The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Address by Rudolf Steiner on the eve of the first Anthroposophical College Course at the Goetheanum.

My dear friends!

With the start of the School of Spiritual Science here in Dornach tomorrow, we are undoubtedly standing at a very important stage in our movement in anthroposophically oriented spiritual science. And even if it is only very briefly, I would like to be allowed to say a few words today about the development of this spiritual science, after I already did so to a certain extent here some time ago, a few months ago, due to [opposing] attacks. Nevertheless, today I would like to draw your attention to a few things in this regard.

We will open this course for spiritual scientific knowledge in the Goetheanum itself, in the construction of the Goetheanum, in a building that is still unfinished but has progressed so far that work will be able to begin in it in the next few weeks. And when I now consider the name 'Goetheanum', which was given to this building in the way you know, I cannot help thinking of one of the starting points of this movement. As I have often indicated, and also printed in a few sentences in the introduction to my book Mysticism in the Dawn of Modern Spiritual Life, our movement originates from the lectures I gave in Berlin at the beginning of the century to a small circle. This inner circle in Berlin consisted partly of people who at that time called themselves Theosophists; but it also included such personalities who were quite distant from what the others called Theosophy. This circle met once a week in the house of Countess Brockdorff in Berlin, and there lectures were given from the most diverse areas of intellectual and public life; some artistic activities were also cultivated. Once I was invited to give a lecture in this circle. And I accepted, although I had never been in this circle before and did not know whether I had met one or other of the personalities in this circle; in any case, I did not know the lady of the house or the master of the house. But there are moments in life when one is polite. So after I had agreed through an intermediary to give the requested lecture on Nietzsche - it was, after all, quite some time after the writing of my essay “Nietzsche, a Fighter Against His Time” - it occurred to me: You have to be polite, you are now going to the housewife and the head of the household. So I first wrote a letter to Countess Brockdorff, asking her for permission to pay a courtesy call before giving the lecture at the house. Countess Brockdorff wrote back to me that it was not necessary, I should just come to the lecture – I no longer remember on which day it was, just the next lecture [evening]. And so I came into this circle and gave a lecture on Nietzsche. At the end of this lecture, I was invited to give another lecture during the winter season. And I immediately said: Yes, I would give a lecture on the same topic that I had written about in the “Magazin für Literatur”, which I was editing at the time, for Goethe's hundred and fiftieth birthday.

I had written on the occasion of Goethe's hundred and fifth birthday: “Goethe's Secret Revelation”. I said that I wanted to speak about this topic, “Goethe's Secret Revelation”, at the lecture evening to which I had been invited. The lecture took place. And I tried to present everything that can be connected to Goethe's “Fairytale of the Green Snake and the Beautiful Lily” in this lecture at the time.

That was actually, I would say, the original cell of this movement, my dear friends. The original cell was that lecture on Goethe's secret revelation. I have to mention this when we begin an important stage in our movement here at the Goetheanum tomorrow. Actually, it is very nice that this movement is returning to its beginning – at least for me and what I have to do in the movement.

It began with Goethe, and tomorrow we begin something extraordinarily important in the building that was given its name by Goethe. So you see, there is something of consistency and continuity in the whole course of our movement.

The lecture I gave [at that time] on Goethe's secret revelation then led to me having to present the essentials of what is now contained in my essay 'Mysticism in the Dawn of Modern Spiritual Life' in connection with modern natural science in that circle during the following winter. Thus, having arisen from Goethe, it was then continued in that writing. I then presented to a wider circle what is contained in my book “Christianity as Mystical Fact”.

What is contained in my book “Mysticism” has already led to a large part of this “mysticism” being translated into English. And that led to me being invited to give lectures on what, in its various forms, was the “Theosophical Society”.

Now I will never allow anyone to take away the right to give lectures, to give what I have to advocate in order to advocate it, where I am invited to do so. Therefore, I also gave lectures for those who called themselves Theosophists, among other lectures, but which, as I told everyone from the outset who wanted to or should hear it, did not contain anything that had not arisen from my own research.

I then took part in various Theosophical congresses. In the meantime, this movement, which had come into being in this way, had gained members within Central Europe, members who stuck together mainly because of the world view that I had already advocated at the time. When I gave the lecture on Goethe's Secret Revelation, it didn't mean much that what was advocated there was advocated at the invitation of the Theosophical Society.

At one of the congresses in London, I also saw Olcott, the president of the Theosophical Society. He said to me at the time, “Yes, with this German Section, it's an awkward business.” I said: Why? – Yes, the membership lists are so difficult for us. – I said: I am not interested in the membership lists, I am more interested in the members; and if the members are there, I don't really care if they are on the list. – Well, similar comments were made more often.

After going through various stages [a congress was held in Munich – it was 1907 –] with the other Theosophists. And at that time, people were very surprised that this movement had sprung up so quickly within Central Europe, as it was put. For there was a dictum that had been passed from one to the other among members of the Theosophical Society, especially in the circles of those who were “advanced” - that's what they called those who directed something here or there; and this dictum, which was constantly being uttered among these people, was: Germany is not ripe for this.

Now, this dictum was somewhat suppressed in Munich at the time. But actually, this dictum did not seem entirely unjustified to me; because we were not ripe for what the Theosophical [Society] held in its bosom, nor are we today, and I don't think we care about it at all.

What this “immaturity” led to was that we did not mature to recognize this Hindu boy, Alcyone – or something like that was his name – who had been chosen to carry the soul of Christ Jesus, when others who had been chosen as suitable candidates for the incarnation of the soul of Christ Jesus had proved unsuitable. We proved ourselves to be completely immature. And so we were thrown out.

And so, more and more developed outwards into the clarity that is the Anthroposophical Movement. But it simply developed outwards only what was originally, very originally there.

You see, I had just been invited to lecture at the Theosophical Society, and I had just founded a German Section in Berlin in 1902; but during the founding, founding negotiations, founding meeting, I had to leave because I had to give a lecture in another venue that was part of a cycle called “Anthroposophical Reflections on World History”. And so you see that while the Theosophical Society was founding its German Section, I was speaking about anthroposophy.

Today there is nothing else there but what actually arose from this original cell, 'Goethe's Secret Revelation'. And the Anthroposophical Society is just that, even in its external name, which was always intended by me.

In 1909 there was a Theosophical Congress in Budapest. At that time all kinds of curious things were already simmering in the center of the Theosophical Society, the Adyar Center. I believe that a part of the more reasonable people at the time had split off from the Theosophical Society, and this part needed a name. They turned to me. I did not think the time had come then to come out openly under the real flag of the Anthroposophical Movement. And so I said at the time: I already know a name that should be given when this movement takes on a reasonable form; but I need it later, I don't want it misused yet. So I said in 1909. I had in mind the name “Anthroposophical Society”.

And then in 1913 the Anthroposophical Society was founded. Those who were then there as members, insofar as they were still members of the Theosophical Society, were thrown out of the latter, lock, stock and barrel.

These things must be faced if we want to see the whole continuity of what is before us today, my dear friends; for here beginning and end are truly connected. And in the course of development, too, you will basically not perceive any breaks if you do not artificially construct them.

Then came the time that had often been pointed out in our anthroposophical lectures, the time when the decline of modern civilization became most evident: the terrible years since 1914 came, and with them the collapse of Central Europe, which in reality is a collapse of modern civilization as a whole. And it was necessary to include this in the current of our anthroposophical movement, which now, I would say, is moving as a social wing within this movement.

Anyone who follows the movement internally can see how the threefold social order movement has grown out of this anthroposophical movement in a completely organic way.

The threefolding movement brought all sorts of new elements into the anthroposophical movement. However, the personalities who were the bearers of these elements were already there at the same time; admittedly, others were added, but as I said, the personalities who were the bearers of these elements were there at the same time. But for a number of personalities, the idea of threefolding had the effect of awakening a new impetus, a new impulse in them. It is not clear to me how this impetus could have arisen from within the Theosophical Society. Because, you see, when I consider these real, actual moments of the genesis of the anthroposophical movement, I always think of such things, as I have mentioned before.

I was once at a Theosophical event in Paris. There, for the most part, the people who were “advanced” spoke. And afterwards, people would express their judgments about what had been said. I can't say they talked about what had been said, but the advanced ones, especially the ladies, moved around partly nimbly, partly a little drowsily, and declared everywhere: There were such wonderful vibrations in this room while so-and-so was speaking! And everywhere you heard praise for these very brilliant “vibrations”.

And from everything that had been said behind the various lectures, I could only imagine that one actually did not use one's ears as a mediator for what was going on in the hall, but it seemed to me that one's nose was used. Because the way people talked afterwards was actually as if they had smelled these “vibrations”. So that one actually had to smell theosophy.

But I have to say: I don't think that much of a social nature could have been sensed from these reports, from these speeches! For there was nothing in all of this that was native to it, nothing of an impact that would have gone so far as to directly grasp the living existence, the full humanity.

The need to grasp this full humanity, however, came to the fore with great force in the second decade of the twentieth century. And if the anthroposophical movement had not sensed that it had to absorb social elements within itself, or rather, had to allow them to emerge from itself, then it would have proved to be just any old sect standing in the corner, but not as that which it was meant to be from the very beginning: the renewal of spiritual life from the original spiritual source for the developmental needs of modern humanity.

This should be fully understood within our movement. And above all, it should be understood that if anthroposophy is to fulfill its task, then it must actually pour its currents into all the individual branches of modern knowledge, it must take hold of all science.

In this respect, nothing was similar in all that had been achieved on anthroposophical ground to what had been achieved on the ground of the Theosophical Society. Because, you see, there they had also made all kinds of compromises with science, but they were compromises. If, on the other hand, you could impress people in Italy or England or elsewhere with a professorial conquest that you had made in this or that, of course, brilliant name, then you were happy: Professor so and so became a member of the Theosophical Society – a brilliant achievement! That's how you drew the line to the sciences.

But the anthroposophical movement should not draw its lines in this way. Of course, one could have some success by bowing and scraping to ordinary science, but we did not do that. So I made myself unpopular, at least in that respect. I could give many examples, but I will give only one.

There was a man [...] within the Theosophical Society who was actually quite charming. He once came to a place where we had an anthroposophical branch. He was a botanist. I was always interested in those things that I thought might incidentally interest him. And so I spoke to the professor of botany, and I talked about some details of botanical science. He was not at all interested, not in the least. He was even a little annoyed, because he was fond of “theosophy” and he assumed that it would not interfere with his botany. He thought to himself: “A botanist – that's someone in the style of modern scientific development. It's a matter of course that everything is in order there. And then, if you have any needs on the side, you also take up theosophy. But there you have two neatly separate drawers: here botany, here theosophy. And there the one does not interfere with the other. Therefore, it became extremely uncomfortable for him to hear about botany from an anthroposophical point of view. One example among many.

But we could not refrain from pouring into everything that comes from the sources of anthroposophical research, into the specific activity of life, into everything that belongs to the world. This became unpleasant for many people, quite unpleasant. Because, right, you could be a good botanist in the sense of the demands of the time, because you had graduated from high school, then did your specialized studies, wrote your dissertation, then became a private lecturer, wrote your book, became a professor – well, you also had your botanical collection – it was all in order; you had that behind you. Why interfere in any way? But because it was unsatisfactory, something was needed for the other needs of the human being. So one took up Theosophy. It was easy to grasp in relation to the many books one had studied before finally becoming a university professor. So one bought a few more, that is, Theosophical books. Now one also had something for the other. The circles should not be disturbed.

But we couldn't do it that way. I, in particular, could not become that well-behaved, my dear friends. And so I was obliged to speak out against this from an anthroposophical basis, to tell people: No, this is not right; we do not need to approach things with a hide; instead, each of the other subjects needs to be properly cleaned up; everything has become dead and must come to life again.

The whole matter is connected with our social demands. For if we had not this ghastly specialization in individual sciences alien to life, if we did not have this lack of understanding of life through these separate individual sciences, then we would not have been driven into the misfortune of recent years. And we must get out of it by starting at the right end and properly penetrating into the pigeonholes. So that the spirit, which alone can carry the development of humanity, is also present in all the individual activities of the life of knowledge. And everything that was to emerge from this life of knowledge was in our anthroposophical movement. And when the new elements came, who felt inspired by the idea of threefolding and by many other things that have been going on in the anthroposophical movement in recent years, the impetus also came to take the path that now leads to what is to begin tomorrow as our anthroposophical college course here.

Above all, it was Dr. Boos, the founder and leader of the Swiss Threefolding Union, who had the inner strength that led to what we will begin tomorrow.

In a certain way, one had to be completely immersed in the realization of the necessity to fertilize all scientific, all artistic, all social life from anthroposophy. You had to be equipped with the inner audacity to really combine absolutely clear, sharply defined thinking with the necessary intuition that sees that what flows through the currents of anthroposophy can really deliver what needs to be delivered to the sciences. Then you have to have that sacred fire that is dedicated to such work. This has been done in a way for which we cannot thank our friend Dr. Roman Boos enough, and it is actually thanks to him that we have his work in front of us, this anthroposophical university course that is to begin tomorrow.

Of course, we must not forget all those who have worked and contributed in abundance; but a driving force must be behind all of this. And this driving force must, I would say, be a social impetus. That was necessary above all. We have had that in relation to these enterprises, and I would just like to wish that we still had many more ventures with Dr. Boos; then we will certainly make progress.

And so we can follow the growth of what I took the liberty of presenting to you today in the original cell, how it branched out into the life of the individual sciences, how it summoned all the friends whom we cannot greet warmly enough and who will now devote themselves as lecturers to the development of anthroposophy in the individual sciences and branches of life. If we can show the world how Anthroposophy is working in the individual branches of science, we will also gain the necessary momentum for the social work of Anthroposophy.

And that, my dear friends, is what should inspire us as we experience this course of the anthroposophical higher education system. We hope that many new seeds will arise from everything that is done, spoken and shown here.

[The following remarks are not directly related to the history of the society from 1902 to 1913:]

"According to the program, we will begin tomorrow with this anthroposophical college course. The first event tomorrow will be what is intended to be the starting point, so to speak. We will begin tomorrow at five o'clock with a musical prelude by our friend Stuten. Then there will be a series of addresses, which I am supposed to open with one about science, art and religion, but which will hopefully lead to a whole series of addresses that briefly point out the significance of the moment, which is so embedded in the present that from here, from this Goetheanum, we are really trying to lead that impulse into the world, which, above all, aims at a renewal of scientific life.

Then there will be a rehearsal of the musical settings of our friend Schuurman, namely his setting of a poetic insertion in the “Chymischen Hochzeit des Christian Rosenkreutz”. Then there will be a break. After a break, declamations and other musical performances will follow. Then this morning celebration will close with a eurythmic performance. So we will first point out the different lines of activity that are to be cultivated here at this Goetheanum.

Today, my dear friends, it would probably be our task first of all to think about how to accomplish the work that falls to us, since we have to ensure that the entire three-week event runs in a dignified but also practical manner. To do this, the gentlemen from our Swiss threefold social order, the gentlemen from the Goetheanum, from the Association of Goetheanism and so on, the ladies and gentlemen, need to be supported by a number of other personalities who - please don't be offended by me, I don't always mean it to sound so bad - order, right, because if they have already been standing outside the entrance before, it is really not necessary to spend another hour until everyone is sitting in their seats, but to make sure that everyone finds their seat as quickly as possible, that what is done is that which leads to sitting still and listening as soon as possible. I have to say that I am actually sorry that I have to speak tomorrow: I would much rather be a steward, because you can develop such wonderful talents when you are a steward. Firstly, a steward, if he is really agile, if he is not clumsy, when he gets a ticket in his hand – excuse me, I don't mean any harm – first looks at it from all sides, just like a clumsy clumsy postal clerk at the counter with the letter, so that you get desperate until you get your ticket for a registered letter, but with a quick movement you immediately know: there is the place - so that the person in question can walk and immediately get to his seat. So direct them quickly, but calmly, and be charming at the same time, not rough, so that the person who is directed to the seat is very happy; so that no one can think: You're being snarled at. So I think this is a good opportunity to develop your best talents; it's actually extremely desirable. And so I ask the gentlemen in particular to be charming. I think it will be especially nice in this case if the gentlemen are officially charming, so to speak; the ladies without office are charming in between. I ask the gentlemen to strive for two things: to get the blue ribbon here, which is to distinguish the folder, into the buttonhole. I think that it will really be a worthwhile goal, especially for those who come from monarchical states, where nothing else is available now in the buttonhole, will be a contemporary ideal. So we will adorn all those who endeavor to view the tickets so quickly, to show them to their seats and to be charming, with a blue ribbon - not a red one, for example, so that the Swiss don't think we're socialists or something like that; right, you can get into all sorts of trouble with the minister Kully if you give people red ribbons; so you will get blue ribbons and all of you will be charming and nimble ushers. I ask you to consider this from these two points of view. The one point of view is that if you know you are one of those who can be nimble and charming, then don't refrain from helping to maintain order. And if you should know that you may have absorbed too much militarism in the course of the last few years, so that you cannot develop such qualities - but this is only said in parenthesis and really not meant badly - so if someone in the course of the last few years has absorbed too strong military tendencies , which are then not suitable for being charming and the like, so if you have got into the habit of commanding too much, then you may practice anthroposophical self-restraint and refrain from participating in the ordering. But as I said, I am only saying this as one would say in the old science: “for the sake of wilderness.” I will present alternatives in a moment. One must be complete in science. We have a scientific course now. Right? There's no need to be as radical as the one person from the neighborhood who, when she came up here for the first time, didn't want to miss the opportunity to reprimand us right away because we — who wanted to be an “innovator” wanted to be – now, wherever you look, we have “old hat, as the Berliners say, about doctor titles and so on; if you are going to start renewing, the personality said, then you should leave out such titles.

Well, that's not true, you can have different opinions about whether you want to do this or that, whether you should dress in a new style; but we don't want to see our ideals in outward appearances, and that's why I mentioned the second point for the sake of completeness, and I sincerely hope that it was not necessary for me to mention it.

Now, that would be part of what we have to complete today, if the personalities concerned, who, as stewards, now feel particularly called upon to do so after what has been said, let us know that they want to get this blue ribbon in their buttonhole for the next few days, and especially for tomorrow. Perhaps it could be the case that Dr. Boos himself or someone he appoints will take the names of those who feel called to such a high office at the end, after all the others have been addressed. That will be one thing.

The other thing would be for me to ask those of the honored gentlemen who are presenting and are already here today to perhaps contact me at the end of this evening, because there is still a lot to be discussed.

That is what I have to say for the time being. And now, since I have only been here since today and have not been able to participate in the rather extensive preparations that were necessary to launch this course, I will ask Dr. Boos to take over the management of this evening and to suggest to us what else needs to be done in this direction.

But then, when we have completed the things to be discussed for tomorrow and the following “days”, we will have to discuss some other things for this evening that relate to some other events. But first we want to discuss the agenda for the course.

Dr. Boos introduces the necessary measures and arrangements for discussion.

At the end, Dr. Steiner takes the floor again:

"I would just like to mention for those friends from out of town who have come as members of the Anthroposophical Society that, as before, anthroposophical lectures will take place on Saturday and Sunday when I am present in Dornach, and I also believe there will be eurythmy performances on Saturday and Sunday. The lectures will take place after the eurythmy at eight o'clock or, if there are no performances on Saturday and Sunday, at half past seven, and if we can accommodate everyone, here in the carpentry workshop, otherwise over in the building. The eurythmy performances will also be here in the carpentry workshop.” Dr. Boos reports on various activities that are intended to incite and slander, and calls for a statement to be made regarding a proposal that has been made to him to send something to the press from the meeting, which is now already in session.

Dr. Schmiedel says that the number of guests should be indicated.

Dr. Boos says that he had also considered drafting a resolution through a mass meeting here, in which those not yet present here could also be included according to the mood; one does not need to come up with numbers; a resolution would be extremely effective in a concise, short form. Adoption of the resolution is proposed. Since no amendments have been proposed, he will ask again. There is unanimity. This matter is thus also brought to a conclusion with regard to this resolution.

Rudolf Steiner: “I do not think it is necessary to say much about the meeting that apparently took place here in Dornach and was evidently convened by the machinations of Pastor Kully and Pastor Arnet, I think it is not necessary to say much about this meeting after the press report.

Certain things have been reported that might perhaps lead one to notice this or that. For example, it is a remarkable fact that these gentlemen, who now, out of absolute untruthfulness and dishonesty, collect all kinds of things that are not true, that these gentlemen are, or at least are supposed to be, able to have accurate reports, for example, of the celebration of our laying of the foundation stone and the like. All the signs are that our people, our members, are basically willing to give the two gentlemen, who are the soul of the counter-action and the emerging movement, just about anything the gentlemen want.

My dear friends, it will soon be nonsense to hold closed meetings when everything from our circle is carried to Father Kully and similar people. It has to be said, because things express themselves. The assembly itself is no concern of ours; what people want to decide among themselves, they may decide among themselves, they may be as indecent as they like; they were indecent enough, as we already know. The thing that the resolution we have just been proposed by Dr. Boos is directed against is precisely what they have excreted as garbage, and what has even been spread by a Swiss newspaper. Of course we have to take a stand against that. Let them decide among themselves what they decide among themselves. Unless we hear that it is happening through spiritual-scientific communications from our members, about things that should be kept within our circles. It is said, for example, that the gentleman who is reported to have spoken in original Swiss German, that he is said to have spoken such filth that people are now said to have felt compelled to simply leave out the dirty bits. But as I said, people can discuss whatever they like among themselves, that's none of our business for the time being. I notice that they should really settle it among themselves. Because those who did not belong and are said to have gone to that meeting were shown in a very indecent manner that they had no business talking, and they were thrown out in an indecent manner. So that in the end, or at least during part of the meeting, some people who did not belong to the group do not appear to have been present at all. There may have been only a few there.

On the other hand, I would like to warn against being too lulled and again giving in to the sleep that has often been characterized here. This sleep in the face of the dangers that come to us from that side is the very worst thing that could actually happen in our ranks. And there is a lot of sleep in this direction.

Today, too, after I barely returned, I heard again that news is spreading in a certain comfort that the Catholics' behavior in such a disgraceful way, as it has happened, has brought us good friends everywhere among the non-Catholics. So for a large number of our members it is not a matter of facing the facts, but of finding another excuse for themselves to lie comfortably on their backs, on the other side, when one ear what is negotiated in the Dornacher “Ochsen” - in that meeting, of which it is said - I don't know if it is true, I emphasize this expressly - of which it is said: Such a great “Ochsen” event has never taken place in Dornach before. - But that was only because the meeting was in the “Ochsen”.

But to those who would like to go back to their cozy comfort zone, I would like to recommend paying attention to a certain statement in the report that has been written about this meeting, a statement that is already intended to be understood and that could show how significant the attacks actually are. It is said there – I don't have it verbatim right now, but it is in one of the reports – that the way Pastor Kully spoke at that Catholic gathering was quite remarkable. The person reporting this was apparently strangely touched, struck by Pastor Kully's particular turn of phrase. He says: “A unified thought did not go further through the speech; the speech did not make much sense either; but it was made up of nothing but individual images, which were presented to the people in a certain way, and which were only summarized by everything that hatred could do to present these images and these imaginations to the people, held together by the element of hatred. Anyone who is aware of the nature of the methods and polemics on certain sides also knows that such a message means an extraordinary amount, and that these things are effective.

It is necessary, or at least would be necessary, that finally, after decades of practicing anthroposophy, it could be known on our side that such things cannot be ignored, and that one cannot calm oneself by saying: Now they are being stirred up on that side, and stirred up in a very shameless way... This only wins us special friends on the other side. The point is to try to look things squarely in the eye; because the people - I have said this before - the people who are fighting on that side, they know very well what they want, they know very well how they should work, and how they should escalate things, and how they should then finally reach their goal through this clever escalation and sentiment.

So it would be better to try to face the matter squarely and realize that the situation is indeed a very dire one for us, here where we have just put what should be most sacred to us. And it would be necessary to consider that we should wake up, and to consider that it is always possible that things that should remain among us are immediately also carried to Father Arnet. Or is it not very strange, for example, when there is a message here: Pastor Arnet has spoken of how many people have been seriously affected in their health by the effects of my exercises; if he wanted to talk further about what is being reported to him, he would have to violate the seal of confession.

So, it would be a good idea to keep an eye on what is coming to the surface again and again as a result of such things, even within our ranks.

Furthermore, I consider it unworthy of us to concern ourselves with the assembly; because, right, certain things simply cannot be negotiated about anymore. When they begin to consider a certain level below decency as their own, you can no longer negotiate, you can no longer talk about the matter seriously at all. But that should not encourage anyone not to be vigilant about what comes from there.

I don't think we have anything else to discuss today. I would therefore ask those honored friends who wish to acquire the blue ribbon in their buttonhole to report to Dr. Boos.

And in a few minutes I will be back here and ask those friends who will be speaking in the next few days and are here today to come together for a very short meeting to discuss a few points on which we need to agree. So I will be back here in a few minutes.

It was to be expected¹ that only a small company would gather here today. I have nevertheless decided to hold our meeting this evening to talk to those of you who are present about something connected with Whitsuntide.

Before I start I would like to report to you one result of my latest visit to London, which is that in all likelihood Mrs. Besant will be visiting us here² in the autumn. We shall have the opportunity then of hearing again one of the personalities belonging to the most powerful spiritual influences of our time. The next two public lectures³ will be held in the Architektenhaus—on spiritualism a week hence, and on somnambulism and hypnotism, the following week. Then the usual Monday arrangements will take place again regularly. On the coming Thursdays⁴ I shall speak about theosophical cosmology, about theosophical ideas concerning the creation of the universe. Those of you who are interested in such things may hear much which is not already known from the usual theosophical literature. I wish to hold over till a later date the lectures on the rudiments of theosophy.⁵ What I wish to talk about today comes from an old occult tradition. The subject cannot, of course, be dealt with exhaustively today. Some of it may appear incredible.

I would request, therefore, that today's lecture be treated as an episode in which nothing is to be proved, but only things related.

People celebrate their festivals today without having an inkling of what is signified by them. In the newspapers, which constitute the main source of the education and enlightenment of most of our contemporaries, one can read many and various articles dealing with such festivals, the writers of which have not the slightest idea of the meaning of such a festival. But for theosophists it is necessary to look again at their inner meaning. And so I want today to direct your attention to the origin of such an age-old festival: the source of the Whitsuntide Festival.

Whitsuntide is one of the most important festivals and one of the most difficult to understand. For Christian consciousness it commemorates the coming of the Holy Ghost. This event is described as a miracle: the Holy Spirit was poured out over the Apostles so that they started to speak in all manner of tongues. This means that they could enter into every heart and speak according to each one's understanding. That is one of the interpretations of Whitsuntide. If we wish to reach a more fundamental understanding of it, we must go still deeper into the matter. Whitsuntide—as symbolical festival—is connected with the most profound mysteries, with the holiest spiritual qualities of humanity—that is why it is so difficult to talk about it. Today I should like at least to touch on just a few things.

What the Whitsuntide Festival symbolises, the underlying principle from which it receives its deep inner meaning, is preserved in a single manuscript copy⁶ which is to be found in the Vatican Library, where it is guarded with the greatest care. To be sure, no mention is made of Whitsuntide in this manuscript, but it certainly tells of that for which Whitsuntide is only the outer symbol. Hardly anyone has seen this manuscript, unless he has been initiated into the deepest secrets of the Catholic Church, or has been able to read it in the Astral Light.⁷ One copy is possessed by a personality who has been very much misunderstood in the world, but who is beginning to interest today's historians. I could equally well have said ‘was possessed’ instead of ‘is possessed’, but it would thereby cause a lack of clarity. Therefore I say again: a copy is in the possession of the Count of St. Germain,⁸ who is the only existing source of information about it.

I should like to give a few hints about this from a theosophical point of view. We shall be led thereby to something intimately connected with the evolution of mankind during the fifth Root Race. Man assumed his present-day form during the third Root Race, the time of ancient Lemuria, developed it further during the fourth Root Race, the time of ancient Atlantis, and then progressed to the fifth Root Race with what he had thus acquired. Whoever heard my Atlantis lectures⁹ will remember that a vivid memory of those times still existed among the Greeks.

To find our bearings,¹⁰ we must get a little insight into two currents belonging to our fifth Root Race, which are active as hidden powers in the souls of men and are often in conflict with one another. The one current is most clearly and best represented by what we call the Egyptian, Indian and South European outlook on life. Everything belonging later to Judaism and even to Christianity contains a little of that. But in our European culture, on the other hand, this has been intermingled with that other current which is to be found in ancient Persia and—if we disregard what the anthropologists and etymologists say and go deeper into the matter—we find it again stretching westwards from Persia to the regions of the Teutons.

Of these two currents¹¹ I would maintain that two mighty and important spiritual intuitions underlie them. The one was best understood by the ancient Rishis. To them was revealed the intuition of beings of a higher order, the so-called Devas.¹² He who has undergone occult training and can carry out investigations into these matters will know what Devas are. These purely spiritual beings, of the Astral or Mental Plane, have a twofold inner nature, whereas man's nature is threefold. For man consists of body, soul and spirit, but the Deva nature—as far as can be investigated—consists only of soul and spirit. It may possess other members, but we are unable to find them, even by occult means. The Deva is an ensouled spirit. The impulses, emotions, desires and wishes which live invisibly within man, but are seen as light effects by the seer, these soul powers, this soul body, which constitutes man's inner being, supported by the physical body, is the lowest body which the Devas possess. We can regard it as their body. The intuitive faculty of the Indian was concerned mainly with the worshipping of these Devas. The man of India sees these Devas all around. He sees them as creating powers when he penetrates the veil of outward appearance. This intuition is fundamental to the outlook on life of the peoples of the Southern Zone! It is expressed most powerfully in the Egyptians' conception of the world.

The other intuition was the basis upon which the ancient Persian mysticism was founded, and this led to the veneration of beings who were also only twofold in their nature: the Asuras. They, too, possessed what we call soul, but the soul organ was enclosed within a physical body developed in sublime and titanic fashion. The Indian view of the world, which clung to the Deva worship, looked upon the Asuras as something inferior; whereas those who inclined to the viewpoint of the Northern peoples adhered to the Asuras,¹³ to physical nature. Thus there developed in the Northern Zone more especially the impulse towards controlling the things of the sense world in a material way, towards an ordering of the world of realities by means of the highest technical advancement, through physical arts and so on. Nowadays there is nobody who still persists in Asura worship, but there are many among us who still have something of this within them. Thence comes the tendency towards the materialistic side of life and that is the basic tendency of the Northern peoples. Whoever acknowledges purely materialistic principles can be sure that he has something of the Asuras in his nature.

Among the Asura adherents there then developed a strange undertone of feeling. It first made its appearance in the spiritual life of Persia. The Persians developed a kind of fear of the Deva nature. They experienced fear, apprehension and dread in face of what was of a purely soul-spirit nature. That was the reason for the great contrast which we now observe between the Persian and the Indian attitude. In the Persian attitude those things were often venerated which to the Indians were bad and inferior, and just those things were avoided by the Persians which the Indians held in veneration. The Persian experience of the world was steeped in a mood of soul which feared and avoided a being of the nature of a Deva. In short, it was the picture of Satan which arose in this view of the world. Lucifer, the being of Spirit and Soul, became an object of fear and dread. That is where we have to look for the origin of the belief in the Devil. This mood of soul has also been absorbed into the modern view of the world; Lucifer became a much feared and avoided figure in the Middle Ages. Lucifer was definitely shunned.

We learn particulars about it¹⁴ in the manuscript already mentioned. If we follow in it the course of earth evolution we shall find that in the middle of the third Root Race, the Lemurian Epoch, mankind was clothed in physical matter. It is a wrong conception when theosophists believe that reincarnation had no beginning and will have no ending. Reincarnation started in the Lemurian Age and will cease again at the beginning of the sixth Root Race or Age. It is only a certain period of time in earth evolution during which mankind reincarnates. It was preceded by a most spiritual condition which precluded any necessity for reincarnation and there will follow again a spiritual state which will likewise obviate the necessity for reincarnation.

Simultaneously with its first incarnation in the Lemurian Age the untarnished human spirit, consisting of Atma-Buddhi-Manas, sought its primal physical incarnation. The physical development of the earth with its animal-like creatures had not evolved so far at that time, the whole, of this animal-human organism was not so far advanced then that it could have incorporated the human spirit. But a part of it, a certain group of animal-like beings had evolved so far that the seed of the human spirit could descend into it to give form to the human body.

Some of the individualities who incarnated at that time formed the small nucleus of those who later spread over the whole earth as the so-called Adepts. They were the original Adepts, not those whom we call initiated today. Those whom we call initiates today did not go through incarnation at that time . Not all incarnated at that time who would have been able to find human-animal bodies, only some of them. Some others were opposed to the process of incarnation for a particular reason. They delayed that until the time of the Fourth Age. The Bible hints at that in a concealed and profound way: ‘The Sons of God saw the daughters of men¹⁵ that they were fair and they took them wives of all which they chose.’

That is to say, the incarnation of those who had waited began at a later time. We call this group the ‘Sons of Wisdom’, and it almost appears as if there were a kind of arrogance, a sort of pride about them. We shall make an exception of the small group of Adepts. Had these other ones also incarnated at the earlier period, mankind would never have been able to acquire the clarity of consciousness which he possesses today. He would have been held fast in a dull trance-like state of consciousness. He would have developed that kind of consciousness which is to be found in people who have been hypnotised, sleepwalkers and the like. In short, man would have remained in a kind of dreamlike state. But one thing would have been lacking then—one thing of great importance, if not of the utmost importance—he would have lacked a feeling of freedom, a capacity to exercise his individual discrimination with regard to good and evil by means of his own consciousness, his own human ego.

This postponement of incarnation—in the form it assumed in consequence of that feeling of dread of the Devas which I characterised—this is called in the Book of Genesis ‘the Fall of Man’. The Devas delayed their incarnation and only descended to the earth to take possession of physical bodies when humanity had reached a further Stage in its development. Through this they were able to evolve a more mature form of consciousness than would have been the case earlier.

