The Rudolf Steiner Archive

Meditation has a technical part and one that's carried over into life, that is, the way a man thinks, feels and acts change through correct meditation.

Meditation requires patience and conscientiousness. What does a man do when he meditates? He imitates what divine spiritual beings in the higher hierarchies did millions of years ago, giving rise to our present earth. Everything around us is condensed thoughts of the Gods. The divine spiritual beings thought, and namely they thought rhythmically in cycles according to the principle that steady dripping hollows the stone.

What they thought frequently with brief intervals between has become harder earth substance, such as diamonds. It has a creative effect to imagine things that don't exist in the physical world, but thinking about existing things doesn't.

I'm an egoist. I'm not a Christian. These are two very fruitful sentences for meditation. A man must become acquainted with the monster that he is.

The meeting with the guardian of the threshold is something that's terrible for everyone. One can say this to an esoteric. The seeing of beautiful things and figures is astral maya, is Lucifer. The hearing of masters and the like is etheric maya, is Ahriman. One must investigate what one sees and hears there; then one will see the true state of affairs.

Esoterics' progress is hindered because they think that the experiences they should have are much more tumultuous than they are. Whereas it's mainly a matter of paying attention to very subtle happenings. Imagine going into a forest on a quiet evening. One would hear the slightest sound—the falling of leaves, a sled's approach, etc. And now imagine a big city. One wouldn't hear them in its noisy streets, yet all of these slight, fine sounds would also be present there.

I often hear the complaint: I can't free myself of the many images and thoughts that arise when I'm meditating. But one can definitely look upon this as progress in meditation. For as the astral body and ego loosen their connection with the physical and etheric bodies during meditation, an esoteric is enabled to objectify his other human being, as it were. He should take a close look at his soul and spiritual part that weaves and works there without his help.

Lucifer's temptation approaches an esoteric from within and that of Ahriman from outside. An example: Say that one is living in a moral and quiet family, but that there are people in the adjacent apartment who read and tell each other a lot of tall tales. Even if one did not hear any of this with one's physical ears it nevertheless becomes imprinted on one's etheric body and then appears during meditation. Another example: One happens to see a dog being run over. Yelping and whimpering can arise in one's own body and continue to work after one experiences such an accident. Or a whole witches' sabbath can arise during meditation out of other connections. The meditator shouldn't despair about this but should be glad, since he can have an inkling of the connection, and thereby learns to look at himself ever more objectively and at everything that worked upon him previously.

It's like a palpation of one's whole body during meditation. Painful feelings will arise here and there as a result of egoism and other things. In this probing one begins above the head and goes down the whole body, one small part at a time.

If one starts from symptoms one will learn to draw conclusions about previous experiences. Thus an inflammation of the middle ear permits one to infer the strangest impressions that were made upon the etheric body through the fact that one heard tall tales as a child without full consciousness, but which had a very vivid effect nevertheless. If someone falls asleep in theosophic talks or similar events, then what he heard continues to work in his etheric body, and this especially if he feels pangs of conscience or if he reproaches himself for having gone to sleep; this often works very strongly in the subconsciousness.

If one reproaches oneself for still being so bad because ugly images repeatedly arise during inner concentration and meditation we can be comforted by the Gospel word: Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

The name Lucifer inspires a slight sense of dread in some, and is usually associated with notions of antipathy. Is this justified? The name Lucifer means: light bearer, light bringer. Medieval beliefs were different, but for those who have studied the deep knowledge of the world, Lucifer actually denotes something quite different.

Spiritual beings play a role in human life. The religions of the East speak of deva and dhyani chohan, the more Western religions, such as Christianity, speak of angels and archangels. To those who are familiar with the spiritual worlds, they represent something true and real. Higher beings play a role in human life. Lucifer is also understood to be among the guiding personalities, the leading or seducing ones.

Here we must be clear about dualism – duality – which plays a role in all areas of life. The ancients, including Pythagoras, speak of this duality: light and darkness, male and female, positive and negative magnetism, and we could cite many more such dualities. – When we make a glass rod electrically positive by rubbing it, we simultaneously make the rubbing material electrically negative. The electricity of glass and that of the rubbed material are related to each other as light is to darkness. In the Persian creation myth, we find Ormuzd and Ahriman: good deity, evil deity. Everything that drives the world forward is done by the good god, while everything that hinders it is withdrawn by the evil god. They place man in the middle.

Remember that everything in the world has a good and an evil side. What do human beings, with their culture, not owe to fire. And on the other hand, how destructive the power of fire can be in volcanic phenomena. Germany's great poet Schiller sang gloriously about this in “The Bell”: “Beneficial is the power of fire...” and so on.

This duality also works in man himself. For centuries, the one principle was seen as evil. A distinction was made between divine - good, and luciferic - evil. In the story of creation, the luciferic principle was represented as a snake. Man had to grow out of a dull nature, so the snake came and opened his eyes to good and evil, and thus another principle was opposed to the divine one. The ancient Indians called the Rishis a snake.

We have to go much deeper into the development of the human soul to see what reality underlies the Lucifer principle. In more recent times, views on this have undergone changes. These were already evident in the old Faust saga. Goethe reshaped it to meet human needs. Faust not only wanted to immerse himself in divine science, he also wanted to make a covenant with evil powers. Then he no longer wanted to approach theology, he wanted to remain a medical doctor. He put the Bible behind the bench and that was considered a reason to fall into the hands of evil forces. In Goethe's work, the crux of the matter is in the second part of Faust: “Whoever strives, we can redeem.” So it is not something destructive, but rather a power is evoked that is not opposed to the deity.

If we want to understand this power, we must realize how man fits into the world around him. Man forms one of the kingdoms; alongside him we have the mineral kingdom, the vegetable kingdom and the animal kingdom. Man perceives himself as a self-aware being and carries within himself all these kingdoms; he is the bearer of all these natures. He has a physical body in common with the mineral, and he also shares the etheric or life body with the plant. Through his world of feelings, which, as the astral body, is the carrier of passions, instincts, desires, he has something in common with the animal. Thus, man is in an interdependent relationship with the three realms.

Man can only sustain his life by breathing. He draws in the air of life – oxygen – into himself, combines the latter with carbon in his body and exhales this poison – carbonic acid. But man and animal could not live if the plant did not continually renew this air of life. Man and animal owe the possibility of life to the plant. The plant owes it to the mineral. It is only logical to extend this chain of development beyond man, not only to lower beings but also to higher ones. Just as man belongs to lower beings, so he also belongs to higher ones. The fact that man does not see higher beings is no reason why they should not exist. Higher senses can bring man this perception.

Man is first of all a tetrad: physical body, etheric body, astral body and the I. He is a developing being. How does his development take place? A savage still follows his animal instincts, he follows every urge; the one who is higher up only follows certain urges, and those who are very high up, let us say, for example, Schiller or Francis of Assisi, follow even fewer of the lower urges, but transform them into ideals. This results in an upward development of the astral body. The inferior man also has an astral body, but he has done little work in it. A superior man raises his astral body from the animal stage to a higher, nobler and more perfect form. The astral body consists of two parts: what other entities have given him, and what he himself has worked into it. That which he has worked into it himself, we call “Manas”, spirit self, and we thus designate the fifth limb of man. Manas is nothing other than the transformed astral body. But man can do much more than transform his astral body. An undeveloped person knows nothing of morality, law, logic; he has developed little Manas.

But there are even deeper changes. In the ninth and tenth centuries, people did not all have such perfect ideas, but much of what they had learned was incorporated into their astral bodies, because it is the carrier of everything we can learn in the world. What we learn changes quickly, but habits and temperaments change more slowly. We could compare what changes quickly with the minute hand of a clock and what changes more slowly with the hour hand. But there is also the opportunity to change what we are used to, and in doing so we change the etheric or life body: because it is denser, it makes it more difficult for the ego to change. As much as the human being changes his etheric body, so much 'budi' arises in him. Religions are instructions on how to work “Budhi” into the etheric body, while morality only changes the astral body. In the highest sense, art does the same as religions.

Thus you can now find the human being with six limbs, even if manas and budhi are only present in him in a germinal state. But there is already secret training that develops the etheric body. What is taught to the individual is doctrine; what transforms humanity is an influence on the budhi, is secret training. A chela, an occult disciple, works in his etheric body.

But what is hardly present in the seed is the Atman. It is such a strong power that a person can work with it right into his physical body. What can a person do in his physical body today? A person who can develop as an artistic human being, as a chela, can become master of his habits. But the person who has worked this seventh link, this Atman, into himself, also learns to control his pulse. And with this, he becomes partaker of the eternal. This is an achievement of mastery.

Now we see the human being with manas, budhi and atman. We now know that man, we said the I, stands in relation to the three lower realms, and now we see that he stands in relation to a realm above him, the divine realm, through what he has worked into himself as Manas. In this divine realm we have to seek the Elohim, divine spirits, of whom the Bible, as Jehovah, names one.

Through his Manas, his spiritual self, man is linked to the higher worlds. Therefore, we speak of man as one who is becoming, an evolving God. Christ Jesus says, “You are gods.” (John 10:34) Man will one day look back on his present spiritual level and he will feel like a human being who has grown out of it completely.

If we believe in evolution, we must also consider this for other beings, and looking back, we see that our older brothers, the Elohim, with them Jehovah, on an earlier planet or on the earlier embodiment of the earth, occupied the same stage that man now occupies on the present embodiment of the earth. The law of embodiment is not only the basis of man, but of all beings. Goethe speaks of the Earth Spirit: “In the flood of life, in the storm of action, I surge up and down,” and so on. The Earth was seen by individuals as a spiritual being and man as its members. The Earth was often embodied and in its previous embodiment it brought the present gods to the level of man. And in a later incarnation, the present-day human being will take on the level of his older brothers, the Elohim or gods. God, the Nameless, the Unfathomable, is not spoken of here. Elohim or Deva, better translated into German as: spirits.

To illustrate this “progressive” view, I will give an albeit trivial example: just as a student passes through different classes, the class that present humanity is going through is what the gods went through in their previous incarnation on Earth. Students also remain in classes, and so there were beings that did not go through this class completely.

Where do they stand today between humans and gods? They are higher beings than humans, but lower than the gods. In a sense, they are familiar with humans. The following law exists: Each of the basic parts of the human being is developed in an incarnation on earth. In the present incarnation on earth, the manas is developing; in the earlier incarnation, the astral body. The essential thing in this development on earth was that man has changed his entire astral body, that he no longer has anything of the animal in him. Through the development of the manas, he can enter into contact with manasic beings. Only when the atman is developed can he develop independently. Today, older brothers work, later still older ones in budhi and still older ones in atman. The higher spirits that have remained are related to the human astral body. They have already tasted of the Divine. Just as in Manas, demigods also help us to assert ourselves and to glow with the Divine. We would remain trapped in lower instincts if it were not for this stimulation. Thus the passions are transformed into higher instincts. There would only be a barren realm of moral principles, but they would not pulsate in man.

The Old Testament has wonderfully developed this law. The entities that evoke enthusiasm, the glow of love for the manasic, are called Luciferic entities. Thus, Lucifer is the one who evokes the astral passion for the divine in man. He thus arouses in him the desire to learn to love the divine, not as a duty, but as an inclination. He adds independence to submission. He is the instigator of human freedom.

Man becomes free only by following the divine out of his own urge. This is reflected in the biblical story of creation. God guided man, he could not choose. Then the serpent came, and the thought came into man, not only to live in God is desirable, but to become God himself, to carry the image of the deity in [himself] as a personality. Through Lucifer — biblically expressed through the serpent — the human body became the light bearer, as Lucifer himself was the light bearer, until Christ entered the world as “I am the light of the world” (John 8:12) and realized the principle of love for the divine. External knowledge, knowing what the laws of the world are, now seems dull to man. This external knowledge should grasp our inner being, should intervene directly as theosophy, as an independent inner experience. This is how Lucifer anchors himself in man. This research is called the school of Luciferian striving. These people are called: children of Lucifer.

If the gods gave science, Lucifer gave enthusiasm.

God: Revelation.

Lucifer: freedom.

We have a filial relationship with God; Lucifer awakened the feeling of being an independent being, of freedom. Devotion was a voluntary sacrifice. As everywhere, there must be a duality: God and Lucifer.

Thus, the Luciferic entities have not been left behind for no reason. They are those who strive to lead us to the divine by our own free choice. To do so, man must also have the opportunity to be evil. He can certainly become divine without it, but only through free choice.

If the Supreme is to be free, then it must be anchored in the other nature. In this way, God and luciferic entities work towards perfection and freedom.

Question & Answer: Question: [What does the] sphinx mean?

Rudolf Steiner: What the mind is trying to grasp today is nothing new as a concept. The pyramids represent the ancient views of our ancestors: there are four lines on which they stand = the fourfold nature of the human being, physical body, etheric body, astral body with the I. That is the foundation. Above it rises the triangle, representing the three basic parts that the ego works out of the four: Atman, Budhi, Manas. The trinity is not yet complete. If you want to feel this, then you must look at the sphinx. She represents the lower nature and from the eye the riddle of future development radiates towards you. In it, man prophetically seeks his future.

Question: [Not handed down.]

Rudolf Steiner: There are two writings – they are not actually writings in the strict sense – one is kept by a religious community, a church in secret, the other is kept by a master, a great leader of humanity.

Our study of the life of Christ Jesus according to what I have called the “Fifth Gospel” will certainly have brought home to us all the significance of what took place after the conversation between Jesus of Nazareth and the mother, of which I spoke here. And I want now to speak, in the way that may be possible in the intimate circle of a group like this, of what transpired immediately after that conversation, that is to say, of what happened to Jesus of Nazareth on his way to the Baptism by John in the Jordan.

What I have to tell consists of a number of facts which are revealed to the eye of Intuition; they are simply narrated, so that it is for each of you to form your own thoughts about them.

We have heard that after the life of Jesus of Nazareth from his twelfth until about his twenty-ninth or thirtieth year, a conversation took place between him and the mother who was, actually, his step- or foster mother. In this conversation, the effects of the experiences through which he had passed poured with such intensity into the words uttered by Jesus of Nazareth that together with his words a mighty force flowed into the soul of the foster-mother, a force of such power that the soul of the mother who had borne the body of the Nathan Jesus was able to descend from the spiritual world (for since the twelfth year of the Nathan Jesus the soul of his mother had been in the spiritual world), and permeated the soul of the foster mother. From then onwards, the foster-mother bore within her the soul of the mother of the Nathan Jesus. What had happened in Jesus himself was that together with the words, the Zarathustra-Ego had to a certain extent gone out of him. The being who now made his way to the Baptism in the Jordan was the Nathan Jesus as he had been up to his twelfth year, that is to say, without the Zarathustra-Ego; but the effects left by the Zarathustra-Ego were still present—the effects of all that the Zarathustra-Ego had been able to pour into the threefold sheath. And so we can understand that Jesus was prompted to make his way to the Baptism in the Jordan by an undefined Cosmic urge -—that is to say, in him it was an undefined urge, but in the Cosmos it was definite and deliberate. It is also obvious that this being was not like an ordinary human being, for the Zarathustra-Ego had gone out of him and only the effects remained. The “Fifth Gospel” reveals that as this being, Jesus of Nazareth, made his way to the Jordan, he met, firstly, two Essenes. They were two with whom he had often conversed on the occasions of which I have told you. But as the Zarathustra-Ego had gone out of him, for to physical eyes the outer physiognomy—which had developed under the influence of the indwelling Zarathustra-Ego—had not changed. The two Essenes addressed him with the words:

“Whither go you, Jesus of Nazareth?”

Jesus of Nazareth said: “I go whither souls of your kind are unwilling to gaze, where the pain of humanity can feel the rays of the forgotten Light!”

The two Essenes did not understand his words, and they perceived that he had not recognised them. Then they said to him:

“Jesus of Nazareth, do you not know us?”

And be said:

“You are like lambs gone astray, but I was the shepherd's son from who you strayed. When you truly recognise me you will stray yet again. It is so long since you fled from me into the world.”

