The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Next Friday, we will discuss the events that precede the birth of a human being. For occult research, the conditions that a human being has to undergo before his birth are also important. We will also address issues related to the unification of the human ego with its prepared physical body and various other issues related to the manifestations of the times.

Today I would like to elaborate on the relationship of our Theosophical Society [to other spiritual currents]. As a Theosophical Society, we differ quite significantly from all previous endeavors. Last time we saw how the esoteric teachings were treated in the Pythagorean school, and I pointed out that in this Pythagorean school we have something that the Secret Doctrine taught in secret. In terms of doctrine, we have something in common with this Pythagorean school.

And then we have something similar to what was present in the time of [early] Christianity. The Theosophical Society is concerned with the teachings we find in Gnosticism.

The Theosophical Society is essentially different from any kind of secret society. We also meet in larger groups in the Theosophical Society as in the time of Christ, and not in small hidden circles, as was the case with the Pythagorean School. But we can show even more similarities.

I have already mentioned the Rosicrucians and the Knights Templar. They were different because they were real secret societies with a hierarchical principle of order. The Rosicrucians only addressed a few individuals. They never gathered in larger contexts. Today I would like to give you an idea of how the Rosicrucians worked. They existed in their original form until the end of the 18th century, when the most remarkable spiritual endeavors arose and the form had to be changed as a result. Christian Rosenkreutz was incarnated in Count Saint Germain at that time. From the thirteenth century until the French Revolution, the Rosicrucians only knew each other. Only those who were themselves Rosicrucians could recognize each other. It was impossible for a Rosicrucian to be recognized from the outside. Rosicrucians could be in the most unnoticed worldly positions. Many heads of the education system were in a certain position so that they could work strongly without being recognized. But they also came from the outside into the legislative and administrative branches and were therefore highly effective.

In truth, the Rosicrucian relates only to his spiritual brothers. He works solely from the spiritual sphere from which humanity is governed. It should be borne in mind here that it is not only words that have an effect. Effects from the spiritual sphere flow into human life in a variety of ways. Only those who can go to the spiritual source really know what is involved. Today, it is generally assumed that history develops from external events, but there are countless other channels that are hidden and have a strong influence on human life.

How does the Theosophical Society differ from these earlier movements? Today, the facts come from outside, which makes it necessary to communicate theosophy and the theosophical truths to the world. Little by little, humanity's secret knowledge will be made accessible in the future. Today, there are also parts of the earlier secret knowledge that have already appeared or are appearing publicly. They were found either by external natural science or, as in the case of history, in connection with some essays that appeared in the Revue Bleu, for example.

The published historical facts are roughly the following: There are records of Queen Marie-Antoinette by the Countess d'Adh&mar. These are messages from the trusted friend of Queen Marie-Antoinette of France, who lived as a lady-in-waiting close to the queen. I will just outline what is in these records. On the eve of the Revolution, a gentleman presented himself to this lady-in-waiting. It was the Comte de Saint Germain, who requested an audience with the king and asked the lady-in-waiting to arrange one for him. Maurepas was a minister and was keen to prevent such an audience with Louis XVI. So the Count Saint Germain discussed the matters that related to the royal house and the whole French nation with the queen's lady-in-waiting and asked her to report the conversation to the queen. — This is the first act of the facts.

The confidante presented the matter to Queen Marie-Antoinette. The queen granted the lady-in-waiting an audience with Count Saint Germain. So it came about that in the presence of the Countess d'Adhemar, a conversation took place between the queen and Count Saint Germain, in which he pointed out the dangerous situation in which France then found herself. He then said: “If my warnings are not heard, then I will no longer be seen for three generations.”

However, the First Minister Maurepas then made any further contact with Count Saint Germain impossible. In July 1789, the same Count Saint Germain came to Paris again to speak to the Queen's confidante at a rendezvous in a church. During this conversation, he not only told the confidante things that would happen in the next few years, but also predicted things for decades to come. “He who sows the wind shall reap the whirlwind.” He had already expressed this long before the time when Christ walked on earth. This man, who at that time appeared as Count Saint Germain, was none other than the founder of Rosicrucianism, Christian Rosenkreutz himself. We are dealing here with a man who can live entirely in the mental world, entirely in the world of thought. Thoughts live not only in the present, but also in the past, and so thoughts will be deeds in the future.

In the last occult lesson, I described how the theurgist gains insight into the depths of world events. The theurge's expanded vision offers a much deeper insight, penetrating into the intentions of world governance. Count Saint Germain was able to see the deepest driving forces within the world movement. He clearly expressed this at the time, and it can be found in the notes of Countess d'Adhemar. What he showed her was that things had to happen as the great plan of the world intended, as the great intentions were.

In the case of Count Saint Germain, we are dealing with a human individuality that had become completely intertwined with another personality that was also connected to the French Revolution: the demon of Count Cagliostro. However, all the external facts that take place before our eyes are nothing more than what happens internally. But there is something else at the root of this matter as well. It was, so to speak, a symptom of a nonsensuous history.

If we recognize the facts of life today correctly, we will see that the causes that led to the French Revolution are still at work today. Today, no attention is paid to such facts [that Christian Rosenkreutz, in his then embodiment as Count Saint Germain, said in Paris in 1775: “A century will pass before I reappear” - and] “If I am not heeded, I will not reappear before three generations have passed.” This is what the Count Saint Germain had said in mid-1789.

What then took place in France [during the French Revolution], after the Count Saint Germain had not been listened to, had been long prepared [within the secret societies].

The Revolution arose out of the call for the rights of the personality. (The four lower principles). The urge for freedom belongs to the lower Manas. The course of events thus took place according to an inner plan. But that man wanted to bring the goods, which then had to be achieved in a bloody way, to humanity in a peaceful way. The conditions at court did not allow his advice to be heeded. The outer course of events had to take the other path, that is, the bloody path. The encyclopedists, the philosophers of the Enlightenment, had a part in the revolution. Those who consider only the sensual, as happens in the “Systeme de la Nature” [by Paul Henri Thiry d'Holbach], have only Maja in their perspective. Goethe called it a hollow work, as if it had flowed out of purely physical, sensual interests. Thinking, feeling and acting have been completely materialized in this work.

We see, then, that contemporary science has already become completely materialistic in terms of natural and cultural science. It has become so out of necessity. Our feelings have also become so materialistic. When we look at materialistic historical thinking today, we see that people are so completely dependent on the prejudices of their own time. The historian is virtually compelled to project these prejudices of his own time back into earlier times. If one is able to see this in the right way, then it is downright outrageous to encounter ideas about the lives of past centuries. This being afflicted with the prejudices of one's own time makes it so that today no one can put themselves back into the feelings and desires of the thirteenth century. But in those days everything was quite different. The judgments one encounters today are made with the exclusion of all factual knowledge. They are based only on the very outermost historical basis. No consideration is given to the fact that everything changes in the course of human development.

What is regarded as “right” today will be recognized by later generations as “wrong”. This also applies to spiritual movements. What was right for the Rosicrucians of the Middle Ages would no longer be right today. People today not only demand more, they also demand something different. Today it is impossible to work in the way that the Rosicrucians worked in earlier centuries. However, those who want to help people today are the disciples of those who, in earlier centuries, demanded that the human mind should judge over everything.

If we go back even further in human development, when Christianity was founded, it was still possible to appeal to feeling. In those days, one could build on “faith”. But we could no longer appeal to such “faith” today.

Progressive history was brought to life by the Rosicrucian disciples of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. We are only paying tribute to our age when we appeal to reason today. It is very important to always keep in mind: We give, but it is always our contemporaries who demand.

It is generally assumed that a truth is easy to grasp. But is that really so? The intellect can understand everything, but otherwise it is the most powerless to really intervene in inner events. The intellect can never grasp from within. The intellect only ever understands things on the outside. What happens in research today? Animals and plants are chemically examined. We have found out how the substances interact, how digestion works. What happens in this research? It is organized with thinking and combined with the intellect. This is done by the intellect. But by approaching the facts of life in this way, the intellect has at the same time, by organizing and combining, driven life out of everything. Intellectual science has “come a long way”. It has achieved amazing things. This is, of course, fully recognized by us.

In 1875 Haeckel's students [Hertwig] Strasburger researched the connection between cells and shed light on the fertilization process. Today, external science even understands how personality is formed. The birth of personality was glimpsed in 1875. But science had to pass by the higher individuality.

But if we now look further back into the past, we see that earlier centuries still saw the core of the human being. And they also spoke of this core. Today's science, however, has completely detached the human being from his original spiritual sources. Science will only say that material feelings and desires live in the human being. Material reasons are sought in everything, which are the basis of later generations.

But if one wants to grasp the truth, the spiritual must be added today. The doctrine of reincarnation and karma, of the interconnection of fate, is part of this. The mind, descending, is completely powerless. But only when it ascends will the mind be productive again. People in the past did not just have minds. From the thoughts that arise from the doctrine of reincarnation and karma, the higher soul powers will flow.

I will soon speak to the members about what was involved in the emergence of Christianity. It will be necessary for us to become clear about the founding of Christianity. I will try to make Christianity understandable in the form it took on at that time.

When talking about the initiation of the Rosicrucian, or the Rosicrucian Initiation, we must briefly place the concept of initiation in front of our soul. Mainly, this concept is about searching for a way to penetrate, through our own experience and own adventures, into the higher worlds that underlie our sensory world. We must distinguish three paths: initiates, clairvoyants and adepts. These are the three distinct paths to establish a relationship with the higher worlds.

Today, we will talk about how man can get to know the super-sensible worlds through his own experience. We will dispense with the tripartite division for today, but keep in mind carefully that when talking about initiation, we have one method of initiation in front of us.

One will easily get over the differences in the various methods, considering that people seek the way to the higher worlds from different starting points. When we have reached the peak of a mountain, we will have a clear view from up there. To get up there, we can start from different points of departure, using different ways. It would be nonsensical if, to get to the peak, we did not use the path straight in front of us, but first went around the mountain.

Let's apply this principle to initiation. Again, we encounter different starting points because people have different dispositions. External natural science is not in a position to really study the subtle differences which we encounter here. Our physiologists and anatomists are not able, with their crude instruments and methods, to find out these subtle differences of human beings. But for someone with occult knowledge there is a tremendous difference between a person born in the Orient, and one born in Europe or in America. This is evident right down to the physical nature. There is an enormous difference between someone who still has the living immediate emotion and feeling for Christ, and a man who is completely alienated from the original Christian feeling and whose entire worldview is based on the accomplishments of modern science. Not only are the feelings and thoughts of such a person different from those of someone with a Christian spirit, but differences can be observed even in someone's physique. Such subtle differences exist, which affect the most subtle structures of the body, that physiology and biology have nothing to say about them. Therefore the individual human nature has to be considered, as one cannot lead everyone in the same way to rise up into the higher worlds through higher development.

To understand this, we must go back into former ages of mankind. Mankind has gone through a long period of development. At the time we call Atlantean, our ancestors, that is, our own souls, lived in completely different bodies in ancient Atlantis in the West between our present-day Europe and America. Floods then occurred, on which the story about the biblical flood and many other different sagas of floods are based, including those floods which caused the downfall of the ancient Atlantis. This was followed by the post-Atlantean evolution in which we still find ourselves.

We have gone through four time periods during the post-Atlantean evolution, and we are still in the fifth. The first of these time periods included the old Indian culture, where people were taught by the holy Rishis themselves, inspired human beings who modern man can no longer imagine. Then came the second cultural epoch, the Persian, with the Zarathustra-religion. The third cultural epoch was the Babylonian-Assyrian-Chaldean-Egyptian one, from which the Hebrew culture slowly developed. As a fourth one, the Graeco-Roman cultural period followed, within which Christianity arose and which derived its elements from the people who had developed organically from the third culture. Now we are living in the fifth cultural epoch and heading towards the sixth.

Not only the thinking has changed, in the long time since the Atlantean catastrophe, but also the astral body, the etheric body and the physical body. We must not imagine though, that all people are equally placed within our fifth cultural period. Many peculiarities of the earlier cultural traditions were preserved. What has developed one after another, still lives next to each other.

Human beings went through completely different cultural epochs. They experienced changes within their whole being, which made it necessary to adapt the introduction to the higher worlds given to them by their spiritual guides.

During the Atlantean age men were still astrally clairvoyant. They lived together with their Gods and spirits in the same way as with the external plants, minerals, animals and humans. In the post-Atlantean period, men could no longer gain access to the higher worlds. They could no longer penetrate by direct observation of the divine-spiritual into the higher worlds, but could only artificially put themselves into a state where they became ‘companions' of the Gods again. This is the basis of the Indian way of yoga initiation. This yoga introduction to the higher worlds consists mainly in the dampening of the consciousness that man had acquired in the post-Atlantean age, the external perception, and in putting oneself back into former clairvoyant states of consciousness like those which were experienced by the Atlantean man.

If we continue to trace mankind's evolution beyond the Persian and the Chaldean cultural periods, we arrive at the Christian cultural period. This brought with it the Christian initiation, which can only be attained by a direct relationship with Jesus Christ through the Gospel of John and the Apocalypse. Then follows in the 13th and 14th century the first dawn of the materialistic cultural period. At that time the enlightened people were able to perceive: now the material time is coming up. Everything, that was fully realised in the 19th century, what had happened in the extreme, had been prepared long before. We find materialism not only in areas of external activity, but must confront it in all areas.

Until the turn of the 13th to the 14th century men held on to completely different feelings and emotions. A drastic change occurred in all areas, even in the most seemingly isolated ones. In the art of painting, for example, we encounter a great change in the emotions of people. Today, it seems arbitrary to the materialist when, for example, Cimabue¹ paints the background in gold on his pictures. However, this painter still followed the tradition of illustrating the higher world. When looking into the highest regions of the astral world, one will find that this golden background is a reality, an actual fact. Those, who later wanted to paint similar things, as imitators of those ancient painters who still possessed knowledge of the reality of the astral world through tradition, appear to us like barbarians compared to those who really still had a relationship to the higher world. For example, Giotto² did no longer portray what he felt to be true, but everything is painted based solely upon external tradition. At his time, it was natural to move towards that which could only be seen on the physical plane, to materialistic art. Only the greatest painters of that time still held on to tradition.

In Raffael's³ Disputa (Disputation of the Sacrament) one can see how in the basic colour from the bottom to the top is indeed reproduced with a certain accuracy, the experience that someone has who ascends to the higher worlds. This experience of the gradual transition from the lower to the higher worlds, up to the illustration of the genii that emerge from the golden background, is a necessity.

Those who know the spiritual truths know that behind the physical facts something else is hidden. They know that the reason why people are materialists today is that they are under external materialistic influences. But it is not just a matter of external perception. From the occult perspective one learns to know about other reasons. Thoughts and feelings are realities that radiate out into the world. We are swarmed by materialistic thoughts. Everywhere those thoughts are buzzing around us. Even if no books and newspapers that promote the materialistic views reach a farmer out in the countryside, materialistic thoughts that matter still buzz around and influence him.

If we ask, how human beings entered into the world at times when one still knew about occult powers, we will find that in those times care was taken, for example in China, that a human being at his birth into the physical world was welcomed by people filled with spiritual thoughts. This is something completely different from being welcomed by a materialistic doctor and a materialistic thinking environment. Here quite different things are encountered by man than what was formerly the case in an environment alive with spiritual thoughts. Herein lies the reason for the materialistic attitude of man. Already since the 13th and 14th century, man dives into a materialistic atmosphere from the moment of his birth. This had to be so. But, therefore, a method also had to be created for those who wanted to rise into the higher worlds, by which they could become strong and robust enough to be able to achieve the ascent into the spiritual worlds, despite the external materialistic circumstances.

This initiation method is the Rosicrucian one, which was created around the turn of the 13th and 14th century and was first inaugurated by Christian Rosenkreutz,⁴ one of the great leaders of mankind. Strictly separated from the external world, this method worked since those times for centuries, known only to a tight circle, most closely restricted during the 19th century, the materialistic one. Only during the last third of the 19th century it became necessary to reveal to the world through Theosophy what had been taught, at least in its elemental parts, in the Rosicrucian schools.⁵

In the year 1459 the true founder of the Rosicrucian stream himself reached that level, by which he gained the power to exert influence on the world in such a way, that this initiation could be brought by him to the world.

Since that time, this individuality of Christian Rosenkreutz has appeared again and again as leader of the movement in question. Through centuries he led a life ‘in the same body'. We have to understand the expression ‘in the same body' as follows: When looking at the physical body, we find nothing is left of what it consisted of ten years ago. But the consciousness has stayed the same. Every seven to eight years a human being exchanges all parts of his physical body, but the consciousness outlasts this ongoing exchange of physical substances throughout the whole life. What we in this way experience between birth and death, an initiate will experience this by dying and, shortly afterwards, reincarnating in a new body as a child. But he makes this journey fully conscious. The consciousness is maintained from one incarnation to the next. Even the physical resemblance remains with the initiate, because the soul builds up the new body consciously based on the experience of the previous incarnation. In this way the highest leader of the Rosicrucian school lived for centuries.

Only now it has become possible to make public some of the Rosicrucian principles. Until then none of this was made accessible, only once something had been shared.⁶ That which, according to the Rosicrucian study, leads human beings up into the higher worlds, are the following seven stages: First, the Study; second, the acquisition of Imaginative Knowledge; third, learning the Occult Script; fourth, the preparation of the Philosopher's stone; fifth, the correspondence of Microcosm and Macrocosm; sixth, the union with the Macrocosm; seventh, the Divine Bliss.

This does not mean that these seven stages need to be completed consecutively. A student, who meets a Rosicrucian teacher receives his instructions for higher development according to his individuality. From the seven stages of higher development will be selected what is most suitable for him. One might begin with the first and second stage and then maybe the fourth and fifth will follow for him. Only what is called ‘the Study', everyone needs to begin with.

Here ‘Study ' means something different than what is usually understood by it in daily life. What is meant is the particular way of acquisition of ideas and concepts, which is called ‘sensory-free thinking'. The whole thinking of an ordinary man is attached to the external sensory nature. Pay attention to everything that you experience from morning to night and then mentally discard everything that you have seen and heard externally. For most people, very little or nothing will be left. But whoever wants to make his way into the higher worlds must get used to being able to think without connecting to the external world, when the source of his thinking lies only within himself.

The only type of sensory-free thinking in European countries is arithmetic. The child learns that two times two is four, first by looking at an external illustration, at the fingers or the beans or at the terrible adding-machines. But a person will not arrive at a satisfactory result in this field as long as he is not able to imagine without the crutch of the external visual aid. One can never see a circle in the external reality. Circles, which one draws on the blackboard are chalk hills strung together. Only a devised circle is exact. You must construct the circle in your mind, you must devise the circle.

Today, people's sensory-free thinking can only be found in the fields of numeracy and geometry. But for most people these are not accessible and therefore only mentioned for the purpose of comparison. The best means to acquire sensory-free thinking is Theosophy itself, because there a person will hear about things he hasn't seen. What people learn there—how the human being consists of a physical, etheric and astral body, or how the Earth itself developed by going through different stages—they cannot see. Only when we exert our thinking and perceive the inner logic of a thing, we will grasp these things with ordinary logic, provided one relies on the comprehensive basis of logic. If people today are saying that they cannot comprehend this, then this is not because they are not clairvoyant, but rather because they do not wish to apply the logic of comprehension. The experiences of a clairvoyant can be understood with simple logic; clairvoyance is needed only for research purposes. Theosophy is the only logical thing for the theoretical and practical life. In contrast, what people say about super-sensible things in a materialistic way is illogical. What the science of the spirit brings is real concrete fruitfulness in life.

If we look at the principle of education from the standpoint of a theosophical worldview and from the standpoint of a materialistic mind-set, we can draw a comparison. In the former, things are being said about the developing human being which cannot be seen from the outside. But it is so that just within this the real, the true, the concrete exists. Today's materialistic worldview does not understand the growing child. Only by considering the whole nature of a human being, not only observing the outside, does one learn to place a human being with its full potential into the world.

At the same time, someone, who immerses himself into the teachings of the theosophical worldview, has got a method to learn sensory-free thinking. The true Theosophy will always aim as much as possible to develop sensory-free thinking. When we look at Theosophical teachings we will find descriptions of conditions that we cannot see. When looking at the evolution of our Earth and where it emerged from, we describe a planetary condition where everything was different from the current stage of our Earth: that old Moon—not the current one—where no hard, mineralised Earth crust yet existed on which the human being can walk, but where the planet only existed in a kind of plant nature. In this compound, which we can compare with cooking lettuce or spinach, more solid components only existed in a form like today's crust or bark of trees. Minerals didn't exist then at all.

If this is disputed from a materialistic perspective, because one can only imagine plants growing in mineral soil, then one could admit that under today's conditions this is certainly not possible any other way. But in earlier ages completely other conditions prevailed. A materialist is not able to imagine this, because he will always relate to today's conditions.

