The Rudolf Steiner Archive

The idea of other worlds lying beneath or behind the physical world is very familiar to us, and as an introduction to what I propose to put before you, I want to speak today of certain characteristics of these worlds. By widening and extending the knowledge we already possess, still other aspects of this subject will become clear to us.

As you know, the world bordering upon that known to our ordinary consciousness is the so-called world of Imagination. The world of Imagination is far more inwardly mobile and flexible than our physical world with its clear-cut lines of demarcation and its sharply defined objects. When the veil formed by the physical world is broken through, we enter an ethereal, fluidic world, and when we experience this first spiritual world, the feeling arises that we are outside the physical body. In this spiritual world we are at once conscious of a new and different relationship to the physical body; it is a relationship such as we otherwise feel to our eyes or ears. The physical body in its totality works as if it were a kind of organ of perception; but we very soon realize that, properly speaking, it is not the physical but the ether-body that is the real organ of perception, The physical body merely provides a kind of scaffolding around the ether-body. We begin, gradually, to live consciously in the ether-body, to feel it as a sense-organ which perceives a world of weaving, moving pictures and sounds. And then we are aware of being related to the ether-body within the physical body just as in ordinary life we are related to our ears or eyes.

This feeling of being outside the physical body is an experience similar in some respects to that of sleep. As beings of spirit-and-soul we are outside the physical and etheric bodies during sleep, but our consciousness is dimmed during the experience, and we know nothing of what is really happening to us and around us.

You will see from this that there can be a relationship to the physical body quite different from that to which we are accustomed in ordinary life. This is a fact to which attention must be called by Spiritual Science and it is an experience which will become more and more common in human beings as evolution leads on into the future.

I have said repeatedly that the cultivation of Spiritual Science today is not the outcome of any arbitrary desire, but is a necessity of evolution at the present time. This feeling of separation from the physical body is an experience that will arise in human beings more and more frequently in the future, without being understood. A time will come when a great many people will find themselves asking: “Why is it that I feel as if my being were divided, as if a second being were standing by my side?” This feeling will arise as naturally as hunger or thirst or other such experiences and it must be understood by men of the present and future. It will become intelligible when, through Spiritual Science, people begin to understand what this experience of division within them really signifies.

In the domain of Education, particularly, attention will have to be paid to it; indeed we shall all have to learn to pay more heed than hitherto to certain experiences which will become increasingly common in children as time goes on. It is true that in later life, when the whole impression made by the physical world is very strong, these feelings and experiences will not be particularly noticeable in the near future, but as time goes on they will become more and more intense. They will occur, to begin with, in children, and grown-up people will hear from children many things which in the ordinary way are pooh-poohed but which will have to be understood because they are connected with deep secrets of evolution.

We shall hear children saying: “I have seen a being who said this or that to me, who told me what to do.”—The materialist, of course, will tell such a child that this is all nonsense, that no such being exists. But students of Spiritual Science will have to understand the significance of the phenomenon. If a child says: “I saw someone who came to me, he went away again but he keeps on coming and I cannot get rid of him”—then anyone who understands Spiritual Science will realize that a phenomenon which will appear in greater and greater definition as time goes on, is here revealing itself in the life of the child. What does this really signify?

We shall understand it if we think of two fundamental and typical experiences, the first of which was particularly significant in the Greco-Latin age, while the other is significant in our own time, when it is beginning, gradually, to take shape. Whereas the first experience reached a kind of culmination in the Greco-Latin epoch, we are slowly moving towards the second.

Experiences deriving from the influences of Lucifer and Ahriman are all the time playing into human life. In this basic experience of man during the Fourth Post-Atlantean or Greco-Roman epoch, Lucifer's influence was the greater; in our own epoch, Ahriman is the predominant influence. Lucifer is connected with all those experiences which, lacking the definition imparted by the senses, remain undifferentiated and obscure.

Lucifer is connected with the experience of breathing, of the in-breathing and the out-breathing. The relationship between a man's breathing and the functioning of his organism as a whole must be absolutely regular and normal. The moment the breathing process is in any way disturbed, instead of remaining the unconscious operation to which no attention need be paid, it becomes a conscious process, of which we are more or less dreamily aware. And when, to put it briefly, the breathing process becomes too forceful, when it makes greater claims on the organism than the organism can meet, then it is possible for Lucifer (not he himself but the hosts belonging to him) to enter with the breath into the organism.

I am speaking here of a familiar experience of dream-life. It may arise in many forms and with growing intensity. A nightmare in which the disturbed breathing process makes a man conscious in dream, so that experiences of the spiritual world intermingle with the dream and give rise to the anxiety and fear which often accompany a nightmare—all such experiences have their origin in the Luciferic element. When, instead of the regular breathing, there is a feeling of being choked or strangled, this is connected with the possibility that Lucifer may be mingling with the breathing.

This is the cruder form of the process, where, as the result of a diminution of consciousness, Lucifer intermingles with the breathing and, in the dream, takes the form of a strangler. That is the crude form of the experience. But there is an experience more delicate and more intangible than that of being physically strangled. It does not, as a rule, occur to people that a certain familiar experience is really a less crude form of that of strangulation. Yet whenever anything becomes a problem in the soul or gives rise to doubt concerning one thing or another in the world, this is a subtler form of the experience of being strangled. It can truly be said that when we feel obliged to question, when a riddle, either great or trifling, confronts us, then something seems to be strangling us, but in such a way that we do not heed it. Nevertheless, every doubt, every problem is a subtle form of nightmare.

And so experiences which often take a crude form, become much more subtle and intangible when they arise in the life of soul itself. It is to be presumed that science will be led some day to study how the breathing process is connected with the urge to question, or with the feeling of being assailed by doubt; but whether this happens or not, everything that is associated with questioning and doubt, with feelings of dissatisfaction caused when something in the world demands an answer and we are thrown back entirely upon our own resources—all this is connected with the Luciferic powers.

In the light of Spiritual Science it can be said that whenever we feel a sensation of strangulation in a nightmare, or whenever some doubt or question inwardly oppresses or makes us uneasy, the breathing process becomes stronger, more forceful. There is something in the breathing which must be harmonized, toned down and modified if human nature is to function in the right and normal way.

What happens when the breathing process becomes excessively vigorous and forceful? The ether-body expands, becomes too diffuse; and as this takes effect in the physical body, it tends to break up the physical body. An over-exuberant, too widely extended ether-body gives rise to an excessively vigorous breathing process and this provides the Luciferic forces with opportunity to work.

The Luciferic forces, then, can make their way into the human being when the ether-body has expanded beyond the normal. One can also say that the Luciferic forces tend to express themselves in an ether-body that has expanded beyond the limits of the human form, that is to say, in an ether-body requiring more space than is provided within the boundaries of the human skin.

Of attempts made to find an appropriate form in which to portray this process, the following may be said.—In its normal state, the ether-body moulds and shapes the physical form of man. But as soon as the ether-body expands, as soon as it tries to create for itself greater space and an arena transcending the boundaries of the human skin, it tends to produce other forms. The human form cannot here be retained; the ether-body strives to grow out of and beyond the human form. In olden days men found the solution for this problem. When an extended ether-body—which is not suited to the nature of man but to the Luciferic nature—makes itself felt and takes shape before the eye of soul, what kind of form emerges? The Sphinx!

Here we have a clue to the nature of the Sphinx. The Sphinx is really the being who has us by the throat, who strangles us. When the ether-body expands as a result of the force of the breathing, a Luciferic being appears in the soul. In such an ether-body there is then not the human, but the Luciferic form, the form of the Sphinx. The Sphinx is the being who brings doubts, who torments the soul with questions.

And so there is a definite connection between the Sphinx and the breathing process. But we also know that the breathing process is connected in a very special way with the blood. Therefore the Luciferic forces also operate in the blood, permeating and surging through it. By way of the breathing, the Luciferic forces can everywhere make their way into the blood of the human being and when excessive energy is promoted in the blood, the Luciferic nature—the Sphinx—becomes very strong.

Because man is open to the Cosmos in his breathing, he is confronted by the Sphinx. It was paramountly during the Greco-Latin epoch of civilization that, in their breathing, men felt themselves confronting the Sphinx in the Cosmos. The legend of Oedipus describes how the human being faces the Sphinx, how the Sphinx torments him with questions. The picture of the human being and the Sphinx, or of the human being and the Luciferic powers in the Cosmos, gives expression to a deeply-rooted experience of men as they were during the Fourth Post-Atlantean epoch, and indicates that when, in however small a degree, a man breaks through the boundaries of his normal life on the physical plane, he comes into contact with the Sphinx-nature. At this moment Lucifer approaches him and he must cope with Lucifer, with the Sphinx.

The basic tendency of our Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch is different. The trend of evolution has been such that the ether-body has contracted and is far less prone to diffusion or expansion. The ether-body, instead of being too large, is too small, and this will become more marked as evolution proceeds. If it can be said that in the man of ancient Greece, the ether-body was too large, it can be said that in the man of modern times the ether-body is compressed and contracted, has become too small. The more human beings are led by materialism to disdain the Spiritual, the more will the ether-body contract and wither. But because the organization and functions of the physical body depend upon the ether-body—inasmuch as the ether-body must permeate the physical in the right way—the physical body too will always tend to dry up, to wither, if the contraction of the ether-body is excessive; and if the physical body became too dry, men would have feet of horn instead of the feet of a normal human being. As a matter of fact, man will not actually find himself with feet of horn, but the tendency is there within him, owing to this proclivity of the ether-body to weaken and dry up. Now into this dried-up ether-body, Ahriman can insinuate himself, just as Lucifer can creep into an extended, diffuse ether-body. Ahriman will assume the form which indicates a lack of power in the ether-body. It unfolds insufficient etheric force for properly developed feet and will produce hornlike feet, goat's feet.

Mephistopheles is Ahriman. There is good reason, as I have just indicated, for portraying him with the feet of a goat. Myths and legends are full of meaning: Mephistopheles is very often depicted with horses' hoofs; his feet have dried up and become hoofs. If Goethe had completely understood the nature of Mephistopheles he would not have made him appear in the guise of a modern cavalier, for by his very nature Mephistopheles-Ahriman lacks the etheric forces necessary to permeate and give shape to the normal physical form of a human being.

Yet another characteristic of Mephistopheles-Ahriman is due to this contraction of the ether-body and its consequent lack of etheric force. The best way to understand this will be to consider the nature of man as a whole. Even physically, the human being is, in a certain respect, a duality. For think of it.—You stand there as a physical human being. But the in-breathed air is inside you, is part of you as a physical being. This air, however, is sent out again by the very next exhalation, so that the “man of air-and-breath” pervading you, changes all the time. You are not merely a man of flesh, bone and muscle, but you are also a “breath man.” This “breath man,” however, is constantly changing, passing out and in. And this “breath man” is connected with the circulating blood.

Within you, separate as it were from this “breath man” is the other pole: the “nerve man” with the circulating nerve-fluid. The contact between the “nerve man” and the blood is a purely external one. Just as those etheric forces which tend towards the Luciferic nature can only find easy access to the blood by way of the breath, so the etheric forces which tend towards the Mephistophelean or Ahrimanic nature can only approach the nervous system—not the blood.

Ahriman is deprived of the possibility of penetrating into the blood because he cannot come near the warmth of the blood. If he wants to establish a connection with a human being, he will therefore crave for a drop of blood, because access to the blood is so difficult for him. An abyss lies between Mephistopheles and the blood. When he draws near to man as a living being, when he wants to make a connection with man, he realizes that the essentially human power lives in the blood. He must therefore endeavor to get hold of the blood.

That Faust's pact with Mephistopheles is signed with blood is a proof of the wisdom contained in the legend. Faust must bind himself to Mephistopheles by way of the blood, because Mephistopheles has no direct access to the blood and craves for it. Just as the Greek confronted the Sphinx whose field of operation is the breathing system, so the man of the Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch confronts Mephistopheles who operates in the nerve-process, who is cold and scornful because he is bloodless, because he lacks the warmth that belongs to the blood. He is the scoffer, the cold, scornful companion of man.

Just as it was the task of Oedipus to get the better of the Sphinx, so it is the task of man in the Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch to get the better of Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles stands there like a second being, confronting him. The Greek was confronted by the Sphinx as the personification of the forces which entered into him together with excessive vigor of the breathing process. The human being of the modern age is confronted by the fruits of intellect and cold reason, rooted as they are in the nerve-process. Poetic imagination has glimpsed, prophetically, a picture of the human being standing over against the Mephistophelean powers; but the experience will become more and more general, and the phenomenon which, as I have said, will appear in childhood, will be precisely this experience of the Mephistophelean powers.

Whereas the child in Greece was tormented by a flood of questions, the suffering awaiting the human being of our modern time is rather that of being in the grip of preconceptions and prejudices, of having as an incubus at his side a second “body” consisting of all these preconceived judgments and opinions. What is it that is leading to this state of things?

Let us be quite candid about the trend of evolution. During the course of the Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch, so many problems have lost all inner, vital warmth. The countless questions which confront us when we study Spiritual Science with any depth, simply do not exist for the modern man with his materialistic outlook. The riddle of the Sphinx means nothing to him, whereas the man of ancient Greece was vitally aware of it. A different form of experience will come to the man of modern times. In his own opinion he knows everything so well; he observes the material world, uses his intellect to establish the interconnections between its phenomena and believes that all its riddles are solved in this way, never realizing that he is simply groping in a phantasmagoria. But this way of working coarsens and dries up his ether-body, with the ultimate result that the Mephistophelean powers, like a second nature, will attach themselves to him now and in times to come.

The Mephistophelean nature is strengthened by all the prejudices and limitations of materialism, and a future can already be perceived when everyone will be born with a second being by his side, a being who whispers to him of the foolishness of those who speak of the reality of the spiritual world. Man will, of course, disavow the riddle of Mephistopheles, just as he disavows that of the Sphinx; nevertheless he will chain a second being to his heels. Accompanied by this second being, he will feel the urge to think materialistic thoughts, to think, not through his own being, but through the second being who is his companion.

In an ether-body that has been parched by materialism, Mephistopheles will be able to dwell. Understanding what this implies, we shall realize that it is our duty to educate children in the future—be it by way of Eurythmy or the development of a spiritual-scientific outlook—in such a way that they will be competent to understand the spiritual world. The ether-body must be quickened in order that the human being may be able to take his rightful stand, fully cognizant of the nature of the being who stands at his side. If he does not understand the nature of this second being, he will be spellbound by him, fettered to him. Just as the Greek was obliged to get the better of the Sphinx, so will modern man have to outdo Mephistopheles—with his faunlike, satyrlike form, and his goat's or horse's feet.

Every age, after all, has known how to express its essential characteristic in legend and saga. The Oedipus legends in Greece and the Mephistopheles legends in the modern age are examples, but their basic meanings must be understood.

You see, truths that are otherwise presented merely in the form of poetry—for instance, the relations between Faust and Mephistopheles—can become guiding principles for education as it should be in the future. The prelude to these happenings is that a people or a poet have premonitions of the existence of the being who accompanies man; but finally, every single human being will have this companion who must not remain unintelligible to him and who will operate most powerfully of all during childhood. If adults whose task it is to educate children today do not know how to deal rightly with what comes to expression in the child, human nature itself will be impaired owing to a lack of understanding of the wiles of Mephistopheles.

It is very remarkable that indications of these trends are everywhere to be found in legends and fairy-tales. In their very composition, legends and fairy-tales which seem so unintelligible to modern scholars, point either to the Mephistophelean, the Ahrimanic, or to the Sphinx, the Luciferic. The secret of all legends and fairy-tales is that their content was originally actual experience, arising either from man's relation to the Sphinx or from his relation to Mephistopheles.

In legends and fairy-tales we find, sometimes more and sometimes less deeply hidden, either the motif of the riddle, the motif of the Sphinx, where something has to be solved, some question answered; or else the motif of bewitchment, of being under a spell. This is the Ahriman motif. When Ahriman is beside us, we are perpetually in danger of falling victim to him, of giving ourselves over to him to such an extent that we cannot get free. In face of the Sphinx, the human being is aware of something that penetrates into him and as it were tears him to pieces. In face of the Mephistophelean influence he feels that he must yield to it, bind himself to it, succumb to it.

The Greeks had nothing like theology in our modern sense, but were very much closer to the wisdom of Nature and the manifestations of Nature. They approached the wisdom of Nature without theology, and questions and riddles pressed in upon them.

Now the breathing process is much more intimately connected with Nature than is the nerve-process. That is why the Greek had such a living feeling of being led on to wisdom by the Sphinx. It is quite different in the modern age when theology has come upon the scene. Man no longer believes that direct intercourse with Nature brings him near to the Divine Wisdom of the world, but he sets out to study, to approach it via the nerve-process, not via the breathing and the blood. The search for wisdom has become a nerve-process; modern theology is a nerve-process. But this means that wisdom is shackled to the nerve-process; man draws near to Mephistopheles, and owing to this imprisonment of wisdom in the nerve-process, the premonition arose at the dawn of the Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch that Mephistopheles is shackled to the human being, stands at his side.

If the Faust legend is stripped of all the extraneous elements that have been woven around it, there remains the picture of a young theologian striving for wisdom; doubts torment him and because he signs a pledge with the Devil—with Mephistopheles—he is drawn into the Devil's field of operations. But just as it was the task of the Greek, through the development of conscious Egohood, to conquer the Sphinx, so we, in our age, must get the better of Mephistopheles by enriching the Ego with the wisdom that can be born only from knowledge and investigation of the spiritual world, from Spiritual Science.

Oedipus was the mightiest conqueror of the Sphinx; but every Greek who wrestled for manhood was also, at a lower level, victorious over the Sphinx. Oedipus is merely a personification, in a very typical form, of what every Greek was destined to experience. Oedipus must prove himself master of the forces contained in the processes of the breathing and the blood. He personifies the nerve-process with its impoverished ether-forces, in contrast to those human beings who are altogether under the sway of the breathing and blood processes. Oedipus takes into his own nature those forces which are connected with the nerve-process, that is to say, the Mephistophelean forces; but he takes them into himself in the right and healthy way, so that they do not become a second being by his side, but are actually within him, enabling him to confront and master the Sphinx.

This indicates to us that in their rightfully allotted place, Lucifer and Ahriman work beneficially; in their wrongful place—there they are injurious. The task incumbent upon the Greek was to get the better of the Sphinx-nature, to cast it out of himself. When he was able to thrust it into the abyss, when, in other words, he was able to bring the extended ether-body down into the physical body, then he had overcome the Sphinx. The abyss is not outside us; the abyss is man's own physical body, into which the Sphinx must be drawn in the legitimate and healthy way. But the opposite pole—the nerve-process—which works, not from without but from within the Ego, must here be strengthened. Thus is the Ahrimanic power taken into the human being and put in its right place.

Oedipus is the son of Laios. Laios had been warned against having a child because it was said that this would bring misfortune to his whole race. He therefore cast out the boy who was born to him. He pierced his feet, and the child was therefore called “Oedipus,” i.e., “club foot.” That is the reason why, in the drama, Oedipus has deformed feet.

I have said already that when etheric forces are impoverished, the feet cannot develop normally, but will wither. In the case of Oedipus this condition was induced artificially. The legend tells us that he was found and reared by shepherds after an attempt had been made to get rid of him. He goes through life with clubbed feet. Oedipus is Mephistopheles—but in this case Mephistopheles is working in his rightful place, in connection with the task devolving upon the Fourth Post-Atlantean epoch.

The harmony between ether-body and physical body so wonderfully expressed in the creations of Greek Art, everything that constituted the typical greatness of the Greek—of all this, Oedipus is deprived in order that he may become a personality in the real sense. The Ego that has now passed into the head becomes strong, and the feet wither.

The man of the Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch has quite a different task. In order to confront and conquer the Sphinx, Oedipus was obliged to receive Ahriman into himself. The man of the Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch, who confronts Ahriman-Mephistopheles, must take Lucifer into himself. The process is the reverse of that enacted by Oedipus. Everything that the Ego accumulates in the head must be pressed down into the rest of man's nature. The Ego, living in the nerve-process, has accumulated “Philosophy, Law, Medicine, and, alas, Theology too”—all nerve-processes. And now there is the urge to get rid of it all from the head—just as Oedipus deprived the feet of their normal forces—and to penetrate through the veils of material existence.

And now think of Faust standing there with all that the Ego has accumulated; think of how he wants to throw it all out of his head, just as Oedipus deprives his feet of their normal forces. Faust says: “I have studied, alas! Philosophy, Jurisprudence and Medicine too, and saddest of all, Theology” ... he wants to rid his head of it all. And moreover he does so, by surrendering himself to a life that is not bound up with the head. Faust is Oedipus reversed, i.e., the human being who takes the Lucifer-nature into himself.

And now think of all that Faust does, so that having Lucifer within him, he may battle with Ahriman, with Mephistopheles who stands beside him. All this shows us that Faust, in reality, is Oedipus reversed. The Ahriman-nature in Oedipus has to get the better of Lucifer; the Lucifer-nature in Faust has to help him to overcome Ahriman-Mephistopheles. Ahriman-Mephistopheles operates more in the external world, Lucifer more in the inner life. All the misfortunes that befall Oedipus because he must take the Ahriman-nature into himself, are connected with the external world. Doom falls upon his race, not merely upon himself. Even the doom that falls upon him is of an external character; he pierces his eyes and blinds himself; similarly, the pestilence which sweeps his native city—this, too, is an external doom. Faust's experiences, however, are of the soul—they are inner tragedies. Again in this respect, Faust reveals himself as the antithesis of Oedipus.

In these two figures, both of them dual—Oedipus and Sphinx, Faust and Mephistopheles—we have typical pictures of the evolution of the Fourth and Fifth Post-Atlantean epochs.

When history, in time to come, is presented less as a narration of external happenings and more as a description of what human beings actually experience, then and only then will the significance of these fundamental experiences be fully understood. For then man will perceive what is really at work in the onflowing evolutionary process, of which ordinary science knows only the external phantasmagoria.

In order that the Ego should be strengthened, it was necessary for Ahriman-Mephistopheles to enter into Oedipus—the typical representative of the Greeks. In the man of the modern age, the Ego has become too strong and he must break free. But this he can only do by deepening his knowledge of spiritual happenings, of the world to which the Ego truly belongs. The Ego must know that it is a citizen of the spiritual world, not merely the inhabitant of a human body. This is the demand of the age in which we ourselves are living. The man of the Fourth Post-Atlantean epoch was called upon to strive with might and main for consciousness in the physical body; the man of the Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch must strive to become conscious in the spiritual world, so to expand his consciousness that it reaches into the spiritual world.

Spiritual Science is thus a fundamental factor in the evolution of the Fifth Post-Atlantean epoch.

Yesterday's lecture achieved this result, that at the end of all our various complicated considerations we were able to obtain an idea of how we are to picture matter, the thought picture we are to make of matter and substance. We found that we must conceive of matter as broken spiritual forms—pulverised spiritual forms. And as we went on to speak of how we, as human beings, are yoked to material existence, of how the broken and scattered spiritual form has penetrated into us men of earth and filled out our being, we found ourselves inevitably led to give further consideration to this most essential fact of all material existence, a fact that has been beautifully represented as the expulsion from Paradise. We had to consider, that is to say, the process by which man is penetrated with earth matter. You will have formed the idea from what was said yesterday—that is, if you followed what was said not merely with conceptions of thought, but entering a little into its deeper meaning—you will have formed the idea that man is in reality a kind of double being. Let me remind you of what we pointed out the day before yesterday when we showed how it was through the Luciferic influence that what we may call our sense perceptions were inserted into our being, it was through Luciferic influence that we as men of earth received our various sense perceptions. We indicated, you will remember, that these sense perceptions, which belong essentially to earth, were, as a matter of fact, not predetermined for man from the beginning, but instead a kind of intimate living together with the ruling Will; and that the hearing we have to-day with the ear, the seeing with the eye and the perceiving with the other organs of sense, are processes which are directly due to Luciferic influence. Then we were able to go on to show how a more inward process, namely, what appears in our body as the processes of gland secretion, has come about through a further disarrangement in the members of man's organisation, which we described. And, finally, the quite normal organic activity of nourishment and of the digestion of substance in the human body—this we referred back to a kind of preponderance of activity in the astral body over the activity in the etheric body, which preponderance was again due to Luciferic influence. Such was the result of our study the day before yesterday. We saw, that is, how the coarse material processes in man—nourishment and digestion, gland secretion, sense perception—are all, as they occur in man, to be attributed to the influence of Lucifer. Yesterday we found from another aspect that what we call nerve substance is again due to Luciferic influence, and similarly muscle substance and bone substance.

Let us consider a little further this double being in man. On the one hand we have seen that sense perception, glandular activity and the whole organic process of metabolism are due to Luciferic influence, and on the other hand that the very presence of nerves and of the human systems of muscle and bone are similarly due to the same Luciferic influence. What kind of relation is there between these two men—on the one hand the man of senses, glands and digestion, and on the other hand the man of nerves, muscle and bone? What cosmic task is set for these two, coupled closely together as they are in the nature of man? Now if you will think it over you will easily—even without any further occultism—come to the idea that all that is connected with the activity of senses and of gland, as well as all that is connected with the metabolic system, belongs to what is transitory and feeting. We need only look at it in a superficial way in order to see that when it has played itself out in man it passes away and is gone. It is something man leaves behind him. Let us make that fact quite clear and present to our minds. There is no lasting and eternal purpose to be fulfilled in the performance of these organic activities. You only need to look round a little and learn from what science and everyday life can teach in order to realise how terribly these processes enclose us in this life.