Thus, you see, the cost of man's freedom was the deterioration of his nature, by waiting for his incarnation till he could descend into denser physical conditions. A deep understanding of this has been preserved in Greek mythology. Had man descended earlier into incarnation—so says the Greek myth—then that would have happened which Zeus wanted when man was still living in Paradise. He wished to make man happy—but as an unconscious being. Clear consciousness would have been possessed solely by the gods and man would have been without a feeling of freedom. The rebellion of the Lucifer Spirit, the Deva Spirit within humanity, who wished to descend in order to rise up again out of his own freedom, is symbolised by the saga of Prometheus!¹⁶ But Prometheus had to suffer for his endeavours by having an eagle—symbol of inordinate desire—gnawing at his liver and causing him the most deadly pain.

Man had thus descended more deeply and now had to achieve through his own free conscious activity what he would have attained by magical arts and powers. But because he had descended deeper he must suffer pains and torment. This is also indicated in the Bible with the words: ‘In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children.¹⁷ In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread’, etc. That is no less than to say: mankind must raise itself again with the help of culture.

Through the figure of Prometheus, Greek mythology has symbolised free humanity struggling towards culture. He is the representative of suffering mankind, but at the same time the giver of freedom. The one who sets Prometheus free is Heracles, of whom it is said that he underwent initiation in the Eleusinian Mysteries. Whoever descended to the underworld was an initiate, for the descent into the underworld is a technical term denoting initiation. This journey to the underworld is attributed to Heracles, Odysseus and to all who are initiates who wish to lead man of his epoch to the source of primeval wisdom, to a life of the spirit.

Had mankind retained the attitude of Lemurian times we would have been dreamers today. Through his Deva nature, mankind fructified his lower nature. Out of his self-awareness, out of his awareness of freedom, man now has to reawaken that spark of awareness which he brought down from heaven in justified presumption; he has to reawaken that spiritual knowledge which he had received without his own striving when he was still unfree. There lies in human nature itself that satanic rebelliousness which, however, in the form of luciferic aspiration is the only safeguard of our freedom. And out of this freedom we shall again wrest spiritual life. It will be reawakened in the man of the fifth Root Race, our present epoch. This form of consciousness will again be conveyed through initiates. It will not be a dreamy, but a clear consciousness. It is the Heraclean spirits, the initiated ones, who will help mankind forward and reveal to him his Deva nature, his knowledge of the spirit. That was also the endeavour of all the great founders of religion, that they should restore to mankind the knowledge of the spirit which had been lost in physiological existence. The fifth epoch still contains much of the material life within it. This materialistic culture of the present time shows us how far man has become embedded in purely physical-physiological nature, as Prometheus was enmeshed in his chains. But it is equally certain that the vulture, the symbol of lust and craving, gnawing at our liver, will be thrust aside by spiritual men. That is the goal to which the initiates would lead mankind through consciousness of self, by means of such movements as the theosophical movement, so that it can raise itself up in full freedom.

The moment which we have to regard as the one in which spiritual life poured into the self-conscious human being is indicated precisely in the New Testament. It is alluded to in the profoundest of the Gospels the one which is misunderstood by today's theologians, the St. John's Gospel, when it speaks of the Feast of the Tabernacles which was attended by Jesus. The founder of Christianity there speaks of the outpouring of spiritual life with which humanity was to be endowed. It is a remarkable passage. For the Feast of the Tabernacles, the people had to visit a spring from which water flowed. There followed a festival which intimated to man that he should call to mind again his spiritual nature, his Deva and spiritual strivings. The water which flowed there was to remind him of the soul and spirit world. After repeated refusals Jesus finally went up to the feast. The following happened on the last day of the feast John 7, 37): ‘In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.’ Those who drank celebrated a feast in which the spiritual life was brought to recollection. But Jesus connected something else with it, as can be seen in the following words of St. John's Gospel: ‘He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified)’.

Here the Whitsuntide mystery is indicated. It is intimated that man has to wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit. When the moment arrives in which man is able to kindle the spark of spiritual life within him, when the physiological nature of man is able to attempt the ascent by means of its own forces, then will the Holy Spirit descend upon him and the time of spiritual awakening will be at hand.

Man descended as far as the physical body and so, in contrast to the nature of the Devas, he is built up out of three principles: Spirit, Soul and Body. The Devas are at a higher stage than man, but they do not have to surmount physical nature as man does. This physical nature has to be transfigured so that it can absorb the life of the spirit. Man's consciousness in the body, his physiological consciousness of today, will itself be able to enkindle the spark of spiritual existence in freedom.

Christ's sacrifice is an example which shows that man will be able to unfold a higher form of consciousness out of his life in the physical plane. His lower individuality lives in the physical body, but it must be enkindled so that the higher personality can develop. Only then can the ‘rivers of living water’ flow from man's ‘belly’. Then can the Holy Spirit appear and be poured forth upon humanity. Man, as an ego being, must be as though dead to physiological existence.

Herein lies what is truly Christian, and it also embodies the deeper mystery contained in the Whitsuntide Festival. Man lives primarily in his lower organism, in his consciousness imbued with desires. It is right that this is so, because it is only this consciousness which can provide him with awareness of his true goal, to attain freedom. He should not remain there, however, but must raise his ego to the nature of a Deva. He must develop the Deva within him, bring it to birth so that it becomes a spirit of healing—a Holy Spirit. To that end he must consciously sacrifice his earthly body, he must experience that ‘dying and becoming’ so that he does not remain a ‘gloomy guest’¹⁸ on this dark earth.

Thus the Easter mystery is only revealed in its fullness when taken together with the Whitsuntide mystery. We see the human ego, exemplified in its Divine Representative, divesting itself of the lower ego and dying in order to be completely transfigured in its physical nature and offered up again to the Godhead. Ascension is the symbol of this. When man has become transfigured in the physical body. has offered it up again to the Spirit, he will be ripe to receive the outpouring of spiritual life, to experience what is called the ‘coming of the Holy Spirit’ according to the explanation of One, who is mankind's greatest Representative. Therefore it is also said: ‘And there are three that bear witness in earth,¹⁹ the Spirit, the water and the blood.’ Whitsuntide is the outpouring of the Spirit into man.

The highest goal of humanity is symbolically expressed by means of the Whitsuntide festival; that is, that mankind must progress once more from an intellectual to a spiritual life just as Prometheus was set free from his suffering by Heracles, so will mankind be set free by the power of the Spirit. By descending into matter, mankind has attained self-consciousness. Through the fact that he ascends again. he will become a self-aware Deva. Those who worshipped the Asuras and regarded the Devas as beings of a satanic nature, who did not wish to descend into the innermost depths, regarded this descent as something devilish.

That, too, is referred to in Greek mythology. The one whose state of consciousness is not free—the contemplator—the one who does not wish to win redemption in complete freedom and therefore is the opponent of Prometheus—is Epimetheus. Zeus gives him Pandora's box, the contents of which—sufferings and plagues—fall on mankind when it is opened. The only gift which is left behind is hope; the hope that one day, in a future state he will also progress to this higher, clear consciousness. He is left with the hope that he will be set free. Prometheus advises him against accepting this doubtful gift from the god Zeus. Epimetheus does not listen to his brother, but accepts the gift. The gift which Epimetheus receives is not worth as much as the one belonging to his brother Prometheus.

Thus we see that there are two ways of life open to men. Some of them cling to a feeling of freedom and—although it is dangerous to develop spirituality—they search for it in freedom nevertheless. The others are the ones who find their satisfaction in the dull round of life and in blind faith, and who suspect danger in the luciferic endeavours of their fellow men. The founders of the Church's outward doctrine have distorted the deeper meaning of luciferic striving. The ancient teachings on the subject are contained in hidden manuscripts²⁰ in undisclosed places, where they have hardly been seen by anyone. They are available to a few people who are able to see them in the Astral Light, and otherwise only to a few initiates. The path is fraught with danger, but it is the only one which leads to the sublime goal of spiritual freedom.

The spirit of man should be free and not dull. That is also the aim of Christianity. Health and healing are connected with holy. A spirit which is holy is able to heal, it sets men free from sufferings and torments. Healthy and free is the human being who is released from the bondage of his physiological state. For only the free spirit is the healthy one, whose body is no longer gnawed by an eagle.

Thus Whitsuntide can be looked upon as the symbol of the freeing of the human spirit, as the great symbol of mankind's struggle for freedom, for consciousness of his own freedom.

If the Easter Festival is the festival of resurrection in nature, then the Whitsuntide Festival is the symbol of the becoming conscious of the human spirit, the festival of those who know and understand and—penetrated through and through by this—go in search of freedom.

Those spiritual movements of modern times which lead to a perception of the spiritual world in clear day consciousness—not in trance or under hypnosis—are the ones which lead to an understanding of such important symbols as this. The clear consciousness, which only the spirit can set free, is what unites us in the Theosophical Society. Not the word alone, but the spirit gives it its meaning. The spirit which emanates from the great Masters, which flows through a few people only who are able to say: ‘I know they are there, the great Adepts, who are the founders of our spiritual movement—not our society’²¹—this spirit flows into our present civilisation and bestows on it the impulse for the future.

Let a spark of understanding of this Holy Spirit flow again into the misunderstood Whitsuntide Festival, then it will be revivified and gain meaning once more. We want to live in a world that makes sense. Whoever celebrates festivals without sparing them a thought is a follower of Epimetheus. Man must see what binds him to his surroundings and also to what is invisible in nature. We have to know where we stand. For we humans are not confined to a dull, dreamy, semi-existence, we are destined to develop a free, fully conscious unfolding of our whole being.

• 1. The lecture had probably been announced at short notice, as Rudolf Steiner had only just returned from a visit to London.
• 2. Annie Besant, 1847–1933, President of the Theosophical Society from 1907, spoke once before in Berlin on the occasion of the founding of the German Section in October 1902. In September 1904, she went on a lecture tour of several German cities at the invitation of Rudolf Steiner. Her lectures, which were held in English, were reported by him in German.
• 3. These two public lectures of 30th May and 6th June 1904: ‘History of Spiritism, Hypnotism and Somnabulism,’ were only exceptionally held on Mondays, otherwise Monday evenings were regularly taken up with Members' lectures.
• 4. Three lectures, 26th May, 2nd and 9th June 1904 (not translated).
• 5. These lectures had been announced for April, but were not held until the autumn of 1904 (not translated).
• 6. This was made public in H.P. Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine, (1888) Book 2, page 239. There it says: ‘Now the Vatican MSS. of the Kabala—a single copy of which (in Europe) is said to have been in the possession of Count St. Germain, contains the most complete exposition of the doctrine ...’
• 7. Dr. Steiner here refers to Blavatsky's ability, known to his audience, whereby she was able to read rare manuscripts in the Astral Light, as is described by Constance Wachtmeister, among others, in Reminiscences of H.P. Blavatsky and The Secret Doctrine, 1893.
• 8. One of the most enigmatic and controversial personalities of the eighteenth century. His birth date and the date of his death, as well as his true name cannot be established with any certainty. According to a lecture given by Rudolf Steiner in Neuchatel on 27th September 1911 (translated in Anthroposophical Quarterly, winter, 1960), the name does not only refer to one personality, but to others too. In the true bearer of this name lives the individuality of Christian Rosenkreutz. See also lecture 5 given on 4th November 1904, which is included in this volume and the notes thereto.
• 9. This refers to lectures given in January 1904, of which, however, there are no notes.
• 10. The notes of Vegelahn express this in the following way: ‘To find our bearings, we must get a little insight into two currents of the present day which are hidden in the souls of men of the fifth Root Race and are often in conflict with one another. The one current is best represented in the Indian and South European confessions and also in the outlook on life of the Jewish peoples and the Babylonians—and the other is contained in the confessions and outlook of the Persians, westward of Persia to the regions of the Teutons.’
• 11. See: The East in the Light of the West, fifth lecture, Munich, 27th August 1909.
• 12. The Indian name for the gods of Devachan, the heavenly world.
• 13. Indian—Suras = gods (from Asu = breath) became non-gods = A-suras. In the old Oriental religions and also later by Rudolf Steiner used as the name for satanic beings. In connection with this lecture, however, it is used in the sense of Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine, Book 2, (‘On the Myth of the Fallen Angel, in its various aspects’) p.500. ‘Esoterically, the Asuras, transformed subsequently into evil spirits and lower gods, who are eternally at war with the great deities—are the gods of the Secret Wisdom. In the oldest portions of the Rig Veda, they are the spiritual and the divine, the term Asura being used for the Supreme Spirit and being the same as the great Ahura of the Zoroastrians. There was a time when the gods Indra, Angi, and Varuna themselves belonged to the Asuras.’ Only in Atlantean times, at the transition from Lemuria to Atlantis, were these originally high gods transformed into non-gods.
  
  In the notes of a hitherto unpublished lecture by Rudolf Steiner, given in Berlin, 17th October 1904, the following is said: ‘If we wish to understand the point of view of spiritual evolution we must be clear about an important event of the Atlantean epoch. Those beings which had originally been spiritual, now appeared as revolutionaries striving for independence. Suras now became Asuras. Until this time they had taken no part in evolution. They are those powers which, just as in our day, represent the intellectual and spiritual side of human nature. This side of Lucifer's nature is that which also stood for Christianity during the first centuries. There are two documents referring to that, one is in the Vatican and a copy of it is in the possession of the most thoroughly initiated Christian of the western world: The Count of St. Germain.’
• 14. It is to be noted that the text of the paragraph beginning with these words is defective. See in this respect Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine, Book 2, ‘The History of the Fourth Race,’ also lecture by Dr. Steiner, Dornach, 18th January 1920 in which the date of the cessation of physical incarnation is given as 6th. Millenium, A.D.
• 15. Genesis 6, 1–2. See also Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine, Book 2, Part 2, ‘On the Myth of the Fallen Angel, in its various aspects.’ In the story of Noah from The Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine it says of this event: ‘... this time men began to multiply on the earth, and the children of God, that is to say, of Seth ... saw the daughters of men, that is to say, of Cain, and were overcome by concupiscence and took them to their wives.’
• 16. This is also linked by Rudolf Steiner to Blavatsky's The Secret Doctrine, Book 2.
• 17. Genesis 3:16.
• 18. ‘Und so lang du das nicht hast,
  Dieses: Stirb und werde!
  Bist du nur ein triiber Gast
  Auf der dunklen Erde.
  
  Concluding verse of a poem by Goethe called Selige Sehnsucht (‘Holy Longing’).
• 19. First Epistle of John, v. 7. Rudolf Steiner had already explained this passage from the Epistle in detail in his lecture on 29th April 1904. According to that, the present-day materialistic concepts of blood and water must not be applied here. When it is said: ‘There are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.’
  
  This means in theosophical terminology: Atma, Buddhi, Manas, the three higher principles. And when it is said later on: ‘And there are three that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood,’ it means the three lower principles, the three soul attributes. The astral body, as well as the blood, (not our physical blood), are the lowest parts of the soul. Jewish esotericism believes that movement of the blood is caused by the astral body and that is correct. All influences which do not directly pass through the soul, but still have an effect on the body are called the ‘blood’ in Jewish esoteric teaching. It is the active principle, the motivator. We call only the red liquid which flows through the body ‘blood.’ By water is signified ‘Kama’ in every occult language—feelings, emotions, passions, etc: ‘And now I shall tell you why this is called water. You must get acquainted with the concept that humanity today has grown accustomed to visualising everything in a much more materialistic way than he did formerly. If you picture to yourself an old cabbalist, he did not regard water as just a flowing element, but as an image and he arrived at that in the following way. He said to himself; the water is inhabited by those animals which we reckon as the most primitive. Animals evolved originally out of the liquid element: sea animals, jellyfish, amphibians. These then came out of the water onto the land. It was only out of water that emotions and feelings came about ... We distinguish the lower part of the soul, which stirs the blood and makes it pulsate and causes pleasure and dislike and all such other painful experiences. And that he calls water because from water is derived that element of soul. And then we have the thinking part of the soul which is Spirit.’
• 20. See note 6.
• 21. Rudolf Steiner expressed himself in a similar way on the 2nd January 1905, in a letter to a Member who was about to be accepted into the Esoteric School: ‘You know that behind the whole theosophical movement there are highly evolved beings whom we call “Masters” or “Mahatmas”. These sublime beings have already completed the path which the rest of humanity still has to tread. They are now active as the great “Teachers of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Human Perception”. They are already engaged in work on higher planes to which the rest of mankind will evolve during the course of the next periods of development (so-called “Rounds”). They do their work on the physical plane through their “messengers”, the first of whom was H.P. Blavatsky—I mean the first as regards the theosophical movement. The Masters never found an outer Organisation of society, nor would they administer one. The Theosophical Society was formed by its founder Members. (H.P. Blavatsky, Olcott and others) in order to promote the work of the Masters on the physical plane, but these Masters themselves have never exerted any influence on the Society as such. It is in its whole character and leadership purely and simply the work of men living on the earth.’ See in this context also lecture 16, given on 22nd October 1905 (contained in this volume).

If we are to continue in the right way today, we must consider something of the nature of the human being and how human beings are part of historical evolution. First of all we consider the fact that human beings have the power, or the gift, of the intellect. What does this mean? It means that we are able to form ideas. For the moment we need not reflect on where these ideas come from. The life of thought is with us wherever we are in waking consciousness. And we also feel, for instance, that when we walk, stand or do anything else, we are guided by our thoughts, by something which exists first of all in the mind. Later on we shall discuss if this really is the case. For the moment I merely want to establish what fills the conscious mind in everyday life. It is our thoughts. But when it comes to the world of thought as such, the matter is really quite different. And we shall not understand how human beings really relate to their thoughts unless we first consider the true nature of the world of thought.

In reality we are always, wherever we are—whether sitting, standing or lying down—not only in the world of air and light and so on, but also in a world of surging thoughts. You will find it easiest to get an idea of this if you look at it like this: When you walk on earth as an ordinary physical human being you are also a breathing human being, walking in a space filled with air. And in more or less the same way you move in a space filled with thoughts. Thought-substance fills the space around you. It is not a vague ocean of thoughts, nor the kind of nebulous ether people sometimes like to imagine. No, this thought-substance is actually what we call the elemental world. When we speak of entities which are part of the elemental world in the widest sense of the word, they consist of thought-substance, actual thought-substance. There is, however, a difference between the thoughts flitting around out there, which really are living entities, and the thoughts we have in our minds. I have spoken of this difference on a number of occasions. In my book due to be published shortly, and which I mentioned yesterday,¹ you will find further references to this difference.

You may well ask yourself: If there is such an elemental principle out there in thought-space and if I, too, have thoughts in my head—what is the relationship between the two? To get the right idea of how your own thoughts relate to the thought-entities out there you have to visualize the difference between a human corpse which has been left behind when someone has died and a living person who is walking about. The kind of thoughts you have to consider in this respect are the kind you gain from the world you perceive with the senses when in waking consciousness. Our own thoughts are actually thought-corpses. This is the essential point. The thoughts coming from the world we perceive with the senses and drag around with us when in waking consciousness are thought-corpses—thoughts that have been killed. Outside us they are alive, which is the difference.

We are part of the elemental world of thought in so far as we kill its living thoughts when we develop ideas on the basis of what our senses have perceived in the world around us. Our thinking consists in having those corpses of thoughts inside us, and this makes our thoughts abstract. We have abstract thoughts because we kill living thoughts. It is really true that in our state of consciousness we walk around bearing thought corpses which we call our thoughts and ideas. This is the reality.

The living thoughts in the outside world are certainly not unrelated to us; there is a living relationship. I can demonstrate this to you, but do not be frightened by the grotesque nature of this unaccustomed idea. Imagine you are lying in bed and it is morning. You can get up in two different ways. Ordinarily, you are not aware of the difference between them because you are not in the habit of making the distinction, and anyway you do not pay attention to this particular moment of getting up. Nevertheless, you can get up out of habit, without thinking about it, or you can actually produce the thought: I am now going to get up. There are people, however, who get themselves up out of sheer habit, and yet there is just a touch of the idea: I am going to get up now. To repeat, many people do not make the distinction, but it can be made in the abstract, and the difference is enormous. If you get up without giving it a thought, out of sheer habit and training, you are following impulses given by the Spirits of Form, the Elohim, when they created human beings as dwellers on earth at the beginning of earth evolution. So you see, if you switch off your own thinking and always get up like a machine, you are not getting up without thought having gone into it, but it is not your own thought. The form of movement involved in getting up involves thoughts—objective, not subjective, inner thoughts; these are not your thoughts but those of the Spirits of Form.

If you were a terribly lazy person who really did not want to get up at all, if it really was not in your nature to get up and you would only get up on reflection, against your nature, out of purely subjective thought, you'd be following ahrimanic tendencies; you would be following only your head, and therefore Ahriman. As I said, the distinction is not made in ordinary life. And everything else we do is really done in the same way as our getting up. Human beings truly are made up of two entities which can be outwardly distinguished as the head and the rest of the body. The human head is an extraordinarily significant instrument and much older than the rest of the body. The construction of the human head is such—I spoke about this last year²—that the basic shape arose during Moon evolution, though the head has, in fact, come down through Saturn, Sun and Moon evolution. Humans would look quite different if they still had the shape they had during Moon evolution.

In very general terms we might say people would look like spectres, with only the form of the head emerging somewhat more clearly, which was the original intent. The rest of the body was not meant to be as visible as it is now. These things have to be considered, otherwise we cannot really understand human evolution on earth. The rest of the body was meant to be purely elemental by nature. In the head, everything would come into effect which has come down as Moon existence transformed by earth; let us call it ‘a’. But this inherited Moon existence transformed by earth is the actual human being, for the human being is really a head with only a very insignificant attachment.

The rest of the human being—let us call it ‘b’ and to begin with let us simply consider it to be this elemental, airy principle—is a manifestation of the higher hierarchies, from the Spirits of Form downwards. The right and only way of seeing the human being is to realize that everything shown here as ‘b’ has been created by the cosmic hierarchies. The human being which has evolved from the time of Saturn emerged against the background of the cosmic hierarchies. If you visualize the essential nature of the parts of the human being which are not head—you must think of it as all spirit, or at least all air—then you have the body of cosmic hierarchies (drawing on the board).

However, luciferic seduction entered into the whole process of evolution. The outcome was that this whole, more elemental, body condensed to become the rest of the human body, which of course also had an effect on the head. This will give you an idea of the true nature of the human being. Apart from the head, which is their own, having come from earlier evolution, human beings would be an outward manifestation of the Elohim if their bodies had not become sensuous flesh. It is entirely due to the temptations of Lucifer that this outward manifestation of the Elohim has condensed to become flesh.

Something very strange has arisen as a result, an important secret to which I have referred a number of times. What has happened is that the human being has become the image of the gods in the very organs which are normally called the organs of his lower nature. This image of the gods has been debased in human beings as they are on earth. The highest principle in human beings, the spiritual principle coming from the cosmos, has become their lower nature. Please, do not forget that this is an important secret of human nature. Our lower nature, which is due to Lucifer's influence, was actually destined to be our higher nature. This is the contradictory element in human nature. Rightly understood, it will solve countless riddles in the world and in life.

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We are thus able to say: In the course of human evolution man has, thanks to the luciferic element, made the part of him that should be constantly emerging from the cosmos into his lower nature. Many historical phenomena will find their explanation if you consider that this was known to the leaders of the ancient Mysteries, people who were not as facetious, cynical and narrow-minded as people are today. Certain symbols taken from the lower nature and used in the past, symbols that today are merely seen as sexual symbols, are explained by the fact that the priests who used them in the ancient Mysteries did so in order to give expression to the higher reality of the lower nature of man.

You can see how sensitive we have to be in dealing with these things if we are not to be facetious. Modern people slip easily into facetiousness, because they cannot even imagine that there is more to human beings than mere sensuality—which, in fact, is the luciferic element in our higher nature. Thus historical symbols are easily given entirely the wrong interpretation. It takes some nobility of spirit not to interpret the old symbols in a lower sense, even though they often can be interpreted in that way.

With this, you will also begin to realize that if thoughts from the elemental world come to us—they are living thoughts, not abstract, dead ones that come from the head—they must be coming out of the whole human being. Mere reflection will not achieve this. Today the idea is that we only arrive at our thoughts by reflection. Today the idea is: If human beings will just reflect, they can think about anything, providing the things they want to think about are accessible. This is nonsense, however. The truth is that the human race is in a process of evolution, and the thoughts developed by Copernicus, for example, or Galileo, at a particular time could not be reached by mere reflection before that time. You see, people fabricate the thoughts they have in their heads. But when a thought which marks a real change arises in world history, this thought is given by the gods and through the whole human being. It flows through the human being, overcoming the luciferic element, and only reaches the head out of the whole human being. I think this is something you can understand. In certain ages, particular thoughts just have to be waited for and expected; then human beings are not merely reflecting, nor is something conveyed through their eyes or ears, but inspiration comes from the world of the hierarchies and it comes through the whole essential human being, which is the image of the hierarchies.

If you consider this, some of the things I said yesterday can also tell you great deal. In the present age, from the fifth post-Atlantean age, we are living much more inwardly than before—in ancient Greek times, for example, when the outer environment provided much more that was spiritual. This inwardness of life relates to the process in which thoughts come up through the whole human being. In earlier times, in the fourth post-Atlantean age, the relationship between human beings and the gods was much more of an exterior thing; today it has become much more intimate. Human beings are always associating with the gods; their heads do not normally know anything about this, however, because they only hold human thoughts, or rather the corpses of thoughts.

Human beings always associate with the gods as whole human beings, and this association is more intimate today than it was in the past. Even the nature of clairvoyance is such that the relationship to the gods and to disembodied spirits is altogether different from what it was before. When a human soul associates with spirits or with the dead, the association is a very subtle one. It is more or less similar to the way in which our own thoughts associate with our own will in the soul. It is very intimate, and this intimacy belongs to the present age. It corresponds to the essential nature of human beings here on earth and also to that of the dead, of those who are going through the gate of death to enter the world of the spirit at this time. This intimate association has become possible because in some ways the relationship between man and cosmos has changed. If the relationship which some human beings have to the world of the spirit comes to conscious awareness, it shows itself to be a much more intimate one, even today, than it was before.

Certain abilities had to be lost, so that this intimate association with the gods could develop. During the times of ancient Greece and Rome and after, right into the Middle Ages, people still had direct perception of spiritual elements in the world around them; as I said, they did not merely see physical colours in the way we do today, or hear physical sounds, but perceived spiritual elements in colours and sounds. They were also able to use the element which for us has turned into chaotic dreams as a means of entering into the world of the spirit and they did so in a way that was much less subtle than is possible today. It was relatively easy to approach the Spirits and the dead in the past. Today our ordinary dreams no longer have the same quality, though this did continue well into the Middle Ages. Some people still had it for a long time afterwards. Those earlier people also perceived as in a dream all that happened around them in the elemental thought-world of which I have spoken. They were not yet cut off from that surrounding world, and their own essential nature still extended into it. People were aware of this and acted and behaved accordingly.

Today these things are, of course, considered to be an old superstition. Yet when something significant occurs in connection with this ‘old superstition’, modern science does not know what to do with it. Let me give you just one example: Cimon, a well-known historical figure, had a friend called Astyphilos who knew how to interpret dreams. Astyphilos was able to interpret dreams intellectually. When Cimon had dreamed of a vicious, yapping dog before the Egyptian campaign, Astyphilos forecast his death, saying: ‘You have dreamt of a vicious, yapping dog; you will die in this campaign.’ The story was told by Horace.³

A modern sage who has written about dreams, though in materialistic terms, does of course believe that Cimon had an ordinary dream and Astyphilos was a mountebank who interpreted dreams. Yet he also makes a strange comment: ‘Chance willed it, however, that his prophesy came true.’ I could show you books which give irrefutable evidence of prophesies which have come true,⁴ but people will say: ‘Chance willed it.’ This is one of many examples. People imagine that the inner life has always been the same as it is today and that there has been no development in the inner life of man.

Thus the outer senses perceived more of the spiritual, and at the same time the relationship with the surrounding elemental thought-world was, in a way, based more on images. Dreams still had the quality of images which pointed to the future. Just as memory relates to the past, so the images pointed to the future, though not in the same way, of course. The constitution of the human soul was therefore entirely different in the past. Blurred dream images came into everyday sensory perception, images which nevertheless related to real happenings in the elemental world. We might put it like this: The physical world of sensory perception had not yet condensed and become solid and mineral in quality. Everywhere colour and sound still sparkled with spiritual qualities. At the same time people still had the ability to live in waking dreams, and these were reality in the elemental, objective world of thought. Then humanity was deprived of this relationship with the outside world in order to establish and strengthen human freedom; the inner life became more intimate in the way I have described.

There is something we must consider which is most important. We can use the powers of the normal intellect to reflect on the phenomena belonging to the world of nature, but we cannot use this intellect to reflect on social phenomena. People believe that the way of thinking which enables them to reflect on the events of the physical world can also be used to establish social laws and political impulses. They are actually doing so now, but the laws and impulses are of correspondingly poor quality. The kind of thing you find in Roman history, and you would also find it in later history if it had not all been turned into romance—for instance, that Numa Pompilius took his inspiration from a nymph called Egeria in certain matters of state⁵—indicates that in those days people appealed to the gods when matters of state had to be dealt with. They would not have thought it possible to create political structures merely by thinking about them. Today the idea is that individuals are not able to do this, but if you multiply the individual by so and so many times, then it can be done. So if you have a modern democracy and an enlightened parliament, three hundred heads are able to achieve by reflection what a single head cannot do, of course. This goes against one of Rosegger's statements which I have quoted a number of times: ‘One's a human being; if there are several, you've people; if you have lots of them, they're beasts!’⁶—but surely it is not what you would do in practice! And just imagine what the whole enlightened modern world would say if news were to get around—not in the old form but in a new one—that Woodrow Wilson had taken his inspiration for some decree or other from a nymph.

These things have changed, even if they are not exactly more intelligent. It will, of course, be difficult to grasp, but it is something we have to realize, that real and appropriate ideas concerning social structures will only come when people appeal again to the spirit. They are not forced to do so, and the form will be different, but this appeal to the spirit must be made again. Otherwise, everything people produce by way of political principles, social structures and ideas will be mere nothingness. There has to be living awareness of the fact that we live in the world of elemental thought and have to take our inspiration from it.

People are still able to laugh about such things today. But humanity will have to struggle through pain and suffering to gain awareness of inspiration in the creative sphere of the social order. Here we have an even more subtle indication of something that will become more and more necessary for humanity.

People will have to realize that they must now prepare themselves to make a connection again with the world of the spirit, so that they may bring into the kingdom of this world a kingdom which is not of this world but is present everywhere in the kingdom of this world. Only then will salvation come for a social sphere where chaos now reigns.

It will, however, be necessary for people to overcome the unease and reluctance they feel about concerning themselves with the intimate relationship between man and world. In the more important fields of human activity, people will have to go more deeply into the nature of this relationship as it was in the fourth post-Atlantean age. This will give them the necessary orientation so that they can really see how human beings related differently to the world around them than they do now. It is possible to study this, but we must overcome this mythology—mythology in the bad sense—we call the study of history today. We need to consider historical reality, going back at least as far as the Mystery of Golgotha, and this will be possible if the study of external history is enriched by the study of spiritual science. People will simply have to make the effort to enter into a study of spiritual science. The whole way of thinking, of course, is such nowadays that people often feel everything to be utterly grotesque when they begin to enter into the world of the spirit; people instinctively think that things will look just the same there as they do in the physical world. All they are prepared to accept is that they will find a more refined, subtle form of this world, and they fail to understand that they will find it completely different, so much so that even the smallest detail will come as a surprise.

Let us assume a modern philosopher, your normal kind of university professor, were to have some kind of Inspiration⁷—it would be a small miracle, but let us assume such a miracle were to happen—so that for five minutes he were in a position to ask the world of the spirit if he was a true philosopher with a true inner vocation. What do you think the answer would be? He would be given an image; this would be the right answer, only it would need to be correctly interpreted. This is really true; I am telling you something which has happened innumerable times. The answer would be that the philosopher is given ass's ears. And the interpretation of this would be: ‘I am indeed a real philosopher.’ This is not a joke. The point is that some ideas mean one thing in the physical world and exactly the opposite in the spiritual world. In the physical world it is not a distinction to have ass's ears; in the spiritual world, having ass's ears as an image is worth much, much more than the highest distinction ever awarded to a professor of philosophy. But imagine someone who is only used to the physical world and who suddenly—as I said, by a miracle—becomes clairvoyant and sees himself wearing ass's ears. He would think he was being made a fool of, that he was being taken in. And he would immediately call this an illusion. Things are different in the world of the spirit, down to the last detail, and it is necessary to translate everything we meet there, in order to find the right correspondence and interpretation in the physical world. I was not simply telling a joke when I spoke of those ass's ears. If you read the writings of ancient times you will find the dreams dreamt by philosophers to convince them of their inner vocation. The dream I have described is quite typical of that kind of thing. Philosophers had to see themselves with ass's ears to be convinced of their vocation.

People will inevitably be surprised and taken aback when they want to get acquainted again with the specific nature of the spiritual world. Reading The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz Anno 1459,⁸ you will sometimes feel that the grotesque things said in it are enough to make you laugh. Yet they are deeply significant, for the path to which the work refers should not be considered in a sentimental way, but with a certain superior humour.