However, by means of such pictures, one can free oneself from what one sees all around. Nonsense makes sense when we contemplate far distant circumstances. Thus we learn to educate ourselves, to get away from our sensory conditions. We learn to place pictures before our soul, that we do not know today. Thus, our thinking lifts off from what is possible today. Those who try to connect with their thinking only to what would be possible today, stick to today's conditions and can't get away from them. For study in the Rosicrucian spirit it especially matters to train one's thinking on images of conditions that no longer exist today. To let a concept emerge from a concept, out of completely sensory-free thinking, is a means to arrive at what is called the Study. One can also get there by studying a book like the Philosophy of Freedom.⁷ The author has offered in it only the opportunity that thoughts think themselves. There the individual thoughts emerge by themselves out of completely sensory-free thinking, organise themselves in such a way that no thought can be removed from its place and be placed into a different spot. Just as a hand cannot get cut off from the body and be placed into another place. This is the way of sensory-free thinking.

A burning desire to absolutely want to raise oneself into the higher worlds is something many want, but it is something unhealthy. Striving is healthy only when an inner, dignified logic is cultivated by a thinking that is completely free of sensory impressions.

One who knows one's way around the higher worlds, knows that the perceptions there are quite different from those in the physical world. But there is one thing that remains the same element in the three worlds—in the physical, in the astral and in the Devachan world: that is logical thinking. This safe leader protects us from following all the will-o'-the-wisps. Without it we will never learn to tell illusion from reality, and come to believe that every illusion is an astral reality. Here in the physical world, it is easy to differentiate illusions from reality because the external facts correct us. For example, if you have walked down the wrong street, you will not arrive at the right place. In the higher worlds we have to find the correct way ourselves by applying our own mental strength. Otherwise, we will keep getting into increasingly more difficult labyrinths there, if we have not learned to tell illusion from reality beforehand. We can learn this in a Rosicrucian training.

The second stage in the Rosicrucian training is imaginative recognition, the recognition through pictures. This is the first stage of ascending from the physical into the spiritual world. Goethe provided the leitmotif, the leading principle, with the last words of the second part of his Faust, when he said: “All that is transitory, is but an allegory.”⁸ If we begin to see everything that surrounds us as spiritual pictures, then we strive upwards into the world of imagination.

In the Rosicrucian schools and also in earlier schools, it was attempted to teach the students the evolutionary principle that applies throughout the different kingdoms. Today one speaks about evolution in relation to materialistic thinking. Theosophy also speaks about this, but it is something else to transform the concept of evolution into a picture and lift it into imagination. Normally, it is only the mind that is occupied with the evolutionary principle. We arrive at the imagination as follows: Through many weeks or through months the soul was transformed through the directions of the teachers in the following way. We can best retell this in the form of a dialogue which, however, has never happened in this way. The teacher might have said something like, look at the plant, how with its leaves and blossoms it strives up towards the sun and sinks its roots into the ground, striving towards the centre of the Earth. If you are comparing it with the human being, it would be wrong to compare the bloom with his head, the roots with his reproductive organs. Darwin⁹ drew the right comparison. He pointed out that the root of the plant corresponds to the head of the human being. The human being is the inverted plant. The root, that the plant sinks into the ground, corresponds to the head of the human being. But that which the plant chastely holds up towards the Sun, the bloom and its fertilisation organs, the human being turns towards the Earth. If one turns the plant around fully, one gets the human being. If one turns it around halfway, one gets an animal with its horizontal spine.

If we conceive these things imaginatively, then not only our thoughts, but also our feelings and our emotions will be deeply ushered into the world that surrounds us. We will learn to recognise the inner relationship between plant and human being. We will recognise the pure, chaste plant nature which has not yet been pervaded by desires and passions, and the nature of the human being in whom chaste plant substance has been transformed into flesh pervaded by desires and passions. But through this entered at the same time something higher into man's being—he gained the clear day consciousness. The plant is asleep, but the human being has gained his clear day consciousness by being incarnated in flesh pervaded by desires, passions and instincts. To do this, he had to complete a full turn. The animal stands right in between. Although it has desires and passions, it has not yet gained the clear day consciousness.

The teacher told the student: If you feel this, you'll understand Plato's¹⁰ saying, “The world soul is crucified on the world body”. Plant, animal, man, that is the real innermost meaning of the sign of the cross. What passes through the nature kingdoms as common soul substance, as ‘world-soul', appears in symbolic form as a cross. This has been taught in the occult schools as the deepest meaning of the cross.

Then the teacher said to the student; watch how the plant chastely holds its calyx towards the Sun, how the shaft of sunlight kisses the plant's bloom. This was called the chaste kiss of the sunray, the holy lance of love. In this chaste kiss of the sunray, the holy lance of love, to which the calyx of the plant opens up, is a hint towards the ideal of the future where the human being once again will develop his organs higher to the chastity of the plant. Currently, man has developed up to the stage where he is penetrated by desires. He will develop further to the stage where he will have transformed his desires and will again be kissed by the spiritual sunray; where he will, on a higher level, bring forth his own kind anew, where the reproductive power will be spiritualised. This was called the ‘Holy Grail' in the occult schools. This is the real ideal of the Holy Grail—an organ that man will have, once his reproductive powers have been spiritualised. In the past, we see the chaste plant-nature; in the present, we see man permeated by desires; and in the future, we will see man with the purified body and how he receives in the Holy Grail chalice, a higher stage of development of the plant calyx, the spiritual shaft of sunlight.

This is not abstract thinking, but a state of being, where we feel each stage of development, not only think about it. When we feel in this way what is evolving, then we slowly raise ourselves up so that we arrive through the pictures at imaginative recognition. The picture of the Holy Grail will stand before us, once we detach these pictures from the sensory appearance, and receive the picture from the higher world.

If we let such pictures affect us—those that represent specific processes in the spiritual world and that were validated in the occult schools—then we call this ‘allowing the Occult Script to affect us'. This is the third stage of the Rosicrucian training.

We will find such pictures in seals and pillars, like those that were portrayed at the Munich Congress,¹¹ of the beginning and the end of the evolution of mankind and in the Apocalypse. In former times man was on an Earth that consisted of molten magma. He has come to his current body only gradually, through many incarnations, and he will continue to evolve through many incarnations. In particular there will be a transformation of the larynx and the heart. These will be the reproductive organs in the future. Today, my thoughts, feelings and emotions only embody in words which let the emotions of my soul in this room reach your ears through vibrations and will awaken similar thoughts and feelings in your souls. Later, the human being will create warmth and finally light, just as he now communicates his thoughts in words through the air. Just as man descended from of a sphere of light and warmth in the past, he will create warmth and light himself in the future.

This is depicted on the first apocalyptical seal.¹² The original condition of mankind, when the Earth was still in a stage of molten magma, is represented by the feet of the man on the picture being submerged in a fiery metal stream. The state of the future is depicted by a fiery sword, protruding from the mouth of a man. Such a picture works not only on the imagination, but also on someone's will power, when we observe the great powers of nature in this way. Because the same power, which lives as primordial force in the will of the human being, also lives in the whole external world. By learning to train our will, the will of the world will live in us—then our will is going to become one with the will that flows through nature. Man learns this by selfless devotion to the occult scripts.

The fourth stage of the Rosicrucian training is the preparation of the Philosopher's stone. This is a high mystery, kept secret. Towards the end of the 18th century some of it was revealed. For example, there was a remark in a central German newspaper¹³ by a person who had heard something about it. It said, “The Philosopher's stone really exists, and there are only a few people who do not know it. Many already held it in their hands, without knowing that it was the Philosopher's stone.” This definition was correct verbatim, only one must understand it. It is not a mere allegory. A Rosicrucian works on reality in such a way that he will penetrate into the physiology. He works at the real transformation of the Earth and of man, deeply into the physical body, not only on what is usually known as moral uplift, refinement of morals, and so on.

Let us look at the human breathing. Regulation of the breathing process forms an important part of occult development. People breathe in, use the oxygen that mixes with the carbon inside of them, and then they breathe out carbon dioxide. If this would continue forever by itself, then the atmosphere of the Earth would incrementally be filled with carbon dioxide and that would lead to the downfall of mankind. The existence of mankind presupposes the existence of plants. The plant absorbs the carbon dioxide, retains the carbon and releases the oxygen again. A continuous circulation happens between humans and plants. Humans, animals and plants belong together, one is not possible without the other.

The development in the human body is like this: Today, what the plant has to do for man, namely to produce the coal ― plant corpses are still recognisable in hard coal ― will later be done by man himself. Occultism can demonstrate that through the further development of the human being and his later transformed heart and respiratory organs, man will achieve this himself. One way how the human being can take up the plant process and consciously carry this out himself, is by rhythmisation of the breathing process, so that he doesn't release the carbon dioxide to the plant, but builds up the carbon within his own body The human being learns to build up his own body within himself.

If we compare this, with what we have been told about the Holy Grail, we will have the Grail now concretely before us. Through the rhythmisation of the breathing process man learns to produce in himself the carbon, that occurs in nature as graphite and diamond, in the form of chaste plant nature. To produce within oneself the carbon, the pure, chaste substance, is called the “Preparation of the Philosopher's Stone”. One must imagine it similar to a translucent diamond, but in a softer form. Man is a mighty inner apparatus, he learns through occult training that he is working on the evolution of his own lineage to a higher form. Someone with a materialistic view, on hearing about this, very characteristically remarked, that this would be a nice thing, from which it might be possible to develop a profitable branch of industry. Not at all! Exactly this remark illustrates the necessity to keep such disclosures secret. For only when people have reached such a moral and intellectual level that they can no longer think egoistically can such secrets be revealed to them.

The fifth stage is the ‘correspondence of microcosms and macrocosms'. For everything that happens in the world outside, there is a process within the human being, that repeats this in him on a small scale. One must only contemplate what happens within oneself, then one will intuitively come across the processes in the external cosmos. For example, through a specific meditation and concentration on the inner part of the eye, man learns to recognise the inner nature of the Sun, because the eye is an extract of the essence of the Sun. Goethe once said that ‘the eye is made by the light for the light.'¹⁴ The light created the eye. Without the Sun, there is no eye. All that is essential in the Sun is in some way reflected in the eye. To recognise the light of the Sun by concentrating on the essence of the eye—this is Rosicrucian training. In this way, one can learn to know the whole world from within the human being. For example, through concentration on the liver, man learns to know quite specific creative natural forces, right into the creativity of man. Thus man learns to know the whole world through himself, because he is a small world. Here he learns how in reality microcosm and macrocosm correspond to each other.

Concentrating in a certain way on the human heart will provide knowledge of the lion nature outside. This is not only a phrase. Each human being must singularly find the way into the vast universe. Then the perception of being one and feeling one with the whole cosmos will occur by itself. When man learns fully, out of every limb of his body—also out of his etheric and his astral body—to walk the way to the vast universe with patience step by step, then he will expand his organism to one that encompasses all space. He will then be within all beings. He is then able to experience the feeling which is called ‘divine bliss'.

It is important that man lets go of himself, so he can find the way to the creative powers. The more he emerges out of himself, the more he will reach into the higher worlds. Goethe described in the poem The Mysteries,¹⁵ how someone walks to a mysterious temple to meet with various people, through whom the diverse schools of thought come together. Goethe places a cross that is entwined with roses at the entry portal of the temple. ‘Who added to the cross the wreath of roses?' says the poem. Only someone who knows that the cross entwined with roses expresses the development to a higher human state would say this. Goethe has also expressed this in those words:

And until thou truly hast
this ‘dying and becoming’
thou art but a troubled guest
over the dark earth roaming¹⁶

Man has to approach more and more a state where he, out of the dying part of himself, will be newly created inside. Like a tree whose bark outside is dying, but on the inside new shoots are developing, thus man too surrounds himself with death on the outside, to be newly created inside. Thus in former times initiates were compared to the oak and called druids.¹⁷ This ‘dying and becoming' means the human being always creates fresh life inside. The dying will become for him the preserver of new life.

Therefore, it is said:

The power that holds constrained all humankind,¹⁸
the victor over himself it no more can bind.

By this it is meant for humankind to overcome the ordinary life and turn it into a vessel, so that within it the sprouting seeds of a higher life can evolve to fruition.

• 1. Cimabue, from 1240 until after 1302, Italian painter, teacher of Giotto. 1
• 2. Giotto, 1266-1337, Italian painter and master builder, student of Cimabue. 2
• 3. Raffael, actual name Raffaello Santi, 1483-1520. 3
• 4. Christian Rosenkreutz: Not recognised by public history as a real historic figure of the 14th/15th century, Christian Rosenkreutz became legendarily known from two anonymous Rosicrucian texts Fama Fraternitatis or the Discovery of the Brotherhood of the Highly Laudable Order of R.C., Kassel 1614, and Confessio Fraternitatis or Confession of the laudable Brotherhood of the highly honourable Rose Cross, Kassel 1615. According to this, he was a German of noble birth who lived from 1378 to 1484. The name appears for the first time in a text handwritten and as such distributed in 1604, and in 1616 anonymously published in the text The Chymical Wedding of Christiani Rosencreutz, Anno 1459. Rudolf Steiner portrayed the author of this text, Johann Valentin Andreae, as the carrier of inspiration of Christian Rosenkreutz. Refer to Rudolf Steiner, The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz in Philosophy and Anthroposophy. Collected Essays 1904-1923, GA 35. The essay is also contained in the translation of The Chymical Wedding into New High German by Walter Weber, Basel 1978. According to Rudolf Steiner, Christian Rosenkreutz was a real historical personality. Compare also, The Esoteric Christendom and the Spiritual Leadership of Humanity, GA 130. 4
• 5. Re the Rosicrucian method - refer to note 4 above. Obviously, the deliberations of Rudolf Steiner at this point have been only fragmentary captured by the note taker. For better comprehension refer to the presentation in the lecture dated 15 September 1909; Lecture 1 in The Lucas Gospel cycle, GA 114. 5
• 6. Rudolf Steiner refers to an article about the Philosopher's Stone by Karl Arnold Kortum (1745-1828), which appeared in a central German newspaper, the Reichsanzeiger, on 8 October 1796.
• 7. Translator's note: The book The Philosophy of Freedom is also known as The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity.
• 8. Goethe, Faust, Part II, 5th act, closing choir.
• 9. Charles Darwin, 1809-1882, British Natural Scientist. His hint about the correspondence of the human head and the plant root can be found in his work The Power of Movement in Plants translated from English by Victor Carus, Volume 13, of Charles Darwin's Gesammelte Werke, Stuttgart 1881, Chapter 12, Summary and Final Remarks, Page 492 (Ending): “It is hardly an overstatement, when one says, that this tip of the root is equipped in a way that has the ability to direct the movements of the neighbouring parts, like a brain of a lower animal; the brain sits within the foremost end of the head, and receives impressions from the sense organs and directs the various movements”.
• 10. Rudolf Steiner often quoted this saying from the Timäus, Chapter 8, always using the wording of the Vienna philosopher Vincenz Knauer, from his work Die Hauptprobleme der Philosophie in ihrer Entwicklung und Teilweisen Loesung von Thales bis Robert Hamerling, (The main problems of philosophy in its development and part solution from Thales to Robert Hamerling) Vienna and Leipzig 1892, page 96 (belonging to the library of Rudolf Steiner and underlined by him): The myth told in Timäus is that God created the world soul in the shape of a cross that he laid through the universe and spanned across it the world body”. In Timäus itself it says that God split the world soul into two halves “slang both parts together in the form of the letter Chi (X) and twined of each a circle, so that both met with each other across the middle, and each one with itself. To both parts he gave the uniform and in the same room happening movement of the circular reversal, but one of the circles he made into the outer one and the other into the inner one” (quoted from the translation by Otto Apelt of Die Philosophische Bibliothek, Volume 179, Leipzig 1919). In the view of the elders two circles were of greatest importance in the whole world: The equator and the ecliptic. Thus the translator (O.Apelt) remarks about this point in Timäus: “And so it is then in Plato's explanations, that by way of a mysterious process the soul extends itself to the spatial building of the ecliptic and the equator. When the position of these two biggest circles towards each other is illustrated through the form of the letter X (Chi, whereby one needs to imagine the letter not in a vertical but horizontally orientation) then this is a quite appropriate comparison. Because these two circles cut each other at an angle of 23 1/2 degrees. The reversal of the equator proceeds from East to West (that is from right to left, because the ancient ones have often, when determining areas of the world, turned their gaze towards the North); the rotation of the ecliptic proceeds from West to East.” In addition, it should be remarked that the Church Father Justin the Martyr points out in his first Apology, that the source for Plato's teaching about the creation of the world is the Old Testament: Even what Plato said in the Timäus about the Son of God for the explanation of the World, where it says “He builds him in the universe like a Chi”, was similarly borrowed by him from Moses. Because in Moses' scripts it is written that at the time when the Israelites left Egypt and were in the desert, they were confronted by poison spraying animals, adders, vipers, and all kind of snakes, that brought death to the people. Then Moses, acting on an inspiration and impulse from God, took ore and shaped a cross from it. He then erected it in the holy tent and talked to the people; “If you look at this picture and trust in it then you will find healing.” Thus, so he reports, the snakes died, but the people, he continues, escaped death. This was read by Plato, and because he did not understand it properly and believed that it was not the shape of the cross that was meant, but the form of the Chi, he made the statement that the power that is primary to the first God, was distributed in the universe like a Chi.” Quoted from Bibliothek der Kirchenväter. Frühchristliche Apologeten und Märtyrerakten, Band 1 (Early Christian Apologists and Martyrs Files, Volume 1), Kempten-Munich 1913, Page 73/74).
• 11. A Congress of the Theosophical Society held in May 1907–compare Rudolf Steiner, Pictures of Occult Seals and Columns; the Munich Congress, Pentecost 1907 and its Impacts, GA 284/85.
• 12. Refer to note 10 above.
• 13. Refer to note 6 above.
• 14. Goethe once said; “The eye has been made by the light for the light”... literally: The eye owes its existence to the light. From similar animal auxilliary organs the light calls forth an organ that is capable of becoming its equal. And so the eye builds itself at the light for the light, so that the inner light can meet the outer light”. In Goethes Naturwissenschaftliche Schriften (Goethe's Natural Science Writings), published by and commented on by Rudolf Steiner in Kürschner's German National Literature, 5 Volumes, 1884-97. Reprint, Dornach 1975, GA 001, Volume III, Design of a Theory of Colours, Introduction, page 89.
• 15. Re the poem The Mysteries refer to GA 98, Part 1, Lecture 4, Cologne, 25 December 1907.
• 16. “and until though truly hast, this dying and becoming..” is the final verse of the poem by Goethe Blessed longings of the collection West-Eastern Divan.
• 17. Druids were called knowledgeable of oaks, from Latin after Caesar, Cicero and Tacitus.
• 18. Goethe, The Mysteries, 22nd Verse.

The lecture today will be historical in character and the day after tomorrow I shall speak of matters which will give: us deeper insight into the impulses contained in the thinking, the will and the deeds of Rosicrucianism. We can only understand the work of Rosicrucianism today when we realise that it was never a model laid down once and for always but assumes a different form in every century. The reason for this is that Rosicrucianism must always adapt itself to the conditions of the times. It is quite obvious to us that the fundamental impulses of Spiritual Science must find their way into the culture of the present age; but we know, too, that the culture of the West presents difficulties. Spiritual Science cannot make different human beings of us from one day to the next, because through our karma we have been born into Western culture. Our task is not as simple as that of the representatives of communities based upon race or the tenets of a particular religion. For our fundamental principle must be that we are not rooted in the soil of a specific creed but regard the different systems of religion as forms and variations of the one, universal spiritual life. It is the seed of spiritual truth in all religions for which Spiritual Science must seek. As a Westerner, the theosophist may very easily be misunderstood, above all by the different religious confessions and schools of thought in the world. If we rightly understand our task as spiritual scientists we must hold fast to the principle of historical development, realising that Spiritual Science is an integral part of this development. Each one of you here has been incarnated in every epoch of culture—indeed more than once. What is the purpose of these reincarnations? Why must the human being pass through all these different schoolings in the periods of culture and civilisation? It was this question which brought Lessing to avow his belief in the idea of reincarnation. Lessing thought to himself: Human beings have lived through all the earlier periods of culture and they must return again and again in order to learn new things and to be able to connect the old with the new. There must be a purpose in the fact that we pass through different incarnations, and the purpose is that in each of them the human being shall add new experiences to the old.

As you have often heard, there are great differences between the successive epochs of culture. Today we shall speak in closer detail of an extremely important period: the thirteenth century. Human beings in incarnation at that time lived through an experience which has not fallen to the lot of others. What I am now about to say is known to all who have reached a certain high level of spiritual life and who are now again in incarnation.

In the thirteenth century, spiritual darkness fell for a time upon all human beings, even the most enlightened, and also upon the Initiates. Whatever knowledge of the spiritual worlds existed in the thirteenth century came from tradition or from men who in still earlier times had been Initiates and were able to call up remembrances of what they had then experienced. But for a brief space of time it was impossible even for these men to have direct vision of the spiritual world. Darkness was obliged to fall for this short period in order that preparation might be made for the intellectual culture which was to be characteristic of our modern age. The point of importance is that we have this kind of culture today in the Fifth post-Atlantean epoch. Culture in the Greek epoch was quite different. Instead of the modern, intellectual kind of thinking, direct perception was then the dominant faculty; the human being was one, as it were, with what he saw and heard, even with what he thought. He did not cogitate and reason as he does today, and needs must do, for this is the task of the Fifth post-Atlantean epoch.