We are in this aspect mere apparatus for nourishment and digestion, etc.; it is like a wheel that goes round and round perpetually in the same way. Unless we are prepared to reckon it as a particular step forward in human nature when man develops, in the course of years, as he has occasion, a refined taste for this or that special food or drink, we shall be obliged to say that we can find extraordinarily little progressive evolution in this perpetual treadmill of eating and digestion. It repeats itself again and again in the same way, and that we as human beings, in so far as we have to carry out these activities, have thereby any special worth for eternity—well, I hardly think there is anyone who could even allow himself to dream such a thing. Gland secretion, too, has really fulfilled its task as soon as it has taken place. It has, of course, its significance for the life of the organism as a whole, but it has no eternal value. Nor has sense perception as such, for sense impression comes and goes. Think how pale and dim, after even a few days, is what you have received in the way of sense impressions, how entirely and radically different memory is from sense perception. You will, I think, be ready to admit that though sense perceptions are often very beautiful and bring delight to the life of man in their immediate experience and observation, they have nevertheless no value for eternity. That is quite certain. For what has become of the value of the sense impressions you received, perhaps as a little child or as an older boy or girl? All the sights and sounds which penetrate then into your eye or your ear—where are they now. How pale are our memories! When you contemplate this thought—that man, in so far as he is a man of senses, of glands and of digestion, has by virtue of these activities no worth for eternity—then you will easily be able to unite it with the thought we expressed yesterday in a general way and that we can, unfortunately, only indicate very slightly in this short course of lectures—the thought, namely, of scattering form, of form that is breaking and scattering and dispersing. When form sprays into these activities, when shattered form, that is to say matter, is driven into the organism it brings about sense activity, gland secretion and metabolic activity. Hence it is evident that in these activities we have to do with breaking form, with a form that breaks to pieces. It is nothing more than special manifestations of the destruction process in form that meets us in sense activity, gland secretion and the activity of digestion. They are particular processes of what we can describe in general as the destruction process in form, or as the shooting of form into matter.

When, however, we come to nerve activity, muscle activity and the strength and effective virtue of the bones in man, the case is altogether different. We were able to show yesterday that in the bony system we have Imagination that has become material, in the muscular system Inspiration that has become material and manifests in movement, and in the nervous system materialised Intuition. And now we have reached a point where we can go on from this and give a fuller description of a truth that can only be partially described in more general anthroposophical lectures. When man passes through the gate of death, gradually little by little through decay or combustion or however it may be, his bony system falls to pieces. But what remains when the bony system crumbles away in the material sense is the Imagination. The Imagination is not lost. It remains in those substances which we still have in us even when we have passed through the gate of death and enter Kamaloka or Devachan. We retain in us a picture form which the thoroughly experienced clairvoyant does not indeed find to be quite like the bony system of man; but when a less trained clairvoyant lets it work upon him he finds an outward similarity in the form to the bony system; and on this account is death, not without some justification, represented in the Imagination of the skeleton. The picture goes back to an untrained, but for all that, a not altogether mistaken clairvoyance.

And combined with this Imagination is what remains from the muscles, when they decay in the physical sense. From the muscles remains the Inspiration, of which they are in reality only the expression; for the muscles are Inspirations steeped, soaked in matter. The Inspiration remains for us when we have passed through the gate of death. That is a most interesting fact. And so to from the system of nerves, when the nerves themselves have undergone their process of decay, we have left after death the Intuition. All these are actual constituent parts of our astral as well as our etheric body.

You know that man does not lay aside his etheric body completely; an extract from the etheric body we take with us when we have passed through the gate of death. But this is not all. There is something else we have now to discover. Man carries his system of nerves continually through the world, and this system of nerves is nothing else than Intuition interspersed with matter. As man bears this system of nerves through the world it is really so that in the places where the nerves are situated in the human organism there is always Intuition, and this Intuition rays out a spirituality which man has perpetually around him like kind radiating aura. It is thus not only a question of what we take with us when we go through the gate of death; but we have also to consider the Intuition which we are sending out from us all the time, in proportion as the nerves decay. A process of decay is going on in you all the time, you need to be continually formed anew—even although in the case of the nerves there is a greater measure of durability that elsewhere. A constant steaming out takes place which can only be perceived by means of Intuition. So that we may say spiritual substance—a substance that is perceptible to Intuition—is perpetually raying out from man in proportion as his physical nerve system goes to pieces. So that you will see from this, inasmuch as man makes use of his physical system of nerves, inasmuch as he uses it up and brings it to destruction, he is not without significance for the world. He has, in fact, great significance. For it depends on the use man makes of his nerves, what kind of intuitively perceived substances stream Inspiration. And this outstreaming takes place in such a way that it is continually peopling the world with infinitely finely differentiated processes of movement. Inspired substances stream out from man into the world. (The words are not very happy but we have no others.) And from man's bones there streams out what we may call Imaginatively perceived substance. There you have the most extraordinarily interesting fact. Let me enlarge on it a little, not in order to overfeed you with results of clairvoyant research, but because it is really interesting.

Through this radiating from the bones as they decay man literally leaves behind him, everywhere he goes, pictures; that is to say, spirit pictures perceptible by means of Imagination. Fine shadow pictures of us remain behind wherever we have been. After you have gone out of this hall a finer and well-trained clairvoyance could still perceive on the chairs fine shadow pictures. They would be perceptible for a time until they were received into the general world process—delicate shadow pictures of each individual which have been rayed out from his bony system. These Imaginations are the cause of that unpleasant feeling one has sometimes when one comes into a room that has been lived in before by an uncongenial person. The feeling is due, in the main, to the Imaginations he has left behind. One still meets him there in a kind of shadow picture. And in this connection a sensitive person is not far behind the clairvoyant, for he has an uncomfortable feeling about what another person has left behind him in a room. The clairvoyant has only this advantage, that he can make visible to himself in an Imaginative picture what the other only feels more instinctively.

But now what happens to all that we let radiate out of us in this way? All that rays forth from us in this way, my dear friends—take it altogether and you have, in very deed and truth, the whole influence that is exerted by us on the world. For whatever you do, when you do it, you move, you bring your system of bones and muscles into movement. Not only so, but even when you only lie and think you are still raying forth from you substance that is perceptible to Intuition. In short, whatever activity you engage in you are sending out this spiritual substance into the world, it is perpetually passing over from you into the world. Now the fact is, if these processes were not taking place there would be nothing left of our earth when it came to the end of its evolution, nothing left of it but pulverised matter which would pass over like dust into universal space. But something is saved through man from the material process of the earth and lives in the general cosmos, in the universe; and it is what can arise through Inspiration, Intuition and Imagination. In this way man gives to the world that wherefrom the world builds itself up anew. Man, as it were, provides the building-stones. This it is that will continue to live as the soul and spirit of the whole earth when this earth's material substance is rent and shattered like a corpse; even as the individual soul and spirit nature of man lives on when man has passed through the gate of death. Man bears his individual soul through the gate of death; the earth bears over into the Jupiter-existence what has come of the Imaginations and Inspirations and Intuitions of man. There you have the great difference that exists between the two men in man. The man who perceives with his senses, who secretes in his glands, who digests and who nourishes himself—that is the man who is destined for what is cast off, he is of time and passes away. But that which is the result of the presence of nerves and muscle and bone—that is incorporated into the earth, in order that the earth may thereby continue to exist.

And now we come to something which stands like a great mystery in our whole existence, and which, because it is in very truth a mystery, cannot be grasped by the intellect; rather is it for the soul to believe it and penetrate to its depths. It is, none the less, perfectly true. That which man lets stream out from him into his environment divides itself quite distinctly into two parts. There is, firstly, that part of the Inspiration, Intuition and Imagination upon which general cosmic existence, so to say, depends, the cosmos receives it, and drinks it in. But there is another part which cosmic existence does not receive but, on the contrary, rejects. Cosmic existence makes its attitude quite clear, as much as to say: “These Inspirations and Intuitions and Imaginations I can use, I absorb them in order that I may carry them over to the Jupiter existence.” But others cosmic existence rejects, it refuses to receive them; and the result is these other Intuitions, Inspirations and Imaginations, being nowhere received, remain as such for themselves; they remain—spiritually—in the cosmos, they cannot be disintegrated. Thus, what we ray forth from us falls into two parts, that which is gladly received by the cosmos and that which the cosmos rejects. The cosmos is not pleased with the latter and leaves it alone. It remains where it is. How long does it remain? It remains there until such time as the human being comes and himself destroys it by means of outstreamings, which are of a kind able to destroy it; and as a general rule no other man has the power to destroy outstreamings that are rejected by the cosmos than the one who himself sent them out. Here you have something of the technique of karma, here you have the reason why we must ourselves meet again in the course of our karma all those Imaginations, Inspirations and Intuitions which have been rejected by the cosmos. For we must ourselves destroy them and annihilate them; the cosmos receives only what is correct and right in thought, what is beautiful in feeling and what is morally good and sound. Everything else it rejects. That is the secret, that is the great mystery. And whatever is false in thought, whatever is ugly in feeling and whatever is morally evil—a man must himself erase from existence if it is to be no longer there; and he must do so through the necessary thoughts and feelings or will impulses or deeds. It will follow him all the time until he has erased it. And so you see it is not true to say that the cosmos consists only of neutral laws of nature or expresses itself only in neutral laws of nature. The cosmos that is all around us—of which we believe we can perceive with our senses and grasp with our intellect, has quite other forces in it as well. If we may put it in this way, the cosmos vigorously repels and repudiates the evil, the ugly and the false and is eager to receive into itself the good, the beautiful and the true. It is not merely at stated times that the powers of the cosmos sit in judgment, but this sitting in judgment is something that goes on throughout the whole of earth evolution.

And now we can find an answer to the question: How does the evolution of man stand in relation to the higher spiritual Beings?

We have seen how on the one hand the man of senses, glands and digestion has come into being through Luciferic influence. And the other man, too, we can in a sense attribute to Luciferic influence. But whereas the first man is a man doomed to destruction, destined solely for time, it is the part of the other man to save human nature for eternity, for duration, to carry over something human into a future existence. The man of nerves and muscle and bone has the task of carrying over what man experiences on earth. And so you see in reality man fell down from his spiritual height when he became the first man—the man of senses, glands and digestion—and is gradually working his way up into spiritual existence through having received as a counterpoise the second man—the man of nerve, muscle and bone. But now the strange thing is that this excretion of Intuitive, Inspirational and Imaginative substance could not take place in any other way than through the material processes, being processes of destruction. If our nerves and muscles and bones were not perpetually decaying, if instead they were to remain as they are, then we should not be able to send out from us this spiritual substance. For it is only the destruction and decay in material existence that can give occasion for the spiritual to light up and burst into flame. And thus if our nerves and muscles and bones could not decay and finally be destroyed in death, then we should be condemned to be chained to this existence on the earth and not be able to partake in the further evolution that goes on into the future. The present would become hardened into stone for us, and there would be for us no evolution on into the future. Like two balancing forces—each holding the other in equipoise—are the forces that play in the one and in the other man within us.

And now, in between the two, as it were mediating between the two, we find a substance of which we have frequently spoken in our more general lectures but to which we have as yet made little allusion in this connection. Between the two stands the blood—which is in this connection also a “special fluid.” For as we have seen, all that we have learnt to know as nerve substance, etc., has only become so in those particular workings of force which were due to the action of the Luciferic influence. But in blood we have something which has directly undergone, as substance itself, the Luciferic influence. You will remember we saw how the manner in which physical body, etheric body and astral body work into one another would be different, had it not been for the Luciferic influence. But there we have to do in a certain respect with super-sensible things which only afterwards take up matter into themselves; which work upon matter with the Luciferic influence they had themselves first undergone, and make it what it is. The substance of nerve and muscle and bone owes its existence to the fact that certain bodies of man are irregularly put together. Upon the substances as such Lucifer has no influence; for these substances arise as the result of what he has done, they are there because he has displaced, disarranged, the bodies. Where Lucifer approached the human being he brought about a disarrangement as between the bodies. But upon the blood Lucifer works directly—upon the blood as matter, as substance. Blood is the one case—and therefore a “special fluid”—where in the material substance itself we have evidence that present-day man is not as he was really intended to be, is not as he would have been but for the Luciferic influence. For blood has become something quite different from what it should have been.

Again, you will say, a rather grotesque idea! But it is true. Recall what we said yesterday about the whole origin of matter. We said that matter arises when spiritual form comes to a kind of boundary or limit and there breaks and scatters; this pulverised form then shows itself as matter. That is the actual earthly matter. It really only occurs directly in this way in the mineral world, for the other substances are changed and modified through being taken hold of by other things that intervene. The substance of blood, however, as such, is a unique substance.

Blood substance was originally also destined to come first of all to a certain limit. Suppose you have here (a) purely spiritual form-rays of the blood substance, and here (b) its force is exhausted. Now according to the tendencies originally inherent in it, blood substance was not meant to be dispersed and sprayed into space, but here at the boundary (b) it was to become just very slightly material and then spray back into itself, spray directly back again into the spiritual. That is how the blood ought to have been. To put it rather crudely, blood ought only to have come so far as to form as it were a skin of substance, fine and slight, it ought only to have come to the point of beginning to be material. It should be forever shooting out of the spiritual for a moment, becoming matter just to the extent of being materially perceptible, then again shooting back into the spiritual and being received up again into it. A perpetual surging forth from the spiritual and shooting back into it again—that is what blood should have been. Its inherent tendencies are directed to this end. Blood was designed to be a perpetual flashing up of light in the material. It was really intended to be something entirely spiritual. And it would have been so if men had at the beginning of earth evolution received their ego from the Spirits of Form alone; for then they would experience their ego through the resistance created by the momentary lighting up in the blood. In the lighting up in the blood man would experience the “I am”; it would be the organ for his ego perception. That would, however, be the one and only sense perception which man would have had at all; the others would not be there if everything had happened without the Luciferic influence. Man would have lived in union together with the ruling Will. The single sense perception that was designed for man was this—in the flash of blood substance and in the immediate rush back into the spiritual, to perceive his ego. Instead of beholding colours and hearing tones and perceiving tastes man ought really to live within the ruling Will; he ought to be, as it were, swimming in it. What was designed for him was that from out of the spiritual World-All, into which he would be placed as a pure Imagination, Inspiration and Intuition, he should gaze down upon a being on the earth or in the environs of the earth—not feeling to himself: “I am in that being,” but: “I gaze down there—it belongs to me—the spiritual blood becomes for one moment material, and in what flashes up to me I perceive my I.” The one and only sense perception which should have come is the perception of the I or ego, and the one and only substance which was intended for man in the material world is the blood in this form of momentary flashing up. So that if man had become like this, if he had remained the man of Paradise, he would look down from the World-All upon that which was destined to symbolise him on this earth and to give him the consciousness of I, namely, a purely spiritual being consisting of Imaginations, Inspirations and Intuitions, within which the I shoots up in the attempt to break through. And in this flash man would be able to say: “I am, for through me has come into being that which is of me down below.”

It is strange but it is a fact. Man was intended to live in the environment of the earth. Suppose a man were living here (a) in the environment of the earth, then it was intended he should him-self produce on the earth his reflection, and only through this reaction ray back again his ego, and then he would say: “There below is my sign.” It was not intended that man should carry round about with him his man of bones and his man of glands, etc.—still less that he should pronounce the grotesque verdict: “That is I.” It should have happened quite differently. Man should have lived in the environs of the earth planet, and sunk a sign and symbol into the earth in the flashing up of form in blood, and he should then have said to himself: “There I drive in my stake—my sign and my seal, which gives me the consciousness of my ego. For what I have become, in that I have passed through Saturn existence and through Sun and through Moon existence—with that I can hover here outside in the World-All. It is the ego I must now add; and the ego I perceive by inscribing myself in the earth below, so that I can always read in the flashing of the blood what I am.” We were, therefore, not originally intended to walk the earth in bodies of flesh and bone as we do, but to circle around the earth and make records, as it were, down below from which we might recognise and know that we are that—that we are an ego. Whoever overlooks this fact has no true knowledge of the nature of man.

Then came Lucifer and brought it about for man that he should have not merely his ego for sense perception, but that he should feel his astral body, too, as his ego, all that he had acquired on the Moon as astral body—thinking, feeling and willing. The ego was thus no longer pure, something else was mixed with it; and this led to the necessity for man to fall down into matter. The expulsion from Paradise is the fall into matter. And immediately there followed the change in man's blood. For now instead of flashing up for a moment and then being received back again into spirituality, the blood becomes real blood substance; it drives right through and spurts up as blood substance. It receives the tendency to be as we know it to-day. And so this blood substance, which by rights should return into the spiritual in the very moment when it becomes material, now gushes up into the rest of man and fills his whole organisation, undergoing modification in accordance with the various forces in man. According, for example, as it penetrates into a preponderance of physical over etheric body or of etheric body over astral body, and so on, the blood turns into nerve substance, muscle substance, etc. Thus Lucifer compels blood to a greater materiality. Whereas blood has been designed to shoot up and immediately disappear again, Lucifer brought it into a coarse materiality. That is the one direct deed that Lucifer has performed in matter itself. He made blood into matter, whereas with other things he at least only brought disorder among them. Were it not for Lucifer blood would not be as it is at all, it would instead exist in a spirituality which comes only to the edge of materiality, only to the status nascendi, and then at once returns. Blood as matter is the creation of Lucifer, and since man has in blood a physical expression of the ego, man's ego is bound up here on earth with a creation of Lucifer.

And since again Ahriman is only able to approach man because Lucifer is there before him, we can say: Blood is what Lucifer has thrown down for Ahriman to catch. So that both have now an approach to man. Can we wonder that an ancient primal feeling makes Lucifer-Ahriman look upon blood as his earthly property? Can we wonder that he has his contracts written in blood, or that he attaches great value to Faust's signing the contract with his blood? For blood belongs entirely to Lucifer. Everything else holds in it something divine; with nothing else is he quite at home, even ink is for Lucifer more divine than blood; blood is precisely his element.

We see, then, that man has these two beings in him, the man of senses, glands and digestion, and the man of nerve, muscle and bone. The corresponding forces of both are charged with a coarse materiality, and both are supplied with blood, in the form it has assumed through the action of the Luciferic influence. For it is quite obvious, is it not, even to external science, that man, in so far as he is a material being, is entirely a product of his blood. Everything in man that is material is nourished out of blood, it is really all transformed blood; from the point of view of matter, bones, nerves, muscles, glands are all of them nothing else than transformed blood. Man is actually blood, and as such he is a walking Lucifer-Ahriman. He carries Lucifer-Ahriman round with him all the time. It is by virtue of what is behind matter, and is poured into matter through the blood, that man belongs to the divine world and to a forward-moving evolution, not to an evolution that is a mere relic of the past. Lucifer—and Ahriman, too—came into our world through remaining behind at particular stages of evolution.

Bearing in mind all we have said, we can see quite clearly how at the very beginning of earth evolution men had something in common, something that united them. They had from the first in their blood something that was common to them all. For if the blood had remained as it was designed to be for man it would have been a pure emanation of the Spirits of Form. In the blood the Spirits of Form would live in us. These Spirits of Form are, as most of you know, my dear friends, none other than the seven Elohim of the Bible. Remember all that was said in the Munich cycle of lectures on Genesis (The Biblical Secrets of Creation), and you will see that if man had kept his blood in the state it originally was to have had, he would feel in him the seven Elohim; that is to say, he would feel his ego in him as seven-membered. One of its members would be the chief and would correspond to Jahve or Jehovah, and the other six would, to begin with, be subordinate for man. This seven-foldness that man would feel in his ego, as it were, a surging up within him of each of the seven Elohim or Spirits of Form, would have produced originally and spontaneously in him the sevenfold nature that we now have to acquire with so great toil and trouble. Because his blood has been tainted by Lucifer, therefore man has to wait so long; he has to wait until he has sent forth sufficient outstreamings of Intuitive and Inspired and Imaginative substance from nerves, muscles and bones for him to be ripe to receive once again this sevenfold nature into himself. As yet we have only come so far as to count up in an abstract manner as follows: the nature of man as it plays into the ego from physical body, and from etheric body, as it plays in from astral body, and from the very self of man—Jahve or Jehovah—and from Manas or Spirit Self; the nature of man as it plays in from Budhi or Life Spirit, and from Atma or Spirit Man. But man would never have been able to effect this specific darkening of the six other members and this outstanding illumination of the one, the ego, had not authority been given to Lucifer to interfere in the course of evolution. The real cause why at the beginning of earth evolution the other members suffered a darkening, while the ego grew particularly bright and was made to shine with a light-filled ego-ness—was that the ego was hurried into dense matter, so that it was able to come to a clear consciousness of its individuality, of its particular single individuality, whereas it would otherwise all along have felt its sevenfoldness.

Thus we see on the one hand that if man's blood had remained as it was he would have come to an ego that would from the outset have had a sevenfold character. Through Lucifer having been given him, man has come, however, to an ego that is single and unitary in character, he has come to feel and know his ego as the centre of his being. We can, therefore, understand how the blood in its originally intended form contains something that could work in a social direction, that could bring men together, so that they might feel themselves to be one common race of humanity. This would have been so if the seven Elohim had come to revelation in the human egos, as it was intended they should in the beginning. Lucifer's gift to man has meant that man feels himself as a particular individuality and cuts himself off in his self-dependence from the common race of mankind. The world process takes its course on earth in such a way that through the working of Lucifer man is inclined to become more and more independent, whilst through the working of the seven Elohim he is inclined more and more to feel himself a member and part of the whole of humanity.

What result this has on morality and on the whole life of man in his evolution—of this we will speak tomorrow.

Anyone not sufficiently prepared may well have found it very strange, in yesterday's lecture, to hear the name of the Father Spirit of the world linked with the name of death. You must not forget, however, what was said at the same time: that the form in which death appears to men in the physical world is not its true form, and that therefore the outer sense world, which appears to be inevitably subject to death, is for this very reason not the true expression of what really underlies it, of the divine-spiritual Being at its root. This is really equivalent to saying that man suffers from an illusion, a monstrous deception, a maya, concerning all that is spread out around him in space for his senses to perceive. Could he recognize the true form he would not perceive the sense image but would discern the spirit. Could he recognize death in its real aspect he would see in death the form this sense world would have if it were to be the true expression of the divine Father Spirit.

In order that this earth-world of ours might come into being at all, an earlier, supra-terrestrial world had to condense into physical matter, into physical substance as we know it. In this way the outer world could become the expression of a divine-spiritual world, a divine-spiritual world which thus embraced something like creations apart from the outside proper. All previous forms of our cosmic existence manifested themselves as being contained more or less within the divine Being. On the old Saturn there existed, as yet, nothing of our air, our water, our earth—that is, our solid bodies: Saturn was a body consisting exclusively of warmth—a warmth-filled space—and all the beings it harbored still dwelt in the bosom of the divine Father Spirit. And so it was too on the old Sun, although its condensation had advanced to the gaseous state: this air planet, the old Sun, contained all its creatures within itself, and that means, within the divine-spiritual Being. Even on the old Moon this condition prevailed.

It was on the Earth, however, that creation emerged for the first time from the womb of the divine-spiritual Nature and began to exist alongside of it. But in this new element that arose and henceforth appeared side by side with the divine-spiritual Being—even constituting the habiliment, the envelope, the physical corporeality of man—all the retarded spirits gradually ensconced themselves; and this meant that it became a creation different from what it should have been as an image of the divine-spiritual Being. Having borne within itself all creatures—our present mineral, plant, animal, and human kingdoms—the divine spiritual Being sent them forth, as it were, spread them out like a carpet; and that was then the image of the divine-spiritual Being. And that is the way it should have remained. But into it there crept the retarded element that had previously been expelled by the divine-spiritual Being, became interwoven with it; and this in a way dimmed the luster of creation: its value was rendered less than it would otherwise have been.

This dimming commenced in the age in which the moon split off from the earth, the age of which we have said that if nothing else had occurred, and if the moon had not been cast out, the earth would have become waste even at that time. But man was to be fostered in such a way as to enable him to achieve his independence. and this called for embodiment in earthly-physical matter. Beginning with the Lemurian age, then down through the Atlantean time, he had to be led to an ever-increasing ability to incarnate in some physical-sensible substance. But this substance now contained all the retarded beings, so that man could incarnate only in bodily sheaths inhabited by such beings.

In the Atlantean age there existed certain beings that were companions of the human beings. At that time man himself, as we know, was embodied in a soft substance, and what today is his flesh was not at all as it is at present. The man of old Atlantis, where the air was wholly permeated by dense, heavy, aqueous vapor, and where human beings were water beings, was constituted like certain present-day jellyfish of the sea, scarcely distinguishable from the surrounding water. Potentially all his organs were present, but they solidified only gradually—his bones, and so forth. The more tenuous material predisposition for the organs was there, but these hardened only in the course of time. In the early Atlantean period, then, there existed beings who in a sense were still men's companions, in so far as man was clairvoyant and could discern even those beings who had really established their habitation on the sun, but who streamed toward him in the sun's rays. For not only did physical sunlight come to man, but in this physical sunlight he saw beings approaching him; and when in a state comparable to sleep, he could say, Now I am outside my body in the sphere where sun beings dwell.

But then came the time, toward the middle and last third of the Atlantean age, in which the earth condensed more and more into its physical substance, and the impulse arose in man to develop his self-consciousness. Thenceforth there were no longer any such beings for men to see, for these had to withdraw from the earth, to cease revealing themselves to men's earthly sight. It was with cumulative force that human beings felt themselves drawn down into dense matter by the Luciferic influence; and in this way it became possible for a being, whom we must term Lucifer, to take possession of the human astral body to such an extent that man inevitably sank ever deeper into a dense physical body. But at the same time beings who had formerly been his companions rose ever higher, refusing to have anything to do with the retarded beings: they broke away from them. While the Luciferic beings invaded the human astral body, the higher beings cast them down, saying, in effect, Ye shall not rise with us: get on below as best ye can!

One of these higher beings is represented in Michael, who cast the Luciferic beings into the abyss and assigned the earth to them as their sphere of action; and it was within the astral body of man that they sought to exercise their influence. “Heaven” was no longer the habitation of these beings: they had been cast down to earth by the beings now to be found above. All evil, however, all harm, has its good side and its place in cosmic wisdom. Thus it was inevitable that these beings had to remain behind in evolution if they were to drag man down into physical matter, where alone he could learn to address himself as “I”, to develop his self-consciousness. Without being enmeshed in maya he never could learn this. But on the other hand, he would have perished in illusion if illusion and its powers—Lucifer-Ahriman—had succeeded in holding him permanently.

