The Rudolf Steiner Archive

When the candles are lit on the Christmas Tree, the human soul feels as though the symbol of an eternal reality were standing there, and that this must always have been the symbol of the Christmas Festival, even in a far distant past. For in the autumn, when outer Nature fades, when the sun's creations fall as it were into slumber and man's organs of outer perception must turn away from the phenomena of the physical world, the soul has the opportunity—nay not only the opportunity but the urge—to withdraw into its innermost depths, in order to feel and to experience: Now, when the light of the outer sun is faintest and its warmth feeblest, now is the time when the soul withdraws into the darkness but can find within itself the inner, spiritual Light. The lights on the Christmas Tree stand there before us as a symbol of the inner, spiritual Light that is kindled in the outer darkness. And because what we feel to be the spirit-light of the soul shining into the darkness of Nature seems to be an eternal reality, we imagine that the lighted fir-tree shining out to us on Christmas Night must have been shining ever since our earthly incarnations began.

And yet it is not so. It is only one or at most two centuries ago that the Christmas Tree became a symbol of the thoughts and feelings which arise in man at the Christmas season. The Christmas Tree is a recent symbol but each year anew it reveals to man a great, eternal truth. That is why we imagine that it must always have existed, even in the remote past. It is as if from the Christmas Tree itself there resounded the proclamation of the Divine in the cosmic expanse, in the heavenly heights. The human being can feel this to be the unfailing source of those forces of peace in his soul which spring from good-will. And thus, according to the Christmas Legend, did the proclamation also resound when the shepherds visited the birthplace of the Child whose festival we celebrate on Christmas Day. To the shepherds there rang forth from the clouds: From the cosmic expanse, from the heavenly heights, the Divine Powers are revealing themselves, bringing peace to the human soul that is filled with good-will.

For centuries and centuries men could not bring themselves to believe that the symbol presented to the world in the Christmas Festival ever had a beginning. They felt in it the hallmark of eternity. Christian ritual has for this reason clothed the intimation of eternity in what takes place symbolically on Christmas Night, in the words: ‘To us Christ is born anew!’ It is as though every year the soul is called upon to feel anew a reality of which it is thought that it could happen once and once only. The eternity of this symbolic happening is brought home to us with infinite power if we have the true conception of the symbol itself. Yet as late as 353 A.D., 353 years after Christ Jesus had appeared on earth, the birth of Jesus was not celebrated, even in Rome. The Festival of Jesus' birth was celebrated for the first time in Rome in the year A.D. 354. Before then this Festival was not celebrated between the 24th and 25th December; the day of supreme commemoration for those who understood something of the deep wisdom relating to the Mystery of Golgotha, was the 6th of January. The Epiphany was celebrated as a kind of Birth-Festival of the Christ during the first three centuries of our era. It was the Festival which was meant to revive in human souls the remembrance of the descent of the Christ Spirit into the body of Jesus of Nazareth at the Baptism by John in the Jordan. Until the year A.D. 353 the happening which men conceived to have taken place at the Baptism was commemorated on the 6th of January as the Festival of Christ's birth. For during the first centuries of Christendom an inkling still survived of the mystery that is of all mysteries the most difficult for mankind to grasp, namely, the descent of the Christ Being into the body of Jesus of Nazareth.

What were the feelings of men who had some inkling of the secrets of Christianity during those early centuries? They said to themselves: The Christ Spirit weaves through the world that is revealed through the senses and through the human spirit. In the far distant past this Christ Spirit revealed Himself to Moses. The secret of the human ‘ I ’ resounded to Moses as it resounds to us from the symbol on the Christmas Tree from the sounds I A O—the Alpha and the Omega, preceded by the I. This was what resounded in the soul of Moses when the Christ Spirit appeared to him in the burning bush. And this same Christ Spirit led Moses to the place where He was to recognise Him in His true being. This is described in the Old Testament where it is said that the Lord led Moses to Mount Nebo ‘over against Jericho’ and showed him what must still come to pass before the Christ Spirit could incarnate in the body of a man. To Moses on Mount Nebo, this Spirit said: But thou to whom I revealed myself in advance, mayest not bear what thou hast in thy soul into the evolution of thy people; for they have first to prepare what is to come to pass when the time is fulfilled.

And when, through many centuries, the evolutionary preparation had been completed, the same Spirit by Whom Moses had been held back, did indeed reveal Himself—by becoming Flesh, by taking on a human body, the body of Jesus of Nazareth. Therewith mankind as a whole was led from the stage of Initiation signified by the word ‘Jericho’ to that indicated by the crossing of the Jordan.

The hearts and minds of those who in the early centuries of our era understood the true import of Christianity turned to the Baptism in the Jordan of Jesus of Nazareth into whom Christ descended, Christ the Sun-Earth-Spirit. It was this—the birth of Christ—that was celebrated as a Mystery in the early Christian centuries. The insight for which we prepare ourselves to-day through Anthroposophy, through the wisdom belonging to the fifth Post-Atlantean epoch of civilisation, flashed up in the form of vision from the vestiges of ancient clairvoyance still surviving during the age when the Mystery of Golgotha took place; it flashed up in the Gnostics, those remarkable, enlightened men who lived at the turning-point of the old and the new eras, whose conception of the Christ Mystery differed in respect of form but not in respect of content, from our own. What the Gnostics were able to teach trickled through into the world and although what had actually come to pass in the event indicated symbolically by the Baptism in the Jordan was not widely understood, there was nevertheless an inkling that the Sun Spirit had been born at that time as the Spirit of the Earth, that a cosmic Power had dwelt in the body of a man of earth. And so in the early centuries of Christendom the festival of the birth of Christ in the body of Jesus of Nazareth, the festival of Christ's Epiphany, was celebrated on the 6th of January.

But insight, even dim, uncertain insight into this deep Mystery faded away more and more as time went by. The age came when men could no longer comprehend that the Being called Christ had been present in a physical human body for three years only. More and more it will be realised that what was accomplished for the whole of earth-evolution during those three years in the physical body of a man is one of the very deepest and most difficult Mysteries to understand. From the fourth century onwards, with the approach of the materialistic age, the powers of the human soul—then still at the stage of preparation—were not strong enough to grasp the deep Mystery which from our time on will be understood in ever greater measure. And so it came about that to the same extent to which the outer power of Christianity increased, inner understanding of the Christ Mystery decreased and the festival of the 6th of January ceased to have any essential meaning. The birth of Christ was placed thirteen days earlier and envisaged as coincident with the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. But in this very fact we are confronted by something that must always be a source of inspiration and thanksgiving. Actually, the 24th/25th of December was fixed as the day of Christ's Nativity because a great truth had been lost, as we have heard. And yet ... although the error would seem to point to the loss of a great truth, such profound meaning lay behind it that—although the men responsible knew nothing of it—we cannot but marvel at the subconscious wisdom with which the festival of Christmas Day was instituted.

Verily, the working of Divine wisdom can be seen in the fixing of this festival. Just as Divine wisdom can be perceived in outer nature if we know how to decipher what reveals itself there, so we can perceive Divine wisdom working in the unconscious soul of man when the following is borne in mind. In the Calendar, the 24th of December is the day dedicated to Adam and Eve, the following day being the Festival of Christ's Nativity. Thus the loss of an ancient truth caused the date of Christ's birth to be placed thirteen days earlier and to be identified with the birth of Jesus of Nazareth—but in a most wonderful way the birth of Jesus of Nazareth was linked with the thought of man's origin in earth-evolution, his origin in Adam and Eve. All the dim feelings and experiences connected with this festival of Jesus' birth which were alive in the human soul—although in their upper consciousness, men had no knowledge of what lay behind—all these feelings that were astir in the depths of the soul speak a wondrous language.

When understanding was lost of what had streamed from cosmic worlds in the event which would rightly have been celebrated on the 6th of January, forces working in hidden depths of the soul caused the picture to be presented of man as a being of soul-and-spirit before physical embodiment, at the starting-point of evolution as a physical human being. The picture is of the new-born child whose soul is as yet untouched by the effects of contact with the physical body, of the child at the beginning of physical evolution on earth. But this is not a human child in the ordinary sense; it is the child who was there before human beings had reached the point of the first physical embodiment in earth-evolution. This is the being known in the Kabbala as Adam Kadmon—Man who descended from divine-spiritual heights, with all that he had acquired during the periods of Saturn, Sun and Moon. The human being in his spiritual state at the very beginning of earth-evolution, born in the Jesus Child—this was presented to mankind by a Divine wisdom in the festival of Jesus' birth. At a time when it was no longer possible to understand what had descended from cosmic worlds, from heavenly spheres, to the earth, remembrance of their origin, of their state before the advent of the Luciferic forces in earth-evolution was engraved into the souls of men. And when it was no longer realised that in the highest and truest sense it could be said of the Baptism by John in the Jordan: From cosmic worlds there has come into human souls the power of the self-revealed Godhead, in order that peace may reign among men who are of goodwill—when understanding of how this picture could be presented as a sacred festival was lost, another affirmation was presented in its place, the affirmation that at the beginning of earth revolution, before the Luciferic forces began their work, man had a nature, an entelechy that can inspire him with undying hope.

The Jesus of the Gospel of St. Luke—not the Jesus described in the Gospel of St. Matthew—is the Child before whom the shepherds worship. To them the proclamation rang forth: Now is the Divine revealed from the heavenly heights, bringing peace to the souls of men who are of good-will. And so for the centuries when the higher reality was beyond man's grasp, the festival was instituted which every year brings to his remembrance: Although you cannot gaze into the heavenly heights and there recognise the great Sun-Spirit, you bear within you, from the time of your earthly beginning, the Child-Soul in its state of purity, unsullied by the effects of physical incarnation; and the forces of this Child-Soul can give you the firm confidence that you can be victorious over the lower nature which clings to you as the result of Lucifer's temptation. The linking of the festival of Jesus' birth with remembrance of Adam and Eve gave emphasis to the thought that at the place visited by the shepherds a human soul had been born in the state of innocence in which the soul existed before the first incarnation on earth.

At this time of festival, therefore, since the birth of the God was no longer understood, the birth of a human being was commemorated. For however greatly man's forces threaten to decline and his sufferings to take the upper hand, there are two unfailing sources of peace, harmony and strength. We are led to the first source when we look out into cosmic space, knowing it to be pervaded by the weaving lift, movement and warmth of the Divine Spirit. And if we hold fast to the conviction that this Divine-Spiritual Power weaving through the universe can permeate our being provided only that our forces do not flag—there we have the Easter thought, equally a source of hope and confidence flowing from the cosmic spheres. And the second source can spring from the dim inkling that as a being of soul-and-spirit, before he became the prey of the Luciferic forces at the beginning of his earthly evolution, man was still part of the same Spirit now awaited from cosmic worlds as in the Easter thought. Turning to the source to be found in man's own, original being, before the onset of the Luciferic influence, we can say to ourselves: Whatever may befall you, whatever may torment you and draw you down from the shining spheres of the spirit, your divine origin is an eternal reality, hidden though it be in the depths of the soul. Recognition of this innermost power of the soul will give birth to the firm assurance that the heights are within your reach. And if you conjure before your soul all that is innocent, childlike, free from life's temptations, free from all that has already befallen human souls through the many incarnations since the beginning of earthly evolution, then you will have a picture of the human soul as it was before these earthly incarnations began.

But one soul—one soul only—remained in this condition, namely the soul of the Jesus Child described in the Gospel of St. Luke. This soul was kept back in the spiritual life when the other human souls began to pass through their incarnations on the earth. This soul remained in the guardianship of the holiest Mysteries through the Atlantean and Post-Atlantean epochs until the time of the events in Palestine. Then it was sent forth into the body predestined to receive it and became one of the two Jesus children—the Child described in the Gospel of St. Luke.

Thus did the festival of Christ's Nativity become the festival of the Birth of Jesus.

If we rightly understand this festival we must say: That which we believe to be born anew symbolically every Christmas Night, is the human soul in its original nature, the childhood-spirit of man as it was at the beginning of earth-evolution; then it descended as a revelation from the heavenly heights. And when the human heart can become conscious of this reality, the soul is filled with the unshakable peace that can bear us to our lofty goals, if we are of goodwill. Mighty indeed is the word that can resound to us on Christmas Night, do we but understand its import.

Why was it that the festival of Christ's birth was set back thirteen days and became the festival of the birth of Jesus? To understand this we must penetrate into deep mysteries of human existence. Of outer nature, man believes, because he sees it with his eyes, that what the rays of the sun charm forth from the depths of the earth, unfolding into beauty through the spring and summer, withdraws into those same depths at the time when the outer sun-sphere is darkest, and that what will spring forth again the following year is being prepared in the seeds within the depths of the earth. Because his eyes bear witness, man believes that the seed of the plant passes through a yearly cycle, that it must go down into the earth's depths in order to unfold again under the warmth and light of the sun in spring. But to begin with, man has no notion that the human soul too passes through such a cycle. Nor is this revealed until he is initiated into the great mysteries of existence. Just as the force contained in the seed of every plant is bound up with the physical forces of the earth, so is the inmost being of the human soul bound up with the spiritual forces of the earth. And just as the seed of the plant sinks into the depths of the earth at the time we know as Christmas, so does the soul of man descend at that time into deep, deep spirit-realms, drawing strength from these depths as does the seed of the plant for its blossoming in spring. What the soul undergoes in these spirit-depths of the earth is entirely hidden from the ordinary consciousness. But for one whose eyes of spirit are opened the Thirteen Days and Thirteen Nights between the 24th of December and the 6th of January are a time of deep spiritual experience.

Parallel with the experience of the plant-seed in the depths of the natural earth, there is a spiritual experience in the earth's spirit-depths—verily a parallel experience. And the seer for whom this experience is possible either as the result of training or through inherited clairvoyant faculties, can feel himself penetrating into these spiritual depths. During this period of the Thirteen Days and Nights, the seer can behold what must come upon man because he has passed through incarnations which have been under the influence of the forces of Lucifer since the beginning of earthly evolution. The sufferings in Kamaloca that man must endure in the spiritual world because Lucifer has been at his side since he began to incarnate on the earth—the dearest vision of all this is presented in the mighty Imaginations which can come before the soul during the Thirteen Days and Nights between the Christmas Festival and the Festival of the 6th of January, the Epiphany. At the time when the seed of the plant is passing through its most crucial period in the depths below, the human soul is passing through its deepest experiences. The soul gazes at a vista of all that man must experience in the spiritual worlds because, under Lucifer's influence, he alienated himself from the Powers by whom the world was created. This vision is clearest to the soul during these Thirteen Days and Nights. Hence there is no better preparation for the revelation of that Imagination which may be called the Christ Imagination and which makes us aware that by gaining the victory over Lucifer, Christ Himself becomes the Judge of the deeds of men during the incarnations affected by Lucifer's influence. The soul of the seer lives on from the festival of Jesus' birth to that of the Epiphany in such a way that the Christ Mystery is revealed. It is during these Thirteen Holy Days and Nights that the soul can grasp most deeply of all, the import and meaning of the Baptism by John in the Jordan.

It is remarkable that during the centuries of Christendom, wherever powers of spiritual sight developed in the right way, it was known to seers that vision penetrated most deeply during the period of the Thirteen Holy Nights at the time of the winter solstice. Many a seer—either schooled in the mysteries of the modern age or possessing inherited powers of clairvoyance—makes it evident to us that at the darkest point of the winter solstice the soul can have vision of all that man must undergo because of his alienation from the Christ Spirit, how adjustment and catharsis were made possible through the Mystery enacted in the Baptism by John in the Jordan and then through the Mystery of Golgotha, and how the visions during the Thirteen Nights are crowned on the 6th of January by the Christ Imagination. Thus it is correct to name the 6th of January as the day of Christ's birth and these Thirteen Nights as the time during which the powers of seership in the human soul discern and perceive what man must undergo through his life in the incarnations from Adam and Eve to the Mystery of Golgotha.

During my visit to Christiania last year¹ it was interesting to me to find the thought which in rather different words has been expressed in so many lectures on the Christ Mystery, embodied in a beautiful saga known as ‘The Dream Legend.’ Strange to say, it has come to the fore in Norway during the last ten to fifteen years and has become familiar to the people, although its origin is, of course, very much earlier. It is the legend which in a wonderfully beautiful way relates how Olaf Åsteson is initiated, as it were by natural forces, in that he falls asleep on Christmas Eve, sleeps through the Thirteen Days and Nights until the 6th of January, and lives through all the terrors which the human being must experience through the incarnations from the earth's beginning until the Mystery of Golgotha. And it relates how when the 6th of January has come, Olaf Åsteson has the vision of the intervention of the Christ Spirit in humanity, the Michael-Spirit being His forerunner. I hope that on some other occasion we shall be able to present this poem in its entirety, for then you will realise that consciousness of vision during the Thirteen Days and Nights survives even to-day, and is in fact, being revivified. A few characteristic lines only will now be quoted. The poem begins:

Come listen to me and hear my song
The song of a wonderful youth,
I'll sing you of Olaf Åsteson
Who slept many days—'tis the truth.

'Twas Christmas Eve when down he lay
And slept so long all unknowing,
He never woke till the thirteenth day
When to Church the people were going.
Yes, it was Olaf Åsteson
Who lay so long a-sleeping.

(Translated from a German version
of The Dream Legend, by E.C.M.)

And so the poem goes on, relating how in his dream during the Thirteen Days and Nights, Olaf Åsteson is led through all that man must experience on account of Lucifer's temptation. A vivid picture is given of Olaf Åsteson's journey through the spheres where human beings have the experiences so often described in connection with Kamaloca, and of how the Christ Spirit, preceded by Michael, streams into this vision.

Thus with the coming of Christ in the Spirit, it will become more and more possible for men to know how the spiritual forces weave and hold sway and that the festivals have not been instituted by arbitrary opinions but by the cosmic wisdom which so often lies beyond the reach of men's consciousness yet works and reigns throughout history. This cosmic wisdom has placed the festival of the birth of Jesus at the beginning of the Thirteen Days. While the Easter Festival can always be a reminder that contemplation of the cosmic worlds will help us to find within ourselves the strength to conquer all that is lower, the Christmas thought—if we understand the festival which commemorates man's divine origin and the symbol before us on Christmas Day in the form of the Jesus Child—says to us ever and again that the powers which bring peace to the soul can be found within ourselves. True peace of soul is present only when that peace has sure foundations, that is to say, when it is a force enabling man to know: In thee lives something which, if truly brought to birth, can, nay must, lead thee to divine Heights, to divine Powers.—The lights on this tree are symbols of the light which shines in our own souls when we grasp the reality of what is proclaimed to us symbolically on Christmas Night by the Jesus Child in its state of innocence: the inmost being of the human soul itself, strong, innocent, tranquil, leading us along our life's path to the highest goals of existence. May these lights on the Christmas Tree say to us: If ever thy soul is weak, if ever thou believest that the goals of earth-existence are beyond thy reach, think of man's divine origin and become aware of those forces within thee which are also the forces of supreme Love. Become inwardly conscious of the forces which give thee confidence and certainty in all thy works, through all thy life, now and in all ages of time to come.

• 1. 7th-17th June, 1910, when the Lecture Course on The Mission of the Folk-Souls was given.

Today we must take a look at the important questions of the origin and nature of man. When these important things are asked, it cannot be said that the answer to them is a particularly easy one. The following lectures will give us less difficulty.

From three components essentially, so I said in the beginning of these lectures, we have to think of man composed: from body, soul and spirit. How these parts of man are composed, we will see in the further course of the lectures. Theosophical insight shows us a threefold origin of our own nature, and in order to discuss this threefold origin, the physical, the soul and the spiritual, we must go to the most remote regions of the universe imaginable, we must take a look at those processes which we as Theosophists conceive as processes in the Divine-Spiritual itself and in its life. The esoteric philosophy of all times refers to the universe in its depths as a rhythmic life of the world spirit. The Indian philosophy, for example, speaks of the inhalation and exhalation of Brahma. Brahma goes through different stages of his divine life. These stages proceed in such a way that they can be compared to an inhalation and exhalation of the divine original spirit. The exhalation became a world existence, the inhalation is the transition from a world that has fulfilled its task into a kind of sleeping state, which then has to pass over into a new existence, into a new exhalation. Thus, the states of the revealed world and the states of rest continually alternate. Manvantara and Pralaya, these are the states of revelation and the states of the deity resting in himself. This is a picture. What process this picture is based on, human words would not suffice to describe in our time.

According to our human view, that is, according to the view of those whose spiritual gaze is open to these mysterious states of the universe, we have to distinguish three different breaths of the divine original spirit, and these three breaths represent at the same time the threefold origin of man. The fact that man consists of three parts, body, soul and spirit, owes its origin to three parts of the divine breath. Let us try to trace this threefold origin of the human being.

First of all, let us think of seven stages of development, from the first stage to how man confronts us in his present stage of development. On the first stage of development, which we call the first elementary kingdom of the universe, there is still nothing of what we now encounter in our world. There is still nothing at all of the diversity of the stones, the plant and animal world, as they appear to us today, also nothing of the diversity of our thought world, also nothing of the thought formation underlying our world formation, also nothing of natural laws. But in the first elementary kingdom there is the system of the predispositions to everything later.

Whoever has an eye for this system of all further wide germs, knows that these germs are of an infinite beauty and sublimity. Everything that comes to light later is only a faint reflection of that which is germ-like present in the first elementary kingdom. In this there are present the great intentions of the divine original spirit, the intentions he has with the individual worlds. And as the [developments] lag behind the intentions, so they lag behind also with regard to the being of the worlds, not as a whole, but in details. In the great manifoldness of infinity, the intentions are wonderfully fulfilled. That is why theosophy calls this first elementary realm the world of the formless, which only later gives birth to the form out of itself.

Only in the later course this world of the original spirit takes form. This can only be compared with the forms which our thoughts have in us. Think that what you have outside of yourself would have disappeared and only what you can remember would be present to you. You would have around you a sea of thoughts. What you have seen and heard you have forgotten, also what you have seen of physical things. Such thought-forms - only large ones - are the content of the second elementary realm. The whole world-all has been a formed thought-all. As Plato once imagined the world of ideas, so we must imagine the realm of formed thoughts, the realm of the world of reason, as the mystics in the Middle Ages imagined it.

And further the development shows a denser stage. The world thoughts imprint themselves for the first time on a substance, which one can call substance only in truth. This is the astral realm. The light thoughts have become astral beings, which we can now perceive as urges and passions flooding the space. Only the seer perceives these currents, he perceives them in luminous forms. These currents are present in the third elemental kingdom. Ancient philosophers speak of these three elementary kingdoms, but the people who follow this today do not know what was once meant by it. We only need to go back to Empedocles, we find that he knew about it. He said: Everything is caused by love and hate. At this second and third stage the thoughts have condensed down. After the third stage was reached, then the astral matter consolidated. It became denser and denser and weaved into itself those substances and activities which the physical man now only knows. It wove into itself a web of natural laws and forces. Theosophy calls this kingdom the mineral kingdom. You must not imagine that the mineral kingdom at this stage contained already formed minerals, crystals and so on. No, all that which later, on much later stages, becomes mineral, which undergoes chemical compounds and decomposition, still runs through this realm like lightning and thunder, the fourth realm, which we call the cosmic mineral realm or the fourth elemental realm.

What lives in our physical body today, what governs all the laws in our physical body today, everything that is lawfully present in our body, was at that time dissolved in these forces, in these mineral forces, which are sweeping through the world space. Everything that constitutes the present body was present in that mineral kingdom. From there comes the origin of the forces and substances which are in our bodies and compose a part of our being. Out of these elementary processes the corporeal of man was formed. And at the moment of time when these elementary processes have progressed so far as I have described, at this moment of time something else enters into this mineral universe, and this something else of which I shall now speak is that which lives in us as our soul component. Originally, both the physical and the soul components were contained in the one divine primordial being. As it were, it was the first part of the divine breath that I have now described. The other part I will now describe.

The first part [of the development] we can summarize in such a way that we call man a generic being. In terms of genus, people are more or less the same. After all, we also speak of plant genus and animal genus. Thus, there is also a human genus that inhabits the whole earth. In each individual being of the genus the personality is present. Because I am a being of the human genus, I am physically formed in the same way as all other human beings, but in this human genus there is what I call my personality, and this makes up the soul. I am personality by the fact that I have personal interests, personal sympathies and antipathies and so on. Although people are alike as generic beings, they differ in personality in such a way that not one person is like another. This personal in man is not originated by the same part of the divine breath, that comes from another side to unite with the mineral substance. The generic character came into being through [the first part of the divine breath], the personality comes into being through the fact that up to the point where it unites [with the generic being] it has made a different path through the universe. On this other path, that which later constitutes the human personality has already passed through a series of stages, of lessons in the universe, that was already embodied on other stages, that was present in natures similar to our physical nature, similar to plant beings, similar to animal beings, only in a different, different way. The forces which are capable of making us personality have already passed through many stages, and this I would now like to describe.

The personality of man, therefore, comes over from another world; it has already passed through stages of development, in order then to unite with the other part, the generic. Cloudy desires are those which come over as if from a side stream to a main stream. Imagine that into this stream of universal mineral-elemental substance now flow innumerable such personality beings, who already once had physical corporeality, who as beings looked quite different from us human beings, but who were nevertheless our ancestors. Imagine that these beings had a physicality which was much denser and larger than our physicality. We can say they split off from the divine breath. A stream of force had arisen, which through the stages of development learned to become personality. All the souls inhabiting human bodies came over from this stream. Having graduated from a bad state, they let themselves sink as a germ, as it were, into the substance of the universe, as I described earlier, as turbid desires and passions, and constituted themselves as a personality. They connected themselves with that which is itself passion and desire. This current has evolved down until it has become the astral world.

This cosmic drive and passion nature is sunk into the physical human germ with the facility of development. At this moment the beginning of the development of our earthly being is given. At the moment of the union of these two, our earthly career begins. We also designate this double origin of man in such a way that we say: The universal Logos, on which the original spirit is based, has sent down a stream, the third Logos, and the third Logos has taken on different forms, which I have described as the first, second and third elementary kingdoms. You must not imagine that this third part of the Logos, this third part of the breath of the divine world soul, has been inactive until now. No, the whole series of elementary kingdoms which I have enumerated and the whole conduction of the impulse nature up to the personality, this spiritual entity, the third part of the divine breath, has directed from without. What was necessary to prepare these two sides until they reached the point of development to unite, all this has been effected by the third breath of the divine world soul. And the second Logos, too, has passed through various stages until it has become the germinal plant of the personality. The third and the second Logos flow together, and out of this flowing together of the third and the second Logos arise those formations which gradually build up our earthly sphere.

Now begins the human development as we see it with us. That which is capable of forming a mineral body out of desire, sensuality, instinct, and that which has learned to develop these qualities as a personality, these unite. And now man begins his earthly migration. Now begins the union between the human generic being and the human personality. They learn to send themselves into each other little by little. In us are these two. They are in us in such a way that the generic being works in us as the physical, and the personal, which has come over from the other world, works as our spiritual. Only gradually do they find in themselves the harmony to work together in such a way that the spiritual, which comes from the second Logos, harmonizes with the physical. The body is at first an unfeeling carrier of the psychic. The psychic cannot yet find the necessary organs and forces in the physical to express itself fully. Thus the psychic works its way through, as it were, imprinting itself on the material. In a series of cycles of development the spirit takes on material nature. The development proceeds in such a way that the body becomes more and more the expression, the tool of the psychic, of the inhabitant. Then the stage occurs when the actual spirit, what we call the spiritual of man, unites with these two other elements.

Now this divine breath itself flows into that which has been built up only after the two parts have adapted themselves to each other, so that one is the carrier and the other the force. Then the highest flows into this nature. That which until now was only the central conductor, the general universal world wisdom, now flows into the world beings. This is the moment we call the inflow of the first Logos. Everything has now become so mature that it can serve as a carrier of the first Logos. I will show you this moment of the inflow of the first Logos in this way: Imagine a room illuminated by a central light. On the sides of the room are reflecting spheres that reflect the light back in a thousand different ways. Every single sphere reflects back the image of the light. This is how we must imagine the man in the universe, guided by the spirit from outside. Let us assume that the spheres symbolically, symbolically represent the human beings as generic beings. The light, which gives light to all, comes from the outside, so that the spheres can give only an unsubstantial reflection from the inside. So it was with the human development up to the point of time of which we speak now. Until then man was like a mirror, which was illuminated by the first Logos, by the spirit soul of the world. Man threw back the light of the world soul, he reflected what the spirit light radiated.