The Essenes were greatly perplexed for they did not understand how such words could be uttered by any human soul, and they gazed at him questionly. He spoke again:

“What manner of souls are you? Where is your world? Why do you wrap yourselves in sheaths of deceit? Why does there burn within you a fire that was not kindle in my Father's House? You have upon you the mark of the Tempter. With his fire he has made your wool shining and glistening. The hairs of this wool prick my eyes, you erring lambs. The Tempter has filled your souls with pride. You met him on your flight.”

When he had said this, one of the Essenes answered:

“Have we not shown the Tempter the door? He has no longer any part in us!”

And Jesus spoke:

“True, you showed him the door, but he ran and came to the other men. Therefore he leers at you from the souls of these others. Do you then believe that you can exalt yourselves by abasing others? You do not exalt yourselves when you abase others; you think yourselves exalted but this is only because the others have been abased. You remain as you were, and it is only because you have abased the others that you imagine yourselves to be great.”

The Essenes were afraid, but at this moment Jesus of Nazareth vanished from their sight. And after their eyes had been as if clouded for a little while, they beheld in the distance a kind of Fata Morgana, revealing to them, but enlarged to gigantic proportions, the countenance of the one who had just stood before them. And then from this Fata Morgana they heard words which filled their souls with dread:

“Vain is your striving, for your heart is empty. Your heart is filled only with the spirit which conceals pride in the deceptive guise of humility.”

And when they had stood there for a time as it stupefied by this countenance and these words, the Fate Morgana vanished. But Jesus of Nazareth too had passed further on his way. The two Essenes went home and spoke to no one of what they had experienced, keeping silence about it their whole life long.

As I said before, I shall simply narrate the facts as they present themselves in the Akashic Record, and each one of you must think about them as you will. This is important at the present time, because it is possible that this Fifth Gospel will be revealed in greater detail as time goes on, and may kind of interpretation at this stage might well be a disturbing factor.

When Jesus of Nazareth had gone a little further on his path to the Jordan, he met a man in whose soul there was deep despair. And Jesus of Nazareth said:

“Whither hath thy soul led thee? Aeons ago I saw thee; then thou wert different.”

And the despairing man said:

“I was of high degree; I have risen to high positions in life; I have filled offices of distinguished rank. And often I said to myself that my learning and accomplishments had made me an exceptional human being. Then one might when I was asleep, I had a dream and in the dream it was as if a question were put to me. I knew at once that in the dream I was beholding myself, for the question was thine Who hath made me great? And there stood before me in the dreams, being who said: I have raised thee up, and in return for this thou art mine!—And I was ashamed, for I had believed that I owed everything to myself. And now this being was telling as that it was he who had raised me to a high position! Then, in the dream, I took flight; I left all my offices and honours behind and now I wander about seeking for something but not knowing what I seek.”

As the despairing man was speaking, the being he had seen in the dream again stood before him, between him and Jesus of Nazareth. And a feeling came to the despairing man that this being had something to do with Lucifer. Then Jesus of Nazareth vanished, and the other being too; and the man saw that Jesus of Nazareth had already passed on. And be went on
his way.

As Jesus of Nazareth continued his path, he met a leper, and to him he said:

“To what hath thy soul led thee? Aeons ago I saw thee; then thou wert different.”

The leper answered:

“Men have thrust me away; they have made we an outcast because of my disease; none would come near me; I could not even beg my bread. Then I wandered about, and in my wanderings I came one night into a wood. There I saw a shining, luminous tree which drew me towards it. And as I drew near, it was as if a skeleton came from the shimmering light of the tree. Dearth himself stood before me, and said: I am in thee. I feed on thee. Fear not! Why art thou fearful? Didst thou not once love me?—And yet I knew that I had never told him! And as he said: ‘Didst thou not once love me?’ his nature changed into that of a beautiful Archangel. And when I awoke in the morning I found myself beside the tree and my leprosy grew steadily worse.”

Then the being who had been transformed into the Archangel stood again before the leper and he knew: Ahriman or a being of Ahrimanic nature is standing before me. While he was still gazing, the being disappeared, and Jesus of Nazareth also, and the leper was left to go on his way.

After these three experiences Jesus of Nazareth came to the Jordan for the Baptism. And here too, I repeat that the Baptism in the Jordan was followed by an event that is also described in the other Gospels, namely, the Temptation. But in this Temptation Christ Jesus was confronted not only by the one being—the Temptation took its course in three stages. First there came a being who was now known to Him because he had seen him when the despairing man had come to him; hence he could recognise him as Lucifer. And then, through Lucifer, came the Temptation that is expressed in the words: “All these kingdoms and their glory I will give to thee if thou wilt acknowledge me as thy Lord.” Lucifer's attack was repulsed, but now came two attacks. Lucifer came again, but with him the being who had stood between Jesus of Nazareth and the leper, and whom He therefore now recognised as Ahriman.

And then came the Temptation which in the Gospels is clothed in the words: “Cast Thyself down; nothing can happen to Thee if Thou art the son of God.” But as Lucifer and Ahriman mutually paralysed each other's power, their attack failed. It was only the third Temptation—“Make stones into
bread”—that was not fully answered. This Temptation came from Ahriman alone. And the fact that Ahriman was not completely satisfied, led to events taking the course they did. Because of the unanswered Temptation, Ahriman was able to work through Judas, and all the later events became possible in the way of which we shall hear.

You see, my dear friends, an “Akasha-Intuition” here sheds light on the moment that is of such infinite significance in the whole development of the life of Christ Jesus and in the evolution of the Earth. It was as if the connection of Earth-evolution with the Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces were mirrored in the events between the conversation with the mother and the Baptism by John in the Jordan. He who was the Nathan Jesus, who for eighteen years had borne the Zarathustra-Ego within him, was made ready, by these events, to receive the Christ Being.

And this bring, us to the point where it is of vital importance to have right and true conceptions. That is why I have tried to bring together various results of occult investigation which can make our human evolution on the Earth intelligible. It may, perhaps, be possible to speak here too about matters that were the subject of the Lecture-Course in Leipzig, where I tried to indicate the connection between the Christ Event and the Parsifal event. To-day I will speak of one or two points only.

I want to show you how the whole meaning and course of the evolution of humanity comes to expression in manifold events if only they are understood in the right light. I do not want to go into the idea behind the story of Parsifal and its connection with the development of the Christ Impulse, but to speak of something that underlay everything that was said in Leipzig. I shall begin by asking: How does the figure of Parsifal come before us?—Parsifal was one who some centuries after the Mystery of Golgotha was destined to represent an important stage of the further development of the Christ Impulse in a soul. We know the story. Parsifal was the son of an adventurous knight; his mother was Hezeleide. The knight bad ridden away before Parsifal's birth. His mother suffered deep pain and grief before he was born. She wished to shield her son from the vaunted qualities of knighthood and she reared him in isolation, protecting him from the consequences of intercourse with others. He was to know nothing about what goes on among other human beings. We are also told that be knew nothing about what the external world calls religion. From his mother he heard only that there is a God, a God behind all things, a God whom he must serve... but more he did not know. But a meeting with two knights caused him to leave his mother, in order that be might discover to what his inner urge was leading him. And after may wanderings he was led to the Castle of the Holy Grail. What he there experienced is described best of all by Chrestian de Troyes—a source upon which Wolfram von Eschenbach also drew.

We are told that one day Parsifal came to wooded country at the edge of a lake where.two men were fishing. In answer to his question, these men directed him to the Castle of the Fisher-King. He went into the Castle and there found a man lying weak and ill on his bed. The sick man gave him a sword—it was the sword which belonged to Parsifal's mother. Then came a page carrying a lance from which blood was dripping on his blood; then came a maiden, carrying a golden Cup radiating light more brilliant than all the lights in the room. This Cup was carried into the adjoining room where lay the father of the Fisher-King, who is nourished by what this Cup contains. Now Parsifal had previously been advised by a knight to abstain from asking many questions. At the time, therefore, he put no questions but the next morning decided that be must ask about these strange things. When he woke up the following morning, however, the Castle was empty. In the courtyard be found his horse ready saddled and when he had mounted and galloped away the drawbridge was immediately raised behind him. There was no sign of any of those whom he had found in the Castle the previous day.

As we know, the point of salient significance is that Parsifal asked no questions, although miraculous things had been revealed to him. And as the story goes on we hear again and again from those persons who meet Parsifal and who are connected with his mission, that he ought to have asked, that his troubles were to some extent due to this. He is told that by not asking he has brought about disaster.

And now think of Parsifal. He had remained apart from outer civilisation and culture; he is led to the Holy Grail with his virgin soul untouched by the mundane world... Now the Christ Impulse was a Deed which mankind had not at once been capable of understanding, But because the Christ had passed into the Aura of the Earth, He was working on—as indeed men had conjectured in their dogmas and teachings. Christ was working in the hidden foundations of the human soul, in the hidden depths of historical evolution, not in the surface consciousness of men or in the wranglings of Theology. In Parsifal we have a picture of the moment when a further stage was to be reached; therefore he had learned nothing of the teachings of the Gnostics, the Apostolic Fathers or the various theological movements. He was to know nothing of these things; his connection with the Christ-Impulse was to be purely in the life of soul, in his sub-consciousness, where standards of contemporary life played no part. His connection with the Christ Impulse would have been impaired and clouded by knowledge of man-made doctrines. Only the supersensible influences in the onflowing Christ Impulse were to work in Parsifal. External doctrine belongs to the material world but Christ works in the supersensible and it was this supersensible influence that as to come to expression in Parsifal. He must ask only at that place where the living essence of the Christ Impulse confronts him, that is to say, in the Holy Grail. He should have asked what the Holy Grail contains, what the Christ Event actually signifies. He should have asked!

Mark this word my dear friends. There was another, the disciple of Sais, who was not allowed to ask. The disciple at Sais was doomed in that he felt constrained to ask why it was not lawful for him to ask; he desired that the veils of Isis should be lifted. The disciple at Sais represents the Parsifal of the epoch preceding the Mystery of Golgotha! But in that age the disciple was told: “Take heed that what is behind the veil be not disclosed until thy soul is prepared and ready.” The disciple at Sais after the Mystery of Golgotha is represented in the figure of Parsifal. Parsifal was to undergo no special preparation; he was to be led to the Holy Grail with a virgin soul. And he missed the vital opportunity, for he neglected to do what the disciple at Sais was forbidden to do.—Parsifal ought to have asked about the mystery of his soul... Thus do the times change in the onward march of evolution.

To begin with we can only think of these things in a more abstract sense... What was the mystery of Isis? We are told of Isis with the Child Horus, of the mystery of the connection between Isis and the Child Horus, of the Connection between the Son of Isis and Osiris. A deep, deep mystery lies here. The disciple at Sais was not ripe for the disclosure of the mystery.

When Parsifal rode away from the Grail Mountain, having neglected to ask about the wonders of the Holy Grail, one of his first experiences was that he met a woman, a bride, weeping over the dead bridegroom in her arms.—A true picture, this, of Mary mourning for her Son—the motif of so many Pietàs later on. This is the first indication of what Parsifal would have experienced if be had asked about the wonders of the Holy Grail. Knowledge would have come to him of the new connection between Isis and Horus, between the Mother and the Son of Man. Parsifal ought to have asked. Now significantly this points to the progress that had taken place in the evolution of mankind! What was not lawful before the Mystery of Golgotha, was now, after the Mystery of Golgotha, both lawful and necessary. For in the meantime the evolution of mankind had progressed.

These things are only of value when we turn them to real disciple at Sais is that in accordance with the nature of the times, we must put the right kind of questions, for here lies the secret of ascent. Since the Mystery of Golgotha there have been two main currents in evolution: one which bears within it the Christ Impulse, the other which is, as it were, the continuation of the process of decline and leads to the materialism of the present age. In our age, by far the greater part of external culture is steeped in materialism. And everything that Spiritual Science can tell us about the Christ Impulse makes us realise how deeply the souls of men need the inner impulse of spirituality to counteract the steadily increasing materialism, of external life. To this end we must all learn to question, to ask! But the current of materialism leads men away from questioning. Let us compare the two currents.—There are people who really cling to materialism, even while they assert their belief in this or that spiritual dogma, or profess to acknowledge the existence of a spiritual world in words and theories. Mere words are of no account. What matters is that we shall live with our whole soul in the current of spiritual life. It can be said of those who cling to materialism that they do not question, for they claim to know everything already! It is characteristic of materialistic culture that even the young and immature think they know everything and therefore do not question. To give one's opinion at every turn is thought to be a matter of personal freedom. But it is not usually realised to what these opinions amount.—We grow up in the world, absorbing more and more without noticing it; according to our Karma, we find one thing more pleasing, another less; we reach, say, the respectable age of twenty-five and feel absolutely mature and certain in our judgment because we think it comes from our own soul. But such judgment contains absolutely nothing more than our experiences in the external world. And in that we feel obliged to assert our own judgment in the outer world, we become all the more slavishly dependent upon our inner life. We pass judgment, but we omit to question, to ask. We learn to ask aright only when we acquire that inner sense of proportion which maintains respect and reverence for the things that are holy as sacred in life, when we enter the sacred domains of life in an attitude of waiting without asserting our own judgment. A certain diffidence is necessary in face of things that are holy. We must ask the spiritual world—to which we bring, not our own judgments but our questionings, and a mood-of-soul which asks. Try, my dear friends, to understand the difference between facing the spiritual world in an attitude of “judging” and in an attitude of questioning. There is a radical difference between the two attitudes. Moreover something is connected with this to which we ought to give particular heed in our Movement, for this Movement will not thrive unless we understand the difference between questioning and judging. Naturally, we must also judge, but over against the mysteries of the spiritual life we must unfold the attitude of questioning, of expectancy. The progress of our Movement will be furthered by this attitude of questioning; it will be hindered by the contrary attitude. And when in solemn moments we ponder the story of the one who ought to have asked about the Mystery of the Holy Grail, the figure of Parsifal becomes the personification of an Ideal for our Movement.

Human souls before the Mystery of Golgotha possessed the old, inherited clairvoyance which had been carried over from incarnation to incarnation, but it was gradually fading away. This fading clairvoyance was bound up with that upon which our external sight and other sense-activities are also dependent. When human beings who lived before the time of the Mystery of Golgotha were growing up as children, they learnt not only how to walk and talk, but they also learnt clairvoyance. Clairvoyance arose from the nature and organisation of man, just as speech arises from the organisation of the brain and larynx. Human beings in those times did not stop at learning to speak, but they also learnt clairvoyance. The old clairvoyance therefore was bound up with the human organism. as it was in the physical world. Clairvoyance in one who was a libertine was tainted by his particular characteristics; clairvoyance in a pure man bore the mark of his purity. The consequence of this fact was that a certain mystery, the mystery of the connection between the spiritual world and the physical world as it existed before the descent of Christ, might not be disclosed to an ordinary, unprepared human being. His constitution must first have become mature and ready. It was not lawful for the disciple at Sais to gaze upon the image of the soul of Isis.

In the Fourth post-Atlantean age, when the mystery of Golgotha took place, the old clairvoyance had faded away. The new constitution of the human soul is such that the soul must remain shut off from the spiritual world if it does not ask concerning the spiritual world, if it lacks the urge that is contained in questioning. The harmful forces which in ancient times drew near any human soul who desired to penetrate into these mysteries without due preparation, cannot now approach when a man asks in the right way about the Mystery of the Holy Grail. For in this Mystery there is concealed the power which since the Mystery of Golgotha has flowed into the aura of the Earth but was not previously there. It remains shut off, however, from one who does not ask. There must be an urge really to unfold what is contained in the soul. Before the Mystery of Golgotha this urge was not present, for the Christ had not yet passed into the Aura of the Earth. Before the Mystery of Golgotha, merely by gazing at the image of Isis and striving to fathom the mystery in the lawful way with such powers of clairvoyance as still existed, a human being would have poured all his forces into such an act and thus have recognised the mystery. In the age after the Mystery of Golgotha, a soul who learns to ask in the right way will be able to perceive and feel the new Mystery of Isis. Hence, my dear friends, everything depends upon asking, upon the right attitude to the spiritual conception of the world that is made known in our time. One who comes merely with the intention of judging, may read all the books and the lecture-courses, but he will gain nothing whatever, for he lacks the attitude Parsifal. If a man comes as one who truly asks, a great deal more than what the mere words contain will be revealed to him—for the words will then bear fruit in his soul as actual experience. And this above all is important—that the spiritual teachings should become actual experience.