As I have said, later times also have events analogous to Numa Pompilius receiving instruction from Egeria. These things are no longer made known, which is, of course, the reason why history has become mere conventional fiction. Consider, it was as late as the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century when Jacob Boehme⁹ had his profound Intuitions; truly great, tremendous grand visions which contained Intuitions from an earlier time. His followers included many people who lived in later times. One of the last to be consciously a follower of Jacob Boehme was Saint-Martin.¹⁰ He based himself entirely on Jacob Boehme, especially in his book Des erreurs et de la vrit, though it is a somewhat dematerialized Boehme. Still, he had enough of what had come through from older times to realize: If one wants to have ideas concerning social structures, if one wants to have real, effective political ideas, these must not merely be thought up, they must have come from the spiritual world. In his book, Saint-Martin presents not merely ideas concerning the world of nature and its progress, and of history and its progress, but also quite specific political ideas. Today, when states are the only kind of political structure, one would call them ideas on the political state. His discussions do, however, include one idea of special significance, and it is characteristic that this is in the forefront of his political ideas. Saint-Martin refers to ‘original human adultery’, which he says took place at a time when sexual relations did not yet exist between male and female on earth. He is therefore not referring to adultery in the usual sense. He means something quite different, something he keeps deeply veiled, and to which The Bible refers with the words: ‘The sons of the gods saw how beautiful these daughters were and they took for themselves such women as they chose.’¹¹ This event brought chaos to the world of Atlantis; there is also a mysterious connection between this and the way in which human beings had made their elemental spiritual nature sensual. All one can do is hint at the event which Saint-Martin calls ‘original adultery’; he, too, was merely hinting at it.

It is evident that Saint-Martin realized that to consider politics, one must not merely take account of outer human situations, as people do today, but find a way of going back to earlier times when one had to go beyond the world of the senses and into the world of the spirit if one wanted to know anything about the human being. The principles of political thinking must be evolved out of the world of the spirit. Saint-Martin still knew this at the end of the eighteenth century—he only died in 1804, and what he said in Des erreurs et de la vrit has also been translated into German. It is not without interest to say this, because a certain cleric who is against we who want to serve the life of the spirit here in Dornach—he lives quite near to here¹²—has said that in the face of all this folly people should remember plain, simple Matthias Claudius, and he quoted a verse by Claudius in his support.¹³ It was Matthias Claudius, however, who translated Saint-Martin's Des erreurs et de la vrit in order to make the spiritual science of that time accessible to his people. The gentleman in question therefore demonstrated his colossal ignorance where Matthias Claudius is concerned, quite apart from the fact that he quoted only one verse; if he had quoted the preceding verse he would have contradicted himself. Still, he was satisfied with the one verse which he thought suited his purpose, which was to quote something against anthroposophy.

As late as the eighteenth century, Saint-Martin knew that if we are to have fruitful political ideas there has to be a bridge between human thoughts and the spiritual influences which come from higher worlds. No previous century has been as godforsaken, really, as the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century. It is important to realize this. Nor was any earlier century so vain and so proud of being godforsaken. Still, if people were to read about the statesmanship advocated by Saint-Martin—I think all those clever people who now get together and want to guide the destinies of the world would feel their stomachs turn. For it is the tendency today to get to know as little as possible about the real world around us. It is, of course, possible to erase from our minds the thoughts which come from the living spirit, and we can decide to work only with thought-corpses. People's actions do not relate to this, however, but become part of a web of living thought. And when people with thought-corpses refuse to enter into those living thoughts, the outcome will be chaos. This chaos has to be overcome, which calls for the clear insights of which I have spoken before, as well as in these lectures. It does, however, require a complete change of direction from what is considered to be right today and the absolute ideal.

Above all, this change of direction will have to come soon. And it would be best if it were to come right now and be as widespread as possible in the field where educators are appointed for both young and old. There is no other field where humanity has entered as deeply into materialism as it has in education.

Let me conclude by presenting a thought which will be occupying us in the days ahead, for it is very interesting and very important for all humanity. I would like to present it in such a way, however, that you will be able to turn it over in your own inner mind for a few days. You will then be better prepared to consider this thought.

The children who are born today—we must consider them in the knowledge that the outer form is withering and splitting up, as I have shown in these days. But deep inside is the true human being. This no longer comes to outward expression in the way it did until the fifteenth century. We will have to get more and more used to the thought that, especially in the case of children, the inward human being cannot be fully revealed by the way people present themselves, nor by the way they think and the gestures they make. In many respects these children are something quite different from what comes to outward expression. We even know extreme cases. Children may appear to be the worst of rascals and yet there is so much good in them that they will later be the most valuable of human beings. But you will also find many children who are very good and not the least bit bad, never putting a finger in their mouths nor thumbing their noses at people. They will study well, perhaps be good bank managers one day, or good schoolteachers according to present-day ideas, and indeed good lawyers. But—forgive these harsh words—they will not be good people, because they cannot achieve inner harmony between themselves and the true world around them. It is specifically in the field of education and training where the principle must be established that people are very different inside today from what they appear to be. It will therefore be necessary in future to appoint teachers on entirely different principles. To be able to see into something which is inside and does not come to expression on the outside requires something of a prophetic gift. Examinations for prospective teachers must therefore be organized in such a way that candidates with intuitive and prophetic gifts do particularly well. Candidates who do not have such gifts must be made to fail their exams, however great their knowledge.

The last thing we do today is to consider the prophetic gifts of people who are to become teachers. We still have a long way to go with regard to many things that will have to be done. Yet the course of human evolution will eventually force people to accept such principles. Many of the materialists of our age would, of course, consider it a crazy notion to say that teachers should be prophets. But it will not be for ever. Humanity will be forced to recognize these things.

• 1. Riddles of the Soul. See Note 1 of lecture 5.
• 2. In a lecture given in Dornach on 21 October 1916, for example. (GA 171. Not available in English.)
• 3. Plutarch also teils the story in his Life of Cimon.
• 4. For example, Rudolf Steiner's library in Dornach includes a book by Max Kernmerich called Prophezeiungen, alter Aberglaube oder neue Wahrheit (translates as: “Prophesies, an old superstition or a new truth”), Munich 1911; it includes prophesies which have since come true.
• 5. Numa Pompilius (probably 715–673 BC) succeeded Romulus as King of Rome. See Livy's History of Rome, Book 1, Chapter 19.
• 6. Peter Rosegger (1843–1918), Austrian poet and novelist. Some of his works were in the Styrian dialect, which also applies to the quoted sentences.
• 7. Rudolf Steiner generally made careful distinction between ‘imagination’ in the ordinary sense, using the ordinary German terms for this, and ‘Imagination’ as the ability to see images of spiritual realities, which is generally achieved in the course of initiation. The same applies to the terms ‘Intuition’ and ‘Inspiration’. The three should be treated as technical terms in the field of anthroposophy. The convention in English versions of his works has become to use capitals for the higher faculties described by these words.
  
  In this text, capital first letters are put where Steiner is using them as technical terms.
• 8. See Note 3, lecture 3.
• 9. See Note 2, lecture 3.
• 10. Louis Claude de Saint-Martin (1743–1803) took up German at the age of 49 so that he might translate Jacob Boehme's writings into French. His Des erreurs et de la vrit ou les hommes rappels au principe universel de la science par un Ph(ilosophe) inc(onnu) of 1775 was translated into German by Matthias Claudius in 1782. A new edition of the translation was published by Der Kommende Tag in Stuttgart in 1925.
• 11. Genesis 6:2. Revised English Bible.
• 12. This was the parish priest at Arlesheim, which is next to Dornach. For further details see Necessity and Freedom (GA 166), translated by P. Wehrte, the lecture given in Berlin on 25 January 1916, Anthroposophic Press N.Y.; and ‘Things of the Present and of the Past in the Spirit of Man’ (GA 167), MS translation C42, Rudolf Steiner House Library, London.
• 13. Matthias Claudius (1740–1815), German poet and writer. The ‘verses’ in question are the third and fourth verses of his evening hymn Der Mond ist aufgegangen.

Yesterday I spoke to you about initiation in the sense of the Rosicrucian spiritual world current, about the stages of knowledge, of feeling, of will impulses, of activities that a person has to undergo if they want to move up the path of knowledge and towards higher levels of humanity. Today let us try to deal with a chapter of this Rosicrucian theosophy ourselves. Not that this Rosicrucian wisdom is anything but the common spiritual wisdom of all peoples and times, as must be emphasized again and again. It is only adapted to our modern way of thinking, to the modern temporal need. It is born out of the realization that our epoch needs a special way of speaking in order to proclaim the eternal truths of all times, so that they can live themselves into the very configuration of today's humanity in Europe and America.

It is perhaps a very distant chapter that is chosen here, yet it is one of the most essential. For nothing shows us man's origin and goal as much as the realization of this chapter and at the same time points us to the forces that we are to unfold in ourselves in order to become co-workers in the service of human evolution. We cannot look at the great evolution of the cosmos any other way than by starting with the human being and his or her essence. And I will say nothing other than what is a common theosophical and Rosicrucian wisdom, what anyone would say who speaks from these sources. There is no contradiction. Many already know what I would like to say here again.

We distinguish seven members of human nature. This morning we heard that one could also take another number as a basis: three times three. It does not matter that I will combine the three middle members into one name today, and if you summarize these three members under what I will call the fourth today, then the explanations will be completely consistent.

We divide the human being in such a way that we say that the human being first has his physical body; it is what hands can touch and eyes can see, what the human being has in common with all of nature and what is subject to physical and chemical laws. The second is the so-called etheric or life body. It is that which the chemical and physical forces and substances call to life and which leaves the connection of physical and chemical substances in death. Occultism says: The human physical body is such a combination of substances and forces that it cannot exist as a physical body by itself; only by having an etheric body inserted into it and as long as it is inserted, it is protected from the disintegration of physical substances and forces. In the moment when the etheric body leaves the physical forces, death occurs, the physical body is a corpse. Therefore, it is also said that the etheric body is what protects us from death at every moment. In every moment, there is a great struggle in the etheric body against that which would otherwise cause our chemical substances to disintegrate. The third link is the carrier of pleasure and suffering, joy and pain, feelings and emotions, which we call the astral body. It is the link of the human being that man has in common with animals, just as he has the ether body in common with the plant and animal world and the mineral body with the whole outer world. The name astral body has been in use since the earliest times. There is no more appropriate name for this part of the human being than astral body. And there is perhaps no better definition of why this body is called the astral body than the one given by the great theosophist Paracelsus. Just as the etheric body leaves the physical body at death, so the astral body leaves the etheric body some time after death. But the astral body also leaves the physical and etheric bodies every night. Then it is outside of us. Where is it then?

Paracelsus rightly asks: Where is it, and what does it do during the night? Does it rest, does it have a task? Yes, it has a task. Although those who do not have clairvoyant powers cannot see into the activity of the astral body during the night. But everyone feels the consequences of this activity. They all go to bed tired in the evening. The fatigue is an expression of disharmony in the composition of our physical and etheric bodies. It must arise if the astral body does not have the power to bring harmony into the other two, the physical and etheric bodies. And as man is today, such disharmony must necessarily arise during the waking hours of the day, were our physical and etheric bodies merely under the control of the astral body - how the forces are to be joined together - then there would always be harmony in our etheric and physical bodies. But as it is, not only does the astral body live in the physical body, but at the level of consciousness that humanity has reached on the Earth, the whole environment of physical, sensually perceptible objects has an effect on the human being. Impressions from the eye and ear and the other senses flow into it from the outside. During the waking hours, disharmony will inevitably arise in every person who has not yet reached a certain higher level of spiritual development. If this astral body could never dwell in any other place than in our physical and etheric bodies, it would itself become disordered. Then its power currents would not remain as they should be if a real etheric and physical body is to be formed. During the day, the inner harmony of the astral body is disturbed, and the expression of this disorder is fatigue. The moment you feel tired, the inner disharmony is there. Where is the astral body during the night?

Paracelsus rightly said: When the lines of force that connect it to the physical body during the day begin to loosen, it then comes into contact with the entire harmonious system of forces that flows through the starry sky. At the moment when a person falls asleep, he rests in the harmony of the spheres, and from there he brings the forces to balance what has been used during the day. Thus, the astral body rests during the night in the world of the stars; that is its true home. And when it returns, it brings with it the powers of the stars to help remove the substances that cause fatigue. That is why sleep is a good doctor, because order and harmony can then be restored when the astral body rests again for some time in the world that contains the laws for the starry sky, and these are the laws for the spiritual world in general. If a person does not sleep, their health will be undermined because the astral body has not rested in the starry world for a while. That is why the astral body has been given this name. In the past, names were not given that did not correspond to the essence of the matter. And before we correct occult names and designations, we must first think about the name, why it was given. Today, when a comet or a minor planet is discovered, one opens a mythology encyclopedia and gives the star a name. The principle of naming in spiritual times was to let the essence of the thing itself resonate in a name: it sounded in the name of the connection with the world.

In the fourth aspect of his being, man has something that makes him the crowning of earthly creation of planetary existence. Follow me for a short time in a subtle observation. In the whole range of the German language, there is a name - and in other languages it is similar - that is fundamentally different from all other names. Each of you can say “table” to the table, “picture” to the picture, and so on. But there is one name which we cannot use in the same sense, and that is the name I. None of them can say “I” to another. Each one is a “you” to every other, and you are a “you” to everyone else. If this name is to describe ourselves, no sound in the external world can embody it; it must resound from within ourselves. This has been felt at all times by those religions that had an impulse from the secret teaching. In the secret teaching, therefore, one says the name for the being, and in the Hebrew secret teaching, the unpronounceable name of God, the name of Yahweh, is nothing other than the name for the ego. In truth, the name of Yahweh is the name for that which begins to hold a monologue in the soul - to live in its self. It was felt that in those worldviews and religions that were built on spiritual foundations, one said: In the I, in the innermost part of the soul, God begins to speak. It is a beginning, but it must be made, and this I - this single central point - is what makes up the most essential distinguishing feature of man from all the beings that surround us on this planet. Sensible people have always felt this. Jean Paul tells us how, as a very young child, he stood in the courtyard of his parents' house and he knew exactly how he first felt: you are a self-being! And he adds that there is no possibility of error and that others have added something to this memory. Because at that time, says Jean Paul, I looked into the hidden holy of holies of my inner being; at that time I knew that I was immortal because I had found the connection with God.

If we now go outwards from the I, we come to the point where we can consider the mutual relationships of the human being. Human evolution consists in the I working on the three bodies, within which it appears like the core of a fruit in its shell. And how does this I work?

If we want to understand this, we must remember primitive peoples. Take a people who today stands at a lower level of culture. You see that this people is ruled by its feelings and instincts, by drives and passions, much like the animal: they devour each other. Now compare this savage with the members of a more highly developed culture, with a Francis of Assisi. What is the difference between the two forms of development?

If we want to answer this question, we must be aware that the human being – through the many incarnations through which he develops – does his work from his I: first on the astral body, then on the etheric body and then also on the physical body. This is human development: this emanation of the I into the three bodies. The savage follows all the instincts and passions that live in him. The cultured man says to himself, “I must not follow certain instincts”; he denies himself certain instincts and passions. The still higher idealist not only denies himself, but out of himself generates ideals that add something new to what the instincts of the astral body constitute at a primitive level of culture. Thus, in the clairvoyant view, we see the astral body as consisting of two parts: what was originally in it and then what the ego itself has made of it. If you look at a highly developed idealist, this part [it is drawn] is larger than in others due to the work of the ego, and in a person like Francis of Assisi you can see how little is left of what the person called his own when he embarked on his first incarnation. In Theosophy, this practically transformed part of the human astral body, over which man has gained control, is called the German word “Geistselbst”, which is otherwise referred to in Theosophical literature as “Manas”; it is a transformed part of the astral body.

But the human being also works on his etheric body from his I. What does it mean to work on the etheric body? Let us make this clear with an example. You can do this in your own development. Remember what you knew as a seven-year-old child in terms of concepts and ideas, and what you know today, what you have learned and changed in your imaginative life. You will find a great deal. But now compare what you have learned with what has changed in other things that are also in you, in temperament, memory, certain basic characteristics of human nature. If you were hot-tempered as an eight-year-old child, this hot temper will still show through at times. If your temperament was melancholy, then perhaps this coloring will remain throughout your life. So that we can say comparatively: what a person actually learns moves forward like the minute hand of a clock; but what a person's basic inclinations are, that moves forward more slowly, like the hour hand. And as slowly as the hour hand of a clock, the etheric body transforms. The etheric body is denser than the astral body; therefore, the work of the ego on the etheric body is essentially more difficult than the work on the astral body. And only when the ego not only works on its intellectual ideas but begins to transform its temperament, then this is accompanied by a transformation of its etheric body. For many, this is only possible during the transition from one incarnation to another. But that is precisely the essence of occult training: everything you can learn is only preparation for occult training, and you have done more if you have tried to get rid of any basic mood, for example, if you have transformed your melancholy temperament into a harmonious one. The moment we begin to change not only our feelings and impulses but our fundamental nature, we begin to work on the etheric body. The part of the human etheric body that has been reshaped by the ego in this way is in turn a new link in human nature. Today, very few people can consciously bring about this transformation of the etheric body, but only those who are in occult training. For example, one of the laws of the Pythagorean school was that the astral body must first be completely purified before work on the etheric body could begin. But one must distinguish between conscious and unconscious schooling of the etheric body. The part that is permeated by the work of the ego is called the “life spirit” in the German language; it is the same in its fundamental essence as what is called “buddhi” in theosophical literature.

The third and most significant thing is when the human being not only begins to become master over the forces of his etheric body, but when he begins to work down into the physical body. It might seem as though the work of the I on the physical body is the basest; but it is in fact the highest. And the work on the physical body is more difficult than the work on the etheric body. When a person consciously begins to work on mastering the forces that work in the physical body through the I, then something else occurs to him. What works in the physical body are the same forces that work in the cosmos. When a person learns to control the forces of his blood and his breathing, he learns the magic of the cosmos. Then what he can do flows out of his physical body and into the universe, and that is a real, true work that can only begin when a person has reached a certain level of work on the etheric body. And because we begin with the regulation of our neighbor, with the regulation of breathing, the name breathing is also taken from 'Atma'. The more a person transforms in his inner physical nature, the more there is of the 'spirit man', of 'Atma'; there is a part of spirit matter in him that has been transformed.

This is not an ascetic escape from the physical world; rather, we have the task of entering the physical world in order to transform it into a spiritual one. That is the great law of redemption. This physical body is a part of the spiritual body that has become what it has become so that we could reach our present stage of development. We now have the task of spiritualizing this physical body again, of redeeming it. This principle lies behind the word redemption. There you have the mutual relationship of the seven members of human nature, as one must have them if one wants to utilize them in practical theosophical work.

Now let us consider the evolution of man. A materialist, who, being acquainted only with the physical body, has only an abstract idea of the evolution of man. But he who realizes how complicated man is, also sees how complicated the evolution of man is. Which of these four members is the oldest and most perfect? Some may be surprised to hear that the oldest and most perfect link in the human being is the physical one; it is the one that took the longest time to develop. The etheric body is younger, and the astral body is even younger. The baby is the I. It is only unfair to call the physical body an imperfect part of the human being. Just consider, for example, the structure of the thigh bone: a wonderful work of art. The beams are laid with such wisdom that no human engineering could achieve it, and they are laid in such a way that the upper body is supported with the least expenditure of energy. Let us now move from this limb to the construction of the human heart. Anyone who delves into what our physiologists teach us about the heart and also about the other organs knows that these limbs are so wisely constructed that no human wisdom can even penetrate these physical forms. The physical body would be good for all people. But now let us look at the astral body, which it does throughout life. Through the activity of its astral body, man continually introduces heart poisons to the physical body, for example to the heart; but the heart is so wisely constructed that it can withstand the attacks of the astral body for quite some time. Only in the future will the astral body be found just as wise as the physical body is today. The physical body is the oldest part of the human nature, which required the longest time to evolve. The parts of the human nature are, however, connected with the whole environment. Just as a single finger can only exist if it is a part of the whole hand, so man is only conceivable in connection with the whole cosmos. If you lift him a few miles above the earth, then he will experience the same fate as the finger if you cut it off. And just because man can walk around on the earth, this dependence is not admitted.

Look back at times long past! And when you look ahead to future times, you see that the shape of its limbs is constantly changing. But they can only change if everything around the person changes. Just because man, despite his advanced science, looks back over such a short span of time, he believes that things have always been as they are. But anyone who looks further knows that our planet must change from form to form if we ourselves want to change. But it is not enough just for the changes that the earth itself is undergoing to happen, but in a certain respect man was already there before the earth could be called “earth” in the cosmos. As man progresses in the cosmos, so do the planets or the beings that inhabit them. Our planet is the reincarnation of another planetary state, and we can trace three preceding incarnations of our Earth and look forward to three subsequent ones. What we call planetary evolution is nothing more than an analogy to our human evolution. The three preceding planetary states through which our Earth had to pass are called in Rosicrucian terms Saturn, Sun, Moon, so that we have to imagine: the Earth was, before it became Earth, Moon, and before it became Moon, it was Sun, and before the Sun it was Saturn; and the later states, which we are looking at, are called Jupiter, Venus, Vulcan. What does it mean that the Earth has passed through these states?

We are today in the fourth incarnation of our own planet, and this is intimately connected with human evolution. On the first planetary form - that is, on Saturn - the first structures of the human physical body were already present. At that time, however, the human physical body was such during the entire Saturn development that no independent etheric body was yet incorporated into it. Through the stages of the sun and moon, down to the stage of the earth, this physical body became more and more perfect, so that we can say: the physical human body today stands on the fourth stage of its development, it stands today at the point of the earth's development. It was only in the second incarnation of our earth that an independent ether body was incorporated into this physical body. The physical body became more perfect, as it were, through the working of an etheric body within it. Then the third reincarnation of the earth — the moon — led to the incorporation of the astral body into the two others, so that the inhabitant of the moon, the ancestor of today's earth man, consisted of three bodies — the physical, the etheric and the astral body. And the meaning of evolution on Earth is this: to integrate the I into these three members, the worker, who then begins to transform what has come to him from the past. Thus we see that the physical body is older than the others, and the I is only at the first stage of its development. One can even know from the configuration of the physical body what comes from the state of Saturn in us. The highest part of our physical body is the sensory organs, and the germ of our sensory organs was laid on Saturn. And so limb by limb was built up, becoming more and more perfect in stages with the other limbs of human nature.

What is called Saturn and Sun here is not the present-day Sun and Saturn, but rather denotes phases of development. Nevertheless, what our Earth has gone through in its development is related to present-day Saturn. Present-day Saturn is to the Earth as a boy is to an old man. The same conditions that Saturn is going through today are the same conditions that our Earth went through in the past. This is why in real occultism we do not speak of Saturn, the Sun and so on, but of a Saturn, a Sun and so on. Our Earth is an older Saturn.

Now we must still be clear about the meaning of this whole development. If we look back to that Saturn development, where man was still without etheric body, astral body and I - insofar as they were independent beings -, we get the best difference of those ancient conditions from today's by referring to the “consciousness”. A state of consciousness is connected with every state of development. There are seven states of consciousness. The present human being is in the fourth; no being can have this state that cannot say “I” to itself. Therefore, the human being developed the form of consciousness that he now has only on earth. The purpose of evolution on Earth is to develop the waking consciousness. On the earlier planetary conditions, there were only imperfect states of consciousness for humans. On Saturn, the human ancestor in his primitive form had a consciousness like that of minerals, or rather: the human physical ancestor is that consciousness. We can hardly find words for it easily; we can only hint at it. This consciousness is a very, very dim, deep trance-like, sleepy consciousness, dull and dusky, but which in a way had an advantage: it encompasses a much larger scope, is much more universal; a mineral consciousness knows of the whole solar system.

Then this consciousness was narrowed down to that of the plant. But it is now a somewhat brighter consciousness than that of the mineral. Man was in this consciousness when the earth was in the sun. The third form of consciousness is pictorial consciousness, also called primary psychic consciousness. It differs from the present one in that it works in images, but in such a way that it conveys the psychic of the other. Imagine a being - and the human ancestor on the moon was like that - that does not yet have sensory consciousness and can cover objects with colors when it wakes up: you have a last remnant of such consciousness in the dream world. The dream world is not the astral consciousness. The present dream consciousness is to the moon consciousness what some atrophied limb is to the form it was in when it still had its tasks in the human being; for example, certain muscles that could move the ears have lost their purpose in the human being. The present-day world of dreams has remained as a vestige of the astral pictorial consciousness of the moon; that is why it also works in the same way as the astral imaginative consciousness works. Imagine someone dreaming that he is catching a tree frog. He sees it jump and grabs it. Then the sleeper wakes up and sees that he had the corner of the bed cover in his hand. Or another dream that really happened. A farmer's wife dreams that she is going to church. She listens devoutly. Then the pastor moves his arms violently and, lo and behold, he gets wings. It was not too strange for the pious farmer's wife that a pastor who preaches from heaven occasionally gets wings too. But what happens? The pastor begins to crow loudly in the pulpit. At the same moment, the farmer's wife wakes up and outside in the yard, the cock crows.

What has happened here, where a whole dramatic action is taking place? In the symbolic image, something is expressed that you would have perceived as an external object in the waking day consciousness. Something is formed symbolically that is not present in this way. But if you retain the symbol in form – think that people use it to have perceptions of the real psychic world, then you have what I am talking about now. A symbolic consciousness that is true and real was the consciousness of the moon. Imagine a human being without our present-day object-consciousness. He approached another being. He does not see the limited form in this being, but a color formation appears before him. When there is sympathy, he sees a very definite color, and likewise when there is antipathy. This is something other than color today: it is the expression of sympathy or antipathy for the other being. And someone who has moon consciousness does what corresponds to moon consciousness: he bases his actions on the symbols. If he perceives a certain color, he knows that something hostile is happening, and he will withdraw.

A later stage of development is that which develops under the influence of the ego, where consciousness no longer perceives the psychic phenomenon, but where what has arisen as a coloration is superimposed over the objects. The colors that you see spread over the objects today are the old colors that once arose as psychic phenomena.

If modern man had, in addition to today's consciousness, that of the moon, so that he fully perceives the psychic world as well as the physical, he would have expanded the present consciousness into the imaginative one. A higher form would be if he had added to this the consciousness that plants have today and that humans had dimly and dully during their solar incarnation. And the highest form would be where man would also have the consciousness that the mineral has today, which in turn would enable him to merge into the universal cosmos. This last consciousness hovers before us as the ideal of man, and it is called spiritual consciousness.

The purpose of planetary evolution is therefore that states of consciousness succeed one another; but for this to happen, the planetary arena must also change completely each time. However, we only understand the complete evolution if we know that within each planetary state, seven stages must be traversed. Thus Saturn, Sun, Moon and now Earth had to cover seven stages. These are called “rounds” in Theosophy, “realms” in Christian esotericism. Each of the planets that the Earth passes through has seven smaller cycles; for each consciousness, if it is to ascend, has degrees, from the most imperfect to the most perfect. They are also called states of life. Each of these realms or states of life, however, must in turn pass through seven different states of revelation or seven states of form: arupa, rupa, astral, physical, plastic, intellectual, spiritual (archetypal).

Thus we have 7 times 7 times 7 = 343 states; they describe the 343 planetary incarnations in their entirety. The development of one state of consciousness encompasses 49 of these states. So you can see how we can glimpse into an enormous cosmic development.

When man still lived on the sun and had only developed his etheric and physical bodies, he was still a completely different being. One could not call him a plant, but in a certain figurative sense one could say that he was then in the plant existence. In relation to his position on earth, he was turned around: what today projects freely into the ether, the head, was then directed towards the center of the earth. The development of consciousness is simultaneously linked with the reversal of the entire human form. This is why the sun man is also called a man directed towards the center of the earth, and in the same sense the man of the moon age is called an orbiting man. If one had drawn a tangent to the moon's surface... [gap in the transcript]. And the earth man is the reverse of the sun man.

Thus everything moves forward. When we look back at lunar evolution, we must realize that what we call affects today could only develop on the moon as an astral impact. But at that time the I had not yet developed. Because the ego did not develop until the earth, the moon man did not yet feel pain as his individual pain; it was the pain of the moon. This physical-etheric-astral moon ancestor was not independent. Unindividual passions, affects and pains arose from this. For example, it was so on the moon — one may express it today, even if so few believe it — that at certain seasons of the year the whole world, all living beings, began to scream, to utter sounds, surrounded by an astral body; this was connected with a certain development in animal life. A vestige of this can still be seen in the mating call in the sexual life of certain animals, where cries are associated with it at certain times.

Now the law of evolution is such that in later states certain earlier ones are always repeated. Thus the earth had to go through the repetition of the Saturn, Sun and Moon existence. Now the earth is in its most essential existence. You can get an idea of what was called the sun here if you stir all the beings that are on the sun, moon and earth today into a pulp; all of this once existed on the sun. During the solar age, the sun, moon and earth were one body. Then the sun had developed into the moon's existence and only then were the sun and moon divided. And during the repetition on earth, first the sun and then the moon separated again, and the actual becoming-ego of the human being is linked to the separation of the moon. The moon contains the forces that prevent the other parts of the human being from becoming the carrier of an ego. I can only suggest that the point in time that occurred for our earth's development in the ancient Lemurian period could only occur because first the sun broke away and then the moon. When the earth had become independent, it could only then bring forth the human form from which today's human being has developed.

Thus, human evolution is most intimately connected with cosmic evolution. If you look back to the ancient Atlantean times, the predecessor of our present time, when man lived on Atlantis – which science has at least already discovered for the animal world – you have the human ancestor who does not yet possess the same consciousness as the human being of today, who can calculate and manufacture industrial objects. But another faculty was highly developed. The Atlantean man had an excellent memory, of which one can no longer really imagine today. Something else was connected with this. You would find that physically, too, this old Atlantis differs quite considerably from the configuration of the earth today. What we call air and water today was not yet there. All the air was filled with a fine water vapor. The water was still dissolved. That is why the old German saga has preserved the name 'Nifelheim'. It means that people in those days lived in a kind of water-laden air, and only in such an air could the image consciousness of man at that time live. The myths and legends of Germanic mythology arose out of this consciousness. Anyone who really knows the people knows that they do not create poetry as today's scholarship claims. The myths and legends were the remnants of an ancient ethereal pictorial consciousness, the expression of an ancient, dim clairvoyance, and people have only forgotten their origin after they have advanced to today's bright day consciousness.

So you can see how the development of mankind is tied to the cosmos. On a round earth, where the air is saturated with water, man perceives the world quite differently. For the Atlanteans, the sound of the wind was a language they understood. There were no commandments or laws in those days. There were still times when, if man wanted to know how he should behave, he went out and listened to the spring as it trickled: that told him something. And when he went out to listen, he listened to a fundamental and underlying tone that was present like a musical keynote that the Atlantean understood. It is a simple, multi-syllabic syllable; it lived in the entire environment of the Atlantean; it went through everything, and the Atlantean said to himself: “In this fundamental tone, the god speaks to me.” And when he wanted to address his prayer to his God, it was in this fundamental tone. The wisdom of the ancient Atlanteans had to change into our own in order for man to progress. But in the process of development we will again have to gain the consciousness of the Atlanteans, in addition to our own. Sometimes we have to make the sacrifice that the old must lie dormant for a time.

Thus the evolution of man is connected with the evolution of the cosmos. Just think how far man has strayed from the sources of wisdom that lie in the world itself! How far he has strayed from direct contact with nature! But what we have lost we shall regain in what we have conquered. This consciousness that we have arises from the consciousness of the individual, concrete facts that in the Rosicrucian method were designated as the “wisdom of the world”. It permeates the whole life of man. If we imbibe it, we feel what the teacher wanted, to whom the name “Rosenkreutz” is linked, who, as a leading individuality, guides and directs the spiritual movement through the centuries.

It seems far-removed when we consider the human being in the context of the whole world; but if it penetrates our hearts, it becomes a force within us that will bless us if we want to work on the transformation and transformation of the cosmos. One has the duty to integrate oneself into the cosmos. Just as a single stone does not seek to dispense itself from the house, so man must not dispense himself from the Cosmos. One must recognize that it must be one's duty to serve within the great evolution of the world. Then that which is eternal in us will integrate itself into the world existence. There will be a reflection of it in our most everyday life, so that man can express this wisdom in every movement of his hand. Then the Cosmos will truly partake of the human being, for everything is in the process of transformation. Everything must be transformed again through beings who are placed in the movement of the world. If we work in this way, we will feel vividly how true it is. And truth will be the impulse for our actions. Thus a beautiful saying of a highly inspired poet will be fulfilled:

Time is a blooming meadow,
Nature is one great living being,
And everything is fruit, and everything is seed!

I am very glad to be able to speak here again after a comparatively long absence. Those of you who were present at our meeting in Munich earlier this year¹ or have heard something about my Mystery Play, The Guardian of the Threshold, will have realised what the attitude of the soul must be if an adequate conception is to be acquired of the content of Spiritual Science or, let us say, of Occultism.

A great deal has been said previously about the Luciferic and Ahrimanic beings. The aim of The Guardian of the Threshold was to show that the essential nature of these beings can be revealed only by studying them very gradually and from many different aspects. It is not enough to form a simple concept or give an ordinary definition of these beings—popular as such definitions are. My purpose was to show from as many different sides as possible, the part played by these beings in the lives of men. The Play will also have helped you to realise that there must be complete truthfulness and deep seriousness when speaking of the spiritual worlds. This, after all, has been the keynote of the lectures I have given here. It must be emphasised all the more strongly at the present time because there is so little recognition of the seriousness and value of genuine anthroposophical endeavours. If there is one thing that I have tried to emphasise in the lectures given over the years, it is that you should embark upon all your anthroposophical efforts in this spirit of truthfulness and earnestness, and become thoroughly conscious of their significance in world-existence as a whole, in the evolutionary process of humanity and in the spiritual content of our present age. It cannot be emphasised too often that the essence of Anthroposophy cannot be grasped with the help of a few simple concepts or a theory briefly propounded, let alone a programme. The forces of the whole soul must be involved. But life itself is a process of Becoming, of development. Someone might argue that he can hardly be expected to ally himself with an Anthroposophical Movement if he is immediately faced with a demand for self-development and told that he can only hope to penetrate slowly and gradually to the essence of Anthroposophy; he may ask how he can decide to join something for which he can prepare only slowly. The rejoinder to this would be that before a human being can reach the highest stage of development he already has in his heart and in his soul the sense of truth which has led mankind as a whole to strive for such development, and he need only devote himself open-mindedly to this sense of truth, with the will for truth which lies in the depths of his soul unless prejudices have led him astray. He must avoid empty theories and high-sounding programmes. Man is able to sense truth where it genuinely exists. Honest criticism is therefore always possible, even if someone is only at the very beginning of the path of attainment. This, however, does not preclude him from attributing supreme importance to anthroposophical endeavour.

