The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The human soul's experiences in ordinary consciousness during its existence on earth come to expression in thinking, feeling and willing. Their actual background, however, must be sought in what I have described here as man's astral organism and ego being. I have shown how the part of the soul that does the thinking relates in a specific way to the head organization; how the part of the soul that produces the feelings has a somewhat different connection to the rhythmic system, to the breathing, the circulation and other rhythmic processes. In a much looser way, the will nature of the soul is connected with the physical and etheric organisms.

When we examine how the nature of the thinking-soul is connected with the head system, we find that it is devoted entirely to it, it is transformed, as it were, into the head organization. The head organization forms a physical and etheric replica of the part of the soul involved in thinking: therefore, when man really thinks in waking everyday life, he cannot actually observe the process of thinking in himself but must seek it in its replica in the physical and etheric processes of the brain and the rest of the nervous system. This is why the anatomy and physiology of the brain are the real domain for the physical part of a science of the soul, because the replicas of what goes on in thinking can really be observed in the structure of the brain, and thereby also in its processes.

The part of the soul expressed in feeling is not devoted in the same way to the physical and etheric organisms, neither has it become a part of them. We can say of it that at times it is devoted entirely to the breathing and the blood circulation, streaming into them so that it becomes as if invisible to imaginative and inspired vision; we focus on it and see that it slips into the breathing and circulatory processes. At times, the feeling-soul tears itself away from these processes, it becomes independent and exhibits within itself a formative activity of its own. Thus, the feeling-soul slips, so to speak, into the circulatory system and then withdraws, slips in again, and so on.

The part of the soul that is the basis for the human will behaves quite differently. It is neither devoted continually to the physical and etheric organisms, nor does it become involved in an alternation of permeating the two organisms and withdrawing from them; rather, by its own powers, it holds itself aloof from the physical and etheric parts of man's organism. It has an independent existence of its own by means of its own capacities. By virtue of these forces, it actually remains within the soul and spirit realm, and would stay there if nothing else intervened. We can therefore say that in this willing-soul, the soul's nature always remains soul-spiritual, even during life on earth. When, through intuition, you receive insight into the actual reality that exists behind the willing-soul, you are able to study the lasting soul-spiritual being of man in this will element. There is, nevertheless, a kind of surrendering of the willing-soul to the physical organism, an out-pouring into it, but it is neither continuous as is the case with the thinking-soul, nor is it a rhythmical alternation as with the feeling-soul. Instead, it is like this: When, for example, our thinking-soul takes hold of a thought by means of the head organization, which, because of its content, is in itself an impulse for willing something, then, the process that takes place in mere contemplation does not occur. Only the head organization is involved when a person ponders the affairs of the world without arriving at an act of the will. Through the thinking activity, the head organization is worn down, or is at least brought toward a tendency to a breakdown, to dissolution and death, as I described yesterday. But if we formulate the thought, “I will this or that,” then the activity that belongs to the thinking-soul spreads out from the head organization into the metabolic and limb organism. When a man has a thought that represents an intention of the will, intuition perceives how an astral activity pulses into some part of the metabolic or even the limb system. Then, through such a thought that arouses the will, a degenerative process takes place not only in the head system but also the metabolic organs and the limbs. Destructive processes arise through such thoughts. These destructive processes in turn cause the willing-soul that underlies the human will as reality to pour into the metabolic or limb system and to restore a balance by rebuilding what has been worn down by the thought.

If I want to illustrate this clearly, this is what happens: I have the thought: I will lift my arm. This thought then shoots out of the head organization into the arm, there it induces a degenerative process of destruction. It can be called a form of combustion. Something in the configuration of my arm is destroyed. The part of the astral organism that corresponds to the willing-soul follows in the wake of the degenerative process, enters the arm and repairs the damage. The lifting of my arm takes place during this regeneration,—what was burned up is restored and the actual act of the will occurs during this restoration.

Now the true ego being is contained in that part of the astral organism that underlies the soul's will impulses; so, whenever the will is stirred into action, the ego is aroused. When we observe how man unfolds his will, we gain insight into how the human astral organism and the ego being stream into the physical and etheric bodies in response to a certain stimulus. This also happens when an expression of the will occurs that does not require that I set my limbs in motion, but that is perhaps a supplementary impulse or maybe a fairly vivid wish. There, something similar also takes place, only much more inward parts of the human organism are permeated by the actual will nature of the soul.

You can see that the unfolding of the will can be studied in all its details, but in order to do so you require a knowledge of man's actual soul and spirit being. Without this insight, you cannot study the willing-soul, nor arrive at the ego being, for the latter expresses itself only in a weak replica in thinking, it appears on as an impulse in feeling, and has its true reality in earthly life only in the will. Aside from this unfolding of the will that follows a certain inducement, an element that corresponds to the human will as a reality is the continuous desire in the whole human organization for the physical body. Subconsciously, in the will nature of the soul, man longs, as it were, to be enclothed in the metabolic and limb systems of his body. If we go further into this part of the human soul, we see through this will nature into depths, into substrata of the human soul life, into processes of the soul that are completely hidden from ordinary consciousness.

I have already shown that ordinary consciousness remains completely unaware of the processes of degeneration and regeneration which take place in the human body. But aside from these activities that the human soul unfolds and that come into consideration in regard to the ordinary impulses of the will, there exist other processes, subconscious processes in man's being which are very real, but do not project their effects up into ordinary consciousness at all during earthly life. They are described below.

We saw yesterday how a continuous evaluation of the moral and moral-spiritual nature of man takes place in the feeling-soul. The process that only lights up as a weak reflection in consciousness as stirrings of conscience, as evaluations of one's own actions, is a very significant, incisive activity in the subconscious sphere. Everything that a person does, he also evaluates in his subconscious soul organization; on this level, it only comes to an assessment. But something additional and quite different occurs in the part of the soul that corresponds to the will. In the course of earthly life, we see how the astral body and ego, which are linked to this will nature, actually build up an inner entity of man—it is only dully alive—by means of the astral and ego forces in the cosmos. Indeed, it is like this: By inwardly evaluating our own capabilities, we bring to birth an astral being that exists within us and grows increasingly larger. This being contains these evaluations as facts, whereas the feeling-soul only causes the evaluations to arise, as it were, like a thought process, or—after it has happened—like a subconscious memory-thought. After the deed has been done, something additional arises in the willing-soul. The judgement, “I have perpetrated an evil deed,” turns into a being in us. With this being, we possess something within us that is the actualized evaluation of man's deeds.

Now, as you have just seen from this description, something lasting is contained in this will nature of the soul, something that was also present before man descended from the soul-spiritual world into a physical-etheric organism. In this spirit-part of the soul, this willing-soul, the after-effect of the soul-spiritual existence is at work to build up a human organism once again, for that was its activity in pre-earthly life. It is hindered now only by the presence of the physical organism; its activity cannot unfold since it bumps against all the protrusions and walls, so to speak, of the physical organization, but the tendency remains. Now, the reality that I have just described, the being that represents the actualized evaluation of the moral and moral-spiritual nature of man, unites with this tendency. Thus, we bear within us an entity in which flow together the impulses to form a new organism and the realized moral evaluation. We bear this being through the portal of death when our earthly life has come to an end.

From my descriptions you have seen that regenerative and degenerative forces are constantly present in the human organism, forces that cause dying and revitalizing, forces that dampen and arouse life. We find benumbing forces in the thinking-soul, revitalizing ones in the willing-soul. This battle between death and life accompanies us throughout our sojourn on earth. When we bring it to a close we carry the unconsciously developed result of our moral qualities into the spiritual world.

You have seen from the descriptions that I gave in the past few days that in the moment when man passes through the gate of death his consciousness, until now only an earthly one, expands into a cosmic consciousness. Just as man becomes accustomed on earth to live in a physical organization and feels himself enclosed within the skin of his body, he finds his way after death into the expanses of the cosmos. His former surroundings now become his inner content. His consciousness becomes a cosmic consciousness. The question then arises: What happens to the evaluation of the moral qualities of man, when, having passed through the portal of death, the human being receives this cosmic consciousness and has the desire to form a new physical and etheric organism? The answer to this will be given in the second part of today's considerations.

Before I can answer the question that I have just posed, I have to characterize several points concerning the course of man's earthly life in the light of the above described conditions. You have seen that continuous degeneration and regeneration go on in the human organism. This destruction and revitalization take place throughout life between birth and death. Inasmuch as we are thinking soul beings we must deteriorate, as beings of will we must restore what has been worn down. As feeling beings, we bring about an interplay between degeneration and regeneration. Therefore, the soul elements represented inwardly as thinking, feeling and willing are expressed as processes of destruction, recreation and an interplay between the two. These processes in the human organization, which are extremely complicated, are different for each period of life. They come to expression in a child in one way, in another way in an adult. It is especially important for anyone who raises and teaches children to see by means of a spiritual knowledge of man into this continuous interplay of degenerative and regenerative processes of man. It is important to be aware of this in-streaming of constructive processes into the destructive ones, of destructive ones into the constructive ones; to see how they constantly intermingle in certain parts of the human organization and to discern their effects on it. For you can only educate and teach correctly when you can discern how these forces work in a child and what effect can be brought to bear on them through upbringing and education.

I shall cite just one example of this. There is a big difference between making a child memorize only so much as is good for it, or making it memorize too much so that its memory is over-burdened. Because of the opinion prevailing today concerning the interplay of constructive and destructive processes, one could easily believe that they exert an influence only on the soul organism of the young person. That is not the case. When we make a child memorize too much, it forms thoughts that pertain to memory in an irregular fashion. They find their way into the head system. There, they cause irregularities by continuing on into thoughts of the will, even reaching into the metabolic and limb organism. We can discover that if we have raised and educated a child wrongly in regard to its memory, this error manifests itself, perhaps as late as the age of thirty, forty, or forty-five, in poor digestion and metabolic disturbances.

I only mention this as an example that is close at hand. These matters are most complicated. It is a fact that out of a spiritual insight into man a true teacher can estimate and survey the extent of what he undertakes with a child in respect to both body and soul. Genuine, true pedagogy can therefore only be established on the basis of a knowledge of man that views the physical corporeality and the soul and spirit, and also comprehends the interplay between these three members of man's total being. Such a pedagogy has been created within our anthroposophical movement. It becomes a reality in the Waldorf School, also in certain attempts at continuing education here at Dornach. But it must be stated once and for all that the mere sense-derived science that is generally accepted today can never establish a true pedagogy. This becomes possible only through an anthroposophical deepening of scientific life. Some of the details of what has now been touched upon will be further elaborated upon in the lectures tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.¹

Furthermore, clairvoyant sight beholds a certain interplay of destructive and constructive activities, an intermingling in one way or another of the two in the whole human body and in the individual organs depending on the state of a man's health. We can only learn to understand illnesses and their various symptoms by tracing the manner in which degenerative processes gain the upper hand over the whole organism, over one organ or a group of organs, causing the organism to become unyielding and hard; or how regenerative processes gain control, leading to unrestrained life and growth. We also learn to recognize how the destructive processes penetrate the constructive ones in erratic ways and permeate them with undigested products of the metabolism. In short, just as it is important for the teacher to be able to judge the normal course of these processes in a child, so it is important for one dealing with the sick to have insight into the abnormal processes of degeneration and regeneration.

Now, if we gain insight into the various kingdoms of nature around us in the physical world—the mineral, plant, and in part the animal kingdom—we find everything permeated by hidden soul-spiritual elements. In a particular kind of plant, for example, we find regenerative forces, which, when prepared in a certain way and introduced into the human organism, are effective against such destructive, pathologically abnormal processes. In short, we find medications for the abnormal processes in outer nature. The connection between medicines and an illness can only be perceived by looking into man's organism in the way just characterized. In everything that can be undertaken in some way for an ailing organism—be it the application of external medications, or that the ailing organism is treated in a manner one does not treat the healthy organism, or that supplements are found for what the body itself cannot do—whether it is such correctly employed measures or what I have put forward as Curative Eurythmy, one always seeks by such means to bring into balance again in the organism the rampant processes of regeneration or the destructive processes that exceed the norm.

You see that medicine that is based merely on a sense-oriented science must be supplemented and expanded by what can result from spiritual insight, from a knowledge of the total human being. Since, in physiology and anatomy, physical science is able to judge only the outer aspects of man's organization, it is able to find the relationship of a medication to an illness only through external experimentation. Inspiration, imagination and intuition make it possible to view simultaneously the inner connection of a medication or a healing process with the nature of the sickness. In place of a merely experimental, empirical therapy, it is possible to attain to a rational therapy that has insight into the human being and the healing processes. I can only refer to this in passing today, but from this you can see that a starting point for an extension of pathology as well as therapy along the lines described above is contained in what is being established as anthroposophical knowledge. These matters have already assumed practical form within our movement. We do not practice in a spirit of medical dilettantism in our therapeutic institutes in Stuttgart and here in Arlesheim. Present-day medicine is fully acknowledged and applied, but our methods of treatment are permeated by what spiritual perception and a spiritual point of view can add to them.

Critics who rely merely on physical science today still claim that what this spiritual science, working out of anthroposophy, has to say about illness and processes of healing is childish. This is quite understandable, coming from people who choose to base their ideas and their work on physical science alone. But I must say that when such people call our methods “childish,” they have no idea of the true facts. Indeed, what physical science produces as anatomy, pathology and therapy is only a substructure for what results for medicine from spiritual observation. I would like to say—not in a derogatory sense, only in reference to certain critics—that if anything is childlike in some respects it is medicine that tries to rely only on physical phenomena. I do not deride what is childlike with this remark, I only want to point out how it is supplemented by what arises out of a spiritual perception regarding man's total being. If you consider all this, you will realize how one must go into details if insight is to be attained into the activities of man's etheric, astral and ego organisms during physical life.

Now, at death, man lays aside his physical organism; it is lost to him. A condition then commences in which man is no longer clothed in a physical body, but in which his ego being and astral organism are still ensheathed in the etheric organism. I have already outlined that what constitutes man's etheric organism is not strictly separated by clear-cut boundaries from the general organization of the etheric cosmos. Streams from this etheric cosmos flow continually in and out of the human etheric organism. This is why, in the moment when man passes through the gate of death, but still carries his etheric organism within him, his consciousness expands into the etheric expanses yet he still feels that the etheric body which has just been drawn out of the physical corporeality is his own. During this state, man is wholly devoted to the etheric experiences of the cosmos, which, for his consciousness, contract now and then into the mere etheric experience of his own organism. After having passed through death, man is, as it were, overpowered by what this cosmic consciousness represents for him. As yet, there arises no conscious contemplation for what I have described as an entity which develops in us and represents the actualized valuations of man's moral qualities. This moral-spiritual being, which has incorporated itself in the astral body, is carried by us through death, but we do not perceive much of it in the very first period after death. Instead, passing in and out of the cosmic element, we are absorbed in beholding the course of our life just completed on earth, for that is the content of the etheric body. For a while, we look back on this earthly life that we have just completed. The course of our life appears directly after death in its inner nature in the same way that it represents itself to imaginative consciousness, as I described it already during the past several days. This condition, however, lasts only a few days, about as long as a person's daytime experiences stimulate the shaping of dreams, which is something that varies with each individual.