These things are brought home to us by such events as transpired between the time of Jesus of Nazareth's conversation with the mother, and the Baptism by John in the Jordan. Such things will have meaning for us only when we ask what it is that distinguishes the time before the Mystery of Golgotha from the age that followed it... It it best to allow these things to work upon the soul; all that they can say to us is really contained in the story.

At this point in our study of the “Fifth Gospel” I wanted merely to indicate how important it is in this age to understand the attitude of Parsifal. It was brought to the fore by Richard Wagner, who tried to clothe it in musical and dramatic form. I do not propose to enter the lists of the fight that is going on about it in the outer world, because it is not for spiritual science to mingle in such strife. I shall not pronounce judgment as between those who wish to preserve it in Bayreuth and those who want to consign it to Klingsor's realm—which has, as a matter of fact, already happened. My aim is to show that in the onward flow of the Christ Impulse, the Parsifal attitude must come into play in domains that are beyond the reach of the power of judgment belonging to man's ordinary consciousness but to which this consciousness can more and more be directed by a spiritual conception of the world.

Handwritten note by Rudolf Steiner
Note sheet archive number 6974

Where do you come from?

From the lodge of St. John.

What happens in the lodge of St. John?

A temple of virtue is built there and prisons for vices are dug there.

What do you bring from there?

Welfare, progress, and goodwill for all mankind.

What do you intend to do here?

To conquer my passions, subjugate my will and make new progress.

Take your place, my B., and be welcome in this place, where the rays of your light are consciously received.

Individual texts by Rudolf Steiner in the handwriting of Marie Steiner-von Sivers

Wisdom should have guided you while you were building this temple, which is an earthly image of the spiritual life stream. This wisdom is now a water of light to guide you, as your soul unfolds the seeds of wisdom.

Beauty should adorn your work while you were building this temple, which is an image of self-limiting form-creating: this beauty is now a releasing salt for you, as your soul dissolves the covers of your spirit seed.

Strength should have carried out your work as long as you were building this temple, which is an image of the creative powers of existence: the fire of creation, to which the ashes of your body will return, is this strength in the future, as your spirit unites with the world spirits to create the great temple of being.

Brothers of the past, your wisdom penetrated the waters of the elemental kingdom and gave our sister an earthly shell so that she could reveal in the world what her soul had accepted under your wise guidance in prehistoric times.

Brothers of the present, our sister sought to come into your wise guidance so that your thoughts of God might be revealed in her part.

Brothers of the future, you will incorporate our sister's soul into your plan of construction, so that she may continue to flow in your strength, in the body of your great soul.

And you, sister, who have joined us in our striving for the vision of the heights of eternal light, your powers that flow into another form of being, let them flow into our work, work with us in the sanctuary of spiritual life: but we are inseparable in our souls from yours.

One, united, unity.

Prepared by silence, it is spoken with the mantle of that which has been received from above.

To make himself the bearer of wisdom, the$* [Rosicrucian] Mason vows to his God in the soul of his spirit. He beholds a temple of this God in the human form of his being. He vows to make himself the builder of this temple. He will think nothing that might be shameful to wisdom. The watchword floats before his eyes:

My thoughts shall seek thee everywhere, divine spirit.

The Mason [Rosicrucian] will make himself the servant of Beauty; he pledges himself to Beauty, because only in her bosom can the life of God flourish in his soul. The Mason [Rosicrucian] avoids an appearance that contradicts reality; he seeks true embodiment in the appearance of reality. His breathing in his breathing the watchword:

My speech shall reveal you, divine soul.

The + [Rosicrucian] Mason wants to make fortitude his covering; he praises fortitude because only through its fire can the God in his heart mature. The Mason seeks to flee from languor, which only hinders all progress; he seeks fortitude, which, with a sharp, two-edged sword of fire, prepares the way for all advancement. The watchword beats in his heart:

My heartbeat shall confirm you, divine will.

I

The earth's soil bears me;
The earth's air envelops me;
Around me I see the rocks of the mountains;
Around me the plant cover of the earth blossoms;
In the animal kingdom there is feeling,
Which, as in a thousand individual forms,
my own being's abundance.
I feel the power to shape myself ever higher,
only this noble striving makes a human being.

II

He is born of the earth's soil.
He is animated by the earth's air.
He is related to the rocks of the mountains,
His existence is interwoven with the plant cover,
The realm of the animals carries his spirit power;
But as if in a harmonious miracle
Earth, rocks, life are joined in him.
The earth's soil will sink beneath him.
The circle of the air will be the bearer of death.
The mountains' rocks will fall,
The plants will wither,
The animals' life will be stunned.
But he will bear the fruit of being earth
To create new worlds in a distant time.
To feel this goal's eternal value
Creates wisdom in every thought,
Receive beauty in every breath of life,
Strengthen fortitude in every beat of the blood.

We, wise M.d.O. [Masters of the East], present ourselves before you in spirit with purified desire, that the center of the heart may be silent in the expression of the outer self and burn with the fire of a new inner self. Let the fundamental fires germinate in us, melting and uniting the elements of the temple, which shall be a worthy dwelling for your divine being. ¹

The old temple will give birth to the new.

The three may create a new chariot from our signs.

The three may make Audhumla fertile.²

The following spoke, sitting amidst the stars of wisdom:

The time will come when man's intelligence and sensuality will become desolate and formless. And the power of the flesh will be barren and the daughter of the brain will be lame. And what has been founded among men by thinking and feeling will dry up like the sea dries up in scorching heat. But the revelation of the stars of wisdom will flourish. Mine is what you have kept as silver, what you have kept as gold – so says He who sits in the midst of the stars of wisdom.

The revelation of the new temple will shine forth more brightly than the first, and the I will have found itself in the I.

The initiate at the gates: M.M. Remember that you must find your way in fields where you have never been:

West = Ahriman: He wants to be you.
South = Lucifer: He wants to be you.
East = gold. A

Hand over your sources

1. 3. 7. 12.

Water

In nomine Elohim et per spiritum aquarum viventium, sis mihi in signum lucis et sacramentum voluntaris.

Smoke

Per serpentum aneum sub quo cadunt serpentes ignei, sis mihi.

Hauch

Per firmamentum et spiritum vocis, sis mihi.

Erde

In sale terrae et per virtutem vitae aeternae, sis mihi.

Sylphs

Spirit of light, spirit of wisdom, whose breath determines the form of all things – reach through to us.

Undines

King of the sea, who holds the keys of heaven, we call upon you – –

Salamander

Immortal, eternal, uncreated father of the world

Invisible king, lead us to clarity.

Handwritten note by Rudolf Steiner
from notebook Archive number 611

Green the Earth Mother rises
With the bright colors of flowers
The spirit of the sun will cover up
What springs from the soil in a living way.

Dress is what springs from the earth
Coat is what the spirit of the sun creates
It holds the soul within it alive
The soul is permeated by the spirit with power.

Spirit you become sisters, you brothers
Look only when you hear,
What to tell your being innermost
Has the word of the wise of the East.

Take the word of the spirit.
Those who have served him from the beginning
will send you their strength
through the wisdom, the beauty and strength.

• 1. “Chariot” may refer to Ezekiel's vision of the divine throne chariot, “Merkabah”, with which a special secret doctrine was associated in Jewish mysticism.
• 2. Audhumla = in Norse mythology, the cow that arose from the primeval ocean; see lecture Berlin, October 7, 1907.

The mood of the present time is not likely, perhaps, to create in many people that depth of inner feeling of which legends and sagas speak when they refer to the Christmas Holy Nights, when the soul that is prepared for it is able to have some experience of the spiritual world. You know one such impressive legend from the performances given here, that of Olaf &Åsteson. Many similar things point to Christmas time in the same way.

It is clear, not only to a more thoughtful student of the human heart, but to anyone who observes in the external world the general spirit of our time, that a Christmas mood, a Christmas impulse, must now be sought anew by mankind. What lives in the celebration of Christmas, in the thought of Christmas, must take hold of the human soul in a new way. Just think, dear friends—in order to realize the broader aspects of our contemporary religious and spiritual mood—how little inclination there is at this time to contemplate the Christ as such, to direct the eyes of the soul to Him.

People often believe they are speaking about the Christ, and yet you will find they have made hardly any distinction between Christ and God the Father except in name. While it is true that for many believers the Christ still stands at the center of their religious creed and that beside Him all else of a divine nature loses its luster, nevertheless we have seen for some time now the rise of a theology that has really lost the Christ, that speaks of a God in general even when Christ is meant. The specific quality that is essential when the human heart looks up to Christ needs to be found again. And perhaps the most worthy celebration of the Christmas Festival at this time is actually to inscribe in our souls how mankind can find the Christ again. Many historical facts of the evolution of mankind will first have to be considered—in the spiritual scientific sense—if a true impulse is to be reawakened that will lead human souls to Christ.

The Christmas Festival can not only remind us, as is intended, of the entrance of Jesus into earth life, but it can also point to the birth of Christianity itself, the entrance of Christianity into the course of earth evolution. And so let us today direct our spiritual vision primarily to what might be called the Christmas of Christianity itself, the entrance, the birth, of Christianity within the sphere of the earth. The external facts are known, of course, but our knowledge of them needs to be intensified.

Christianity came into the world in the person of Christ Jesus, into the midst of the adherents of the Old Testament. We can observe the phenomena that occurred among these people when Christianity was born. We see how they were externally divided into two separate currents, that of the Pharisees and that of the Sadducees. It is necessary to view all these things henceforth in a new light. When we consider the general course of development of an individual or of humanity itself—indeed, the course of the entire earth—this will become increasingly clear to us if we conceive it as a continual balancing between luciferic and ahrimanic forces. But that is merely the designation we use; there has always existed among the deeper natures of humanity a consciousness of the actual existence of Lucifer and Ahriman and of the condition of balance between them. Fundamentally, the contrast of the Pharisaic element and the Sadducean element in the ancient Hebrew evolution was nothing else than the contrast of ahrimanic and luciferic elements. Jesus, coming into external earth life, entered the balancing stream. He entered earthly existence at that place for which the most important designation up to the time of the Mystery of Golgotha was that Solomon's Temple had been built there. In a certain sense we can only understand the nature of Solomon's Temple if we are able to perceive it in contrast to the Christianity then being born. It is well-known how quickly after Christianity came into being Solomon's Temple was destroyed, so far as external existence is concerned. This memorial of the earlier evolution out of which the spirituality of Christianity arose was destined to exist no longer at the place from which that spirituality streamed forth. The nature of Solomon's Temple and the nature of Christianity present a strong contrast. Solomon's Temple embraced in marvelous, magnificent, sometimes gigantic symbols all that was contained in the world conception of the Old Testament. It was an image of the entire universe so far as this could be represented by the ancient world conception, in its conformity to law, in its inner structure, in its permeation by divine-spiritual beings. It was nonetheless an image of the universe that in a certain sense and in one direction was extraordinarily one-sided. That is to say, the Temple was a spatial image of the universe, an image that made use of spatial forms and spatial relations to express the mysteries of the universe. But for those who viewed it in the spirit of the Old Testament, its symbolism was endowed with life.

We see, on the one hand, in the Judaism of the Pharisees and Sadducees, the externalization of what had been given to humanity through the Old Testament; on the other hand, we see in the symbolism of Solomon's Temple the means of deepening the life of Old Testament humanity. It might be said that what has flowed into the entire Old Testament revelation came to expression in these two directions: one outward, exoteric, in the Judaism of the Pharisees and Sadducees; the other esoteric, through what was represented in the mysterious symbols of Solomon's Temple. And from this exotericism and esotericism sprang what became Christianity.

This Christianity was at first, at the time of its birth, unknown to the world at large, to that world in which lived the spirituality of the humanity of that time, namely, the Greek world. Within the expanding Roman empire in which the Mystery of Golgotha was being prepared through the birth of Jesus, it was not known what a momentous Event had taken place among the Jewish people. Nothing was known of the significant Event that constitutes the meaning of the earth. Nevertheless, although the humanity of that time allowed it to pass unnoticed outwardly, the most sublime Event of our earth evolution, inwardly the Christianity that was coming into being was connected with what was then considered the whole world.

In what ways, dear friends, was it connected? The meaning that Christmas conceals is revealed later in the Easter conception. What then is the important aspect of Easter that really intensifies the meaning of Christmas? It is the contemplation of the Savior of mankind Who died on the cross: the cross with the dead God. The intention and the deed originated in humanity: to put to death the God Who had appeared in their midst. The profound magnitude, the full power, of this thought should again enter into human souls. Contemplation of the deed by which the God Who appeared on earth was killed by men: this should be put into language by which it can be understood. Let us try to do this, at least from one point of view.

When we look upon the Mystery of Golgotha, we find it to be a great world-historical confluence of spiritual streams that had been present in the ancient Mysteries. (You know this from my book, Christianity as Mystical Fact.) What had taken place in the ancient Mysteries as the sacrificial rite, the rite of initiation, what had taken place in the temple with, one might say, limited importance, was now set out on the great stage of world history; it now took place in the realm of our entire earth existence. In a certain sense, the initiation of humanity itself was brought out of the temples and presented as historical event before the whole world.

Now let us ask: what were the thoughts of someone permitted to take part in the initiation rites of the ancient Mysteries—when these still possessed their true significance? Through his preparatory instruction such a person knew with certainty that what is directly apparent in the external world of the senses, and what can be comprehended by the human intellect, is a world of mere phenomena, a world of appearance. He knew that what a human being experiences immediately in his environment during his waking hours between birth and death is only the outer view, the phenomenal display, of an inner reality, and that in ordinary life this inner reality is concealed. In the Mystery rite itself such a person sought true reality in what streamed to him, as it were, from the depths of existence, in what could be drawn out and separated from the merely phenomenal, illusory existence. Someone who took part in the ancient Mysteries could always say to himself: When I walk through the world and see external nature, it is illusion. When I experience this or that in the world, it is illusion. When I do any kind of work for the world, it is illusion. But when I am permitted to take part in the holy acts of the Mysteries in the Temple, then something happens that is truth, not illusion. Something is drawn forth, so to speak, out of the illusory existence of the world and transformed into a sacramental act; and this act contains exact truth in contrast to the illusion.

If we wish to be quite clear concerning this view of the Mysteries, we must compare it to the view prevailing today in our materialistic age. We must understand that all that is called reality today in this age of materialism was regarded as illusion in the conceptions belonging to the Mysteries; while, for example, the sacramental act performed as the initiation rite, which most people today consider “fantastic”, was esteemed by those acquainted with the Mysteries as the only reality in life. Such an act, therefore, was not performed at random, but at certain times when it was believed that something of the true nature of things might push through the phenomena of outer life and, as it were, be captured through the act. It has often been mentioned that one such important rite consisted in showing the sacrifice of the God, the death of the God, and His resurrection after three days. This pointed to the fact that to someone who penetrates more deeply into the external world, death can reveal the true nature of this world, that reality must be sought beyond death.

Think of all this entering human souls from the content of the Mysteries at the beginning of our Christian era, expressing the most important fact in world phenomena! Someone in that era pondering on the course of our earth evolution would have been able to say: “In ancient times it was possible for man to learn something about the divine-spiritual world through atavistic initiation science. It was formerly revealed to man out of earth evolution itself. That time is now past. The time has come when nothing more can be drawn from the content of this world to guide us to the divine-spiritual world. This world has lost its divine-spiritual life.” That is what such a soul would have said. Where must one look for the meaning of evolution for earth-humanity? Where was the real meaning of the earth at the time when Christianity came into being? Where was the expression of what was willed in man's innermost being at that time? At Golgotha on the cross. It was Death! What formerly had gushed forth from earth evolution for human salvation, was itself dead. To the soul that penetrated more deeply into cosmic reality, an earth impulse, the most profound of all earth impulses, was given at the time of the birth of Christianity, in the contemplation of the dead God.