In our present age there are many influences which divert men from the natural feeling for truth that is present in their souls. Over the years it has often been possible to indicate these misleading influences and I need not do it again today. My purpose is to emphasise how necessary it is—even if there is already some knowledge of occult science—to approach and study things again and again from constantly new sides. One example of what I mean is our study of the four Gospels. This autumn I brought these studies to a provisional conclusion with a course of lectures on the Gospel of St. Mark. These studies of the Gospels may be taken as a standard example of the way in which the great truths of existence must be approached from different sides. Each Gospel affords an opportunity to view the Mystery of Golgotha from a different angle, and indeed we cannot begin really to know anything essential about this Mystery until we have studied it from the four different viewpoints presented in the four Gospels.

In what way have our studies over the last ten or twelve years demonstrated this? Those of you who want to be clear about this need only turn to my book Christianity as Mystical Fact, the content of which was first given in the form of lectures, before the foundation of the German Section of the Theosophical Society. Anyone who seriously studies this book will find that it already contained the gist of what I have since said in the course of years, about the Mystery of Golgotha and the four Gospels. Nothing, however, would be more unjustified than to believe that by knowing the contents of that book you would ipso facto have an adequate understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. All the lectures given since the book appeared have been the natural outcome of that original spiritual study; nowhere are they at variance with what was then said. It has furthermore been possible to open up new ways for contemplating the Mystery of Golgotha, thus enabling us to penetrate more and more deeply into its significance. The attempt has been made to substitute direct experience of the spiritual facts for concepts, theories and abstract speculations. And if, in spite of it all, a feeling of a certain lack still exists, this lack is due to something that is inevitable on the physical plane, namely, the time factor. Hence I have always assumed that you would have patience and wait for matters to develop gradually. This is also an indication of how what I have to say to you during this coming winter should be understood.

In the course of years we have spoken a great deal of the life between death and a new birth. The same subject will, however, be dealt with in the forthcoming lectures, the reason being that during this last summer and autumn it has been my task to undertake further spiritual research into this realm and to present an aspect of the subject which could not previously be dealt with. It is only now possible to consider certain matters which bring home the profound moral significance of the super-sensible truths pertaining to this realm. In addition to all other demands to which only very brief reference has been made, there is one which in this vain and arrogant age is a cause of offence to numbers of individuals. But we must not allow it to deter us from the earnestness and respect for truth that are due to our Movement. The demand will continue to be made that by dint of earnest, intimate efforts we shall learn to be receptive to knowledge brought from the spiritual world.

For some years now the relationship of human beings living on the physical plane to the spiritual worlds has changed from what it was through almost the whole of the nineteenth century. Until the last third of that century men had little access to the spiritual worlds; it was necessary for evolution that only little of the content of those worlds should flow into the human soul. But now we are living in an age when the soul need only be receptive and duly prepared and revelations from the spiritual worlds will be able to flow into it. Individual souls will become more and more receptive and, being aware of their task in the present age, they will find this inflow of spiritual knowledge to be a reality. Hence the further demand is made that anthroposophists shall not turn deaf ears to what can make its way into the soul today from the spiritual worlds. Before entering into the main theme of these lectures I want to speak of two characteristics of the spiritual life to which special attention must be paid.

Between death and the new birth a human being experiences the realities of the spiritual world in a very definite way. But he also experiences these realities through Initiation; he experiences them too if his soul is prepared during his life in the physical body in a way that enables him to participate in the spiritual worlds. Hence it is true to say that what takes place between death and the new birth—which is, in fact, existence in the spiritual world—can be revealed through Initiation.

Attention must be paid to two points which emerge from what has often been said here; they are essential not only to experience of the spiritual worlds but also to the right understanding of communications received from these worlds. The difference between conditions in the spiritual world and the physical world has often been emphasised, also the fact that when the soul enters the spiritual world it finds itself in a sphere in which it is essential to become accustomed to a great deal that is the exact opposite of conditions in the physical world. Here is one example: If, on the physical plane, something is to be brought about by us, we have to be active, to use our hands, to move our physical body from one place to another. Activity on our part is necessary if we are to bring about something in the physical world. In the spiritual worlds exactly the opposite holds good. I am speaking always of the present epoch. If something is to happen through us in the spiritual worlds, it must be achieved through our inner calm, our inner tranquillity; in the spiritual worlds the capacity to await events with tranquillity corresponds to busy activity on the physical plane. The less we bestir ourselves on the physical plane, the less we can bring about; the more active we are, the more can happen. In the spiritual world, the calmer our soul can become, the more all inner restlessness can be avoided, the more we shall be able to achieve. It is therefore essential to regard whatever comes to pass as something bestowed upon us by grace, something that comes to us as a blessing because we have deserved it as the fruit of inner tranquillity.

I have often said that anyone possessed of spiritual knowledge is aware that 1899 was a very significant year; it was the end of a period of 5,000 years in human history, the so-called Lesser Kali Yuga. Since that year it has become necessary to allow the spiritual to come to men in a way differing from what was previously usual. I will give you a concrete example. In the early twelfth century, a man named Norbert² founded a religious Order in the West. Before the idea of founding the Order came to him, Norbert was a loose-living man, full of sensuality and worldly impulses. One day something very unusual happened to him; he was struck by lightning. This did not prove fatal, but his whole being was transformed. There are many such examples in history. The inner connection between Norbert's physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego was changed by the force contained in the lightning. It was then that he founded his Order, and although, as in so many other cases, it failed to fulfil the aims of its founder, in many respects it did good at the time. Such ‘chance’ events, as they are called nowadays, have been numerous. But this was not a chance happening; it was an event of world-karma. The man was chosen to perform a task of special importance and to make this possible, particular bodily conditions had to be created. An outer event, an external influence, was necessary.

Since the year 1899 such influences on the souls of men must be purely inner influences, not exerted so definitely from outside. Not that there was an abrupt transition; but since the year 1899, influences exerted on the souls of men must more and more take effect inwardly. You may remember what I once said about Christian Rosenkreutz—that when he wishes to call a human soul to himself, it is a more inward call. Before 1899 such calls were made by means of outer events; since that year they have become more inward. Intercourse between human souls and the higher Hierarchies will become more and more dependent upon inner exertions, and men will have to apply the deepest, most intimate forces of their souls in order to maintain this intercourse with the Beings of the Hierarchies.

What I have just described to you as an incisive point in life on the physical plane has its counterpart in the spiritual world—visibly for one who is a seer—in much that has taken place between the Beings of the higher Hierarchies. At this time there were certain tasks which it was incumbent upon the Beings of the Hierarchies to carry out among themselves, but one particular condition must be noted. The Beings whose task in the spiritual worlds was to bring about the ending of Kali Yuga, needed something from our Earth, something taking place on our Earth. It was necessary that in certain souls who were sufficiently mature there should be knowledge of this change, or at least that such souls should be able to envisage it. For just as man on the physical plane needs a brain in order to develop consciousness, so do the Beings of the Hierarchies need human thoughts in which their deeds are reflected. Thus the world of men is also necessary for the spiritual world; it co-operates with the spiritual world and is an essential factor—but it must co-operate in the right way. Those who were ready previously or are ready now to participate in this activity from the human side, would not have been right then, nor would they be right now, to agitate in the way that is customary on the physical plane for the furtherance of something that is to take place in the spiritual world. We do not help the Spirits of the higher Hierarchies by busy activity on the physical plane, but primarily by having some measure of understanding of what is to happen; then, in restfulness and concentration of soul, we should await a revelation of the spiritual world. What we can contribute is the inner quietude we can achieve, the attitude of soul we can induce in ourselves to await this bestowal of grace.

Thus, paradoxical as it may seem, our activity in the higher worlds depends upon our own inner tranquillity; the calmer we can become, the more will the facts of the spiritual world be able to come to expression through us. Hence it is also necessary, if we are to participate effectively in a spiritual Movement, to be able to develop this mood of tranquillity. And in the Anthroposophical Movement it would be especially desirable for its adherents to endeavour to achieve this inner tranquillity, this consciousness of Grace in their attitude to the spiritual world.

Among the various activities in which man is engaged on the physical plane it is really only in the domain of artistic creation, or where there is a genuine striving for knowledge or for the advancement of a spiritual Movement, that these conditions hold good. An artist will assuredly not create the best work of which his gifts are capable if he is perpetually active and is impatient to make progress. He will produce his best work if he can wait for the moment when Grace is vouchsafed to him and if he can abstain from activity when the spirit is not speaking. And quite certainly no higher knowledge will be attained by one who attempts to formulate it out of concepts already familiar to him. Higher knowledge can be attained only by one who is able to wait quietly, with complete resignation, when confronted by a problem or riddle of existence, and who says to himself: I must wait until the answer comes to me like a flash of light from the spiritual worlds. Again, someone who rushes from one person to another, trying to convince them that some particular spiritual Movement is the only genuine one, will certainly not be setting about this in the right way; he should wait until the souls he approaches have recognised the urge in themselves to seek the truths of the spiritual world. That is how we should respond to any illumination shining down into our physical world; but it is particularly true of everything that man can himself bring about in the spiritual world. It may truly be said that even the most practical accomplishments in that realm depend upon the establishment of a certain state of tranquillity.

I want now to speak of so-called spiritual healing. Here again it is not the movements or manipulations carried out by the healer that are of prime importance; they are necessary, but only as preparation. The aim is to establish a condition of rest, of balance. Whatever is outwardly visible in a case of spiritual healing is only the preparation for what the healer is trying to do; it is the final result that is of importance. In such a case the situation is like weighing something on a pair of scales: first, we put in the one scale what we want to weigh; in the other scale we put a weight and this sets the beam moving to right and left. But it is only when equilibrium has been established that we can read the weight. Something similar is true of actions in the spiritual worlds.

In respect of knowledge, of perception, however, there is a difference. How does perception come about in everyday life on the physical plane? Everyone is aware that with the exception of certain spheres of the physical plane, objects present themselves to us from morning until evening during the waking life of day; from minute to minute new impressions are made upon us. It is in exceptional circumstances only that we, on our side, seek for impressions and do with objects what otherwise they do to us. This, however, is already near to being a searcher for knowledge. Spiritual knowledge is a different matter. We ourselves must set before our soul whatever is to be presented to it. Whereas we must be absolutely quiescent if anything is to come about, to happen through us in the spiritual world, we must be uninterruptedly active if we really desire to understand something in the spiritual world. Connected with this is the fact that many people who would like to be anthroposophists find that the knowledge we are trying to promote here is too baffling for them. Many of them complain: in Anthroposophy one has to be always learning, always pondering, always busy! But without such efforts it is not possible to acquire any understanding of the spiritual worlds. The soul must make strenuous efforts and contemplate everything from many sides. Mental pictures and concepts of the higher worlds must be developed through steady, tranquil work. In the physical world, if we want to have, say, a table, we must acquire it by active effort. But in the spiritual world, if we want to acquire something, we must develop the necessary tranquillity. If anything is to happen, it emerges from the twilight. But when it is a matter of knowing something, we must exert every possible effort to create the necessary Inspirations. If we are to ‘know’ something, effort is essential; the soul must be inwardly active, move from one Imagination to another, one Inspiration to another, one Intuition to another. We must create the whole structure; nothing will come to us that we have not ourselves produced in our search for knowledge. Thus conditions in the spiritual world are exactly the opposite of what holds good in the physical world.

I have had to give this introduction in order that we may agree together, firstly, as to how certain facts are discovered, but secondly, how they can be understood as more is said of them. In these lectures I shall deal less with the life immediately following death—known to us under the name of Kamaloka—the essential aspects of which are already familiar to you. We shall be more concerned to study from somewhat new points of view those periods in the life after death which follow the period of Kamaloka.

First of all it is important to describe the general character of that life. The first stage of higher knowledge is what may be called the ‘Imaginative’ life, or life filled with true, genuine visions. Just as in physical life we are surrounded by the world of colours, sounds, scents, tastes, mental pictures which we form for ourselves by means of our intellect, so in the spiritual world we are surrounded by ‘Imaginations’—which can also be called ‘visions’. But we must realise that these Imaginations or visions, when they are true in the spiritual sense, are not the imagery of dream but realities. Let us take a definite case.

When a human being has passed through the Gate of Death he comes into contact with those who died before him and with whom he was connected in some way during life. During the period between death and the new birth we are actually together with those who belong to us. Just as in the physical world we become aware of objects by seeing their colours, hearing their sounds and so on, in the same way we are surrounded after death, figuratively speaking, by a cloud of visions. Everything around us is vision; we ourselves are vision in that world just as here on Earth we are flesh and bone. But this vision is not a dream; we know that it is reality. When we encounter someone who is dead and with whom we previously had some connection, he too is ‘vision’; he is enveloped in a cloud of visions. But just as on the physical plane we know that the colour ‘red’ comes, let us say, from a red rose, on the spiritual plane we know that the ‘vision’ comes from the spiritual being of someone who passed through the gate of death before us. But here I must draw your attention to a particular aspect, especially as it is experienced by everyone who is living through this period after death. Here on the physical plane it may, for example, be the case that at least as far as we can judge, we ought to have loved some individual but have loved him too little; we have, in fact, deprived him of love or have hurt him in some way. In such circumstances, if we are not stony-hearted, the idea may occur to us that we must make reparation. When this idea comes to us it is possible to compensate for what has happened. On the physical plane we can modify the previously existing relationship but during the period immediately following Kamaloka, we cannot. From the very nature of the encounter we may well be aware that we have hurt the person in some way or deprived him of the love we ought to have shown him; we may also wish to make reparation, but we cannot. During this period all we can do is to continue the relationship which existed between us before death. We perceive what was amiss but for the time being we can do nothing to make amends. In this world of visions which envelops us like a cloud, we cannot alter anything. The relationship we had with an individual who died before us remains. This is often one of the more painful experiences also associated with Initiation. A person experiences much more deeply the significance of his relation to the physical plane than he was able to do with his eyes or his intellect, but for all that he cannot directly change anything. This, in fact, constitutes the pain and martyrdom of spiritual knowledge, in so far as it is self-knowledge and relates to our own life. After death, relationships between individuals remain and continue as they were during earthly life.

When recently this fact presented itself to my spiritual sight with tremendous force, something further occurred to me. During my life I have devoted a great deal of study to the works of Homer and have tried to understand many things contained in these ancient epics. On this particular occasion I was reminded of a certain passage. Homer, by the way, was called by the Greeks the ‘blind’ Homer, thus indicating his spiritual seership. In speaking of the realm through which men journey after death, Homer calls it the ‘realm of the Shades in which no change is possible’. Here once again I realised that we can rightly understand much that is contained in the great masterpieces and revelations of mankind only by drawing upon the very depths of spiritual knowledge. Much of what will lead to an understanding of humanity as a whole must depend upon a new recognition by men of those great ancestors whose souls were radiant with spiritual light. Any sensitive soul will be moved by the recognition that this ancient seer was able to write as he did only because the truth of the spiritual world shone into his soul. Here begins the true reverence for the divine-spiritual forces which stream through the world and especially through the hearts and souls of men. This attitude makes it possible to realise how the progress and development of the world are furthered. A very great deal that is true in the deepest sense is contained in the works of men whose gifts were on a level with those of Homer. But this truth which was once directly revealed to an ancient, dreamlike clairvoyance, has now been lost and must be regained on the path leading to spiritual knowledge.

In order to substantiate still further this example of what has been bestowed upon humanity by creative genius, I will now speak of something else as well. There was a certain truth which I strongly resisted when it first dawned upon me, which seemed to me to be paradoxical, but which through inner necessity I was eventually bound to recognise.

The spiritual investigation on which I was engaged at that time was also connected with the study of certain works of art. Among them was one which I had previously seen and studied although a particular aspect of it had not struck me before. I am speaking now of the Medici tombs in the Chapel designed and built in Florence by Michelangelo. Two members of the Medici family, of whom no more need be said at present, were to be immortalised in statues. But Michelangelo added four so-called ‘allegorical’ figures, named at his suggestion, ‘Morning’ and ‘Evening’, ‘Day’ and ‘Night’. ‘Day’ and ‘Night’ were placed at the foot of one statue; ‘Morning’ and ‘Evening’ at the foot of the other. Even if you have no particularly good photographs of these allegorical figures, you will easily be able to verify what I have to say about them.

We will begin with ‘Night’, the most famous of the four. In guide-books you can read that the postures of the limbs in the recumbent figure of ‘Night’ are unnatural, that no human being could sleep in that position and therefore the figure cannot be a good symbolic presentation of ‘Night’. But now let me say something else. Suppose we are looking at the allegorical figure of ‘Night’ with occult vision. We can then say to ourselves: when a human being is asleep, his Ego and astral body have left the physical and etheric bodies. It is conceivable that someone might visualise a particular posture which most accurately portrays that of the etheric body when the astral body and Ego have left. As we go about during the day our gestures and movements are conditioned by the fact that the astral body and Ego are within the physical and etheric bodies. But at night the astral body and Ego are outside and the etheric body alone is in the physical body. The etheric body then unfolds its own activity and mobility, and thus adopts a certain posture. The impression may well be that there is no more fitting portrayal of the free activity of the etheric body than that achieved by Michelangelo in this figure of ‘Night’. In point of fact, the movement is conveyed with such precision that no more appropriate presentation of the etheric body under such circumstances can be imagined.

Now let us turn to the figure of ‘Day’. Suppose we could induce in a human being a condition in which his astral and etheric bodies were as quiescent as possible and the Ego especially active. No posture could be more fitting for the activity of the Ego than that portrayed by Michelangelo in the figure of ‘Day’. The postures are not allegorical but drawn directly and realistically from life. The artist has succeeded in capturing as it were for earthly eternity the postures which in the evolutionary process most aptly express the activity of the Ego and the activity of the etheric body.

We come now to the other figures. First let us take that of ‘Evening’. If we think of how, in a healthily developed human being, the etheric body emerges and the physical body relaxes—as also happens drastically at death—but if we think, not of actual death but of the emergence of the etheric body, the astral body and the Ego from a man's physical body, we shall find that the posture then assumed by the physical body is accurately portrayed in the figure of ‘Evening’. Again, if we think of the activity of the astral body while there is diminished activity of the etheric body and Ego, we shall find the most precise representation in Michelangelo's figure of ‘Morning’. So on the one side we have the portrayals of the activity of the etheric body and of the Ego (in the figures of ‘Night’ and ‘Day’) and on the other side the portrayals of the physical and astral bodies (in the figures of ‘Evening’ and ‘Morning’).

As already said, at first I resisted this conclusion, but the more carefully one investigates the more one is compelled to accept it. What I have wanted to indicate here is how the artist is inspired by the spiritual world. Admittedly, in the case of Michelangelo the process was more or less unconscious but in spite of that his creations could only have been produced by the radiance of the spiritual world shining into the physical. Occultism does not lead to the destruction of works of art but on the contrary to a much deeper understanding of them; as a result. a great deal of what passes for art today will in the future no longer do so. A number of people may be disappointed but truth will be the gainer! I could well understand the foundation of the legend that has grown up in connection with the most elaborate of these figures. The legend is to the effect that when Michelangelo was alone with the figure of ‘Night’ in the Medici Chapel in Florence, he could make the figure rise up and walk. I will not go further into this, but when we know that this figure gives expression to the ‘life-body’, the significance of the legend is obvious.

The same applies in many cases—in that of Homer, for instance. Homer speaks of the spiritual realm, a realm of the Shades in which there can be no change or alteration. But when we study the conditions prevailing in the period of life following Kamaloka, we begin to have a new understanding of works of a divinely blessed man such as Homer. And a great deal will be similarly enriched through Spiritual Science.

Useful as it may be to indicate these things, they are not of prime importance in actual life. Of prime importance is the fact that mutual relationships are continually being formed between one human being and another. A man's attitude towards another individual will be very different if he detects a spiritual quality in him or thinks of human beings as pictured by a materialistic view of life. The sacred riddle that every human being should be to us can only be this to our feelings and perceptions when we have within our own soul something that is able to throw spiritual light upon the other soul. By deepening our contemplation of cosmic secrets—with which the secrets of human existence are connected—we shall learn to understand the nature of the man standing before us; we shall learn to silence our preconceptions and to feel and recognise the true qualities of the individual in question. The most important light that Spiritual Science can give will be the light it throws upon the human soul. Thereby sound social feelings, also those feelings of love which ought to prevail between human beings, will make their way into the world as a fruit of true spiritual knowledge. We shall recognise that our grasp of spiritual knowledge alone can help this fruit to grow and thrive. When Schopenhauer said: “To preach morality is easy; to establish morality is difficult”, he was giving expression to true insight. After all, it is not so very difficult to discover moral principles, neither is it difficult to preach morality. But to quicken the human soul at the point where spiritual knowledge can germinate and develop into true morality capable of sustaining life—that is what matters. Our attitude to spiritual knowledge can also establish within us the seeds of a truly human morality of the future. The morality of the future will either be built on the foundations of spiritual knowledge—or it will not be built at all!

Love of truth requires that we acknowledge these things; it requires us to deepen our anthroposophical life; and above all to bear in mind what has been said today as an introductory fact, namely, that whereas knowledge demands activity, action in the spiritual world demands of us inner tranquillity, in order that we may prove worthy of Grace. You will now be able to understand that during the period between death and the new birth, when we are confronting another being, we can realise through the activity we then unfold whether we have deprived him of love or done anything to him that we ought not to have done. But, as I have said, during this period we cannot induce the tranquillity of soul that is necessary if the wrong is to be righted. In the lectures this winter I shall be describing the period during which it is actually possible in the natural course of the life between death and the new birth, to establish conditions in which change can be made possible—in other words, when a person's karma can be influenced in a certain way. We must, however, carefully distinguish between the point of time we have just been considering and the later period between death and the new birth when the tasks are different.

It remains to be said that there are certain conditions which will enable a human being to live through his existence after death in a favourable or an unfavourable way. It will be found that the mode of existence of two or more human beings after the period immediately following their life in Kamaloka depends largely upon their moral disposition on Earth. Human beings who displayed good moral qualities on Earth will enjoy favourable conditions during the period immediately following Kamaloka; those who displayed defective morality will experience bad conditions.

I should like to sum up what I have been saying about the life after death in a kind of formula, although as our language is coined for the physical world and not for the spiritual world, it cannot be strictly exact. One can only try to make it as exact as possible. If, then, there has been a good moral quality in our soul, we shall become ‘sociable’ spirits and enjoy companionship with other spirits, with other human beings or with Spirits of the higher Hierarchies. The opposite is the case if a genuine moral quality has been lacking in us; we then become solitary spirits, spirits who find it extremely difficult to move away from the clouds of their visions. To feel thus isolated as a spiritual hermit is an essential cause of suffering after death. On the other hand it is characteristic of the companionship of which I have spoken, to be able to establish the connection with what is necessary for us. It takes a long time after death to live through this sphere which in occultism is called the Mercury-sphere.

The moral tone of the soul is naturally still decisive in the next sphere, the Venus-sphere; but new conditions then begin. In this sphere it is the religious disposition of the soul that is decisive. Individuals with a religious inner life will become sociable beings in the Venus-sphere, quite irrespective of the creed to which they belonged. On the other hand, individuals without any religious feelings are condemned in this sphere to complete spiritual self-absorption. Paradoxical though it may seem, I can only say that individuals with predominantly materialistic views and who scorn religious life, inevitably become spiritual hermits, each one living as it were confined in his own cell. Far from being an ironical comparison, it is true to say: all those who are supporters of ‘monistic religion’—that is to say, the opposite of true religion—will find themselves firmly imprisoned and be quite unable to find one another.

In this way the mistakes and errors committed by the soul in earthly life are corrected. On the physical plane errors are automatically corrected but in the life between death and the new birth, errors and mistakes on Earth. also our thoughts, become facts. In the process of Initiation too, thinking is a real fact and if we were able to perceive it, an erroneous thought would stand there before us, not only in all its ugliness but with all the destructive elements it contains. If people had no more than an inkling that many a thought signifies a destructive reality they would soon turn away from many of the thoughts circulating in Movements intent upon agitation. It is part of the martyrdom endured in the process of Initiation that thoughts gather around us and stand there like solidified, frozen masses, which we cannot in any way dislodge, as long as we are out of the body. If we have formed an erroneous thought and then pass out of the body, the thought is there and we cannot change it. To change it we must go back into the body. True, memory of it remains, but even an Initiate is only able to rectify it when he is in the physical body. Outside the body it stands there like a mountain. Only in this way can he become aware of the seriousness of the realities of life.

This will help you to understand that for certain karmic adjustments a return into the physical body is essential. The mistakes do indeed confront us during the life between death and the new birth; but the errors have to be corrected while we are in the physical body. In this way compensation is made in the subsequent life for what happened in the previous life. But what must be recognised in all its strength and fallaciousness stands there, unchangeable to begin with, as in the case of things in the spiritual world according to Homer. Such knowledge of the spiritual world must penetrate into our souls and become perception and feelings, and as feelings they form the basis for a new conception of life. A monistic Sunday sermon may expound any number of moral principles but as time will show, they will produce very little change, because in the way they are presented the concepts can have a real effect only when we recognise that for a certain period after death whatever is a burden on our karma will confront us as a direct reality. We recognise the burden but it remains as it is; we cannot change it now; all we can do is to recognise and accept the burden fully and deepen our nature accordingly.

The effect of such concepts upon our souls is that they enable us to have the true view of life. And then there will follow all that is necessary to further the progress of life along the paths laid down by those who are the spiritual leaders of mankind; we shall thus move forward towards the goals that are set before man and mankind.

• 1. From 25th to 31st August, 1912, eight lectures were given with the following general title: On Initiation, Eternity and the Passing Moment. On Spiritual Light and Darkness of Life.
• 2. St. Norbert, c. 1085–1134. In 1121 founded the Order of Norbertines. In 1126 he became Archbishop of Magdeburg.

Address by Rudolf Steiner at the General Assembly of the German Section of the Theosophical Society, Berlin, December 15, 1911 (morning)

Foreword by Marie Steiner to the private reproduction published by her in 1947 and entitled “A Future Impulse Given by Rudolf Steiner and What Came of It Initially”:

In view of the gravity of the times and the little that remains of our lives, it seems an urgent duty to salvage what can still be saved from Dr. Steiner's impulses and words. This includes some of the things he only spoke about in intimate circles in serious conversation at certain turning points in events about the further tasks and work goals of the movement he inaugurated. Transcripts are available, but not complete and comprehensive. Even if they contain gaps and perhaps some finer nuances are not captured in them, one can still well feel how varied the language is, corresponding to the assigned task, in each case vividly contoured and firm, or dissolving, letting a light shine through the language, which still has to be half-veiled because words are not enough. It covers it like a soft shroud, but through which the impulses can work that point to the future. He repeatedly placed in our souls the guiding forces for later action, seeds of the future that could unfold after surviving the sleep of the soul; all too often they were buried by the hustle and bustle of everyday life or swept away by the whirlwind of events. Among the souls that had been blessed with such seeds of the future, there were certainly some from which they would one day arise to new life and struggle; but there were also some that would be like the stony ground of the gospel parable, offering no nourishment to them at first. Not only nature, but also souls are subject to organic laws. Some of the spiritual influences that fall on them harden or corrupt them, while others prove to be full of germinating power and transform themselves into new forms of existence. The passage through death and the submergence into chaos, with its whirling, churning forces, guarantees the later resurrection of the spiritual impact through metamorphoses to higher levels of existence. In microcosm as in macrocosm, in earthly as in planetary existence, the law of transformation to new forms of existence prevails. By following this path and, depending on race and nationality, picturing and explaining it, religions have always climbed higher levels of knowledge, spanning the globe and, in keeping with the times, shining a light into the hidden depths. When a certain high point of this development had been reached and at the same time the danger of philosophical abstraction had arisen, when the old images and signs were no longer sufficient to capture the newly pulsating life, the Christian impact occurred, bringing the great turning point. But when it emerged from the darkness of the catacombs into the outer world, the danger of its consolidation into dogmas also began, and the driving living forces sought new paths. They found them in the secret societies that did not want to bow to the authority of the princes of the church and the decisions of the councils; now they were persecuted as heretics themselves. Their content, veiled from the outside world, was expressed in signs and symbols. They gave art a new slant, which first appeared in Gothic architecture; organic growth of the plant - to which stones were added. The new life also flowed into the names; these contained what the soul was to absorb as guiding forces in order to develop healthily before it achieved independence. But the education of humanity to independence, into which the newly awakened ego power had to pour, first demanded the passage through abstract intellectualism, which separated the souls from their spiritual source for a time, so that, passing through the cold of isolation, grasping the higher ego, they would be able to find themselves in the spirit. Knowledge of nature, divorced from spirit, no longer gives the soul the power to rise up. In order for this to be experienced and recognized, spirits had to break worlds. We now stand in the midst of shattered worlds; a new search for the solution to the riddle of fate has begun. Rudolf Steiner's life's work can provide answers to this searching and questioning. He mastered the scope of today's exact science; he can also reveal to us the spirit that is hidden behind it and was once shrouded in the old names. Through him we are able to divine the impelling forces that lie behind the names. Lifelines had been handed to us for the inevitably approaching shipwreck, but we were not mature enough to grasp and use them. The souls were not awake enough, were still caught up in the old ideas. The attempts made in social terms met with the strongest resistance from the outside world. We can be seized by a tremendous pain when we see how little we were able to make the teaching fruitful and be suitable instruments for the fire spirit of the helper sent in times of need. Standing on the ruins of shattered worlds, we must now try to bring the preserved and insufficiently fiery word to consciousness through the remaining traces of writing; by individual work, raising it to the human ego. Rudolf Steiner tried to lead us to freedom not only through the paths of philosophy and science, but also through education within the esoteric life, which would gradually transform the old relationship of dependency on the teacher into the impulse of freedom and responsibility before the spirit. Souls that feel anchored in the spirit must be tested. Such a self-sought test always precipitates karma; what would still prefer to remain hidden from itself must also come to light. Such tests often caused the failure of experiments by spiritual powers, brought about for profound cosmic reasons, which aimed to raise human development to a higher level. This was the case with the French Revolution, and also before the world wars of our century.

Rudolf Steiner first spoke of such future tasks to a very small circle of his students and tried to direct their souls to the significance of those distant tasks that must arise from human will freed from selfishness. He repeated these words before a larger circle at the General Assembly on December 15, 1911. This did not take place during the proceedings of the General Assembly itself; he declared that it was happening outside of its program. He began this address in a particularly solemn and impressive manner. This is perhaps the reason why the first part of the address is only noted down and not reproduced in his words. He emphasized that the content of this lecture was completely independent of everything that had been given before. It was, so to speak, a direct communication from the spiritual world. It is like a call that is brought to humanity, and then they wait to see what echo comes back to them. As a rule, such a call is made three times. If the call goes unheard the third time, it is taken back to the spiritual world for a long time. This call has already been made to humanity once, but unfortunately it found no echo. This is the second time. These are purely spiritual matters. With each unsuccessful time, the conditions and circumstances become more difficult. Continuing with what is preserved as a set of keywords in the postscript, he said:

My dear friends!

It is my duty at this moment to carry an intention from the inner circle of those who already know about it out into your wider circle. And before that happens, let me say a few words in advance. It should be emphasized, however, that what is said now has no connection with what has preceded in this General Assembly, or what otherwise somehow relates to the previous negotiations - which does not preclude, if there is a tendency to do so, to take it into account in later negotiations.

If we look around the world today, we will have to say: The present world is actually full of ideals. And if we ask ourselves, “Is the representation of these ideals on the part of those who believe in them and place themselves at the service of these ideals sincere and honest?” we will have to answer “Yes, that is the case!” in very many cases. It is the case precisely with that faith and devotion of which individuals are capable. If we now ask: “How much is usually demanded when such a representation of ideals is brought into being by someone or something, be it an individual or a society?” then, based on our observations of life, we will have to answer: “In most cases, everything is demanded, so to speak; but above all, it is demanded that the ideal that has been set up receive absolute, unconditional recognition.” And it is almost always the case that the very basis for the creation of such an ideal is the demand for the most absolute assent. And usually the failure of such assent is expressed in some disparaging criticism of the non-assenter.

These words are intended to characterize how the principle of the integration of people has emerged in a completely natural way in the course of human development, and no doubt is to be cast on the justification of such a principle at this moment. But here an opportunity is to be presented to you to add something to all that has been striven for in the world within the framework of the organization of people, societies, associations and so on, something that actually cannot be expressed in words, since what can be said can never be decisive for the correctness of such a thing. According to what a person is able to think, he can, at the moment when he expresses what he has thought, be forced by the very act of expression to fall into contradiction with reality. At this very moment, many things must be said that do not agree with much of what is valid in the world. So it must be said: It is possible that the confession of a thing can no longer be true when this confession is uttered. I would like to give a simple example from which you can see that there may be a danger of simply becoming untrue by uttering a thing. And I would like the simple, straightforward example I give to be understood in accordance with the Rosicrucian principles since the 13th century.

Let us assume that someone expresses their state of the immediate present by saying, “I am silent.” This is something that absolutely cannot be true, that they are not speaking the truth. But then, my dear friends, I ask you to realize that there is the possibility of negating this thing itself by literally confessing it. For from what is expressed here by the simple example of “I am silent”, you can conclude that it is applicable to countless things in the world and can happen again and again.

