The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The things I am now presenting in a somewhat prosaic way in this last lecture, in contrast to the great vistas we have been accustomed to in these meditations, do, however, have a certain inner connection with our entire meditations and also with the present time. And in a sense it was important to me, even if it can only be done in aphoristic form for these things, and again in the form of remarks, perhaps even without further context (otherwise one would have to talk for days on the subject). Just as we tried to penetrate the period that culminated in the 8th century with a few remarks, so we want to consider today the following period, which then culminated in a certain sense in the 15th century for European life.

This 15th century is extraordinarily interesting to consider in the most diverse respects, especially to see how it emerges from the European living conditions of the preceding centuries. This century is significant for the reason that it was only in the 15th century that the conditions in Europe were formed within which we are currently living. People think, one might say – we have mentioned this from other points of view – in the short term; they imagine that the way they experience the circumstances around them is constant. But it is not. Living conditions are subject to metamorphoses. And if one does not look at everything from the present-day point of view, as unfortunately happens so often in modern history, but tries to understand the nature of earlier times, which can only be done through spiritual science, especially in practical matters, one comes to the conclusion that times have changed quite considerably. I think I already mentioned in the course of these lectures that, when I recently presented something similar in a lecture, a gentleman said to me at the end: Yes, but spiritual science assumes that these epochs, as they developed, were different from one another; and history shows us that people have actually always been the same, that they have always had the same vices, the same jealousies and so on, that people have not changed significantly; what causes conflict today also caused conflict in the past. I replied to the gentleman at the time: You can go even further with this approach, you can simply take certain very obvious sources of conflict in the present and look for them among the Greek gods, who certainly have very different conditions of existence from all earthly men, and you will find that the things you are looking at can even be found among the Greek gods.

Of course, certain human conditions that have been the same everywhere can be found if you look at things abstractly. Indeed, there are even some scientific observations at present that find very similar conditions, family relationships and the like in these or those animal species. Why not! If you just apply enough abstractions, you will find such similarities. But that is not the point. Such a way of looking at things is eminently impractical.

Above all, people today, and truly not only people in the broader circles, but precisely influential, very influential circles, look at what national conditions are in Europe and in the educated world in general, as if these national conditions were eternal things. They are not eternal things; but precisely that form of feeling that arises from the national, for example, for today's man, is entirely dependent on what emerged in the 15th century, because before that, especially with regard to these things, Europe was something completely different. What the national structures are today, crystallizing into states, only dates back to the 15th century. And what Europe was before that has nothing to do with the national formations of today. This should be clear from a historical study of the past.

If, however, the past does not go back further than the 15th century, then it might happen that someone might express the judgments that can be made about the present as if they were eternal conditions. If, for example, a state structure such as did not exist in Europe before the 15th century could only be established according to European ideas in a territory that became known for European conditions only after the 15th century, which therefore does not have a past in the sense of Europe, where one therefore only thinks in terms of a few centuries and then considers this thinking to be eternal conditions, if one were to think up state ideas or even ideas of nations with such thinking, then at least the judgments that one can make about the present would have to be expressed as if they were eternal conditions. past in the same sense as Europe has, where one thinks only in terms of a few centuries and then mistakes this way of thinking for eternal conditions. If, with such thinking, one were to conceive of state ideas or even ideas of nations, then at least the Europeans should know that such ideas of nations must necessarily have very short legs.

In the 15th century, something else occurred that is connected with what I had to mention about the beginnings of Christian development in Europe, especially in the vast Roman Empire. I stated at the time that the Roman Empire had found its downfall through various forces, but that among these forces there was also the fact that there was an incredibly strong outflow of gold to the Orient, that the vast Roman Empire became poor in gold. Now this did not benefit the Romans, who were accustomed to needing gold in the institutions of their empire, and now they had none. This led to decadence.

But it benefited the peoples storming in from the north. Due to the various circumstances we mentioned last time, they were organized precisely for direct natural economy. And the strange thing is that – despite the fact that certain conquerors, of whom we have already spoken, laid hold of the lands that had previously been at peace – a certain settledness emerged from the coexistence of the conquered people and the conquerors. Those who were already there in Europe loved their land in a certain sense, and those who had been drawn to it sought a plot of land. And so, out of that event which is usually called the migration of peoples, favorable living conditions arose that can be called: natural economy versus monetary economy.

Europe had gradually become such that the Carolingians were forced to take into account the need to set up the conditions in such a way that, to a certain extent, the generous circulation of money could be dispensed with. The Carolingians, and even the Merovingians, these dynasties of rulers, often only meant something for the inner course of events – if you want to look at it objectively – what is called the hour and minute hands of the clock. You are also convinced, aren't you, that it is not the hour and minute hand that forces you to do this or that, and yet you do it; or when you tell the story, you say: I did this at twelve o'clock or one o'clock. - So in the historical account, it depends on the intention that one associates with it. When I say this, I mean the time, the living conditions in this time. But one must be aware that a person like Charlemagne meant something in Europe through his personality, through his outward appearance; because things are concretely different. Louis the Pious, of course, meant nothing more. And when playwrights find themselves dressing up Louis the Pious's family quarrels as grand state affairs, it's nonsense that may interest childish minds sitting in the theater; but it has nothing to do with any “history,” it is worlds away from any real history.

It is different when you take the tone-setting Charlemagne and then look away from the lesser ones who came after him; sometimes they are already strangely characterized by the epithets popular in such circles; history has some strange epithets for them: “the Simple,” “the Fat,” which, well, doesn't exactly seem meaningful for something that made a world-historical epoch. But there was a certain tone, a certain tendency in Carolingian life, and this tendency had a much broader effect than perhaps the tendency of any personal center since the 15th century has been able to have. In the Middle Ages, people lived in a time when personality still had a far greater value, a far greater significance, than it had later. Now, these Carolingians had to take into account that, out of the conglomeration of the migration of peoples, settled humanity had gradually emerged over Europe. This settled way of life, which was particularly characteristic of the Saxons in Central Europe and of their descendants who then came to England, to the British Isles, was a general characteristic of the Germanic peoples – I mean in this period, in the Carolingian period, after the migration of peoples had subsided. Settledness, combined with dependence on what is produced directly on the land, thus a farming population, administered by the count in the way I have recently discussed, administered by the clergy, a population in the vicinity of the cities, administered by the bishoprics in the cities; but a population that was settled in terms of agricultural production, in terms of commercial production, and that held something dear to the place with which it was associated, because the conditions of life kept them connected to that place. Of course, trade relations were beginning to develop, but these were more towards the coastal areas. In the areas that were of primary importance for medieval life, people were settled. And the consequence of this was that they were not able to administer and manage as they were accustomed to in the Roman Empire. They had adopted the traditional practices of the educated people who knew what was customary in the Roman Empire. They had adopted this or that practice, and administered it in the Roman Empire in a certain way, and it had proved to be correct. But that was not applicable to the conditions that had developed throughout Europe. It was not applicable because the entire Roman Empire, after it had once reached a certain size, was actually built on the military system of the Roman Empire, on the military system of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire is inconceivable in its size without the possibility of sending soldiers everywhere, right into the periphery. The soldiers had to be paid.

I already mentioned last time that this required the circulation of gold. And when the gold circulation slowed down, it was no longer possible. And while these conditions were developing, while an empire was developing that was entirely dependent on its internal support, the possibility of its internal expansion, the possibility of developing itself, all views were formed in such a way that everything in these views was based on the military. So one could have said in the Carolingian period: I hire someone who is familiar with the administrative and legal techniques of the Roman Empire. For that had remained with them. But it did not help much, because what was built on the legion system of administrative art could not be applied where it was supposed to be applied across the whole of Europe and now also into Italy, because these conditions had developed for everything, where one had to deal with settled farmers. For at that moment, when one would have forced the peasants, or those who settled down as landlords and were only large farmers, to form legions, as was the case in the Roman Empire, then one would have deprived them of their living conditions. Under such a monetary economy as that of the Roman Empire, the legions could be sent anywhere. But conditions had gradually developed within Europe in such a way that if one had wanted to do it exactly the same way as in the Roman Empire, if the farmer had to go to war or the lord of the manor as a count had to lead the farmers in war, they would have had to take all their fields with them on their backs – which, as is well known, they cannot.

The consequence of this was that, since movement was needed among the peoples, something quite different had to gradually develop, an element that is not now like the legion system in the Roman Empire. And this element that emerged came about in the following way. It came about in the following way: I am now talking about the centuries that followed the Carolingian period, because what I am telling you happened over the course of centuries. Gradually, some of the landowners attracted people who entered into their special service and became dependent on them. These were mostly those who were now surplus to requirements in the wide field of natural economy. And these people, who were redundant in the field of natural economy, could be gathered around them when they wanted to undertake military campaigns and military expeditions. These people, who were either redundant due to overpopulation there or there, or who were redundant because they had others do their work for them, these were now the people from whom, gradually, all over Europe, what is now from the Middle Ages onwards as knighthood; knighthood - essentially what one might call “quality warriors”, people who made war their trade, who thus carried out what they did in the service of this or that lord for the sake of this trade. With knighthood, then, a special people of war developed at the same time, which became a special class throughout Europe.

And from this arose another necessary consequence: there existed, as it were, two circles of interests. Without realizing these two circles of interests, one does not understand the Middle Ages. There were the wide interests of those to whom it was actually absolutely indifferent whether these knights or their leaders undertook this or that, who wanted nothing more than to cultivate their soil and trade in the immediate vicinity, to pursue their trade. This interest gradually gave rise to the sentiment in Europe that was not yet present at the time of the migration of peoples, which later appeared particularly in the crafts of the cities: the bourgeois sentiment. This spread within one class of the population, and the chivalrous sentiment, which was based on the quality warrior, went parallel to it, but quite apart from the other sentiment.

In this way you have given an example – if you look at world history correctly, you will find such things everywhere, only in a different form – but you have given an example of how different classes develop out of certain concrete necessities that arise over time. But that was where a discrepancy occurred. Those who gradually rose through the ranks – isn't that right? I can't tell the whole story, I can only make aphoristic comments – rose from being a landed gentry, by gradually making their surroundings dependent. The whole essence of the Merovingians came about in no other way than that large estate owners extended their networks further, making more people dependent; for when we speak of a Merovingian “state” in history today, it is almost a cliché in comparison! What we call a state today only begins after the 15th century.

The Merovingians, who rose to power, initially had to deal only with the people who had joined them as a knightly population, so to speak, the supernumeraries who shared their adventures. Because the territory was a common one, they continually had the other interest groups either against them or had them beside them in such a way that they did not know how to deal with them properly. At that time there was no question of any real organization, such as a state administration, that would have reached into all aspects of life. If one speaks of princes for that time, then these princes basically only had some influence over those who had joined them. Those who sat on their own little plot of land regarded themselves as the independent lords of their own little plot and, if I may use the trivial expression, cared little about those who wanted to rule with them. They did as they pleased.

When going back to the time of Louis the Pious, one should not read history today as if what is attributed to him as the “empire” could be attributed to him in such a relationship, so-called to his government, as a state is to its government today. That is not the case at all. These things must be considered in concrete terms. And so one can say that it has been shown that there were constant, diverse, and strongly differentiated interests. This must be taken into account in particular because the historical life of the Middle Ages emerges from these things.

Now I said: the 15th century is remarkable for the reason that in the 15th century, again, especially through the natural development of mines and the like, gold appeared in Europe, later through the voyages of discovery; so that since the 15th century, circumstances have arisen that are fundamentally different from the previous ones in that gold has appeared again. And this 15th century, which we can also call the age of the Christian Rosenkreuz, is therefore the one through which we again sailed into the monetary economy in Europe. There is also a mighty turning point in this respect. The last times of the fourth post-Atlantic period in Europe were the moneyless ones, those of the natural economy. That is what we have to bear in mind. And now, during this time, through all the holes in that, what I have described developed, which then, from the 15th century onwards, brought about the gradual change in circumstances so that we can now speak of compact nationalities separated into states.

To speak of such a contrast between Germans and French, as one can do since the 15th century, is still quite impossible for the period up to the 15th century, and is even meaningless. What can be called the French nation has only formed very slowly and gradually. Of course, the Franks were distinct from the Saxons; but the Frankish character was no more distinct from the Saxon character than I described it last time. There were tribal differences, not ethnic or national differences, no greater differences than there are today between Prussians and Bavarians, perhaps even smaller in many respects.

But everything that had developed there is still connected with the circumstances we have just described. For that which then became the French kingship really emerged from landowning circumstances. And the great difference in the formation of the closed French nationality and the so-called German nationality, which was open in every direction, in the center of Europe is essentially due to the fact that the French members of the Merovingians, Carolingians and so on could more easily smooth over the differences between themselves and the others due to the tribal character; they got along better with the opposing elements. For from all that I have described, it emerged that, initially, the people who were settled on the land, the settled people in general, did not want to go along with anything, did not greet the Gessler's hat anywhere. That was already the custom throughout Europe: nowhere to greet the Gessler's hat.

But even those who had become knights gradually sought to settle here and there. Of course, after they had first attained a certain position under the protection of this or that feudal lord, that is, prince, they were very inclined to become independent again. Why should one not be as powerful as the one under whose protection one had become powerful?

But this meant that the one who was something like a ruler soon had to deal with unruly elements. And the period of the 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries essentially developed in such a way that there was a continuous struggle between the opposing elements and those who wanted to rule over them. What had emerged from the consequences of the migration of peoples could not easily be reduced to some abstract form.

One wonders how it actually came about that in what later became France a unified nationality was able to develop relatively early on? For the historical observer, this is in a sense a kind of puzzle that immediately presents itself, and one must try to solve such a puzzle. For one cannot get away from the general saying: nations develop in this or that way. In every corner of the earth, what is a nation develops differently, even if it is later called the same in each case. One asks oneself: how did it happen that from the Merovingian period until the 15th century this compact French nation was able to develop?

Now, this is still connected with somewhat earlier conditions. Even when the Roman Empire was still powerful, fewer inhabitants and personalities of the Roman Empire were transferred to Central Germany than to what later became France. The western regions of Europe were actually already very, very much permeated with Romance elements at the time of the Roman Empire. And I said that many things penetrated through the gaps in these conditions. Otherwise, in principle, present-day France is no different from what it was in those centuries, but there is one difference: intermingled with the other population were many Romance elements, Romance personalities with Romance views, interests, inclinations, remnants of the old Roman Empire. And on the wings of the old Roman Empire, one might say, Christianity had gradually spread throughout Europe.

Christianity came to France with the Roman element, and came in the same way as it had made its entry into the Roman Empire itself. And it was therefore of some advantage in this area if those who wanted to rule adhered to what was left of the Roman element. Because the settled people and the knights all had a characteristic that made them appear well suited for administration when there were others who were different. If, as in Central Europe, there had been no one as such for a long time, then of course these people had to be used. Right? In Central Europe they did it like this: The people of a certain area came together through purely oral agreements and from time to time they organized what was called a thing. And there, with ideas that were all from the atavistic Hell, they discussed how to punish one or the other who had done something wrong. This was arranged orally, and it was actually quite common in the areas of Central Europe to arrange these things orally. Little was written because the sedentary farmers and knights had the peculiarity that none of them could read or write. You may know that Wolfram von Eschenbach, the famous poet of the Middle Ages, could not read or write a single letter. But the Romance elements that had flooded into Western Europe could. They were also, in the sense that we call it today, educated people. The consequence of this was that, of course, those who wanted to rule made use of these “educated” people, apart from the fact that the clergy were of course taken first from this class. This also led to the connection of the administrative civil service with the spiritual element, which consisted to a large extent of the influx of the Romanic element.

But with this and with the church at the same time, which was thus drawn from the Romanic, it came about that the linguistic element began to play an enormous role. And the puzzle that I have hinted at cannot be solved otherwise than by gaining an idea of the tremendous suggestive power of language. With the language that was transformed from Romance in Western Europe, but which retained the Romance style, if I may say so, with this language not only a language but an entire spirit was transferred. For a spirit lives in language with tremendous suggestive power. And this spirit had an overwhelming effect. And the arrival of the Romance spirit on the wings of the Romance language, from the Carolingian period to the 15th century, was a fact.

And now the peculiar thing happens: Western Europe is now quite different from the conditions in Central Europe. In Western Europe, what language, which had gradually developed from a Romance element, has suggestively achieved in people's souls, as if from below, is complete. What lay in the broad popular consciousness, in what I have just described as the settled farmers, this settled peasantry with its ancient atavistic clairvoyance - even if these people had become Christians - with the bringing up of their, not faith, but direct insight into what was in the spiritual worlds, that did not emerge everywhere for the people who ruled or administered there above. But in Western Europe, an upper class emerged that, by shaping the language, also had a suggestive effect on the lower classes. We do not need to consider this upper class in terms of how it administered and what legal and administrative conditions emerged; but we do need to consider it as a class of civil servants, as a class of language that into the lower class and with the language the whole suggestive element, which spread as a uniform over a certain territory, before the people from below reacted against what had formed as a ruling class. Because we see until the 15th century what had formed as a ruling class, making its various manipulations; and what is below, does not care about it, remains free, until clashes occur. What rules has the tendency, after all, to draw more and more to itself. By the time the country had reached the point where the peasantry, the original folklore, reacted, the linguistic element with its suggestive power had already been vigorously effective. And you can find it particularly significant in Western Europe, you can see how the broad masses of the people react, who were still within their old spirituality, in their atavistic spirituality.

The messenger, the genius of this mass of people, is the Maid of Orleans. With the Maid of Orleans, there arises that which, after language has worked through its suggestive power, is the reaction of the people from below, which forces the French monarchy to take the people into account. You see, until the 15th century, until the appearance of the Maid of Orleans, who actually made France as France, Romanesque flooding, then the appearance of the people's messenger. So that even in this way of the appearance of the folk through the shear science of Joan of Arc, it shows how what was naturally alive everywhere in this folk reacts upwards and only then actually becomes “history” for external history.

There were such Maidens of Orleans throughout Europe in those centuries, not with the power of action but with the power of vision. And the foundation on which the Maid of Orleans built was the element spread over the broad peasantry and the broad masses of the people. In the Maid it only came to the surface. It is not described for the people. You have to codify Louis as stupid – no, pious – and his councils and all the stuff that is in the chronicles, what they wrote together, as “history” and you have to make people believe that these great landowners were rulers of states and the like. But basically that is outside of real concrete life. But real life was permeated with what then came to the surface in the genius of the Maid of Orleans and entered into the French character at a time when the suggestive power of language was being exercised. And thus, from below, what was national strength was poured into the French character. That is how it came about.

This was not the case in Central Europe. There was no language that exercised such suggestive power. All other conditions were similar, but there was nothing that welded a larger tribal group into a national force through the suggestive power of language. Therefore, in national terms, what exists in Central Europe remains a fluid mass, and – peculiarly – can easily be used for colonization. But the colonization that is done with the population of Central Europe is different from what it is today. When colonization is done today, it is usually to acquire foreign territories. But in the past, people were sent to foreign lands – and in large numbers they were called, the colonizers – and what they then understood from their homeland, they carried into foreign lands.

This is what happened in the eastern part of Europe in the broadest sense. But it remained a fluid mass. And while in the West, in particular, the suggestive power of language was effective, in Central Europe there remained the brawls, the quarrels, the differentiated interests that I have described, insubordination above all against those who wanted to rule, which then had the consequence that a widespread, uniform nationality could not develop as it could in the West. There was nothing to suggest the power of language. Therefore, in many cases, those who were the stronger as a result of the circumstances arose. Hence the territorial principalities, which had remained even beyond the 15th century, and which essentially arose because there was no such suggestive power as the power of language in the West.

The other element, which now really understood how to deal with some of these circumstances, had to take them into account: the ecclesiastical element, which gradually emerged in Rome from the perished Roman Empire. This ecclesiastical element is called in occult circles the grey shadow of the Roman Empire, because it took over everything that was the way of thinking about administration and the like from the Roman Empire, but applied it to ecclesiastical conditions. This striving of the church had to go in the direction of differentiating itself into what was developing in Europe. And I have already hinted to you a few times about how they in Rome knew how to deal with the situation. From the 9th century to the end of the 10th century and the beginning of the 11th century, they knew how to deal with the situation perfectly well, in that they in Rome now actually endeavored to force what they called Christianity into all these situations in an administrative form. If it was possible to convert a city into a bishop's see, then that was done; if there was a peasantry somewhere that one wanted to win over, one built a church for them so that they would gather around it; if there was a lord of the manor somewhere, one tried little by little to replace this lord of the manor by training his son or the like to become a clergyman. The church used all circumstances. And indeed: as never later was the church within these centuries put into the possibility of becoming a universal European power. This process, how the church worked in the 9th, 10th, 11th centuries, is tremendously significant because it really aims to take into account all the concrete circumstances. One must only consider this.

The people who were Catholic clergy or priests at the time were not so foolish as to believe that the spirits that people spoke of in atavistic clairvoyance were not spirits; they reckoned that these were real powers, but they sought the appropriate means to fight them. While the princes were not at all able to cope with them, the church was actually able to gradually provide the ideas - which were quite justified for them - with a nomenclature. It is true that in Rome they knew very well that the atavistic clairvoyance is not all about devils, but that these demons are our opponents and we must fight them.

One weapon in this fight was to label them as devils, to ascribe them to a particular category. This was a very real fight against the spiritual world that was waged in those days. It was only from the 15th century onwards that people no longer had any awareness of the spiritual powers at work. The strength of the spreading ecclesiastical Christianity lies in the fact that one knew how to deal with what is real: with the spiritual powers. And in the 11th and 12th centuries the process was actually completed to a certain extent.

You will only be able to judge the history of the Middle Ages correctly if you bear in mind that all the ecclesiastical arts that were effectively applied and which were great and meaningful arts, had actually been developed in the church from the 9th century, when it was shown, for example, under Pope Nicholas I, how one reckoned strongly with the spiritual powers, how one had to reckon with everything that the people knew through atavistic clairvoyance. And the art of working in the spiritual realm is what actually made the Church great. But by the 11th and 12th centuries these arts had been exhausted. Of course, the old arts were still practiced, but new ones had not been invented, so that one can say: everything else that happens is actually in the service of this mighty spiritual struggle. For even that which appears to set the tone, the establishment of the German-Roman Empire, which passes, not truly, from the West to Central Europe under the Saxon emperors, this coupling of Central Europe with Italy, this recedes more or less in the face of the tremendous power that lies in the fact that the church in these times is pouring an international over Europe that only from the 15th century onwards becomes a national. It is only from the 15th century onwards that the conditions under which people in Europe live at present have developed, also with regard to the peoples of Central Europe. It must be emphasized again and again, for what was actually the basis of what constantly took place between the so-called Roman-German emperors and the popes? You can study this especially if you read the accounts of Henry IV, who may have been distorted in history but was very clever politically. What was at the root of it was always that it was necessary for those who wanted to rule, who should rule for my sake, to tame the unruly. The spreading church was, of course, a good means of combating the unruly - if the church helped. Hence the perpetual binding together of secular power with ecclesiastical power, which in that time could only be achieved through a certain relationship between those who were elected in Central Europe and who, precisely because of what they achieved through this election in Central Europe, had little of their rule but the powers over the unruly, the powers over those whom they actually did not want at all.

Just think about it: we are dealing with an elective monarchy. The kings were elected. They were elected by the so-called seven electors. Of these seven electors, however, three were the ecclesiastical princes. The ecclesiastical princes, with the help of the ecclesiastical means, as I have just indicated, were powerful. The archbishops of Mainz, Cologne and Trier had three of the seven votes, and they were powerful. The only other powerful figure was the Count Palatine of the Rhine, who was still in a position to deal with his vassals – as they were later called, subjects – under the circumstances that had developed. But the other three electors, so-called electors, one of whom, for example, was the King of Bohemia, who was unruly himself; the other two ruled over what were then still entirely Slavic regions, along the Elbe and so on, with a strong Slavic population. Kingship really meant nothing more than what the Carolingian Empire meant. The only difference was that Carolingianism had an easier time dealing with what was striving to the surface because the suggestive power of language was there. That was not the case in Central Europe.

There is much more I could tell you about how these differences developed in detail, but you can read about it in any history book. If you follow the same points of view that we are applying here, you will read history with different eyes.

When the relations that had gradually developed between the papacy and the empire had died down a little, the ecclesiastical element had become so strong that it wanted to pursue independent policies. This was essentially the case in the 11th and 12th centuries. And it is interesting that Pope Innocent III now administered the affairs of Italy, which had been anarchic until then - in a sense, the clergy were the most difficult there - from Rome. Actually, Innocent III is now, as a human and spiritual power, the creator of a national consciousness of the so-called Italians with what came from him. Innocent III is a Lombard offspring, but one can say that what came from him basically made the Italian nation, which actually also became a nation through the impulses that Innocent III laid. The nationalization process was also completed by the 15th century. So it is essentially the church itself that created the national element. Thus, in the formation of the French nation, one must look for the suggestive power of language, and in the Italian nation, directly, the ecclesiastical element. These things only confirm what is obtained in a concrete way from spiritual science, which we have already considered for the various nations.

It is quite characteristic of Innocent III that he actually set very specific tasks for the Catholic Church. And one might ask: What then is the task that the papacy set itself after the great period of which I have spoken, from about the 10th, 11th or 12th century onwards, and what has been the mission of the papacy since those centuries? The mission of the papacy, in the Catholic Church in general, consists essentially in keeping Europe from recognizing what the Christ Impulse actually is. More or less consciously, the aim is to establish a church that sets itself the task of completely misunderstanding the actual Christian impulse, not to let the people know what the actual impulse of Christianity is. For wherever an attempt is made to place in the foreground some element that wants to approach the Christian impulse more closely - let us say the element of Francis of Assisi or something similar - it is consumed, but not incorporated into the actual structure of the church's power. The situation in Europe has developed in such a way that the people of Europe have gradually accepted a Christianity that is not Christianity at all. Christianity must first become known again through the spiritual-scientific discovery of Christianity. The fact that the Europeans have accepted a Christianity that is not Christianity has contributed significantly to the fact that talking about the Christian mysteries is an absolute impossibility today. Nothing can be done about this; first, long preparations are needed. For what matters is not that one uses the name of Christ, but that one would be able to properly grasp the essence of what Christianity is. But that was precisely what was to be concealed, what was to be suppressed by what popes like Innocent III did.

The external circumstances were already strange, as Innocent III shaped them. For one must not forget that at that time a remarkable victory had been won by the papal side. There was – as you will know from external history – a twofold current in Central Europe, Southern Europe, Western Europe: a more papal-friendly current, the so-called Guelph, and an anti-papal current, the Hohenstaufen. The Hohenstaufen were, after all, more or less always in conflict with the popes. But that did not prevent Innocent III from joining forces with the French and the Hohenstaufen to defeat the English and the Guelphs. For it had already come to the point that on the papal side they were now reckoning with the circumstances that subsequently became political. In its better times, the Church could not yet reckon with political circumstances; it had to reckon with concrete circumstances.

This gives you a picture of the configuration of Europe and of the gradual insertion, insertion of the universal church into this configuration of Europe. Now, we must not forget that it was essentially a overcoming of the old clairvoyant element by the church. That was one side of it. But the old clairvoyant element continued to develop nevertheless, and you see everywhere where secular and ecclesiastical powers make their compromises that there or there the talk is of the princes or the popes having to lead the fight against the heretics. Just think of the Waldensians and so on, of the Cathars; there are heretical elements everywhere. But they also had their continuation, their development. Gradually something emerged from them, and these were the people who, little by little, looked at Christianity on its own merits. And the strange thing is that, from among the heretics, people gradually emerged who looked at Christianity on its own merits and were able to recognize that what comes from Rome is something different from Christianity. This was a new element in the struggle, which, if you follow it, can be particularly strong for you to face, as the kings of France, who were allied with the Pope, had to wage war against the Count of Toulouse, who was a protector of the heretics of southern France. And you can find something like that in all fields. But these heretics looked at Christianity and could not agree with the political Christianity that came from Rome. So while the conditions I have described were forming, there were also such heretics everywhere, who were actually Christians, who were violently opposed, who often kept quiet, founded all kinds of communities, spread secrets about it. The others were powerful; but they strove for a special Christianity.

It would be interesting to study how, on the one hand, the continuous advances from Asia became occasions for what are called the Crusades. But for the papacy, at the same time, the call that was made by Peser of Amiens and others 'on behalf of the pope to the Crusades' was a kind of means of information. Even in those days, the papacy needed some kind of improvement. What had become purely political needed to create an artificial enthusiasm, and essentially the way the papacy conducted the crusades was designed to instill new enthusiasm in the people. But now there were people who actually emerged from the ranks of the heretics, who were the direct development of the heretics.

Gottfried von Bouillon was particularly characteristic of these heretical people, who had, however, looked at Christianity; for Gottfried von Bouillon is always distorted in history. It is always presented in history as if Peter of Amiens and Walter of Habenichts went first, could not accomplish anything right, and then, under the same tendency, Gottfried von Bouillon went to Asia Minor with others, and they wanted to continue what Peter of Amiens and Walter of Habenichts should have done. But that cannot be the case. Because this so-called first regulated crusade is something completely different.

Gottfried von Bouillon and the others associated with him were essentially - even if they did not outwardly show it - emerged from the ranks of the heretics, for the reasons that I have discussed. And for these, the goal was initially a Christian one: with the help of the Crusades, they wanted to establish a new center against Rome by founding a new center in Jerusalem, and to replace the Christianity of Rome with a true Christianity. The Crusades were directed against Rome by those who were, as it were, initiated into their real secrets. And the secret password of the crusaders was: Jerusalem against Rome. - That is what is little touched upon in external history, but it is so. What was wanted from heretical Christianity in contrast to Roman political Christianity was to be achieved indirectly through the Crusades. But that did not work. The papacy was still too powerful. But what came about was that people's horizons were broadened. One need only remember how narrow they had become in Europe since the time of Augustine. In my book, “Christianity as Mystical Fact,” you will find that Augustine is quoted as saying, and Gregory of Nazianzus and others have also said: Yes, certain things cannot, of course, be reconciled with reason, but the Church, the Catholic Church, prescribes them, so I believe it. - This version, this disastrous information, which was necessary for Europe in many respects, had, however, brought with it the fact that great points of view, which were capable of linking to great sensations, to great worldviews, were avoided. Read the Confessions of Augustine, how he flees from the Manicheans. And actually it is that in the Manichean doctrine he has a world view. One is afraid of it, one is afraid of it, one shies away from it. But over there in Asia, on the basis of what I have described in a very material way as the influx of gold into the Orient, the old Persian doctrine had blossomed and taken a great upswing. The Crusaders broadened their horizons considerably, were able to take up what had actually been buried, and thus many secrets were revealed to them, which they carefully guarded. The consequence of this was that, because they did not have enough power to carry out “Jerusalem against Rome,” they had to keep things secret. Hence, orders and all kinds of associations arose, which preserved certain Christian things under a different guise, because the Church was powerful, in orders and the like, but which are precisely opposed to the Church.