In the thirteenth century, it was necessary for especially suitable personalities to be chosen out for Initiation, and the Initiation itself could only take place after that brief period of darkness had come to an end. The name of the place in Europe where the happenings of which I am about to speak came to pass cannot yet be communicated, but before very long this too will be possible.

We shall, speak today of the dawn of occultism in the modern age. Twelve men were living at the time of the darkness, twelve men of deep spirituality who came together in order to further the progress of humanity. They did not all of them possess the power of direct vision of the spiritual world, but they were able to bring to life within them remembrances of what they had experienced through earlier Initiation. And by the dispensation of the karma of humanity, the heritage left by the ancient culture of Atlantis was embodied in seven of these twelve men. In my book Occult Science it is said that the seven wise Teachers of the ancient, holy Indian civilisation bore within them the surviving wisdom of Atlantis. The seven men were incarnated again in the thirteenth century and formed part of the Twelve; it was they who were able to look back to the seven streams of the ancient Atlantean wisdom and to the continuations of these seven streams. The task assigned to each of these seven individualities was to make one of the seven streams of wisdom fruitful both for the culture of the thirteenth century and of our modern age. These seven individualities were joined by four others; unlike the first seven, these other four were not able to look back to times of the primeval past; they looked back to what mankind had acquired from occult truths during the four epochs of post-Atlantean culture. The first of the four looked back to the period of ancient India, the second to that of ancient Persia, the third to that of Egyptian-Chaldean-Babylonian-Assyrian culture, and the fourth to that of the Graeco-Latin age. These four joined the seven in that “College” of wise men in the thirteenth century; the twelfth had fewer remembrances; he was more intrinsically intellectual than the rest and it was his task to cultivate and foster the external sciences. These twelve individualities did not live only in the sphere of occultism as cultivated in the West, but could also be “incorporated” as it were in men who possessed some genuine knowledge of occultism. Goethe's poem Die Geheimnisse [footnote: The Mysteries by Rudolf Steiner] gives a certain indication of this.—Thus there were twelve outstanding individualities and to them came a Thirteenth who, after the period of darkness had come to an end was to be chosen out for the kind of Initiation demanded by the culture of the West. The circumstances are very mysterious and I can only give you the following information in the form of a narrative. To me it is objective truth, but you yourselves can put it to the test by gathering together what has been said by anthroposophical Spiritual Science during the last few years, added to what you know of history since the thirteenth century.

It was known to the College of the twelve wise men that a child was to be born who had lived in Palestine at the time of Christ and had been present when the Mystery of Golgotha had taken place. This Individuality possessed great powers of heart and a quality of deep, inward love which circumstances had since helped to unfold in him. An Individuality of extraordinary spirituality was incarnated in this child. It was necessary, in this case, for a process to be enacted which will never be repeated in the same form. The following does not describe a typical Initiation but is an altogether exceptional happening. It was necessary for this child to be removed from the environment into which he was born and to be placed in the care of the Twelve at a certain place in Europe. But it was not the external measures adopted by the twelve wise men that are of essential importance; what is important is the fact that the child grew up with the Twelve around him, and because of this, their wisdom was able to stream into him. One of the Twelve, for example, possessed the Mars-wisdom and therewith a definite quality of soul—a mood-of-soul tempered by the form of culture standing under the influence of Mars. The forces of the Mars culture endowed this soul with the faculty, among others, of presenting the occult sciences with fiery enthusiasm and ardour. Similar planetary influences were also at work in other faculties distributed among the Twelve. The development of the child's soul proceeded harmoniously under the influences pouring from the twelve wise men. And so the child grew up, under the unceasing care of the Twelve. Then, at a certain time, when the child had grown into a young man of about 20, he was able to give expression to something that was a kind of reflex of the twelve streams of wisdom—but in a form altogether new, new even to the twelve wise men. The metamorphosis was accompanied by violent organic changes. Even physically the child had been quite unlike other human beings; he was often very ill and his body became transparent, as though filled with light. Then there came a time when for some days the soul departed altogether from the body. The young man lay as if dead ... And when the soul returned it was as though the twelve streams of wisdom were born anew. He spoke of new experiences. There had come to him, from the Mystery of Golgotha, an experience similar to that of Paul before Damascus. Thereby it was possible for all the twelve world-conceptions, religious and scientific—and fundamentally there are only twelve—to be gathered together, synthesised in one. The twelve basic world-conceptions were gathered together into one whole which could do justice to them all. Of what was taught we shall speak the day after tomorrow. It remains now to be said that the young man died very soon afterwards. His life on Earth had been brief. His mission had been to create a synthesis of the twelve streams of wisdom in the sphere of thought and to bring forth the new impulse which he could then bequeath to the twelve wise men who were to carry it further. A great and significant impetus had been given. The name of the Individuality from whom this impulse originated was Christian Rosenkreutz. The same Individuality was born again in the fourteenth century and this earthly life lasted for more than a hundred years. In the new earthly life he brought to fruitfulness, in the outer world too, all that he had lived through in that brief space of time. He traveled all over the West and over practically the whole of the then known world in order to receive anew the wisdom which in the previous life had quickened in him the new impulse—the impulse which, as a kind of essence, was to filter into the culture of the times.

This new impulse also came to expression in the exoteric world. The inspiration of the being of whom we have spoken, worked, for example, in Lessing. It is not, of course, possible to give external proof of this, but Lessing's whole mode and manner of thinking is such that the Rosicrucian impulse is perceptible to one who is versed in these matters. Again in the nineteenth century—an age so ill-adapted for the ideas of karma, reincarnation and the like—this impulse worked exoterically. It is an interesting fact that towards the end of the 'forties of the nineteenth century a certain scientific body offered a reward for the best philosophical treatise on the subject of the immortality of the soul. Among the treatises submitted was one by Wiedenmann, accepting the principle that the soul has many earthly lives. Naturally, this essay does not speak of reincarnation in the same way as Spiritual Science; but it is interesting that such a writing should have appeared at that time and have been awarded the prize. And other psychologists of the day also acknowledged their belief in repeated earthly lives. The thread of belief in reincarnation and karma was never entirely broken. Moreover the early writings of the Founder of the Theosophical Society, the great H. P. Blavatsky, are explicable only when we recognise the Rosicrucian inspiration underlying them.

Now it is of the greatest importance for us to know that whenever the Rosicrucian inspiration is given, in each century, the bearer of the inspiration is never outwardly designated as such. His identity has been known only to the very highest Initiates. Today, for example, it is only permissible to speak of happenings of a hundred years ago; for this is the period of time which must have elapsed before they may be spoken of openly. The temptation to pay fanatical veneration to authority vested in some personality—than which there is no greater evil—would be too great for men. This danger is already too near at hand. Silence is a necessary precaution not only against the wiles of ambition and pride—which it might be possible to resist—but paramountly on account of the occult, astral attacks which would be directed all the time against such an individual. Hence the rule that these things may not be spoken of until a hundred years have elapsed. Such studies must help us to realise that the fulcrum of historical development is contained in Rosicrucianism.

By a simple comparison, let me explain to you what is meant by this.—Think of a pair of scales. There must be only one fulcrum, for if there were two, no weighing would be possible. One such fulcrum is also necessary in the process of historical development. Eastern world conceptions do not admit this, nor do they recognise historical evolution in this sense; and the same applies to Schopenhauer. But it is the task of humanity of the West to recognise the flow of history—and it is the mission of Rosicrucianism to promote a kind of thinking which admits the reality of a fulcrum or pivotal point in the flow of history. In regard to what will now be said, the religious confession to which a man may belong is of no consequence. For it can be substantiated from the Akasha Chronicle that the day which represents the pivotal point in the evolution of mankind is the 3rd April in the year 33 A.D. Knowledge of the fact that the pivot of evolution lies at this point is an essential part of Rosicrucianism.—What was it that really happened then? The crisis in the world of the demons! And what does this mean?

We know that in earlier times human beings possessed the faculty of primitive clairvoyance. This clairvoyance became progressively feebler, almost to the point of extinction. The fact is that hitherto the human being had been conscious mainly in the astral body and less in the “I.” The crisis came about because of the darkening of the ancient clairvoyance. Man's vision extended only into the lowest regions of the spiritual world. The “I” lived still in the astral world; but the beings and powers which the “I” was able to behold, deteriorated into greater and greater impurity. Man no longer had any vision of the good powers, but as he looked into the astral world he saw only these evil beings. The only means of salvation was the cultivation and development of the “I.” The beginning of this was the enactment of the baptism given by John in the Jordan. What was the experience of one thus baptised? He was first subjected to the physical process of immersion in the water which caused the separation of the astral and etheric bodies from the physical body. This enabled him to perceive that a crisis was at hand in the world of the demons. And those who had been baptised knew: We must change our hearts! The time is at hand when the Spirit is to stream directly into the “I.” Such a man felt that these terrible astral beings were within him, always penetrating into him.

A power transcending the astral was about to come into operation—the power of the “I.” Through the “I” it will be possible for communities of human beings to gather together in freedom of soul, communities no longer determined by ties of blood. And now picture to yourselves a man possessed by demons of the most evil kind who know that they are facing a crisis. Picture to yourselves again that to such a man there comes One Whose mission it is to oppose the demons. What must the demons feel under such circumstances? Ill at ease in the very highest degree! And so indeed it was: in the presence of Christ Jesus the demons were ill at ease. Rosicrucianism has within it the impulse by which the demons must be countered. Through this impulse the “I” is to be made supreme—but in this respect little progress has been achieved.

Returning to the point at which the lecture began, it is not difficult to realise that it will be harder for us as Anthroposophists to make our voice heard in the world than it will be for any others. The adherents of other views of the world will have less persecution to suffer than Anthroposophists. For nothing makes men more uneasy than to describe to them the true nature of the Christ. But our conviction is based upon the results of genuine occult science and this conviction must be sustained with all the forces of which we are capable.

It was not without purpose that at the end of each of the two public lectures, I emphasised that Theosophy must not be regarded merely as a theory or a science, nor even a specific form of what is usually known as a body of knowledge, but must be something that can be transformed in the soul into actual life, into an elixir of life. What really matters is that we shall not only acquire knowledge through Theosophy but that there shall flow into us, from Theosophy, forces which help us not only in ordinary physical existence but through the whole compass of life—which includes physical existence and the discarnate condition between death and a new birth. The more we feel that Theosophy bestows upon us forces whereby life itself is strengthened and enriched, the more truly we understand it. When such a statement is made, people may ask: If Theosophy is to be a power that strengthens and infuses vigour into life, why is it necessary to absorb all this apparently theoretical knowledge? Why must we be troubled in our group-meetings with details about the preceding planetary embodiments of the Earth? Why is it necessary to learn about things that happen in remote ages of the past? Why are we also expected to familiarise ourselves with the more intimate, intangible laws of reincarnation, karma and so forth? ... Many people may think that Theosophy is just another kind of science, on a par with the many sciences existing in outer, physical life.

Now in matters of this kind, all considerations of convenience in life must be put aside; there must be scrupulous self-examination as to whether or not such questions are tainted by that habitual slackness in life which may all too justly be expressed by saying: Man is fundamentally unwilling to learn, unwilling to take hold of the Spiritual because this is inconvenient for him. We must ask ourselves: Does not something of this fear of inconvenience and discomfort creep into such questions? Let us admit that we really do begin by thinking that there is an easier path to Theosophy than all that is presented, for example, in our literature! It is often said light-heartedly that, after all, a man need only know himself, need only try to be a good and righteous human being—and then he is a sufficiently good Theosophist. Yes, my dear friends, but precisely this gives us the deeper knowledge that there is nothing more difficult than to be a good man in the real sense and that nothing needs so much preparation as the attainment of this ideal.

As to the question concerning Self-Knowledge—that can certainly not be answered in a moment, as so many people would like to think. Today, therefore, we will consider certain questions which are often expressed in the way indicated above. We will think of how Theosophy comes to us, seemingly, as a body of teaching, a science, although in essence it brings self-knowledge and the aspiration to become good and righteous men. And to this end it is important to study, from different points of view, how Theosophy can flow into life.

From among many pressing questions, let us take one in particular.—I am not referring to anything in the domain of science but to a question arising in everyday existence, namely, that of consolation for suffering, for lack of satisfaction in life. How, for example, can Theosophy bring consolation to people in distress, when they need consolation? Every individual must of course apply to his particular case what may be said about such matters. In addressing a number of people one can only speak in a general sense.

Why do we need consolation in life? Because something may distress us, because we have to suffer, to undergo painful experiences. Now it is natural for a man to feel that something in him rebels against this suffering. He asks: “Why have I to bear it, why has it fallen to my lot? Could not my life have been without pain, could it not have brought me contentment?” A man who puts the question in this way can only find an answer when he understands the nature of human karma, of human destiny. Why do we suffer? And here I am referring not only to outer suffering but also to inner suffering due to a sense of failure to do ourselves justice or find our proper bearings in life. That is what I mean by inner suffering. Why does life bring so much that leaves us unsatisfied?

Study of the laws of karma will make it clear to us that something underlies our sufferings, something that can be elucidated by an example drawn from ordinary life between birth and death.—I have given this example more than once. Suppose a young man has lived up to the age of 18 or so, entirely on his father; his life has been happy and carefree; he has had everything he wanted. Then the father loses his fortune, becomes bankrupt, and the youth is obliged to set about learning something, to exert himself. Life brings him many sufferings and deprivations. It is readily understandable that the sufferings are not at all to his liking. But now think of him at the age of 50. Because circumstances obliged him to learn something in his youth, he has turned into a decent, self-respecting human being. He has found his feet in life and can say to himself: “My attitude to the sufferings and deprivations was natural at that time; but now I think quite differently about them; I realise now that the sufferings would not have come to me if in those days I had possessed all the virtues—even the very limited virtues of a boy of 18. If no suffering had come my way I should have remained a good-for-nothing. It was the suffering that changed the imperfections into something more perfect. It is due to the suffering that I am not the same human being I was forty years ago. What was it, then, that came together within me at that time? My own imperfections and my suffering ... and my imperfections sought out the suffering in order that they might be expunged and greater perfection attained.”

This attitude can, after all, arise from quite an ordinary view of life between birth and death. And if we think deeply about life as a whole, facing our karma in the way indicated in the lecture yesterday, we shall finally be convinced that the sufferings along our path are sought out by our own imperfections. The vast majority of sufferings are, indeed, sought out by the imperfections we have brought with us from earlier incarnations. And because of these imperfections, a wiser being within us seeks for the path leading to the sufferings. For it is a golden rule in life that as human beings we have perpetually within us a being who is much wiser, much cleverer than we. The “I” of ordinary life has far less wisdom and if faced with the alternative of seeking either pain or happiness, would certainly choose the path to happiness. The wiser being operates in depths of the subconscious life to which ordinary consciousness does not extend. This wiser being diverts our gaze from the path to superficial happiness and kindles within us a magic power which, without our conscious knowledge, leads us towards the suffering. But what does this mean—“without our conscious knowledge?” It means that the wiser being is gaining greater mastery and this wiser being invariably acts within us in such a way as to guide our imperfections to our sufferings, allowing us to suffer because every outer and inner suffering expunges some imperfection and leads to greater perfection.

We may be willing to accept such principles in theory, but that, after all, is not of much account. A great deal is achieved, however, if in certain solemn and dedicated moments of life we try strenuously to make such principles the very life-blood of the soul. In the hurry and bustle, the work and the duties of ordinary life, this is not always possible; under these circumstances we cannot always oust the being of lesser wisdom—who is, after all, part of us. But in certain deliberately chosen moments, however short they may be, we shall be able to say to ourselves: I will turn away from the hubbub of outer life and view my sufferings in such a way that I realise how the wiser being within me has been drawn to them by a magic power, how I imposed upon myself certain pain without which I should not have overcome this or that imperfection.—A feeling of the peace inherent in wisdom will then arise, bringing the realisation that even where the world seems full of suffering, there too it is full of wisdom! This is something that Theosophy has achieved for life. We may forget it again in the affairs of external life, but if we do not forget it altogether and repeat the exercise steadfastly, we shall find that a kind of seed has been laid in the soul and that many a darkling mood of distress or weakness will change into brightness, into a sense of vigour and strength. And then we shall have acquired from such moments, greater harmony and energy in the life of soul.

Then we may pass on to something else ... but the Theosophist should make it a rule to devote himself to these other thoughts only when the attitude towards suffering has become alive within him. We may turn, then, to think about the happiness and joys of life. A man who adopts towards his destiny the attitude that he himself has willed his sufferings, will have a strange experience when he comes to think about his joy and happiness. It is not as easy for him here, as in the case of his sufferings. It is easy, after all, to find the consolation for suffering, and anyone who feels doubtful has only to persevere; but it will be difficult to find the right attitude to happiness and joy. However strongly a man may bring himself to feel that he has willed his suffering—when he applies this mood-of-soul to his happiness and joy, he will not be able to avoid a sense of shame; he will have a thorough sense of shame. And he can only rid himself of this feeling of shame by saying to himself: “No, I have not earned my joy and happiness through my own karma!” This alone will put matters right, for otherwise the shame may be so intense that it becomes sheerly destructive in the soul. The only salvation is not to attribute our joys to the wiser being within us. This thought will convince us that we are on the right road, because the feeling of shame passes away. It is really so: happiness and joy in life are bestowed by the wise guidance of worlds without our assistance, as something we must receive as Grace, recognising always that the purpose is to give us our place in the totality of existence. Joy and happiness should so work upon us in the secluded moments of life that we feel them as Grace, Grace bestowed by the supreme Powers of the world who want to receive us into themselves.

Whereas through pain and suffering we are thrown back upon ourselves, brought nearer to perfection, through happiness and joy we have the feeling of peaceful security in the arms of the Divine Powers of the world, and the only worthy attitude is one of thankfulness. Nobody who in quiet hours of self-contemplation ascribes happiness and joy to his own karma, will unfold the right attitude to such experiences. If he ascribes joy and happiness to his karma, he is succumbing to a fallacy whereby the Spiritual within him is weakened and paralysed; the slightest thought that happiness or delight have been deserved, weakens and cripples us inwardly. These words may seem harsh, for many a man, when he attributes suffering to his own will and individuality, will resolve to be master of himself, too, in experiences of happiness and joy. But even a cursory glance at life will indicate that by their very nature, joy and happiness tend to obliterate something in us. This weakening effect of delights and joys in life is graphically described by the lines in Faust: “And so from longing to delight I reel; and even in delight I pine for longing.” Anybody who gives a single thought to the influence of joy, taken in the personal sense, will realise that there is something in joy which tends to produce a kind of intoxication in life and obliterates the Self.

This is not meant to be a sermon against joy or a suggestion that it would be good to torture ourselves with red-hot pincers or something of the kind. Indeed it is not so! To recognise something for what it truly is, does not mean that we must flee from it. It is not a question of fleeing from joy, but of receiving it calmly and tranquilly whenever and in whatever form it comes to us; we must learn to feel it as Grace and the more we do so, the better, for thereby we enter more deeply into the Divine. These words are spoken, then, not in order to preach asceticism but to awaken the right attitude of soul to happiness and joy.

If anyone were to say: Joy and happiness have a weakening, deadening effect, therefore I will flee from them (which is the attitude of false asceticism and forms of self-torture)—such a man would be fleeing from the Grace bestowed upon him by the Gods. And in truth the self-torture practised by the ascetics and monks in olden days was a form of resistance against the Gods. We must learn to regard suffering as something brought by our karma and to feel happiness as Grace breathed down to us by the Divine. Joy and happiness should be to us the sign of how closely the Gods have drawn us to themselves; suffering and pain should be the sign of how remote we are from the goal before us as intelligent human beings. Such is the true attitude to karma and without it we shall make no real progress in life. Whenever the world vouchsafes to us the good and the beautiful, we must feel that behind this world stand those Powers of whom the Bible says: “And they saw that it [the world] was good.” But in our experiences of pain and suffering we must recognise what, in the course of incarnations, man has made of the world which in the beginning was good and what he must amend by educating himself to resolute endurance of these sufferings.

I have been speaking merely of two ways of accepting karma. From one aspect, our karma consists of suffering and happiness; and we accept our karma with the right kind of will—as if we ourselves have willed it—when we adopt the true attitude to the suffering and the happiness that come our way. But we can do still more.—And this will be the theme of the lectures today and tomorrow.