As to the form that dreams take, they always correspond directly to the experiences of the day before or the second or third one before that. Just as we dream about something from the day just past, which is linked, however, in an association of thoughts with other, earlier experiences of ours, in the same manner these other experiences also arise in a dream. We dream, for example, about having spoken to someone yesterday about one thing or another; this experience of the past day still enters directly into the life of dreams. We perhaps talked to him in an animated way about someone we met maybe ten years ago and have not seen since. Because this experience has woven itself into the conversation, we dream up all kinds of things about that person. Dreams are not studied correctly. If they were one would recognize these experiences of dream-life for what they are. Now dreaming does vary with different people. One person dreams only about what happened yesterday, another dreams about what he experienced the day before, still another dreams about what happened three or four days earlier. Insofar as this possibility exists for each individual person, this determines the length of the condition after death that a man still remains in the etheric body. I could also characterize it differently and say: The length of this time coincides with the length of time that a man does not require sleep, the time lasting through as many days and nights as he can remain awake without falling asleep. One person falls asleep when he goes only one night without sleeping. Another can stand to be awake for two, three or four nights. Just as long does the experience last during which the human being still remains in his ether body after death.

Then, however, it comes about that we are increasingly caught up by our consciousness which has lived its way into the cosmic-etheric world. Since our etheric organism is now not strictly separated from the cosmic-etheric world, it flows out into it, so to speak. We feel ourselves to be in this cosmic-etheric world, and when we look back upon our etheric body, it already appears larger to us. This continues until at last we no longer possess the etheric body. Then, clad in our astral organism, we find our way into the cosmos and into our new consciousness. It is then that there emerges in man what I have characterized as a being which represents the actualized valuation of man's moral-spiritual qualities. Man feels himself burdened with this being. His nature is then composed of what flows out of him into the cosmos, and the being to which he must return again and again in his experiences after death, namely the being that actually represents the sum total of his moral qualities.

Now, because, in a manner of speaking, the compensatory forces work continually out of the cosmic consciousness in a very real way, an extraordinarily strong tendency arises to say: You must now confront the wrong, foolish things you have done with the right action! Therefore, in the further course of the life that I have characterized yesterday as the soul world, man finds his way into the rhythm that alternates between his moral-spiritual qualities and the cosmic qualities. In this rhythm, a sum of tendencies develops in him to experience again the possibility of creating compensations for what he finds to be morally inferior, and so on. If, for instance, he has done something that affected another person in one way or another, the tendency develops to make amends for it in an action in the next earth life. In short, the seed of destiny which passes through repeated earth lives is created in this manner. But at the same time, the purely cosmic consciousness grows quite dark and dim because we carry this element within us. During the whole passage through the soul world, the human soul must remain in a dull—at least a duller—state of consciousness, until it becomes necessary for it to enter spirit land and to cast off the being that I have described. Then we can live for a while in the amoral cosmos into which we cannot bring what we have experienced in the soul world as the sum total of our moral or immoral spirit being.

If I wish to describe this transition from the soul experience to the spiritual experience after death, I can present it from the standpoint of human earth life in this way by saying: As long as man passes through the soul world, where he experiences a cosmic rhythm and the moral-spiritual being contained within him from the past earthly life, namely the interacting pulse beat of these two manifest realities, so long does he remain in a kind of affinity, as if spellbound to his last earth life. The being that he has brought with him, which represents his moral-spiritual qualities, has, after all, flowed out of his last earth life. He clings to it with all the inclinations of his soul. He can pass on into the pure experience of the cosmos only after he has freed himself inwardly from these inclinations. Spiritual beings can live together there with the human being in such a way that he gains for himself from their powers the forces that can develop the universal cosmic-spiritual part of a physical human organism for his future incarnation.

This is spoken from the standpoint of human earth experience. But the same relationship can be characterized from the standpoint of the cosmic consciousness and experience. Then one must say: After man has laid aside his etheric body, and while the inclination toward earth life continues to live on in his ego being and astral organism as I have described it, he is inwardly penetrated by the spiritual moon forces that pervade the cosmos. I already had to mention the moon forces when I characterized the condition of sleep.

Now they confront us again in man's existence after death. These moon forces are the element that brings or wishes to bring man into a certain connection with earth existence. Here, after death, they express themselves by trying to prevent man from leaving earth existence. He has laid aside his physical body, but he is anxious to return again to earth. This happens because the moon forces of the cosmos permeate him. Ordinary earthly thinking has ceased after death, for it is bound to the head organism of the physical body. Pre-earthly man flowed into this head system. Upon laying aside the physical body, everything that was brought about merely in a material way ceases to function. Man is therefore no longer an earth-bound being in a direct sense, though he is indirectly because the moon forces continue to affect him. For a long while after death, they still produce, as it were, a tendency in him to turn back to earth because it was there that he prepared the being now enclosed within him.

After death, however, it is necessary for man to struggle free of the moon forces and to reach beyond them, to become free inwardly from their influences that flow into him and affect him. They always preserve in him a kind of cosmic memory of the rhythmic forces, that is, in inspirations and imaginations they continually confront him with what is happening in the movements of the planets and their relationships to the fixed stars. But they hold man back from experiencing those spiritual beings who have their physical replica in the constellations of the fixed stars. Yet, he now faces the necessity of entering the pure, spiritual world. As long as the moon forces influence him, they prevent him from entering. He is, however, not supposed to view the cosmos he experiences merely from the side turned to him in physical existence; it is his task to view it from the other side. Man actually arrives at this condition if he develops a purely spiritual cosmic consciousness. Then, he reaches a position where he is, so to speak, at the periphery of the cosmos. Just as we stand here at the center and look out everywhere into the cosmos, so, in this spiritual perception, we look from the periphery inward into the cosmos. But now we do not see the physical replicas of the spiritual beings in question, we behold the beings themselves. We do not look into the cosmos from the periphery in a spatial manner. Just as we look out into the cosmos from the focal point of our two eyes here on earth, there, we look in from a spherical surface. Yet, it is in a way after all a spatial experience. We behold it qualitatively. We look out into the realm of the fixed stars and observe this universe from the outside.

Between death and a new birth, we must become independent of the physical world where we spent our earthly existence. In the period of humanity's development prior to the Mystery of Golgotha, man entered the spirit world in a manner that was quite different from that of the time that followed this event. During the course of human evolution on earth, a tremendous metamorphosis has taken place in man's inner life. The Christ event represents a turning point in the development of earthly humanity. Therefore, in the fourth part of my considerations and as a culmination of this evening, I would still like to describe how this entrance of man's soul-spiritual being into spirit land appears since the beginning of Christian evolution.

Before man enters the actual spiritual world where he engages in a life in common with other human souls who are not incarnated and are in a condition similar to his own—as it happens, he lives together with these souls even earlier—that is to say, before he can enter into a common life with those spiritual beings of the highest rank, whose physical replica is expressed in the starry constellations, he must leave behind in the moon sphere the being that constitutes his moral evaluation. Without it, he must enter the region of the stars where the moon forces no longer prevail. There, through the companionship with spiritual beings of the highest kind, the forces are born in his soul that enable him now really to prepare and work at the spirit germ of the future human physical organization.

Prior to the Mystery of Golgotha, when the old initiates wished to characterize the manner in which this transition into spirit land took place for the humanity of that time, they had to say to those who were willing to listen: “When, after death, you are to pass out of the soul world into the spirit land, you must leave behind you in the moon sphere the destiny-forming part of your good and bad deeds. But the forces of your own human organization are not enough to give you the power to bring about the transition from the moon sphere to that of the stars. Therefore, the Sun Being intercedes for you; He, Whose physical reflection is the physical sun. Just as your outer life proceeds under the influence of the physical sun's light and warmth, so, after death, the lofty Sun Being claims you, sets you free from your burden of destiny and bears you into the sphere of the stars. There, with the help of your Sun Guide, you can work out the spirit germ of your future physical organization. Then, after having worked sufficiently under the guidance of your Sun Leader on the formation of your physical organism in the spiritual realm, you can return again to life on earth. On this return to earth, you are again received by the moon sphere. In it you find the destiny being which you carried out of your earlier life on earth through the gate of death. You unite with it again and now, after having prepared the spirit germ of your future physical organism together with the great Sun Being, you can control it quite differently. You can unite this destiny being with the forces in you that are drawn toward your physical organism. You stride again through the moon sphere. “ Then follows the entrance into earth life as I have described it already earlier.

The initiates who were contemporaries of the Mystery of Golgotha, or who lived in the following centuries up until the third and fourth century, could say to their followers: The form which the human physical organism assumes in earth life increasingly shapes and develops the ego. But man loses the power to enter that region where the high Sun Being could be his guide above in the spiritual realms of the stars. Therefore, the Christ descended to earth and accomplished the Mystery of Golgotha. The power that the human soul gains by having in its feelings a bond with the Mystery of Golgotha works on after death. It tears the soul free of the germinal being of destiny and the moon sphere. Under the after-effect of the earthly Christ Event, the soul shapes its future physical organism with the other beings of the starry worlds and finds in turn the seed of its destiny, into which is placed the tendency for the destiny that will develop in the earth lives to come. The force that the human soul has received from the Christ Impulse enables it to pass through the spiritual realm in the right way and to take up the seed of destiny correctly.

A person who speaks out of initiation science today must add the following to this: “Indeed, it is the Christ Impulse Whose effects continue on beyond death. Under Its influence man wrenches himself away from the moon sphere and penetrates into the sphere of stars and the sun. There, out of the impulses given to man by the beings of the stars, he is able to work at molding the physical organism for his next earth life. But he frees himself from the moon sphere by means of the forces that he has accumulated in his ego by having turned on earth to the Christ Being and the Mystery of Golgotha. He struggles free of the moon sphere in such a way that he can in turn work in the starry sphere in a specific manner so that, when he returns again to the moon sphere and the core of his destiny confronts him, he can incorporate into himself as a free spiritual deed this seed of destiny. For he must tell himself: World evolution can only proceed in the right way if I incorporate into myself the seed of my own destiny and adjust what I have thus prepared as my destiny as compensation in future earth lives.”

This is the main element of the new experience in the life after death in the moon sphere. There comes a moment in cosmic existence when man in a self-reliant manner brings his destiny, his karma, into relation with his own advancing being. In the following earth life, the earthly reflection of this deed, which is accomplished in the supersensible realm, is human freedom, the feeling of freedom during earthly life. A true understanding of the idea of destiny, which traces this idea right into the spiritual worlds, does not establish a philosophy of determination but an actual philosophy of freedom, as I set forth in the nineties of the last century in my book, The Philosophy of Freedom.

Thus, when man finds his way into the spiritual regions after death in the right way, he brings back with him to earth—incorporated into his organism and linked with his universal destiny—the after-effects of having been permeated with the spiritual worlds, something he has experienced in the spirit land. Inasmuch as he experiences the Christ within him, modern man can experience freedom; and in connection with freedom he can also have the feeling of being pervaded by God, the permeation with the divine on earth which can be a recollection of what he has undergone in passing through the world of the stars to the moon sphere, and through the moon sphere itself.

Spiritual science strives towards a knowledge of all these relationships, inasmuch as intuition is brought about through soul exercises of the will. In ancient times, this intuition was produced according to instructions by those who were then initiates. These instructions directed man to mortify his outer physical organism through asceticism. By mortifying and subduing his physical body, man's independent will, which otherwise only expresses a craving for the physical organism, emerged with all the more intensity. Through asceticism, the physical organism becomes so mortified that it is difficult for the will to enter into the body and there to express itself. The will is driven back, as it were. The more difficult it becomes for the will to submerge and live in the physical organism, the more it finds its way into the spiritual world and develops intuitions. This is what was brought about by asceticism. It is wrong, however, to continue with this old asceticism in modern times. Since the Mystery of Golgotha, the human physical body has assumed a form that is no longer able to tolerate a successful practice of asceticism. By means of such asceticism, modern man would at the same time deaden his physical organism to the point where the ego consciousness that must develop could not properly do so. Man would then never attain a consciousness of freedom. He would also be unable to unite himself in a proper, free manner with the Christ Impulse.

Therefore, the will exercises must be undertaken in such a way that the physical body is not subdued as was the case in ancient times; instead, by means of these exercises, man's pure soul-spiritual capacities are strengthened so much that the body does not withdraw from the soul, but the soul can find its way into and live in the spiritual worlds. Not only has what the old initiates told their followers about experiences between death and rebirth changed, but also what has to be said about the exercises that men have to take up in order to acquire knowledge leading into the higher worlds. These exercises also have changed in accordance with humanity's progressive development. The ascetic of ancient times could not attain the royal consciousness of freedom which modern man must reach through his present organization. Nor could the old ascetic between death and rebirth encounter the Sun Being, Who at that time had to accomplish for him after death what now, ever since the Christ passed through the Mystery of Golgotha, the human being can find within himself the strength to accomplish.

With the entrance of Christianity into human evolution, religious consciousness has therefore changed, for this consciousness is the earthly after-image of what man must experience as permeation with God in the spiritual world between death and a new birth. In all respects we are led by modern initiation science to a deeper comprehension of Christology. Therefore, we can speak of a renewal of religious consciousness by means of anthroposophic insight, just as we have spoken in the past few days of a renewal of philosophy, which turns into a living philosophical science; likewise, we spoke of a deepening of cosmology through the inclusion of the insight into the higher worlds that can only be attained by means of intuition and inspiration. Through enhancement by anthroposophy, a renewal of religious consciousness, which only then will become a fully conscious Christian awareness, can be attained for the whole of mankind. Anthroposophy would like to contribute to the further rightful development of Christianity; this is meant in the sense that it does not want to become a new religion but wants to help in the development of the Christian religion that came into the world through the Mystery of Golgotha. This Christian religion has in itself the power to develop further, and anthroposophy wishes to understand this in the right way and be a true aid in this further development.

So, in these lectures I have sought to describe for you how philosophy, cosmology and religious knowledge are to be fructified by anthroposophy. Naturally, knowledge of religion is not religion. Religion can also be experienced if you devote yourself with your heart (Gemüt) in an open-minded way to what intuitive knowledge communicates, for the heart (Gemüt) can understand it. Therefore, the renewal of religious knowledge can bring about a new deepening of religious life.

I could describe all this only in a sketchy way during these days. Naturally, these matters can only be penetrated completely if one becomes acquainted with the details. Then, much that had to remain sketchy here could appear in its full coloring and with all the possible nuances. That alone would present a complete picture.

Most esteemed ladies and gentlemen! In concluding these lectures, I am deeply gratified when I think of the fact that you actually came from a foreign country to attend these lectures. This feeling leads me to express my heartiest thanks for your attention. I would like to express heartfelt thanks especially to Dr. Sauerwein for the trouble he took to present a faithful translation, and to ask him to fulfill one more wish of mine, namely to translate my thanks to him also, just as he translated everything else. I would be especially happy if you took home with you the feeling that the time spent here was not a waste of time for you.

• 1. Steiner gave eight lectures on the 16th and 17th of September 1922. They are currently unavailable in English, see table at the end of this lecture.

You will remember our considering various views and statements associated nowadays with the psycho-analysts. [See Psycho-Analysis in the Light of Anthroposophy (published in U.S.A.).] The essential point was to bring out clearly the fact that the idea of the unconscious which prevails in psychoanalysis is unfounded. As long as this idea—a purely negative idea—persists, we are bound to say that psychoanalysis is approaching with inadequate means of knowledge a phenomenon of quite special importance for our time. And because the psycho-analysts are trying to explore the mind and soul and—as we have seen—to study their implications for social life, we must say that their way of approach is far more significant than anything academic studies have to offer in the same field. On the other hand, because psycho-analysis is trying, through pedagogy and therapeutics, and soon, probably, through social and political ideas, to carry its influence deeply into human living, so the dangers bound up with such an approach must always be taken very seriously.