But now think of the light transformed in such a way that the central light flows out and begins to penetrate the spheres, to awaken the individual spheres to shine with a part of its essence. The light flows out to bring to living self-lighting that which until now could only be a mirror image. From the spheres now shines their own light, which is separated from the central light. Thus we must imagine that at a certain moment of development the first Logos, the spirit soul, sacrificed a part of the light in order to pour it into man.

Now the human being is endowed with all three parts of his beingness. The first Logos has taken possession of the human being. Henceforth man consists of three parts. The part that has passed through the mineral kingdom has united with the development of the soul and has then continued to the state of maturity so that the spirit, the sun of the world, the spirit soul, could take possession of him.

In three successive stages of development these three parts have united with man. We can indicate the exact moment when this took place. We are now living in the fifth epoch of mankind. This influx of the spirit happened in the middle of the third human epoch, in the Lemurian period. The third human race, the Lemurians, inhabited a continent which has long since perished, but which existed south of the fore and hind Indies, the so-called Lemuria. At that time, what we call the imaginative life of man was formed first. After that came the fourth human race, the Atlantians, who lived on a continent between Africa and America, of which we are still told in Plato's writings. After this the fifth human race developed, to which we belong. In the third human race, in the Lemurian time, man began to have a three-part nature. At that time, the first beings developed into what we know today as human beings. But what were those beings like? That which we are in truth, that which is eternal in us, that was before purely spiritual nature. Our higher nature was previously decided in the bosom of the primordial world. It is eternal and imperishable, not in the form it has taken, but in the innermost essence. Before our spirit nature took possession of human nature, it was a purely spiritual being and formed a component of that which is present as the central sun, the spirit light of the world. That which descended to the physical man was not yet that which is in man today, that was only a reflection of his real nature; it inhabited only spiritual spheres of the world, the spheres of the first Logos. As spiritual beings we rested in the Logos, as the first sparks in the flame of the central light. Then our spirituality sank deeply into that which was prepared for us as a carrier, and that which descended, that which lives from eternity to eternity in the most diverse forms, that is the third element of human nature. This is what we call the actual individuality of man.

Thus, man consists of the generic being, which has the same form for all people living on earth. There, people do not differ from each other. This is the physical nature of man. The other nature, the spiritual -- joy and pain, desire and passion -- that is his personal nature. That arises and disappears and arises anew in the astral world. That such personalities can arise, for this the disposition is given in the stream, which I have described as the second stream. Besides this we have the individuality or also the causal body. Why do we call the individuality also causal body? The causal bodies were always present. They are imperishable. They have, before they inhabited these bodies, inhabited another body in the earlier races, all the way back to the Lemurian race of men who lived on the island of Lemuria. Always has this causal body embodied itself, but it moved into a human psychic body being for the first time in the Lemurian period. Before that he was not yet involved in matter and not yet involved in the psyche. He led a spiritual existence, which he will lead again when he will have gone through his various lessons which he has to make. That which we call causal body, that is what forms our eternal. What we carry within us as soul, what inhabits our body as soul, that has united with our physical body, so that we can say: The possibility that a personal arose in a physical body, has resulted from the fact that soul and physical body united in the beginning of our earth development. This did not emerge from primordial mists, as the physicists and astronomers imagine, but it emerged from what the ancients call the "waters" above which the spirit hovered. This means nothing else than the spirit of which I have spoken, the spirit which came from quite other universal worlds.

At that time the preparatory stage of man began. It took a long time until the physical and the astral body were prepared to become a carrier of the actual spirit soul. In the "Secret Doctrine" of Blavatsky this moment of the union of the psychic with the physical and also the moment of the union of the spiritual with the psychic-bodily are alluded to; and last of all the three parts of the breath of the world soul are alluded to with the words: The world soul had again slumbered through seven eternities. - That was a pralaya. Out of this vast slumber emerged that existence where the human being learned that it could soul a body subjected to mineral laws.

The human being flowed together from three currents. Three developments had to be gone through until they could come together in man. One origin has the generic being, another origin has the spiritual being and another origin has the mental, the spiritual being. That to which the whole being is chained, that is our causal body, the eternal. It comes from purely spiritual spheres and should return to purely spiritual spheres; but it should return in such a way that it has learned within the earthly existence it is going through, that it has collected results in order to carry them back into the realm of the spiritual. He is to come back, enriched in himself, again into the spiritual.

If we want to visualize these three origins of man, we can compare them to something like the building of a house. The house is built of building blocks; then we have the house furnishings, that which fills the inner rooms, that which constitutes the comfort of the house; this is to be compared with the human soul. Within the whole is the thought. It can be compared with the causal body, with the ideal spirit that inhabits the body. The sense organs are the windows through which the causal body looks out into the world. Before we moved into the body, we were gifted with spiritual sense organs and saw everything around us without hindrance. Having moved into a "house", man must look out through the windows, through the windows of the sense organs nature must penetrate to him. Just as man cannot always live in the open air, but must return to a house, so the spirit must again and again move into the building prepared for it, in order to look through the sense organs, the windows, at what it formerly saw from the outside. Why this is so and how the laws are, according to which it is formed, of it the next time.

An old wise man calls the place that a person enters when the secrets of the world are revealed to him a garden of maturity. There is no flower in the garden that does not bear its fruit, no egg that has not matured the life that germinated in it. But the paths that lead to the narrow door through which this garden is closed are described as dark and dangerous. At the same time, it is asserted that the darkness will become brighter than the sun, and that the dangers will be powerless against the forces swelling in the soul of the one to whom a mystic, an “initiate”, points these paths with a caring hand. As childish notions from a time when people knew nothing of the sciences of our day, such ideas are dismissed by the “enlightened” who believe they can distinguish between the delusions of the “groping imagination” and the sober insights of a “scientifically trained” mind. And anyone who still speaks of such ideas today can be sure that they will be met with a condescending or at least a pitying smile by many of their contemporaries.

And despite all this, there are those who, like the ancient sages, speak of the world of the soul and the home of the spirit. They are considered to be people who speak of a world that only their unrestrained imagination conjures up. One may even feel sorry for them, staggering like drunkards in the midst of a world that has achieved so much through sober logic, losing their footing at every turn because they do not adhere to what “actually” exists.

What do these “drunken men” themselves say in response to such objections? When they feel they have reached the level at which they are entitled to speak about themselves, then we hear the following from their mouths: “We understand you, who must be our opponents, perfectly well. We know that many of you are honest people who are unreservedly committed to the service of truth and goodness. But we also know that you cannot understand us as long as you think as you do. We can only talk to you about the things we have to talk about when you have made an effort to learn our language. After this statement of ours, many of you will be done with us, for you will now believe that our incurable arrogance is added to our fantastic enthusiasm. But we also understand you in such a statement, and we also know that we should not be arrogant, but modest. We have only one thing to say to you in order to induce you to try to understand our ideas. You may believe us when we say that we do not recognize the right of anyone to speak about our knowledge who cannot feel what you feel in making your assertions, and who does not thoroughly know the power, the convincing force and the scope of your science. Anyone who does not have the certain knowledge that he can think as soberly and as “scientifically” as the most sober astronomer, botanist or zoologist should only be a learner, not a teacher, in matters of spiritual life and mystical knowledge. But do not misunderstand us: we are only talking about teachers, not learners. Every person can become a student of mysticism, for every person's soul contains the ability to sense the truth. The mystic should speak in a way that is understandable to the most ignorant. And to those to whom he cannot say a hundredth of the truth according to their level of understanding, he should say a thousandth. Today they recognize the thousandth, and tomorrow they will recognize the hundredth. All should be students. But no one should want to be a teacher who cannot allow the most sober understanding and the strictest science to discipline him. Only those who have been strict scientists before are true teachers of mysticism, and who therefore know how it is to live in science. The true mystic also regards everyone as a dreamer, as a drunkard, who could not at any moment take off the solemn holiday dress of mysticism and walk in the weekday suit of the physicist, the chemist, the plant and animal researcher. — Thus speaks the true mystic to his opponents; in all modesty he assures them that he understands their language, and that he would not claim to be a mystic if he were ignorant of their language. But then he may also add that he knows, knows as one knows facts of external life: if his opponents learn his language, they will cease to be his opponents. He knows this, as every man who has studied chemistry knows that under certain conditions water is formed from oxygen and hydrogen.

The fact that Plato did not want to introduce anyone to the higher levels of wisdom who was ignorant of geometry does not mean that he only made learned geometers his students, but that they had to become accustomed to serious, strict and exact research before the secrets of spiritual life were revealed to them. Such a requirement appears in its true light when we consider that in these higher regions the control which corrects the ordinary researcher at every turn ceases. If the plant researcher has false ideas, his senses will soon enlighten him about his error. He is to the mystic what the person walking on a level path is to the mountain climber. The one can fall to the ground; he will kill himself only in exceptional cases; the other is always in danger of doing so. And certainly no one can climb mountains who has not learned to walk. — Because spiritual facts do not correct the ideas in the same way as external facts, strict, reliable thinking is a completely natural prerequisite for the mystical researcher.

If one gives oneself over to such thoughts, one recognizes what those old sages meant when they spoke of the dangers that threaten a person who wants to penetrate the secrets of the world. Those who come to them with untrained thinking will cause confusion in their souls. They become as dangerous as a dynamite bomb in the hands of a child. Therefore, every mystic researcher is faced with the strict demand that the correctness of his thinking, indeed of his entire soul life, be tested first on difficult, thorny tasks before he approaches the actual higher tasks. This is an indication of what the mystic has in mind when he speaks of the first steps of “initiation” into the higher truths.

Countless people who believe themselves to be at the level of education of our time consider healthy thinking and mysticism to be irreconcilable opposites. They think that a clear scientific education must eradicate all mystical tendencies in a person. And they find it particularly incomprehensible when someone who is familiar with the most important results of modern science has such tendencies. If those who think so are right, then one would have to admit that mysticism has little chance of finding access to the souls of our contemporaries. For no one who has an understanding of the spiritual needs of our time can doubt that the victories that science has achieved and will achieve in the future are fully justified. It must be admitted without reservation that today no one can sin against the spirit of genuine scientific thought with impunity. And yet, anyone with eyes to see must also admit that the number of those who feel unsatisfied with what scientific thinkers have to say about the inescapable questions of the human soul is growing. Almost shyly, such unsatisfied people immerse themselves in the works of the mystics. There they find what their souls thirst for. There they find what their hearts need: real spiritual life. They feel the growth of their souls; they find what man must constantly seek: the breath of the divine. But they are constantly being told again and again that they should learn to think clearly and calmly through the natural sciences, and not be beguiled by dreamers and visionaries. If they then do as they are told, they only learn that their soul is desolate.

But it remains a truth, deeply engraved in every human heart, that the nature of man is a great teacher. Who could fail to sympathize with Goethe when he speaks of how he likes to withdraw from the aberrations and disharmonies of mankind to the eternal necessities of nature. And who could read the words with which the great poet describes the feelings that came over him during a lonely contemplation of the iron laws by which nature forms mountains without unreserved agreement: “Sitting on a high, bare summit and surveying a wide area, I can say to myself: here you are resting directly on a foundation that reaches down to the deepest places on earth... At this moment, when the inner attractive and moving forces of the earth are acting on me as if directly, when the influences of heaven are hovering around me, I am attuned to higher considerations of nature... So lonely, I say to myself, looking down at this bare summit... so lonely does it feel to a person who wants to open his soul only to the oldest, first, deepest feelings of truth. There he can say to himself: here on the oldest eternal altar, on which the depths of creation are built, I bring a sacrifice to the essence of all beings.»

It is only natural that such an attitude, with which one stands reverently before the great teacher Nature, should also be transferred to the science that speaks of her.

There must be no contradiction between the feelings that flow through the soul when it approaches the “oldest, first, deepest truths” about spiritual life and those that enter it when the eye rests on the eternal building activity of nature.

Does the mystic have no understanding of such harmony between nature and the most sacred feelings of the human soul?

But above the altar at which the true mystic offers his sacrifice, there has always been, in all ages, the highest law written in letters of fire: Nature is the great guide to the divine; and man's conscious search for the sources of truth should follow in the footsteps of her sleeping will.

If the mystics follow this supreme law, there should be no contradiction between their paths and those of the natural scientists. Such a contradiction should be least apparent in an age that owes so much to natural science.

In order to see clearly in this direction, we must ask: in what can the agreement between natural science and mysticism consist? And in what would a contrast lie? — The agreement can only be sought in the fact that the ideas that one has about the nature of man are not foreign to those that one has of the other beings of nature. That one sees this kind of regularity in the workings of nature and in the life of man. A contrast would then exist if one wanted to see a being of a completely different kind in man than in the other creatures of nature. For those who want to see a contradiction in this way, it was shocking when, more than four decades ago, the great researcher Huxley, in the spirit of the newer natural sciences, summarized the similarity of the anatomical structure of humans with that of higher animals in the words: “We can take any system of organs we like, and a comparison of them with those of the apes will lead us to the same conclusion: that the anatomical differences which separate man from the gorilla and the chimpanzee are not so great as those which separate the gorilla from the lower apes.” Such a sentence can only have a shocking effect if it is brought into a false relationship with the nature of man. Certainly, the thought can be attached to it: how close man is to the animal! This close relationship is not a cause for concern for the mystic. For him, the other thought immediately arises: how can the organs that exist in animals serve higher purposes when they are transformed into human ones? He knows that the sleeping will of nature makes human out of animal perception by developing the animal organs in a different form. He follows the sure tracks of nature and continues her deeds. For him, the work of nature is not finished with what she has given him. He becomes a faithful student of nature by enhancing her work. She has brought him to human thinking and feeling. He does not accept thinking and feeling as something rigid and immovable, but makes them capable of higher activities. Through his will, what happens in external nature without it also happens. His eyes prove that eyes are capable of more than they perform in apes. Eyes can thus be transformed. The soul capacities of the developed mystic are related to those of the undeveloped human being in the same way that human eyes are related to the eyes of an ape. It is understandable that those who are not mystics understand the soul nature of the mystic as little as an animal can understand the thinking of a human being. And just as a non-thinking creature would be able to understand a new world if it could develop the ability to think, so the mystic, after developing his higher abilities, looks into another world. He is “initiated” into this world. He who does not become a mystic denies nature. He does not continue what her slumbering will has accomplished without him. In so doing, he places himself in opposition to nature. For nature is constantly transforming its forms. It creates eternally new things out of the old. He who believes in this transformation, in this development, in the sense of modern natural science, and yet does not want to change himself, recognizes nature, but in his own life he places himself in contradiction with it. One should not merely recognize development; one should live it. Thus, one should not limit our life abilities by pointing exclusively to our kinship with other beings. Those who become true students of nature through mystical education will understand the higher development of man.

Many will say to these hints about mysticism and “initiation”: “What use is such talk of abilities that are unknown to us? Give us these abilities, and we will believe you.” — No one can give another something that the other rejects. And it is usually brusque rejection that our mystics experience. — At present they can do little else but tell their mystical insights to those who want to listen. However, at first this seems to be the same as merely telling someone from America that we want to enable him to visit us there. But it only seems that way. With spiritual things it is different from with physical things. Long before a person is able to see the truth in bright light, he is able to sense it and absorb it into his feelings. And these feelings are themselves a force that can lead him further. It is a necessary step. Those who follow the presentation of the mystic with devotion are already walking the path forward to higher truths. Only the initiate understands the initiate completely. But love of the truth also makes the uninitiated receptive to the words of the mystic. And through such receptivity he works to develop his mystical talents. The first thing is to have a feeling for the possibility of higher knowledge. Then one no longer passes by carelessly the people who speak of it.

It has already been said in this essay that there are also personalities today who are striving for the renewal of mystical life. In a further essay, two phenomena in this area will be discussed. Annie Besant's book “Esoteric Christianity, or the Minor Mysteries” (which has just been published in German translation by Mathilde Scholl. Leipzig 1903, Griebens Verlag.) And from the work of the ingenious French thinker and poet Edonard Schuré: “The great initiates” ("Les grands Inities ”). Both books shed light on the nature of the so-called initiation or initiation. Annie Besant shows how Christianity should be understood as the work of such initiation. Edouard Schuré paints pictures of the greatest leaders of humanity on the basis of his conviction that the great creeds and world views that they have given to humanity contain eternal truths that can only be found in them and extracted from them. Both writings are only justified on the basis of mysticism. They have emerged from the spiritual current of our time that is destined to raise humanity from a purely external culture to the heights of spiritual insight. A time will come when “scientific thinking” will no longer be able to oppose this current. Then science will recognize that it itself must be mystical. For it will realize that one does not understand the spirit by denying it, and that one does not rebel against the laws of nature by seeking the spiritual ones. Mystics will no longer be called obscurantists, for it will be known that only for their opponents is the field dark of which they speak.

And people will no longer mock at “initiation” any more than they mock at the demand that anyone who wants to research the life of the smallest organisms must first learn how to use a microscope. Research requires the fulfillment of certain preconditions. For the aspiring mystic, these conditions are not those of external technique, but rather the cultivation of a certain direction of the life of the soul. Through this cultivation, the sense is opened for truths that do not speak of the transitory, but rather of that of which – in Goethe's words – the transitory is “only a simile”. — In the womb of human existence, higher abilities rest, as the fruit rests in the womb of the flower. — And therefore no being should have the presumption to say that there is something exhaustive, finished in its world. If a person has such presumption, he is like the worm that considers the world of his senses to be the circumference of existence.

A “garden of maturity” is the place where the secrets of the world are revealed. To approach this place, a person must have the will to mature. “You must strip off the eggshells of your everyday being and awaken the inner life hidden within you if you want to enter the

Like many great personalities, Goethe did not express many of the deepest insights of his mind in broad, circumstantial speech, but in short, often enigmatic hints. Such a hint is contained in his saying: “In the works of man, as in those of nature, the intentions are actually especially worthy of attention.” This sentence is recognized in its full depth when it is applied to the most significant phenomena of human spiritual life. For just as we only gain meaning and understanding for the actions of an individual person when we recognize his intentions, so it is with the history of the whole human race. But what a gulf there is between the observation of actions that are openly apparent and the recognition of intentions that lie hidden in the soul! One man may be a dwarf in insight and understanding compared to another: his actions will be observable. One must have some knowledge of his mentality and spiritual level if one wants to see through his intentions. If you do not, the source of his actions remains a mystery, a riddle, the key to which is missing. It is no different with the great deeds of human intellectual history. These deeds themselves lie open to the eyes of the historian: the intentions lie in mysterious depths. Those who want to have the key to understanding must penetrate these depths. Now, however, the intention of an action will lie all the deeper, the more significant, the more comprehensive the action is. The intention for an action of everyday life is not difficult to understand. Of course, it cannot be the same with actions whose horizon spans centuries.

Those who consider such things will get an idea of what mysteries are. For in these mysteries there rests nothing else but the intentions for the great, world-embracing deeds of the development of humanity. And those who recognize these intentions and thus themselves can give their actions the weight to work into centuries: these are the initiated.

Those who see world history as a mere collection of coincidences can deny the existence of mysteries and initiates. They cannot be helped until they approach the facts of history with a loving gaze. Then, little by little, meaning and context will dawn on them; and they will see these historical facts as no less intentional than they would see an acting person as an automaton. In his research, he then reaches the point where the initiates guide the progress of humanity according to the insights that are shrouded in the darkness of the mysteries.

The religious documents of all times speak of such mysteries. And to them are led those who do not stop at the external life of the founders of religion and the historical facts of the spread of their teachings, but who try to rise to the intentions of these founders. It should not be surprising that these intentions are shrouded in mysterious darkness, that they have been communicated only to the chosen ones, within the schools of wisdom, which are precisely the mysteries. For it makes sense to communicate to a person only that which he can understand; or, in other words, to communicate it to him only when he has acquired the conditions for understanding. In order to accomplish meaningful deeds, one must possess great wisdom; and in order to acquire great wisdom, one must undergo a long and difficult period of preparation. This is the case with the mysteries.

Through the various religions and philosophies, the spiritual development of humanity is progressing. Those who work towards this development set the spiritual forces of humanity in motion. They must know the laws upon which this movement depends, just as one must know the laws of chemistry in order to mix substances in a purposeful way. The mysteries teach the high laws of spiritual life, the chemistry of the soul. One must try to gain insight into the nature of these laws if one wants to recognize, even only by intuition, the motives that underlie the deeds of the great teachers of humanity.

In harmony with all those who have sought to open their spiritual eyes to such insights, Annie Besant, the soul of the Theosophical movement, speaks of a “hidden side of religions” in her book “Esoteric Christianity, or the Minor Mysteries”. She guides us with great insight into the discussion of the mystical secrets of Christianity – its so-called esoteric content – by asking: “What is the purpose of religions?” And she says about it: “They are given to the world by people who are wiser than the masses of the people to whom they are given, and they have the purpose of accelerating human development. In order to do this effectively, they must reach individuals and influence them. Now, not all people are at the same level of development, but one could represent development as an inclined plane, with people standing at all points. The most highly developed stand far above the least developed in both intelligence and character; the ability to understand as well as to act changes at every level. Therefore it is useless to give everyone the same teaching; what helps the intellectual person would be completely incomprehensible to the less intelligent, while what transports the saint into ecstasy would leave the criminal completely untouched. ... Religion must be graded just as development is, otherwise it will fail to achieve its purpose.” How the teacher of religion speaks to people at different stages of development depends on the spiritual and emotional needs of those to whom he is speaking. To be able to do this, he must himself carry the kernel of wisdom through which he is to work in his soul; and the way in which he carries this kernel must be such that it enables him to speak to every man in his own way of understanding. Therefore, anyone who looks at the speeches of religious teachers from the outside recognizes only the one, the _ external side of their wisdom. Edouard Schuré forcefully points out this fact in his book on the “Great Initiates”. In it, he presents the great teachers of wisdom: Rama, Krishna, Hermes, Moses, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato and Jesus in the manner of an intuitive researcher, a noble thinker and a personality inspired by deep religious feeling. He describes his point of view in the introduction: “All great religions have an outer and an inner history; one is obvious, the other hidden. Through the outer history, the dogmas and myths are revealed to me, as they are publicly proclaimed in temples and schools, as they are presented in the cults and in popular superstition. The inner history reveals to me the profound science, the mysterious wisdom and the hidden laws of the deeds of the great initiates, prophets and reformers who created, supported and spread these religions. The first, the outer history, can be learned everywhere; it is not a little dark, contradictory and confused. The second, which I would like to call the esoteric history or the wisdom of the mysteries, is very difficult to develop from the first. For it rests in the depths of the temples, in the secret societies, and its most harrowing dramas unfold exclusively in the souls of the great prophets, who have entrusted neither documents nor disciples with their most sublime experiences and their ideas that elevate them to the divine. One must solve their riddles. But what one finds then appears to be full of light, organic, in harmony with itself. One could also call it the eternal and universal religion. It presents itself as the inner side of things, as the inner side of human consciousness in contrast to the merely historical outer side. This is where we find the creative germ of religion and philosophy, which meet at the other end of the ellipse in undivided science. It is the point that corresponds to the supersensible truths. This is where we find the cause, the origin and the goal of the marvelous work of the centuries, the guidance of the world in its earthly messengers.»

These “earthly messengers” work in the spiritual pharmacy, in the spiritual laboratory of humanity. What enables them to do such work are the imperishable laws of spiritual chemistry, and what they accomplish as spiritual-chemical processes: these are the great intellectual and moral deeds of world history. But what flows from their mouths are only parables, only images of the higher wisdom dwelling in the depths of their souls, adapted to the understanding of those who lend them an ear. This wisdom can only be revealed to those who fulfill the conditions that guarantee the understanding and proper use of higher wisdom. These, however, then feel in the initiation into the mysteries the direct contact with the spiritual sources, with the father and mother powers of existence. Listen to what one who was imbued with such feelings said. Clement of Alexandria, the Christian writer of the second and third centuries of our era, who was a mystic, that is, a student of the mysteries, before his baptism, praises these mysteries with the words: “O truly holy mysteries! O pure light! A torch is carried before me when I look at heaven and God; I become holy when I receive the consecration. The mysteries, however, are revealed to me by the primordial spirit and sealed by the illumination of the initiate; initiated into the faith, he presents me to the All-One, so that I may be preserved in the bosom of eternity. These are the initiation ceremonies of my mysteries! If you wish, you too can be initiated, and you will join the spiritual forces of existence in a dance around the uncreated, immortal, all-one world spirit, and the language that is inspired by the cosmos will sing the praises of this All-One."

One understands Annie Besant's description of the mysteries when one considers that the initiates had to speak of them in the way that Klemens does in the above words. “The Mysteries of Egypt” – as A. Besant explains on page 15 of ‘Esoteric Christianity’ – ”were the glory of that ancient country, and the noblest sons of Greece, such as Plato, went to Sais and Thebes to be initiated into the mysteries by the Egyptian teachers of wisdom. The Mithraic mysteries of the Persians, the Orphic and Bacchic mysteries, and the later Eleusinian semi-mysteries of the Greeks, the mysteries of Samothrace, Scythia, and Chaldea, are, at least by name, generally known. Even in the extremely weakened form of the Eleusinian mysteries, their value is highly praised by the most distinguished men of Greece, such as Pindar, Sophocles, Isocrates, Plutarch and Plato.» — The point of mystery wisdom is not to expand knowledge, but to explain unknown things: it is about elevating the whole human being, so that it is imbued with the sacred mood that is capable of grasping the sources and seeds of the cosmos. The mystic not only recognizes higher things; his own being merges with these higher things. He must be prepared so that he can properly receive the sources of all life that flow into him. — Especially in our time, when only the grossly scientific is recognized as knowledge, it is difficult to believe that mood is important in the highest things. The realization is thus made an intimate affair of the human soul. For the mystic it is such. Tell someone the solution to all the world's riddles. The mystic will find that it will sound like empty words in his ears if his soul has not been raised to a higher level by prior conditions; that it will leave his feelings untouched if they are not attuned to perceive the reception of wisdom as a consecration. Only those who see through this know the spiritual atmosphere from which the words of a mystic, such as Plotinus', are spoken: “Often, when I awaken from the slumber of corporeality, come to myself, turn away from the outside world and enter into myself, I see a wondrous beauty; then I am certain that I have become aware of my better part. I am active in true life, united with the divine, and in it I gain the strength to place myself beyond the world. When I then descend from the contemplation of the highest to the ordinary formation of thoughts after this rest in the spiritual world, I ask myself how it came about that my soul became entangled in the everyday, since its home is where I have just been.” — Whoever knows the degree of purification of the life of feeling and understanding that is necessary to feel in this way also knows the reasons why the mystical, the sacred knowledge cannot be an object of everyday life, nor of ordinary instruction and the documents of external history; why it is locked in the soul of the divine messengers and must only be – as Schuré says – the object of initiation into intimate brotherhoods. ordinary instruction and the documents of external history; why it is locked up in the souls of the divine messengers and must only be the subject of initiation into intimate brotherhoods, as Schuré says. But even if this direct grasp of the truth remains a matter of the most intimate instruction, the blessings of wisdom are bestowed upon all men. Just as the fruits of the electric railway system benefit the whole population, but the laws of the organization of this system are known only to the electricians, so it is also with the effect, the fruits and with the wisdom of the mysteries. And just as the blessings of technical knowledge are manifested in the external cultural institutions, so too is the wisdom of the mysteries manifested in the spiritual life of humanity: in its myths, beliefs and religious ideas, in its world of legends and fairy tales, but also in its moral and legal concepts, and finally in its artistic creations, in its sciences and philosophies. The mystic points to the root of these contents of life in the deepest knowledge of humanity, and he is clear about the fact that they can only find their true explanation there. Clement of Alexandria says that “a man can have faith without possessing learning,” but at the same time he emphasizes that “it is impossible for a man without knowledge to understand the things that are explained in faith” (see Annie Besant: “Esoteric Christianity,” page 59). Every mystic knows this true relationship between faith and knowledge and knows that a contradiction between the two is impossible. But he can also only accept mysticism on the basis of true science. Clement also speaks of this: “Some who believe themselves gifted by nature do not want to come into contact with philosophy or logic; indeed, they do not even want to study natural science. They merely demand faith... I therefore call truly learned the one who brings everything into relation with the truth, so that he himself reads out of geometry, music, grammar and philosophy everything that is useful in them... How necessary it is for the one who wants to partake of the power of the world spirit to treat intellectual things in a philosophical way... The mystic uses the branches of knowledge for preparatory studies.” (Annie Besant: ‘Esoteric Christianity’, page 59f.)— Anyone who has taken a look at this deep harmony of faith and knowledge must repeatedly point out a characteristic feature of our newer culture that has created a gulf between the two. Schur& points out this gulf in the very first sentences of his book. “The greatest evil of our time is that science and religion appear in it as two hostile and irreconcilable powers. It is an all the more dangerous evil because it comes from the heights of education and slowly but surely seeps into all minds like a poison that one inhales with the air. And every intellectual evil becomes, with the passage of time, an evil of the soul and, furthermore, a social one. As long as Christianity was able to develop the Christian faith in a naive way in the midst of a still semi-barbaric, medieval Europe, it was the greatest moral power: it shaped the modern soul. - As long as experimental science, publicly restored in the sixteenth century, claimed for itself the rights of reason and unlimited freedom, it was the greatest intellectual power; it renewed the face of the world, freed man from centuries-old fetters and gave his spirit an indestructible foundation. But since the Church has become incapable of defending its original dogmas against the claims of science, it has shut itself up as in a house without windows, it has set its faith against reason as an absolute and unchallengeable law ; and since science has been intoxicated by its successes in the physical world, it has become increasingly alien to the psychic and intellectual; it has closed itself off from the higher through its methods and has become materialistic in its principles. Since then, philosophy has been moving aimlessly back and forth between the two: it has renounced its own rights in order to fall into doubt about the supernatural, and gaps have opened up both in the soul of human society and in that of the individual.» (Schuré, «Les Grands Inities», page VIIf.)

