added that was not compatible with the spirit of the anthroposophical movement. But what is really incompatible with this spirit is what has come over the society. And I believe that very few of you today are willing, for example, to recognize the extent to which the current state of antagonism is intimately connected with what has happened since 1919. I can only say that I had great difficulties with this, because since those years I had had the idea, the urge, to plan, to devise all kinds of projects.

If you have a sincere will, my dear friends, it can lead to good things. But experience has shown that in such matters you are dependent on personalities; and the situation was such that it could only be avoided to the detriment of the anthroposophical movement if the personalities who wanted these things, these personalities whom we accommodated, if I may put it trivially, had remained fully committed and developed an iron will to carry through what they had once brought into the world and for which the hand had to be offered, because one had to take the will of the members into account as a matter of course.

But in contrast to this, it must be said what must be felt deeply today in the face of this misfortune. It is this: the way the work has been done since 1919 must not continue. All the love and sacrifice in the broad circles of the members is of no avail if the working methods that have come into being under the project management since 1919 are continued as they were practised: deciding this or that in meetings that lasted for days, sending out programs that were forgotten after four months at the latest, and the like. They rushed from program to program; they had big words that had never been heard before within the Anthroposophical Society; working methods have been introduced that are actually unmethodical.

My dear friends, you can check this in detail. I have to say it, if only because I would consider it a crime not to say it in view of the devoted love of the majority of the Anthroposophical Society, as it has once again shown itself during this night of fire.

What is necessary is to abandon the working method, not the fields, but to abandon the working method; not to get involved in something that is abandoned the next day, but to remain energetically with the things that were once begun, which one has said oneself that one wants to consider as one's own.

I know that I am not speaking to the majority of the Anthroposophical Society in particular; the majority of the Anthroposophical Society has always done its part when it mattered. What is at stake is that working methods are not introduced into the Anthroposophical Society that are actually unmethodical. What is needed is the introduction of a strong will, not mere wishing. A strong will, not just setting up ideals, but a strong will in one's own field, not just setting oneself up and intruding into the fields of others. It is a matter of having a clear eye and an energetic will to introduce different working methods than those that have become popular in many circles or at least in individual circles in the last four years and that the majority of members have perhaps not even looked at in the right way in their lack of method. What we need is to have an open eye.

I know, my dear friends, that it will be easy to work with the majority of the members; but it must be ensured that the paths that have been taken in many areas since 1919 are not continued, and that in this direction in particular, it is not always just glossed over, but that through insight into the mistakes, through a sharp assessment of the mistakes, it is recognized what must be done in the future.

This, my dear friends, is what I ask of you. I thank you very much for everything that has been said here. I appreciate such wonderful words, as those just spoken by Mr. Leinhas, for example, and I am also most sincerely grateful for these words, in the interest of the Anthroposophical Society above all. But I call upon those friends who still have an understanding of the inner workings of the Anthroposophical Society, even where it becomes blurred in its peripheral branches, where it draws practical circles, I call upon the friends to finally put an end to such methods, which have been adopted for four years, to examine where the mistakes lie and to recognize to what extent a large part of the opposition, which extends beyond many areas, beyond which there used to be no obstacle, has actually made the lectures impossible. It is not so much a matter of repelling the opponents; they are sometimes glad when they are given a blow, it helps them, it does them no harm. It is not about that, but rather about the fact that within the Anthroposophical Society a prime example is actually being set of a methodically recognized, that is, will-inspired work. Not a setting up of projects and desires that one abandons at every turn, but one that one sticks to, and in which one really does dedicated work, not just a meddling. This is what a movement based on such foundations, as the anthroposophical movement is, needs above all. I must say it because I reciprocate the love that has been expressed to me again this evening. But if I am to return this love in the right way, then I must speak sincerely to those who can expect it, and then I must say: the friends on whom it depends must seriously consider which methods that have become non-methods in the last four years must be abandoned. Only then will the beautiful love, this love that is not only unimpeachable but cannot be praised highly enough, in which people worked together in the Anthroposophical Society until the start of construction and during the construction until 1918, only then will this love be guided into the right channel, into the right current. And above all, I ask that the matter be considered in such a way that the words I am speaking today only out of the most inner compulsion do not fall on deaf ears. Rather, I ask you to take the love that is present and push it to the point where you will seriously see to it that the methods of the last four years are examined, so that we may once again come to the point — which is necessary — that the Anthroposophical Society, above all, begins by practicing what it preaches to the outside world. As long as we are our own worst enemies, we need not be surprised if, since we are standing on occult ground, a terrible opposition strikes from outside. If we also seek self-knowledge there, many things can be put into the right perspective.