Only when experienced in this way does the full magnitude appear of the matter with which we are here concerned. The ancient world conception, the ancient world-wisdom had flowed into Solomon's Temple; but it no longer held anything of what had made it great. Something new had to enter world evolution. And so in the course of time the destruction of Solomon's Temple and the rise, the birth, of Christianity exactly coincided. Solomon's Temple: a spatial symbolic image of the content of the cosmos; Christianity, comprehended as a time-phenomenon: a new image of the cosmos. Christianity is not something that appears as a spatial image, as in the case of Solomon's Temple; one only understands Christianity if one grasps it in images of time. One must see that earth evolution proceeded as far as the Mystery of Golgotha; then the Mystery of Golgotha intervened; then, through the Christ pouring Himself into humanity, evolution moves on in this way or that. Its deeper content is not to be equated in the remotest degree with anything appearing in spatial images, not even in the gigantic, magnificent spatial images of Solomon's Temple. Nevertheless, Solomon's Temple, as also the inner aspect of Pharisaic and Sadducean life, contained the soul of the world consciousness of that time. The soul of the world consciousness two thousands years ago was to be found in Old Testament Judaism. Into this soul was laid the seed of Christianity, a new seed that, while growing out of all that may be expressed in space, can only be expressed in time. The becoming following the existing: that is the inner relation of Christianity that was then being born to the soul element of the world of that time, to Judaism that was embodied in Solomon's Temple, which later collapsed. Christianity was born into the soul of ancient Judaism.

As Christianity sought the soul in Judaism, so it sought the spirit in Hellenism. The Gospels themselves, as transmitted to the world (I refer only to what has been handed down), have in the main passed through the Greek spirit. The thoughts through which the world could think Christianity are the spiritual wisdom of Greece. The first apologia of the Church Fathers appeared in the Greek tongue. Just as Christianity was born into the soul that for the humanity of that time lived in Judaism, so it was born into the spirit provided by Hellenism.

Romanism furnished the body. It was Romanism that at that time could provide an external organization for concepts of empire. Judaism soul, Hellenism spirit, Romanism body—body, of course, in the sense that the social structure of humanity is body. Romanism is in reality the forming of external inclinations and institutions; the thoughts concerning external institutions live within them. It is the corporeal element in historical existence, the corporeal element in historical development. Just as Christianity was born into the soul of Judaism and into the spirit of Hellenism, so it was born into the body of the Roman Empire. Superficial people even think that everything contained in Christianity can be explained out of Judaism, Hellenism and Romanism. In the same way, indeed, that materialistic natural scientists believe that everything in a human being is inherited from parents, grandparents, etc., ignoring the fact that the soul comes from spiritual regions and only puts on the body as a garment: so these superficial people like to say that Christianity consists of what in actual fact it has only put on as an outer garment. The essence of Christianity entered the world, of course, with Christ Jesus Himself; but this Christianity was born into the Jewish soul, into the Greek spirit, and into the body of the Roman Empire. That, in a sense, is the birth of Christianity itself, viewed in the light of Christmas thought.

It is important not to accept these facts as mere external theories, but to relate them deeply to our thought of Christmas, to learn what their significance really is in relation to the newborn Impulse that is now entering world evolution with the Spirits of Personality—as I explained here recently.³ Indeed, dear friends, anything new that purposes to enter into the course of world evolution must first struggle through what remains of the old. This is precisely the mystery of world-becoming, that on the one hand there is a normal, progressive evolution; on the other hand, retarded luciferic and ahrimanic forces interfere with it and modify it, but also in a certain sense support it as it advances. I have often called attention to the fact that we cannot escape this ahrimanic-luciferic force; we must look straight at it calmly, and face it consciously. On no account must we simply submit to these things unconsciously. From world impulses shadows remain behind that continue to have an effect even after something new has come into existence; but their luciferic and ahrimanic character must be recognized. This ahrimanic-luciferic element must accompany evolution, but it must not be accepted in an absolute sense; its luciferic- ahrimanic character must be perceived. Something shadowlike has remained behind from Solomon's Temple, something shadow-like also from Hellenism, and something shadow-like from the Roman Empire. Nearly two thousand years ago it was self-evident that from these three—soul, spirit, and body—Christianity was born. But soul, spirit, and body could not immediately disappear; they remained in a certain way as after-effects. Now is the time when this fact must be clearly understood and when the completely unique character of the Christ Impulse itself must be realized.

A shadow remains behind from the most important extract of the esoteric Old Testament, from the Mystery of Solomon's Temple; a shadow remains from Hellenism; also one from the Roman Empire. We must learn to distinguish the shadows from the light. It will be mankind's task from this present time into the immediate future to differentiate between the shadows and the light in the right way.

We see the shadow of the Roman Empire in Roman Catholicism. This is not Christianity; it is the shadow of the ancient Roman Empire into which Christianity had to be born. In its forms there continues to live what had to be built up at that time as a framework for Christianity. But we must learn—humanity must learn—to distinguish the shadow of the old Roman Empire from Christianity. The essence of Christianity is not to be found in the organization of the Catholic Church, or indeed of any of the Christian churches. One sees in their hierarchical aspect what existed and developed in the Roman Empire from Romulus to the Emperor Augustus. The illusion arises only because Christianity was born into this body.

In this sense Solomon's Temple has also remained as a shadow. The Mysteries of Solomon's Temple have—with a few exceptions—been completely absorbed into the Masonic and other secret societies of the present time. As the Roman Church is the shadow of the ancient Roman Empire, so what continues to exist in these societies—however strongly they assert to the contrary, even to the extent of excluding Jews—is the shadow of ancient Judaism, the shadow of the esoteric Jehovah-worship. Again the shadow must be distinguished from the light. Just as the shadow expressed in the perpetuation of the Roman Empire in the Catholic Church, in the churches generally, must be distinguished from the light shining in Christianity, so the element into which Christianity had to be born as soul must be distinguished from the shadow that continues to work in societies founded on symbolism that is reminiscent of Solomon's Temple.

These things must be recognized. They must be looked at in the right way. And they must be illuminated in our time by the new revelations of which we have been speaking during these days.

The Greek spirit into which Christianity had to be born—in spite of all the beauty of Hellenism, in spite of its esthetic and other important content, in spite of the influence it has upon us—has left its shadow as the modern world conception of the cultured humanity that has brought this fearful catastrophe⁴ upon mankind. When Hellenism existed with its world conception, it was something different. Everything, dear friends, is right in its own time. If something is taken in an absolute sense, and carried on after it has become antiquated, it then becomes the shadow of itself. And the shadow is not the light; it may change suddenly into the opposite of the real thing. Aristotelianism still shows something of the greatness of ancient Greece. Aristotle in modern raiment is materialism. Christianity was born into the Jewish soul, the Greek spirit, the Roman body; but the three have left their shadows behind. The challenge sounds through our time, like the call of an angel's trumpet, to perceive the true facts, to look through the shadows to the light.

Truly, anyone who ponders over this present moment in time, who considers impartially, without prejudice, what has brought about the fearful, distressing events of recent years, surely cannot help wondering whether some sort of light can be sought that would shine into the darknesses of earth in a different way from those lights which most people still wish to regard as the only ones. One should find the will to look for a way through the shadows to the light. For the shadows will assert themselves. They will become effective through people who perhaps have endured little themselves of the great suffering of humanity at the present time, who have no sympathy, or very little, for the terrible agony that has flashed through the world, agony that is itself proof that many of the thoughts which have appeared were destined to be shipwrecked. One who tries to examine with deeper understanding what is really not difficult to see today, one who has the resolute will to look without prejudice at what is happening today among men, will feel an impulse to seek the light. He should attach some importance to this impulse in his soul, not listen to those who—depending on the place they occupy—wish only to defend one of the ancient shadows, but listen to his own soul; it will speak clearly enough if only he does not let its voice drown under the external assertions of the shadows.

If today one looks compassionately at what has happened, what is happening, and what will happen, one will be able to see a strange figure standing before men: a distortion of the truly human form, in garments woven of shadows, a figure uniting in itself in its thoughts, sensations, feelings, and will-impulses what has put humanity on a wrong track and gives every promise of taking it farther on the wrong track. Deep within what is happening outwardly dwell those three shadow-thoughts that have been described.

Whoever learns to see that figure in garments woven of shadows, has prepared himself in the right way to look at something else: to look at the tree that can illuminate even today's darkness with its lights. Whoever is pure in heart and does not allow himself to be misled by the threefold shadow-existence—antiquated symbolism, antiquated ecclesiasticism, antiquated materialistic science—will see what wills to shine in the darkness as a real Christmas tree, and lying beneath it the Christ-Jesus Child, illuminated anew by the Christmas light. This is the real aim of our anthroposophically-oriented science of the spirit: to seek the Christmas light, so that the Jesus Child, Who entered the world first to work and then to be understood, may gradually be understood; to illuminate in a modest way the greatest of all events in earth existence. This is the goal of our anthroposophical spiritual science within the religious currents of humanity. People will not understand the light that this spiritual science wants to recognize as its Christmas light unless they have the will really to penetrate the threefold shadow-existence of our time. The times are serious. And whoever lacks the will to take them seriously will perhaps not be able in this incarnation to see what should truly be perceptible at this time to every human being of good will, there for the healing of the many wounds that otherwise mankind will still have to suffer. People of good will should take notice of what may be seen when the anthroposophical science of the spirit enkindles the Christmas light. The light is truly small, and he who professes it remains humble. He does not wish to extol it to the world as something special, for he knows that now it appears small and insignificant, and many men and many generations must still come, to help what now burns dimly to become brighter. But even though the light is weak, it shines on something whose effect within human earthly evolution is not weak, something that is working powerfully as the deepest meaning of human evolution. The light illumines what we may call the birth of Christianity, the Christmas of Christianity. Along with the Easter meaning of anthroposophical spiritual science may this its Christmas meaning be understood. May many, many souls look forward in this spirit to the profound experience of the Christmas Holy Nights. They will then be able to feel that already a call is sounding through the world to contemplate the appearance of Jesus, who awaited here on earth that moment when He was to meet death, in order in His spirit-life after death to give a new meaning to mankind and to earth evolution.

My dear friends, let us feel something of this Christmas mood that is to enter our souls from spiritual science! I would like at this moment to begin Christmas solemnly, by expressing the wish—as my soul's innermost holy Christmas greeting—that you may experience the mood of consecration that wills to receive the new Christ-revelation. I assume that you too are beginning Christmas with that earnestness of which I endeavored to speak today, an earnestness appropriate to the present condition of the world. In this spirit, my dear friends, I wish you with all my heart a holy, solemn Christmas!

• 3. Rudolf Steiner, Dornach, 20 Dec. 1918, Die Soziale Grundfordentng unserer Zeit/in Geanderter Zeitlage, GA 186 (Dornach, Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1979).
• 4. World War I.

Today we shall consider the differentiations in mankind from another viewpoint, namely that of history. With the express aim of promoting an understanding for the present time we shall look at human evolution starting at a point immediately following the catastrophe of Atlantis. If human evolution can be considered to encompass any evolution of civilization, then we shall find the first decisive period of development to be the culture epoch of ancient India. In my book Occult Science¹ you will find this culture of ancient India described from a particular viewpoint. Though the Vedas and Indian philosophy are rightly admired, they are actually only echoes of that ancient culture, of which there exist no written records. In the words of today we have to describe the culture of ancient India as a religious culture in the highest sense. To understand this properly we shall have to discuss it more thoroughly.

The religious element of ancient Indian culture included what we today would call science and art. The total spiritual life of the whole human being was encompassed by this culture for which the most pertinent description is that it was a religious culture. This religious culture generates the feeling in human beings that in the depths of their being they are linked with a divine, spiritual world. This feeling was developed so intensely that the whole of life was illumined by it. Their clearer states of consciousness, which were preparations for today's waking state, and also their dream consciousness, which became lost in our chaotic dream and sleep life as evolution progressed, were both states of consciousness filled with an instinctive awareness of the links between the human realm and the divine, spiritual realm.

But our idea of religion today is of something rather general. The concept of religion makes us think too strongly of something general, something abstract and rather detached from everyday life. For the people about whom we are speaking, however, religion and the content they associated with it gave them a knowledge expressed in pictures, a knowledge of the being of man and an extensive picture knowledge of the structure of the universe.

We have to imagine, though, that what lived in these people's view of the world, by way of a picture knowledge of the structure of the universe, in no way resembled our modern knowledge of astronomy or astrophysics. Our astronomy and astrophysics show us the mechanics of the universe. The ancient Indian people had a universe of picture images populated with divine, spiritual beings. There was as yet no question, in the present sense, of any external, merely mechanical rules governing the relationships between heavenly bodies or their relative movements. When those people looked up to the starry heavens they saw in the external constellations and movements of the stars only something perfectly familiar to them in their picture consciousness. It was something which may be described as follows.

Suppose we were to see a vivid, lively scene with bustling crowds and people going about all kinds of business, perhaps a public festival with much going on. Then we go home, and next morning the newspaper carries a report about the festival we ourselves attended. Our eyes fall on the dead letters of the printed page. We know what they mean and when we read the words they give us a weak, pale idea of all the lively bustle we experienced the day before. This can be compared with what the ancient Indian people saw in their instinctive vision and in relation to this what they saw in the constellations and movements of the stars. The constellations and movements of the stars were no more than written characters, indeed pale written characters. If they had copied down these characters on paper, they would have felt them to be no more than a written description of reality.

What these people saw behind the written characters was something which they not only came to know with their understanding but also to love with their feelings. They were unable merely to take into their ideas all that they grasped in pictures about the universe; they also developed lively feelings for these things. At the same time they developed a permanent feeling that whatever they did, even the most complicated actions, was an expression of the cosmos filled with divine spiritual weaving. They felt their limbs to be filled with this divine, spiritual cosmic weaving. They felt their understanding to be filled with this divine spiritual weaving, and likewise their courage and their will. Thus, speaking of their own deeds, they were able to say: Divine, spiritual beings are doing this. And since in those ancient times people knew very well that Lucifer and Ahriman are also to be found among those divine, spiritual beings, so were they aware that because divine, spiritual beings worked in them, they were therefore capable of committing evil as well as good deeds.

With this description I want to call up in you an idea of what this religion was like. It filled the whole human being, it brought the whole human being into a relationship with the abundance of the cosmos. It was cosmic wisdom and at the same time it was a wisdom which revealed man. But then progress in human evolution first caused the most intense religious feelings to pale. Of course, religion remained, in all later ages, but the intensity of religious life as it was in this first Indian age paled. First of all what paled was the feeling of standing within the realm of divine, spiritual beings with one's deeds and will impulses. In the ancient Persian age, the second post-Atlantean cultural epoch, people still had this feeling to some extent, but it had paled. In the first post-Atlantean epoch this feeling was a matter of course. In the second cultural blossoming, the ancient Persian time, the profoundest, most intense religious feelings paled, so human beings had to start developing something out of themselves in order to maintain their link with the cosmic, divine spiritual realm in a more active manner than had at first been the case. So we might say: The first post-Atlantean period was the most intensely religious of all. And in the second period religion faded somewhat, but human beings had to develop something by inner activity , something which would unite them once more with the cosmic beings of spirit and soul.

Of all the words we know, there is one we could use to describe this, although it was coined in a later age. It comes from an age which still possessed an awareness of what had once been a part of human evolution in ancient times. When an ancient Indian looked up to the heavens, he sensed the presence of individual beings everywhere, one divine spiritual being next to another—a whole population of divine spiritual beings. But this faded, so that what had been individualized, what had been individual, divine, spiritual beings faded into a general, homogeneous spiritual cosmos. Think of the following picture: Imagine a swarm of birds close by. You see each individual bird, but as the swarm flies further and further away it becomes a black blur, a homogeneous shape. In the same way the divine spiritual cosmos became a blurred image when human beings moved spiritually away from it.

The ancient Greeks still had an inkling of the fact that once, in the distant past, something like this had been at the foundation of what human beings saw in the spiritual world. Therefore they took into their language the word ‘sophia’. A divine, spiritual cosmos had once, as a matter of course, poured itself into human beings and had taken human beings into itself. But now man had to approach what he saw from a spiritual distance—a homogeneous cosmos—by his own inner activity. This the Greeks, who still had a feeling for these things, called by the expression: ‘I love’; that is: ‘philo’. So we can say that in the second post-Atlantean period, that of ancient Persia, the initiates had a twofold religion where earlier on religion had been onefold. Now they had philosophy and religion. Philosophy had been achieved. Religion had come down from the more ancient past, but it had paled.