Annie Besant points out this peculiarity of the newer spiritual culture no less strongly. “It is clear to anyone who has studied the last forty years of the past century that a large number of thinking and moral people have turned their backs on the Church because the teachings they received offended their intelligence and outraged their feelings. It is in vain that it is claimed that the widespread agnosticism of this age is due to the lack of morality, or to the conscious lack of logic of the mind. Anyone who carefully examines the phenomena mentioned will admit that people of keen intellect have been driven out of Christianity.” (“Esoteric Christianity”, page 27.) Annie Besant answers the question of what is to be done in this direction from the standpoint that the root of Christianity also lies in a hidden wisdom, and that faith must struggle back to this root in order to survive. If Christianity is to “live on, it must regain the knowledge it has lost...; it must again appear as an authoritative teacher of spiritual truths, with that authority which alone is worth anything, the authority of knowledge... Then the hidden Christianity will descend again into the Adytum, behind the veil that protects the “Holy of Holies”, into which only the initiate may enter.“ (”Esoteric Christianity”, page 29.)

How the “great initiates” and, in particular, Christianity lead through the “narrow gate” into the “garden of maturity” is described by Annie Besant and Edouard Schuré in the books mentioned above.

Through the sense of sight, man perceives nature in a hundredfold of light and color shades. It is the rays of sunlight that, reflected from objects, cause their light shades. If the perception of sunlight is a daily habit of the eye, the eye is not able to look into the source of light, into the sun itself, without being blinded by the direct rays of the sun. What corresponds to the everyday work of the eye in its effects: that becomes the cause of pain when it itself, as cause, strikes the sense of sight. He who knows how to apply this image in the right way to the spiritual life of man understands why those who “know” speak of dangers in initiation into the mysteries. These dangers are very real; but the words of the one who speaks of them must not be understood literally in the sense in which we speak of dangers in ordinary life. — Man's intellect and reason are just as little accustomed to seeing the sources of truth in the whole of the world as the eye is able to look directly at the sun. Just as the eye perceives the effects of light as corresponding to it, so reason and understanding perceive the effects of eternal wisdom in the phenomena of nature and in the course of human history. And just as the eye becomes powerless in the face of the source of light, so human understanding becomes powerless in the face of the original sources of wisdom. This understanding fails at first. One need only compare what happens to man with the fact that the eye is dazzled by the sun. Because man is accustomed to seeing only the reflection of truth in nature and spiritual life, and not the truth itself, he is powerless in the face of it when it confronts him. Accustomed to grasp only the coarse reality that surrounds him in everyday life, he perceives the revelations of higher wisdom as illusions, as unreal fantasies. They cannot tell him anything. They are like airy chimeras, blurring when he tries to grasp them. For he wants to grasp them in the same way as he is accustomed to grasping the things of ordinary reality. This reality attracts him with a thousand ties. He knows what it can promise him, he has learned to appreciate it a thousand times over. - Those who see in the right light understand what religious legends mean when they speak of the tempter who promises all the glories of this world to those who want to enter the path of higher enlightenment. If the power to resist this tempter is not awakened in them, then they will inevitably fall prey to him. And this suggests something of what is meant by the dangers of the “threshold” that must be crossed if the “path” of wisdom is to be entered. No one can enter this path who wants to use his spiritual eye, his intellect and his reason only as they are used in everyday life. As a transformed being, as one whose spiritual eye has been strengthened, man must enter the threshold. And in our present age it is difficult to strengthen the eye in this way. For this eye is attuned only to the tangible, precisely through our science. In order to make its conquests in the field of external natural forces, this science had to dull the eye for the spiritual forces of existence. This should not be misunderstood as a reproach. Anyone who wants to understand the mechanism of a clock certainly does not need to explore the thoughts of the inventor of the clock: he can stick to what he has learned in physics. He can understand the clock from its mechanism itself. But no one can understand how the forces and things that work together in the clock are originally put together unless he seeks the spirit that put them together and explores the reasons why they are put together. The natural scientist can only understand nature correctly if he first seeks the forces of its workings within it. If he claims that they have put themselves together, he is like someone who might think that the clock made itself. Superstition is not looking for the spirit behind things: but blindly attributing it to the things themselves. The superstitious person is not like the person who looks for the inventor of the clock, but like the person who in the clock itself suspects a spirit that moves the hands forward. Only when one misunderstands those who search for the spirit in the existence of the world can one lump them together with those who are rightly accused of superstition and who are just as rightly considered troublemakers today because they endanger the blessings that our scientific culture has created. (Those who see without prejudice will know who is meant in both directions.)

Anyone who enters the “threshold” to higher insight must, if he is to succeed in his progress, be endowed with the power that leads to the perception of the real where the ordinary mind and everyday reason perceive fantasy and illusion. For it is the permanent and eternal that appears to the eye attuned to the transitory and temporal as illusion and fantasy. Therefore, nothing can help a person when he is led to the sources of eternal wisdom with his ordinary mind. That is why the first step in initiation in the mysteries is not the imparting of new knowledge, but the complete transformation of the human powers of cognition. With subtle insight, Edouard Schuré characterizes in his book “The Great Initiates” the path of those striving for “knowledge” through the mysteries: “Initiation was a gradual introduction of the human being towards the dizzying heights of the spirit, from which life is dominated.” And further on, we are told: “To achieve mastery, the ancient sages said, man needs a complete transformation of his physical, moral and intellectual being. This transformation is only possible through the simultaneous exercise of will, intuition and reason. Through their complete harmony, man can expand his abilities to incalculable limits. The soul has dormant senses. Initiation awakens them. Through deep study and constant diligence, man can come into conscious relationship with the secret forces of the universe. Through an amazing effort, he can reach immediate spiritual perfection, can open the paths to it and make himself capable of directing himself there. Only then can he say that he has conquered fate and that he has conquered his divine freedom from there. Only the initiate can become an initiator, prophet and theurgist, that is, a seer and creator of souls. For only he who shows himself the way can show it to others: only he who is free can liberate.“ (”The Great Initiates”, page 124.)

This is how we must understand the task of the mysteries, insofar as their first stage is concerned. It was not just a matter of a new science, but of creating new powers of the soul. Man had to become another person, a '"transformed being, before he was led into the spiritual sun, to the source of wisdom.

Those whose powers are not steeled when they cross the threshold will not feel the reality of the eternal, spiritual powers that confront them. Instead of connecting with a higher world, he falls back into the lower one. This danger is faced by anyone who seeks the sources of wisdom. If a person succumbs here, then he has temporarily killed the seed of eternity within himself. This seed was previously dormant within him. But even as a dormant seed, it was that which ennobled and transfigured the transitory, lower nature. Naively and unconsciously, man lived with his inclination towards higher spirituality. The unsuccessful attempt at initiation has killed the slumbering inclination. Nothing remains for man but the urge to live in the transitory, to live in the realm of this world alone. Because he has felt the divine-spiritual as an illusion, he worships the sensual-material. Thus, at the “threshold”, man can lose his most valuable part, his immortal part. This is the danger, which is analogous to the blinding of the eye in the above picture.

It is clear that those who were responsible for the initiation in the mysteries, out of a sense of responsibility, made the highest demands on the disciples. For these demands had to have the effect of steeling the spiritual forces in the sense described. Schuré describes the sequence of initiation as it was practiced in the school of Pythagoras (582-507 BC). This description is inspired by a genius for art and mystical depth. — With reference to this description, we will speak of these stages here. Only those were admitted to initiation who, by the nature of their intellectual, moral and spiritual being, offered the certainty of success. For these, the time of preparation then began. They became listeners for several years. In our time, when everyone believes that they are entitled to a critical, discerning judgment if they have learned something, or even – perhaps even more – if they have learned nothing, it is not easy to give a sympathetic idea of this long audience. This listener was required to maintain absolute silence. The silence was not meant to be external. It was a silence of judgment. One had to absorb completely without prejudice, without spoiling this impartiality by premature examination. The wise knew, and the listeners had confidence. They were not allowed to examine for the time being. For the knowledge that they received was to make them ready for examination. How can someone really learn if he wants to immediately examine what he is learning? With this view of silent learning, the Pythagoreans have honored a principle that alone can lead up the steps of knowledge. Those who have traveled the path of knowledge know this. They can only feel pity for those who block their path to knowledge by premature judgment and criticism. Our time is completely filled with this immature critical spirit. One need only look around at what is being said by our speakers and what is being written by our writers. If only a little Pythagorean spirit could be found in our time, much more than nine-tenths of what is spoken would remain unsaid, and just as much of what is printed would remain unprinted. Anyone who has made a few observations or formed a few concepts today believes that he is entitled to pass judgment on the most essential things. But such a right is only given to those who have understood how to withhold their judgment for years and to listen impartially to what the wise men of mankind have said. Examine everything and keep the best is a deceptive principle in the soul of those who are not mature enough to examine. Our judgment is nothing, absolutely nothing, before the truth, as long as we have not had it examined by the truth itself. Instead of saying: I will examine everything and keep the best, many should say: I will let the truth examine me; and if I am good enough for it, then it may keep me. He who has not practiced for years in the way of clinging, of living in, of unreserved devotion to the judgment of the wise leaders of mankind, his judgment is sound and smoke.

This is certainly an unsympathetic principle in our age of “enlightenment”, public criticism and the journalist spirit. But the Pythagorean listeners lived according to it.

Once the student had attained the necessary maturity, the “golden day” dawned, when revelations about the nature of nature and the human spirit began. The laws of physical and spiritual existence were gradually revealed to him. Those who try to grasp these laws with their everyday, unrefined intellect will understand nothing of them. Goethe once pointed out what is important here. When he had devoted himself to the study of the plant world in Italy and Sicily and had formed his now much discussed but little understood views on the “primordial plant”, he wrote to Germany that he wanted to make a journey to India, not to discover anything new, but to look at what had been discovered in his own way. It is not a matter of knowing the laws that rational botany has brought to light, but of penetrating into the inner essence of plant life with the help of these laws. One can be a learned professor of botany and understand nothing of this life. Our scholars have some particularly remarkable views on this matter. They either believe that it is impossible to penetrate into the inner nature of things, or they claim that our research has not yet progressed “that far”. They do not realize that, while they can indeed increase our knowledge in a most beneficial way through this research of the senses and the intellect, a completely different way of thinking is necessary for the exploration of the “inner nature” than they are developing. They want to know nothing about the inventor of the clock, studying it according to the principles of physics. Because they cannot find a little spirit in the clock that drives the hands forward, they either deny the spirit that put the wheels together, or they claim that it is either completely inaccessible to human knowledge or “until now”. Anyone who speaks of the spirit in nature is accused of fantasizing with words alone. Well, it is not his fault that the accusers hear mere words. The Pythagorean disciples were introduced to the spirit of nature in the second stage of their instruction.

Once they had passed this stage, they could be led to the “great” initiation. Now they were ready to absorb the secrets of existence. Their spiritual eye was now sufficiently strengthened for this. They now learned not only the spirit in nature, but also the intentions of this spirit. From this point on, the nature of the mysteries can no longer be discussed in the proper sense, but only figuratively, because our language is completely adapted to the intellect and has no words for the higher form of knowledge that is being considered here. So I ask you to understand the following. Above all, man learned to look beyond his personal life. He learned that this life of his is the repetition of earlier lives on a new plane of existence. He was able to convince himself that that which is rightly called the soul often incarnates and reincarnates, and that he must regard the abilities, experiences and actions of this life of his as the effects of causes lying in his earlier lives. It also became clear to him that the deeds and experiences of his present life would have their effects in a future existence. Since the intention is to speak in detail about the great laws of “reincarnation” and “world lawfulness”, or “reincarnation” and “karma”, in this journal, we will stop here with these hints. These truths could become as convincing to the student of the mysteries as the truth that “two times two is four” is to the ordinary person, because he was ripe for them on the third step. But even on this step one can only have a completely certain judgment of these insights, because only on this step is one able to understand their meaning correctly. Even today, as at all times, these ideas are criticized a great deal. But what is criticized is only the arbitrary thoughts of the critics themselves; and these are quite without importance. - Incidentally, it should be admitted that many supporters of the idea of reincarnation have no better ideas about it than its opponents. Of course, it is not to be claimed here that everyone who defends these teachings today understands them. Among these defenders, too, there are many who are too lazy or too self-confident to learn in silence before they teach.

If it was not the case with the Pythagoreans, then there were other mysteries after the “great” revelation initiation, which included the stage of the actual mystical initiation. It was the stage in which not only perception and thought, but the whole life expanded beyond the immediate human personality. Here the disciple became not only a sage, but a seer. He now not only perceived the essence of things, but experienced it with them. It is very difficult to give an idea of what is involved here. The seer does not merely feel things, but he feels in things; he does not think about nature, but he steps out of himself and thinks in nature. The theosophist knows this process and speaks of it by calling it the opening of the astral senses. — The man of understanding passes by the seers; they must appear to him as enthusiasts, if not worse. He who has a sense for their gifts listens to them with pious awe, for he feels that it is no longer a human personality that speaks through them, but living wisdom itself. They have sacrificed their personal inclinations, sympathies and opinions so that they could lend their voices to the eternal word through which “all things were made”. For where human opinion still speaks, where inclinations and interests come into play, there eternal wisdom is silent. And if it reaches the ears of those who have no feeling for it, then it appears as the personal word of a human being, even if divine power may always lie within it. But people could hear from the seers themselves, for the seer is silent in his human personality when the voice of truth speaks to him. His judgment is silent; his interests and inclinations lie before him, as meaningless to him as the table that stands before him is meaningless. He is completely devoted to inner hearing.

Only the seer should ascend to the next level, which the ancients called that of the theurgist, and which in the German language can be indicated by calling it the level on which a “complete reversal of human abilities” takes place. Forces that otherwise only flow into people now flow out of them. In certain areas in which people are merely servants, the one who is ruler is the one whose abilities are “turned”. And since only the seer is able to judge the scope and nature of such forces, people will abuse these forces if they come into possession of them without having attained the purity of the seer. And this “wisdom without purity” is possible through a certain concatenation of circumstances that are not to be discussed here. — Schur speaks excellently of the higher initiation with reference to the Pythagoreans: “... At the summit, the earth disappeared like a shadow, like a dying star. From there, the heavenly vistas opened up – and the “point of view of the heights” unfolded like a wonderful whole, the <"epiphany> of the universe. The purpose of the instruction was not to allow man to become absorbed in contemplation or ecstasy. The teacher had led the disciples into the unpredictable regions of the cosmos, he had plunged them into the abysses of the invisible. The true initiates had returned from this terrible journey to earth better, stronger and more hardened for the trials of life... The initiation of the intelligence was followed by that of the will, the most difficult of all. For it was a matter of taking the disciple into the truth, into the depths of life... At this level, the human being became an adept and possessed sufficient energy to acquire new powers and abilities. The inner powers of the soul opened up and the will radiated into the others.” — ”Everything that a person accomplishes before reaching this level has its causes in regions that are completely unknown to him. The theurgist's gaze sees into these regions; and consciously he lets radiate from himself what in the human being usually slumbers unconsciously in the deepest recesses of the soul. He stands face to face with the guide who has previously led him invisibly “from behind”. Equipped with such thoughts, one should read sentences like the following from the ancient wisdom book “Mundakopanishat”: “When the seer sees the golden-colored creator, the Lord, the spirit, whose lap is Brahman, then, having cast away merit and demerit, the sage, spotless, attains the highest union.”

Schuré directs his gaze to the summits that are thus reached; and the mystical faith in the illuminating power of these summits gives him the ability to see through some of the clouds of mist that veil the true essence of the great leaders of humanity. This enables him to describe the great initiates: Rama, Krishna, Hermes, Moses, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato and Jesus. Gradually, the powers were radiated into humanity through these leaders, depending on the maturity that the human race had attained in the course of time. Rama led to the gate of wisdom, Krishna and Hermes gave some the key into the hand, Moses, Orpheus and Pythagoras showed the inside, and Jesus, the Christ, represented the sanctuary. — It would be called the quite own charm of the Schuréschen book impair, wanted one the remarks to retell, into which, as they are, everyone should deepen itself.

Schuré& indicates how the wisdom powers of the mysteries were poured into the spiritual veins of humanity by the founder of Christianity in a form that could be heard by the ears of mankind. — And in this field, too, the truth is to be sought on the paths that Schuré represents. — The power that radiates from Jesus' personality is living power in the hearts of all those who let it flow into them. Understanding the living Word that works in this power is only possible for those who have obtained the key to this Word through an understanding of the wisdom of the mysteries. And Annie Besant's “Esoteric Christianity” provides the basis for this, as far as possible. It is a book through which the hidden meaning of the words of the Bible is revealed to the devoted reader.

In our time, such key books are necessary. Humanity was in a different state than it is now when it received the gospel, the “good news”. Today, reason has a completely different training than it did nineteen centuries ago. Today, people can only experience the living power of the “revealed word” if they can grasp this power with their ability to judge. But what is true remains eternally true, even if the way in which man must grasp it changes over the course of time. That reason and judgment should assert their rights today is a necessity; the student of the development of humanity knows that it must be so. That is why he gives reason what was given to other powers of the soul centuries ago. It is from this realization, and from no other, that the true 'theosophist' should work. Annie Besant's 'Esoteric Christianity' should be understood in this way.

The theosophist knows that Christianity is the truth. And he also knows that Jesus, in whom the Christ was embodied, is not a leader of the dead, but a leader of the living. He understands the great master word: I am with you always, even to the end of the age. The one who wants to explain Christianity in the way Annie Besant does turns first to the living leader, not to the one of the historical reports. What the “living word” still proclaims to the ear that wants to listen: that then radiates into the gospel reports. Yes, he has remained until today, the announcer of the word, and he can tell us himself how we have to grasp the letter that reports of his deeds and speeches. The “good tidings” are to be grasped esoterically, that is, the living power must first awaken within us, which will then impress the stamp of the “holy” upon them. And because the intellect and the power of judgment are the great means of contemporary culture, they must be freed from the bonds of mere sensual comprehension, of the purely tangible understanding of reality. The intellect of contemporary humanity must itself immerse itself in the ocean that fills it with true piety. For it is not right that the clever intellect should only destroy the “illusions” that the religious sense has woven around things. This is only accomplished by a mind that is blinded and captivated by the successes it has achieved in the knowledge and control of purely material natural forces. —- People of the present day, and with them our physicists, biologists, and cultural historians, believe themselves to be free in their purely factual world of reason. In truth, they live under an all-dominant suggestion. Free to a certain extent you could become, you physicists, biologists and cultural historians of the present, if you wanted to recognize that your ideas of reality, indeed of substances and forces of the world, of human history and cultural development are nothing but mass suggestions. The bandage will fall from your eyes one day, and then you will learn in what respect truth and not error is what you think about electricity and light, about the development of animals and of man. For, mind you, even the theosophists do not regard your assertions as error, but as truth. For your view of nature is also a religious confession to them, and when they say that they want to seek the kernel of truth in all confessions, they do so not only in relation to Buddha, Moses and Christ, but also in relation to Lamarck, Darwin and Haeckel. And writings such as those by Edouard Schuré and Annie Besant are called upon to remove the bandages from your eyes; they should teach you to see through your suggestions. In this respect, it is not only the words that are important in such books, but also the hidden powers that guided the writers' pens and that flow into the veins of the readers, so that they are imbued with a new attitude towards truth. Readers who experience the right effect from such books are initiated in a certain respect. – Anyone who does not sense the assertion of a miracle behind this sentence, and who is able to see something other than a phrase in it, will also understand when these books are presented to him not merely with the request for ordinary ordinary reading, but with the quite different intention that they should awaken slumbering powers in him through the powers with which they are written, even if these powers can initially only be those of the intellectual soul. But for our time there is no genuine initiation that does not pass through the intellect. – Anyone who wants to lead to the “higher secrets” today by bypassing the intellect knows nothing of the “signs of the times”; and he can only replace the old with new suggestions.

Meditation

He who denies the spirit of the world does not know that he is denying himself. But such a person not only commits an error, he also neglects his first duty: to work out of the spirit himself.

Jacob Boehme (1575-1624) is probably one of the strangest personalities of the last centuries. In the aurora of a quite new time, in the turn of the 16th to the 17th centuries, he stands there with a knowledge and a wisdom, with a worldview which appears like a completion of many centuries. He stands there as a person who was understood a little in the following time up to this day, even if he was called Philosophus Teutonicus and societies existed in Holland, in England, in Germany which tried to make Jacob Boehme's views popular. There have been always persons who occupied themselves with Jacob Boehme.

About 1600, when Giordano Bruno died a martyr's death, Jacob Boehme's soul was penetrated by great, immense ideas for the first time. Who starts devoting himself to Jacob Boehme and, besides, goes out from the views of the present time finds his way in him a little. Hence, one can read in the modern books about Jacob Boehme that he showed his view in images which are incomprehensible and dark. If one reads the stuff that has been said about him in newer handbooks, one may say, it is completely comprehensible that one finds Jacob Boehme incomprehensible. What one can read in the handbooks of history of philosophy about him, however, is the most incomprehensible stuff of the world. This is the peculiar phenomenon which one experiences with Jacob Boehme.

If one knows the spiritual life of the 19th century exactly, in particular that German spiritual life, which especially philosophical circles influence, one can understand that Jacob Boehme was understood so little. There are hardly bigger contrasts than Jacob Boehme and Immanuel Kant. Whatever the education of the 19th century produced is far away from the spirit of this strange man. All who try to approach Jacob Boehme from the theosophical worldview are surprised that one still needed a theosophical deepening with that nation that had Jacob Boehme. One needs only to know Paracelsus and Jacob Boehme to know theosophy. Everything that they wrote is given from a deep spring, with immense deepness and magic power. Jacob Boehme was one of the greatest magicians of all times, of a greatness that has not yet been reached up to now.

In 1575, Jacob Boehme was born as a child of poor people. He was first a herd boy and could hardly read and write. While he tended livestock, already some strange flashes of inspiration lighted up in him. Sometimes it seemed to him, as if any leaf in the trees, as if the animals of the wood had something to say to him, as if all beings of nature spoke to him. Then he was apprenticed to a shoemaker. During his apprenticeship, he had a strange experience that cannot be discussed in the general public concerning its real basis. Jacob Boehme had to look after the shop once when his master and wife stepped out. However, he should sell nothing. A person entered whose eyes made a particular impression on him. This person wanted to buy something. Jacob said to him, he was not allowed to sell anything. The look of the stranger was something quite extraordinary to him. Then the stranger went out. After a few minutes, Jacob heard calling his name. The stranger said to him, Jacob, you are still small now, but you are destined to something great!—Jacob Boehme knew that these words transferred anything remaining to him.

Jacob Boehme tells another experience, about a mountain. Once he saw into a cave where something like gold shone to him. Again, it seemed to him like a revelation, like something that would tell about the concealed forces of nature to him. If one touched that all, it would lose its magic, which one can only understand by occult means.

Like all young craftsmen of the past, Jacob Boehme started wanderings after his apprenticeship and then settled down as master of his craft in his hometown Görlitz. He began soon to write down what lived in his soul. It is important to illuminate the sensations somewhat that were in this personality. He felt raised above himself if he put pen to paper to write down what was revealed to him. Something was in him like a higher nature. This was so strong in him that—if he was back again in the everyday life and if he wanted to read the written down—he could not understand it. He could not follow that spirit. What he wrote down were words from the beginning, which were taken only from the centre of wisdom. Aurora or the Rising of the Dawn was the first book he wrote. Aurora or the Rising of the Dawn was always a symbol of the birth of the higher self to the mystics if the soul rises above the lower existence. The spiritualisation of the human being was always symbolised by the dawn. At that time, Jacob Boehme wrote words, which sound quite naturally with him because they carry the stamp, the seal of truth. Thus, he said once that he knows that “the sophist reproves him” if he speaks of the beginning of the world and its creation, “because I was not present and did not see it. I say to him that I was present in the essence of my soul and, when I was not yet a self, but because I was Adam's essence I was present and forfeited my glory in Adam.”

This simple man, who probably only read Paracelsus if any, had the consciousness that the everlasting soul that lives in the human being is not bound to space and time that there is an expansion of consciousness of this soul by which the human being is able to rise above space and time. Thus, the unity was clear to him, which lives in everything, which lives in every human soul, so that one needs only to remove the narrow borders in order to get a picture, a face that shows everything to us that goes back to the beginning of the creation of the human being. All that was founded on deep devoutness with Jacob Boehme.

He says about his soul condition: “When I struggled with God's assistance, a strange light emerged to my soul that was quite foreign to the wild nature. I only recognised in it what God and the human being is, and what God deals with the human being.”

It was an immediate experience of Jacob Boehme, the emergence of the divine soul in the usual human soul. This experience that was detached in a completely elementary way from the soul founded his enthusiasm. Thus, we see him grasping the human nature, the historical evolution of the whole humanity in a way, which—if one cannot penetrate to the springs—gives him a hard fight to understand this spirit.

What we find with Paracelsus faces us in a spiritualised and transfigured form with Jacob Boehme. It already faces us in his first work, in the Aurora. This work was not printed first, but circulated only as a manuscript among his friends. It fell into the hands of a zealotic preacher. He preached against it and was successful that the City Council of Görlitz forbade Jacob Boehme to write anything in future. One regarded him as such a dangerous person already in those days. However, Jacob Boehme wrote nothing for years. All his other writings date from the last five to six years of his life, that life which one made to him continuously rather hard because one understood nothing of that which lived in this man, For the fanatical priesthood was fulfilled by zealotic hatred for anything that it had not written itself. His works were translated, before they were printed in Germany, into English, into Dutch and other languages. Jacob Boehme's destiny and works are an example of how little the ways of true spiritual life depend on the official education and how difficult it is to overcome the obstacles that are put in the way of the spiritual life by all possible powers.

Already in the Aurora, that faces us which lived in Jacob Boehme. At first, he said that something lives in the human being that can outgrow itself, a divine spark of life. This remained nothing abstract to him, but took shape of a big world building and human building in his thoughts, in his world of sensations. Someone who wants to understand Jacob Boehme has to recognise that only a profound spiritual-scientific education can penetrate into that which lived in Jacob Boehme. He knew of the human being that the physical human being has another, more spiritual, finer nature as its basis. Something is between the physical human being and the mental one that Jacob Boehme called “tinctura.” This is an often misunderstood word. At that time, there were also great spirits like for example Newton, who endeavoured for years to become clear in their mind about what Jacob Boehme means speaking of the tinctura.