This, my dear friends, is a great task, a task that should be carried out as quickly as possible by those in positions of responsibility in the face of great misfortune. For me it would be impossible to continue working on such a basis, as it has been created from many sides in the last four years, that it would not be an abuse of the love that is practiced by the majority of the Anthroposophical Society: it would be an abuse of this love by me, if I continued to lend my support to these improper methods and if I did not demand that the consolidation of the Society be helped above all by those in positions of responsibility actually and energetically investigating the nature of these improper methods that have brought the Society to this pass, in order to test, when the Society itself is once more in a state appropriate to it, how the opponents can then be dealt with. Please forgive me, my dear friends, but it would have seemed unkind to me, in spite of all the kindness you have shown me today, if I had not told you this in all sincerity, which is very close to my heart.

Having spoken so often about the School of Chartres and its great significance for the inner spiritual life of the West, I have received a welcome gift during the last few days: a gift of pictures, some of which have been put up here for you to see. Others will be added next Tuesday. In these pictures you will see what wonderful architectural works and works of sculpture in the mediaeval sense, arose at the place where flourished that spiritual life of which I have now spoken so often.

The personalities who were gathered in the School of Chartres still had the impulse, even in the 12th century, to enter as teachers or students into the living spiritual life that had arisen in the turning-point of time—I mean in the epoch of European evolution when humanity, inasmuch as they were seekers after knowledge, still sought it in the living weaving and working of the nature-beings, and not in the conception of void and abstract natural laws.

Thus in the School of Chartres there was a deep devotion to spiritual powers, notably to those that hold sway in Nature. All this was cultivated there—no longer, it is true, by Initiates into the ancient Mysteries—but by personalities who had the heart and mind to receive from tradition much that had once been direct spiritual experience. And I have told you of the mysterious radiations of light from the School of Chartres which we can truly recognise in the spirit of Brunetto Latini, the great teacher of Dante. I tried to explain how the individualities of Chartres worked on in the spiritual worlds in unison with those who afterwards came down, more in the Dominican Order, as the bearers of Scholasticism. We may put it thus.—The individualities of Chartres were obliged to see, out of the signs of the times, that there would be no place for them within the earthly life until the time when the element of Michael, which was to begin at the end of the 19th century, should have been working for a while on earth.

In a far-reaching sense these individualities of Chartres took part in the super-sensible teachings of which I spoke last time—teachings that were given under the aegis of Michael himself, so as to pour forth impulses which were to hold good for the spiritual life of coming centuries. And it may be said indeed that anyone who would devote himself to the cultivation of spiritual life to-day must necessarily stand under the influence of those great impulses.

Broadly speaking we may say that there have been very few reincarnations of the spirits of Chartres hitherto. Nevertheless it was granted to me to look back upon the School of Chartres through a certain stimulus, if I may describe it so, which came to me out of the life of the present time.

There was a monk in the School of Chartres who was altogether devoted to the life-element that existed in that school. But in the School of Chartres, especially if one was truly devoted to it, one felt as it were a twilight mood of the spiritual life. All that was reminiscent still of the great and deep impulses of the spiritual Platonism that had been handed down—all this was living in Chartres. But it lived in such a way that the bearers of the spiritual life of Chartres said to themselves: In the future, alas, the civilisation of Europe will no longer be receptive for this living, Platonic spirituality.

It is touching to see how the School of Chartres preserves as it were the portraits of the inspiring genii of the Seven Liberal Arts, as they were called: Grammatica, Dialectica, Rhetorica, Arithmetica, Geometría, Astronomía and Musica. Even in the reception of the Spiritual that was contained in the Seven Liberal Arts, they still saw in them the living gifts of the gods, coming to man through spiritual beings. They did not see the mere communication of dead thoughts about dead laws of Nature. And they could see that Europe in the future would no longer be receptive to these things. Hence there was a feeling of evening twilight in the spiritual life.

