The Rudolf Steiner Archive

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We have seen that necessity must be thought of in connection with the past, that the world contains as much necessity as it does past. For, as we tried to recognize, the past is reflected in the present. And there was another element involved: we hope to be so strengthened by our striving for clarity about just such concepts as we have been considering that we will be fit to take up the study of the truths of spiritual science. It is disastrous in many respects to have a great longing for what we might term deep spiritual-scientific truths if we shy away from strengthening our minds and thinking by taking in and thoroughly mastering concepts of a demanding nature. They are what disciplines our souls and spirits. And if we take pains to remain inwardly true in the process, no danger can ever threaten us from genuine spiritual-scientific concepts.

I have already mentioned, however, how often many people's longing for spiritual-scientific truths is found to outweigh their longing to work their way through to substantial concepts. Right at the beginning of our efforts in spiritual science there were some individuals who declared that they could not attend my lectures because they sank into a kind of sleep-state as a result of the concepts being discussed. A few especially mediumistic natures even carried things to the point of having to leave the lecture hall in Berlin. And one woman was actually found collapsed in sleep outside the hall, so powerful had been the lulling effect of the search for clear concepts!

The reproach was once made to Goethe that he created “pallid concepts” with his ideas about the metamorphosis of plants and animals and the primal phenomena of color. In his “Prophecies of Bakis,” which I have already had occasion to discuss, he inserted a passage referring to this avoidance of what people were calling “pallid concepts.”¹ As a matter of fact, this quatrain was also greatly misunderstood by those who tried to interpret these “Prophecies of Bakis.” Goethe said, “Pallid dost thou appear to me”—the concept, the idea—“and to the eye dead. How is it that you call forth holy life from founts of inner strength?” Goethe expressed with such accuracy the way people react who don't like to listen to clearly defined concepts, and therefore fall asleep, and who are always wanting to hear grand-sounding words about mysterious matters of the kind that give them something to dream about but never challenge them to think. They say, “Pallid dost thus appear to me, and to the eye dead”; they say it to those who want to speak occasionally on more sharply defined concepts. And they ask them, “How is it that you call forth holy life from founts of inner strength?” Goethe answers them, Passive would be your enjoyment if I could show you perfection.

Only the lack of it lifts you to levels beyond your own self.

In other words, the absence of those perfections that delight the eye or the senses in general proves elevating. Deadness overtakes those who do not attempt to take in and energetically work through what people often refer to as “pallid concepts.” It is therefore necessary, if we are to banish all traces of Baroque mysticism from the spiritual science we are pursuing, to devote ourselves occasionally to a concern with concepts of the utmost precision.

Thus far I have been talking about necessity. The question is now whether all the concepts that we tend, in ordinary life, to lump together with the concept of necessity really all deserve to be so linked. People say that what is necessary happens. But is this actually always the case? I would like to answer with a comparison that will clarify the matter. Let us suppose that we have a river with a gradually rising mountain chain beyond it, and we notice a stream or brook starting to run down from the heights. Let's imagine that something prevents our seeing beyond this point. We study the course of the stream or brook as it conforms to the contours of the mountain range and can state that according to what we are able to see from our vantage point it is a matter of necessity that this brook flows into this river. The mountain's formation conditions this, so that our sentence, “This brook flows into this river,” would unquestionably state a necessary fact. But now let us imagine that somebody decided to regulate the course of this brook, diverting it so that it flows in another direction. That person would have obviated the necessity, which would then not have developed. My comparison is crude, but it is a fact in life and in evolution that necessities don't always have to happen. We have to keep happenings and necessities apart. Two different concepts are involved here.

Now let us return to several previous concerns. First, let us review the insight we arrived at yesterday: that the past affects the present, appearing in reflection in it. But let us recall still another occasion on which mention of mirror images was also in order. We have often made a point of describing what takes place in human perception during ordinary waking consciousness. Human beings are really always outside their bodies and their bodily functions with that part of them that is engaged in the cognitive process; they live inside the things under study, as I've often said. And the fact that a person comes to know something is due to the reflection in his body of this experience he has inside things. So we can say that we are outside our bodies with one part of our perception, and our experience within things is reflected in our bodies.