If we look back at former times of the distant past, we find that there the world was still completely different from now. Jacob Boehme was completely filled with an immense doctrine of evolution. As extensive, splendid, and applicable to everything spiritual and sensuous at the same time as Jacob Boehme's view of world evolution understands it, no scientific view has shown it. He looks back at far distant periods when the earth still looked completely different from now. Jacob Boehme understood in a strange way what some naturalists have said in an amateurish way about the primeval condition of the earth. The modern naturalist pursues the living beings back to more imperfect forms. He still says then at best, everything on earth developed from a universal nebula. The forms emerged from the principles inherent in a universal nebula.

Jacob Boehme considers this development in much bigger style. He turns his look at all mental beings, at all animal beings, at all minerals, plants, and animals. He is able to behold the former conditions, the forms, which the human being had in former times when these beings were not yet such beings as they are today. In those days, they were included in a kind of original matter from which only the later world has arisen. He sees the world of appearance and the beings as they existed as rudiments at that time. He beholds an earth that is not solid, not air, not water, not fire on which neither animals nor plants do exist, but which contains everything that appeared then. Boehme does not speak of a fantastic primeval nebula, but about the tinctura that was real once when it formed our globe and that rests in secrecy on the basis of the beings today. This tinctura exists in the human being as a spiritual-mental organism behind the physical being. It is also in all other things. From the tinctura, Jacob Boehme derives the creation of all living beings with which he distinguishes seven basic qualities. With it, one comes to a very deep basis of his worldview. Equipped with it, one has a means to solve countless riddles of the world. Besides, Jacob Boehme has a wonderful language, compared with it, our modern language appears grey and lifeless with its concepts.

We have to imagine that the tinctura lives in the world like the primeval matter, that in it everything rests like in a maternal womb, that then the forms come out. He calls a type of the forms the acerbic ones. The human forefather was a being with a cartilaginous scaffolding, as well as the cartilaginous fishes have it today. The skeleton crystallised then from the original tinctura; with acerbity the skeleton of the earth crystallised from the original tinctura. Jacob Boehme calls this the salty in the world. One must not imagine that the original acerbic also had the form of a skeleton. However, everything that tended to become solid and earthy, that crystallised from the original spiritual matter was for Jacob Boehme the acerbic, the salty.

The second form of nature is that which preserves the internal mobility, so that the parts can perpetually interact with each other. Jacob Boehme calls this the mercurial.

The third is the sulfuric, containing the power of fire in itself like a concealed force. What one sees as fire originating from the matter is the one side, and the human and animal passions are the other one. Now they are separated from each other like North Pole and South Pole. The intuition of the folk, as well as Jacob Boehme looked back at a time of the earliest development. There was something that was not a material fire and also not passion from which, however, the fire differentiated on one side, on the other side the passion. At that time, they had a common basis. Jacob Boehme finds the same spiritual basis in the material fire as in the human passion. There is a relationship between that which slumbers in the matter and the human passion. There is something in it that is related to the spiritual side of the fire.

The sulphur contains the fire in itself concealed as the body contains the animal passion. Thus, Jacob Boehme distinguishes this four at first, tinctura, salt, sulphur, fire.

In the same way as the old German folk intuition looked back at a time when there was neither fire nor passion, Jacob Boehme looks back at such a condition, at such a thing, which becomes the fifth original form of nature if it spiritualises itself. He calls it water. It is water in the sense as we find the water in the Bible, as an external symbol of the soul. The spirit of God hovered over the surface of the water, over the soul forces slumbering in the matter, so that they can be raised.

The sixth form of nature originates if the inside penetrates outwardly if the inner life comes to life in such a way that it can be perceived. Jacob Boehme calls it sound. This is any soul expression that the inside of the being has in itself in such a way as the bell the peal. The sound can also express the uniform divine nature. The seventh form then originates, the wisdom, the divine force contained in the world. In these seven forms, Jacob Boehme sees the whole nature included.

The lowest member of the human nature has to do something with the salt-like acerbity; then it rises higher and higher up to wisdom. Furthermore, the forces of nature and the human being are related to the solar system. The relationship of all beings expresses itself everywhere. Jacob Boehme also calls tinctura everything that moves like the spiritual life blood through all beings. It is between the world thought and any matter. Jacob Boehme imagines the great master builder of the world as an artist who organised the world sensuous-physically. He calls the connection between the sensuous-physical and the creator of the world tinctura again. He searches it in any single being.

This is the difficult in his writings that we have to come to grips with his ideas. The human being is normally glad if he has established a few concepts to himself. Jacob Boehme does not form single abstractions that stand side by side like soldiers. He creeps as it were into all beings. He regards all beings as related, as connected with each other. In order to understand Jacob Boehme you have to make your mind flexible as nature is flexible, so that the concepts can also change as the things in nature change. Theosophists also often establish narrow concepts. However, it does not matter to have a concept, but that you are able to dissolve the concept immediately again. If you have a concept, you must be able to transform it as the things change. Nothing is more obstructive than abstract, carefully weighed concepts. Therefore, those cannot understand Jacob Boehme who read him because they form solid concepts first; however, he follows the living life of the things. The concepts must change, as well as the things change. However, people feel hovering as it were. One has really lost ground if one wants to understand the world. You have to keep the centre in yourselves only.

Jacob Boehme's soul painting is a reproduction of nature. He finds in the human mind what is related to the tinctura, the imagination. Imagination is a soul force that is in the middle between the force of thinking and the force of willing. Someone who is able to understand his concepts pictorially and to visualise them in his mind, so that not an abstract picture of the plant faces him, but a plant like of sensuous appearance. That viewable concept is impregnated as it were with real life from within. Someone who is able to do this has imagination. It can be increased in such a way that the human being works creatively and gains influence on that which lives as tinctura in the things.

Here begins for Jacob Boehme that alchemy which is able to react on the matter, the tinctura, and from there also on the sensuous things. Thus, the imaginative human being is able to become a magician. Because Jacob Boehme understood this, we are allowed to call him the greatest magician of the new time. Jacob Boehme calls imagination the great virgin of nature, the virgin wisdom. Now, he goes back to the creation of Adam and further on to the original divine imagination. He says, the divine imagination imprinted the original spiritual human being in the matter according to its likeness. He calls this spirit man the original Adam.

While this spiritual human being is there from the outset, he shows how the spiritual human being already existed in the original tinctura, how then, however, an entire spiritual change took place in the world creation. He places this change on the fourth day of creation. He did not see this original human being whom he calls the tinctura man with eyes, but inside he was clairvoyant, so that he could clairvoyantly perceive everything that took place in him. Then selfhood, independence appeared in this human being. That came during the fourth day, and the clairvoyant human being became aware of himself, started looking his own being. Spiritual-divine creation was originally all around. The primeval man beheld this clairvoyantly. He saw himself now. This was his renunciation of God. This human being would completely have solidified unless anything else were possible. The human being did no longer behold the world clairvoyantly. The point in time happened when the clairvoyant human being could perceive externally what is divine. At first, sun, moon, and stars are pictures of the divine he had seen once in himself.

Thus, the human being had seceded divinity, but due to the senses the world had become perceptible to him. It is the idea of the sensuous perception, which made the ancient tinctura man the material man. He becomes a material human being by his own idea taken from the material world, so that he himself became a sensuous human being from within due to his own imagination of the sensuous.

Jacob Boehme saw a deep relationship of all beings, of the animals, plants, and minerals. He said, everything that lives in the world in skin and bone, in flesh and blood and so on is related to something on earth. Jacob Boehme relates the whole social and artistic structure also to the constellations of the planets. He shows the connection of the planets with the human life. All that is so clear to someone who wants to understand him, but so big that a small-minded time cannot understand him.

Another question still entered his scope of view, the question of the origin of the evil, the evil in the world, the question, how does the evil come into the world? Is the evil contained in the primal ground of the world? The primal ground is then not a good one.

He finds an answer comparing the original good to the light, the pure light. No darkness is included in it. While the light appears, becomes discernible, it appears by the objects with the shadow. Are we allowed to say that darkness is included in the light? Certainly not. Pure light only goes out from the source of the light. However, from the objects the opposite of the light goes out. The light faces us in the world as the primal ground ... (gap in the text). As it is true that the shadow must be present with the light, it is true that the bad must be in the good. We can compare the divine harmony to the human soul. It penetrates the organism. The soul puts the limbs of the human in motion. The world harmony of the divinity enjoys life in the soul in such a way that the limbs have independence. Although the harmony of the soul forms the basis, the limbs can turn against each other. If freedom should be in the world, the limbs must be able to turn against each other. Freedom and the possibility of the bad belong together, harmony and the possibility of disharmony. Just this thought of Jacob Boehme inspired Schelling (Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Sch., 1775-1854, philosopher), and you find a wonderful representation of that which lives in the freedom of the human being (Philosophical Inquiries into the Essence of Human Freedom, 1809).

This writing by Schelling about the freedom of the human being is like an offering to Jacob Boehme. Schelling understood something of Jacob Boehme. Boehme lived on with Goethe and other great spirits of the 19th century. Only when materialism arose, the spiritual life was alienated from Jacob Boehme. Then one understood him less and less. A time comes again in which one will not only understand him but in which one wants to learn from him. A new era approaches for theosophy. A time comes then, when one understands such great spiritual deeds like Jacob Boehme's writings, like the Germanic mythology again when they progress towards a new glorification. A spiritualisation of all wisdom, all human energy can then be caused. If the age comes to an end, which has the task of the external control of all natural forces, then Jacob Boehme will also be understood again. Copernicus, Galilei, and Giordano Bruno also belonged to the same age to which Jacob Boehme belongs. They have the world led to the observation of the sensuous world, the external world.

Jacob Boehme appeared just in that age, and his works are like a big summary of all mental achievements of humanity. He arranges all that for the world in the dawn of an age that introduces the materialistic epoch. When the materialistic age has topped out, Jacob Boehme is also found again and everything that is contained in his works. Everything is contained in his works that the world has collected as spiritual treasures.

We must not consider the achievements of theosophy as something particular. The theosophical world movement must be something that is alive, that signifies life and growth. If the theosophical society represents this, it understands how to work in the sense of the great spirits of former times, in the sense of Jacob Boehme, it becomes theosophical work in the true sense of the word.

The time has now come to make known in wider circles that which has been spoken of throughout the history of the evolution of mankind under the name of the Mysteries or Mysticism, the so-called Esoteric Wisdom.

For in the soul of man, behind what comes to the light of day lies a deeper wisdom which has hitherto remained unknown to mankind in general.

Let us be quite clear what it is men have always understood by the term “Mysteries” or the “esoteric.” All that has been brought about in the world through civilisation goes back ultimately to a few great personalities, a few leading individuals. For example, a construction like the Simplon tunnel can be traced back to the mental work of great individuals, who were not themselves directly concerned with the building of the tunnel but who made it possible, by their Intellectual discoveries, for others to build it.

The “practical” man would perhaps be of the opinion that such things are accomplished by an activity that is purely external. It would be the very greatest mistake to accede to such an opinion. Neither the engineers who conceived the plan, nor the workmen who carried it out, are the spiritual originators. If it were not for what is called Higher Mathematics as elaborated by Leibnitz, Newton and others, such works could never be there at all. These thinkers were necessary in order to bring into being what is called “technics.” If we go to the root of the matter, we shall find that such works could never have been achieved, nor any goods have been manufactured, without the soul of the Thinker.

If this is so with regard to the outer materialistic culture, it is true in still greater measure of the spiritual currents that flow through human history.

All the Religion and all the Art that has ever been brought to mankind, all the Justice that has ever borne rule in states, all the order and Morality that has lived among men leads back to great Initiates, leads back to hidden sources of Wisdom. This is what we find when we set out to look for the deeper origin of things.

Consider the works of Art which have succeeded each other through the centuries, and you will find that they can all be traced back to deeper sources. Whether we take a poet like Dante, or a mind and spirit like Goethe's, or a painter such as Raphael, or again some great religious event in history—all moral and religious streams, all art and all science, lead back into the hidden places, where was cultivated in secret that which is known as Mysticism or Esotericism.

And as with all other religions so with Christianity too we find its foundations in the esoteric. It is only an evidence of shortsightedness when the objection is raised, that Christianity is for simple hearts and should speak to the feelings and be comprehensible for all. That is a very shortsighted view. All religions, it is true, ultimately clothe their truths in sentences so full of power and impulse that no soul is too simple to receive them. What emerges finally, however, in this simple form, has its origin in the heights, with the so-called Initiates.

Throughout history there have always been Initiates. In ancient India it was the Rishis who taught a primeval Wisdom. In Persia Zarathustra was the teacher of Wisdom. We look to Greece, to Egypt, to Rome, everywhere we find to begin with, a religion of the people, but standing in the midst of the people are always those who may be called spiritual “Giants,” unknown to mankind by name. These are they who formed themselves into occult brotherhoods. Whosoever wished to be accepted into such a brotherhood had to undergo a strict and severe probation. The probation had no immediate relation to the intellectual life. It was far more a question of a man's wrestling his way through to an inner freedom of character, where feelings and passions had no power with him. Then he had to learn not to misuse his knowledge. Men who had passed through severe trials and tests of this nature became missionaries to the rest of mankind. They were not allowed to have any other feeling or purpose in their heart, save only this—to serve and help mankind. They had to be men who would make real the words—“He who would be first among you, let him be the servant of all”—And in intellectual striving also they must never lag behind but always press on to find the Higher Truths.

Today it is frequently said to one who believes in the possibility of knowing the Spiritual Worlds: But we human beings have boundaries to our knowledge. But inside the Mystery circles it was said: Thou has capabilities which slumber in thee; if thou develop them, then canst thou strive through to a Higher Knowledge.

The development a man was enabled to undergo by the training of his inner talents and capacities was called in the Mystery Centres a Second Birth. It was said that such a one experienced on a higher plane what a man born blind experiences here in the world of the senses when he has undergone an operation and can see. This “operation” on the soul, the re-birth in the Spirit, was performed for the Mystics in the Mysteries.

That which was called in the Mysteries the Kingdom of Heaven, into which the Mystic was led, was not in some other place. The Kingdom of the Spiritual World is here where man is. As many worlds are around us as we have ability to realize and grasp. It was no dry and abstract Wisdom that was received in the Mysteries, but a Wisdom which was at the same time Religion and Art.

In the Mysteries of Greece the spiritual eye of the Mystic was opened. It was shown to him how once in primeval times man had been half animal and how the soul had striven upwards to that stage of humanity upon which he now beheld himself. Three stages were shown to him. He saw first forms as they lived in a very distant evolution of mankind, then forms half animal and half man, and finally perfect human forms. These three types of the evolution of mankind stood before him in the Greek Mysteries and they found their expression in Greek sculpture. There was (1) the Zeus type, with the straight nose and with the eyes rounded out upwards; (2) the type of the God Mercury with woolly hair and snub nose; and (3) the type of the Satyr, with quite different eyes, different nose and different corners to the mouth. These three types stand before us in Greek art as an image of the stages of the evolution of mankind. At another time it was shown to the Mystic how the God himself descended into nature, how he evolved upwards through the mineral kingdom, plant kingdom and animal kingdom to the human kingdom and was then born anew out of the human heart. That was called the descent of the God, his Resurrection and his Ascension. The whole process was represented in the Greek drama. All that was represented in the drama came originally from the Mysteries.

Just as the trunk of the tree divides itself into different branches, so did religion, science and art become divided in the Mysteries. The ancient Mysteries which were celebrated in Greece—the Eleusinian—and the Mysteries of the Egyptian Priest-wisdom were called Mysteries of the Spirit. Those who stood high in these Mysteries as teachers and leaders had attained to the spiritual worlds; they associated with Spirits, they had intercourse with Spiritual Beings. Iamblichus shows us how the Gods descended in the Mysteries. Only after moral purification, and only when the intellect had been made clear and lucid, could one obtain admission into these places of wisdom.

This is how it was in the ancient heathen times, in the times of the Mysteries of the Spirit. Never without the most wonderful enthusiasm and the most inward devotion did the Mystics speak of that which could be experienced in the Mystery-schools. Aristides speaks thus: “I thought I touched the God and felt him near, I myself being at the time in a condition between waking and sleeping. My spirit was light, so as none can describe or realise who has not himself been initiated.” And in another passage he says: “It was as if the Spiritual World flowed and poured around me.” Plutarch says, “He who had received initiation in these Mysteries greeted the Godhead with the greeting of eternity.” Whoever had had this experience was called “re-born.”

We must now say a little about what formed the last act in every such Initiation into the Mysteries of the Spirit.

There had first to be the moral purification and the clarifying of the intellect. Then the pupil must learn to see with the eyes of the Spirit. Behind the consciousness which accompanies us through the waking condition, there is another consciousness. This consciousness does not sink into complete darkness when man falls asleep. Man remains conscious at night, he is there present. But the consciousness which accompanies him from morning until evening, that does not remain. There is however a way of overcoming the unconsciousness man has in sleep; there are methods whereby this end can be attained. By a culture of the soul which brings about certain intimate processes in the innermost being of the soul, man can win through to the possibility of finding new revelations in his dream life; he can experience things which he recognises in another way than with the eyes and ears of the senses. It is immaterial whether a man recognizes the truth in sleep or by day when awake; in either case he must learn to carry over into reality the world which he there experiences. When in this way he has come into the position of being able to see the Spiritual in the whole world, then he has attained the first stage of initiation.

At the second stage he has an experience which is like living in a flowing ocean of colour. At this stage there is a higher initiation; a consciousness is developed wherein is revealed to him a still higher Spiritual world. Today in ordinary life man is not capable of awakening the consciousness which lies behind the physical world.

In the last act of the Mysteries of the Spirit the pupil was put into a kind of sleep. Care had been taken in the preparation that when the day consciousness sank down, consciousness did not cease. For three days and three nights the man lay in another state of consciousness in the Mystery temple, citizen and participator in another world. Then he was awakened by the Priest. He received a new name. He was an Initiate, he had been “born again.” One could say of the Mysteries of the Spirit: “Blessed are they who have experienced them, blessed are they who now behold in the Mysteries of the Spirit.”

At the time of Christ Jesus, to the Mysteries of the Spirit were added the Mysteries of the Son, and these have been ever since the time of Christ. The Mysteries of the Father—the Mysteries of the Future—are only cultivated in a very small circle. The Mysteries of the Son are cultivated in the Rosicrucian Mystery which is also Christian, for those who require a Christianity that is armed to meet all Wisdom.

Today we will concern ourselves with the Mysteries of the Son, and see how they differ from the ancient heathen Mysteries. If we would grasp what a mighty step forward has been taken by the coming of Christianity, we must learn to understand two important utterances. The one is: “Blessed are they who believe, even when they do not see,” and the other: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.” If we comprehend these utterances in all their depth, then we understand the very foundation of Christianity.

Whilst to the world at large Paul spoke in powerful kindling words, he also gave teachings to his intimate pupils which were transmitted first by word of mouth and then in writing, teachings that are connected with the name of Dionysius, who was known as Dionysius “The Areopagite.” We have here to do with something founded by Saint Paul himself, wherein was proclaimed the deepest wisdom. These teachings of Saint Paul were written down for the first time in the sixth century, in the writings of the so-called Pseudo-Dionysius. It is not so much the historical fact, but the content of these documents which is of interest for us.

An esoteric Christianity does exist. This is not admitted in certain circles, with the result that a peculiar place has been assigned to the Saint John Gospel. The Saint John Gospel is looked upon by theologians as a book which emanated out of poetic genius. They have however no understanding for what the Saint John Gospel means.

Whereas the three other evangelists relate the exoteric. Saint John relates what he experiences as an initiated seer, who could look into the Spiritual worlds. The writer of the Saint John Gospel wrote from the point of view of an initiate. Whoever looks upon it as a book that one should read and understand in the same way as one reads and understands any other book knows nothing of the Saint John Gospel. He alone has knowledge of it who can experience it. Most translators do not render the Spirit of it at all.

The first words of this Gospel, rightly translated, sound as follows:

1. In the primeval beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and with God was the Word.

2. The same was in the primeval beginning with God.

3. All things were made by Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.

4. In Him was the Life and the Life was the Light of men.

5. And the Light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not.

6. There was a man sent from God whose name was John.

7. The same came for a witness to bear witness of the Light, that all might believe on it.

8. He was not the Light, but a witness of the Light.

9. For the true Light which lighteth every man, was to come into the world.

10. It was in the world, and the world was made by It, but the world knew It not.

11. It came into each individual man (even into the ‘I’ man It came) but the individual man (the ‘I’ man) did not receive It.

12. Those who did receive It, through It they could reveal themselves as Children of God.

13. They who trusted in His Name were not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of human will, but of God.

14. And the Word became Flesh and dwelt among us and we have heard His Teaching, the Teaching of the only Son of the Father, filled with Grace and Truth.

These words with their mighty content—one should not take them and speculate over them, but rather allow them to work upon one in the same manner as countless human beings have done through the centuries. Early in the morning when the soul was still virginal, they have let these words resound in their soul, up to the passage: “And the Word become Flesh and lived among us ...” as above.

When a man does this day by day, then something shows itself in the soul which gives him new life, he is reborn, he is spiritually transformed. He sees around him a spiritual world of which he had previously no idea.

Everyone who takes the first verses of the Saint John Gospel and lets them work upon him for the education and training of his soul, experiences the Saint John Gospel itself in mighty pictures.

There before his spiritual sight stands John the Baptist, as he baptises the Christ; there he sees the picture of Nicodemus, as he has his conversation with the Christ. He sees how Christ cleanses the Temple, he has before him all the following scenes of the Saint John Gospel, he experiences the “stations” from the thirteenth chapter onwards.

In order for the pupil to receive aright the influence of these words and find the ‘word’ which is proclaimed by the Saint John Gospel, the teacher spoke as follows: “Thou must fill thy soul for weeks at a time with this one feeling. Think of the plant. It is rooted in the dead stone. If it had consciousness, it would have to bow down to the dead stone and say to it: ‘Without thee I could not live; out of thee I drew nourishment and strength: I owe to thee my being, I thank thee.’ The animal would have to speak in similar words to the plant: ‘Without thee I could not live, I incline myself towards thee in thankfulness, because out of thee I draw that which I require for my existence.’ And it is the same with all the kingdom. Man, who has attained to a higher stage of evolution, must also bow down, as the plant to the stone, to those who work for him, and thank them.” He who would become a Christian Initiate must develop this feeling during a period of many weeks—the feeling that he owes gratitude to him who stands beneath him. Then he experiences in the spirit the thirteenth chapter of the Saint John Gospel where this feeling is given sublime and eternal expression by Christ in the Washing of the Feet. Christ means to say: “Without you I could not be, I incline myself to you as the plant to the stone.” As an outer symbol the Initiate experienced at this stage a feeling as if water were flowing around his feet. It continued for a long time.

When he had gone through this, the Christian Mystic could experience the next stage of initiation. For this he must cultivate the power to endure all the storms and stresses of life. Then he experienced a second picture. He saw himself scourged, and could feel in his own body something like pain at certain points. This went on for many weeks. He experienced the scourging.

Now he could rise to the third stage. The teacher said to him: “Thou must cultivate a feeling which can endure that all thou holdest highest should be treated with scorn and derision.” The scorn and derision must be for him nothing, in comparison with his own inner strength and certainty. Then the pupil experienced two symptoms of Christian initiation. He experienced the crowning with thorns; spiritually he saw himself with the crown of thorns and experienced a kind of pain in the head which is the sign of this stage of initiation. Afterwards, as a fourth experience he had to develop the feeling that his body was no more for him than any other object in the world. He carried the body with him only as an instrument. In many Mystery-schools one learned to accustom oneself to speak in the following way: “My body goes through the door,” and so on. In this way the mystic experienced in himself the Crucifixion. He saw himself crucified. The outer symbol was that during the meditation stigmata appeared at the places of the wounds of Christ—in the hands, in the feet and in the right side. This is the blood-trial of the Mystic, the fourth stage of initiation.

After this the pupil rose to the fifth station which is called the mystic death, a sublime experience of a spiritual nature, of which no more than an indication can be given. There are moments for a pupil when the whole of the physical world surrounds him as with a black veil. In these moments he learns to know the origins of evil. This was called the descent into hell. Then came a strange and wonderful feeling as if the whole curtain were torn asunder. The mystic death—followed by the mystic awakening!

The sixth stage is the so-called Laying in the Grave. All that the earth bears must become as precious to man as his own body. The physical body of man could not exist separated from the earth. If it were removed even a few miles from the earth it would wither, as the hand would wither when separated from the body. What my body is for my finger, that the earth is for men. The independence man attributes to himself is an illusion. And just as man is dependent physically on the earth, so is he dependent spiritually on the Spiritual World. When man comes to feel his unity with the whole planet—then is he “laid in the earth,” then does he undergo the “burial.”

Hereon follows the seventh stage, the “Resurrection” and the “Ascension.” Man experiences here the Eternal. This stage does not admit of description. The Egyptian Priests (who were also their Wise Men) did not make use of the symbols of writing to describe such things. The Mysteries must find a way to tell what cannot be expressed in words. Through the power and might, through the magical power of the Saint John Gospel itself, these things can be experienced.

Such an initiation is the initiation of the Son. It has only been possible since Christ came to earth. The outward Christ who walked in Palestine is related to the inward Christ whom the mystic experiences, as the sun is related to the eye. If there were no eye, then could the sun not be perceived. But the sun produced the eye. Where there is no light, the organ for the light is also lost. The eye was gradually created by the Sun. The eye was created for the light by the light, says Goethe. Whosoever allows the Saint John Gospel to work upon him, develops the inner eye. But, as without the sun the eye would never have come into being, so would spiritual seership never have been there if Christ, the Spiritual Sun, had not walked the earth in person. No Christianity without the personal Christ Jesus: that is the essential and all-important fact.

All other founders of religion could say of themselves: “I am the way and the truth.” All were teachers. Christianity has brought no new teaching. But that is not important. The important thing is that Christians feel themselves bound together with the personal Christ Jesus, as in a family. That is what matters—that He was there, and has lived and has said: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.”

Oriental teachers of religion have exoteric teaching and esoteric, in the same way as Christianity has. Christianity differs from them in that exoteric Christianity is more simple and popular, it speaks to the heart, to the feelings; while esoteric Christianity is essentially deeper than all oriental esoteric. The truth is, the Christian esotericism is the most profound which has ever been brought to mankind.

Christian esotericism was brought to the earth by that very Being Himself with whom one must be united. It is a question of belief in the divinity of Christ. In the ancient Mysteries one had to behold personally during the three days of initiation. What formerly was only present in the Mysteries—that is, in the Mysteries of the Spirit—has in Christianity become an historical fact. The events in Palestine are historical fact and at the same time symbol. Christianity is of such a nature that the simplest heart can grasp it; and yet the wisest man will never outgrow it. For the deepest teachings of Wisdom lie therein.

If we understand the Saint John Gospel as a Book of Life, so that we wish to live with it, and let it come to life within us, then we shall come to know esoteric Christianity. Such esoteric Christianity has always existed, it has always been active wherever Christianity has been able to manifest in a worthy and noble way, wherever Christianity has brought the blessings of culture and civilisation to mankind.

Into all those who had experienced union and fellowship with Christ Jesus there streamed such strength as enabled them to know that life will always gain the victory over death, and that death is never a reality.

Goethe said that the great World Powers invented death in order to have “much life” in the world. Christianity is a proof that there can arise in the soul a consciousness of the fact that Life is continually and always the Victor in the world.

What should not all be reconciled, balanced, reconciled! We have suffered long enough from this tolerance and leniency, we have imagined to our heart's content that we would not be so disunited at heart and that we only needed to come to an understanding, and we have spent the noble time with useless attempts at unification and concordats. But the fanatic is right: “How does Belial get along with Christ?” The pious zealot never let up for a moment in his vigorous fight against the stormy spirit of the new age, and knew no other goal than its “extermination”. Just as the Emperor of the Heavenly Empire only thinks of “exterminating” his enemies, the English, so he also wanted to know of no other battle than a decisive one to the death. We used to let him rage and rave and saw nothing in him but a ridiculous fanatic. Were we right to do so? As long as the rabble-rouser always loses his cause before the healthy common sense of the people, even if the reasonable person does not rebuke him in particular, we could confidently leave the judgment of the excommunicators to that sense and also followed this confidence in general. But our forbearance lulled us into a dangerous slumber. The bluster did us no harm, but behind the bluster was the believer and with him the whole host of the God-fearing, and - what was the worst and strangest thing of all - we ourselves were behind it too. We were, it is true, very liberal philosophers and thought nothing of thinking: thinking was everything in everything. But what about faith? Should it give way to thinking? Far be it! The freedom of thought and knowledge in all its honor, but no hostility could be assumed between faith and knowledge! The content of faith and that of knowledge is one and the same content, and anyone who violates faith does not understand himself and is not a true philosopher! Did not Hegel himself make it the “purpose of his religious-philosophical lectures to reconcile reason with religion” (Phil. d. Rel. II, 355); and should we, his disciples, want to take something away from faith? Far be it from us! Know, you faithful hearts, that we are completely in agreement with you in the content of faith, and that we have only set ourselves the beautiful task of defending your faith, which is so misunderstood and challenged. Or do you still doubt it? See how we justify ourselves before you, read our conciliatory writings on “Faith and Knowledge” and on “The Piety of Philosophy towards the Christian Religion” and a dozen similar ones, and you will have no more doubts against your best friends!