I must now express certain thoughts which I beg you to listen to with all possible circumspection; for only by further developing them and by taking them literally—though not in the literal sense of a materialistically minded person—can they be rightly understood.

What was the aim and intention of the Luciferic-Ahrimanic beings concerning the physical world? What did they want to bring about in all the beings now dwelling in the world, beings whom they were able to influence after they had united with human evolution in the Atlantean time? These beings, Lucifer-Ahriman, intended nothing less than to keep all earth beings in the form of dense, physical matter in which they are enmeshed. For example: when a plant grows forth from its root, sprouts leaf after leaf, and finally produces the blossom, it is Lucifer-Ahriman's purpose to foster this growth and expansion indefinitely; that is, to make this growing being resemble the physical form it inhabits, to preserve it as it is, thereby snatching it from the spiritual world. For were they to succeed in making this being of the spiritual world resemble the physical form, they would be wresting heaven from the earth, so to speak. In the animal kingdom as well the Luciferic-Ahrimanic beings have the tendency to make all animals resemble the body in which they live, and to cause them, within their material substance, to forget their divine-spiritual origin. And it is the same in the case of the human being.

In order to prevent this, the divine-spiritual Father spoke: In their culmination, in man, the beings of earth have attained to external knowledge in their ego; but we cannot yet entrust them with life.—For life would in that case take a course in which the beings would be torn from their divine-spiritual root in this life: the human being would become an integral part of the physical body and would for all time forget his divine-spiritual origin. Only by bestowing the boon of death upon all things attracted into matter could the divine Father Spirit rescue the memory of divine origin. Thus it became possible for the growing plant to shoot upward until the impulse of fructification entered, and then for its form to wither and a new one to spring from its seed. But in entering the seed state, the plant is for a moment in the divine-spiritual world, and the divine-spiritual world refreshes it. And all this applies pre-eminently to the human being. He would be banished and chained to the earth and would forget his divine-spiritual origin were not death spread over the earth—were he not provided with ever-fresh sources of strength between death and a new birth—in order that he may not forget his divine-spiritual origin.

Death? Yes, where indeed is death to be found on the earth? Let us enquire of some plant being that delights us. There we have a being that gladdens our eyes with its glorious blossoms—and within a few months it is no longer there: death has claimed it. Or take an animal—perhaps one that has been faithful to us, or any other animal: in a short time it will be gone, taken by death. Consider the human being as he is placed in the physical world: after a certain span death will come to him, he will no longer be; for if he continued to be here he would forget his divine-spiritual origin. Think of a mountain: the time will come when the volcanic action of our earth will have engulfed it; death passes over it. Seek as you will, nothing is to be found that is not interwoven with death. Everything on earth is steeped in death.

Thus death is the benefactor that snatches man out of a domain which would wholly estrange him from the divine-spiritual world. Yet it was necessary for him to come into this physical world of sense, for only there could he achieve his self-consciousness, his human egoity. Were he to keep passing through death without the capacity for taking something along from this realm of death, he would be able, to be sure, to return to the divine-spiritual world, but without consciousness, without egoity; whereas he must enter the divine-spiritual world possessed of his egoity. That is why he must be able to fructify the earthly realm, the realm wholly permeated by death, in such a way that death becomes the seed of an ego principle in the eternal realm, the spiritual realm.

But this possibility of transforming death, which would otherwise mean annihilation, into the seed of eternal egoity was provided by the Christ impulse. On Golgotha the true aspect of death was manifested to all mankind for the first time; and as a result of Christ's having espoused death—Christ, image of the Father Spirit, Son of the Father Spirit—death became the well-spring of a new life—and, as we learned yesterday, of a new sun. And now that man has achieved an ego for all eternity, everything that formerly existed as his apprenticeship can henceforth vanish, and he can advance into the future with his rescued ego principle which will more and more be fashioned after the ego principle in Christ.

As an illustration of what has just been set forth, let us take a seven-armed candelabrum and light it step by step, and let us consider the first flame of its sevenfold unity a symbol of the first phase of human evolution, the Saturn phase. Every evolution proceeds in seven subdivisions, so in the first flame we see a symbol of the forces that flowed into man during the Saturn period. Passing to the second flame of this sevenfold candelabrum we have the symbol of the forces that came to man during the Sun phase. In like manner we can see in the third unit the forces from the Moon, and in the fourth, the symbol of everything that streamed into man from the Earth evolution. Now let us imagine the middle light as burning brightly, while the next three are but very dim. The middle light represents the time when Christ entered evolution; and never could the remaining candles be kindled, never could the next evolutionary epochs come about, had not the Christ impulse intervened in the evolution of mankind—indeed, they are still dark today.

If we were now to represent future evolution in the same symbolical way we should have to do it thus: as the light following the middle one kindles and increases in luster, the first one must be gradually extinguished; with the lighting of the next one, the second would die away; and so forth—for here is the beginning of a new Sun evolution. And when all the last lights are burning it is fitting that the first three be extinguished, because their fruits have flowed into the last three, have passed over into the future.—There you have a picture of past evolution which received its forces from the Father Spirit. Had the Father Spirit held to this course, all the lights would have gradually faded out, by reason of the interference of Lucifer-Ahriman. But the coming of the Christ impulse kindled a new light—and a cosmic sun begins its course.

Yes, it was inevitable that death should form part of all nature being, because this is interpenetrated by Lucifer-Ahriman. On the other hand, mankind would never have achieved its independence without Lucifer-Ahriman; yet through Lucifer-Ahriman alone this independence would have expanded to such an extent that in the end it would have led to the forgetting of our divine-spiritual origin. For this reason death had to become an ingredient even of our physical body: we would never be able to carry our ego principle over into eternity if its outer expression, which is our blood, had not been permeated by death.

We have within us the blood of life—the red blood stream; and we have the blood of death—the blue blood. In order to provide life for our egoity, the life that flows in the red blood must at every moment be destroyed in the blue blood. Were it not so destroyed man would be so deeply submerged in life that he would forget his divine-spiritual origin. Western esotericism has a symbol for these two kinds of blood: two pillars, a red one and blue one. The one symbolizes a life flowing from the Father Spirit, but in a form suggesting the tendency to lose itself; and the other represents the annihilation of the former. Death is the stronger, the more powerful of the two: it is the factor that brings about the destruction of that which otherwise would lose itself inwardly. But the destruction of what would otherwise lose itself means a call to resurrection.

Thus you see how an adequate interpretation of the John Gospel provides insight into the meaning of all life. What we have learned yesterday and today amounts simply to this: at that point of time which our Christian reckoning designates the new “Year 1” there occurred something of the most profound significance for the entire Earth evolution and, in as far as cosmic evolution is connected with the earth, for cosmic evolution as well. It can be said that with the event of Golgotha a new center was created: ever since then the Christ Spirit has been united with the earth. It had long been gradually approaching, but since that time it has been within the earth; and now men's task is to learn to grasp this fact: that since the Golgotha event the Christ Spirit has been in the earth and in everything it brings forth. Human beings must also learn that failure to recognize the Christ Spirit in all things means seeing them from the aspect of death, whereas finding the Christ Spirit in them means understanding them from the vantage point of life.

We are only at the beginning of the evolution that is specifically Christian. The form it will take in the future is of such import that men will see in the whole earth the body of Christ. For Christ has entered the earth and has therein created a new light center; He permeates the earth, shines forth into the world, and is for all time interwoven with the earth's aura. So if today we see the earth devoid of its underlying Christ Spirit, we see what is decaying, rotting—its decomposing corpse. Split it up as we may into minute particles, unless we understand the Christ, we see but the disintegrating corpse. Wherever we see only matter, we see what is not true.

You do not find the truth by studying man as a being of this earth, for you will be studying only his disintegrating corpse; and if you study this corpse you can be consistent in estimating the elements of the earth only by regarding the latter as composed of material atoms, regardless of whether these are spatially extended or whether they form force centers—that is immaterial. If we see atoms of which our earth is supposed to consist we see the earth's corpse, we see that which is constantly disintegrating and which in time will no longer exist when the earth no longer exists—and the earth is in a process of dissolution. We shall see things in their true light only if we discern in every atom something of the Christ Spirit that has imbued it since the time we speak of. Of what has the earth consisted since the Christ Spirit permeated it? Of life—right down to the atom. No atom has any value, nor can it be understood, except as you see in it a sheath encompassing spirit; and this spiritual element is a part of the Christ.

And now, consider anything whatever that pertains to the earth: when do you understand it aright? When you say, That is a part of the body of Christ. What was Christ able to say to those who would learn to understand Him? As He broke the bread made of the grain of the earth He could say,

This is my body.

And what could He say to them as he gave them the juice of the grape—the sap of a plant?

This is my blood.

Because He had become the soul of the earth He could say of the solid substance, “This is my body,” and of the plant's fluid, “This is my blood”—just as you say of your body, This is my body, and of your blood, This is my blood. And those who are able to grasp the true meaning of these words of Christ create for themselves thought images that attract the body and the blood of Christ in the bread and the wine, and they unite with the Christ Spirit.

In this way our symbol of the Lord's Supper becomes a reality. Lacking in our hearts the thought that unites us with Christ we cannot engender the force of attraction that draws the Christ Spirit to us at Holy Communion; but by means of such a thought form the attraction is generated. For those, then, who need the outer symbol in order to perform the spiritual act—that is, to unite with the Christ—Communion will be the way until such time as their inner strength will have so grown, and they are so permeated by the Christ, that they can dispense with the outer physical agency. The Sacrament of Communion is the preparation for the mystical union with the Christ, the preparatory schooling. That is the light in which we must see these things. And just as everything evolves from matter upward toward spirit under the Christian influence, so those things which existed primarily as a bridge must then grow and develop under the influence of Christ. The Sacrament of Communion must rise from the physical to the spiritual plane if it is to lead to a true union with the Christ.—One can do no more than hint at such matters, for only if they are received with a full sense of their sacred nature will they be rightly understood.

To recognize that through the event of Golgotha Christ entered the earth—this was a task set mankind. Men were to realize it more and more, and to become increasingly permeated by it. But this called for mediators; and one of the first great ones was he who had been Saul and became Paul. How far could Saul's knowledge extend, considering that he was a Jewish initiate? We can express it somewhat as follows: he could know what was contained in the Hebrew teachings. He knew that what Zarathustra had seen as Ahura Mazdo and what Moses had beheld as Ehjeh asher ehjehas Jahve or Jehova—in the burning bush and in the thunder and lightning on Sinai—he knew that this had come nearer the earth, had approached, and would one day occupy a human body, and that in this human body it would effect a rejuvenation of the earth. On the other hand, he was influenced by the views of his time and by Jewish law. He had witnessed the event of Golgotha but was unable to admit that He Who had died on the Cross was the Bearer of the Christ. None of the events he had heard of or experienced could convince him that He Who was expected, according to the Jewish initiation, had been incarnated in Jesus of Nazareth.

Now, what would Saul have to experience to be convinced that the immortal Christ Spirit had really been present in the dying body of Jesus of Nazareth on Golgotha? From his Hebrew initiation he knew that after the Christ Spirit had dwelt in a human body and this human body had died, the Christ must be present in the earth's aura; hence it should be possible for the Christ to become visible to one able to see into the earth's aura with the eyes of the spirit. That he knew; but hitherto he had not achieved the capacity for seeing into the earth's aura. He was an initiate in wisdom, but not a clairvoyant. He did, however, possess the prerequisite for becoming clairvoyant in an abnormal manner, and he himself mentions this. He refers to it as “grace,” bestowed upon him from above; and he tells us that he was born prematurely—usually translated “out of due time.” He was not carried the full time in the maternal womb, but descended from the spiritual to the physical world before being wholly immersed in all the elements of earthly existence; that is, he came into the world before the moment when ordinarily the unconscious ties which bind men to the spiritual powers are broken. The vision on the road to Damascus was made possible for one whose spiritual eyes had been opened through the agency of an untimely birth. His spiritual vision having been bestowed upon him as a consequence of his premature birth, he now gazed into the earth's aura and there beheld the Christ. Therefore the span of time during which this Christ had walked the earth must have already lapsed. Here was proof that it was Christ Who had died on the Cross; for He Who, Paul knew, was to conquer death on the earth had appeared to him as a spiritual living being. Now he knew the meaning of the event of Golgotha: he knew that Christ was risen; for He Whom Paul had beheld could never before have been seen in the earth's aura. Now he understood the words:

It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.

What are the “pricks”? Paul himself tells us:

O death, where is thy sting?¹

In vain wouldst thou kick against the pricks, for thou wouldst recognize only death. But henceforth thou canst no longer kick against death, for thou hast seen Him Who conquered death.—In this way Paul became the apostle of Christianity who proclaimed most emphatically the living—the spiritually living—Christ.

What made it possible for the Christ to be seen in the earth's aura? The fact that in Christ Jesus—as in a primal impetus given earth evolution for the future—the etheric body was completely permeated by the Christ. The etheric body of Jesus of Nazareth could not be otherwise than wholly permeated by the Christ; and because this was so it exerted full mastery over the physical body, even to the extent of being able to restore the latter after its death; that is, it could appear in such a form as to contain again all that the physical body had embraced before death—but through the power of the etheric body. So when Christ was seen after His death, it was His etheric body was seen; but for those who were able, as a result of the strength imparted to them through the events in question, not only to recognize a physical-sensible body, but to see in an etheric body a real body with all the marks of a physical body—for such as these Christ was risen in reality. And in truth, He was.

We are further told in the Gospel that when a man has advanced to the stage in which his corruptible principle develops the incorruptible, he becomes endowed with higher vision; and we are also told that those who had already achieved this higher vision as a result of self-development could see the Christ and know Him as such. That is told us clearly enough, but people lack the will really to read what it actually says in the Gospel. Take, for example, the first appearance of Christ after death. We read:

But Mary stood without at the sepulchre weeping: and as she wept, she stooped down, and looked into the sepulchre,

And seeth two angels in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. And they say unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? She saith unto them, Because they have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid him.

And when she had thus said, she turned herself back, and saw Jesus standing, and knew not that it was Jesus.

Jesus saith unto her, Woman, why weepest thou? Whom seekest thou? She, supposing him to be the gardener, saith unto him, Sir, if thou have borne him hence, tell me where thou hast laid him, and I will take him away.

Jesus saith unto her, Mary. She turned herself, and saith unto him, Rabboni; which is to say, Master.

Now, imagine you meet someone whom you had seen but a few days before: can you believe yourself incapable of recognizing him? Can you imagine asking him whether he is the gardener, and where they had laid him—when he himself was the man you saw before you? But that is exactly what you would have to impute to Mary—or to her who is here called Mary—were you to assume that every physical eye could have recognized Christ and seen Him as previously the physical eye had seen Him. Read the Gospels with their spirit in mind!—No, the sacred power of words had first to penetrate the woman as a force: that was essential. Then the words echoed in her heart and rekindled all that she had witnessed. That was what gave her the spiritual vision to see Him Who was risen from the dead.

And does not Paul tell us the same thing? In the case of Paul it cannot be doubted that, with spiritual vision, he saw Christ on the spiritual plane, in the aura of the earth; and as proof that Christ lived he affirms that Christ had appeared. Then, as appearances of equal importance, he mentions first:

... that he was seen of Cephas, then of the twelve: After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethern at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.

After that, he was seen of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.

For I am the least of the apostles, that I am not meet to be called an apostle.

Paul placed the vision of others entirely on a par with his own, which was made possible by his spiritual sight; hence he says literally:

In like manner as I have seen the Christ, so has he been seen by the others also.

Their experiences, says Paul, engendered in them the power to see Christ as one arisen from the dead. Now we understand what Paul means, and his viewpoint is at once recognizable as the anthroposophic-spiritual viewpoint; for it tells us that there is a spiritual world, and if we contemplate it by means of the impulse given us through the power of Christ, we shall penetrate it in such a way as to find there the Christ Himself, Christ Who had passed through the event of Golgotha. That is the meaning of what Paul tells us. And it is possible for the human being—especially through what is known as Christian initiation—with patience and endurance gradually to become a successor to Paul, so to speak; to acquire for himself the faculties that will enable him to see into the spiritual world and spiritually to behold the Christ face to face.

In other lectures I have repeatedly set forth the first steps leading to a vision of the Christ Being Himself: the aspirant must live over again what is delineated for us in the Gospel of St. John. I will now merely indicate in briefest outline, in this connection, how man—if he resolves to pass through a certain gamut of feelings—can rise to the spiritual world in which, since the event of Golgotha, there shines the light of Christ.

We begin by saying to ourself, I observe the plant. It grows out of the mineral soil, grows and flowers. But if it could develop consciousness, as does man, it would have to bend down to the soil of the earth, the mineral kingdom from which it grows, and say, Among the present beings of nature thou stone art a lower being than I; but without thee, lower kingdom, I could not subsist.—Similarly, were the animal able to sense the plant as the indispensable condition of its existence, it would have to confess, I, as an animal, am a higher being than thou, the plant; but without thee I should perish. Humbly it would have to bow down to the plant and say, To thee, a lower being, I owe my existence.—And in the kingdom of man it should be thus: Everyone who has reached a given rung of the ladder should look upon those who in a spiritual sense stand beneath him, and say, True, ye belong to a lower world; but as the plant must bow before the mineral, and the animal before the plant, so should I who stand on a higher rung say: To thee, a humbler one, I owe my existence.—Then, when for weeks and months—possibly years under the guidance of the right teacher—a man has completely immersed himself in such feelings of universal humility, he will know the meaning of the Washing of the Feet. He will have a direct spiritual vision of what Christ, as the higher Being, did in bending down to the Twelve and washing their feet. The whole significance of this event dawns on the disciple like a vision, and he knows that it took place. His enlightenment is such as to demand no further proof: he now gazes directly into the spiritual world and beholds Christ in the scene in question.

Then, stimulated by the teacher, this man can gain the strength to say, I shall courageously endure whatever sorrow and suffering this world may bring, and shall not complain. I shall steel myself to the point at which these no longer mean suffering and sorrow for me, because I shall know them for necessities in the world.—And when he has become sufficiently stanch of soul, there springs from this contemplation the feeling of the Scourging: spiritually he feels it taking place in himself. And this opens his spiritual vision, enabling him to see for himself the Scourging as it is described in the Gospel of St. John.

Then the pupil is shown how to develop the strength for the next step, where he is able not only to bear sorrow and suffering at the hands of all mankind, but to say: I possess something so sacred that I stake my whole being on it. Should all the world overwhelm me with scorn and mockery, this remains holiest for me. No derision or disdain will keep me from cherishing it, though I stand alone. I profess it, and shall defend it.—Then he experiences spiritually within him the Crowning with Thorns; and without the aid of any historical document his spiritual vision transmits to him this scene as described in the Gospel of St. John.

Then, when through proper guidance he has learned to regard his physical existence in quite a new light, to think of his own body as something external—when it has become a matter of course to feel and sense that he carries his physical body about with him as a material instrument—then he has reached the fourth stage of Christian initiation, the Bearing of the Cross. This has by no means made a frail ascetic of him: on the contrary, he learns to employ his physical instrument far more effectively than theretofore. When you have learned to regard your body as something you carry, you have arrived at the fourth stage of Christian initiation, the Bearing of the Cross; and therewith you have attained to the enlightenment that enables you to see spiritually the scene in which Christ bears His Cross on His back, just as you have learned by the elevation of your soul to carry your body as you might a piece of wood.

Now something occurs which is to be regarded as the fifth stage of Christian initiation: it is called the “mystical death”. Here, as a consequence of the inner maturity we have gained, everything that surrounds us—the whole physical world of the senses—appears to be extinguished: we are in darkness. And then comes a moment when this darkness is torn apart like a curtain, and we see behind this physical world into the spiritual world. At the same moment, however, something else occurs as well: we have learned to recognize sin and evil in their true forms; that is, in this stage we have learned the meaning of the Descent into Hell.

In the next stage we learn not only to regard our body as something alien, but also to feel everything else as being as much a part of us as our body, to look upon everything on earth as pertaining to us, as was a matter of course in ancient clairvoyance; and, inasmuch as we all belong to one great organism, we further learn to regard the suffering of others as our own. Then, in proportion to our understanding of this, we are united with the earth, and we experience the act of being laid in the earth, the Burial. And by being united with the earth we are also risen out of it; for this experience has given us the first insight into the meaning of the words, “The earth is in the process of becoming a new sun.”

The attainment of the fourth, fifth, and sixth stages of Christian initiation enables us to see for ourselves the event of Golgotha, to merge with it. We no longer need documents: these served merely as rungs of the ladder.

Finally there is the seventh stage, known as the Ascension—in other words, the awakening in the spiritual world. It is rightly said of this stage that it cannot be expressed in any words of human language, that it can be imagined only by one who has learned to think without the instrumentality of the brain. The miracles of resurrection can be thought only when the physical brain is no longer needed as an instrument.

By reason of having had their spiritual eyes opened and of thus being able to see what took place, those who were present as believers when the event of Golgotha occurred could have seen the Christ in the way I have indicated—that is, if He had manifested Himself to their spiritual sight in the earth's aura. But even had Christ always retained, in a certain sense, the same form He had assumed at that time, the faithful would not have been able to see Him had He—the Christ—not achieved something for Himself as well—by conquering death.

This brings us to a concept which is indeed difficult to grasp. The human being continues to learn incessantly as he develops his capacities, at whatever stage he finds himself. Not only man, however, but every being, from the humblest to the most exalted divine being, learns while developing farther and farther. What Christ did as a divine Being in the body of Jesus of Nazareth we have thus far described with reference to its fruits and its effect on mankind. But now we must ask, did Christ thereby also experience something within Himself that led Him to a higher stage? And the answer is, He did. Even divine-spiritual beings can experience what leads them to more advanced stages; and what He experienced—His ascent into a world still more exalted than the one in which He had previously had His being—this He revealed in His Ascension to those who were His companions on the earth. That is why the first six stages of Christian initiation can be understood—though not perceived—by one who is neither an initiate nor a clairvoyant, but who lives in dependence, for his thinking, on the physical brain; whereas the seventh stage, the Ascension, can be comprehended only by the clairvoyant who is no longer bound to the instrumentality of his physical brain, who has experienced for himself what it means to think without the brain and to see without the brain.

That is the way in which these matters are interrelated; and such was the course of the world's development during the period we have been privileged to discuss in these fourteen lectures.

We have already learned what Christ indicated in healing the man who had been born blind, namely, that the sins he committed in a former life should now become manifest in him. What Christ did, then, was to teach the idea of reincarnation, in as far as people could understand it—karma, the extension of causes from one incarnation to another, that is what He taught; and He taught as one does with practical life in mind. What He meant was this: There will be a future time in which all men will recognize karma. They will understand that when a man does evil he need not be punished by an external, earthly power, for the evil he did inevitably entails its compensation in this or in some future incarnation. Then we shall only need to enter this deed in the great law book of the akashic record, inscribe it in the spiritual world. Then we human beings need not condemn him: then we can entrust the judging of his deeds to the spiritual laws, to be inscribed in the spiritual world: we can leave him to karma.

Jesus went unto the mount of Olives.

And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them.

And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.

Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned but what sayest thou?

This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down and with his finger wrote on the ground.

What was it He wrote? He inscribed the sin in the spiritual world, indicating that through the spiritual world the sin would find its compensation. The others, however, He reminded to ask themselves whether they were without sin; for only if they harbored nothing that called for compensation could they feel themselves to be in no way connected with the sin of this woman and therefore qualified to judge her. As it was, they had no way of knowing whether, in their previous life, they themselves might not have provided the cause of what had now come to this woman: they could not know whether in former lives they had induced what had now caused her to commit adultery; whether they themselves had committed the sin or laid its foundations in an earlier incarnation. All is inscribed in karma. Jesus wrote on the ground which He had already permeated with His spiritual light; that is, He confided to the earth what should be the karma of the adulteress. What He meant was: Follow the path which I now mark out for you. Learn not to judge, but to leave what is in man to karmic adjustment.—If we abide by this rule we will come to understand karma. Karma need not be taught as a dogma, for it is taught by facts. That was Christ's way of teaching.

Here we should pause to realize that such things could be written only by that one of Christ's pupils and disciples whom He himself had initiated: Lazarus-John. Hence it was this pupil alone who fully understood the power attained to by a Being Who, beginning with the Baptism, had gradually gained in His etheric body mastery over the physical body, to the extent of endowing the latter with ever new life. And for the same reason, this writer of the John. Gospel knew that it was possible to transform what appeared to be water—through its being received into the human organs—into wine. He understood how the power of the etheric body could be employed in such a way that a few fishes and loaves sufficed to satisfy the hunger of many. That is what the author of the John Gospel told us, if only we take the Gospel seriously. Does he say anywhere that the few loaves and fishes were eaten in the ordinary physical way? No, you will not find that in the Gospel. He says clearly and distinctly, as you will see by taking every word literally, that Christ broke the bread; but also, that He offered up thanks to heaven:

And Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks, he distributed to the disciples, and the disciples to them that were set down; and likewise of the fishes as much as they would.

The meaning of these words as they appear in the original text, which is poorly reproduced in translation, is about as follows: The disciples passed on the loaves and the fishes, letting each do with them what he would. But none desired anything whatever save to feel, at this moment, what emanated as a force from the mighty etheric body of Christ Jesus. No one had any other wish.

And by what means had their hunger been stilled? In the 23rd verse it says:

Howbeit there came other boats from Tiberias nigh unto the place where they did eat bread, after that the Lord had given thanks.²

p>It was through the agency of the prayer that the people had eaten the bread. They had eaten bread without the physical act having taken place. Hence Christ Jesus could later throw light on what had occurred by saying,

I am the bread of life.