At that time, the difference actually emerged that now only comes up when you have visited a church somewhere, let's say in Italy, and someone inside has just preached against the Freemasons: you see people standing there who, of course, couldn't care less about the Freemasons; they don't know any names, but the pastor rants against the Freemasons from the pulpit. This antagonism between the Church and Freemasonry, which nevertheless developed out of heresy, essentially took shape in those days.

These and many other phenomena could be cited if one really wants to understand in detail what actually happened in reality back then. And you will have gathered from the whole that life was partly a very varied one, but that the most diverse spiritual interests played havoc with each other. People were confronted with such contradictions as those between the heretics, many of whom were actually Christians in the best sense of the word, and the church Christians. One could cite many other things that then led to the Reformation in Germany, for example, and the like. One could mention that the politicization of the church has led to the church losing more and more of its power, while in earlier times it would have been unthinkable that the church would not have found a way to get what it wanted. In certain areas, one must say, despite the fact that the church was able to burn Hus at the Council of Constance: Husitism has survived and as a power it actually had quite a significance.

But what is the actual timbre of these medieval scholars? It is true that a religious movement spread that ultimately took on a purely political form. It's a shame that time is so short; there would be many more interesting things to be said. A religious movement spread that takes on a universal character. Due to the different circumstances, the nationalities in Europe are gradually developing. If you consider that Christianity has brought with it ideas that have become so ingrained in Europe, such as the Fall of Man, then it is possible to create plays like the “Paradeisspiel”, which was performed in large parts of Europe, especially in the 12th century. It has penetrated into the most individual, most elementary circumstances. Ideas that go deep into the heart and soul have become widespread, ideas about what man could actually have been according to – if one may say so – God's original plan and what he has become.

This created an atmosphere in which, perhaps never before, and certainly not in our time, has a question been raised again and again and again, emotionally, in so wide a range, the question that is based on the difference between this world here and the world of paradise, between the world that can make people happy. This question, in the most diverse variants, already dominated wide circles. And people who were intelligent, people whose longings were intellectual, often came to direct their striving in a naive, but often also in a matter-of-fact way, towards such riddles. Just look at the whole configuration of the time. With the Roman Empire, Europe became poor in gold. The economy of nature came. Under the natural economy, conditions gradually arose that did not appear paradisiacal to the people. You only have to think of the medieval law of the jungle, of the intermarriage of the ruling families, and so on. The church had spread, for many to such an extent that they said to themselves: It is not Christianity, it is rather there to conceal Christianity, gives rather a false idea of the Christ mystery than a right one. But all this has indeed had the effect that we are not happy. The question: Why is man on earth not happy? Yes, one can say that, more than eating and drinking, this question gradually occupied people in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, especially those who felt something in the right way about the Mystery of Golgotha. Which, of course, has a deep meaning and another meaning, that connected itself with the question for people: Why are we not happy? Under what conditions can a person be happy on earth?

Something emerged as a result – in the form it took, it can be traced back to the cause I am about to mention – which will be clear to you from the descriptions I have given. Europe was without gold; natural economy was the basis on which unhappy humanity developed. The Roman papacy veiled Christianity. 'But people should strive for something that is a real human goal. And so, to put it briefly, it sounds paradoxical, but in wider circles, especially in those that emerged from the heresy circle, the mood has developed: Yes, we have become poor in Europe, Romanism has gradually made us poor. And it was realized that only those work their way out who work their way out in the same way that the Roman Empire became great, who had come to gold. How can you paralyze that? How can you paralyze the power of gold? If you can make gold!

Thus, the widespread art of experimenting and trying to make gold is connected with the very specific circumstances of the time when there was little gold and only a few individuals came into gold who could use it to tyrannize over others. People strove to balance this out. Because they knew that If everyone can make gold, then gold has no value. Therefore, the ideal became to be able to make gold. They said to themselves: In any case, you can only be happy in a world in which you can make gold. And it is similar with the quest for the “philosopher's stone”, even with the quest for the “homunculus”. Where interests arise as they did from family circumstances - as seen in the divisions of the Carolingians and so on - people cannot be happy. But this is connected with the natural reproduction of man. In any case, if a paradise is possible, it is more likely to be possible if homunculi are created than if ordinary reproduction with all its family relationships continues. Such things, which today sound quite paradoxical and twisted, were something that moved countless minds in those days. And you don't understand the time if you don't know that it was moved by such questions.

And then came the 15th century, and that put an end to gold-seeking, of course, in that they discovered America and brought the gold back from there. And then the phenomenon I have just characterized subsided. Universally summarizing all those elements that were active in the Crusades, deepening during the Crusades, summarizing all the longings that lay in the Middle Ages - the art of making gold, of creating the homunculus , to summarize all this in a truly spiritual way so that it could become an active impulse, that was essentially what the companions of Christian Rosenkreutz set out to do. To do this, it was first necessary to come to terms with all the things that had developed up to the 15th century.

The time had not yet come to draw new truths from the spirit, and so the impulses of Christian Rosenkreutz, like the efforts of Johann Valentin Andreae, ultimately remained unsuccessful. What did they lead to? They led to the emergence of what I am about to say now, and I would ask you to please pay attention and take it into consideration: Europe is differentiating itself; differentiated structures have emerged from what used to prevail there.

It would be interesting, but there is no more time, for me to also tell how the British nation formed in a similar way. Even in the east, the Russian-Slavic nation formed in a corresponding way. All of this could be described. Everywhere it has happened with a reaction from below, only in France it is so significant because the genius from below had a direct character in that it appeared in Joan of Arc.

In the face of this differentiation, to do something truly universalistic – for that Romanism is not suitable for being universalistic had just been shown by Innocent III, who founded the Italian nation; so the church is no longer universalistic – to find a spiritual impulse so strong that it transcends all these differentiations, and truly makes humanity a whole, that was essentially what underlay Rosicrucianism. Of course, humanity was not ripe enough to adopt the means and ways to achieve this. But it has always remained an ideal. And just as it is true that humanity is a whole, a unity, it is also true that, even if it takes some time in different forms, such an ideal must be taken up again. And history itself, the way it tends towards the fifteenth century and the way it develops the peculiar configuration in the fifteenth century, is the most vivid proof of this. There is no need to resurrect the old Rosicrucianism, but the ideal on which it was based must be taken up.

These are a few aphoristic remarks that I wanted to make at the end. I really wanted to give more suggestions than anything detailed and exhaustive, now that I will have to say goodbye to you again for some time. Over the years, if I may say so, it has become increasingly difficult to say goodbye because it has always happened under less hopeful circumstances. Now, I do not need to assure you that I view the structure and everything associated with it in an honest and sincere way as something that is essentially a real factor in the aspirations that should actually become the aspirations of our time in the broadest sense. I have never seen this structure as merely the hobby of a few individuals or something similar, but I have always seen in this structure and in what it emerges from, on the basis of which it is built, something that must be the cultural ferment of our time, namely, of the future.

Therefore, it can be said that a great deal depends on those who have come to understand the significance of this building to also really understand it emphatically and seriously and to represent it with all dignity. Certainly, the building is a first attempt in every respect. But if humanity is to be redeemed in the human being, if that which is trampled underfoot today is to be cultivated in humanity again, then forces will be needed that are of the same nature as those meant by our building, and that are connected with our building.

Today, when old religious beliefs and the like criticize this, it sounds very strange; after all, these old religious beliefs have had quite a long time to take effect. And if humanity has reached an impasse today, then it is perhaps not unfounded to ask: If you are saying the same thing you said before, why hasn't it worked before? If it is considered correctly, this may perhaps lead to an understanding of the necessity of what is actually meant here, and what is intended here.

And now, however time may change – every time I left, I asked you: May these or those circumstances arise, to the extent that you are able, hold fast to what has led to this undertaking. It is certainly true that the hostility is growing; but consider that even in this unfavorable time, in the course of the last few years, here and there and even in wider circles, some sympathy has arisen precisely for the nature of this undertaking and what is connected with it. And if one does not consider the great task of our spiritual scientific movement, the difficulties it has, the wide gap between what is to be achieved and what is there, if one finally, without becoming foolish on the one hand, but on the other hand without misjudging things, looks at what is developing - one can also look at the good for once - then it is there! Things are moving forward. If you follow with a finer feeling, for example, how such a detail as the eurythmic art has been developed here over the last few years – I think you can see that – then you can say that there is no standstill in our ranks. And if you were to look at the more intimate progress that is taking place within the creation of this building, you can speak of a certain progress. I can even say this today, when I have to say goodbye to you again for some time, with a certain inner heartfelt emotion.

When the first steps were taken to create this structure, the first thing to be done was to draw the larger lines, to ensure that this or that happened. But even though we have to focus our attention with deep pain and sorrow on the way this structure has suffered from the general catastrophic conditions of humanity, something else can be said: the circumstances have led me to work much more intensively on the details that arise here at the building site. And it is precisely for this reason that I can say that I may express it here with an agitated heart: what is being built really does express more and more visibly and intimately what is connected with the greater impulses of humanity. Recently, for example, I was able to tell you about the new legend of Isis, which story is meant to be characteristic of the entire situation of the building, characteristic of what I would like to express with it, in saying that this building is meant to be a kind of – let me use the philistine expression, a landmark that separates the old, which will finally have to recognize that it is old, from the new, which wants to become because it must become if humanity is not to end up in ever more catastrophic circumstances. The time will come when people will regret that what was intended with this building was often seen as folly. For this catastrophe of humanity will also have the consequence that many things will be recognized that would not have been recognized without this catastrophe. For it speaks with very, very clear signs. That humanity can be redeemed from man precisely through such impulses as are connected with this building is really supported by many things that could be observed during its construction.

Today, you will be particularly confronted with how many cultural works come about externally. Ask yourself whether wherever a church or something similar is built today - it could also be a department store - it is always built in such a way that those who build it and those who work with them are completely immersed in the purpose for which the things are built. One could build some great cathedrals in which the master builders do not really believe in the symbol that is inside. But here it is already a truth that the one works best who is most deeply connected with the matter at hand, who is able to use not only his art but his whole being, who not only works with the outer forms but who wholeheartedly not only works with this world view but lives this world view. And so I must say: It is of particular importance to me, especially this time, to express not only my outward thanks to all those who dedicate their work, their life forces, their thoughts to this building, to those who want to work with us here to bring this work to fruition, but to tell them that I really feel deeply, deeply, what it means that people have come together who want to work here on this work of culture. And out of this feeling, which indeed binds us even more deeply in times when people are as bound as they are in these, I say to you today, as we come to the end of these lectures, a kind of farewell for the time being, for the external physical circumstances. We will remain together in thought. Physical circumstances cannot separate us. But that which will connect us best will be when the power remains alive in us that wants to be built and formed into that which wants to develop into human peace in the stormy times of humanity.

Esteemed attendees! It is my responsibility today to conclude the lectures on the so-called Devachan plan or, as we have to call it in German, the spiritual realm. If you read about Devachan or the Land of the Spiritual Entities in theosophical books, you will find the description that this realm of the spiritual world is a realm of contentment, a realm of bliss. You are told that Devachan is the “land of delights,” the “land of happiness.” Well, honored attendees, it is very easy to misunderstand such a description and to imagine something quite wrong under these words. We must be clear about the fact that very many people do not know what the happiness of the spiritual realm is, that the vast majority of people seek happiness and satisfaction in things that are no longer found in Devachan. Even what people usually imagine in religious concepts as paradise, as a land of happiness and bliss, is still so closely tied to ideas of immediate sensual reality, to ideas taken from our physical environment, that we must not apply these ideas to the land of spiritual beings. What people hope for in terms of paradisiacal joys, what they call paradise, based on sensual perceptions, they already find before entering devachan, they find it in the fifth realm of Kamaloka, in the fifth realm of the fire of purification, and they find it precisely for the purpose of stripping away this tendency towards sensual pleasures and sensual desires. What the Indian, for example, imagines as paradisiacal hunting grounds, where he can indulge all his hunting desires, he finds already in the fifth realm of Kamaloka. But man must be cleansed of precisely that before he can enter the spiritual world. On the other hand, many people say that if they hear that none of what they experience here on earth as sensual reality remains in the spiritual realm, then the spiritual realm is nothing more than an illusion, a kind of dream that we dream between two incarnations. Both require a correction. The ideas that a person takes from their directly experienced reality need to be guided to completely different and higher ideas. One can gain a corresponding idea of what is actually meant by the land of delights, the land of bliss, what is meant by that deep intimacy and spiritual satisfaction that we experience between two incarnations, if one listens to what students of the great masters already know from their experience in this life.

Those who reach initiation in this life, experience something of this heavenly bliss, of this true spiritual satisfaction, through insight into the spiritual realm in this very life. You may ask: Is there or has there been something in our countries that is called initiation? Have there really been disciples in our Western culture who have been blessed with the highest vision that spiritual land has to offer? There has always been the possibility of receiving initiation in secret or occult schools. A current of occult wisdom came to Europe in the 14th century. This current, which is called the Rosicrucian current, was misunderstood by many; it must be misunderstood by all those who only get to know it from the outside. Only those who have been allowed to see through occult training should get to know it from the inside. When Christian Rosenkreutz brought the wisdom of the Orient to Europe, he founded schools in Europe where disciples were trained to reach the stages where vision in the Devachan, the vision of the higher secrets, became possible. Only those who have undergone training themselves know how to tell about it. All external research, everything that is written in books, cannot give you any information. Until 1875, the year of the founding of the Theosophical Society, these things were never spoken of at all, except in the most secret of teaching centers. It was only since 1875 that the Masters of Wisdom felt the duty to convey some of these deepest spiritual truths to mankind.

Initiations still take place today. However, they can only take place within the spiritual realm, the region I have described to you. Today, every person to be initiated must come to the Devachan plane to see these higher secrets for themselves. This forces me to give at least a small idea of how the person who receives the initiation on the Devachan plane feels and how he is transformed. What I have described to you of those highest entities that come from completely different worlds, first to enjoy their embodiment in Devachan and then to descend into the lower regions, into the three worlds, these entities can be seen by those who come for initiation in this field. When a person has attained initiation, he begins to gain a completely new faith, a completely new vision. He has truly become a different person. And what is not present at all for many people living around him, of which they never have an inkling, he sees with the spiritual eye.

Allow me to give you a brief summary of the creed that the initiate makes his own. You will recognize some of the phrases. All deeper truths have always come into the public domain and have been exoterically propagated in the public domain.

The person who is initiated gains a higher overview of what is happening here in our physical reality. He gains this higher overview by placing himself outside of this physical reality. While we live in the world of the senses, we are enclosed in the physical organization and can only see through our eyes, hear through our ears, and perceive through our other sense organs. We are dependent on what our senses convey to us. This is stopped by the higher training that the person to be initiated receives. Before the person to be initiated lies, I can only describe it, his own physical reality completely spread out. He sees himself objectively next to himself, and just as we look at any other object in the environment of our sensory reality, so we look at our own physical body when we are initiated. Our organism lies before us like our own corpse. But also our astral body, our desires, instincts, our whole sensual life of drives, lies before us, and we speak in the sense of the quoted Vedanta wisdom: “That is you”. We see ourselves completely objectively, with all our faults, with what we have achieved in life through the various incarnations. This is what is described to you as the passage through the gate of death, which every person to be initiated has to go through. He then no longer sees through the senses what he otherwise has around him in the sense world; he sees into the outer world from the spiritual plane, and not through the senses. But he also sees into the world of instincts, into the world of Kama, of passions, into the world where human drives are, into that which brings people into conflict and quarrel, what delights them and what gives them pleasure in this physical reality; there he sees into it as a pedestrian standing on a high mountain and looking into a mountain landscape.

And because he has risen above sensuality, because he has only a world of pure spirit around him, that is why he sees on the other side those entities that are spiritual in nature, and he perceives something of what is called divine wisdom. The divine essence itself is the Father-Spirit of all religions; no one can see him in his very own form. The Highest remains unrevealed, even to the opened spiritual eyes. But the initiate receives an idea of what creates and works in the world. He is led before the creating, divine powers. Then, for the first time, he utters the word out of conviction, out of direct contemplation, the word that was previously taught to him as a belief: [“I am Brahman”]. When the person to be initiated is now led through the narrow gate, where the physical and astral life is objectively shown to him, the word of the initiating priest is heard: To those who have, much will be given, and from those who have not yet, even that which they have will be taken away. — This is the initiation saying that is heard at the first gate of initiation. You will also find it in the Bible, like many a saying taken from Egyptian priestly wisdom. Those who have, are those who have already awakened to spiritual feeling and perception. But those who come to this gate without faith and without spiritual perception will also be deprived of their desire for spiritual knowledge. Woe to him who comes unworthily to this place, who has pushed his way in with curiosity; to him another voice is heard, which again has a symbolic meaning.

Man now experiences what universal spirit is, universal soul. We humans reflect on sensual things, but the spirit that lives in us, that we experience as thoughts within us, that forms the object of our reflection, is the same as the wisdom from which the world is built. We could not recognize the world with its laws if it were not built from these spiritual laws. Theosophy teaches that what lives in man as spirit, as manas, is essentially the same as what lives in the great universe, as Mahat. Man's manas draws wisdom from the manas of the universe, from Mahat. Or should a man believe that the laws we see operating in the heavens, by which the stars move, have meaning only in his mind? The Mahat of the starry sky is the element of intellect and reason out in the great world, and what you learn from it is manas, the element of intellect and reason of the small world.

Now the All-Spirit, the Universal Spirit, descends upon the initiate. The initiation priest speaks the words: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” The person concerned, now an initiate, knows what the spirit of the world is. Then he can express his belief in the creative spirit of the world out of his own conviction and say: “I believe in the divine Father-Spirit, which has made the spiritual, which is also called the heavenly, and the physical, the earthly.” In the Christian creed it says: I believe in God, the almighty Father, who created heaven and earth. — And then one thing has become clear to man: that in truth and reality he himself has taken his origin from the same universal world spirit that confronts him here in the spiritual realm. He knows that he has descended into the depths of sensual-physical matter; but he also knows that he has descended from divine worlds and comes from the spirit. He knows that the spiritual essence he bears within him he has received from the very source of the divine Father-Spirit, that he is a ray from the sun of the divine Father-Spirit. He becomes aware of this as a real divine power, as something he experiences and of which he has direct certainty. He begins to gain a new faith in humanity. Humanity becomes for him the only begotten Son of God, the Son of whom he speaks in his creed: “I believe in the divine origin of humanity — in the God in man himself, as the Egyptian priestly wisdom expressed it — or in the Christ in man, who has descended from heavenly worlds. And then it becomes clear to him that before these times in the evolution of the earth had arrived, these times in which we now live, these times in which people perceive through their senses, in which their sensual urges cause them to act — it becomes clear to him that before man descended into this sphere of the senses, he was in another, in a purely spiritual sphere.

The disciple has now come to know the spiritual land, and he knows that this land was the land where man was in his time as the only begotten Son of God, he knows that man is born of virgin spiritual matter – Mary or Maya – and he knows that the spiritual man Christ descended into sensual matter, he knows that this spiritual man is contained in each of us and develops little by little through the various incarnations, he knows that this spiritual man lives surrounded by sensual corporeality, lives in the physical body. The things of the outer world impinge sensually upon our body and build up our eyes, our ears and the other sense organs. Within this bodily sensuality we live and let the world penetrate into us. Through the sense organs we look as through windows upon the outer world; we are enclosed in sensual matter and therefore limited by it.

Pure and spiritual is the Christ who enters into people; he is virgin spirit-matter. Now he has descended into the contracted, sensual matter. Those who speak esoterically call this the water or the sea. Thus it says, for example, in Genesis: “The Spirit of God hovered over the waters.” This means that the spirit hovers over matter. In Greek, this matter is also called “Pöntos Pyletös”, literally contracted sea. Man has moved into this contracted matter, which has formed his organs. Thus, the active being in the spiritual realm has become a being that passively receives impressions from outside through the sense organs: Man has become passive, a Pöntos Pyletös. This is the difference between beholding in the spiritual world and beholding in the world of the senses. If we want to have an object before us in the spiritual world, we first have the thought, and the spirit forms this thought in the spiritual world, that is, man finds the images for all creation in the spiritual world. In the sensual world, man perceives passively, having become passive. We have all become passive, as it were suffering in the contracted matter. That was the original confession of the Egyptian priesthood. This is the symbol that the Christ has descended to mankind, that he has taken on matter and become passively suffering in the contracted sea, in the Pöntos Pyletös. In the course of time this was transformed into Christianity, and because the word Pöntos Pyletös was thoroughly misunderstood, the misleading passage in the Christian creed arose, which reads: “suffered under Pontius Pilate,” which is nothing other than the quoted passage from the creed of the Egyptian priests. Man has become suffering; he is no longer active, but passive. This is the article of faith which in the Occult Symbol signifies the so-called Incarnation.

When the person to be initiated has realized what is meant by these profound truths, he then searches in the objective, sensory reality until he has become clear within himself that he can now descend into this sensuality in order to work out of duty and in devoted self-sacrifice within the sensual reality. When he has reached the point where he no longer seeks to satisfy the sensual drives, but uses them only to work within the sensual world, then he is an initiate, then he is initiated, then he has the firm certainty that he can see through the general cosmic justice. He used to live locked in the sensual world, and the riddle of birth and death, the riddle of eternal becoming, was unclear to him. Now it is clear to him that he is eternal and above birth and death. He sees that which is changeable and at the same time the eternal cosmic justice, which in theosophical language we call karma. He has become a sage in the justice of the cosmos, he can judge between life and death, or, as it is said by the Egyptian initiates, between birth and death. And now he believes in the exalted community of spirits freed from the body. We are only separated in the sensual world; in Devachan we are a community of spirits freed from the body. The Christian creed expresses this when it says: “I believe in the communion of saints.” The Christian Creed grew out of the esoteric confession of the Egyptian adepts, which speaks a very esoteric language. It is partly translated from misunderstood symbols, partly from esoteric sayings, which the candidates for initiation received as direct knowledge in the land of Devachan.

From this discussion, you will now have a somewhat clearer idea of what is meant by the land of delight and bliss. It is the delight of infinity, of eternal activity, of eternal work. Why can none of the things that oppress us in the physical world oppress us in Devachan? Devachan is a land of bliss not because we experience delights there that man desires and craves in his sensual world, but because we are free from the material, free from what craves for sensual desires, but also free from what limits us, and because it makes it possible for us to react to what would otherwise affect us from the outside. What limits us in the sensual world is removed, what can cause us pain is no longer there. For what causes pain? Because impressions are made on our astral body or on our physical body. We have discarded these bodies when we are in Devachan; the reason for the pain and the feelings of discomfort that we experience in the physical world has ceased to exist. Because no one can be selfish anymore, no one can demand selfish pleasures; because no one has an astral body anymore, one is free from anything that can oppress one's own personality. That is why devachan is known as the “land of bliss,” the “land of happiness.”

I said that in the third region of Devachan, all pain and sighing of the creature is revealed to us, that we can perceive all the pain and suffering that takes place here on earth, all the passions and desires. But we perceive it as we perceive the objects here in the sensual world – a perception that is not so strong and not so glaring that it causes us pain. It is also not like touching an object that has a high temperature, so that we burn ourselves – in short, we perceive without feeling selfish pain or personal pleasure. We see the totality of all pain and suffering, and as spiritual beings we feel that we have to help alleviate or reduce this pain. It makes no difference to us whether this pain or pleasure belongs to us or to others. Our personality has been stripped away; the pains are no longer personal. The cause for personal suffering to arise for us has ceased to exist. Because we are disembodied and thus free from everything that could oppress us, devachan is called the land of bliss. The bliss in devachan must therefore be described as being incomparable to anything that happens here in the sensual reality. Only he knows what these “delights” of Devachan mean who, as an initiate, has already had experiences here in this physical-sensual embodiment and has received knowledge and wisdom of this Devachan.

Everything we are told about the realm of Devachan comes from the experiences and direct observations and insights of such initiates who have learned to be actively engaged in spiritual existence themselves. They have also learned that it would be the greatest illusion to speak of the life in Devachan between two embodiments as an illusion. It is precisely the illusion that we regard the life in Devachan as an illusion, as a dream. And in fact, all real life comes from Devachan. And only because the task of earthly existence is to lead people in their spiritual activity down to the earthly world, the Christ must appear in man, in sensual embodiment. That is why, according to the saying of Plato, the great Greek philosopher, the soul of the world is laid out in the shape of a cross through the universe and stretched over the earthly body of the world. That is what Plato said. It is a symbol that the initiate knows in its deepest meaning.

Just as the instrument needs the tool, the workman, so our physical existence needs the spiritual world, so that the spiritual world can be the architect of the physical body. Just as a hammer would never have been invented without the influence of spiritual reflection, nor could it ever have been used by a being that had only physical powers and was incapable of reflection, so too could man not fulfill his task if he did not repeatedly ascend into the spiritual realm and draw strength from there to work in the material world. He ascends to the land where he receives knowledge of pure spirituality, where he learns how spiritual forces work without them becoming passive within the senses, where he learns to freely unfold his wings and work. Then he can in turn become embodied again, suffering in the contracted matter of earthly existence, in the Pöntos Pyletös. From incarnation to incarnation, man wanders; again and again he moves into the Pöntos Pyletös; again and again the spirit is crucified in matter.

The theosophist can never be materialistic – not even to the slightest degree – and see the whole of existence in the physical world. And especially when he is able to make his own observations in the spiritual realm, he will come to the realization that asceticism would be hostile to reality. What kind of task man has as a spiritual being becomes clear to us in the spiritual realm. The earthly world in which we live is our assigned place of residence during our present evolution. And what we bring from the spiritual realm, we should use to benefit this earthly world. So that we can work on this earth, we are provided with new assignments from the spiritual realm again and again between two incarnations. Dear audience, we have now covered the three worlds. Man lives in three worlds: the material world, the world of soul or astral world and the spiritual world or Devachan. In this existence man lives in all three worlds. Every material human being also contains a soul and a spirit. However, man is only conscious within the sensual, but the astral and spiritual man also work in him; the soul and the spirit are also effective in every human being. Man's consciousness awakens between two incarnations in Kamaloka, in the soul's country; then man becomes enlightened, he is awakened between two incarnations – according to the level of development, according to what he brings with him from this earthly incarnation — in Devachan, in the spiritual realm, in order to return to the astral world, to clothe itself with astral matter and to be incarnated again in the physical reality. That is the path, the pilgrimage of the human spirit.

The human being comes from the spiritual realm. It was originally virgin matter from which man, when he still lived in the pure spiritual realm, formed a body for himself. Long ago, another life on our earth preceded this earthly state of ours. Then men were still pure spirits, then only spiritual reality existed. Then man descended first into the astral existence, not yet to the physical reality. He was then still the Adam Kadmon, that “pure” entity in which the physical world of instincts did not yet exist.

Then came that which is so wonderfully and symbolically expressed in Genesis: “Jehovah formed man out of the dust of the ground and breathed into him the breath of life.” The spirit met with sense-proof matter and with that, at the same time, the whole existence of physical and sense reality. Until then, man had been in a kind of subconscious state. The waking consciousness that we have today, this mind through which we consider things and with which we orient ourselves in the physical world, only came to man with the descent into the sensual world; at the same time as the lower sensual reality, man received reason. This is again symbolically represented in Genesis as the snake; it bestows the earthly mind on humanity.

The lowest point in human development is that where birth and death take place, where the immortal part of man must always pass through the gate of death. This will be replaced in the next epoch, when man, similar to the preceding epoch, will only be an astral being; and then the last epoch will come, when man will only have a spiritual existence.

Thus, the contemplation of Devachan teaches us, like everything in the world, on a large and small scale, that everything is in a state of development, that all existence comes from the spirit, passes through the sensual reality, and then ascends to the spiritual again. Contemplation of this higher, spiritual realm shows us that what we call death, what we call decay, is nothing more than a temporary, almost illusory state of an epoch of the world, that it is not something that can last. The conviction, the clarity, the knowledge that man has come from higher realms and that he will go to higher realms again, that is what gives us the strength to gradually, as we progress in theosophy, feel everything that an initiate of early Christianity – Paul – felt and expressed with the words: “Death, where is thy sting?”

On the other hand, we should never disdain our earthly existence. Just as the bee carries honey into the beehive, so we have to suck the honey out of the earthly world and carry it up into the spiritual world. But we can only find our way if we know what the basic forces of our existence are. For this reason I have given the lectures on the Devachan region. There was only one thing that could have induced me to give these lectures, and I know that they can easily be misunderstood. The author of the theosophical textbook “Light on the Path” wrote:

And once you have recognized the truth, you must not keep it to yourself. — Anyone who has recognized the truth must not keep it to themselves. And anyone who feels called to speak it must speak it, regardless of how it is received. Higher than everything else is the call from the spiritual world, once we have heard it. This call awakens in us a consciousness that is completely different from all consciousness that we know from our sensual existence. And then, from the perspective of the spiritual realm, we can make a saying of Solomon our motto:

Therefore I begged for insight, and it was given to me.
I called upon the Most High, and wisdom was given to my spirit.
I value truth more than anything that
lives in the sensual world around me.

The wise man values wisdom more than all the sensual realms around him. That is why he tries to proclaim this wisdom. This is to justify what has moved me to speak about this subtle area of existence, although I know how these things can be misunderstood and how difficult it is to talk about them in a reasonably understandable language. But if we have felt this call, then, in the spirit of Solomon's wisdom, let us express it in the words:

Propter hoc optavi et datus est mihi sensus
et invocavi et venit in me spiritus sapientiae
et praeposui illam regnis et sedibus et divitias nihil esse duxi
in comparatione illius.

To characterise the successive epochs of human evolution on the earth (referring, to begin with, only to post-Atlantean time) we can select one item or another out of spiritual science; we are thus gradually led to form real conceptions of the several epochs. To-day we shall speak about the fourth—that is, the Graeco-Latin time; and about the fifth, our own time, which began about the year 1413. We shall add certain particulars to what we already know about these epochs.

Every such epoch may be said to have a special task. I beg you not to think in this connection of a merely theoretic or scientific task, or of anything exclusively concerned with knowledge.

Every epoch has a special task,—a task which must be solved in life itself. In actual life itself, impulses have to arise with which the individuals living in these epochs must come to terms,—with which they have to wrestle, and out of which proceed not only their ideas but their feelings, their emotions, their loves and hates, and the will-impulse which they receive into themselves. Thus in the widest sense we can say: Every such epoch has a task to solve.