Thus the good-hearted, peaceful philosopher threw himself into the arms of faith. Who is so pure of this sin that he could pick up the first stone against the poor philosophical sinner? The somnambulistic sleep period full of self-deception and deception was so common, the urge and drive for reconciliation so universal, that only a few remained free of it, and these few perhaps without true justification. This was the era of peace in diplomacy. Nowhere was there real enmity, and yet everywhere there was a striving to outsmart and outdo one another, to provoke and to compensate, to talk and talk, a sugary peacefulness and a friendly mistrust, as diplomacy of that time, that subtle art of disguising the seriousness of one's intentions with superficial banter, has been able to find such phenomena of self-deception and deception a thousand times over in all areas. “Peace at any price” or rather “equilibrium and compatibility at any price” was the paltry heart's desire of these diplomats. This would be the place to sing a song about this diplomacy, which has made our whole life so energyless that we still stagger around in a drowsy trust in those skilled magnetizers who lulled our and their own reason, if it were not - forbidden.

But above all, we are only concerned here with the kind of diplomacy that seems destined to deal the final blow to a book whose advertisement was to be introduced by the above remarks.

“The Trumpet of the Last Judgment over Hegel the atheist and Antichrist. An ultimatum.”

A pamphlet of eleven pages has just been published under this title by Wiegand, the author of which is not difficult to identify for those who know his last literary achievements and, precisely from this, his scientific standpoint.¹ A delicious mystification of this book! A man of the most devout piety, whose heart is filled with resentment against the wicked horde of young Hegelians, goes back to the origin of the latter, to Hegel himself and his teacher, and finds - horror of horrors! - the whole revolutionary malice that now gushes forth from his vicious

in the hardened, hypocritical sinner, who had long been considered a stronghold and shield of the faith. Full of righteous anger, he tears the priestly vestments from his body, puts a paper cap painted with devils and flames on his shaven head, like the priests in Kostnitz did to Huss, and chases the “arch-heretic” through the streets of the astonished world. No one has yet revealed the philosophical Jacobin with such dauntless and comprehensive skill. It is unmistakably an excellent move on the part of the author to put the radical attack on Hegel into the mouth of a decided servant of God. These servants have the merit of never having allowed themselves to be blinded, but rather of having correctly sensed in Hegel their arch-enemy and the Antichrist of their Christ. Unlike those “well-meaning” people who did not want to spoil their faith or knowledge, they did not give in to gullible trust, but rather kept a close eye on the heretic with inquisitorial severity until they caught him. They did not allow themselves to be deceived – as the most stupid are usually the most cunning – and can therefore rightly claim to be the best experts on the “dangerous sides” of Hegel's system. “You know the archer, seek no other!” The wild animal knows very well that it has most to fear from man.

Hegel, who wanted to elevate the human spirit to the almighty spirit and did so, and who impressed upon his students the doctrine that no one should seek salvation outside of and above himself, but that he is his own savior and savior, never made it his particular calling to cut out of each of his students the egoism that resisted the liberation of the individual in a thousand different forms, and to wage a so-called “small war”. He was also criticized for this omission in the form of accusations that his system lacked all morality, which was probably intended to say that he lacked the beneficial paranesis and pedagogical fatherliness that form the pure heroes of youth. The man who has been given the task of overthrowing an entire world by building a new one that leaves no room for the old one should, like a schoolmaster, pursue the young people on all the secret paths of their malice and preach morality to them, or angrily shake the rotten huts and palaces that must sink anyway as soon as he throws the whole heaven down on them, along with all the well-fed Olympians! This is what the petty fears of creatures can only wish for, because they lack the courage to shake off the tangle of life from themselves, not the courageous human being, who only needs one word, the Logos, and in it has everything and creates everything from it. But because the mighty creator of the word, because the master, only occasionally omitted the details of the world, whose totality he had overthrown, because in his divine wrath over the whole he betrayed and felt less anger over this and that, because he hurled the god from his throne one, regardless of whether the whole host of angels with trumpets would then be scattered into nothingness: that is why details and this and that have risen again, and the disregarded angels are blowing their lungs out into the “trumpet of the last judgment”. So after the death of the “king”, a bustle arose among the “carts”. Hadn't the dear little angels been left behind? “The rascals are really too appetizing!” It would be wonderful to compare them to them. If only they would make themselves a little more worldly, a little more reasonable!

You sway back and forth, so lower yourselves,
Move your fair limbs a little more worldly;
Truly, you look quite beautiful in earnest.
But I would like to see you smile just once;
That would be an eternal delight to me. I mean like when lovers look,
A little tug at the mouth and it's done. I like you best, you tall fellow, you.
The priest's expression does not suit you at all,
So look at me a little lustfully!
You could also go more decently - naked,
The long pleated shirt is unseemly
They turn - to be seen from behind!
The rascals are quite too appetizing!

The desire for the positive took hold of those to whom the commandment of the world spirit was given to continue Hegel's work in detail, as he himself exhorted them to do, for example at the end of his History of Philosophy: “I wish that this History of Philosophy may contain a call for them to grasp the spirit of the time, which is natural in us, and to bring to light from its naturalness, that is, from its closedness and lifelessness, and - each in his own place - to bring it to light with consciousness.» For his part, however, as a philosopher, he refused to help the world out of its temporal plight. “How the temporal, empirical present finds its way out of its dilemma, how it shapes itself, is up to it, and is not the immediate practical concern of philosophy.” (Philosophy of Religion II. $. 356.) He spread the heavens of freedom over it and was now allowed to “leave it to it” whether it wanted to direct its sluggish gaze upwards and thus do its part. It was different with his disciples. They already belonged to this “empirical present, which has to find its way out of its conflict”, and had to help it, the first enlightened ones. But they “whined” and became diplomats and peace brokers. What Hegel had torn down in the main, they thought they could rebuild in detail; for he himself had not always declared himself against the individual and was often as obscure in detail as Christ. It is good to mumble in the dark: there is much that can be interpreted into it.

We are fortunate that the dark decade of diplomatic barbarism is over. It had its good points and was - inevitable. We first had to clarify ourselves and absorb the whole weakness of the old in us, in order to learn to despise it as our property and our own self quite energetically. From the mud bath of humiliation, in which we are defiled with the impurity of stability of every kind, we emerge strengthened and call out, revitalized: “The bond between you and us be torn! War to the death! Those who still want to negotiate diplomatically, who still want “peace at any price”, should beware of getting caught between the swords of the combatants and becoming a bloody victim of their “well-meaning” half-heartedness. The time of reconciliation and sophistry against others and ourselves is over.

The trumpeter sounds the full battle cry in his trumpet of the Last Judgment. It will still strike many a sleepy ear, where it will ring out but not awaken; many a person will still think that he can remain behind the front lines; many a person will still think that it is only useless noise being made, and that what is being issued as a war cry is actually a word of peace: but it will no longer help. When the world is at war with God, and the roaring thunder of battle breaks out against the Olympian himself and his hosts: then only the dead can sleep; the living take sides. We want no more mediation, no more conciliation, no more diplomatic “whining”; we want to be the godless, forehead to forehead with such God-fearing people, we want to let them know how we stand with each other. And herein, I repeat, in this decisiveness of enmity, the God-fearing zealots deserve precedence; they have never made friends out of a true instinct. The revelation of Hegel's arch-heresy could not have been introduced in a more skillful and just form than the author has done, by letting the faithful zealots sound the trumpet of the Last Judgment. They do not want a “comparison of equity”, they want a “war of extermination”. This right shall be theirs.

But what can the God-fearing find wrong with Hegel – and with this question we will enter the book itself? The God-fearing? Who threatens them more with destruction than the destroyer of fear? Yes, Hegel is the true herald and creator of courage, before which cowardly hearts tremble. Securi adversus homines, securi adversus Deos, is how Tacitus describes the ancient Germans. But their security against God had been lost in the loss of themselves, and the fear of God took root in their contrite hearts. They have finally found themselves again and conquered the shivers of fear; for they have found the word that henceforth can no longer be destroyed, that is eternal, even though they themselves may still struggle and fight against it until each one of them becomes aware of it. A truly German man - securus adversus Deum - has spoken the liberating word, the self-sufficiency, the autarchy of the free man. We have already been delivered from many kinds of fear and respect by the French, who first proclaimed the idea of freedom with world-historical emphasis, and have allowed it to sink into the nothingness of ridicule. But have they not reappeared with the hideous heads of the snake, and does not a hundredfold fear still darken the bold self-confidence? The salvation which the French brought us was as little thorough and unshakable as that which once came from Bohemia in the Hussite storm, giving the signal for the flames of the later German Reformation. The German alone and he alone demonstrates the world-historical calling of radicalism; only he alone is radical, and he alone is so – without wrong. No one is as inexorable and ruthless as he is; for he does not merely overthrow the existing world in order to remain standing himself; he overthrows – himself. Where the German outlines, there a god must fall and a world must perish. For the German, the destruction and crushing of the temporal is his eternity. Here there is no more fear or despair: he not only drives away the fear of ghosts and this or that kind of reverence, he exterminates all and every fear, reverence itself and the fear of God. Flee, you fearful souls, from the fear of God to the love of God, for which you do not even have a proper word in your language and consequently also in your national consciousness: he no longer suffers at your request, for he makes your God a corpse, and he thereby transforms your love into abhorrence.

In this sense, the “Trombone” also blares out, and contains the true tendency of the Hegelian system, with Old Testament formulas and sighs, so that “the modern doubts, transactions and anxious crusades, which are still based on the assumption that error and truth can be mediated, come to an end.” “Away,” cries the trombonist, filled with rage against all thought, ”away with this mediating rage, with this sentimental jelly, with this world of rogues and lies: only one thing is true, and when one and the other are put together, the other falls into nothingness of its own accord. Don't come to us with this anxious, worldly-wise timidity of the Schleiermacher school and positive philosophy; away with this stupidity, which only wants to mediate because it still loves error inwardly and does not have the courage to tear it out of its heart. Tear it out and throw it away, this double-tongued, to-and-fro-driving, flattering and mediating serpent's tongue; let your mouth, your heart and mind be sincere and one and pure, etc.” Away, then, with the tough and intellectually paralyzing, albeit ingenious diplomacy!

The trombonist, a true servant of God, as he should be, spurns his motionless God as surely as the Turk spurns his Allah, every support against the blasphemer Hegel, and also against the pious. This digression is dedicated to the preface, in which the “older Hegelians” are first greeted with the words: “they always had the word of reconciliation on their lips, but the poison of the adder was on their lips”. Now “the mirror of the system is to be held up to them, and they, Göschel, Henning, Gabler, Rosenkranz and so on, are obliged to answer, because they owe it to their - government. The time has come when further silence is a crime. A “philosophical school” has also formed, which wanted to create a “Christian and positive philosophy” and refute Hegel philosophically, but it also only loved its own ego, it has offended against the foundations of Christian truth, and in addition it has had as little success and effect among the faithful as among the unbelievers. When we complain and governments look for a doctor, has one of the positives found himself as a doctor, have the governments entrusted one of them with the cure? No! Other men are needed! A Krummacher, a Hävernick, Hengstenberg, a Harleß have had to stand before the breach! A third class of opponents of Hegel's philosophy, the Schleiermacherians, are finally also disavowed. “They themselves are still exposed to the temptations of evil, since they love to create the appearance that they themselves are philosophers. And yet they cannot even show the worldly envious people samples of these images. The word is for them: I know your works, that you are neither cold nor warm. Oh, that you were cold or warm! But because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor warm, I will spew you out with my mouth.” The trumpeter recognizes their zeal for “church life”, but it is not “serious, thorough, comprehensive and zealous enough” for him, and they have also not opposed Bruno Bauer (the Protestant Church of Prussia and science) with anything that could refute his blasphemous claims (p. 30). Finally, Leos, the man who “first had the courage to speak out against this godless philosophy, to formally accuse it and to alert the Christian-minded governments to the urgent danger that this philosophy poses to the state, the church and all morality,” is remembered. 'But he too is criticized because he was not ruthless enough, and because his works are still “permeated with some worldly leaven”, which is proved to him with much sophistry. The conclusion, as is fitting, is psalm-like anathemas against the godless.

The “Introduction” now reveals the actual intention of the grim man. “The hour has come for the most evil, the proudest, the last enemy of the Lord to be brought to his knees. But this enemy is also the most dangerous. The French – the people of the Antichrist – had, with shameless public display, in broad daylight, in the market square, in the face of the sun, which had never seen such an outrage, and before the eyes of Christian Europe, pushed the Lord of Eternity down to nothingness, as they murdered the Anointed of God , they had committed idolatrous adultery with the harlot, Reason; but Europe, full of holy zeal, strangled the abomination and joined together in a holy league to bind the Antichrist in chains and to restore to the true Lord his eternal altars. Then came – no! – then was called, then cherished and cared for, then protected, honored and paid the enemy, whom one had defeated outside, in a man who was stronger than the French people, a man who restored the decrees of that hellish Convention to the force of law, gave them new and firmer foundations, and introduced them under the insinuating title of philosophy, which is particularly seductive to German youth. Hegel was appointed and made the center of the University of Berlin. - It was now no longer believed that the horde with which the Christian state has to contend in our day pursues a different principle and professes different doctrines than those established by the master of deception. It is true that the younger school is significantly different from the older one that the master collected: it has thrown away shame and all divine content, it fights openly and without restraint against state and church, it throws down the sign of the cross as it wants to shake the throne - all attitudes and hellish deeds that the older school did not seem capable of. But it seems only so, or it was perhaps only accidental bias and narrow-mindedness, if the earlier students did not rise to this diabolical energy: in principle and in the matter, that is, if we go back to the principle and the actual doctrine of the master, the later ones have not established anything new, they have rather only taken away the transparent veil in which the master sometimes wrapped his assertions and uncovered the nakedness of the system – shameless enough!

It would now be our task to examine the Hegelian system's accusation of the book's actual content in more detail. However, it is precisely in such a way that it must come to the reader's attention without being wasted and not getting bogged down in a review, and moreover we know of nothing else to criticize in it, except that the author's memory does not seem to have had access to all the useful passages of Hegel's works. Since, as announced on page 163, this work is to be followed by a second section that is to show “how Hegel, from the outset, allows religion to arise from the inner dialectic and development of self-consciousness as a special phenomenon » and in which at the same time «Hegel's hatred of religious and Christian art and his dissolution of all positive state laws will be presented»: so the opportunity is still completely open to make up for what has been missed. So the reader - and anyone who takes a lively interest in the issues of the day cannot afford to ignore this book - may be content with an overview of the 13 chapters. 1. The religious relationship as a substantial relationship. The trombonist claims that Hegel “has drawn a double veil over his work of destruction”, one of which consists of the fact that he speaks of God countless times and it almost always seems as if he understands by God that living God who was there before the world was and so on, and through a second veil he the appearance that religion is conceived in the form of the substantiality relationship and as dialectic, in which the individual spirit surrenders itself, sacrifices itself to the general, which as substance or - as it is still more often called - as absolute idea has power over it, abandons to it its particular individuality and thus unites itself with it. The more powerful minds (Strauss and so on) have given themselves up to this more dangerous semblance. “But,” it is finally said, “more dangerous than this semblance is the matter itself, which immediately confronts every knowledgeable and open eye, if it only makes a moderate effort: the conception of religion according to which the religious relationship is nothing is an inner relation of self-consciousness to itself, and all those powers which still seem to be distinguished from self-consciousness as substance or as absolute idea are nothing but its own moments, only objectivized in the religious conception. Hereafter the contents of the first chapter are evident. -2. The spectre of the world spirit. 3. Hatred against God. 4. Hatred against the existing. 5. Admiration of the French and contempt for the Germans. This does not contradict the praise we gave the Germans above, any more than the passage overlooked by the author, Geschichte der Philosophie III, p. 328. 6. Destruction of religion. 7. Hatred of Judaism. 8. Preference for the Greeks. 9. Hatred of the church. 10. Contempt for the Holy Scripture and sacred history. 11. Religion as a product of self-awareness. 12. Dissolution of Christianity. Hatred of thorough scholarship and writing in Latin. (A strange addition, as the trombonist thinks.)

The second section, for which the author is to be wished all the more help from his extensive memory, since he is not lacking in other talents, is to be discussed immediately after its publication and then perhaps some of the present one will be added.

Why, it may be asked, do we take this book so confidently for a masquerade? Because no God-fearing person can be as free and intelligent as the author is. “He who cannot have himself for the best is probably not one of the best!”

Published in: “Telegraph für Deutschland.” (Edited by Dr. Karl Gutzkow.) No. 6-8. Hamburg, January 1842, and signed on page 31 with the name “Stirner.”

• 1. What he motivates in the address to “his brothers in Christ”: “We will still remain in obscurity, so that it does not seem as if we were striving for a different honor than the heavenly crown. When the struggle, which we hope to soon end, is over, when the lie has received its punishment, then we will also greet them personally and embrace them warmly at the place of election."

[ 1 ] In looking at the world at the present time with open eyes we are constantly confronted with what is called the social question. Those who take life seriously have in some way to consider what is involved in this question. And it must appear as a matter of course that a way of thinking that has undertaken to promote the highest ideals of humanity should somehow come to terms with the demands made in social life. The way of thinking practiced by the science of spirit sets out to do just this for the present time. It is therefore only natural if questions arise about the relationship of the science of spirit to the social question.

[ 2 ] Now it may appear at first as if the science of the spirit has nothing in particular to say about this. What characterizes it more than anything else is the deepening of the soul life and the awakening of the ability to see into the spiritual world. Even those who have had only a passing acquaintance with the ideas promoted by speakers and writers whose work is based on the science of spirit are able by means of unbiased observation to give recognition to this striving. It is, however, more difficult to see that this striving has practical significance at the present time. And in particular it is not easy to see its connection with the social question. Someone may well ask how such a teaching can improve our bad social conditions, a teaching which is concerned with reincarnation, with “karma,” with “the super-sensible world,” with “the origin of man” and so on. Such a way of thinking appears to be divorced from all reality, whereas in fact it is now an imperative necessity for everyone to take his whole thinking in hand in order to do justice to the tasks which the reality of earthly life places before us.

[ 3 ] We shall now take two of the many views concerning the science of spirit which we inevitably come across today. The one is, that it is seen as the expression of uncontrolled fantasy. It is only natural for such a viewpoint to exist. And least of all should it be inconceivable to someone striving according to the method of the science of spirit. Every conversation that takes place in the presence of such a person, everything that goes on around him that brings happiness and joy to the human being, all this can teach him that he makes use of a language which for many is bound to be quite ludicrous. He must of course add to this understanding of his surroundings the absolute certainty that he is on the right path. Otherwise he would hardly be able to hold his own when he becomes aware of the clash between his ideas and those of others who belong to the educated and thinking part of humanity. If he has the necessary assurance, if he knows the truth and weight of his views, he can say: I know quite well that at the present time I can be regarded as an oddity and I can see why this is, but the truth is sure to prevail even when it is ridiculed and mocked, and the effect it has does not depend upon the views which people have about it, but upon its own firm foundations.

[ 4 ] The other view affecting the science of spirit is that although its thoughts may be beautiful and satisfying, these really apply only to the inner life of the soul and cannot be of any value for the struggles of daily life. Even those who turn to this substance of the science of spirit to satisfy their spiritual needs can all too easily be tempted to say: This world of ideas cannot tell us anything about how to deal with social needs and material needs.—But this opinion is based upon a complete misjudgment of the real facts of life and in particular upon the misunderstanding about the fruits of the way that the science of spirit looks at things.

[ 5 ] Practically the only question that is asked is: What does the science of spirit teach? How can what it teaches be proved? And then what people seek to get out of it is found in the feeling of satisfaction which is given by the teachings. Nothing Could be more natural. For we have first to acquire a feeling for the truth of statements that we meet. But what we really have to seek, the real fruit of the science of spirit cannot be sought in this. For this manifests itself only when those who are inclined toward the science of spirit tackle tasks in practical life. It depends on whether the science of spirit helps them to take up these tasks judiciously and with understanding to seek ways and means of solving them. If we want to work effectively in life we have first to understand life. Here we come to the heart of the matter. As long as we only ask: What does the science of spirit teach, we shall find its teachings too “exalted” for practical life. But if we direct our attention to the schooling that our thinking and feeling go through by means of these teachings, we shall then stop raising such an objection. However odd it may appear to a superficial view, it is nevertheless true that the ideas of the science of spirit, even if they may appear to be lost in the clouds, create an eye for the proper conduct of daily life. The science of spirit sharpens our understanding of the demands which social life makes just because it leads the spirit into the luminous heights of the super-sensible. However paradoxical this may appear, it is nevertheless true.

[ 6 ] An example will show what is meant. An extremely interesting book has recently appeared called As a Worker in America (Berlin, K. Siegismund). The author is a certain government councilor named Kolb who took it upon himself to spend several months as an ordinary worker in America. Through doing this he acquired a judgment about human beings and life which apparently neither the education which led to his councillorship had been able to give him, nor the experiences he had had in his post and in the other positions one occupies before becoming a councilor. Therefore for years he held a relatively responsible position, and it was only after he had left this and lived for a short time in a distant country that he got to know life in such a way that he was able to write the following noteworthy sentence in his book: “How often had I asked with moral indignation when I saw a healthy man begging: Why doesn't the scoundrel work? Now I knew. Yes, in practice things are different from what they seem to be in theory, and even the most unpleasant aspects of political economy can be managed quite bearably at one's desk.” Now there is not slightest intention here of creating a misunderstanding. The fullest possible recognition must be given to a man who persuades himself to leave his comfortable position in life and to undertake hard work in a brewery and a bicycle factory. The high esteem accorded to this deed is strongly emphasized in order to avoid the impression that we are about to indulge in negative criticism of him.—But to everyone who wants to see, it is absolutely clear that all the education and knowledge that he had gained had failed to give him the means of judging life. Let us try to understand what is implied in this admission: We can learn everything that makes us capable of taking a relatively important position, and at the same time we can be quite isolated from the life which we are supposed to influence.—Is this not rather like being educated at an engineering school and then, when faced with building a bridge, not knowing anything about it? But no: it is not quite like that. A person who has not studied the building of bridges properly will soon have his weaknesses made clear to him when he begins the actual work. He will prove himself to be a bungler and will be rejected everywhere. But a person who is insufficiently prepared in social life will not reveal his weaknesses so quickly. Badly built bridges collapse, and even the most prejudiced will realize that the builder was a bungler. What is bungled in social life only comes to light in the sufferings of those whose lives are regulated by it. It is not as easy to have an eye for the connection between the suffering and this kind of bungling as it is for the relationship between the collapse of the bridge and an incapable builder.—“But,” someone will say, “what has all this to do with the science of spirit? Does the scientist of spirit really believe that his teachings would have helped Councillor Kolb to have a better understanding of life? What use would it have been to him to have known something about reincarnation, karma, and all the super-sensible worlds? No one would want to maintain that ideas about planetary systems and higher worlds would have enabled the councilor to avoid having to admit one day that the most unpleasant aspects of political economy can be managed quite well at one's desk.” The scientist of spirit can really only answer—as Lessing did in a particular case: “I happen to be this `no one,' and I insist upon it.” Only this does not mean to say that the teaching of “reincarnation,” or knowledge about “karma” enables a person to act in the right way in social life. That would naturally be naive. It would of course be no good directing those destined to be councilors to Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine instead of sending them to Schmoller, Wagner or Brentano at the university.—What it depends upon is this: Would a theory of political economy originating from the scientist of spirit be such that it could be managed well at one's desk but would let one down in actual life? And this would not be the case. When can a theory not hold its own in life? When it is produced by means of a thinking that is not trained for life. Now the teachings of the science of spirit are just as much the real laws of life as are the theories of electricity for a factory for electrical apparatus. In setting up such a factory we have first to acquaint ourselves with theories about electricity. And in order to work in life we have to know the laws of life. The teachings of the science of spirit may appear to be remote from life, but they are, in fact, just the opposite. To a superficial view they appear divorced from the world; to a true understanding they reveal life. It is not just out of curiosity that we retire into a “spiritual-scientific circle,” in order to get hold of all sorts of “interesting” information about the worlds beyond, but we train our thinking, feeling and willing on the “eternal laws of existence” in order to enter into life and to understand it clearly. The teachings of the science of spirit are a roundabout way to thinking, judging and feeling according to life.—The movement for the science of spirit will not be rightly orientated until this is fully realized. Right action arises out of right thinking, and wrong action arises out of wrong thinking or out of a lack of thinking. If we believe that something good can be brought about in the social sphere, we have to admit that it depends on human capacities. Working through the ideas of the science of spirit brings about an increase in the capacities needed for working in social life. In this connection it is not simply a matter of which thoughts we acquire through the science of spirit, but of what is made of our thinking through them.

[ 7 ] Of course it must be admitted that within the circle of those who have taken up the science of spirit, there is not all that much to show so far. Nor can it be denied that just for this reason those outside the science of spirit have every reason to doubt what has been maintained here. But it must also not be overlooked that the movement for the science of spirit as it is at the moment is only at the beginning of its work. Its further progress will consist in entering into all the practical spheres of life. We shall then see, for instance, as far as the “social question” is concerned that instead of theories “which can be managed quite well at one's desk” there will be ideas which give us insight to reach unprejudiced judgments about life and to stimulate our will to such action as brings welfare and blessing to our fellow human beings. Some people would say that the case of Kolb shows that it would be superfluous to refer to the science of spirit. It would only be necessary that in preparing themselves for any particular occupation people would not learn only theories in their studies, but that they be brought into touch with life through having a practical as well as a theoretical training. For as soon as Kolb had a look at life, what he learned was sufficient to change his opinions.—No, it is not sufficient, because the lack lies deeper than this. If someone sees that his insufficient education only enables him to build bridges which collapse, this does not say that he has already acquired the ability to build bridges that do not collapse. He must first undergo a really suitable preparatory training. Of course we need do no more than look at social conditions, however insufficient a theory we may have about the fundamental laws of life, to prevent us from saying to someone who does not work: “Why doesn't the scoundrel work?” We can understand from the conditions why such a person does not work. But does this mean that we have learned how conditions should be brought about in which human beings can prosper? It is doubtless true that all the well-intentioned people who have thought up plans for the improvement of man's lot have not judged as Councillor Kolb did before his journey to America. They were surely all convinced before such an expedition that not anyone who gets on badly can be dismissed with the phrase, “Why doesn't the scoundrel work?” Therefore are all their plans for reform fruitful? No, because they often contradict one another. And so we have the right to say that the positive plans for reform which Councillor Kolb had after his conversion cannot have much effect. It is an error of our times that everyone considers himself capable of understanding life, even when he has not taken the slightest trouble to come to grips with the fundamental laws of life and when he has not first trained his thinking to see the real forces at work in life. Furthermore, the science of spirit is a training for a true judgment of life because it gets to the roots of life. It is no use seeing that conditions bring the human being into unfavorable situations in life, in which he is found; we have to acquaint ourselves with the forces by means of which favorable conditions can be created. Our experts in political economy can do this just as little as someone can do arithmetic who does not know his two times table. However many rows of numbers are put before him, merely looking at them will not help him. If reality is placed before someone who understands nothing about the underlying forces of social life, however penetratingly he may be able to describe what he sees, he will not be able to make anything of how the forces of social life interact to the well-being or detriment of man.

