The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Anthroposophical Society (Theosophical Society).

Dear Members of the Anthroposophical Society.

Dear Friends!

The Central Council of the Anthroposophical Society takes pleasure in inviting you to the first General Assembly to be held on February 3, 1913 and on the following days.

The first item on the agenda will be:

Monday, February 3, 3:30 p.m. (Architects' House, Wilhelmstraße 92/93) there will be a lecture by Dr. Rudolf Steiner on the following topic:

The Essence of Anthroposophy.

On this and the following days there will also be: Free lectures and discussions by members (registrations for these are requested as soon as possible). On the evenings of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, there will be a lecture cycle by Dr. Rudolf Steiner on:

The Mysteries of the Orient and of Christianity.

(Further details will be announced at the meeting).

On Thursday evening at 8 p.m., there will be a public lecture by Dr. Steiner.

Members are requested to notify Miss Marie v. Sivers, Berlin Wfilmersdorf, Motzstr. 17, of their attendance at this General Assembly immediately upon receipt of this invitation.

Registrations for speeches etc. by individual members are requested to be sent to Miss v. Sivers.

Hoping to be able to welcome as many of our dear members as possible on the days mentioned above,

with warm Theosophical greetings
On behalf of the Central Board
Marie v. Sivers

Dear teachers of the Free Waldorf School!

It is a great hardship for me not to be able to be among you for so long. And now I have to place important decisions in your hands, in which I have naturally participated since the school was founded. It is a time of trial by fate. I am with you in spirit. I cannot do more now if I do not want to risk extending the time of physical hindrance to infinity.

We are united in thought, since we have to be separated in space. — What we have already accomplished together now permeates the teaching staff. It circles through their own council, Since the council, which would so gladly come, does not have its wings free.

So we want to strive all the more for community of spirit, as long as nothing else is possible. The Waldorf School is a child of the care, but above all, it is also a symbol of the fertility of anthroposophy within the spiritual life of humanity.

If the teachers carry the consciousness of this fertility in their hearts, then the good spirits that prevail in this school will be able to take effect, and divine spiritual power will prevail in the teachers' actions.

With this in mind, I would like to send you all my warmest thoughts and greetings.

I am enclosing a short letter for the students, which I would ask you to read out in class.

With warmest regards,
Rudolf Steiner

This cycle of lectures has had four German editions, in Berlin 1914 (Cycle 29), in Berlin 1930, edited by Adolf Arenson, in Freiburg in 1955 by the Novalis Verlag and in 1982 by the Rudolf Steiner Verlag. The first English translation edited by H. Collison was published in 1928 by Anthroposophical Publishing Co., London and Anthroposophic Press, New York.

Rudolf Steiner gave these lectures twice on the same day, mornings and evenings, in the “Princes' Hall” of the Cafe Luitpold in Munich. The performances of the two Mystery Dramas at the Volkstheaters were also given twice. The title of the drama receiving its first performance was given in the program announcements as “The Awakening of Maria and Thomasius (or The Other Side of the Threshold).”

A list of the Munich performances and lecture cycles will be found on the next page. A fifth Mystery Drama was planned for the summer of 1914, and a cycle “Occult Hearing and Occult Reading” would have been given August 18 – 27, but the beginning of World War I prevented any further Munich Festivals. In Dornach four lectures with the title Occult Reading and Occult Hearing were given in October, 1914. (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1975).

A word to new readers of Rudolf Steiner seems necessary. As with many of Steiner's lecture cycles a certain familiarity with anthroposophy on the part of the listeners was assumed. This means acquaintance at a minimum with his introductory writings such as Theosophy or Occult Science. The reader unfamiliar with these works is advised to turn first to these books as a way of increasing his understanding and appreciation of this volume.

at the beginning of the evening lecture

I would just like to briefly report that the Nordic trip that I have just completed has, I believe, been quite satisfactory. I was able to give 13 lectures in Norway over eight days, and that enabled me to bring up a good deal of anthroposophy. I believe that our friends in Norway are very good workers at the present time and that we can look there with a certain satisfaction.

Of these lectures, two were public, the others private lectures for members and friends of members, that is, for a smaller circle of members and also non-members who were personally invited.

I would also like to note that the Norwegian Anthroposophical Society was formed during my time in Norway.¹ It now exists in a similar way to the Swiss Anthroposophical Society. It has appointed Mr. Ingerö as its General Secretary and will work out its further statutes. At the General Assembly held during my presence, it expressed its willingness to join the international society based in Dornach if the international society is established. If we then establish the individual branch societies one after the other, following the example of the Swiss society, it will be possible to bring about the constitution of the whole society in a way that takes account of today's circumstances. I would like to mention this in particular because it is perhaps important for a forthcoming General Assembly of the Swiss Anthroposophical Society to consider the fact that national societies have now been founded for a general Anthroposophical Society.²

• 1. See page 469.
• 2. See page 512.

Newssheet, 2nd year, no. 11

at the Freie Waldorf School in Stuttgart, April 2-6, 1925

Anthroposophical view of the human being as the basis for

education in presentations from the work of the Freie Waldorf School

Calls for educational reform are coming from all sides. But the plight of educators has not been alleviated by even the best programs. What we need is the resurrection of education in the form of direct artistic practice and living technology. This can only be found by truly understanding the human being as a whole and their living conditions. It therefore coincides in essence with the conscious and active answer to the question: What is the human being? For there can never again be a pedagogy that is conscious of our living conditions if we cannot answer this fundamental question of education.

Anthroposophy wants to be the progressive answer to this question of destiny, which is also the answer to the human soul questions of today. For its whole essence is the comprehensive investigation of the human being in the individual with its full life contexts. It is the study of the human being that wants to become directly artistic-educational imagination and technique. Therefore, such a study of the human being is not a program, but for six years of quiet educational work it has become the living, strong root of all life in the Waldorf school. This year, we are again inviting all those searching in the field of education to an Easter conference in Stuttgart to work with us on the resurrection of education on the basis of the Free Waldorf School.

The Executive Council of the General Anthroposophical Society.

The teaching staff of the Free Waldorf School.

Carl Unger from the lecture “Esotericism” given at the opening conference of the second Goetheanum building on Michaelmas 1928.¹ Carl Unger (1878–1929) was one of the first members of all departments of Rudolf Steiner's Esoteric School and was a member of the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society from 1908 until his death.

The nature of esotericism cannot be described in a few words. I would like to try to gain some insights into the position of esotericism in the present day.

Rudolf Steiner often said that there was always an esoteric element in the various epochs, but that something different was always referred to as esotericism. However, at all times, esotericism included an attitude of mind that lay outside the ordinary life and knowledge of the respective time, a difficult path that first had to be taken in order for people to strive and develop.

I would like to point out the transitions from the third cultural epoch to the fourth and from the fourth to the fifth epoch. The impulse of the third epoch is emerging again in our time, and so there is ample reason to occupy ourselves with it.