Looking into the Graeco-Latin epoch, we find that the task it had to solve is chiefly related to what we may comprise with the words “Birth and Death” within the Universe. These things have become rather vague and obliterated in our time. No longer in the deepest sense of life, but in a more theoretic sense, the great problems of Birth and Death stand before the human being of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. He no longer has a true feeling of the deep way in which the phenomena of Birth and Death entered the heart and mind of the human being of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. We human beings of the fifth epoch (as you know, we are still more or less at the beginning of it, for it began in the year 1413; and an epoch lasts 2160 years) We have to solve in the widest sense, in a living and energetic way, what we may call the problem of Evil. I beg you to envisage this most thoroughly. Evil will approach the human being of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch in every conceivable form. Scientifically he will have to solve the nature and essence of Evil. In his loving and in his hating, he will have to grapple in the right way with all that springs from Evil; he will have to fight and wrestle with the resistances of Evil to the impulses of the Will. All this is essential to the tasks of the fifth post-Atlantean time.

Nay, more, the problem of Evil belongs to the fifth post-Atlantean epoch in a still higher degree than did the problem of Birth and Death to the life of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. Why so? It was, in fact, the Atlantean time which had to solve the question about Birth and Death with the same vital intensity with which the fifth post-Atlantean time will have to solve the problem of Evil. In Atlantean time the phenomena of Birth and Death stood before the human beings of that evolutionary epoch far more vividly and directly, in a far more elemental way, than now. That which is hidden behind Birth and Death, is, in effect, far more concealed to-day from human vision and from human feeling. Now the Graeco-Latin time, fundamentally speaking, was after all but a faint repetition of that which the Atlanteans had had to experience with regard to Birth and Death. The experiences of the Graeco-Latin time were, therefore, not so intense and vivid as will become the wrestlings of the fifth post-Atlantean time, which began in 1413, with all the powers of Evil,—with all that springs from Evil. For the human being himself will have to free himself from all this by means of the very opposite forces, which to evolve is in effect the specific task and need of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. What I have said in this moment need only be envisaged in a sufficiently intense and vivid way, and many things which we have characterised during these weeks will be clearly illustrated. Many things will appear as consequences of this fundamental premiss: that it is the task of the fifth post-Atlantean time to wrestle with the life-problem of Evil.

Let us now ask, how did Goethe perceive that this is so, when in his drama he showed Faust as the representative of humanity, placing him in conflict with Mephistopheles who is the representative of Evil? From this very fact you can see that the Faust drama is derived out of the deepest interests of the present epoch.

It is peculiar to man that he can only come to terms with the things with which he has to wrestle, if he extends his consciousness over them, i.e., if they do not remain in the unconscious. (We emphasised this more than once during our recent studies.) That is the peculiarity: Whatever evil impulses can possibly arise from the foundations of the cosmic order, must betray their presence to our consciousness.

But there is also another necessity. It is insufficient, as a rule, merely to know what belongs to the one epoch. These things can only be rightly judged by comparison. It is not really enough to be aware that now, in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, man has to wrestle with Evil in the historic evolution of Earth-life. There must be added a certain consciousness about the preceding epoch,—that is, in our case, the Graeco-Latin epoch. The impulses that lived in the Graeco-Latin epoch must also become impulses of human beings of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. Observe how wonderfully what the poet Goethe felt is connected with this perception, derived as it is from the very nature of human evolution—of the historic evolution of mankind. Goethe longed to know the world of classical-antiquity by direct perception, as well as it could be known in his time. He wanted, as it were, to guess its secret from all that he saw and realised in Italy. Therefore the longing for Italy lived in him like a kind of illness. But this was essentially due to the fact that Goethe felt himself in the fullest way a child of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. Goethe did not aspire to Italy with the kind of impulse which inspires any Professor of the History of Art, who thinks himself already clever in every domain, and only wishes to extend his information. That was not what Goethe wanted. Goethe desired no less than a change in his state of consciousness,—another kind of vision. Many things could be cited in evidence of this. Goethe said to himself as it were: If I remain only in the North, my soul will have a form of vision that is not wide enough. I must live, for once, in the atmosphere of the South in order to get other forms of vision,—other forms of concept, other forms of thought, of feeling. The Witches' Kitchen Scene in Faust, for example, with its decidedly Northern content, was written by Goethe in Rome. He believed that he would only be able to enter fully into the very nature of spiritual contemplation, if his state of consciousness was transformed by the atmosphere that there prevailed. We must endeavour to find our way into Goethe in a more intimate and delicate way.

Now we can also see that Goethe did not set Faust over against Mephistopheles out of an empty or merely abstract reflection, but rather because he wanted to portray the representative man of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch within the evolution of mankind. At the same time, endeavouring as he did to compare things vividly in the two states of consciousness, he found it necessary to let Faust experience not only conditions and events of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, but to carry him backward in time and let his soul dive down into the fourth epoch, so that this epoch, too, might set its stamp upon Faust's consciousness. For this is what happens where Faust comes together with Helena.

It is often interesting to put the different Scenes together in this all-embracing poem. It would be interesting, for example, to produce one after another the Witches' Kitchen, the Invocation Scene at the Imperial Court, and then the Scene where Helena herself appears. For these three scenes represent three successive acquaintances of Faust with Helena. In the Witches' Kitchen, while Mephistopheles is entertaining himself with the apes, etc., and with the witch. Faust sees the picture in the magic looking-glass. Faust, as he sees it, only speaks of the woman's beauty, but the words of Mephistopheles even now remind us that the picture of Helena appears:—

“Thou'lt find, this drink thy blood compelling,
Each woman beautiful as Helen.”

Here, then, emerges for the first time what is afterwards developed in the scene at the Emperor's Court, and finally appears in its third form in the “Classico-romantic Phantasmagoria” in the third Act of the Second Part. It would be interesting, for once, to see these three put together one after another. People might then perceive that the Faust drama is an organic, living entity, full of inner order.

It is not for nothing that we hear it again out of the lips of Faust himself at the Emperor's Court: “I scent the Witches' Kitchen.” As soon as the action is approaching Helena once more, he scents the Witches' Kitchen. We are reminded of Helena. These things are carefully weighed. Goethe is not like any other poet. Goethe is one who created out of necessities and impulses derived from a far wider sphere.

Let us now ask ourselves more precisely: “What is the meaning of this threefold encounter of Faust with Helena? The three are very different from one another. In the first, in the Witches' Kitchen, in the magic looking-glass, Faust is to a slight extent transfixed. He sees a picture. One who is acquainted with the more subtle distinctions of occult science can well estimate this picture which Faust sees in the magic look-glass. As I have often told you, our thoughts or ideas in ordinary life are no more than the corpses of that which we really experience. Behind all thoughts are Imaginations; we, however, kill the Imaginative part. You can read of it in a more exact philosophic form in my forthcoming book Riddles of the Soul, which contains a brief chapter on this very subject. That which Faust sees in the magic mirror in the Witches' Kitchen is something which is living in himself, raised up into an Imagination. In ordinary life he only has the idea in an abstract form. Now he experiences the picture of Helena which Goethe lifts out of the whole realm of his imaginative life; now he experiences it transformed again to a living Imagination. Thus in the first place—I beg you to observe this well—in the Witches' Kitchen Scene we have an Idea that has become Imagination.

In the Invocation Scene at the Emperor's Court, the thing goes further. Far more of Faust is taken hold of than the mere life of ideas. if Faust had merely seen the picture as he saw it in the magic mirror, he could not have reproduced it outwardly, whether by smoke or any other means. For him to reproduce it outwardly, it must be connected with his inner life of feeling and emotion. We cannot but admit that Goethe indicates his meaning with the greatest possible intensity. Faust no longer merely admires—within the life of ideas—the beauty of Helena, as in the picture in the magic looking-glass in the Witches' Kitchen. You can perceive this from the wonderful way in which Goethe describes, in the Invocation Scene, the entire scale of emotions and feelings whereby Faust feels himself united with Helena. Truly it is a wonderful enhancement. No single word could be removed, where Faust breaks out into the words that tell of his inner relationship to Helena: inclination—love—worship—mania. It could not be described more truly to the inner life of soul. Remember this enhancement, and you will see how Goethe emphasises the intimate connection of what happens here with all that Faust experiences in his heart, in his life of feeling. That which emerges in the Invocation Scene is no longer merely an idea transformed into Imagination; it is Feeling that has become Imagination. Here, then, you have the second stage—the Invocation Scene in the Emperor's Court—Feeling that has become Imagination.

Now we pass on to the “Classico-romantic Phantasmagoria,” where Helena appears not merely as a spectre, but as a present reality to Faust, for he begets Euphorion his son. Here Goethe clearly indicates that the ‘Classico-romantic Phantasmagoria’ proceeds from Faust's life of Will, no longer merely from his Feeling or his Thinking. The ‘Classico-romantic Phantasmagoria’ is Willing that has become Imagination.

Ideation, Feeling and Willing, translated into the Imaginative sphere—that is what you have in the enhancements of the encounter with Helena. All this is shaped with artistic truth. Even for one who does not dismember Faust as we are doing, but simply enjoys it, these things are there. Now the very fact that Goethe chooses Helena to appear to Faust, is in a way connected with the essence of the life-tasks of the fourth and fifth post-Atlantean epochs. We are here touching upon a problem which even the Bible only very gently touches. Ricarda Huch in her new book on Luther's Faith touches it rather less gently. It is the connection of the problem of the knowledge of Woman with that of the knowledge of Evil. A mysterious connection is indicated in the Bible, in that the Luciferic temptation took place through the Woman in Paradise. The longing for the Devil during the present, fifth post-Atlantean epoch is well described in Ricarda Huch's book, Luther's Faith. It is characteristic; but we cannot enter into these things any more, for we should be treading on very thin ice in our time if we were to indicate them, let alone to discuss them further.

Nevertheless, it was out of this impulse that the culture of ancient Greece—and Goethe in connection with it—derived the figure of Helena. We must, remember that the Helena problem played an important part in the content of the old Greek Mysteries. To recognise the being of Helena was essential to a certain process of Initiation. For in the being of Helena, in the old Greek Mysteries, one learned to know something of the tasks of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch in relation to the Spiritual World. Therefore in ancient Greece there was an exoteric and an esoteric legend of Helena. The exoteric legend is well known; the other has also become known, for all things esoteric become exoteric by-and-by. The exoteric legend is as follows: Through the well-known event with the three Goddesses, Paris was instigated to take Helena from Menelaus. He appeared in Greece; and with Helena's consent eloped with her,—took her to Troy. Thereupon the Trojan War broke out. The Greeks besieged and conquered Troy, and Menelaus took Helena back with him again. That is the exoteric legend.

Homer, as you are well aware, only reveals this exoteric legend. Though he himself was initiated into the esoteric legend, he would in no way betray it. It was not until a later period of Greece that the Dramatists—Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides—condescended to betray something of the esoteric legend, which was to this effect: that Helena did not acquiesce in her elopement; Paris did not elope with her, but stole her away by force against her will, and went with her across the sea. Hera drew the ships from their course, and Paris had to land with Helena in Egypt, where at that time king Proteus was ruling. Slaves who had escaped from Paris' ships told the whole story to Proteus, whereupon he took Paris and his train, and Helena, into captivity. Paris he let go, but he took Helena from him. According to this legend, Helena never became the wife of Paris. His treasures were taken from him; he was sent back to Troy without Helena, but on this journey to Troy he was able to take with him the Idol of Helena, in place of the real Helena who had remained behind with Proteus in Egypt. Paris, therefore, appeared in Troy with the mere Idol of Helena, and it was for the Idol that the Greeks fought; they would not believe the Trojans that the real Helena was not in Troy. Then, when the Trojan War was ended, Menelaus himself travelled to Egypt, and brought with him from thence his wife who had remained guiltless.

You are perhaps aware that Goethe very clearly hints at this esoteric aspect of the legend in the third Act of the Second Part of Faust,—in the ‘Classico-romantic Phantasmagoria.’ Mephistopheles-Phorkyas continues the speech of Helena who is at a loss and no longer knows where she is. In this Act Goethe places Helena before us, burdened with all the doubts that have befallen her. She has been robbed, and now she hears all that is being said of her. It is all utterly confusing. Things that relate to the Idol and not to the reality come to her ears, and in the last resort she herself no longer knows who she is. And out of all these doubts we hear her say:—

“Name not those joys to me! for
sorrow all too stern.
Unendingly was poured upon my
breast and brain.”

Mephistopheles-Phorkyas replies:

“Nathless, they say, dost thou
appear in double form,
Beheld in Ilion,—in Egypt, too,
beheld.”

Thus Goethe very clearly hints at the fact, how complicated the figure of Helena really is. He brings it into his Faust. For with the Helena problem much indeed is told. And it is not without meaning that it is Mephistopheles who acts as mediator in the second part of the Drama. He gives the key to Faust, directing him into those regions which to Mephistopheles himself are empty Nothing, yet in which Faust is confident that he will find the All. Here again, every word is of significance. Faust has the possibility to change his state of consciousness,—to lead it over into that which was experienced in the preceding, Graeco-Latin epoch,—in the fourth post-Atlantean. We must not take ‘the All’ in a merely abstract sense, but in a concrete spiritual shape and form. Into this spiritual form Mephistopheles cannot enter. He belongs to a different region. Mephistopheles is really there to work as Spirit in the spiritless world of material events, which above all must give its impulses to the man of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch.

In effect, during this fifth post-Atlantean epoch certain human beings have the task to be aware of the aspect of the spiritual world, thus to make conscious that which can really be achieved by means of the impulse of Evil.

Just as the eye cannot see itself but only other things, so too Mephistopheles, who is the very Impulse of Evil cannot see Evil himself. This is among the things which Faust must see and learn to know. Mephistopheles cannot see Helena; at least he cannot see her with full consciousness, with full attention. Yet after all, he is not altogether unakin to Helena. The way to Mephistopheles was only possible out of those impulses which Christianity gave for the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. There is indeed a certain tendency to Helena; nevertheless, what ancient Greece—or her Initiates—desired to express through the Helena-problem remained remote and strange. The Christians of past centuries also knew Helena, but they knew her in the form of ‘Hell.’ However remote the kinship is, the word ‘Hell’ is not altogether without etymological connection with ‘Helena,’ for the things themselves have to do with one another. The Helena-problem is very complicated, as you can see when you behold the esoteric form of the Greek legend.

The same thing is clearly indicated at several points in my Mystery Plays: Ahriman-Mephistopheles must be recognised; we must see through him. The Faust Drama says in a certain sense the same. Referring to Ahriman-Mephistopheles, Goethe coined a sentence of great importance for the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. The human being of the fifth post-Atlantean age must somehow bring it about that Ahriman-Mephistopheles feels himself recognised by him. You will recall the closing scene in the last of my Mystery Plays. It is an important moment where Ahriman-Mephistopheles feels that he is recognised. At this moment the Impulse of Evil knows it:—Those who are having to experience Evil have found a standpoint which enables them to stand not within Evil, but outside it. That is most important. It is of deep significance when Mephistopheles calls out to Faust:—

“I'll praise thee, ere we separate; I see
Thou knowest the Devil thoroughly.”

This is important. Mephistopheles would not have said the same to Woodrow Wilson. He would have had no cause.

This relation between Faust and Mephistopheles contains a great deal of the problem of the fifth post-Atlantean age. For, as I told you, this fifth post-Atlantean age has the task to go on into the inevitable battle with the most manifold forms of Evil. The impulses of human evolution must become sharp and clear again. Such impulses must arise as have arisen in the conflict with Evil. Far more intense, I said, is this experience than the experience of the fourth postAtlantean age, because the latter was in a sense a repetition of the Atlantean epoch.

Wherein sloes a first experience in the course of human evolution on the Earth consist? It is indeed a first experience—an initial experience—which stands before us here. The fourth post-Atlantean age had to live through the problem of Birth and Death, but only as a repetition of the Atlantean epoch. Now, in the fifth post-Atlantean age, an initial experience has entered in once more. And—it consists in this: that we must draw anew out of the fount of Maya—out of illusion. The human being must make acquaintance with illusion—with Maya, with the great illusion.

I have repeatedly drawn attention to this from quite other. points of view. I did so, for instance, in my book The Riddle of Man, where I associated the problem of freedom with the fact that in our consciousness, to begin with, mere mirror-images take place,—mirror-images, that is to say, Maya. And in my present essay on the Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, anno 1459, I emphasise the real function of illusion for our consciousness. The fact is that these things can only now be said directly for the first time. They do not belong to any abstract theory or fantasy, but to immediate reality. It is wonderful to see how Goethe was initiated into these things. The fifth post-Atlantean epoch must create very much out of illusion. In the character of Faust Goethe represents the human being of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. When Faust enters the larger world, he creates, paper currency. This too is characteristic of the Ahrimanic nature of commerce in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. Paper currency is the tangible economic proof of the fact that the imaginary, the unreal, the illusory, prevails and plays its part in the commerce of this time.

It was not so in those periods of human evolution when the chief thing was not money but the exchange of commodities, or barter. Even if money was there, the economic life was not based upon it. In those times it would not have been true to say that the outer economic life was permeated by a network of illusions, as in fact it is during the present, fifth post-Atlantean epoch. Goethe brings Faust himself into connection with this illusion of the economic life. What does he mean to tell us when he places the second appearance of Helena directly after the Scene at the Emperor's Court? What is it really at this point? We are confronted with the whisperings of an astrologer, with suggestive influences—I mentioned it in yesterday's lecture—we are confronted with illusion. Illusion lives—this was what Goethe meant to say—illusion lives in the outer historic reality, lives in it spiritually. How often have we spoken of it in recent lectures! The concepts, the ideas, that lead to such great errors as I mentioned recently,—all these are born of illusion. You will remember: I told you of one characteristic error, but we could mention hundreds of others of this kind. Certain economists who thought themselves particularly clever, stated in 1914—out of their economic laws—that the War could not last longer than four to six months at most. It was impossible otherwise. Yet it will soon have lasted as many years. Why is it so? Why do human beings live in ideas that are proved absurd by the reality? Because there plays into their life of thought that ‘spectral fabric’ which Goethe represents as coming into the Emperor's Court through Faust. It is because the human beings do not see through what lives as spectral fabric in their ideas. As soon as the fifth, post-Atlantean epoch began, the imagination of those, who were sensitive to such things, was turned to the perception of reality over against such ‘spectral fabrics.’ Goethe had a prototype for this Scene at the Emperor's Court. I refer to Hans Sachs' beautiful description of the necromancer who causes Helena to appear at the Court of the Emperor Maximilian. It is not Faust in this case, it is the Emperor himself who wants to seize the image and falls a prey to it,—is paralysed by it. So then we have this weaving of ‘spectral fabrics’ into the reality of the historic process. And I should like to ask: Where else is it represented so grandly, so truly, out of the fulness of spiritual realities, as in Goethe's Faust?

Now as I said before, the consciousness of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch and that of the fourth must work together. Faust grows away from Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles gains nothing from it but the conclusion:—

“One's self with fools to hamper,
At last even on the Devil puts a damper.”

Faust is seized by apoplexy, he is paralysed. His soul-nature has separated from his body. Yet there now follows the Scene which we presented here last year,—Faust's dream, which is perceived by Homunculus.

Whence comes the Helena of this second apparition, even though she is a mere ‘spectre’? It, is quite clearly indicated: it is the astrologer who brings her—albeit only by suggestion—out of the rhythm of the stars. Connect this fact with what I told you recently of the macrocosmic element that works in the woman before fertilisation. This Helena comes from the stars; but she guides the impulses within Faust's soul towards another Helena. Homunculus sees how in the vision of Faust the birth of Helena emerges. It is the Scene of Zeus, of Leda with the Swan. Faust is led over to the problem of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch,—to the solving of the problem of Birth. This is the thing that emerges at the very moment where Faust grows away from the clutches of Mephistopheles,—where Mephistopheles has nothing left of him but the outer physical body. Now there arises in the soul of Faust the impulse to go over into the fourth post-Atlantean epoch.

It is roost wonderful how the motifs are intertwined. We see how Goethe uses the interplay of that which lives within us out of the fourth and the fifth post-Atlantean epochs. But he knew still more. He points to the esoteric legend of Helena,—of how in Troy there was only the Idol, that which is founded in the stars, which is of cosmic origin; while the other, the individual Being of Helena, had moved to Egypt, to Proteus. In the declining city of Troy, that part of Helena remained which belonged to the third post-Atlantean epoch, which the third post-Atlantean epoch expelled. It was the part of Helena which Egypt allowed to go; while as to that which Egypt reserved for the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, Menelaus took it back from Egypt and brought it again to Greece. Thus in the esoteric Helena-legend, which Goethe certainly adapted, not only the fifth but the fourth and also the third post-Atlantean epochs play their part. Goethe made use of the Helena-problem in a most wonderful way.

My task of to-day and of tomorrow will be to show you the path into the spiritual worlds which has been followed ever since the 14th and 15th century, particularly in the so-called Occult Training, and which is the most suitable path for modern people. But it will be easier for us to understand the essential points if we first cast a glance over the future development of humanity.

We have already spoken of the course of human development through the Stages of Saturn, Sun, Moon and Earth. Those who are only accustomed to think in accordance with present-day conceptions will find it difficult to understand that it is possible to know something about the future course of evolution: But you must bear in mind that certain great laws which are now active, will also exercise their activity in the future, and those who know these laws can therefore cast a glance into the future.

In the sphere of physical reality no one doubts that things can be foretold,—for example, lunar and solar eclipses and other astronomical phenomena can be calculated in advance, far into the future. In the sphere of physical reality there is no doubt as to this. And everybody knows that when certain substances are mixed in a retort, scientists can foretell the result. This is a prophecy relating to external sensory facts, and these things can be foretold because the laws which influence the substances are known.

Similarly we learn to know through spiritual science the laws which govern the course of human life, so that it is possible to foretell what will take place in the future.

An objection might now be raised which has been advanced by the thinkers of every epoch: “It is impossible to speak of human freedom if future events can be foreseen!” But here people confuse the capacity of looking into the future with predestination. In every philosophy you will therefore come across the strangest observations, for all philosophers were unable to make this distinction. Jacob Böhme was the only exception!

Let me now give you an example to make things clearer to you. Let me compare time with space. Imagine yourself standing here, and two people in the street, outside. You can see what these two people are doing, for you are watching them from a distance. But are you able to influence their actions, in view of this fact? No, you are simply looking at them, and these two people act in perfect freedom. You can determine nothing in their actions through the fact that you are looking at them. Now imagine a clairvoyant who observes what will take place in the future. He merely sees this, and he does not in any way influence the events. If these events could be influenced, if they were, so to speak, predestined in the present, there would be no pre-vision. But we can only grasp the difference between predestination and prevision if we ponder over this problem for a long tune.

I do not intend to describe to you what the Earth will be like when it shall have reached the Venus and the Jupiter stages; instead, I wish to tell you something which will give you an idea of man's future development; I wish to explain to you something which comes from the oldest Christian Mysteries, which originates from the Christian School of the true Dionysius; it was a teaching which was always taught in the Christian esoteric schools.

The following comparison was taken as a starting point:—I am now speaking to you. Yell can hear my words; you hear the thoughts which were, to begin with, in the depths of my soul; you hear thoughts which would remain concealed to you were I not to express them in sounds. But you could not hear my words, if the air did not exist between us. Whenever I utter a word, the air in the space around us is set into motion; whenever I speak, I cause the whole volume of air around me to vibrate, it vibrates in accordance with the words which I pronounce. Let us now proceed further: Imagine that you were able liquefy the air, and then to render it solid. Air can be liquefied; you know that water can exist in the form of steam and that this air becomes liquid when it cools; and then the liquid can become a solid block of ice. Imagine now that I pronounce the word.“God” into the air; a form would fall down, for instance, the form of a shell; if the sound-vibrations could render the air solid. And another wave of sound would fall down as a solid form if I pronounce the word “World”. A crystallized form of air would correspond to every word I utter, and you would be able to perceive these crystallized forms.

This example was in fact advanced in the Christian schools. First of all we have the spoken word, and then this word becomes a solid form, but before it became solid, it existed as an inner thought. Now the early Christian imagined the following: The creative process in the universe resembles the creative process which takes place in space, when we speak. The creative proceeded from the idea of things and then the Godhead expressed these ideas in the form of words uttered out into space. Everything which appears to us outside in the form of plants, minerals, etc. is the crystallization of God's utterances. It is possible to imagine everything dissolved into tone-vibrations of the Divine Cosmic Word. “Whatever I see before me, is the crystallization Word of God!” said the Christian. And on a certain wy he made a distinction between the “Father in Concealment”, Who had not yet expressed Himself, the “Word” or the Son, Who resounds through space, and the crystallized Word, the “Revelation”.

This enables us to understand in a deeper sense the beginning of the Gospel of St. John:—“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. It was in the very beginning with God. Everything was made by Him, and except through Him was nothing made that was made.” Everything that was made, was made by the Word! We should take things as literally a possible, then we can easily recognise the creative element of the Word, or the Logos. In the Christian meaning, the Word or the Logos stands in the second place. “Logos” should only be translated with “Word”, for this means that at the foundation of everything which exists in the created world lies the unuttered creative Word; it then resounded as spoken Word, and this is the origin of every existing thing. If we go far back into times we could hear animals, plants, minerals, and men, resound through the cosmic spaces as “Word”—even as you now hear my own words—for in those remote, times, the air had not yet cooled down to such extent as to enable words to take on solid form.

Let us bear this in mind, for then we can say to ourselves: Once upon a time, the Word was ,creative. Men are now beginners in an activity which was once carried out by their ancestors, the Gods, who stood above them. Once upon a time, the Gods created the world by uttering their words into the cosmic spaces, and this creative activity gave rise to the created world round about us. The forces of procreation in the vegetable, animal, and human kingdoms are but, a metamorphosis of the former creative Word of God. We still bear within us a higher and a lower nature. The greatest perfection has been reached by that part within us which is endowed with sex, whereas our larynx contains the first stage of a new procreative power. Whenever we pronounce words, we are at the beginning of an activity which will one day become procreative. At present we are only beginners in an activity which was once carried out by the Gods. A new form of procreation will replace the old one. The larynx is now able to form words but in the future it will become an organ of procreation, a generative organ, which will produce more and more condensed and higher forms. The larynx can now mould forms of air, but in future it will give rise to real beings. When the earth shall have reached the Jupiter stager the Word will have creative power in the mineral kingdom, and during the Venus stage it will be able to produce plants. Thus the course of development will proceed, until man will be able to procreate himself through the Word.

The present form arose, when man first sent the air streaming through his lungs through sounds. But in future stages of the earth's development, the words, the mere words which we now tell each other, will have a lasting form. And finally, the larynx will become man's generative organ, through which he will procreate himself in purity without the intromission of sex.

This shows us the future aspects of human development, and the predisposition of the human larynx. Indeed, an enigmatic phenomenon can show you how intimately the larynx is connected with certain stages of development: When a boy reaches puberty, his voi0e breaks, it undergoes mutation. The human larynx is at the beginning of its development, whereas sexual life is at the end of its development. This shows us the intimate connection of certain things in Nature. In sexual life we are confronted by something which is dying off; the larynx, the word, on the other hand, will in the future become man's generative organ.

We might indicate many other examples showing how the human being will gradually develop organs which now exist in a rudimentary form—for instance, the organs which now constitute his breathing system, but which really form part of the heart system.

The training which was introduced into Europe since the 14th century in fact anticipates future conditions of human evolution and it enables us to follow a speedier course of inner development than the ordinary one. The training which is called the Rosicrucian training is the one most suited to modern men. In a certain sense, Rosicrucianism has not a good reputation among men who have only heard of it now and then. If we could rely on the statements made in books, and on what scientists know about Rosicrucianism, then it would indeed be the swindle which it is reputed to be! But those who judge Rosicrucianism by these sources do not know real Rosicrucianism, but a mere swindle!

But let us now consider Rosicrucianism in it s true form; it arose through an individuality concealed under the name of Christian Rosenkreutz, who gave rise to the Rosicrucian Movement in the year 1459.¹

I expressly remark that what I an telling you now is only to be taken as an example, in the same way in which I spoke to you yesterday of the Christian. training. Let me therefore indicate right away the seven chief points of Rosicrucian training. The sequence of these stages is not the same for all, but let me point them out to you, for they come into consideration for everyone who passes through the Rosicrucian training.

The first thing is what we call Study; the second is what we call the Appropriation of Imaginative Knowledge; the third, the Appropriation of the Occult Writing; the fourth, the Preparation of the Stone of the Wise; the fifth stage is called Conformity of the Small World, the Microcosm, with the Large World, the Macrocosm. ² The sixth stage is the Penetration into the Life of the Macrocosm and the seventh is what we the Divine Blissfulness.

The Rosicrucian path leads in the surest and profoundest way to a knowledge of Christianity. The Christian path of training is more suited for those who can abide in faith and who can awaken their feeling life within them, in the manner described to you yesterday. But the Rosicrucian path is for these people who can connect the truths of Christianity with the truths relating to the external world This above all, will enable them to protect Christianity against every attack from outside. Christianity is a world-conception of such profundity that our wisdom will never suffice to grasp it fully. The path of Rosicrucian training is the most suitable one for modern men.³

If we follow a train of thought which has nothing in common with the sensory world, we pursue study in the Rosicrucian meaning. What is designated as “thinking in free thoughts” is only known to the civilisation of the west, through geometry, the Christian-Gnostic schools therefore used the name “mathesis” for the designation of things connected with the higher truths, with God and the higher world, for such truths had to be grasped independently of everything pertaining to the sensory world, even as mathematics must be grasped independently of all sensory impressions. A circle drawn with chalk is most imperfect, a real circle can only be conceived in thoughts; thought alone is able to grasp everything that can be learned in connection with the circle. Through mathematics we learn to think of the circle independently of the senses; we construct it in thought, with the aid of the triangle built up spiritually, whose angles equal to 180 degrees.

It is somewhat uncomfortable to have to think without the support of external sensory objects, and for the majority of men there is no other field of study in this direction than spiritual science. In my first lecture I told you that the knowledge contained in spiritual science can absolutely be grasped through logic. But clairvoyance is needed if anyone wishes to investigate these truths. Logic suffices, however, for the understanding of the truths contained in spiritual science.

Our materialistic age could only invent the calculating machine, which teaches us to form thoughts which are not independent of the senses: A child, above all, should learn to grasp things independently of sensory impressions. Thee influence of spiritual science will therefore be of greatest value in education: Spiritual science is an excellent training for the development of a thought activity independent of the senses. Everything which I have told you in connection with Saturn, the Sun, and the various members of the human beings relates to things which cannot be, seen; they must be grasped through thought, independently of the senses. No one should, however, believe that he can train himself unless he first grasps these truths theoretically. The advantage of such truths is that they do not exist for the senses, so that they can transmit us a way of thinking which goes beyond sensory life. For many people it is sufficient at first, to penetrate into the truths which theosophy describes in connection with facts which cannot be grasped through the senses. These truths constitute, the kind of thoughts which were always explained to the pupils of the Rosicrucian Schools, and the truths were well impressed upon them.