Now the question arises: What really is it that these modern researchers cannot reach and do not want to reach? They recognise that a soul-element exists outside consciousness; they search for it outside consciousness; but they cannot bring themselves to the point of recognising the spirit itself. The spirit can never be grasped through the idea of the unconscious, for unconscious spirit is like a man without a head. I have indeed called your attention to the fact that there are people, victims of certain hysterical conditions, who when they walk about in the streets see people only as bodies, minus their heads. That is a definite malady. So among present-day researchers there are some who believe they can discern the entire spirit, but as they suppose it to be unconscious, they show that they are under the delusion that an unconscious spirit, a spirit without consciousness, would be found by anyone who crosses the threshold—whether in the right sense, as described on the ground of spiritual-scientific research, or because of the kind of abnormal malady that comes to the attention of the psycho-analysts.

When we cross the threshold of consciousness, we always come into a realm of spirit; whether it is a subconscious or a super-conscious realm makes no difference. We always enter a realm where the spirit is in some sense conscious, where it displays a consciousness of some kind. We have to find out the conditions under which a given form of consciousness prevails; we must even gain through Spiritual Science the possibility of recognising which kind of consciousness a particular spirituality has.

I have told you of the case of the lady who leaves a party, runs in front of a cab-horse, is restrained from jumping into the river and taken back to the house she had just left, so that she is again under the same roof as the host, with whom she is subconsciously in love. In such a case it should not be said that the spirit which is outside the lady's consciousness, the spirit which urges and directs her, is an unconscious part of the soul: it is highly conscious. The consciousness of this demonic spirit (which led the lady back to her unlawful lover) is even much cleverer than is the lady in her upper storey—I should say, her consciousness. And these spirits, which are encountered whenever the threshold of consciousness is crossed in one way or another, and are active and potent there, are not unconscious; they are very effectively conscious for the purpose of their own activities. The phrase, “unconscious spirit,” as used by the psycho-analysts, makes no sense: I could just as well say, if I wished to speak merely from my own point of view, that the whole distinguished company seated here are my unconscious, supposing I knew nothing of them. Just as little can one describe as “unconscious spirits” those spiritual beings who are all around us, and who may lay hold of a personality, as in the case I told you about a week ago. They are not unconscious; they are outside the range of our normal consciousness, but they are fully conscious on their own account.

It is extraordinarily important—precisely in connection with the task of Spiritual Science in our time—to be aware of this, for knowledge of the spiritual realm that lies beyond the threshold, which means a knowledge of real, conscious individualities, is not simply a discovery of present-day Spiritual Science; it is in fact a primordial knowledge. In earlier times it came through old, atavistic clairvoyance. To-day it has to be attained gradually, by other methods. But knowledge of these spiritual beings, who live outside our consciousness under conditions different from ours, but have an enduring relationship with human beings and can lay hold of a person's thinking, feeling and willing—this knowledge has always been there. And within certain brotherhoods, who always looked on this knowledge as their secret property, it was treated as highly esoteric. Why was this so? To discuss this question fully would take us too far just now, but it must be said that particular brotherhoods were honestly convinced that the great majority of people were not ripe for this knowledge. And indeed this was true up to a certain point. But many other brotherhoods, called those of the left, tried to keep this knowledge for themselves, because when it is possessed by a small group, it gives them power over others who do not have it. And so endeavours were always made by certain groups to assure them power over others. Thus it could come about that a certain kind of knowledge was regarded as an esoteric possession, but was in fact utilised in order to gain power over one thing or another.

In this present time it is particularly necessary to be really clear about these things. For you know that since 1879 mankind has been living in a very special spiritual situation. Quite particularly powerful spirits of darkness were then cast down from the spiritual world into the human realm, and those persons who in a wrongful way keep the secrets connected with this event in the possession of their small groups are able to bring about everything possible by this means. Now I will first of all show you how certain secrets which concern present-day developments can be wrongfully made use of. You must then take care to bring what I am going to say to-day, rather on historical lines, into close connection with what I shall be adding tomorrow.

As you all know, attention has often been called within our movement to the fact that this century should bring human evolution into a special relationship with the Christ, in the sense that during this century—and even during the first half of it—the event indicated in my first Mystery Play is to come about: the Christ will appear to an increasing number of people as a Being truly and immediately present in the etheric realm.

Now we know that we are living in the age of materialism, and that since the middle of the nineteenth century this materialism has reached its peak. But in reality opposites always occur together. Precisely the high-point of materialism is necessarily accompanied by that inward development which makes it possible for the Christ to be really seen in the etheric realm. You can understand that a disclosure of this secret, concerning the etheric manifestation of Christ and the resulting new relationship of the Christ to human evolution, gives rise to resentment and ill-will among those members of certain brotherhoods who wished to make use of this event, the appearance of the etheric Christ, for their own purposes and did not want it to become the common property of mankind. There are brotherhoods—and brotherhoods always influence public opinion by disseminating this or that in such a way that it will disturb people as little as possible—who put out the idea that the time of materialism will soon be over, or indeed that it is already at an end. The poor, pitiable “clever people,” who to-day are promoting through so many gatherings and books and societies the idea that materialism is finished and that something of the spirit is now within reach, but without ever being able to offer people more than the word “spirit” and little phrases of a similar kind—these people are all more or less in the service of those who have an interest in declaring what is not true: that materialism is in ruins. That is far from true: on the contrary, a materialistic outlook makes progress and prospers best when people are taught that they are no longer materialists. The materialistic outlook is fast making headway and will continue to advance for some four or five hundred years.

The essential thing, as has often been emphasised here, is to be clearly conscious of the facts. Mankind will begin to recover when, through work in the life of the spirit, people come to know and to see in its true light the fact that the fifth post-Atlantean epoch is intended to create a materialistic state of being out of the general stream of human evolution. But all the more, then, must a spiritual state of being be set in opposition to this materialism. What people in our epoch must learn is the need to wage a fully conscious fight against the evil that is making its way into human evolution. Just as in the fourth epoch the struggle was to come to terms with birth and death, so now we have to come to terms with evil. Therefore the point is to grasp spiritual teaching with full consciousness, not to throw sand in the eyes of our contemporaries, as though the devil of materialism were not there. Those who handle these matters in an unrightful way know as well as I do about the event of the Christ-appearance, but they deal with it differently. And to understand this, we must pay attention to the following.

Now that we are living in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, it is quite wrong to say, as many people are comfortably fond of saying: “During this life between birth and death, the best thing is to give oneself over to living; whether after death we enter a spiritual world will be revealed soon enough—we can wait for that. Here and now we will enjoy our life, as though only a material world exists; if we do pass beyond death into a spiritual world, then we shall know whether a spiritual world is there!” That is about as clever as if someone were to take an oath and say: “As truly as there is a God in Heaven, I am an atheist!” Yet there are many people who take the line: “After death we shall know what things are like there. Until then, there is no need to occupy oneself with any kind of spiritual knowledge.”

This way of thinking has been very tempting always, in all epochs, but in our epoch it is particularly disastrous, because the temptation to indulge in it comes very close to people owing to the power and prevalence of evil. When under present-day conditions of evolution a man goes through the portal of death, he takes with him the modes of consciousness he has developed between birth and death. If he has occupied himself entirely with concepts and ideas and experiences drawn from the material world, the world of the senses, he condemns himself to dwell after death in an environment related to those ideas. While a man who has absorbed spiritual concepts enters the spiritual world in the right way, a man who has refused to accept them will have to remain tied to earthly relationships in a certain sense, until—and it takes a long time—he has learnt over there to absorb enough spiritual ideas to carry him into the spiritual world. Accordingly, whether or not we have absorbed spiritual ideas in this life determines our environment over there. Many of those—one can say it only with sympathy—who resisted spiritual ideas during this life, or were prevented from absorbing them, are to be found wandering about the earth, still bound to the earthly realm. And a soul in this situation, no longer shut off from its surroundings by the body, and no longer prevented by the body from working destructively—such a soul, if it continues to dwell in the earth-sphere, becomes a destructive centre.

Thus we see that in these cases—we might call them normal nowadays—when the threshold of death is crossed by souls who have not wanted to have anything at all to do with spiritual ideas and feelings, the souls become destructive centres, because they are held back in the earth-sphere. Only those souls who in this life are permeated by a certain connection with the spiritual world go through the gate of death in such a way that they are accepted in the spiritual world, set free from the earth-sphere, and are able to weave the threads that can continually be woven from themselves to those they have left behind. For we must be clear about this: the spiritual threads between the dead and those of us who were close to them are not severed by death; they remain and are indeed much more intimate than they were during life.

This that I have been saying must be taken as a very serious and important truth. Once again, it is not something known to me alone; others know that this is how things are at the present time. But there are many who make use of this truth in a very bad sense. For while there are misguided materialists who believe that this life is the only life, there are also initiates who are materialists and who disseminate materialistic teachings through their brotherhoods. You must not suppose that these materialists take the feeble-minded view that there is no such thing as spirit, or that men have no souls which can live independently of the body. You can be sure that anyone who has been really initiated into the spiritual world will never succumb to the foolishness of believing only in matter. But there are many who have a certain interest in spreading materialism and try by all sorts of means to ensure that the majority of men will believe only in materialism and will live wholly under its influence. And there are brotherhoods led by initiates who have this interest. It suits these materialists very well when it is constantly said that materialism has already been overcome. For anything can be promoted by talking about it in an opposing sense; the necessary manoeuvres are often highly complicated.

What then are the aims of these initiates, who in reality know very well that the human soul is a purely spiritual entity, independent of the body, and nevertheless cherish and cultivate a materialistic outlook in other people? What they want is that the largest possible number of souls should absorb only materialistic ideas between birth and death. Thus these souls are made ready to linger on in the earth-sphere, to be held back there. And now observe that there are brotherhoods which are equipped to know all about this. These brotherhoods prepare certain human souls to remain after death in the realm of the material; then they arrange things—and this is quite possible for their infamous power—so that these souls come under the aegis of their brotherhood, and from this the brotherhood gains enormous strength. So these materialists are not materialists, for they believe in the spirit—these initiate-materialists are not so foolish as not to do that, and indeed they know the truth about the spirit well enough—but they compel human souls to remain bound to the material realm after death, in order to be able to use these souls for their own purposes. Thus these brotherhoods build up a sort of clientele of souls from among the dead who remain in the earth-sphere. These souls have in them certain forces which can be guided in the most varied ways, and by this means it is possible to achieve quite special opportunities for exercising power over those who are not initiated into these things.

Nothing less than that, you see, is the plan of certain brotherhoods. And nobody will understand these matters clearly unless he keeps the dust out of his eyes and refuses to be put off by suggestions that either such brotherhoods do not exist or that their activities are harmless. They are in fact extremely harmful; the intention of these initiates is that men should be led farther and farther into materialism, and should come to believe that there are indeed spiritual forces, but that these are no more than certain forces of nature.

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Now I would like to describe for you the ideal that these initiates cherish. A certain effort is necessary to understand these things. Picture a world of harmless people: they are a little misled by the prevailing materialistic ideas, a little led away from the old well-founded religious ideas. Picture this—perhaps a diagram will be helpful.

Here (larger circle) is a realm of harmless human beings. They are not very clear about the spiritual world; misled by materialism, they are not sure what attitude to take towards the spiritual world, and especially towards those who have passed through the gate of death.

Now consider this: here (smaller circle) we have the realm of such a brotherhood as I have described. Its members are engaged in spreading the doctrine of materialism; they are taking care to see that these people shall think in purely materialistic terms. In this way they are training souls to remain in the earth-sphere after death. These souls will become a clientele of the lodge; appropriate measures can be taken to hold them within the lodge. Thus the brotherhood has created a lodge which embraces both the living and the dead; but the dead are those who are still related to the forces of the earth.

It was then arranged that seances should be held, as they were during the second half of the nineteenth century. Then it can come about—please note this carefully—that what takes place in the seances is directed, with the help of the dead, by the lodge. But the real intention of the Masters who belong to lodges of that kind was that people should not know that they were dealing with the dead, but should believe that they were in touch simply with higher forces of nature. They were to be convinced that these higher forces, psychic forces and the like, do exist, but that they are higher forces of nature and nothing more. They were to get the idea that just as electricity and magnetism exist, so are there higher forces of a similar kind. The fact that these forces come from souls is precisely what the leaders of the lodge keep hidden. In this way the “harmless” people gradually become entirely dependent in their soul-life on the lodge, without knowing that they are dependent or from what source they are being guided.

The only weapon against these procedures is to know about them. If we know about them, we are protected; if we take them seriously and believe in the truth of our knowledge, we are safe. But we must not take too comfortably the task of making this knowledge our own. It is not yet too late. I have often insisted that these matters can be clarified only by degrees, and that only by degrees can I bring together the essential facts to complete the picture.

As I have often told you, in the course of the nineteenth century many brotherhoods introduced spiritualism in an experimental way, in order to see if they had got as far with mankind as they wished. Their expectation was that at the spiritualistic seances people would take it that higher nature-forces were at work. The brothers of the left were disappointed when most people assumed, instead, that spirits of the dead were manifesting. This was a bitter disappointment for these initiates; it was just what they did not want. They wanted to deprive mankind of belief in survival after death. The efficacy of the dead and their forces was to remain, but the correct, important idea that the manifestations came from the dead—this was to be taken away. This is a higher form of materialism; a materialism which not only belies the spirit but tries to drag it down into the material realm. You see, materialism can have forces which lead to a denial of itself. People can say: “Materialism has gone—we are already talking of the spirit.” But a person can remain a thorough materialist if he treats the whole of nature as spirit in such a way that psychism emerges. The only right way is to learn how to see into the real spiritual world, the world of actual spirituality.

Here we have the beginning of a trend which will gather force throughout the next four or five hundred years. For the moment the evil brotherhoods have put the brake on, but they will continue their activities unless they are stopped—and they can be stopped only if complacency regarding the spiritual-scientific world-outlook is overcome.

Thus these brothers over-reached themselves in their spiritualistic seances: instead of concealing themselves, they were shown up. It made them realise that their enterprise had not gone well. Therefore these same brotherhoods endeavoured, from the nineties onwards, to discredit spiritualism for a time. On this path, you see, very incisive results are achieved by spiritual means. And the aim of it all is to gain greater power and so to take advantage of certain conditions which must come about in the course of human evolution.

There is something that works against this materialising of human souls, this exile of souls in the earthly sphere. The lodges exist on earth, and if the souls are to manifest and to be made use of in the lodges, they must be kept in this earthly exile. The power that works against these endeavours to operate through souls in the earthly realm is the impulse of the Mystery of Golgotha. And this also is the healing impulse which acts against the materialising of souls. Now the way taken by the Christ is altogether outside the wills and intentions of men. Hence there is no man anywhere, and no initiate, whatever his knowledge, who can influence those actions of the Christ which in the course of the twentieth century will lead to that appearance of which I have often spoken to you and which you can find indicated in the Mystery Plays. That rests entirely with Christ alone. The Christ will be present as an etheric Being within the earth-sphere. The question for men is how they are to relate themselves to Him. No one, not even the most powerful initiate, has any kind of influence over this appearance. It will come! I beg you to keep firm hold of that. But measures can be taken with the aim of seeing to it that this Christ-Event is received in one way or another and has this or that effect.