What, then, had the people eaten? They had partaken of the power of Christ's body. And what could remain? Only the power of Christ's body; and the effect of this was so strong that there remained fragments to be gathered up.

According to occult teaching, every body consists of twelve members. The one uppermost is called the Ram; the adjacent one, the Bull; the one with the hands, the Twins; the chest is called the Crab; everything in the region of the heart is the Lion; below it—the trunk—is the Virgin; the hips, the Scales; below this, the Scorpion; and still farther down: the thigh, the Archer; the knee, the Goat; the lower leg, the Water-carrier; and the feet, the Fishes.

The human body, then, is divided into twelve members—and with good reason. Now, if the fragments were to be gathered up after the power of Christ's body had been used to satisfy hunger, they would have to be gathered in twelve measures.

Therefore they gathered them together, and filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves, which remained over and above unto them that had eaten.

It was not the barley loaves they had eaten: they had partaken of the power emanating from Christ; and they had been satisfied by the power that radiated from Christ through His thanksgiving when He appealed to the spheres from which He had descended. That is the sense in which we must understand the influence of the spiritual world on the physical world; and thus we can also understand the relation of the single incidents to the basic event, the evolution of our earth into a sun. They all take their place as mighty force-revealing events in the earth's process of becoming a sun. But it now becomes comprehensible that what communicated itself to the earth at that time as a mighty impulse can reach human beings only by slow degrees, that it can be infused into humanity but slowly and gradually.

As was indicated yesterday, the Gospel which in the beginning was best suited to convey the great truths to those able to receive them was St. Mark's Gospel. That was during the first centuries, when it was men's task to reconquer through their own efforts the realms from which they had strayed. Let us try to understand how man himself descended from divine-spiritual heights to the lowest point, which occurred when the intervention of Golgotha provided an impetus to man's return to an upward striving. This acted like a mighty impulse, drawing man aloft again. He had descended from divine-spiritual heights and had sunk ever deeper; then, having saturated himself with the newly born spiritual light, he received from the Christ impulse the strength gradually to recover all that he had once possessed. And this he would have to accomplish in the following manner: In the time immediately following the Christ event he had to regain what he had lost during the last pre-Christian centuries, and this could be done with the help of the Mark Gospel.

What he had lost in a still earlier time had to be recaptured in the succeeding period by means of a Gospel directing his attention more to his inner life, and this was the Gospel of St. Luke. But we have also said that six hundred years before the appearance of Christ on earth, everything of a spiritual nature which had been vouchsafed mankind in earlier centuries, and which had gradually been lost, was gathered together in the great being of Buddha. At that time, six centuries before Christ, the Buddha being lived, epitomizing everything that existed in the way of primeval wisdom—all that mankind had lost and that Buddha had come to proclaim. Hence it is narrated that when Buddha came into the world his birth had been foretold by his mother Maya. We are further told of one who had prophesied of the child that it would become a Buddha, the Redeemer, the Guide to immortality, freedom, and light. And there is many a Buddha legend reporting that as a twelve-year-old boy Buddha had strayed from home, and that he was found again under a tree surrounded by the poets and sages of Antiquity, whom he taught. In my book, Christianity as Mystical Fact, you will find set forth how in the Luke Gospel, six hundred years later, there crop up again the same legends that were told of Buddha; how his revelations reappear in a new form. That is why we encounter in the Luke Gospel what was already contained in the Buddha legends. So perfect is the agreement in such matters when seen in the light of spiritual science!

This should lead us to realize that a document such as the Gospel of St. John, and the others that complement it, are of an infinite profundity which we have studied in a series of lectures; and if we could continue our lectures and make them twice as long, we could find ever new depths in the Gospels. Endless abundance would be disclosed could we extend the time indefinitely; and it would be borne in upon us that with the future development of mankind, still new and ever new depths in these documents will be fathomed. Truly, men will never exhaust their contents. There is nothing one has to read into them; we must merely prepare ourselves, by means of occult truths, to find out what they really contain. Then the whole universal complex of mankind, as well as the relation of this complex to the cosmos, will reveal itself to us; and we shall come to see ever deeper into the spiritual world.

But having heard a lecture cycle of such a nature, it is essential to realize that we have not just acquired a store of knowledge, a sum of isolated truths. Though indispensable, that would be the lesser demand: it is simply a matter of its being impossible to arrive at the deeper goal without it. No, the special fruit that should ripen for us as a result of these studies is that everything we have received through our mind, if we let it sink into our heart, should become a deeply felt understanding of it all, should be transformed into emotions—even into impulses of the will. When all that we have understood and received through our mind comes to glow in our heart it becomes a force within us, a healing force for spirit, soul, and body. And then we shall contemplate this past fortnight as follows: We have been immersed in the life of spirit and have acquired a great deal in many ways. Our gain, however, has not been a mere matter of empty concepts and ideas, but rather, of truths, concepts, and ideas capable of springing from our soul as living forces in our feelings and in our sensibilities. And these feelings and sensibilities will remain for us: we can never lose them, and we shall carry them with us in the world. We have not merely learned something: we have become more alive through what we have learned.

If, in taking leave of this cycle, we make such feelings our very own, spiritual science will fill our life. It will not withdraw us from our ordinary life, but will become for us something like an image of the loftiest concept presented in these lectures. What was set forth is this: Death in the world was inevitable, but the view we hold of death is erroneous. Christ taught us the true view of death, whereby death becomes the seed of a higher life.

Out yonder, beyond the sphere of these lectures, life surges; everyday existence flows on and men live in it. Spiritual research detracts not from that life by an iota, robs it of nothing; but the view commonly held regarding it—before penetrating it with the eye of the spirit—is erroneous, and this error must come to signify life's illusion. This we must let perish in us; then the seed we have acquired by means of an illusion will blossom into a higher life. But only if we receive into ourselves the living, spiritual point of view can this come about: Far from making us ascetic in our lives, it is precisely thereby that we learn to know life in its true form, to master it in the right way, and to endow it with genuine fruitfulness. In proportion as we experience spiritual science itself in a Christian way we christianize life, and we experience that image of life which we have learned to see in death. As we adopt spiritual science as our way of thinking, in the same measure will we—not become estranged from life, but rather, discover in what way our view of this life is faulty. Then, strengthened by a true conception of it, we shall enter it as active workers. There will be no withdrawing from life, for we shall have gained power and strength from studies that lead us into the spiritual world.

If I have in some measure succeeded in so shaping these lectures that they may bear fruit in your lives, that they may contribute, even to a slight degree, to making you feel spiritual cognition as being an exaltation of life—living warmth in your feeling, thinking, and willing; in your working—then the light enkindled for us through our anthroposophical Weltanschauung can glow as the fire of life's ardor, as the fire of life itself. And if this fire proves at all strong enough to endure and burn on through life, I shall have achieved my aim in undertaking this series of lectures.

May these feelings live on in your hearts as a subject of inner meditation!

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• 1. TRANSLATOR'S NOTE:—The German translations of the New Testament employ the same word for “pricks” and “sting” (Stachel)
• 2. TRANSLATOR'S NOTE:—Luther appears to have understood this point better than did the authors of the King James version: in place of our “... after that the Lord had given thanks”, the German Gospel has the equivalent of “... through (or by means of) the Lord's thanksgiving” (... durch des Herrn Danksagung).

In our present civilization we need, above all, a new knowledge of Christ. This new Christ knowledge is to be gained increasingly through the effects upon us of the science of the spirit. Much, however, that today bears the official seal of Christianity is antagonistic to this new knowledge. It must come to be realized that a school of unselfishness is needed in our present culture. A renewing of responsibility, a deepening of man's moral life, can come only through a training in unselfishness, and under the conditions of the present age only those can go through this school who have won for themselves an understanding of real, all-pervading selflessness.

We can search through the entire evolution of the world without finding a deeper understanding of selflessness than that offered by Christ's appearance upon earth. To know Christ is to go through the school of unselfishness, and to become acquainted with all those incentives to human development that fall gently into our souls, warming and animating every unselfish inclination within us, arousing it from passive to active soul life.

Under the influence of materialism the natural unselfishness of mankind was lost to an extent that will be fully realized only in the distant future. But by contemplating the Mystery of Golgotha, by permeating our knowledge of it with all our feeling, we may acquire again, with our whole soul-being, an education in selflessness. We may say that what Christ did for earthly evolution was included in the fundamental impulse of selflessness, and what He may become for the conscious development of the human soul is the school of unselfishness. We shall best realize this if we consider the Mystery of Golgotha in its most inclusive connection.

This mystery, as we know it, took place once in the physical evolution of the earth. The Being whom we acknowledge as the Christ clothed Himself once in a human body, in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. But this act was preceded by three preparatory steps. Three times earlier something of a similar nature occurred, not as yet on earth but in the spiritual world, and we have in a sense, three Mysteries of Golgotha that had not yet been fulfilled upon the physical plane. Only the fourth took place in the physical realm, as related in the Gospels and in the Pauline Epistles. This greatest of earthly events was prepared for by three supramundane acts, one taking place in the old Lemurian period and two in the Atlantean. Although these three preparatory events occurred in the supramundane sphere, their power descended to the earth; we shall try to understand the effect of these forces upon human evolution.

In relation to our moral life, our understanding of the world, and in relation to all the activities of our consciousness soul, we must first become selfless. This is a duty of our present culture to the future. Mankind must become more and more selfless; therein lies the future of right living, and of all the deeds of love possible to earthly humanity. Our conscious life is and must be on its way to unselfishness. In a certain connection, essential unselfishness already exists in us, and it would be the greatest misfortune for earthly man if certain sections of his being were as self-seeking as he still is in his moral, intellectual and emotional life. If the same degree of selfishness could take over our senses, it would be a great misfortune because our senses now work in our bodies in a truly unselfish manner.

We have eyes in our body; through these eyes we see, but only because they are selfless and we do not feel them. We see things through them, but the eyes themselves are apart from our perception; it is the same with the other senses. Let us assume that our eyes were self-seeking. What would happen to men? We should approach the color blue, for example, and because our eyes would use up the color immediately within themselves instead of letting it pass through, we should feel a sort of suction in the eyes. If our eyes were as selfish as we are in our moral, intellectual and emotional life, and they wished to experience the effect of red in themselves, we should feel a sharp stab. If our eyes were self- seeking, all our impressions would give us sucking or stabbing pains. We should be painfully conscious that we have eyes. Today, however, humanity is aware of color and light without having to think of the seeing process. The eye is selflessly extinguished during perception. It is the same with the other senses.

In our senses unselfishness reigns, but they would never have reached this unselfishness if Lucifer, even in the old Lemurian age, had been left to his own devices. The spirit who said, as related in the Bible, “Your eyes shall be opened,” made it necessary to transfer man to a sphere of earthly life in which his eyes, if they had developed as they would have done under Lucifer's influence, would have become self-seeking. With every impression—and it would have been the same with the other senses—man would have cried out, “Oh, it stabs me here!” He would not have perceived red in his environment. Or he would have said, “Oh, something sucks in my eyes!” He would not have been aware of the color blue, but would have simply felt the suction. This danger to humanity was averted in the Lemurian age by a Being Who later, through the Mystery of Golgotha, incarnated in the body of Jesus of Nazareth. In this earlier age, however, He ensouled Himself—I cannot say incarnated—in one of the archangels.

While the earth was working through the Lemurian age, a Being living in spiritual heights became manifest—one might say, as a sort of prophecy of John's baptism—in an archangel who offered up his soul powers, and was thus permeated by the Christ. Through this means a force was released that acted within human evolution upon earth. Its effect was a quieting and harmonizing of our senses so that today we can use them and find them selfless. If we, understanding this, have become grateful to the world order, we shall say, looking back to these ancient times, that what makes it possible for us as sensory beings to enjoy without pain all the splendor of surrounding nature is Christ's first sacrifice. By ensouling Himself in an archangel He brought forth the power to avert the danger of the selfish senses in man. That was the first step leading to the Mystery of Golgotha.

The human being will gradually learn to develop this deep, significant and religious feeling when he is confronted with the beauty of nature, when he looks up at the starry heavens and at all that the sun illumines in the animal, mineral and vegetable kingdoms. He will learn to say, “That I am so placed in the world that I can look at it around me, my senses being instruments for the perception of its splendor rather than sources of pain, I owe to Christ's first sacrifice in preparation for the Mystery of Golgotha.” In perspective we see before us a time in which all observation and enjoyment of nature will be permeated by Christ; when men, refreshing themselves in an invigorating springtime, in the warmth of summer, or in any of the other delights of nature, will say to themselves, “In taking up all this beauty into ourselves, we must realize that it is not ourselves, but Christ within our senses Who enables us to experience it.”

In the first period of the Atlantean evolution selfishness tried—this time through Lucifer and Ahriman—to take possession of another part of the human organism; that is, the vital organs. With this in mind, let us consider what is intrinsic in our life-organism. What is its essential nature? You need only think what it is like when injured by organic disease. Then man begins to suffer from the self-seeking of heart, lungs, stomach or other organs, and the time comes when man knows that he has a heart or stomach, knows it by direct experience, because he has a pain. To be ill means that an organ has become selfish and is leading its own independent life within us. In ordinary normal conditions this is not the case. Then the single organs live selflessly within us. Our everyday constitution holds us up securely in the physical world only when we do not feel that we have stomach, lungs, etc., but have them without feeling them, when they do not demand our attention but remain unselfish servants of the body.

On some other occasion and at some other time we shall consider the reason why illness results from the selfishness of our organs. Today we will confine our discussion to normal conditions. Had it depended upon Lucifer and Ahriman, quite a different state would have existed as early as the Atlantean period. Every single human organ would have been self- seeking, and the results most extraordinary. Assume, for example, that the human being looked at a fruit or something else in the outer world that can be eaten, or that stands in some sort of relation to his vital organs. Someday these relations of the outer world with our organs will be the subject of genuine scientific study. If the other sciences allow themselves to be aligned with spiritual science, it will be known that when a human being gathers cherries from a tree and eats them, something enters with the cherries that is related to a particular organ; other fruits are related to other organs.

Everything that enters the human organism is in some way related to it. If Lucifer and Ahriman could have carried out their designs during the Atlantean period, then, when we picked cherries, for example, the related organ would have felt an inordinate greed. The human being would have felt, not the self-seeking organ only, but all the other organs also, striving against it with equal selfishness! Let us take a different case. Suppose something harmful were present, for while certain things in the world are related to humanity in a beneficial way, others affect it injuriously. Suppose someone were to approach a poisonous plant, or anything else harmful to this or that organ; he would then recognize that he was confronting something that gave a burnt out feeling to one of his organs.

Now let us consider not what we eat, but the air surrounding us. Every element of the atmosphere is related to our organs. If we had become what Lucifer and Ahriman intended and had been thrown upon our own resources, we should have been chased about the world by animal desires for what satisfied one organ or another, or by terrible disgust for all that was injurious. Just imagine how we could possibly develop ourselves in this world if we had such physical organs that we were tossed to and fro like a rubber ball, a plaything for every agreeable odor that we would run after, or were forced by nausea to flee from. That this did not happen, that our vital organs were subdued and harmonized resulted from the great event in the first Atlantean epoch when, in supramundane spheres, the second step was taken toward the Mystery of Golgotha. The Christ Being ensouled Himself again in an archangel, and what was accomplished by this deed shone down into the earth's atmosphere. Then that harmonizing and balancing of the vital organs took place that rendered them selfless.

In our connection with the outer world we should be continuously exposed to severe illnesses and we could not be at all healthy but for this second Christ event. We see in perspective for the future that the human being will acquire, when he is able to imbue himself with a true understanding of the spiritual world, a feeling of gratitude toward the spiritual beings upon whom humanity depends. He will say in true piety, “I realize that I am able to exist as a physical man with unselfish organs because not I alone have developed myself in the world, but Christ in me, Who has so conditioned my organs that I can be a man!” Thus we come to learn so to regard all that makes us human, fundamentally and in the most comprehensive sense, that we say, “Not I, but Christ in me.” In His three preparatory steps, taken before the actual Mystery of Golgotha, Christ provided for the complete evolution of humanity.

In the last part of the Atlantean period humanity faced a third danger. Thinking, feeling and willing were threatened with disorder through the entrance of selfishness. What would have been the result of this? Well, the human being would have intended this or that, and followed this or that impulse of will, while his thinking would have impelled him in quite a different direction, and his feeling in still another. It was necessary for human evolution that thinking, feeling and willing should become unselfish members of the united soul. Under the influence of Lucifer and Ahriman they could not have done this. Thought, feeling and will, becoming independently self-seeking, would have rent asunder the harmonious working of the Christ. In consequence, toward the end of the Atlantean evolution, the third Christ event occurred. Once more the Christ Being ensouled Himself in an archangel, and the power thus generated in the spiritual world made possible the harmonization of thinking, feeling and willing. Truly, as the rays of the physical sun must act upon earth to prevent the withering of plant life, so must the Sun Spirit be reflected upon earth from supramundane spheres as I have just explained.

What would have become of the human being without this third Christ event? As if by furies, he would have been seized by his unruly desires, by the activity of his will. He might have gone mad even though his self- seeking reason might have thought with scornful mockery about all that the raging will brought forth. This was averted by the third Christ event when Christ took for the third time the soul of an archangel as an outer vehicle.

Mankind has preserved some memory of how human passion and human thinking were harmonized at this period by forces that descended from supramundane worlds, but the sign of this memory is not rightly understood. St. George who conquers the dragon, or Michael who conquers the dragon, are symbols of the third Christ event, when Christ ensouled Himself in an archangel. It is the dragon, trodden under foot, that has brought thinking, feeling and willing into disorder. All who turn their gaze upon St. George or Michael with the dragon, or some similar episode, perceive, in reality, the third Christ event. The Greeks who in their wonderful mythology made copies of what happened in the spiritual world at the end of the Atlantean age, revered the Sun Spirit as the harmonizer of man's thinking, feeling and willing. “Thou Sun Spirit,” so said those who knew something about it, “Thou hast ensouled Thyself in an etheric spirit form,” for such is the form of those we call archangels today; “Thou has brought thinking, feeling and willing, which might otherwise rage through us in confusion, into order with Thy lyre, sounding upon it harmoniously the tones of the human soul!”

So the Sun Spirit became the guardian of the wild, stormy passions when they, as it sometimes happened, gushed forth in the fumes that rise from within the earth and break through its surface. If a human being should expose himself to them and allow only these vapors to work upon him, then thought, feeling and will would rage madly within him. The Greeks placed the Pythia over those vapors, which, in rising out of the earth, bring the passions into disorder through Lucifer and Ahriman. But Apollo shone upon the Pythia, conquered the unruly passions and she became a sibyl. For the Greeks, Apollo, the Sun Spirit, represented the Christ at the stage of His third sacrifice, and the results of Christ's deed were discerned in the attuning of men's passions under the power of the Pythia, conferred upon her by the god Apollo. In this connection Apollo was to the Greeks what is expressed in the victory of Michael or St. George over the dragon.

We see also the meaning of the extraordinary pronouncement of Justin Martyr, a saying which, since it emanated from him, we must regard as Christian, although many representatives of Christianity today would consider it heretical. Justin said, “Heraclites, Socrates and Plato were also Christians, the only kind of Christians possible before the actual consummation of the Mystery of Golgotha.” Theologians of today no longer realize it but in the first centuries of Christianity the Christian martyrs still knew that the old Greek sages, although they did not use the name of Christ, if asked about Apollo, would have answered out of their Mystery wisdom, “The great Sun Spirit, Who in the future will live as a man on earth, appears to us in Apollo as though ensouled in him in the form of an archangel.”

Then came the fourth, the earthly mystery, that of Golgotha. The same Christ Being Who had ensouled Himself three times in archangelic form incarnated through what we call the Baptism by John in the Jordan in the body of Jesus of Nazareth.

I admit that it may seem strange when I say that this great Being was ensouled three times in an archangelic form, and then incarnated in a human being. It would seem a more orderly progression if between His ensoulment as an archangel and His human incarnation He had taken an angelic form. So it may seem to us. Yet, even though it is claimed that the statements of spiritual science are fictitious, truly it is not so. You may gather this from corroborative evidence. If you ask me how it happens that Christ did not descend from hierarchy to hierarchy and only afterward to man—if you were to ask me that, I could only answer that I do not know, for I never make theoretical combinations. The facts adduced by spiritual research are that Christ chose three times an archangelic form, leaving out the angelic form, and then made use of a human body. I leave it to future research to determine the reason, which I do not yet know, though I do know that it is true.

Then came the fourth step in the Mystery of Golgotha, and this averted another danger, that of the Luciferic and Ahrimanic influences upon the human ego or I. In the Lemurian age the sense organs would have become disordered through Lucifer; in the first Atlantean period the vital organs were threatened with disorder and disharmony, and in the late Atlantean era the soul organs, the organs that underlie thinking, feeling and willing. In the post-Atlantean period the human ego itself was endangered.

Because the ego or I at this time was to take its place as a living factor in human evolution, an effort was made to establish harmony between this ego and the powers of the cosmos lest it become their plaything. This might have happened. The ego might have so developed that it could not keep a hold upon itself, and had it been delivered to these forces, everything that came from the soul would have been overpowered by all sorts of elemental forces that arise from wind, air or water. They would have driven the human being violently in all directions.

Michelangelo painted it. In the Sibyls he showed what had threatened mankind. With wonderful skill he made them express the human types of those who felt the coming derangement of the ego, so that although all possible wisdom might come forth, human beings could neither manage nor direct it. Look at the way in which Michelangelo has painted the different degrees of derangement in egos given over to elemental beings.

Upon the other side, however, he gives us something else. In the same space he has painted the musing figures of prophecy whose aspect shows the illumination of what preserves the integrity of the ego toward the cosmos. It touches us deeply when we see in the prophets the urgency, the pressure toward the ego and, on the other side, human beings suffering disorder through the ego itself. Then, standing in this space, is the Christ, incarnate in a human body, Who had to bring into order and harmony the ego that was to come into the world.

Yes, the science of the spirit will impress upon us ever more deeply that this human ego, through the fourth Christ event, the Mystery of Golgotha, can come to true unselfishness. The senses have said, “Not I, but Christ in us.” The vital organs have said, “Not I, but Christ in us.” In his moral and intellectual life man must learn to say, “Not I, but Christ in me.” Every step into the spiritual world shows us this.

I wished to explain this today in order that upon another occasion in the near future we may offer certain occult proofs of these facts in order to show that what we call spiritual science will pour itself into our moral and intellectual lives in such a way that human beings may become students of selflessness, that Christ may live within us so that we may feel Him vitally in every word that is uttered in discussions of spiritual science.

One more thing, my dear friends. You know that since 1909 we have been producing our Mystery Dramas in Munich. What we presented on the stage there may be considered good or bad; that is not the present question. What was done there, however, required a certain spiritual power, a power that does not approach the human being simply because of his existence upon earth. Since we can now work in Dornach and carve our different kinds of hard wood, we need muscular strength. We cannot say that we can give this strength to ourselves consciously. It comes from our bodies, from our souls' capacity; it is not under our control. Equally, we have not under our control all that we perform in the spirit and for which we need spiritual power. That is not entirely dependent upon our natural ability, just as what we do physically is not dependent alone upon our talents but also upon the muscular strength of our bodies. We need spiritual powers that are as much outside ourselves as our muscular strength is outside our souls. I know that superficial critics may say, “You are a fool; you believe that spiritual powers come to you from without, whereas they simply rise from your own inner being.” Let them think me a fool; I regard them as belonging to the clever men who cannot distinguish hunger from a piece of bread. I know how spiritual powers from without flow into human beings. The idea that hunger creates the bread that satisfies it—believed only by a crazy man—is as false as that the power of our own soul can create the forces needed for our spiritual activities. These forces must flow into us. Just as we know clearly that our hunger is within us, and that bread comes from without, does one who lives in spiritual worlds know what is within himself and what comes to him from without. Since 1909 I have felt personally, more and more, the spiritual power that came from without whenever there was occasion to develop, in stillness and calm, what was necessary for the Mystery Plays. I knew that a spiritual eye was resting upon what had been accomplished, and I relate this as a direct experience.

In the early days, when we were working at spiritual science in Germany, an acquaintance came to us who accepted with enthusiasm what we were able to give at that time. She accepted what it was possible to give out concerning human evolution, cosmic mysteries, reincarnation and karma, not only with devotion and enthusiasm but added to them a wonderful aesthetic sense. Every experience with this person, whether of teaching or conversation, was steeped in beauty. We were few at that time. We had no need to crowd ourselves into such a room as this, and what we now say to a large audience was then discussed by three people—two others and myself. One of these, the person mentioned above, left us upon the physical plane in 1904, and entered the spiritual world. Such people go through a development after death. When we produced Schuré's reconstruction of the Mystery of Eleusis at our Congress in 1907, no spiritual influence was perceptible. In 1909 it began, and has come more and more frequently since then. I have accurate knowledge that it was the individuality of our friend whom, objectively and because of her originality, we all loved. Removed to the spiritual world, she acted as a guardian angel to all that we accomplished in the combining of the aesthetic and esoteric elements in our Mysteries. We felt well protected, and looked gratefully upward, realizing that what penetrated us and flowed over into our earthly activities was an expression of the watchfulness of a spiritual personality. But then when it came to conversation with this personality—one may call it conversation since there was a certain reciprocal action—she asserted that she found the way to us easier the more we were permeated with the thought of Christ in the evolution of the earth. If I were to put into earthly words what she reiterated, I should say, expressing symbolically, of course, what is quite different in the spiritual world, “I find the way to you so easily because you are finding evermore the way to make spiritual science into an expression of the living Word of Christ.”

The Christ impulse will become for us the living bridge between earthly life and life in superphysical worlds. From the spiritual world Christ three times conditioned for the human being the spiritual constitution that he needed in order to live rightly. Christ intervened three times, making the human sense, life and psychic organs unselfish. It is now man's task to learn unselfishness in his moral and intellectual life through his understanding of the saying, “Not I, but Christ in me.”