From Rudolf Steiner's “Occult Science” ² we know how the cosmic developmental processes of an earlier time become the path of initiation for a later one.

In this sense, we can look at the ancient Indian mysteries as a repetition of the Saturn development in the polaric time, and we can look at the Persian path of initiation, in which the ancient solar development was reflected in its repetition during the Hyperborean time. Then we stand in the third post-Atlantic culture, the Egyptian-Chaldean epoch, which also contains the history of the Hebrew people. Ancient lunar forces well up in the soul, as they had changed throughout the Lemurian period. In ancient Lemuria, man still lived in magical connection with the elements of the earth; to a large extent, he could influence and conquer the forces of nature. We find this magical potency of the ancient times transformed and living on in the mystery centers of the third culture; we must indeed describe the esotericism prevailing in them as magical. What had been preserved as a cultural symbol from that time could only have been formed under the influence of a magical esotericism. Only a select few had access to it, and they were trained for it through tremendously hard and difficult trials. Often selected as young children, they had to undergo years of psychological and spiritual training to prepare them for the organic interaction of forces in their bodies, until they were able to experience the death of the mystic. This required the unconditional submission of the disciple to the teacher, who, by manipulating spiritual forces, detached the higher limbs of the disciple from the physical body and then guided them back again. Initiation could only be achieved through the magical assistance of the hierophant. And it was from the mystery centers that the nations were led and guided to cultural progress through magical powers and powerful suggestions.

The mystery centers themselves were protected by magical means against the intrusion of unauthorized persons. Whoever entered without permission, or whoever did not prove himself, perished. We find allusions to this protection of the holy places right up to the Old Testament: no one except the high priest himself may enter the Holy of Holies; any unconsecrated person who approaches it suffers death. Of course I know that there are materialistic interpretations of this in every detail; they only show that anyone who makes or believes such interpretations understands nothing of the things they are dealing with.

Then followed the Greek period, in which the memory of Atlantis was particularly alive and permeated the mystery being. It had a “secret esotericism”. It no longer shaped directly into the physical and bodily, but it became indirectly effective through the experience of the soul in the awakening consciousness. It sparked enthusiasm, the powers of inspiration, “being filled with the god,” and through art it developed spirit-begetting powers in human life.

To the same extent that the power to protect the mysteries through magic was lost, the secrecy of the esoteric was established and sought under oaths and threats. Those who betrayed the mysteries were persecuted and punished by death.

We still have traces of secret esotericism in the present day in the various secret societies; they cultivate the remains of ancient times in forms and rituals that they endeavor to keep strictly secret. There, too, betrayal is punished.

Today, however, we are dealing with completely different impulses. We have emerged from the era of magical efficacy and secret esotericism, because the mystery has been brought into the light of the public. The Mystery of Golgotha brought the turning point, in that Christ consciously broke through the barriers of old efficacy - and then, with his death and resurrection, “fulfilled” the mystery wisdom of all time, and “before all the people”. The knowledgeable people of that time also recognized this, which is why he was accused of betraying the mysteries. In the New Testament it says of Christ: “For he has done signs before the people,” so they sought “a cause against him.”

Rudolf Steiner presents this fundamental difference between the Christ-act and all previous initiations in his book ² (1902), GA 8, and in many lectures. The Mystery of Golgotha is meant to reach the whole world; it is a cosmic event; in it we have the liberation of the mystery being. Since the Mystery of Golgotha, we must recognize esotericism as a free one; that is the essential point. Rudolf Steiner took up this fact and, during the second period of his work in the Anthroposophical Society, introduced us ever more deeply into the Mystery of Golgotha with the help of the Gospels. By sharing with us the results of his spiritual scientific research into the cosmic deed of Christ Jesus, he opened up a new understanding for us of the biblical accounts as well; genuine and true reverence for the soul arose anew from such insight into the religious documents. Placed in this context, the individual word of the Bible regained its sacred, all-encompassing truth; the individual word was experienced in its esoteric power.

Rudolf Steiner wanted to convey to the people who had come together in the Anthroposophical Society an esoteric teaching appropriate to the spiritual situation of our fifth cultural epoch. He wanted to show them the paths to a Christian esoteric development by further developing the methods of supersensible research in a way that was appropriate for the time of the consciousness soul, based on an understanding of ancient occult tradition.

I would like to illustrate this a little with words that he himself used. Rudolf Steiner once said: People do not consider that in each of my lectures, including public lectures, there is a wealth of esoteric information. The lectures must only be able to be properly received. He said this after it was no longer possible during the war years to cultivate esotericism in the usual way, and members approached him with the request to resume this esotericism. Rudolf Steiner wanted to characterize what he wanted to be understood by “esoteric” in today's world. On another occasion he said: “I would like to draw your attention to an esoteric book that, although it is right in front of everyone, is not understood as such by anyone, namely Fichte's ‘Wissenschaftslehre’ (The Theory of Knowledge). In the same sense, Rudolf Steiner described every table of logarithms as esoteric, i.e. it is part of the understanding of the same that the person acquires the scientific prerequisites through learning, musters the goodwill to work out the necessary preparations. For us, it all comes down to taking such words very seriously.

But how did Rudolf Steiner cultivate esotericism in our society?

Anyone who has followed Rudolf Steiner's path since the turn of the century could have experienced the following: Rudolf Steiner often sought the ground for certain presentations, and it could happen that he shared something from his spiritual research with a very small group, sometimes even only with three, two or even just one person - on a trial basis. He conducted a kind of primeval experiment to see how far the present consciousness could 'bear' these things. He would present some new research result to a few people in this way. One could ask questions and discuss the matters. After some time, however, one could experience him putting the same question to a larger circle, for example to the circle of people who formed an esoteric group. But then it happened that Rudolf Steiner presented the context to all members of the Anthroposophical Society; and if one waited a little longer, he began to speak about the same fact in lectures to the public.

You see how the esoteric, i.e. the spiritual, which is still inaccessible to ordinary experience, had to be introduced step by step into contemporary consciousness. The soil had to be plowed step by step so that the seed could be sown. But these things were certainly meant for all people from the very beginning. Rudolf Steiner broke through the wall that had enclosed the spiritual life of the new era until the end of the Kaliyuga [1899]. Even today there are initiates of different directions, progressive and conservative. Rudolf Steiner, however, wanted to give people everything they would prove themselves ready for. Just as Jesus Christ went through the Mystery of Golgotha for all people, so here too no one should be excluded.

However, it should be noted that the spiritual world also has its laws, and does not allow those who do not have the will to prepare themselves to approach it. The effort that the individual has to expend, the circumstances and the state of consciousness ensure that no unauthorized person can approach the things. The mystery protects itself through itself; today it needs no means, neither of magic nor of secrecy.