But what follows from such a fact? It follows that when people want to join together in any way to represent this or that, they are in an extraordinarily difficult position, that people cannot join together with the most precious thing they have, except when the reasons why they join together are such that they do not belong to the world of the senses but to the supersensible world. And when we understand what we have been able to assimilate over time from all that has been brought forth from modern occultism, we will realize that it is an absolute necessity for the near future to advocate certain things of this occultism, to carry them before the world. Therefore, in contrast to all the principles of societies and all the organizations that have been possible up to now, an attempt must be made with something completely new, with something that is born entirely out of the spirit of the occultism that is so often spoken of in our circle. But this can only be done by turning our attention for a change to something positive, something that already exists in the world as a reality and can be cultivated as such. But in our sense, realities are only those things that primarily belong to the supersensible world. For the whole sensual world presents itself to us as an image of the supersensible world. Therefore, an attempt will be made that is such as it must be made from the supersensible world: the attempt not to found a community of people, but to endow it.

I have emphasized the difference between founding and establishing on another occasion; it was many years ago. It was not understood at the time and since then hardly anyone has thought about this difference. Therefore, those spiritual powers that are represented by the symbol of the Rose Cross have so far ignored the fact that this difference has been carried out into the world.

But recently, and this time in an energetic way, an attempt must be made to see if it is possible to achieve success even with a community that is not founded but established. If this success is not achieved, well, then it has failed again for a while. Therefore, it shall be proclaimed to you at this moment that among those people who will find each other in the appropriate way, a way of working is to be founded that, through the manner of the foundation, has as its direct starting point the individuality that we have been designating as Christian Rosenkreutz since ancient times in the West. What can be said about this foundation today remains preliminary. For what has been founded so far relates only to one part of this foundation, which is to enter the world in a comprehensive sense when the opportunities arise. What has been founded so far relates to one department, to one branch of this foundation, namely to the artistic representation of Rosicrucian occultism.

The first point I have to communicate to you is that under the direct patronage of that individuality, whom we refer to by the name he gave to the outer world during his two incarnations, that under the patronage of this individuality, a working method is to be brought into being as a foundation. This method will initially be characterized by the fact that for some time, for the time being, it will bear the provisional name: “Society for Theosophical Art and Art”. This name is not the final one; a definitive name will take its place when the first preparations for launching this foundation into the world can be made in an appropriate manner. However, that which is to comprise the “theosophical art” is still completely in its infancy, because it is only now that the preparations for it are being made that could lead to an understanding of what is meant by it. But what can be grasped by the concept of the theosophical art has already begun in many ways through our attempts at the performances in Munich, and above all has made a significant start through the attempt at our site in Stuttgart and a further significant start in relation to the understanding of such a thing precisely through the establishment of the Johannes-Bauverein. All this is something that has been started. In this respect there is something that, having been tried out to a certain extent, may be sanctioned.

It is a matter of awakening a purely spiritual task within the working group, a task that will be exhausted in a spiritual way of working and in what results from such a spiritual way of working. And it is a matter of no one being able to become a member of this working group from any other point of view than solely through the fact that he has any will to use his powers for the positive side of the matter. You may say: I am speaking in many words that may not be fully understood. That must be the case with something like what it is about here, because the matter must be grasped in its direct life.

Now, what has already been achieved within this foundation is actually the fact that, according to purely occult principles, an initially very small, tiny circle has been created, which should see its obligation as being to contribute to what this is all about. This tiny group is initially designed to make a start on this foundation, in order to, in a sense, separate what our spiritual movement is from myself and give it its own, self-established existence, a self-established existence!

So that initially this small group comes before you with the sanction that it has received its task as such, by virtue of its own recognition of our spiritual current, and that it sees in a certain sense the principle of the sovereignty of spiritual striving, the principle of federalism and the independence of all spiritual striving as an absolute necessity for the spiritual future, and to carry it into humanity in the way he considers appropriate. Therefore, within the foundation itself, I will only be considered the interpreter, first of all, of the principles that, as such, only exist in the spiritual world, and of what is to be said in this way about the intentions that underlie the matter.

In contrast, a curator is initially appointed for the external care of this foundation. And since the offices that will be created first are associated with nothing more than duties, no honors, no dignities, it is impossible that any rivalries or other misunderstandings can arise immediately with the correct understanding of the matter. It will therefore be a matter of the foundation itself initially recognizing Fräulein von Sivers as curator. This recognition is no

different from that which is interpreted from within the foundation itself; there are no appointments, only interpretations: Fräulein von Sivers is interpreted as curator of the foundation. And it will be her task in the near future to do whatever can be done in the spirit of this foundation to recruit a corresponding circle of members for it - not in an external sense, but only in such a way that she will attract to herself those who have the sincere will to participate in this way of working.

In a broader sense, a number of side branches will be created within this one branch of our foundation. And individual personalities who have proven themselves within our spiritual movement will be appointed as leading personalities of these side branches, insofar as they already exist. This too is an interpretation for the time being, in the sense that the office of leadership of such an individual side branch is transferred to a personality. It is interpreted that there will be an archdeacon for each of these individual sub-branches. We will have a sub-branch for general art. It has been publicly announced that Fräulein von Eckardtstein has been appointed archdeacon for general art in a small circle – and this was done in express recognition of what this personality has done for this general theosophical art over the last few years. Furthermore, it was provisionally announced that the curator Fräulein von Sivers would be archdeacon for literature. It was also announced that our friend Dr. Felix Peipers would be archdeacon for architectural art; our friend Mr. Adolf Arenson would be archdeacon for musical art; and our friend Mr. Hermann Linde would be archdeacon for painting.

The work in question is essentially inward-looking, and for the first time what is to be presented to the world is work done in absolute freedom, particularly by these individual personalities. It will be necessary for those who belong to this way of working to come together in a certain way; this coming together will have to take place in a very different way than has been the case so far with any kind of organization. And we will need a supervisor of this union. To supervise this union, the position of conservator is created, which is initially given to Miss Sophie Stinde. The way in which the union is to take place will be linked to this union itself. All this still requires work in the near future; it will still have to be done. But in order for the type of union, in other words the principle of the organization, to take place, to be able to enter the world, we necessarily have a seal curator. Miss Sprengel has been appointed as the seal curator, while Dr. Carl Unger will be the secretary.

This is, for the time being, the small, tiny circle involved. Do not regard it as something that immodestly wants to step into the world and say, “There I am,” but regard it as something that wants to be nothing more than a germ around which the matter itself can organize itself. It will initially organize itself in such a way that by the coming Epiphany a number of members of this community will have been identified; that is, by then a number of members will have received the message that they are initially being asked to get their connection ready. So that for the very beginning the greatest possible freedom in this respect is to be secured by the fact that the will to become a member can come from no one other than the person concerned who wants to become a member. And the fact that he is a member is brought about by the fact that he is first recognized as such a member. This only applies to the very near future, only for the time until the next Epiphany, January 6, 1912.

So in this matter we have something before us that, through its very nature, betrays itself as something that flows out of the spiritual world. It will continue to present itself as flowing out of the spiritual world in that membership will always be based solely on the representation and recognition of spiritual interests and on the exclusion of everything, absolutely everything personal.

There is a deviation here from older occult principles, which is made in this proclamation, and this deviation consists precisely in the fact of this proclamation. Therefore, no use will be made of that claim, which might exist with a person if he were to say, by referring this to the present: “I am silent.” The matter is indeed proclaimed; and in full awareness that it is proclaimed, this should happen. But the moment someone shows that they do not understand today's proclamation in any way, it goes without saying that it cannot be suggested to them in any way to belong to such a way of working - I am not saying to a society or the like. Because there can be nothing other than the absolutely free will to belong to such a circle, to such a way of working. But you will see that if such a thing should come about - if, that is, our time, with its peculiarities, should allow such a thing to come about - then work can really be done in the sense of recognizing the spiritual principle; the principle that not only all nature and all history, but also all human activity entering the world, is based on the spiritual, supersensible world. And you will see that it will be impossible for any decent person to belong to such a community if he does not agree with this community as such. If you think that what has been said is rather strange, then please accept it as having been said with full

is that everything that belongs to the laws, to the eternal laws of existence, is observed. And it is also part of the eternal laws of existence that the principles of becoming are taken into account. My dear friends, you can sin against the spirit of what is supposed to happen here if you now go out into the

go out into the outside world and say, “This or that has been established.” Not only has nothing been established at all, but the fact is that it will not be possible to give a definition of what is to be done at any given hour, because everything is supposed to be in a state of continuous becoming. And what is actually to happen as a result of what has been said today cannot be described now, no definition or description can be given now, and anything that would be said about it would be untrue at this moment. For what is to happen is based not on words, but on people, and not even on people, but on what these people will do. It will be in a living river, a living becoming. And so today, too, nothing more is established as a principle than the one principle that consists of: recognition of the spiritual world as the fundamental reality.

All further principles are to be created in the process of development. Just as a tree in the next moment is no longer what it was before, but has begun to grow anew, so this matter is to be like a living tree. Never should that which this matter is to become be in any way compromised by that which it is. If someone were to define what has been designated as a beginning, as this or that reason, this or that thing out there in the world, then he would immediately succumb to the same untruth that lies in the expression “I am silent” when it refers to the state in which he is and uses the words “I am silent”. So anyone who uses these or those words in any way to characterize the matter is saying something that is not right in all circumstances. So first of all it is only important - because everything will be in the process of becoming - that the personalities who want something like this come together. It is only important that those personalities who want something like this come together. Then the matter will continue! From all that has been said, you can see that the matter will then continue. It will differ in its deepest principle from that of the Theosophical Society. For not a single one of the characteristics that have been expressed today can apply to the Theosophical Society.

I had to speak about this matter for the simple reason that those things which are organically connected with this foundation have already come before the public of our Theosophical Society, and because through this foundation – in the sense of intentions which truly do not lie in the physical world and which truly have nothing to do with Ahriman - an ideal-spiritual counterweight must be created against everything that is connected with a foundation in the outer world. Only in this respect can a relationship be seen with what is already there, so that this branch of our foundation, the branch for theosophical art, should achieve something that is a counterweight to what is linked to Ahriman on the physical plane.

It is hoped that an excellent example will be set by the existence of this branch of our foundation - and the other branch will serve in a corresponding way - because what is to figure as art within the theosophical movement, if we use that expression today, must actually flow into our culture from spiritual worlds. It must be the case that spiritual life is the basis of everything we do. It will be impossible to confuse this spiritual movement with any movements that come from the outside world and also call themselves a “theosophical movement” and want to participate. It is essential that the spiritual is the basis of everything we do. This was indeed attempted at the festival in Munich, in the building of the Lodge in Stuttgart – within the limits of what is possible under present conditions – but everywhere it was attempted in such a way that the spiritual moment was the determining factor. That is the conditio sine qua non, the condition without which nothing should happen (gap in the transcripts).

Those who have already gained some insight into what is at stake will understand me in this regard. These words are said less because of the content than because of the guidelines that were to be given.

Postscript by Marie Steiner to the reproduction she edited:

When no further nominations were announced after the end of the year and the next Epiphany, a member of the audience asked Rudolf Steiner when this would happen. He replied: “The fact that this has not happened would also be an answer.

The year 1912/13 was overburdened by the disputes with Annie Besant, her proclamation of the new Messiah and her “Star of the East” now also active in Germany.

The followers of the Western spiritual movement inaugurated by Rudolf Steiner demanded that the president make a precise statement in the disputes that were taking place, in accordance with the agreements reached in Munich and Budapest, instead of her evasion, her hiding and acting behind her back. This demand was taken up by the “Bund”, which was founded around 1912 with members from many countries, and in 1913 the Anthroposophical Society was founded after the expulsion of the German section by the president of the Theosophical Society.

Meanwhile, the nomination of the intimate circle had led to further work in some areas: in the Johannesbau Association, in the completion of the Stuttgart Society House, and in the so-called Art and People's Rooms in Munich and Berlin, an initiative started by Miss Sophie Stinde. The most outstanding spiritual publication was the Soul Calendar, the result of a collaboration between Dr. Steiner and Fräulein von Eckardtstein; the wonderfully transparent nuances of the language here really do allow spirit and soul to flow into each other and become one with nature. Many other things sought a quiet unfolding into the future. But the world war came, and with it the associated upheavals, which deeply affected the external circumstances of life and the mutual relationships of the members belonging to the most diverse nations in Dornach.

They tried to overcome the surging of the blood as best they could, but every now and then there were shocks and derailments.

The most exciting crisis for Dornach was that of the summer of 1915. Dr. Gösch, a typical pathologist and representative of psychoanalysis, came to the fore. He persuaded himself that the Seal-keeper had opened his eyes to promises that Dr. Steiner made and did not keep. He set this out in a brochure using psychoanalytical methods. At the same time, he wrote a letter to Dr. Steiner in which he developed his theories on the basis of the “revelations” made to him by the Keeper of the Seal. The Keeper of the Seal could not have understood the task assigned to her by this name other than in a very personal sense. She felt that she was the inspirer of the spiritual teaching given by Dr. Steiner to humanity. Since she had also played the role of Theodora in Rudolf Steiner's mystery dramas in Munich, she drew from this the conclusion that the marriage vows given to her were symbolically given and that she had been waiting for their fulfillment for “seven years”. Her many accusatory letters, revolving around this point, gave Dr. Gösch the opportunity to compile a psychoanalytical treatise in the Freudian sense to elucidate her case. He himself had been given Freudian treatment for a long time due to his morbid nervous condition, which had deeply infected his being. His open letter of accusation has now given rise to numerous, strictly and precisely conducted negotiations within the Society, through which the membership should gain clarity about this case. Transcripts of these are available and also provided the basis for the book published as a special edition of the journal “Anthroposophie” in Stuttgart: “Anthroposophie und Psychoanalyse”.

We shall mention here only what relates to the case of Sprengel – alias Proserpina – alias Theodora – alias Siegelbewahrer (Keeper of the Seals), and which in her case took on such a mystically personal form as megalomania. Of course, even before the war she had already shown symptoms of self-arrogance. This unfortunate megalomania put paid to the possibility of further nominations to the circle of eight personalities. One stone had been lost through egoistic arrogance and a descent into mysticism.

The Keeper of the Seal broke the seal in the most ordinary human sense. The necessity of involving women as active collaborators in the cultural tasks of the future is undeniable and will have to be achieved despite the failure of these efforts in individual cases. This is what happened to us with the Keeper of the Seal.

Dr. Steiner expressed himself about this case in a speech during the so-called crisis of 1915 in the following way:

The circle of nominees, as an inner esoteric matter, was shattered; outside the world war raged; in Dornach, despite the external circumstances, the practical work continued no less intensively. With the conscription of so many artists and helpers, the burden of the work fell heavily on the women. Only a few men had been able to stay behind, including Hermann Linde. But the women stood their ground. From early morning, the hammering and chiseling could be heard in the construction of the precious wood, which grew out of the concrete substructure, up to the vaulting domes. The organically moving forms grew out of the outer and inner walls, warmed and undulated by the human hand that furrowed them. In the interior, the columns rose with their bases and capitals, their architraves, at the end of which the two domes joined together, thus separating and connecting the symbolism of the soul's experience from that of the cosmos at the same time.

The painters and their helpers were grouped around Hermann Linde. Dr. Steiner had designed the motifs for the painting of the domes, and we have these images in the reproductions by Alinari. With diligence and zeal, new grounding possibilities were tried out, through which the effect of the plant colors could unfold into radiant luminosity; a group of helpers eagerly ground the plants from which the new colors for the dome painting were to be created. The programs designed for the weekly eurythmy performances provided an opportunity to develop personal imagination and to train in the templates designed by Dr. Steiner for this purpose.

In Germany, the field of work assigned to the circle-bursting seal keeper had very soon found a more than adequate replacement in the person of Miss Bertha Meyer. During the months we spent in Germany during the war, she was often able to come from Bremen to Berlin to perfect her knowledge of the art of jewelry, in which she had a technical command, through the advice of Dr. Steiner. The extensive gem collection of a member who had returned from the Orient provided a happy opportunity for new inspiration. Stones were selected from it whose luminosity and inner substance were to be particularly emphasized by a setting corresponding to their nature and material. It was a strange experience to let your hand glide through their abundance and to feel the penetration of their powers into your own etheric body through the cool trickling of the stones. This grasp into the coolness of the stone kingdom and the almost exciting glow of the metal melting in the fire, especially of gold, brought the elementary nature of the forces of nature forcefully to consciousness.

The seals sketched by Dr. Steiner for the mystery plays provided the basis for the spiritual study of this predestined keeper of the seals, who left us so many exemplary works of art. Death snatched her from us at the moment when a place for her work, a 'Kleinodienschule', could have been established in Dornach. The formative forces of eurythmy, which is carried and moved by the etheric impulses, and of the musical art that seeks new paths in connection with it, also tested themselves through these seals. They now wanted to go beyond the inner experience of major and minor, beyond the fifth, to catch a glimpse of the original forces in the tone to which they owe their existence, thus feeling their way towards the lost word.

The new architectural style created by Dr. Steiner, which had absorbed the movement of the plant kingdom and did not close itself off from the outside world but opened itself wide to it, had to remain true to this principle in the treatment of his glass windows as well. A flood of colors had to stream into the room; their basic tone, differentiated according to the rainbow but each kept uniform, brought the floating and weaving of the intersecting light colors into the room. The delicacy of the nuances was intensified by the different densities of the glass that resulted from the grinding and etching of the motifs into the glass material; their spiritual content related to the path of initiation of the human being into the future. While the motifs of the large and small dome traced the macrocosmic and microcosmic path of human development to its self-fulfillment.

The art of black and white in a newly defined line by Dr. Steiner developed alongside that of penetrating into the world of creative colors. And all these artistic possibilities, arising from the most diverse elements, came to life in the art of the spoken word, of speech formation, which allowed the original forces of the lost “word” to be sensed and grasped to a certain extent. Through the little that has been achieved in this way, through rigorous work, something of what Dr. Steiner had described as the task of the spiritual movement he had inaugurated could be realized: to allow the forgotten spiritual current surrounding Goethe and Schiller to flow again into culture in a new and living way.

We have lived in the abundance of the impulses we have received. He himself was snatched from us by death in 1925. With death, he had to pay for the immeasurable wealth of his gifts. We have been invigorated and sustained by his inspiring spiritual power. Through suffering and trial, through stupefaction and moral obscurity, we must now seek the paths to inner freedom and independence, for which he wanted to awaken an understanding in us. May we be granted to find it.

During this Winter we have prepared the ground in various ways in order to understand with greater exactitude than has hitherto been possible man's life between birth and death in the physical world on the one side and on the other between death and rebirth in the spiritual world. And there will be still more to say about this subject in the coming months.

Efforts will be needed to draw together a number of details that will contribute towards a thorough understanding of this subject and throw new light upon many topics we have already studied from a different point of view. Today, then, I will ask you to think, above all, of the course of man's physical life—about which something has also been said in my book The Education of the Child in the Light of Anthroposophy—and of how it progresses in cycles: one from birth until about the seventh year, or until the change of teeth; a second cycle from the change of teeth until puberty at about the fourteenth year; then a third cycle, and so on in periods of seven years. Even to ordinary observation it will be clear that this systematic arrangement into periods of seven years is well founded, but on the other hand it will also be evident that in the actual life of the human being other facts of incisive significance cut across these seven-year periods. We ourselves have repeatedly considered a crucial occurrence in a man's life which eludes this division into cyclic periods. It is the point of time back to which a man's memory extends in later life, the moment when he begins to feel and know himself as an ‘I’, when Ego-consciousness dawns in him. This experience does not by any means occur at exactly the same point of time, but in most cases it may be said that Ego-consciousness flashes up in the human being at some point between birth and the seventh year. And something similar can be said to hold good in the later period of a man's life. Although with less abruptness than the sudden flashing-up of Ego-consciousness, there are other occurrences which as it were invalidate the regular seven-year cycle. We shall, however, always discover that whatever comes in this way into the life of man and cuts across the cyclic periods, occurs much more irregularly than the experiences connected with the actual seven-year cycles. You will hardly find two human beings whose memories go back to exactly the same point of time, that is to say who experienced the flashing up of consciousness of ‘I’ at the same age. Nor does the change of teeth occur at precisely the same age in different individuals. But why this is so in the latter case, we shall still have to consider.

When we study the cyclic periods already referred to and mentioned in my little book, Education of the Child, we shall notice that they begin in connection with the most physical, the most external member of man's being and are then concerned with the other, more inward members of his constitution. From birth until the seventh year development is connected primarily with the physical body, then for seven years with the etheric body, then for seven years with the astral body, the sentient soul, and so on. The evolutionary factors pass over more and more decisively from the external to the inner nature of man. That is essentially characteristic of the seven-year periods.

What, then, is there to be said about occurrences which cut across these seven-year periods? The flashing-up of ‘I’-consciousness during the first cycle is an emphatically inner event. For the sake of clarity, here let us consider something that seems to be in contrast with this flashing-up of Ego-consciousness. If we observe human life with discernment we shall find that the cessation of growth may be compared with some happening which cuts across the seven-year cycles of evolution. We will therefore think about the cessation of growth which after all occurs comparatively late in life, and study its implications.

The first seven-year period ends with the change of teeth. The appearance of the second teeth is, as it were, the final act of what may be called the formative principle. The last contribution made by the forces that give the human being his form is when they drive out the second teeth. That is the culmination of the formative process, for the principle which builds up the human form is no longer in action. With the seventh year the formative principle ceases to be active. What comes about later on is only an expansion of what has already been established as form. After the seventh year there is no more remodelling of the brain. All that happens is growth of what is already established as basic form. Therefore we can say that the principle of form unfolds its activity specifically in the first seven years of the life of a human being. The principle of form stems from the Spirits of Form; thus these Spirits of Form are active in the human being during the first seven years of his life. It can therefore be said that when the human being enters into life through birth, his actual form is not complete. What happens is that the Spirits of Form continue their active intervention during the first seven years of life; the human being has then reached the point when his form merely needs to grow. The basis for the form has been established by the seventh year, and the second teeth are what the formative principle still produces out of the human being. The formative principle has now come to its conclusion. Were its activity to continue, the second teeth would inevitably make their appearance later than is now the case.

Here we may ask: When these Spirits of Form have worked on the human being until the seventh year of his life, does everything they do for him come to an end?

The answer is ‘No’, for the human being goes on growing and the basic principles of his form develop still further. If nothing else intervened, growth would be able to continue without interruption. If we think only of the principles of form that are active in the human being until the seventh year there is no more reason in the case of man than in that of other beings why these forms should not continue to grow if nothing were to intervene. But something does intervene. When the human being stops growing, certain principles of form still have an effect upon him. They have already been drawing near to him but now they unite in the fullest sense with his organism, lay hold of it, but in such a way that they now act as a hindrance, and further growth is prevented. The formative principles that are active until the seventh year of life allow the human being a certain elasticity. But at that point other formative principles approach him; their nature is such that they capture and confine what is elastic in the demarcated form, thus preventing any further growth. That is why growth stops at some point. When growth stops, this means that formative forces approaching from outside are at work. Whenever formative principles are active, whenever forms grow larger, provision must be made for the stoppage of growth by the appearance of counter-formative principles which oppose the first category as its polar antithesis. When man's form has developed until about the seventh year of life (indicated in the shaded portion of the diagram) this form can continue to grow.

The formative principles have been at work until the seventh year; these principles work from within. Then different formative principles work in opposition from outside, so that the human being can grow only to the limit indicated by the line b–b. It is really as if until the seventh year of his life the human being were given an elastic garment which he can constantly stretch and enlarge. But at a specific point of time he is given one that is not elastic; he is obliged to put it on, and thenceforth cannot grow beyond its limits.

We can therefore say that in the human being a confrontation takes place between two kinds of formative principles, one working from within and the other from without. The formative principles belonging to the first category come from the Spirits of Form, from those Spirits of Form who have passed through a perfectly normal process of evolution in the Cosmos. The formative principles working from without are not of the same kind. They come from Spirits of Form whose development has been retarded and who have acquired a Luciferic character. They are the factor which works in the purely spiritual domain, whereas the forces working in the material sphere have had a normal development; having evolved through the stages of Old Saturn, Old Sun and Old Moon, they then pass to the Earth in the regular way and shape the human form from within. The ‘irregular’ Spirits of Form take what is presented to them and hold back its further development. Thus the process of growth in the human being is brought to a halt by these backward Spirits of Form. The Beings of the higher Hierarchies have the most varied tasks, among them the one that has been characterised today.

We have now been able to consider many different aspects of the work of the ‘regular’ Hierarchies and also of the work of the backward spiritual Beings belonging to the different Hierarchies. In the book Occult Science—an Outline¹ you can read how the human being reached the stage where through the Spirits of Form he could be endowed with the germinal foundation for the ‘I’, the Ego. We know that man received the germ of his physical body from the Thrones, of his etheric body from the Spirits of Wisdom, of his astral body from the Spirits of Movement, and the germinal foundation for the ‘I’ from the Spirits of Form. Bearing this in mind we can say that man, in his outer stature, has been organised by the regular Spirits of Form into an Ego-bearing being and that this comes into manifestation in the first seven-year cycle of his life. But then the backward Spirits of Form who are the opponents of the regular Spirits of Form, put a stop to his growth. This is actually the antithesis of the first, most deeply inward experience in the human being, namely, the kindling of the consciousness of ‘I’—the Ego. This happens in the early years of life, in the innermost realm of being. The outermost manifestation, the form, is checked at a later age, as a final act. Thus we perceive two evolutionary—but antithetical—processes in the human being. Of the one I have said that it comes from without and moves inward, taking hold of the sentient soul and so on, in the twenty-first year of life. Then there is another evolution proceeding from within outwards until the growth of the physical form is checked. The one evolution, the regular evolution, proceeds from the spiritual to the corporeal, from within outwards and is of interest especially for education. The other evolution—which is a much less regular and also more individual process—proceeds from without inwards and, when the human being has reached a certain age, it comes to expression in the completion of the outermost principle—the physical body.

It is very important that teachers should have knowledge of these two antithetical lines of evolution. Hence in the book The Education of the Child in the Light of Anthroposophy it was right to call attention to the first process of evolution which proceeds from within outwards, because it is only there that education is possible. On the other line of evolution—from without inwards—which is the line of individual development, it is impossible to make any actual impression. This is something of which account can be taken but which cannot be halted; neither can much be achieved in the way of education. And to be able to distinguish between where education is possible and where it is not, is of fundamental importance.

Just as the cessation of growth is caused by the backward Spirits of Form, the first actual manifestation of the ‘I’ in the human being during early childhood is the work of the backward Spirits of Will (Thrones). Between these two extremes there are other happenings which are to be attributed to backward Spirits of Wisdom and backward Spirits of Movement.

No adequate characterisation of man's life as a whole, including the existence between death and the new birth, is possible unless we take account of all the factors which have an effect upon him, and recognise that even in everyday life the influences of Luciferic beings take effect in many different ways. This influence is evident in other spheres as well. And as our endeavour in these lectures is to acquire a really fundamental understanding of man's life as a whole, we will not hesitate to think about matters which seem to be somewhat remote.

Attention shall first of all be drawn to a phenomenon from which it is evident that on the physical plane too, between birth and death, man's life has undergone essential changes in the course of evolution. If we realise this, it will, become evident that the life between death and rebirth has also changed. Those who think intellectually, but superficially, about life today may readily believe that, in essentials, things were always the same as they are at present. By no means was it so! And in certain cases we need go back only a few hundred years to find that conditions were very different. Thus at the present time there is something that has a very great influence upon man's life of soul between birth and death but that simply did not exist in its present form only a few centuries ago. It is what we today mean by the expression ‘public opinion’. Even as recently as the thirteenth century it would have been nonsense to speak of public opinion as we do today. A great deal is said nowadays against belief in authority, although in actual fact it exists in a much more oppressive form in our time than it did in these earlier, often despised centuries. In earlier centuries there were, of course, defects, but there was no blind belief in authority such as exists at present. This blindness of belief in authority is usually revealed by the fact that the authority in question cannot be specified. A person today will readily be floored when he is told that science has proved this or that. In earlier centuries, however, people attached more weight to authorities whom they encountered physically. Reference to an intangible ‘something’ is implied when it is said: ‘There is scientific proof of it.’ Such a saying urges belief in authority when confronted with something incomprehensible. Such belief did not exist in earlier centuries. People belonging to our civilisation usually concern themselves very little with matters about which the simplest, most, primitive human being in earlier centuries endeavoured to have some knowledge—matters relating, for example, to health and illness. Why, it is asked today, should anyone need to know about health and illness? The doctors know about these matters and the problems concerned can be left to them. This is also an example of what comes into the category of intangible but sovereign authority. But countless other influences make their way into life; from earliest youth the human being becomes dependent upon them and his trends of judgement and feeling force themselves into our life! These living currents swirling around among human beings are usually referred to as ‘public opinion’—and prompted the saying from philosophers: ‘Public opinions are mostly private errors.’ To realise this, however, is not as important as it is to be aware that public opinions exert tremendous power upon the life of an individual. It would be a complete misconception of history to speak about the influence of public opinion upon the life of an individual living in the thirteenth century. In those days there were single personalities who admittedly exerted a great deal of authority either in affairs of Government or in practical life, and in these spheres it was obeyed. But at this time there was nothing resembling what impersonal public opinion has become today. Anyone who is unwilling to believe this on the basis of the occult facts should study the history of Florence during those centuries and in later times too—when the government of the city passed into the control of the Medici. The tremendous power of individual authorities will then be apparent, but there was no such thing as public opinion. It first arose in an epoch preceding our own by four or five centuries and one can speak of its actual beginning. Such things must be regarded as realities, for a world of swirling thoughts does indeed exist.

What is the origin of this public opinion which we often accept as something that cannot be verified? What is public opinion in reality? You may remember that I have spoken of certain spiritual Beings belonging to the Hierarchy immediately above man—Beings who participate in various ways in the guidance and leadership of humanity. In my little book The Spiritual Guidance of Man and Humanity, you will find a great deal on the subject of spiritual Beings belonging to the higher Hierarchies. Now we know that the mightiest incision in the evolution of humanity was made by the Mystery of Golgotha. In that event there came to pass something that was most wonderfully expressed in the esoteric teaching of St. Paul. Paul spoke in simple language but the actual way in which he spoke was rooted in profound esotericism. It was not possible for him always to give out openly what he, as an Initiate, knew; for in the first place he wanted to speak to a wider circle of people and, secondly, it was not possible in his day to give out everything he knew in the way of which he would have been capable. Nevertheless his very presentation was based upon profound esoteric knowledge. We find, for example, that there is a deeply significant truth in the distinction he makes between the ‘first Adam’ and the ‘higher Adam’—the Christ. According to Paul, the various generations of human beings are to be traced back to Adam, that is to say, the bodies of men descend from Adam. Hence it can be said that the physical increase of humanity over the Earth during the different periods, leads back finally to the physical body of Adam—Adam and Eve, naturally. We can then ask: What lies at the basis of the physical evolution of mankind from Adam onwards? Naturally, the evolution of souls! The physical bodies which have descended from Adam are the habitations of living souls. These souls had descended from cosmic worlds and had brought with them to the Earth a certain spiritual heritage, a spiritual endowment. But in the course of time this spiritual endowment had undergone decline. Individuals who lived, say, six or seven thousand years before the founding of Christianity had within them much stronger, more extensive spiritual forces than those who lived a mere thousand years before the Mystery of Golgotha. The spiritual heritage which once came to the Earth with human beings had gradually withered away in the soul. Now the life between death and rebirth is of particular significance for this spiritual heritage. If we go back to the epoch long before the Mystery of Golgotha, we find that after death men had an active, inwardly illumined life of soul; but then this life of soul became dimmer and dimmer, darker and darker. An ever-fading life of soul came with human beings when they passed through death. This was particularly the case among the Greeks although they were the most advanced peoples then on the Earth, and their sages had every reason to say, in view of the stage reached in evolution: ‘Better it is to be a beggar in the upper world than a king in the realm of the Shades.’ We know that this saying was true when applied to the Greeks who lived a fully satisfying life on the physical plane; but as soon as they had passed through the gate of death their life became dim and shadowy.

In the fullest sense it is true that the spiritual life which men had brought with them to the Earth and which manifested after death as a somewhat dim clairvoyant consciousness, had become even dimmer. And especially in the fourth Atlantean epoch, the Graeco-Latin epoch, during which the Mystery of Golgotha took place, the spiritual life had reached the stage of its greatest darkness.

The all-important purpose of the Baptism by John the Baptist was that some of those who sought to be baptised should be made conscious of the conditions just described. The individuals baptised by John were completely submerged in the water. As a result, the etheric body of these individuals was liberated from them and for a short time, while under the water, they became clairvoyant. John was able to reveal to them that there had been such deterioration in the life of soul in the course of time that a human being now possessed very little of the spiritual treasure that he had once been able to take with him through the gate of death and that could give him clairvoyant consciousness. A man whom John baptised in this way became aware that a revitalisation of the life of soul was essential, that something new must radiate into human souls in order that after death there might be a life in the real sense. This new impulse streamed into the souls of men through the Mystery of Golgotha. You need only read my lecture-course entitled From Jesus to Christ and you will realise that a rich and abundant spiritual life streams from the Mystery of Golgotha into the souls of individuals who develop a relationship to that Mystery.

Hence Paul could say: just as the physical bodies of men descend from Adam, so will the content of their souls in greater and greater measure ‘descend’ from the Christ who is the second Adam, the spiritual Adam. It is a profound truth that Paul uttered here, clothed in his simple words. If the Mystery of Golgotha had not taken place, men would have become progressively empty in soul and would either have developed a longing only to live outside the physical body or to live on Earth with no other wishes or desires than for a purely physical life, and so would have become more and more materialistic. Because all development is a slow and gradual process there are still some peoples on the Earth who have not yet wholly lost the original spiritual treasure, who still retain some measure of it in spite of having failed to establish any relationship to the Mystery of Golgotha. Individuals belonging to the most advanced peoples, however, can become conscious after death only to the extent to which they have learnt ‘to die in Christ’, as the second line of the Rosicrucian formula expresses it. And so in actual fact the Mystery of Golgotha has acted as illumination in men's souls.