The world will recognize that the message of the science of the spirit is the Word of Christ. He said, “I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” The mission of the science of the spirit in our age is to open doors to the living Christ. The dead, who know that Christ has found the passage from heaven to earthly activities, unite with the understanding of the living. If the dead, as their nearest protectors, bend to the earthly living, they will find those souls most intensive who are penetrated and spiritualized by the Christ impulse. Christ, as the great Sun Spirit, descended from superphysical worlds through the Mystery of Golgotha in order to find a dwelling in the souls of men. Spiritual science is to be the message, telling how Christ may find that dwelling in human souls. If Christ will find His abode in men's earthly souls, then the Christ power will stream back from the earth's aura into the worlds that He forsook for the salvation of mankind, and the whole cosmos will be permeated through and through by Him.

We can work up gradually to such a deep understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha as this by completely imbuing ourselves with spiritual science. If we thus consider this and, in addition, think of it as a school of unselfishness for the intellectual and moral life of future humanity, we shall realize the necessity of the spiritually scientific proclamation of the Mystery of Golgotha! Then we shall know the meaning of the spiritually scientific impulses that are striving to enter our present life. Then that Christ impulse will penetrate humanity that all men can, indeed, accept, for Christ did not appear to one nation only but, being the great Sun Spirit, He belongs to the whole earth and can enter all human souls, regardless of nation and religion. May many gradually find the way to such an understanding of the Christ impulse and of the Mystery of Golgotha! Then, perhaps, that will appear the most Christian that today is stamped as unchristian and heretical.

If we strive, not for a mere intellectual understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha, but for the ability to grasp it with our whole souls, we then need the science of the spirit and, as members of our spiritual stream, we shall belong to those souls who are permitted to know and understand the necessities of mankind now and in the immediate future.

[ 1 ] Passing on to-day to the paintings in the smaller dome, it has not been possible to make lantern slides from the photographs of the paintings of the larger dome—as we pass on to the paintings in the smaller dome, I am indeed in a peculiar position, and everyone will be in this position who wishes to present an idea from these copies of what is meant by the paintings of the dome, to the wider public who has not first seen them here. The attempt has been made in accordance with that artistic point of view referred to, in my Mystery Play The Portal of Initiation, to evolve form in the painting entirely out of colour, so that, as regards the painting of the smaller dome, as far as possible, the influence of this point of view is actually felt—even then of course everything is only at the initial stages. [ 2 ] To allow form to appear as the creation of colour is that which is aimed at here. If we follow the history of painting we see that this fundamental principle to draw forth all that is pictorial from colour, can really only be at the very beginning of its development. Men tried in the art of painting because it offers the special temptation—this was even so in the most brilliant period—to express some naturalistic theme in reproduction. Even though it must be admitted—and who would not willingly admit, in reference to the production of Raphael, Leonardo, Michael Angelo and others?—that the greatest heights of pictorial art have been reached in striving for expression in this way, and it must be admitted that the whole modern cosmic conception which is unspiritual can scarcely do otherwise than somehow strive for expression, yet the time has come when a spiritualization of our cosmic conception must be sought; another principle, another way of artistic thinking, especially in the art of painting must make itself felt. [ 3 ] This artistic feeling certainly will only be admitted by him who has a presentiment that in this world each element represents a creative whole. If we have a right sense for the world of colour we find something truly world-creative in colour. Anyone able to sink himself into the world of colour is able to soar up to the feeling, that from this mysterious world of colour a world of beings spring up, that the colour itself through its own inherent forces will develop into a world of beings. I might say: as we see the growing man in embryo in the little child, so can we see a world of beings in embryo if we have a right sense for the world of colour.

[ 4 ] Certainly it does not mean that we should have merely a feeling for the single colour; the single colour, as a rule, establishes only a relationship between man and colour as such. To see blue means to feel an intense desire, longing, to go out into the space in which the colour is manifesting, to follow the colour; to look at red calls forth a feeling of being attacked, as if one had to defend oneself against something, and so on with the other colours. Colours have also a certain relation with that which can be formed in colour, if we are able to draw the form out of the colour. Blue, for instance will always help if we wish to express movement, red will always help if we wish to express physiognomy. But what I mean has to do much less with single colours at with what the colours have to say to one another, whet red has to say to blue, green to blue, green to red, orange to lilac, etc. In this exchange, I might say, of speech, and exchange of activity between the colours, an entirely new world would come to expression. And we do not fully perceive this interchange of speech and interplay of: colours, if me are not. able to perceive colours as ocean-waves rising and falling, and at the same to perceive, playing upon the waves of colour, coming into life from the colour-waves, the elemental beings which develop their forms of themselves out from the colour-waves.

[ 5 ] Thus the attempt has been made to show in painting the secret of how to create out of the very nature of colour. For a greater part of that which is living, which we look out on, is born wholly out of the creative colour-world. As our vegetation has sprung forth from the ocean, so that which is living grows out of the colour-world.

[ 6 ] I might say, it is always pitiful to see how those who are possessed of artistic feeling truly feel that the old forms of art are bankrupt, that they can go no further, and how in spite of this the world is not willing to respond to the impulse which can only be explained through the anthroposophical interpretation of the world. Certainly this anthroposophical interpretation of the world must be something more than a mere intellectual idealistic set of ideas. It must be an intuitive perception. We must be able to think in colours, in forms, just as we think in ideas and thoughts. We must be able to live in colours, in forms. [ 7 ] If our Building is to be what it is intended to be, it must in a certain sense, bring to expression, as in one living being, the spiritual, the psychic and the physical. The spiritual is essentially brought to expression in the forms of the pillars, the architrave and the capitals, etc. In these is reflected the spirit, out of itself creating form. The psychic finds its manifestation, for example, in the glass-windows. In this interplay of the external light with the engraving on the coloured sheets of glass may be dimly apprehended by the play of the psychic, and the physical, that shows itself in its own configuration if one has the right-vision for what is painted in the domes. The paintings in the domes express to a certain extent the physical substantiality. It is, of course, the case that in the arrangement of the Building, which strives to give an understanding of the world to come extent, there is a reversed order, as compared with the ordinary comprehension of the three world principles. This follows naturally in contrast to what one generally imagines, i.e. the spiritual above, the physical below. In that which should develop in the human soul as force of inspiration through the whole artistic structure of the Building there must be a reversed relationship.

[ 8 ] But this very creation from colours is of course just what I cannot show you in lantern slides, and therefore with lantern slides we do not get what is really essentially purposed in the painting in the domes. We get as it were inartistic ideas, effects of what is intended to he artistic. But of course that cannot be helped, and it is to be hoped that those who see these lantern slides of colour-pictures will regard there pictures as it were as crying out for something else, as not really giving expression to that which is intended. If we take them in the right way we must say, as regards these lantern slides of colour-pictures somewhat as follows: “What is really in these pictures, really wishes to speak to us in a totally different language”, and then we shall be led to see the Building itself in the original conception of it. And out of the contemplation of these lantern slides, this will be a longing that will then arise in him who has artistic perception. Hence I do not think it quite superfluous to produce even these lantern slides.

[ 9 ] We start from here in the small dome, where as a beginning there is, on the surface of the walls, a kind of flying child, immediately at the junction of the large and small domes. You see this flying child, which in its composition belongs to what follows on here on your left. The composition is of course entirely derived from the colour; yet it also forms an element in the configuration of the small dome. You understand the whole figure of this child here if you keep in mind the two adjacent forms.

We will now put on the next picture.

[ 10 ] You see here as it were a figure of Faust. Here we are in the riddle Ages, just at the time when our fifth post-Atlantean age begins and here you find the only word written in letters, the Ich or I or Ego. In the whole Building you find nothing anywhere expressed in written letters. The intellectual method of representing a word, of this foundation word I or Ego, has so far its justification here, in that, with the commencement of the fifth post-Atlantean civilisation that in which ourselves stand—in the 15th century, developing further into the time of Faust, in the 16th century, that which was invisible appeared, that which expressed by mere symbols, by what had detached itself from Reality. That which lay at the bottom of the real ego-being of man was not grasped. In the universal spiritual evolution of humanity no image of the ego had been evolved. For, when man said “I” he had only an abstract idea in his mind. This is therefore the justification for introducing a wholly unreal representation of the ego through letters. And it falls into place naturally by the side of the Faust-figure. [ 11 ] Do not, I beg you, attach any special value to my expression Faust-figure. The main thing is that in the whole composition this figure expresses what the spirit of the age in that very epoch produces in the seeking man. You see it brought to expression especially in the eye, in the countenance, in the attitude of the hand, you see it expressed in the whole gesture of the figure. That we are reminded of Faust is what one might say—purely arbitrary. It is the man who in the fifth our post-Atlantean age actually seeks, which is the characteristic of our age. Of the real fundamental character of this seeking few men as yet are conscious. Since the 15th century we have evolved ever more a sort of philosophy of death, which is no longer capable of grappling with life. [ 12 ] This is the result of the whole training which humanity had to pass through at the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean period. During this period humanity has to develop the inner force of freedom. self-consciousness. Humanity can only do this by breaking adrift from nature. But to break adrift from nature means to identify oneself with the forces which in perceiving, alone understand death, recognise what is dead. All our ideas, all concepts which are the actual concepts of civilisation lead to death, are concerned with what is dead. And he who to-day is not himself dead, as most learned men are in soul, he who to-day is not himself dead as regards his seeking, finds in the seeking of these principles an incentive to what makes man free but is at the same time, I might say, the abyss or the dead. He has constantly the feeling: Thou makest thyself indeed free, but in so doing thou comest into proximity with death. Thus Death had to be brought into proximity with the Faust-figure.

[ 13 ] This is below. Hero you see the seeking man, who to-day is under the impress, under the feeling of death, death which always accompanies the most important ideals in the search for knowledge. It would be unbearable to a feeling soul to have a sort of Faust-figure above and below to have death, and no counterpart in the composition. Therefore, before we come to this composition of Faust and Death, we have this flying child, which to some extent represents the contrast to the feeling of Death. Thus a Trinity is to be understood: Death, the Seeking Man and the young Child full of life. With this is painted in the small dome what may be presented as the Initiation of the fifth post-Atlantean time. The Initiation-wisdom of the fifth-post Atlantean time is not to be won without one's having as it were full consciousness of the significance of Death, not only in human life, but in the life of the whole world as well. We possess indeed our powers of thinking because we continually bear the forces of death in our head. Were these forces which are active in our head for the purpose of thinking to penetrate our whole organism we should not be able to live, we should continually die. We only live because the tendency in our head to death is continually balanced by the tendency to life in the rest of our organism. That is, I may say briefly and lightly expressed in the abstract, the law of our time. [ 14 ] When I tell you this, I can understand that it does not penetrate specially deeply into your hearts, into your souls. To have experienced, signifies something fearful; to have experienced that impulse which in every effort for knowledge says: What thou canst acquire as knowledge at the present time, thou owest to Death which penetrates more and more into the earth-life. What really must enter into the earth-life of humanity will only enter when this initiation-principle, now at the very beginning of its growth—the power of Death!—extends further and further and engenders the vital longing of the newer future humanity for the compensating spirit, for a youth who is already Jupiter, which is no longer earth-youth, which is already the youth of the next planetary embodiment of the earth.

[ 15 ] We now go back to what can-be pictorially represented of the fourth post-Atlantean (the Graeco-Latin) period of civilisation. A sort of form is given here in the paintings of the small dome, which in its whole configuration - you will particularly feel this when you look at the colouring of this figure in the small dome—which, in its whole configuration, in its whole nature, portrays the shining-in of the spiritual world into humanity during the fourth post-Atlantean period, as it was to be at that time. Above this figure you find those who gave the inspiration, of which I have not been able to obtain lantern slides from the photographs. You always find those who inspire, over the corresponding figures, only in the case of the fifth post-Atlantean period of civilisation, Death itself, appears from below and approaching man above is the real Being which inspires.

[ 16 ] Here you see above a kind of God, an Apollo-like form, as the inspirer. That which, through inspiration, is able to enter a human form of the fourth post-Atlantean period of civilisation comes into this figure. Thus you see the actual human history of the inner soul-development is painted in the small dome. Of course you must give up asking inartistic questions. When an artist paints a form on the wall, there is nothing in his soul that,can meet such a question as: What does this or that mean? The inartistic man will stand before this figure and say: What do there two or three heads mean on the left of the principal figure? That it not the question of an artist; it is the question which he who paints it will least of all be willing to answer, because for him visions have to form pictorially, they simply appear in space as forms in a vision. He perceives nothing whatever with which to meet the question: What does that mean?—but he feels a necessity from the creative cosmic forces to place a form, which is inspired just like this one, in the neighbourhood of that which has already been-represented in human form.

[ 17 ] I spoke of the creative forces themselves inherent in the colour-world. At the present time, if one sees any painting, one always has the image in one's mind. This is just what must be overcome. There are many more elementary impressions which must possess the artistic soul. (I will explain more clearly in detail what I have to say). Suppose I simply make a smudge of colour, a yellow smudge, and add to it a blue smudge (see illustration). He who perceives colour as something actually living cannot experience other than, when he so perceives a colour in this way, a yellow smudge with a blue border, to see a head in profile.

[ 18 ] This follows of itself for him who carries the life of colour within him. Just two smudges of colour are, to him who possesses the creative idea of colour, that which at the came time leads to the experience of its essence. But anyone cannot, let us say, paint a face according to colour in such a way that he can say: I have seen a face, or indeed, have a model, and after this model I have formed a face, and it resembles it. Not in this way will painting be done in the future, but colour will be experienced, and the artist will turn away from everything naturalistic, from all copying, and from the colour itself that will be drawn out which already lies in it and which must necessarily be drawn out, if one has a living feeling with the life of colour itself.

[ 19 ] Here you find a combination of what you have seen singly before: here above, the Flying Child, this Figure of the 16th century, below Death, the remainder less distinct. You see here above, the one inspiring, you can recognise him the higher inspirer of the figure you have just seen on this sheet but which is here very indistinct. It is, of course, difficult to reproduce in this rough way of colourless pictures things which have really only been lightly breathed into the colours on the walls. Such can only be understood, I might say, as a description of what is actually intended.

[ 20 ] Here you see the inspiring figures of the third post-Atlantean (the Egyptians) period of civilisation, those which inspire from the spiritual world that figure which will now appear in the next picture.

We have here, inspired by the previous figures, the Initiates of the third post-Atlantean period of civilisation.

[ 21 ] Thus in the small dome the actual psychic evolution of humanity is painted, certainly not according to historical time, that you will see at once, but in an inner way. For now we are not going back simply to the earlier second post-Atlantean period of civilisation, but we are going back indeed to the Persian principle of Initiation, which also had developed out of the primeval Persian principle of Initiation, and is the Germanic principle of Initiation.

So when we pass on to the next picture we have the Germanic principle of Initiation. This Germanic-Persian principle of Initiation is founded on a dualism, and everything depends on the understanding of the fact that the initiation of of the period of civilisation which took its rise in the primeval Persian period, continued its development in the Goethean period of civilisation. It spread geographically from Asia Minor, across the Black Sea northwards into Europe, and this Initiation-stream reaches its fulfilment in recognising the principle of man's effort to seek the balance between Lucifer, whom you see on the right, and Ahriman on the left. The essential point is that we understand that this current of civilisation crust derive all force in the finding of the condition of equilibrium between the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic. And an attempt has been made, in this very figure, which is inspired by the Ahrimanic-Luciferic principle itself, by that which you see here on the right as Luciferic, and here on the left as Ahrimanic, to show in the attitude, in the whole physiognomy, that spirituality that must result from the realisation of this dualism, the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic, between which man has to find the balance.

[ 22 ] The fact that you see here the child as it were held up by the Initiate, for this there is no good foundation. For what flows into man through the inspiration of the dual principle, could not be endured, it would kill him inwardly, if he had not always the vision of youth, of the child. When you see this in the dome, you will observe that an earnest attempt has been made to draw out of the colours just what is meant here. An attempt has been made to draw out of the colours even the contrast between what is Luciferic and what is Ahrimanic. Only you must not analyse minutely, but seek what is essential in the artistic perception.

[ 23 ] Picture 8: Here you see Ahriman presented. There are not two Ahrimans, but Ahriman and his shadow. That is to say, Ahriman does not go about without his constant shadow accompanying him. Ahriman himself would be a much too freezing, too drying-up a principle of he appeared for instance in his full nature. It is most necessary to have near him his shadow which qualifies his freezing influence. If you study the colours in the small dome, you will see that in this particular shade of colour, the brownish-green, an attempt has been made to expr ess the freezing effect of Ahriman; an attempt has been made to bring everything out of the colour.

[ 24 ] Here you see the Lucifer-theme. You will only understand the Luciferic and Ahrimanic principles fully if you see them in connection. If you simply look at Ahriman alone and Lucifer alone you will really understand neither; only when you have them side by side, because really Ahriman and Lucifer create and work in such a way in the universe that always whatever the one accomplishes is taken and made use of by the other, and vice versa. Thus their figures can only be rightly understood if one sees them in their living relationship to each other.

The inspiration that come from these will be shown in the next picture.

[ 25 ] I had hoped to express in this countenance with its adequate colour what is possible to express in a figure standing under the influence of this dual principle. It is the need,of inner stability, and at the same time self-possession in temperament, in character and the joyous inclination towards that which is young and childlike, in order to bear all that which one experiences under the actual inspiring influence of the dual principle.

Here we have the same again in another aspect.

[ 26 ] Here you see that into which our Period of civilisation will resolve itself. This picture is to be found nearer to the central Group, that of the representative of Humanity with Ahriman and Lucifer We have attempted to represent what had to be shown here as an Initiate, i.e. such a man who could embody the spiritual revelation of the coming 6th post-Atlantean period of civilisation, even now in advance, and we have attempted to represent such an Initiate through the medium of form and colour. For this reason we had to picture not a Russian of to-day: but that which is to be seen to a certain extent in every Russian to-day. every such Russian has his own shadow continually as his companion. He has always his second self who accompanies him, and that is what is here expressed.

[ 27 ] But you must realise that that which is here inspiring him is more spiritual compared with the earlier source of inspiration. Hence this angel-like form which here appears in its whole outline growing out of the blue. You will see more clearly in the next picture the kind of centaur-figure which is essentially necessary to the inspiring Being. You see, this inspiration leads at the same time out into the starry world. We recognise again man in his connection with that in the Cosmos which is external to the earth. But the Being which inspires is no longer to be conceived of in human likeness. In our attempt to show form we come to figures which are no longer human-like which have certain qualities of form which recall the qualities and temperament of man but are no longer human as such.

[ 28 ] Here is this inspiring figure which is a figure of the Cosmos and at the same time in connection with that which still tends towards the human, but is an angel-like Being born wholly out of the colour of the clouds. This is what we see as the colour Inspirer.

The same Being; only there is more to see; the Initiates are here to be seen. Of course the whole effect lies in the colour composition, which, naturally, is here wholly lacking.

[ 29 ] Here we see the upper portion of the Central Group. The middle figure shows the Representative of Humanity, above it, Lucifer.

The middle figure is represented in the painting—under it the Group which is the Chief Group stands—is here represented in painting where the space is small, so as to represent the Luciferic and Ahrimanic principles in one figure only; while, in the plastic Group, on account of the weight, on account of the proportions of the space they are given in double form.

This figure is only to be understood through the colours, through the Red colour out of which it is chiefly composed together with some other shades of colour. And here we are shown how man is seeking the state of equilibrium between that which is Luciferic and that which is Ahrimanic. This search for the state of balance is to certain extent to be found in man as much physically and physiologically as also in his soul and spirit.

[ 30 ] From a physiological, from a physical point of view, man is not that simple growing being that he is often represented to be in superficial science. an inclines continually on the one hand towards ossification, and on the other hand towards .a softening gelatinous condition.

The tendency in a man towards softening, which arises when the blood gains the upper hand, comes from Luciferic influences. Where the Luciferic influence tends to gain the upper hand physiologically in the human being, where feverish phenomena appears physiologically in man as actual formative principles, the Luciferic influence is predominant. As a result, the human form approximates more and more to this form. Man had this form during the ancient-moon period. In other words: if that principle which is specially the principle of growth in heart and lungs were alone to rule the human being, man would preserve such a form. Only through the fact that the Ahrimanic principle is found at the opposite pole to the Luciferic, the physiological state of equilibrium is maintained between that which the blood brings about and that which is produced by the ossifying tendency. This is the case viewed physiologically, from the point of view of the physical body.

[ 31 ] From the point of view of the soul one may say: man is continually on the search for the state of balance between excessive enthusiasm, which is Luciferic, and that which is prosaic, materialistic, abstract, which is Ahrimanic. From the point of view of the spirit: man is continually seeking the balance between theca conditions of consciousness which are specially permeated with Light where the consciousness is awakened through the irradiation, through the illumination of the soul; through the Luciferic. And the opposite pole is that through which weight, gravity, electricity, magnetism, in short, all that which holds one down, bring about the consciousness of self, the attainment of consciousness: all this is Ahrimanic. Man is always seeking the balance between these two conditions, and we may observe how that all that man can make man more conscious, that can bring him away, from the middle.path always inclines either to the one side or the other, the Luciferic or Ahrimanic. It would be of immense importance even for the study of human physical organism, if we discarded the merely theoretical principle of growth, that of the One principle, and took into consideration that polarically-opposed impulses of growth are present in man as if interwoven, intermingled with each other. The other impulse of growth is Ahrimanic.

[ 32 ] Picture 17: Here is the exact opposite. In every shape, in every line you will see the exact opposite of Lucifer, in this Ahriman, who as it were grows out of the masses of rock, i.e. out of the solid conditions of the earth. His aim is to approach man and so lay hold of him with his force of gravity, (his solidity) that at the same time he slays him with ossification or presses him to death in barren materialism. This is what is expressed in this figure of Ahriman. He appears as if slain by light, hence the rays of which bind him wit) cords so that he is fettered by them. In between we have man - man himself.

[ 33 ] The real man, who represents the condition of equilibrium, under him Ahriman, above him Lucifer.

I expressly draw your attention to this, that here again it is not essential to aim at the visionary conception of the Christ. The essential is that we feel what is here presented in this figure. Then we shall arrive ourselves, through the art representation, to the Christ. That is, we shall discover the central being of all earth's existence, the Christ, when we experience that which is to be felt in this form. The Christ may to-day discovered purely spiritually. But we must rightly understand man and rightly perceive him.

[ 34 ] On the other hand it may be said: he who to-day understands and smypathises with that which man can suffer, with that which he can enjoy, he who fully realises how man can go astray or raise himself towards one side or the other, he who is striving after a real self-knowledge, if he only goes far enough along the road of feeling, perception and will, he will discover the Christ. And he will then be able to find again in the Gospels, in all historical documents, the Christ he has discovered. We cannot to-day really attain to true knowledge of man without attaining to the knowledge of the Christ.

[ 35 ] Even along physiological, biological lines if we rightly conceive of man in his physical form we shall come to the understanding of the Christ. It is just the task of the fifth post-Atlantean time to attain more and more to this understanding of the Christ. Hence there could not be a visionary Christ-figure, concerning which one merely enquired its significance, in the central point of our Building, but the Representative of Humanity, in which the Christ to a certain extent appears in his essence. This is what I would beg you always to consider concerning these things; not to start out from the prosaic intellectual, but from the symbolic, not from the visionary to set out from that which is really there on the wall, not from that which may be imagined about it. That which should fill our thought should come forth from that which is on the wall itself.

[ 36 ] Of course that which is on the wall is only imperfectly executed, but every beginning must be imperfect; even the gothic architecture, when it first appeared was imperfect. The perfect will undoubtedly follow out of that which has here been attempted. This is not to say that earnest effort has not been made to find the true Representative of, Humanity by every means of the art of occult investigation. You see, that figure of Christ which is the traditional one arose only in the 6th century after Christ. For myself, I only give this out as a fact, but do not require from anyone that he accept it as a dogma of belief, for myself I am quite clear on the point, it is for me a fact, that the Christ Jesus who walked in Palestine had this countenance, which you may see on the carved figure. And the attempt has only been made to represent in the expressive gesture that which one sees more when the etheric body is observed than when one observes the physical body. Hence also, the strongly-marked asymmetry which we have dared to portray. This asymmetry is present in every human countenance, naturally not in this strength, but the human countenance is thus indeed, especially as at present man wears in many respects an untrue mask. When humanity will have reached a certain spiritualisation in the 6th and specially the 7th post-Atlantean period where physical man will no longer live on the earth, then man will wear his true countenance, i.e. will express in his countenance what he is really worth within.

[ 37 ] But all this—I should like to point out—is very difficult for the paint-brush or chisel to represent in the painting and sculpture and that which we have attempted to express as the Representative of Humanity. As imperfect as these things may be, he who studies them will find that the secrets, the mysteries of human evolution are actually sainted in this little cupola. He will certainly find that which is meant to be expressed., may be experienced from out of the colour, and that these pictures can only indicate to you what you are capable of feeling, when, on receiving the information which I have given you to-day, you expect nothing symbolic, nothing about which man can enquire the meaning, but when you—rather, with the information I have given you to-day, seek to feel that which is painted into this little cupola.

[ 38 ] Picture 19: Now I want to show the other view of the heating-house. Yesterday I showed the front view, and you see that this heating-house is thought out as a whole, so that its side-view to a certain extent stands full in harmony with the whole, as I yesterday, through the comparison with the nutshell, explained to you.

[ 39 ] I have tried to give you to-day what we have up to the present in pictures. I should like to say that the actual attempt has been made with this Building to make the conception of the Building as far as possible a unity. For example, you see the Building covered over with Norwegian slate. Once when I was travelling on a lecture tour from Christiania to Bergen, I saw on the mountain slopes the wonderful slate-quarries of the neighbourhood of Voss, and the thought came to me that our Building must be covered with this slate. You will find, if you strike a favourable day, and desire to see the thing, that the particular blue-grey glistening of the dome—the covering of this slate—in the sun, makes an impression which is suited to the Building in its dignity.