If we now wish to proceed, we can find a good means of a Training in Thought in my books “Truth and Science” and “The Philosophy of Spiritual Activity”. These books are merely a gymnastic in a form of thinking which is independent of the senses. Generally speaking, you will find that in other books it does not make much difference if the thought- contained in one sentence is transferred to another one. But in the above-mentioned books no thought can be transferred to another place. These books have arisen in such a way that my own person merely, gave this thought-structure the opportunity to take on a sensory form. It was necessary to yield to these thoughts, so that they could arise of their own accord, continue of their own accord. Those who are willing to penetrate more deeply into these thoughts, devoting themselves to this study for, say, half a year (this is not easy, but the effort entailed is the very best way of tackling ) those who can read these books to the very end, have drawn out of their inner being a dormant force.

The second stage is Imagination, or the Imaginative Knowledge, which is entirely under the influence of Goethe's beautiful words: “All transient things are but a symbol”. Only those who have acquired a firm, sure thinking, should enter this second stage. For they might easily fall into delusive fancies without a firm foundation of thought. Consequently, the first condition is to have a clear head; nothing can protect us more against mistakes than a clear way of thinking.

In the widest meaning, imagination might be characterized by observing everything which surrounds us in the following Manner:—Observe the face of a human being; you see upon it creases and wrinkles,which come and go; you do not only describe these lines, but you designate them as smiles or sorrow. A man's smile reveals to you his happy disposition of mind. You do not only deduce an inner truth from something which you see outside, but this outer perception is for you a real symbol of that man's inner life or else you see a tear falling; you are not only a physicist who observes that tear in accordance with the law of gravity, but you know that that falling tear is the expression of the soul's inner sadness. Thus everything which you see outside on a person's countenance becomes for you the expression of the soul's inner mood. The Rosicrucian pupil learns to feel that everything which he sees outside is similarly the expression, let us say, of the Earth-Spirit, a certain plant, for, example the meadow-saffron, really appears to him as the expression of the mourning life of the earth. Even as a smiling countenance reveals to him the soul's happy mood, so the flowers become an expression for the earth's happy or sorrowful mood.

Goethe did not only wish to convey an external image when the Earth-Spirit in “Faust” speaks:

“In Lebensfluten Tatensturm,
Wall ich auf und ab,
Webe hin und her
Geburt und Grab,
Ein ewiges Meer,
Ein wechselnd Weben,
Ein glühend Leben,
So schaff ich am sausenden Webstuhl der Zeit,
Und wirke der Gottheit lebendiges Kleid.”

In the floods of life,
in the storm of action,
I surge up and down,
I weave to and fro!
Birth and the Grave;
An eternal ocean,
A changing weaving,
A glowing life,
Thus I work on the whirring loom of Time
And weave the Godhead's living garment.

For Goethe, the Spirit of the Earth gradually becomes something that lives in the earth; he acquires a soul-spiritual connection with the whole surrounding Nature.

Let me now explain to you more in detail one of the moods which can be found in Nature.

We have a Rosicrucian pupil walking across the fields. He sees the tiny pearls of dew upon each plant. This reminds him of the ancient “Neflheim, the “Land of Mists”, where the air was filled with a dewy mist and where the human beings had quite a different connection with Nature than they have now. The Rosicrucian pupil who is thus walking over the meadows and who perceives the pearls of dew upon the plants says to himself: In the ancient Land of Mists this was once dissolved in the atmosphere. And within his soul rose up a deeply concealed memory of the Atlantean age.

Imagination was specially cultivated among the pupils of the medieval Rosicrucian Schools, and als0 among the pupils of the Holy-Grail. Since I cannot express myself in any other way, let me now convey to you in the form of a dialogue some of the truths which were taught in these Schools.

The teacher said to his pupil:—“Behold the plant: see how it springs out of the ground, opening its calyx with the organs of fructification; see how the sun's rays come down upon it and open the blossom, so that the fruit can ripen”. The Rosicrucian pupil, and also the pupil of the Holy Grail, had to conjure up before their soul this image, this idea.

Now there is something very significant, even in materialistic science, whenever a plant is being compared with the human being. You must, in that case, take the plant's root as corresponding to the human head, whereas the flower corresponds to man's generative organs, to the which he shame-facedly conceals. In the plant the root corresponds to the human head. Man is a reversed plant, the animal is a half reversed pant. Rosicrucianism therefore says: Behold the plant: Its root is in the ground and its organs of fructification are chastely turned towards the sun's ray. Behold the animal: Its spine is horizontal ... and then behold man: There you have a complete reverse, a complete transformation. In the cosmic process of evolution the plant, the animal and man are symbolized by the Cross! The Cross is the plant, the animal and man.—Now you will be able to understand Plato's words: The soul of the universe hangs upon the Cross of the universe.—the soul of the universe, the cosmic soul which permeates everything, is stretched out upon the plant, the animal, and man.

Now it was impressed upon the Rosicrucian student: “Behold the plant: In its kind, it is lower than you, for it is not endowed with consciousness and with the power of thinking; but its substance is pure and chaste; it turns its calyx towards the sun; its organ of reproduction is turned without any passion towards the sun's ray, the holy spear of love. But physical substance has become permeated with passion. Now think of the future ideal—a purified substance, producing itself in purest chastity,” And his attention, was drawn towards the larynx, where man shall one day have attained the purity and chastity of the flower's calyx. “Think of the plant's calyx, which is devoid of passion. It develops through passion, but it will become pure again and reproduce itself chastely, by allowing itself to be fructified by the spiritual ray of the sun, by the Holy Spear of Love.” A prototype of this “holy spear of Love” is the spear which pierced the heart of Christ-Jesus upon the Cross.

Yesterday we have seen that this blood which streamed out of the Redeemer's wound banished egoism from the earth. The spear which pierced him is therefore a foreboding of that higher spear, the sun's ray in a spiritual form. And the Holy Grail indicates the chalice of humanity which develops out of the larynx, and which will be the purified generative organ of the future, as is the case to-day in the plant.

This is the deeper meaning of the Holy Grail, which was brought to the knowledge of the Rosicrucian students and of the disciples of the Holy Grail when they had reached the imaginative stage. Now compare the vision which you obtain through these images—the plant's calyx, sex filled with passion, the Holy Grail. the passionless chalice—compare this with the dry, intellectual concept supplied by modern science; this will show you the difference between imagination and mere intellectual thought: the whole cosmic process must be grasped in images! This is important, for the more intellectual concepts which we have to-day are not creative; but if these concepts are added to an image, then the images will become creative. This was felt in past times, and it should be considered in the education of the child.

Let me now discuss an actual problem. To-day people say so easily: What nonsense our elders taught us children, by telling us the story of the stork! Children should be told the truth.

If our descendants will treat us as we treat our forefathers, they will also laugh at us and say: Our forefathers thought that that the human being arises through a physical act!—And they will look back upon the time when this was explained to children in a spiritual way. In ancient times, when the story of the stork arose, also adults believed in it, for they knew that when a human being is born, his soul descend a from the spiritual world; and so they always connected birth with the descent of a winged being. You may even find this again in nursery-rhymes, for instance in the following one:

Flieg, Käfer, flieg!
Dein Vater ist im Krieg!
Deine Mutter ist im Pommerland
Pommerland ist abgebrannt;
Flieg, Käfer, flieg!

Fly, Beetle, fly!
Your father is in the war.
Your mother is in Pommerland,
Pommerland is burnt to ashes!
Fly, Beetle, fly!

This “fly, beetle” is meant as an image for the human soul, because a faint knowledge still existed of the astral world, from where the souls fly down into the physical world. And what is “Pommerland”? “Pommer” is the sane word as “Pommerle” which means a small child, so that “Pommerland”, or “Pommerleland”, is the Land of babies, where the mother goes to-fetch her baby. Such things must simply be explained in the light of the spiritual world. If you bear in mind that the image of the stork bringing babies is really an image for a spiritual process—reincarnation—you will realise how immensely important it is that certain things should first be grasped in the form of pictures; if the child is first taught to look upon the image of the spiritual process, he will develop an entirely different frame of mind enabling him to listen reverently even to the description of the physical process.

If you know that the stork is an image for the descending soul, you, yourself will once more believe in the stork! Your words can wing a child's fancy, if you understand the truth underlying an image; in that case a mysterious fluid will stream out of it and pass over to the child. This applies to every image. Children can thus be taught everything.

How can you deal with the problem of life after death? Lead the child to a butterfly's cocoon and tell him: Even as the butterfly flies out of its cocoon, so the soul flies out of the body when we die, but we cannot see this. If you really believe in this, you will be able to convince the child that when the butterfly leaves its cocoon, this is, upon a lower stage, the same as when the soul leaves the body. If spiritual science enables us to dive down again into the spiritual world, so that living images rise up in human hearts, education will change altogether; then the child will no longer be taught dry intellectual facts which coarsen his soul. We should not pull things down to a grotesque or comic sphere but we should realise instead what important things lie at their foundation.

The third thing which must be acquired for the paving of the “path” is the Learning of the Occult Writing. This does not consist in learning a writing, as is the case in ordinary life. The letters of the alphabet may indeed ba traced back to occult images but they are not by a long way an occult writing. In occult writing we must penetrate into the real great cosmic forces which are active in the universe. And all that we write down, must be so that one process of development passes over into the next. Take a plant: It bears seeds; in the seed you have the starting point for a new plant. But if you could really investigate the process, you would find that nothing of the old plant passes over into the new plant. In reality, the old plant perishes completely in regard to its substance; while the new plant builds up its form from entirely new substances—all that passes over into the new plant is a kind of movement. Here you have some sealing wax and there a seal: you press the seal into the wax. Of the seal itself nothing has gone over into the wax, only the form remains.—This is the case in every process of development. When it perishes the old substance merely supplies the opportunity for a new form to arise in accordance with the old form. This is designated

with two inter-twining spirals which do not meet. Such a transition existed after the Atlantean epoch of culture; this epoch disappears and a new one arises in the Indian epoch of culture; also this must be designated with two spirals. I have already told you that in the year 800 A.D. the sun rose in the sign of Aries; before that in the sign of Taurus; further back in the sign of Gemini and still further back in the sign of Cancer. The Greco-Latin age, containing the seeds of our present epoch, coincided with the time when the sun rose in the sign of Aries; the preceding civilisation; the Chaldean-Assyrian-Egyptian one, coincided with the time when the sun rose in the sign of Taurus; before that we have the Persien culture; when the sun rose in the sign of Gemini; and the ancient Indian culture developed itself when the sun stood in the sign of Cancer. It was then that the sign of Cancer; two inter-twining spirals was first written down.

Thus I might explain to you each sign of the Zodiac according to its true meaning. These signs were formed out of Nature, they are an expression for the forces and laws which are active outside, in Nature. If we learn to know the occult signs we begin to go outside ourselves; we penetrate into the mysterious foundations of Nature.

Thus I have given you some indications 0n the first three stages of the Rosicrucian path: Study, Imaginative Knowledge, and the Acquisition of the Occult Writing.

To-morrow we shall discuss the other stages, beginning with the Preparation of the Stone of the Wise.

• 1. See lecture 5 of Life Between Death and a New Birth.
• 2. See Macrocosm and Microcosm. Soul Problems, Life Problems, Spiritual Problems.
• 3. See The Path of Knowledge and its Stages

by Hella Wiesberger

At the re-establishment of the Anthroposophical Society at Christmas 1923/24, Rudolf Steiner spoke of his plan to establish the new esoteric school in future as a “Free University for Spiritual Science” with three classes and pointed out that such three classes had existed before, only in a slightly different form. These were the three working groups or departments of the Esoteric School, as they had existed from 1904 until the outbreak of the First World War in the summer of 1914. In keeping with the precept of maintaining continuity as far as possible, he had also linked these groups to what already existed at the time and which lay in the direction of his own intentions: for the first group to the Esoteric School of Theosophy of the Theosophical Society, for the second and third groups, from which the department of the cult of knowledge was formed, to a society with masonic cult forms. ¹

Structure

The Esoteric School of Theosophy – abbreviated as E.S.T. or simply called E.S. – was founded in 1888 by H.P. Blavatsky and was under her sole leadership until her death in 1891.² After that, Annie Besant and W.Q. Judge took over together, and from 1895 A. Besant alone.” The few German Theosophists who were seeking esoteric training were affiliated with this E.S. in London. It was only through Rudolf Steiner that a German Esoteric School was established together with the German Society.

The following can still be reconstructed today about the successive development of the first circle initially affiliated with the E.S.T.

On October 20, 1902, the German Section of the Theosophical Society, based in Berlin, was officially founded with Rudolf Steiner as General Secretary and Marie von Sivers as Secretary. Annie Besant, one of the most active representatives of the Theosophical Society and then head of the Esoteric School, came to Berlin and delivered the certificate of foundation. On this occasion, Rudolf Steiner asked her to admit him to the E.S.³ He reports on this in his “Life Course” (chapter 32) as follows:

"In this context, I must discuss something that the opposing side, shrouded in a fog of misunderstanding, repeatedly brings up. For personal reasons I need not talk about it at all, because it had no influence on my development or on my public work. And compared to everything I have to describe here, it remained a purely “private” matter. It is my admission to the “Esoteric School” within the Theosophical Society.

This “Esoteric School” goes back to H.P. Blavatsky. She had created a place for a small inner circle of the Society where she shared what she did not want to say in the general Society. Like other experts on the spiritual world, she did not consider it possible to communicate certain deeper teachings to the general public.

Now all this is connected with the way in which H. P. Blavatsky came by her teachings. There has always been a tradition of such teachings, going back to the old mystery schools. This tradition is cultivated in all kinds of societies, which strictly guard against the teachings of the societies from leaking out.

But from some quarter it was thought advisable to communicate such teachings to H. P. Blavatsky. She then connected what she received with revelations that arose within her. For she was a human individuality in whom the spiritual worked through a remarkable atavism, as it once worked in the leaders of the mysteries, in a state of consciousness that, compared to the modern one, was pervaded by the consciousness soul and tuned down into the dream-like. Thus, something in Blavatsky was renewed that had been at home in the mysteries of ancient times.

For the modern man there is an infallible way to decide what of the content of spiritual vision can be communicated to wider circles. This can happen with anything that the researcher can clothe in such ideas as are proper to the consciousness soul and as, by their very nature, also come into play in recognized science.

The situation is different when spiritual knowledge lives not in the consciousness soul but in more subconscious soul powers. These are not sufficiently independent of the forces at work in the physical. Therefore, for teachings that are brought from subconscious regions in this way, the communication can become dangerous. For such teachings can only be absorbed by the subconscious again. And teacher and student are moving in an area where what is beneficial and what is harmful to the human being must be treated very carefully.

All this does not apply to Anthroposophy because it draws its teachings entirely from the unconscious region.

Blavatsky's inner circle lived on in the “Esoteric School”. I had placed my anthroposophical work within the Theosophical Society. Therefore, I had to be informed about everything that was going on in it. For the sake of this information and because I myself considered a narrower circle necessary for those who had progressed in the anthroposophical spiritual knowledge, I allowed myself to be accepted into the “Esoteric School”. However, my narrower circle was to have a different meaning than this school. It was to represent a higher section, a higher class for those who had absorbed enough of the elementary knowledge of anthroposophy. Now I wanted to tie in with what already existed and what had been established historically. I wanted to do this with regard to the Theosophical Society and also with regard to the Esoteric School. That is why my “inner circle” initially existed in connection with this school. But the connection was only in the institutions, not in what I communicated from the spiritual world. So in the early years, my inner circle looked like a department of Mrs. Besant's “Esoteric School”. Internally, it was not at all like that. And in 1907, when Mrs. Besant was at the Theosophical Congress in Munich, the external connection between us also ceased completely, according to an agreement between Mrs. Besant and me.

The possibility that I could have learned something special from Mrs. Besant within the “Esoteric School” was out of the question, because I did not attend events of this school from the very beginning, except for a few that were intended to provide me with information about what was going on.

At the school at that time there was no other real content than that which came from H. P. Blavatsky, and that was already printed.⁴. In addition to this printed material, Mrs. Besant gave all sorts of Indian exercises for the advancement of knowledge, which I rejected.

Thus, until 1907, my immediate circle was, in a sense, related to what Mrs. Besant cultivated as such a circle in terms of the institution. But it is completely unjustified to make out of these facts what opponents have made out of them. They went so far as to assert the absurdity that I was led to the spiritual knowledge only through the esoteric school of Mrs. Besant."

The letters summarized in the first part of this volume document that Rudolf Steiner was asked for esoteric instructions immediately after the founding of the German Section, that is, even before he was officially nominated Arch-Warden (National Leader) of the Esoteric School in 1904. The formation of a circle, which he considered necessary and which his first students hoped for, is hinted at in the letter to Marie von Sivers of April 16, 1903, which states: “Without a core of true Theosophists who, through the most diligent meditation work, improve the present karma, the Theosophical teaching would only be preached to half-deaf ears.” (GA 262), as well as by the answer to a corresponding question from Mathilde Scholl: “It would be quite nice if the newer members of the E.S. in Germany would somehow come together more closely. We need that especially in Germany. For the E.S. must become the soul of the Theosophical Society.” (Letter dated May 1, 1903, $43.

One year after this statement, in May 1904, Rudolf Steiner and Marie von Sivers spent a week in London to discuss with Annie Besant his role in the E.S. Marie von Sivers was always present as an interpreter during his personal conversations with Annie Besant. In a circular letter dated May 10, 1904, sent to all members of the E.S. in Germany and Austria, Annie Besant announced that Rudolf Steiner had been authorized to act as Arch-Warden for Germany and Austria. According to his statements, he was also responsible for German-speaking Switzerland and Hungary.⁵ Annie Besant's circular letter of May 10, 1904, read as follows (see facsimile on page 26):

To all members of the E.S. in Germany and Austria.

I hereby appoint Dr. Rudolf Steiner as Arch-Warden of the E.S. in Germany and the Austrian Empire, with full authority, as my representative, to call meetings of the school, to organize groups and appoint Wardens, and to do all else necessary for the welfare of the school, remaining in direct communication with myself. Annie Besant.

(To all members of the E.S. in Germany and Austria.

I hereby appoint Dr. Rudolf Steiner as Arch-Leader of the E.S. in Germany and Austria, with full authority as my representative to hold meetings of the school, organize groups and appoint leaders, and to do everything necessary for the welfare of the school in direct communication with myself. Annie Besant.

Upon his return from London to Berlin, Rudolf Steiner began to build up his Esoteric School in addition to his activities for the public dissemination of spiritual science and the development of the Society. Since he placed the main emphasis of his activity from the very beginning on public work, he began to present the Christian-Rosicrucian path of training that is necessary for the West in a series of articles in the public Theosophical journal “Lucifer-Gnosis”, which he founded and edited: “How to Know Higher Worlds?” (June 1904 to 1908, 1st edition 1909). The earliest date of an E.S. event undertaken by him in his capacity as Arch-Warden of the E.S.T. also dates from this month of June 1904. It was during the days of the Theosophical Congress in Amsterdam, which lasted from June 18 to 21, 1904, and in which, in addition to Rudolf Steiner and Marie von Sivers, several German Theosophists also participated; among them were Mathilde Scholl from Cologne, Sophie Stinde and Pauline von Kalckreuth from Munich, Günther Wagner from Lugano and his sister Amalie Wagner from Hamburg. Mathilde Scholl reports that Amalie Wagner was to be accepted into the E.S. at the time and that Rudolf Steiner organized this acceptance in her hotel room. However, this can only have been a kind of anticipation, since the official E.S. work was only established from Berlin after the Amsterdam Congress. The first esoteric lessons took place there on July 9 and 14, 1904; at any rate, these are the two earliest known dates for esoteric lessons in Berlin, and from the available notes it can be seen that the E.S. work in Berlin began at that time. But these lessons must actually still be counted among the preliminary stages, which basically extended into the fall of 1905. For it was only when the second and third departments were established that the school was fully formed.

During the month of August vacation in 1904, Rudolf Steiner addressed personal letters to various external members, admitting them to the school or inviting them to join. Another E.S. meeting was planned for the beginning of September (according to a letter dated August 29, 1904 to Günther Wagner); however, it is not known whether it actually took place.

In the second half of September 1904, Rudolf Steiner accompanied Annie Besant on her lecture tour through several German cities and repeated the public lectures she gave in English in German. At the last stop on this trip, in Cologne, where both were staying with Mathilde Scholl, a meeting of E.S. members also took place, according to her account: “Mrs. Besant, Dr. Steiner, Fräulein von Sivers, Miss Bright, Mr. Keightley, Mathilde Scholl in Mrs. Besant's room. Before we left the room, Mrs. Besant spoke with Dr. Steiner about the study material for E.S. students. She recommended Leadbeater's “The Christian Creed.” Dr. Steiner replied politely but firmly that he could not use this book for his students.

In the period that followed, until May 1905, a few esoteric lessons took place in Berlin. But the first official orientation through the “long-prepared circular letter to the German E.S. members” with rules did not take place until the beginning of June 1905.

In October 1905, when a large number of members travelled to Berlin at the express request of Rudolf Steiner for the general assembly of the German Section and the School was expanded to include the second and third sections of the Knowledge of Religion, several E.S. lessons were also held. Steiner personally wrote down the content of the lesson of October 24, 1905 for Anna Wagner, the wife of Günther Wagner, who had been unable to attend for health reasons. ⁶ This is the only esoteric lecture recorded in his handwriting, apart from the short summary in a letter from the lecture on October 4, 1905 for Adolf Kolbe in Hamburg. All other records of such hours were made by participants afterwards from memory, since it was not allowed to take notes during the hours themselves.

From this autumn of 1905 onwards, more and more esoteric hours took place not only in Berlin, but also in other German cities and later in other countries, where Rudolf Steiner's students worked in this way. After the outbreak of the First World War in the summer of 1914, the esoteric work was discontinued because strictly closed events could be mistrusted, but also because it was not possible to work esoterically in a time so burdened by strong emotions. It was only ten years later, in connection with the re-establishment of the Anthroposophical Society, that an Esoteric School was re-established.

The rules

From the relevant documents it can be seen that during the period of the establishment of the first esoteric working group, “rules” were set up that were based on those of the E.S.T. The latter were originally very strict, but over time they were modified several times. At the time of Rudolf Steiner's affiliation, admission to the T.S. could be requested after two years of membership. The school was divided into grades, which could be worked through in four different ways or methods (disciplines): a general one, a special yoga one, a Christian-Gnostic one, and a Pythagorean one. Before one was admitted to the actual training, however, one had to belong to the probationary or hearer order (Shrävaka order in Indian) for at least one, and later two, years. Upon admission, a written “promise” had to be given to treat the received papers confidentially and to return them upon request. After the prescribed probationary period, one could be admitted to the actual first degree, provided one was willing to make the written vow to make Theosophy the all-determining factor of one's life.

Since Rudolf Steiner's first esoteric study group was outwardly affiliated with the examination order of the E.S.T., and within the general discipline therefore in the first rules issued by him the designation “Shrävaka-Orden” - was connected, his students also had to give the obligatory “promise”, as can be seen from various letters. He ran his working group completely independently of this. For example, there were no electable disciplines, even though the four disciplines are mentioned in the letters to Anna and Günther Wagner dated January 2, 1905. But at that time everything was still in the process of being formed and soon after it had obviously become a matter of course to follow Rudolf Steiner's intentions. For example, on January 23, 1905, Mathilde Scholl, who through his mediation in May 1904 had been accepted by Annie Besant into the first degree of the E.S.T. in London, but had not yet received his instructions, wrote to him: “Personally, it is now of no importance to me at all whether Mrs. Mead sends the writings or not, because everything I need you give me and is given to me, and that is so much that I can only raise my eyes with awe and wonder at all that is coming.” Similar words are spoken in a letter from Günther Wagner, who wrote to him on April 3, 1905: “Months ago I received from Mrs. Oakley an English E.S. pamphlet containing messages about the four paths that are taken in the E.S., which you also mention in your kind and loving letter to my wife. My wife and I have decided to follow the 'Christian' path and now ask whether we should also start on April 1 in Germany, as stated in the English pamphlet. Will a German instruction be issued? Probably, since you cannot give written instructions to all E.S. members living abroad. I would also like to know whether there are any other regulations for students in the first degree (according to the old regulations) than those in the English brochure, or whether everyone should follow these from now on. On January 2, you wrote to my wife, instructing her to do the exercises for four weeks from around January 6. She did that and continues to do so, but she too is asking for further instructions.” These questions were answered more and more with the first E.S. circular letter of June 5, 1905 and the further instructions given.

Thus far, the gradual development of the first circle can be reconstructed. However, the question of how the oath of the E.S.T. was handled remains open, since Rudolf Steiner's pupils did not go through the degrees of the E.S.T. and yet there are some such oaths that, as far as they are dated, date from 1906. Whether they were given at the time of admission to the first degree of the Section for the Cult of Knowledge or in some other context is not known. In any case, in the same year, 1906, Rudolf Steiner also wrote to an esoteric disciple: “Please do not regard the keeping of secrets as an obligation in principle, but as a temporary one, due to the confused present circumstances in the E.S. and T.S. ... I myself would be glad if this too need not be.” This statement is consistent with the fact that nothing of it has been handed down - although the circle of students had already grown quite large - that after the separation from E.S.T. in May 1907, Rudolf Steiner had written promises made. In fact, when the Esoteric School was re-established in 1924, the only appeal made with regard to the obligation to treat the teaching material received confidentially was to the sense of responsibility of the individual. In this sense, Marie Steiner wrote after Rudolf Steiner's death: “He did not believe that esotericism could be practised as in earlier times, in the deepest seclusion, with strictly binding vows. These were no longer compatible with the sense of freedom of the individual. The soul must come before its own higher self and recognize what it owes to this self and to the spiritual world in reverent silence.” ⁷

The teaching material

The teaching was divided into three parts, so to speak: the rules and exercises that applied equally to all students; the personal exercises; and the esoteric lessons, in which the intimacies of the training path were discussed and the consciousness was directed to the great teachers of humanity, the masters of wisdom and of the harmony of feelings, as the actual leaders of the school. The ideal goal of the training was, through the higher consciousness developed by the exercises, to gradually find access to the Masters themselves.

The descriptions of the nature and work of the Masters, as imparted in esoteric hours, were intended to help on this path. The little that has been handed down is summarized in the section on the Masters. However, since Rudolf Steiner not only spoke about them in esoteric lessons, but also in lectures for members of the Society and even in public, a sufficient idea can be gained from the picture that he painted of the Masters. See the attempt at an overview in the appendix to the section 'From the teaching material on the Masters...'.

Knowledge about the masters has been of fundamental importance in the Theosophical Society and its Esoteric School since its inception.⁸ For Rudolf Steiner himself, the existence of the masters was a reality that he had personally experienced decades before his association with the Theosophical Society. He testified to this on several occasions.⁹ He also taught from his own experience the necessity of teaching the truths of occultism to the world, as he received them from his master. Beiträge zur Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe», Heft 83/84, 1984. There is also personal testimony that he was convinced by his Master of the necessity of teaching the truths of occultism to the world:

”... if the Master had not been able to convince me that despite everything [the immaturity of the time for the high truths of occultism], Theosophy is necessary for our age: I would have written only philosophical books even after 1901, and, speaking literarily and philosophically.” (Letter of January 9, 1905 to Marie von Sivers, GA 262).

And he had only joined the Society after he had realized at the “endpoint of a long inner development” that “the spiritual forces I must serve are present in the T.S.” ¹⁰

However, while in the T.S. the Masters were always spoken of as the “Masters of Wisdom”, he spoke of them as the “Masters of Wisdom and Harmony of Feelings” or also the “Feelings of Humanity”, because they not only possess a high degree of wisdom, but also an “unlimited source of love for humanity” (letter of August 2, 1904, p. 62). This nuance, like everything in his work, points to the central point of his spiritual knowledge: the unique significance of the Christ principle for the development of all humanity and the Earth. For Steiner, Christ was the Master of all Masters and the “Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings” were those who “stand in direct connection with the forces of the higher hierarchies” (Düsseldorf Lecture, June 15, 1915) and who have grasped that “the progress of humanity depends on the comprehension of the great event of Golgotha” (Berlin, March 22, 1909).

The most enlightening thing about Rudolf Steiner's personal relationship with the masters is probably what he said in one of his very first public lectures in Berlin. Referring to the description of these highly developed individuals in Sinnett's “Secret Buddhism”, he tried to make it clear that, if one bears in mind that there are endless possibilities on the ladder of development — from the least developed to, for example, Goethe and beyond — the concept of the master need not be strange to European thinking. And then follow the words that are so decisive for him:

”...that the so-called masters are great inspirers for us - nothing more - great inspirers in spiritual realms. However, their development goes far beyond what is offered by popular culture. They are great inspirations for us; but they do not demand faith in any authority, not faith in any dogma. They appeal to nothing but one's own human insight and provide guidance on how to develop the powers and abilities that lie in every human soul, through certain methods, in order to ascend to the higher realms of existence.” (Berlin, October 13, 1904)

In the following lecture, he characterizes the masters in such a way that it can be understood how they, in particular, respect human freedom to the highest degree, so that no kind of dependency can arise. For example, no one can suffer harm from the rules in “How to Know Higher Worlds,” in contrast to much of what is touted in such fields today. But because so much is being advertised that is not only worthless but can also be harmful, “the Masters have given permission to publish such rules.” (Berlin, December 15, 1904).

Taking the various statements about the Masters, at first glance they seem to contradict each other. In particular, what was said in the lecture of October 13, 1904 seems to contradict what is to be read in letters to esoteric disciples: “I can and may only lead so far as the exalted Master, who guides me Himself, gives me the instruction” (Letter of August 11, 1904); or when it is said that the theosophical teachings go back to the Masters:

"We say rightly that Theosophy did not come into the world through this or that book, nor through this or that sum of dogmas. Theosophy comes from those exalted individuals whom we call the Masters of wisdom and of the harmony of intuitions, because they have opened the sources of spiritual life, which can henceforth flow into human beings.