With this clearly in mind we shall understand the gist of a question relating to man's evolution. It is the question: How came it that understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha enabled the content of man's soul to be carried into the sphere of his ‘I’, his Ego? How did this soul-content differ from what existed before the Mystery of Golgotha as an ancient heritage? The difference is that, before the Mystery of Golgotha, in respect of the content of their souls men were far less independent. They were under the direct guidance of the Beings we know as the Angeloi, Archangeloi and so on. Before the Mystery of Golgotha men were under the leadership of the Beings of the nearest higher Hierarchies to a far greater extent than was the case after that event. Indeed the progress of these Beings themselves—Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai—consists in the fact that they have learnt to lead human beings in a way that respects their independence. Men were intended to live on the Earth in a state of greater and greater independence. The leading spiritual Beings of the higher Hierarchies have recognised this and therein consists their progress.

But it is possible for these Spirits too to remain behind in their evolution. Not all the Spirits who participated in the leadership of humanity have acquired through the Mystery of Golgotha the power to guide and lead men while ensuring their freedom. Among these Beings of the higher Hierarchies there are some who remained backward and have become Luciferic spirits. What we call ‘public opinion’ is an example of the way in which some of them are active. Public opinion is not created by human beings alone but also by a certain category of Luciferic spirits of the lowest rank—retarded Angeloi and Archangeloi. These spirits are only beginning their Luciferic career and have not yet risen very high in the ranks of the Luciferic spirits, but they are definitely Luciferic in character. With the eye of seership one can perceive how certain spirits of the higher Hierarchies did not keep pace with evolution after the Mystery of Golgotha, how they adhere rigidly to the old kind of leadership and therefore cannot make any direct approach to men. Those who have kept pace with evolution can make regular and direct contact with men; the other spirits are incapable of this and they manifest their activity in the muddled, turbulent thinking that comes to expression as public opinion. The function of public opinion is intelligible only when it is realised that this is how it has made its way into human life.

Thus we have among us beings who abandon the regular course of evolution and become Luciferic in character. It is important that this should be known. The work of the Luciferic beings of whom we have already spoken and who now have great power, also began on a small scale. Indeed this is true in the case of the whole host of Luciferic beings. Admittedly, on the Old Moon there was no public opinion as we know it but something that can be compared with it—a kind of guidance of men. Some among this host of Luciferic spirits of whom we have spoken are powerful and important beings, for example backward Spirits of Form who surge in upon the human being with such violence that they stop his growth. The others are merely the recruits; nevertheless this is the beginning of the career of the Luciferic spirits, a career which later on will assume a quite different dimension because the spirits become more and more powerful. Public opinion, which under the guidance and direction of certain Luciferic spirits of the lowest order, influences human beings because they absorb it between birth and death, must necessarily have its counterweight during the life between death and rebirth. That is to say, because a human being in his life between birth and death has been caught up into the current of public opinion described, he must experience the counterweight in his life between death and rebirth. Otherwise the following would ensue.

The backward spirits who are responsible for the creation of public opinion have no significance or power whatever in man's life between death and rebirth. They have relinquished all possibility of working in that sphere because they are active here, on the physical plane, in a spiritual way—indeed in a way that is only possible in the form of public opinion. A man can take no iota of anything like public opinion with him into the spiritual world and whatever element of it he might want to accompany him into the life after death would be entirely out of place. It must be said, although it will seem strange to many people, that life in Kamaloka becomes very difficult for one who clings to public opinion or has been caught in the coils of his own judgement very early in life. This applies particularly to persons who believe that within the world of public opinion there can still be independent judgement—which is an utter impossibility. For such people Kamaloka is admittedly difficult. But when the period of Kamaloka is over, public opinion has no weight or significance whatever, and after death it is irrelevant whether people adhered to nuances of it, such as liberal or conservative, radical or reactionary. This has no significance whatever in the different groupings of human beings and moreover exists on Earth solely for the purpose of hindering men from making progress towards illumination of consciousness after death. The beings behind public opinion resolved to forgo the progress made possible by the Mystery of Golgotha. But the Mystery of Golgotha will become of greater and greater importance for the Earth's evolution. We must clearly understand that the future of the Earth's evolution cannot be assured simply by rectifying phenomena such as public opinion and the like which are inevitable in the course of evolution. Men can, however, become better in their own inner nature, therefore the process of evolution must take root more and more deeply in their inner life. In the future, men will be still more exposed to the pressure of public opinion, but inwardly they will have developed greater strength. This is possible only through Spiritual Science. But if man is gradually to become a match for those spirits who are now exerting their influence in public opinion as recruits of the Luciferic beings, this will be possible only if, between death and rebirth too, he undergoes something that strengthens him inwardly, strengthens the principle in him that is independent of life on Earth. Whereas through the influence of public opinion he becomes more and more dependent upon earthly life, in the life between death and rebirth he must receive into his very self something that in the next life on Earth will make him ever freer from the influence of public opinion.

Connected with this is the fact that at the time when public opinion began to assume importance, the Buddha-realm was established in the Mars sphere—as we heard in the lecture at Christmas. Consequently between death and rebirth man passes through this Buddha-realm on Mars. Christian Rosenkreutz had entrusted to Buddha a special mission in the Mars sphere. And what would be futile on Earth, namely the desire to flee from the conditions of terrestrial existence—this is an experience which man must undergo between death and rebirth during his passage through the Mars sphere. Among other things he strips off the incubus of public opinion which takes effect only on Earth. Many, even more overbearing influences will come in the future and it will be more than ever necessary to undergo the experience that is possible for man as a pupil of Buddha in the Mars sphere. Here on Earth, men can now be pupils of the Buddha in the orthodox sense only if they refuse to participate in the progress made by the most advanced people on Earth. But between death and rebirth Buddha unfolds what has developed from the teaching he gave on Earth, which was that man should free himself from the need for further incarnations. This has been developed into a doctrine that is inapplicable to the Earth, where life must progress from incarnation to incarnation. Thus the doctrine preached by Buddha on Earth contained the seed of what man must acquire in the disembodied state of existence. In this advanced form, Buddha's teaching is right for the period between death and rebirth. The Buddha himself appeared in the astral body of the Jesus-Child of St. Luke's Gospel² and Christ Himself leads men between death and rebirth through the Mars sphere, enabling them there to receive the Buddha's advanced teaching. Thus in the Mars sphere men can be emancipated from the tendency to uniformity resulting from the effects of public opinion which are detrimental for their further progress on Earth. Whereas in earlier times Mars was said to be the planet of warlike traits, it is now the Buddha's task gradually to transform these warlike traits in such a way that they become the foundation of the sense for freedom and independence needed in the present age. Whereas nowadays men have the tendency to surrender their sense of freedom and succumb to the fetters of public opinion, on Mars between death and rebirth they will strive to throw off these fetters and not bring them again into the life on Earth when they return to new incarnations.

It seems to me that here we have something that characterises most wonderfully how wisdom holds sway in the world, how everything that progresses or remains backward is manipulated in such a way that the final outcome is harmony in the evolution of worlds. Man cannot achieve progress by keeping as it were to the middle line, although there are many who realise the uselessness of adopting a one-sided standpoint. Admittedly, we come across idealists, materialists and other ‘-ists’ who swear by their own standpoint, but truly great individuals such as Goethe do no such thing. They try to grasp material conditions by means of material thinking. When men of less eminence imagine that they have understood this, they say: truth lies in the middle, between two different standpoints. But that would be the same as if someone in practical life wanted to sit between two chairs! The truth cannot be found by a one-sided adoption of this or that standpoint but by applying the modes of knowledge appropriate either for materialism or idealism, The world does not progress by undeviating adherence to a middle course: a middle course is appropriate when the opposing sides are also present and are recognised as forces. If something has to be weighed, the two scalepans are needed as well as the beam. Thus there must be a counterbalance to public opinion; and this is provided by Buddha's teaching in the Mars sphere—which would not be necessary if public opinion had never existed. Life needs antithesis; life progresses in and through polarity. Somebody might think that as the North and South Poles are antitheses, it would be better if neither existed! They are not, of course, antithetic in the sense implied by a certain Professor of whom it was said that because he had written his books in such haste he could not think about their contents and stated that civilisation could develop only in the middle zone of the Earth because at the North Pole people would freeze through cold and at the South Pole melt through heat! In another connection, of course, North and South Poles are genuine opposites and are necessary because progress is not achieved by adopting a neutral course but by the maintenance and harmonising of opposites. Thus what develops on Earth had to undergo a process that lies below the level of progress. Public opinion is of less value than the judgements which an individual can reach on a path of progress. Public opinion is sub-human and it is this sub-human influence that is counteracted by the Buddha-stream through which man passes between death and rebirth. Both influences are necessary and it is extremely important to bear this in mind in connection with evolution.

It can therefore be said with truth: yes, there are indeed backward spirits, but everything that remains behind on the one side and on the other outstrips the evolutionary process, is manipulated by the wisdom of the Universe in such a way that harmony is the final result. The backward spirits are utilised to constitute the opposite pole to the spirits who have progressed to further stages.

If we look at life in this way it will be clear to us that in the future course of Earth evolution the human being will bring into life more and more qualities which will have greater weight and influence than the purely physical qualities. And it will be increasingly apparent that qualities other than the purely physical will have to be taken into account. Physical qualities will be evident, which—although they become manifest only gradually—can be traced back to infancy; but there will be other qualities to which this does not apply and which show themselves in a marked form only comparatively late in life. A characteristic feature of evolution in the future will be the existence of an increasing number of individuals about whom it will inevitably be asked: What can have happened to that individual at a certain age in his life? He has completely changed; it is as though he has become a different being! Qualities that were completely absent in earlier life, that appear only when a certain age has been reached, will reveal themselves. This will happen in the case of souls who are the most highly developed and in whom a certain break in their life becomes evident. For the fact that an individual was a pupil of Buddha in the life between death and rebirth reveals itself only at a certain age. This would apply to persons of whom it can be said: Up to a particular point in their lives their individual qualities were in evidence; but then entirely new trends appeared and they were able to understand matters altogether different from those for which they had previously shown understanding. These will be individuals who in the future will be the vehicles of true spiritual progress although they may simply be regarded as late developers, manifesting these qualities only late in life. In truth, however, the reason why these individuals display these qualities only in later life is that in previous incarnations on the Earth they had established the causes which enabled them to experience the spiritual life in the Mars sphere with particular intensity and so to acquire qualities which enabled them to bring a new impulse into the evolution of humanity. True spiritual culture will more and more be in the hands of individuals of this kind, who in their youth showed little aptitude for the spiritual standpoint they adopt in later life.

We now see that this is the reason why a certain fact has always been stressed in the Rosicrucian line of thought of which we ourselves have heard in the past, although it could not then be substantiated because our studies were not as advanced as they now are. Representatives of the Rosicrucian principle of Initiation in the West have always emphasised that it is impossible to discover in their childhood those who are to become leading figures, because these are individuals who give evidence of that fundamental change in later life of which I have spoken. When a seer speaks of Buddha today, he knows that Buddha has faithfully adhered to what his teaching promised; he has continued to work for that in human nature which has no direct urge for physical embodiment and therefore does not appear at the beginning of life in a physical body but only when the physical body has undergone a certain development, when a certain stage towards spirituality has been reached. Then, at a later stage of life the gift of the Buddha to man becomes an effective influence.

All this must be borne in mind if we are to understand the whole process of man's development. What it signifies for each individual in his life between birth and death—of this we shall hear later.

• 1. See pp. 180 onwards in the Rudolf Steiner Press 1963 edition.
• 2. See the lecture-course, The Gospel of St. Luke given by Dr. Steiner in Basle, September 1909, particularly lectures four to nine.

Today I would like to approach the subject from a different angle and consider the connections that exist between the human being as a microcosmic entity and the whole macrocosm of the world, of which the human being is a part, a member, an organ, as it were. These things can be considered from the most diverse points of view, and in doing so, the most diverse relationships will come to light, which sometimes seem to contradict each other; but the contradictions consist in the fact that the matter must always be viewed from different sides.

From certain considerations that we have been making in these days, you have seen that actually man, as he relates to the world around him, mixes something of himself into his view of the world, that he actually does not take the world of sense as it is; that, as I have tried to express it drastically, he mixes into his view of the world something that rises from within, that is formed from within and that is actually a kind of transformation of the sense of smell. It is what man combines about the world in the most diverse ways, what comes out when he applies his ordinary acumen, as it is called, which comes to him through his body; one could also call it a sense of intuition. What else would be given to man if he could easily make the attempt at all - he can't even do it easily, because he can't easily switch off his intuition - if man would simply take the sensory world as it presents itself to him, without his mind, his combining mind immediately interfering in all sorts of ways.

This touches on a subject that may perhaps present some difficulties for understanding. But you can get an idea of what is actually meant if you consider how nature, the essence of a sense, comes to you. It is the same with the other senses, but the matter does not become apparent with the same clarity to the external observer, not as clearly as when you consider what is actually meant here for the sense of sight, for the eye. Consider that this eye as a physical apparatus is actually located as a fairly independent organ in the human skull and is actually only extended backwards into the human body by the appendages, the appendages of the blood vessels, the appendages of the nerves. One can say: this is the human eye, here is the extension (see drawing); but as an eye it lies here in the bony skull cavity with a great deal of independence, insofar as it is a physical apparatus. Here the lens, the incidence of the light rays, the vitreous body, so everything that is a physical apparatus is actually very independent. Only through the optic nerve, the choroid, which extends into the body, does the eye itself extend into the body, so that one can say that this eye, as a physical apparatus, insofar as it perceives the external sensory world in its visibility, is an independent organism, at least to a certain extent.

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It is actually the same for every sense, it is just not so obvious for the other senses. Each sense as a sense is basically something independent, so that one can already speak of a sensory zone. It is actually surprising that the study of the senses is not enough to drive the scholars concerned to some spirituality. Because it is precisely this independence of the senses that could drive the scholars to some spirituality. Why? You see, what is experienced through the optic nerve, through the choroid, that would – and this could easily be proven with ordinary science – that would not be enough to make a person aware of what he experiences in his senses. The remarkable thing about the senses is that the etheric body projects into this purely physical apparatus, and it is a purely physical apparatus. In all our senses we are dealing with something that is outside the organism and is only experienced by the etheric body. You would not be able to unite what is caused in your eye by the incidence of light with your consciousness if you did not permeate the sense of the eye, and thus the other senses too, with your etheric body.

A ray of light falls into the eye. This ray of light has exactly the same physical effect in the eye as the ray of light in a camera obscura, in a photographic apparatus. And you only become aware of what is happening in this natural camera of the eye because your etheric body lines the eye and captures what is not captured in the mere physical apparatus by an etheric body. In the mere physical apparatus, in the mere photographic apparatus, only the physical process takes place; so that man, in the totality of his senses, really has a kind of continuation of the external world. As physical apparatus, the receiving senses, at least the majority of the receiving senses, belong more to the external world than to man. Your eye belongs much more to the external world than to your own body.

In animals, the eye belongs much more to the body than it does to humans. The fact that humans, as sensory beings, have senses that are less connected to the body than the senses of animals, makes them superior to animals. In certain lower animals, this can be demonstrated anatomically. There are all kinds of organic extensions; for example, the fan is inside in lower animals. These are very complicated formations, partly of the nerve, partly of the blood corpuscles, which the lower animals have more completely than the higher animals and especially than man.

The fact that in man the physical body takes so little part in his senses and leaves the part very much to the etheric body, that is what makes man a relatively so perfect being. So that we can say: Man is, first of all, this inner bodily man, considered physically, and the senses are inserted everywhere in him, but they are actually - as I once said in a public lecture in Zurich - like gulfs that extend into the outside world. It would be much more correct to draw it schematically like this. Instead of drawing: there is a sense, and there is a sense, and there is a sense (see drawing), it would be much more correct to draw it like this: there is the human body, and that is where the human world is built, for example the eye or the organ of smell, their continuation into the outside world, and their gulfs through the sense organs. The outer world intrudes through the senses, the eye and so on, and from the inside we only encounter it with the etheric body and permeate what the outer world sends in with our etheric body. It thereby takes part in the outer world. As a result, we are dependent on our etheric body to somehow grasp what the outer world sends in.

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The fact that what I have just said is not known has meant that for more than a hundred years philosophy has been talking about nothing more fantastic than the way in which man perceives the outside world through his senses. You can get an overview of all this basically fantastic stuff by reading the chapter “The World as Illusion” in my “Riddles of Philosophy”. Because of the belief that the senses can only be understood from the inside out, from the body out, people do not understand how man can actually know something about the world through his senses. They always talk about it in this way: the world makes an impression on the senses, but then what is caused in the senses must be grasped by the soul. The truth is that the external world itself builds into us, that we therefore grasp the external world at the tip, with our etheric body grasp the external world at the tip, when we perceive the external world as human beings with our senses. Everything that Locke, Hume, Kant, the neo-Kantian philosophers of the 19th century, Schopenhauer, Helmholtz, Wundt and all the rest, everything that people have said about sensory perception, has been said to the exclusion of knowledge of the true conditions. As I said, you can read about it in the chapter 'The World as Illusion' in my book 'Riddles of Philosophy'. There you will see, in philosophical terms, the calamity that has been caused by the fact that, with the exclusion of spiritual knowledge of the matter, a giant cabbage as sense physiology actually took hold in the 19th century.

Now it is important to really understand what I just said. If you want to check to some extent the truth of what I just called a giant cabbage, it is interesting that in a certain sense what Locke, Hume, Kant, Helmholtz, Wundt and so on said about the senses is true; but curiously enough it is true for animals. Nineteenth-century man, in his quest to understand the human being through science, cannot go beyond understanding the conditions in the animal world. It is no wonder that he also stops at the animal world when it comes to the origin of man! But this is connected to much more complicated conditions. For, as I said, the etheric body touches what is called the external world of the senses at one corner. But what is the ether body in the last analysis? The ether body is ultimately that which the human being now receives from the cosmos, from the macrocosm. So that, by cutting off its ether body from the macrocosmic relationship, the macrocosm takes hold of itself in the human being through the senses. We can feel ourselves as a son of the macrocosm, in that we are an etheric body, and grasp the earthly sense world with our macrocosmic part.

The fact that this only became the case relatively late can, in turn, be proven with external science, I would like to say, with pinpoint accuracy, only that this external science cannot see the real conditions if it is not oriented by spiritual science. I have already pointed out that the Greek language does not actually have the expression that we have when we say: I see a man coming to meet us. We say: I see a man coming. The corresponding Greek expression would be: I see a coming man. In the Greco-Latin era there was still a much stronger sense that one is actually doing something when one sees or hears something, that one is grasping something with one's etheric body when one is in the sensory world. This active element is lacking in the drowsy humanity of modern times. This drowsy humanity of modern times would actually prefer to sleep through world events altogether, that is, to let them approach it as dreams. It does not want to develop the consciousness to participate when sensory perceptions occur. That is why it is so difficult to understand the Greek way of thinking today, because the Greeks had a much more active concept of the human being. They felt much more active even in what we today call the passivity of sensory perception. The Greeks would not have invented the incomplete, one-sided theory that man sleeps because he is tired; but they knew that man becomes tired when he wants to sleep, that sleeping is brought about by essentially different impulses, and that tiredness then arises from the impulse to want to sleep.

But it is not only this theory of sleep that was actually invented out of the laziness of modern man. Modern man wants to be as passive as possible, to be an active being as little as possible. He can do that, and in a sense, modern man has trained himself to be a passive being. And it is with this passivity that I presented yesterday, perhaps somewhat abruptly, the superstition, the idolatry of modern times.

So the outermost post of the external world enters into us, I would say, the outermost post of this external world. Let us draw this again schematically. Let us assume that we draw the human body here (see drawing), the outermost post of the external world enters into our body; we reach over it with our etheric body (red and blue).

You know that we actually have twelve senses; these twelve senses are therefore twelve different ways in which the external world penetrates into our body. What is it that actually penetrates into our body? That is the big question. What actually penetrates into our body?

We actually see only one side of what is penetrating; without clairvoyance we cannot turn around and look at it from the other side. With his etheric body, the human being receives the incoming ray of light or the incoming sound vibration. But it does not run from the outside into the ear according to the tone; it does not run from the outside into the eye according to the light ray. If it did, the human being would run with the sound wave, with the light beam, with the heat evolution from the outside into his sensory apparatus, as far as the senses extend from the outside. And this area is the realm of the exusiai, the spirits of form.

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So if you could turn around so that you could follow what is entering here through the senses (arrows), you would be in the realm of the exusiai, the spirits of form. You can see how the beings of the world are intimately intertwined. We walk through the world as human beings, opening our senses and actually carrying the exusiai, the spirits of form, within us, which reveal themselves to us as we open our senses to the external world. This world of exusiai, the spiritual world, is thus hidden behind the veil of the sensory world. But this world of the Exusiai, which is hidden behind the veil of the sensory world, the world that reveals itself in man, also has a universal cosmic side, because it permeates the cosmos. That which enters our senses vibrates and undulates throughout the cosmos. So that we can say, this area that projects into our senses is not only there in the senses, but also has its manifestation out in the world. What is it there? There are the planets that belong to our solar system.

Truly, the connection of the planets of our solar system forms a body that belongs to a spiritual being, and this spiritual being includes the exusiai, which are manifested in the revelations of our senses and which have their objective side out in the universe, in the planets. And embedded in all that is, embedded in this whole stream of exusiai activity, are other beings. They lie behind these Exusiai. I would like to say that other beings do not penetrate as far as the Exusiai do. They are out there in the same area, but they do not come close to us (see drawing): these are the beings of the hierarchy of the Archai, the Archangeloi, the Angeloi.

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They are all already present in that which is revealed in our senses, but man cannot take this up into his consciousness. It has an effect on him, but he cannot take it up into his consciousness. So you can say: Through our senses we encounter a world - the realm of the exusiai with the planetary system (red, blue, orange, see drawing on p. 97), and embedded in this whole realm is also the hierarchy of the archai, the archangeloi, the angeloi. These are, so to speak, the ministers of the exusiai. But the human being perceives only the outer appearance of all this; he perceives only the sensory tapestry spread out before him.

This is how it is with what is outside of us. It is different again with what is inside us, now also physically inside us. After hearing what is adjacent to our senses, you can go and ask: What is located directly behind our senses inwards? — We have seen: the eye continues inwards in the optic nerve. All the senses continue inward in their corresponding nerve. When the senses continue inward in this way, you get a wonderful structure from the twelve senses inward. It is very complicated. You could simplify it by saying: twelve strands to the inside, twelve sensory spheres; so on the outside the sensory zone, connected to it what the senses now send inward.

This is a very complicated structure. How does it come about when we look at the human being as a macrocosmic being? That which lies behind the senses inwards comes from the Dynamis, from the Spirits of Movement. So that, going further inwards, the deeds of the Dynamis, the Spirits of Movement, join the senses here (see drawing on p. 97). You could not think if the spirits of movement did not work on the thinking apparatus, which is the continuation of the sense apparatus. If you look outward, you see the Exusiai making the natural order. You see these Exusiai approaching people with their servants, the Archai, the Archangeloi, the Angeloi. But when you think of your inner being, you must remember that you owe this inner being to the spirits of the movement, who prepare the thinking apparatus for you as a continuation of your sense apparatus inwards; not the combining apparatus, which is a mere transformation of the sense of smell, but the thinking apparatus, which man does not use at all in ordinary physical life. For man uses the sense of smell, the sense of smell merely transformed. He has already ceased to use the sense sphere; he would think quite differently if he could really use the twelve inward continuations of the sense sphere.

In the brain, for example, the visual sphere lies behind the frontal lobe, which is essentially a reworked organ of smell. Man hardly uses it, he only thinks habitually through the olfactory sphere. He uses it in a reworked form by combining. If he were to use it directly, he would switch off his forebrain, this forebrain that is only prepared for the external sensory world, and think with the direct, with the four-hill section, with the visual section, where it enters the brain. Then he would have imaginations.

It is the same with the other senses. Man also has imaginations in the physical world, because one world always extends into the other. But man does not recognize these imaginations in the physical world as real imaginations: they are in fact olfactory imaginations. What a person smells is actually the only imaginative realm in the ordinary sensory life. But a much nobler imaginative realm could, for example, come from the sphere of vision and from other sensory spheres.

Looking inwards, we find the Spirits of Movement. And going further inwards, we come to the regions which do not dominate thinking but feeling, the organs of feeling, which are mostly glandular organs in reality. These organs are the deeds of the Spirits that we call the Kyriotetes, the Spirits of Wisdom. We are sentient beings because the Spirits of Wisdom work in us. We are volitional beings because the Spirits of Will, the Thrones, work in us. Located even further inward, the Thrones, the Spirits of Will, work on the organs of our will (see diagram on p. 97).

Just as the exusiai, the spirits of form, have their macrocosmic body in the planets, which, as it were, present the outer visible side to us for ordinary consciousness, so the spirits of movement have their outer side, strangely enough, but it is so, in the fixed stars. Only the dead person between death and a new birth can see their inner side; this is the spiritual side, seen from the other side. In contrast, the Spirits of Wisdom and the Thrones no longer have external visibility at all; they are spiritual in nature. It can be said that they lie behind the planets and behind the fixed stars. And as the deceased looks down on what affects the person in human feeling and human will, the deceased constantly looks at the Kyriotetes, at the Thrones. What I have told you, that the dead person has a connection with the people with whom he is karmically connected, is conveyed to him by the Kyriotetes and by the thrones. The dead person looks into the sphere that invisibly works outside in the objective world and actually only becomes visible in its creature, in human feeling and in human will. What people feel and will here shines up to the dead, and the dead says: In the body of Dynamis, in the body of Kyriotetes, in the body of the thrones, the thinking, feeling and willing of people shines. Just as we look up at the stars, the dead look down into the earthly sphere, into the human sphere. Only, we look at the mineral aspect of the stars, the external physical; the dead do not see the external physical of the glands, the organs of movement, and thus also of the blood, but instead see the spiritual side, the Kyriotetes, the thrones. Just as we look up at the sky, seeing its visible meaning from the outside, the dead person looks down to see the firmament of humanity. The spiritual of this firmament appears to him. That is the dead person's secret.

You see what reciprocity reigns in the universe. When you recognize this reciprocity, the human being takes on a strange countenance! Strangely enough, it takes on the countenance that you say to yourself: We look up at the stars, seek the spirits of form in their exterior in the planets, the spirits of movement in the fixed stars; then that in the distant perspectives fades into the spirit. From this sphere the dead person looks down, looks at that which the human being dreamily oversleeps here. But in that he sees his beyond; there the spirit stars shine up into his world. And the human being is embedded in this being.

What is said in the first scenes of the mystery “The Testing of the Soul” is given a peculiar illumination. Read these first scenes of 'The Test of the Soul', the words of Capesius, and you will see that from the ethical point of view everything is said there that is now being said, so to speak, from the point of view of celestial knowledge. The way in which this celestial knowledge can work in the consciousness of man is pointed out in the first scenes of 'The Test of the Soul'.

And then come the higher worlds, if one wants to apply the word 'higher', that which lies beyond the human being and this universe. I will try to present this schematically, but I must appeal to your goodwill to understand. We can say that if there is a kind of boundary here (see also the drawing on p. 97, yellow), the world of the planets, the world of the fixed stars, loses itself here into the spiritual – and from the other side it comes again. So that here we have the sphere of human will, the sphere of feeling, there the Spirits of Wisdom appear. There we have this order.

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But now you can think of an order that is common to both, where man and the universe are included, where we are embedded in such a way that on the one hand we, who shine up to the dead, and on the other hand the starry sky, which shines down to us, are embedded in it. Then we come to the hierarchies, which, if you want to use the word, are higher than the thrones: to the cherubim and seraphim. You can imagine that from this point of view, which has now been mentioned, one cannot speak of the physical exteriors of the cherubim and seraphim, because they are of course even higher spirits; but they are already so spiritual — here I really must appeal to your very good will to understand — they are already so spiritual, these cherubim and seraphim, that their effect comes from another, quite unknown side.

Is it not true that the exusiai, the spirits of form, can be perceived directly by the senses in the planets; that is simply the side they turn towards us. The spirits of movement are directly perceptible in the fixed stars; that is the side they turn towards us. But the cherubim and seraphim are not perceptible to the senses in such a way that they turn their other side towards us, so to speak. But they are so imperceptible that the imperceptibility itself becomes perceptible. So that which lives in the world through cherubim and seraphim is so imperceptible that imperceptibility itself is perceived. It withdraws so strongly from human consciousness that man notices this withdrawal from consciousness.

Thus we can say: the cherubim do in fact reappear, even if this is manifested in such a way that they are so deeply hidden that one perceives their hiddenness. The cherubim appear not only symbolically, but quite objectively in what takes place in the thundercloud, in what takes place when a planet is ruled by volcanic forces. And the seraphim truly appear in what flashes as lightning from the cloud, or in what manifests as fire in the volcanic eruptions, in such a way that their very imperceptibility in these gigantic effects of nature becomes perceptible.

Therefore, in ancient times, when people saw through such things, they looked up at the starry sky, which revealed the most diverse things to them: the secrets of the Exusiai, the secrets of Dynamis. Then they tried to reveal the higher secrets in what man today ridicules: from the interior of the human body - as one says trivially - from the bowels. But then they were aware that the greatest effects, which are really common to the solar system, announce themselves from a completely opposite side in the effects of fire and thunderstorms, in earthquakes and volcanic effects. The most creative aspect of the seraphim and cherubim is announced through its most destructive side, curiously enough. It is precisely the other side, it is the absolute negative, but the spiritual is so spiritually strong that even its imperceptibility, its non-existence, is perceived by the senses.

There you have placed man back into the macrocosm. And at the same time you can see that in this whole macrocosm there is something that begins with the cherubim and goes up to themselves, and that only, I would say, reflects, shadows itself in the gigantic effects that we have just mentioned. This gives you the perspective of a natural science that is at the same time a spiritual science; it gives you the perspective of a science that really sees the whole universe as spirit, that is not content with a vague pantheism and other “pantheisms”, but that really goes into what lies at the basis of the universe as spiritual.

These things will also make it clear to you that man must have a dual nature in a certain respect. Let us take man as he lives from waking to sleeping; he lives in his senses, in the sensual environment, if one perceives the outside as I have indicated. But the other part of a person lives between falling asleep and waking up. It is only so imperfect in the present human cycle that a person is not aware of what he experiences during sleep. But during sleep, a person experiences his being with the cosmos, with the extraterrestrial cosmos, just as he experiences his coexistence with the earthly cosmos with his senses while awake. The only difference is that he is unaware of the other coexistence, the coexistence with the extraterrestrial cosmos. The moment you fall asleep, you join in the movements of the cosmos spiritually, you enter into a completely different sphere. You make yourself ready when you wake up; you make yourself flexible in relation to the cosmos by falling asleep. You live the life of the cosmos by falling asleep; you tear yourself out of the cosmos by waking up. So that you can say: Man can recognize in his own nature, in his own being, a part that swims in the cosmos, that lives in the cosmos. If the ancient astrologer, in the sense in which it was meant in the last reflections, explored the cosmos with its secrets, he explored that in which man swims with that part of his being that sleeps. Man swims with that which the astrologer tries to explore, the real astrologer, not the merely calculating, mathematical one of modern times.

In the moment when the human being sees what he experiences with the part of his being that sleeps, in that moment he stands before what, roughly until the 15th century, was actually called nature. What the human being experiences there was called nature. The Greeks called the same thing that was called nature in the Middle Ages, Proserpina, Persephone. Of course, the mysteries of Persephone were described differently in Greece and in the Middle Ages. But you can see that the Middle Ages knew these things when you read descriptions of nature and its secrets as found in the works of Bernardus Silvestris. In the work 'De mundi universitate' by Bernardus Silvestris, the description begins of the experiences that man has when he awakens to the part that participates in the cosmos, which is otherwise overslept.

These things are particularly well described by Alanus ab Insulis, from the area we have mentioned several times; for in Alanus ab Insulis's 'Island', he means Ireland, Hybernia. In his work 'De planctu naturae' and in his 'Anticlaudianus', you will find parallels to the Proserpina myth and what he has to say about nature. And you will find that everything is resurrected in the great teacher of Dante, whom I once mentioned here, in Brunetto Latini. You will find the teachings of Brunetto Latini incorporated into Dante's own ideas. Read the parts of the Divine Comedy in which Dante describes the Matelda, the part that really resembles the Proserpina myth like two peas in a pod, which even the outer science has already noticed. You will acquire an awareness of it – from Bernardus Silvestris, Alanus ab Insulis, from Brunetto Latini and from Dante, you can acquire an awareness, from many others as well - as until the times when the new era dawned, people had an awareness of that other world of the coexistence of man as a microcosm with the macrocosm.

On the one hand, there was nature, the human being's experience of the cosmos, which the Middle Ages called Natura and which antiquity called Proserpina. This was personified and distinguished from Urania, who rules over the celestial sphere just as nature rules over what the human being experiences from falling asleep to waking up. And these medieval people believed they saw a deep secret when they spoke of the marriage of nature in man with the nus, with the mind, with the intellect in man. And in a right and wrong way, these people tried to experience in man the marriage of nature with the Nus, with the mind or intellect, as a mystical wedding, which was contrasted with the alchemical wedding, as I described in the essay that is the first about Christian Rosenkreutz.

These are things that are not so infinitely far behind us. And Dante's haunting work - which on the one hand describes the world and man, the human secrets, with as much sublimity as humor - is like the work that wanted to preserve what has been known for centuries and millennia about man's connection to the macrocosm. In Brunetto Latini we find the same thing that Dante describes in his own poetic way, from the point of view of initiation, also linked to an external event.