Indeed, the aim of those brotherhoods I have spoken of, who wish to confine human souls in the material realm, is that the Christ should pass by unobserved in the twentieth century; that His coming as an etheric individuality should not be noticed by men. And this endeavour takes shape under the influence of a quite definite idea and a quite definite purpose. These brotherhoods want to take over the Christ's sphere of influence, which should spread out more and more widely during the twentieth century, for another being (of whom we will later speak more precisely). There are Western brotherhoods who want to dispute the impulse of the Christ and to set in His place another individuality who has never appeared in the flesh—an etheric individuality, but a strongly Ahrimanic one.

All these methods I have told you about, this working with the dead and so on, have finally one single purpose—to lead people away from the Christ who has passed through the Mystery of Golgotha, and to assign to another being dominion over the earth. This is a very real battle, not an affair of abstract concepts; a real battle which is concerned with setting another being in place of the Christ-Being for the rest of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, for the sixth epoch and for the seventh. One of the tasks of healthy, honest spiritual development will be to destroy and make away with such endeavours, which are anti-Christian in the highest degree. For this other being, whom these brotherhoods want to set up as a ruler, will be called “Christ” by them; yes, they will really call him “Christ!” And it will be essential for people to learn to distinguish between the true Christ, who will not this time appear in the flesh, and this other being who is marked off by the fact that he has never been embodied on the earth. It is this etheric being whom these brotherhoods want to set in the place of Christ, so that the Christ may pass by unobserved.

Here is one side of the battle, which is concerned with falsifying the appearance of Christ during the twentieth century. Anyone who looks only at the surface of life, and pays heed to all the external discussions about Christ and the Jesus-question, and so on, knows nothing of the deeper facts. All these discussions serve only to hide the real issues and to lead people away from them. When the theologians discuss “Christ” in this way, a spiritual influence from somewhere is always at work, and these learned men are in fact furthering aims and purposes quite different from those they are aware of.

This is the danger of the idea of the unconscious: it leads to unclear thinking about all such connections. While the evil brotherhoods pursue their aims very consciously, these aims never enter the consciousness of the people who engage in all sorts of superficial discussions. We lose the truth of these things by talking of the “unconscious,” for this so-called unconscious is merely beyond the threshold of ordinary consciousness, and is the very sphere in which someone who knows about these things can manipulate them. Here we have one side of the situation: a number of brotherhoods actually do wish to substitute for the working of Christ the working of another being and are ready to use any means to bring this about.

On the other side are certain Eastern brotherhoods, especially Indian ones, who want to intervene no less significantly in the evolution of mankind. But they have a different purpose: they have never developed an esoteric method of achieving something by drawing the souls of the dead into the purview of their lodges: that is far removed from their aims. But in their own way they also do not want the impulses of the Mystery of Golgotha to work into the course of human evolution. Since the dead are not at their disposal, as they are for some of the Western brotherhoods I have mentioned, they do not wish to set against the Christ, who is to appear as an etheric individuality during the twentieth century, some other individuality; for that they would need the dead. But they do want to distract attention from the Christ; to prevent Christianity from rising to supremacy; to obscure the truth about the Christ, who passed through the Mystery of Golgotha after His one and only incarnation of three years on earth, and who cannot be incarnated again on earth. These brotherhoods do not want to control the dead in their lodges: in place of the dead they employ beings of another kind.

When a man dies, he gives up his etheric body, which separates from the physical body, as you know, soon after death, and is then normally taken up into the cosmos. This is a somewhat complicated process; I have described it for you in various ways. But before the Mystery of Golgotha something else was possible, and even afterwards it was still possible, especially in the East. When a man surrenders his etheric body after death, certain beings can clothe themselves in it and become etheric beings with the aid of these etheric bodies of dead men. This is what happens in the East: demonic beings are enticed to clothe themselves in the etheric bodies which men have cast aside; and it is these spirits who are drawn into the Eastern lodges. The Western lodges, therefore, have the dead who are banished into matter; the Eastern lodges of the left have demonic spirits—spirits who do not belong to earth-evolution but have insinuated themselves into it by donning the discarded etheric bodies of dead men.

Esoterically, the procedure is to make this fact into an object of worship. You know that the calling up of illusions belongs to the arts of certain brotherhoods, because when men are not aware of how far illusion is present in the midst of reality, they can easily be taken in by skilfully produced illusions. The immediate object is achieved by introducing a certain form of worship.

Suppose I have a group of men with a common ancestry; then, after as an “evil” brother I have made it possible for the etheric body of a certain ancestor to be taken over by a demonic spirit, I tell the people that this ancestor is to be worshipped. The ancestor is simply the man whose cast-off etheric body has been taken over, through the machinations of the lodge, by a demonic spirit. So ancestor-worship is introduced, but the ancestors who are worshipped are simply whatever demonic beings have clothed themselves in the etheric bodies of these ancestors.

The Eastern peoples can be diverted from the Mystery of Golgotha by methods such as these. The result will be that for Eastern peoples—or perhaps for people generally, since that is the ultimate aim—the coming manifestation of Christ in our earthly world will pass unnoticed. These Eastern lodges do not want to substitute another Christ; they want only that the appearance of Christ Jesus shall not be noticed. There is thus an attack from two sides against the Christ Impulse that is to manifest in etheric form during the twentieth century; and this is the situation in which we stand to-day. Particular trends are always only an outcome of what the great impulses in human evolution are bringing about. That is why it is so saddening to hear it said continually that influences from the unconscious, the so-called unconscious, are an effect of suppressed love or the like, when in fact influences from a highly conscious spirituality are at work on humanity from all sides, while remaining relatively unconscious if no conscious attention is paid to them.

We must now bring in some further considerations. Men with good intentions for the development of mankind have always reckoned with the activities I have just described and have done their best—and no man can or should be expected to do more—to set things right.

A particularly good home for spiritual life, protected against all possible illusions, was Ireland, the island of Ireland, in the first Christian centuries. More than any other spot on earth it was sheltered from illusions; and that is why so many missionaries of Christianity went out from Ireland in those early times. But these missionaries had to have regard for the simple folk among whom they worked—for the peoples of Europe were very simple in those days—and also to understand the great impulses behind human evolution. During the fourth and fifth centuries Irish initiates were at work in central Europe and they set themselves to prepare for the demands of the future. They were in a certain way under the influence of the initiate-knowledge that in the fifteenth century—in 1413, as you know—the fifth post-Atlantean epoch was to begin. Hence they knew that they had to prepare for a quite new epoch, and at the same time to protect a simple-minded people. What did they do in order to keep the simple people of Europe sheltered and enclosed, so that certain harmful influences could not reach them? The course of events was guided, from well-instructed and honourable sources, in such a way that gradually all the voyages which had formerly been made from Northern lands to America were brought to an end. Whereas in earlier times ships had sailed to America from Norway for certain purposes (I will say more of this tomorrow), it was gradually arranged that America should be forgotten and the connection lost. By the fifteenth century, indeed, the peoples of Europe knew nothing of America. Especially from Rome was this change brought about, because European humanity had to be shielded from American influences. A leading part in it was played by Irish monks, who as Irish initiates were engaged in the Christianising of Europe.

In earlier times quite definite impulses had been brought from America, but in the period when the fifth post-Atlantean epoch was beginning it was necessary that the peoples of Europe should be uninfluenced by America—should know nothing of it and should live in the belief that there was no such country. Only when the fifth post-Atlantean epoch had begun was America again “discovered,” as history says. But, as you know very well, much of the history taught in schools is fable convenue, and one of these fables is that America was discovered for the first time in 1492. In fact, it was only rediscovered. The connection had been blotted out for a period, as destiny required. But we must know the truth of these historical circumstances and how it was that Europe was hedged in and carefully sheltered from certain influences which were not to come in.

These things show how necessary it is not to take the so-called unconscious as actually unconscious, but to recognise it as something that pursues its aims very consciously below the threshold of ordinary consciousness. It is important to-day that more people should come to know of certain secrets. That is why I went as far as one can go publicly in my Zürich lectures, [Four public lectures given on 5th, 7th, 12th and 14th November, 1917, on the following subjects: Anthroposophy and Psychology; Anthroposophy and History; Anthroposophy and Natural Science; Anthroposophy and Social Science. (Not yet translated.)] when, as you know, I explained to what extent the history of mankind is not known by ordinary consciousness, but is in fact dreamt through; and when I said that only when people become aware of this, will they come to see history in its true colours.

These are means by which consciousness is gradually awakened. The facts and events confirm what I say; only they must not be overlooked. People sleep their way blindly through events—through tragic catastrophes such as the present one. I would like first to impress on you the historical aspect of these matters: we will speak of them in greater detail tomorrow.

I want to add one further point. You will have seen from my explanations how great is the difference between West and East in relation to the evolution of mankind. Now I would ask you to observe the following. The psycho-analysts talk of the subconscious, the subconscious soul-life, etc. To apply such vague concepts to these things is useless. The point is to grasp what there really is beyond the threshold of consciousness. Certainly there is a great deal down below the threshold, and on its own account it is highly conscious. We must learn to understand what kind of spirituality exists down there, beyond the threshold of consciousness. We must speak of a conscious spirituality, not of unconscious mind. Yes, we must be quite clear that we know nothing of a great deal that goes on within us—it would indeed go badly with us if we had normally to be aware of it all. Just imagine how we should cope with eating and drinking if we had to acquaint ourselves with all the physiological and biological processes that go on from the moment when we swallow a piece of food! All that proceeds unconsciously, and spiritual forces are at work there, even in the purely physiological realm. But you will agree that we cannot wait to eat and drink until we have learnt all the details of it. It is the same with much else: by far the greater part of our being is unconscious, or—a better word—subconscious.

Now the peculiar thing is that this subconscious within us is invariably taken possession of by another being. Hence we are not only a union of body, soul and spirit, carrying an independent soul in our body through the world, but shortly before birth another being takes possession of our subconscious parts. This subconscious being goes with us all the way from birth to death. We can to some extent describe this being by saying that it is highly intelligent, and endowed with a will which is closely related to the forces of nature. I must emphasise a further peculiarity of this being—it would incur the gravest danger if under present conditions it were to accompany man through death. At present it cannot do so; therefore it disappears shortly before death in order to save itself; yet it retains the impulse to order human life in such a way that it would be able to conquer death for its own purposes. It would be terrible for human evolution if this being which has taken hold of man were able to overcome death and so, by dying with man, to pass over into the worlds which man enters after death. This being must always take leave of man before death, but in many cases this is very difficult for it to do, and all sorts of complications result. For the moment the important thing is that this being, which has its dominion entirely within the subconscious, is extremely dependent upon the earth as a whole organism.

The earth is very different from what geologists or mineralogists or palaeontologists say about it; the earth is a living being through and through. These scientists deal only with its mineral part, its skeleton, and its skeleton is all we normally perceive. This is much the same as if you were to enter this hall and through a special change of sight were to see only the bones of the people assembled here. Just imagine that you came in through the door and only skeletons were sitting on the chairs: not that they were nothing but bones—that would be going too far—but that you could see only the bones, as though with an X-ray apparatus. That is as much as geology sees of the earth—its skeleton only. But the earth is more than a skeleton: it is a living organism, and from its centre it sends out particular forces to every point and region on its surface.

These outward-streaming forces belong to the earth as

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a living organism, and they affect a man differently according to where he lives on the earth. His soul is not directly influenced by these forces, for his immortal soul is very largely independent of earth-conditions, and can be made dependent on them only by such special arts as those I have described to-day. But through the other being, which seizes hold of man before birth and has to leave him before death, these various earth-forces work with particular strength into the racial and geographical varieties of mankind. So it is on this “double” (Doppelgänger), which man carries within himself, that geographical and other diversities exert special influence.

This is extraordinarily important. To-morrow we shall see how the “double” is influenced from various points on the earth and what the consequences are. I have already indicated that you will need to bring what I have said to-day into direct connection with what I shall be saying tomorrow, for one lecture can scarcely be understood without the other.

We have to try to assimilate ideas which are most seriously related to the total reality in which the human soul lives, in accordance with its own nature. This reality goes through various metamorphoses, but how these changes occur depends to a great extent on human beings. And one significant change comes about if people realise how human souls, according to whether they absorb materialistic or spiritual concepts between birth and death, are exiled to the earth or pass on to their rightful spheres. The ideas on these matters that prevail among us must become continually clearer, for only then shall we relate ourselves truly to the world as a whole, which is what we must do more and more, for we are concerned not merely with an abstract spiritual movement, but with a very concrete one which has to take account of the spiritual life of a certain number of individuals.

It is a great satisfaction to me that these discussions, which are quite specially important for those of our friends who have passed through the gate of death but are still faithful members of our movement, can be carried on as a reality which unites us more and more deeply with them. I say this to-day because it behoves us to think with loving remembrance of Fräulein Stinde. Yesterday was the anniversary of her death, and with specially loving remembrance we think of one who was so inwardly linked to our Building, [The first Goetheanum, later destroyed by fire and replaced by the present Goetheanum.] and whose impulses were so inwardly connected with its impulses.

Our lectures at group meetings would contribute little to our progress if we could not occasionally speak about the more intimate processes of the spiritual life of humanity. What we should strive for in our groups is a preparation for the attainment of higher spiritual truths. At the same time, we must not think that such a preparation consists merely in learning theories or ideas. What we call preparation for the attainment of higher truths should really consist in a certain state of feeling and sensation in our soul. Through the life in our groups and through the fact that we meet from week to week, our souls should gradually mature to the point at which they become receptive even to those elements of spiritual science that descend—or, if you like, ascend—from the more general truths, which we are already in a position to communicate through exoteric lectures to the greater public, to the concrete facts of life.

Let us then dedicate this particular evening especially to such a preparation of our souls, that is, to such a preparation of feeling within our souls. There are certain things that should be brought before our souls this evening, things that, to be sure, we shall understand at first only slowly and gradually but that we can begin to feel and divine if we acquire the necessary degree of maturity through our life in the groups. It must be taken for granted in this case that such truths will be received with corresponding delicacy, that they will be received as a priceless treasure of soul, not as something we believe we can readily place before an unprepared audience. We shall gradually ascend in our considerations from the known to the unknown.

A question intrudes even upon the mind of one familiar with the elements of an anthroposophical world conception: is there any sense or purpose in the fact that the human soul appears again and again in successive incarnations or embodiments on earth? One may accept the abstract truth of reincarnation, yet such an abstract truth basically can help us little in life. Truths acquire a significance in our lives only when they can be transformed, recast, in our souls into warmth of feeling, into the light that shines forth within us in such a way that it leads us onward along the path of life. For this reason, the abstract truth of reincarnation acquires significance for us only when we are able to know something more precise and intimate concerning the sense and significance of the successive incarnations of human beings. This will be one of the questions with which we shall occupy ourselves today.

The other question is: what particular significance is contained for us in the fact that we are in a position, during our present incarnation, to absorb anthroposophy into our souls, to bind anthroposophical truths with our innermost life? We shall see that today these two things will unite harmoniously.

You have often heard that two successive incarnations of a human being do not succeed each other in an arbitrary way but that when the human being has passed through death and out of one earthly life he returns to a new earthly life only when it affords him the opportunity to learn something new about the earth and to unite this with his soul life. This can be understood, of course, only by one who does not limit his study of the evolution of the earth to a period extending over a few centuries or millenia. Only one who surveys the whole evolution of the earth is in a position to comprehend things in the right way. Regarding outer physical conditions, we shall learn to comprehend, even if we limit ourselves to outer sources, that the very countenance of the earth has changed during the course of relatively short periods of time.