In the methodology of the paths to the esoteric, Rudolf Steiner provided protection for the mystery. These paths are such that in the preparation, in what Rudolf Steiner called the “study” of anthroposophy, lies the awakening power for true self-knowledge of the human being. The call, “O man, know thyself,” which resounds from the mysteries, penetrates the soul that is seriously striving for spiritual knowledge of anthroposophy. In the practice of the soul, it transforms the ordinary experience of the self into true self-awareness, out of which a new sense of human responsibility arises: responsibility to the spirit. In the awakening of the spiritual self, the soul feels at home among spiritual beings; under their gaze, a new moral soul attitude arises in it. Just as the 'old knowledge' required protection through magic or secrecy, so the new knowledge is based on the true self-knowledge of the human being and the spiritual responsibility that blossoms from it. This is why Rudolf Steiner brought everything into the public sphere with the Christmas Conference ³. He wanted a new mystery movement whose impulses could lead directly to the Christ event; free esotericism is the only thing possible today. Just as magical esotericism shaped physical events, and secret esotericism awakened new powers of experience through the art of the soul, so free esotericism addresses the human spirit.

• 1. Carl Unger, “Schriften” II, Stuttgart 1966, Verlag Freies Geistesleben. Esotericism (1928), lecture “Esotericism”, p. 224ff
• 2. “Occult Science: An Outline of Occult Science” (1910), GA 13
• 2. “Christianity as Mystical Fact and the Mysteries of Antiquity”
• 3. See “The Christmas Conference for the Founding of the General Anthroposophical Society 1923/24”, GA 260.

Anyone looking beyond the immediate interests of the day feels that mankind is confronted by tasks such as have appeared only at important turning points in historical evolution. These tasks concern all people and touch all spheres of life. There are persons in the world who are inclined to perceive the seeds of decay and death everywhere in spiritual life, and who see a possibility of progress only in a rebirth of spiritual forces. To others, the decay proceeds only from the fact that there are widely extended groups of people who have turned away from well-tested traditions. But these are convinced that the old will have to seek new paths in order to lay hold of the heart and mind of man.

Social conditions have assumed a form which has led to shocking catastrophes and which conceals germs leading to new and overwhelming calamities. In consequence, for millions of people a material distress has resulted which words are powerless to describe, and only those who believe in the possibility of new methods in world economy can hope for alleviation.

A great conflict between the Occidental world and the world of the Orient is imminent. Many individuals are looking with anxious eyes at the possible consequences of the significant call sounding forth from America. How will that country, how will England, play the leading roles which have devolved upon them? How will the summons of these western powers be answered by what is to them the mystically dark Asiatic soul of the Japanese?

These are problems upon the solution of which depend, in the nearest future, the weal and woe of mankind; problems which involve the most commonplace every day experiences as well as the highest spiritual interests.

What is stated here contains something many people feel to be true. Confronting this, however, stands something else. Although we confess that a great deal ought to happen, a great weariness has invaded human souls; a lack of faith in human fortitude.

Much is being proposed from many sides; a belief that something might alleviate the great distress of the times gives no solution. In many quarters, indeed, people believe they know quite well what is needed; but such certainties have no effect upon the wills of human beings.

Before the great European catastrophe overtook the world, what eulogies could be heard about the spiritual and material progress of mankind! In view of the chaos which has engulfed the civilized world, how powerless does all that once lived in this progress now appear!

This experience might bring about a painful disillusionment, and yet we would doubt the human being himself if we halted before such a disillusionment. Indeed, many of the eulogists of the progress of the modern age have believed in the power of the spirit, since faith in the power of the human spirit lives even in materialism. Those who consider materialism the only sane thing believe that they have attained to their viewpoint through the power of the spirit.

We should feel in its full significance the fact that the materialistic paths travelled by this power of the spirit have led to a precipitous downfall of civilization; that world happenings have taken a course and brought results with which human beings cannot cope. It is only a step from the correct perception of this fact to a recognition of the necessity for this human spiritual power to seek other paths, paths leading deeper into reality.

Anyone who talks in this way encounters, as a matter of course, strong opposition. “What do you hope for now,” someone asks, “from a revolution in the spiritual life? Tell us how the world is to be relieved of her economic distress? First of all, people need bread; when this is provided, the way to the spirit will be found.”

Such a remark appears self-evident; and, on account of its “apparent” self-evidence, it evokes considerable applause. Yet it is only an illusion, not reality. For all economic conditions in human life are, in the final analysis, the result of spirit- borne human work. If the consequences are bad, the blame rests upon a spirit unequal to its tasks.

We shall understand this truth in its present significance only when, in spite of the turmoil of the age, we refuse to indulge in a blind criticism rejecting modern spiritual progress; that is, only when we recognize the good in modern progress. It is thus that we shall arrive at a direct insight into the reasons why this human progress is, in certain spheres, not commensurate with the course of cosmic progress.

Human progress is evident largely in the sphere of nature knowledge, and in the mechanical and technical sciences controlled by nature. Humanity has acquired sufficient power of thinking to engage in a study of mechanics, botany, archaeology, and so forth. The justification of this thinking power then operating in its own proper sphere should not be denied. But it uses the human spirit in order to master what lies outside the spirit. It comprehends nature through the spirit, while forgetting the spirit itself. Thus, science never grows weary of emphasizing that it presents nature to the human being the more faithfully the less it encourages him to color his ideas about nature with his spirit. It is not possible here to speak of the value of a knowledge of nature gained this way. But a humanity which educates itself largely by means of this soul activity is not able to produce ideas which have the sustaining force of the will. Will works in the human being by means of the spiritual force pulsating through it. And a spirit which is directed only to the unspiritual loses the sustaining power of its own being. The spirit which busies itself with nature can be strengthened in its own power, but cannot, in this manner, give itself a sustaining content.

Those who wish to place an independent spiritual conception on a par with a conception of nature believe themselves compelled to take this equality as a starting point. They do not mean by this a spiritual conception which continues to spin out what has been acquired from nature, but a spiritual knowledge which recognizes the spirit and its world as a living world, just as eyes, ears, and an intellect based upon them recognize nature as an unspiritual reality.

But the present-day world is able to speak of the living spirit only because of the traditions of the past. In bygone ages people were convinced that not only visible beings walk this earth and fashion the world's historical existence, but they were aware of the presence of active invisible spiritual beings in this world. They were aware by direct experience not only of living in a world of nature, but of living in a world of spirit. The modern human being has substituted an unreal thought experience for this spiritual experience. He is aware only of a world of thought; he is no longer directly conscious of the living events of the spirit. Indeed, the human being who has been educated in natural science rejects all knowledge of the spirit, and thus is dependent solely upon what of spiritual knowledge has been handed down from bygone ages. That, however, gradually fades away, loses its sustaining power in the human soul.