The consciousness of the connection between man and these spiritual secrets had to be hidden for a time, so to speak, so that what man can experience when it is separated out from the universe and, as it were, dependent on itself, could be kindled in man. We are now living in the age in which, on the one hand, man is exposed to the radiations that permeate him from Pisces, but on the other hand, he is exposed to the radiations of the differently acting, opposite constellation of Virgo. But this age must find the way out of spiritual infertility. Of course, we can no longer simply take over what humanity once knew, because that knowledge was in a form that was useful for ancient humanity. Dante's “Divine Comedy” is, although a great revelation, more a testament of a bygone era. A new era needs the revelations of the spiritual cosmos from a different source.

But one thing is possible. When one considers that, I might say, people knew spiritual secrets until a few centuries ago, this has such an effect on the human mind that it can inspire him to seek the way to these secrets in a new way. Therefore, we can also draw impulses from historical observation; only we must take this historical observation in such a way that we go back to what is really historical. Consider what all the external events related in history are worth – in this history, with which, lamentably, our schoolchildren up to the oldest are pampered – what these stories, which are recorded as history, are worth compared to the facts that people like Bernardus Silvestris, Alanus ab Insulis, Brunetto Latini, Dante and so on, Pico de Mirandola, Fludd , and even Jakob Böhme, Paracelsus, if we take a certain sphere of wisdom, and right up to the 18th century we could cite the disciple of Jakob Böhme, Saint-Martin — what are the usual events recorded in history compared to the facts that there were people who carried such cosmic knowledge within them and worked with such cosmic knowledge! Yes, the present is often proud of what it has achieved. This present-day intelligentsia – I mentioned it in connection with the Christmas plays today – has always been quite dismissive of the spiritual content; even when this intelligentsia, as in Oberufer, where the Christmas plays were performed until the middle of the 19th century, consisted of a single personality, the schoolmaster, who was also the village notary, and thus the legal personality and at the same time the mayor. He was the intellectual, he was the only enemy of all the Christmas plays. In his opinion, they were stupid, foolish. Schröer still experienced this, that the intelligentsia of Oberufer was hostile to what was in the Christmas plays. It is very often the intelligentsia that is hostile to what is actually fruitful in human evolution.

It is a matter of encouraging that which may be called the enthusiasm of history by looking at real history, by really immersing oneself in what history is. The spiritual part of the event also belongs to history, and it proceeds differently than the external physical-material part.

Especially in the harsh present, we must try again and again to stimulate the spiritual impulses by making ourselves aware of how spirit has ruled in the historical development of humanity. Whether you can count the details on the fingers of one hand: That is how the Dynamis work, that is how the Exusiai work — that is much less important than awakening this overall consciousness, how it wants to bring the individual human being together with the spirit of humanity. For in the awakening of this consciousness lies that which is to bring salvation into the evolution of mankind. Sometimes it is good to realize how far removed what passes as world opinion today is from what moves human souls, or at least seems to move them. As a result, there is often no sense of the weight of the individual facts. The spirit weighs the facts correctly.

More important than many other things for the assessment of the present – just think about it with the help of what you have heard here – more important than many other things is the news that came in the last few days that the American state administration has taken the railways into self-government. For this is one of a number of symptoms that clearly point to things that are being prepared in order to divert humanity as far as possible from the path along which it can only be preserved if it becomes fully aware that without spirit reality can only be a dying reality. One can indeed choose to die; then life must flee from the areas for which one chooses to die to other areas. The field of truth already carries the victory. But one looks at a field where, so to speak, those who look deeper into the world are also confronted with such powers of a left and a right, as Dante at the starting point of his description of his “Divine Comedy”, or as Brunetto Latini at the beginning of his initiation.

Oh, it would be so necessary for the world to grasp thoughts of spirituality in the broadest sense! Instead of this, it is true, we are only faced with the necessity of having to emphasize again and again that we must look towards the spirit. Again and again we are faced with the longing to be able to emphasize the seriousness of the matter sufficiently. People do not want to see where germs are, but they want to be passive, to let things happen to them if possible, to sleep through the course of the world if possible. If many people did not sleep as they do in the present, oversleeping events, then one would see that behind what is now buzzing through the world in such an untrue way, there is a strange tendency. It may well be said, since Woodrow Wilson, the universal idol of modern times, of the present time, of the present, has boasted of such things himself, that four-fifths of humanity is facing one-fifth. This idol of modern humanity, who has been raised to the altar much more than one might think, has indeed boasted of this himself.

It will have to be said that it would be a shame if humanity were to oversleep what lies in such an ideal as the ideal of this idol, whose slogans, even those that are not copied from the brave Don Pedro of 1864 like its last manifestation, but rather grew in its own hollow—pardon me, I mean head—go back to what is actually inherent in it as a tendency. What is it then? The aim is to be able to say one day on earth: centuries ago there was a legendary humanity in the middle of Europe; they managed to wipe it out. They had to be wiped out because they were terribly proud. They descended from the gods and even called the main poet Goethe to suggest that they had received a spirit directly from the gods. Although we shall not express ourselves in such spiritual terms, the germ or tendency of Wilsonianism will be recognizable in this. It will only be a matter of whether this can be the path of humanity, whether this can be the future path of the earth, or whether we should not rather reflect on how the earth can be saved from the so-called ideals of Wilsonianism and similar things. One need not fall into nationalism or anti-nationalism with such things. The phrases of nations and the freedom of nations can also be left to Wilsonianism in modern times. But one cannot point out seriously enough what is actually behind the idol that is meant.

I know that present-day humanity will not give much credence to such things, but I also know that in the future many a voice will be raised in agreement with what has been said here. May the voices of the future always be added to those of the past: Humanity allowed itself to be led in all sorts of ways by a strange idol; thank the world spirits that the goals of this strange leader of humanity were not fulfilled, who, after all, also to the world by theoretically proclaiming, in grand words, the republic as the only true form of government and by copying out his own republican manifestos from the Brazilian emperor of 1864. The fact that one is actually standing here before a grotesque phenomenon is something that can be said within closed walls. Outside, truth is not the highest value, but is weighed on the political scales. One must not say what is true or not true, but what is prescribed. Until March 15, one was not allowed to say anything against tsarism in the various countries; since March 15, one is of course allowed to say anything against it.

Unfortunately, truth is not the highest standard. But to speak out against it is the only way to touch the conditions that are necessary to write into the soul today. It makes sense to add to the great views into the cosmos the small thoughts that passive, sleepy humanity has today, but which unfortunately have great effects on deeds. For humanity must awaken, and the spirit must be the awakener.

To get even closer to the problems we have opened up in these lectures, I want to make some incidental comments today. You probably know the amusing experiment so often done by conjurers: they show the audience some heavy weights and the effort required to lift them. To make the thing more credible, the pretend weights usually have figures written on them—so and so many hundredweight, or kilogram or whatever. Having made enormous efforts and slowly lifted the weights, so that the audience can admire his muscular strength, the conjurer then suddenly lifts them up high, or may even bring on a small boy who'll trot off swinging the weights—for the whole is made of cardboard. It is merely that the shape and the figures have been imitated to give the impression that those are real weights.

This experiment will frequently come to mind for anyone who has a little bit of spiritual science and who learns what people, even the more intelligent ones, are saying or writing about historical events or historical figures. This applies even to biographers and historians who, according to current opinion, are doing their work extremely well. If you have training in spiritual science, you may be entirely satisfied with the descriptions which are given—for a time. But when you go over it all in your mind again, it does seems as if a child might as well come and run off swinging all this stuff.

Perhaps there are not very many people who feel like this, though I have found something like it, at an instinctive level, with quite a number of people when it comes to the historical writings one gets today. The whole of Roman history, and particularly also Greek history, which is written today comes under this heading. And I am forced to say that historians dealing with one particular field, people whom I respect highly, nevertheless leave me with this impression. I have enormous respect for the historian Herman Grimm,¹ as will be evident from several of my lectures. But when I take up his books on Goethe, Michelangelo or Raphael, these figures seem as if they had no real weight—comparatively speaking—as if they were but darting shadows. The whole of Grimm's Goethe, the whole of his Michelangelo, are merely figures from a magic lantern, for these, too, have no weight.

What is the reason for this? It is that people who are merely equipped with the education, the intellectual content, of our present time do not have a real idea of the true reality, even though they generally think they are describing such a reality. People are infinitely far away from the true reality today because they do not know the element which is always around us and gives spiritual, if not exactly physical, weight to the figures.

Luther is being presented in hundreds, if not thousands, of ways during these weeks.² All very erudite, of course, for today's writers generally are most erudite; I am quite serious about this. But the Martin Luther described by our contemporaries is like the image we have of the weight made of cardboard, for the element which lends weight to a figure is missing. You may say: If one is sitting on a chair and watching the man lifting weights, it looks exactly the same whether the weights are made of cardboard or are real weights. You could even paint the scene; it would look the same. The painting could be perfectly true, even if the weights lifted by the model were made of cardboard. The descriptions given of historical figures like Luther may be eminently true, and the individuals who are so proud of their realism may have succeeded extremely well in using numerous details, numerous characteristic and significant things to create a sophisticated image, but the image does not necessarily correspond to reality, because the spiritual weight is lacking.

If we really want to understand Luther today we must know the inner quality of his true nature, quite independent of our own point of view; we must know he lived a short time after the dawn of the fifth post-Atlantean age, but that all the impulses of the fourth post-Atlantean age were alive in his heart and mind. He was out of place in the fifth post-Atlantean age, for he felt, thought and reacted like someone from the fourth post-Atlantean age; the task facing him belonged to the fifth postAtlantean age which then was just beginning. And so the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean age, the horizon of that age, sees an individual whose inner impulses really came from all the qualities of the fourth post-Atlantean age. The prospect of what was to come in the fifth post-Atlantean age lived in Luther's soul at an unconscious, instinctive level.

That age was to bring all the materialism which could only arise for humanity in post-Atlantean times and would gradually penetrate every human sphere. To put it as a paradox—paradoxes never represent the actual facts, of course, but we are able to deduce the facts from them—we might say: Luther was entirely rooted in the fourth post-Atlantean age when it came to the impulses in his heart and mind and feelings, and this meant that he did not really understand the innermost nature of the materialistic human beings of the fifth post-Atlantean age. He certainly had an instinctive, more or less unconscious, inner grasp of the conflicts which would arise between the people of the fifth post-Atlantean age and the outside world, of how they would act in that world and be caught up in its works. Yet all this was really of no concern to him, because his feelings were those of the people who had lived in the fourth postAtlantean age. Hence his insistence that no good would come of being connected with the works of the world and being involved in the world. You must distance yourselves from these works and from everything which exists in the outside world, and find the way to the world of the spirit solely in your heart and mind. You must build your bridge between the spiritual and the earthly world not on the basis of what you are able to know, but what you are able to believe; it must grow from your inner mind and soul. Because he was not connected with the outside world, Luther emphasized that the relationship with the spiritual world was a purely inward one based on faith.

Or consider this: In some respects the world of the spirit lay open before Luther's inner eye. His visions of the devil do not need to be explained in the way Ricarda Huch³ explains them in her book, which otherwise has considerable merit. There is no need to make excuses for his visions of the devil by saying that he did not believe in a devil with horns and tail walking around in the street. Luther really had the devil appear to him; he knew full well the nature of this ahrimanic spirit. To some extent the spiritual world still lay open before his mind's eye as it had done for the people of the fourth post-Atlantean age, and it lay open specifically for the phenomena which were, in fact, to be of the essence in the fifth post-Atlantean age. The ahrimanic powers were pre-eminent in the fifth post-Atlantean age, and Luther saw them. People of the fifth post-Atlantean age are characteristically under the influence of these powers but not able to see them. Luther, however, was an individual of the fourth post-Atlantean age displaced into the fifth, and he saw those powers and therefore gave them such emphasis. This is the concrete situation as regards the spiritual world, and Luther cannot be understood unless this is taken into account.

If you go back to the fifteenth, fourteenth, thirteenth and, ultimately, the twelfth century, you will always find that people understood the conversion of matter. Anything written about this at a later date was largely fraudulent, because the real secrets were lost with the end of the fourth post-Atlantean age. But not everything written is fraudulent, and some of the things which were said were true, though they are difficult to find. What has been written is not exactly outstanding, however, especially anything printed at a later time. Yet at the time when the secrets of alchemy were known, which was during the fourth post-Atlantean age, church people were well able to speak of the transubstantiation of bread and wine into the body and the blood, for there were definite ideas connected with these words. Luther was caught up in the thinking and inner responses of the fourth post-Atlantean age; yet he lived in the fifth post-Atlantean age. He had to separate transubstantiation from the process of physical conversion of matter. So what did the sacrament of the transubstantiation become for him?—It became a process which occurs entirely in the realm of the spirit. Nothing is transformed, he said; but when the faithful receive the bread and the wine the Body and blood of Christ enter into them. Everything Luther said, thought and felt was said, thought and felt by someone whose heart and mind belonged to the fourth post-Atlantean age. He clung to the spiritual connection between man and the gods which belonged to the fourth post-Atlantean age, taking this with him into the godless fifth age, an age of materialism, empty of spirit, without faith and without understanding.

Now Luther has weight, and we understand why he said the things he said—we know it quite apart from the impression he makes on us today. We see him standing in the outside world and he is like the real weight, not the cardboard one. Hundreds or thousands of modern theologians or historians may now come and give their impressions—these will not give us the man, someone with real weight; they will only give us the kind of thing produced by someone who is not holding up a real weight but one made of cardboard.

You see now what really matters at the present time. We must labour to gain awareness of the factors which give the world around us spiritual weight, and be aware of the fact that the spirit is alive in everything, and that this spirit can only be found with the help of anthroposophy. You can collect all the documents you want and scribble endless notes on Luther, you can present an accurate picture as far as the outer aspects are concerned—but, to stay with our analogy, you will always have a cardboard figure, unless you are truly able to look for the things that give the figure real weight. Now you may well say it seems hard to say to compare the work of some of the most erudite people to cardboard weights. And even if this were so, their work was really beautiful and satisfying in many ways. Is all this to be changed? Could we not go on enjoying their work?

You see, two questions arise for people in the present-day state of consciousness, questions which may well touch us deeply. Why did the spiritual world demand that these people should have the instincts which have led to such works? Well, these things really point to something which is very widespread today and closely bound up with human nature. As I have already mentioned, we are living at a time when certain truths have to become known which are not welcome truths. Yet anyone who can read the signs of the times knows that they have to become known.

In the first part of my essay on The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, written for the next issue of the journal Das Reich,⁴ I have touched lightly on some of these truths. Just a short while ago it was still taboo for those in the know to speak of these things in public. Today one must speak of them, even if this may cause problems. A short passage in my essay relates specifically to what I am going to say now.

Is it not true that as we move about in this world we do not have full and real knowledge of the things which are immediately around us, at least not to begin with? I think this is something anyone can quite easily establish for himself. We mainly use our sense of sight as we move through the world; but if we did not have other kinds of experiences as well, we would never know with complete certainty if something we see weighs a great deal or only little. We would have to pick it up to check the weight. Think of how many things there are where you cannot know if they are heavy or light as air until you pick them up. And finally, when you know that something is not as light as air, this knowledge has not come from looking at it but from having lifted something like it before. You do not even think about it, but unconsciously, instinctively come to the conclusion: If it looks the way such things always look, it will also weigh the same. Just looking at objects therefore provides you with nothing at all.

What does looking at objects provide? Illusion! If you regard the world with just one of the senses, you are deceived wherever you go. You only escape the illusion because you are unconsciously and instinctively drawing on experience. The whole world is really trying to deceive us, even in the world we perceive around us with the senses. The illusion may be very naturalistic nowadays. Painters and sculptors, who aim to present something to just one of the senses, fail to realize that they are merely presenting maya, illusion; for the more you try and present something realistically for just one of the senses, the more you are presenting maya. This is necessary, however, for if it were not for this illusion we would not be able to progress in conscious awareness. We owe our progress in consciousness to this illusion. To stay with my original analogy: If all objects appeared in their true weight, even when they were just perceived by the eye, if I were to feel the burden of their weight as I looked around me, I would quite obviously be unable to develop conscious awareness of the outside world. We owe our consciousness to this illusion. It lies at the root of all things which make up our consciousness. We have to be deceived in order to progress in consciousness, for our consciousness is the child of illusion. To begin with, however, the illusion must not enter into human beings or they will become unsure. The illusion remains beyond the threshold of conscious awareness. The Guardian makes sure that we do not realize how the world around us is deceiving us at every step. We fight our way upwards because the world does not reveal its weight to us and in this way lets us rise above it and be conscious. Consciousness also depends on many other things, but it mainly depends on the fact that the world around us is full of illusion.

Yet, necessary as it may be for illusion to be there for a time so that consciousness may arise, it is also necessary that when consciousness has developed we rise above the illusion, particularly in certain areas. Because it is based on maya, on illusion, our consciousness cannot gain access to true reality. Over and over again it would have to be subject to the kind of confusion I have mentioned. And so there must be alternating periods, periods when weightless situations and people are presented, and periods when the weight, the spiritual weight, is perceived. We are now facing the latter kind of period with regard to major world events as well as everyday events. We have to see through the things which seriously come into consideration in this respect.

One thing is particularly important: When the world looks to the East now, to what really lives in the east of Europe today, the people of Central Europe and America see the east of Europe exactly like someone who is looking at weights made of cardboard. They do not see the true spiritual weight of it. And indeed, neither do the people who actually live in eastern Europe have a real idea of the spirit which lives there. We can see Luther as an individual whose inner life belonged to the fourth post-Atlantean age, but who himself lived in the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean age. In the same way the world must come to see the true nature of the spirit in eastern Europe, for this is how we should actively consider these things in the fifth post-Atlantean age. If you take everything I have said about eastern Europe in lectures and lecture cycles—how the spirit-self is actively seeking to develop and how it must unite with the consciousness soul⁵ of the West—and if you add the fact that impulses for the sixth post-Atlantean age are in preparation in the east of Europe, then you have something which will lend weight to the east of Europe. If on the other hand you take all the statements people make today, however erudite, then you have weights which may just as well be made of cardboard.

However, we cannot buy or sell maya, illusion; we can only buy and sell real objects. You would say ‘thank you very much' if your grocer were to put cardboard weights rather than real ones on the scales. You would certainly demand real weights, not just some which look as if they were real. All political principles and impulses discussed with reference to Russia will be nothing, they will be null and void, unless they come from the awareness gained by knowing what gives spiritual weight. The way people talk today you would really think they are putting cardboard weights on the scales of world history. However, once awareness has come, it must not be used in the old lackadaisical and slovenly way, but must address itself to reality, not just to outer illusion. A transition will have to be made from the familiar, comfortable way of looking at things to one which is much more alive in its concepts—these will, of course, be less comfortable, for they also Shake us awake. Life will be less comfortable with the views which have to be taken in future. Why is this so? Let me give you an analogy which will probably also take you aback. I am not going to flinch, however, and I will say these things, irrespective of what individual people may feel about them.

As I have mentioned, in earlier ages, including the fourth post-Atlantean age, powers were available to humans which have been transformed into something else today. As I said, clairvoyance has become something different today, it is based on different things. Certain things can no longer be as they were even as late as the fourth post-Atlantean age, and one of these is the following.

In the fourth post-Atlantean age—people only know tales about it today and of course they do not believe them—there was an ordeal by fire. To prove guilt or innocence, people were made to walk a red hot grid. If they got burned, they were considered to be guilty, if not, if they walked across without being harmed, they were considered to be innocent. People consider this to be an old superstition today, but it is true. It is one of the abilities people had in the past and are no longer able to have today. In those days, human nature had this quality: Innocents who were utterly convinced of their innocence and knew themselves to be in the protection of the divine spirits at such a solemn moment, people who were so firmly connected with the spiritual world in their consciousness that the astral body would be taken out of the physical body, could walk across the embers with their physical bodies. It really was so in the past. This is the truth. It is really a good thing for you to be fully and completely clear in your minds that this old superstition is based on truth—though of course it is not a good idea for you to go and tell the vicar all about it.

These things have undergone a transformation. In the past, individuals who had to prove their innocence in a particular way, could be made to walk the embers on occasion. You can, however, be quite certain, that, generally speaking, people were afraid of fire even then; they did not enjoy walking over red hot grids. Even in those days it would generally make them shudder—except for those who were able to prove their innocence in this way. But some of the power which carried people through the embers in those days has now become more inward in the sense I spoke of in my last lecture. The clairvoyance of the fifth post-Atlantean age, the connection with the world of the spirit, is based on the same powers, except that the powers which formerly enabled people to walk through fire have been transformed and become more inward.

If one wants to be in touch with certain factors which belong to the world of the spirit, one has to overcome much the same reluctance as had to be overcome when people went through fire. That is the reason why many people fear the spiritual world today as much as they fear fire. We cannot really say people are just speaking figuratively when they say they are afraid of getting burned; they really are afraid. This is the reason for the opposition to anthroposophy: people are afraid of getting burned. Yet the progress of time demands that we gradually approach the fire and do not shy away from reality. The new inwardness of life of which I have spoken has many factors which demand that we gently draw closer to the world of the spirit—gently for the time being; later it will be stronger and stronger—in all spheres, but especially in the field of education.

In the sphere of education people will have to realize that quite different factors need to be considered than those which arise from the great climax now reached in the age of materialism. The realization must come that many of the things which from the materialistic point of view are eminently right—though the point of view is based on the senses and hence on maya, illusion—must be set aside and the opposite put in their place. Today it is considered important, especially in the field of education, to train teachers by teaching them as much method as possible. All the time it is said: This must be done like this, and that must be done like that. The aim is to develop well-regulated ideas of how one should educate. People love the idea of the regulative ideal. They would like to have the image of the ideal teacher and then always have such a teacher. But they only have to think a little bit about themselves and the issue will be clear. Ask yourself with as much self-knowledge as you are able to muster what has become of you—up to a certain point we can all see what has become of us—and then ask yourself who the teachers, the educators were who influenced you when you were young. Or, if this is a problem, try and think of a well-known and reasonably important person and then consider the teachers of that individual to see if you can somehow connect the significance of those teachers with the achievements of the individual.

It would be interesting if biographies told us more about the teachers; some interesting things would then emerge. But we would not be able to find out much about what those teachers did to make the individuals in question what they were. In most cases we would have the situation we have in the case of Herder, who achieved much;⁶ one of his best-known teachers was headmaster Herman Grimm.⁷ He was in the habit of tanning the boys' backsides as hard as he could. Herder's achievements did not come from having his backside tanned; he was a good boy and had few beatings. The teacher's general inclinations therefore did not have any effect on him! A nice story is told of this teacher, and it is really true. On one occasion he gave a terrible beating to a boy in Herder's class. Later, the boy was walking in the street when a man who had brought calfskins and sheepskins from the country asked him: ‘Tell me, boy, where can I find someone who'll bark tan these skins for me?’ ‘Ah,’ said the boy, ‘go to Mr Grimm, he is good at it.’ And the man actually went and rang Mr Grimm's doorbell—that taught the headmaster a lesson. But, you see, Herder did not become a great man because his teacher had this inclination. You will find many such things if you look into the education of individuals who later became great people.

Something else, however, which relates to something much more subtle, will be important. It will be important that the question of karma, or destiny, is taken into account, especially with regard to education and teaching methods. The people with whom my karma brought me together in childhood and youth certainly are important. And a tremendous amount depends on it that in our teaching we are aware that we and our pupils have been brought together. You see, much depends on a particular quality of mind and attitude.

Take the things we are already able to say about education today from the point of view of anthroposophy and you will find this to be wholly in accord with what I have said. It really has to be emphasized today that for the first seven years, up to the changing of the teeth, children want to imitate everything, and during the next seven years, until they reach puberty, they must submit to authority. We therefore have to do things which the children can imitate in the right way. Children will of course imitate everybody, but they do so especially with their teachers. They also believe everybody from their seventh to fourteenth year, but they should do so especially when it comes to their teachers and educators. We will know how to behave if we are constantly aware of the idea of karma; but we must have a real inner connection with this. Whether we are particularly good at teaching something, or perhaps less good, is not really so important. Even completely inept teachers may on occasion have a tremendous influence. Now, in the age of inwardness of which I have spoken, the question as to whether we are the right teacher or educator depends on the way in which we were connected with the child's soul before either of us—teacher and child—were born. The difference is merely that we teachers have come into the world a few years earlier than the children. Before that we were together with them in the world of the spirit.

Where does the desire to imitate come from, this tendency to imitate after we are born? We are imitators in our early years because we bring the tendency to Imitate with us from the world of the spirit. And whom do we like best to imitate? The individual who gave us our qualities in the world of the spirit, from whom we took something when we were in that world, be it in one particular field or another. The child's soul was connected with the soul of the teacher before birth. The connection was a close one; later, the outer physical being who lives in the physical world merely has to follow this line.

If you do not merely take what I am saying as an abstract truth but let it enter fully into your soul, you will find it has tremendous significance. Just think of the truly serious mood, the profundity of feeling which would come if, in the field of education, people lived with the idea: You are now showing the child something which it accepted from you in the world of the spirit before it was born. Just think, if this were to be the real impulse! It is much more important that such a mood, such a feeling, is brought to the task, rather than teaching people how to do this and how to do that. This will follow if the atmosphere is right between teacher and pupil, and if teachers are truly conscious of the great task life has given them. Above all there has to be this truly serious mood. It is poison to demand that children should understand everything, as it is often demanded today. I have frequently pointed out that children cannot understand everything. From their first to their seventh year they cannot understand at all; they imitate everything. And if they do not imitate sufficiently they will not have enough in them later which they can use. From their seventh to the fourteenth year they must believe, they must be under the influence of authority, if they are to develop in a healthy way. These things have to be made part of human life.

It is generally considered most important today to understand everything. We are not even supposed to teach the children their tables without their understanding it. But they do not understand anyway! Such an approach makes children into calculating machines rather than sensible people. They are supposed to accept the intellect which is in the elemental environment of which I have spoken,⁸ rather than develop their own understanding. This happens a great deal nowadays. Instead of helping the mind of the individual to develop, efforts are actually in progress to make it the ideal to inculcate the elemental intellect which is outside the human being, so that children are caught up in the elemental world. Many instances can be seen today where we can actually say: These people are not thinking for themselves, they are thinking in the general thinking atmosphere, as it were. And if something of an individual nature should come up, its origins are not in the divine element which can be perceived in human nature.

Human beings must enter into truly living ways again, even in their understanding of the world. As I have said, this is more difficult than working with mere corpses of ideas. Humanity must once again find a living approach, and people must realize that dead truths cannot govern life, only living truths can do so. The following is a dead truth.

We are supposed to train human beings to be intelligent human beings. Therefore—as dead truth says—we must cultivate the intellect as early as possible, for this will produce intelligent people. This is arrant nonsense, however. It is as much nonsense as it would be to train a one-year-old to be a shoemaker. People will, in fact, be intelligent only if they are not given intellectual training too early. It is often necessary to do the opposite of what we want to achieve in life. We cannot eat our food raw, but have to cook it first. And if this cooking process were to include the processes which are involved in eating, we might perhaps save ourselves the effort of eating! You cannot make people intelligent by cultivating the intellect as early as possible, but only by cultivating in them when very young the faculties which will later have them prepared to be intelligent. The abstract truth is: the intellect is cultivated via the intellect. The living truth is: the intellect is cultivated by healthy belief in rightful authority. Both parts of the statement have quite a different content in the living truth compared to the dead, abstract truth. This is something humanity will have to come to realize more and more as time goes on.

It is awkward. Consider how comfortable it is to have a goal and to believe this can be achieved by doing exactly what the goal says. But in life one has to do the opposite. This is certainly awkward. It is the challenge of our time that we must find our way to reality and life; this is what we must eminently make our own. There is need for this in both the great and the small things in life. You will not understand this age, you will be doing things as wrong as they can possibly be done, unless you consider this. People have no idea today of how immensely abstract they are, with everything forced always into the same mould. But the reality is not produced in the same mould, for it is in constant metamorphosis. The modified vertebrae which form part of the human head look very different from the vertebrae which make up the spine. Let me give you an example taken from everyday life. Imagine someone on the teaching staff of a university who teaches something which I, or someone else, must go against. I would of course make every effort to show that the things this person teaches are wrong; wanting to do my duty, I would go to any length to show that he is wrong and everything he says—well, to put it bluntly—is balderdash. This is one side of the matter.

Now let us assume the individual concerned found himself in a situation where the authorities wanted to dismiss him from his post or discipline him in some way. Well, of course, I would stand up for him in every possible way, against his dismissal or disciplining; for this would not be a question of the content of his teaching, but of ensuring academic freedom. For as long as we are dealing with people's theories, we have to fight; when it comes to an external institution, the fight ends and may even be transformed into coming to the individual's defence. It has to be realized that it is abominable if someone lets his opposition to someone induce him to take an active part in disciplining such a person. Let us assume, however, the individual concerned was a lecturer or professor of economics or politics and were appointed to hold a government office. What would our attitude be then? It would have to be such that one got him out of that office as quickly as possible, for there his theories would cause real damage.

In anything we do, we must relate to the immediate, living reality and not let ourselves be ruled by concepts. In the sphere of concepts, on the other hand, it is important to take a good hard look at the concepts we use. I have given this example to demonstrate the difference between dealing with reality and dealing with concepts. People who do not make this distinction will find it quite impossible to live with the tasks of the immediate future; they will at best be Wilsonians. What matters is to consider carefully what lives in reality and what one has to have by way of convictions in the sphere of concepts.

This is particularly important in the education of the young. Teachers in training are weighed down today with all kinds of principles as to how they should teach, how they should educate. In the immediate future this will become much less important. The important thing will be for them to get to know human nature and the different ways in which it comes to expression; they have to become psychologists in a most subtle way and really know the human soul. The relationship of the teacher to the pupil must in future be something analogous to clairvoyance. Teachers may not be fully conscious of this, and it may only live instinctively in their souls, but they must instinctively, at a level close to prophecy, have a picture of what wants to emerge from the individual who is to be educated. Then a strange thing will happen, peculiar as it may sound today. The teachers of the future will dream a great deal of their pupils, for the prophecies will be wearing the garment of dreams. The pictures we see in our dreams arise only because we are not used to connecting our dreams with the future; we dress them in elements remembered from the past, as in a garment. In reality dreams always point to the future. Yes, it is indeed true that the inner life will have to be changed, especially in those who educate the young. This is the most important aspect. Of course, everybody is more or less involved in educating the young, with just a very few exceptions, and it must therefore also hold true in a more general sense that we must have understanding for the karmic connections, as I have mentioned. Tremendously much will depend on this becoming general knowledge.

The present generation is mainly educated to think in abstract terms, and keeps confusing abstract and living ways of thinking. This is why it is so rare for anyone to support someone with glowing enthusiasm, for, having his own concepts, he dislikes those of the other person, and it suits him rather well if others come and put the other person out of action. These, however, are the very things which can teach us. And there can be no better education for people but to find ways in which they can stand up for their opponents with ever-increasing enthusiasm. This should not be forced, of course. People are friends or enemies today on a purely abstract basis. There is no point to this, however. Only the realities of life have a point to them, and they are given by life, not by our sympathies and antipathies. We should still have those sympathies and antipathies, but the pendulum should not merely swing up in one direction but also go down and in the opposite direction. Humanity must learn to live on two levels at once, in dualism—to enter into profound thought and, where reality demands this, to pour ourselves out over reality. Today, people want to take their thought-forms into everything connected with real life; and they are only prepared to put up with reality if it fits in with their own thought-forms. Uniformity is what they are after. But uniformity cannot be justified in the light of the spirit; this is impossible. The world cannot be easy and comfortable the way it is in reality. Not everyone will have the kind of face we like and find sympathetic. But it is wrong to let our actions towards others be determined by our personal sympathies and antipathies. Other impulses must come into play. People find it difficult to manage today because they look at the world, and if they do not find it in accord with their sympathies and antipathies then, in their view, everything is crooked and awry and quite wrong, and they are governed by just one impulse—that the world ought to be different.

This is one thing which has to be said. On the other hand we must not allow this to take us to the opposite, equally lackadaisical extreme, where we say that one should not be too fussy and just take the world as it is. This would be equally wrong. There are situations in life when serious objections must be raised, and this is what should be done. It means that due recognition must be given to reality. What really matters is the pendulum swing between a clear-minded inner life in well-defined concepts and loving care extended to the phenomena of the world.

Anthroposophy can show the way if we have the right attitude to it. But this, too, is something which has to be learned. The truths which are won from the world of the spirit are like communications, even for clairvoyant individuals. If we treat these truths in the same way we treat the facts of the outside world which are accessible to our unrefined senses, we are being unfair to spiritual science. The whole of spiritual science is open to our understanding. But it is wrong to ask the spiritual scientist ‘Yes, but why?’ each time he says anything, for these are communications he has received from the spiritual world. And if I say: ‘Jack Miller has told me this or that,’ it is pointless to say: And why did he tell you this?' He simply told me; the question as to why has little relevance. The things which come from the spiritual world must be considered as communications of this kind. It is important to understand this.

We shall continue with this tomorrow.

• 1. Herman Grimm (1828–1901), German cultural historian.
• 2. Reference to the 400th Anniversary of the Reformation, which started on 31 October 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the church door at Wittenberg.
• 3. See Note 3 of lecture 4.
• 4. See Note 2 of lecture 2.
• 5. To understand Steiner's concept of the consciousness soul (another translation would be ‘awareness soul’), see his Theosophy and Occult Science.
• 6. Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), German critic and poet who was a major influence on Goethe.
• 7. Herman Grimm: see Note 1 above. The story told by Rudolf Steiner is in a biography of Gottfried Herder which was published by his son (Gottfried Herders Lebensbild, 1. Band, S. 39). This also gives a more detailed description of Grimm's educational method.
• 8. See Lecture 4.

[ 1 ] As I explained in my preceding remarks, it is the beings who completed their human stage of development during the previous incarnation of the earth—the old moon period—who guide human spiritual evolution. Their guidance, however, is obstructed and opposed by beings who did not complete their development during the moon period. Nevertheless, while these “imperfect” beings obstruct the guiding activity of those who completed their development, they also, paradoxically, further it. The resistance they offer to our progress strengthens, solidifies, and lends increased weight and significance to the forces that are called forth by the beings who advance our development. In Christian esotericism, these classes of superhuman beings who have attained the developmental level immediately above our own, both those who advance our development and those who help us by introducing obstacles, are called angels or angeloi. Above them are the beings of the higher hierarchies, the arch-angels, archai, and so on, who also take part in guiding humanity.