If we now imagine ourselves looking at the color blue, we experience the blue of a flower, of chicory for example, but we do so unconsciously except for the fact of its reflection in our eyes. Our eyes are a part of our reflecting apparatus. We see the experience that we have in the chicory by allowing it to be reflected in our eyes. And we experience tone similarly. The life we live in tone is experienced unconsciously, and only becomes conscious through being reflected by our hearing organism. Our entire perceptive organism is a reflecting apparatus.

This is what I tried to establish as philosophical fact at the last Congress of Philosophers at Bologna.²

Cognition is thus engendered by reflection from our organism, by a reflecting of what we experience. And as you mull over this concept of reflection, both the reflecting of the past in the present and the reflecting of our present experience through our perceptive organism, you will have to admit that what is thus added to a thing or to an event in the form of reflections is a matter of total indifference to them, something that in neither case has anything directly to do with them. As you observe a mirror image you can quite well imagine that everything in it is as it is whether or not it is under observation. Reflections are therefore elements added to what is reproduced in them. That is especially the case with cognition; whether we develop this or that particular insight is not of the least consequence to the mirror image.

Now imagine yourselves walking through a landscape. Do you believe that the landscape would be any the less beautiful or in any way less whatever it is if you were not passing through it and experiencing it as a series of reflections engendered by your organism? No, those are elements added to the landscape and matters of total indifference to it. But is it a matter of indifference to you? No, it is not. For by walking today through a landscape that is reflected in your inner being and experiencing what is thus reflected, you will have become to some extent a different person in your soul tomorrow. What you experienced—a matter of total indifference to the landscape—signifies for you the beginning of an inner richness that can keep on growing there.

But what does all this really mean? It means, with reference again to the landscape metaphor, that we can say, “This situation was thus and such up to this point.” The fact that you walked through the landscape is a further addition to it. The landscape is reflected in you, becoming a further experience in your soul. Now how did what is continuing to grow there come into being? It did so as the result of something quite new being added to what had previously occurred. Something was really engendered in your soul out of nothingness, for contrasted with what had previously occurred, the reflection is of course a nothingness, a real, absolute nothingness. In other words, you relate to something to which there was no necessity to relate. You are an addition to it. You are added to a necessary happening as a living element that relates to it in a way not conditioned by previous events, since you could have stayed away. In that case, all that you gained from the reflection would not have become a part of the situation.

As you ponder examples of this kind, you become acquainted with the concept of chance; the real concept of it is to be found there. And you also gather from such examples that beings, things endowed with being, have to come up against each other, really to collide, for chance to occur. But we see from this that such a thing as chance can occur in the universe. If that were impossible, the enrichment of soul described above could not take place.

In this sense chance is a thoroughly legitimate concept. It is a real occurrence in cosmic events, and it shows us that new aspects of relationship can be garnered in cosmic evolution as products of reflection. If it were impossible for one participant to be linked with others without bringing about reflection in the cosmic process, then the occurrence of everything comprised in the term chance would be wholly out of the question. If the meadow through which you pass were to act as the agent of your passage, pulling you there with strings, and no reflection were to come about in you as described because of the meadow's total indifference, but the meadow were instead actively to imprint its impression on you, then the outcome could be called law-abiding necessity. But though it is hard to imagine it, there could then be no such thing as a present! There would be no present! And what would come of that? Why, beings who have no desire for such a linking up cannot progress any further if they follow such a course. They have to go back again. That is indeed the law governing devils and ghosts; they have to go out again by the door through which they entered. Goethe's Faust depicts this; they can't introduce any new evolutionary waves, and must return to the place they came from. And it is due to the possibility that new evolutionary waves can be set in motion in the developmental process of the cosmos that freedom exists.

In all our cognitive experiences, except for a certain category of them, no pure reflection takes place; the reflection is imperfect insofar as all kinds of impulses are combined with it. Concepts formed on the basis of past cognitive experience are imperfect. Once we have arrived at a pure concept, we no longer need merely to recall it; we can always create it anew. Though it becomes habitual, it is a habit that has finished with the past, and new reflections are constantly being summoned up with it. The concepts we form are pure reflections, which come to us from the beyond as additions to the things perceived. Therefore, when we form an impulse into concepts, it can be an impulse to freedom. That is what I attempted to develop at greater length in my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity.³ That is exactly the thought developed there.