If, for instance, you read the description of the regions in which we are now living to see how they must have looked at the time when Christ was walking about on earth, you will find the entire countenance of this region has changed during the course of relatively few centuries. You might then ask yourselves how much the moral and other conditions of civilization may have changed during the course of these few centuries. Try for a moment to call before your soul what a child used to learn at the beginning of our era and what a modern child learns today; try to imagine all this, and then recall from what you have learned through anthroposophical teachings that we are able to look back to a remote past when the countenance of the earth presented an entirely different appearance. Then, for the most part, continents that exist today did not yet exist, but there was an immense, extensive continent in the place occupied today by the Atlantic Ocean. Think of all that must have taken place throughout the course of long periods of time in order to change in this way the countenance of the earth to what it is today.

If you call all this before your soul, you must say to yourselves that there is the possibility for souls to experience something new from each existence on earth, always to receive new fruits, and then to unite these fruits with their own lives in order to pass through a spiritual life between death and a new birth. When the conditions have changed so that something new can be learned and it is worthwhile to descend again to earth, these souls actually come again in a new incarnation.

It is not merely a play of forces and beings active behind phenomena that brings man down again and again into new incarnations; it is a case, rather, of every incarnation contributing a new force and faculty as a new member within the divine plan representing the totality of human life. Only when we survey life in this way does the law of repeated lives on earth acquire true meaning. At the same time, we must also ask ourselves if it is not possible to miss some opportunity. Is it not possible that there is something that depends upon whether or not we make the most of any one incarnation or embodiment in the right way? If we could simply be sure that we would have a repetition of our present life in the next incarnation, many people could argue, “I have plenty of time because I shall live many more times.”

If one considers the most important facts of life, however, and knows that what the earth can give us during a definite period of time cannot be experienced again during another period, one will realize that it is indeed possible to miss opportunities; one can then acquire an inner sense of obligation and responsibility to make use of each incarnation, each earthly embodiment, in the right way. We shall come to see more exactly how we can make use of these incarnations if we now take a small glance backward, with the help of what spiritual investigation offers us. I shall now speak to you about certain facts that are already familiar to you, but I shall then extend them to include something that is unknown to most of you who are sitting here. What you already know is the fact that during our earlier incarnations our souls possessed entirely different faculties from those they possess today. Those faculties by which modern humanity lives and works did not always exist. If we ask ourselves what is especially active in the human soul today, we must answer by saying that it is the capacity to receive through the senses, in an exact way, the outer facts of the world. Man possesses a self-conscious reasoning power, a self-conscious power of judgment, which he is able to apply to sense perception and by means of which he can combine what he perceives through the senses, in this way obtaining a picture of the world through his cognition.

We know, however, that when the human being continues to develop his soul through the methods described in my book, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment, (see Note 1) he becomes capable of perceiving another, a spiritual environment around him. We know that there is a spiritual eye that can be opened and that higher super-sensible faculties, dormant in the average human being today, can be awakened. We know that there was a time when every human being could perceive the spiritual world, but we know also that the time will come when the spiritual world will again be able to stream into our souls, just as light and color stream into the eyes of a blind man who has been operated on and had his sight restored. This light and color already existed in his environment but could not stream into him because the organs capable of admitting them were not yet opened.

We thus have today a humanity that can look into the spiritual world only through an abnormal development or by following special methods. The normal state for modern man is to be able to perceive the things of the world through his outer senses and to combine his perceptions through his reason or intellect, which are connected with the physical brain.

Humanity has not always been the same as it is today, however. We may look back to a remote period in human evolution and find, if we have opened the clairvoyant eye to the records we call the “Akashic Chronicle,” that the normal faculties of the human soul were entirely different at that time. In ancient times all human beings had a kind of clairvoyance, not the kind that one may acquire today through the methods referred to above but a clairvoyance of an entirely different sort; we must describe it as a vague, dreamlike, twilit clairvoyance. This clairvoyance existed especially under certain abnormal conditions. Even then, it came by itself; it was not necessary to call it forth by unusual methods. We would have to go back to a very remote past, it is true, if we wished to find a humanity endowed with constant clairvoyance, but even then it was only during certain intermediary states, between sleeping and waking, that man Always possessed a certain clairvoyance. The further back we go, the more we find this form of clairvoyance.

You will remember that, in tracing our way back through the various ages of civilization, we also come to particular epochs of human culture. We are now living in one period of civilization that was preceded by another that we designate as the Greco-Latin. This was preceded by another period, named after its leading nations, the Egyptian-Chaldean-Babylonian-Assyrian epoch. This was preceded by the one we designate as the ancient Persian; still further back, we come to what we call ancient India. This last is a civilization to which only the clairvoyant eye can look back. The period that produced the Vedas arose in much later times as a weak echo of that sublime wisdom that was given to the world by the Seven Holy Rishis during the earliest primeval Indian civilization. Now, if we go even further back than this, we find the great Atlantean catastrophe that so transformed the countenance of our earth through cataclysms of water and fire that the Atlantean continent gradually disappeared. In its place arose what today forms Africa and Europe on one side and America on the other. We might go still further back, in which case the ancient records of the Akashic Chronicle would show us that human beings dwelling upon this ancient Atlantean continent possessed entirely different faculties of soul from ours, faculties that would appear almost incredible to modern man because they were far too remote from anything he knows today.

During all these different periods, our own souls already existed; they existed in different bodies, and each time they possessed different faculties. If we were able to look back, we should find that our souls were then endowed with a high degree of clairvoyant receptivity. Especially during certain intermediary states between sleeping and waking, they were witnesses of a spiritual world; they were able to look into a spiritual world. You would find, if you could look back, that you yourselves at that time could see the facts and beings of the spiritual worlds. In those days there was no temptation, no possibility, for human souls to deny the spiritual world, because they saw the spiritual world, because it was only during a few hours of the day that they turned toward the physical world. The objects of the outer physical world were not as yet arranged visibly in the same way as they were in later periods. Hence, when human beings were in the intermediary state between sleeping and waking, they were surrounded by a world that they had to experience as spiritual, that filled them with the conviction that this was the world of man's origin. He descended from this world in order to acquire something in the physical world that he could not have acquired in the spiritual world above.

What is it that man has been able to acquire in this outer world that he was not also able to have in the spiritual world? What this spiritual world lacked was the possibility of evolving self-consciousness, the possibility of saying “I” to oneself. This is what humanity lacked. The human being was outside his own self during the most important moments of his life, as in a state of being enraptured, and in this state he did not even know that he was an independent individuality possessing an inner life of his own. He was given up entirely to the spiritual world. To learn to experience himself as an I was possible for man only here in the physical world; only here could he attain a real consciousness of self. With this self-consciousness is inseparably connected what we call the power of judgment, our modern thinking and our modern faculty for perception. The human being was compelled, therefore, to sacrifice his former relationship with the spiritual world, his former dim clairvoyance, in order to acquire the possibility of distinguishing himself as an I from his surroundings and through this coming to the I, to self-consciousness. In the future, the human being will acquire again, in addition to his consciousness of self, this capacity to look clairvoyantly into the world of spirits. The portal of the spiritual world has been closed to him in order that man might become a self-conscious, inward, spiritual being—in order that he might ascend to the consciousness of self and be able thereby to enter the spiritual world again as an independent being.

There was once, therefore, an ancient time in which man looked upon surroundings that were entirely different from those he knows today. What do we see today when we look out upon our physical surroundings? We see the world of minerals, plants, animals, and the physical shapes of our fellow human beings. This is what surrounds us; this is the world to which we first belong, the world that is opened to us between birth and death. Into that world from which stems this physical world and which lies behind it we can penetrate only through the gifts of clairvoyance; clairvoyance, as we have said, is not one of the normal faculties of a human being of our day, although in those ancient times it was available under certain conditions to everyone. While in this clairvoyant state, the human being became familiar with the spiritual world. He perceived there the spiritual beings and spiritual facts about which we hear through spiritual science; they do actually exist and cannot be looked upon as nonexistent simply because the normal perception of our day cannot see them. In the same way, light and color surround a blind person, though he may not be able to perceive them.

These spiritual beings were at one time the companions of the human being, and he could say to himself, “I belong to a spiritual world; I belong to it as a spirit-soul being. In the same way that my spirit-soul being lives in this world, so there are in it also such beings as I see about me during my clairvoyant states.” Man was a companion of spirit-soul beings during those distant ages of an ancient past. The insight into—the world and knowledge that looked back into these conditions has always been able to distinguish clearly, even today, the various stages through which man has passed in the course of different periods of time. First, there was the stage when he was still entirely within the spiritual world, when he scarcely descended with consciousness into the physical, sensible world but felt himself as belonging entirely to the spiritual world, so that he drew all his forces from this spiritual world. Spiritual knowledge distinguished this stage from those following it, during which this force gradually disappeared and in its stead there arose first the capacity to perceive sharply outlined objects in the outside world, then the elaboration of these impressions through logical thought and judgment and at the same time the definition of the I, of self-consciousness.

Oriental philosophy, which was able to see into these conditions because it still possessed remnants of the ancient sacred teaching of the Rishis, continued to have special designations for the various periods of human evolution. For the most ancient times of all—for those clairvoyant periods of human evolution when this clairvoyance ascended into the highest regions of the spiritual world, to beings that we must picture to ourselves as the highest of those connected with our world—the designation Krita Yuga was used; this was later called the Golden Age.

Another epoch followed, during which human beings already could see much less of the spiritual world; the influences of the spiritual world upon man were no longer so strong and alive as they had been. This period was originally called Treta Yuga, later on, the Silver Age. During this epoch, human beings living between birth and death obtained their certainty of the spiritual world in yet another way. Their immediate experiences of the spiritual world were unclear, it is true, but to compensate for this they could remember the time that preceded their birth when they had lived together with the spiritual beings. This period, therefore, was one in which the human being was still as certain of the existence of the spiritual world as is the case today when he has grown old and cannot deny that he has passed through his youth. This age was designated as Treta Yuga by the wisdom that knows about such things. Later on, it was replaced by the less clear expression, Silver Age. All of these ancient expressions have at the same time their deep significance, and it is really childish when modern science explains them in the way it does, since it has not the faintest idea of the realities from which these designations flow.

This Silver Age was followed by an age in which there still existed a clear knowledge, a kind of true knowledge of the spiritual world; yet by that time the human being had already descended sufficiently deeply into the physical, sensible world to be able to choose between the two worlds and to have his own convictions concerning them. The old clairvoyance became darker and darker during this third age, the Iron Age or Dvapara Yuga. Nevertheless, it still existed to a certain extent in a twilit state and the human being could, as a result of his own conviction, connect himself more or less with the spiritual world. He had formerly experienced this spiritual world, and this he still knew during the Iron Age.

Then came the age we designate with an Oriental expression, Kali Yuga, the Dark Age. This was the age during which the portal of the spiritual world gradually closed completely to the faculties of the human soul. Through the fact that human beings had to depend increasingly upon their perceptions in the physical, sensible world, they were also able to cultivate within this world their feeling of self, their feeling for the I, their I-consciousness. This age began at a comparatively late date, about 3100 BC, and it continued into our own times.

It is our purpose to study this today in such a way that we can distinguish these different ages so that we may understand our most important tasks in this present incarnation.

We must go back as far as the Atlantean time if we wish to trace the beginnings of Krita Yuga. Treta Yuga, however, still partly coincides with the time of the Holy Rishis, that is, with the Indian civilization but in part also with the ancient Persian civilization. Dvapara Yuga coincides in turn with later epochs of civilization, that is with the Egyptian-Chaldean-Babylonian-Assyrian times, and a certain degree of ancient, dim clairvoyance still existed in those days. The moment in time in which the portals of the spiritual world began slowly and gradually to close, so that humanity had to limit itself to the physical plane, began with the year 3101 before Christ Jesus walked on earth. Thus we see an age beginning about 3,000 years before the Christ event, an age that has gradually made us into what we are today. When we know that it is during this age that the most important deed in the whole evolution of the earth took place—the deed of Christ—we can then appreciate the full significance of this deed.

What, then, were human beings like in this age of Kali Yuga as Christ descended to the earth? They had already been for more than 3,000 years in an evolution that had limited them to the physical world; it had limited them between birth and death to absorb only what could be offered to them in this physical world, what appeared to them in this physical world. Had this evolution continued, man's I-consciousness would have grown ever stronger, to be sure, but solely in an egotistical direction. Man would have become an indulgent being, a being full of desires; he would have enclosed everything coolly within his I. Had something else not occurred, he would have lost completely the consciousness that there is a spiritual world. What was it that occurred just at that time? The whole significance of what occurred arises before our souls when we once understand that there are times of transition in the evolution of the earth. Many persons who merely speculate or who merely indulge in an abstract philosophy, or in the cultivation of any other sort of ideology, call every age a time of transition.

Indeed, one may find that almost every period as far back as one can go with the help of the printing press (and how much has been printed!) has been called a time of transition. One who stands upon the foundations of spiritual science will not be so free with the use of this word, because only those times can be called periods of transition in which something takes place that is really more essential and decisive than what takes place in other ages.

There is a statement that has been taken for granted by official science but that anthroposophists should learn to realize is without meaning: “Nature makes no leaps.” This sounds objective, yet it is senseless, because nature continually makes leaps. If you follow the development of a plant, you find that there is a leap whenever something new appears in the course of its development. A leap takes place from the regular leaf formation to the blossom, from the calyx to the petals, from the petals to the stamen, and so on. After nature has developed gradually for some time, it makes further leaps; indeed, all existence makes leaps. Therein lies the essential nature of evolution, that crises and leaps take place. It is one of those commonplaces resulting from the terrible laziness of human thinking when human beings say that “nature makes no leaps”; in reality it makes many leaps.

Spiritual life especially proceeds in leaps. Great and significant leaps take place in the course of spiritual development. Life then moves gradually forward until significant spiritual leaps again take place. One such tremendous leap in the life of humanity—one that was important not only for those who were with Christ—took place at the time when He walked on earth. In this sense we may call the age when Christ lived and taught in Palestine an age of transition. Please do not say that such a leap, such a passage as this, must be noticed easily by everyone. No, indeed! The most essential events occurring in an age may remain completely concealed from the eyes of those who are alive, and they may pass people by completely unnoticed. We know that such an event once took place, leaving not a trace as it passed completely unnoticed by millions of human beings. We know that the important Roman writer, Tacitus, in a passage in one of his works, described the Christians as a secret and unknown sect, and we also know that one hundred years after Christianity had spread over the southern regions of Europe, strange tales were related in Rome concerning it.

There were thus many circles in Rome at that time that knew nothing about Christianity except that it was a disturbing sect that existed in some remote back street and was led by a certain Jesus who incited people to all kinds of misdeeds. This was one of the versions that circulated in Rome even a century after Christianity was already in existence. It shows us how the most significant of all events, not only for that time but also for the whole of human evolution, passed without a trace, unnoticed by a vast number of human beings. We must be able to picture the fact that, while human beings are noticing nothing, absolutely nothing, the most important and significant event may be taking place. When people say, therefore, that we are living in a time when nothing essential, nothing important is taking place, it does not prove that they are right.

It is indeed a fact that today we are living again in an age of transition in which the most important spiritual events are taking place unknown to large numbers of our contemporaries, yet going on nevertheless. It is this fact that we should make clear to ourselves: we can indeed speak of ages of transition, but we should not use these words too freely. What was the essential characteristic of that age of transition in which Christ Jesus appeared? It is expressed in those significant words that one must only learn to understand in the right way. It was expressed in the prophecy of John the Baptist, quoted later by Christ: “Change the disposition of your souls; the kingdoms of heaven are at hand.” A whole world is contained in this saying, and it is precisely this same world that is so intimately connected with the most important of events that was consummated at that time for the evolution of humanity as a whole.