[ 8 ] A way of looking at life that leads to the real sources of life is necessary at the present time. And the science of spirit can be just such a way. If all those who wish to form an opinion as to “social needs” were to go through the teachings about life to be found in the science of spirit, we should get much further.—The objection that those who take up the science of spirit only “talk” and do not “act,” is no more valid than the one that the opinions of the science of spirit have not yet been tested and so could be exposed as vague theories like the political theory of Kolb. The first objection does not mean anything because it is naturally not possible to “act” as long as the ways to action are barred. However much a person who has great experience in dealing with people knows what a father should do to bring up his children, he cannot “act” unless the father employs him to this end. In this respect we have to wait patiently until the “talk” of those working according to the science of spirit has some effect on those who have the power to “act.” And this will happen. The other objection is just as irrelevant. And it can be raised only by those who are unfamiliar with the real nature of the truths put forward by the science of spirit. Those who are familiar with them know that they do not come into existence as things can be “tried out.” The laws of human well-being are laid in the fundament of the human soul just as surely as the two times table. We have only to penetrate sufficiently deeply into this fundament of the human soul. Of course, we can make what is written into the soul in this way evident just as we can make evident that twice two are four if we place four beans in two groups next to each other. But who would maintain that the truth “twice two are four” first has to be “tested” with beans? The true situation is: Whoever doubts a truth of the science of spirit has not yet recognized it, just as only a person could doubt that “twice two are four” who has not yet recognized the fact. However much the two differ, because the latter is so simple and the former so complicated the similarity in other respects is nevertheless there.—Naturally this cannot be realized so long as we do not enter into the science of spirit itself. This is why it is not possible to offer a “proof” of this fact for someone who does not know the science of spirit. We can only say: First get to know the science of spirit and then all this will become clear to you.

[ 9 ] The important role of the science of spirit in our times will be revealed when it has become like a leaven in the whole of our life. As long as the way into this life is not trodden in the full sense of the word, those working in harmony with the science of spirit will not have advanced beyond the first beginnings of their work. And as long as this is the case they will no doubt also have to listen to the reproach that their ideas are inimical to life. Yes, they are just as inimical to life as was the railway to a life that regarded the mail coach as the “symbol of true life.” They are just as inimical as the future is inimical to the past.

[ 10 ] In what follows, particular aspects of the relationship between “the science of spirit and the social question” are discussed.—

[ 11 ] There are two opposing views concerning the “social question.” The one sees the causes of good and bad in social life more in the human being, the other more in the conditions in which men live. Those who represent the first view want to encourage progress by endeavoring to increase the spiritual and physical ability of the human being and his moral feeling; those who tend toward the second view are above all concerned to raise the standard of life, for they say that when men learn to live properly, their ability and ethical feelings will rise by themselves to a higher level. We cannot deny that today the second view is constantly gaining ground. To stress the first view is felt in many circles to be the expression of a quite antiquated way of thinking. The point is made that anyone who has to struggle with the bitterest poverty from morning to night cannot do anything about the development of his spiritual and moral powers. Such a person should first be given bread before you talk to him about spiritual matters.

[ 12 ] This last assertion in particular can easily become a reproach to a striving like the science of spirit. And it is not the worst people who make such reproaches today. They say, for instance: “The genuine theosophist does not descend willingly from the devachan and karmic spheres to the earth. One prefers to know ten words of Sanskrit rather than be taught what ground rent is.” This we read in an interesting book, The Cultural Situation of Europe at the Reawakening of Modern Occultism, by G. L. Dankmar (Leipzig, Oswald Mutze, 1905).

[ 13 ] This is an easy enough way of putting the objection. It is pointed out that nowadays families of eight people are herded together into a single room so that even air and light are insufficient, and the children have to be sent to school where weakness and hunger cause them to break down. It is then said: Should not those who are concerned about the progress of the masses concentrate all their efforts on alleviating such conditions? Instead of directing their thinking to teaching about the higher worlds of the spirit they should direct it to the question: How can these terrible social conditions be dealt with? “Let Theosophy descend from its icy loneliness to the people; let it put the ethical demand of universal brotherhood earnestly and truly at the top of its program, and let it act according to this without worrying about all the consequences; let it make the word of Christ about loving one's neighbor a social deed and it will become and remain a precious and indispensable possession of humanity.” This is what we read in the above-mentioned book.

[ 14 ] Those who make such an objection against the science of spirit mean well. In fact, we must even admit that they are right concerning some people who have studied the teachings of the science of spirit. Among the latter there are, without doubt, some who are interested only in their own spiritual needs, who only want to know something about the “higher life,” about the destiny of the soul after death, and so on.—And it is certainly not wrong to say that at the present time it appears more necessary to work for the common good and to develop the virtues of loving one's neighbor and of human welfare than, in isolation from the world, to cultivate any higher faculties which might be dormant in the soul. To desire the latter above all else could mean a kind of refined egotism where the well-being of one's own soul is placed higher than the normally accepted human virtues. Another remark that is heard just as frequently is that only those who are “well off” and who therefore have “time to spare” can take an interest in such things as the science of spirit. And therefore we should not wish to stuff people who have to toil from morning to night for a miserable wage with talk about universal human unity, about “higher life,” and similar things.

[ 15 ] It is only too true that in this respect quite a number of sins are committed by those following the science of spirit. But it is just as correct to say that life led according to the science of spirit, rightly understood, must lead the human being, as an individual, to the virtues of willingly offered work, and of striving for the common good. At any rate, the science of spirit cannot prevent anyone from being just as good a person as the others who do not know or do not want to know anything about the science of spirit.—But as far as the “social question” is concerned, all this misses the main point. Much more is necessary to penetrate to this main point than the opponents of the science of spirit wish to admit. We can agree without hesitation with these opponents that much can be achieved with the means that have been suggested by many for the improvement of man's social condition. One party wants one thing, others something else. To a clear-thinking person, some of the demands which such parties make prove to be devoid of any real substance; on the other hand, some of it certainly contains the making of something really substantial.

[ 16 ] Robert Owen, who lived from 1771 to 1858 and who certainly was one of the noblest social reformers, emphasized again and again that the human being is molded by his environment in which he grows up, that his character is not formed by himself, but by the conditions in which he lives. What is so obviously right in such a statement should not be disputed. But neither should it be treated with a disdainful shrug of the shoulder, even if on the surface it appears to be more or less self-evident. Rather, it should be readily admitted that much in public life can be improved by working according to such ideas. The science of spirit, therefore, will never prevent anyone from doing anything for human progress which sets out to produce a better lot for the oppressed and suffering classes of humanity.

[ 17 ] The science of spirit must go deeper. Really effective progress cannot be achieved by such means any longer. If we do not admit this, we have not recognized how conditions come about in which people live. For inasmuch as the life of man is dependent on these conditions the latter themselves are brought about by man. Or who has arranged it that one person is poor and another rich? Other people, of course. But the fact that these other people have normally lived before those who flourish or do not flourish under the conditions, does not alter anything in this situation. The sufferings which nature itself places upon the human being are not directly concerned with our social position. These sufferings have to be mitigated or even removed by human action. If something is lacking in this respect it is in the arrangements that human beings make for each other.—A thorough knowledge of things teaches us that all evils connected with social life originate in human actions. In this respect it is not the individual human being but the whole of humanity that is the “fashioner of individual fortune.”

[ 18 ] However certain this is, it is also true that by and large no part of humanity, no caste or class, maliciously causes the suffering of another part. All the statements that support this are based on a lack of understanding. Nevertheless, although this too is really a self-evident truth, it must be mentioned. For even if such things can easily be grasped with the understanding, in practice people still act in a different way. Those who exploit their fellow men would naturally not want the victims of their exploitation to suffer. We would make considerable progress if people not only found this self-evident, but also adapted their feelings to it.

[ 19 ] This is air very well, but what are we supposed to do about such statements? Thus, without doubt, a “socially minded person” might object. Is the exploited person supposed to look at the exploiter with benevolent feelings? Is it not only too understandable that the former hates the latter and out of hate is led to his party views? It would certainly be a bad recipe—the objection would continue—if the oppressed were admonished to practice human love for his oppressor, somewhat in the same sense as the saying of the great Buddha: “Hate will not be overcome by hate, but only by love.”

[ 20 ] Even so, it is only the knowledge which follows from this point that can lead us to truly “social thinking” at the present time. And it is here that the approach of the science of spirit begins. This of course must not cling to the surface of our understanding, but must penetrate into the depths. It therefore cannot remain satisfied with merely showing that misery is created by any particular conditions, but it has to advance to the only knowledge that is fruitful, that is, as to how these conditions are created and continuously created. Compared with these deeper questions, most social theories prove to be only “vague theories” or even mere manners of speech.

[ 21 ] As long as our thinking remains on the surface, we attribute quite a wrong influence to conditions and to external things altogether. These conditions are in fact only an expression of an inner life. Just as the human body can be understood only when it is known to be the expression of a soul, the outer conditions of life can be rightly judged only if they are seen as the creation of human souls that embody their feelings, attitudes and thoughts in them. The conditions in which we live are created by our fellow human beings, and we shall never create better ones unless we set out with other thoughts, attitudes and feelings from those that those creators had.

[ 22 ] Let us consider these things in detail. A person who maintains a home in grand style, who can travel first class on the railway, may easily appear on the surface to be an oppressor. And a person who wears a threadbare coat and who travels fourth class will appear to be the oppressed. But one does not have to be an incompassionate individual nor a reactionary in order to understand the following clearly. Nobody is oppressed or exploited because I wear a particular coat, but only because I pay the man who made the coat for me too little. The poor worker who has acquired his inferior coat for little money is, in relation to his fellow human beings in this respect, in exactly the same position as the rich man who had a better coat made. Whether I am poor or rich, I exploit if I acquire things for which insufficient payment is made. Actually today nobody ought to call someone else an oppressor; he ought first to look at himself. If he does this carefully he will soon discover the “oppressor” in himself. Is the work which you have to deliver to the well-to-do delivered only to them at the price of bad wages? No, the person who sits next to you and complains to you about oppression enjoys the work of your hands on exactly the same conditions as the well-to-do whom you have both turned against. One should think this through and one will then find a different way of approaching “social thinking” from the more usual ones.

[ 23 ] Thinking things over in this way makes it clear that the concepts “rich” and “exploiter” must be completely separated. It depends on individual ability or on the ability of our forefathers, or on quite different things, whether we are now rich or poor. The fact that we exploit the work of others has absolutely nothing to do with these things. At least not directly. But it is very much connected with something else. And that is, that our social situation and environment are built upon personal self-interest. We have to think very clearly for otherwise we shall arrive at a quite wrong idea of what is said. If I acquire a coat today it appears quite natural, according to the conditions which exist, that I acquire it as cheaply as possible. This means: I have only myself in mind. Here, however, we touch the point of view that governs our whole life. Of course, it is easy to raise an objection. We can say: Do not the socially-minded parties and personalities try to do something about this evil? Is there not an effort to protect “work?” Do not the working classes and their representatives demand higher wages and shorter working hours? It has already been said above that the present-day view can have absolutely nothing against such demands and measures. Nor is there any intention here of agitating for one or the other of the existing party demands. From the present point of view, we are not concerned with taking sides on particular points, “for” or “against.” This, in the first place, lies quite outside the approach of the science of spirit.

[ 24 ] However many improvements are introduced to protect a particular class of workers and that would certainly contribute much to the raising of conditions of one or the other group of people, the actual nature of exploitation will not be mitigated. For this depends on a person acquiring the products of another person's work from the point of view of self-interest. Whether I have much or little: if I make use of what I have to satisfy my self-interest, the other person is bound to be exploited. Even if in maintaining this point of view I protect his work, it may seem that I have done something, but in fact I have not. For if I pay more for the work of the other person he will also have to pay more for mine, providing the one is not supposed to acquire a better position through the deteriorating position of the other.

[ 25 ] This can be clarified by another example. If I buy a factory in order to earn as much as possible for myself, I shall see that I acquire labor as cheaply as possible, etc. Everything that happens will be done from the point of view of self-interest.—If, on the other hand, I buy a factory from the point of view of looking after 200 people as well as possible, all my actions will take on a different character.—In practice today the second case can certainly hardly be differentiated from the first. This simply depends on the fact that a solitary selfless person cannot achieve much in a community which otherwise is based on self-interest. It would be quite different, however, if work not based on self-interest were universal.

[ 26 ] A “practical” thinker will naturally be of the opinion that no one could manage to help his workers get better wage conditions just by a “good attitude.” For we cannot increase the return on our goods through meaning well, and without this it is not possible to offer better conditions for the workers.—But it is important to realize that this objection is completely erroneous. All our interests, and therefore all our social conditions, change when in acquiring something we no longer have ourselves in mind, but others. What does a person have to look to who only looks after his own well-being? To seeing that he earns as much as possible. How others have to work in order to satisfy his needs cannot be his concern. He therefore has to develop his powers in the struggle for existence. If I establish an undertaking which is to bring in as much as possible to myself, I do not ask how labor that works for me is mobilized. If I do not consider myself but hold the point of view: How does my work serve others? everything changes. Nothing then forces me to undertake anything prejudicial to someone else. I then place my powers not at my own disposal, but at someone else's. The consequence of this is a quite different unfolding of the powers and capacities of the human being. How this changes social conditions in practice will be discussed at the end of the essay.—

[ 27 ] In a way Robert Owen can be called a genius in practical social activity. He possessed two characteristics which may well justify him being called this: a far-ranging eye for measures that would serve social life, and a noble love for human beings. We only have to consider what he achieved by means of these two capacities in order to appreciate their significance. He created a model industrial set-up in New Lanark and employed his workers in such a way that they not only had a dignified existence materially, but that they also lived in conditions which were satisfactory from a moral point of view. The people who gathered there were in part those who had come down in the world and were given over to drink. Better elements were mixed with these, and their example had an effect. And so the best possible results imaginable were attained. What Owen achieved there makes it impossible to place him on the same level as other more or less fantastic “improvers of the world”—the so-called Utopians. He restricted himself to measures which could be put into practice, that anyone not inclined to day-dreams could assume would lead, within a particular limited area, to the abolition of human suffering. And it is not being impractical to believe that such a small area could serve as an example, and that from it a healthy development of the human condition in the social sphere could be stimulated.

[ 28 ] Owen presumably thought along those lines. That is why he was not afraid to take another step in the direction he had already taken. In 1824 he worked toward setting up a kind of small model state in Indiana, in North America. He acquired a district where he wanted to found a human community based upon freedom and equality. Everything was so arranged that exploitation and servitude were an impossibility. Whoever takes such a task upon himself has to bring with him the best social virtues: a desire to make one's fellow men happy, and a belief in the goodness of human nature. He must be convinced that if work organized in the appropriate way appears certain to bring blessing, the desire to work will unfold within human nature.

[ 29 ] Owen believed this so strongly that a lot of serious things had to happen before he began to waver.

[ 30 ] These serious things really did begin to happen. After much noble effort Owen had to admit that “the realization of such colonies must always come to grief unless the general way of living is transformed first;” and that it would be more valuable to influence humanity in a theoretical way rather than by practical measures. This social reformer was forced to this view by the fact that there were sufficient people who disliked work, who wished to get rid of their work on others, for strife, quarrels and finally bankruptcy to ensue.

[ 31 ] Owen's experience can be a lesson to all who really want to learn. It can be a bridge for all artificially created and thought-out measures for the salvation of humanity to a social work which is more fruitful and which reckons with actual reality.

[ 32 ] Through his experience Owen was able to be completely cured of the belief that all human misery comes about through bad “conditions” in which people live, and that the goodness of human nature would come to life of itself if these conditions were improved. He was forced to the conviction that good conditions can be maintained only if the human beings who live in them are naturally inclined to maintain them, and when they do this with enthusiasm.

[ 33 ] One might at first think that it would be necessary to give theoretical instruction to those who are to live in such conditions, that is, in explaining to them that the measures are right and meet the purpose. It is not difficult for an unbiased person to read something like this into Owen's confession. But even so, it is only possible to achieve a really practical result by penetrating more deeply into the matter. We have to advance from merely a belief in the goodness of human nature that deceived Owen, to a real knowledge of man.—However clear people have been about how purposeful certain measures are which can bring blessing to humanity—in the long run all such clarity cannot lead to the desired goal. For the human being is not able to gain the inner impulse to work by having a clear understanding if, on the other hand, the impulses to be found in egotism rear their heads. This egotism happens to be part of human nature. And this means that it stirs in the feelings of the human being when he lives together with others and has to work within a community. This necessarily leads to the fact that in practice most people think the best social conditions to be those where the individual can best satisfy his needs. Thus under the influence of egotistical feelings the social question comes to be formulated quite naturally as follows: What must be done in society in order that each person can have the returns of his work for himself? And particularly in our own times with their materialistic way of thinking, only a few people would base their view on any other assumption. How often does one hear it accepted as a matter of course that a social order based on goodwill and feeling for one's fellow human beings is an absurdity. Rather it is assumed that the totality of a human community can prosper best when the individual can pocket the “full” or greatest possible yield of his work.

[ 34 ] Exactly the opposite of this is taught by the science of spirit, which is founded on a deeper knowledge of the human being and of the world. It shows that all human misery is simply a consequence of egotism, and that misery, poverty and distress must necessarily arise at a particular time in the human community if this community is based on egotism in any way. It is naturally necessary to have deeper knowledge than the kind to be found here and there sailing under the flag of social science, in order to understand this. This “social science” takes only the outer aspect of human life into account, and not the forces which lie deeper. In fact, it is even very difficult with the majority of modern people to awaken even a feeling in themselves that one can speak about such forces. They regard anyone who comes along with such ideas as peculiar. Now in this essay it is not possible to attempt to evolve a social theory based on these deeper-lying forces. For this would need a much fuller work. The only thing that can be done is to point to the true laws which govern how people work together, and to show what reasonable social considerations arise for someone familiar with these laws. Only a person who builds up his view of the world on the science of spirit can have a full understanding of the matter. And it is to convey such a view of the world that this whole magazine works. One cannot expect it from a single article on the “social question.” All that this article can hope to do is to shed some light on this question from the spiritual point of view. After all, there will be some people who are able to have a feeling for the Tightness of what is briefly described here and which cannot possibly be explained in every detail.

[ 35 ] Now, the main social law set forth by the science of spirit, is the following:“The well-being of a total community of human beings working together becomes greater the less the individual demands the products of his achievements for himself, that is, the more of these products he passes on to his fellow workers and the more his own needs are not satisfied out of his own achievements, but out of the achievements of others.” All the conditions within a total community of people which contradict this law must sooner or later produce misery and distress somewhere. — This law holds good for social life with absolute necessity and without any exceptions, just as a natural law holds good for a particular sphere of natural processes. But it should not be thought that it is sufficient for this law to be held as a universal moral law, or that it should be translated into the attitude that everyone should work in the service of his fellow men. No, in actual fact the law will be able to exist as it should only if a total community of people succeeds in creating conditions where no one ever can claim the fruits of his own work for himself, but where, if at all possible, these go entirely to the benefit of the community. And he in turn must be maintained by means of the work of his fellow human beings. The important thing is to see that working for one's fellow human beings and aiming at a particular income are two quite separate things.

[ 36 ] Those who imagine that they are “practical people”—the scientist of spirit has no illusions about this—will only be able to smile about this “hair-raising idealism.” But despite this, the above law is more practical than anything which has ever been thought out by “practical people,” or that has actually been introduced. If we really study life we can find that each human community that exists or has existed has two tendencies in its social set-up. One of these corresponds to this law, the other contradicts it. This has to be the case, irrespective of whether people want it or not. Every community would collapse immediately if the work of the individual did not benefit the whole. But from times immemorial human egotism has thwarted this law. It has sought to get as much as possible for the individual from his own work. And it is just what has been produced through egotism in this way that has always led to distress, poverty and misery. This means that the aspect of human conditions that is bound to prove impractical is the one that is introduced by the “practical people,” that reckons either with one's own egotism or somebody else's.

[ 37 ] Now of course we are not only concerned with understanding such a law, but actual practice begins with the question: How can the law be carried out in real life? It is clear that it says nothing less than this: The smaller the egotism is, the greater the human well-being. Thus in putting the law into practice, our concern is with people who extricate themselves from the path of egotism. This is in practice, however, quite impossible if the well-being of the individual is measured according to his work. Whoever works for himself is bound gradually to succumb to egotism. Only someone who works for others can gradually become an un-egotistical worker.

[ 38 ] For this, one prerequisite is necessary. If a person works for another he must find in this other person the reason for his work; and if someone is supposed to work for the community he must be able to feel the value, the being and the significance of this community. He can do this only if the community is something quite different from a more or less undefined collection of individuals. It has to be permeated by a real spirit in which each person can partake. It has to be such that everyone says: It is right, and I want it to be like that. The total community must have a spiritual mission; and each individual must wish to contribute to the fulfillment of this mission. None of the indefinite and abstract ideas of progress which we normally read about are able to provide the formulation of such a measure. If only these ideas prevail, an individual will work here or a group there without seeing that their work is of any use beyond satisfying their own needs or perhaps the interests they happen to have. This spirit of the total community must be alive right down into each individual.

[ 39 ] From earliest times good has prospered only where such a life has been somehow permeated by a spirit common to the whole community. An individual citizen of an old Greek city, or even a citizen of a free city in the Middle Ages, had at least something of a vague feeling of such a spirit. In this respect it makes no difference that, for instance, the Greek way of life was dependent on an army of slaves who did the work for the “free citizens,” and who were not urged on by the spirit of the community, but by the compulsion of their masters.—The only thing we can learn from this example is that human life is subject to development. Humanity has reached a stage today where the kind of solution of the social question practiced in ancient Greece is no longer possible. Even the most noble Greek did not find slavery wrong, but a human necessity. That is why, for instance, the great Plato could put forward an ideal for the state in which the spirit of the community finds its fulfillment in the fact that the majority of workers are compelled to work by the few with understanding. The task of the present day, however, is to put people in a position where each one can do his work for the whole community out of the impulse to be found within his own being.

[ 40 ] This is why no one should think of looking for a solution to the social question applicable to all times, but of how we must formulate our social thinking and actions in accordance with the immediate needs of the present in which we live.—It is not possible today for anyone to think up something theoretical or to put it into practice so that it could solve the social question. For he would have to have the power to force a number of people into the conditions he has created. There can be no doubt that had Owen had the power or the will to force all the people of his colony to do the work appointed them, the undertaking must have succeeded. But at the present time, such force cannot be used. It must be possible for each person to do what he is called upon to do according to his ability and measure of power, out of his own accord. Just because of this, it can never be the case that a mere point of view can convey to people how economic conditions can best be ordered—in the way that Owen in the above-cited confession thought that people should be influenced “from a theoretical point of view.” An economic theory by itself can never be a stimulus to work against the powers of egotism. Such an economic theory can for a while give the masses life which on the surface, appears like idealism. But in the long run, such a theory can help no one. Whoever injects such a theory into a crowd of people without giving it something really spiritual, commits a sin against the real purpose of humanity.

[ 41 ] The only thing that can help is a spiritual view of the world which can permeate the thoughts, feelings and will, in short, the whole soul of the human being, out of what it is in itself and out of what it is able to offer. The faith that Owen had in the goodness of human nature is only partly right, the other part being a gross illusion. He is right, inasmuch as a “higher self,” that can be awakened, slumbers in everyone. But it can only be redeemed from its slumber by a view of the world which has the characteristics mentioned above. If people are brought together in conditions such as were thought out by Owen, the community will prosper in the best possible way. But if people are brought together who do not have such a view of the world, what is good in these conditions will sooner or later of necessity have to become worse. With people who do not have a view based on the spirit, the conditions which further material well-being must also necessarily intensify egotism and thereby produce distress, misery and poverty.—The original meaning of the saying is undoubtedly right: Only an individual can be helped by the gift of bread alone; a community can only acquire its bread by being helped to a view of the world. It is also of no use to wish to procure bread for each individual in the community. After a while it would inevitably come about that many have no bread.

[ 42 ] Knowledge of these fundamentals removes several illusions from those who set themselves up to be bringers of happiness to the people. For it makes work designed to improve the social well-being a really difficult matter. And it means too that the overall success of such work can, in certain conditions, only be pieced together out of very small individual successes. Most of what whole parties proclaim as remedies for social life loses its value and proves to be vain delusion and empty talk without sufficient knowledge of human life. No parliament, no democracy, no agitation of the masses, nothing like this can have any meaning for someone who looks more deeply, if it goes against the law mentioned above. Such things can only have a favorable effect if they conform to the intention of this law. It is a serious illusion to believe that an elected member of a particular parliament can contribute anything to the salvation of humanity unless his work is carried out in conformity with the main law of social life.

[ 43 ] Wherever this law appears, wherever someone works according to it as far as is possible in the position which he occupies in the human community, good is achieved, even if in very small measure in individual cases. And it is only by means of such isolated examples of work which arise in this way, that beneficial progress in the whole social sphere will come about.—It is also true that in some cases larger communities have a natural tendency which enables them to achieve a greater result in this direction. There are also some particular human communities where something of this sort is being prepared within their natural tendencies and capacities. They will make it possible for humanity to take a step forward in social evolution. Such communities are known to the science of spirit, but it cannot undertake to speak publicly about such matters.—And there are also means of preparing larger groups of people to take such a step forward, even within a reasonable space of time. What anyone can do, however, is to work in conformity with the above law in his own particular sphere. There is no position which a person might have in the world where this is not possible, however insignificant or without influence it may appear to be.

[ 44 ] The most important thing is that each person seek out the ways to a view of the world which is based on real knowledge of the spirit. The spiritual approach of anthroposophy can develop into such a view for everyone, when it evolves more and more according to its content and inherent possibilities. By means of it the human being comes to know that it is not by chance that he is born in a particular place at a particular time, but that he is placed out of necessity into the situation in which he is by the spiritual law of cause, karma. He can see that it is his own well-founded destiny that has placed him into the human community in which he lives. He can also become aware of how his abilities have not come to him haphazardly, but that their existence is dependent on the law of cause.

[ 45 ] And he can realize all this to the extent that it does not remain just a matter of sense or reason, but gradually fills his whole soul with inner life.

[ 46 ] He will come to feel that he is fulfilling a higher purpose when he works in accordance with his place in the world, and in accordance with his abilities. The result of realizing this will not be a kind of shadowy idealism but a tremendous impulse of all his powers, and in this respect he will regard his action just as much a matter of course as in other respects he regards eating and drinking. And furthermore, he will realize the particular significance of the human community to which he belongs. He will come to understand the relationships which his human community has to other communities, and so the individual personalities of these communities will draw together through a unified picture of spiritual aims, a picture of the common mission of the whole human race. And his knowledge will be able to reach out from the human race to the meaning of the entire earth existence. Only someone who will have nothing to do with a view of the world tending in this direction could be doubtful that it could have the effect suggested here. Of course, it is true that today most people have little inclination to go into such things. But the right approach of the science of spirit cannot fail to attract increasingly wider circles. To the extent that it does this, people will do the right things to further social progress. One cannot doubt this, just because no particular view of the world has so far brought happiness to humanity. According to the laws of human evolution it has never been possible to achieve what is now gradually becoming possible: to transmit a view of the world to every person with the prospect of the practical result already indicated.

[ 47 ] The views of the world that have existed so far have been available only to individual groups of people. But what good has been achieved in the human race so far, stems from the various views of the world. Only a view of the world that can inspire everyone and can kindle inner life in everyone is in a position to lead to a universal salvation. This the approach of the science of spirit will always be able to do, where it really evolves according to what is latent within it.—Of course, we should not only look at the form which this way of looking at life happens to have at this moment, in order to recognize what has been said as right, it is imperative to realize that the science of spirit has still to evolve and rise to its lofty cultural mission.

[ 48 ] Until today, for several reasons it has not been possible for it to show the countenance it will have one day. One of these reasons is that it must first gain a foothold somewhere. It has therefore to turn to a particular group of people. And naturally this can only be one that through the particular nature of its development has a desire to seek a new solution to the riddle of the world, and which can bring to such a solution understanding and interest by means of the few people in it who have the necessary preparatory training. Of course, the science of spirit has for the moment to clothe its message in a language suited to this group of people. The science of spirit will find further means of expression to speak to wider circles of people to the extent that conditions allow. Only someone who insists on having fixed dogmas can believe that the present form of the message of the science of spirit is a lasting or even the only possible one.—Just because the science of spirit is not concerned with remaining a mere theory, or merely with satisfying curiosity, it has to work slowly in this way. To its aims belong the practical points of human progress characterized above. But it can bring about this progress of humanity only if it creates the necessary conditions for it. And these conditions can be created only when one person after the other is conquered. The world moves forward only when human beings want it to. But in order to want it, everyone has to work in his own soul. And this can only be achieved step by step. If this were not the case, the science of spirit also would produce a lot of woolly ideas and do no practical work.