[ 40 ] This is what I am able to say concerning the Building, in reference to these pictures. I wanted.to make this Building comprehensible to our friends who are willing to undertake the,risk of making it known to and understood by those to whom the Goetheanum in Dornach is perhaps nothing but a name they have heard, and to whom the place is only a geographical idea. I wanted to give this exhibition for those friends who are willing to bring before the understanding of those who are thus placed what will proceed from the Goetheanum for , the future of the evolution of humanity. It is of great importance that this visible token of Spiritual Science from the point of view of Anthroposophy should be accurately brought to the knowledge of the world, and that it is made to a certain extent the centre-point of our considerations and of our feeling within our anthroposophical world-conception.

[ 41 ] He who truly feels at what a turning-point the evolution of humanity has arrived in the present day, he will really indeed find within himself the necessary stimulus to make known what is here being carried out in Dornach. There are not many to-day who see how strongly the forces of human historical forms, coming from the past, act as destructive forces. We have indeed submitted to the destructive forces in Europe during the last 4 or 5 years; only the very few have wished actually to think over and appreciate what really happened. Those who do appreciate it will surely feel that nothing is to be gained for the further development of humanity from that which has been brought over from old times, that literally the new revelation which presses in upon us since the last third of the 19th century must be received by this world of ours.

[ 42 ] No one can think socially to-day without taking up the impulses which come to us from this knowledge which has been described. We must painfully, really painfully, realise, when we hear that there are to-day men who say: Oh Spiritual Science according to Anthroposophy was very pleasant, as long as it was Spiritual Science ,as long as it did not bother itself with outride things, as for example, “The Threefold State” does. There have arisen individual men among the earlier followers of Anthroposophical Spiritual Science who say: Spiritual Science was very acceptable to us by itself; with the social aspect we cannot and will not identify ourselves. Such an attitude of mind is sectarian, and that is what our movement truly never wished to be; this sectarianism only strives after a certain spiritual voluptuousness. I should like to know how anyone can be so without heart, so terribly heartless in the presence of such impulses as are appearing in the evolution of humanity as to say: I want something that comforts my soul, that assures me of immortality, but I won't touch it if this spiritual striving is to have a practical social result. Is it not heartless in such a time as this, not to wish for a practical result from that for which we are striving spiritually?

[ 43 ] Is it not the most confused mysticism to as it were fold the hands and say to oneself: For my soul I will have Spiritual Science but this Spiritual Science must have no social result. It is heartlessness. For how terrible it is to think that to anyone this Spiritual Science should be the most important thing in life, and that it should have no counsel to give in the present-day burdened social condition of humanity. That is the good of this Spiritual Science if it contains no help towards which humanity to-day may turn! Shall it be quite unfruitful, this Spiritual Science, for life? Does it only exist to pour into men a spiritual bliss? No, only thus can it preserve itself, by creating out of itself actual practical results. And it means that true Spiritual Science is not understood if men will not advance to practical results. And Spiritual Science must not be mere visionary knowledge, Spiritual Science must be actual life. Therefore it is always such a great pain that not very many more human souls are able to rouse themselves out of the impulses of Spiritual Science to the great interests of humanity to-day. To-day that which affects the individual is of such infinitesimal importance as compared with that which is fermenting and working in humanity, and the moment one occupies oneself with anything personal, the thought is immediately directed the great interests of humanity. But how many people think like this? For I must remember, how necessary it really is to communicate certain esoteric truths to humanity, and yet how impossible this is because there is really no set of people in whom really the impersonal objective principles have the value that they should have. It is a pressing necessity to communicate certain truths of Initiation to humanity. Only it cannot be done, when one has to do with men who the whole day long are only occupied with their own personal interests, as if they were of the highest importance. To turn our eyes to the human interests, that is what is of such immense importance. He who does this will see very very much to-day.

[ 44 ] I have to draw your attention again and again to the beginning of this battle-storm which will arise with all sorts of slander and lies against Anthroposophical Spiritual Science. Men do not want to believe this, but it is true; Spiritual Science will not be fought primarily on account of its faults; these would be forgiven it; Spiritual Science will be attacked just when it succeeds in accomplishing something good. And the hottest and most infamous attack will be directed against that which Spiritual Science can do of good.

[ 45 ] Each one must examine himself, whilst continually observing with true inner force that which can only be criticised as relentless opposition to Spiritual Science, whether he does not perhaps carry in himself too much of that attitude which does not attack the failings but rather the good sides of Spiritual Science. Much of this sort might be pondered over to-day: And this sort of thing must continually be pointed out. And the time must certainly come firstly, in which it will be possible not to have to approach closed doors with the communication of certain esoteric truths, because men are only occupied with their own personal interests, and secondly in which it will also be possible to bring the most important things when they are spoken, actually home to the hearts of men. As a rule one may proclaim things of the greatest significance—men take them only as a kind of theoretical knowledge, and hence they do not penetrate into, their hearts and affect them deeply; whilst everyday things, humdrum things even perhaps relatively big things, penetrate easily into the hearts of men.

[ 46 ] This is what we must before all else strive for; that that which is drawn from the Spirit shall truly penetrate right into the heart, into the soul, that it does not remain merely in our understanding. Much of the most important of that which has been spoken to-day, which may already be found in the teachings of Spiritual Science or Anthroposophy, bears no fruit on this account, that men let it get no further than their understanding, and then they say perhaps: This is something which should only be grasped by the understanding: But that is their own desire—to leave it only to the understanding, because they only take it as a wisdom for the head, and do not let it reach their hearts. This observation I wish to link on to the Introduction I have given you of the Building.

The Temple, of the Sun; hidden site of the Mysteries of the Hierophants; Lucifer, Ahriman, the three Soul-Figures, Strader, Benedictus, Theodosius, Romanus, Maria.

(Enter first Lucifer and Ahriman.)

Lucifer:
The Lord of Wishes stands as victor here—
He hath been able to o'erpower the soul
Which even in the light of spirit-sun
Still had to feel akin to this our realm.
I seized th' auspicious hour in which to cast
A glamour o'er its vision of the light
To which in dreams alone it had bowed down.
Yet all my hopes must forthwith disappear
That victory is ours in spirit-realms,
Since thou art worsted, comrade of my fight.
Thou wast unable to o'erpower the soul
Which was to bring our labours to their goal.
The human soul that gave itself to me
I can possess and in our kingdom hold
For short earth-lives alone, but all in vain;
For then I must restore it to our foes.
To win outright we need the other, too,
That hath withdrawn itself from thy domain.

Ahriman:
The time is not well suited to my arts,
I find no means of access to men's souls.
See, here comes one whom I did sorely plague.
Though ignorant in spirit he draws nigh;
For reason doth compel him to push on.
So I withdraw from him and from this place
Which he can only tread unconsciously.

(The three Soul-Figures with Strader.)

Philia:
I will myself imbue
With power of Faith's clear light,
I will breathe deep within
The living force of Trust
From soul's aspiring joy;
That thus the light may rouse
The spirit slumberer.

Astrid:
With humble joy of soul
I will inweave forthwith
Sure revelation's word.
I will make dense and thick
The shining rays of Hope;
That light in dark may shine
And twilight in the light,
So powers may bear aloft
The spirit slumberer.

Luna:
Soul light will I make warm
Love's power will harden too:
That thus they may grow bold
And thus may raise themselves
And mounting up on high
Endow themselves with weight
And free from cosmic loads
The spirit slumberer;
That his soul's love of light
At last may set him free.

Benedictus:
My comrades, I have hither summoned you
Who with me seek to find the spirit-light
That should flow streaming to the souls of men.
Ye know the nature of the sun of soul
Oft doth it shine with fullest noontide glare,
And then again like feeble twilight steal
Powerless through mists of visionary dream.
And often doth the darkness drive it out.
The temple-servants' spirit-gaze must pierce
To soul depths where there shines with powerful ray,
The spirit-light that comes from cosmic heights.
Then too it must disclose mysterious aims
That lurk unnoticed in the soul's dark fairs
Intent on shaping man's development.
Those spirit-beings who from cosmic powers
Bestow the spirit-food on human souls
Are present now within the sacred fane
To guide this man's soul from the spirit-night
Into the kingdom of the light on high.
The sleep of knowledge still envelops him;
But spirit-calls already have been heard
In his soul's depths of which he never knew,
That which they spoke deep in his inmost soul
Will shortly find its way to spirit-ears.

Theodosius:
This soul hath not been able hitherto
To recognize himself in spirit-light
That through sense-revelation is outpoured,
To show the meaning of all earthly growth.
He saw God's spirit stripped of nature's guise,
And Nature's self estranged from deity.
And so through many lives he had to pass
And stay a stranger to the sense of life;
He could but find such carnal tenements
To carry out his individual work
As barred him from the cosmos and from man.
Now, in the temple he will gain the power
Himself in other beings to behold,
And so at length he will attain the force
That leads from out the labyrinths of thought
And points the way unto the springs of life.

Benedictus:
Another man strives to the temple's light;
Though not at once will he approach its doors
And seek for entrance to this hallowed spot.
Throughout a life of studious research
He planted germs of thought in his soul-depths.
And so perforce the spirit-light went forth
To ripen them outside our temple's doors.
'Twas given him to know his present life
To be the product of a former one
Lived in a time that now hath long gone by.
Now he can see the errors of that life
And realize what their result will be,
But lacketh power, those duties to fulfil,
Which through self-knowledge he can recognize.

Romanus:
Capesius shall, through the temple's power,
Learn how a man must, in a single life,
Take up a load. of duties which demand
For their entire accomplishment the space
Of many lives of earthly pilgrimage.
So casting fear aside he will admit
That ancient errors with their consequence
Pursue the soul e'en past the gate of death.
Nor shall he then be vanquished in the fight
By which the spirit-portals are flung wide
If eye to eye, undaunted, he shall brave
The Guardian of the Threshold of that realm.
To him shall by that guardian be revealed
That none may climb up to the heights of life
Who fears to look on destiny's decrees.
His insight will admit with courage then
That of self-knowledge suffering is the fruit
For which she knows no words of comforting.
Will shall become his comrade on the way
Which faceth boldly all that may befall,
And, heartened by a draught from hope's clear spring
Endures the pain of widening consciousness.

Benedictus:
Ye have, my brothers, at this present hour,—
True servants of the temple that ye are,—
Set forth the ways in Wisdom's outlines drawn
By which these two who seek the spirit-truth
Shall have their souls brought to their goal by you.
Yet other work the temple-service claims.
Here by our side the Lord of Wishes stands;
He can be present in this holy place
Because Johannes' soul unbarred for him.
The gates which he would otherwise find barred.
The brother who is our initiate
Lacks for the moment courage to withstand
With power the words that from the darkness rise.
The powers of good can only strengthen him.
When on their opposite they test themselves.
'Twill not be long ere he again appears
Here in this temple, compassed by our love:
Yet must his spirit-treasure guarded be
Now that he must descend into the dark.

(Turning to Lucifer.)

Thee must I now address who not for long
Canst occupy the ground where thou dost stand.
The temple's power can at the present time.
Not yet release Johannes from thy grasp.
In times to come he will be ours again,
When those fruits of our sister shall be ripe.
Whose blossoms we already see unfold.

(Maria appears.)

She could behold in bygone earthly lives
How closely linked Johannes was to her.
He followed after her so long ago
As in those far-off days when she opposed
The light whose humble handmaid now she is.
When soul-links prove themselves so staunchly true
As to outlast the spirit's wanderings
Then shall the Lord of Wishes find his power
Unable to effect a severance.

Lucifer:
But Benedictus' will itself compelled
Johannes' and Maria's souls to part.
And wheresoe'er men from each other part
There is the field made ready for my power.
I ever work for separateness of soul,
To set the earth-life free, and for all time
To break its servitude to cosmic chains.
Maria's being, in monastic garb,
Turned from its father yonder soul away
That now is dweller in Johannes' form.
This too hath caused some seeds of mine to grow
Which I shall surely bring to ripening.

Maria (turning to Lucifer):
In human nature there are springs of love
To which thy power can never penetrate.
They are unsealed when faults of former lives—
A load unwittingly assumed by man,—
Are in a later life by spirit seen,
And by the free-will of self-sacrifice
Transformed to earthly action, which shall tend
To bear fruit for the real good of man.
The powers of destiny have granted me
The vision which can penetrate the past;
Already too have I received the signs
So to direct my, free-will sacrifice
That good may pour therefrom for every soul
Whose thread of life shall have to twine with mine
Throughout the evolution of this earth.
I saw how in its earthly frame of yore
Johannes' soul turned from his sire away,
And saw the forces that compelled myself
To make the son repel the father's heart.
Thus is the father now opposed to me
To bring to mind my own offence of old.
Plainly he speaks in cosmic language clear
Whose symbols are the actions of man's life.
That which I set between the sire and son
Must reappear, though in another form
In this my life in which Johannes' soul
Math once again been closely knit to mine.
The suffering which I had to undergo
In severing Johannes from myself
Was but my own act's fated consequence.
If now my soul is faithful to the light
Which from the spirit-forces comes to it,
It will be strengthened by the services
Which it may render to Capesius
In this sore stress of his life-pilgrimage;
And with such forces, similarly won,
Will also learn to see Johannes' star
When he, by fetters of desire misled
Treads not the way illumined by the light.
The spirit-vision which hath led me back
To distant days on earth will teach me now
How I must deal with soul-links at this time
So that life-powers unconsciously prepared
Shall henceforth work awakened for man's weal.

Benedictus:
In olden days on earth was formed a knot
Of threads which Karma spins world-fashioning.
Three human lives are interwoven there,
And now upon this fateful knot there shines
This holy temple's lofty spirit-light.
'Tis thee, Maria, I must now address
Of these three souls at this time thou alone
Art present at the place of sacrifice.
May this light operate within thyself
And turn to welfare those creative powers
Which once upon a time thy life-threads wove
Fast in a life-knot with those other two.
The father could not in his former life
His son's heart find; but now in other scenes
The spirit-seeker will accompany
Thy friend's self on its way to spirit-land.
And thine is now the duty to maintain
Johannes' soul in light by thine own force.
Once didst thou hold it in so fast a bond
That it could only blindly follow thee.
Thou didst then give it back its liberty,
When still it clung to thee in fancy fond.
But thou shalt once more find it, when, self-willed,
It wins its individuality.
If thy soul to that light holds ever true
Which powers from spirit-realms bestow on thee,
Johannes' soul will thirst to drink of thine
E'en where the Lord of all Desire holds sway;
And through the love which holds it bound to thee
It will regain the path to light on high.
For ever must a living being strive
Through light or darkness, which hath once beheld
And known the heights of spirit in its soul,
It hath drawn breath from cosmic distances
Of air that pulseth with immortal life,
And living raiseth all our human kind
From founts of soul to spirit-sun sublime.

Curtain

[ 1 ] As the new Age of Consciousness proceeds, it grows less and less possible for Michael to connect himself with the existence of mankind in general. Intellectuality has become human and is now entering humanity. From it the Imaginative conceptions, which could reveal to man the Divine Being and Intelligence in the Cosmos, are vanishing. The possibility for Michael himself to approach man begins only with the last third of the nineteenth century. Before that time it was only possible by those paths which were sought for in the true Rosicrucian sense.

[ 2 ] With his own budding intellectuality, man looks out into Nature. He sees there a physical and etheric world, in which he himself is not contained. Through the great ideas of men such as Copernicus and Galileo, he attains a picture of the world external to man. But he loses the picture of himself. When he gazes on himself he has no possibility of reaching any insight as to what he truly is.

[ 3 ] In the depths of his being, that which is destined to bear and sustain his intelligence is being awakened in him. With this, his Ego becomes united. Thus man now bears a threefold nature within him: first, in his spirit-and-soul being, manifesting as physical-etheric, that which originated once upon a time, in the old Saturn and Sun epochs, and then ever and again placed him within the kingdom of the Divine-Spiritual. It is here that the Human Being and the Michael Being go together. Secondly, man bears within him his later physical and etheric nature, that which evolved in him during the Moon and Earth epochs. All this is the work and active working of the Divine-Spiritual. But the Divine-Spiritual itself is no longer living and present within it. [ 4 ] It only becomes fully living and present once more when Christ passes through the Mystery of Golgotha. In that which is at work spiritually in the physical and etheric body of man, Christ can indeed be found.

Thirdly, man has within him that part of his soul and spirit which received new being in the Moon and Earth epochs. Here Michael has remained active (whereas in the part of man that is inclined towards the Moon and Earth, he has become more and more inactive.) In the former Michael has preserved, for man, his picture of Man and the Gods together.

[ 5 ] He was able to do this until the dawn of the new age of Consciousness—the age of the Spiritual Soul. Then the spirit and soul of man sank down, as it were, entirely in the physical-etheric nature, in order to draw forth from there the Spiritual Soul.

[ 6 ] Radiantly there arose in the consciousness of man what his physical and his etheric body could tell him about the physical and etheric in the world of Nature. And what his astral body and Ego had been able to tell him about himself vanished away from his vision.

[ 7 ] In the age which now began, there arose in man the feeling that with his own insight he could no longer reach himself. Thus there began a search for knowledge of the human being. Man could no longer find satisfaction for this quest in what the present was able to provide. He went back to earlier ages of history. Humanism arose in the evolution of the spiritual life. Humanism became the object of men's striving, not because they had grasped Man in his essential nature, but because they had lost him. As long as they possessed this knowledge, Erasmus of Rotterdam and others would have worked from a trend of soul quite different from anything that Humanism could give them.

[ 8 ] In Faust, Goethe discovered at a later time a figure representative of the man who had completely lost hold of his essential being.

[ 9 ] This quest of the human being grows more and more intense as time goes on. For man has now no other alternative: he must either make himself blunt and insensitive as regards his own being, or else the longing for it must come forth as an essential element in his soul's life.

[ 10 ] Right into the nineteenth century, the best minds in the spiritual life of Europe evolve ideas in the most varied fields and in the most different ways—ideas historical, scientific, philosophical, mystical, all of which represent the striving to find, in what has now become an intellectualistic world-conception, the human being himself.

[ 11 ] Renaissance, spiritual re-birth, humanism, are striving restlessly—even tempestuously—for a spiritual element in a direction in which it is not to be found. And, in the direction in which it should be sought, there is impotence, illusion, bewilderment of consciousness. And yet everywhere—in Art, in Knowledge—the Michael-forces are breaking through into the human being, though not as yet into the newly-growing forces of the Spiritual Soul. It is a critical time for the spiritual life. Michael turns all his forces towards the past in cosmic evolution so that he may gain the power to hold the ‘Dragon’ balanced and constrained beneath his feet. It is under these mighty exertions of Michael that the great creations of the Renaissance are born. Yet they still only represent a renewal by Michael of Intellectual or Mind-Soul forces. They are not yet a working of the new soul-forces.

[ 12 ] We can behold Michael filled with anxiety. Will he really be able to master the ‘Dragon’ in the long run? He perceives human beings in one region trying to gain a picture of Man out of the newly-acquired picture of Nature. He sees how they observe Nature and then seek to form a picture of Man from what they call the ‘Laws of Nature.’ He sees them forming their conceptions:—‘This animal quality becomes more perfect, that system of organs more harmonious, and man “arises”!’ But before the spirit-gaze of Michael man does not arise. For in effect, what is thus thought of as being harmonised, perfected, is there only in thought. No one can see it evolving in reality, for nowhere does this happen in actual fact.

[ 13 ] And so, with these their conceptions about Man, men live in empty pictures, in illusions. They are forever running after a picture of Man which they only imagine that they have, while in real truth there is nothing in their field of vision. ‘The power of the spiritual Sun shines upon their souls. Christ Himself is working; but they are not yet able to perceive His presence. The power of the Spiritual Soul holds sway in the body; but it still will not enter into their souls.’ That is approximately the inspiration one can hear of what Michael says in great anxiety. Is it possible that the forces of illusion in man will give the ‘Dragon’ so much power that it will be impossible for Michael to maintain the balance?

[ 14 ] Other persons try with more inward artistic power to feel Nature at one with man. Mighty are the words in which Goethe described Winkelmann's work in a beautiful book: ‘When the healthy nature of man acts as a whole, when he feels himself in the world as in a great, beautiful, majestic and worthy whole, when harmonious case gives him pure, free delight; then would the Universe, if it were conscious of itself, shout aloud for joy, as having reached its goal, and marvel at the climax of its own development and being.’ That which stimulated Lessing with fiery spirit and ensouled Herder's wide outlook on the world, rings out in these words of Goethe. And the whole of Goethe's own work is like a many-sided revelation of these his own words. In his ‘Aesthetic Letters’, Schiller has described an ideal human being who, in the sense described in the above words, bears the Universe within himself and realises it in social intercourse with other human beings. But whence comes this picture of Man? It shines like the morning sun over the Earth in spring. But it has entered into human feeling from study of the ancient Greeks. It arose in men with a strong inward Michael-impulse; but they could give form to this impulse only by turning the mind's eye to days of yore. When Goethe wished to experience ‘Man,’ he felt himself in the greatest conflict with the Spiritual Soul. He sought for Man in Spinoza's philosophy; but only during his tour in Italy, when he studied the nature of Greek art, did he feel that he had a glimpse of him. He went away finally from the Spiritual Soul, which is striving upwards in Spinoza, to the Intellectual Soul or Mind-Soul which was gradually dying out. However, with his far-reaching conception of Nature he was able to carry over an infinite amount from the Intellectual Soul into the Spiritual Soul.

[ 15 ] Michael also looks with earnestness upon this search for Man. What is in accordance with his idea is indeed entering here into the spiritual evolution of man:—it is that human being who once beheld the Divine Being and Intelligence when Michael still ruled it from the Cosmos. But if this were not laid hold of by the spiritualised force of the Spiritual Soul it would in the end inevitably slip away from Michael's control and come under the sway of Lucifer. The other great anxiety in Michael's life is, lest in the oscillation of the cosmic spiritual state of balance Lucifer might gain the upper hand.

[ 16 ] Michael's preparation of his Mission for the end of the nineteenth century flows on in cosmic tragedy. Below, on the Earth, there is often the greatest satisfaction in the working out of the new picture of Nature; whereas in the region where Michael works there is a tragic feeling regarding the hindrances to the coming of the picture of Man.

[ 17 ] Formerly Michael's austere, spiritualised love lived in the sun's rays, in the shimmering dawn, in the sparkling of the stars; this love had now acquired most strongly the note of looking down at humanity with awakening sorrow.

[ 18 ] Michael's situation in the Cosmos became tragically difficult, but it also pressed for a solution just at the period of time which preceded his earthly mission. Men were able to keep intellectuality only in the sphere of the body and there only in the sphere of the senses. On one hand, therefore, they received into their views nothing that the senses did not tell them; Nature became the field of the revelations of the senses, considered quite materially. The forms of Nature were no longer perceived as the work of the Divine-Spiritual but as something devoid of spirit, and yet something of which it is affirmed that it brings forth that spiritual element in which man lives. On the other hand, as regards a Spirit-world, men would now accept only what the historical accounts narrated. Direct vision of the Spirit working in the past was discredited, as was the vision of the Spirit in the present.

[ 19 ] In the soul of man there now lived only that which came from the sphere of the present, which Michael does not enter. Man was glad to stand on ‘sure’ ground. He believed he possessed this because in ‘Nature’ he sought no thoughts, in which he might have had to fear the presence of arbitrary fancies. But Michael was not glad. In his own sphere, beyond man, he had to wage war with Lucifer and Ahriman. This resulted in tragic difficulty, because Lucifer is able to approach man the more easily, the more Michael—who indeed also preserves the past—is obliged to keep himself away from man. And thus a severe battle for man took place between Michael and Ahriman and Lucifer in the spiritual world immediately bordering upon the Earth, while on the Earth itself man kept his soul in action against what was beneficial to his evolution.

[ 20 ] All this applies of course to the spiritual life of Europe and America. We should have to speak differently with respect to that of Asia.

Further Leading Thoughts issued from the Goetheanum for the Anthroposophical Society (in connection with the above Third Study: Michael's suffering over Human Evolution before the Time of his earthly Activity)

[ 21 ] 134. In the very earliest time of the evolution of the Spiritual Soul, man began to feel that he had lost the picture of Humanity—the picture of his own Being—which had formerly been given to him in Imagination. Powerless as yet to find it in the Spiritual Soul, he sought for it by way of Natural Science or of History. He wanted the ancient picture of Humanity to arise in him again.

[ 22 ] 135. Man reaches no fulfilment in this way. Far from becoming filled with the true being of Humanity, he is only led into illusions. But he is unaware that they are so; he thinks they have real power to sustain Humanity.

[ 23 ] 136. Thus, in the time that went before his working upon Earth, Michael had to witness with anxiety and suffering the evolution of mankind. For in this time men eschewed any real contemplation of the Spirit, and thus they severed all the links that connected them with Michael.

Yesterday, we tried to characterize the forces that permeated Greece and Rome in order to obtain an idea of the influences that have been carried over from the fourth into the fifth post-Atlantean age, and we gave some indication of where we have to look today for signs of continued activity of the forces of the fourth post-Atlantean age. I want to ask you now to turn your attention once again to our description of the civilizations of Greece and Rome.

In the way it developed, the civilization of Greece was a source of great disappointment to the luciferic powers. One can, of course, only say these things out of imaginative cognition, and this will also be true of what is to be presented to you today. The development of Greek civilization was a great disappointment to the luciferic powers because they expected something quite different from it. Think what this means. They had expected the civilization of Greece, the fourth epoch of post-Atlantean times, to bring into being for them all they had striven for during Atlantean times. On Atlantis they had developed certain activities, certain influences and forces and they had expected to see the fruits of their labors appear in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. What was it they were really looking for?

To speak of such a matter lets us look right into the luciferic soul. We come to know this luciferic life that continually strives, hoping that certain results may ensue, but that continually meets with fresh disappointment. A logician would naturally ask, “Why do not these luciferic powers stop trying? Why do they not see that they must be forever and repeatedly disappointed?” Such a conclusion would be human, not luciferic, wisdom. At any rate, the luciferic powers have yet to come to this conclusion. On the contrary, it is their practice to redouble their efforts whenever they experience disappointment.