Karma does not reveal itself only in the form of experiences of suffering or joy. As our life runs its course we encounter—in a way that can only be regarded as karmic—many human beings with whom, for example, we make a fleeting acquaintance, others who as relatives or close friends are connected with us for a considerable period of our life. We meet human beings who in our dealings with them bring sufferings and hindrances along our path; or again we meet others who give us the greatest help. The relationships are manifold. We must regard these circumstances too as having been brought about by the will of the wiser being within us the will, for example, to meet a human being who seems to run across our path accidentally and with whom we have something to adjust or settle in life. What is it that makes the wiser being in us wish to meet this particular person? The only intelligent line of thought is that we want to come across him because we have done so before in an earlier life and our relationship had already then begun. Nor need the beginning have been in the immediately preceding life—it may have been very much earlier. Because in a past life we have had dealings of some kind with this man, because we may have been in some way indebted to him, we are led to him again by the wiser being within us, as it were by magic. Here, of course, we enter a many-sided and extremely complicated domain, of which it is only possible to speak in general terms. But all the indications here given are the actual results of clairvoyant investigation. The indications will be useful to every individual because he will be able to particularise and apply what is said to his own life.—A remarkable fact comes to light. About the middle of life the ascending curve passes over into the descending curve. This is the time when the forces of youth are spent and we pass over a certain zenith to the descending curve. This point of time—which occurs in the thirties—cannot be laid down with absolute finality, but the principle holds good for everyone. It is the period of life when we live most intensely on the physical plane. In this connection we may easily be deluded. It will be clear that life as it was before this point of time has been a process of bringing out what we have brought with us into the present incarnation. This process has been going on since childhood, although it is less marked as the years go by. We have chiseled out our life, have been nourished as it were by the forces brought from the spiritual world. These forces, however, are spent by the point of time indicated above. Observation of the descending line of life reveals that we now proceed to harvest and work over what has been learned in the school of life, in order to carry it with us into the next incarnation. This is something we take into the spiritual world; in the earlier period we were taking something from the spiritual world. It is in the middle period that we are most deeply involved in the physical world, most engrossed in the affairs of outer life. We have passed through our apprenticeship as it were and are in direct contact with the world; we have our life in our own hands. At this period we are taken up with ourselves, concerned more closely than at any other time with our own external affairs and with our relation to the outer world. But this relation to the world is created by the intellect and the impulses of will which derive from the intellect—in other words, those elements of our being which are most alien to the spiritual worlds, to which the spiritual worlds remain closed. In the middle of life we are, as it were, farthest away from the Spiritual.

A certain striking fact presents itself to occult research. Investigation of the kind of encounters and acquaintanceships with other human beings that arise in the middle of life shows, curiously, that these are the persons with whom, in the previous or in a still earlier incarnation, a man was together at the beginning of his life, in his very earliest childhood. The fact has emerged that in the middle of life—as a rule it is so, but not always—a man encounters, through circumstances of external karma, those persons who in an earlier life were his parents; it is very rarely indeed that we are brought together in earliest childhood with those who were previously our parents; we meet them in the middle period of life. This certainly seems strange, but it is the case, and a very great deal is gained for life if we will only try to put such a general rule to the test and adjust our thoughts accordingly. When a human being—let us say, about the age of 30—enters into some relationship with another ... perhaps he falls in love, makes great friends, quarrels, or has some different kind of contact, a great deal will become comprehensible if, quite tentatively to begin with, he thinks about the possibility of the relationship to this person once having been that of child and parent. Conversely, this very remarkable fact comes to light.—Those human beings with whom we were together in earliest childhood—parents, brothers and sisters, playmates or others around us during early childhood—they, as a rule, are persons with whom in a previous incarnation we formed some kind of acquaintanceship when we were about 30 or so; in very many cases it is found that these persons are our parents or brothers and sisters in the present incarnation. Curious as this may seem, let us only try to see how the principle squares with our own life and we shall discover how much more understandable many things become. Even if the facts are otherwise, an experimental mistake will not amount to anything very serious. Contemplation of life during hours of quiet seclusion infuses it with meaning and brings rich reward; but no attempt must ever be made to arrange life according to our own predilections. We must not deliberately go in search of people who may happen to be congenial to us, whom we should have welcomed as parents. Preconceptions and predilections must never be allowed to give rise to illusions. You will realise that a real danger lies here. Countless preconceptions lurk within us but in these difficult matters it is a very healthy exercise to try to get rid of them.

You may ask me: What is there to be said about the descending curve of life? The striking fact has emerged that at the beginning of life we meet those human beings with whom in a previous incarnation we were connected in the middle period of life; further, that in the middle of the present life, we revive acquaintanceships which existed at the beginning of a preceding life. And now, what of the descending curve of life? During that period we are led to persons who may also, possibly, have had something to do with us in an earlier incarnation. They may, in that earlier incarnation, have played a part in happenings of the kind that so frequently occur at a decisive point in life—let us say, trials and sufferings caused by bitter disillusionments. In the second half of life we may again be brought into contact with persons who in some way or other were already connected with us; this meeting brings about a shifting of circumstances and much that was set in motion in the earlier life is cleared up and settled. These things are diverse and complex and indicate that we should not adhere rigidly to any hard and fast pattern. This much, however, may be said.—The nature of the karma that has been woven with those who come across our path especially in the second half of life, is such that it cannot be absolved in one life. Suppose, for example, we have caused suffering to a human being in one life; the thought may come easily that in a subsequent life we shall be led to this person by the “wiser being” within us, so that we may make amends for what we have done to him. The circumstances of life, however, may not enable compensation to be made for everything—but often only for a part. This necessitates the operation of complicated factors which enable such surviving remnants of karma to be adjusted and settled during the second half of life.

This conception of karma can shed light upon our dealings and companionship with other human beings. But there is still something else in the course of our karma to consider—something that in the two public lectures was referred to as the process of ripening, the acquisition of a real knowledge of life (if the phrase does not promote arrogance, it may be used). It is well to consider how we grow wiser. We can become wiser through our faults and mistakes and this is something for which we can only be thankful. In one and the same life it is not often that we have the opportunity of applying the wisdom gained from our mistakes and it therefore remains with us as potential power for a later life. But the wisdom, the real knowledge of life that we may acquire—what is it, in reality? I said yesterday that we cannot carry our thoughts and ideas directly with us from one life into the other; I said that Plato himself could not have taken his ideas directly with him into a later incarnation. What we carry over with us takes the form of will, of feeling, and in reality our thoughts and ideas, just like our mother-tongue, come as something new in each life. For most of the thoughts and ideas are contained in the mother-tongue, whence we acquire them. This life between birth and death yields us thoughts and ideas which really always originate from that same incarnation. Yes, but if this is so, we shall have to say to ourselves that it depends upon our karma!—However many incarnations we pass through, the ideas that arise in us are always dependent upon the one incarnation as apart from the others. Whatever wisdom may be living in your thoughts and ideas has been absorbed from outside, it is dependent upon your karma. Very much lies in these words for they indicate that whatever we may know in life, whatever knowledge we may amass, is something entirely personal, that we can never transcend the personal by means of what we acquire for ourselves in life. In ordinary life we never reach the level of the “wiser being” but always remain at that of the less wise. Anyone who flatters himself that he can learn more of his higher Self from what he acquires in the world, is harbouring an illusion for the sake of convenience. This actually means that we can gain no knowledge of our higher Self from what we acquire in life. Very well, then, how are we to attain any knowledge of the higher Self? We must ask ourselves quite frankly: To what does our knowledge really amount? It amounts to what we have acquired from experience—that and nothing more, to begin with. A man who aspires to Self-Knowledge without realising that his soul is only a mirror in which the outer world is reflected, may persuade himself that by penetrating within his own being he can find the higher Self; certainly he will find something, but it is only what has come into him from outside. Along this cheap, easygoing path no headway can be made. Rather we must ask about those other worlds where in truth the higher Self abides and the only available teachings here are those contained in Theosophy, for example, concerning the different incarnations of the Earth and the like. Just as we inquire about the environment of a child, about what is around the child, we must ask the same questions concerning the higher Self. Theosophy teaches us of the worlds to which the higher Self belongs, through telling us of Saturn and its secrets, of the Moon, of the evolution of the Earth, of Reincarnation and Karma, of Devachan, Kamaloca and so forth. By such teachings alone we can learn about the higher Self, about the Self which transcends the physical plane. And anyone who refuses to study these secrets is merely pandering to his own ease. For such a soul is always whispering: “Look within yourself—there you will find the Divine Man.” And what does such a man find? In reality nothing but experiences which have been gleaned from the outer world and then deposited within him! We find the Divine Man only when we seek for what is mirrored into this earthly world from realms outside and beyond it. Things which may sometimes be difficult and uncomfortable—they are true Self-Knowledge, true Theosophy! From Theosophy we receive illumination concerning the Self—our own higher Self. For where, in reality, is the Self? Is the Self within our skin? No, the Self is out-poured over the world; everything that is and has been in the world is part and parcel of the Self. We learn to know the Self only when we learn to know the world.

These apparent theories are, in truth, the ways to Self-Knowledge! A man who thinks he can find the Self by delving into his inner life and anchoring there, whispers to himself: “You must be a good and righteous man, you must be selfless!” ...Well and good, but it is often very obvious that such a man is becoming more and more egotistical. On the other hand, a man who wrestles with the great secrets of existence, who tears himself away from the wheedlings of the personal self and rises to what abides and can be found in the higher worlds—such a man is led to the true Self-Knowledge. When we think deeply about Saturn, Sun, Moon, we lose ourselves in cosmic Thought.—“Cosmic thoughts are living in thy thinking”—so says a soul who thinks in the sense of Theosophy; and he adds: “Lose thyself in cosmic thoughts.” The soul in whom Theosophy has become creative power, says: “In thy feeling, cosmic powers are weaving”—adding: “Experience thyself through cosmic powers.” ... not through powers which wheedle and cajole. This experience will not come to a man who closes his eyes, saying: “I want to be good and righteous.” It will come only to the man who opens his eyes of Spirit and sees the Powers of yonder worlds mightily at work, realising that he is embedded in these cosmic Powers. And the soul who gathers strength from Theosophy says: “In thy willing, cosmic Beings work,” adding: “Create thyself anew from powers of will!” In a man who has this conception of Self-Knowledge, transformation is wrought—through the might of cosmic realities.

Dry and abstract as this may seem, in truth it is no theory but something that thrives and grows like a seed of corn sown in the Earth. Forces shoot out in every direction and become plant or tree. So indeed it is. The feelings that come to us in Spiritual Science give us the power to create ourselves anew. “Create thyself anew from power of will!” Thus does Theosophy become the elixir of life and our gaze extends over the worlds of Spirit; forces pour into us from these worlds; we receive their forces and know ourselves, then, in all the depths of our being. Not until we bear World-Knowledge within us can we pass, step by step, away from the being of lesser wisdom within us, the being who is separated from the Guardian of the Threshold, to the “wiser being.” We penetrate through all that is concealed from one who does not yet desire the real strength but to which he can be led through Theosophy.

Theosophy teaches us that the processes in operation between death and a new birth are connected with the conditions prevailing in the Cosmos. A very significant difference has here to be considered. Changes may take place within us during physical existence, but not, in the same sense, during the period between death and a new birth. Suppose, for example, between birth and death we have been related in some way to a human being, or have shared experiences with a friend. And now, after his death, we have learnt from him something that was not a common experience between us on the Earth. How is a relationship established after death? How can our feelings towards him give expression to sympathy or antipathy? When we ourselves have passed through the gate of death and are followed, later on, by someone with whom we had a certain relationship in physical life, this must necessarily remain unchanged for a long time after death; for after death we cannot add anything new to the old relationship. After passing into the spiritual world we are still subject to our own, individual karma. The time when this karma can be transformed comes only in a new life and can only be adjusted or fully discharged in a new incarnation. An individual among the Dead cannot, in spiritual existence, work upon the other Dead in such a way as to change their life. But it is possible for a man still living on the Earth to have an effect upon one who has passed through death. Take the following case as an example.—Two human beings who love one another have different attitudes to Theosophy: one of them loves and the other hates it; hence there is a spirit of opposition between them.

If the human being is able to speak of the freedom of his will, this is because the “I”-consciousness takes far deeper paths than does the astral consciousness; in the depths of soul, therefore, a man often yearns for what, in his conscious life, he hates. How can we be of help to one of the Dead? We must be united with him by a spiritual bond. We can help, for example, by quietly reading to him; uniting ourselves with him inwardly and lovingly, we can take him with us through a sequence of thoughts, we can send ideas and imaginations up to him in the higher worlds. Such services of friendship are always helpful. Reading in this way is of benefit, although in earthly life the man may have been too indifferent, too easy-going; we can lighten his sufferings even when there was no evidence in his life that he longed for these things. Much blessing is often sent from the physical plane into the spiritual worlds, in spite of the great gulf which separates the life between birth and death from the life between death and a new birth. Many living people will feel that they are intimately connected with the Dead; they will also be conscious that they help the Dead. The first souls with whom we come into contact after death are those with whom we had already formed close ties on the Earth, not those who were unknown to us on Earth. A direct continuation of the earthly life takes place after death. The soul is inside whatever it perceives, fills it through and through.

During the period of Kamaloca, the ether-form of man expands as far as the orbit of the Moon. All human beings occupy the same space; they are not “in each other's way” during the Kamaloca-period. After this period of Moon-existence we inhabit the Mercury sphere; then the Venus-sphere, then the Sun-sphere; here we live within a sphere of higher spirituality, for the astral elements of the Moon-sphere have been overcome. Life in each of the planetary spheres depends upon the mood and quality of soul acquired during the Moon-period; the life of those who have unfolded the quality of moral fellow-feeling differs from the life of those who are egoists. The former open themselves to humanity. Above all we shall be able to form a connection with those with whom we were together in earthly life. The nature of these relationships will depend upon whether we have been a comfort or a source of trouble to the others. A man of inferior morality will become a spiritual hermit; a truly moral man, on the contrary, a sociable inhabitant of the Mercury-sphere.

During the following Venus condition, we expand to the outermost circumference of the Venus-sphere. A man who in earthly life had no religious feelings, who had received into himself nothing of the Eternal, the Divine, who during the Mercury-period had no bonds with other human souls, will become a hermit even during the Venus-period; but there too he is a sociable being if, during the Mercury-period he was together with other kindred spirits and warm mutual relationships existed between them. Atheists become hermits in the Venus-period; monists are condemned to live in the prison-house of their own souls, so that the one is shut off from the other. A hermit has a dull, torpid kind of consciousness from which other human souls are excluded. A sociable being has a bright, clear consciousness which, finds its way into the other being. Man ascends higher and higher into the world of the stars; but the more dimly he lives through these regions, the more rapidly he skims through the ages and therefore returns the more quickly to reincarnation—this applies, for example, to those who were criminals or idiots in their previous existence. On the other hand, the clearer consciousness has been in the world of the stars, the more slowly does the soul return to incarnation. Man must have been fully conscious out in the Cosmos if he is to be capable of building and shaping the physical brain of his subsequent life.—The condition of existence in which he becomes an inhabitant of the Sun-sphere sets in about a century after death. During this Sun-period it is possible to acquire a certain relationship to all human beings. If a man has consciously received the Christ Impulse, the way to all other human beings is open for him. Since the Mystery of Golgotha, union can be achieved with the Christ Impulse, the supreme spiritual Power. But a man who has not received the Christ Impulse remains a hermit, even in the Sun-sphere.

When a human being with his aura is revealed to the clairvoyant during the Moon-period of existence, a seed or kernel, enclosed in a kind of auric cloud, is perceived within the vast ether-body. This aura is dark and remains so, even during the Mercury-period. During the Venus-period, one side of the auric cloud lights up; and if, as clairvoyants, we then observe the human being, we perceive that if he was a moral, religious man, he is able, from that time onwards, to have real contact with the Beings of the higher Hierarchies. If he was a good and righteous man he lives in spiritual contact with higher Beings during the Venus-period; if he was an unrighteous man he cannot know or recognise these higher Beings and is thus condemned to the pain of isolation.

Before the Mystery of Golgotha, in the first epoch of post-Atlantean culture, conditions were such that the Throne of Christ was to be seen upon the Sun. Those who had been good and righteous in their lives found their way to the Christ on the plane of Sun-existence. In the age of Zarathustra, the Christ was already on His way to the Earth and could not be found on the Sun. Since the Mystery of Golgotha, Christ has been united with the Earth. If, on the Earth, men have not received the Christ Impulse, they cannot find Christ between death and a new birth. When a man has become a Sun-dweller and has taken the Christ Impulse into himself, a multitude of facts, known as the Akasha Chronicle of the Sun, lie open before him. If, on the Earth, he had not found Christ, he cannot read the Akasha Chronicle on the Sun. We can learn to read this great script if, on the Earth, we have accepted the Mystery of Golgotha with warmth of heart—and then, on the Sun, we are able to perceive the Deeds of Christ on the Sun through the millennia. Existence today is such that we are strong enough to become Sun-dwellers.—Later on we enter the sphere of Mars, then the spheres of Jupiter and Saturn and then, finally, the world of the fixed stars. On the path of return to the Earth, the ether-body of man shrinks and shrinks in size—until it is so tiny that he can incarnate again in a new human germ-cell.

Up to the period of Sun-existence, we stand under the leadership of Christ. From the Sun-existence onwards we need a Leader whose task it is to guide us to the further realms of cosmic space. Lucifer now comes to our side. If we have fallen prey to him on the physical plane, it is bad for us; but if on the Earth we have lightly understood the Christ Impulse, then we are strong enough on the Sun to follow even Lucifer without danger. From then onwards he has charge of the inner progress of the soul, just as on this side of the Sun, Christ has had charge of our ascent. If on the Earth we have received the Christ Impulse, Christ is the Keeper of the soul on the path to the Sun. Beyond the periphery of the Sun-sphere, Lucifer leads us out into the Cosmos within the periphery of the Sun, he is the Tempter.

If during the Sun-period we have been armed with the Christ Impulse, Christ and Lucifer guide us as Brothers. Yet how differently words spoken by Christ and by Lucifer are to be understood! As a wonderful precept there are the words of Christ: “In you lives the spark of the Divine, ye are Gods.” (John 10:34). And then, Lucifer's words of temptation: “Ye shall be as Gods.” (Genesis 3:5) These are similar utterances—but, at the same time, in dire antithesis! Everything depends upon whether here, on the Earth, man stands at the side of Christ or at the side of Lucifer.

Theosophy gives us a deep and profound understanding of the world. A certain knowledge must come to us in the physical body. On the Earth we must acquire understanding of Christ and Lucifer through Theosophy—otherwise we cannot pass with consciousness into cosmic space. The time is now beginning on the Earth when men must know quite consciously whether it is Christ or Lucifer who, after death, whispers these words into the soul. In the life between death and a new birth we must unfold a true understanding of Christ in order that we shall not be condemned to wander through the Cosmos in a state of sleep.

Theosophy must be an influence, too, in little things. More and more it will become apparent whether, or not, forces of life have been acquired between death and a new birth. There will be human beings born with dried up, withered bodies, because owing to their antagonism to Theosophy they have been unable to gather life-forces from the Cosmos. Understanding of Theosophy is necessary for the sake of Earth-evolution itself! If men have opened their souls to Theosophy, the knowledge that before this life they were in a spiritual world, will bring them happiness. “The starry heavens above me the moral law within me”—this realisation alone gives the world its greatness. Man says to himself: “In the world of the stars I received the essence and content of my inner life; what I lived through in the cosmic expanse flashes up now within my soul. The existence of evil impulses in my soul is due to the fact that during my sojourn in the world of the stars I did not try to receive its forces or the Spirit-Power of Christ.” We have, indeed, yet to learn how to achieve union with the Macrocosm. Today the human being can have only a dim premonition of what happens between death and a new birth. He feels: In earthly existence I live within my soul and bear in my Spirit the forces of the starry heavens. If a man meditates deeply on this concept it will become a great and might power within him.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

My task in these lectures will be to give you a picture of the theosophical conception of the world based upon the so-called Rosicrucian method. Please do not misunderstand this statement by expecting an historical account of Rosicrucianism. The expression “Rosicrucian method” is intended only to imply that theosophy will be presented in accordance with the method always adopted in the Mystery Schools of Europe since the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and called Rosicrucian training.

You know that theosophy is the truth that was imparted to mankind in ancient times in order that there might be formed in hearts everywhere a basic fount of human knowledge. But the further back we go into the past, the greater was the secrecy in which this knowledge was held. What was the reason for such secrecy? In the course of these lectures I shall return to the question why this universal wisdom was communicated in secret schools and centers to individuals who were destined not only to learn but to undertake training that transformed their souls to such an extent that they developed clairvoyance and insight into higher worlds. Such individuals were then sent out as emissaries, charged with guiding and leading others. But progress consists in the fact that more and more human beings become capable, through their power of judgment and intellect, of grasping this wisdom. Hence it has become necessary for what was formerly kept secret gradually to be made publicly known.

In the course of the nineteenth century, as the result of external conditions that we shall come to know, it became necessary to allow a great deal, indeed, a very considerable amount, of knowledge of occult science to make its way into the open for the sake of the well-being and progress of humanity. In the nineteenth century the Guardians of this knowledge said to themselves that in earlier times the communications of spiritual teaching made to human beings in the religions or by other means, were able to satisfy their needs in regard to eternal truths. But the needs of humanity change. So these Guardians of the primeval wisdom were obliged to realize that in the future there would be an increasing number of human beings whose souls could no longer be satisfied by the old forms of communicating spiritual truth.

Such people can find satisfaction in anthroposophy. This new form of communication springs from observation of a need of humanity in the modern age. The Guardians of the secret knowledge were naturally aware that such conditions were inevitable in the future, but not until a certain point of time was it necessary to make actual preparation for the influx of this wisdom into humanity and to emphasize that these secrets must also be grasped by the general intelligence prevailing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

This was realized in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. There were few at that time who were aware of this starting point of preparation in Europe. The first Rosicrucians were those who gathered around a significant individuality known as Christian Rosenkreutz. It was he, Christian Rosenkreutz, who could affirm with the most convincing clarity, “From the Mysteries we have received a treasure-store of knowledge and wisdom of the super-sensible. If we adhere to this, we may hope in the future, too, to succeed in doing what was done in the past, namely, to send out individuals trained in our schools to instruct others when they have learnt and discerned the secrets of the primeval wisdom.”