Passing now to the third post-Atlantean period, we reach a further paling of religion. But we also come to a paling of philosophy. The actual, concrete process that took place must be imagined as follows. In ancient Persian times there existed this homogeneous shape made up of cosmic beings and this was felt to be the light that flooded through the universe, the primeval light, the primeval aura, Ahura Mazda. But now people retreated even further from this vision and began in a certain way to pay more attention to the movements of the stars and of the starry constellations. They now sensed less in regard to the divine, spiritual beings who existed in the background and more in regard to the written characters. From this arose something which we find in two different forms in the Chaldean wisdom and the Egyptian wisdom, something which comprised knowledge about the constellations and the movements of the stars. At the same time, the inner activity of human beings had become even more important. They not only had to unite their love with this divine Sophia who shone through the universe as the primeval light, but they had to unite their own destiny, their own position in the world, with what they saw within the universe in a cosmic script provided by the starry constellations and the starry movements. Their new achievement was thus a Cosmo-Sophia. This cosmosophy still contained an indication of the divine, spiritual beings, but what was seen tended to be merely a cosmic script expressing the deeds of these beings. Beside this there still existed philosophy and religion, which had both faded.

In order to understand this we must realize that what we today call philosophy is naturally only an extremely weak, pale shadow image of what was still felt to be more alive in the Mysteries of the third post-Atlantean period and what in an even paler form the Greeks later called philosophy. In the culture of the third post-Atlantean period we see everywhere expressions of these three aspects of the human spirit: a cosmosophy, a philosophy and a religion.² And we only gain proper pictures of these when we know we have to remind ourselves that right up to this time human beings lived in their soul life more outside the earthly realm than within it. Looking for instance at the Egyptian culture from this point of view—and it was even more pronounced in the Chaldean—we see it rightly only if we remind ourselves that those who had any part in this culture indeed took the most intimate interest in the constellations of the stars as evening approached. For example they awaited certain manifestations from Sirius, they observed the planetary constellations and applied what they saw there to the way the Nile gave them what they needed for their earthly life. But they did not speak in the first instance of the earthly realm. This earthly realm was one field of their work, but when they spoke of the field they were tilling they did so in a way which related it to the extraterrestrial realm. And they named the varying appearances of the patch of earth they inhabited in accordance with whatever the stars revealed as the seasons followed one upon another. They judged the earth in accordance with the heavens. From the soul point of view, daytime brought them darkness. Light came into this darkness when they could interpret what the day brought in terms of what the starry heavens of the night showed them.

What people in those times saw might be expressed thus: The face of the earth is dark when the sun obscures my vision with dazzling brightness; but light falls on the field of my daily work when my soul shines upon it through starry wisdom.

Writing down a sentence like this gives us a sense for what the realm of feeling in this third post-Atlantean period was like. From this in turn we sense how those who still stood in the after-echoes of such a realm of feeling could say to the Greeks, to those who belonged to the fourth post-Atlantean cultural period: Your view of the world, indeed your whole life, is childlike, for you have knowledge only of the earth. Your ancestors in ancient times knew how to illumine the earth with the light of the heavens, but you live in the darkness of earth.

The ancient Greeks experienced this darkness of earth as something light. Their inclination was gradually to overcome and transform the older cosmosophy. So, as everything that looked down from the broad heavens became paler still, they transformed the older cosmosophy into a geosophy. Cosmosophy was nothing more than a tradition for them, something they could learn about when they looked back to those who had passed it down to them from earlier times.

Pythagoras, for instance, stood at the threshold of the fourth post-Atlantean period when he journeyed to the Egyptians, to the Chaldean and even further into Asia in order to gather whatever those who lived there could give him of the wisdom of their forefathers in the Mysteries, whatever they could give him of what had been their cosmosophy, their philosophy and their religion. And what was still comprehensible for him was then just that: cosmosophy, philosophy, religion.

However, there is something we today take far too little into consideration: This geosophy of the ancient Greeks was a knowledge, a wisdom which, in relation to the earthly world, gave human beings a feeling of being truly connected with the earth, and this connection with the earth was something which had a quality of soul. The connection with the earth of a cultured Greek had a quality of soul. It was characteristic for the Greeks to populate springs with nymphs, to populate Olympus with gods. All this points, not to a geology, which envelops the earth in nothing but concepts, but to a geosophy in which spiritual beings are livingly recognized and knowingly experienced. This is something which mankind today knows only in the abstract. Yet right into the fourth century AD it was still something that was filled with life.

Right into the fourth century AD a geosophy of this kind still existed. And something of this geosophy, too, came to be preserved in tradition. For instance we can only understand what we find in the work of Scotus Erigena,³ who brought over from the island of Ireland what he later expressed in his De divisione naturae, if we take it as a tradition arising out of a geosophical view. For in the fifth post-Atlantean period, which was in preparation then and which began in the fifteenth century, geosophy, too, paled. There then began the era in which human beings lost their inner connection with, and experience of, the universe. Geosophy is transformed, we might say, into geology. This is meant in the widest possible sense and comprises not only what today's academic philosophy means by the term. Cosmosophy was transformed into cosmology. Philosophy was retained but given an abstract nature—which in reality ought to be called philology, had this term not already been taken to denote something even more atrocious than anything one might like to include in philosophy.

There remains religion, which is now totally removed from any real knowledge and basically assumed by people to be nothing more than tradition. People of a nature capable of being creatively religious are no longer a feature of civilized life in general in this fifth post Atlantean period. Look at those who have come and gone. None have been creatively religious in the true sense of the word. And this is only right and proper. In the preceding epochs, in the first, second third and fourth post-Atlantean periods, there were always those who were creatively religious, personalities who were creative in the realm of religion, for it was always possible to bring down something from the cosmos, or at least to bring something up out of the realm of the earth. So in the Greek Mysteries—those called the Chthonian Mysteries in contrast to the heavenly Mysteries—which brought up their inspiration out of the depths of the earth in various ways—in these Mysteries geosophy was chiefly brought into being.

By entering into the fifth post-Atlantean period and standing full within it, human beings were thrown back upon themselves. The now made manifest what came out of themselves, ‘-logy ‘, the lore the knowledge out of themselves. Thus knowledge of the universe becomes a world of abstractions, of logical concepts, of abstract ideas. Human beings have lived in this world of abstract ideas since the fifteenth century. And with this world of abstract ideas, which they summarize in the laws of nature, they now seek to grasp out of themselves what was revealed to human beings of earlier times. It is quite justified that this age no longer brings forth any religiously creative natures, for the Mystery of Golgotha falls in the fourth post-Atlantean period, and this Mystery of Golgotha is the final synthesis of religious life. It leads to a religion that ought to be the conclusion of earthly religious streams and strivings. With regard to religion, all subsequent ages can really only point back to this Mystery of Golgotha.

So the statement, that since the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean period it is no longer possible for religiously productive individuals to appear, is not a criticism or a reprimand aimed at historical development. It is a statement of something positive because it can be justified by the occurrence of the Mystery of Golgotha.

In this way we conjure up before our eyes the course of human evolution with regard to spiritual streams and spiritual endeavours. In this way we can see how it has come about that we stand today in the midst of something that is, basically, no longer connected with the world about us but has come out of the human being, something in which the human being is productive and must become ever more productive. By further developing all these abstract things human beings will ascend once more through Imaginations to a kind of geosophy and cosmosophy. Through Inspiration they will deepen cosmosophy and ascend to a true philosophy, and through Intuition they will deepen philosophy until they can move towards a truly religious view of the world which will once more be able to unite with knowledge.

It is necessary to say that today we are only in the very first, most elementary beginnings of this progress. Since the final third of the nineteenth century there has shone into the earthly world from the spiritual world something which we can take to be a giving-back of spiritual revelations. But even with this we stand at the very beginning, a beginning which gives us a picture with which to characterize the attitude brought by external, abstract culture towards the first concrete statements that come from the spiritual world. When the representatives of current recognized knowledge hear what we have to say about the spiritual world, the understanding they bring to bear on what we say is of a kind that it can only be called a non-understanding. For it can be compared with the following: Suppose I were to write a sentence on this piece of paper, and suppose someone were to try to understand what I had written down by analysing the ink in which it is written. When our contemporaries write about Anthroposophy it is like somebody analysing the ink of a letter he has received. Again and again we have this impression. It is a picture very close to us, considering that we took our departure from a description of how, for human beings, in early post-Atlantean times even the starry constellations and starry movements were no more than a written expression for what they experienced as the spiritual population of the universe.

Such things are said today to a certain number of people in order to give them the feeling that Anthroposophy is not drawn from some sort of fantastic underworld but from real sources of knowledge, and that it is therefore capable of understanding the human beings of the earth to the very roots of their nature. Anthroposophy is capable of throwing light on today's differentiation of human beings into those of the West, of the middle realm and of the East, in the way mentioned yesterday. It is also capable of throwing light on differentiations which have existed in human evolution during the course of time. Only by connecting everything we can know about the differentiations according to regions of the earth with what we can know about how all this has come about can we gain an understanding of what kind of human beings inhabit our globe today.

Traditions of bygone ages have always been preserved, in some regions more, in others less. And according to those traditions the peoples of this globe are distinguished from one another. Looking eastwards we find that in later ages something was written down which during the first post-Atlantean period had existed unwritten, something which shines towards us out of the Vedas and their philosophy, something which touches us with its intimacy in the genuine philosophy of yoga. Letting all this work on us in our present-day consciousness, we begin to sense: If we immerse ourselves ever more deeply in these things, then we feel that even in the written works something lives of what existed in primeval times. But we have to add: Because the eastern world still echoes of its primeval times it is unsuited to receiving new impulses.

The western world has fewer traditions. At most, certain traditions stemming from the third post-Atlantean period, the age of cosmosophy, are contained in the writings of some secret orders. But they are traditions which are, no longer understood and are only brought before human beings in the form of incomprehensible symbols. But at the same time there is in the west an elemental strength capable of unfolding new impulses for development.

We might say that originally the primeval impulses existed. They developed by becoming ever weaker and weaker until, by about the fourth post-Atlantean period, they so to speak lost themselves in themselves, in what became Greek culture as such. Out of that, pointing towards the new, developed the abstract, prosaic sober culture of the Romans. (The lecturer draws on the blackboard). But this in turn must take spirituality into itself; it must, by becoming ever stronger and stronger, be filled with inner spirituality. Here, then, we have the symbol of the spiralling movement of humanity's impulses throughout the ages.

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This symbol has always stood for important matters in the universe. If we have to speak of an atomistic world, we should not imagine it in the abstract way common today. We should imagine it in the image of this spiral, and this has often indeed been done. But on the greatest scale, too, we have to see this spiralling movement. Today I consider that we have arrived at it in a perfectly elementary manner by way of a concrete consideration of the course of human spiritual evolution.

• 1 . Rudolf Steiner, Occult Science—An Outline. For the post-Atlantean cultural periods see the chapter ‘Man and the Evolution of the World’.
• 2 . See also Rudolf Steiner, Philosophy, Cosmology and Religion, Anthroposophic Press, New York 1984, and Rudolf Steiner's own reports of these lectures in Cosmology, Religion and Philosophy, Anthroposophic Press, New York 1984.
• 3 . Johannes Scotus Erigena c.810-877. Irish philosopher and theologian, one of the most notable thinkers of the Carolingian Middle Ages. His principal work De divisione naturae was burnt by Pope Honorius in Paris in 1225.

In the short lecture before the eurythmy performance this morning, I pointed out how modern man’s relation to the celebration of the festivals has gotten ever deeper into materialism. Of course, in order to see this a much deeper view of materialism must be taken. The most threatening symptom is not that man is infected by materialism but he is infected by the superficiality of our time, and this is far more dangerous.

This superficiality exists not only in relation to the spiritual views of the world, but also in relation to materialism itself. One usually only pays attention to its most superficial phenomena. In this regard I pointed out this afternoon, for example how, in olden times people were still receptive to the moods which could be experienced in the course of the year and which came to be expressed in the festival celebrations. These moods were embodied in the winter solstice festival, the spring festival, the St. John’s festival and the Michael festival—these were embodied in ritual-like celebrations in which these moods were embedded, and they took hold of man as he consciously experienced the course of the year.

Thereby something was given to the soul which today is only given to man’s body. We all still participate in the course of the day. When the sun sends its golden rays announcing the dawn we eat our breakfast. When it is at its highest point and pours out its warmth and light with special love over mankind, we eat lunch, and so on through midday, snack, and supper. In those daily festival events, we accompany the course of the sun through the day by co-experiencing in our souls the fiery trip of the sun around the world. We participate in this fiery ride around the world by overcoming the craving for food with the contentment of feeling satiated. And so the mood for the physical organism exists in a very decided and definite way at different times of the day. We can call breakfast, snack, dinner, snack, supper, the festivals of the day. The human physical organism accompanies what takes place between earth and cosmos.

In a similar way the course of the year was experienced intensively in the soul in olden times through instinctive clairvoyance. Actually, certain things played from one sphere over into the other. You need but remember what has been left as remnants of these festivals: Easter eggs, stuffed geese, etc. The lower bodily region plays into the soul region which ought also to experience the course of the year. Well, the easiest way to stimulate interest in the course of the year in our materialistic time would be by making available—I do not want to say “Easter eggs”,—but “stuffed turkeys.”

But this is not the way it was meant in olden times with regard to festival moods. They were attuned, rather, to soul-hunger and soul satisfaction. The soul of man needed something different at Christmas, Easter, St. John’s, and Michaelmas time. And one can really compare the content of the celebration to a kind of satisfying the hunger of the soul at different seasons.

So as we look at the daily path of the sun, we can say that it is related to what serves the needs of the body; as we look at the yearly course of the sun, we can say that it is related to what serves the needs of the soul.

If festivals are to become alive again, it would have to happen out of a much more conscious condition, out of an awakening of the soul as it is striven for in anthroposophical endeavors. We cannot just base a renewal of the Festivals on old history; we would have to rediscover them through a new knowledge, a new world-conception, out of our own soul-being. But, besides the body and soul, we also differentiate the human spirit.

However, for modern man it is already difficult enough to have a clear picture when someone speaks of the soul. Everything becomes a sort of indefinite fog. Already in the nineteenth century when they began to speak of psychology, they began to speak of a soul-science without a soul. Fritz Mauthner, the great language critic, found that we really do not know anything about the soul, we only experience something indefinite, certain thoughts and feelings, but really nothing of a soul reality. We ought not, therefore, to use in the future the world “soul” but “dis-soul” (Geseel). Mauthner advises, that in the future, when a poet intends to write a real work he ought not to say: “Sing immortal Soul, the sinful man’s redemption,” but rather, “Sing immortal What-cha-macall-it, the sinful men’s redemption”—if in the future it still would make sense to speak of something like that.

Today we can really say that modern man knows nothing more of the connection of his soul with the sun’s yearly course. He became a materialist in this region, also. He sticks to the festivals of the body which follow the daily course of the sun. The festivals are celebrated out of traditional habits but no longer experienced. Yet we have, besides a body, also a soul, and yes, also a spirit.

Let us now take into consideration the historical epochs. Those epochs, which reach far beyond the course of the year, encompassing centuries, are co-experienced by the human spirit, if it experiences them at all. In olden times they were most certainly experienced. He who knows how to enter, carried by the spirit, into the way the course of time was followed in the past knows how it was said: at this or that time some personality appeared out of the heights of the world and revealed the spirit again. And this spirit entered as the sunlight enters the physical. If such an epoch then entered its twilight phase, something new appeared.

Historical epochs are related to the evolution of the human spirit, as the course of the sun through the year is related to the soul evolution. Of course, wherever such metamorphoses, such changes in spirit evolution occur, it must happen through fully conscious cognition. Today, one would like to ignore such metamorphoses completely. One is outwardly touched by the effects, but one does not wish to consider seriously those changes emanating from the spirit which are nevertheless expressed in the outer events.