The spiritual science of Anthroposophy believes itself capable of acquiring a knowledge of the living spirit. It speaks of a spirit which lives in the human being, and not solely of thoughts which lead a picture existence in him. The fact that spirit reveals itself in the human being is for this spiritual science a result, just as in present natural science that which the intellect understands, based upon sense perception, is a result. This spiritual science does not speak of a nebulous spirit into which only the abstract intellect is interjected, but of a real spirit world with individual beings and facts; just as natural science speaks of individual plants, individual rivers, and other individual facts of nature.

This spiritual science believes that it may approach present- day tasks from two sides.

One approach is the cognition that spiritual science is knowledge and can be felt as such by all who permit themselves, through a healthy power of judgment, to be stimulated toward a satisfactory human relationship with the world and life; that, consequently, spiritual science does not bear the character of those methods of modern science which lead into this or that branch of knowledge, without the possibility of the human being gaining from that particular branch thoughts about his own nature and destination, or of his coming to a vigorous unfolding of his will. Spiritual science believes itself able to illumine thoughts, shape feelings full of devotion, and fashion a will filled with spirit. It speaks to the soul of every individual human being without considering the difference in degree of his education, because it seeks, indeed, its source in the pure spirit of science. Moreover, it reaches results to which every soul can respond with appreciation, out of a healthy judgment of human nature.

The other approach is fruitful for various fields of science and art, and for the religiously and socially inclined life.

The various sciences have, through their mode of research, arrived at a point where they need to be permeated by a living spiritual essence. The arts have their naturalistic epoch behind them; only out of the spirit can they again acquire a content which is not merely a superfluous imitation of nature. In the practical consequences of the Marxian mode of thought, social mass impulses have proved themselves impossible. They need the social forces which the individual human being discovers on his path to the spiritual life. Spiritual science will open the soul depths to religious experience, which otherwise would wither. By its very nature, spiritual science cannot itself create religion. We misunderstand spiritual science if we ascribe to it such intentions. But to the human being who can no longer discover religion in ancient spiritual movements, it will prove again that religion is the wellspring of a true humanness.

Spiritual science would give humanity what it needs, in order that ideas should again follow the course of world events. With such thoughts we shall certainly expose ourselves today to the easy reproach that we wish to say: Whoever would find his way into the needs encompassing all present-day people and life conditions has only to ask the Anthroposophists; they know how to solve all problems. Anyone who really knows how to live in the spirit of Anthroposophy, in the way intended by those who live at the Goetheanum [At Dornach, Switzerland], really does not suffer from megalomania, nor even from a lack of modesty; but would, quite modestly, point to what is lacking in the activity of modern mankind, and what must be sought in order that spiritual force, imbuing not only the head but the whole human being with soul force, may contribute to the great tasks now felt by many to be urgent. To be sure, such a mode of thought leads to something different from what is still expected by many people who place these tasks before their soul. Thus, the Occident and the Orient will come to a proper understanding only out of a spirit-imbued life, and not upon the bases upon which men build today. Nor will economic needs be alleviated until the right spirit points our direction.

Dr. Steiner:

My dear friends!

We are in the middle of the reports by the General Secretaries and the representatives of the groups working in all kinds of places outside Dornach. In a moment we shall continue with these reports. But first I would like to speak a few words in the midst of these reports, words to which I am moved by what has been said in such a satisfactory way by these speakers. From what we have been told we may gather how very devoted is the work being carried on out there. We may add what we were told yesterday to the names I allowed myself to mention the day before. There, too, despite the ruins on which we stand, we may see what can encourage us during this Conference not to be pessimistic in any way but rather to strive actively for a genuine optimism.

During this Conference we must everywhere, in every realm, consider the activity of building-up rather than the activity of dismantling. So today, early on in the Conference, I want to suggest that we give it a certain definite direction. During the meetings of members over the next few days there will of course be opportunities for discussing various matters. But today, early on, I want to say the following: As we saw in the necessary content of the Statutes, we have to connect total openness with the Anthroposophical Society. Anything less, dear friends, is not permitted by the signs of the times. The present age can no longer tolerate any tendency towards secrecy. This presents us with a fundamental problem which we shall have to solve.

By this I do not mean that we shall have to discuss it a great deal during the Conference, for it is in our hearts that this fundamental problem will have to be solved. We must be absolutely clear about the fact that our Society, before all others, will be given the task of combining the greatest conceivable openness with true and genuine esotericism.

At first under the obstacles and hindrances of those terrible years of the war, but then also through all kinds of inner difficulties, we have indeed experienced the establishment of this problem in every direction. Indeed lately no meeting within the Anthroposophical Society has taken place which lacked, as it were, the backdrop—though unnoticed by many—of this problem: How can we combine full openness with the profoundest, most serious and inward esotericism? To achieve this it will be necessary to banish from our gatherings in the future anything which smacks in any way of the atmosphere of a clique. Anthroposophy does not need the atmosphere of a clique. When hearts truly understand Anthroposophy they will beat in unison without the need for heads to knock together. If we solve this purely human problem of letting our hearts sound in harmony with one another without the need for our heads to knock together, then from the human side we shall have done everything necessary, also in the leadership of the Anthroposophical Society, to prepare for the achievement of the things that have been depicted.

We must achieve these things; we must reach the point at which we can feel in all our deeds that we are connected with the spiritual world. This is the very aspect which must be different in the Anthroposophical Society from any other possible association in the present time. The difference must be that out of the strength of Anthroposophy itself it is possible to combine the greatest conceivable openness with the most genuine and inward esotericism. And in future this esotericism must not be lacking even in the most external of our deeds. There is in this field still a lot to learn from the past ten years.

What I am saying is also related to our responsibilities. Consider the following, my dear friends: We stand in the world as a small Society, and this Society has a peculiar destiny at present. Even if it wanted to, it could not reject this characteristic of openness which I have been emphasizing so strongly. It would be unable to reject it. For if out of some leaning of sympathy we were to decide today to work only inwardly with our groups, which would of course be very nice, if we were not to concern ourselves with the public at large, we would discover that there would soon be an increasingly inimical concern for us on the part of the public. The more we fail to concern ourselves with the signs of the times, the more will be the inimical concern for us on the part of everything that can possibly be against us. Only if we find the path, only if with courage we find the straight path to what we should do shall we succeed in navigating the ship of the Anthroposophical Society through the exceedingly stormy waves which surge and break around it. What we should do is the following: As a small Society we face the world, a world—you know the one I mean—which actually does not love us. It does not love us. This is a fact we cannot alter. But on the other hand there is no need to do anything on purpose to make ourselves unpopular. I do not mean this in a superficial sense but in a deeper sense of which I speak from the foundations of occult life. If we ask ourselves over and over again what we must do to make ourselves better liked by this circle or by that circle in the world, by any circle which does not like us today; if we keep asking ourselves how we should behave in this field or in that field so as to be taken seriously here or there; if we do this, we shall most certainly not be taken seriously. We shall only be taken seriously if at every moment in whatever we do we feel responsible towards the spiritual world. We must know that the spiritual world wants to achieve a certain thing with mankind at this particular moment in historical evolution; it wants to achieve this in the most varied realms of life, and it is up to us clearly and truly to follow the impulses that come from the spiritual world. Though this might give offence initially, in the long run it is the only beneficial way. Therefore we shall also only come to terms among ourselves if at every opportunity we steep ourselves in whatever impulses can come out of the spiritual world.