What was it, then, that the luciferic powers expected from this fourth post-Atlantean age? They wanted to obtain mastery of all the soul forces of the Greek people, those soul forces that were, as we have seen, directed to carrying over the ancient imaginations of the Chaldean-Egyptian period, and to incorporate them into the creations of their own fantasy. The luciferic powers made it their endeavor to work so strongly on the human beings of the Greek civilization that their imaginations, refined and distilled to fantasy, should fill their whole being. The Greeks would then have lost themselves in a soul world, in an everyday thinking, feeling and willing that would have consisted entirely of those subtle imaginations that had become complete fantasy.

If the Greeks had developed nothing in their souls but these imaginations refined to fantasy, if these enticing imaginations had come to fill their souls completely, the luciferic powers would have been able to lift the Greeks and a great part of humanity out of human evolution to place them in their own luciferic world. This was the intention of the luciferic powers. From the Atlantean epoch on, it had been their hope to achieve in the fourth post-Atlantean age what they had failed to do in Atlantis. Humanity, at the stage it had then reached, would have been incorporated into the cosmos. They wanted nothing less than to create for themselves a separate world where earthly gravity did not exist, but where human beings would dwell with absolute super-sensible lightness, entirely given up to a life of fantasy. It was the hope of the luciferic beings to create a planetary body, which would contain those members of humanity who had reached this highest development of the fantasy life. They made every endeavor to lead the souls of the Greeks away from the earth. Had they succeeded, these souls would gradually have forsaken the earth. The bodies that still came to birth would have been degenerate. Egoless beings would have been born, the earth would have fallen into decadence and a special luciferic kingdom would have begun. This did not come to pass. Why?

This condition did not come about because, mingled with the “self-deifying madness” of Greek poetry, to quote Plato, was the genius and greatness of Greek philosophy and wisdom. The Greek philosophers—Heraclitus, Thales, Anaximenes, Anaximander, Parmenides, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle—saved Greek civilization from being completely spiritualized in a life of fantasy. They kept the Greeks on earth, providing the strongest forces that kept Greece within earthly evolution. In considering the course of history, we must always take into account the forces that lie behind physical reality and are the true causes of all that happens. It was, then, in this way that Greece was preserved for earthly evolution.

Now, the luciferic beings would have been unable to achieve anything at all without the help of the ahrimanic beings. In all their intentions and hope they reckoned on their support. Indeed, it must always be that two forces strive together in this kind of working. Just as the luciferic beings were disappointed in Greece, so were the ahrimanic beings disappointed in Rome and the way it developed. The luciferic beings wanted to lead Grecian souls away from the earth-planet and the ahrimanic beings wanted to contribute their efforts to the end that the Roman civilization would assume a particular form. The ahrimanic beings exerted their strongest efforts in Rome, just as the luciferic beings did in Greece. They calculated that a certain hardening would arise on earth brought about by an entirely blind obedience and subjection to Rome. What did the ahrimanic powers want to accomplish in Rome? They wanted to establish a Roman Empire that would extend over the whole of the then known world, embracing within it every human activity. It would be directed entirely from Rome with the strictest centralization and the utmost development of the rule of might. They sought to establish a widely flung state machinery that would include and make subject to it all religious and artistic life. Its goal would be to stamp out all individuality. Every people and human being would comprise merely some small part of this mighty state machine.

Thanks to the clarity of its philosophers, however, Greece was not lulled into the luciferic dream, nor could Rome be hardened as these ahrimanic powers desired, because in Rome, too, something was working against them. This was described in the last lecture as Roman ideals, but the legal, political and military ideals that were then developing could not have withstood Ahriman alone. Within the Roman civilization the ahrimanic powers gathered for a stupendous onslaught. That attempt was like a repetition of their attempt made in Atlantean times, and it developed infinitely strong powers and forces. It was only from another side that Ahriman's intention was hindered. It was, at first, prevented by something that, at first sight, might be regarded as a lower trait in the Roman character, but that was not the case. As a matter of fact, the Romans had need of what I may have seemed to describe in the last lecture with some antipathy. They needed their ruthlessness, stubborn egoism, that continuous stirring up of emotions, to be able to march against the ahrimanic powers. Roman history—I beg you expressly to note this—is not a revelation of the ahrimanic powers. Although they stand in the background, it is a fight against them. If it is all confused and self-seeking, seeming to tend more and more toward a politicalization of the whole world, it is because only in this way could Ahriman's mechanizing be resisted.

All this alone, however, would not have been of much avail. Rome had also received Christianity, which in Rome would have assumed a form that would have given Ahriman a splendid opportunity to achieve his aim since, through the spiritual decline of a Roman rule that had been transformed into a papacy, the mechanizing of culture could have been accomplished. So another external power had to be brought against Ahriman, who works with much more external means than Lucifer. Ahriman, as we have seen, diverted the forces of Christianity to his own service. Another power had to be brought against him. This was the onslaught of the Germanic tribes caused by the migration of peoples in Europe. Through this onslaught on Rome, the mechanizing of the world under a single, all-embracing Roman Empire was hindered. If you will study all that took place in the migration of these peoples, you will find that you can get a true insight into it when you see it from this point of view. Whenever the migration of peoples occurs in the Roman world, Roman history is not thereby brought to an end, but the ahrimanic powers, combated throughout their history by the Romans, are repelled.

Thus did Ahriman meet with his disappointment, as Lucifer had met with his. But they will take up their tasks again in the fifth post-Atlantean age with all the more determination. Here is the point at which we must gain an understanding of the forces that are operative in our age, insofar as such an understanding is possible today.

The fourth post-Atlantean age extends both backwards and forwards from its central point in 333 A.D. It ended about 1413 A.D. and it began about 747 B.C. These are of course, approximate dates. I have just told you that the disappointment of Lucifer and Ahriman in the forms the Greek and Roman civilizations had assumed, has led them to make still stronger efforts in our fifth post-Atlantean age. Their efforts are already at work in the human forces that have been active from the fifteenth century. It does not matter whether something occurs a few decades earlier or later. In outer physical reality, which takes on the form of the “great illusion,” things are sometimes misplaced.

The fact that the Roman civilization could be retained in the evolution of humanity as it was due to the events brought about by the migrations of the peoples. If Rome had developed in such a way that a great all-embracing mechanized empire had arisen, it would only have been habitable for egoless human beings who would have remained on earth after Lucifer had drawn out their souls on the path of Greek culture and art. You see how Ahriman and Lucifer work together. Lucifer wants to take men's souls away and found a planet with them of his own. Ahriman has to help him. While Lucifer sucks the juice out of the lemon, as it were, Ahriman presses it out, thereby hardening what remains. This is what he tried to do to the civilization of Rome. Here we have an important cosmic process going on—all due to the intention and resolve of luciferic and ahrimanic powers. As I have said, they were disappointed. They have continued their efforts, however, and our fifth post-Atlantean age has yet to learn how strong these attacks are. They are now only beginning but they will become stronger and stronger. This age must learn, too, that the necessity to understand these attacks will become ever greater. At the beginning of an age the backward beings cannot work strongly. As yet, we are only in the beginning, and even though it became manifest only later, the luciferic and ahrimanic powers began to exert their forces before the expiration of the fourth post-Atlantean age.

To understand how these powers work in the fifth post-Atlantean age, we must turn our attention for a moment to what is intended for man in the right and normal course of his evolution. It is rightfully intended that he shall take a further step forward. The step taken by humanity in the fourth post-Atlantean age is revealed in the culture of the Greeks and in the political development of the Romans, and it was through the battle with Lucifer and Ahriman that what was intended actually came about. These opposing forces are always such that they fit into the progressive plan of the world. They belong to it and are needed there as opposing forces. But what special qualities are the men of the fifth post-Atlantean age, our own, to develop?

We know that this is the age of the development of the consciousness soul and that, to accomplish this, a number of forces—soul and bodily forces—must be active. First, a clear perception of the sense world is necessary. This did not exist in earlier times because, as you know, a visionary, imaginative element continuously played into the human soul. The Greeks still possessed fantasy but, as we have seen, after fantasy and imagination had taken possession of humanity, as it did of the Greeks, it then became necessary for men to develop the faculty to see the world of external nature without the illumination of a vision standing behind it. We need not imagine that such a vision has to be a materialistic one. That point of view is itself an ahrimanically perverted perception of sense reality. As indicated before, observation of sense reality is one task incumbent upon the human soul in our fifth post-Atlantean age.

The other task is to unfold free imaginations side by side with the clear view of reality—in a way, a kind of repetition of the Egypto-Chaldean age. To date, humanity has not progressed too far in this task. Free imaginations as sought through spiritual science means imaginations not as they were in the third post-Atlantean age, but unfettered and undistilled into fantasy. It means imaginations in which man moves as freely as he does only in his intellect. That, then, is the other task of the fifth post-Atlantean age. The unfoldment of these two faculties will lead to a right development of the consciousness soul in our present epoch.

Goethe had a beautiful understanding of this clear perception, which, contrary to the materialistic point of view, he described as his “primal phenomenon” (Urphänomen). You will find that this has been dealt with at length in Goethe's writings, and I have spoken of it in my explanation of the primal phenomenon. His is a clear, pure perception of reality and of his primal phenomenon. Goethe not only gave the first impulse for perceptions free of any visions but also for free imaginations.¹ What he has given us in his Faust, even though it has not yet gone far in the direction of spiritual science, and in comparison with spiritual science is still more or less instinctive, is nevertheless the first impulse to a free imaginative life. It is no mere world of fantasy, yet we have seen how deep this world of fantasy really is that develops in free imaginations in the wonderful drama, Faust.

So, over against this primal phenomenon, we have what Goethe calls typical intellectual perception. You will find it described in detail in my book, The Riddle of Man. This mode of thought must continue to develop. The men of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, however, must not merely behold reality. They must be able to live with reality. They must get busy, like Goethe, and, working in quite a different way from that of the materialistic physicists, really make such use of their laboratory apparatus that it produces the primal phenomenon for them. They will then have to devise some way of getting the primal phenomenon into practical life. As you know, it is at home in, and holds sway throughout, nature. The intentions of humanity that come from free imaginations will have to be included in this primal phenomenon of nature. On the one hand, men will have to direct their gaze quite selflessly to the outer world to work in it and to gain knowledge of it. On the other, by powerful application of their personalities, they will have to bring it all into inner movement in order to find the imaginations for outer activity and outer knowledge. Gradually, the consciousness soul and its culture will achieve this transformation.

There will certainly be one-sidedness in this cultural epoch. That goes without saying. Our cognition will direct its efforts only outwards, as in Bacon, or only inwards, as in Berkeley. We have already spoken of this. The imaginative life welling up from within will not unfold without all manner of disturbing influences. But even now we can point to moments in this development when someone feels this free imaginative life springing up in his soul. In these beginnings it is still in great measure unfree, but we may see how so significant a man as Jacob Boehme, quite soon after the fifth post-Atlantean age began, felt how it was trying to develop in his soul. He brought this to expression in his Aurora, and we can feel as we read it how imaginative life was working within him. It must become free; Boehme still feels it to be a little unfree. Nevertheless, he knew it was a divine creative thing that was working in him. So Boehme was, in a sense, at the opposite pole to Bacon, whose endeavor always directed his attention to the external world. Jacob Boehme, however, was entirely engrossed in the world within, and described this world beautifully in the Aurora:

“I declare before God,” he says because he is speaking of his inner soul, “that I do not know how it comes to pass in me.” He means by this how the imaginations arise in him. “Without feeling the impulse of the will, I also don't know what I have to write.”

This is how Boehme speaks of the uprising of imaginations in himself. He detects the beginning of forces that must grow continually stronger in the men of the fifth post-Atlantean age.

“I declare before God that I do not know how it comes to pass in me. Without feeling the impulse of the will, I also don't know what I have to write. The spirit dictates to me in a great and marvelous knowledge what I write, so that often I do not know whether I am in this world with my spirit, and I rejoice exceedingly that sure and continuous knowledge is thus vouchsafed to me.”

Boehme describes the instreaming of the imaginative world. We can see that he feels harmony and rest in his soul, and he describes how men's souls shall, in the normal and right progress of their evolution, let themselves be taken hold of by these inner forces, which are to grow stronger in them in the fifth post-Atlantean age. But one must take possession of them in the pure inner being of the spirit and thereby avoid devious paths. In the seventeenth century one had to speak of these forces much in the way that Boehme, who spoke as a man completely and utterly devoted to divine righteousness, did.

The entire aim in the work of the luciferic and ahrimanic powers in the fifth post-Atlantean age, concerning both the perception of the primal phenomenon and the development of free imaginations, is to hinder these forces from arising in man. The luciferic and ahrimanic powers are working in this fifth post-Atlantean age to disturb these forces in the human soul, to employ them to a wrong end, thus bringing men's souls out of the earth sphere to establish a new sphere of their own. Many things must work together to disturb the right, quiet and slow unfolding of these forces. Note well that I say the quiet and slow unfolding because the entire period of 2,160 years, starting in 1413 A.D., should be used for the gradual unfoldment of the forces I have named, that is, free imaginations and the gradual development of working with primal phenomena. At intervals—by fits and starts, as it were—the luciferic and ahrimanic powers throw the whole weight of their opposition against this right evolution. When we bear in mind that everything is prepared for by the world beyond the earth long before it happens, we shall then not be surprised to find preparations being made to bring the strongest possible forces of opposition against the normal evolution of humanity.

We have already seen how the luciferic and ahrimanic powers poured what they had developed in Atlantean times into Greece and Rome. Now, in an altered form, they have tried to repeat these efforts before the arrival of the fifth post-Atlantean age. You will not be surprised when I say that for this fifth post-Atlantean age, too, a powerful impetus had to be present bearing along with it the after workings, in a luciferic and ahrimanic sense, from Atlantis. We know that the Atlantean influences spread out from a region that was called Atlantis even by Plato. Let us make a diagram and imagine Atlantis here, then over here on the right would be Europe and Asia, and here on the left would be America. The old Atlantean forces, including the old luciferic and ahrimanic forces, spread out from Atlantis. Some part of these Atlantean forces, however, was held

back, and it came to work in our fifth post-Atlantean age as luciferic and ahrimanic forces. That is, some part of the good forces, which were good and right in Atlantean times, have been carried over to our time to become luciferic and ahrimanic forces. Only the center was transferred to another region.

Atlantis, as we know, is gone and the center transposed to Asia. You must imagine it on the reverse side of my drawing and the effects of the old Atlantean culture spreading out from it as a preparation for the fifth post-Atlantean age.

Its intent was to lucifericize and ahrimanicize it. It was actually the descendants of the old Atlantean teachers who were now working from a place in Asia. A priest there had been educated to behold—to have a belated vision, as it were, of what the Atlanteans called the “Great Spirit,” and to receive his commands. These the priest communicated to a young man of remarkable energy and strength who, by virtue of this authority, received the name “The Great Ruler of the Earth” from his community. This was Genghis Khan. The Great Spirit, through his follower and through that priest, gave to Genghis Khan the command to summon all the powers of Asia to spread the influence that would lead the fifth post-Atlantean age back into a luciferic form. These forces—and they were far more powerful than the forces established in Greek culture—were all employed to this end. Free imaginations were to be changed into old, visionary imaginations. Every effort was to be made to lull the soul of man to sleep in a dim and dreamy experience of imaginations instead of a free experience filled through and through with clear understanding.

With the help of the special forces that had been preserved from Atlantis, it was the intended purpose to carry an influence into the West that would make its culture visionary. Then it would have become possible to separate the souls of men from the earth and to form a new continent, a new planetary body with them. All the unrest and disturbance that came into the evolution of modern man through the Mongolian invasions, everything connected with them that has gone on working into the fifth post-Atlantean epoch—all this unrest, which was prepared long ago, is nothing more than the great attempt that is being made from Asia to bring about a visionary European culture. It would cut it off from the conditions of its further evolution and lead it altogether away from the earth, just as the East has experienced again and again this feeling of being filled with vision and of wanting to be estranged from the earth.

Something was needed to counterbalance this tendency. An opposite trend had to be created as a counterforce that moves in the direction of the normal evolution of mankind. The influence of Genghis Khan's priest was intended to bring about a kind of buoyancy and lightness in the human race that would draw man away from the earth. Over against this, a corresponding heaviness had to come to man from the weight of the earth; this was provided through the discovery of the western world. America, with all that it holds, was discovered and thereby earth heaviness, the desire to remain on earth, was given to man. The discovery of America and everything connected with it, and the way man carried his life into the many new places of the earth, all this, when seen in wider connections, shows itself as a counterbalancing force to the activity of Genghis Khan. America had to be discovered so that man might be brought to grow closer to the earth, to grow more and more materialistic. Man needed weight and heaviness to counterbalance the spiritualization that was the aim of the descendants of the “Great Spirit.”

Along with this normal process whereby the scene of action of man's life was extended to America, we find the other forces, the ahrimanic powers of the “Great Spirit,” intervening again. An influence came from America to Europe, and another came to permeate America from Asia. Thus, normal forces developed through the discovery of America and also powerful ahrimanic onslaughts. They worked less strongly at first, but will continue to work in our time and on into the future. We must learn to recognize these ahrimanic forces.

What Rome had achieved in the Church and in the ecclesiastical state was grasped by the ahrimanic influence. While it is comparatively easy to see how the luciferic influence worked on Genghis Khan—we have exact knowledge of the fact that a priest was initiated by the follower of the “Great Spirit”—it is much more difficult to say how the ahrimanic spirit worked. This is because the ahrimanic influence is dispersed and scattered. But you need only study how Spain, strictly Roman Catholic as it was, was fascinated by all the treasures of gold that were discovered in America. What a hold it had upon her! You can observe how strong the specter-like working of the old Romanism still was in such a ruler as Ferdinand of Castile or Charles V, the ruler of the kingdom over which the “sun never set.” Study the reaction of Europe to the gradual discovery and opening up of America and you will see what temptations came from that direction. Taken all in all, it is a history of temptation woven in with a history that runs a normal course.

Please do not go about saying that I have presented the discovery of America as an ahrimanic deed. In reality, I have said the very opposite. I have said that America had to be discovered and that the entire event was necessary to the progress of the world. Ahrimanic forces entered, however, and set themselves in violent opposition to what was happening quite rightly in the normal course of progress. Things are not so simple that we can say, “There is Lucifer, and there is Ahriman; they act and behave in such and such a way, and divide the world between them.” Things are by no means so simple as that.

We find, therefore, many forces working together when we set out to listen to them in their field of action behind the physical plane. These forces take possession of other forces. They try to seize the forces in man that have continued on from the fourth post-Atlantean epoch in order to distort them and make them serve their ends. Look at a man like Machiavelli. You will find in him the symbol for the politicizing of thought that begins in the Renaissance. He is a veritable revelation of the whole process. He was a great and powerful spirit but one who, under the onslaught of the forces of which I have told you, brings to a new life again the complete attitude of thought and mind that has its source in the heathen Rome of ancient times. You have a true picture of Machiavelli when you study the history of his time and see him, not as a single personality, but as the outstanding expression of many who think in the same way. In him you can observe these forces trying to charge forward with all speed, bringing to their assistance the atavistic—and thus luciferic—forces that have been left behind. Had things gone as Machiavelli intended, all of Europe would have become nothing but a political machine. Opposing the violent onslaught of such forces are the forces that work in the normal direction. Over against a figure like Machiavelli, who was purely political and turned all man's thought into political thinking, we can place another great figure, Thomas à Kempis, who was also Machiavelli's contemporary. He stands entirely within the slow and gradual evolution, working slowly and gradually. He was anything but a man of politics.

So we can follow the several streams in history. We shall find normal streams, and we shall also find currents that flow from earlier times and are made use of by the forces of which I have told you. Many forces work together in history and it is important to observe and study their connections. A man like Jacob Boehme felt free imaginations rising within him. We can say of such a man that he fortified himself against the attacks of Lucifer and Ahriman through the whole character of his life of soul and succeeded in going undisturbed along the straight path of evolution.

East of Europe, however, in all the culture of the East, we find an untold number of people who suffer greatly under the disturbing influence of Lucifer. His influence is, as we know, to draw man again and again away from the earth, to draw him right out of his physical body so that he shall perpetually fall into a state where he becomes no more than a vision of himself and is completely soul. That is the tendency that has been grafted onto Eastern Europe.

The feeling of being drawn in the other direction was given to the West. The world of imagination was pulled down into the heavy physical body so that what should rightly be free imagination working merely in the soul becomes instead something that rams the soul down into the organism, thereby causing the organism also to live on imaginations. You can hardly find a more telling description of what I mean than in the words of Alfred de Musset in which he attempts to give us a picture of the condition of his soul. De Musset is one who feels the presence of the imaginative life in himself, but he also feels the onslaught upon this life of imagination that seeks to thrust it right down into the bodily nature. This life of imagination, which does not belong in the bodily nature but should develop freely, hovering in and existing purely as a thing of the soul, is there taken hold of by earthly gravity and by what belongs to the body. In his book, Elle et Lui, which he was led to write from his relation with Georges Sand, you will find a fine description of his soul life. I would like to quote here a passage that will serve to show how he feels himself to be placed within an imaginative life that is the scene of conflict and dispute. He says:

Creation disturbs and bewilders me; it sets me trembling. Execution, always too slow for my desire, starts my heart beating wildly. Weeping, and restraining myself with difficulty from crying out, I give birth to an idea. In the moment of its birth it intoxicates me, but next morning it fills me with loathing. If I try to modify and change it, it only gets worse and escapes me altogether. It would be better for me to forget it and wait for another. But now this other comes upon me in such bewilderment and in such boundless dimensions that my poor being cannot grasp it. It oppress me, tortures me, until it can be realized. Then come the other sufferings, the birth throes, really physical pains that I am quite unable to define. Such is my life when I let myself be ruled by this giant artist who is in me.

Note the contrast with Boehme, who feels the God in him. With de Musset it is a giant artist.

It were better that I live as I have resolved, committing excesses of every kind in order to kill this gnawing worm, which others modestly call inspiration and I quite often openly call illness.

Almost every single sentence of this quote can be matched with a sentence in our quotation from Boehme. How singularly typical! Remember what I said just now, that normal evolution seeks to progress slowly. We shall have more to say about this tomorrow. Here, as described by de Musset, it is a Wild charge; it cannot be fast enough. The picture he gives us as he surveys himself is marvelous. “Creation disturbs and bewilders me; it sets me atremble,” he says, because this to will go faster and faster and comes storming in upon him from the ahrimanic side, disturbing what is still trying to progress slowly.

“Execution, always too slow for my desire, starts my heart beating wildly.” Here you have the whole psychology of the man who wants to live in free imaginations and is distressed and vexed by the onslaught of ahrimanic forces.

“Weeping and restraining myself with difficult from crying out...” Think of it! The imaginations work so physically in him that he feels like crying out when they find expression in him.

“I give birth to an idea. In the moment of its birth it intoxicates me, but next morning it fills me with loathing.” This because it comes from his organism and not from his soul!

“If I try to modify and change it, it only gets worse and escapes me altogether. Better I forget it and wait for another.” Here he wants perpetually to go faster, faster than normal evolution can go.

“But now this other comes upon me in such bewilderment and in such boundless dimensions that my poor being cannot grasp it. It oppresses me, tortures me, until it can be realized. Then come the other sufferings, the birth throes, actual physical pains that I am quite unable to define.” Then, when he beholds this giant artist that works within him, he says he would rather follow the life he has marked out for himself; that is, have nothing to do with this whole imaginative world, because he calls it an illness.

Now take by way of contrast, the saying of Jacob Boehme, “I declare before God, I myself do not know how it comes to pass in me.” Here you have an expression of joy and bliss. Confusion and bewilderment, on the other hand, can be heard in the words of de Musset, “Creation disturbs and bewilders me; it sets me trembling. Execution, always too slow for my desire, starts my heart beating wildly.”

With Boehme all is of the soul and, when he wants to write, he does not feel as though a giant artist, who makes him unhappy, were dictating to him, but a spirit. He feels that he is transported into the world where the spirit dictates to him. He is in this world and he is supremely happy to be there because a continuous stream of knowledge is given him that flows slowly and steadily on. Boehme is inclined to receive this slow stream of knowledge. He does not find it too slow because he is not overwhelmed by the swift attacking force I have described to you. On the contrary, he is protected from it.

If time permitted, we could present many more instances of ways in which individual human beings are situated in the world process. The examples I have selected are from those whose names have been preserved in history but, in a sense, all of mankind is subject to these same conditions in one way or another. I have only chosen these particular examples in order to express what is really widespread, and by taking special cases I have been able to give you a description of it in words. If you will try to make a survey of what we have been saying, you will then be able to understand much of what has come about in the course of evolution.

It would be quite possible in this connection to study many other phenomena of life. If, however, we confine ourselves today to the spiritual life, and moreover to that special region of the spiritual life comprising knowledge and cognition, we shall be able to find in it qualities that are characteristic of modern man, the recognition of which will make many things in life comprehensible. Since it is not possible to say much about the external life of today, owing to the existing prejudices and because men's souls are so deeply bound up with the conditions of the times in which they live, you will readily understand that it is only in a limited way that I can speak of the things that are carrying their influence right into the immediate present. It cannot be otherwise, as I have frequently made clear to you. I would like, however, to indicate certain phenomena of our time that are less calculated to arouse passions and emotions. Let me describe some phenomena that I will select from the life of cognition and feeling. I think you will find them underlying all I have been saying about the forces at work in this fifth post-Atlantean epoch. We will first consider these phenomena in a purely historical way in order afterward to see their relation to these forces.