“Spiritual life ultimately goes back to those sources that we seek in those individualities whom we call the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings. In them we find the impulses, if we seek them rightly, of how we are to work from epoch to epoch, from age to age.” (Berlin, December 26, 1909)

However, if we delve into these various statements, the apparent contradiction between them disappears. It becomes clear that Rudolf Steiner himself belongs to those initiates who receive the impulses of the masters with their free powers of thought and have to elaborate them for the progress of humanity. The world of the supersensible, and thus also of the masters, has its own language. It reveals itself in signs and symbols, the study and interpretation of which is only possible through special training. The way in which occult revelations are translated, interpreted and applied depends entirely on the depth of the person's ability to comprehend and on their sense of moral responsibility. Rudolf Steiner's achievement for cultural progress lies quite obviously in the fact that he was able to translate the sign language of the underlying creative-spiritual of all existence into the conceptual language of anthroposophy, which is in keeping with modern consciousness. He had to represent this personal deed in the world without having to invoke the authority of the masters. He was personally responsible for his teaching. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Steiner, especially in the years after the First World War, no longer spoke of the Masters in the intimate way of the earlier years, the stronger the scientific character of Anthroposophy was developed. ¹¹

The way of teaching in the Esoteric School

While Rudolf Steiner personally took responsibility for the way in which he publicly taught his supersensible knowledge in the sense described above, the same did not apply in the same way to the Esoteric School. He himself stated that the school was under the direct leadership of the masters and that it must therefore be a basic commitment of the school that everything that flows through it originates only from the Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings, while the basic obligation for the students would be to apply their entire reason to everything that was taught and to ask themselves whether it is reasonable to follow this path. (Esoteric Lesson Düsseldorf, April 19, 1909, p. 223).

Apparently not always, but in certain esoteric lessons or in certain moments of esoteric lessons, Rudolf Steiner spoke as the direct messenger of the masters. A participant in the Düsseldorf lesson of April 19, 1909 reports that this particular lesson began with the words: “My dear sisters and brothers! This esoteric lesson is one that is not subject to the responsibility of the one who speaks!” And this was said because in the following description of how Zarathustra was once initiated by the spirit of the sun, Rudolf Steiner was said to have been Zarathustra himself at that moment. It could have been perceived as a tremendous experience, how “our great teacher, who had shared with us the results of his research, now showed us himself how an ancient leader and teacher of humanity could reveal himself in an inspiring way,” how Rudolf Steiner was the first person in modern times to be trained, not as a medium, but as a fully conscious spiritual researcher, through his own strict schooling, to become a serving tool for spiritual beings."

Only a few have passed on something about this very special way in which Rudolf Steiner could be experienced as a messenger of the masters in the esoteric hours. One of them put his memory into the words:

Another reports the deep impression he received when he was able to attend an esoteric session for the first time, with the following words:

"Everyone was sitting in silence. When Rudolf Steiner entered, an unearthly light seemed to shine on his face, from the realm from which he came to us - it didn't just seem like it: it was there. He spoke as if he knew the great masters who guide our lives and aspirations from an immediate knowledge: Kuthumi, Morya, Jesus and Christian Rosenkreutz - the “Masters of Wisdom and Harmony of Feelings”.

Suffice to say that the consecration of this hour was indescribably beautiful. Here Rudolf Steiner appeared entirely as the messenger of a higher world. The impression is unforgettable.¹³

In his book of memoirs, “Transformations of Life” (Basel 1975), the well-known Russian poet Andrei Bely describes in the most detailed and linguistically subtle way how he experienced the task of training attention more for the how than the what in the “Class of Hearing”. For there was no external difference between the esoteric lectures and the other lectures, since everything had an esoteric tone, all the more delicate the more popularly Rudolf Steiner spoke. But what could have been experienced in a concentrated way in the esoteric lectures was precisely how the how became the what and radiated everything.

• 1. See “On the History and the Content of the Gnostic Section of the Esoteric School”, CW 265.
• 2. For the history of the E.S.T., see the preliminary remarks to the second part of this volume.
• 3. On October 23, 1902. Marie von Sivers had already become a member of the E.S.T.
• 4. "Esotericism” (3rd volume of Blavatsky's “Secret Doctrine”), published as posthumous writings by Annie Besant (1897)
• 5. See “Rules”, page 144
• 6. In “From the content of the esoteric lectures”, GA 266/1.
• 7. Preface to the first edition of the lectures “The Karmic Connections of the Anthroposophical Movement”, Dornach 1926, reprinted in “Contributions to the Rudolf Steiner Complete Works” No. 23 Christmas 1968.
• 8. For more on this, see the preliminary remarks to the second part.
• 9. See the Notes for Edouard Schur and letters to Marie Steiner-von Sivers, both in Briefwechsel und Dokumente... (Correspondence and Documents...), GA 262; also the autobiographical lecture Berlin, February 4, 1913 in Beiträge zur Rudolf Steiner Gesamtausgabe, Heft 83/84, 1984.
• 10. In a draft of the first circular letter to the German Theosophical lodges in the summer of 1902, before the official founding of the German section. In Briefwechsel und Dokumente... (Correspondence and Documents...), GA 262, note on page 17.
• 11. Elisabeth Vreede in a lecture given in Stuttgart on July 9, 1930. See Elisabeth Vreede/Thomas Meyer: Zur Bodhisattvafrage, Basel 1989.
• 12. Jenny Schirmer-Bey in “What is happening in the Anthroposophical Society. News for its members”, 1974, No. 35 dated September 1, 1974
• 13. Ludwig Kleeberg, “Wege und Worte”, Stuttgart 1961

I. Instruction Class, Berlin, April 15, 1908

Based on John, chapter 11.

Easter is not only celebrated at this time because it is the beginning of spring; it has a much deeper significance. In ancient times, the group ego, the tribal ego, lived in people. In the initiated (Moses, Hermes, Buddha, Krishna, Zarathustra), the consciousness of the entire tribe was reflected. When they were initiated, they were out of the physical body with their etheric body and saw the essence of the entire tribe. On their return, they then laid this down in the law that they gave to their people. As a result, they became responsible for the sins committed against this law and had to reincarnate among their people until the people's karma was paid off. This was the case for all initiates before Christ, who received the revelation from within in the initiation sleep. Solomon, who was of the Abel-Seth people, belonged to this type of initiate. With these ancient initiates, the group soul of the people united with their etheric body during the initiation. It also lived in them afterwards. Therefore, they all had to undergo many incarnations.

Those who were not initiates in ancient times and did not belong to a people who received the revelations through such initiates - who lived scattered, who had to gather knowledge even from the physical world, were the Cain sons. One such was Hiram Abiff, who had gathered knowledge through life in the physical body and elevated it to wisdom. He expressed his wisdom in the building of temples. It was not the God within who revealed the wisdom to him, as it did to the descendants of the Abel-Seth sons, but it was the knowledge gained in physical existence. The Abel-Seth initiates were under the influence of Jehovah. In the twilight of their consciousness they were given the higher knowledge under the influence of the moon deity (Yahweh).

At that time, Hiram Abiff reached the limit of initiation. But he was only initiated later. For this, the spiritual sun had to come down to earth. This descended into the physical plane in the Christ. Only He could initiate Hiram Abiff. The clear [spiritual] Sun had to shine upon him at the initiation. He was Lazarus, who after the resurrection was called John. He was initiated by the Christ Jesus. That which Hiram Abiff had acquired through his life in the physical had to remain. Not the life of the group, but each individual incarnation should now become important. Every single incarnation was to add a leaf to the Book of Life, a leaf whose content was taken over into the spiritual, something that remained, that could no longer pass away, but was to remain until all future times. This is what Hiram Abiff represents.

Emphasis is placed not on an inner experience, in which the tribal nature is manifested, but on the one incarnation that has significance for all of the future.

Before this initiation of Hiram Abiff by Christ Jesus could take place, the spiritual sun, the sun, had to appear in spring and the old principle had to recede. The sun had to shine first with its light on the full moon, only then could the day of resurrection take place. Christ brought the new principle in place of the old Jehovah principle, that is why the Pharisees hated him, the representatives of the old principle. And when they realized that He represented this new teaching and brought the new initiation, they sought to kill Him after the resurrection of Lazarus. (“This man performs many signs and wonders.”)

In Christ Jesus, the soul of all mankind united with the Jesus bodies. The Christ was only once incarnated in the flesh. He will come again, but no longer in the flesh, only when humanity will recognize him in his etheric body.¹

Note: The folk spirit that united with Moses at the initiation and then lived in him was Michael.

II. Instruction lesson Berlin, April 15, 1908 (notes from another hand)

1. The resurrection of Lazarus

2. Why did the Pharisees want to seize and kill Christ afterwards?

3. Why does Easter fall on the first Sunday after the moon has become full after the spring equinox, March 21?

The resurrection of Lazarus is a kind of climax of the Gospel of John. It is an initiation, the course of which is told here - but a very special, very unique initiation. The initiations that had been carried out in the depths of the mystery centers in the pre-Christian era were of a completely different nature. In these pre-Christian times there were great, high initiates and also lesser ones. The greatest initiates: Moses, Hermes, Zoroaster – also Buddha and Krishna, who were also the lawgivers of their people, had undergone their initiation in such a way that the etheric body was taken out of the physical body for a period of three and a half days, and during this time the person to be initiated experienced the spiritual worlds in his etheric body.

In the past, the common bond of love was based on shared blood: People who belonged to the same tribe loved each other. The I of the tribe went through many generations; the individual human being had no validity. Everyone looked up to the patriarch - the Jew, for example, to his patriarch Abraham. One felt that one belonged to him as a Jew, one said: I am nothing - I and Father Abraham are one. This sense of belonging went from the individual member of the tribe to the patriarch like a ray of light. The initiate saw this ray of light, he saw the whole nation as embedded in its spiritual essence, which was expressed in the peculiarities of the nation and emanated from the patriarch. He saw all this clearly before him as he lay in the sleep of death. Yes, even more: the group soul of his people entered into him. He was now the group soul of the people. Thus, during his initiation, Moses was united with Michael. The laws that such an initiate then gave to his people were born out of the soul of the people themselves. And in formulating them, in setting them forth, the initiate became responsible for them. He had to incarnate again and again within his people. And the sins of his people against the law were his sins. He was karmically linked to them. The sins of the people lay on his karma. These great initiates who took this on were fully aware of this.

All these ancient initiates belonged to the Abel-Seth line. That is to say, they received enlightenment from above. The enlightenment came to them from the lunar forces. It was the forces of Yahweh that they received. And they received them not in the bright light of the sun, but in the darkness. Their etheric body received these Yahweh forces from the spiritual world, while the physical body lay as if in a sleep of death.

This was now to change. The people of the Cain current, those who had worked their way up from below through the work of their hands, had come so far that they could elevate the science they had gained for themselves to wisdom, that is, they could be initiated. The physical body had imprinted its impressions on their etheric bodies. Through their own labor they had purified, ennobled, spiritualized their physical bodies and their souls. These children of Cain were scattered throughout the world, and Hiram Abiff is named as the first of these scattered children of Cain in the world who had worked his way up so far. Hiram Abiff, the lonely hermit, stood before initiation. In his next incarnation he received it. Then he was called “Lazarus” - for in his previous incarnation, Lazarus was Hiram Abiff.

And this initiation of Lazarus was different from all previous ones. Until then, the initiates had received the lunar-Yahweh forces, that is, the forces concerning the mystery of birth and procreation, and each had received the forces of the people to which he belonged. But now the lunar force was no longer to be effective. Now the time had come when the all-embracing power of the sun, the Christ power, which is the power of all humanity, was to be bestowed upon humanity. This power of all humanity was to initiate Lazarus. The lunar forces were to be defeated by the more comprehensive solar power, which shines for all people. No longer should only blood count, flowing through the tribe, the people. From now on, only that which each individual human being works for in his soul should count. Every single human being within his incarnation should from now on have value, the individual incarnation should be consecrated to the striving for sanctification, spiritualization, no matter what name a person is called. This is the deepest idea of Christianity.

From now on, each incarnation should be like a leaf on which the eternal values of the struggling, striving human soul can be recorded. And at the end of such an incarnation, such a leaf should be placed in the Book of Eternity, which should contain ever greater values, ever deeper meanings, ever greater enrichments for each individual human being. These are the fruits of life that each individual human being should work for in his or her individuality, alone in constant striving. And then he should deposit these fruits of life in the bosom of all humanity, so that they can be integrated into the progress of all humanity.

The Christ is the great divine individuality who once appeared on earth in the flesh of Jesus of Nazareth, and once lived an incarnation that all striving, seeking human souls can look to as the great model and ideal for their individual striving. The Christ appeared in the flesh only once! But he will appear on earth again! He will reappear in a spiritual body, and those people who, through the striving of their souls, have spiritualized themselves to such an extent, will recognize him in his spiritual body and will be able to live with him.

This Christ, the high sun spirit, initiated Lazarus, the reincarnated Hiram-Abiff.

This meant, however, a radical break with the previous initiation principle. This was fully recognized by the Pharisees, who were also initiates, and this filled them with fear and terror. They recognized what was going on, but they also saw that from now on, if this new principle were to prevail, their own power would be over. From that time forth, they sought to destroy the bearer of the new principle of initiation, and it is they who finally made it possible for the Christ to be led to his death.

It is said of Lazarus that he was the disciple whom the Lord loved. And later it is said that John was the one who rested on the Lord's breast. There is a profound secret of soul development hidden behind these two statements, which we find in the Gospel of John.

Now we also understand why Easter falls at the time of each year when the young spring sun looks the moon full at the spring equinox in the face. She is said to be victorious over the lunar forces. Christ, the Sun-God, conquers the Moon-God! Therefore, in spring, when the sun has regained its full strength, the moon must look the sun full in the face before it is conquered by it. Thus Easter is a festival that reminds us that the human soul rises from the sleep of death within matter, looking up to the Christ-Sun, living in its light, striving in its love, can receive the new life, the resurrection life.

III. Instruction lesson without place or date given with the heading “The mission of man on earth”

When a person begins to ask himself who he actually is, how he can feel this way inside, it must gradually become clear to him that he feels like an ego-entity, and that everything he experiences in terms of joys and pains, everything that drives him to act, is grouped around this center and receives its true impulse from there. Separated from other beings, different from them, is the human being in his sense of self; and yet it is only through this sense of self that it is possible for him to consciously connect with his environment. With regard to the physical body, which visibly, perceptibly represents to the outside world what the human being feels inside as being on one's own, as if he were a being separated from the environment, it becomes clear to him that the heart is the actual center. The heart animates the other organs, in that the invigorating blood is sent from there to the smallest parts of the physical body.

Just as the I is the inner center from which all impulses for the revelation of the human being flow out into the environment, and to which all sensations from the outside world return, being absorbed and processed there, so the invigorating blood flows from the heart through the whole body and then returns to this center. The heart represents an expression of the I-effectiveness in the physical body.

There are two kinds of activity in both the human ego and the physical heart: outward sending and inward receiving and reworking. Just as the returning blue blood is transformed back into red living blood with the help of the breathing process through the lungs, so the experiences that the human ego absorbs from the environment must pass through the feelings and sensations of the astral body and thereby become stimuli for new activity. The human heart accomplishes its effect according to a certain tempo; a short while, a period of time, passes between the successive heartbeats. Thus, the human ego also needs a certain period of time between the arising of the impulse to act and the processing of the sensations, which thereby react from the outside world onto the ego. This tempo will be different for each person, depending on their individual disposition and level of development.

But if a person wants to gradually penetrate to the knowledge of their own being, they must try to understand their own appropriate tempo, listen to their own heartbeat and get to know the inner life of their being. He must be able to see his own being as if it did not belong to him. He must learn to observe it as something external to him, and only then can he gradually descend into it. Just as he previously sent his impulses out into the world around him, he will then transform his powers and turn them inwards instead of outwards. In this way, the inner world becomes the outer world for him.

What man finds when descending into his own interior, first into his three bodily sheaths, is beautifully described in the legend of the temple handed down to mankind from ancient times, in which is symbolically laid the whole course of the evolution of the earth in relation to the building of the temple of the human body - and the evolution of the human ego.

It is told how the great master builder Hiram Abiff wanted to enter the temple once more to see his work. When he wanted to leave the temple again, the first of the three treacherous journeymen met him at the first gate and struck him on the left temple so that the blood flowed down onto his shoulder. Then the Master turned to the other gate, where the second of the treacherous companions struck him and gave him a blow to the right temple, so that the blood flowed down. Then the Master turned to the last of the gates, where the third of the treacherous companions struck him with a blow to the forehead, so that the Master fell dead to the ground.

When the human ego descends into its three sheaths, it first encounters the astral body. It senses this astral body as it truly is. As if by a blow, the ego becomes aware and recognizes itself in this astral sheath. It encounters doubt in everything and in itself. Through this, it is attacked. This is the first of the treacherous companions.

Next, the person then encounters his etheric body, into which he descends. And again he comes to know himself as he is in this body, as if it is suddenly brought to his attention. Then superstition confronts him: all beliefs, all opinions that have been acquired through education. This is the second of the treacherous companions.

Then the person descends into his physical body and gets to know the illusion of the personal self. This is the third of the treacherous companions. When he encounters this, the possibility of feeling himself in his own self as separate from the outside world or his environment is taken away from him in one fell swoop. He learns to recognize appearance and truth, and he steps out of his narrow limitation. No longer enclosed by the three sheaths, the human being steps freely out of himself into the environment and recognizes himself as a microcosm in the macrocosm.

When man is symbolically represented as the pentagram, he must be regarded as encompassing the three lower kingdoms on earth. The mineral kingdom has only the physical body on earth, and can be indicated symbolically by a single line. The plant kingdom has in addition a second principle, the etheric body, and this must therefore be indicated by two lines touching one another. The animal kingdom has a third principle, the astral body. This can be indicated by three lines: (X with line connecting the upper edges) p 414

The etheric body contains the principle of growth. In the plant form, leaf would always appear after leaf if it were not for the astral body coming from above, which causes the flower to emerge. The etheric principle, which in plants would cause continuous growth, is partially transformed in animals, so that it exercises its powers more internally as a receiver of the astral body. The straight line of the etheric is closed and bent by a new line, which symbolically represents the astral principle, and this new line then bends the physical principle again on the other side. Hence the physical form, which in plants represents a vertical line, is bent and has become horizontal in animals. The animal can therefore be symbolically indicated with the three lines; in man, the I is added to the three principles. This I can be symbolically represented as a point above the three lines X, which pours its power into the etheric body and the physical body through two lines that pass through the astral, acting on the one hand through light and on the other through warmth. Through this influence of the I, the human form is raised to an upright line again, and so the symbol of the pentagram arises.

If man is the pentagram himself and lives entirely within it, he will not be able to see himself as such. He will only be able to consciously survey that part of his being that is below his ego, that which he has outgrown. These are the three lines that represent the symbol for the animal. That is why man only sees that part of his physical body that is below the shoulders from the front.

But if he really wants to know himself as an ego, then he must step out of himself, so that he also gets to know the upper part of the pentagram. He must create for himself a new center of perception, which lies outside the pentagram; he must be able to take a superhuman standpoint, which lies outside the ego and yet is a center of consciousness.

The Temple Legend tells how the Master received the first blow on the left temple, the second blow on the right temple, so that the blood ran down upon the shoulder, and the third blow on the forehead. Then physical death sets in. This indicates the upper part of the pentagram. With physical death, the human being steps out of his personal self and experiences himself in the macrocosm. The Temple Legend tells us how the Master's body was buried by the three companions, how the Master himself, reborn in the cosmos, experienced the developmental states of the earth as the old moon, as the sun with the seven planets and as Saturn with the twelve signs of the zodiac. When man has emerged from his three shells and experiences himself in the cosmos, as if newly born, the first thing he feels is the essence of the great mother, the earth mother, from whom he has grown out. He experiences earlier developmental states in which he was more dependent and intimately connected to the earth. He experiences this as the moon state, sun state and Saturn state.

What the great master builder Hiram Abiff could not experience at that time, because – as the temple legend says – he lived before the Christ event on earth, was the light and warmth of the Christ-being in the earth aura. For this being had not yet connected with the earth at that time. It could be seen in the sun, as Zarathustra had once seen it as Ahura Mazdao, the great aura, as the cosmic heart, when it was revealed to him that this sun being would one day live on earth in a human body. His great mission became clear to him, to work through many incarnations and in various ways to prepare such a human body that was capable of carrying the spirit of the sun within itself. He should tune his own individual pace of his ego so that it was in harmony with this higher ego of humanity. The sound and rhythm of his heartbeat should coincide with the sound and rhythm of the great cosmic heart, only then could the sublime sun being live in a human body.

When the great Master Builder, Hiram Abiff, lived on earth, this mighty fact had not yet been accomplished. But the individuality of Hiram Abiff lived on and was reborn on earth at the time when the Christ-being, the great Sun Spirit, lived in Jesus of Nazareth. Once the great master builder, Hiram Abiff, was led to his ancestor in order to receive the new hammer with which he was to continue his work. He was led to him through the fire. At that time, the human ego had to rise through the blood of the generations to the ancestors in order to attain higher wisdom. But now that the great spirit of the Sun had descended to Earth and lived in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ Jesus Himself placed the seed of the new life in the heart of the reborn Hiram Abiff. Through Him, he was raised to spiritual life; he was born again in the disciple whom the Lord loved. The human ego was quickened by the divine ego and raised to a higher existence. Thereafter this disciple could become the writer of the Gospel which has as its starting point the human and the divine ego. And it was revealed to him how the development of this human ego through the post-Atlantean cultural periods extended into the future, until the end of the days on earth, as he portrayed it in the Apocalypse. And in his Gospel it is said how Christ Jesus, with his last words from the cross, handed this disciple over to his mother, who was not his natural mother. As a son he gives the human ego to the Earth Mother, after he has quickened it with his powers, so that she may guard and care for it. As mother, He gives the Earth to this I, so that the son may give his powers to the mother. The human I shall redeem the Earth, uplift it with its powers into spiritual regions, with the full consciousness that without this Earth it could not develop into what it is and is to become.

With the event at Golgotha, when the blood flowed from the wounds of the great redeemer, when the cosmic heart's blood permeated the earth and its powers poured into the center, the earth became radiant, radiating light out into its surroundings from within. Then the possibility was also given for every human individuality to experience this light within itself. When the Earth became the body of the great Sun Spirit by permeating it with his spiritual powers, all beings on Earth were also endowed with these powers. The seed for the reunification of the Sun and the Earth had been sown. The physical body of Jesus of Nazareth was the mediator through which the cosmic powers united with the Earth aura. And when the blood flowed from this body on Golgotha, the Earth was again absorbed into the power of the Sun. Since then, this Christ power radiates from its center into the surrounding area, and from the Sun the Christ power radiates into the Earth. Man can experience this power and this light in himself as an earthly human being when he recognizes himself as a part of the earth, which, as the physical body of Christ, is permeated by His Being. Then the white light shines from within him, as it radiates from the center of the earth.

A person can also experience the power and light of Christ as it radiates from the outside and permeates him with higher life. Then it surrounds and permeates him, just as it passes through the earth, radiating from the sun. Then the human being feels united in spirit with this solar power; he feels himself growing together with the great cosmic heart from the depth of his heart. As a higher being, living in this spiritual sun, he recognizes his true self, as connected to it as he, as an earthly human being, is connected to the earth itself. And just as the sun's forces permeate and give life to the earth, so this higher being permeates and lives through the earthly human being with his powers.

In the temple of the human body there is a holiest of the holy. Many people live in the temple without knowing it. But those who have an inkling of it receive the strength to purify themselves to such an extent that they may enter this Holy of Holies. There is the sacred vessel, which has been prepared throughout the ages so that when the time came, it could be capable of containing the blood of Christ, the Christ-life. When man has entered, he has also found the way to the Holy of Holies in the great temple of the earth. There are many on earth who live without knowing it, but when man has found himself in his innermost sanctuary, he will also be allowed to enter there and find the Holy Grail. The vessel will at first appear to him as if it were cut out of wonderfully sparkling crystals, forming symbols and letters, until he gradually senses the sacred contents, so that it shines for him in a golden splendor. A human being enters the sanctuary of his own heart, then a divine being emerges from this sanctuary and unites with the God outside, with the Christ-being. He lives in the spiritual light that radiates into the vessel and thereby sanctifies it.

Because man lives as a twofold being, he can pour the spiritual power of the sun into the earth and be a connecting link between the sun and the earth. Just as from the center of life, the heart, the invigorating blood flows and pours through the entire physical organism into the bone system, which - as an external solidification and congealing in the organism - can be seen as the opposite of the living, ever active heart, so each human individuality must become a channel for the blood flowing from the cosmic center of life, permeating the solidified earth with life. The earth can be thought of as a cosmic skeletal system. It would be completely ossified and dried up if the cosmic heart had not poured out its life blood through a human body, thereby reviving it anew.

Once upon a time, the great spirit of the sun lived in a human body as an example for humanity, and every human being is meant to follow suit. Through Him the possibility for this has been given. To be imbued with the Christ-spirit, to know oneself as a center, to live in this spirit, through which spiritual light, spiritual power and spiritual warmth can stream into the earth, that is the mission of the individual human being and of all humanity, for in this way will they be able to redeem the earth and uplift it to spiritual regions.

IV Authentic information handed down.

Lazarus, the favorite disciple of Jesus Christ, who later became the author of the Gospel of John, is the re-embodied Hiram Abiff.

Adam-Eva -> Cain

Abel Seth -> Lamech, Hiram Abiff

Solomon -> Lazarus-John.¹

The individuality, which had been re-embodied as Hiram Abiff and Lazarus-Johannes, was initiated anew in its embodiments in the 13th and 14th centuries and has since borne the name Christian Rosenkreutz. ²

From the instruction session in Berlin, February 10, 1913 for the 3rd

The legend, the seven-step ladder ² And each of us should keep these things in mind during the day. Then, as a consequence, if the things we do here are done right, we will feel that the right forces are flowing in.

During the night, the human being can then come close to Hiram Abiff or Adoniram, Lazarus, who was initiated by the Lord Himself. Meditation is given for this purpose: “I am not only in the world for myself, but to become similar to my archetype.

This striving is a duty, not selfishness. These things are given in the first scenes of “Examination of the Soul” and “The Guardian of the Threshold”, as in the three dramas in general, much, much meditation material is given.

You should not forget that the spiritual powers are counting on you in the leadership of mankind.

Every person is a citizen of the spiritual world, but you should be aware of it! At night, you are always in a spiritual world, interacting with beings and judging. This can suddenly come to a person's awareness when waking up or at other times during the day: “I have to educate myself to become a revealer of the divine archetype within me.”

Meditate on death; this is a very important matter.

• 1. See the detailed descriptions in the volume 'The Event of the Appearance of the Christ in the Ethereal World', CW 118.
• 1. Record by Rudolf Steiner for Helene Röchling as a supplement to the temple legend.
• 2. Rudolf Steiner's message conveyed by Marie Steiner in the context of the Knowledge Cult; see the appendix to this section on page 423ff.
• 2. The so-called Jacob's ladder. Schauberg (“Comparative Handbook of the Symbolism of Freemasonry...”) II. Band S. 402f.): “The Persian symbol of the entrance of the soul of the deceased into heaven through the seven planetary spheres is said to have been a staircase or ladder leading to seven different doors. (...) According to Origen, the Egyptians used a similar symbol to represent the descent of heavenly souls in the Milky Way through the seven planetary spheres, namely a ladder that reached from heaven to earth and was divided into seven steps, each with a gate. (...) The ladder that Jacob saw in the famous dream and that also reached from earth to heaven was probably this Egyptian ladder that led the souls of men from heaven to earth and from there back to heaven again, which thus had not just three steps, as is generally the case. 2

Today I should like to look back, drawing together and amplifying what has been said here in the past. In this way I want to lay a foundation for: carrying certain essential themes to a conclusion in the present lectures.

In spiritual-scientific inquiries we encounter besides the two forms of consciousness known to everybody—dreaming and ordinary day-time life from waking to sleeping—a third form, best described perhaps as “higher perceptive consciousness”. Dream-consciousness we reckon in ordinary life as merely a sort of interruption of ordinary consciousness, but that is because we recall only a small part of our dreams. We are really dreaming all the time from falling asleep to waking, and what we commonly describe as the content of our dream-consciousness is merely such fragments of dreaming experience as we are able to remember when we are awake. From the standpoint of Spiritual Science, therefore we must say: We know three stages or kinds of consciousness; that of dreams, that of waking life, and the consciousness in which the spiritual world is open to higher perception.

You will have no difficulty in recognising that each type of consciousness has a certain quality in common with the one next above it in rank. For instance, dream-consciousness gives us pictures—we know that our dream-experiences are pictures. When you recall them you are unable to fit then into the sequence of Cause and Effect in daily life. To try to do that would mean confusing dream life and day-life, and you would become visionaries. Dream-experiences consist of pictures in contrast to realities, by which we mean the events experienced in waking life.

If we now compare our ordinary waking-experiences with those of the higher perceptive consciousness, we find an exactly similar relationship. Here, compared with what is experienced by this higher consciousness as spiritual, super-sensible reality, the experiences of the day-time from waking to falling asleep, are pictures. Therefore, to the degree in which the awakened, higher perceptive consciousness is experienced, it is possible to say (this must be done with prudence): “I experience in this consciousness a genuine reality, compared with which ordinary so-called reality is only a set of pictures”.

Put in this abstract way, the statement has little value. Of course, many people are quite content with these abstract phrases, believing that thereby the riddles of the world can be solved. This is not so. Such a statement has value only when it is applied directly to the actual practice of life. Hence it has to be made relevant to certain definite realms of experience.

There is a realm to which I have already drawn attention from time to time, one which we needs must contemplate if we would make progress in Spiritual Science. It lies nearest to us, yet it is often quite beyond our ken—the realm of man himself. The common opinion is that though we are ignorant of the super-sensible man, we do know the physical man, but this is true only up to a certain point. Anatomy and physiology, as usually understood, are woven out of countless illusions. To-day let us start, if only apparently, from the outer form of man as a physical being and proceed on the lines of the threefold division of his organism to which I have often referred.

If he is viewed in relation to the super-sensible world, and thus as a picture—not as the reality which ordinary anatomy and physiology take him to be—he falls into three markedly different divisions, even as regards his outer physical form: the man of head, chiefly concentrated there; the breast-man; and the man of the extremities or limbs. It must be understood however, that this third man does not consist only of arms and legs, but that these limbs have terminations within the body, as contrasted with the outside, and that all these together make up the whole third man. These three divisions must be kept in mind.