This old method of promulgating the primeval wisdom was to continue, but preparation was to be made for something else as well. He, Christian Rosenkreutz, spoke as follows. He said, “A far greater number of human beings who long for the primeval wisdom will come to us and we could communicate it to them in the form in which we now possess it. But its acceptance demands belief in and recognition of our authority in a high degree—an attitude that will progressively disappear from mankind. The more men's power of judgment increases, the less will be their belief in those who teach them. Belief and trust were preconditions for the earlier form of communication.”

At the present time one would have to say, “People will come who wish to test for themselves what is communicated to them. They will insist that they wish to apply to what is told them the same logical intellect that is used for observation of the material world. They admit that something in addition to this intellect is necessary for investigation of the spiritual world, but for all that they insist upon testing things by means of this intellect.” Hence, at the beginning of our epoch it was necessary to clothe the primeval wisdom in new forms. The work of the Rosicrucians was to give expression to the primeval wisdom in a form enabling it to be acceptable to the modern mind and the modern soul.

What is theosophy when presented according to the Rosicrucian method? Theosophy in itself is always and everywhere the same. A Rosicrucian theosophist today is a theosophist of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the forms it takes, its wisdom is adapted exactly to what human beings desire and need to understand. What is the specific characteristic of our time? The course of the evolution of humanity was such that men were obliged to become ever more familiar with outer, physical reality. Look back into olden times, for example into the ancient Egyptian culture, and you will realize with what simple measures and forces men worked, erected their buildings, satisfied their personal needs. Then think of our modern life with all its ingenious gadgets for physical comfort. What tremendous spiritual force and mental activity are expended on the physical needs of daily life! This, of course, was necessary, because the specific task of the Western world was so to shape external culture and gain such control of outer nature that the physical plane came truly under the control of the human spirit. A world such as our own needs measures different from those current in antiquity to be capable of imbibing the wisdom guarded in the secret schools.

On the other hand, when we compare the knowledge possessed by the Chaldeans and their grasp of spiritual realities with our present knowledge, the Chaldeans admittedly tower heavens high above us. Today we admire a Copernicus, a Galileo and what is recorded by external science, but this is all child's play compared with the wisdom of the ancient Chaldeans. To the modern researcher the planet Mars, for example, is an objective body whose course and movement can be measured. But the Chaldeans knew as well what forces and entities are connected with Mars, what divine will governs all this, what connection there is between these forces and man. The mystery and sway wielded by these spiritual forces were known to the Chaldeans. That is why the modern researcher is so powerless in face of the inner character of this ancient Chaldean culture. External means for its investigation are at his disposal but there are no longer any inner means. Theosophists and Rosicrucians, however, have the spiritual, esoteric possibilities for penetrating into the spirit of that ancient culture.

The great scientific authorities, of whom we read that they excavate clay cylinders and fragments covered with inscriptions of the ancient Babylonian wisdom, stand before these objects like three-year-old children facing some electrical apparatus. The researcher does not know what to make of what he excavates from such ancient sites, so penetrating, so unbounded was the spiritual knowledge current in that era. But to produce by means of the intellect and the external devices of our civilization what we justifiably admire today as evidence of the great progress made during recent centuries—this was first possible for modern science. Such an era, however, needs a different kind of thinking and perception in order to understand the spiritual. At this point, perhaps, a warning may be given. People speak so much today about higher or lower degrees of evolution, arguing about whether Buddha or Christ is the greater. But that is not the essential. Whether the Assyrian wisdom or our own is the higher is not important. We are living in the present, materialistically-minded age and the inflow of spiritual knowledge into our culture is needed in order that mankind's longing for such knowledge may be satisfied. It is the Rosicrucian wisdom that gives this knowledge to modern man in the form suitable for him. What is being said here may possibly seem rather daring, but please accept it now for what it is and later on it will become clear. As a matter of fact, Rosicrucian wisdom has been more greatly misunderstood than anything else in the world.

As time went on, the great individuality who was Christian Rosenkreutz foresaw what demands of understanding would be made by rationalistic thought and he realized that already in that period it had become necessary to promulgate all spiritual knowledge in the form demanded by the modern age. We must realize that for the Rosicrucians it was much more difficult than for any similar movement of an earlier period, because their initial activity in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries took place at the time when materialism was approaching apace. All modern achievements such as steam engines, telegraphy and so on were bound to place human beings firmly on the physical plane. The Rosicrucians were obliged to work for an era when men's thinking would be guided by mathematical principles. They were obliged to make their preparations with this in view and hence were entirely misunderstood. For this reason one cannot be informed truly about Rosicrucianism by what is said about it in public. Nothing of what was cultivated in true Rosicrucianism is to be found in literature. The deepest spiritual truths cultivated by the Rosicrucians were interpreted in such a mistaken way as to suggest that spiritual phenomena can be produced in alchemists' cellars with the help of retorts and so forth! This conception of alchemy gave rise to the materialistic caricature of Rosicrucianism that is presented in literature today. The task of the Rosicrucians was to formulate a science by means of which they would be able to let their wisdom flow gradually into the world.

From all this you will realize that when we present theosophy to people today it must be Rosicrucian theosophy. By using an older terminology we could win over a certain number of people, but they would necessarily be individuals who are connected with every fiber of their being with the modern world and its culture. There are egoists who withdraw from the tasks of the present age. We, however, wish to take modern life and its forms of expression seriously. We must accept our epoch as it actually is but endeavor to influence it spiritually. This is the conception that Rosicrucian theosophy must have of its task.

In the course of this Congress there will have been opportunity for you to realize what a fruitful effect theosophy can have, for example, in the sphere of medicine. Suppose medicine continues to develop along materialistic lines. If you could see forty years ahead you would be horrified by the brutality of the procedures to be adopted by medicine, by the forms of death with which medical science will set out to cure human beings. How does medical science today investigate the effects of its remedies? By means of the human material it finds in the hospitals and elsewhere; therefore, by outer observation. But spiritual wisdom, by its very nature, penetrates into the inner relationships of the spiritual, knows what in the physical world corresponds to the spiritual. A completely new creation of all medical science will proceed from what is called Rosicrucianism. But that is only one domain.

Compare the complicated conditions of our existence today with those of the ancient Chaldeans. Think what an amount of intellectual energy and what complicated cooperative measures are essential to enable a check issued in New York to be cashed in Tokyo. An era of this character, which has spread such culture over the globe, needs methods of spiritual activity different from those of earlier epochs. Occultists are aware of this. Modern thinking is simply unable to cope with and master the chaos of outer conditions and tasks in which man is becoming so deeply involved. Thinking itself will become rigid. Today we are living in an age of transition but thinking will soon no longer be sufficiently fluid and flexible to grapple with and transform the complicated conditions of life.

Why do we promulgate theosophy? In order to achieve practical effects. Theosophical thoughts make thinking more elastic, more flexible, enable a more rapid survey of far-reaching circumstances. Rosicrucianism has therefore to fertilize every domain of life. To realize the practical effect of theosophy you may turn to my essay, The Education of the Child in the Light of Anthroposophy. It is impossible for you to under-stand its content without Rosicrucian theosophy, which must not remain theory but become a helping hand in practical life. This element is simply not present in the earlier forms of theosophy. The role of Rosicrucian theosophy or occultism is to satisfy the spiritual longings of men and to enable spirit to flow into the daily round of their duties. Rosicrucian theosophy is not there for the salon or for the hermit, but for the whole of human culture.

Wisdom is always and forever one. But just as the individual man lives and evolves to further and further stages, so too does humanity as a whole. For this reason the forms of the wisdom revealed to men must change in order to be in keeping with the course of their evolution. The great teachers of humanity are working among us today, as always. We, too, who are present here as souls, were incarnated in earlier times, have lived through all the periods of evolution, the Greco-Latin, the Egypto-Chaldean and epochs still further back in time, in order to benefit from constantly new achievements and acquire constantly new knowledge. Think of a soul in an Egyptian incarnation, surrounded by the gigantic pyramids and mysterious sphinxes. What a different effect all this had upon the soul from what surrounds it today! For as long as the earth has something new to display—and the earth is forever making progress—for so long does the soul undergo constantly new experiences.

The soul does not incarnate on the earth in order to please the gods, but in order to learn! The face of the earth was quite different when the soul incarnated for the first time and will again be different when the final incarnation is reached. We return to this earth when, and not until, there is something new to be learned here. That is why the interval between two incarnations is lengthy. Only think how greatly Northern Europe, merely as landscape, differed from what it is today at the time when Christ was on the earth. We do not come to the earth twice without being able to learn something new. Everything in the world is in process of evolution, but evolution means the elaboration and later manifestation of the new.

Not only men but all beings evolve. We have to seek the way to beings who are at stages of evolution higher than that reached by man, although in this life he comes into relation with them in many ways. These beings are also subject to the law of evolution and just as our souls were different thousands of years ago, so, too, in earlier epochs, were the beings now revealing themselves. They also are perpetually learning. When we are speaking of one of the higher beings who has descended to our world in order to reveal to us with the resources of the spirit the mysteries of the higher worlds, we must affirm that that is a sublime art that must be mastered. Even a god has to master it.

Human beings of today must be addressed differently from those who were living ten thousand years ago. The higher beings, like men, undergo evolution, and what I have said during this Congress about the event of Damascus indicates how they evolve. A man with spiritual vision sees not only the outer environment but also everything that belongs to the spiritual aura of the earth. Just as human beings are surrounded by an aura, so, too, are the cosmic bodies. A clairvoyant is eventually able to perceive the aura of a cosmic body. What a clairvoyant would have seen in the earth's aura two thousand years ago would be quite different from what would have been seen a thousand years ago and different again from what would be seen by one who has developed clairvoyance today. Just as the picture of outer nature changes, so, too, does the picture of the spiritual world into which vision penetrates.

I shall now refer to an event of which I shall speak again later on, namely, the event of the burning thorn bush and the proclamation from Sinai. What happened to Moses at that time? His clairvoyant power had developed to a certain stage and he beheld the super-sensible reality in the physical phenomenon. An individual who was not clairvoyant would simple have seen a happening in nature. Moses, however, beheld in the burning thorn bush the Being who proclaimed Himself as “I AM the I AM.” He knew that this Being was there in very truth, that the fire was not only outer fire but harbored a spiritual reality. A Being belonging intimately to the whole further evolution of humanity, who announced His name as the “I AM the I AM,” had revealed Himself to Moses. What was it that was now known to all the pupils of Moses? In the Mystery Schools of that era they had learned that the same Being who had revealed Himself on Sinai would one day come down to the earth, live in a human body, and speak for three years in a man, Christ Jesus. This was known to the initiates. It was also known to Saul, who later became Paul. But he said to himself, “This Being exists in very truth and will come down to the earth. But I cannot conceive that the Being who revealed Himself in the burning thorn bush as Jehovah could suffer the shameful death on the Cross.” What was it that eventually convinced Saul? The event of Damascus! At the moment when he became clairvoyant and the earth's aura was visible to him, when in that aura he beheld the Christ, the living Christ, who revealed Himself as the same Being who had died on the Cross, at that moment Saul became Paul.

But that vision could not previously have been possible. Earlier than two thousand years ago Christ was not yet present in the earth's aura but He was still visibly present in the sun. Zarathustra beheld the sun surrounded by an aura he called Ahura Mazdao, the great Aura of Ormuzd. But this Being had descended, had first revealed Himself to Moses in the burning thorn bush and had then lived on earth as a man in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. Hence Christ could say of Himself, “I am the Light of the World.” Before then, nobody could have spoken these words, because the Light of the World had not previously been present in any being.

We will study these themes until they are fully understood. Today, however, it will merely be indicated that it was not possible for the Christ Being always to reveal Himself as He did, for example, in the case of Paul. The Christ Being had first to muster the necessary power, to develop it to the point where this revelation was possible. Earlier than two thousand years ago this could not have taken place. Each soul, in each incarnation, makes progress. This is what has happened in the case of leading individualities. We must realize that Christ has not always been the same and in His distinctive ways of working we must recognize how He, too, advances from one evolutionary stage to another. It gives rise to an overwhelming feeling of exultation when a man is made aware that just as in the case of his own soul and its incarnations and progress, the spiritual beings also reach higher and higher stages and become more and more powerful. This realization gives one a living feeling of evolution. It is an essential part of Rosicrucian esotericism to show how a being such as Christ has worked both in the past and at the present time, in Moses and in Paul, and to see from this how even a Being of such sublime eminence makes progress. This gives a rise to an intimate concept of evolution.

Now let us think of a child. He is born, sees the light of the world—this is the usual expression—and in the very first years of life changes particularly quickly. Compared with the later epochs of life it is then that the course of evolution is the most rapid. Materialistic science itself could make many relevant discoveries here. When the brain is examined, which is possible by external means, it can be observed how on the top of a child's head at the place that remains soft for a considerable time, the skull bones do not close immediately and the brain itself takes shape only gradually. The function of articulation is to pro-duce an instrument for a power of which the child will only later be capable, namely, the power to think, to correlate his perceptions. A clairvoyant sees how during the very first weeks and months after birth the child is surrounded by intensely active, powerful forces belonging to the etheric body, the second member of man's constitution. We know that in an adult human being of today the dimension of this etheric body is practically the same as that of the physical body, but in a young child it still extends far beyond the physical body, especially around the head. The activity of the forces, which to a clairvoyant seems to be like a play of light, is particularly strong here. It is wonderful to see how certain forces surge up from the body below and then stream from the nape of the neck in all directions, wherever hair appears; the forces radiate in a living play of light to become an astral-etheric radiance in the child's etheric body, a radiance that fades away in the course of time. In this radiance lie the forces that create the connective tissues in the brain. The brain is formed out of spiritual substance after the child has been born. Forty to fifty streams of forces can be seen working together. The body of light is composed of these streams. A wonderful spectacle is presented by a child during the first weeks of life. This body of light gradually presses into and is then within the child's brain. To begin with, the etheric body was outside the child, surrounding the head, and was entirely primitive. This was surrounded by a body of light from which the etheric body gathered forces, and now it penetrates gradually into the child's head and remains there as the complicated etheric organism.

What is so wonderful about the process of evolution is that everything physical is produced from the spiritual, formed by the spiritual, which we then receive into ourselves. The psyche has itself fashioned the dwelling place in which it subsequently resides. So we see that what takes place in the microcosm, the little world, in the brain of a human child, also takes place in the macrocosm, the great world. Now think of an outstandingly advanced individuality, such as Jesus of Nazareth, in whose body Christ lived as soul for three years. Just as in a child the etheric body itself prepares the physical brain into which it subsequently passes, so, too, had Christ previously prepared the abode in which He was to dwell. He had to accomplish this by His own activity. To begin with He was only outwardly connected with the earth, which could not yet have received Him. The most highly evolved souls had, however, worked at the earth in such a way that the Christ was able to draw nearer and nearer, and He Himself had participated in this work. Who, then, had so transformed the body of Jesus of Nazareth and finally brought it to the stage where it was able to receive the Christ? The Christ Himself had done this! To begin with He had worked upon the body from outside and was subsequently able Himself to pass into the human being concerned.

What takes place in the microcosm also takes place in the macrocosm, and it is because the beings above us also develop that evolution is possible. It was only because Christ could reveal Himself supersensibly that He became the planetary Spirit of the Earth. The microcosmic invariably tallies with the macrocosmic.

I have not been able today to present even the first chapter of Rosicricianism to you. All I have done is to indicate how a man of the present age should learn to think and perceive. The true meaning of the mandate, “Know thyself!” lies in our following in this way the evolution of the cosmos. Where is our self? Certainly not in us alone! To think that would be egoistic. The self is formed out of, born out of the whole universe and our own ascent leads us finally to merge in the whole cosmos. The aim of self-knowledge is to give man his place in the great world in order to reveal to him there the true meaning of the word, self-knowledge.

Now that we are together again after a rather lengthy summer interval, a few words may be said about what has been happening in our Movement meanwhile, particularly about activities which have by no means been without significance for our work in Middle Europe. You know that from the time we were last together here before the summer interval, preparations were in train for the meeting at Munich, which generally begins with a dramatic performance produced in a form appropriate to the spirit of our Movement. During the last few years we have been able to develop this dramatic work. We began, first of all, by having one such performance before a Course of Lectures in Munich, last year we were able to give two performances, and this year we have been able to attempt three.¹ These performances are always, of course, a somewhat hazardous enterprise, but thanks to the ready self-sacrifice of those who helped with their production, we really have succeeded in making a beginning—the beginning of something which, as it develops, will be a very important impulse in anthroposophical life when we ourselves shall no longer be able to be present in the physical body. But things of this kind—which extend far beyond the narrow limits of personal activity—must have a beginning somewhere, and those who participate in them must realise—in order that they may have the due humility and strength—that they are nothing more than a beginning. These performances, combined as they always are with a Course of Lectures, bring together not only members of our own section but also many friends of the Movement who now come to Munich from all over Europe. Those who try to understand the outer and the inner aspects of these activities may have been particularly struck, this year, by two things. The first is the way in which we are striving to carry the impulse of Anthroposophy, to begin with, into Art. Our aim, of course, is that the spiritual life shall be carried into every branch and sphere of existence. The reason why it seems so important to bring this spiritual life into Art is that Spiritual Science must not remain abstract theory or teaching, but must be made part of actual life, and take practical effect there. It was strikingly evident in these Munich performances that it is not the aim of Spiritual Science to achieve this by external subtlety or cleverness, but that its very life can pour vigour into that of Art. This was proved by the whole-heartedness and growing understanding with which Anthroposophists who were present in Munich threw themselves into the work. It is also evident from the fact that in the year 1909 we gave one dramatic performance, two last year, and this year—in spite of great difficulties—we were able to prepare three performances. If you study deeply enough, a work like The Soul's Probation will indicate to you that occult observations, just as those of external life, can be presented in artistic form. If it were a matter of speaking about the essence of these things, I should have a very great deal to say.

What is particularly striking in these Munich gatherings is the steady increase in the number of those who throng to the meetings, with the result that we are becoming acutely conscious of the lack of space, not only for the performances but also for the lectures. During the Lecture-Course, this lack of space was such that the heat of the hall caused great discomfort to the listeners. The obvious answer would be to take a larger hall. But there is a difficulty there too. As you all know, Spiritual Science calls for a certain intimacy. It would be highly inappropriate to produce one of the old Greek dramas in a circus-stadium. (According to reliable reports, this has been done recently, although nothing but an entire absence of understanding for Art could win for it any general approval or encouragement. One cannot help being astounded that such a thing has been thought possible ... but, after all, it is not to be wondered at when we realise how greatly our age lacks true feeling for Art.) Inappropriate as it would be to produce an old Greek Drama in a circus-stadium—(I do not mean in an actual circus, of course) such premises would be equally inappropriate for Spiritual Science. Ancient Greek theatre might be suitable, but not a vast stadium. I must confess that the size of the Architectenhaus in Berlin seems to me to be the maximum, and instead of taking a still larger hall I would much prefer to give a lecture twice over in the Architectenhaus than once in a still larger hall. These things are so connected with the innermost character of Spiritual Science that they may not be understood today, but it will be different when Spiritual Science finds its way into the many domains and spheres of life.

Now in connection with our activities in Munich ... if through what can be done in one hall, anything worthy of Anthroposophy is to be achieved ... we have, come, inevitably, to the conclusion that we must create our own premises and surroundings. This has led to the idea of erecting a building in Munich which would enable us to have a hall of our own, adequate for the needs of the Gatherings there. The near future will show whether such a project will meet with success. For this much is certain: if we do find the way clear to erect a building in Munich, it must be done soon; otherwise the finest results of our work will be lost, precisely because during the next few years it will be possible to carry on our work adequately, provided only we have the space. That something is really achieved by building our own premises—this we have seen, not only in various small beginnings, but now again in Stuttgart, where the Group has built the first house for Anthroposophy existing in Middle Europe. Those who were present at its Opening will have been amply convinced of what it means to have premises that are dedicated to anthroposophical work, and how completely different it is to go into such a room, compared with other rooms—quite apart from the details of which I spoke at the Opening, in connection with the significance of colour, the shaping of the space, and so on, for the cultivation of spiritual knowledge.