So now, having given these indications, which I shall bring to completion over the next few days, I once more want to repeat before you at least a part of those words which were spoken to you yesterday in accordance with the will of the spiritual world. May they stand as an introduction in our souls again today as we enter into our discussions.

Soul of Man!
Thou livest in the limbs
Which bear thee through the world of space
In the spirit's ocean-being.
Practise spirit-recalling in depths of soul,
Where in the wielding will
Of world-creating
Thine own I
Comes to being
Within God's I.
And thou wilt truly live
In the World-Being of Man.
Soul of Man!

Thou livest in the beat of heart and lung
Which leads thee through the rhythm of time
Into the realm of thine own soul's feeling.
Practise spirit-awareness
In balance of the soul,
Where the surging deeds
Of the world's becoming
Thine own I
Unite
With the World-I.
And thou wilt truly feel
In the Soul-Weaving of Man.

Soul of Man!
Thou livest in the resting head
Which from the grounds of eternity
Opens to thee the world-thoughts.
Practise spirit-beholding
In stillness of thought,
Where the eternal aims of Gods
World-Being's Light
On thine own I
Bestow
For thy free willing.
And thou wilt truly think
In the Spirit-Foundations of Man.

We can work rightly with words such as these, which are heard coming from the Cosmic Word, if we arrange them in our own soul in such a way that they cannot depart from us again. And it will be possible for them to be so arranged if, amongst all that has resounded, you first highlight that part which can give you the rhythm. Dear friends, let me write down here first of all the part that can indicate the rhythm:

In the first verse: Spirit-recalling,
in the second verse: Spirit-awareness,
in the third verse: Spirit-beholding.

Contemplate this in its rhythmical connection with what is brought about in the human soul which is called upon, the human soul which is called upon by itself, through the words:

Thine own I
Comes to being
Within God's I—,

consider the rhythm linked with ‘spirit-awareness’ when you hear:

Thine own I
Unite
With the World-I—,

and the rhythm linked with ‘spirit-beholding’ when you hear:

On thine own I
Bestow
For thy free willing—.

Take in this way each phrase so that it can only stand as I have written it here. Take what comes rhythmically out of the Cosmic Rhythm: ‘own I within God's I’, ‘own I in the World-I’, ‘own I in free willing’. And take what rises up from ‘comes to being’ to ‘unite’ to ‘bestow’, where there is the transition to moral feeling. Feel the connection with ‘spirit-recalling’, ‘spirit-awareness’ and ‘spirit-beholding’. Then you will have in the inner rhythm what it is during these few days that the spiritual world is bringing to us to raise our hearts, to illumine our thinking, to give wings and enthusiasm to our willing.

I now have a telegram to read to you: ‘Christmas greetings, best wishes, Ethel Morgenstierne.’ And now may I ask the representative of Honolulu, Madame Ferreri, to speak.

Madame Ferreri reports.

Dr. Steiner: May I now ask the representative of Italy, Baroness de Renzis, to speak.

Baroness de Renzis reports.

Dr. Steiner: May I perhaps suggest that certain questions raised here, such as that of accepting applications for membership on the basis of correspondence only, and similar matters, shall be discussed later when we consider the Statutes.

Dr. Steiner: The Duke of Cesaro will also give a report concerning Italy on behalf of the Novalis Group in Rome.

The Duke of Cesaro reports.

Dr. Steiner: Now may I ask Fräulein Schwarz to speak on behalf of the other Italian group.

Fräulein Schwarz reports on behalf of the group in Milan.

Dr. Steiner: Now would the representative of the work in Yugoslavia, Herr Hahl, please speak.

Herr Hahl reports.

Dr. Steiner: May I ask the representative of the Norwegian Society, Herr Ingerö, to speak.

Herr Ingerö speaks.

Dr. Steiner: Now may I ask the representative of the Council of the Austrian Society, Count Polzer, to speak.

Count Polzer speaks.

Dr. Steiner: Now may I ask the representative of the group in Porto Alegre in Brazil, Dr Unger, to speak.

Dr. Unger: Allow me in a few words to carry out a commission which I was most delighted to accept. For quite some time we have been corresponding with friends over there, mostly from Germany, who had emigrated and had begun to work there anthroposophically. Herr Brandtner in particular has been writing lately. He has made great efforts to get something going in Porto Alegre. And connected with this, work is also going on in other South American towns which will gradually be co-ordinated so that independent centres from which to work may be set up there too. For this purpose Herr Mayen from Breslau was asked by the friends over there to go out, first of all to Rio. He will gradually take on work in a number of towns. I have been particularly asked to give voice to the sympathetic interest of the friends over there. Everything that comes to us from over there expresses the most intimate interest in all that has to do with Dornach and whatever continues to come from Dornach. As often as possible someone comes to Europe and we hope most fervently that anthroposophical life may soon start to blossom there in the most intensive way. Just as I bring greetings from our friends over there, so I hope that when I report back to Porto Alegre I may also be permitted to send them from here our good wishes for the prospering of the work in Porto Alegre.

Dr. Steiner: May I now ask the representative of the Swedish Anthroposophical Society, Fräulein Henström, to speak.

Fräulein Henström reports.

Dr. Steiner: May I now ask the representative of the Swiss Anthroposophical Society, Herr Aeppli, to speak.

Herr Aeppli reports.

Dr. Steiner: May I now ask the representative of the Council in Czechoslovakia, Dr Krkavec, to speak.

Dr. Krkavec reports.

Dr. Steiner: May I now ask the other representative of the Council in Czechoslovakia, Dr Eiselt, to speak.

Dr Eiselt reports.

Dr. Steiner: This brings the reports to a close. I believe I may be allowed to say that you are all, with me, exceedingly grateful to those who have given them. For they enable us to see that we have a foundation on which to base our new work, since now we know how much truly great, devoted and varied work is being done and has already been done in the Anthroposophical Society.

Now I should like to move on to the third point on our agenda, consideration of the Statutes. First the Statutes must be read out. Though you all have a copy, I would nevertheless like to ask that they be read out once more, so that we can then commence the discussion of each point. Would Dr Wachsmuth now please read the Statutes in accordance with point three of our agenda.

Dr. Wachsmuth reads out the Statutes of the Anthroposophical Society.