Through the natural evolution during Kali Yuga, human beings had gradually attained power of judgment and I-consciousness, but they had become incapable of acquiring again, out of this I-consciousness and through their own powers, the connection with the spiritual world. John the Baptist said, “The time has come when your I must be so trained that this I can penetrate completely into the depths of your soul, that it can find within itself the bond with the kingdoms of heaven,” for the human being normally is no longer able to ascend outside of himself in the clairvoyant state into a spiritual world. The kingdoms of heaven had to descend as far as the physical world. They must now reveal themselves in such a way that the I can recognize them through the ordinary consciousness of self, through the sense for truth inherent in ordinary self-consciousness. “Change the inclination, change the former disposition of your soul, so that you can believe that your soul life is capable of being kindled into warmth within itself, within the I, and that you are able to grasp, by observing everything that takes place about you, that there is a spiritual world. You must learn to comprehend the spiritual worlds in your I, through your I. They have descended and are near at hand. They must no longer be sought in a world of rapture outside of consciousness!”

It was for this reason that Christ had to descend and to appear in a human physical body, because man's disposition of soul was attuned to the comprehension of the physical plane. God had to come to human beings upon the physical plane because, through the cultivation of the I and through the closing of the portal leading to the spiritual world, they were no longer capable of approaching the gods in the old way. Herein lies the greatness of the event that took place at that time: that through the natural evolution of human faculties, the old relationship with the spiritual worlds was lost and the attainment of I-consciousness was achieved, but that it was also possible as a result of this to gain consciousness of these spiritual worlds within the physical world. Christ thus became the mediator of the spiritual worlds for those human beings who have reached such a stage of development that they can, in the I that lives on the physical plane, gain the connection with the spiritual world. “Change the disposition of your souls; do not believe any longer that the human being can ascend normally to the spiritual world by being enraptured; rather believe that through the development of capacities inherent to the I, and with the help of Christ, you can find the path leading into the spiritual worlds. Only in this way will humanity now be able to find the spirit.”

Today we are again living in a similar age, since Kali Yuga, the Dark Age, had run its course by 1899, and once again new dispositions of soul, new soul faculties, are slowly being prepared in a similar way. It is quite possible that our contemporaries, the human beings living in our age, may sleep through this. We shall learn gradually to recognize what is to take place for all humanity during the age that began with the close of Kali Yuga. It is our task today to see to it that this transitional event may not pass us by unnoticed and without effect upon the progress of humanity.

Kali Yuga came to an end only a few years ago; 1899 is the approximate date of its termination. We are now approaching a time when, in addition to the already evolved self-consciousness, certain clairvoyant faculties will again evolve quite naturally. Human beings will have the strange and remarkable experience of not knowing what is really happening to them! They will begin to receive premonitions that will become reality, and they will be able to foresee events that will actually take place. Indeed, people everywhere will gradually begin actually to see, although only in shadowy outline and in its first elements, what we call man's etheric body. The human being of today sees only the physical body; the capacity to see the etheric body will gradually be added. People will have learned that this etheric body is a reality, or they will think it is an illusion of their senses, since such a thing, so they will say, does not exist. Things will come to a point at which many people who have such experiences will ask themselves, “Am I really mad?”

Although it will be only a small number of people who will develop these faculties during the next few decades, spiritual science is something that will spread, because the responsibility one feels is for something that in reality is taking place; it must take place in accordance with the natural course of events. Why do we teach spiritual science? Because phenomena will appear in the near future that only spiritual science will be able to grasp and that will remain misunderstood if spiritual science is not there.

These faculties will develop relatively quickly in the case of a small number of human beings. It is quite true, to be sure, that through an esoteric training man may ascend, even today, far beyond what is preparing itself on a small scale for humanity. At the same time, that to which man can ascend in our day by his own efforts, through appropriate training, is already being slightly prepared in small beginnings for all of humanity. It is something about which it will be necessary to speak, whether one understands it or not, during the years 1930 to 1940. Only a few decades separate us from that moment in time when such phenomena will have begun to be more frequent.

By that time, however, something else will also take place for those human beings who will have acquired these faculties. For them, the proof will be yielded of one of the most powerful sayings contained in the New Testament, and it will deeply move their souls. In these souls will arise the words, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world,” that is to say, if we translate it correctly, “even unto the end of the earth eons.” This expression says to us that Christianity is not merely what books once described it to be or what was learned in recent times. These words tell us that Christianity is not merely what is embraced today in the form of this or that dogma but that it is something living, which contains within it the vision and experience of revelations, something that will unfold with ever-increasing strength. We stand today only at the beginning of the working of Christianity, and anyone who has really united himself with Christ knows that ever-new revelations will spring forth from it. He knows that Christianity is not giving way but that it is growing and becoming, that it is something living, not dead.

One who undertakes spiritual development today can even begin already to experience the truth of this expression, “Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the ages of the earth.” He is with us and hovers about the earth in spirit form. Previous to the event of Golgotha, the clairvoyant was unable to find Christ in the atmosphere of the earth. Only after the event of Golgotha did Christ become visible in the atmosphere of the earth, because it is since that time that He has been present there. One who was experienced in clairvoyance during pre-Christian times knew that the time would come in which this would occur. He knew that it was not yet possible to find in the astral sphere of our earth what one calls the Christ, but the time will come when the clairvoyant eye will be opened and will be able to see Christ in the earthly sphere. He knew that a great change would take place regarding earthly clairvoyance, yet he was not sufficiently advanced to be convinced by the events in Palestine that these events had already taken place. No physical events could convince him that Christ had already descended to the earth.

One thing alone could convince him: when he saw Christ clairvoyantly in the atmosphere of the earth. Through this he became convinced that the descent of Christ to the earth, which was expected in the mysteries, had actually been consummated. What Paul experienced as the presence of Christ in the atmosphere of the earth is what modern man may train himself to experience clairvoyantly through an esoteric schooling; this is also what single persons here and there will be able to experience through a natural clairvoyance, as I have already characterized it, beginning with the years 1930 to 1940. Then it will continue through long periods of time as something that has become entirely natural to humanity.

The event of Damascus will repeat itself for many persons, and we can designate this event as a return of Christ, a return in the spirit. Christ will be present for all those who will be able to ascend as far as the vision of the etheric body. He descended only once in the flesh, at the time when He lived in Palestine, but in His etheric body He is always present within the etheric atmosphere of the earth. Because human beings will be able to develop etheric vision, they will also be able to behold Him. The return of Christ thus will come to pass for humanity through the fact that human beings will advance to the faculty of beholding Christ in the etheric. This is what we may look forward to in our time of transition. It is the task of spiritual science to prepare human souls so that they may be able to receive Christ, Who has come down to them.

We see that by this time we have already taken account of the second question we posed. We have seen that it makes good sense to use our incarnations well, but we have also seen that the best use to make of our present incarnation is to prepare ourselves for that insight that will become for us the future of Christ. We must learn to understand in the right sense this return of Christ. We shall then also be able to understand how great the dangers are that are connected with it. This is what I must now explain to you.

The most sublime experience possible for humanity is now in store for human beings in what I have described to you as the return of Christ in the spirit. Yet modern materialism will continue to be so powerful that even such a truth will be interpreted in a materialistic way. This materialistic interpretation will transform itself into reality. This truth will be interpreted as a return of Christ in the flesh. False Christs, false messiahs, will walk about on the earth in the not too distant future, persons who will claim to be the returning Christ. Anthroposophists, however, should be those who are not deceived by such materialism that believes Christ can descend again to earth in the flesh. They know that the Dark Age has come to an end, that age in which human beings needed, for the development of their I-consciousness, the life within physical matter without insight into the spiritual worlds. Man must now develop himself so that he can ascend again to the spiritual sphere where he will be able to behold Christ living and ever-present in the etheric.

Humanity will be granted a period of about 2,500 years in which to develop these faculties; 2,500 years will be at his disposal to attain etheric vision as a natural, universal human faculty, until human beings advance again to another faculty in another time of transition. During these 2,500 years, more and more human souls will be able to develop these faculties in themselves. It will make no difference whether they are then living their lives between birth and death or whether they are dwelling in the spiritual world after death. The period of human life between death and a new birth will also be passed differently if human souls have experienced the reappearance of Christ. The life after death will also change as a result of this experience. This is why it is so important for the souls now incarnated to be well prepared for the Christ event that is to take place during this century. It is just as important for those who are incarnated here on earth in a physical body as for those who will already have passed through the portal of death and will be living the life between death and a new birth. It is of the greatest importance for all souls alive today to be prepared for this event and thus to be well armed against the dangers.

When we speak in this way, we feel what anthroposophy should and can mean to us, how it should prepare us to fulfill our task by seeing to it that a sublime event such as this not pass humanity by, leaving no trace behind. If it were to pass without leaving a trace, humanity would forfeit its most important possibility for evolution and would sink into darkness and gradual death. This event can bring light to human beings only if they awaken to this new perception and thereby open themselves also to the new Christ event.

This will be repeated again and again in the near future; at the same time, it must also be stated repeatedly that the false prophets would be able to prevent the good and the great were they to succeed in spreading the opinion that Christ would appear again in the flesh. If anthroposophists were to fail to grasp this, it would be possible for them to fall prey to that illusion that would enable false messiahs to arise. These false messiahs will appear; they will count on souls that are so weakened by materialism that they cannot imagine anything but that when Christ appears again, He must necessarily appear in material substance, in the flesh. This misinterpretation of the prophecy is an evil thing, and it will appear in the form of a dangerous temptation for humanity. It is the task of anthroposophy to protect human beings from this temptation. This cannot be emphasized too strongly for all who have ears to hear. We can see by this, moreover, that anthroposophy has important things to say; we do not merely “pursue” anthroposophy because we are curious to know all kinds of truths but because we know that these truths must be used for the salvation and gradual perfecting of humanity.

Christ will later appear to humanity in many forms. The form that He chose for the events in Palestine was chosen by Him because, at that time, human beings were dependent upon the faculty of unfolding their consciousness on the physical plane and, through this, conquering the physical plane. Humanity is called upon to develop ever-higher faculties, however, so that the course of evolution may be able, again and again, to make new leaps.

Christ will be there in order that He can be experienced also on these higher stages of knowledge. Christianity is in this connection not at the end but at the beginning of its influence. Humanity will continue to advance from stage to stage, and Christianity will also be there at every stage in order that it may satisfy the deepest requirements of the human soul throughout all future ages of the earth.

My dear friends! Yesterday I tried to lead up to the consciousness of the present time by means of a kind of historical consideration, which, however, was intended to have a spiritual-Christian content. The reflections that will now follow in this direction can be inserted into what we still have to discuss. I wanted to get that far yesterday so that today I could speak of something very specific that relates to contemporary consciousness. But I must first make a necessary preliminary remark.

You see, what the anthroposophical movement, as far as I consider it my duty to represent it, can do is never anything other than to bring into the world what is already clearly recognizable as a demand of the world, that is, what is in some sense demanded from some quarter or other; after all, the demand does not always have to consist of clearly articulated words. But it must be regarded as something that I consider necessary for the anthroposophical movement, that it does not in any way appear in the sense that one calls agitatorisch. Today, of course, all words are misunderstood, and so, if one wants to misunderstand – if one wants to cast an evil eye in the sense of yesterday's very grateful lecture [by Pastor Geyer] – one can define what is happening from the anthroposophical side as agitational. On the other hand, it can be said quite honestly and truthfully that I myself do not engage in any agitation. Giving public lectures cannot be agitation, because it is a matter of the sense in which one gives them and to what extent one can take them from the whole configuration of contemporary spiritual life to the best of one's knowledge; it is a matter of them being demanded by the times themselves. Anyone can go away after a public lecture and say, “I want nothing to do with that.” Well, in this sense, everything is held. Therefore, when I speak of the things I will speak of today, I ask you to bear in mind that these things are held in such a way that they have been directly demanded by the circumstances.

I had to say this in advance because I now want to discuss the following. When we founded the Waldorf School in Stuttgart, the intention was that the Waldorf School should absolutely not be a school of world view, but rather that it should be a school in which the teaching of what could come from anthroposophy, the institution was made so that the actual religious, in this sense the world view, was transferred to the pastors of the respective denominations. So the religious instruction of the Roman Catholic children was entrusted to the Roman Catholic chaplain, and the religious instruction of the Protestant children to the Protestant chaplains, who were mainly concerned that as many as possible should attend, so that the individual had to do as little as possible. Incidentally, we also had this experience with Catholic pastors; it took us a long time to find someone who had the courage to enter this “den of iniquity.” So this is the principle of assigning the pastoral care to the pastoral workers concerned. Of course, the children of dissidents and their parents should also be allowed to receive religious instruction in their own way; and it soon became apparent that a not inconsiderable number of them wanted religious instruction, which now flows entirely from the anthroposophical movement, to be given specifically to the children of dissidents. You have to bear in mind that this is in fact already a considerable step forward in terms of religious sentiment, because the Waldorf School was initially founded for the children of the workers at the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory, so in the vast majority of cases for children of proletarian-Social Democratic parents, and it was the dissident sentiment that was actually predominantly represented. If these children had been sent to a regular school, they would not have taken part in any religious instruction at all; they would not have been forced to do so – after all, coercion would actually have contradicted the religious belief. In our case, religious instruction was specifically requested for these children, so the religious need arose out of complete freedom. In my opinion, this represents progress in religious belief. We were forced, as it were, to set up religious instruction in the sense of the anthroposophical worldview, and I sought to do so in such a way that it was actually separated in principle from the management of the school, which was to remain absolutely neutral on these matters and consider it only its task to work in an educational and didactic way. I consider it an important matter of principle that the school management and everything that flows into the school management has nothing to do with this religious education, so that the representatives of this religious education are placed in the school in the same way as the Roman Catholic and the various Protestant religion teachers. There were no Old Catholics, otherwise they would have been taken care of.

Thus Anthroposophical religious education, as it was often called – I myself don't think much of names – was inaugurated and began in the way that Anthroposophy believes it should be taught, namely by placing it as much as possible in life, and so that, in a sense, knowledge of the Bible and especially knowledge of the Gospels emerges as the crowning glory of all religious education. Now, I say that the Gospel is considered the crowning glory, so that this religious education, in which all kinds of children are mixed together, that is, children who have grown out of Catholic, Protestant or Jewish backgrounds, is definitely given in a Christian sense, and this is of course connected with the fact that the whole of the Waldorf School has an absolutely Christian character in terms of its imponderables. Those who have a feeling for such things would notice this very quickly if they were to enter a Waldorf school.

What then became necessary – not on our part, because we want to accommodate, not agitate – was seen very quickly: the children who receive our anthroposophical religious education need what has become a Sunday act. At first there was a very lively desire to have such a Sunday event, that is, to gather the children who receive anthroposophical religious education for a kind of ceremony on Sunday. And for reasons connected with the whole basic attitude of the Waldorf School towards the public, which is not very favorable to us, we have to carry out this Sunday ceremony in front of the children in the presence of the parents, or, if they are foster parents, we say, in the case of children who are educated in Stuttgart but whose parents are far away from Stuttgart, in the presence of the foster parents who are present in Stuttgart. Those who have no business being there, who want to go to this Sunday event for the sake of mere sensation, will not be admitted, but those who are responsible for the children will be allowed to attend the Sunday event with the children.