Many ears, hearts and souls are open to receive the deepening for which we are striving in Anthroposophy, and there will be many, many more. We have seen, too—indeed it is constantly forced upon us—how eager people are to acquire knowledge of the spiritual world by an easy path. I believe that as the necessity for a deepening of thought and feeling, a widening of knowledge in the different domains of life, and in the occult life too, is brought home in Course after Course of Lectures, many who have worked with us will already have discovered that in our stream of spiritual life, things are not made too easy. When we think of all the literature that has accumulated through the years—and I am sometimes appalled at the number of Lecture Courses and publications piled on our book tables—literature with which every sincere member desires to make himself intimately acquainted, or at any rate must study to some extent ... when we think about this, we may truly say that we do not make it easy for anybody to reach the spiritual world. And yet as the years go by, it is more and more evident that ears and hearts and souls of human beings are open, whenever we have been able to approach them. Although for strange reasons into which we will not enter now, the Congress of the European Sections of the Theosophical Society in Genoa fell through, our own activities did not cease on that account. When the Congress was abandoned (its cancellation was announced only at the last minute and we will speak of the reasons later on), some people might have thought that we could still have held meetings, but it became evident at once that the time must be put to a different use. And so during the days that had been fixed for the Genoa Congress, lectures² were given in Lugano, Locarno, Milan, Neuchâtel and Berne. We were able, therefore, to work during this time in places which it would have been difficult to visit in the near future. In Neuchâtel a Group was founded, desiring to adopt the name of a great spiritual Individuality, Christian Rosenkreutz, of whom the members were eager to hear more intimate details. (I will shortly give a lecture on this subject here too.) When it is remembered that in order to speak about Christian Rosenkreutz at all, in order to understand this mysterious Individuality, all the occult truths gathered in the course of many years are required and that was a real longing for a more intimate knowledge, then it is clear that understanding of Spiritual Science has been deepened, although it has not been made easy for those who are working with us. And yet, on the other hand, how easy it is made, in reality, for those who sincerely strive for this deepening—how easy it is made! It may be said without boasting that it is made easy for them.

Think, for example, about the following. I have said repeatedly that, in our Movement, the basis of anthroposophical life must be this occult ideal: There is in reality only one true form of occultism. To distinguish between an “Eastern” and a “Western” occultism would make as much sense as to distinguish between Eastern and Western mathematics. But on account of intrinsic characteristics, one kind of problem falls more readily into the sphere of occultism in the East and another into that of occultism in the West. Everything that relates to the great Appearance of which we have been speaking for years as the Appearance of Christ, is the result of the occult investigations pursued during recent centuries in the European esoteric schools, the European centres of occultism. All that has been said concerning the Individuality known to us as “Jesus of Nazareth,” concerning the two Jesus boys, the descent of Christ into the body of Jesus of Nazareth at the time of the Baptism by John in Jordan, concerning the Mystery of Golgotha and now recently, in Carlsruhe, concerning the Mystery of the Resurrection³—all these are truths which could not have been given out today were it not for the occult investigations which have continued in the West from the twelfth century down to the present time. Christianity cannot be understood without knowledge of these truths. Nobody—however great a theologian he may be—can understand Christianity unless he understands the Resurrection, for example. Those who speak like the theologians of today simply cannot understand Christianity—for what can they make of the words of St. Paul: “If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith also is vain”? In short, where there is no understanding of the Resurrection, there can be no understanding of Christianity! On the other hand it must also be remembered that the intellect as such, whether directed to Spiritual or to Natural Science, is incapable of approaching subjects like the Resurrection. A modern thinker will say that he must abandon the whole structure of his thought if he is really to believe in the Resurrection and what is described in the Gospel of St. John. Many people have realised and said as much. It is therefore necessary for light to be shed on these things by occultism in the West. So far as can be known from outside, the trend of occultism pursued in the East does not cover these particular truths, which are connected with the Mysteries of the West, with the Mysteries of Christianity. And why? Over in Asia, with the exception of regions in and around Asia Minor, men are not, and have not been, interested in Christ. They do not feel the need to ask about Him, nor have they done so for hundreds and thousands of years. In India and in Thibet, wonderful occult teachings exist about the Buddha and the Bodhisattvas, but nobody has been particularly interested in occult research concerning the Being of Christ. The Oriental school of Theosophy cannot, therefore, be expected to have any real knowledge of the Christ.

You all know of the tremendous service rendered by H. P. Blavatsky to the Theosophical Movement when it first came into being. Did the greatness of her achievement consist in formulating the three “Principles” of the Theosophical Society which are still printed on our forms of application for membership? It certainly did not lie in the statement that there must be a society for the cultivation of Universal Brotherhood! There are many such societies and every normal, thinking person will approve of the cultivation of Universal Brotherhood. The greatness of H. P. Blavatsky's work lay in the fact that,through her, an untold number of occult truths found their way into the world. Anyone who studies Isis Unveiled and then The Secret Doctrine which appeared years later, will realise that in spite of everything that can be said against these works, they do, nevertheless, contain countless truths, truths of which, until then, nobody except those who had experienced Initiation, had any inkling. Although Madame Blavatsky had an illogical, disorderly mind, although her own speculations are placed, inappropriately, side by side with communications from the Masters (to go into this now would lead too far)—although she was passionate and impetuous and often said things she should not have said (for it is not legitimate in occultism to speak so passionately and illogically)—although it might be considered advisable to get some system and logical sequence into Isis Unveiled, or to eliminate five-sixths of The Secret Doctrine and re-edit the remaining sixth ... yet in the theosophical life we must look at the positive side and say that a great and powerful impulse was there brought into the occult life.

The truth of these matters is that when H.P. Blavatsky wrote Isis Unveiled, she was under a kind of Rosicrucian inspiration. Isis Unveiled contains great Rosicrucian truths—even the shortcomings of Rosicrucianism are included. Everything of real importance in the book is Rosicrucian, I said: “even the shortcomings of Rosicrucianism”—because insight into the truths of reincarnation and karma, for instance, was not possible in the old Rosicrucianism of the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. It was only later on that they could be recognised in the West. In Isis Unveiled, Madame Blavatsky gave nothing that even approximates to an adequate explanation of reincarnation and karma; in short, she took over all the shortcomings of Rosicrucianism. Then it came about that through circumstances to describe which would lead too far, Madame Blavatsky fell away from the Rosicrucian influences and was enticed into an Oriental form of Theosophy.⁴ The outcome of this was The Secret Doctrine which in regard to everything that is not connected with Christianity contains great truths, but the greatest nonsense in regard to Christianity. Concerning the various religions and system of thought in the world—with the exception of Judaism and Christianity—The Secret Doctrine is very useful, but nothing the book says about Judaism and Christianity is of the slightest value, because H. P. Blavatsky had entered a sphere in which the truths in these two religions had not been cultivated. The whole direction subsequently taken by the Theosophical Movement is connected with this. The Theosophical Movement proved incapable of any real understanding of Christianity. Let me make it clear, by an example that is important for us, how the Theosophical Movement has failed in this respect.

In Oriental occultism—apart from its very highest Initiates who do not speak otherwise than we—the loftiest Individuality is that of the Bodhisattva. One such Bodhisattva was the Individuality who, about five hundred years before our era, rose to the next rank, which again is understood in Orientalism. In his twenty-ninth year, the Bodhisattva who had been born as the son of King Suddhodana became the Buddha. The attainment of Buddhahood, as everyone conversant with Buddhism understands, means that the Being in question, after the physical life during which he has become Buddha, can never again appear on the earth. When the Bodhisattva becomes Buddha he no longer returns to the Earth in an ordinary body, nor is he subject to the laws of reincarnation. But he has a “successor.” When the Bodhisattva received Enlightenment and rose to Buddhahood, he “nominated” a successor to become Bodhisattva. This next Bodhisattva will be born as a human being, a human being towering above others, until he himself ascends to the rank of Buddha. It is known to every true disciple of Orientalism that exactly five thousand years after the Enlightenment of Gautama Buddha under the Bodhi Tree, the Bodhisattva succeeding him will attain to Buddhahood, and will appear as Maitreya Buddha—in three thousand years' time from now. Up to then a Bodhisattva will live in manifold incarnations yet to come; he will appear again and again on the Earth, but will not rise to the rank of Buddha for another three thousand years—and then he will be a great Teacher on the Earth.

This is the highest Individuality recognised by Oriental occultism. Because Madame Blavatsky had been captured, as it were, by the Oriental trend of occultism, such understanding of these things as might have been attained, was limited by Eastern conceptions. At the same time, also, there was the desire to bring to Europeans further light on Christianity; but no real understanding of Christianity was possible by means of Eastern teachings—for they lead only to the Individualities of the Bodhisattva and the Buddha. The consequence of this was that even those who were endowed with clairvoyance could only perceive the Individuality of a Bodhisattva. A Bodhisattva was, however, incarnated in Jeschu ben Pandira, who lived 105 years before our era. He was closely connected with the Essenes and had pupils, among them one who was afterwards responsible for the Gospel of St. Matthew. A Bodhisattva-Individuality, the successor of Gautama Buddha, was incarnated in Jeschu ben Pandira, of whom Oriental Theosophy speaks. And to clairvoyant vision it seemed as though nothing of particular importance happened 105 years after Jeschu ben Pandira had lived. Think of H. P. Blavatsky. She directed her occult gaze to the time when Jeschu ben Pandira was living and saw that a great Bodhisattva-Individuality was incarnated in him. But because her entanglement in an Oriental trend of Theosophy had limited her powers of vision, she was incapable of seeing that 105 years afterwards, the Christ had come. Of Christ she knew only what was said in the West, and from this she conceived the notion that no “Christ” ever lived, that it was all make-believe; but that 105 years before our era there had lived a certain Jeschu ben Pandira, who was stoned and then hanged on a tree—who was not, therefore, crucified. Jeschu ben Pandira was now described as if he had been Jesus of Nazareth. This is a complete confusion. Concerning the real Jesus of Nazareth who was the Bearer of the Christ, nothing is said. Jeschu ben Pandira, who had lived 105 years earlier was said to be “Christ,” because a European name was thought to be desirable.

• See: Jeschu ben Pandira, by Rudolf Steiner.

We, however, are obliged to say that those who stand within that Oriental stream do not perceive Who the Christ Being is. It cannot be denied that the moment attention has to be drawn to a matter like this, we find ourselves in an unpleasant position. And why? Every one who is acquainted with the sciences knows that there are matters which can be disputed; but there are others which cannot be disputed—and there, if someone holds a contrary opinion, it can only be said that he does not understand the point at issue. Now if we say: “You do not understand this”—we may be considered extremely arrogant! We are in this unpleasant position in that we cannot agree with those who speak of Jeschu ben Pandira as the “Christ.” The fact is that they simply have not reached the stage of being able to understand. It is unpleasant to have to say this, but it is a fact. They are really not to be blamed when they speak of the Being, whom they too recognise, as though He could come again and again in the body—for they have no real knowledge of the Christ Being Who could appear only once in the flesh! And now take Esoteric Christianity by Annie Besant, and read it with more care than is usual in theosophical circles. It speaks of an Individuality who lived 105 years before our era; but the mistake is that he is called “Christ” Suppose some person—the authoress of this book, for instance—were now to say that during the twentieth century the Being described in Esoteric Christianity is to appear in some human being in the flesh. Nothing more could be said against this, from our standpoint, than would be said to anyone who might go to India and proclaim that the Buddha will incarnate again. He would be told: “You are an ignorant European! Everyone knows that the Buddha can never appear again in the flesh; you therefore understand nothing about Buddhism”. But we too, in Europe, must be entitled to take the same attitude when it is alleged that Christ will incarnate a second time! Our reply can only be: “You do not understand. True knowledge of the Christ Being reveals that He is a Being Who can appear once, and once only, in a body of flesh.” Let us say that understanding here lies on different levels; then there can be no misunderstanding!

What is the point that might really separate us from an Oriental trend of Theosophy? Do we deny that a man lived 105 years before our era, who was stoned for blasphemy and afterwards hanged on a tree? No, we do not deny it. Or do we deny that a great Individuality dwelt in that being? We do not. Neither do we deny that this being may reincarnate in the twentieth century. We admit it. Is there therefore any real issue concerning which we should have to repudiate the statements made by the other school of Theosophy? Only this, that we are bound to say: “You do not know the Being Whom we call Christ: you call another by His Name. We must have the right to correct this. As for the rest ... it is only a question of nomenclature, except when you expressly ignore matters of which we speak in connection with the beginning of our era. We speak of the two Jesus children, the Baptism by John in the Jordan, the Mystery of Golgotha. Of these, you say nothing! We must be allowed the right to know things of which you are ignorant! Otherwise one would be under the decree: What we do not know, nobody else has the right to know; for what we do not know is all false!” In this connection our position is that we do not make the trouble, and when any is made, it is the others who are responsible for it.

All misunderstandings could very easily be avoided. So far as we are concerned there is no reason for misunderstanding, and none exists. Only we must have the right to bring to theosophical life the results of occult researches of which nothing is known on the other side, and which immeasurably deepen our understanding of the problems of the West. So in one important respect, provided only that good-will exists, it is not in the least necessary for disharmony to arise in the Theosophical Movement. Good-will is necessary—not the attitude that is ready to repudiate some authenticated truth ... for that would not be good-will but denial of truth! Good-will must be accompanied by reason. Why do differences of opinion arise? Is it because some subject is looked at from different standpoints or also, possibly, from different levels? If the latter is the case, the others will not be able to substantiate their opinion. And then it is a matter of realising how the land lies, and of having tolerance.

For us, at any rate, this principle must be established and I had to refer to it on this first occasion when we are together again. I have referred to it as a proof that in our Movement it is very easy to see things clearly, if there is a sincere wish to do so. We ourselves may truly say that there is no need for us to oppose anyone. We can afford to wait until the opposition comes from elsewhere. We can go on working quietly, and this subject would not have been raised or mentioned at all, if friends had not been distressed by the rumour that Theosophists are all at variance among themselves. It is true that ultimately we may find ourselves in the very disagreeable position of being obliged to say: “On the other side they have no knowledge of certain truths.” This may lead to an accusation of arrogance, but we can put up with that, provided we know what real humility is.

During this last year it has been necessary to give expression to the progress—for so it may truly be called—that has taken place in occult investigation since the middle of the thirteenth century. This has been done, for instance, in my book, The Spiritual Guidance of Man and of Mankind. These developments are hardly mentioned in any Movement other than our own. It may be said, therefore, that we have had to undertake the difficult task of assimilating the most recent results of occult research. It may be regarded as a good augury that at the founding of the Neuchâtel Group, the need was expressed for more intimate knowledge of the greatest Teacher of Christianity—Christian Rosenkreutz—of his incarnations and of the nature of his work. I have spoken as I have today, in order that each of you may know how things really are, when someone on the other side says: “Here we are told that Christ will incarnate again in the twentieth century, but over there it is said that He will appear as a Spiritual Being only. These are two conflicting standpoints.” No, we must not allow this to be said. It must, however, be emphasised—and admitted by the other side, too—that they are speaking of Jeschu ben Pandira, who was stoned 105 years before our era. When, for instance, in Annie Besant's last book, The Changing World, everything is jumbled up and no mention made of the usurpation of the name “Christ,” when sheer contradiction exists between Esoteric Christianity and The Changing World ... these are matters which really must be pointed out, in order to prevent people from being misled into thinking that in her latest book Annie Besant is speaking of the real Christ. If this were so, she would have to repudiate the book Esoteric Christianity and say that its contents are not correct—for that book speaks of a being who lived 105 years before our era, not at its beginning.

Our work is characterised by the fact that the findings of occult investigation cover even the most modern times. From one point of view, therefore, it is a kind of aspersion—although an unintentional one—when outsiders call us “Rosicrucians.” It really is a kind of aspersion: at any rate it reminds me of an amusing incident which once took place in the market of a town in Central Germany.—One man said: “So-and-so is a sluggard.” “What?” said another, “you say he is a sluggard? But I know that he is a butcher, not a sluggard!” The same kind of logic which implies that if a man is a butcher he cannot be a sluggard, underlies assertions to the effect that our Movement is not “Theosophical” but “Rosicrucian.” Why do we cultivate Rosicrucian principles? Because genuine Rosicrucian schools of occultism have existed and because the results of Rosicrucian knowledge must be received into our own Movement—just as we have spoken, without any bias whatever, about Brahmanism, Orientalism, about ancient and modern Christianity. I do not think that in many other theosophical Groups mention has been made, for instance, of the Mexican deities Quitzalcoatl and Texkatlipoka, as has been done among us.⁵ So, in addition to all the other subjects, we have also included the results reached by genuine Rosicrucian investigation—naturally so, since we do not disdain the fruits of genuine occultism. If we have become familiar with a number of symbols derived from Rosicrucianism it is because they have the best influence upon the minds and hearts of modern men. We are “modern” Theosophists precisely because we do not refuse to accept the results of the most modern research. Perhaps someone has heard that I have sometimes used the form of address: “My dear Rosicrucian friends” ... These things occur just because we stand upon the universal foundations of Theosophy. It is, therefore, an unconscious aspersion when the designation “Rosicrucian” is imposed upon our Movement. We must, however, be tolerant about these things.

Our task this winter will be to deepen still further the teachings and truths already received. And so, in order to prepare the ground for speaking about Christian Rosenkreutz here, too, I want to speak about the threefold nature of man and its true basis, in so far as man is a being capable of receiving intellectual, aesthetic and moral impulses. We shall have to search very deeply into the occult foundations of these things, and expand the teachings already received, for instance about the Saturn- Sun- and Moon-evolutions, by studying man as an intellectual, an aesthetic and a moral being.

• 1. The Portal of Initiation and The Soul's Probation by Rudolf Steiner. See “Four Mystery Plays.”
• 2. The Christ Impulse through the Course of History. Lugano, 17.9.11; Locarno, 19.9.11,
  Buddha and Christ. The Spheres of the Bodhisattvas. Milan, 21.9.11.
  Rosicrucian Christianity. Neuchâtel, 27 and 28.9.11. Not yet published in English.
• 3. From Jesus to Christ. (In English translation.) Ten lectures.
• 4. See: The Story of My Life, by Rudolf Steiner. Chap. XXIX.
• 5. See: Inner Impulses in the Evolution of Mankind, by Rudolf Steiner. (Lecture III and Lecture V.) Not yet published in English.

The Michael period into which the world has been entering ever since the last third of the nineteenth century, and into which human beings will have to enter with increasing consciousness, is very different from former periods of Michael. For so it is in the earthly evolution of mankind. One after another the seven great Archangel Spirits enter from time to time into the life of man. Thus, after given periods of time a certain guidance of the world—such as the guidance of Gabriel or Uriel, Raphael or Michael—is repeated. Our own period is, however, essentially different from the preceding period of Michael. This is due to the fact that man stands in quite another relation to the spiritual world since the first third of the fifteenth century than he ever did before. This new relation to the spiritual world also determines a peculiar relation to the Spirit guiding the destinies of mankind, whom we may call by the ancient name of Michael.

Recently I have been speaking to you again of the Rosicrucian Movement. Rosicrucianism, I remarked, has indeed degenerated to charlatanry in many quarters. Most of that which has been transmitted to mankind under the name is charlatanry. Nevertheless, as I have explained on former occasions, there did exist an individuality whom we may describe by the name of Christian Rosenkreutz. This individuality is, in a sense, the type and standard: he reveals the way in which an enlightened spirit—a man of spiritual knowledge—could enter into relation with the spiritual world at the dawn of the new phase of humanity.

To Christian Rosenkreutz it was vouchsafed to ask many questions, deeply significant riddles of existence, and in quite a new way when compared with the earlier experiences of mankind. You see, while Rosicrucianism was arising, directing the mind of man—with “Faustian” endeavour, as it was sometimes called in later times—towards the spiritual world, an abstract naturalistic science was arising on the other hand. The bearers of this modern stream of spiritual life, men like Galileo, Giordano Bruno, Copernicus or Kepler—worthy as they are of fullest recognition—were differently situated from the Rosicrucians, who wanted to foster, not a merely formal or abstract, but a true knowledge of the world. The Rosicrucians perceived in their own human life and being how utterly the times had changed, and with it the whole relation of the Gods to mankind.

We may describe it as follows.—Quite distinctly until the fourth century A.D., and in a rudimentary way even until the twelfth and thirteenth century, man was able to draw forth from himself real knowledge about the spiritual world. In doing the exercises of the old Mysteries, he could draw forth from himself the secrets of existence. For the humanity of olden times it really was so: the Initiates drew forth, what they had to say to mankind, from the depths of their souls to the surface of their thought—their world of ideas. They had the consciousness that they were drawing forth their knowledge from the inner being of the human soul. The exercises they underwent were intended, as you know, to stir the human heart to its depths, to inform the human heart and mind with experiences which man does not undergo in the ordinary round of life. Thereby the secrets of the world of the Gods were, so to speak, drawn forth from the depths, from the inner being of man.

Man, however, cannot see the secrets he draws out of himself while in the very act of doing so. True, in the old instinctive clairvoyance man did behold the secrets of the world: he beheld them in Imagination; he beheld them hearingly in Inspiration; he united himself with them in Intuition.

These things, however, are impossible so long as man merely stands there alone—just as little as it is possible for me to draw a triangle without a board. The triangle I draw on the board portrays to me what I bear in a purely spiritual way within me. The triangle as a whole—all the laws of the triangle are in me; but I draw the triangle on the board, thereby bringing home to myself what is really there within me. So it is when we make external diagrams. And it is the same when it is a question of deriving real knowledge out of the being of man, after the manner of the ancient Mysteries. This knowledge too must, in a sense, be written somewhere. Every such knowledge, in effect, to be seen in the Spirit, must be inscribed in that which has been called from time immemorial “the astral light,”—i.e., in the fine substantiality of the Akasha. Everything must be written there, and man must be able to develop the faculty of writing in the astral light.