Now one of those monks who was especially devoted to the teachings and the works of Chartres, was, after all, reincarnated in our time. He was reincarnated, moreover, in such a way that one could find in this case most wonderfully the echo and reflection of the former life in the present. This personality lived in our time as an authoress who was not only my acquaintance, but my friend. [Marie Eugenie delle Grazie.] She died a considerable time ago. She bore within her a strange mood of soul, about which I should not have spoken until now, although I observed it many years ago. To speak of these things has indeed only been possible since the Christmas feeling came over our Anthroposophical Society. For this has brought a peculiar illumination over these things, and it is possible, as I have already said, to speak about such matters openly and without embarrassment to-day.

When one was in conversation with that authoress, she returned again and again to the theme that she would like to die. But her desire to die did not spring from a sentimental or hypochondriac, nay, not even from a melancholic mood of soul. If one had the psychological vision to enter into such things, one found one's way far, far back into her soul until at length one had to say: It is the echo and reflection of a former life on earth. In a former life on earth a seed was planted which now comes forth, I will not say in the longing for death, but in this feeling that the soul, being now incarnated, yet has nothing really to do with this present age.

Her writings, too, are of this nature. They seem to be written out of a different world—not indeed as to their facts and communications—but as to their mood and feeling. And we can understand this mood only if we find the way from the dim light of her writings, from the dim light that lived as a fundamental disposition in her own soul, back to that monk of Chartres who felt in Chartres the evening twilight mood of a living Platonism.

In this authoress it was not a question of temperament or melancholy or sentimentality; it was the raying-in of a former life on earth. And her present soul was like a mirror into which the life of Chartres really penetrated. Not indeed the content of the teachings of Chartres, but their moods and feelings, had been transmitted from the one life to the other in this personality. Transplanting oneself into these moods, and looking back, one could receive in them as it were spiritual photographs of the personalities who are also to be found by direct spiritual research in the worlds where they now are—the personalities who taught in Chartres.

Thus you see, life brings to one in many ways the karmic possibilities to gaze into these matters. Last time, I described my experiences with the Cistercian Order. To-day I would supplement what I then said by referring to the evening twilight mood of the School of Chartres which penetrated into the heart and soul of an extraordinarily interesting personality, who lived again in the present time. She has long ago found her way back into the worlds for which she longed. She has found her way back to the Fathers of Chartres. And if her whole soul-life had not been dominated by a kind of weariness as the karmic outcome of the mood-of-soul of yonder monk of Chartres, I could scarcely imagine a personality more fitted to behold the spiritual life of the present day in connection with the traditional life of the Middle Ages.

There is another thing which I would mention here. When there are such karmic impulses working deep in the foundations of the soul, we find what is otherwise a very rare occurrence: we find in the physical expression of the countenance in a later incarnation, a likeness to the former. The face of yonder monk and of the authoress of the present time were indeed extraordinarily alike.

Now in these connections I will gradually pass on to the karma of the Anthroposophical Society, or of the individualities of its members. For as I said last time, a large number of the souls who stand sincerely within the Anthroposophical Movement were connected somewhere and somewhen with that stream of Michael which I must now characterise. You will remember all that I have said in this connection about Alexander and Aristotle and about the events in super-sensible worlds at the time when the 8th Council in Constantinople took place here in this world of sense. You will remember what I said of the continuation, in the spiritual and in the physical, of the life of the Court of Haroun al Raschid, until at length I spoke of that super-sensible School which stood under the aegis of Michael himself. Deeply significant was the teaching of that School. On the one hand it pointed again and again to the connections with the ancient Mysteries, to all that must now come forth once more in a new form from the content of the ancient Mysteries, to permeate modern civilisation with spirituality. On the other hand it pointed to the impulses which souls, devoted to the spiritual life, must have for their work into the future. And we know that from an understanding of the spiritual stream we may also come to understand how Anthroposophy, in its real essence, signifies the impulse for a renewal, for a true and sincere understanding of the Christ-Impulse.