In each of these hierarchies we find beings of varying degrees of perfection. At the beginning of the present earth's evolution, for instance, we find angeloi of higher and lower standing. Those of [lower] standing barely attained the minimum level of development when the moon stage of evolution ended and the earth stage began, while those of higher standing had passed far beyond it. Between these two types are to be found angeloi of every possible level of development whose participation in the guidance of human evolution on earth is in accordance with the level they have attained. Thus, the beings who had the guiding role in Egyptian cultural development were those who had reached a higher stage of perfection on the Moon than those who guided humanity during the Greco-Latin age, and these, in turn, were more perfect than the beings who guide us now. Those who were to guide humanity later trained themselves for this task during the Egyptian and the Greek periods. By this means, they were prepared to guide a culture that had progressed further.

[ 2 ] In the time period following the Atlantean catastrophe seven successive cultural epochs may be distinguished: first, the ancient Indian; second, the ancient Persian;^S1 third, the Egypto-Chaldean; and fourth, the Greco-Latin. Our own period, which began around the twelfth century, constitutes the fifth cultural epoch and, although we are still in the middle of it, the first preparations for the sixth epoch are already underway. In other words, these individual periods of evolution overlap and transitions are very gradual. A seventh post-Atlantean epoch will follow the sixth.

Looking more closely at the guidance of humanity, we realize that it was only in the third cultural epoch—the Egypto-Chaldean—that the angels or lower dhyanic beings became to some extent independent guides of human evolution. This was not the case in the ancient Persian period. The angels then did not yet possess this independence and were subordinate to a higher guidance to a greater degree than they were during the Egyptian period. In ancient Persian times, angels still worked according to the impulses of the hierarchy above them. Thus, although everything was already subject to the angels' guidance, they themselves submitted to the direction of the archangels (archangeloi).

In the age of ancient India, on the other hand, during which post-Atlantean life reached unequaled spiritual heights—natural heights—under the guidance of great human teachers, the archangels themselves were still subject to a higher guidance, namely, that of the archai or “primal beginnings.”

[ 3 ] Thus we may say that from the Indian period on, through the ancient Persian and Egypto-Chaldean cultures, certain beings of the higher hierarchies increasingly withdrew from the direct guidance of humanity. Consequently, by the time of the fourth, Greco-Latin post-Atlantean cultural period, human beings had become, in certain respects, entirely independent. To be sure, the superhuman beings described above still guided human evolution, but they held the reins as loosely as possible.

As a result, the spiritual beings guiding humanity benefited as much from our actions as we did ourselves. This explains the entirely “human” character of the Greco-Roman period: human beings were left completely to their own resources. [ 4 ] The characteristics of art and political life in the Greek and Roman epochs grew out of this necessity of human beings to live out their individuality in their own way.

When we consider very early periods of cultural history, we find humanity guided by beings who had reached their human level of development in earlier planetary stages. The fourth, Greco-Latin epoch was intended to test human beings to the greatest extent possible. For this reason, the entire spiritual leadership of humanity had to be arranged in a new way.

In our epoch, the fifth post-Atlantean one, the beings guiding us belong to the same hierarchy that ruled the ancient Egyptians and Chaldeans. The beings who were guiding people then are in fact now resuming their activities. As I said above, certain of these beings remained behind in their development, and we can feel their influence now in today's materialistic feelings and perceptions.

[ 5 ] Both the angelic (or lower dhyanic) beings that advance our development, as well as those who try to obstruct it, progressed in their development by guiding the ancient Egyptians and Chaldeans through qualities they had themselves acquired in very ancient times. At the same time, through their work of guidance they advanced their own development. Thus, these advancing angeloi are guiding our fifth post-Atlantean epoch with abilities they acquired during the Egypto-Chaldean period. As a result of this progress, they can now develop very special capabilities. Namely, they have qualified themselves to be filled with forces that flow from the most important being of the whole of earthly evolution. The power of Christ works on them.

This power works not only in the physical world through Jesus of Nazareth but also in the spiritual worlds on superhuman beings. Christ exists not only for the earth but also for these higher beings. The beings who guided ancient Egypto-Chaldean culture were not then guided by Christ; they submitted to Christ's guidance only later. This submission was the step in their development that enabled them to guide the fifth post-Atlantean period under Christ's influence. Now they are followers of Christ in the higher worlds.

On the other hand, the angelic beings I have described as obstructing our development were held back in their development precisely because they did not submit to Christ's leadership and continue to work independently. This is why the materialistic trend in our culture will become more and more pronounced. There will be a materialistic stream guided by the Egypto-Chaldean spirits whose development was held back. Most of what is called modern materialistic science is under this influence.

Besides this influence, a second, different stream is also making itself felt. This is geared to helping us find the Christ-principle, as we call it, in all we do. For example, some people today claim that our world consists, in the final analysis, only of atoms. Who instills into human beings the idea that the world consists only of atoms? They get this idea from the superhuman angelic beings whose development was arrested during the Egypto-Chaldean period. [ 6 ] However, the angelic beings who reached their goal in the ancient Egypto-Chaldean cultural period and encountered Christ at that time can instill other ideas in us. They can teach us that substance is permeated with the spirit of Christ right down to the smallest parts of the world. And, however strange it may seem now, a time will come when chemistry and physics will not be taught as they are today under the influence of the Egypto-Chaldean spirits whose development was held back. Instead, scientists will teach that matter is built up piece by piece the way Christ ordered it. People will find Christ even in the laws of chemistry and physics, and a spiritual chemistry and a spiritual physics will develop.

[ 7 ] Undoubtedly this now seems to many people merely a daydream or worse. But yesterday's folly is often tomorrow's wisdom. Careful observers can already discern the factors working toward this end in our cultural development. At the same time, of course, such observers know only too well the scientific or philosophical objections that can be raised—with apparent justification—against this supposed folly.

[ 8 ] On the basis of the assumptions presented here, we can understand the advantages the guiding superhuman beings have over us. Post-Atlantean humanity encountered Christ when the Christ-event entered human history in the fourth post-Atlantean or Greco-Latin epoch. The superhuman guiding beings encountered Christ during the Egypto-Chaldean period and worked their way up toward him. Then, during the Greco-Latin epoch, they had to leave humanity to its fate, in order later to take part in guiding its development again. Today when we practice theosophy [anthroposophy] this means that we acknowledge that the superhuman beings who guided humanity in the past are now continuing their guiding function by submitting themselves to Christ's leadership. The same is also true for other beings.

[ 9 ] In the ancient Persian epoch archangels took part in guiding humanity. They submitted to the leadership of Christ even earlier than the beings of the lower hierarchies. Zarathustra, for example, turned the attention of his followers and his people to the sun, telling them that the great spirit Ahura Mazda, “he who will come down to earth,” lives in the sun.¹ The archangels who guided Zarathustra taught him about the great sun-guide who had not yet come down to earth but had only started on his way so as to later be able to intervene directly in earthly evolution. Similarly, the guiding beings presiding over the great teachers of India taught them about the Christ of the future. It is an error to think that these teachers knew nothing about Christ. They only said he was “above their sphere,” and that they “could not reach him.”

[ 10 ] As in our fifth cultural epoch it is the angels who bring Christ into our spiritual development, so in the sixth cultural epoch we will be guided by the beings who guided the ancient Persian epoch. The spirits of primal beginning, the archai, who guided humanity in ancient India, will, under Christ, guide humanity in the seventh cultural epoch. In Greco-Latin times, Christ came down from spiritual heights and revealed himself in the flesh in the body of Jesus of Nazareth—he descended right into the physical world. When they are ready, human beings will find Christ again in the next higher world. In the future, Christ will no longer be found in the physical world but only in the worlds directly above it.

After all, human beings will not always remain as they are now. We will become more mature and will find Christ in the spiritual world, as Paul did in the event on the road to Damascus, an event that prophetically foreshadows the future. And as the great teachers who led humanity in the Egypto-Chaldean epoch also guide us, so too it will be they who will lead us in the twentieth century to a vision of Christ similar to the one Paul saw. They will show us that Christ works not only on the earth but spiritualizes the entire solar system. Then, in the seventh cultural epoch, the reincarnated holy teachers of India will proclaim Christ as the great spirit, whose presence they first sensed in the unity of Brahman but which received its meaning and content only through Christ.² They will recognize Christ as the spirit they believed to rule above their sphere. Thus, step by step, humanity is led into the spiritual world.

[ 11 ] To speak of Christ as the leader of successive worlds and of the higher hierarchies is the teaching of the science that has unfolded since the twelfth and thirteenth centuries under the sign of the Rose Cross, a science that has increasingly proven essential for humanity.³ Looking at Christ from this perspective, we gain new insights into the being who lived in Palestine and then fulfilled the Mystery of Golgotha, as the following shows.

[ 12 ] There have been many different views of Christ before today's. For example, certain Christian gnostics of the first centuries claimed that the Christ who lived in Palestine did not have a physical body of flesh at all but had only an apparent “etheric”body that became visible to physical eyes.⁴ Consequently, since for them only an etheric body was present, they said Christ's death on the cross was not a real death but only an apparent one. There were also various disputes among the adherents of Christianity—for example, the famous dispute between the Arians and the Athanasians,⁵ and so on—as well as many different interpretations of the true nature of Christ. Many different views of Christ, indeed, have been held by people right into our own time.

[ 13 ] Spiritual science, however, must see Christ not just as an earthly being but as a cosmic being. In a certain sense, we human beings are also cosmic beings. We live a dual life: a physical life in the physical body from birth until death and a life in the spiritual worlds between death and rebirth. While we are incarnated in the physical body, we are dependent on the earth because the physical body is subject to the living conditions and forces of the earth. We ingest the substances and forces of the earth, and we are also part of the earth's physical organism. But once we have passed through the portal of death, we no longer belong to the forces of the earth.

Yet, it would be wrong to imagine that having passed through the portal of death we do not belong to any forces at all, for after death we are connected with the forces of the solar system and the other galaxies. Between death and rebirth we live in and belong to the cosmos in the same way as between birth and death we live in the earthly realm and belong to the elements of air, water, earth and so on. After death, we enter the realm of cosmic influences; for example, the planets affect us not only with gravity and other physical forces explained by physical astronomy but also with their spiritual forces. Indeed, we are connected with these cosmic spiritual forces after death, each of us in a particular way appropriate to our individuality. Just as a person born in Europe has a different relationship to temperature conditions and so on than a person born in Australia, so each of us similarly has a unique, individual relationship to the forces working on us during life after death. One person may have a closer relationship to the forces of Mars while another is more closely connected to those of Jupiter and yet others may have a closer relationship to the forces of the entire galaxy, and so on. These forces also lead us back to the earth to our new life. Thus, before our rebirth we are connected with the entire starry universe.

[ 14 ] The unique relationship of an individual to the cosmic system determines which forces lead him or her back to earth; they also determine to which parents and to which locality we are brought. The impulse to incarnate in one place or another, in this or that family, in this or that nation, at this or that point in time, is determined by the way the individual is integrated into the cosmos before birth.

[ 15 ] In the past the German language had an expression that poignantly characterized the birth of an individual. When someone was born, people said that he or she had “become young” (“ist jung geworden”). Unconsciously, this expression indicates that following death we are first subject to the forces that made us old in our previous incarnation, but just before our new birth, these are replaced by other forces that make us “young” again. In his drama Faust, Goethe says of someone that he “became young in Nebelland (the land of mist)”; Nebelland is the old name for medieval Germany.⁶

[ 1 ] People who are knowledgeable about these things can “read” the forces that determine a person's path in his or her physical life; on this basis horoscopes are cast. Each of us is assigned a particular horoscope, in which the forces are revealed that have led us into this life. For example, if in a particular horoscope Mars is above Aries, this means that certain Aries forces cannot pass through Mars but are weakened instead.

[ 16 ] Thus, human beings on their way into physical existence can get their bearings through their horoscope. Before ending this discussion—which, after all, seems a daring one in our time—we should note that most of what is presented today in this area is the purest dilettantism and pure superstition. As far as the world at large is concerned, the true science of these things has largely been lost. Therefore, the principles presented here should not be judged according to the claims of modern astrology, which is highly questionable.

[ 17 ] The active forces of the starry world push us into physical incarnation. Clairvoyant perception allows us to see in a person's organization that he or she is indeed the result of the working together of such cosmic forces. I want to illustrate this in a hypothetical form that nevertheless corresponds fully to clairvoyant perceptions.

[ 18 ] If we examined the structure of a person's brain clairvoyantly and could see that certain functions are located in certain places and give rise to certain processes, we would find that each person's brain is different. No two people have the same brain. If we could take a picture of the entire brain with all of its details visible, we would get a different picture for each person. If we photographed a person's brain at the moment of birth and took a picture of the sky directly above his or her birthplace, the two pictures would be alike. The stars in the photograph of the sky would be arranged in the same way as certain parts of the brain in the other picture. Thus, our brain is really a picture of the heavens, and we each have a different picture depending on where and when we were born. This indicates that we are born out of the entire universe.

[ 19 ] This insight gives us an idea of the way the macrocosm manifests in the individual and from this, in turn, we can understand how it manifests in Christ. If we were to think that after the Baptism, the macrocosm lived in Christ in the same way as it does in any other human being, we would have the wrong idea.

[ 20 ] Let us consider for a moment Jesus of Nazareth and his extraordinary life. At the beginning of the Christian era, two boys named Jesus were born. One belonged to the Nathan line of the house of David, the other to the Solomon line of the same house. These two boys were born at approximately—though not exactly—the same time.⁷

[ 1 ] In the Solomon child portrayed in the Gospel of St. Matthew, the individuality who had lived earlier as Zarathustra incarnated. Thus, in the Jesus depicted in the Gospel of St. Matthew, we actually encounter the reincarnated Zarathustra or Zoroaster.⁸ The individuality of Zarathustra grew up in this child just as Matthew describes it, until the boy's twelfth year. Then Zarathustra left his body and entered the body of the other Jesus, the one described by the Gospel of St. Luke. That is why at this moment the child Jesus so suddenly became entirely different from what he had previously been. When his parents found him in the temple in Jerusalem after the spirit of Zarathustra had entered him, they were astonished. This is shown by the fact that they could not understand what he said when they found him for they knew only the Nathan Jesus as he had been before. The Jesus who now stood before them could talk as he did to the scribes in the temple because the spirit of Zarathustra had now entered into him.

The spirit of Zarathustra lived and matured to a still higher perfection in this Jesus, who came from the Nathan line of the house of David, up to his thirtieth year. It should also be noted that impulses from the Buddha streamed out of the spiritual world into the astral body of this youth, in whom the spirit of Zarathustra now lived.

[ 21 ] It is true, as the Eastern tradition teaches, that the Buddha was born as a “bodhisattva” and only reached the rank of buddha on earth in his twenty-ninth year.⁹ [ 22 ] When Gautama Buddha was still a small child, Asita, the great Indian sage, came weeping to the royal palace. As a seer, Asita knew this royal child would become the “Buddha.” He only regretted that, since he was already an old man, he would not live to see the son of Suddhodana become Buddha. This wise man Asita was reborn in the time of Jesus of Nazareth; it is he who is introduced in St. Luke's Gospel as the temple priest and sees the Buddha reveal himself in the Nathan Jesus. And because he saw this he said: “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace ... for mine eyes have seen thy salvation” (Luke 2:29-30). Through the astral body of this Jesus boy—the one presented in the Gospel of St. Luke—Asita could see what he had not been able to see in India: the bodhisattva who has become Buddha.¹⁰

[ 23 ] All of this was necessary for the development of the body that was to receive the Baptism by John in the river Jordan. At the moment of the Baptism, the individuality of Zarathustra left behind the threefold body—physical, etheric, and astral—of the Jesus who had grown up in the complicated way that enabled Zarathustra's spirit to dwell in him—for the reborn Zarathustra had had to undergo the two developmental possibilities represented in the two Jesus boys. Thus John the Baptist was brought before the body of Jesus of Nazareth in whom the cosmic individuality of Christ was now working. Other human beings are placed into their earthly existence through cosmic-spiritual laws, but these are then counteracted by those originating in the conditions of the earth's evolution. In the case of Christ Jesus, however, the cosmic spiritual powers alone remained active in him after the Baptism. The laws of the earth's evolution did not influence him at all.

[ 24 ] During the time that Jesus of Nazareth pursued his ministry and journeys as Jesus Christ in Palestine in the last three years of his life—from the age of thirty to thirty-three—the entire cosmic Christ-being continued to work in him. In other words, Christ always stood under the influence of the entire cosmos; he did not take a single step without cosmic forces working in him. The events of these three years in Jesus' life were a continuous realization of his horoscope, for in every moment during those years there occurred what usually happens only at birth. This was possible because the entire body of the Nathan Jesus had remained susceptible to the influence of the totality of the forces of the cosmic-spiritual hierarchies that guide our earth.

Now that we know that the whole spirit of the cosmos penetrated Christ Jesus we may ask, Who was the being who went to Capernaum and all the other places Jesus went? The being who walked the earth in those years certainly looked like any other human being. But the forces working in him were the cosmic forces coming from the sun and the stars; they directed his body. The total essence of the cosmos, to which the earth belongs, determined what Christ Jesus did. This is why the constellations are so often alluded to in the gospel descriptions of Jesus' activities. For example, in the Gospel of St. John the time when Christ finds his first disciple is described as “about the tenth hour” (John 1:39). In this fact the spirit of the entire cosmos expressed itself in a way appropriate to the appointed moment. Such indications are less obvious in other places in the gospels, but people who can read the gospels properly will find them everywhere.

[ 25 ] The miracles of healing the sick must also be understood from this point of view. Let us look at just one passage, the one that reads, “Now when the sun was setting, all those who had any that were sick with various diseases brought them to him; and he laid his hands on them and healed them” (Luke 5:40). What does this mean? Here the gospel writer points out that this healing was connected with the constellation of the stars, that in those days the necessary constellation was present only after the sun had set. In other words, in those times the healing forces could manifest themselves only after sunset. Christ Jesus is portrayed as the mediator who brings together the sick and the forces of the cosmos that could heal them at precisely that time. These were the same forces that also worked as Christ in Jesus. The healing occurred through Christ's presence, which exposed the sick to the healing cosmic forces. These healing forces could be effective only under the appropriate conditions of space and time, as described above. In other words, the forces of the cosmos worked on the sick through their representative, the Christ.

[ 26 ] However, these forces could work in this way only while Christ was on earth. Only then were the cosmic constellations so connected to the forces in the human organism that certain diseases could be cured when these constellations worked on individuals through Christ Jesus. A repetition of these conditions in cosmic and earthly evolution is just as impossible as a second incarnation of the Christ in a human body. Thus, the life of Christ Jesus was the earthly expression of a particular relationship between the cosmos and human forces. When sick people remained for a while by Christ's side, their nearness to Christ brought them into a relationship to the macrocosm and this had a healing effect on them.

[ 27 ] What I have said so far allows us to understand how the guidance of humanity has been placed under the influence of Christ. Nevertheless, the other forces whose development was held back in the Egypto-Chaldean epoch also continue to work alongside those that are Christ-filled, as we can see in many contemporary interpretations of the gospels. Books are published that take great pains to show that the gospels can be understood astrologically. The greatest opponents of the gospels cite this astrological interpretation, claiming, for example, that the path of the archangel Gabriel from Elizabeth to Mary represents the movement of the sun from the constellation of Virgo to another one.

To a certain extent, this astrological interpretation is correct; however, in our time, ideas of this sort are instilled into people by the beings whose development was arrested during the Egypto-Chaldean epoch. Under their influence there are some who would have us believe that the gospels are merely allegories representing certain cosmic relationships. The truth is, however, that the whole cosmos is expressed in Christ. In other words, we can characterize Christ's life by describing for each of its events the cosmic relationships that, through Christ, entered life on earth.

As soon as we understand all this correctly, we will inevitably and fully accept that Christ lived on earth. The false view mentioned above, however, claims that, because Christ's life is expressed in the gospels through cosmic constellations, it follows necessarily that the gospels are only an allegory of these constellations and that Christ did not really live on earth.

[ 28 ] Allow me to use a comparison to make things clear. Imagine every person at birth as a spherical mirror reflecting everything around it. Were we to trace the outlines of the images in the mirror with a pencil, we could then take the mirror and carry the picture it represents with us wherever we went. Just so, we carry a picture of the cosmos within us when we are born, and this one picture affects and influences us throughout our lives. Of course, we could also leave the mirror clean as it was originally, in which case it would reflect its surroundings wherever we took it, providing us with a complete picture of the world around us. This analogy explains how Christ was in the time between the Baptism in the Jordan and the Mystery of Golgotha. What enters our earthly life only at our birth flowed into Christ Jesus at each moment of his life. After the Mystery of Golgotha, what had streamed into Christ from the cosmos merged with the spiritual substance of the earth, and it has been united with the spirit of the earth ever since.

[ 29 ] When Paul became clairvoyant on his way to Damascus, he was able to perceive that what had previously been in the cosmos had merged with the spirit of the earth. People who can relive this event in their soul can see this for themselves. In the twentieth century, human beings are able for the first time to experience the Christ-event spiritually, as St. Paul did. [ 30 ] Up to this century only those individuals who had gained clairvoyant powers through esoteric schooling were able to have such experiences. Today and in the future, however, as a result of natural human development, advancing soul forces will be able to see Christ in the spiritual sphere of the earth. Beginning with a certain point in the twentieth century, a few people will be able to have such experiences and will be able to relive the incident at Damascus, but thereafter gradually more and more people will be able to do so, and in the distant future it will have become a natural capacity of the human soul to see Christ in this way.

[ 31 ] When Christ entered earthly history, a completely new element was introduced into it. Even the outer events of history bear witness to this. In the first cultural periods after the Atlantean catastrophe, people knew very well that the physical planets, such as Mars, Jupiter, or Saturn, were the expressions or manifestations of spiritual beings. In later ages this view was completely forgotten. People came to see the heavenly bodies as merely material things—to be judged according to their physical conditions. By the Middle Ages, people saw in the stars only what their physical eyes could perceive: the sphere of Venus, the sphere of the sun, of Mars, and so on up to the sphere of the firmament of fixed stars. Beyond that, they believed, there was the eighth sphere which enclosed the others like a solid blue wall around them.

Then Copernicus came and shook to its foundations the established outlook of relying completely and exclusively on what the human senses could perceive.¹¹ According to modern natural science, only people with muddled minds can claim that the world is maya or illusion and that we must look into a spiritual world to see the truth. Scientists believe that true science is based on what our senses tell us, and they record those perceptions. However, the only time when astronomers relied exclusively on their senses was in the days when the astronomy prevailed that modern astronomers oppose!

[ 32 ] Modern astronomy began to develop as a science when Copernicus started to think about what exists in the universe beyond the range of human sensory perception. In fact, it is true of all the sciences that they developed in opposition to sensory appearance. When Copernicus explained that what we see is maya, illusion, and that we should rely on what we cannot see—that was the moment when science as we know it today began.

In other words, the modern sciences did not become “science” until they stopped relying exclusively on sensory perception. Giordano Bruno, as the philosophical interpreter of Copernicus's teachings, proclaimed that the eighth sphere, which had been considered the boundary of space enclosing everything, was not a boundary at all.¹² It was maya, an illusion, and only appeared to be the boundary. In reality, a vast number of worlds had been poured into the universe. Thus what had previously been regarded as the boundary of the universe now became the boundary of the world of human sensory perception. We have to look beyond the sense world. Once we no longer see the world merely as it appears to our senses, then we can perceive infinity.

[ 33 ] Originally, then, humanity had a spiritual view of the cosmos, but in the course of history this was gradually lost. The spiritual world view was replaced by an understanding of the world based exclusively on sensory perception. Then the Christ impulse entered human history. Through this principle humanity was led once again to imbue the materialistic outlook with spirituality. At the moment when Giordano Bruno burst the confines of sensory appearance, the Christ-development had so far advanced in him that the soul force, which had been kindled by the Christ-impulse, could be active within him. This indicates the significance of Christ's involvement in human history and development, which is really still in its early stages.

[ 34 ] What, then, are the goals of spiritual science?

[ 35 ] Spiritual science completes what Bruno and others did for the outer physical sciences by demonstrating that the conventional, sense-based sciences can perceive and understand only maya or illusion. At one time, people looked up to the “eighth sphere” and believed it to be the boundary of the universe. Similarly, modern thinking considers human life bounded by birth and death. Spiritual science extends our view beyond these boundaries.

[ 36 ] Ideas like this one allow us to see human evolution as an uninterrupted chain. And, indeed, what Copernicus and Bruno accomplished for space by overcoming sensory appearance had already been known earlier from the inspirations of the spiritual stream that is continued today by spiritual science or theosophy [anthroposophy]. Modern esotericism, as we may call it, worked in a secret and mysterious way on Copernicus, Bruno, Kepler, and others.¹³ Thus, people whose outlook is based on the findings of Bruno and Copernicus betray their own traditions when they refuse to accept theosophy [anthroposophy] and insist on looking only at sensory appearance.

Just as Giordano Bruno broke through the blue vault of heaven, so spiritual science breaks through the boundaries of birth and death and proves that the human being comes forth from the macrocosm to live in this physical life and returns again to a macrocosmic existence after death. What is revealed in the individual on a limited scale can be seen on a much larger scale in the representative of the cosmic spirit, in Christ Jesus. The impulse Christ gave to evolution could be given only once. Only once could the entire cosmos be reflected as it was in Christ; the constellation that existed then will not appear again. This constellation had to work through a human body in order to be able to impart its impulse to the earth. Just as this particular constellation will not occur a second time, so Christ will not incarnate again. People claim that Christ will appear again on earth only because they do not know that Christ is the representative of the entire universe and because they cannot find the way to the Christ-idea presented in all its elements by spiritual science.

[ 37 ] Thus, modern spiritual science or theosophy [anthroposophy] has developed a Christ-idea that shows us our kinship with the entire macrocosm in a new way. To really know Christ we need the inspiring forces that are now imparted through the ancient Egyptian and Chaldean superhuman beings who were themselves guided by Christ. We need this new inspiration, which has been prepared by the great esotericists of the Middle Ages since the thirteenth century. This new inspiration must now be brought more and more to the attention of the general public. If we prepare the soul properly for the perception of the spiritual world according to the teachings of spiritual science, we will be able to hear clairaudiently and to see clairvoyantly what is revealed by these ancient Chaldean and Egyptian powers, who have now become spiritual guides under the leadership of the Christ-being. The first Christian centuries up to our own time were only the preparation for what humanity will receive and understand one day.

In the future, people's hearts will be filled with a Christ-idea whose magnitude will surpass anything humanity has known and understood so far. The first impulse that Christ brought and the understanding of him that has lived on until now is even in the best exponents of the Christ-principle only a preparation for a true understanding of Christ. Strangely enough, those who present the Christ-idea in this way in the West will in all probability be accused of not basing themselves on western Christian tradition. After all, this western Christian tradition is utterly inadequate for understanding Christ in the near future.

Western esotericism allows us to see the spiritual guidance of humanity gradually merge with the guidance proceeding from the Christ-impulse. Modern esotericism will gradually flow into people's hearts, and the spiritual guidance of the individual and humanity will more and more be seen consciously in this light.

[ 38 ] Let us recall that the Christ-principle first entered human hearts when Christ ministered in Palestine in the physical body of Jesus of Nazareth. In those days, people who had gradually resigned themselves to trusting only in the sensory world could receive the impulse appropriate to their understanding. The same impulse then worked through modern esotericism to inspire such great minds as Nicholas of Cusa, Copernicus, and Galileo.¹⁴ That is why Copernicus could assert that sensory appearance cannot teach us the truth about the solar system and that we must look beyond it to find the truth.

At that time, people were not yet mature enough—even a brilliant man like Giordano Bruno was not yet ready—to integrate themselves consciously into the stream of modern esotericism. The spirit of this stream had to work in them without their being conscious of it. Giordano Bruno proclaimed proudly that the human being is actually a macrocosmic being condensed into a monad to enter physical existence; and that this monad expands again when the individual dies. What had been condensed in the body expands into the universe in order to concentrate again at other levels of existence and to expand again, and so on. Bruno expressed great concepts that fully agree with modern esotericism, even though they may sound like stammering to our modern ears.

[ 39 ] We are not necessarily always conscious of the spiritual influences that guide us. For example, such influences led Galileo into the cathedral of Pisa. Thousands of people had seen the old church lamp there, but they did not look at it the way he did. Galileo saw the lamp swing and compared its oscillations with his pulse beats. In this way he discovered that the church lamp swung in a regular rhythm similar to that of his pulse—the “law of the pendulum,” as it is known in modern physics. Anyone familiar with modern physics knows that physics as we know it would not exist if it had not been for Galileo's laws. What was at work in leading Galileo to the swinging lamp in the cathedral—thus giving modern physics its first principles—now works in spiritual science. The powers that guide us spiritually work secretly in this way.

[ 40 ] We are now approaching a time when we have to become conscious of these guiding powers. We will be able to understand better what must happen in the future if we correctly grasp the inspiration coming to us from modern esotericism. From this inspiration we also know that the spiritual beings whom the ancient Egyptians considered to be their teachers—the same beings who ruled as gods—are ruling again, but that they now want to submit to Christ's leadership. People will feel more and more that they can allow pre-Christian elements to be resurrected in glory and style on a higher level. In the present era we need a strengthened consciousness, a high sense of duty and responsibility concerning the understanding of the spiritual world. For this to enter our soul we must understand the mission of spiritual science in the way I have outlined.

• S1. Ancient Persian here does not refer to what is called “Persian” in ordinary history but rather to an ancient Asian prehistoric (Iranian) culture that developed in the region where the Persian Empire flourished later.
• 1. Zarathustra, 660?–583? B.C., Persian religious leader, also known as Zoroaster.
• 2. Brahman, Hindu Godhead or Absolute; the creator god of the Hindu sacred triad (with Vishnu the preserver and Shiva the destroyer).
• 3. The Rose Cross is the emblem of the Rosicrucians. Tradition associates the rose with Persia, the cross is the symbol of Christianity. Historically, the Rosicrucian Order is thought to have been founded as a secret society c.1430 by Christian Rosenkreutz. Commonly associated with healing, occultism, alchemy; Steiner counters the “... materialistic caricature of Rosicrucianism ... presented today. The task of the Rosicrucians was to formulate a science by means of which they would be able to let their (universal) wisdom flow gradually into the world.” Rosicrucian Esotericism, (Spring Valley, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1978), 6. See also George Adams, The Mysteries of the Rose-Cross, (Sussex, England: New Knowledge Books, 1955).
• 4. Gnosticism arose in the Hellenistic era. Gnostics believed that salvation is attained through knowledge rather than through faith or deeds.
• 5. Arius, c.250–336, Greek ecclesiastic at Alexandria. Taught Neoplatonic doctrine that God is alone, unknowable, and separate from every created being, that Christ is a created being and not God in the fullest sense but a secondary deity, and that in the incarnation the Logos assumed a body but not a human soul. Growing dispute over his teaching led Emperor Constantine to call the Council of Nicaea (325) where Arianism was declared heresy. Saint Athanasius, c.293–373, Greek theologian and prelate in Egypt. Lifelong opponent of Arianism. Attended Council of Nicaea (325) as deacon. Bishop of Alexandria. Advocated homoousian doctrine. Often exiled because of his opposition to Arianism. Wrote doctrinal works. Not author of Athanasian creed, which originated later (5th or 6th century).
• 6. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749–1832, leading German poet and playwright. Faust (1808–32), a drama in verse, is Goethe's masterpiece. The lines referred to are in Part Two, Scene 2.
• 7. Nathan and Solomon were both sons of King David, the second king of Israel. The Gospel of St. Luke cites Nathan as a forefather of Mary (Luke 3:31); St. Matthew traces Joseph's lineage to Solomon (Matthew 1:16). For a detailed account of the two Jesus children, see Rudolf Steiner, From Jesus to Christ, (London Rudolf Steiner Press, 1973), lecture 8.
• 8. The Zoroaster mentioned here by Steiner lived in very ancient times, according to the Greeks—already 5000 years before the Trojan war. He is not identical with the Zoroaster or Zarathustra mentioned in ordinary history.
• 9. Buddha, Indian religious leader, founder of Buddhism. Historical name Siddhartha Gautama, c.563–483 B.C. Some Eastern religions believe him one of the last incarnations of the Godhead. Son of a royal family, he renounced luxury and became an ascetic. Bodhisattva, a being that compassionately refrains from entering Nirvana for the salvation of others.
• 10. Steiner describes the human being as comprised of four “bodies”: physical, etheric, astral, and ego. The astral body bears the inner world of desires, pleasure and pain, and the qualitative world of emotions. See Occult Science, 21–28.
• 11. Nicolaus Copernicus, 1473–1543, Polish astronomer. Made astronomical observations of orbits of sun, moon, planets. Gradually abandoned accepted Ptolemaic system of astronomy and worked out heliocentric system in which the earth rotates daily on its axis and, with other planets, revolves around the sun.
• 12. Giordano Bruno, 1548–1600, Italian philosopher. Arrested by the Inquisition and burned at the stake. A critic of Aristotelian logic and champion of Copernican cosmology, which he extended with the notion of the infinite universe.
• 13. See Lecture Two, note 2
• 14. Nicholas Cusanus, 1401–1464, German prelate and philosopher. Bishop and later created cardinal. Wrote treatises for church councils as well as works on mathematics and philosophy. Anticipated Copernicus by his belief in the earth's rotation and revolution around the sun.
  
  Galileo Galilei, 1564–1642, Italian mathematician, astronomer, and physicist. First to use telescope to study the skies. Tried by the Inquisition for supporting the Copernican system.