This faculty has depended on many and varied things in the course of human evolution. Not to speak, for the moment, of pristine ages, I will leave on one side the first Post-Atlantean epoch, the ancient Indian. At that time it was somewhat different. Let me begin with the ancient Persian epoch, as described in my Outline of Occult Science. There was in that time instinctive clairvoyance, there was knowledge of the divine-spiritual world. This knowledge could be written in the astral light so that man could behold it, inasmuch as the Earth, the solid Earth, afforded resistance. The writing itself is done, needless to say, with spiritual organs; but these organs also require a basis of resistance. The things that are thus seen in the Spirit are not inscribed, of course, on the Earth itself; they are written into the astral light. But the Earth acts as a ground of resistance. In the old Persian epoch the seers could feel the resistance of the Earth: thereby alone, the perceptions they drew forth from their inner being grew into actual visions.

In the next, the Egypto-Chaldean epoch, all the knowledge that the Initiates drew forth from their souls was able to be written in the astral light by virtue of the fluid element. You must conceive it rightly. The Initiate of the old Persian epoch looked to the solid earth. Wherever there were plants or stones, the astral light reflected back to him his inner vision. The Initiate of the Egypto-Chaldean epoch looked into the sea, into the river, or into the falling rain, the rising mist. When he looked into the river or the sea, he saw the secrets that endure. Those secrets, on the other hand, which relate to the transient—to the creation of the Gods in transient things—he beheld in the downpouring rain or the ascending mist. You must familiarise yourself with the idea. The ancients had not the prosaic, matter-of-fact way of seeing the mist and rain which is ours today. Rain and mist said very much to them—revealed to them the secrets of the Gods.

Then in the Graeco-Latin period, the visions were like a Fata Morgana in the air. The Greek saw his Zeus, his Gods, in the astral light; but he had the feeling that the astral light only reflected the Gods to him under the Proper conditions. Hence he assigned his Gods to special places—places where the air could offer the proper resistance to the inscriptions in the astral light. And so it remained until the fourth century A.D. Even among the first Fathers of the Christian Church, and notably the old Greek Fathers, there were many (as you may even prove from their writings) who saw this Fata Morgana of their own spiritual visions through the resistance of the air in the astral light. Thus they had clear knowledge of the fact that out of Man, the Logos, the Divine Word revealed Himself through Nature. But in the course of time this knowledge faded and grew feeble. Echoes of it still continued in a few specially gifted persons, even until the twelfth or thirteenth century. But when the age of abstract knowledge came—when men became entirely dependent on the logical sequence of ideas and the results of sense-observation—then neither earth nor water nor air afforded resistance to the astral light, but only the element of the warmth-ether. It is unknown, of course, to those who are completely wrapped up in their abstract thoughts. They do not know that these abstract thoughts are also written in the astral light. They are written there indeed; but in this process the element of the warmth-ether is the sole resistance.

The following is now the case. Remember once more that in the ancient Persian epoch men had the solid earth as a resistance so as to behold their entries in the astral light. What is thus contained in the astral light—all that, for which the solid earth is the resistance—rays on and out, but only as far as the sphere of the Moon. Farther it cannot go. Thence it rays back again. Thus it remains, so to speak, with the Earth. Man beholds the secrets reflected by virtue of the Earth; they remain because of the pressure of the lunar sphere.

Now let us consider the Egypto-Chaldean epoch. The water on the Earth reflects. What is thus reflected goes as far as the Saturn-sphere. And now it is Saturn that presses for man on Earth to “hold” what he beholds in spirit. And if we go on into Graeco-Latin period—even into the twelfth or thirteenth century—we find the visions inscribed in the astral light by virtue of the air. This time it goes to the very end of the cosmic sphere and thence returns. It is the most fleeting of all; yet still it is such that man remains united with his visions. The Initiates of all these epochs could say to themselves every time: Such spiritual vision as we have had—through earth or water or air—it is there. But when the most modern time arrived, only the element of the warmth-ether was left to offer resistance. And the element of the warmth-ether carries all that is written in it out into the cosmic realms, right out of space into the spiritual worlds. It is no longer there.

It is so indeed, my dear friends. Take the most pedantic of modern professors with his ideas. He must of course have ideas—some of them have none at all—but if he has ideas, then they are entered through the warmth-ether in the astral light. Now the warmth-ether is transient and fleeting; all things become merged and fused in it at once, and go out into cosmic distances. Such a man as Christian Rosenkreutz knew that the Initiates of olden times had lived with their visions. They had fastened and confirmed what they beheld, knowing that it was there, reflected somewhere in the heavens—be it in the Moon sphere or in the planetary sphere, or at the end of the Universe—it was reflected. But now, nothing at all was reflected. For the immediate, wide-awake vision of man, nothing at all was reflected. Now men could find ideas about Nature, the Copernican cosmology could arise, all manner of ideas could be formed, but they were scattered in the warmth-ether, out into cosmic vast.

Then it came about that Christian Rosenkreutz, by inspiration of a higher Spirit, found a way to perceive the reflected radiation after all, in spite of the fact that it was only a reflection by the warmth-ether. It was brought about as follows. Other conditions of consciousness—dim, subconscious and sleep-like—were called into play; conditions in which man is even normally outside his body. Then it became perceptible that that which is discovered with modern abstract ideas is after all inscribed, albeit not in space, but in the spiritual world. This, then, is what we see in the Rosicrucian Movement: the Rosicrucians, as it were in a transition stage, made themselves acquainted with all that could be discovered about Nature in this epoch. They received it into themselves and assimilated it as only man can assimilate it. They enhanced into true Wisdom what for the others was only Science. Holding it in their souls, they tried to pass over into sleep in highest purity and after intimate meditations. Then the divine-spiritual worlds—no longer the spatial end of the Universe, but the divine-spiritual worlds—brought back to them in a spiritually real language what had first been apprehended in abstract ideas.

In Rosicrucian schools, not only was the Copernican cosmology taught, but in special states of consciousness its ideas came back in the form I explained here during the last few days. It was the Rosicrucians, above all, who realised that that which man receives in modern knowledge must first be carried forth, so to speak, and offered to the Gods, that the Gods may translate it into their language and give it back again to men.

The possibility has remained until this present. It is so indeed, my dear friends. If you are touched by the Rosicrucian principle as here intended, study the system of Haeckel, with all its materialism; study it, and at the same time permeate yourselves with the methods of cognition indicated in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment. Take what you learn in Haeckel's Anthropogenesis. In that form it may very likely repel you. Learn it nevertheless; learn all that can be learned about it by outer Natural Science, and carry it towards the Gods. You will get what is related about evolution in my Outline of Occult Science.

Such is the connection between the feeble, shadowy knowledge which man can acquire here until his physical body, and that which the Gods can give him, if with the proper spirit he duly prepares himself by the learning of this knowledge. But man must first bring towards Them what he can learn here on the Earth, for in truth the times have changed.

Moreover another thing has happened. Let a man strive as he will today; he can no longer draw anything forth from himself as did the old Initiates. The soul no longer gives anything forth in the way it did for the old Initiates. It all becomes impure, filled with instincts, as is evident in the case of spiritualist mediums, and in other morbid or pathological conditions. All that arises merely from within, becomes impure. The time of such creation from within is past; it was past already in the twelfth or thirteenth century. What happened can be expressed approximately as follows:

The Initiates of the old Persian epoch wrote very much in the astral light with the help of the resistance of the solid earth. When the first Initiate of the old Persian epoch appeared, the whole of the astral light, destined for man, was like an unwritten slate. I shall speak later of the old Indian epoch. Today I shall only go back to the ancient Persian epoch. All Nature: all the elements—solid, liquid, airy, and warmth-like—were an unwritten slate.

Now the Initiates of the old Persian epoch wrote on this slate as much as could be written by virtue of the resistance of the earth. There, to begin with, the secrets destined to come to man from the Gods were written in the astral light. To a certain degree the tablet was inscribed; yet in another respect it was empty. Thus the Initiates of the Egypto-Chaldean epoch were able to continue the writing in their way; for they gained their visions by the resistance of the water.

Then came the Greek Initiates; they inscribed the third portion of the tablet. Now the tablet of Nature is fully inscribed; it was quite fully inscribed by the thirteenth or fourteenth century. Then human beings began to write in the warmth-ether; that, however, scatters and dissolves away in the vast expanse. For a time—until the nineteenth century—men wrote in the warmth-ether; they had no inkling that these experiences of theirs stand written in the astral light. But now, my dear friends, the time has come when men must recognise: not out of themselves in the old sense, can they find the secrets of the world, but only by so preparing themselves in heart and mind that they can read what is written on the tablet which is now full of writing. This we must prepare to do today. We must make ourselves ripe for this—no longer to draw forth from ourselves like the old Initiates, but to be able to read in the astral light all that is written there. If we do so, precisely what we gain from the warmth-ether will work as an inspiration. The Gods come to meet us, and bring to us in its reality what we have acquired by our own efforts here on Earth. And what we thus receive from the warmth-ether reacts in turn on all that stands written on the tablet by virtue of air, water, and earth.

Thus is the Natural Science of today the true basis for spiritual seership. Learn first by Natural Science to know the properties of air, water, and earth. Attain the corresponding inner faculties. Then, as you gaze into the airy, into the watery, into the earthy element, the astral light will stream forth. It does not stream forth like a vague mist or cloud; but so that we can read in it the secrets of world-existence and of human life.

What, then, do we read? We—the humanity of today—read what we ourselves have written in it. For what does it mean to say that the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Chaldeans, Persians wrote in the astral light? It was we ourselves who wrote it in our former lives on Earth.

You see, my dear friends: just as our inner memory of the common things that we experience in earthly life preserves them for us, so too the astral light preserves for us what we have written in it. The astral light is spread around us—a fully written tablet with respect to the secrets which we ourselves have inscribed. There we must read, if we would find the secrets once more. It is a kind of evolution-memory which must arise in mankind. A consciousness must gradually arise that there is such an evolution-memory, and that in relation to former epochs of culture the humanity of today must read in the astral light, just as we, at a later age, read in our own youth through ordinary memory. This must come into the consciousness of men. In this sense I have held the lectures this Christmas-time, so that you could see that the point is to draw forth from the astral light the secrets that we need today. The old Initiation was directed mainly to the subjective life; the new Initiation concentrates on the objective—that is the great difference. For all that was subjective is written in the outer world. All that the Gods have secreted into man ... what they secreted in his sentient body came out in the old Persian epoch; what they secreted in his intellectual or mind-soul came out during the Grecian epoch. The Spiritual soul which we are now to evolve is independent, brings forth nothing more out of itself; it stands over against what is already there. As human beings we must find our humanity again in the astral light.

So then it was with the Rosicrucian Movement: in a time of transition it had to content itself with entering into certain dream-like conditions, and, as it were, dreaming the higher truth of that which Science discovers here—in a dry, matter-of-fact way—out of the Nature around us.

And this is how it has been since the beginning of the Michael epoch, since the end of the 1870's: The same thing that was attained in the way above-described in the time of the old Rosicrucians, can now be attained in a conscious way. Today, therefore, we can say: We no longer need that other condition which was half-conscious. What we need is a state of enhanced consciousness. Then, with the knowledge of Nature which we acquire, we can dive into the higher world; and the Nature-knowledge we have acquired emerges and comes towards us from that higher world. We read again what has been written in the astral light; and as we do so, it emerges and comes to meet us in spiritual reality. We carry up into a spiritual world the knowledge of Nature here attained, or again, the creations of naturalistic art, or the religious sentiments working naturalistically in the soul. (Even religion has become naturalistic nowadays.) And as we carry all this upward—if we develop the necessary faculties—we do indeed encounter Michael.

So we may say: the old Rosicrucian Movement is characterised by the fact that its most illumined spirits had an intense longing to meet Michael; but they could only do so as in dream. Since the end of the last third of the nineteenth century, men can meet Michael in the Spirit, in a fully conscious way.

Michael, however, is a peculiar being: Michael is a being who reveals nothing if we ourselves do not bring Him something from our diligent spiritual work on Earth. Michael is a silent Spirit—silent and reserved. The other ruling Archangels are Spirits who talk much—in a spiritual sense, of course; but Michael is taciturn. He is a Spirit who speaks very little. At most He will give sparing indications, for what we learn from Michael is not really the word, but, if I may so express it—the look, the power, the direction of His gaze.

This is because Michael concerns Himself most of all with that which men create out of the Spirit. He lives with the consequences of all that men have created. The other Spirits live more with the causes; Michael lives with the consequences. The other Spirits kindle in man the impulses for that which he shall do. Michael will be the true spiritual hero of Freedom; He lets men do, and He then takes what becomes of human deeds, receives it and carries it on and out into the Cosmos, to continue in the Cosmos what men themselves cannot yet do with it.

For other beings of the Hierarchy of Archangeloi, we feel that impulses are coming from Them. In a greater or lesser degree, the impulses come from Them. Michael is the Spirit from whom no impulses come, to begin with; for His most characteristic epoch is the one now at hand, when things are to arise out of human freedom. But when man does things out of spiritual activity or inner freedom, consciously or unconsciously kindled by the reading of the astral light, then Michael carries the human earthly deed out into the Cosmos; so it becomes cosmic deed. Michael takes care for the results; the other Spirits care more for the causes.

However, Michael is not only a silent, taciturn Spirit. Michael meets man with a very clear gesture of repulsion, for many things in which the human being of today still lives on Earth. For example, all knowledge that arises as to the life of men or animals or plants, tending to lay stress on inherited characteristics—on all that is inherited in physical nature—is such that we feel Michael constantly repelling it, driving it away with deprecation. He means to show that such knowledge cannot help man at all for the spiritual world. Only what man discovers in the human and animal and plant kingdoms independently of the purely hereditary nature, can be carried up before Michael. Then we receive, not the eloquent gesture of deprecation, but the look of approval which tells us that it is a thought righteously conceived in harmony with cosmic guidance. For this is what we learn increasingly to strive for: as it were to meditate, so as to strike through to the astral light, to see the secrets of existence, and then to come before Michael and receive His approving look which tells us: That is right, in harmony with the cosmic guidance.

So it is with Michael. He also sternly rejects all separating elements, such as the human languages. So long as we only clothe our knowledge in these languages, and do not carry it right up into the thoughts, we cannot come near Michael. Therefore, today in the spiritual world there is a very significant battle. For on the one hand the Michael impulse has entered the evolution of humanity. The Michael impulse is there. But on the other hand, in the evolution of humanity there is much that will not receive this impulse of Michael but wants to reject it. Among the things that would fain reject the impulse of Michael today are the feelings of nationality. They flared up in the nineteenth century and became strong in the twentieth—stronger and stronger. By the principle of nationality many things have been ordered, or rather, have become sadly disordered in the most recent times.

All this is in terrible opposition to the Michael principle; all this contains Ahrimanic forces which strive against the inpouring of the Michael-force into the earthly life of man. So then we see this battle of the upward-attacking Ahrimanic spirits who would like to carry upward what comes through the inherited impulses of nationality—which Michael sternly rejects and repels.

Truly today there is the most vivid spiritual conflict in this direction. For this is the state of affairs over a great portion of mankind. Thoughts are not there at all; men only think in words, and to think in words is no way to Michael. We only come to Michael when we get through the words to real inner experiences of the Spirit—when we do not hang on the words, but arrive at real inner experiences of the Spirit.

This is the very essence, the secret of modern Initiation: to get beyond the words, to a living experience of the Spiritual. It is nothing contrary to a feeling for the beauty of language. Precisely when we no longer think in language, we begin to feel it. As a true element of feeling, it begins to live in us and flow outward from us. This is the experience to which the man of today must aspire. Perhaps, to begin with, he cannot attain it for speech, but through writing. For in respect of writing, too, it must be said: Today men do not have the writing but the writing has them. What does it mean, “the writing has them”? It means that in our wrist, in our hand, we have a certain train of writing. We write mechanically, out of the hand. This is a thing that fetters man. He only becomes unfettered when he writes as he paints or draws—when every letter beside the next becomes a thing that is painted or drawn ...

Then there is no longer what is ordinarily called “a handwriting.” Man draws the form of the letter. His relation to the letter is objective; he sees it before him—that is the essential thing.

For this reason, strange as it may sound, in certain Rosicrucian schools learning-to-write was prohibited, even until the fourteenth or fifteenth century; so that the form, the mechanism which comes to expression in writing, did not enter the human being's organism. Man only approached the form of the letter when his spiritual vision was developed. Then it was so arranged that simultaneously with his learning of the conventional letters, needed for human intercourse, he had to learn others—specifically Rosicrucian letters—which are supposed to have been a secret script. They were not intended as such; the idea was that for an A one should learn at the same time another sign: 8. For then, one did not hold fast to the one sign but got free of it. Then one felt the real A as something higher than the mere sign of A or 8. Otherwise, the mere letter A would be identified with that which comes forth from the human being, soaring and hovering as the living sound of it.

With Rosicrucianism many things found their way into the people. For it was one of their fundamental principles:—from the small circles in which they were united, the Rosicrucians went out into the world, as I have already told you, generally working as doctors. But at the same time, while they were doctors, they spread knowledge of many things in the wide circles into which they came. Moreover, with such knowledge, certain moods and feelings were spread. We find them everywhere, wherever the Rosicrucian stream has left its traces. Sometimes they even assume grotesque forms. For instance, out of such moods and feelings of soul, men came to regard the whole of this modern relationship to writing—and a fortiori, to printing—as a black art. For in truth, nothing hinders one more from reading in the astral light than ordinary writing. This artificial fixing hinders one very much from reading in the astral light. One must always first overcome this writing when one wants to read in the astral light.

At this point two things come together, one of which I mentioned a short while ago. In the production of spiritual knowledge man must always be present with full inner activity. I confess that I have many note-books in which I write or put down the results I come to. I generally do not look at them again. Only, by calling into activity not only the head but the whole man, these perceptions which do indeed take hold of the entire man come forth. He who does so, by and by accustoms himself not to care so much for what he sees physically, what is already fixed; but to remain in the activity, in order not to spoil his faculty of seeing in the astral light. It is good to practise this reticence. As far as possible, when fixing things in ordinary writing, one should adhere not to writing as such, but draw the letters and re-draw them after one's pleasure (for then it is as though you were painting, it becomes an art). Thus one acquires the faculty not to spoil the impressions in the astral light.

If we are obliged to relate ourselves to writing in the modern way, we mar our spiritual progress. For this reason, in the Waldorf School educational method, great care is taken that the human being does not go so far in writing as in the profane educational methods of today. Care is taken to enable him to remain within the Spiritual, for that is necessary.

The world must receive once more the principle of Initiation as such among the principles of civilisation. Only thereby will it come about that man, here on the Earth, will gather in his soul something with which he can go before Michael, so as to meet Michael's approving look, the look that says: “That is right, cosmically right.” Thereby the will is fastened and made firm, and the human being is incorporated in the spiritual Progress of the Universe. Thereby, man himself becomes a co-operator in that which is about to be instilled into the evolution of mankind on Earth by Michael—beginning now in this present epoch of Michael.

Many, many things must be taken into account if man wishes rightly to cross that abyss of which I spoke yesterday, where in truth a Guardian is standing. We shall show in the next lectures how the abyss opened out in the 1840's, and how man today, as he looks back, can find his true relation to this abyss and to this Guardian—helped by such detailed knowledge as I have once again been trying to present.

The Michael period into which the world has entered ever since the last third of the 19th century, and into which human beings will have to enter with increasing consciousness, is very different from former periods of Michael. For in the earthly evolution of mankind different ones among the seven great Archangel Spirits enter from time to time into the life of man. Thus, after given periods of time a certain guidance of the world—such as the guidance of Gabriel or Uriel, Raphael or Michael,—is repeated. Our own period is, however, essentially different from the preceding period of Michael. This is due to the fact that man stands in quite another relation to the spiritual world since the first third of the 15th century than he ever did before. This new relation to the spiritual world also determines a peculiar relation to the Spirit guiding the destinies of mankind, whom we may call by the ancient name of Michael.

Recently I have been speaking to you again of the Rosicrucian movement. Rosicrucianism, I remarked, has indeed led to charlatanry in many quarters. Most of the so-called “Rosicrucianism” that has been transmitted to mankind is charlatanry. Nevertheless, as I have explained on former occasions, there did exist an individuality whom we may describe by the name of Christian Rosenkreutz. This individuality is, in a sense, the type and standard: he reveals the way in which an enlightened spirit—a man of spiritual knowledge—could enter into relation with the spiritual world at the dawn of the new phase of humanity.

To Christian Rosenkreutz it was vouchsafed to ask many questions, deeply significant riddles of existence, and in quite a new way when compared to the earlier experiences of mankind. You see, my dear friends, while Rosicrucianism was arising, directing the mind of man with “Faustian” striving—as it was afterwards described—towards the spiritual world, an abstract naturalistic Science was arising on the other hand. The bearers of this modern stream of spiritual life—men like Galileo, Giordano Bruno, Copernicus or Kepler, worthy as they are of fullest recognition—were quite differently situated from the Rosicrucians, who wanted to foster, not a merely formal or abstract, but a true knowledge of things. The Rosicrucians perceived in their own human life and being how utterly the time had changed, and with it the whole relation of the Gods to mankind.