It would be helpful to pay attention to a certain direction of thinking and feeling appearing in children and young people, which was unknown to earlier generations, and which, when looked at properly in the course of the development of humanity, can really be compared to the course of the year. Therefore it would be good to listen to what the different ages proclaim as a need, to listen to the way in which a new age arises and how human beings demand something different from what might have been demanded in ages gone by. But just for this contemporary man has a very inadequate organ.

When we approach the festival mood in the right way out of a contemporary consciousness, the great relationships of life can again fill our souls. When we, for example, let something like the St. John’s mood really enter our soul, then we try to gain for our soul what will be met by the cosmos.

Certainly, the great world connections have become a matter of indifference for modern mankind. There is no heart for getting to know the great world relations. It is quite evident how the spirit of littleness, narrowness, I would like to say, the spirit of the microscope, the spirit of atomizing appears, which, when mentioned in the way I do, seems paradoxical.

I would like to point to something definite in relation to the St. John’s mood which, however, seems quite far-fetched. What is more obvious (even if one has not developed an organ for the course of the year) than the impression of growing plants, growing trees: when spring comes, things sprout, grow, everything goes from leaf to blossom. All this growing makes the impression as though the cosmos, with its sun forces, calls upon the earth to open itself to the cosmos, and this happens at St. John’s time.

Then begins a retreat of the sprouting, and we approach the time when the earth collects the growing forces into itself, when the earth withdraws from the cosmos. How obvious it is that from the received impressions one gets the picture that the snow-cover belongs to winter, when the being of the plants crawls, so to speak, into the earth; that it belongs to summer for the plants to grow towards the cosmos. What is more natural than to get this idea—although in a deeper sense the opposite is correct—that the plants sleep in winter and wake in summer.

I do not wish to speak now about the correctness of this sleeping and waking. I wish to speak only of the impression one receives, which leads to the thought that summer belongs to growing vegetation, and winter to the withdrawal of growth. In any case, a kind of world-feeling develops in which one is engaged in relating to the warming, bright force of the sun when seeing this force again in the greening, blossoming plant-cover of earth, and immersing into the feeling of being an earthly hermit with regard to the cosmos when the plant cover is replaced with snow in winter. In short, by so feeling, one tears oneself free with one’s consciousness from earth existence. One places oneself in a larger relation to the universe.

Now comes modern research—and what I am saying now is in no way critical, on the contrary—now comes modern research and shrugs its shoulders whenever great cosmic connections are referred to. Why should one feel elevated to divine radiating warming forces of the sun when the trees are shooting, becoming green, when earth covers itself with a cover of plants? Why should one have to sense a cosmic relation on seeing this plant cover? It is disturbing. One cannot bring such sentiments into harmony with a materialistic consciousness. Plant is plant. It seems like stubborness of the plant to blossom only in spring, or to be ready in summer to bear fruit. How does this actually work? One is supposed to be concerned not only with the plant but with the whole world? If one is to feel, to know, one is supposed to be concerned with the whole world, not only with the plant? That doesn’t sit right. Is one not already making an effort to avoid dealing with substances existing in powder or crystal forms, but rather just to deal with atomic structures, atomic cores, with electromagnetic fields, etc.? One tries to deal with something enclosed, not with something that points in so many directions. In the case of the plant is one supposed to admit that a sensing is needed that reaches to the whole cosmos? It is really awful if one cannot narrow one’s view to a singular object! One is used to, when using the microscope, to have everything limited to a narrow view. Everything takes place in the small enclosure. It must be possible to look at a plant by itself, not in connection to the whole cosmos!

And look, at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century the scientists succeeded to an extraordinary degree in this region. It was known, of course, from some plants in hothouses, greenhouses, that the mere summer and winter aspects of the plant could be overcome. But on the whole, not enough could be discovered about the plant needing a certain winter rest. Discussions about tropical plants occurred. The researcher, who did not want to know about plants being connected with the cosmos, maintained that the tropical plant grows throughout the year. The others, more conservative, said: one thinks this because plants have their winter rest at different times, some only for eight days. This being so, makes it imperceptible when a certain species is dormant. Long detailed discussions concerning tropical plants took place. In short, one became aware of a tremendous discomfort concerning the relation of plants to the cosmos.

But the most interesting and grandiose experiments in this direction were made exactly at the turn of the nineteenth to the twentieth century, when one succeeded in driving the stubborness out of the plants in the case of a great number of not only annuals, but also trees, which are much stronger: to drive out the cosmic stubborness from the plant. It was possible to do this in plants known as annuals by creating certain conditions. In the case of most of the trees growing in the temperate zone, conditions could be established which caused them to remain green all year round, to give up their winter sleep. This then provided the basis for certain materialistic explanations. In this way really magnificent accomplishments were achieved.

It was discovered that the cosmic element could be driven out of trees if they were brought into enclosed spaces, given enough nourishing minerals, making it possible that plants in winter-time, when the soil is poor in minerals, can find this nourishment. If enough moisture, warmth, and light is supplied, the trees will grow. However, one tree in Central Europe was defiant: the Blood Beech. It was approached from all sides to give up its independence and subjected to isolation in a prison. It was provided with everything necessary, but remained stubborn, and demanded nevertheless its winter rest. But it was the only one that still resisted.

And now we must record that in the twentieth century, in 1914, the beginning of the war, another great historical event occurred: the immense, mighty accomplishment of the most capable researcher, Klebs, who was able to compel the Blood Beech to give up its independence. He simply was able to bring it into an enclosed space, provide the necessary nutrients, warmth and light, which could be measured, and the Blood Beech submitted to the demands of research.

I am not mentioning this phenomenon in order to criticize it, for who can help but wonder at this most diligent scientific labor. Besides, it would be silly to try to disprove the facts. They exist and are there. It is not a matter of agreeing or disagreeing, but something quite different.

Why should it not be possible if somewhere on neutral ground the necessary condition for hair-growing existed, to grow hair outside the human or animal realms? Why not? One need only bring about the conditions. I know many would rather have hair growing on their heads than in some culture, but we can imagine it to be possible. Then it would no longer be necessary to bring anything that happens on earth together with what happens in the cosmos.

With all due respect to research, one must look deeper. Aside from what I said recently about the being of the elements, I would like to say something more today. One must be clear that, for example, the following is the case: we know that once earth and sun were one body. Of course this is long ago, during the Saturn and Sun periods. Then there was also a short repetition of those periods during the Earth period. But something remains behind which still belongs there. And this we bring forth again today. And we bring it forth from the repetitious condition on earth not only by heating our rooms with coal, but we bring it forth by using electricity. For, what remains from those times after Old Saturn and Old Sun, when the sun and earth were one, that provided the basis for what we have today on earth as electricity. We have in electricity a force which is sun-force, long connected with the earth, a hidden sun-force in the earth.

Why should not the stubborn Blood Beech, when approached forcefully enough, be induced to use not the sun that radiates from the cosmos, but to use the sun force retained within the earth, the Old Sun force, electricity?

Looking in this way we become aware of the necessity of deeper knowledge. As long as man could believe that the sun force comes only from the cosmos, man arrived at the perception of the relationship of the plant world to the cosmos. Today, when from a materialistic point of view, one would like to separate from the cosmos what so easily can be seen as cosmic effect, one must, if one looks at the seeming independence of the plant, have a science which recalls that cosmic relation between earth and sun which once existed, but in a different form. By being narrowed on the one hand by the microscope, we simply need a much wider expansion on the other hand, and especially the details show how much we need an expanded view.

The problem is not a dilettantic anthroposophical opposition to progress in research. But since progress in research necessarily leads through one’s own nature, it can bring us to the often mentioned “night-crawler view” and prevent that wide view of the great cosmic historic connections between earth and sun, which enables us to be conscious not only of the present sun, but also of the Sun of long past conditions. Everywhere we need the polarity, the counter-pole: not opposition to research, but the spiritual counterpole is what is needed. This is the position we need to take. And I would like to say it is also the mood of St. John’s time. When we inscribe clearly into our sentiment that we now have to live in a world-historic St. John’s mood, we carry our gaze into cosmic distances. That is what we need in spiritual cognition. Nothing is gained by mere talking about spirit; what is important is real penetration into the concrete phenomena of the spiritual world. What we bring forth by pointing to Saturn, Sun, Moon and Earth evolutions, etc., has a tremendous supporting force regarding historic cognition.

When our attention is called to such brilliant results of materialistic science as those discovered by Klebs, that even the stubborn Blood Beech can be compelled to grow with electric light, this will lead us, without spiritual science, to the point where we will shatter everything into pieces and have a very narrow view. The Blood Beech will stand before us, growing in electric light, and we will know nothing except what this very narrow picture tells us.

With spiritual science, however, we can say something else: Klebs took the sunlight from the Blood Beech. He then had to give her electric light, which is actually ancient sun light. Our view is not narrow, but greatly enlarged. So, those who do not want to know of the soul experience will say glibly that one day is just like the next. There is breakfast, snack, dinner, snack, supper,—it is even nice when at Christmas time we get a nice cake—but basically every day is a repetition of the previous day. In fact material man sees only the day. But what about cosmic connections? Let us free ourselves of such a world view. Let us become clear that the stubborn Blood Beech no longer needs the sun. If we imprison her and give her enough electricity, she will grow without the sun. No! She will in fact not grow without the sun. But we need to seek the sun in the right way when we do something like that. And we must be clear that it is different when the Blood Beech grows in the sunlight or when ahrimanic sunlight, originating from long-past, is forced upon her. And we recall what has often been mentioned as the two polarities of Lucifer and Ahriman.

With an adequately wide view of these things we will not admire our brilliance at having overcome the stubbornness of the beech, but go much further. We will progress on to the sap of the beech, and investigate its effect on the human organism, investigate both the beech we permitted to be stubborn and the one which we treated with electric light, and we might discover something very special about the healing forces of one as opposed to the other. But we must do this by considering the spiritual!

But of what concern is this to people today? One has an admirable interest in research. One sits in the classroom, is an experimental psychologist, writes down all kinds of words which must be remembered, examines memory, experiments with children, and arrives at most interesting information. Once the interest is awakened, everything is interesting, depending on the subjective point of view. Why should it not be possible that a stamp collection is more interesting than a botanical collection? Since this is so, why not also in other realms? Why should the tortures to which children are subjected when they are experimented with, be not interesting? But the question everywhere is, whether or not there are higher responsibilities, and whether it is really justified to experiment with children at a certain age. The question arises: what is one ruining? And the greater question: what damage is done to the teachers, when instead of asking of them a living, heartfelt relation, one asks of them an experimental interest out of the results of experimental psychology. So everything depends, in such research, on whether or not one has the right relation to the sense world, and also to the supersensible world.

Now certain people who emphasize the necessary objectivity of research will assert that there are some who find it immoral when Klebs takes the stubbornness out of the Blood Beech. This would not occur to me. I wouldn’t dream of it. Everything that is done ought to be done, but one must have a counterweight for it. In the time when one emancipates oneself with regard to the growing beech tree from the cosmos, one must on the other hand, in a civilization which does such things, also have a sense for how the spiritual progress of man takes place. One must have a sense for the epochs of time, like ours. I do not want to limit research, but one must feel the necessity of a counter measure. There must be an open heart for the fact that at certain times spiritual impulses want to reveal themselves. When on the one hand materialism takes over and great achievements result, then those who are interested in such achievements should also be interested in the achievements of research about the spiritual worlds.

This lies in the inner nature of Christianity. A true view of Christianity sees, after the Mystery of Golgotha, the continuing of the Christ being in the earth, in the Christ force, the Christ impulse. And this means that when autumn comes, when everything dries up, when the growing and sprouting in nature ceases, ceases for the senses, then one can see the growing and sprouting of the spirit which accompanies man during the winter time.

But in the same way one must learn to sense how, although justifiable, the view for detail is narrowed in a certain way, the view for the totality for the great whole is narrowed. With regard to Christianity this is the St. John’s mood. We must sense with understanding that the St. John’s festival mood is the starting point for that occurrence which lies in the words: He must increase, I must decrease.

This means that the impressions upon man of everything that is accomplished by empirical research must decline. As the sense details are ever more enhanced, the impression of the spirit must be more and more intensified. And the sun of the spirit must shine more and more into the human heart, the more the impressions of the sense world decline.

The St. John’s mood must be experienced as the entrance into spirit impulses and as exit from the sense impulses. In the St. John’s mood we must learn to sense wherein something weaves and wafts like a soft wind, wafts the spiritually demonic out of the sensible into the spiritual, and from the spiritual into the sensible. And through the St. John’s mood we must learn to form our spirit light so that it does not stick like tar to the solid contour of ideas, but finds itself in weaving, living ideas. We must learn to notice the lighting up of the sensual, the dimming of the sensual, the lighting up of the spiritual in the dimming sensual. We must learn to experience the symbol of the June bug: the lighting up has its meaning as does the dimming of the light.

The lightning bug lights up, dims down, but by dimming down it leaves behind in us the living life and weaving of the spirit in the twilight evening, in the dusk. And when we see in nature everywhere the little waves as in the symbolic lighting up and dimming of the lightning bug, we will find the right St. John’s mood if it is experienced with clear, bright, full consciousness. And this St. John’s mood is necessary, for we must in this way pass through our time if we do not want to fall into the abyss, pass through in such a way that the spirit becomes glowingly alive and that we learn to follow it.

The St. John’s mood:—towards the future of the earth and mankind! No longer the old mood which understands only the growing and sprouting on the outside, which is pleased when it can imprison this growing and sprouting under electric light what otherwise was thriving in the sunlight. Rather we must learn to recognize the lighting up of the spirit so that the electric light becomes less important than it is today, so that the St. John’s gaze becomes sharpened for that old sunlight which will appear when we open ourselves to the great spiritual horizon, not only to the narrow earthly horizon, but the great horizon from Saturn to Vulcan.

If we allow the light of the great horizon to shine in the right way, then all the trivialities of our time will appear in this light, then we will go forward and upward; but if we cannot make this decision we will go backward and downward.

Today everything revolves around human freedom, human will. Everything revolves around the independent decision of either going forward or backward, upward or downward.

Our exercises are suited to bring us into the spiritual world. We're also in the spiritual world at night, but not consciously. Why not? Because we are in the habit of perceiving through physical senses, and we're too weak to develop consciousness without this. What are these sense perceptions really? They also contain what we can attain with a higher consciousness: imaginations or pictures of higher reality, inspirations through which spiritual beings disclose themselves to us and the intuitions through which we become united with divine beings. All of this is contained in the percept, but it doesn't go into us, and when we investigate why this is so we find that it's Lucifer who burns it with the fire of our passions, drives and desires. Lucifer has made his home in the heart, and that's where the burning of the imaginations, inspirations and intuitions that underlie sensory things takes place, for pictures of spiritual beings press into us with every breath, with every perception. At the beginning of the Lemurian epoch when what the Bible describes as the battle between the Elohim and Lucifer took place, the latter mixed himself and his fire into man's heart.

But the heart had been created by the Elohim to be their dwelling. Something can be small in the physical world and be big in the spiritual world and vice versa. Thus the heart is only a small thing physically, and anatomists think that it's still the same thing when it's taken out of the body, but in reality the heart is something that's very big in the spiritual world, and it was supposed to be the Elohim's dwelling. But when Lucifer moved into the human heart the Elohim kept a place for themselves in it, they can still live in it and this becomes manifest in human life as the voice of conscience. Where this speaks something is speaking that doesn't belong to Lucifer with his consuming fire; a direct inspiration of the Gods still gets to men in it. And we see that this voice of conscience became objective for men at important points in human history and stood before them. That is how it was with Moses, on whose soul the destiny of his whole tribe pressed. He climbed up Mt. Sinai; he heard the voice of his God in the burning thorn bush (in the fire that Lucifer kindled), who later gave him the commandments on Mt. Sinai that became the foundation of all later human laws.

After Lucifer had taken over the human heart in this way the Elohim had to place a counterweight on the other scale pan of the cosmic world order. This happened in the Atlantean epoch when Ahriman with all munitions was entrenched in man's brain by the Elohim to bring his cooling effect against luciferic fire to bear there. And the part of the fire that burns the imaginations, inspirations and intuitions of percepts that Ahriman cools down becomes thoughts and ideas in men.