Now it was a matter of finding a ritual for this Sunday activity. I will discuss this ritual with you a little now and would like to make the following comment: In the next few days, I will have a lot to say about the ritual itself, about devices and the like, but we are definitely in the process of becoming, so that these things, which will also come into consideration for us, are even less likely to be considered in the Waldorf school. So it is important that you see the matter as an evolving one, that you see it in such a way that only that which can be imbued with full life can be done at first. But I believe that we will be able to communicate well precisely because you will receive a report not about something lifeless, but about something alive, and we will then be able to move up all the more easily to what – if I may use a prosaic expression – has to be planned in terms of ritual, ceremony, sacrament, worship and so on. In the whole cult, for example, the garment of the celebrant is not a trivial matter, but something important; but I will speak about that later.

Please do not misunderstand the expression. When a ritual is conceived, it is really not a matter of intellectually constructing something in the ritual, but rather that this ritual is conceived from the spiritual world. The problem with the ritual is that there is still an extraordinary difficulty at present; if you look at it realistically, the difficulty is that if you were to go about it radically, communion would be necessary for such a Sunday action. Now, given the circumstances, it is not possible to go to communion for the children of the Waldorf School in such a ritual today; it cannot be done. Therefore, it was necessary to emphasize that which is to be carried out in the communion later, and to handle it more spiritually. You will see that with the gradual introduction of rituals, you will have to go from the word, I would say, from the word that potentially contains the action, to the actual execution of the action. This will be a path that you will simply have to go through. You will not be able to come straight out with it, but you will have to go through the path from the action suggested by the word, whereby you must be aware that this is a beginning to the fully completed action.

But a ritual must never be composed merely intellectually; it must live in the living world process. For this, my dear friends, one thing is necessary: It is absolutely necessary to pay strict attention to the requirements of a ritual. My dear friends, when we speak from person to person, we must be clear about the fact that our speech must always be based on the only thing that lies solely in the convincing power of the content of our speech. If we understand the present time correctly in a religious sense, we must realize that we have no other work to do through the speech we address to people or to a gathering of people than that which can flow from the speaker out of his own conviction and the power of his own personality. Speeches that contain a moment of suggestion – as we use the word in Central Europe, not as it is used in Western Europe – would be absolutely reprehensible in the context of today's world, because we have come to the point in the development of humanity that, when we can use the word in a free way, we must put into the word that which is our own personal free conviction. If spiritual life is to be taken in full reality, nothing that is suggestive may be imposed on this personal free conviction, but one must behave in such a way that the consent of the other person comes out of complete freedom. This is the prerequisite for every future religious or spiritual-scientific or other work. If anyone were to misuse speech for magic, then this would be in the most extreme sense irreligious, even ungodly, in the strict sense that Anthroposophy must understand it, it would be a sin against the Holy Spirit, and this is what Anthroposophy must represent. For the speech may only be imbued with that sanctification which may be called sanctification through the Holy Spirit, and must observe in man absolutely the principle of directly and completely free conviction, which could not have existed in the evolution of mankind before the Mystery of Golgotha, because the word would have been repulsed by the human being altogether if the word had only had the power that it alone may have had today. At that time it had to work suggestively because the human organization was designed for it. That is why there also had to be chosen leaders, as I said yesterday, and it was also allowed at that time to work through the word in a sense that only happens in the spirit, by becoming aware, one spoke in the spirit, not out of one's own power, but out of the power of the God living in one, the Nous or the Logos. One must realize that this is impossible today, and that today one may only speak out of the Holy Spirit; but that is the word to which alone the free conviction of the one who hears the word answers. Therefore, all instruction today must be given under the sign of the Holy Spirit. We must be very clear about the fact that everything that flows from words into action can only be carried out in the Christian sense if the person carrying it out has the Paul consciousness: Not I, but the Christ in me! — Nothing in an act that is carried out in this way may be done without the consciousness that the act is performed as an inward divine commandment, as that which is performed in the spirit of the Christ-commandment itself.

We must realize that we are only the instrument through which the Christ can speak to people. This is especially difficult with children, because what I have explained applies to a limited extent to children only, and not to fully developed, mature people. Therefore, we must also make a distinction in what we do towards the person who is already considered worthy of the sacrament of the altar and towards the one we consider still too childlike to receive the sacrament of the altar. What I have now discussed must be evident in every action. Without this underlying principle, the action would be absolutely impossible.

The task is to find the Sunday activity from this point of view, and I ask that, as I describe it to you, you consider it only from this point of view. In doing so, we must today still leave out some things in the discussion that have a future value, but which we do not yet need to get into today. Of course, in the future we would actually need not only the spoken word, but also what in the older sense was also part of the cult: the recitative. But this is something that cannot be done today either, because recitative would still have too suggestive an effect on people today; we would make them unfree. Therefore, the ceremonies must not be performed in any other way than as initial ceremonies, initial cults, which I will now talk to you about.

The Sunday ritual is performed in such a way that the children are to gather in front of the entrance door to the room where the Sunday ritual is performed. There is someone standing at the door who first has to make the child aware that he or she must enter this room in a very special mood. Therefore, as the child enters the room, he or she is taken by the hand and told:

You know you are going to the act that
is to uplift your soul to the spirit of the world.

I will begin by telling you. I will speak later about how the matter can be carried out in a completely Christian sense, not in an anthroposophical sense, which must shape the matter differently, but which shapes it in such a way that it is led to the Christian. I would like to point out that what is being explained here is being done precisely because an anthroposophical religious education has been requested, which can only emerge from what anthroposophy already is and is allowed to be.

So the child is received with the words, by being greeted with the touch of the hand:

You know you are going to the act that
is to uplift your soul to the spirit of the world.

Then the child enters the room, which is relatively extraordinarily simple at first. It has a kind of altar at one wall, with seven candles on it. We shall have more to say about these seven candles in this context. Above the altar there must be a picture of Christ. Since I have not yet been able to get hold of a better one, the Stuttgart Waldorf School uses the one painted by Leonardo da Vinci as the image of the youthful Christ. But that is still an imperfection, but one can only do what is possible under the real circumstances.

Now the person who is facing the altar, with his back to the children as they enter, turns around and faces the children. He now speaks words to the children that are thoroughly ritualistic, in which the formulation of the sentences is such that the sequence of words moves in an element where the person cannot say that he speaks, but rather that he expresses what the Christ has to say within him. So the person says:

We now raise our thoughts and feelings to the spirit,
To the spirit that lives and works
In stone, plants and animals;
That lives and works in human thoughts and deeds, That works in everything that works,
That lives in everything that lives,
He who leads the living into death, so that it may live anew,
He who leads the dead into the living, so that it may behold the spirit.

Every word has been weighed, not only so that it stands as a word, but also so that each word stands in its right place and in the right relationship to the other words. After the one who is speaking has spoken this, he turns to the Christ-Image and speaks with arms raised to the Christ-Image the following words:

He who works as a spirit in the universe took on body in him.
Christ died.
He came to life in the being of human beings
Who gave him a home in their hearts.
Let our heart turn to him too.
Let it be imbued with his power
So that he may work in it
So that he may permeate
our thinking, feeling and willing.

So this is the direction towards the Christ-spirit of the world. Now the person who is doing the work speaks, turning to the children and with hands that bless. The gesture for blessing consists of taking two fingers together and spreading the hands out in this way. [The gesture is demonstrated.] Now the point is that the moment has come when Communion should be administered or something similar. So it is the case that the officiant turns to the children. After saying the words that I have expressed, the person turns to the children and speaks, preparing them, as it were, for what is to be said as a substitute for receiving Communion:

My dear ones! We learn to understand the world.
We learn to work in the world.
Love among people revives all human endeavor
Without love, being human becomes bleak and empty.
Christ is the teacher of human love.

The person who is acting speaks to the children about the relationship between Christ and them. This is followed by the common prayer, which is spoken in unison:

We lift up all our feeling and thinking to the Spirit of God.
We honor the Spirit of God. We love the Spirit of God.
We will remember the Spirit of God
When we are alone,
And also when we are with people.
Then He will be with us.

You must pay attention to all the details. In particular, you must pay attention to the fact that this turning to the Spirit of God is required “when we are alone and also when we are with people”.

Now follows what must first be introduced as a kind of surrogate for Communion, which can take on different forms, insofar as it can be given to children or an indicative substitute for it can be given to them. We cannot do more than the officiant approaches each individual child and speaks, laying his hand on the child's head or extending his hand – so it is spoken to each individual child, going through the whole row [of children]; before, it was only spoken to them as a group:

The spirit of God will be with you if you seek it.

The child answers:

I will seek it.

So you don't have to take this as a lecture, but as a ceremony.

Now the officiant returns to the altar and, with hands blessing, says:

I call upon the spirit of God
to be with you when you seek it.

After this, the Gospel chapter is read, which must be read in the correct manner at the appropriate time. We will have more to say about the distribution of the Gospel chapters throughout the year. Then the children sing a hymn that is relevant to the whole service, and finally the officiant says:

Dear children! I now dismiss you,

But keep in good thoughts

What you have heard, felt and thought here.

Then appropriate music follows. The children then leave the hall after the officiant has stepped back from the image of Christ.

The person performing the act can prepare himself by saying to himself before the act:

Through Your power, O Spirit of God,
I shall direct to You
the souls entrusted to me.
Let Your light illuminate the sphere of my thinking,
Your warmth of life permeates the center of my feeling, Your soul power permeates the radiant body of my will, Be in the service I want to do for you.

With these words, which he speaks to himself in thought, the doer prepares himself before the children are admitted.

I would like to make it clear that you should understand this as a ritual; you should not interpret it as a teaching instruction. This is counteracted by the fact that religious instruction is given in the corresponding religious education lessons. There is teaching, there is no cult.

The ritual that is performed, my dear friends, works, if it is performed in the right way and with the right attitude, precisely not as teaching for humanity. This must be borne in mind. And only in this way will you be able to understand how carefully the whole matter at hand is being handled. It can only be handled in such a way that the whole spirit of the matter is only gradually advanced, and we are actually coming to the development of the matter very slowly, because we can only respond, so to speak, to the signs of the times that we seek to understand.

Now, of course, it is important that the special times of the year also be made known to the child in the way he or she must be Christian, likewise through ritual. And so I would like to give you as an example the Christmas ritual first – we will talk about others later – which is added as a special one to the Sunday rituals, or would be performed on a Sunday if the birthday of Christ Jesus fell on a Sunday. So it is for the time being. I cannot say how things will turn out in the further development. So it is for the time being, according to our ability.

This Christmas action occurs in the same way as the Sunday actions. When the children have gathered, the person performing the action turns to them and says:

Dear children,

We live in the beginning of winter.
Our eyes see little of the outer sun.
It appears late and disappears early.
But within, our soul's eye beholds
In winter's cold and winter's darkness:
The bright shining spiritual sun of Christ,
Which has appeared through Jesus to humanity
From divine realms.

In the humble soul of the shepherd
Was heard the word of heaven:
God's spirit reveals itself in heights,
And he brings peace to the people of the earth,
In whose hearts dwells good will.
And the shepherds were led
By the lofty word of heaven,
And they sought the Spirit of God
After the proclamation on earth.
At the place of poverty they found
The child Jesus, who then became
The Christ.

It was the first Christmas in the world
When the humble shepherds
With a praying heart kneeled
At the poverty site before Jesus, the infant,
Through the light of the spirit
He appeared to the people of the earth.

Through the Christ
Who is the spirit sun, we will find
The way to spiritual heights,
And so become
First true people.
So the humble shepherds thought
In their intuitive souls,
When they saw the light,
That shone from the child's eyes
In the first Christmas of the world.

And as if they saw the light
The humble shepherds
There was a new beginning of the world:
The Christmas of mankind began.
And it can be light ever since
In the hearts of men,
Who learn to love
To say: behold, it is the Christ
Through whom the soul finds
The way into the spirit's
Sunshine-bright kingdom.

And it will remain bright
In the hearts of men,
Who lovingly feel
In their deepest innermost being
The light that shines there
On the way to the Christ
Sunshine-bright kingdom.

In the hearts of men
The dark night of winter
Becomes a bright spiritual day
When the soul consecrates itself
To the light that shines through Jesus
In earthly life.

The person carrying out the action goes to each child as usual and speaks to them:

Raise your thoughts and feelings
to the Christ-Spirit.

Then, after going back to the front of the line, he speaks to the children:

You shall raise your thoughts and feelings
to the Christ-Spirit,
He is the light
That shines in the hearts of men
So that they may find
The way to the Kingdom of God.

Now a piece of music suitable for Christmas should be played, and then the person carrying out the action continues:

Through the power of the Spirit's salvation,
In the consecration of the world,
Soul light awakens,
Human strength awakens,
Courage of the heart awakens,
After it once awakened
From times of Christmas
To eternal healing power.

Man fulfills himself
With true soul meaning,
When at Christmas time
He turns within
In strong thinking
In heartfelt feeling
To the power of Christ
Man strengthens himself
Through true spiritual power
When at Christmas time
He turns within
In bright thinking
In warm feeling
To the light of Christ.

Dear children:
Hold all this in your hearts,
and bring it from the holy Christmas season
into the life of the whole year.

This can, of course, be followed, in the sense that we will have to discuss it later, by a reading from the corresponding gospel.

Since we have accepted children of all age groups into the Waldorf School, we were soon obliged to also celebrate a youth festival with the children who had completed elementary school and were about to go out into life. This youth festival will be the basis for a confirmation or confirmation ritual. The text for this youth festival is the following: Upon entering, which is done in the same way as usual, the child is said, each one individually, for each one is admitted separately:

Consider the importance of this moment in your life.

Now the children are admitted, the person performing the act turns to the children and says:

Dear children, remember the importance of this moment in your life. You are entering a new age. You are rising from childhood to youth. Your teachers have guided you. Their concern was that the Spirit of God

shine in your thinking
be powerful in your feeling
be effective in your will.

Your teachers wanted to show you the Christ who died so that human souls could live, so that He might be:

the light in your soul
the guide on your path through life
the giver of the joys of existence
the comforter in the suffering of existence.

The man turns around and raises his arms, as I showed earlier, to the image of Christ, and says:

You light of souls
You guide on our paths of life
You giver of the joys of existence
You comforter in the suffering of existence
I spoke to you with beseeching words, imploring light for these children's thoughts, longing for strength for these children's feelings, seeking the blessing of action for these children's will. So send your light, bestow your strength, let your blessings flow in this hour
upon those who were entrusted to us
and whom we now hand over to life
so that they may
think through your light
feel through your strength
work through your blessing
in all their earthly lives
until in the moment of death
you lead them into the existence of the soul.
For you have spoken:

Now follows the reading of the high-priestly prayer from the Gospel of John. The person conducting the service then goes to each individual child, takes them by the hand and speaks to them:

Through the spirit of Christ
Who conquered death
So that the soul of man
Was saved in life
You were led
Here in this school for children:
So may the spirit of Christ guide
Your life forces
Your soul powers
Your spiritual goals
Through the great school of life.

The person who is doing this returns to his or her place and speaks about Easter in a speech that has something like the following content – here he is given complete freedom, and what I will now read as a speech to the children is to be understood only as an appeal:

Dear Children,

It was in spring, when the earth finds new life in its plants, that Christ went through death on Golgotha. He died. But he overcame death. As victor over death, he lives with people: he lives in people who seek him, seek him with all their thinking, feeling and willing. And every time spring brings the high Easter festival, then man, when he sees the new life of the earth, should remember death and the resurrection of Christ.