For in the Anthroposophical Movement we find two kinds of souls. A large number of them have partaken in those currents which were, so to speak, the officially Christian ones in the first centuries. They witnessed all that came into the world as Christianity, notably in the times of Constantine, and immediately after him. Many of those who approached Christianity with the very deepest sincerity at that time and received it with inner depth and penetration, many of them are found in the Anthroposophical Society to-day with the deep impulse towards an understanding of Christianity. I do not mean so much the Christians who followed such movements as that of Constantine himself; I rather mean those Christians who claimed to be the true Christians, who were distributed in different Christian sects. In those Christian sects we find many of the souls who to-day approach the Anthroposophical Movement sincerely, though often through subconscious impulses which the surface consciousness may even largely misinterpret.

But there are other souls: there are those who did not partake directly in that development of Christianity. They either partook in Christianity at a later stage of its development when the deep inner life of the sects was no longer there, or on the other hand—and this is the most important thing—they still had, living and unextinguished in the depths of their souls, much of what was experienced in pre-Christian time as the ancient wisdom of the heathen Mysteries. They too often partook in Christianity; but it did not make so deep an impression upon them as upon the other souls described before. For there still remained alive in them the impression of the teachings, the rituals and practices of ancient Mysteries. Now among those who have entered the Anthroposophical Movement in this way we find many who are seeking for the Christ in an abstract sense. The other souls above described are happy, so to speak, to find Christianity once more within the Anthroposophical Movement. But many of the souls I now mean grasp with real inner understanding the Cosmic Christianity which Anthroposophy contains. Christ as the Cosmic Spirit of the Sun is taken hold of most especially by the souls (and they are very numerous in the Anthroposophical Movement) in the depths of whom much is still living of what they underwent in connection with ancient heathen Mysteries.

Now all this is deeply connected with the currents of the whole spiritual life of mankind in the present time—I mean the present time in a wider sense, reaching over decades and centuries.

Anthroposophy after all has grown out of the spiritual life of the present time, and though in its contents it has nothing directly in common with this spiritual life, karmically it has grown out of it in many ways. We must turn our eyes to many things which do not apparently belong to what works in Anthroposophy directly, if we would include in our spiritual horizon all that partook in the different streams I have mentioned. I said a little while ago that we only truly understand what takes place outwardly on the physical plane if we see in the background what is poured down from the fields of the spirit into these events as they take place on the physical plane. We must regain the courage to bring into our present life that feeling of the ancient Mysteries. We must connect the physical events not merely abstractly with a vaguely Pantheistic or Theistic or whatever spiritual life. We must become able to trace the detailed events, nay more, the inner experiences of men within these events, to the spiritual source and background.

We are led to do so among other things by something that belongs to the deepest tasks of the present time. For in the present time we must seek again for a real knowledge of man in body, soul and spirit—not a knowledge rooted in abstract ideas or laws, but one that is able to look into the true foundation of the human being as a whole. To gain such knowledge man must be searched through and through in his conditions of health and sickness; and not in a merely physical sense as is customary to-day, for then we should not learn to know the human being. By merely physical knowledge we can never learn to know what works so deeply into the life of man, determining his destiny: his unhappiness, his sickness, his abilities or absence of abilities. Karma in all its forms—this we can only know if from the starting-point of the physical we can trace the spiritual life of a man and his inner life of soul.

How do people work, in the ordinary scientific striving of to-day? They study the human being quite externally as to his organs and vessels, his nerves, the vessels of the circulation of the blood and so forth. But when the health and sickness of man are studied in this fashion one cannot find the spirit and soul in all these things.

Indeed the anatomist or physiologist of to-day may well speak in the words of a famous astronomer of the past, who, in answer to a question which his sovereign had put to him, replied:“I have searched through the whole universe, through all the stars and all their movements, but I have found no God!” So said the astronomer. And the anatomist or physiologist of to-day could say: “I have searched through them all—heart and kidneys, stomach and brain, blood-vessels and nerves—but I have found neither soul nor spirit.”