Lovelessness is a particularly good fuel for Lucifer. Ancient initiates always knew that Lucifer with his fire thrones in our heart and that Ahriman in the head cools this fire, and a last remnant of this is in Aristotle's statement that warmth goes from the heart to the head and is cooled there.

Now one could object that it's rather strange that both Lucifer and Gods live in our heart. It sounds as if there was only one heart in the world, and yet there are just as many hearts as there are men. We run into a riddle here that's one of the smallest ones an occultist encounters, and that is: How have many arisen out of one? We don't intend to give the solution to this riddle here, but one can try to press ever further into it through meditative reflection.

(The verse in the lesson from March 5th 1914 in Stuttgart, is included here for reference.)

To things I turn myself
I turn myself with ray senses;—
Sense existence, you deceive me!—
What flees existence as nothing:
For you it's existence and reality;
May what must seem like nothing to you
Be disclosed to my inner life.—

(I must attain this: it's the taking of a position towards the new, outer world.)

Spirit light warm me
Let me feel myself volitionally in you.
Well thought, truly known things
How does shining I experience you
May weaving of error, badly thought things
Show itself to shining soul
That I may be weaving in myself.

(That's a questioning and experiencing in the new existence within.)

Shining I and luminous soul (- oneself -)
Floats over real developing being
What was thought, what was known
Now becomes dense spirit existence
And what seems like existence to the senses
Lives in the ocean of divine reality
Like aery existential bubbles.

(In anticipation of truth. It's a guessing, a feeling of the new self.)

When elaborated each of these strophes contains the same thing that's successively compressed in our rosicrucian verse in the ten words:

Ex Deo nascimur,
In Christo morimur,
Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus

Today we shall concern ourselves with the question: What does modern man really possess in spiritual science? The answer to this question will be based on many things that have come to our knowledge in the course of lectures, especially those given last winter. Spiritual science may appear, at first, to be one conception of the world among the many others now existing. It may be argued: The riddles of existence are there; people endeavor with every possible means at their disposal, religious or scientific, to answer these riddles of existence in an effort to satisfy, as it is said, their eagerness and desire for knowledge. Spiritual science may well be considered just another philosophy of life—whether calling itself materialism, monism, animism, idealism, realism, or what you will. It may be represented as something that endeavors to satisfy the desire for knowledge on a par with other modern world-conceptions. But this is not correct. In what man acquires through spiritual science he has something of positive, continuous value in life, something that not only satisfies his thinking, his thirst for knowledge, but is a real and potent factor in life itself. To understand this we must look far afield and consider the evolutionary course of mankind from a particular point of view.

We have often looked back to the times preceding the great Atlantean flood, to the times when our forefathers, that is to say our own souls in the bodies of those forefathers, lived on the ancient continent of Atlantis between Europe, Africa and America. We have also looked still further back, to the Lemurian epoch, when the souls of men incarnated at the present time were at a much lower stage of existence. We shall now speak again of this epoch, reminding ourselves, to begin with, of the following: Man has attained the present stage of his life of feeling, his life of will, his intelligence, nay even his form, because higher spiritual Beings in the cosmos have also been at work in earth-existence. We have spoken of these Beings as the “Thrones”, the “Spirits of Wisdom”, the “Spirits of Movement”, the “Spirits of Form”, the “Spirits of Personality”, and so forth.

They are the great builders and architects of existence who have led the human race onward step by step to its present stage. But we must bring clearly before our minds to-day that Spirits and Beings other than those who help human evolution forward have also intervened; there are spiritual Beings who oppose the progressive Powers. And for every epoch—Lemurian, Atlantean, Post-Atlantean—it is possible to indicate which particular spiritual Beings bring the “hindrances”, which spiritual Beings are the opponents of those whose only aim is the progress of humanity.

In the Lemurian epoch—the first that concerns us to-day—it was the Luciferic Beings who intervened in man's evolution, in opposition to the Powers who at that time were striving to help him forward. In the Atlantean epoch, the Spirits opposing the progressive Powers were the Spirits of “Ahriman” or “Mephistopheles”. The Ahrimanic or Mephistophelean Spirits—to give the precise names—are those known in medieval times as the Spirits of “Satan”—who must not be confused with “Lucifer”.

In our own epoch, as time goes on, other spiritual Beings of whom we shall speak later, will stand as hindrances in the path of the progressive Spirits. We will ask ourselves now: What did the Luciferic Spirits actually achieve in the ancient Lemurian epoch?

These things will be considered to-day from a particular point of view. Of what domain did the Luciferic Spirits lay hold during the Lemurian epoch? The best way to understand this is to cast our minds back over the course taken by human evolution.

You know that on Old Saturn the Thrones poured out their own substance to lay the first foundation of the human physical body. On Old Sun the Spirits of Wisdom imbued man with the ether- or life-body. And on the Earth the Spirits of Form endowed him with the ‘I’, the ego, in order that by realizing himself as distinct from his environment he might become an independent being. But even if through the deed of the Spirits of Form he had become independent vis-à-vis the external world surrounding him on earth, he would never have become independent of the Spirits of Form themselves; he would have remained dependent on them, he would have been directed by them as on leading-strings. That this did not happen was due to something which had, in a certain sense, a beneficial effect, namely the fact that in the Lemurian epoch the Luciferic Beings set themselves in opposition to the Spirits of Form. It was these Luciferic Beings who gave man the prospect of freedom—but therewith the possibility of evil-doing, of succumbing to passion and desire in the world of sense. Where did these Luciferic Beings actually take hold? They took hold of what had been instilled into man as his innermost member at that time—the astral body. They established their footing in the human astral body and took possession of it. Had it not been for the coming of the Luciferic Beings this astral body would have remained in the sole possession of the Spirits of Form. They would have instilled into this astral body the forces which give man his human countenance, making him into an image of the Gods, namely, of the Spirits of Form. All this man would have come to be; but in his life through all eternity he would have remained dependent upon the Spirits of Form.

The Luciferic Beings had crept, as it were, into man's astral body, so that Beings of two kinds were now working in it: the Beings who bring man forward and the Beings who, while obstructing this constant impulse, had at the same time established the foundations of his independence. Had the luciferic Beings not approached, man would have remained in a state of innocence and purity in his astral body. No passions inciting him to crave for what is to be found only on earth would have arisen in him. The passions, urges and desires of man were densified, debased, as it were, by the Luciferic Beings. Had they not approached, man would have retained a perpetual longing for his heavenly home, for the realms of spirit whence he has descended. He would have taken no delight in what surrounds him on the earth; earthly impressions would have aroused no interest in him. It was through the Luciferic Spirits that he came to have this interest, to crave for the impressions of the earth. These Spirits impelled him into the earthly sphere by pervading his innermost member, his astral body. Why, then, was it that man did not fall away entirely at that time from the Spirits of Form or from the higher spiritual realms as a whole? Why was it that in his interests and desires he did not succumb wholly to the world of sense?

It was because the Spirits who lead humanity forward took counter measures; they inculcated into the being of man what would otherwise not have been his lot, namely, illness, suffering and pain. That was the necessary counterweight to the deeds of the Luciferic Spirits.

The Luciferic Spirits gave man material desires; as their countermeasures the higher Beings introduced illness and suffering as the consequences of material desires and interests, to the end that he should not utterly succumb to this world of sense. And so there is exactly as much suffering and pain in the world as there is interest only in the physical and the material. The scales are held in perfect balance; the one does not outweigh the other—so many passions and desires on the one side, so much illness and pain on the other. This was the effect of the mutual activities of the Luciferic Spirits and the Spirits of Form in the Lemurian epoch. Had the Luciferic Spirits not approached, man would not have descended into the earthly realm as soon as he actually did. His passion and craving for the world of sense also brought it about that his eyes were opened and he was able to gaze at the surrounding field of material existence earlier than would otherwise have been the case. If evolution had proceeded uninterruptedly along the course intended by the progressive Spirits, man would have had sight of the surrounding world only from the middle of the Atlantean epoch onwards. But then he would have seen it spiritually, not as he sees it to-day; he would have seen it as the direct expression of spiritual beings. Because man came prematurely into the earthly sphere, forced downwards by his earthly interests and desires, conditions were different from what they would otherwise have been in the middle of the Atlantean epoch.

The result was that the Ahrimanic Spirits—“Mephistophelean Spirits” as it is equally correct to call them—mingled in what man was able to see and apprehend; thus he fell into error, into what, for the first time, can correctly be called “conscious sin”. The host of Ahrimanic Spirits has worked upon man since the middle of the Atlantean epoch onwards. To what did these Ahrimanic Spirits entice him? They enticed him into regarding everything in his environment as material, with the result that he does not see through this material world to its true, spiritual foundations. Were man to have perceived the Spiritual in every stone, in every plant, in every animal, he would never have fallen into error and therewith into evil; if the progressive Spirits alone had worked upon him he would have been protected from those illusions to which he must always fall a prey when he bases himself solely upon the manifestations of the world of sense.

How did those spiritual Beings who desire to further man's progress act in order to combat this corruption, error and illusion arising from the material world? They saw to it—the process was of course slow and very gradual—that man was actually lifted away from the material world as such; this enabled him to shoulder and work out his karma. Whereas, therefore, the Beings upon whom it fell to rectify the enticement of the Luciferic Beings brought into the world suffering, pain and what is connected with them, namely death, the Beings whose task it was to rectify the outcome of error concerning the sense-world, made it possible for man, through his karma, eventually to blot out all the error, all the evil he has wrought in the world. For what would have happened if he had become the prey of evil and error? Little by little he would have become one with the evil; no progress would have been possible for him. For with every error, every lie, every illusion, we cast an obstacle in the way of progress. We should fall back in our progress to exactly the same extent to which we had cast obstacles in our path through sin and error, if we were not in a position to rectify them; in other words, we could not reach man's true goal. It would be impossible to attain this goal if the counter-forces, the forces of karma, were not in operation.

Suppose that in some life you commit a wrong. If this wrong were to become firmly fixed in your life it would mean nothing less than that you would lose the step forward which you would have taken had you not committed the wrong; with every wrong, a step would be lost—enough steps to correspond exactly with the wrongs committed. If the possibility of surmounting error had not been given, man must ultimately have been submerged by it. But the blessing of karma was bestowed. What does this blessing mean for man? Is karma something at which to shudder, something to dread? No, indeed! Karma is a power for which man should be thankful. For karma says to us: If you have committed a wrong, remember that “God is not mocked; whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap”. An error demands that you shall right it; then, having expunged it from your karma you can again take a step forward!

Without karma, no progress would be possible. Karma is a blessing that has been vouchsafed to us, inasmuch as it obliges us to rectify every error, to re-achieve the steps that thrust us back.

Karma was thus the indirect consequence of the deeds of Ahriman. And now let us go further. In our days we are moving towards the epoch when other Beings will draw near to man—Beings who in the future before us will intrude more and more deeply into human evolution. Just as the Luciferic Spirits intervened in the Lemurian and the Ahrimanic Spirits in the Atlantean epoch, so our epoch too will see the intrusion of Beings. Let us be clear about the nature of these Beings.

Of the Beings who intervened during the Lemurian epoch we must say: They entrenched themselves in the astral body of man, drew his interests, impulses and desires down into the earthly sphere. Where—to speak more precisely—did these Luciferic Beings entrench themselves?

You can only understand this by taking as a basis what is set forth in my book Theosophy. There it is shown that the following members of man's being must be distinguished: first, his physical body; then his ether or life-body and his astral body—or as I have called it in that book, the sentient body, or soul-body.

These are the three members with which man was endowed before his earthly existence. The foundation of the physical body was laid on Old Saturn, the ether-body on the Old Sun, the soul or sentient body on the Old Moon. On the Earth was added the sentient soul—which is actually a transformation, an elaboration carried out unconsciously, of the sentient body. Lucifer anchored himself in the sentient soul; and there he remains. Through the unconscious transformation of the ether-body, the intellectual soul came into being, a more detailed description of which is contained in the book entitled The Education of the Child. It was in this second soul-member, the intellectual soul—the transformed part of the ether-body—that Ahriman established his footing. From there he lures man to false conceptions and judgments of material things, leads him to error, to sin, to lying—to everything that originates in the intellectual or mind soul. In every illusion that matter is the sole reality, we must perceive the whispered promptings of Ahriman, of Mephistopheles. Thirdly, there is the consciousness soul (spiritual soul), arising from an unconscious transformation of the physical body. You will remember how this transformation came about. Towards the end of the Atlantean epoch, the etheric body corresponding to the head came right into the physical head and gradually brought about selfconsciousness in the physical body. Fundamentally speaking, man is still working at this unconscious transformation of the physical body, at the development of the consciousness soul. And in the age now, approaching, those spiritual Beings known as the Asuras¹ will creep into the consciousness soul and therewith into the human ‘I’ or ego—for the ‘I’ lights up in the consciousness soul. The Asuras will generate evil with a far mightier force than was wielded by the Satanic powers in the Atlantean epoch or by the Luciferic Spirits in the Lemurian epoch.

In the course of the Earth-period man will cast away all the evil brought to him by the Luciferic Spirits together with the blessing of freedom. The evil brought by the Ahrimanic Spirits can be shed in the course of karma. But the evil brought by the Asuric powers cannot be expunged in this way. Whereas the good Spirits instituted pain and suffering, illness and death in order that despite the possibility of evil, man's evolution may still advance, whereas the good Spirits made possible the working of karma to the end that the Ahrimanic powers might be resisted and the evil made good, it will not be so easy to counter the Asuric powers as earth-existence takes its course. For these Asuric Spirits will prompt what has been seized hold of by them, namely the very core of man's being, the consciousness soul together with the ‘I’, to unite with earthly materiality. Fragment after fragment will be torn out of the ‘I’, and in the same measure in which the Asuric Spirits establish themselves in the consciousness soul, man must leave parts of his existence behind on the earth. What thus becomes the prey of the Asuric powers will be irretrievably lost. Not that the whole man need become their victim—but parts of his spirit will be torn away by the Asuric powers. These Asuric powers are heralded to-day by the prevailing tendency to live wholly in the material world and to be oblivious of the realty of spiritual beings and spiritual worlds. True, the Asuric powers corrupt man to-day in a way that is more theoretical than actual. To-day they deceive him by various means into thinking that his ‘I’ is a product of the physical world only; they hue him to a kind of theoretic materialism. But as time goes on—and the premonitory signs of this are the dissolute, sensuous passions that are becoming increasingly prevalent on earth—they will blind man's vision of the spiritual Beings and spiritual Powers. Man will know nothing nor desire to know anything of a spiritual world. More and more he will not only teach that the highest moral ideals of humanity are merely sublimations of animal impulses, that human thinking is but a transformation of a faculty also possessed by the animals, that man is akin to the animal in respect of his form and moreover in his whole being descends from the animal—but he will take this view in all earnestness and order his life in accordance with it.

Man does not as yet entirely base his life on the principle that his true being descends from the animal. But this view of existence will inevitably arise, with the result that men will also live like animals, will sink into animal impulses, animal passions. And in many things that need not be further characterized here, many things that in the great cities come to expression in orgies of dissolute sensuality, we can already perceive the lurid, hellish glare of the Spirits we call the Asuras.

Once again let us look back. We have said that suffering and pain, nay even death, were brought by the Spirits who are intent upon man's progress. The words of the Bible are unambiguous: “In travail shalt thou bear thy children!” Death has come into the world. Death was decreed for man by the Powers opposing the Luciferic Spirits. From whom came the gift of karma itself, who made karma possible for man?—To understand what is here being said you must discard all earthly, pedantic notions of time. Earthly notions of time give rise to the belief that what has once happened here or there will have an effect only upon what comes afterwards. But in the spiritual world it is the case that what comes to pass reveals itself in its effect, beforehand; in its effect it is already there, in advance. Whence comes the blessing of karma? Whence has there arisen in our earth-evolution this blessing of karma? From a Power none other than Christ.