— The youth celebration is intended for Easter. —

Dear Children, each year at this Easter time, remember the feast we celebrate with you today and celebrate it anew each year, so that the thought of the death, resurrection and indwelling of Christ in the souls of those who seek him may be revived in you.

Then a hymn follows, as in the Sunday celebrations, prepared in the appropriate way for this festival. Finally, the following is spoken again:

Dear children, every Sunday I have
released you, asking you to remember
what you have experienced here;
now I dismiss you
with a sorrowful soul
into life.
The Spirit of Christ be with you
Seek Him
and you shall find Him:
As your light
As your strength
As your guide
As your comforter.

Each child is dismissed individually, taken by the hand and spoken to:

Remember the importance of this moment in your life. Never forget it, not in joy, not in sorrow.

Then the child is dismissed, at first from the action. The rest would be instruction, would no longer belong to the actual ritual.

I have given you here some examples of how this must be grasped in a living way in religious life, how it can flow into a cult that is now also sought in a completely living way out of that which can be a renewed religious life. Everything, my dear friends, is imperfect in the beginning, and of course many, many objections can be raised against any beginning. Accept this as a beginning, and know that where there is a sincere desire for such a beginning, the strength to improve what can be given in such a beginning will also be found. I believe, my dear friends, that it is not a matter of stifling such a child in its beginning, but rather of working on what is wanted. Of course, where the living and not the dogmatic is desired, every objection can only be welcome. But it should be clear to you from this example that, wherever the living is sought, the cultic must be sought. I have already been able to draw your attention to the prayerful character of what the person performing the action can have as a preparatory prayer. In a similar way, we begin each teaching morning, of course in a correspondingly simple way. This, of course, goes beyond the principle if the principle is only grasped in a completely abstract way. If the principle were grasped in a completely abstract way, we would not be allowed to place anything at the beginning of the teaching morning at all, but would have to start [with the teaching] straight away. But that would be quite impossible, because after all, all teaching must have a mood to it, and ultimately the Christian mood cannot be something that hovers above everything as an abstraction, but must be incorporated into every detail. There can be no principle in the life of the world, only that which changes in life. This should not be seen as an inconsistency, but as a requirement of life itself.

But you also see that, in accordance with what can only be use today, we must remain with the word as much as possible, and only the word itself can be transformed into action, because action is already inherent in the word, especially when the word occurs in the context of life itself. It is absolutely the case that in such a youth celebration, not only is something discussed, but something happens, something happens to the souls, not with, but to the souls of the children.

Just compare this, my dear friends, with how strong the belief was that the main thing had to be put into the teaching material that was being taught. Basically, this is still the case today in all religious denominations and in all forms of religion; too much emphasis is placed on the teaching material as such, on its dogmatic or other content. One must gradually come out of the merely human word and, by detour, by being aware that one draws the word from the spiritual worlds for the ceremony, penetrate to the immersion of the whole ceremonial in an atmosphere where acts of worship can take place without sacrificial acts.

But in the course of time, another problem arose: the children of the dissidents also wanted to be baptized. Until now, of course, I could only help myself, at least in the main, by teaching our friends who are priests and who were also imbued with the idea of breathing new life into their profession a baptismal ritual that could only be in keeping with the spirit of the times. But, my dear friends, before I proceed to this baptismal ritual tomorrow, I must make a few remarks, without which this baptismal ritual could not be understood. You see, a baptismal ritual would be impossible to create if one did not inspire one's understanding of the world and of God through that which in earlier times, when such things still lived atavistically, flowed into a ritual at all. I have pointed out to you times when no alchemical operation (that is, in those days, chemical operation) was carried out without the alchemist (that is, in our language, the chemist) having the Book of the Gospels in front of him in his alchemical laboratory. People at that time said that one would not have considered oneself authorized to carry out an alchemical process in the true sense of the word with the right attitude without the Gospel. You must always bear in mind how far a modern chemist is from such a thing, and how a modern chemist would fare if he were expected not to act with his retorts and his heating apparatus and with all that he does if he did not have the gospel book at his laboratory table. One must penetrate something like this if one seriously wants to see through what it is all about. One must also understand the concern that was present precisely in those who had the good eye in the times when modern science was emerging and one could see that, abandoned by the Spirit of God, actions were being carried out in accordance with the external laws of nature and external natural forces. One must put oneself in the shoes of such people, who were seized by a terrible fear when they heard that Agrippa von Nettesheim or his teacher, the Sponheimer, were performing something that had to do with new powers. They were extremely concerned that this should not have anything to do with divine powers. And so one must put oneself in the frame of mind that consecrating religious services, performing ceremonies, celebrating was nothing other than the highest stage of that which one also performed in alchemy. Therefore, one must really be imbued with the realization that not only external signs were present in those things that were used in a cultic act, but that the view that was held at that time of the substantial that served one in a cultic act was present. It was not, as would be the case today, decided to devise this or that symbol for this or that, whereby human arbitrariness plays an enormous role and with which one actually has to struggle continuously today. Isn't it true that in all these things it really depends on the how. And so it is just as necessary that in order to understand rituals it is also recognized that there is nothing arbitrary in the ritual, but a deeper knowledge of the substantiality of the world than can be admitted at present in science at all.

You see, a few years ago, for example, I read in a book written with good intentions that dealt with the history of alchemy how an alchemist's recipe from around the time of Basilius Valentinus's work was cited. The recipe was presented as it could be described from the works of Basilius Valentinus, which are largely forgeries. Then the excellent chemist who had to judge it wrote his verdict and said: This is complete nonsense, it is all nonsense; today's chemist cannot imagine what it means, it is complete nonsense. — Not a single word that the historian wrote down is wrong. The man could only not imagine anything because the recipe combined words that had to be learned in their terminological meaning, of which one would first have to know how they were used. There was talk of processes that are again expressed according to the words today, of dissolution, of heating and so on. Yes, if one reads the word “loosening” as today's chemists do, it is nonsense. If you read the word 'gold' as today's chemist does, it is nonsense, and if you read the word 'mercury', today's chemist cannot imagine what it is at all; because he understands mercury to mean the mercury that we also have in thermometer tubes, for example. If we approach the formulas of the 13th and 12th centuries with this terminology, they are complete nonsense today, and it would be much better if people admitted to themselves that they appear to be nonsense than if people today , which is what is really happening, they run to the antiquarian bookshops and buy works by Basilius Valentinus, which are forgeries – but which sometimes contain correct things that are just not understood today – or they buy all kinds of works by Paracelsus. They read it and think they understand it, while it would be more honest to just say to themselves: That is the height of madness from the point of view of today. That is just what must be taken into account; in this respect people today have, I might say, basically strayed from the honest sense of truth; they write and prattle on in words and are satisfied if the words are only moved into a slightly different atmosphere from the one they are accustomed to hearing today, even if they do not understand the words. Today, because all these things are taught in school, there is definitely an atmosphere in which people say to themselves: Yes, one hears about water, salt, phosphorus, mercury; one can understand all that, one understands it if one picks up the very first chemistry textbook today. But [they think], that which one understands cannot be of any value, that is knowledge that is of no value from the outset. Now they take a work by Paracelsus or a work by Basilius Valentinus. There they find the same words, but because they cannot understand it in the context, they believe that they are now in mystical depths because they do not understand anything, but they want to believe that they are experiencing something. That is where we have to be honest. Even if we only go back that far, we still have to search a little for the key. We have to learn to read these things, because today it is extremely difficult to even get a correct idea of what the spirit, what the supernatural actually is. It helps a great deal if one prepares oneself by delving into times when the spirit was still alive in the material world, by going back to such times and asking oneself: What did people in the 12th or 13th century understand when they talked about salt, water, ash? Not at all what people understand today. What did they understand when they spoke of salt, water, ash?

This is what I wanted to point out to you first, and I will start on it tomorrow when I have more to say about ritualism.

Report by Dr. Otto Palmer

From No. 6 of “Mitteilungen. Herausgegeben vom Vorstand der Anthroposophischen Gesellschaft in Deutschland,” Stuttgart, July 1923.

For anyone who had the good fortune to be in Prague from April 27 to 30 this year, in the midst of Czech and German friends, these days will be unforgettable in many ways. One must allow the city of Prague itself to take effect and feel something of the occult spiritual currents that permeate the walls in order to understand the impression made by two public and two internal lectures by Dr. Steiner and how the eurythmy performance at the Deutsches Theater, in front of a full house, was also very well received. One newspaper, however, had nothing better to do than to launch into the most crude criticism of eurythmy from the outset, while other papers fully recognized the novelty of the eurythmic art and predicted a bright future for it.

As for the lectures by Dr. Steiner himself, one took place in the Urania hall, which held about 850 people, while the other was held in the Products Exchange hall, where about 1200 to 1500 listeners had gathered, who did not hold back on warm applause at the end. In the first lecture, Dr. Steiner spoke of spiritual scientific research methods in general and introduced the audience to anthroposophy and its intentions in our time. In the second lecture, he spoke about human knowledge and education and developed the developmental problems of the human being based on the practical experiences of the Waldorf School in Stuttgart. In both lectures, which were held jointly for the Czech and German branches and which took place between the two public lectures, what had been said in the public lectures was deepened in every direction. 'e's Our Prague friends, both Czech and German, vied with each other to make the conference a memorable and beautiful one, and also to show the foreign members the beauties of the city and its historical monuments outside the context of anthroposophical ventures.

Dear Friends,

We are sending you a report of the General Assembly of April 22, ¹, which you may supplement from your own impressions, and ask you to bring it to the attention of your branch members and then discuss the situation of the Society thoroughly. As you know, Dr. Steiner has told us that he may have to withdraw if the Society no longer seems to him to be a suitable way of furthering anthroposophy.

This report also shows you how enormous Dr. Steiner's work is and how little help the Society can provide. Can we do better in fulfilling our task?

No resolutions were reached at the last General Assembly. It must therefore be continued. This will happen at the beginning of June. The exact date will be announced after Steiner's return from Norway. Before that, a meeting of delegates should take place, in which the branch leaders and other co-workers should participate. We will let you know the date of the meeting..2 There is no circular letter regarding this. The meeting of the delegates took place on June 9th and the general meeting on June 10th in Dornach.

Two things should happen first: 1. Dr. Steiner should be asked by as many people as possible to rebuild the Goetheanum. Then, the Society should address a petition to the authorities asking whether and when the insurance money will be paid out, and whether it is possible to build at all.

This resolution must be drafted as soon as possible, provided Dr. Steiner has no objections.

We ask you to also be prepared to address the tasks of the Society and its consolidation with the same proposals, so that the next General Assembly will be more successful.

With best regards

Albert Steffen

• 1. . It is the report of H.] J. Heywood-Smith, cf. on page 478 ff.

My dear friends!

Today, too, I have to begin with a message of mourning. Our dear member, Mrs. Caroline Wilhelm, left the physical plane last night. There are certainly quite a number of friends among you who have known Mrs. Wilhelm for years and who know with what loyalty she was attached above all to our anthroposophical spiritual movement, with what loyalty she was also attached to all that is here in the Dornach building. With what love she always came out! She has been seriously ill for a long time. Even when the illness, which for a long time offered little prospect of a truly thorough restoration of health, had already taken hold of her, she always came and went and felt strengthened, even in her suffering, by what Dornach was to her. She found some relief here and there. In particular, she received particularly kind care over a long period of time at the institution of our esteemed member and colleague, Dr. Scheidegger in Basel. It was touching to see how she could take joy in every ray of sunshine in her friendly room, even in the midst of the most painful suffering, and how she repeatedly sought refuge in everything that anthroposophical reading could offer her in terms of upliftment, comfort and strength. There is no doubt that she was deeply and intimately connected with the soul of what lives in anthroposophy, and that she carried it through the portal of death. And I am also convinced that those who knew her, those who saw here how faithfully she clung to everything concerning Dornach, will now also unite their thoughts with the striving of her soul. There is no doubt that our friend, Mrs. Wilhelm, will always be connected with all that lives and works here with heartfelt love and loyal devotion. The cremation will take place in Basel on Tuesday at 4 p.m., and it is to be hoped that those who know Mrs. Wilhelm will attend. We will now rise from our seats as a sign of our connection with her.

During the year 1924, before his illness in September, Rudolf Steiner gave over eighty lectures, published with the title Karmic Relationships: Esoteric Studies, to Members of the Anthroposophical Society in the following places: Dornach, Berne, Zurich, Stuttgart, Prague, Paris, Breslau, Arnhem, Torquay and London. English translations of these lectures are contained in the following volumes of the series:

Vols. I to IV. Lectures given in Dornach (49).
Vol. V. Lectures given in Prague (4) and Paris (3).
Vol. VI. Lectures given in Berne (2) Zurich (1), Stuttgart (3) Arnhem (3).

The present volume (VII) contains the nine lectures given in Breslau.

The six lectures that were given in Torquay and London will eventually be republished. They have previously been published as: Cosmic Christianity and the Impulse of Michael. Karma in the life of individuals and in the evolution of the world (1953).

Readers familiar with the contents of earlier volumes will find certain repetitions in the present collection. Such repetitions were inevitable because Dr. Steiner was speaking to different audiences on each occasion. All these lectures were given to members of the Anthroposophical Society only and were intended to be material for study by those already familiar with the fundamental principles and terminology of Anthroposophy. The following extract from the lecture of 22nd June, 1924 (see Vol. II) calls attention to the need for exactitude when passing on such contents:

“The study of problems connected with karma is by no means easy and the discussion of anything that has to do with the subject entails—or ought at any rate to entail—a sense of deep responsibility. Such study is in truth a matter of penetrating into the most profound mysteries of existence, for within the sphere of karma and the course it takes lie those processes which are the basis of the other phenomena of world-existence, even of the phenomena of nature. ... These difficult and weighty matters entail grave consideration of every word and every sentence spoken here, in order that the limits within which the statements are made shall be absolutely clear. ...”

To our friends of Anthroposophy gathered at the Goetheanum

A year has passed since our conference during the last Christmas season, when a new life was to be given to the Anthroposophical Society and a spiritual foundation stone was laid for it.

This Christmas I cannot attend the gatherings of our friends, I cannot do anything in person to help with what has been organized. I was unable to assist Mrs. Marie Steiner in anything that needed to be prepared.

My physical strength collapsed during the fall events. It would probably have held despite the many courses; but only if no other efforts had been made beyond those of holding the courses, which were well calculated for this strength. Now that efforts have come, in a perfectly understandable way, that went beyond those of holding courses, it was too much after all that was incumbent upon me during this past year.

So now I am dependent on regaining physical strength with the help of the unparalleled, self-sacrificing care of my friend Dr. I. Wegman. (Dr. Noll is Dr. Wegman's loyal helper.

All this must be accepted as fate (karma). It would be sentimental to say much about how painful it is for me to be physically separated from the places where we work at the Goetheanum. I would just like to hope that none of this will weaken our dear friends, but rather make them stronger and more effective.

All I can do for these Christmas events is to send to the hall where I want to be with the friends spiritually, descriptions of the “Christ Mystery in the Context of World and Human Development” - which I developed following the messages about Michael's mission. Their lecture should awaken the consciousness that I want to participate as well as I can in this year's Christmas meetings. These messages about the mystery of Christ, which correspond to the Christmas festival mood, will also appear in the following numbers of the journal.

Christmas greetings and thoughts for Dr. I. Wegman, who is deprived of her membership by me.

With all my heart
Rudolf Steiner