On the occasion of his hundred and fiftieth birthday: August 28, 1899

[ 1 ] When Johann Gottlieb Fichte sent Goethe the work in which bold intellectual power and the highest ethical seriousness found an incomparable expression, the "Grundlage der gesamten Wissenschaftslehre", he enclosed a letter containing the words: "I regard you, and have always regarded you, as the representative of the purest spirituality of feeling at the presently attained stage of humanity. It is to you that philosophy rightly turns: your feeling is the same touchstone." These sentences were written in 1794. Like the great philosopher, the bearers of the most diverse intellectual currents could have written to Goethe at that time. The poet and thinker Goethe was at the height of his life at this time. Albert Bielschowski, the biographer who most lovingly immerses himself in this personality and provides us with the most intimate picture of him, already felt the same way about Goethe's contemporaries in the 1990s: "Goethe had received a dose of everything human and was therefore the 'most human of all men'. His figure had a great typical character. It was a potentized image of humanity itself. Accordingly, everyone who approached him had the impression that they had never seen such a complete human being before."

[ 2 ] This was Goethe's relationship to his spiritual environment when he entered his fiftieth year one hundred years ago. He stood there as an accomplished man. The study of antiquity had given his artistic work the degree of perfection that was demanded by the innermost essence of his personality and beyond which there was no further progress for him; his insight into the workings of nature had come to an end. From then on, all that remained for him was to carry out the ideas of nature that had taken root in his mind. At that time, the "most human of all men" had a completely mature effect on those around him.

[ 3 ] Schiller expressed this in eloquent words in the letter he addressed to Goethe on August 23, 1794: "I have long watched the course of your mind, although from quite a distance, and have noticed the path you have marked out for yourself with ever renewed admiration. You seek what is necessary in nature, but you seek it in the most difficult way, from which any weaker force would be wary. You take the whole of nature together in order to shed light on the individual; in the totality of its manifestations you seek the ground of explanation for the individual... If you had been born a Greek, indeed only an Italian, and had been surrounded from the cradle by an exquisite nature and an idealizing art, your path would have been infinitely shortened, perhaps made entirely superfluous. Already in your first view of things you would then have absorbed the form of the necessary, and with your first experiences the great style would have developed in you. Now that you were born a German, since your Greek spirit was thrown into this Nordic creation, you had no choice but either to become a Nordic artist yourself, or to replace your imagination with what reality withheld from it through the help of the power of thought, and thus to give birth to a Greece from within, as it were, and in a rational way." Goethe replied on the 27th: "For my birthday, which comes this week, no more pleasant gift could have been given to me than your letter, in which you, with a friendly hand, draw the sum of my existence and encourage me through your participation to a more diligent and lively use of my powers."

[ 4 ] We can expand on this sentence and say: Goethe could not have received a more meaningful gift in the time of his maturity than Schiller's devoted friendship. The latter's philosophical sense led Goethe's pure spirituality of feeling into new spiritual regions.

[ 5 ] The beautiful similarity between the two spirits that developed is characterized by Schiller in a letter to Körner: "Each could give the other something that he lacked and receive something in return. Goethe now feels the need to join me in order to continue on the path that he had previously taken alone and without encouragement, in community with me."

[ 6 ] Around the time his friendship with Goethe began, Schiller was preoccupied with the ideas expressed in his "Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man". He reworked these letters, originally written for the Duke of Augustenburg, for the "Horen" in 1794. What Goethe and Schiller discussed orally at the time and what they wrote to each other was always linked to the ideas in these letters. Schiller's reflections concerned the question: What state of the soul's powers corresponds in the highest sense of the word to an existence worthy of man? "Every individual human being, one can say, carries within himself a pure, ideal human being by disposition and destiny, with whose unchanging unity in all his variations it is the great task of his existence to agree," it says in the fourth letter. A bridge is to be built from the man of everyday reality to the ideal man. There are two instincts that hold man back from ideal perfection if they are developed in a one-sided way: the sensual and the rational instinct. If the sensual instinct has the upper hand, man is subject to his instincts and passions. His actions are the result of a lower compulsion. If the rational instinct predominates, man endeavors to suppress instincts and passions and to pursue a purely spiritual virtue. In both cases, man is subject to compulsion. In the former, his sensual nature forces his spiritual nature into submission, in the latter, his spiritual nature forces his sensual nature into submission. Neither the one nor the other can justify a truly humane existence. Rather, this presupposes a perfect harmony of both basic drives. Sensuality should not be suppressed, but ennobled; instincts and passions should be raised to such a high level that they work in the direction prescribed by reason, the highest morality. And moral reason should not rule like a higher law in man, to which one submits reluctantly, but one should feel its commandments like an unconstrained need. "If we embrace with passion someone who is worthy of our contempt, we feel embarrassed by the compulsion of nature. If we are hostile to another who compels our respect, we feel the compulsion of reason. But as soon as he interests our affections and earns our respect, both the compulsion of feeling and the compulsion of reason disappear, and we begin to love him" (Letter 14). A person who experiences no coercion from either sensuality or reason, who acts out of passion in the spirit of the purest morality, is a free personality. And a society of people in which the natural instinct of the individual is so ennobled that it does not need to be restrained by the power of the whole in order to make harmonious coexistence possible is the ideal state towards which the state of power and coercion must strive. Outer freedom in living together presupposes inner freedom of the individual personalities. In this way, Schiller sought to solve the problem of freedom in human coexistence, which was on everyone's mind at the time and which sought a violent solution in the French Revolution. "To give freedom through freedom is the fundamental law" of a humane empire (27th letter).

[ 7 ] Goethe found himself deeply satisfied by these ideas. He wrote to Schiller about the "Aesthetic Letters" on October 26, 1794: "I immediately read the manuscript sent to me with great pleasure; I slurped it down in one go. Just as a delicious drink, analogous to our nature, slips down willingly and shows its healing effect on the tongue through the good mood of the nervous system, so these letters were pleasant and beneficial to me; and how could it be otherwise, since I found what I had long recognized as right, what I partly lived and partly wished to live, presented in such a coherent and noble way."

[ 8 ] This is the nature of the circle of ideas that Schiller stimulated in Goethe. Out of it has now grown a poem by the former, which, because of its mysterious character, has experienced the most varied interpretations, but which only becomes completely clear and transparent if one understands it from within the circle of imagination described: the enigmatic fairy tale with which Goethe concluded his story "Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten", which appeared in the "Horen" in 1795. -- What Schiller expressed in philosophical form in his "Aesthetic Letters", Goethe portrayed in a lively fairy tale filled with rich poetic content. The humane state that man achieves when he has attained the full possession of freedom is symbolized in this fairy tale by the marriage of a young man to the beautiful lily, the representative of the realm of freedom, the ideal man that the man of everyday life carries within himself as his goal.

[ 9 ] The largest number of attempts at interpretation undertaken to date can be found in the book "Goethes Märchendichtungen" by Friedrich Meyer von Waldeck (Heidelberg 1879, Carl Wintersche Universitätsbuchhandlung). I have found that these attempts at interpretation give nice suggestions and are in many respects correct, but that none of them is completely satisfactory. I have now sought the roots of the explanation in the soil from which Schiller's "Aesthetic Letters" also grew. Although my interpretation has had a convincing effect on many listeners in several oral lectures - the first time on November 27, 1891 at the Goethe-Verein in Vienna - I have so far hesitated to submit it to print. Nor have I yet added it to my book "Goethe's Weltanschauung", published in 1897. I felt the need to allow the conviction of its correctness to mature in me over a longer period of time. It has only strengthened to this day. The following cannot follow the course of the fairy-tale plot, but must be arranged in such a way that the meaning of the poem is revealed most comfortably.¹

[ 10 ] One person who plays an outstanding role in the development of the events in the "fairy tale" is the "old man with the lamp". When he comes into the crevices with his lamp, he is asked which is the most important of the secrets he knows. He replies: "The revealed one." And when asked if he would not reveal this secret, he says: "If he knows the fourth. But the serpent knows this fourth secret and says it in the old man's ear. There can be no doubt that this secret refers to the state that all the characters in the fairy tale long for. This state is described to us at the end of the poem. We must assume that the old man knows this secret, for he is the only person who always stands above the circumstances, who directs and guides everything. So what can the serpent tell the old man? He is the most important being in the whole process. By sacrificing himself, he achieves what ultimately satisfies everyone. The old man obviously knows that he must sacrifice himself in order to bring about this satisfaction. What he does not know is when she will be ready. Because that depends on her. She must come to the realization of her own accord that her sacrifice is necessary for the common good. That she is ready for this sacrifice is the most important secret, and she tells the old man this in his ear. And now he can utter the great word: "It's time!""

[ 11 ] The desired goal is brought about by the revival of the youth, by his union with the beautiful lily and by the fact that both realms, the one on this side and the one on the other side of the river, are connected by the magnificent bridge formed from the sacrificed body of the serpent. Even if the serpent is the author of the happy state, he alone could not bestow on the youth the gifts by which he rules the newly founded kingdom. He receives them from the three kings. From the bronze king he receives the sword with the order: "The sword on the left, the right free!" The silver king gives him the sceptre, saying: "Feed the sheep!" The golden one presses the oak wreath on his head with the words: "Recognize the highest! " The three kings are the symbols for the three basic powers of the human soul, and the words they speak indicate how these three basic powers should be expressed in the perfect human being. The sword denotes will, physical strength and power. Man should not hold it in his right hand, where it signifies readiness for conflict and war, but in his left hand for protection and to ward off evil. The right hand should be free for acts of noble humanity. The handing over of the sceptre is accompanied by the words: "Feed the sheep!" They are reminiscent of Christ's words: "Feed my lambs, feed my sheep!" This king is therefore the symbol of piety, of the noble heart. The golden king imparts the gift of knowledge to the young man with the oak wreath. The will, which expresses itself in power, in violence, piety and wisdom in their most perfect form are bestowed on the youth, the representative of a humane existence. These three powers of the soul are symbolized by the three kings. Therefore, when the old man speaks the words: "There are three that reign on earth, Wisdom, Appearance and Violence", the three kings rise up, each at the mention of the soul power of which he is the symbol. There seems to be an ambiguity in the fact that the silver king is presented as the ruler in the realm of appearances, while according to his words he is to signify piety. This contradiction is immediately resolved when one considers the close relationship Goethe establishes between aesthetic feelings - which the beautiful appearance of artistic works creates - and religious feelings. Just think of sentences from him like this: "There are only two true religions: the one that recognizes and worships the sacred that dwells in and around us, completely formless, the other that recognizes and worships it in the most beautiful form." Goethe sees art as just another form of religion. When he was struck by the beauty of Greek works of art, he uttered the sentence: "There is necessity, there is God."

[ 12 ] From the meaning of the kings, we can infer other things in the fairy tale. The king of wisdom is made of gold. Where we usually encounter gold in fairy tales, we will therefore see in it the symbol of wisdom, of knowledge. This is the case with the will-o'-the-wisps and the snake. The former know how to acquire this metal easily and then throw it away lavishly and arrogantly. The serpent comes to it with difficulty, but absorbs it organically, processes it in its body and permeates itself completely with it. In the will-o'-the-wisps we undoubtedly have before us a pictorial representation of personalities who gather their wisdom from all sides and then give it away proudly and carelessly without having sufficiently imbued themselves with it. Unproductive spirits are the will-o'-the-wisps who spread undigested knowledge. If their words fall on fertile ground, they can bring about the very best. A person can impart teachings that he himself has no deep understanding of to another, and this other person can recognize a deep meaning in them. The serpent represents the solid human endeavor, the honest striding along the path of knowledge. For her, the gold squandered by the will-o'-the-wisps becomes a precious commodity that she keeps within herself. For Goethe, the thought of someone giving away the wisdom he had absorbed as a teacher was an uncomfortable one. In his opinion, teaching easily leads to appropriating science in order to be able to spend it again. He therefore considers himself fortunate that he can devote himself to research without having to hold a professorship at the same time. Only those who are in the latter position - apart from exceptions, of course - will truly immerse themselves selflessly in things and serve true humanity. Those who acquire wisdom for the sake of teaching easily become false prophets or sophists. The false lights are reminiscent of these. But only selfless knowledge, which is completely absorbed in things and which is visualized in the serpent, can come to the insight that the highest can only be reached through selfless devotion. The man who lets his everyday personality die in order to awaken the ideal man within himself reaches this highest. What a mystic like Jakob Böhme expressed with the words: death is the root of all life, Goethe expressed with the sacrificing snake. In Goethe's view, those who cannot free themselves from their small ego, who are unable to develop the higher ego within themselves, cannot reach perfection. Man must die as an individual in order to revive as a higher personality. The new life is then only the most humane, the same life that, to use Schiller's words, feels no coercion from either reason or sensuality. In "Divan" we read Goethe's beautiful words: "And as long as you do not have this, this: Die and become! You are but a dreary guest on the dark earth." And one of the "Proverbs in Prose" reads: "One must give up one's existence in order to exist." The snake gives up its existence in order to form the bridge that connects the two realms, that of sensuality and that of spirituality. The temple, with its colorful bustle, is the serpent's higher life, which it has purchased through the death of its lower nature. Her words that she wants to sacrifice herself voluntarily in order not to be sacrificed are just another expression of Jakob Böhme's sentence: "He who does not die before he dies, corrupts when he dies"; in other words, he who lives without killing off the lower nature within him, dies in the end without having any idea of the ideal man within him.

[ 13 ] The youth is driven by an indomitable desire for the realm of the beautiful lily. Consider the characteristics of this realm. Although people have the deepest longing for the realm of the lily, they can only enter it at certain times. At midday, when the serpent forms a bridge over the river; then in the evening and morning, when the giant's shadow spreads across the river. Anyone who approaches the ruler of this realm, the beautiful lily, without having the inner aptitude for it, can damage his life in the most serious way. Furthermore, the lily itself has a desire for the other realm. Finally, the ferryman can take anyone across, but no one across. So what does the realm of the beautiful lily mean? Goethe says in "Proverbs in Prose": "Everything that liberates our spirit without giving us dominion over ourselves is pernicious." Only those people who are allowed to abandon themselves unreservedly to their inclinations have mastery over themselves, because these are only effective in a moral sense. "Duty, where one loves what one commands oneself", is a saying by Goethe. Those who seize freedom without having control over themselves are like the young man who was paralyzed by the touch of the lily. The realm of the one-sidedly acting instinct of reason, of purely spiritual morality, is that of the lily. That of one-sided sensuality is on the other side of the river. In the still imperfect human being the harmony between sensual instinct and rational instinct is generally not established. Only at certain moments does he act out of passion in such a way that this action is also moral in itself. This is symbolized by the fact that the snake can only form a bridge over the river at certain moments, at midday. The fact that the lily longs for the other realm expresses the fact that the rational instinct only fulfills its nature when it does not act like a strict legislator beyond the desires and instincts and restrains them, but when it penetrates them, connects with them. The ferryman can bring everyone across, but no one across. Men come from the realm of reason without having done anything themselves, but they do not return from the realm of the passions to their true homeland without their intervention. Except in those moments when man reaches the ideal state of life by balancing reason and sensuality, he also seeks to attain it by force, by arbitrariness, which finds expression in political revolutions. Goethe brings the giant and his shadow for this kind of combination of both realms. In revolutions, the urge for the ideal state lives itself out dully, just as the shadow of the giant lies across the river at dusk. There is also historical evidence that this interpretation of the giant is correct. On October 16, 1795, Schiller wrote to Goethe, who was on a journey that was to extend to Frankfurt a. M.: "It is indeed dear to me to know that you are still far away from the Main River. The shadow of the giant could easily touch you a little roughly." What the arbitrariness, the lawless course of historical events has in its wake is thus meant by the shadow of the giant.

[ 14 ] Reason and sensuality interpose themselves so that the still imperfect human being is prevented from destroying morality through his passions: Custom, all that is social order of the present. This order finds its symbol in the river. In the third of the "Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man" Schiller says of the state: "The compulsion of needs threw man into it before he could choose this state in his freedom; necessity arranged him according to mere natural laws before he could do so according to the laws of reason." The river separates the two realms until the serpent sacrifices itself. The ferryman wants to be rewarded by every wanderer with the fruits of the earth; the state and society impose real duties on man; they can no more use the phrase-like chatter of false prophets and people who merely pay with words than the ferryman can use the gold pieces of the will-o'-the-wisps. The old woman confesses herself a debtor to the river and clings to it with her body; her form disappears because she is a debtor. Thus the individual confesses himself a debtor to the state; he is absorbed in the state, surrenders a part of his self to it. As long as man is not at such a height that he acts freely out of himself morally, he must renounce to determine a part of his self of his own accord; he must commit himself to the state.

[ 15 ] The lamp of the old has the property of shining only where another light is already present. We must remember the saying of an old mystic repeated by Goethe: "If the eye were not sunny, how could we see the light? If God's own power did not live in us, how could the divine delight us?" Just as the lamp does not shine in the dark, so the light of truth and knowledge does not shine for those who do not have the appropriate organs, the inner light, to meet it. But it is this light of wisdom that leads man to his goal; it brings him to establish the harmony of his instincts. This light allows him to recognize the laws of things. What for him is dead matter is transformed through knowledge into a living thing that is transparent to our spirit. The world stands differently before him who has recognized it than before him who lives without knowledge. The transformation that all things undergo for our spirit when they are illuminated by the light of knowledge is symbolized by the transformation that things undergo through the light of the lamp. This light transforms stones into gold, wood into silver and dead animals into precious stones.

[ 16 ] Through the sacrifice of the serpent, the realm of the fourth king, who chaotically carried gold, silver and ore, comes to an end. The harmonious interaction of the three metals that make up the other three kings begins. Through the awakening of the ideal man, the forces of the soul cease to work chaotically and one-sidedly, they achieve perfect harmony. The will-o'-the-wisps lick up the gold of the fourth king. Once the humane state has been reached, the unproductive spirits have the business of scientifically processing the past, in which the imperfect still prevailed, as history. The figure of the pug also sheds light on the nature of the will-o'-the-wisps. They throw him their gold and he dies from eating it. Thus perishes he to whom false prophets and sophists teach their indigestible doctrines.

[ 17 ] The temple is erected on the river in which the marriage of the young man with the beautiful lily takes place. The free society will grow out of the coercive state, in which everyone can abandon himself to his inclinations, because they only work in the sense that noble coexistence of people is possible. Then man will no longer experience the satisfying state only in moments, he will no longer seek to attain it by revolutionary force, it will be present for him in every moment. At the end of the fairy tale we find the poetic image for this truth: "The bridge is built; all the people continually cross over and over, to this day the bridge teems with wanderers, and the temple is the most visited on the whole earth."

[ 18 ] If one accepts this basis of interpretation, then every event, every person in the fairy tale is self-explanatory. Take the hawk, for example. It catches the sun's rays in order to reflect them back to the earth before the sun itself is able to send its light directly onto the earth. In this way, human intuition can also predict the events of a not-too-distant future. In the servants of the beautiful lily one can see representatives of those happily inclined human beings to whom the harmony of sensuality and reason is given by their nature. They will live on into the new realm without noticing the transition, just as the servants slumber during the moment of transformation. - The fact that the symbol of brute force, the giant, finally plays a role as an hour hand, I would like to interpret as meaning that unreason can also fill its place in the workings of the world, if it is not used for activities that befit the free human spirit, but is brought to unfold its power within strict natural regularity.

[ 19 ] So Goethe was inspired by Schiller to express his ethical creed in his own poetic way, as Schiller himself did in a different way in the "Aesthetic Letters". In the letter in which he announces the receipt of the manuscript, Schiller refers to the discussions that took place about these ideas in the period in question: "The "fairy tale" is colorful and funny enough, and I find the idea you once mentioned: "the mutual assistance of forces and the rejection of each other, quite well executed."

• 1. In my lectures I have often been asked by listeners whether the "Fairy Tale" is included in the Goethe editions. I therefore expressly note that it is included in every Goethe edition and that it forms the conclusion of the stories "Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten".

I

Wilhelm Preyer was a bold researcher, a fertile thinker full of stimulating ideas, a tireless seeker of new paths and goals in science and cultural life. Physiology was at the center of his work. His comprehensive mind was at home in all areas of natural science. His thoughts and facts flowed from everywhere, which he processed into the great body of ideas that he envisioned as physiology in the broadest sense of the word. His writings open up broad, spiritual vistas. It was quite impossible for him to tread well-trodden paths. What he attacked became something new through his work, through his thinking. He had a clear, unclouded view of everything significant that has occurred in the intellectual life of recent decades. He always knew what had a future. Ernst Haeckel says in the preface to Preyer's recently published biography of Darwin: "Like me, you belong to the small number of neuroscientists who, immediately after the publication of Darwin's epoch-making work on the origin of species, were convinced of its tremendous importance and who had the courage to firmly defend its fundamental views at a time when the vast majority of their peers were still hostile or dismissive." Preyer was not one of those scholars and thinkers who are happy in their narrowness, who acquire a sum of convictions through tradition and then take a few steps further themselves in the direction that is thereby marked out for them. The belief that they are following a safe path makes such scholars unsuitable for committing great errors. They do not take bold risks in science. Preyer dared a great deal. Some of his ideas are regarded as aberrations by his peers. Much of what he held as his view will prove to be untenable in the course of time. But he was more inspiring as an erring man than the others, who could not fail to be so, because great errors cannot be made in the circulation of small scientific coins. It is said of Lombroso that he liked the new in intellectual life simply because it was new. Something similar is true of Preyer. He liked to immerse himself in areas of science that were young. Hypnotism, graphology, the question of whether Bacon was the author of Shakespeare's plays, occupied him and inspired him to write writings and essays that are valuable and original, even though their content must meet with strong doubts. Preyer turned his work and his thoughts to things that seem so absurd to some that he does not even want to talk about them seriously. The scientific study of manuscripts was his favorite occupation in recent times. Finding the soul of man, his essence, his character in his handwriting was considered by him to be the task of scientific graphology. Scientific prejudices and a certain type of scholarly education have led many people to believe that it is unscientific to get involved in certain things. The majority of our scientific contemporaries are of the opinion that such things as graphology are incapable of scientific treatment. They arrive at such an opinion because they have formed very definite ideas about what is possible in nature and what is not. They simply reject what does not correspond to these ideas. Minds like Preyer cannot allow themselves to be captured by such ideas. They know how tenuous the "truths" are that make up the content of our sciences. They know how uncertain, how hypothetical much of what the majority of scientifically educated people regard as absolutely certain is. That is why they are convinced that even things that at first seem very doubtful can provide important insights and experiences. Nothing in spiritual life is so certain that one can say: because we recognize these or those laws about one area of nature, something else can only be counted as an impossibility. Everything must be tried, everything must be thought through: this was Preyer's leitmotif. It led him to his immensely interesting investigations into "The Soul of the Child". In the book he wrote on this subject there are more and more significant psychological experiences and ideas than in the writings of the exact fashionable psychologists who want to get close to the human soul through experimentation in the laboratory. Preyer has a keen eye for the intimate aspects of a child's life and a tremendous gift for deduction. His observations come together in an admirable way to form a great scientific edifice. Preyer is both a master of detailed work and an ingenious discoverer of great connections. His biography of Darwin is a masterpiece in terms of penetrating the subject matter with great effective ideas. In a few meaningful strokes, Preyer outlines the contribution that Darwinism has made to all areas of modern intellectual life.

Preyer is never interested in knowledge alone. He wants to put what he has gained through scientific observation at the service of life. His book "The Soul of the Child" not only has the task of exploring the human soul, but also the other task of creating a solid psychological foundation for education. "The realization that psychogenesis is the necessary foundation of pedagogy is becoming more and more apparent. Without the study of the development of the young child's soul, education and the art of teaching cannot be founded on solid ground. ... The art of making the young child become is much more difficult than that of training it prematurely," he says in the preface to the aforementioned work. The views he expressed on the necessary reform of the secondary school system flow from the same source. Preyer is radical here. He wants the classical grammar school education to be replaced by one in the spirit of the modern scientific approach. The knowledge that moves our time should be passed on to young people by the grammar school. One need only have the courage to think in the spirit of our time and one must agree with Preyer's ideas. Only despondent spirits who are averse to any reform can disagree here. Such spirits are afraid of any upheaval. They see how the old works; they cannot or do not want to imagine how the new will work. They want the old because it is comfortable. Lively minds like Preyer hate stagnation as such. They will always carry reformatory ideas with them because they want all things to always be in a state of becoming, in flux.

II

Preyer emphasizes that "every physiological system that claims to be complete is forced to fill numerous and large gaps with conjectures. And because these are always subjective, there is no physiological doctrine that enjoys general approval. The energetic thinker made extensive use of the right to make such assumptions. For he knew that facts usually only reveal their nature to the researcher when he has first formed hypothetical ideas about their connection. The law that ultimately proves to be the correct one can be very different from the one expressed in the form of a conjecture; after all, the latter first pointed the way that led to the former. Preyer made a bold assumption about the origin of life. His courage of thought did not allow him to stop at this fundamental question of all physiology. Many contemporary physiologists do not dare to say a word about this question because science does not seem to be far enough along for them. Others are of the opinion that in the not too distant future it will be possible to solve the riddle of the origin of life by artificially producing living matter from carbonic acid, ammonia, water and salts in the laboratory. This, they believe, will prove that living things in nature once developed from inanimate things through primordial generation. The organic processes will then only appear as complicated mechanical, physical and chemical processes, and it will be possible to explain them with the help of the laws of physics and chemistry, just as the phenomena of inorganic nature are explained today. A third type of researcher, however, considers this to be completely impossible. Bunge, for example, explains: "The more thoroughly, versatilely and thoroughly we strive to investigate the phenomena of life, the more we come to the realization that processes which we had already believed we could explain physically and chemically are of a far more complex nature and for the time being defy any mechanical explanation. ... All processes in our organism that can be explained mechanistically are just as little phenomena of life as the movement of leaves and branches on a tree shaken by a storm, or as the movement of pollen blown by the wind from the male poplar to the female." The latter is also roughly Preyer's opinion. He did not admit that living things could ever have arisen from inanimate things, because the organic law seemed to him to be of a higher order than the inorganic law. Either it took place in earlier epochs, which lie far behind us in the past, and no longer takes place today, or it took place in the past and is still taking place today. In favor of the former case, it is argued that during the rapid cooling of the earth's surface there were completely different conditions than now, different air and light, different distribution of solids and liquids, different chemical compounds and different temperatures of the oceans. It is therefore possible, according to well-known researchers, that the peculiar, non-recurring process of primordial generation could have taken place under such peculiar, non-recurring conditions until the earth's surface, gradually becoming more similar to the present one, had changed to such an extent that living bodies existed, but could no longer come into being without the interposition of living bodies." Preyer believes that this view is based on weak foundations. "It is incomprehensible what, once the conditions for the combination of dead bodies into living ones were in place, whereupon life arose and persisted, should change so that it could continue in its lowest forms and develop further, but could no longer renew itself through primordial generation, but only through procreation. There is no reason why, if once self-generation took place, it should not also take place now." The conditions that are necessary for life today must have already existed at the time of the primordial generation, otherwise the generated life could not have survived. The change in these conditions of life can therefore not be a significant one. If procreation was possible in prehistoric times, it must also be possible today. But all attempts to artificially produce living things from lifeless things in the laboratory have failed. "It is true," says Preyer, "that in the next few years more such experiments will be made, and in particular efforts will be made to produce artificially in the laboratory the conditions which alone are realized on the deep seabed, but no cogent argument can be advanced in favour of the view that a positive result can be obtained at all. The number of chemical elements that can be used for such experiments is small, and even if the quantitative ratios, the absolute quantities, the degrees of pressure and the temperatures of the individual ingredients are highly variable, the possibilities of mixing in experiments remain confined within relatively narrow limits, particularly with regard to the thermal limits that are conducive to protoplasmic movements alone."