Without sinning against the reality of the super-sensible world, we cannot actually speak of three “men”: for, as regards the super-sensible being of man, a fundamental distinction exists between these three parts. The different forces, or streams of force, which went to build into the structure of these different bodily parts, come from widely different sources. If the human form is examined with super-sensible faculties, the structure of the head is seen to be derived from forces operative before birth or conception. One must go back to the spiritual world, not to the stream of physical heredity. In the formation of the head one can trace—admittedly in its finer details—a share of what belongs, in the spiritual world, to the forces of the human soul before it unites itself with the physical stream of heredity through birth or conception. The chief shore in the formation of the head, belongs not so much to the outer configuration of what a man lived through in his previous earth-life, but to his behaviour, the character of his actions, and to some extent his feelings. When super-sensible perception has so far advanced as to awaken a sense for this kind of form, it is possible to see, through the formation of the head, into what we call the preceding incarnation. Here we touch an extremely significant mystery of human development. More than is usually supposed by initiates of a lower grade, the form of the head is linked with a man's karma—with his karma as it comes over from the previous into the present incarnation.

Leaving aside the breast-man, let us focus our attention on the limb-man (or “man-of-extremities”), with the inner terminations I have mentioned. Here we find by no means so decided, so individual a form as in the head. Each person has his own individual form of head, pointing back to an earlier earth-life. The limb-system, with which the sex- organisation is essentially connected, points forward to future earth-lives. Everything there is still undifferentiated and what corresponds in the soul to this organisation points forward towards lives still to come.

To consider the breast man attentively is specially important. This part of his organism is the combined work of the forces which play their part in man's spiritual life before conception and after death between death and the next birth. What has been the soul's environment between the last death and this conception or birth, acts together with what will surround it between the next death and birth, (or conception). The two interweave. This interweaving of the two sets of forces works itself out in man's breast-organisation, and is principally noticeable in its most conspicuous activity, the process of breathing. Out-breathing gives a picture—here again we must use this word—of what took place in the soul between the last death and this birth; while in-breathing gives a picture of what will operate in and around the soul between death and the next conception or birth.

Here is a concrete fact. The procedure of ordinary anatomy and physiology is to put things down in a row:—head, breast, limbs, and in the same way a collection of nerves and blood vessels. Supersensible perception discriminates between them, realising the essential differences of these members of the human form. Ordinary anatomy and physiology see merely the immediate realities. Spiritual Science sees in the shape of the head a picture of the deeds and feelings of the last incarnation: in the out-breathing, with its distinct individual form in each person (differing in each one according to the particular formation of his head) a picture of the forces surrounding the soul between the last death and rebirth; in the in-breathing, the forces to be met with by the soul between the present death and the next birth. The life of the limbs presents a picture of the next earth-life. Thus the vast panorama of super-sensible life which lies open to spiritual consciousness is interwoven with pictures, even as daytime-life is in dreams. But these pictures represent the reality of our daily life. We arrive at the conclusion that each successive world of phenomena, viewed from the point of view of spiritual consciousness, presents the next to us in pictures. Our prosaic reality is a picture of super-sensible reality, and in dreams we have in picture-form the ordinary realities grasped in everyday life.

Spiritual consciousness is needed to make all this clear, simply because the contemplation of the outer form alone is not sufficient for the purpose. Suppose there were a person possessing a low degree of clairvoyance, of the kind in which there is more “sensing” than full perception—that might lead him, through the head, breast and limbs, to a dim idea of what has just been said, and this would not be at all difficult even to a quite low grade of clairvoyance. But there would be no certainty about it. Conviction of its accuracy could hardly be possible without the searching proof acquired through clairvoyance endowed with the states of consciousness connected with those three members of the human organism. For the head not only shows by its outer form that it points back to a former life; it is clearly marked out by its own soul-qualities, as well as by its inner construction, from the other parts of nan's being. Ordinary consciousness is blind to this fact. For either it dreams, or is occupied with daily realities and fails to notice something which “underlies”, so to speak, the activity of the head. By this I mean the following.—We go through our daily experiences in waking consciousness, we fill our minds, through the medium of the head, with outer perceptions, with the pictures brought to us by the senses, and the mental conceptions we form about the sense-pictures. For the ordinary consciousness, all this is so vivid, so intensely real, that a subtle undercurrent of finer consciousness, a low-toned background as it were, is overlooked.

The truth is that the head is dreaming all the time we are awake. This is the remarkable fact, that behind our waking: consciousness the head has a continual flow of dreams. This we can easily discover for ourselves; no very extensive training is needed, only an endeavour to attain the stage in which consciousness is “empty”—awake, but devoid of perceptions, even of thoughts. In ordinary life we are in some way or other busy with the world of outer perceptions, with memories of them, or with thoughts arising from them. Oftener than we think we are given up to a pure waking consciousness, unknowingly. It is dim. When we endeavour to attain to the soul-state which can be described as “nothing but waking”—outer perceptions, memories, and thoughts all banished, so that we are trying solely to be awake—perceptions will at once arise which are not to be clothed in ordinary ideas. They have, as they emerge, something of the nature of dim feeling—picture-like, yet lacking; the substantial character of pictures. One frequently meets people who are familiar with this state. They speak of it, perhaps, as a state of soul in which they perceive something that defies description; they perceive it, but it is not like a perception of the outer world. It is not unusual to find people speaking in this way, and there are many more than we suppose who, if we get, to know them well, will tell us about such things.

The source of these perceptions is the weaving of the “underlying” consciousness which I have mentioned, and this is itself a kind of dream. But what is the dream about? It is actually about the former incarnation, the last earth-life. The interpretation is the difficulty. Latent in the consciousness of the head lies this dream of a former life on earth. In this subjective fashion it is possible to arrive at such a dream, although it may be hard to interpret. We shall return to this question.

Hence you will see that what I have described as the human head is, in terms of soul-life, somewhat complex, inasmuch as two forms of consciousness belong to it, closely interwoven: the ordinary waking day-consciousness and the underlying dream-consciousness, which is a kind of reflection of the former incarnation. Another interesting characteristic of the life of soul concerns the other pole in man, the man of limbs, or extremities. This limb-man, too, is extremely complicated psychically—that is, in terms of the corresponding part of the soul. I have often pointed out that we are “asleep” as regards this limb-man, although “awake” as regards the head; and our will really acts as though asleep. All that we are able to bring into clear consciousness is what the will accomplishes. Nobody carrying out the idea, “I move my hand”, perceives how all the bodily apparatus comes into it. This goes on as unconsciously as do the bodily processes during sleep. Sleep continually pervades the daytime consciousness of this man of limbs, inasmuch as the will of man is sunk in sleep.

The curious thing is that this “third man” wakes in a sense at night, when, during sleep, man is outside the physical and etheric bodies, and neither consciousness nor self-consciousness function, or only very dimly. Man at his present stage cannot penetrate behind the scenes with his ordinary consciousness, because this sleep-dimness prevents him from following up the activity of the limb-man in the night, when self-consciousness is detached from the physical body. This activity is also a sort of dream. The limb-man actually “dreams” in the night. So, as the head dreams by day, below the clear day-consciousness, so the limb-man dreams in the night, below the dim sleep-consciousness—parallel with it. What does he dream? He dreams of the next earth-incarnation. In truth, we not only bear the past and future in our outer physical form, but we have within us, as soul-life, in the form of usually unrecognised dreams, an ever-present, underlying consciousness of our past and future earth-lives.

Then, as to the breast-man. Although the processes of out-breathing and in-breathing are not followed with any , distinctness by the ordinary consciousness, our organic functions are closely bound to them. In the East, the processes of out-breathing and in-breathing are so attentively followed as to be lifted into consciousness. This procedure is no longer suitable for us; we must attain spiritual consciousness in a different way. The Eastern seeker tries to dim or suppress the head-consciousness, and to stimulate, to clarify the breast-consciousness. He really tries to perform the breathing processes so as to arouse a distinctive type of breath-consciousness. Tracing the inhaled air, as it pervades his organism, and the exhaled air as it leaves the body, and streams out, he raises to consciousness what would otherwise remain unconscious. In this way he attains to a state in which he has a distinct consciousness of the reality pictured in the breathing-process—that is, of the life in the spiritual world between death and birth. This clear knowledge, of which the West has no conception at all, still Persists in the East to a much greater extent than is supposed, and is one reason why understanding between East and West is so difficult. In the East it is no theory that a life of spirit and soul lies before birth and after death, but as clear a certainty as that the road extends before and behind a traveler on the physical plane. Just as it is an obvious fact that the road in front and the road behind possess such and such features, so, for the Oriental, what lies before birth or conception and after death is not a theory, not a result of forming ideas about it; but something perceptible to him through the breathing process raised to consciousness. This breast-part of man never ceases dreaming. It does not entirely wake with our waking, or sleep with our sleeping; but there is a difference between these two states. The breast-man's dream-consciousness by day is dimmer than in the sleeping-state, when it is rather clearer; the difference is not so very great, but there is a slight variation.

This all shows us that we have not only a threefold man in our outer form, but complicated states of consciousness within us. They compose our soul-life, as they interweave and reflect each other. Through the waking-day consciousness of the head, what we know as the life of perception and thought is made possible; through the unbroken dream-consciousness of the breast-man, what we call the life of feeling; and through the limb-man's consciousness—asleep by day, but awake at night—what we call our will.

One thing more. When we consider merely the outer aspect of man, we have to do with more than a visible physical organism, for we bear a fine etheric, super-sensible organism in us—to which in the later issues of the magazine “Das Reich”, I have applied, to avoid misunderstanding, the term “body of formative forces”. It is less differentiated, compared with the physical organism; approaching nearer to a unity: only crude observation will ascribe unity to man's outer form. Man's proper unity lies in his etheric body, which can be divided into parts like the physical body, but not into limbs side by side. The parts of the etheric body call rather for the approach that we have used in speaking of states of consciousness. The etheric body also is in a constantly varying state of consciousness—a different state between waking and falling asleep from that which prevails between falling asleep and waking. Here again, with this super-sensible body, we carry something very significant in ourselves. Some theosophical theorists may think they have accomplished something important in dividing man's being into physical body, etheric body, astral body, etc., but they delude themselves. That is reducing it to a kind of system, and systematising is never any good.

The only way to gain insight is to examine what is happening in the etheric body. If anyone merely says, “We have an etheric body,” that is no more than a phrase, calling up a picture of the thinnest kind of mist, and to take this for the real thing is self-deception. The point is that in the etheric body we have something very real and substantial, though it is not perceptible in ordinary life. Living and weaving in the etheric body, ceaselessly from waking to falling asleep, is the karma of earlier earth-lives. In truth, the etheric body weaves in our subconscious, and through its weaving brings to view our karma from previous incarnations. The clairvoyant knows something of karma because he can make use of his etheric body as he does at other tires of his physical body. Anyone who has learnt to do this cannot help seeing that karma is a reality. The etheric body as concrete reality means this—from waking to falling asleep, it has the vision of karma from earlier earth-lives, and during sleep, of karma in the making. I am again describing it from a clairvoyant's point of view.

The dreams of the breast-man accordingly, are not only about experiences between the last death and birth; we look also at what the past has laid upon our shoulders as karma—at what is spread out below our normal consciousness by the functioning of the lower body, and viewed by the etheric body, although by a spiritual eye, as the karma of the past. Neither do we perceive through the consciousness of our extremities, as we breathe in, only what is bound up with the incarnation to come; for the etheric body becomes the eye of the spirit, giving us, in a fashion unknown to ordinary life, a vision of karma in the making. It is not easy for present-day man to bring the training of his soul to such a point, although it is necessary for everybody to envisage truly all that I have described. (There are certain difficulties, discussed in the book “Knowledge of Higher Worlds and its Attainment.”) It was far easier in bygone ages. Even in historical times life has undergone more changes than we think, and one momentous point in human history (described in “Occult Science” and other writings of mine) is the transition from the third to the fourth post-Atlantean epoch of civilisation, the inception of the Graeco-Latin age. It was at this point that it became so intensely difficult for civilised humanity to penetrate into the worlds I have just described. Before this, it had been comparatively easy, and Orientals still retain something of this facility. The Western man doss not possess it; therefore he cannot do the same exercises, but must resort to those described in “Knowledge of Higher Worlds.” The period which began about 700 to 600 B.C. marks a deeper descent of man into the physical world. Another period will dawn, approximately at the beginning of the third millennium after the Mystery of Golgotha, and preparation must be made for it. Something indefinable will arise in every soul—inexplicable save through occult science. It is not merely a subjective ideal or tendency which Spiritual Science has to prepare and establish in readiness for the next millennium; it answers to a need in mankind's development. The middle of the third millennium will be a critical moment in the development of civilisation, for then a point will be reached when human nature will have progressed so far that it will be thrown back into decay unless it has acquired the vision of repeated earth-lives and karma, lost since the seventh or eighth century before Christ. In earlier times, human nature had a healthy power of response; knowledge came naturally to it. In future it will become diseased unless it takes this teaching into itself. We understand our age only if we keep in mind that it lies between two poles. One pole lies far back, beyond the seventh or eighth century before the Mystery of Golgotha. Those were the times when knowledge of the soul's super-sensible experience was given by human nature itself. The other pole will be in the third millennium, when (as described in “Knowledge of Higher Worlds”) man must acquire super-sensible knowledge in spiritual ways, so that health, and not sickness, may stream into the body. Our age can be understood in both its inner and its outer aspects only if we keep this in mind. Naturally the change will be slow and gradual. But anyone who does not want to dream through the most important things of our age in a dull, sleepy way, but wishes to live in conscious wakefulness—it behooves him to mark what is seeking entry into human life. It will not enter completely until the middle of the third millennium; but little by little it will make its presence felt, and humanity must now consciously be alive to and prepare for its inevitable advent. Learn to study life, and even outer phenomena—especially those of human life—will yield a superficial perception of this truth. With a brain of the coarse development normal for most people to-day, it is certainly not easy to acquire what has to be taken intelligently into the mind, as Spiritual Science depicts it. But I would like to add this: it is tragic to see what unknown powers (I shall speak of them in the next lecture) are trying to make of mankind. At the present day there are certain sick natures—that is why I use the word ‘tragic’—which are abnormal for their time; yet they receive intimations of much that men will encounter normally in the future. I have often mentioned a very well-known contemporary whose life ran its course in alternating health and sickness: Otto Weininger, who wrote the remarkable book, “Sex and Character”. Weininger was altogether an extraordinary man. Picture someone who in his very early twenties presented the first chapter of his book as a University thesis—this book which has roused as much enthusiasm in some quarters as fury in others—both ill-founded. But something else might well have been noted. For he came to live more and more into the problems raised in his book. He travelled in Italy, jotted down his experiences, seeing very different things from other travellers in that country. I find much that is remarkable in Weiniger's Italian diary. As you know, I describe much that can be described only in Imaginations: concerning the Atlantean and Lemurian periods, and the appearance of things in times which to-day can no longer be followed with ordinary consciousness or by historical research. Certain concepts and ideas are necessary in order to present such descriptions to human consciousness. When I read Weininger's notes, something in then strikes me as a fine, artistic caricature of the truth. His life is certainly remarkable. He was only 23 when a thought struck him which puzzled him terribly: that he would have to commit suicide lest he should kill somebody else; he thought that a murderer, a criminal, was latent in his soul—a symptom easily to be explained by occultism. Equally mingled in his life were greatness, punctiliousness and affectation. He left his parents' house, took a room in Beethoven's house in Vienna, stayed there one night—and in the morning shot himself.

The characteristic of this soul was that its union with the body was never quite complete. For external psychology, Weininger was merely a case of hysteria; but for anyone who appreciates the facts it was obvious that an irregular union between his spiritual -psychic and his physical-bodily principles must have existed. With normal present-day people, the former principles leave the latter at the moment of falling asleep, rejoining it on awaking; but with Weininger it was different. I could show you passages from which it is evident that at times his spiritual-psychic part was just a little outside his physical-bodily part and then suddenly dived down into it: as this occurred, a thought flashed through him, which he wrote down often in quite a dry fashion: but of course in diving down he acted imaginatively—and very strangely. To anybody who understands the matter it is clear that an irregular union of these principles brings in a remarkable and peculiar way a knowledge which humanity will have in the future. Think—in a man labeled “hysterical” by a clumsy psychology, there arises a knowledge which all humanity must possess in times to come—only it is caricatured. From what I have said you can quite understand that through such abnormalities something like pioneers of the future appear amongst us, (just as there are “stragglers” from the past): a future in which humanity will inevitably know about recurrent earth-lives, about karma and the dreams of karma. And because such people appear as the pioneers of the future, the knowledge makes them ill. So, by means of an unhealthy organism, there comes out in caricature what is some day to be the wisdom of humanity. Look for instance at a paragraph in Weininger's “Last Things”, (printed by his friend Rappaport): “Perhaps no memory is possible of the state before birth, because we have sunk so deeply through birth itself; we have lost the consciousness and chosen to be born through impulse alone, without rational decision or knowledge, and that is why we know nothing of such a past.”

One thing is clear—although the knowledge shining forth in this utterance is a caricature, yet someone writes as though absolutely convinced: “Through my birth I passed from a state, a spiritual life, in which I previously lived.” If that had been written ten or twelve centuries before the birth of Christ, or at the time of Origen, it would not have been surprising, but here in our time is a man who has set such a thing down in a fashion of his own, full of passionate feeling, as a direct illumination of consciousness, not as a theory.

I could adduce many such instances. What do they mean? They are presages of the super-sensible knowledge which is coming to mankind, and because it is not sought on the path of anthroposophical spiritual science, it comes convulsively, shattering human nature, making it sick, as in the case of Weininger. I say “sick”, not in the common sense of the word, but surely the outer facts show that there is something really abnormal when a man of twenty-three shoots himself because he finds a hidden murderer concealed within him, and saves himself from becoming a murderer by committing suicide.

A hundred,—nay, a thousand,—examples could be given; this knowledge must inevitably come; and it be well if as many souls as possible could be awakened to the fact. In the subconscious of mankind the longing for such knowledge is extraordinarily widespread. External powers, which I have often described, hold it back. We must very carefully keep in mind what is implied in the close of my article on Christian Rosenkreutz, in “Das Reich.” We must remember that what became evident in the seventeenth century had been noticeable since the fifteenth, Growing steadily stronger. In speaking of it now to people of our own time, the customary scientific formulae must be used. I described in the last number of “Das Reich” how it was manifested in the writing of the “Chemical Marriage” of Christian Rosenkreuz by Johann Valentin Andreae. Philologists have racked their brains about this: Johann Valentin Andreae wrote down the “Chemical Marriage”, in which really deep occult knowledge was hidden, but behaved afterwards in a very remarkable fashion, Not only was he unable to explain certain words he had spoken in connection with writings which he had produced at the same time as the “Chemical Marriage”, but in spite of having transcribed this great work, he appeared to be entirely without understanding of it. This bigoted Pastor, who afterwards wrote all kinds of other things, does not understand anything of the “Chemical Marriage”, nor of the other works composed by him at the same period. He was only seventeen when he wrote it. He never altered; he remained just the same person; but a totally different power had spoken through him. Philologists cudgelled their brains, and corresponded about it. His hand wrote it; his body was present, assisting; but through his human equipment a spiritual power, not then in earthly incarnation, wished to make it known to mankind, in the style of those days.

Then came the Thirty Years War, the tomb of much which should then have come to mankind. What should have been then understood, was not understood, was even consigned to oblivion. The “Chemical Marriage” was written down about 1603, ostensibly by one who signed himself Johann Valentin Andreae; little notice was taken of it because in 1613 the Thirty Years War began. Such things often happen before a war. Then one can truly read in the signs of the times: “What is now planted as a seed, must one day bear flowers and fruit”.

This is all part of what I am now pointing out—what is to be read in the signs of the times, in our own catastrophic century.

Considering the kind of deliberations you are engaged in at the moment, my friends, I must assume that your minds would be less than ready to take in a continuation of yesterday's lecture. For those of you who want to hear it, that lecture will be given tomorrow, but today I would like to speak about something that will relate in some way to things you all must necessarily have in mind at the moment.

First of all, and from a very specific point of view, I would like to address the question of what is really confronting us in the Goesch-Sprengel case. In recent lectures I have often said that it is important to arrive at the appropriate perspective from which to try to resolve any given issue. How, then, can we arrive at the right perspective on this particular matter through objective study of the case?

In order to deal with a case like this objectively, we must first of all remove it from its personal context and insert it into a larger one. If, as I believe, this larger context turns out to be what is most important for our anthroposophical movement, we will find ourselves obliged to study this case for our own edification and for the sake of spiritual science itself. And in fact there is a larger context to the case, as will become apparent if we look at Mr. Goesch's letter of August 19 with an eye for his main motives and arguments.

Since you have important deliberations ahead of you, I will not detain you too long, but will only select a few essential points for your consideration. The first is Goesch's claim that promises have not been kept. If you listened to the letter carefully, you will have noticed that the emphasis in his reproach is not on the alleged making and not keeping of promises. His primary accusation is that I looked for and systematically applied a means of making promises to members and not keeping them, and that once the members noticed that these promises were not being kept, they were put into a state of mind that forced them into a particular relationship to the one who had made and not kept the promises. As a result, forces accumulated in their souls that eventually made them lose their sound judgment.

So the first hypothesis Goesch presents is that systematic attempts were made to stifle the members' good sense, that deliberately making and breaking promises was a means of dulling their normal state of consciousness, resulting in a kind of stupefaction that turned them into zombies. That is the first point his letter addresses.

His second point has to do with one of the means of carrying this out. To put it briefly, through handshakes and friendly conversations and the like, I am supposed to have initiated a kind of contact with members that was suited, because of its very nature and the influence it allowed me to exert, to bringing about the above-mentioned effect on their souls.

A third thing we must keep in mind as a red thread running through Goesch's whole letter is the nature of his relationship to Miss Sprengel. We could add to these three points, but let us deal with them first.

To begin with, how does Goesch manage to construct such a systematic theory, based on his first two points, about how steps were taken to undermine the members' state of consciousness? We need to go into this thoroughly and try to find out where it comes from. In Goesch's case, we are led to his long involvement with Dr. Freud's so-called theory of psychoanalysis.¹ If you study this theory, you will begin to see that it is intimately related to how the pathological picture presented in the letter develops. Certain connections can be drawn between this pathological picture, as it relates to Goesch's first two points, and his involvement with the Freudian psychoanalytic point of view.

Of course, I am not in a position to give you a comprehensive picture of Freudian psychoanalytic theory in brief—my intent is only to present a few points that will help clarify the Goesch-Sprengel case. However, in a certain sense I do feel qualified to talk about psychoanalysis, because in my earlier years I was friends with one of the medical experts involved in its very beginnings.² This person eventually abandoned the theory of psychoanalysis after it degenerated later on in Freud's life. In any case, please do not take what I am going to say now as a comprehensive characterization of Freudian theory; I only want to highlight a few points.

Freudian psychoanalysts start from the assumption that an unconscious inner life exists alongside our conscious soul-activity—that is, in addition to the soul-activity we are conscious of, there is also an unconscious inner life we are usually not aware of. An important component of psychoanalysis is the doctrine that certain experiences people have in the course of their life can make impressions on them, but these impressions disappear from their conscious awareness and work on in their subconscious. According to the psychoanalysts, we do not necessarily become fully conscious of these experiences before they sink down into the unconscious—for example, something can make an impression on a person during childhood without ever coming to full consciousness, and still have such an effect on that person's psyche that it sinks down into the unconscious and goes on working there. Its effects are lasting, and in some cases lead to psychological disturbances later on. I am skipping a lot of links in the chain of reasoning and jumping right to the outcome of the whole process. In other words, we are to imagine in the soul's subconscious depths a kind of island of childhood and youthful experiences gone rampant. Through questioning during psychoanalysis, these subconscious proliferating islands in the soul can be lifted up into consciousness and incorporated into the structure of conscious awareness. In the process, the person in question can be cured of psychological defects in that particular area.

During the early years of the psychoanalytic movement, it was the practice of Dr. Breuer in particular to carry out this questioning with the patient under hypnosis.³ Later on, this practice was discontinued, and now the Freudian school conducts this analysis with the patient in a normal waking state of consciousness. In any case, the underlying assumption is that there are unhealthy, proliferating islands present in the psyche below the level of consciousness.

This psychoanalytic outlook has gradually spread to incorporate and try to explain all kinds of phenomena of ordinary life, particularly with regard to how they appear in people's dreams. As I already explained once in a lecture to our friends in another city, it is at this point that the Freudian school really goes out on a limb in saying that unfulfilled desires play a primary role in dreams.⁴ Freudians say that it is typical for people to experience unfulfilled desires in their dreams, desires that cannot be satisfied in real life. It can sometimes happen—and from the point of view of psychoanalytic theorists, it is significant when it does—that one of these desires present on an unconscious island in the psyche is lifted up in a dream and reveals in disguised form an impulse that had an effect on the person in question during his or her childhood.

Please note the peculiarity of this train of thought. It is assumed that as young boys or girls, people have experiences that sink down into subconsciousness and work on as fantasy experiences, clouding their consciousness. The pattern, then, is this: experiences of waking life are repressed and continue to work on the subconscious, leading to a weakened state of consciousness. This is exactly the same pattern Goesch constructs with regard to promises being given and broken and working on in the subconscious—all with the intention to create the same effect in the subconscious as the “islands” in Freudian psychoanalytic theory. According to Goesch, this was done cunningly and deliberately and resulted in a state of stupefaction analogous to what occurs when experiences of waking life have sunk into subconsciousness and are brought up again in a dream.

Psychoanalytic theory is a very tricky business, and if you dwell on it long enough, it gives rise to certain forms of thought that spread and affect all your thinking. As you can see, this has something to do with why Goesch came up with such a crazy idea.

In addition, as I have said before, the concept of physical contact plays an important part. I am now going to read certain passages from one of Dr. Freud's books, a collection of essays from the Freudian magazine Imago, and I ask you to pay close attention to them.⁵ But I must precede that with something else concerning the Goesch-Sprengel case. Those of you who have known Miss Sprengel for some time will recall that she was always very concerned about protecting herself from other people's influence on her aura—she lived in horror of having to shake hands and things like that. Even before Goesch arrived on the scene, she had already gotten the idea that shaking hands is a criminal act in our esoteric circles. The following incident is absolutely typical: I had business to do in Dr. Schmiedel's laboratory and happened to meet Miss Sprengel there.⁶ I extended my hand to her, which gave her grounds for saying, “That's how he always does it—he does whatever he wants to you and then shakes hands, and then you forget all about it.” There you have the origin of that theory about handshaking. Yesterday you all heard what this theory became in Miss Sprengel's confused mind with the help of Goesch. He contributed his understanding of Freud's theories and combined things systematically with Freudian ideas.

The following passage is from page 29 of the above-mentioned book by Freud:

The principal characteristic of the psychological constellation which becomes fixed in this way is what might be described as the subject's ambivalent attitude (to borrow the apt term coined by Bleuler) towards a single object, or rather towards one act in connection with that object. He is constantly wishing to perform this act (the touching), [and looks on it as his supreme enjoyment, but he must not perform it] and detests it as well. The conflict between these two currents cannot be promptly settled because—there is no other way of putting it—they are localized in the subject's mind in such a manner that they cannot come up against each other. The prohibition is noisily conscious, while the persistent desire to touch is unconscious and the subject knows nothing of it. If it were not for this psychological factor, an ambivalence like this could neither last so long nor lead to such consequences.⁷

This is followed by a long discussion of the role fear of physical contact plays in cases of neurosis:

In our clinical history of a case we have insisted that the imposition of the prohibition in very early childhood is the determining point; a similar importance attaches in the subsequent developments to the mechanism of repression at the same early age. As a result of the repression which has been enforced and which involves a loss of memory—an amnesia—the motives for the prohibition (which is conscious) remain unknown; and all attempts at disposing of it by intellectual processes must fail, since they cannot find any base of attack. The prohibition owes its strength and its obsessive character precisely to its unconscious opponent, the concealed and undiminished desire—that is to say, to an internal necessity inaccessible to conscious inspection. The ease with which the prohibition can be transferred and extended reflects a process which falls in with the unconscious desire and is greatly facilitated by the psychological conditions that prevail in the unconscious. The instinctual desire is constantly shifting in order to escape from the impasse and endeavours to find substitutes—substitute objects and substitute acts—in place of the prohibited ones. In consequence of this, the prohibition itself shifts about as well, and extends to any new aims which the forbidden impulse may adopt. Any fresh advance made by the repressed libido is answered by a fresh sharpening of the prohibition. The mutual inhibition of the two conflicting forces produces a need for discharge, for reducing the prevailing tension; and to this may be attributed the reason for the performance of obsessive acts. In the case of a neurosis these are clearly compromise actions: from one point of view they are evidences of remorse, efforts at expiation, and so on, while on the other hand they are at the same time substitutive acts to compensate the instinct for what has been prohibited. It is a law of neurotic illness that these obsessive acts fall more and more under the sway of the instinct and approach nearer and nearer to the activity which was originally prohibited.⁸

Considering the obsessions involved in fear of physical contact, you can well imagine how it would have been if Miss Sprengel, as a person suffering from this fear, had ever been seen by a psychoanalyst who, in line with usual psychoanalytic practice, would have questioned her about her fear of contact and tried to discover what caused it.

A third factor I want to emphasize is the relationship of Miss Sprengel to Mr. Goesch. According to psychoanalytic theory, this relationship would of course be characterized by the presence of repressed erotic thoughts. I mean that quite objectively...⁹

At this point, my friends, we must look a bit more closely at the whole system of psychoanalysis. As I have just outlined for you, psychoanalysis lifts up into consciousness certain “islands” in the unconscious psyche, and it assumes that the majority of these islands are sexual in nature. The psychoanalyst's task, then, is to reach down to the level of these early experiences that have sunk into subconsciousness and lift them up again for purposes of healing. According to Freudian theory, healing is brought about by lifting hidden sexual complexes up from the depths of the subconscious and making the person aware of them again. Whether this method is very successful is a matter of much discussion in books on the subject.

As you can see, psychoanalysts' thinking is often colored by an underlying pervasive sexuality, and this is taken to extremes when psychoanalysis is applied to any and all possible phenomena of human life. For example, Freud and his disciples go so far as to interpret myths and legends psychoanalytically, tracing them to repressed sexuality. Consider, for example, how they interpret the story of Oedipus.¹⁰ In brief, the content of this legend is that Oedipus is led to kill his father and marry his mother. When psychoanalysts ask what this story is based on, they conclude that such things always rest on unconscious, repressed sexual complexes usually involving sexual experiences in earliest childhood. The Freudians are firmly convinced that a child's relationship to his or her father and mother is a sexual one right from birth, so if the child is a boy, he must be unconsciously in love with his mother and thus unconsciously or subconsciously jealous of his father.

At this point, my friends, we might be tempted to say that these psychoanalysts, if they actually believe in their own theory, should apply it to themselves first and foremost, and admit that their own destiny and outlook stem from an excess of repressed sexual processes experienced in childhood. Freud and his disciples should apply this theory to themselves first. They derive the Oedipus legend, for instance, from their assumption that most little boys have an illicit emotional relationship to their mother right from birth, and are thus jealous of their father. Thus, the boys' father becomes their enemy and works on as such in their troubled imagination. Later, however, they realize rationally that this relationship to their mother is not permissible, and so it is repressed and becomes subconscious. The boys then live out their lives without becoming aware of their forbidden relationship to their mother and their adversarial relationship to their father, whom they experience as a rival.