Dr. Steiner: As you will have gathered from various remarks I have made, it would be really good if on the one hand our meeting could be allowed to run as freely as possible amongst its individual members. However, on the other hand, if a proper discussion is to take place, it is necessary for us to be quite strict in conducting the debate. So please take this not as pedantry but as a necessity applicable to any gathering. Today we have run out of time, so I would ask you that we continue this meeting tomorrow after Dr Wachsmuth's lecture. Tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock Dr Wachsmuth will give his lecture. Then we shall break for a quarter of an hour before continuing the meeting. At this meeting I should like to conduct the proceedings as follows. Not in order to be pedantic but so that we can be as efficient as possible there will first be a kind of general debate on the Statutes, a debate in which first of all the whole attitude, meaning and spirit of the Statutes in general is discussed.

Then I shall ask you to agree to the Statutes in general, after which we shall open a detailed debate in which we take one Paragraph at a time, when contributors will be asked to speak only to the Paragraph under consideration. There will then be a concluding debate leading to the final adoption of the Statutes. This is how I would ask you to proceed tomorrow when we discuss the Statutes.

Now I have to announce that our Conference continues this afternoon with a eurythmy performance at 4.30 and my lecture at 8 o'clock this evening. Tomorrow at 10 o'clock we shall hear Dr Guenther Wachsmuth's lecture in the field of natural science about the face of the earth and the destiny of man. Then after a quarter of an hour's break we shall continue with this meeting.

I also have several more announcements to make. As I had to stress earlier, before we began our meeting, it is quite difficult, because there are so many of us—and it is of course wonderful that there are so many dear friends here—to hold this gathering together. You cannot tell, just by coming to the meetings, how difficult it is. Of course we are deeply sorry that the primitive quarters here are causing such discomfort and so many problems for our dear friends. Nevertheless, I have to ask that in future not more than three seats are held by any one person. I have to say this because it has happened that whole rows of seats have been held by a single person, and this has led to innumerable discussions with those who have come in later.

Then I should like to remind you of the wish we expressed earlier that the two front rows be reserved for those dear friends who are either disabled or deaf or need special consideration for any other reason. If there are any seats left in these two rows, which is sure to be the case, then please leave them free for the General Secretaries of the different countries and for the secretaries who might be accompanying them. It will become necessary in the next few days to have the General Secretaries together here where they can be seen rather than scattered all over the hall.

Thirdly I would perhaps like once more to ask our Dornach friends—truly I have nothing personal against them—to take their seats next door in the ‘summer villa’.⁴⁴ I know it is most inhospitable in this rainy and snowy weather, but all we can do is ask our Dornach friends to put up with the rain so that the friends from further afield can sit here in the hall away from the rain.

Also I would like to mention that from today the upper canteen will be open in the evening for those friends who are quartered in the dormitories or other inhospitable places, so that they may have somewhere to go that is heated. Food and drink will not be served then, but I hope that the conversations that can take place there will be all the more stimulating and encouraging. So although it will not be possible to quench hunger and thirst, it will be possible to keep as warm as may be in the evenings after my lecture until 11 o'clock at night.

Furthermore I want to draw your attention to the following: Mr Pyle in the most admirable way has modelled a very fine money-box⁴⁵ which he has had produced. You will find these money-boxes outside the doors. If you look at them carefully you will find that the beautiful forms tempt you to want to own such a money-box yourselves. They are for sale, so you can buy one and take it home and put something in it every day. When it is full you can use what you have collected to put towards the re-building of the Goetheanum, or for any other purposes related to the Goetheanum. Let me point out that even if you only put in 10 Rappen every day—think what you might spend this on each day—by the end of the year you will have saved quite a tidy sum. I can see my respected friends here are already working out how much! You will find that it will be a worthwhile amount. But I don't want to encourage you to put in only 10 Rappen. I would rather you put in whatever amount you consider proper, or whatever you feel obliged to put in even if you don't think it proper.

Those who find it difficult for one reason or another to take a money-box home with them will see that similar money-boxes have been set out here into which they may put something. Naturally if you do not have your own money-box to take home, it would be a good thing if you could delve deeply into your purse while you are here, so that these money-boxes may be filled. We shall have no trouble in seeing to it that they are rapidly emptied.

Finally I would please ask that spectators at the Christmas Plays refrain from booking their seats for the evening lectures.

You see, without all these many wishes—let us not call them prohibitions—we shall be unable to keep the Conference going in an orderly manner.

Now, my dear friends, I adjourn this meeting until the appointed hour tomorrow.

• 44. This designation for the extension built on to the carpentry workshop for the occasion of the Christmas Conference referred to ‘the chilly draught which blew there permanently’ (Ernst Lehrs Gelebte Erwartung, Stuttgart, 1979).
• 45. On the basis of a pencil drawing by Rudolf Steiner.

Originally published in Anthroposophical Quarterly, Volume 22, Number 4, Winter 1977.

Yesterday I called your attention to the fact that the birth of Jesus gradually conquered men’s hearts and souls, that the Christmas Plays which can now be performed, only developed little by little their present beautiful form, together with that atmosphere of earnest devotion which streamed into them during the times when they were at their height. It is really still possible to say of the early forms of these Christmas Plays that people tried, in an entirely secular mood, to participate in something which they had seen for centuries in a form which they could not grasp. We may say that Christ, the Child, conquered the hearts of men only gradually. Indeed, He conquered the hearts of men quite slowly. In the 8th, 9th, 10th and 11th centuries, when the people themselves gradually began to take part in the Plays which in the past could be performed only by priests, we do not find the noble form which the Christmas Plays assumed later on. We have just seen two examples of these Plays,¹ and I have tried to explain to you their different origin, for they clearly reveal this. The first play has a simple, popular character. Its chief aim is to set forth how the Child, in whom the great Cosmic Spirit incarnated and began to work on earth, entered the world as a Child, and how He was, on the one hand, received by the publicans and on the other hand by the shepherds. This appears particularly in the first Christmas Play which was performed yesterday: the great difference in the reception given to the Child by the publicans and by the shepherds comes to expression in it.

The other Christmas Play is quite different. It immediately reveals to us that wise men—and for the people of those days wise men were at the same time Kings, Magi—had read in the stars what a significant destiny was awaiting mankind. In the action of this Play we therefore see ancient occult wisdom. And in the course of the action we see that in accordance with this occult wisdom, with these truths discovered in the stars, Herod enters the earthly events and faces us as the one by whose side we clearly recognise Evil, the Principle that remained backward, the devilish Ahrimanic-Luciferic principle. We see how the Christ Principle and the Luciferic-Ahrimanic Principle confront each other. But we also see the manifestation of forces which enter the course of events from the spiritual world. The Angels appear, as the manifestation of guidance from spiritual spheres; they lead and guide the action in order to frustrate Herod’s aims, and the events follow another course. Forces from the spiritual world pervade the will of men.—This is consequently a play containing forces which undoubtedly lead us beyond the events pertaining merely to the earth.

When we consider how these two plays face each other, one of them filled by the primitive conception of common folk, and the other by a wisdom which really indicates a primeval wisdom of the earth’s development, then we are induced to call up within ourselves thoughts concerning the events which took place in the course of time and the whole significance of the Mystery of Golgotha for the evolution of the earth.