All the problems and difficulties of modern medicine, for example, are subject to this influence. And all these things must be dealt with in the Anthroposophical Movement today, according to the tasks which are placed before it. In general terms these questions must be unfolded before the Anthroposophical Society as a whole; in detail they must be treated in an expert way within the several groups. Thus, for example, I am now speaking on Pastoral Medicine to a group who are prepared for it by training and profession. Here we must seek the way into those great connections which proceed in the last resort from the workings of the streams of karma. In time to come it will be seen how pathology and therapeutics, how the observation of man in sickness and disease, will make it absolutely necessary to enter into the deep questions of the soul and spirit. As I have said again and again, the external and physical—the physical as presented by natural science—is to be respected in the fullest sense. Yet men will find themselves compelled to take into account the higher members of man's nature when considering disease and health. This will be seen in the book¹ on which my dear fellow-worker Frau Dr. Wegman and I are working together, on the subject of man in health and in disease. Now these researches especially, seeking the ways of entry from the physical man into the spiritual, can only lead to good and promising results if we set about them in the right way. For in such work we must not only use the knowledge-forces of the present, but we must use the knowledge-forces which arise by picking up the threads of karma—the karmic threads proceeding from the history and evolution of mankind. We must indeed work with the forces of karma in order to penetrate these secrets.

In the first volume, only the beginnings of our work will be published. The work will then be carried forward and from the more elementary expositions we shall proceed to unfold the particular knowledge of man which can arise from this medical, therapeutic and pathological aspect of spiritual science. This work has only been made possible through the presence in Frau Dr. Wegman of a personality whose medical studies have entered into her in such a way as to evolve quite naturally, as a matter of course, towards a spiritual conception and perception of the human being.

Now it is in the course of these researches, when we behold in spiritual perspective all the workings of the human organs, that those perceptions also arise which lead us in turn to the deeper karmic connections. The same manner of perception must be evolved to perceive the spiritual realities that underlie, not the whole man, but his several organs. (For, if you will, it is the Jupiter world that underlies one organ, the Venus world that underlies another, and so forth.) The same insight which we must evolve in this direction, leads also to the possibility of perceiving human personalities in past earthly lives. For in the present earthly life man stands before us within the limits of his skin. But when we become able to gaze into his single organs, what was contained within the skin expands and expands. Each of the single organs points us to a different direction of the universe. The organs prepare the roads that lead us far out into the macrocosm, until far out yonder the human being once again appears as a complete and rounded whole. It is the human being built up once more in the spirit, having transcended the present form, the form that is enclosed within the skin—it is this that we need. For the sum-total of the human organs—which even physically is altogether different from what the present-day anatomist or physiologist conceives—when we trace it out into the cosmos, leads to perceptions which correspond in turn to the spiritual perception of the former earthly lives of man. Then we experience the inner connections that shed their light upon the evolution and history of mankind, explaining what is physically there to-day. For in reality the whole past of human beings lives in the present time. Yet the vague and abstract saying by itself is of no avail. Materialists too will say the same. The point is to perceive how the past is living in the present.

And of this I would now give you an example, an example which is in itself so wonderful that it called forth in me the greatest imaginable wonder when I first came to it as a result of spiritual research. And many things which I have said before must now be rectified, or at any rate must be completed, by that which I shall now set forth.

You see, for one who studies history with feeling for its inner meaning, a certain event in the first centuries of Christianity is wrapped in the atmosphere of a strange mystery. We see on the one side a personality of whom we may well think that in his inner life he was little fitted to take hold of Christianity or to make it what it then became, the official Christianity of the West. I mean the Emperor Constantine, of whom we have so often spoken. Then, side by side with him (not literally of course, but gazing back into that age from a considerable distance in time), side by side with Constantine we see Julian the Apostate. Julian the Apostate, he of a truth was one in whom the wisdom of the Mysteries was living, as we may know. Julian the Apostate could speak of a Threefold Sun. Indeed he lost his life through being regarded as a betrayer of the Mysteries, because he spoke about the Threefold Sun. Of these things it was no longer allowed to speak in his time; still less would it have been allowed in earlier times. But Julian the Apostate stood in a peculiar relation to Christianity. In a certain sense we must again and again be surprised that the genius, the fine spirituality and intellect of Julian was so little receptive to the greatness of Christianity. It was simply due to the fact that in his environment he saw very little of what he conceived as a true inner sincerity, whereas among those who introduced him to the ancient Mysteries he found great sincerity—positive, active sincerity. Such was the case with Julian the Apostate.