According to psychoanalytic theory, then, what we need to do in cases of defective psyches is to look for psychological complexes, and we will find that if these are lifted up into consciousness, a cure can be effected. It's too bad that I can't present these things in greater detail, but I will try to give you as exact an outline of them as possible. On page 16 of the above-mentioned book, for instance, you can read the following:

There has been little opportunity in the preceding pages for showing how new light can be thrown upon the facts of social psychology by the adoption of a psycho-analytic method of approach: for the horror of incest displayed by savages has long been recognized as such and stands in need of no further interpretation.¹¹

This essay explains why primitive peoples so strictly enforce the ban on marrying one's mother or sister and why relationships of this type are punished. “Incest” is love for a blood-relative, and one of the first essays in this book is entitled “The Horror of Incest.” This fear is explained by assuming the existence of a tendency to incest on the part of each male individual in the form of a forbidden relationship to his mother.

All that I have been able to add to our understanding of it is to emphasize the fact that it is essentially an infantile feature [that is, primitive people retain this for a lifetime, while in civilized children it is repressed into the subconscious] and that it reveals a striking agreement with the mental life of neurotic patients. Psycho-analysis has taught us that a boy's earliest choice of objects for his love is incestuous and that those objects are forbidden ones—his mother and his sister. We have learnt, too, the manner in which, as he grows up, he liberates himself from this incestuous attraction. A neurotic, on the other hand, invariably exhibits some degree of psychical infantilism. He has either failed to get free from the psycho-sexual conditions that prevailed in his childhood or he has returned to them—two possibilities which may be summed up as developmental inhibition and regression. Thus incestuous fixations of libido continue to play (or begin once more to play) the principal part in his unconscious mental life. We have arrived at the point of regarding a child's relation to his parents, dominated as it is by incestuous longings, as the nuclear complex of neurosis.

Thus, according to psychoanalytic theory, the central complex involved in neurosis is a boy's forbidden sexual attraction for his mother and sister.

This revelation of the importance of incest in neurosis is naturally received with universal skepticism by adults and normal people. Similar expressions of disbelief, for instance, inevitably greet the writings of Otto Rank, which have brought more and more evidence to show the extent to which the interest of creative writers centres round the theme of incest and how the same theme, in countless variations and distortions, provides the subject-matter of poetry. We are driven to believe that this rejection is principally a product of the distaste which human beings feel for their early incestuous wishes, now overtaken by repression. It is therefore of no small importance that we are able to show that these same incestuous wishes, which are later destined to become unconscious, are still regarded by savage peoples as immediate perils against which the most severe measures of defence must be enforced.¹²

From this point of departure, an atmosphere of sexuality spreads until it pervades the psychoanalysts' whole field of activity. Their whole life is spent working with ideas about sexuality. That is why psychoanalysis has been the biggest contributing factor in making an unbelievable mockery of something quite natural in human life. This has crept into our life gradually, without people noticing it. I can sympathize deeply with an old gentleman by the name of Moritz Benedikt (who spent his life trying to bring morality into medicine) when he says that if you look around, you'll find that the physicians of thirty years ago knew less about certain sexual abnormalities than eighteen-year-old girls in boarding school do today.¹³ This is the truth, and you can really empathize with this man. I mention it in particular because it is really extremely important to regard certain processes in children's lives as simply natural, without having to see them in terms of sexuality right away.

Nowadays, these complicated psychoanalytic theories lead us to label a lot of what children do as sexually deviant, although most of it is totally innocent. In most cases, it would be enough to regard these things as nothing more than childish mischievousness that could be quite adequately treated with a couple of smacks on a certain part of the anatomy. The worst possible way of dealing with it, however, is to talk a lot about these things, especially with the children themselves, and to put all kinds of theoretical ideas in their heads. It is hard enough to talk about these things with grownups with any degree of clarity. Unfortunately for people who are often called upon to provide counseling, parents frequently come with all kinds of complaints, including some really dumb ones, about how their children suffer from sexual deviance. Their only basis for these complaints is that the children scratch themselves. Now, there is no more sexuality involved in scratching yourself anywhere else than there is in scratching your arm. Dr. Freud, however, upholds the idea that any scratching or touching, or even a baby's sucking a pacifier, is a sexual activity. He spreads a mantle of sexuality over all aspects of human life.

It would be good for us to look more closely at Freudian psychoanalysis in order to become aware of the excesses of materialistic science; specifically, of those of psychoanalysis in seeing everything in terms of sexuality. In a book introduced by Dr. Freud, the Hungarian psychoanalyst Ferenczi writes about the case of a five-year-old boy named Arpad.¹⁴ There is no doubt in his mind as to the sources of Arpad's interest in the goings-on in the chicken run:

The continual sexual activity between the cock and hens, the laying of eggs and the hatching out of the young brood gratified his sexual curiosity, the real object of which was human family life. He showed that he had formed his own choice of sexual objects on the model of life in the hen-run, for he said one day to the neighbour's wife: “I'll marry you and your sister and my three cousins and the cook; no, not the cook, I'll marry my mother instead.” ¹⁵

We could wish for a return of the days when it was possible to hear children say things like this without immediately having to resort to such awkward sexual explanations. I can only touch on this subject today, but I will discuss it at greater length sometime in the near future in order to reassure all you fathers and mothers.¹⁶ But of course, Freud's theory, which is spreading widely without people noticing it, is only a symptom of a worldwide tendency. And when parents come with the complaint that their four- or five-year-old sons or daughters are suffering from sexual deviance, in most cases the appropriate response is, “The only deviant thing in this case is your way of thinking about it!” In most instances, that is really what's wrong.

My intention in telling you all this has been to point out the kind of atmosphere Freudian psychoanalysis is swimming in. I am well aware that the Freudians would take issue with this brief characterization. But we are fully justified in saying that psychoanalysis as a whole is positively dripping with this psychosexual stuff, as its professional literature reveals.

Suppose the assumption that psychosexual islands exist in the human subconscious actually proves to be true in the case of a certain individual. A Freudian theorist might subject that person to questioning and be able to add a new case history to the annals of Freudian psychoanalytic theory. In the case concerning us, Goesch might have undertaken this line of questioning and made some discoveries among those psychosexual islands that would have served to verify Freud's theories. But to do that, Goesch would have needed to be stronger in his own soul. As it was, however, he succumbed to a certain type of relationship to his new lady friend. The material in our possession supplies ample evidence of this relationship and will allow anyone who applies it in the right way to describe their relationship with clinical, objective precision.

Since what can be learned from a specific case is often of greater significance than the actual case itself, let me point out that this case can lead us to the same conclusions I presented in my essay, published in the Vienna Clinical Review in 1900, entitled “The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche as a Psychopathological Problem.” ¹⁷ Notwithstanding all the contributions Nietzsche's genius made to the world, it was necessary to point out that Nietzsche would be misunderstood if the psychopathological factor in him were not taken into account. It is important for our Society that psychopathological elements not gain the upper hand, that they be eradicated from our minds and seen in the right light so that psychopaths are not looked upon as some kind of higher beings. That is why it is also important to see the current case in the right light and assess what is actually involved from the right standpoint.

It is already too late for me to describe now at length how the storm developed. When I was in Vienna in May of this year, one of our members wrote me a letter I had to tear up on returning here, since taking letters across the border is no longer allowed. This letter contained accusations very similar to those raised by Goesch under the influence of Miss Sprengel and showing a similar involvement in Freudian psychoanalysis. They came from the same quarter; the same wind was blowing in both sets of accusations. In fact, if I could have read you some sentences from that letter, they would have sounded remarkably like what Miss Sprengel inspired in Goesch.

What, then, was actually going on in the Goesch-Sprengel case? Goesch could not really function as a psychoanalyst, because to do that his relationship to Miss Sprengel would have had to be an objective one like that of a doctor to a patient. Her influence on him was too overwhelming, however, and thus his involvement in the examination was not fully conscious and objective. In Freudian terms, everything at work in the psyche of his friend, the “keeper of the seal,” came out, but since it sank down into Goesch's unconscious, it was masked by the whole theory that came to light in his letter.

The Goesch-Sprengel case grew out of one of the greatest mistakes and worst materialistic theories of our time, and we can only deal with it by realizing that both people involved threw a mantle of secrecy over their human, all-too-human relationships. In essence, this consisted of shrouding their relationship in Freudian psychoanalytic theories, as the documents very clearly reveal.

When we attempt to help people who come to us in such a confused psychological state, they are often fawning, enthusiastic supporters to begin with, but later on their adulation changes into enmity. That, too, can be explained in psychoanalytic terms. However, our most urgent concern at the moment is our relationship to the rest of the world. Just as we are now experiencing hostility coming from the direction of psychoanalysis, steeped as it is in sexuality, we can expect to encounter at any moment new opposition from all kinds of aberrations resulting from other all-too-human impulses.

This shows us that we must study such cases; they should be of great interest to us precisely because our Society represents a spiritual movement. I could speak at much greater length on this subject, but I must stop for today because you need to get on with your deliberations. I simply wanted to point out the first tentative steps we must take in seeing where the dangers for our movement lie and how urgent it is that we all do as much as we can to help the world out there learn that we are not chicken-livered. We know how to stand up for ourselves. When things come up in disguise as they did in this letter, we must rip off the mask and expose where they come from. Their origins lie much deeper than we usually think; they originate in the materialistic outlook of our times, which has not only become the dominant view in science but has contaminated our life as a whole. Combating it is our movement's very reason for existence, but we must keep our eyes wide open and see what is going on in the world. We must recognize what the people coming to us have learned out in the world and what they bring with them when they come to us.

• 1. Sigmund Freud, 1856–1939. Psychiatrist, founder of psychoanalysis.
• 2. Joseph Breuer, 1842–1925. Rudolf Steiner met Breuer in the home of the Specht family, where Steiner was a tutor from 1884–1890. See Steiner's The Course of My Life, GA 28, Chapter XIII, (Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1986). See also Karl Konig, “Die Schicksale Sigmund Freuds and Joseph Breuers” (“The Destiny of Sigmund Freud and Joseph Breuer”), Stuttgart 1962.
• 3. In Joseph Breuer's therapy, hysteric patients were put under hypnosis and their symptoms traced back to the point when they first appeared; as a rule, on recreating this condition, the symptoms intensified, but usually disappeared afterward. In their Studies on Hysteria, (Leipzig and Vienna, 1895) Breuer and Freud described this form of therapy on the basis of five individual cases.
• 4. Berlin, November 4, 1910, included in Wisdom of Man, of the Soul, and of the Spirit, GA 115, (New York: Anthroposophic Press, 1971). Also Munich, November 18, 1911, in Esoteric Christianity and the Mission of Christian Rosenkreutz, GA 130, 2nd ed., rev., (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1984).
• 5. Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo, tr. James Strachey, copyright 1950 by Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd. (New York and London: W. W. Norton & Company). In the magazine Imago, vols. I and II (1912 and 1913), these articles appeared under the title, “Some Correspondences in the Inner Life of Savages and Neurotics.”
• 6. Dr. Oskar Schmiedel, 1887–1959, a chemist, was head of the laboratory producing the plant pigments needed in building the first Goetheanum.
• 7. Freud, op.cit., p. 29.
• 8. Ibid., p. 30.
• 9. Apparently, the next few lines dealt with the connection between the Goesch-Sprengel case and psychoanalysis, but the stenographer only caught the words, “It is important how the connection is drawn… with disguised drives like these… especially between two personalities of this sort...”
• 10. Sigmund Freud dealt with the Oedipus complex for the first time in The Interpretation of Dreams, tr. James Strachey, Chapter V, Section D, (New York: Avon, 1965).
• 11. Freud, Totem and Taboo, p. 16.
• 12. Ibid., p. 17.
• 13. Moritz Benedikt, 1835–1920, physician and criminal anthropologist. The exact quotation reads, “Nowadays we find that students at the best finishing schools are more informed on the topic of sexual perversions than we young doctors used to be, and I often wish beating could be instituted as a punishment for the 'liberated' women teachers who encourage this kind of knowledge.” Aus Meinem Leben. Erinnerungen and Erörterungen, Vienna, 1906, vol. II, p. 162.
• 14. Sandor Ferenczi, 1873–1933, a favorite pupil of Freud's who later went his own way in psychoanalysis.
• 15. Freud, Totem and Taboo, p. 131. Ferenczi's report appeared in English as “A Little Chanticleer” in Contributions to Psycho-Analysis, 1916, p. 270.
• 16. It has not been possible to determine whether or not this actually happened.
• 17. “The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche as a Psychopathological Problem,” in Friedrich Nietzsche: Fighter for Freedom, GA 5, (Englewood, NJ: Rudolf Steiner Publications, 1960).

As a continuation of the last lecture I should like to draw your attention to certain matters which will throw light on Luther's place in history. From the outset I must make it clear that today's considerations of Luther will be from the point of view of spiritual science rather than that of religion.

What strikes one immediately when considering Luther in the light of spiritual science is the enormous importance the epoch itself had for his prominence and whole activity. The significance of the epoch is much greater in Luther's case than in the case of most other personalities in history. When we study Luther it is very important to be conscious of the epoch in which he appeared; i.e., the 16th century; which according to the spiritual-scientific view of history is very early in the fifth post-Atlantean cultural epoch. This epoch, as we know, began in the 15th century and the preceding Graeco-Latin epoch began some eight centuries before the Mystery of Golgotha. Thus Luther appeared in history soon after the thoughts and feelings, characteristic of the Graeco-Latin epoch, were fading in civilized humanity. To the unprejudiced observer Luther appears at first sight to have a dual personality, but one comes—as we shall see—to recognize that the two aspects meet in a higher unity. It must be realized that there is much more to the history between the 14th and 16th centuries than modern historians are inclined to admit. Great transformation took place, particularly in the human soul; this is something taken far too little into account. The people of the 13th and 14th centuries still had a direct relationship with the spiritual world through the very constitution and disposition of their soul. This is now forgotten but cannot be emphasized enough. When, at that time, man turned his gaze to external nature, to the sky, to cloud formations and so on, he would generally speaking still perceive elemental spirituality. It was also possible for him to commune with the dead with whom he had karmic links to a far greater extent than is believed today. In this period there was still, inherited from an earlier different consciousness, an immediate recognition that the world seen through the senses is not the only world. The transition in consciousness to later times was far more abrupt than imagined. Natural science, in itself fully justified, was then in its dawn, it drew a veil as it were over the spiritual world behind the physical world. I can well imagine that a modern student of history, who is in the habit of accepting what is taught as absolute truth, will not believe such abrupt transition possible. He would find it neither historical nor substantiated by records. However, spiritual science reveals that at this time the human soul came completely within the confines of the physical world by virtue of changes in man's inner being.

We saw last time that woven into Luther's soul was the after-effect of what he had absorbed, in a former incarnation, in the pre-Christian Mysteries that prepared the way for Christianity. Nevertheless he was in the fullest sense a true man of his time inasmuch as in this, the fifth post-Atlantean cultural epoch, man's former connection with the spiritual world has grown dim. This is so even when the experiences had been as vivid as those of former initiates in the Mysteries. It must not be supposed however, that what has become dim, and therefore fails to become conscious knowledge, is not present and active. It has its effect when, as in Luther's case, the person concerned through his inner karma is sensitive and receptive to what wells up from the depths of his being without reaching full consciousness.

It is not difficult to recognize in Luther the effects of what I have indicated. They reveal themselves in the agonizing torments he went through. These inner torments, while being expressions of his own soul, assumed in his words and ideas the character of his time. They were in fact caused essentially by a kind of realization that man in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, the epoch of materialism, would be deprived of contact with the spiritual world. All the deprivation a materialistic age would inflict upon the deeper strata of the human soul weighed heavily upon Luther. Today one has to use different words from those he employed to describe what he felt so strongly. It is therefore not Luther's own words that I use in characterizing his inner experiences. But what he felt may be expressed in these words: What is to become of man when his vision is cut off from the spiritual world, as he is bound to forget what he formerly received from that world? If you imagine this feeling intensified to its limit you have the keynote of Luther's inner suffering. But why was it Luther who in particular felt this so intensely?

The reason is to be found in what I mentioned as the duality of his nature. Luther was on the one hand very much a man of the fifth post-Atlantean cultural epoch. But because he was also inwardly very much a man of the fourth post-Atlantean cultural epoch he felt with great intensity the deprivation which the people of the fifth epoch were already experiencing in his time, albeit not consciously. The duality in his nature was caused by the fact that—while being in complete accord with his own time, the fifth epoch—the teachings in the pre-Christian Mysteries had taken such deep roots in his soul that he inwardly felt as a man of the fourth epoch. He felt as related to the fourth epoch as an ancient Greek or Roman had felt. Odd as it may seem this had the effect that he could not understand the Copernican system of astronomy; i.e., a system based purely on physical calculations. This system, however, is in complete harmony with the outlook of the fifth cultural epoch but would have seemed meaningless in the fourth. This fact will seem strange to modern man whose view is that the apex of knowledge has been reached and that the Copernican system cannot be superseded. This is a shortsighted view as I have often pointed out. Just as today the Ptolemaic system is put to scorn, so will the Copernican be looked down upon in the future when it is replaced by another. However, in the fifth cultural epoch the very soul constitution of man enables him to have ready understanding for a system of movement of the heavenly bodies based entirely upon physical calculations.

Luther had no such understanding; to him the Copernican view seemed so much folly. He was little interested in the materialistic, purely spatial conceptions of the phenomena of the universe which occupied the human mind at the dawn of the fifth cultural epoch. Whereas the way man felt and experienced his place within that universe interested him greatly. However the relation to the world, which man perforce had to have, in the fifth cultural epoch was experienced by Luther with all the inner soul impulses of a man of the fourth-, the Graeco-Latin epoch.

Thus we see Luther on the one hand looking back at the way man was related to the spirituality of the Cosmos in the fourth cultural epoch. And on the other we see him looking ahead, being aware of the kind of experiences, feelings and conceptions to which man would be exposed by virtue of a relation to the cosmos which separates him from its spiritual reality. Thus Luther felt and experienced the fifth cultural epoch as a soul belonging to the fourth cultural epoch. The experiences man had to undergo in the fifth cultural epoch weighed heavily on his soul.

In order to have a clearer picture let us for a moment compare a modern man of average education with a man of the comparatively ancient time of the fourth epoch. The former's thoughts and feelings, his whole relation to the world is determined by the natural-scientific view of the world, whereas the latter's thoughts and feelings were determined by the fact that he was still aware of his connection with spiritual reality. What we designate as Imagination and Inspiration were particularly vivid for man at that time. It was a common experience that colors are not seen only through eyes, or sound heard only through ears. Man was aware that by inner effort he received pictorial and audible revelations from the spiritual world. Everyone was aware that a divine spiritual-world lived in his soul. Man felt inwardly connected with his God.

In the fifth post-Atlantean epoch man is subjected to a test and his communion with the spiritual world has to cease. In this epoch he has developed, through special methods and a special kind of knowledge, the possibility to observe the external phenomena of nature and their relation to his own being with great exactitude. But he no longer has vision of the spiritual world; no longer is there a path leading from the soul to the spiritual world.

Let us visualize these two types of human beings side by side. As we saw in the last lecture, Luther's knowledge and religious feelings concerning the spiritual world were not abstract; the spiritual world was not closed to him. He had a living communion with the spiritual world, more especially with evil spirits of that world. But that in itself is not an evil trait. Thus he knew of the spiritual world through direct experience, but he also knew that for mankind of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch this experience of the spiritual world was fading away and would gradually disappear altogether. It became a great riddle for Luther how the human beings of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch would cope with the deprivation of not beholding the spiritual world. As he contemplated the man of the fifth epoch his heart was overflowing with impulses brought over from his incarnation in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. These living forces constituted a powerful link with the spiritual world which caused Luther to sense its reality with great intensity. It made him feel that it was essential to awaken in man a consciousness of that reality. At the same time he was under no illusion that human beings incarnating during the coming epoch would lose all consciousness of the spiritual world. They would have nothing but their physical senses to rely on, whereas in earlier times knowledge of the divine-spiritual-world had been attained through direct vision and experience. All Luther could do was to tell mankind: If in the future you look towards the spiritual world you will find nothing, for the ability to behold it will have vanished. If you nonetheless wish to retain awareness of its existence then you must turn to the Bible, the most reliable record in existence, a record that still contains direct knowledge of the spiritual world which you can otherwise no longer reach. In earlier times one would have said: besides the Gospel there is also the possibility to look directly into the spiritual world. This possibility has vanished for mankind of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch; only the Gospel remains.

So you see that Luther spoke from the heart and in the spirit of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, but as someone who also belonged to the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. By means, still remaining from the fourth epoch, he wanted to draw attention to that which, because of his evolution, man in the fifth epoch could no longer reach. Luther may not have been conscious of these things exactly the way I describe them. However as things stood it is understandable that he, at the start of an epoch in which direct insight into the spiritual world would cease, pointed to the Gospel as the sole authority concerning the spiritual world. He wanted to emphasize that the Gospel was a special source of strength for mankind in the coming epoch.

Let us now turn our attention to something different. At the moment I am occupied with certain aspects of Christian Rosenkreutz and the “Chymical Wedding” by Johann Valentin Andreae and this brings certain things connected with the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries vividly before my soul. When one looks at those who during those centuries were engaged in science, one comes to realize that at that time knowledge of nature was alchemy in the best sense of the word. The natural scientist of today would have been an alchemist then. But to understand the spiritual aspect of alchemy it must not be thought of as connected with superstition or fraud. What were the alchemists attempting? They were convinced that there are other forces at work in nature besides those which can be discovered by external observation and experiment. They wanted to prove that while nature is indeed "natural" supersensible forces are at work in her.

To the alchemist it was obvious that, however firmly welded together the composition of a metal appeared to be, that composition could still be transformed into another. However they saw the transition as the result of a spiritual process, an effect of the spirit in nature. This is something that will be known again in future epochs, but in our time it is a deeply hidden knowledge. The alchemists were able to bring about alchemical processes which, if they could be demonstrated today, would greatly amaze modern scientists. In that earlier age it was part of man's knowledge that spiritual forces are at work in nature. The alchemical processes were brought about by manipulating those forces.

This knowledge inevitably had to be lost in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. A reflection still exists in religious conceptions of the universe. In the earlier centuries, right up to the 13th and 14th, what was taught concerning the Sacraments was different from what could be taught in the following centuries, though for Luther it was still vivid inner experience even if not a fully conscious one. But the experience, that spiritual forces were directly active in consecrated substance, was lost to the faithful. Today the teaching of the Catholic sacrament is something quite different than it was, for example the doctrine concerning the sacrament at the altar, when bread and wine are to be transformed through a mysterious process into real flesh and blood. When one discusses this issue with Catholic theologians the usual answer to modern man's objection is: If you do not understand that you have no understanding whatever of Aristotle's teaching on substances. Be that as it may, one has to say that in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch no real meaning can be connected with an actual transubstantiation; i.e., with real alchemy. Today this process takes place above material existence. Today when man receives the bread and wine these are not transmuted. The divine-spiritual reality of the Christ Being passes into man as he receives the bread and the wine.

This metamorphosis of the concept of the sacrament is also connected with the transition in man's evolution from the fourth to the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. Luther, because of his very nature, had to speak out of the spirit of both epochs. He wanted to convey to man's soul the strength it had formerly gained from religious teaching. As the dawning natural science would never be able to acknowledge anything spiritual in matter, Luther sought to keep religious teaching aloof from the weakening effect of science. From the outset he kept spiritual issues strictly apart from physical processes. He thought of the latter, if not exactly as symbols, then at least as being merely physical.—It is not so easy to understand these things today but spiritual science must draw attention to them just the same.

We must envisage Luther turning his gaze, even if not fully consciously, towards the coming epoch spanning more than two thousand years, during which man would be able to experience something of the spiritual world only in exceptional cases and through special training. Historical personalities such as Luther must be seen in a wider perspective; their thoughts and actions must be seen as expressing the epoch in which they live. Luther as it were represented the human beings of his time, human beings to whom something was lost. What they had lost was caused by the fact that in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch human knowledge had assumed a form that made it impossible to strengthen the human soul, by means of the power inherent in knowledge itself, so that it could look into the spiritual world and have its own spiritual cognition. It is not normal for people of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch to have spiritual cognition through their own initiative. In his ordinary life in the fifth epoch man cannot be conscious of freedom in the real sense, of real freedom of will which is the ability to act directly out of that deepest region of the human soul where it is united with the divine. Today both freedom and knowledge are theoretical. As the fifth post-Atlantean epoch progressed the theory that there are limits to human knowledge has frequently been proclaimed. To speak of limits of knowledge in the sense of Kant³² or Dubois-Reymond³³ would have seemed meaningless in ancient times, even by the sceptics.

As mentioned already one should take what is said by a historical personality such as Luther as expressing the spirit of his epoch, not as having validity for all time. What Luther recognized as the outstanding characteristic of mankind in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch he interpreted in the light of Christianity. He understood it in the Christian, or better said Biblical sense, as a direct effect of original sin. The fact that man, out of his own forces, cannot attain either freedom, or knowledge of the divine, in the fifth epoch Luther saw as a direct outcome of original sin. Thus when he said that man was so corrupted by original sin that by himself he could not overcome it, Luther spoke a truth that holds good for the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. The force in man most closely bound up with his nature is the force that expresses itself in his will, in his actions. What a man does springs from the very center of his being. What he knows or believes is much more dependent on his environment, the time in which he lives and so on. In the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, the epoch of natural science and materialism, man is not able to perform actions that spring directly from the spirit. That in fact is the essential characteristic of this epoch. In the sixth post-Atlantean epoch it will again be different. But that man in the fifth epoch, in his ordinary consciousness, had lost the link connecting him with the spiritual world was also Luther's conviction.

Yet Luther was also aware that it is essential for man not to be torn out of that connection altogether. He saw that as an inhabitant of the external physical world man, through what he wills and does, has no connection with the Divine. He can only attain it if he regards this connection as something separate and apart from his external physical existence. From this thought originated the doctrine of salvation purely through faith. A typical man of the fourth epoch would have regarded salvation through faith alone as nonsensical. An ancient Greek or Roman would have found it meaningless if told that what he does, what he accomplishes in the world is not what gives him value in the eyes of the Highest Powers, but solely his soul's acknowledgement of the spiritual world. However, it is not meaningless to the man of the fifth epoch, for if his worth were dependent solely on what he accomplished in the physical world he would be in fact just a creature of that world. He would be more and more convinced that he merely represented the highest peak of the animal kingdom. Man had therefore to forge a link with the spiritual world by means of something that in no way linked him with the physical world. That something is faith.

What Luther thus impressed on his own and the following time could naturally not remain the only cultural influence in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. One may ask who at the present time is a Lutheran? The answer is that, inasmuch as he is a man of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, everyone is a Lutheran. Those with a sense for the subtle conceptual differences in world views will notice the enormous discrepancy between the views of a Catholic theologian in the 13th or 14th Centuries and those of his counterparts today. The reason is that the Catholic theologian of today is in reality a Lutheran, his outlook and impulses are those of a Lutheran. These are matters that go unnoticed because there is so little feeling for the inner truth of things, the attention is focused only on the external label applied to a person. It is after all merely an external matter that someone, because of family or some other connection, is entered in the Church register as Catholic or Protestant. What characterizes him inwardly is something quite different. The man of today who is truly of his time, who is stirred and influenced by what takes place, is inwardly a Lutheran. Like Luther he articulates the essence of the fifth epoch. Luther was especially suited to do so because of the characteristic duality of his nature. This made him question the fate of future mankind, but it also stirred in him an overwhelming impulse to speak to the people of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch with all the vigorous forces that he wanted preserved as they were in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. That he was able to speak in this way was due to the higher unity of his dual nature. He spoke out of the very souls of the people exposed to the conditions of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. He formulated and voiced the very concepts and ideas that stirred in them. But he also spoke so that everything he said was permeated with his impulse to preserve what had existed in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. That was the higher unity. However, the sixth post-Atlantean epoch could not be prepared within the fifth had the latter not been influenced by other cultural streams.

Thus we see that Lutheranism, in the way indicated, is more particularly an impulse of the fifth epoch, but other cultural streams make themselves felt. The most important for us is the one that came to expression in the German classical period: from Lessing to Herder, Schiller, Goethe and others. A remarkable phenomenon is the fact that we have in the same period a thoroughly Lutheran philosopher in Kant, whose concepts represent the very essence of Lutheranism. Schiller had at one time an inclination to follow Kant but found that he could not; and indeed no philosophic work better illustrates the striving to get beyond mere Lutheranism than Schiller's Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man. These letters—which are too little appreciated today—and also Goethe's Faust constitute as it were the apex of that other cultural stream. Both works stress that man must turn, not only to the Bible, but to the world and life itself in order to strengthen the human soul so that it can find, through its own forces, the path to the spiritual world. The concluding scenes of Faust represent the complete contrast to Lutheranism. Only a contrived interpretation could possibly bring Schiller's aesthetic letters, Goethe's Fairy Tale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily and the last scenes of Faust in line with Lutheranism. We see in these works the human soul attaining strength through an inner opposition to the natural-scientific interpretation of the world. And in this way it finds, through its own forces, the connection with the spiritual world.

Ideas concerned with the legend of “Dr. Faustus” emerged already in the 16th Century in opposition to Luther's strong proclamations, but these ideas could not yet gain ground… Luther's attention was focused on the man of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch who, though possessed by ahrimanic demons, yet refuses to acknowledge the, to Luther well known, devil. It is not really surprising that Ricarda Huch, after occupying herself so intensely with Luther, comes to place such great importance on his direct knowledge of the diabolical realm of the spiritual world. Bearing in mind the story of the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, it is indeed interesting that in our time it is a woman who has this yearning that man should again recognize the devil who—especially when his view of life is purely naturalistic—has him by the collar. In her book about Luther this longing comes to expression: that if only man could experience the devil it would awaken him to a consciousness of God.

This cry for the devil, expressed by Ricarda Huch lives in man's subconscious. It is a cry she wants mankind to hear. To understand Ricarda Huch is easy for someone who knows that in every laboratory, in every machine, in short in all the most important spheres of modern civilization, the actual devil is present and active. I say this in plain words for it would be much better for people to be aware of the devil rather than, unknown to them, he should have them by the collar.