Let us bear in mind that at the time—but this in a wider meaning—at the time when the Mystery of Golgotha took place, there existed in certain circles a profound wisdom in connection with spiritual matters. This deep wisdom which existed at that time is called Gnosis.

In the external world, when considering the course of Europe’s spiritual culture, we may say: This Gnosis, this deeply spiritual science which existed in connection with the mysteries of the spiritual world, vanished from the cultural life of Europe, as far as the outer world is concerned,—and in the spiritual life of the 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th centuries, etc., there existed only a very dim idea of what was contained in this science.

Those who knew something (I mean, those who knew what could be known by a Christian priest, a Christian scientist), those who had the knowledge which could be acquired in those days, were only aware of the existence of the Gnosis, because people had opposed it in the early Christian centuries, because opponents had fought against the Gnosis. Imagine the situation if to-day all the books and lecture-cycles which constitute our Anthroposophical literature were to be suppressed and burned, so that nothing remained—if the only writings on Anthroposophy available to posterity were books written by opponents! Imagine the situation that in centuries to come, people were to get hold of these books written by antagonists, acquiring from these their conception of the truths contained in our writings! This is what happened to the Gnosis.

An outstanding writer of the early Church was Irenaeus, the pupil of Bishop Polycarp of Asia Minor, who had been a disciple of the Apostles. But Irenaeus wrote as an opponent of the Gnosis. In the course of the centuries, the teachings of the Gnostics were gathered by reading what Irenaeus had written as a refutation of the Gnosis. In regard to this ancient wisdom, we must reckon with everything brought about by the circumstance that these teachings were trans-mitted by an opponent.

This shows you that the whole development of the Occident is really based on the fact that something handed down from past ages was blotted out, stamped out completely. Outwardly we see how new was the beginning brought by the Mystery of Golgotha, what an entirely new impulse it brought to the culture of the West. In reality it began everywhere with an entirely new impulse. Indeed, I might use the following comparison: The ancient writings lay deeply buried underground, like some ancient-city covered by the earth; deeply buried, when we consider the writings of Ambrose and Augustine, old Fathers of the Church, to Scotus, and so forth. A new beginning, a new element arose like a new city over apparently new ground, under which an ancient city lies buried, whose aspect is unknown. This is what took place in the course of the development of European culture.

If there is to be a spiritual deepening in the present age, it is therefore evident that this must be drawn out of man’s own forces and that human beings themselves must discover truths which cannot be handed on to them traditionally from outside, at least not in the course of the spiritual development of Europe. And it is out of the question (I cannot deal with this to-day, for it would lead us too far away from our subject), it is out of the question to draw in Oriental documents as a substitute for the external documents which have been lost in the spiritual life of the Occident. This is impossible for the simple reason that the Oriental documents convey something which is far more primitive than that which developed in the world by spreading from Asia Minor to North Africa, Southern Europe, and even as far as Central Europe. Spiritual knowledge was blotted out completely in the early Christian centuries; it reached posterity only through the writings of opponents.

The Gnostic writings which have been destroyed, do not only contain a knowledge of the spiritual worlds, the spiritual knowledge of these worlds—apart from the truths relating to Christ—but also the whole encompassing spiritual wisdom of ancient times in connection with the Mystery of Christ Jesus. The loss of these documents implies the loss of all this knowledge. The Gnostics (—if we wish to give them this name—) tried to grasp in their own way the course of the earth’s development and the true nature of Christ. In those days it was not yet possible to grasp these things as they can be grasped now, by drawing down from the spiritual worlds truths which need not be recorded in writing, because they exist in an immediately living form in the spiritual world. In those days the truths relating to the real being of Christ-Jesus could not be drawn down in this way. But certain truths relating to Christ-Jesus were known in an older form of wisdom which has been lost.

Quite recently, a few scant remains of a book entitled Pistis-Sophia were discovered, and of another one entitled "The Mystery of Jeû". Also in an external way, they draw, as it were, attention to the fact that the truths relating to Christ, which we should now strive to attain with the aid of anthroposophical methods, are not as foolish as the opponents of our Movement wish to make them appear. Only a small fragment, in Coptic writing, has been preserved of the "Book of Jeû"; nevertheless it calls attention to the fact that what we read in the Gospels is not the only wisdom which lived in the thoughts of men during the first centuries of Christian development.

The "Book of Jeû" describes how, after His Resurrection, Christ spoke to those who were at that time able to understand Him, to those who had become His disciples. The strange thing about this "Book of Jeû" (I mean, the small existing fragment of this book) is that it clearly speaks of Christ and of His true being in a way which differs completely from the Gospel of St. John. There is one thing which recurs again and again in this book, which clearly shows that it seeks to attract our attention to something quite definitive. This thing to which it draws attention over and over again, may, in other words, be explained as follows:

Suppose that in those days someone had wished to explain why Christ Jesus had entered the evolution of the earth; he would have had to do it in the following way—To those who were able to understand him, he would have said: "Behold, a new age is dawning, in which man will enter the future epoch of the development of the Consciousness-Soul. An age is approaching when the world will have to be grasped through man’s external physical organs, through organs which are essentially connected with the physical body. This age is approaching. The age in which revelations could be obtained through an originally primitive clairvoyance has gone by. Past is the age when knowledge could be gathered, not only by using the physical body with its instruments, but by using the etheric body independently of the physical body. This age has gone by—henceforth people will have to use as their only instrument the physical body. But also in future it will be possible to know things which in the past could only be known through the etheric body. In the external world, there will only exist a knowledge connected with the physical body, which is subjected to death. But a knowledge of the spiritual world cannot be gained through the instruments linked with the physical body. A Helper must come who kindles the etheric element in man, a Helper connected with the living essence, with everything in man’s earthly life which does not pertain to the earth. A Helper must come, Who tears out of the indolent, lifeless, physical body an understanding which is able to grasp the spiritual world, an understanding which lives in man and is connected with heaven; that understanding which cannot be crucified by the world, because it belongs to heaven, the understanding which crucifies the world, that is to say, which overcomes the world."

We should imagine that in earlier epochs, when people could not yet see Christ in His true Being, as He passed through the Mystery of Golgotha, they still felt connected with the spiritual world through the etheric body. When the physical body hardened more and more, thus becoming the instrument it is now, it was necessary that One should come, Christ, in order to draw a living essence out of the indolent instrument of the physical body. This is what we should imagine.

But let us now consider this "Book of Jeû". After having passed through the Mystery of Golgotha, Christ spoke to those who had learned to lean on Him and on the wisdom contained in His words: He said,

"I loved you, and I wished to give you Life."

In the words, "and I wished to give you Life", we hear that He wished to draw the indolent physical body out of its indolence, by giving it something which only the etheric body can give.