Those who deny that living matter has developed from inanimate matter in the course of time, and yet wish to remain on the basis of today's natural science, must assume that living matter is uncreated, eternal. Eberhard Richter decided on this view. In May 1865 he defended the opinion that the germs of life are eternal. However, since they could not thrive on the earth when it was molten, they must have reached our planet from other celestial bodies later, when the cooling was sufficiently advanced. Richter says: "Astronomy shows that masses of fine substances float in space; from the almost disembodied comet tails to the meteor stones that glow in our atmosphere and frequently fall to earth. In the latter, chemistry has detected remnants of organic matter (coal) in addition to molten metals. The question of whether these organic substances, before they were destroyed by the incandescence of the aerolite, consisted of shapeless primordial ooze or of formed organic structures, is to be decided in favor of the latter, because we have corresponding experience of this in our atmosphere." After Richter has spoken of the fungal germs and infusoria present in the earth's air, he says: "But if microscopic creatures float so high in the earth's atmosphere, they can also occasionally, for example under the attraction of passing comets or aerolites, reach outer space and then be caught on another world body that has become habitable, i.e. that enjoys the appropriate warmth and humidity, and develop again through self-ascending activity." Richter links his basic idea to all sorts of things that are untenable. Nevertheless, it cannot simply be dismissed out of hand. It is a fact that numerous organisms, germs and eggs on earth can retain their viability for centuries without showing the slightest sign of life. Such living substances fall into a lifeless state when deprived of the necessary conditions of life, but they can be revived if the right conditions are created. They are called anabiotic. It could therefore be that the bodies that fall to earth from outer space contain substances in which there is dormant life that can be awakened on earth under suitable conditions. In this way, the once dead Earth could have been populated with life. This hypothesis is so unadventurous that Helmholtz and Thomson have spoken out in favor of its scientific justification.

Preyer nevertheless quite rightly describes it as inadequate. It achieves nothing. She says that life did not originate on Earth from something lifeless, but came to it from other world bodies. The same question is repeated for the other world bodies. Did it originate there from inorganic matter or was it eternally present? Preyer resorts to another hypothesis. Why should not the living, the primordial, be the first and the inanimate have developed from the living alone that was present at the beginning? Preyer finds the view quite justified that "through life processes alone, which were already present before the formation of the earth, everything inorganic came into being through excretion, solidification, decomposition, cooling of living bodies, as is also the case today". Preyer finds that the difference between the inorganic and the organic is often shown by natural scientists in a completely false light. Some inorganic processes can be seen as transitions from the inanimate to the living. They represent analogies of life activity, if one looks closely. "An obvious example is the sea, which breathes in the same air as we do, takes in many things as its daily food and assimilates them by dissolving them so that they become constant marine components. The sea as such - like an organism - can only exist within narrow temperature limits, because if it solidifies when it cools down too much or evaporates when it gets too warm, its life dies out. The oceans also show currents in their interior. Rivers carry water to them like veins carry the nourishing juice to the body parts. The ejecta of the sea, its dead parts, the ice, reactants and products of its metabolism are thrown onto the beach. It produces heat through the friction of its water masses against each other, and if it is colder than the air, it swallows up its heat. It constantly generates itself anew, like protoplasm... Fire, too, can generally be called alive. It breathes the same air that we breathe, and suffocates when we deprive it of it. It consumes with insatiable greed what its lambent organs seize and feeds on its prey. It grows with slow movement, beginning in the dark, like the germ imperceptible, then it glows, unfolds ever more rapidly, growing into a heaven-aspiring blaze and propagates itself with terrifying haste, sending sparks everywhere, giving birth to new fires." Imagine these phenomena, reminiscent of life, heightened to full vitality, and you have that state of the once living earth mass from which both the presently living and the presently lifeless have separated. Preyer does not assert that the simplest life-substance we know today was present from the beginning of the formation of the earth, but that the beginningless movement in the universe is not a merely mechanical or physical one, but that it is a living one, and that the simple life-substance must necessarily have remained after the bodies now called inorganic had been separated out by the life-activity of the glowing planet on its surface. "The heavy metals, once also organic elements, no longer melted and did not return to the cycle that had excreted them. They are the signs of the rigor mortis of premature gigantic glowing organisms, whose breath may have been luminous iron vapor, whose blood was liquid metal and whose food may have been meteorites."

A similar idea to Preyer was later put forward by G. Th. Fechner in his "Ideen zur Schöpfungs- und Entwicklungsgeschichte der Organismen". He also conceived of the universe as originally animate.

Preyer's view must attract philosophical minds. They will never be able to understand how the phenomena of life can be explained by the summation of mechanical, physical and chemical processes. That living things transform themselves into inanimate things is quite understandable and proven by daily experience; that living things develop from inanimate things contradicts all observation that penetrates into the essence of things. The inorganic processes are present in the organic body in a heightened form, in a form that they do not have within inorganic nature. They cannot increase themselves into organic activity, but must first be captured and appropriated by an organism in order to serve life.

In contrast to the hypothesis of primordial generation, Preyer's is the more philosophical one. More refined minds will agree with Preyer when he says: "It is indeed reasonable to assume that the life and warmth of celestial bodies and organisms in the narrower sense are not merely inseparably bound together by the same great laws, but in the last instance originate from the same source. The sun lives the most intense life. And even if our earth is only its satellite, it still has light from its light, warmth from its warmth and in its 'womb life from its life: and it is no mere fantasy to think that we humans also originally come from the fire in the firmament."

III

Preyer derives the lifeless from the living. For him, the universe is a large, all-encompassing organism. From this view, it is only one step to the further step of imagining the world as an animated, spirit-filled organism. Preyer has also taken this step. He regards the propositions of mechanics, "matter is dead; it does not feel", as an aberration. He assumes that even the smallest, apparently dead body particle is endowed with sensation, i.e. with spirit. It corresponds to the facts to assume that "nowhere is there a sharp boundary between sentient and insentient beings, but that all matter has a certain capacity for sensation, which, however, can only give rise to sensation in a certain, extremely complicated arrangement and movement of the particles. Hence the simple substances, the dead bodies, even if they are in part very easily changed by slight influences, cannot, in spite of their dark sensory faculty, feel perceptibly, but as soon as they become components of the gray matter of the brain or only of the living protoplasm (through the ingestion of food), together with others, in an incalculably complicated movement, the sensation arises explosively, if an impression is now exerted on them."

The spirit originally slumbers in matter, but it is active in this slumbering state, it shapes matter, it organizes it until it has assumed such a form that it can itself appear in a manner appropriate to it. This is the leitmotif that Preyer is guided by in all his. Preyer's observations and thinking in physiology and psychology. He did not want to follow organic development merely to see how one form emerges from the other. He sought in the activity, in the function that an organ ultimately has to perform, the reason why it develops in a certain way. "What determines the final form in the development of the stem? I answer: the function. Only when this is activated does the differentiation of the substrate of the original beings begin. It is not the organ from which the function has to derive its origin, but originally the reverse is the case. The functions create their organs. Or, to avoid an expression that is difficult to define, one can say: the need determines the organic form, which is then inherited and only precedes the function in the embryo of higher animals, at least in the disposition." For Preyer, the highest, the last thing that comes into being is the creator of the first, of what precedes it in time. "Every single function of man must be traced step by step, once in individual life back to its first appearance in the living egg and then in the series of animals that are still close to his ancestors, and from these further on to the protoplasm, which is no longer animal, nor plant, but only living. Then one will begin to know where the higher and lower functions, for example speaking and seeing, as well as breathing and growing, come from, and how they have become what they are." The need to speak causes certain organs to undergo such a development that they ultimately become organs of speech. To anyone who views organic development in this way, the endeavor to explain the processes of life and soul mechanically can only appear as a historically strange aberration. "If physiology were really nothing other than physics and chemistry applied to the processes of life, then it would not be a science in itself, it would resemble technology and mechanical engineering and other applied disciplines," says Preyer, and he continues: "The fact that it could even come to be regarded and defined as the physics of organisms or the science of the mechanism and chemistry of living bodies is a historically important fact. The great error arose from the physical explanations of individual phenomena of life that have only become more frequent in this century, especially in recent decades, and from the many artificial reproductions of chemical products of animal and plant metabolism. ... No one doubts that research into the processes of life cannot progress without the continual utilization, application and development of physical and chemical principles and theories. But this does not mean that the science of life is nothing more than the physics and chemistry of living bodies... There are so many processes in the healthy organism which, remaining incomprehensible to physicists and chemists, do not even come within the scope of their investigations that the extension of physical-chemical explanations to them must also be called inadmissible, unscientific, arbitrary. This is a case of misguided induction, as is often observed in childhood: because many things taste good that end up in the mouth, everything must be put in the mouth."

Preyer has made a number of interesting observations in the field of sensory physiology and psycho-physiology and published the results of these in writings that are exemplary in their sharp formulation of what is presented. In my opinion, these works are also influenced by the idea that it is the mind that shapes the organism. What is the interaction between mind and body? How do the senses work to provide the spirit with what it needs to maintain itself? These are questions asked by those who believe that the spirit creates such an organic form for itself that it can manifest itself in a manner appropriate to its needs. Preyer made the dependence of muscle contraction on the strength of the stimulus exerted on the muscle on the one hand and the dependence of the movement triggered in the muscle on the stimulus on the other (the myophysical law) the subject of an important treatise (1874). He also investigated the nature of sensations ("Elemente der reinen Empfindungslehre", Jena 1877) and made observations about which vibrations are perceived as sound and which no longer manifest themselves as sound because they are too slow or too fast ("Über die Grenzen der Tonwahrnehmung", Jena 1876). His research into the nature of sleep, hypnosis and mind-reading all have the same origin: he wanted to recognize the intimate relationships between the spiritual and the physical. And his endeavors in the field of graphology are no less rooted in his basic idea. He wanted to recognize in the written word the spirit that had created its own body.

Today and next time I am going to speak about the Gospel of St. John. I would mention that what I have to say will only really be comprehensible to those who are already somewhat familiar with spiritual science. It would, however, take us too far out of our way if we went into everything unfamiliar to non-theosophists. You are probably aware that latterly New Testament textual criticism has discredited the John Gospel as an historical source. It is said in theological circles—at least in advanced circles—that the first three gospels, the synoptic gospels, are the only documents relevant to the life of the founder of Christianity. They are called synoptic because they can be taken together to form a general picture of the life of Christ Jesus. On the other hand modern theologians try to interpret the John Gospel as a sort of poetic work, a confession of faith, the writings of a person portraying his feelings, his intimate religious life as it was born in him through the impact of Christianity. Thus the John Gospel could be considered as a devotional work, a deeply felt confession of faith, not as anything that could be taken as Christian historical facts.

But for everyone who immerses himself in the writings of the New Testament, one fact is indisputable: an immediate life flows from the John Gospel, and there is a conviction, a source of truth of a different nature to that proceeding from other religious writings. There is a certainty, which needs no outer confirmation. There is a feeling that comes over one when one meets the John Gospel if one is sensitive to inner soul life and spiritual devotion. Only with the help of spiritual science can one understand why this is so. Many a time have I told you how spiritual science helps towards a more intimate connection with religious documents.

You all know that when one first meets the scriptures one adopts the attitude of a simple person and takes the facts as they are described, without criticism; one takes the bread of religious life from these sources and is satisfied with it.

Many people of our day who had this naive outlook and then became “clever”, became “enlightened”, noticed the contradictions in the gospels. Then they rejected the gospels and lost faith. They said: We cannot reconcile remaining faithful to these writings and seeking wisdom in them with our conscience and our sense of truth. This is the stage of the “clever” ones, the second stage.

Then there is the third way that people approach religious documents. They begin to explain them symbolically. They begin to see symbols and allegories in them. This is the way of free-thinkers, especially in recent times.

Bruno Wille, the editor of the paper “Der Freidenker” (The Free Thinker), has now chosen this way. He has taken to explaining symbolically the Christ myth and the Bible in general. The really necessary way of development that man needs, an inner turning point, cannot follow from this. Those who are less ingenious will explain the scriptures less ingeniously. Others who are more ingenious will be better. Much will be read into it that springs from human ingenuity. The third way is thus a half believing, but arbitrary, attitude.

Then there is quite a different standpoint. One learns that there are realities pertaining to higher worlds, that besides our world of the senses, there are soul-spiritual things, and that religious revelations are not concerned with the sense world but present facts of a higher world. Those who have gotten to know the realities of the astral world which lies behind our sense world, and of the devachanic (or mental world) which lies even deeper, will come to a new and higher understanding of religious sources. It is impossible to understand the John Gospel without rising to such higher worlds. The John Gospel is not a poetic work, nor a writing arising from mere religious fervour, but sets forth revelations from higher worlds that the writer of the gospel has received. It is something like this—I will briefly describe it. The supporting evidence I will not deal with today; perhaps I can go into it next time. The writer of the John Gospel learned, through experience in higher worlds, what took place at “the beginning of our era“ that related to the life of the founder of Christianity, and his acts.

Let me give you an example of the difference between just knowing, and truly comprehending. We have recently mentioned here that someone can be next to us, we can see what he looks like, but we need not necessarily really know him for what he is. I have told the story of the singer who, at an evening party sat between Mendelsohn and someone else she did not know. She got on very well with Mendelsohn, but towards the other guest, though he was very courteous, she felt an aversion. Afterwards she asked, “Who was that bore on my left?” The answer was, “It was the famous philosopher Hegel”. If the lady had been told previously that the great philosopher Hegel would be present at a party, that alone would probably have been enough for her to have accepted the invitation. But because he sat beside her unknown, he was a bore. This is the difference between seeing and understanding, between just knowing and comprehending.

He who was the founder of Christianity could not readily be recognised if one only possessed the ordinary intellect employed in the sense world. It needed that which the Christian mystics so often expressed in profound and beautiful language. This was what Angelus Silesius meant when he said:

There is an inner experience of Christ—there is the possibility to realize inwardly what took place outwardly as events in Palestine between the years 1 and 33 A.D. He who came into this world from higher worlds must be understood from a higher world. And he who portrayed Him most deeply had to raise himself to the two higher worlds we have mentioned, the astral and the devachanic, or mental worlds. This elevation of John, if we so name him, was the elevation into these two higher worlds. His Gospel reveals this to us.

The first twelve chapters contain John's experiences in the astral world. From chapter thirteen onwards it is his experiences in the devachanic, or mental world. He who wrote it down says of Christ (the words are not to be taken literally): Here on this earth He lived, here has He worked with divine powers, with occult powers. He has healed the sick, he has gone through everything from death to resurrection. It is impossible to understand these things with the ordinary intellect. Here on earth there is no science or learning by which one could really understand what occurred. But there is the possibility of rising to the higher worlds. There one can find the wisdom to understand Him who walked here on earth among us. Thus did the writer of the John Gospel rise to the two higher worlds and become initiated. It was an initiation, and the writer describes his initiation into the astral world and the devachanic, or mental world.

In olden times, in regions where man's body was still suited to these things, such an initiation took place as follows. The person had to go through a sort of sleep-state. What now takes several years in a modern European initiation—because the modern European can no longer go through the process I will describe—what today is achieved through long exercises of meditation and concentration, was achieved in a short time by some individuals, after the appropriate exercises of meditation and concentration. I particularly emphasise that anyone who really wishes to receive initiation must, in some form or other, face the two important experiences about to be described—though in a somewhat different way. He must go through a sort of sleep condition. To understand the nature of sleep, let us remind ourselves what takes place when one sleeps. One's higher bodies are then separated from one's lower bodies. Man consists of a physical body, which one can see with one's eyes. The second member is the etheric body which surrounds the physical body and which is much finer than the physical body. Currents and organs of wonderful variety and splendour are active in it. The etheric body contains the same organs as the physical body. It has a brain, heart, eyes etc. They represent the forces which formed the corresponding organs. It is as if one cooled water in a vessel until it becomes ice. In this way you should picture the arising of the physical organs through the densifying of the etheric organs. The etheric body extends only a little beyond the physical body.

The third member is the astral body. It is the bearer of desires, wishes, passions, etc. It permeates the physical body in the form of a cloud. There are colours—violent passions appear as lightning flashes. The peculiarities of temperament glide through the body in glowing points of varying intensity.

The whole inner man is expressed in a luminous form. This is the real ego of man, the bearer of the higher centre of his being. In normal sleep the physical and etheric bodies are lying in bed. They are closely united. The astral body and all the rest is separated. As long as one does not do anything particular one is unconscious when the astral body is outside the physical body. One is as unconscious as one would be in the physical world without eyes or ears. One could live as long as one liked in the physical world; if one had no eyes there would be no colours, if one had no ears there would be no sound. So it is when the astral body is outside the physical body. It is spread out in the soul world, but one does not see this world or become aware of it because one has no astral sense organs. They must gradually be formed. If a person does not practice exercises he remains unconscious in higher worlds. But if he does practice then he can attain consciousness in these higher worlds. When his astral body acquires organs he begins to see the astral world around him. Those of you who have often attended these lectures will know that there are seven such organs. They are called wheels, chakrams or lotus flowers. The two-petalled lotus flower lies between the eyes—between the eye-brows, the sixteen-petalled lies in the region of the larynx, the twelve-petalled lies in the heart region. If these organs are gradually developed one becomes clairvoyant in the astral world.

This astral vision is something quite different from physical sight. You can get some idea of astral vision if you think of the flow of dream life. In dreams we have symbolic pictures—true symbols. One sees symbols. One loses consciousness of what takes place here in the physical world, but one can experience in symbolic pictures such events as the life of Christ Jesus as John describes it from his own experience in the astral world. Descriptions of this nature form the content of the first twelve chapters of the John Gospel. Don't misunderstand me. I know many will say: If all this is astral experience, then it is nothing real and what is told us of the founder of Christianity is not authentic. But this is not the case. It would be as if one denied that a man of flesh and blood could be a genius, because one cannot see genius. Although one learns the truth of Christ Jesus only on the astral plane, it is still a fact that he lived his life on the physical plane. We are dealing with symbols on the astral plane and outer reality on the physical plane. Nothing is taken away from the facts when we understand them more deeply in the sense of the John Gospel.

Initiation in the astral world is preceded by, and depends on what is called meditation. This means that the soul sinks into itself—I have often described it here. To reach a meditative experience one must make oneself blind and deaf to all sense impressions. Nothing must be able to disturb one. Cannons can go off without one being aware of it in one's inner life. One does not achieve this at once, but through constant practice one can attain this capacity. One must empty oneself also of all past experiences. Memory must be wiped out. The soul must be concerned only with itself and then out of its inner being there arise the eternal truths which are able—not only to awaken our understanding—but to release capacities which lie slumbering under a spell in our souls. These great eternal verities will rise up in man according to the maturity he has attained through his karma—the one, as Subba Row says, in seven incarnations, another in seventy years, another in seven years, others in seven months, seven days or seven hours.

John sets forth the means whereby his soul was led to perception on the astral plane. The formula he used for meditation stands at the beginning of his gospel. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was a God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him, and without this Word was not anything made that was made. In it was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not.”

In these five sentences lie the eternal verities which loosed the spell in John's soul and brought forth the great visions. This is the form of the meditation. Those for whom the John Gospel is written should not read it like any other book. The first five sentences must be taken as a formula of meditation. Then one follows John on his way, and attempts to experience oneself what he experienced. This is the way to do it; so it is meant.

John says: Do what I have done. Let the great formula, “In the beginning was the Word” work in your souls and you will verify what is said in my first twelve chapters.

This alone can really help towards understanding the John Gospel. Thus is it intended and thus should it be used. I have often spoken of what the “Word” signifies. “In the beginning” is not a good translation. It should really read: Out of the primal forces emerged the Word. That is what it means: The Word came forth, came forth out of the primal forces. Thus “in the beginning” means: coming forth out of the primal forces.

When man is in this sleep condition he is no longer in the sense world. He moves into a soul world and in this soul world experiences what the sense world really is. The truth of the sense world is revealed. He starts out from these words derived from the sense world leading back to the primal forces, and rises up to the words of truth. Every truth has seven meanings. For the mystic, immersed in contemplation it has however this meaning: The knowledge, the Word which emerges, is not something that merely applies to yesterday and today, but this Word is eternal. This Word leads to God because it was ever with God, because it is the very essence that God has planted into all things.

There is however, still another way of understanding this, and one acquires it if one returns day after day to the momentous words: “In the beginning was the Word”. When one begins to understand, not with the intellect, but with the heart, so that the heart becomes one with these words, then the power begins to work, and there begins the state of mind of which John speaks. He says it with great clarity: “All things were made by Him and without the Word was not anything made that was made”.

What do we find in this Word? We find life. What do we perceive through this life—through this light? We must take these religious texts quite literally if we want to attain higher knowledge. Where does this light shine? In the darkness of night. It comes to those who sleep. It comes to everyone who sleeps. But the darkness comprehended it not—until the ability develops to perceive it on the astral plane. Thus is the fifth verse to be understood literally. The astral light shines into the darkness of night but man does not normally see it, he must first learn to see.

As all this became reality for the writer of the John Gospel, the light dawned and he saw who He was, He whose disciple and apostle he was. Here on earth he had seen Him. Now he had found Him again on the astral plane, and he knew that He who had walked the earth in the flesh only differed in one respect from what lived in his own deepest inner self. In every single man there lives a divine man. In the distant future this divine man will arise resurrected in every man. As man stands before us today he is, in his outward appearance, to a greater or lesser extent, an expression of the inner divine man, and this inner divine man works constantly on the outer man.

Last Thursday [Public Lecture, Berlin, 15 Feb, 1906. “Reincarnation and Karma”] I already pointed out how one can illustrate this by a simple comparison. Look at a child. One could be tempted to say that these innocent features came from the father or mother, an uncle or an ancestor. However, everything within the child expresses itself in the features, in the gestures of the hands and in all its movements. What slumbers in the child strives to come to expression. Finally the individual emerges and the physiognomy becomes an expression of the individual soul, while previously it showed more of a family type. In primitive man the individual soul is usually still slumbering and has but a meagre existence. In the course of many incarnations and efforts the individual emerges, the soul aquires more power over the physical body, and the physiognomy takes on the imprint, or the expression of the inner man. An immature person expresses little of the power of the soul. Gradually man matures, and full maturity is reached when the inner word has become flesh completely—when the outer has become an exact imprint of the inner, so that the spirit shines through the flesh. This however, John only understood once his higher self had appeared clearly before his astral eyes. It stood in front of his astral eyes and he knew: This is I. Today have I experienced it on the astral plane. However it will gradually descend as it did in Him, who I followed. This is the deep relationship between Christ Jesus and the divine man that exists in every man. This is the deep inner experience of John.

The inner soul lives unconscious in man and he only becomes aware of it through the processes we have described.

What does it mean to say: something becomes conscious. Can we become conscious of something which lives within us? As long as it only lives within us we are not aware of it. Man is not aware of what he carries within him, what is subjective. I will use a crude comparison to make clear what I mean. You all have a physical brain but you cannot see it. It would have to be taken out, and then you could see it. For the same reason, though there is a certain difference, you cannot see your higher self. It is the “I” within you. But it must come out if you are to see it, and this can only happen on the astral plane. When it is outside and confronts you, then spiritually, it is as if you had a physical brain on a platter and made it the object of your sense perception.

The writer of the John Gospel describes this process. His own higher ego appears before Him—his own higher ego, which in its fullness represents the Christ. When you know this you will be able to understand certain hints and truths in the John Gospel. You will be able to understand certain things quite well with the help of what I said up to now. In occult language one describes what this ego inhabits—the physical body, which it has built for itself to dwell in—as the temple. Thus one says: The soul dwells in the temple.

It is not altogether a painless procedure when for the first time the soul must leave the temple of the body so that it becomes visible outside of it. This leaving of the body is not without pain. All that forms this higher connection with the physical body are bands that are not so easy to loosen. Imagine that you are bound with fetters and you break loose. You would experience pain through this tearing apart. It is like a process of tearing apart when the astral body leaves the physical body when it leaves it, perceptibly. Leaving the body in sleep is different, one is not aware of it. If one leaves it consciously then one experiences pain.

When man begins to develop astral consciousness, things on the astral plane appear to him as in a mirror. The number 165 should not be read as 165 but as 561—as reflected writing. Everything appears reversed on the astral plane. Even time is reversed. When you follow someone on the astral plane you start, to begin with, from where he is. Then you go back to his birth. You can follow him on the physical plane forwards; on the astral plane backwards. Leaving the physical body is like this: It is as though we were leaving the temple of the physical body and were laid hold of from all sides. This is the occurrence which John wants to describe. He left his body in order to experience the Christ, his own higher divine self, confronting him. People around him have their astral bodies bound strongly to their physical bodies as if with fetters. Had John remained like them he would have continued to be fettered to his physical body. Now let us read how this occurrence is described pictorially and symbolically in the John Gospel, chapter 8, verses 58 and 59: “Jesus said unto them, verily, verily I say unto you: Before Abraham was, I am. Then took they up stones to cast at him: but Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, going through the midst of them”, through the hindrances. With this ends the eighth chapter. This is the passing out of the astral body from the physical body. The final act, leading to the leaving of the physical body and to higher vision, usually lasts three days. When these three days are up, one attains a consciousness on the astral plane comparable to that previously experienced on the physical plane. Then one is united with the higher world.

In occult language this union with the higher world is called the marriage of the soul with the powers of the higher world. When one has left the physical body, this appears to one as a mother would appear to a new-born child, were the child able to be conscious at birth. Thus the physical body confronts one, and the astral body can very well say to the physical body: This is my mother. When one has celebrated this marriage one can say this. One can look back on the former union. This can happen after three days. This is the occult procedure on the astral plane. In chapter 2, verse 1, it is stated: “And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there”. This is the pictorial expression for what I have just said. It happened on the third day.

When a person enters the astral world, he finds himself in a region from which he can rise a step further into a still higher world—the mental, or devachanic world. This entry into the devachanic world can only be gained at the expense of the complete extinction, the death of the lower nature. He must go through the three days of death and then be awakened. Once he has attained vision of the astral plane and the pictures of the astral plane have confronted him, he is mature and ready to receive knowledge on the mental or devachanic plane. It is possible then to describe the awakening on the devachanic plane. To find oneself on the higher plane with conscious clarity of thought, this is the awakening of Lazarus.

John describes the awakening of Lazarus. Previously he has shown that through this chain of events one can enter the higher worlds. In chapter 10, verse 9, it is said: “I am the door: by me if any man enter in he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture”. This is the awakening of what was wrapped in sleep and is now awakened on the devachanic plane. John goes through it. John is Lazarus, and John means nothing more nor less than what is described in his first twelve chapters. He describes as an astral experience that he was awakened on the astral plane. Then followed the initiation for the devachanic plane. Three days he lay in the grave, and then he received the awakening. The raising of Lazarus is the awakening of John who wrote the gospel.

Read everything up to the chapter on the raising of Lazarus and you will find no mention of John anywhere. Consider Lazarus and John. It is said of John (John, ch. 13, v. 23): “Now there was leaning on Jesus' bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved.” Regarding Lazarus, you find the same words—that He loved him. It is the same person. He is not mentioned previous to the awakening. He appears for the first time after he is “raised from the dead”. These are the enigmas hidden in the John Gospel. The disciple whom the Lord loved is he whom the Lord himself has initiated. The writer of the John Gospel was he whom the Lord loved. How was he able to say this? Because he had been initiated, first on the astral plane and then on the devachanic plane. If one is able in this way to find the deeper meaning of the John Gospel, then will one be able to understand it in its true profundity, and then it becomes one of the greatest texts ever written. It is the description of the initiation into the depths of the inner life of the soul. It has been written so that everyone who reads it can follow the same path. And this one can do. Sentence for sentence, word for word, one can find within oneself, by rising to the higher plane, what is described in the John Gospel. It is not a biography of Christ Jesus but a biography of the developing human soul. And what is described is eternal and can take place in the heart of every human being. This text is an example and a model. Hence it has this living and awakening power which not only makes people into Christians but enables them to awaken to a higher reality. The John Gospel is not a profession of faith, but a text which really gives strength, and a self-supporting, independent higher life. This springs forth from the John Gospel, and he who does not merely want to understand it, but to live it, has truly comprehended it.

With these few words I could only touch on the contents. Next time we will go into certain details. Then you will see how every single sentence confirms what we have said today in general terms. Step by step you will then see that the John Gospel is not addressed merely to the human intellect, but to man's entire soul forces, and that real soul experience springs from it.