Yonder in Asia he was murdered. Many a fable is told about the murder. The truth is that it took place because he was regarded as a betrayer of the Mysteries. It was a murder altogether pre-arranged.

Now if we make ourselves to some extent acquainted with that which lived in Julian we cannot but be deeply interested in the question: How did his individuality live on in later times? For his was a peculiar individuality, one of whom it must be said that he would have been better fitted than Constantine, better than Clodvig and all the others, to make straight the ways of Christianity. This lay inherent in his soul. If the time had been favourable, if the conditions had existed, he could have brought about out of the ancient Mysteries a straightforward continuation from the pre-Christian Christ, the true macrocosmic Logos, to the Christ who was to work on within mankind after the Mystery of Golgotha. He was indeed a vessel well prepared. Strange as it may sound, we find it so, if we enter into his true spirit. We find in the foundations of his soul the true impulse to take hold of Christianity. But he did not let it emerge, he suppressed it, misled by the stupidities which Celsus had written about Jesus. It does indeed happen now and then that men of real genius are led astray by the stupidest effusions of their fellow-men. Thus we may have the feeling: Julian would really have been the soul to make straight the ways of Christianity and to bring Christianity into its true and proper channel.

We now leave the soul of Julian the Apostate in that earthly life and follow the same individuality with the highest interest through spiritual worlds. But there is always something vague and unclear about it. Only the most intense spiritual striving can come at length to a clear perception of his further course.

On many matters very adequate ideas existed in the Middle Ages. They might be legendary, but they were adequate; they corresponded to the real events. Legendary though they may be, how adequate are the narratives that centred round the personality of Alexander the Great. How vividly his life appears, as I already said, in the description of Lamprecht the Priest!

But that which lives on of Julian, lives on in such a way that we must say again and again: It seeks to disappear from before the vision of mankind. And as we seek to follow it we have the greatest difficulty, so to speak, in keeping it within our spiritual field of vision. Again and again it escapes us. We trace it through the centuries into the Middle Ages and it escapes us. But when at length we do succeed in following it to the end, we land at a strange place, which though it be not historic in the proper sense, is in reality more than historic. We come at length to the figure of a woman, in whom we find again the soul of Julian the Apostate. It was a woman who accomplished an important deed in her life under the impression of an essentially painful event. For she beheld, not in herself, but in the person of another, an image of the fate of Julian the Apostate, inasmuch as Julian the Apostate went on a campaign to the East and there lost his life by treachery.

The woman whom I mean is Herzeleide, the mother of Parsifal, who was an historic character though history itself tells nothing of her. In Gamuret, whom she married and who lost his life through treachery upon an Eastern campaign, she was pointed to her own destiny in the former life as Julian the Apostate. This went deep into her soul, and under this impression she achieved what is told to us in a legendary way—yet it is historic in the truest sense—of the education of Parsifal by Herzeleide.

The soul of Julian the Apostate who had remained thus in the depths and of whom one would believe that it should have been his very mission to prepare the right way for Christianity—this soul is found again in the Middle Ages in the body of a woman who sent out Parsifal, to seek and to find the esoteric paths for Christianity.

Mysterious like this, and full of riddles, are the paths of mankind in the background, in the foundations of existence. This example—and it is strangely interwoven with the one which I already told you in connection with the School of Chartres—this example may make you realise how wonderful are the paths of the human soul and the paths of evolution for all mankind.

We shall continue speaking of it in the next lecture, when I shall have more to say of the life of Herzeleide and of what was then sent forth, physically, in Parsifal. I shall begin next time at this point where we must break off to-day.

• 1. Fundamentals of Therapy; an Extension of the Art of Healing through Spiritual Knowledge, by Rudolf Steiner, Ph.D. and Ita Wegman, M.D. (Zurich). English translation by George Adams, M.A.