Let us take first a phenomenon in which we all necessarily feel the deepest interest. The kind of understanding men have of the nature and being of Christ is of great significance, and so we will select examples of various kinds of understanding of His nature and being that lie near at hand. We have first of all a modern instance in Ernest Renan's The Life of Jesus, which appeared in the 19th century and went rapidly through many editions. I believe the twentieth appeared in 1900 after his death. Then we have The Life of Jesus, which is really no life of Jesus at all, by David Friedrich Strauss. Then we have—we cannot say, a life of Jesus, but coming from the east of Europe it is a view and conception of Christ that is of deep significance. It is not a life of Jesus but an understanding of Christ that culminates in what Soloviev wrote about Him and His part in the evolution of the earth. How significant are these three expressions of the spiritual life of the nineteenth century: The Life of Jesus by Renan, The Life of Jesus by Strauss, which is no life of Jesus at all and we shall presently hear why, and Soloviev's conception of the meaning of the Christ event in the evolution of the earth, for it is true, at any rate, to say that all of his work culminates in the Christ idea.

What is the fundamental premise of Renan's description of Jesus' life? If you want to appreciate rightly Renan's book, to understand it as a document of the times, then you must compare it with the earlier presentations of Jesus' life. Nor do you need to read only the literary accounts of His life; you can also look at the paintings of artists. You will find that the representation of the life of Jesus always takes the same path. In the early centuries of Roman Christianity, it was not only Christianity that was taken over from the East but also the manner in which Jesus was presented. The Greek art of pictorial representation was there in the West, as we know, but the ability to portray the Christ remained with the East. The Jesus countenance that is characteristic of Byzantine art was found repeatedly in the West until, in the thirteenth century, national impulses and ideas began to arise—those national ideas and impulses that later work themselves out in the way I have indicated in these last lectures.

Owing to the national impulse, a gradual change came about in the traditional stereotyped Jesus countenance that had been portrayed so long. Each of several nations appropriated the Jesus type and represented Him in its own way, and so we must recognize many different impulses at work in the different representations. Study, for example, the head of Jesus as painted by Guido Reni, Murillo, and LeBrun, and you will see how strikingly the national point of view steals in. These are only three instances that one could select. In each case there is a strong desire to represent Jesus in a national way. One has the impression that in Guido Reni's, paintings, to a far greater degree than was the case with his predecessors, we can detect the Italian type in the countenance of Jesus; similarly, in Murillo's representations, the Spanish; in LeBrun's, the French. All three painters show evidence as well of the working of church tradition; behind every one of their paintings stands the power of the Church.

Contrarily, you will find a resistance to this far reaching power of the Church, which we recognize in the art of Murillo, Lebrun, and Reni, in the works of Rubens, van Dyck, and Rembrandt—a resistance to it and a working in freedom out of their own pure humanity. Considering art in respect of its representations of the Jesus countenance, you have here direct artistic rebellion. You will now see that there is no standing still in this progression in the representation of Jesus because the forces that are at work in the world work also right into this domain. We can see how the breath of Romanism hovers over the paintings of the nationally minded LeBrun, Murillo, and Reni, and how in Rubens, van Dyck, and especially Rembrandt, the opposition to Romanism comes to such clear expression in their paintings of faces, not of Jesus alone but also of other Biblical characters. So we see how all the spiritual activities of man gradually take form among the various impulses that make themselves felt in human evolution.

Similarly, you would find that in the times when painting and representative art have given place to the word, for since the sixteenth century the word has had the same significance in such matters as pictorial representation had in earlier times, you will find that the figure of Jesus, of the Christ, is again continually changing. It is never fixed and constant but is always conceived according to how the various forces flow together in writers. Standing there before us as the latest products, let us say, we have the Jesus of Renan, the Jesus of Strauss, who is no Jesus, and the Christ of Soloviev. These are the latest products and how vastly different they are!

The Jesus of Renan is entirely a Jesus who, as a man, lives in the land of Palestine as a human historical figure. Palestine itself is marvelously depicted. With the aid of the best of modern scholarship it is described in such a way that one has before one the complete Palestinian landscape with its people. Wandering about this realistically rendered landscape and among its people is the figure of Jesus. The attempt is made to explain this Jesus figure on the basis of this landscape and its inhabitants; to explain how he grows up and becomes a man, and to explain how it was possible for such a man to arise in this land. The outstanding character of Renan's description will only be revealed when we compare it with earlier accounts and representations. These take the inner course of the events described in the Gospels and place them in a landscape that is really nowhere in particular. The facts as they are described in the Gospels are simply related over and over again and the landscape in which they occurred is totally disregarded. It is depicted in such a way that it might be anywhere.

Renan, however, goes to work to portray the Holy Land in a realistic, detailed way so that Jesus becomes a true Palestinian in this Holy Land. Christ Jesus, who should belong to all of mankind, becomes a Jesus who lives and walks in Palestine as an historical figure who is to be understood in relation to the Palestine of the years 1 to 33 A.D., that is, understood from the customs, views, opinions and landscape of the country—a right proper, realistic description. For once, Jesus was to be shown as an historical person and was to be described as any other in history. For Renan, it would have been meaningless to portray an abstract Socrates who might have lived anywhere, anytime, and it would have been equally meaningless for him to portray an abstract Jesus who might have lived anywhere on earth. In complete accord with the science of the nineteenth century, he sets out to depict Jesus as an historical figure living between the years 1 and 33 A.D., and made absolutely comprehensible by the conditions prevailing in Palestine at that time. Jesus lived from the year 1 to 33 A.D. He died in 33 A.D., just as any other man might have died in this or that year. If He continues to work in the world, it is in the same way any other dead person might have continued to work. Fitted completely into the modern point of view, Jesus was an historical personality accounted for by the milieu in which He lived. That is what Ernest Renan gives us in his Life of Jesus.

Now let us turn to the Life of Jesus that is in reality no life of Jesus by David Friedrich Strauss. I have said it is no life of Jesus. Strauss also works as a highly cultured and learned man. When he sets out to investigate anything, he does so with thoroughness akin to that of Renan in his domain. Strauss, however, does not turn his attention to the historical Jesus. He is, for him, only the figure to which he attaches something quite different. Thus, Strauss investigates all that was said of Jesus insofar as He was the Christ. He examines what is said about His miraculous entry into the world, His wonderful and miraculous development, His expression of great and special teachings, and how He undergoes suffering, death and resurrection. These are the accounts in the Gospels that Strauss selects for investigation.

Naturally, Renan, too, used the Gospels but he reduced them to what he, from his detailed and exact knowledge of Palestine, could conceive of the life of Jesus. This approach has no interest at all for Strauss. He tells himself that the Gospels relate this or that concerning Christ, who lived in Jesus. Then he sets out to investigate the extent to which what is related of the Christ has also been living as myth in other parts of the world, for instance, how the story that is told of a miraculous birth and the development of Jesus Christ is to be found in various other folk myths, as is also the Mystery of Golgotha, which is referred now the one god and then to another. Thus, Strauss sees in the figure of the historical Jesus only the opportunity for concentrating the myth forming activity of mankind into one personality. Jesus does not concern him at all. The only value He has for Strauss is that the myths, which are distributed all over the world, are concentrated in this single man Jesus. They are all hung on Him, as it were. These myths, however, all spring from a common impulse. All of them bear witness to the myth forming power that lives in mankind. Where does this myth forming power arise?

As Strauss sees it, in the course of mankind's earthly development, from the times of the first beginnings of the earth to its final end, mankind has and always will have a higher power in it than the merely external power that develops on the physical plane. A power runs right through mankind that will forever address itself to the super-earthly; this super-earthly finds expression in myths. We know that man bears something super-sensible within him that seeks to find expression in myth since it cannot be expressed in external physical science. Thus, Strauss does not see Jesus in the single individual, but rather the Christ in all men—the Christ who has lived in and through all men since their beginning, and who has brought it about that myths are told of Him. In the case of Jesus it is only that His personality gives occasion for the myth forming power to develop with extreme force and strength. In Him it is concentrated. Strauss, therefore, speaks of a Jesus that is in reality no Jesus, but he fastens upon Him the spiritual Christ force that lives in all humanity. For Strauss, mankind itself is the Christ, and He works always before and after Jesus. The true incarnation of the Christ is not the single Jesus, but the whole of humanity. Jesus is only the supreme representative for the representation of the Christ in mankind.

The main thing in all this is not Jesus as an historical figure, but an abstract mankind. Christ has become an idea, which incarnates in and through all mankind. That is the kind of highly distilled thought that a man of the nineteenth century is able to conceive! The element of life in the idea has become the Christ. He is conceived entirely as an idea and Jesus is passed by. This is a life of Jesus that is no more than a record of the fact that the idea, the divine, incarnates continually in all humanity. Christ is diluted down to an idea, is thought of merely as an idea.

So much for the second life of Jesus, The life of Jesus by David Friedrich Strauss. So we have Ernest Renan's Life of Jesus. which sets forth the historical figure of Jesus amidst the individuals around Him as well as by Himself. Then we have in Strauss's book the “idea of Christ,” which runs through all mankind. In this highly distilled form, however, it remains a mere abstraction.

When we come to Soloviev, behold, Jesus is no more, but only the Christ. Nevertheless, it is the Christ conceived as living. Not working in men as an idea, with the consequence that its power is transformed in him into a myth, but rather working as a living Being who has no body, is always and ever present among men, and is, in effect, positively responsible for the external organization of human life, the founder of the social order. Christ, who is forever present; a living Being who would never have needed a Jesus in order to come among men. Naturally, you will not find this so radically expressed in Soloviev, but that is of no account. It is the Christ as such Who stands always in the foreground—the Christ, moreover, as the living One who can only be comprehended in imagination, but by this means can be truly understood as a real and actual super-sensible Being working on earth.

There you have the three figures. The same Being meets us in the nineteenth century in a threefold description. The Life of Jesus by Ernest Renan, completely realistic; realistic history a fortiori; Jesus as an historical figure; a book that is written with all the learning of the nineteenth century. Then came David Friedrich Strauss with this idea of mankind, working on, running through all mankind, but remaining an idea, never awakening to life. Lastly, Soloviev's Christ; living power, living wisdom, altogether spiritual.

A realistic life of Jesus by Renan; an idealistic life of Jesus by Strauss that is also an idealistic presentation of the Christ impulse; a spiritual presentation of the Christ impulse by Soloviev.

Today, I want to place before you, side by side as three expressions of modern life, these three ways of cognizing the figure of Jesus Christ. Tomorrow we shall see how they take their place among the various impulses that we have recognized as working in mankind.

• 1. This distinction between pure perception free of memory pictures and visions on the one hand and an objective imagination which begins with brain-free thinking on the other is developed in Boundaries of Natural Science, Anthroposophic Press, 1983

A chamber in the castle whose exterior was shown in the preceding scene. Decorated throughout with symbols of a Mystic Brotherhood. (For costumes, see note on page 145.) Columns, arches, and vaulted roof with the mystic symbols shown in the Author's ‘Occult Symbols.’ First the Knights assemble; then the Monk and one of the Knights later appears the spirit of Benedictus who has passed away about fifty years earlier. Then Lucifer and Ahriman. The Grand Master seated at a long table with four of the Brethren, indicated in the course of the scene.

Grand Master:
Ye who are joined with me in comradeship
To seek the goal appointed unto man,
And bring that knowledge from the spirit-realm
Into the scope of earth's activities,
As is appointed to our brotherhood,
Must also truly help me in this hour
When heavy trials impend. Then, know ye all
That since our venerated master fell,
A victim by the Powers of Darkness claimed,
Who draw their strength from Evil, helping on
The plan of Wisdom by their natural means,
That is by means of Opposition's strength,
Since Wisdom turneth Evil into Good.
Since that sad loss we strive on earth in vain,
For many a castle of our brotherhood
Hath by our enemies been overwhelmed,
And many Brethren dear to us have fallen
In fight, and followed our great Master home
Into the realm of everlasting light.
For us too doth the hour approach apace
When these stout walls that shelter us shall fall.
Our foes already spy the country round
To find a pretext under which they may
Rob us of our possessions, ne'er acquired
For our own use, but as a means to draw
Around us individuals, in whose souls
We could implant the germs of things to come.
These germs shall ripen when those men themselves
Find their way back from out the spirit-land
To live anew in future days on earth.

First Master of Ceremonies:
That this our brotherhood should be o'erthrown
By some obscure design of destiny,
Is something nowise inconceivable.
But that the fall of our community
Should doom so many brothers' single lives,
Would seem to contravene the cosmic law.
I do not wish my words to make complaint,
Since willingly our brothers suffer death.
But still my soul desires to comprehend
The sacrifice demanded from these men
Who have allied themselves unto a whole,
Because the powers of destiny decree
The overthrow and ruin of that whole.

Grand Master:
The separate life of individual men
Is linked most wisely to the world's design.
Amongst our brothers there will surely be
Some who have given proof of competence
To serve our brotherhood with their soul's power
And yet whose nature still shows many a stain.
The errors and misdeeds of such a heart
Must find their expiation in the pain
Suffered by it in service for the whole.
And he who, blameless both in act and deed,
Must none the less walk in the thorny way
Traced by the Karma of the brotherhood,
Will find his pain requited by the power
To mount aloft unto the higher life.

First Master of Ceremonies:
So then the brotherhood may tolerate
Within its ranks souls not yet purified
Who vow themselves to its exalted aims?

Grand Master:
He who to lofty works is dedicate
Doth mark alone the goodness in men's souls;
He lets the evil work its ransom out
As cosmic justice in its course decides.
My brothers, I have bid you meet me here
In order to remind you with grave words
That we have duties in our days of grief.
We must be ready to lay down our lives
For those high purposes to which we swore
Lifelong allegiance, Truly ye are
My brothers, if undauntedly your souls
Repeat the motto of our brotherhood:
‘Separate existence must be sacrificed
By those who would set eyes on spirit goals,
Piercing the outer veil of world of sense,
And dare to let the spirit's will pour down
And flood their individual purposes.’

First Preceptor:
Exalted Master, shouldst thou design to test
The heart of each man in our brotherhood,
It would repeat that motto loud and clear!—
Yet do we beg thee to explain to us
Why, not content with robbing us of life
And our possessions, now our enemies
Would rob us also of those humble souls
Whom we have tended with unselfish love.
For every day affords new evidence
That not alone compulsion makes our folk
Submit themselves unto our conquerors;
But that indeed they too have learned to hate
The spirit-path which we had shown to them.

Grand Master:
That which we have implanted in men's souls
May die indeed to-day; but these same men,
Who once have breathed our spirit-radiance,
Will come again to earth, and then bestow
Upon the world the fruitage of our work.
Thus speaks unto my spirit oftentimes
Our mighty leader from the realm of death,
When in my quiet hours, I do sink down
Into my soul's deep places, and arouse
Strength to abide awhile in spirit-lands.
Then may I feel the master's presence near
And hear his words, as in the life of sense
I often heard them. Never doth he speak
About our work as drawing to a close;
But only of fulfilment of our aims
In later days that are to come on earth.

(Exeunt the Grand Master and two of the Brotherhood.)

First Preceptor:
He speaks of spirit-worlds in just such words
As men may speak of villages or towns.
The way in which our loftiest brothers speak
Of other states of life oppresseth me.
And yet I am devoted fervently
Unto the progress of our earthly aims.

Second Master of Ceremonies:
I place reliance in our master's words.
The man who cannot hear with perfect faith
The tale of spirit and of spirit-worlds,
Is nowise lacking in capacity
To grasp a revelation of this kind.
The things he lacks are of a different mould.
Though he admit it not, he well may feel
That he is conscious of unworthiness
To be a member of the higher worlds.
A soul must be defiled by secret stains
And eager to deny that they are there,
That will not bow before the spirit-lore.

(Exeunt.)

(Enter the Monk; the Second Preceptor enters and steps up to him)

Second Preceptor:
What errand bringeth thee to this our house
Which is for thee the home of enemies?

Monk:
I must include amongst my friends all those
Who bear the form of men this is our rule.
But hostile thou mayst well esteem the claim
Which I, by duty bound, must here present.
Those who are over me have sent me here,
And their desire is that the property
Belonging to the Church, as by old deeds
Is well attested, should be given back
To them without dispute. You tract of ground
Upon which ye have sunk your mine, belongs
In law and equity unto the Church.
The manner in which ye possessed yourselves
Of this estate confers no legal rights.

Second Preceptor:
Whether in law we have a right to call
It ours or no, would constitute a case
For legal disputation long drawn out.
But certain 'tis that it belongs to us
If we refer it to a higher law.
You tract of ground was lying lost and waste
When it was purchased by our brotherhood
Not e'en an inkling had ye of the fact
That far below rich treasure lay concealed.
This have we won for human industry:
Its treasures travel far and wide to-day
To distant lands, to further human weal,
And many honest souls are now at work
In shaft and tunnel underneath the ground
Which in your hands lay waste and desolate.

Monk:
Then it doth not seem fair and right to thee
To urge upon thy brotherhood the need
Of peaceably accepting our demand
That so we may regain our property?

Second Preceptor:
Since we are not aware of any guilt,
But are convinced our cause is wholly just,
We can but wait in quiet confidence
To see if ye are really bent. on strife,
When as before, yourselves are in the wrong.

Monk:
Then will ye have to thank your headstrong will
If we are driven to a sterner course.

Second Preceptor:
The honour of our brotherhood demands
That only when defeated, sword in hand,
Do we allow ourselves to be despoiled.

Monk:
So be it! Now my mission is fulfilled,
Between us there is no more need of words.
Will it be possible for me to have
An audience with thy lord, who here commands?

Second Preceptor:
The Master doubtless will concede thee this;
Yet wait, I pray thee, for a little while.
He cannot at this moment come to thee.

(Exit.)

Monk:
O, that mine office forceth me to tread
The halls of this detested brotherhood!
Turn where they may, my eyes must contemplate
Sinful devices and satanic spells.—
Almost a horror seizeth hold on me;—
A crackling and a rumbling fill the air;—
I feel the powers of ill are gathered round.

(Noises heard.)

But as my conscience is entirely clear
I will defy the enemy.

(Noises heard.)

Oh, this
Is terrible.

(The spirit of Benedictus appears.)

Defend me, Saints of Heaven!

Benedictus:
Collect thyself, my son. I often came
To meet thee, when the fervour of thy prayers
Transported thee unto the spirit-world.
Take therefore courage in this present hour
And learn a truth which thou must realize
If spirit clearness is to hold its sway
And drive away the darkness from thy soul.

Monk:
When in my trials I prayed to Heaven for light,
And when my supplication winged its way
To realms celestial, and won repose,
Thou, venerated master, didst appear.
Thou, who wast aye our Order's ornament,
The while thou wert amongst us here on earth,
And out of higher realms didst speak to me,
Enlightening my mind and strengthening me.
My soul beheld thee with its inner eye,
My spirit ear was open to thy words.
In this hour also then, will I receive
The revelation with humility
Which thou shalt cause to flow into my soul.

Benedictus:
Thou art within that brotherhood's abode
Whom thou dost charge with wicked heresies.
They seem to hate what we are taught to love
And hold in honour what we count as sin.
Our brethren feel themselves in duty bound
To haste the spirit-brethren's overthrow,
And think their action sanctioned by the words
I spake myself whilst I was still on earth.
Yet do they not imagine that these words
Can only hold the living truth so long
As they are livingly evolved by those
Who have been my successors in my work.—
So let those thoughts which I once held on earth
Rise up afresh and live within thy soul
In harmony with needs of newer times;
And thus behold this Order, which doth seek
Its goal in mystic realms, as I should judge
And look on it, if it had been my lot
To dwell on earth and work with thee to-day.
This brotherhood is vowed to lofty aims;
Those human beings who have joined its ranks
Have premonitions of the days to come
Their leaders see with a prophetic eye
The fruits that shall grow ripe in future times.
Science and daily life shall undergo
A change of form and seek ideals new;
And what this brotherhood doth now achieve,
Whom thou hast lent a hand to persecute,
Are deeds which serve to bring this change about.
Alone by peaceful union of the aims
Sought by our brethren and these heretics
Can good be made to blossom on this earth.

Monk:
This warning, of which I am worthy found,
How can I act upon it? It departs
Amazingly from all that I have held,
Up to this moment, to be right and good.

(Ahriman and, Lucifer appear.)

But other beings now are drawing nigh!
Why do they come and stand beside thee now?

Ahriman:
This further message comes from other realms.
It cannot seem an easy thing for thee
Thy predecessor's bidding to obey,
Reflect—he dwells in everlasting bliss.
And actions by decree and duty there
Desirable, may well upon the earth
Lead to confusion at the present time.
Lift up thine eyes to where he dwells on high
If thou wouldst seek for comfort from the bliss
Which, when the latter days of earth draw near,
By cosmic spirits is to be bestowed.
But if at present thou wouldst act aright,
Be guided only, in the choice of paths,
By that which reason and the senses teach.
Thou hast been able clearly to discern
The sinful ways of yonder brotherhood
Which they would fain keep secret from the world;
Thus hast thou learned that laws for future life
Can well be framed by souls now steeped in sin!
How canst thou wish, now that thou knowest these things,
To live in friendship with the brotherhood?
For error is a poor and sterile soil
Where good fruit cannot come to ripening.

Lucifer:
Thy pious mind hath shown the road to thee.
It is most true that times and objects change;
But none the less 'tis not for heretics
To trace the paths on which mankind must tread.
The error of this spirit-brotherhood
Is dangerous, because it speaks the truth,
And yet expresses it in such a way
As makes the truth more deadly than a lie.
A man who openly avowed he lied
Would have to be bereft of common sense
'Ere he could bring himself to such belief
That men would gladly follow where he led.
The spirit-knights indeed are shrewd of mind;
They do not fail to speak about the Christ
Because this name can open every door
That gives admission to the souls of men.
But ever can men easiest be led
Into the service of the Antichrist
When in the name of Christ he is proclaimed.

Monk:
Conflicting voices from the world of souls
Assail mine ears, as often heretofore,
And always with an aim to counteract
The pious promptings of a mind devout.
How shall I find the paths that lead to good
If by the Powers of Evil they be praised?
Almost it seems to me as if indeed—
But no, such words shall not be thought by me—,
The wisdom of my master shall reveal
The meaning of his words, so dark to me.

Benedictus:
I can direct thee to the proper path,
If thou wilt let the words which once I spake
On earth possess thee in thine inmost soul.
And if thou art resolved to find the life
That lives within those words upon those planes
On which thou now canst see me face to face,
The proper path shall be made plain to thee.

Curtain, while the Monk, the Spirit of Benedictus,
Lucifer, and Ahriman are still on the stage

My dear sisters and brothers, it would be good if everyone who participates in an esoteric class were completely aware of the importance of the same. We're supposed to step out of everyday life consciously; it must seem to us as if the veil that separates us from the spiritual world is completely pulled away so that we can place ourselves in it. In a proper meditation we should become body-free, leave everything that's connected with corporeal things, extinguish all interests in corporeal life and only be devoted to the object of our meditation. We should step out of our body and leave it behind completely, as in sleep, except that in meditation it happens consciously. One thing we do take with us, and that's the effect of lungs and heart, the breath of life that Jahve Elohim once blew into earth man. While we're entirely devoted to our meditation we'll have the feeling that our brain is only an etheric brain. When a man thinks it has nothing to do with his brain. When he feels it has nothing to do with the heart organ. Just as when a carriage leaves deep ruts in a dirt road this has nothing to do with the wheels as such but is dependent on the road's consistency, so one can't judge organs by what one sees, as physiologists and anatomists do. It's not the organs that think and feel, it's the spiritual beings and forces that work into them. Just as letters are only characters for a word's content, so organs are only signs through which higher beings express themselves in men.

Our cerebellum is a remnant of the Moon stage of evolution; it sits there as a sign of the battles that the Gods fought for us. The cerebellum arose from what was thought on old Moon. There were no errors in our thoughts then, for divine powers thought for us and guided our thoughts. Man had no freedom yet; divine beings directed him. Now that he's become independent he must be responsible for what he thinks. There are also remnants of old Moon in the cerebrum's pineal and pituitary glands; on old Moon they were what the lung and heart are in man today. And what a man does now will form his cerebrum on Jupiter. What he thinks in connection with his cerebrum now will form his cerebellum on Jupiter. A man must bear the consequences of his thinking now that he's become free, and the cerebellum sits in the back of his head like a judge, for it will take the effects of everything that he thought on earth over to Jupiter. And so I ask you: Do we still need a Judgement? Isn't this judgement much more gripping and powerful than the one Michelangelo could portray in his Last Judgement? Just estimate the tragedy that lies in the fact that a man now has to bear the consequences of his deeds, feeling and thinking himself.

But we have a consolation, a support in the fact that Christ has entered earth evolution: if we entrust ourselves to him he will bear our deeds, feelings and thoughts over to Jupiter. That's why it's so important that spiritual science should enter our age, so that an understanding for the true Christ can become alive again.

In her Secret Doctrine Blavatsky speaks of Jahve as a moon God, but because she mixed in her own feelings there are errors in there, and much of the bad karma that burdens the Theosophical Society arose from this. And since Jahve was understood so little it's not surprising that one understands the Christ being so little now. To correct this Lucifer and Ahriman had to be spoken of right at the beginning of our Movement, for one can only get a right estimation of Jahve through a knowledge of their nature and activities. One only leads men into spiritual worlds properly if one leads them past Lucifer and Ahriman so that they get to the Christ there. If one doesn't place Christ at the centre of esoteric life one leads them to Lucifer. But one doesn't like to call these things by the right name, one deceives oneself about their true nature. What one calls scientific in certain circles is really ahrimanic. For instance, a Theosophist said that Occult Science is psychic-mystical, whereas the writings of Besant and Leadbeater are occult and scientific. But they're ahrimanic, and what he calls psychic and mystical should be called Christian. For Occult Science and our whole work was inspired by the Christ being himself. We should always keep this in mind, my dear sisters and brothers.

We came over from the Moon where we were still in the lap of the Gods: Ex Deo nascimur. We unite ourselves with Christ on earth and die into him: In ... morimur. Then the Holy Spirit will lead us over to the reincarnation of the earth—Jupiter: Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.