We may describe it as follows. Quite distinctly until the 4th century A.D., and in a rudimentary way even until the 12th and 13th century, man was able to draw forth from himself real knowledge about the spiritual world. In doing the exercises which belonged to the old Mysteries, he could draw forth from himself the secrets of existence. For the humanity of olden times it really was so: the Initiates drew forth what they had to say to mankind, from the depths of their souls to the surface of their thought—their world of ideas. They had the consciousness that they were drawing forth their knowledge from the inner being of the human soul. The exercises they underwent were intended, as you know, to stir the human heart to its depths,—so to inform the human heart and mind with experiences which man does not undergo in the ordinary round of life. There-by the secrets of the world of the Gods were, so to speak, drawn forth from the depths, from the inner being of man.

Man, however, cannot see the secrets he draws out of himself while in the very act of doing so. True, in the old instinctive clairvoyance man did behold the secrets of the world; he saw them in Imagination; he heard and perceived them in Inspiration; he united himself with them in Intuition. These things, however, are impossible so long as man merely stands there alone,—just as little as it is possible for me to draw a triangle without a board. The triangle I draw on the board portrays to me what I bear in a purely spiritual way within me. The triangle as a whole,—all the laws of the triangle are in me; but I draw the triangle on the board, thereby bringing home to myself what is really there within me. So it is when we make external diagrams. But when it is a question of deriving real knowledge out of the being of man, after the manner of the ancient Mysteries, this knowledge too must, in a certain sense, be written somewhere. Every such knowledge, in effect, to be seen in the spirit, must be inscribed in that which has been called from time immemorial “the astral light,”—i.e., in the fine substantiality of the Akasha. Everything must be written there, and man must be able to develop this faculty of writing in the astral light.

This faculty has depended on many and varied things in the course of human evolution. Not to speak, for the moment, of pristine ages, I will leave on one side the first Post-Atlantean epoch, the ancient Indian. At that time it was somewhat different. Let me begin with the ancient Persian epoch, as described in my Outline of Occult Science. There was an instinctive clairvoyance, knowledge of the divine-spiritual world. This knowledge could be written in the astral light so that man himself could behold it, inasmuch as the earth, the solid earth, afforded resistance. The writing itself is done, needless to say, with the spiritual organs, but these organs also require a basis of resistance. The things that are thus seen in the spirit are not inscribed, of course, on the earth itself; they are written in the astral light. But the earth acts as a ground of resistance. In the old Persian epoch the seers could feel the resistance of the earth; and hence the perceptions they drew forth from their inner being grew into actual visions.

In the next, the Egypto-Chaldean epoch, all the knowledge that the Initiates drew forth from their souls was able to be written in the astral light by virtue of the fluid element. You must conceive it rightly. The Initiate of the old Persian epoch looked to the solid earth. Wherever there were plants or stones, the astral light reflected back to him his inner vision. The Initiate of the Egypto-Chaldean epoch looked into the sea, into the river, or into the falling rain, the rising mist. When he looked into the river or the sea, he saw the lasting secrets. Those secrets, on the other hand, which relate to the transient—to the creation of the Gods in transient things—he beheld in the downpouring rain or the ascending mist. You must familiarise yourself with the idea. The ancients had not the prosaic, matter-of-fact way of seeing the mist and rain which is ours to-day. Rain and mist said very much to them—revealed to them the secrets of the Gods.

Then in the Graeco-Latin period, the visions were there like a Fata Morgana in the air. The Greek saw his Zeus, his gods, in the astral light; but he had the feeling that the astral light only reflected the gods to him under the proper conditions. Hence he assigned his gods to special places,—places where the air could offer the proper resistance to the inscriptions in the astral light. And so it remained until the 4th century A.D. Even among the first Fathers of the Christian Church, and notably the old Greek Fathers, there were many (as you may even prove from their writings) who saw this Fata Morgana of their own spiritual visions through the resistance of the air in the astral light. Thus they had clear knowledge of the fact that out of Man the Logos, the Divine Word, revealed Himself through Nature. But in the course of time this knowledge faded and grew feeble. Echoes of it still continued in a few specially gifted persons, even until the 12th or 13th century. But when the age of abstract knowledge came—when men were only dependent on the logical sequence of ideas and the results of sense-observation—then neither earth nor water nor air afforded resistance to the astral light, but only the element of the warmth-ether. It is unknown, of course, to those who are completely wrapped up in their abstract thoughts that these abstract thoughts are also written in the astral light. They are written there indeed; but in this process the element of the warmth-ether is the sole resistance.

The following is now the case. Remember once more that in the ancient Persian epoch men had the solid earth as a resistance so as to behold their entries in the astral light. What is thus contained in the astral light—all that, for which the solid earth is the resistance—rays on and out, but only as far as the sphere of the Moon. Farther it cannot go. Thence it rays back again. Thus it remains, so to speak, with the Earth. We behold the secrets reflected by virtue of the earth; they remain because of the pressure of the lunar sphere.

Now let us consider the Egypto-Chaldean epoch. The water on the Earth reflects. What is thus reflected goes as far as the Saturn-sphere, which presses once again. Thereby the possibility is given for man to remain with his visions on the Earth. And if we go on into the Graeco-Latin period—even into the 12th or 13th century—we find the visions inscribed in the astral light by virtue of the air. This time it goes to the very end of the cosmic sphere and thence returns. It is the most fleeting of all; yet still it is such that man remains united with his visions. The Initiates of all these epochs could say to themselves every time: Such spiritual vision as we have had—through earth or water or air—it is there. But when the most modern time arrived, only the element of the warmth-ether was left to offer resistance. And the element of the warmth-ether carries all that is written in it out into the cosmic realms, right out of space into the spiritual worlds. It is no longer there.

It is so indeed. Take the most pedantic of modern professors with his ideas. (He must at least have ideas. You would first have to make sure of it in the individual case; modern professors seldom have ideas!) But if he has ideas, then they are entered through the warmth-ether in the astral light. Now the warmth-ether is transient and fleeting; all things become merged and fused in it at once, and go out into cosmic distances.

Such a man as Christian Rosenkreutz knew that the Initiates of olden times had lived with their visions. They had confirmed what they beheld through knowing that it was there, reflected somewhere in the heavens—be it in the moon-sphere or in the planetary sphere, or at the end of the Universe—it was reflected. But now, nothing at all was reflected. For the immediate, wide-awake vision of man, nothing at all was reflected. Now men could find ideas about Nature; the Copernican cosmology could arise, all manner of ideas could be formed, but they were scattered in the warmth-ether, out into cosmic space.

So then it came about that Christian Rosenkreutz, by inspiration of a higher Spirit, found a way to perceive the reflected radiation after all, in spite of the fact that it was only a reflection by the warmth-ether. It was brought about as follows. Other conditions of consciousness—dim, subconscious and sleep-like—were called into play; conditions in which man is even normally outside his body. Then it became perceptible that that which is discovered with modern abstract ideas is after all inscribed, although not in space, but in the spiritual world. This, therefore, was the peculiar outcome for the Rosicrucian Movement: the Rosicrucians, as it were in a transition stage, made themselves acquainted with all that could be discovered about Nature in this epoch. They received it into themselves and assimilated it as only man can assimilate it. They enhanced into true Wisdom what for the others was only Science. Holding it in their souls, they tried to pass over into sleep in highest purity and after intimate meditations. Then the divine spiritual worlds—no longer the spatial end of the universe, but the divine spiritual worlds—brought back to them in a spiritually real language what had been conceived at first in abstract ideas.

In Rosicrucian schools not only was the Copernican cosmology taught, but in special states of consciousness its ideas came back in the form I explained here during the last few days. It was the Rosicrucians, above all, who realised that that which man receives in modern knowledge must first be carried forth, so to speak, and offered to the Gods, that the Gods may translate it into their language and give it back again to men.

The possibility has remained until this present. It is so indeed, my dear friends. If you are touched by the Rosicrucian principle as here intended, study the system of Haeckel, with all its materialism; study it, and at the same time permeate yourselves with the methods of cognition indicated in Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and its Attainment, Take what you learn in Haeckel's Anthropogenesis: on the Ancestors of Man. In that form it may very likely repel you. Learn it nevertheless; learn all that can be learned about it by outer Natural Science, and carry it towards the Gods; then you will get what is related about evolution in my Occult Science.

Such is the connection between the feeble, shadowy knowledge which man can acquire here with his physical body, and that which the Gods can give him, if with the proper spirit he duly prepares himself by the learning of this knowledge. But man must first bring towards them what he can learn here on the Earth, for in truth the times have changed.

Moreover, another thing has happened. Let a man strive as he will to-day; he can no longer draw anything forth from himself as the old Initiates did. The soul no longer gives anything forth in the way it did for the old Initiates. It all becomes impure—filled with instincts, as is evident in the case of spiritualist mediums, and in other morbid or pathological conditions. All that arises merely from within, becomes impure. The time of such creation from within is past; it was past already in the 12th or 13th century. What happened can be expressed approximately as follows: The Initiates of the old Persian epoch wrote very much in the astral light with the help of the resistance of the earth. When the first Initiate of the old Persian epoch appeared, the whole of the astral light, destined for man, was like an unwritten slate. I shall speak later of the old Indian epoch. To-day I shall only go back to the ancient Persian epoch. All Nature: all the elements—solid, liquid, airy and warmth-like—were an unwritten slate.

Now the Initiates of the old Persian epoch wrote on this slate as much as could be written by virtue of the resistance of the earth. There, to begin with, the secrets destined to come to man from the Gods were written in the astral light. To a certain degree the tablet was inscribed; yet judged by another standard it was empty. So the Initiates of the Egypto-Chaldean epoch were able to continue the writing in their way; for they gained their visions by the resistance of the water. Another part of the tablet was inscribed.

Then came the Greek Initiates; they inscribed the third portion of the tablet. Now the tablet of Nature is fully inscribed; it was quite fully inscribed by the 13th or 14th century. Then human beings began to write in the warmth-ether; that, however, scatters and dissolves away in the vast expanse. For a time—until the 19th century—men wrote in the warmth-ether; they had no inkling that their experiences also stood written in the astral light. But now, my dear friends, the time has come when men must see that not out of themselves, in the old sense, can they find the secrets of the world, but only by so preparing themselves in heart and mind that they can read what is written on the tablet which is now full of writing. This we must prepare to do to-day. We must make ourselves ripe for this—no longer to draw forth from ourselves like the old Initiates, but to be able to read in the astral light all that is written there. If we do so, precisely what we gain from the warmth-ether will work as an inspiration. The Gods come to meet us, and bring to us in its reality what we have acquired by our own efforts here on Earth. And what we thus receive from the warmth-ether reacts in turn on all that stands written on the tablet by virtue of the air and water and earth.

Thus the Natural Science of to-day is actually the true basis for spiritual seership. Learn first by Natural Science to know the properties of air, water and earth. Attain the corresponding inner faculties. Then, as you gaze into the airy, into the watery, into the earthy element, the astral light will stream forth. It does not stream forth like a vague mist or cloud; but so that we can read in it the secrets of world-existence and of human life.

What, then, do we read? We—the humanity of to-day—read what we ourselves have written in it. For what does it mean to say that the ancient Greeks, Egyptians, Chaldeans, Persians wrote in the astral light? It was we ourselves who wrote it in our former lives on Earth.

You see, my dear friends: just as our inner memory of the common things that we experience in earthly life preserves them for us, so too the astral light preserves for us what we have written in it. It is the astral light which spreads around us, as a fully written tablet with respect to the secrets which we ourselves have inscribed. There we must read, if we wish to find the secrets once more. It is a kind of evolution-memory which must arise in mankind. A consciousness must gradually arise that there is such an evolution-memory, and that in relation to former epochs of culture the humanity of to-day must read in the astral light, just as we, at a later age, read in our own youth through ordinary memory. This must come into the consciousness of men. In this sense I have held the lectures this Christmas-time, so that you could see that the point is to draw forth from the astral light the secrets that we need to-day. The old initiation was directed mainly to the subjective life; the new initiation concentrates on the objective,—that is the great difference. For all that was subjective is written in the outer world. All that the Gods have secreted into man, . . . what they secreted in his sentient body, came out into the old Persian epoch; what they secreted in his sentient soul, came out in the Egypto-Chaldean epoch; what they secreted in his intellectual or mind-soul came out during the Grecian epoch. The spiritual soul which we are now to evolve is independent, brings forth nothing more out of itself; it stands over against what is already there. As human beings we must find our humanity again in the astral light.

That is the peculiarity of the Rosicrucian movement: in a time of transition it had to content itself with entering into certain dream-like conditions, and, as it were, dreaming the higher truth of that which Science discovers here—in a dry, matter-of-fact way—out of the Nature around us.

And this is the peculiarity since the beginning of the Michael epoch, since the end of the 1870's, the last third of the 19th century:—The same thing that was attained in the way above-described in the time of the old Rosicrucians, can now be attained in a conscious way. To-day, therefore, we can say: We no longer need that other condition which was half-conscious. What we need is a state of enhanced consciousness. Then, with the knowledge of Nature which we acquire, we can press into the higher world; and the Nature-knowledge we have acquired emerges and comes towards us from that higher world. We read again what has been written in the astral light; and as we do so, it emerges and comes to meet us in spiritual reality. We carry up into a spiritual world the knowledge of Nature here attained, or again, the creations of naturalistic art, or the religious sentiments working naturalistically in the soul. (Even religion has become naturalistic nowadays). And as we carry all this upward—if we develop the necessary faculties—we do indeed encounter Michael.

So we may say: the old Rosicrucian movement is characterised by the fact that its most illumined spirits had an intense longing to meet Michael; but they could only do so as in dream. Since the end of the last third of the nineteenth century, men can meet Michael in the spirit, in a fully conscious way.

Michael, however, is a peculiar being: Michael is a being who reveals nothing if we do not bring him something from our diligent spiritual work on Earth. Michael is a silent Spirit—silent and taciturn. The other ruling Archangels are talkative Spirits—in a spiritual sense, of course; but Michael is taciturn. He is a Spirit who speaks very little. At most he will give sparing indications, for what we learn from Michael is not really the word, but—if I may so express it—the look, the power, the direction of his gaze.

This is because Michael concerns himself most of all with that which men create out of the Spirit. He lives with the consequences of all that men have created. The other Spirits live more with the causes; Michael lives with the consequences. The other Spirits kindle in man the impulses for that which he shall do. Michael will be the true spiritual hero of Freedom; he lets men do, and he then takes what becomes of human deeds, receives it and carries it on and out into the cosmos, to continue in the cosmos what men themselves cannot yet do with it.

Other beings of the Hierarchy of Archangeloi give us the feeling that from them come the impulses to do this or that. In a greater or lesser degree, the impulses come from them. Michael is the Spirit from whom no impulses come, to begin with; for his characteristic period of rulership is that which is now coming, when things are to arise out of human freedom. But when man does things out of spiritual activity or inner freedom, consciously or unconsciously kindled by the reading of the astral light, then Michael carries the human earthly deed out into the cosmos; so that it becomes cosmic deed. Michael cares for the results; the other Spirits care more for the causes.

However, Michael is not only a silent, taciturn Spirit. Michael meets man with a very clear gesture of repulsion for many things in which the human being of to-day still lives on Earth. For example, all knowledge that arises in the life of men or animals or plants, tending to lay stress on the inherited characteristics—on all that is inherited in physical nature—is such that we feel Michael constantly repelling it, driving it away with deprecation. He means to show that such knowledge cannot help man at all for the Spiritual World. Only what man discovers in the human and animal and plant kingdoms independently of the purely hereditary nature, can be carried up before Michael. Then we receive, not the eloquent gesture of deprecation, but the look of approval which tells us that it is a thought righteously conceived in face of the cosmic guidance. For this is what we learn increasingly to strive for: as it were to meditate, so as to strike through to the astral light, to see the secrets of existence, and then to come before Michael and receive his approving look which tells us: That is just, that is right before the cosmic guidance.

So it is with Michael. He also sternly rejects all separating elements, such as the human languages. So long as we only clothe our knowledge in these languages, and do not carry it right up into the thoughts, we cannot come near Michael. Therefore, to-day in the spiritual world there is much significant battle. For on the one hand the Michael impulse has entered the evolution of humanity. The Michael impulse is there. But on the other hand, in the evolution of humanity there is much that will not receive this impulse of Michael but wants to reject it. Among the things that would fain reject the impulse of Michael to-day are the feelings of nationality. They flared up in the nineteenth century and became strong in the twentieth—stronger and stronger. By the principle of nationality many things have been ordered, or rather, disordered in the most recent times. For they have in fact been disordered.

All this is in terrible opposition to the Michael principle; all this contains Ahrimanic forces which strive against the in-pouring and throbbing of the Michael-force into the earthly life of man. So then we see this battle of the up-ward-attacking Ahrimanic spirits who would like to carry upward what comes through the inherited impulses of nationality—which Michael sternly rejects and repels.

Truly to-day there is the most vivid spiritual conflict in this direction. For this is the state of affairs over a great portion of mankind. Thoughts are not there at all; men only think in words, and to think in words is no way to Michael. We only come to Michael when we get through the words to real inner experiences of the spirit—when we do not hang on the words, but arrive at real inner experiences of the spirit.

This is the very essence, the secret of modern Initiation: to get beyond the words to a living experience of the spiritual. It is nothing contrary to a feeling for the beauty of language. Precisely when we no longer think in language, we begin to feel it; we begin to have it streaming in us and out from us as an element of feeling. That, however, is a thing to which the man of to-day must first aspire. Perhaps, to begin with, he cannot attain it in his actual speech, but through his writing. For in respect of writing, too, it must be said: To-day men do not have the writing but the writing has them. What does it mean, ‘the writing has them’? It means that in our wrist, in our hand, we have a certain train of writing. We write mechanically, out of the hand. This is a thing that fetters man. He only becomes unfettered when he writes as he paints or draws—when every letter beside the next becomes a thing that is painted or drawn ... Then there is no longer what is ordinarily called ‘a handwriting.’ Man draws the form of the letter. His relation to the letter is objective; he sees it before him—that is the essential thing.

For this reason, strange as it may sound, in certain Rosicrucian schools learning-to-write was prohibited until the fourteenth or fifteenth year of age; so that the form, the mechanism which comes to expression in writing, did not enter the human organism. Man only approached the form of the letter when his spiritual vision was developed. Then it was so arranged that simultaneously with his learning of the conventional letters, needed for human intercourse, he had to learn others—specifically Rosicrucian letters—which are regarded nowadays as a secret script. They were not intended as such; the idea was that for an A one should learn at the same time another sign: O. For then one did not hold fast to the one sign but got free of it. Then one felt the real A as something higher than the mere sign of A or O. Otherwise, the mere letter A would be identified with that which comes forth from the human being, soaring and hovering as the living sound of A.

With Rosicrucianism many things found their way into the people. For it was one of their fundamental principles: from the small circles in which they were united, the Rosicrucians went out into the world, as I have already told you, generally working as doctors. But at the same time, while they were doctors, they spread knowledge of many things in the wide circles into which they came. Moreover, with such knowledge, certain moods and feelings were spread. We find them everywhere, wherever the Rosicrucian stream has left its traces. Sometimes they even assume grotesque forms. For instance, out of such moods and feelings of soul, men came to regard the whole of this modern relationship to writing—and, a fortiori, to printing—a black art. For in truth, nothing hinders one more from reading in the astral light than ordinary writing. This artificial fixing hinders one very much from reading in the astral light. One must always first overcome this writing when one wants to read in the astral light.

At this point two things come together, one of which I mentioned a short while ago. In the production of spiritual knowledge man must always be present with full inner activity. I confessed that I have many note-books in which I write or put down the results I come to. I generally do not look at them again. Only, by calling into activity not only the head but the whole man, these perceptions which do indeed take hold of the entire man come forth. He who does so, gradually accustoms himself not to care so much for what he sees physically, what is already fixed; but to remain in the activity, in order not to spoil his faculty of seeing in the astral light. It is good to practise this reticence. As far as possible, when fixing things in ordinary writing, one should adhere not to the writing as such, but draw in the letters after one's pleasure (for then it is really as though you were painting, it is an art). Or again, one does not reflect upon what one writes down. Thereby one acquires the faculty not to spoil the impressions in the astral light.

If we are obliged to relate ourselves to writing in the modern way, we mar our spiritual progress. For this reason, in our Waldorf School educational method, great care is taken that the human being does not go so far in writing as in the ordinary educational methods of to-day. Care is taken to enable him to remain within the spiritual, for that is necessary.

Thus the world must come to receive the principle of Initiation as such, once more, among the principles of civilisation. Only in this way will it come about: man, here on the Earth, will gather in his soul something with which he can go before Michael, so as to meet with Michael's approving gaze, which says: “That is just before the Universe.” Then the will is strengthened and made firm, and the human being is incorporated in the spiritual progress of the Universe. Hence man himself becomes a co-operator in that which is about to be instilled into the evolution of mankind on Earth by Michael—beginning now in this present epoch of Michael.

Many, many things must be taken into account if man wishes rightly to cross that abyss of which I spoke yesterday, where in truth a Guardian is standing. We shall show in the next lectures how this abyss was opened out in the 1840's, and how, under the influence of such knowledge as I have set forth once more to-day, man, looking back to this abyss, can relate himself to this same Guardian.