"Jesus, the Living One, is the Knowledge of Truth."

The Living One—that is, He who passed through the Mystery of Golgotha—speaks in such a way as to appear as the Representative of Life. The text then continues:

"This is the Book dealing with the Knowledge of the Invisible God through the hidden Mysteries"—, that is to say, of Mysteries which lie concealed in man—"which indicate the path to man’s chosen Being, leading in silence to the life of the Father of the World, in the arrival of the Redeemer, the Saviour of the souls who receive within them the Word of Life, higher than every other life—, in the knowledge of Jesus, the Living One, Who through the Father came out of the Aeon of Light into the All-ness of the Pleroma"—(i.e. of the other Aeons, of all the Spiritual Beings)—"in the teaching, which cannot be matched by any other, the teaching given by Jesus, the Living One, to His Apostles, when He said: This is the Teaching in which the whole Knowledge reposes."

We should thus imagine the Risen One Who passed through the Mystery of Golgotha speaking to His Disciples, who had learned to listen to Him.

Jesus, the Living One, began to speak to His Apostles as follows:

"Blessed is he who crucified the world and who did not let the world crucify him" (he who can grasp that part in man which cannot be conquered by matter, by external physical matter).

The Apostles replied unanimously by saying: "Teach us, O Lord, this way of crucifying the world, that the world may not crucify us, and we may not perish and lose our life."

Jesus, the Living One, answered and spoke: "He who has crucified the world is one who has found my Word and fulfils it in accordance with the will of Him who sent me."

And the Apostles replied by saying: "Speak to us, O Lord, that we may hear you! We followed you with all our heart, we left father and mother, vineyards and fields, we left estates and the glory of the external king and we followed you, that you might teach us the Life of your Father, who sent you." And Christ, the Living One, met this appeal of His apostles by revealing to them what He had to say.

Christ, the Living One answered and spoke: "The Life of my Father is this: that out of the human essence of that understanding you receive your soul, which is not of this earth …"

What the Living One expects, is this: That those who are His disciples should grasp that in man lives an understanding of spiritual things which may tear itself away from the physical body, an understanding that is not of this earth. If they call to life within them this understanding, they will in truth have grasped His Word.

… "this essence of every soul, may be grasped through what I reveal to you in the progress of my Word. And that you may fulfil it, and this before the Archon" (—i.e. before the essence of this Aeon, this age—), "his snares" (the Ahrimanic-Lucifer Being) "and his traps, which have no end,—that you may be saved from these. But you, my disciples, hasten to receive my Word with greatest care, so that you may recognise it, and that the Archon of this Aeon" (i.e. the Ahrimanic-Luciferic) "may not be at strife with you, because he cannot find any of his commands in me" (—he therefore finds his commands outside the One who passed through the Mystery of Golgotha): "that you yourselves, O! my Apostles, may fulfil it in regard to myself, and that I myself may free you, and you be hallowed by that freedom which has no blemish. Even as the Spirit of the Holy Ghost is holy, so will you become holy through the freedom of the Spirit, of the Holy Spirit."

Unanimously the Apostles—Matthew and John, Philip, Bartholomew and James—replied by saying:

"O! Jesus, Living One, whose goodness is spread out over those who have found your wisdom and your form in the Illumination, O! Light, burning in the Light you have kindled in our hearts, when we received the Light of Life, O veritable Logos, that through the Gnosis, has become for us true knowledge of what the Living One has taught!"

Jesus, the Living One, answered and spoke: "Blessed is he who recognises this and leads heaven down to the earth." (i.e. who is conscious of the fact that there is something in him which is not dependent on his earthly body, but on the Beings of Heaven, and who leads into the earthly events that part in him which is connected with heaven.)

"Blessed is he who recognises this and leads heaven downwards, who carries the earth and sends it up to heaven" (—who connects the earthly part in him with the heavenly, so that when he passes through the portal of death with the fruits of his earthly life, he may lead the earth back to heaven).

The Apostles replied by saying: "Jesus, Living One, explain to us how we may bring down heaven to earth. For we have followed you, in order that you might teach us the true Light."

And Jesus, the Living One, answered and spoke: “The Word that lives in heaven”—(He means, the wisdom or knowledge which may be gained independently of man’s physical being) ... “the Word lived in heaven before the earth, which is called world, came into being. But if you know my Word, you will lead heaven down to earth and the Word will dwell in you. Heaven is the invisible Word of the Father. If you know this, you will lead heaven down to the earth. I will teach you how the earth may be sent up to heaven, that you may know: To send the earth up to heaven, is to listen to the Word of Knowledge, that is no longer mere knowledge of an earthly human being, but knowledge of a heavenly human being ...” (one who has severed his understanding from the external physical body, who has ceased to be an earthly human being and has become a heavenly human being. His understanding has ceased to be earthly: it has become heavenly).

"You will instead be saved from the Archon of this Aeon" (from the Ahrimanic-Luciferic Being).

Here, therefore, is a fragment which has been preserved and has been found again, a fragment which calls attention to the infinitely profound knowledge which once—during the first centuries of the Christian era—connected man with the secret of the Mystery of Golgotha.

Editor’s Note

The two independent discoveries in the forties of this century of the Coptic manuscripts in Upper Egypt in 1945 and the Dead Sea Scrolls in 1947 have both proved of very great importance for the study of primitive Christianity. In particular, the Scrolls have led the way to a new understanding of the Messianic prophecies while the Coptic manuscripts, apparently the library of a Gnostic sect, have given unexpected opportunity to learn at first hand the teachings and beliefs of various sects, or groups, belonging to a widespread spiritual movement active in the first and second centuries of our era.

Of the few discoveries of Gnostic writings made earlier it is invaluable to have Dr. Steiner’s interpretation of the concepts that appear in the fragments from the Books of Jeû, with his interpretation of the phraseology which may be almost incomprehensible to the reader of today. Now that some of the new discoveries are available in English translation they can be approached in the light of this lecture, and much that seems incomprehensible—even bizarre—reveals itself as having a meaning based on a profound spiritual knowledge. Of the new discoveries, perhaps the books that comprise what is called The Jung Codex have excited the most interest. They were sent to Dr. Carl Jung at Zurich on account of the fact that he was known to be deeply interested in Gnosticism. These writings were first made known to the public in a newspaper report of November 1953, just on thirty three years after Rudolf Steiner gave his lecture.

In one of his Letters to the Members (No. 22 in The Michael Mystery) Dr. Steiner wrote of the Gnosis and its relation to Anthroposophy, pointing out that the Gnosis was properly connected with the development of the Sentient Soul while Anthroposophy is, "by the light of Michael’s agency, to evolve out of the Spiritual Soul a new form of understanding of Christ and the World."

• 1. A Shepherds Play from the Palatinate and a Three King’s Play from Oberufer, near Pressburg. These plays were performed at Dornach on the stage of the Schreinerei for the first time at Christmas 1915.