Luther's consciousness of the devil was for him a living reality mainly because he still experienced the spiritual world as would a man in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. His vivid experience came to expression in his words, for he strove to make the man of the fifth epoch conscious of the devil by whom he was possessed without knowing it. Luther could not do otherwise than call up in the man of his time an awareness of the devil which differed from the way Faust experienced the devil. Faust deliberately sold himself in order to gain knowledge and power through the devil. Such a relationship to the devil was at first rejected in the 16th century. At that time only a negative submission to the devil could be envisaged. Goethe, and in fact already Lessing protested vigorously against that idea. One must ask why they had a different view of man's relation to the devil. It must be said that neither Lessing nor Goethe had the nerve openly to state their view of Faust's relation to the devil. Today it is much easier to speak openly of these things than it was at the time of Lessing and Goethe. An initiate may have wanted to tell his fellow men something different but if he had they would have torn him to pieces.

Let us attempt to understand Goethe's inner attitude to Faust. Goethe too had insight into the nature of man of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. He knew of man's close relationship to the devil in this epoch. He knew that whenever man's consciousness is restricted to the material alone the devil; i.e., ahrimanic powers are always present. This state of consciousness constitutes for these powers a door through which they gain entry. Ahriman has easy access to man whenever his consciousness is limited to the purely material aspect of things or dimmed down below normal, as can happen through organic causes, agitation, rage or other uncontrolled behaviour. Goethe's insight made it impossible for him to adopt the materialistic view generally held. While he knew that ahrimanic powers are universally present he could not in all honesty represent them as something to be avoided or rejected. On the contrary what he wanted Faust to attain he had to achieve through direct contest with the devil. In other words the devil must be made to surrender his power, he must be conquered. That is the real meaning behind Faust's struggle with the devil, the evil Ahriman or Mephistopheles.

Now let us turn to Schiller who tries to adopt Kant's philosophy but comes to recognize the futility of doing so. In his Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man he distinguishes between mere instinctive craving—which according to Luther arises from man's physical nature—and the spirit which reveals itself within his physical nature. A true Lutheran would say that man is addicted to his cravings and he cannot, through his own power, rise above them. Only faith can enable him to do so. He will then have been purified and redeemed through an externally existing Christ. Schiller said: No, something else is present in man: in the craving for freedom lives the power of the spirit which can ennoble the bodily cravings of man's physical nature. Schiller distinguishes physical nature, ennobled through the spirit, from the spirit becoming manifest through it. He shows that man is indeed separated from spiritual existence through matter, but that he nevertheless, out of himself, strives to reach the spirit by transforming matter; that is, physical existence, through inner alchemy.

One recognizes the spiritual greatness that could have enriched Western culture in works such as Schiller's aesthetic letters and also Goethe's Faust which presents in dramatic form the overcoming of ahrimanic powers in external life. What could have been achieved through the strong impulse towards the spirit contained in these works has not come about. And it fills one with pain and despair to see one's contemporaries turn instead, for their spiritual education, to such trash as the American “In Tune with the Infinite.”

I cannot refrain from repeating what happened to Deinhardt³⁴ of Vienna who wrote a very beautiful essay on Schiller's aesthetic letters in which he discusses the marvelous perspective their content opens up. I do not think anyone knows about Deinhardt today. He had the misfortune to fall and break his leg; when the doctor came he was told that he could not be healed because he was too undernourished. And so he died. But this small book by Deinhardt of Vienna is concerned with one of the deepest spiritual impulses that have sprung from Western culture. If only people would recognize and investigate what has actually germinated in Western culture we would cease to hear the empty phrase, “the best man in the best place,” and then people proceed, through lack of judgement, to select a nephew or a cousin as the best man in the best place. Continuously one hears it said that the right person for this or that position simply does not exist. That is not the case; what is lacking is rather people with judgement who know where to look. But that ability can only be attained through inner strength, developed by absorbing the spiritual impulses flowing through spiritual life. There is nothing abstract about what can be gained from great literary works. Rather they fill the human soul with spiritual impulses which further its development along the path that Goethe strode with such vigour, and whose goal he depicted with dramatic artistry in the last scene of his Faust. It has no meaning in our time to preserve the old just because it is old; but we must find those treasures of the past which contain seeds for the future. Nowhere is this better illustrated than in the classic works of Goethe, Schiller and Lessing.

I wanted to show where Lessing, Goethe and Schiller belong in recent cultural development because it enables us to understand better their predecessor Luther. To understand a personality such as Luther it is necessary to understand what stirred in the depth of his soul and caused him to speak the way he did. I believe that if in the light of these thoughts you approach what, especially in our time, comes to meet us with such force in Luther, you will discover many things about him which I cannot go into now. I am convinced that it has a special significance to immerse oneself in Luther in the present difficult time. There is perhaps no one better suited to convey the many aspects of the fifth post-Atlantean cultural epoch than Luther. He spoke so completely out of the spirit of the fifth epoch even though his words had their origin in the fourth epoch.

When faced with the way events are depicted in history we should sense how necessary it is to rethink them. We ought to sense that the present difficult time which has brought such misery upon humanity is the karmic effect of distorted, superficial thinking. We should sense that the painful experiences we go through are in many respects the karma of materialism. We must have the will to rethink history. I have often pointed out that history as taught today in elementary and secondary schools as well as in universities, perhaps particularly in the latter, is a mere fable, and is all the more pernicious for being unaware that it is but a fable that aims to present only external physical events. Should the events of the 19th century be presented just once as they truly were—merely those of the 19th century!—it would be an immense blessing for mankind. Referring to history Herman Grimm once said that he foresaw a time when those, now regarded as great figures of the 19th century, would no longer appear all that great, whereas quite other figures would emerge as the great ones from the grey mist of that century.

Because of the way history has come to be presented in the course of time the human soul must undergo a fundamental change in order to understand it properly. I have often said this but it cannot be stressed enough. Man's concepts nowadays lack the vigour and power required to cope with social needs, because they are based on such superficial views. This war is in reality waged because of shortsighted, obtuse and foggy ideas, and the men fighting it are in many respects mere puppets of those ideas. Today there is an incessant clamour for people's freedom, for international courts of arbitration and the like, all of which remains so many empty words because it makes no difference what is established as long as there is no deeper understanding of the real issues. Yet all these things could be achieved if, as is so greatly to be desired, spiritual science were able to rouse people to recognize the deeper impulses beneath the surface of ordinary life. But these things people today do not want to see. It is quite immaterial what is arranged whether in relation to war or to peace or whatever. What is needed is that our ideas, our understanding of the issues, cease to remain on the surface. One could wish that, just at this time, what Luther so forcefully proclaimed would be heard and understood. People would then come to recognize that in Luther spoke more than the man. In him the character of the epoch which began in the 8th century B.C. and ended in the 15th century A.D. united with the character of the epoch that followed; i.e., our own, which will endure for 2100 years.

In the true sense a historic personality is someone in whom there speaks a being from the Hierarchy of the Archai, a Time Spirit. Through such a personality the voice of the Spirit of the Time is heard. This must be recognized if one is to approach Luther with understanding.

• 32. Immanuel Kant 1724–1804 German Philosopher
• 33. Emil Du Bois-Reymond 1818–1896 German Physiologist
• 34. Heinrich Mariannus Deinhardt 1821–1879

A point has been reached in mankind's evolution when the riddle of existence becomes ever more significant for the human soul. Some are aware of the riddle but there is little inclination anywhere to seek ways and means of solving it.

Today I would like to point to an aspect of the riddle which many people come up against in everyday life. There are those who ask: Why is it that all over the world there is a discrepancy between man's intellectual and moral development? At present man's intellectual development expresses itself mainly in what could also be called, with more or less justification, scientific development. Most people's view of life is based on natural science. And what things has man not produced thanks to his intellect! I need not enumerate all the external products which make up our materialistic culture. When one thinks of all the ingenious means it has so far produced for destroying human life, for enabling men to slaughter one another, then, leaving aside all moral considerations, one must concede that the intellect has reached a certain high plateau in its development. Just think of all the scientific ingenuity necessary to produce all those instruments of death with which men mangle each other, causing untold suffering.

One can think of much that is negative and also of much that is positive in what has come about as a result of man's highly developed intellect. It has certainly progressed with unprecedented speed especially in the last centuries. Occasionally one comes across remarks made by the few who have noticed the glaring contrast between intellect and morality. Already years ago in his famous work The Riddle of the Universe, Ernst Haeckel³⁵ pointed out how man has progressed intellectually but in regard to morality he has in many respects remained at a primitive stage. There are also others who have remarked on this discord which tends to be noticed by persons who are awake and sensitive to what goes on in the world. However, due to modern man's lethargy and love of ease, people fail to become aware that only spiritual knowledge can throw light on these profound problems with their far-reaching consequences for the human soul. If one is to find one's way through the complexities of present-day life no other possibility exists than to attempt to understand them in the light of spiritual science. Anyone with a feeling for reality finds it painful to witness the unease, the unwillingness that exists all over the globe to face openly and courageously the things that are happening both above and below the surface of events. Today people are apt to deplore immoral measures taken in the past. This seems strange in view of the fact that they fail to judge what goes on at present all over the world which is far worse than anything that has happened before in human evolution. Let us for once look at the relationship between man's intellectual and moral development in the light of spiritual knowledge.

Our first enquiry must concern what exactly takes place in the human being when he is engaged in intellectual pursuits. What aspects of our being is active when we formulate scientific thoughts; i.e., when we investigate external phenomena? We reflect on the laws of nature to enable us, through understanding them, to form appropriate mental pictures. This activity engages parts of man's being which are the most mature. When we look at what is today the foundation, the tool of the intellect then we are looking at those aspects of man which were developed and incorporated into his being in the course of the ancient Saturn, Sun, Moon and the present Earth evolutions. When on the other hand we seek to understand the foundation of man's moral development we cannot refer to such mature constituents of his being. In regard to his moral evolution we are dealing with comparatively much younger members of human nature. In actual fact only man's 'I' can be said to be moral in the true sense. But, as I have often said: man's 'I' is the baby among the members of his being. Even in regard to the astral body, incorporated into man's being during the ancient Moon evolution, one can speak of moral impulses only insofar as the astral body, being intimately connected with the 'I' during life, may receive moral impulses from the latter. It must also be borne in mind that the 'I' and astral body have a comparatively independent existence; every night when we fall asleep they free themselves from the physical and etheric bodies. They are then in a state of complete unconsciousness and therefore cannot receive moral impulses.

The following is of great importance but somewhat difficult for modern man to understand: Every time we awake from sleep we enter, with our ‘I’ and astral body, into our physical and etheric bodies; i.e., into the oldest members of our being. These members, having evolved through the Saturn, Sun and Moon evolutions have attained a certain degree of perfection which makes them pre-eminently suitable tools for the intellect. Their degree of perfection is something that is inborn in them and manifests as intellectual proficiency. If the 'I' and astral body were not added to our physical and etheric bodies we would in a certain sense be thinking machines; we would be scientific automatons. In accordance with their nature our physical and etheric bodies do in fact act automatically in certain ways. It is only because the ‘I’ dwells in them that they are capable of further development on earth. But the ‘I’ could do little towards perfecting the physical and etheric bodies, even in regard to their intellectual ability, if it were not transported every night into sleep. We attain our best forces, also in regard to intellectual development, during sleep. It is because the physical and etheric bodies are perfectly developed tools that the already existing intellectuality can become further developed by what the 'I' has received from the spiritual world during sleep and bestows upon them on waking. During waking life we have in addition our consciousness which we attain by virtue of the physical and etheric bodies. We have at present no comparable consciousness as far as the ‘I’ and astral body are concerned. This should be kept well in mind. Man believes he knows his ‘I,’ but in what sense does he know it? If you have, say, a red surface and cut a hole in it through which you look into darkness; i.e., into nothingness, you will then see the red surface and the hole as a black circle. You look into nothingness. In your inner life you see your ‘I’ the way you see the black circle in the surrounding red. What man believes to be perception of his 'I' is in fact a gap in his soul life. Though nothing is there, or very little, man believes he perceives his ‘I.’ In actual fact all he sees is what his brain reveals to him through his etheric and physical bodies. In the present phase of evolution man has not come very far in perceiving his own ‘I’ while in a physical body between birth and death.

We are unconscious during sleep, but during the day, while awake, we are still unconscious as far as our ‘I’ is concerned. Yet morality must be implanted into the ‘I.’ So you see, as far as morality is concerned—compared with his intellectuality—man is very much a baby. That is the deeper reason why it is so difficult for man, during earth evolution, to advance morally, while intellectually he progresses with comparative ease.

In a periodical founded during the war entitled The Bell an article recently appeared discussing the discrepancy between intellectual and moral development. Despite its name, The Bell seldom rings out much sense; according to its opinion on this matter, the discrepancy can be traced to the fact that intellectual development has come about under capitalism, in other words during a time when rulership was in the hands of the few, whereas moral development will come about only when socialism has been established. Well, idealists insist that the earth will become paradise when idealism gains the upper hand. Materialists make the same claim for materialism while, according to liberals, paradise comes about when liberalism is generally accepted. So naturally socialists see paradise as the realization of socialism. These views are all incredibly naive. They are in fact so many trite illusions all of which demonstrate that, while modern man is beset by problems, he still will not rouse his thinking—and on thinking it at first depends—to the irksome task of penetrating into the realm of spiritual experience. Anyone who will really think can penetrate to spiritual reality. Our age that prides itself in its thinking knows thinking the least.

The discrepancy between intellectual and moral development can only be explained when seen in the greater contexts just outlined. But the article in The Bell comes to the conclusion that as long as there are individuals who are intellectual, intellectuality will continue to develop, whereas moral life will reach a comparable development only when all people are merged within a socialist order. Thus capitalism is supposed to be favourable for intellectuals who are scientifically inclined, while socialism will be favourable for moral development. The reality however, is very different, for interest in the spiritual world must take hold of man if morality is to develop to the same extent as intellectuality has done. Men must become able actually to behold the spiritual forces and impulses that surge and pulsate through the world. There are many reasons why this is highly uncomfortable for modern man. For example, when someone embarks upon developing his thinking, in ways I have often described, his thinking becomes capable of functioning in the spiritual world. This means that in his thinking he experiences the spiritual world as a reality. This leads him of necessity to develop something else which has declined during our materialistic age, namely, an inner feeling of responsibility.

People whose view of life is based solely on their natural-scientific knowledge and observations are determined, in the way they think, by external events. Their thinking is as it were attached to the leading strands of the external phenomena and guided by them. The concepts they acquire enable them, up to a point, to understand external events. However, this kind of thinking in no way suffices to recognize moral and social issues in their reality; let alone find solutions to moral and social problems. In order to achieve this one must be in contact with spiritual reality, which however creates in the soul a strong feeling of responsibility for one's thoughts. One will not permit every arbitrary train of thought to go through the soul but only such which are, as it were, fit to be seen by the Beings of the Higher Hierarchies. Proclaiming freedom for nations is not a concept fit to present to spiritual worlds; it illustrates the kind of mistaken concept, generally held today, concerning the individual's relation to his folk. We know from spiritual science that freedom is a concept which is applicable only to human beings as individuals; quite different concepts apply to nations with their group souls. Yet around the world today freedom of nations and the like is being proclaimed, giving voice to Woodrow Wilson's immature ideas. They are even taken seriously! In fact they are also taken seriously within Europe; though we, with centuries of experience should at least be able to produce a few enlightened ideas, ideas that could, in the sense of spiritual science, throw some light on the issues.

It is possible to feel responsibility, not only towards people, but towards concepts and ideas; if they are moral ideas they exist entirely in the spiritual world, for they arise in our T or possibly in the astral body. However, one does not have this feeling of responsibility if one lives exclusively in materialistic concepts and ideas; i.e., ideas that relate solely to external phenomena as often happens without awareness. One hears phrases such as: God sent us this war because of our sins and shortcomings. Uttering such phrases does not indicate moral or spiritual ideas; it indicates rather no advance beyond materialism. Such an advance only comes about when one is able to form mental pictures of spiritual reality. Plenty of phrases are coined these days which have no foundation in reality; it happens especially when it comes to discussing this or that political issue. On such occasions one often hears talk of a "new spirit" which does not mean in the least that the person concerned has the slightest inkling of the spirit.

If we are to extricate ourselves from the present devastating conditions, the spirit must not remain abstract; it must be grasped in its reality. As already mentioned it is possible to understand this or that external phenomenon with the kind of concepts engendered by simply following the leading strings of physical perception. They do not, however, have the power to influence the intricacies of human life; the latter require concepts and ideas derived from spiritual insight. You may ask how it then comes about that human life is after all influenced occasionally. It is because human beings still rely on old, even ancient ideas though they no longer fit the changed conditions. Our age demands new concepts, new mental pictures, derived from spiritual knowledge. Naturally, these ideas are new only in the sense that they are new to mankind.

However, these new ideas are at times found to be unpalatable especially when they relate to human morality seen in the light of spiritual knowledge. It is easy enough to say that good will is a virtue and should be cultivated, or that justice is moral and ought to be established. It is also easy enough to make laws and arrangements accordingly. One can even elect parliaments in which clever people come together to make all kinds of decisions based on good will and justice. But if things are handled the way they have been so far they will result in something similar to the situation we see spread all over the world today, if only people would have the courage to recognize that there is a direct connection between the terrible events taking place at present and the kind of concepts and ideas which preceded them.

Good will is certainly a virtue and one can even get a sensuous feeling of pleasure from practicing it. A kind of cathechism of virtues could be devised: Thou shalt have good will, thou shalt be just and so on; one would then possess a list of virtues and no understanding of any of them. It would in fact be comparable to knowing that when a pendulum is at its highest point the law of gravity will bring it down to the lowest, but not knowing that in coming down the pendulum gathers a force that makes it swing equally far up the other side. In regard to physical phenomena these things are easy to recognize because the external phenomena themselves enforce one's thinking to be consistent, but in the sphere of morality there are no such leading strings.

If a person develops good will it is certainly an excellent thing. However, just as the pendulum in its downward swing gathers the force that will make it swing upwards, so there develops with the force of good will a tendency to its opposite, a tendency to prejudice, biassed views and the like. No virtue can be cultivated without developing also a disposition towards the opposite vice. These truths are not comfortable but truths they are. In the individual they are less noticeable, but in public life they result in the kind of thing I have indicated. If people in one age one-sidedly cultivate some virtue and pride themselves over much in the fact, then people in the following age, although the connection is not recognized, will exhibit the corresponding vice. Seen in their true light these things point to a deep truth uttered by Christ Jesus but one which people will not acknowledge.

At the present time a strange current flows like a current through the world taking hold of souls like an epidemic. It is hard to believe that such views can be held, but they are. It appears that people have come to the conclusion that this war must be continued until an everlasting peace can be won. The war must go on till the impact of the war itself provides an absolute guarantee that there never will be another. Obviously the best way to achieve everlasting peace is to let the war go on forever. Simply by striving, as is done at present, for the ideal of everlasting peace will ensure that the war never ends! We live in a physical body, on the physical plane and the physical plane is not and cannot be perfect. If at one time or another the most perfect conditions possible were established it would only be a matter of a few centuries and they would be imperfect; because evolution progresses in oscillations, not in a straight ascending line. As the pendulum swings up and down, so does evolution move in lines of ascent and descent. If one epoch has developed something perfect, it need only wait and people will come who know of things still more perfect.

What matters is not the perfection with which things are arranged on the physical plane, which in any case is an impossibility, an illusion. What matters is man's freedom. Liberalism, socialism, conservatism all want to create paradise on earth; i.e., they want to realize something perfect on the physical plane. Christ said: “The kingdom of God is within you.” To want to make the physical world into a perfect paradise is to want something impossible, for in the physical world there is perpetual oscillation. The Christ Principle is understood rightly only when one strives to permeate the physical world with spirituality and recognizes that man is a participant of the realm of the Gods, the realm of the spirit. Those who want to turn the physical world into a paradise, whether in the socialistic or some other sense, know nothing about reality. If the present unreal ideas are to be replaced with ideas based on reality things must be seen in their wider spiritual context. This can be done only through spiritual science. Today people are apt to be scornful of the vistas opening up through knowledge of the evolutions of Saturn, Sun, Moon, Earth, Jupiter, etc. People are apt to ask why all that is necessary? Yet this knowledge is needed in order to understand even the tiniest aspect of life, for man is truly a microcosm. He bears within him the Saturn, Sun, and Moon evolutions, and if he does not want to know about them he places himself in a situation comparable to denying someone the use of his hands for life by tying them behind his back in early childhood. Similarly man does not make use of his capabilities if he refuses to turn his gaze towards spiritual reality. By this refusal he fails grievously in a sphere where he need not fail.

I would like to give you an example which may seem strange to some but which perhaps conveys more exactly what I mean by many of the things which I have only touched on today. I have recently spoken with various people about what is necessary to get mankind out of the present calamities and blind alleys. What must be done can be expressed in a number of practical ideas with which thinking must be quickened when it comes to questions such as—I cannot go into details now—answering the Papal note. Although these ideas are nothing but practical answers to immediate problems, they can neither be attained nor understood unless an impulse towards spiritual knowledge is present. They deal with the kind of thinking, the ways and means, necessary if man is to find a solution to the present confusion concerning how the various peoples and countries are to coexist. They concern arrangements to be made between peoples and countries and how to avoid resorting to illusory, abstract notions which only result in unrealistic declarations about people's freedom, peaceful cooperation between smaller nations and the like.

It is indeed possible to work out eminently practical ideas which can lead to salvation from the present miseries. But what kind of thing happens instead? Perhaps you have read in the papers about the new principal of Berlin University being installed. The new principal, Councillor Penck³⁶ has been lecturing on political frontiers based on geological factors. It is impossible to convey the heaviness of heart such occurrences cause one. And why? Because at what should be the most enlightened places for present-day cultural life, the most unenlightened, elementary ideas are presented. If minds had been occupied instead with spiritual knowledge, then comprehensive ideas of truly practical use for life would have emerged. Just think of the present situation: we have on the one hand spiritual science which can work out ideas with practical application for the present problems, ideas of a comprehensive nature which would reveal connections of a higher order between the issues. On the other hand we have the recognized official enquiries, still groping tentatively in the most basic aspect of the problems with no prospect of getting any further. Those to whom people today look up and regard as highest authorities are far removed from any understanding of what is so desperately needed and attainable through spiritual science. That is what makes it difficult to explain what is necessary, especially in relation to the present situation. Official science is concerned with rudiments of a scientific investigation yet that in itself could lead to spiritual science if those concerned did not regard it as so much fantasy which they refuse to consider.

One is reminded, without presumption or lack of humility, of how the first Christians in early Roman times had to perform their religious worship down in the catacombs; while up above the old social order continued as before. But a few centuries later what had become of that old order whose treatment of early Christianity we learn from Roman history? Within a few centuries it had dissolved, and what had once existed down in the catacombs was now above and had spread far and wide. If only a sufficient number of people could understand that something similar must come about today even if not of the same magnitude as Christianity itself. What today dominates the world as the customary outlook based on official science cannot endure. It has the same relationship to the needs of the present as ancient Rome to Christianity evolving below in the catacombs.

This world issue, this world antithesis must be inwardly experienced. One must enter into it with thoughts and feelings in order to become fully aware of the shallowness, when at present there are declamations about a "new spirit." One must become aware of how futile are the unintelligible ideas about guarantees to be provided by international organizations and courts of arbitration, despite the fact that no one knows who would be able to arbitrate. The time has come when concepts and ideas connected with the great world issues must be related to those of everyday life. Mankind cannot simply say that such concepts and ideas are all very well when it is a question of grasping world events but they do not apply to everyday issues. Either they are so applied or these very issues become meaningless and lose all significance for practical life, not that of a decade hence but for today and tomorrow.

When difference of opinion is expressed usually a degree of objectivity is exercised, but not when the object of contention is spiritual science or Anthroposophy. When someone like Max Dessoir, a professor at Berlin University, attacks spiritual science, he regales his readers with misrepresentations and falsifications, as I have shown in my book that will be published shortly. What should be an honest objective discussion becomes a personal attack, personal vilification when the issue is spiritual science. And why? Not because people are able to refute spiritual science, but because they do not want it. The reason they do not is because modern man shuns the irksome task of seeking within himself for his true humanity. People like for example, to rejoice and take pride in their moral concepts, but this is no longer possible when one knows that virtues will of themselves turn into their corresponding vices unless a strict watch is kept over one's life of soul.

I have often drawn attention to the question of selflessness. Once in a public lecture I gave as a hypothetical example a society founded for the purpose of cultivating selflessness. The members soon formed the habit of turning to those who managed the society saying: I would like such and such but not for myself; it is for someone else; then the “someone else” would also ask for something not for himself but for the one who first asked. Neither wanted anything for himself! The essential thing is not whether one wants something for oneself or for someone else but whether the request itself is a selfless one. The truth is that when people try to become selfless then after a time the power inherent in selflessness makes them egoistic. The very striving for selflessness makes for egotism. One has to take care when "the pendulum swings down" not to rejoice in one's own selflessness.

Luther was very aware of these things, that is why we find in his writing many instances when he seemingly shows little respect for such virtues as selflessness and the like. He knew that selflessness is usually a mask behind which hides a hypocrite. Luther could often be blunt about such matters. For example, he advises Melanchthon not to try to be so frightfully selfless but rather do the bad he felt like doing. For it is better to do the bad when so inclined than be an insincere pharisee who ostensibly does the good while inwardly wanting to do the bad. Luther had a great deal of insight into this polarity in human nature because of his particular kind of spiritual experiences. For example he was in Rome in the year 1510; at that time it was considered virtuous to climb a very high flight of stairs—I do not know the technical Catholic term for so doing. For every stage climbed a certain number of days in purgatory were remitted, if the whole flight of steps were climbed on one's knees without getting up many days of purgatory were remitted. Luther took part in this, for at that period of his life he had the view that by such means one could further one's salvation. However as he was climbing he had an Imagination which conveyed to him: Seek righteousness in faith! It was this kind of experience that made Luther the man he was. He inwardly sensed the contrasting forces that were engendered in his soul by what he was doing.

What is needed at the present time above all else is a deeper insight into human life. This means among other things to have the ability to recognize that the repetition of a word does not necessarily mean one has the reality to which it points. Many utter the word “spirit” but it is possible to talk a great deal about spirit and not come anywhere near it. This is not generally noticed. For example there is a man who has written what amounts to a whole library; I should not like to have to count how many times the word spirit appears in his library. People actually believe that this man, Rudolf Eucken,³⁷ is talking about real spirit. In this realm it is essential to differentiate between reality and mere appearance. To do this causes disquiet, it creates fear of spiritual life, even fear of thinking itself. The man of today wants to flee from thinking, he wants to find his own salvation as well as solutions to social and political problems by any means other than thinking.

The time is too serious, too grave not to take these things in deep earnestness. It will be a day of blessing when a greater number of people recognize the truth and reality of what I have indicated again today, unfortunately no more than indicated. To go into these things in greater detail would mean speaking about things which cannot be spoken of today. That is why it would be a good thing if you, especially after these lectures, would apply to them some real thinking that is as yet not censored. I said in the last lecture that today people would tear to pieces anyone who spoke openly about the immediate events as seen with supersensible vision. Certain things cannot be mentioned let alone done. Thus many opportunities are lost when one could illustrate how essential it is for present-day man to deepen and strengthen his inner life. Just imagine what would have become of the Lutheran movement had Luther not possessed far greater, stronger and more effective forces than those possessed by most leading figures today.

One may ask why people today show so little interest in spiritual knowledge. The real reason is, what I have often referred to, that man finds it disquieting, uncomfortable. The natural-scientific view of the world is based on concepts and ideas which are easier to digest. They are certainly to be admired but all one must do to acquire them is to look at the phenomena and allow the external facts to lead one along. One is not required to rouse oneself inwardly, one does not have to delve into the deepest recesses of one's soul in order to take the next step. Spiritual knowledge does indeed make such demands and one is bound to say that unless a human being is willing to make such efforts he is not man in the true sense. That is also a truth which is not pleasant to hear, especially by someone who, thanks to prevailing conditions, is in a position of authority. That a professor or a privy councilor is not supposed to be a human being in the fullest sense is naturally difficult to understand. However, it is the kind of thing that must be understood if we are to emerge from the miseries we are in at present.

In the year 1613 Johann Valentin Andrae³⁸ wrote The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz; the book appeared in 1616. During the years from 1614 to 1617 Valentin Andrae wrote other works in which he expresses the thoughts and feelings of his time. One of his books has as its subtitle: "To the Princes and Heads of States." Andrae wanted to show that what man believes himself to be and what he believes others to be is maya, is a great illusion. He wanted man to have the opportunity to learn to know his true self and that of others. He had in mind a great spiritual movement and had given much thought and preparation to its realization. Two outstanding events were in preparation at that time: the movement Valentin Andrae wanted, and the Thirty Years' War, lasting from 1618 to 1648. The events that led to the Thirty Years' War made impossible the movement which Johann Valentin Andrae wanted to bring about. Much would have to be said if one were to describe the various causes for this failure. Attempts are often made which fail but which later succeed. There was at that time a possibility that it may have succeeded but it did not. Today we again find ourselves within two streams, two possibilities, which must of necessity affect one another. On the one hand there is Anthroposophy with the impulse to further human evolution; on the other hand there is all that which has brought about events, similar in nature to those that caused the Thirty Years' War. It depends upon mankind whether once again what ought to happen is prevented from happening. Lethargy, love of ease might well paralyze the present attempt. Whether things would then take their course as they did when the attempt made by Valentin Andrae was paralyzed is another matter.

One should not ask a question such as: Why do the spiritual powers not intervene in the affairs on the physical plane and bring order about? That ought not to be asked because what human beings do is often in direct revolt against the spiritual powers. Very often those in revolt are the very people who are forever talking about spirit, spirit, spirit. I recently read on the cover of a magazine an advertisement of some kind in which the word spirit was repeated ad nauseam. These days spirit dominates everything, it is enough to make one despair! Spirit is supposed to manufacture the germs and gas masks and what not. Everything is called spirit. The question is: do people realize what spirit this is? As you know we distinguish between the spirit of normal evolution and the luciferic and ahrimanic spirit. I drew your attention to Ricarda Huch and how, in her book on Luther she expresses a positive longing for the devil, she means of course for recognition of the devil. Concerning all the proclamations about spirit one could say that people never notice the devil even when they have him on the covers of magazines.

There are many things which today I could only hint at, and many I could refer to only in a veiled manner. They will become clear to you if you reflect on what has been said today. One thing you will have noticed: that I have spoken in deep earnest, in bitter earnest which is also the way I must, for the time being, bring these lectures to a close.

• 35. Ernst Haeckel 1834–1919 German Biologist
• 36. Albrecht Penck 1858–1945 German Geographer
• 37. Rudolf Euchen 1846–1926 Philosopher
• 38. Johann Valentin Andreae 1586–1654 Theologian