Although Christ appeared only later, He was always present in the spiritual sphere of the earth Already in the ancient Oracles of Atlantis, the priests of those Oracles spoke of the “Spirit of the Sun”, of Christ. In the old Indian epoch of civilization the Holy Rishis spoke of “Vishva Karman”; Zarathustra in ancient Persia spoke of “Ahura Mazdao”, Hermes of “Osiris”; and Moses spoke of the Power which, being eternal, brings about the harmonization of the temporal and natural, the Power living in the “Ehjeh asher Ehjeh” (I am the I AM) as the harbinger of Christ. All spoke of the Christ; but where was He to be found in those ancient times? In the realm to which the eye of spirit alone can penetrate, in the spiritual world. In the spiritual world He was always to be found, working in and from the spiritual world. It is He Who even before man appeared on earth, sent down the possibility of karma. Then He came Himself to the earth, and we know what this has meant for man. We have described what was wrought by Him in the earthly sphere, we have spoken of the significance of the Event of Golgotha and of its effect also upon those who at that time were in the spiritual world, not incarnate in earthly bodies. We know that at the moment on Golgotha when the Blood flowed from the wounds, the Christ-Spirit appeared in the underworld, flooding the whole world of spirit with radiance and light; we have said that the appearance of Christ on the earth is the event of supreme importance also for the world through which man passes between death and a new birth.²

The impulse going forth from Christ is in the fullest sense reality. We need but ask ourselves what would have become of the earth had Christ not appeared. Precisely from the opposite picture—an earth without Christ—you can apprehend the significance of Christ's coming. Let us suppose that Christ had not come, that the Mystery of Golgotha had not taken place.

Before Christ's Coming, the condition in the spiritual world of human souls who were the most progressed, who had acquired the deepest interest for earthly life, was truly expressed by the saying of the Greeks: Better it is to be a beggar in the upper world than a king in the realm of the Shades. For before the Event of Golgotha the souls in the spiritual world felt completely isolated, enveloped in darkness. The spiritual world in all its gleaming clarity was not transparent to those who entered it through the portal of death. Each one felt isolated, thrust back into himself as though a wall were between himself and every other soul. And this feeling of isolation would have become more and more intense. Man would have hardened within the ego, would have been thrown back into himself, nor could he have found any bridge to the others. And egoism, already intense, would have increased beyond all telling with every new incarnation.

Earth-existence would more and more have made men into utter egoists. There would have been no prospect of brotherhood on the earth or of inner harmony among souls; for with every journey through the spiritual world, stronger influence would have penetrated the ego. That is what would have happened to an earth without Christ. That the way from soul to soul will be found again, that it has been made possible for the mighty force of brotherhood to pour over all humanity—this is due to Christ's Coming, to the Event of Golgotha. Therefore Christ is the Power who has enabled man to turn earth-existence ultimately to good account, in other words to give karma its true configuration—for karma must be worked out on the earth. That man finds in himself the force to profit by his karma in physical existence, that advancing evolution is possible for him—all this he owes to the working of the Christ Event, to the presence of Christ in the earthly realm.

And so we see many diverse forces and beings working together in the evolution of humanity. Had Christ not come upon the earth, man would have been engulfed in error, because having hardened within himself he would have become as it were a globe on its own, knowing nothing of other beings, entirely self-enclosed, driven into that condition by error and sin.

Christ is verily the Light which leads out of error and sin, the Light which enables man to find the way upwards. And now let us ask ourselves: What was it that was lost to man in that he descended from the spiritual world, was ensnared in desires and passions under the influence of Lucifer, and then, under Ahriman's influence, in error, illusion and lying in the earthly world?—He lost direct vision of the spiritual world, he lost understanding of the spiritual world.

What, then, must he regain? He must regain full understanding of the spiritual world. As a self-conscious being, man can grasp the import of Christ's Deed only by realizing with full clarity of understanding, the significance of Christ. The Christ-Power is there in very truth—not brought by man, for the Christ-Power was brought to the earth by none other than Christ Himself. Karma has come into humanity through Christ. But now, with self-consciousness, man must learn to know Christ in His real nature and His connection with the whole universe. Only so can man work in the true sense as an ‘I’. What then, does he actually achieve when, after Christ's appearance, he does not merely rest satisfied with letting Christ's power work upon him unconsciously, with saying: I am content with the knowledge that Christ came to the earth; He will redeem me and ensure my progress!—but when he says: I am resolved to know what Christ is in all reality, how He descended; I am resolved to participate through my own spirit in Christ's Deed!—what does man achieve thereby?

Recall to your minds that because the Luciferic Spirits slipped into his astral body, man has come down into the world of sense, thereby falling prey to the evil but also acquiring the possibility of self-conscious freedom. Lucifer is in very truth present in the being of man, has drawn him down to the earth, has ensnared him in earthly existence; inasmuch as the passions and desires contained in the astral body had first been led by Lucifer into the earthly realm, Ahriman too was able to invade the astral body—in the intellectual soul. Christ appeared, and with Him the force which can bear man upwards again into the spiritual world. But now, if he so wills, man can come to know Christ, he can gather all wisdom to this end. What does he achieve thereby? Something of untold moment! When a man knows Christ, when he absorbs the wisdom which begets insight into what Christ truly is, then he redeems himself and the Luciferic Beings through this knowledge of Christ. Were man merely to say: I am content with the fact that Christ appeared and to allow myself to be redeemed by Him unconsciously—then he would contribute nothing to the redemption of the Luciferic Beings. These Luciferic Beings who have brought man freedom, also make it possible for him, if he so wills, to turn it to account in order to understand Christ. Then the Luciferic Spirits are cleansed and purified in the fire of Christianity and the wrong done to the earth by them is changed into blessing. Freedom has been attained; but it will also be carried into the spiritual sphere as a blessing. That man is capable of this, that he is capable of understanding Christ, that Lucifer, resurrected in a new form, can unite with Christ as the good Spirit—this, as prophecy still, was told by Christ Himself to those around Him, when He said: “Ye shall be illumined by the new Spirit, by the Holy Spirit!” This “Holy Spirit” is none other than the Spirit through whom man can apprehend what Christ has wrought. Christ desired not merely to work, but also to be apprehended, to be understood. Therefore the sending of the Spirit by whom men are inspired, the sending of the “Holy spirit”, is implicit in Christianity.

In the spiritual sense, Whitsuntide belongs inseparably to Easter. This “Holy Spirit” is none other than the Lucifer-Spirit, resurrected now in higher, purer glory—the Spirit of independent understanding, wisdom-inwoven. Christ Himself foretold that this Spirit would come to men after Him, and in the light of this Spirit their labors must proceed. What is it that works onward in the light of this Spirit? The world-stream of spiritual science, if rightly conceived! What is this spiritual science? It is the wisdom of the Spirit, the wisdom that lifts into the full light of consciousness that in Christianity which would otherwise remain in the unconscious. The torch of the resurrected Lucifer, of the Lucifer now transformed into the good, blazons the way for Christ. Lucifer is the bearer of the Light—Christ is the Light! As the word itself denotes, Lucifer is the “Bearer of the Light”. That is what the spiritual scientific movement should be, that is implicit in it. Those who know that the progress of mankind depends upon living apprehension of the mighty Event of Golgotha are they who as the “Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings” are united in the great Guiding Lodge of mankind. And as once the “tongues of fire” hovered down as a living symbol upon the company of the apostles, so does the “Holy Spirit” announced by Christ Himself reign as the Light over the Lodge of the Twelve. The Thirteenth is the Leader of the Lodge of the Twelve. The “Holy Spirit” is the mighty Teacher of those we name the “Masters of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Feelings”. It is through them that his voice and his wisdom flow down to mankind in this or that stream upon the earth. The treasures of wisdom gathered together by the spiritual scientific movement in order to understand the universe and the Spirits therein, how through the “Holy Spirit” into the Lodge of the Twelve; and that is what will ultimately lead mankind step by step to free, self-conscious understanding of Christ and of the Event of Golgotha Thus to ‘cultivate’ spiritual science means to understand that the Spirit has been sent into the world by Christ; the pursuit of spiritual science is implicit in true Christianity. This will become more and more evident to men; and then they will realize that in spiritual science they have a potent asset in their lives. Men owe to spiritual science the consciousness which dawns in them by degrees, that Christ is the Spirit Who fills the world with light. And the consequence will be that here on this earthly globe, in the physical world itself, men will make progress in their moral life, in their life of will, in their intellectual life. Through physical life itself the world will be spiritualized in ever-increasing measure. Men will grow in goodness, strength and wisdom and will gaze with ever deepening vision into the foundations and origins of existence. They will bear with them into the super-sensible life the fruits acquired in this physical life, and ever and again bring these fruits back from the super-sensible life into a new incarnation.

Thus the earth will more and more become the expression of its Spirit, of the Christ-Spirit. Spiritual science will be understood in the light of the world's foundations, apprehended as a real and active power. In various respects to-day mankind is near to losing the Spirit altogether. In the recent public lecture³ it was said that men suffer to-day under the fear of heredity. The fear of the burden of heredity is the direct offspring of our materialistic age. But is it enough if a man simply says to himself that he need not have this fear?—By no means does that suffice. A man who does not concern himself with the spiritual world, who does not instill into his soul what can flow from spiritual science, is subject to the forces of physical heredity. Only by steeping his whole being in what spiritual science can communicate to him does he gain mastery over the forces of heredity, regards it as a factor of no essential significance and becomes the victor of everything that the powers of hindrance place in his way in the external world. It is not by arguing or philosophizing it away, or by contending: Spirit exists!—that man brings the life of the senses under his command, but by permeating himself with the Spirit, by absorbing the Spirit, by having the will to acquire intimate knowledge of the Spirit. Then spiritual science will make men healthier even in the physical world; for spiritual science is itself a therapy that brings vigor and health. And the essential power of spiritual science will become still more evident to us when we consider what becomes of the human being when he passes through the gate of death. The modern mind finds great difficulty here.

Man thinks to himself: Why need I trouble about what happens in the spiritual world? When I die I go into the spiritual world in any case and then I shall see and hear what goes on there! In endless variations one hears this easy-going way of talking: Why should I trouble about the spiritual before I die? When the time comes I shall see what there is to see. My relationship to the spiritual world will not be altered in the slightest, no matter whether I do or do not concern myself with it.—But indeed this is not so! A man who thinks in such a way will enter a world of darkness and gloom, unable to make very much of what is said in my book Theosophy about the spiritual worlds. For it is only by allying himself in spirit and soul with the spiritual world during life in the physical world that man can acquire the faculty of perception in the spiritual world; the preparation must be made in his life here on earth. The spiritual world is there in very truth—the faculty of being able to see in that world must be acquired on the earth; otherwise there is blindness in the spiritual world.

Spiritual science is therefore the power which alone makes it possible for man to enter the spiritual world with consciousness. Had Christ not appeared in the physical world, man would have gone under in that world, could not have found entry to the spiritual world. But Christ lifts him into the spiritual world in such a way that he can see and be conscious there. This depends upon his knowledge of how to unite his being with the Spirit sent by Christ; failing that knowledge, he remains unconscious. Man has to win his immortality through his own efforts, for an unconscious immortality is no immortality. A beautiful saying of Meister Eckhardt is: “What does it profit a man to be a king if he knows it not,”—What he meant was: Of what use is the spiritual world to a man if he does not know what the spiritual worlds are in reality? The capacity for seeing the spiritual world can be acquired only in the physical world. Those who ask: Why was it necessary for man to descend at all into the physical world? do well to take this to heart.—Man descended in order to acquire vision of the spiritual world. He would have remained blind to the spiritual world had he not descended and attained the self-conscious manhood which enables him to return to the spiritual world now lying in radiance and light before his soul.

Spiritual science is therefore not merely a “conception of the world” in the accepted sense but something without which—even in the immortal part of his being—man can know nothing about the worlds of immortality. Spiritual science is an active power, permeating the soul as reality. And in that you are present here in the pursuit of spiritual science, you are not only gathering knowledge but you are growing into something you would otherwise not have become. That is the difference between spiritual science and other world-conceptions. The latter are rooted in knowledge; spiritual science is rooted in being.

Rightly conceived, these things will make us say to ourselves: With this illumination, an inner, fundamental connection is revealed between Christ, the Spirit, and spiritual science. In face of this connection all the superficial statements made to-day to the effect that a Western trend is being set up in opposition to an Eastern trend of occultism fall to the ground. There can be no question of any such opposition. There are not two occultisms, there is only one occultism; and there is no opposition between eastern and western Theosophy. There is only one truth. And what is our reply to be when we are asked: If eastern occultism is the same as western occultism, why is it that in eastern occultism, Christ is not acknowledged? The right reply is that it is not for us to give the answer; that obligation does not rest upon us, for we fully acknowledge eastern occultism. If asked whether we acknowledge what eastern occultism says about Brahma, about the Buddha, we shall answer: Most certainly we acknowledge it. We understand what is meant when we are told that the Buddha attained his exalted rank in this or that way. We deny no single one of the eastern truths; in so far as they are positive truths we acknowledge them all. But shall this prevent us from acknowledging as well, what goes yet further? No indeed! We acknowledge what is said by eastern occultism, but that does not prevent us from acknowledging, too, the western truths.

When people allege that it is an inferior way of thinking on the part of orientalists to say that the Buddha died from eating too much pork—as these learned gentlemen assert—and it is explained that this actually has a deep meaning, namely that the Buddha imparted to those immediately around him too much of the esoteric wisdom, so that this over-abundance caused the onset of a kind of karma—then we agree that it is so; we say: certainly there lie behind it the deeper esoteric truths as stated by you who are eastern esotericists!—But when the statement that the Apocalypse was revealed to St. John on Patmos amid thunder and lightning is held to be unintelligible,⁴ then our answer will be: everyone who is aware of what is really meant, knows that it is a truth! We do not refute what is said about the Buddha but we cannot agree when the validity of the other statement (concerning the Apocalypse) is denied. We do not contest the assertion that the astral body of the Buddha was preserved and was later incorporated in Shankaracharya. But that does not prevent us from teaching that the astral body of Jesus of Nazareth was preserved and in multiple replicas was incorporated in various individuals dedicated to Christianity, like St. Francis of Assisi or St. Elizabeth of Thüringen. We deny no single truth of oriental esotericism. Therefore when we are asked: Why is anything refuted? Why is there opposition?—it is not incumbent upon us to answer. It would be incumbent upon us to answer if the opposition came from our side. But it does not! The duty to answer rests upon one who denies, not upon one who agrees. That is obvious enough.

In the coming weeks⁵ you will be able to hear of the connection between spiritual science and the Event of Golgotha and you will realize that the whole vocation, the whole mission of the spiritual scientific movement in the world is raised to a higher sphere inasmuch as spiritual science puts into effect the inspiration, the power proclaimed as the Spirit by Christ Himself.

So we see how Powers work together in the world, how everything that appears to oppose the progress of mankind subsequently turns out to be a blessing. We realize, too, that in the Post-Atlantean epoch—from age to age—the Spirit who has brought man freedom will appear again in a new form; Luciferus, the sovereign Bearer of Light, will be redeemed. For everything in the great World Plan is good and the evil endures only for a season. Therefore he alone believes in eternity of the evil who confounds the temporal with the eternal; he who does not rise from the temporal to the eternal can never understand the evil.

• 1. The Asuras are retarded Beings of the Hierarchy of the Archai (Spirits of Personality). They are Beings who instead of furthering man's progress to independence, lure him into gross egoism. In the negative sense they now bear the name originally pertaining to the entire Hierarchy. C.S.P.
• 2. Cp. Lecture 13, Cycle VIII: The Gospel of St. John in relation to the other three Gospels, especially to the Gospel of St. Luke. “At the moment when the Blood flowed from the wounds on Golgotha, the earth—which in the course of evolution had grown ever darker—began to send rays out into cosmic space, began to be radiant.”
• 3. Berlin, 18th February, 1909.
• 4. The reference is to a passage in The Secret Doctrine, by H. P. Blavatsky. A later volume, compiled by Annie Besant from manuscripts left by Blavatsky includes a statement indicating that the author was not unaware of the significance of thunder and lightening as an accompaniment of spiritual revelations. (C.S.P.)
• 5. Lecture-Course on the “Spiritual Hierarchies”.