But the concept of chance necessarily includes the concept of freedom. We must accustom ourselves to entertaining sharply defined concepts, for these are of immense significance for life. I want to cite an instance that has often been discussed here, but it is especially illuminating in the present context. Let us assume that we are studying illness. We must invariably look at illness from the standpoint of the present, never from the standpoint of the past, i.e., of necessity. This means enlivening the standpoint of the present by giving help to the full extent possible. Only if the illness terminates in death may we bring in the concept of necessity, realizing that necessity was involved. Anything other than this is the living present. We must be rigorous in adopting the standpoint that necessity inheres in the past; life rules the present. This example shows us that if we try to illumine concepts with the help of more fruitful viewpoints, we will acquire a certain knack for dealing with them.

A good deal could certainly be said on the subject of chance, and that will be done as time goes on. But for now I wanted to define the concept of chance and to clarify the extent to which it is valid. The easiest way to regard events after learning a little bit about karma is to say that everything is caused by karmic necessity. If someone has an incarnation at this point in time, then his life after death, and then his next incarnation, he calls something experienced in this second incarnation the consequence of the former life. But it is not absolutely necessary to look at things from the standpoint of the present; the consequence could be looked for further on, in the third incarnation. Something can occur then that we might be expecting to happen in the karma of the present incarnation. But an occurrence in the present incarnation may well be just the start of a karmic sequence, a reality generated by something presently living as a result of the reflection process. And the essential point here is that something is turned into a reality by a living element as a result of a reflection that is itself unreal. That is the way chance develops into necessity; when chance becomes a thing of the past, it is transformed into necessity.

On an occasion of great suffering, Goethe made a most beautiful statement, called by him “the word of a wise man.” He was speaking about the growth process of humanity, and said, “The rational world is to be looked upon as a single immortal individual engaged in a continuous bringing forth of what is necessary.” That is, bringing forth something, and when it has been brought forth, it is interwoven into the past and becomes necessity, “thus making itself the master of the element of chance.” A glorious saying to meditate upon! We can learn something from it too: Goethe wrote this sentence while experiencing great suffering, suffering that focused his entire feeling, his whole soul life, on the growth process of the human race, and caused him to ask what the actual course of this growth was. And there was wrung from his soul the realization that the rational world, the human race, brings forth what is necessary, and thus makes itself master over chance, in other words, incorporates chance forever into necessity.

I want to digress here for a moment. An insight such as I have just cited makes valuable material for meditation; it contains so much that flows into us as we meditate upon it. We shouldn't rest content with a mere abstract grasping of such a sentence, which emerged from Goethe's soul in his extreme old age, in 1828, when he was in the throes of great suffering. A great deal of life is packed into such a saying. And the digression I would like to make is this: our insights are always to be looked upon as grace bestowed upon us. And it is just those individuals who garner knowledge from the spiritual world who are aware what a matter of grace such knowledge is when they have prepared themselves to receive it, when their being reaches out to receive what flows to them from the spiritual world. One can experience over and over again how suitably prepared one must be for the reception of spiritual knowledge, how one must be able to wait for it, for one is not at just any and every moment in a condition to receive a particular insight from the spiritual world.

This fact must be stated in just such situations as ours, for it is only too easy for misconception to be piled upon misconception concerning the conditions under which supersensible insights flourish and can be fruitfully disseminated. Numbers of individuals come to me asking questions out of the blue about this or that, and often requesting information about matters that, at the time of questioning, are remote from my concern. They demand that I give them the most exact information. People are commonly convinced that a person who speaks out of a connection with the spiritual world knows about everything it contains and is always in a position to give out any information desired. And if he can't answer a question immediately, the comment is often made that the questioner is probably not supposed to be given the information, or something of the sort.

What we are dealing with here is too crude a conception of the relationship that exists between the spiritual world and the human soul. We should realize that “readiness for truth” is especially required for a direct reception of truths from the spiritual world. Misconceptions about these things must gradually be eliminated. Of course, people at some remove from the realm of truth in the life of the spirit feel a need to ask all sorts of questions, and answers can be given them from the investigator's store of memory, based on past research. But uninvestigated truths should not be requested out of the blue from spiritual researchers. Instead, it should be realized that the investigator feels requests for information about still unresearched matters to be like knife- cuts in his body, to use a physical analogy.

Definite laws govern everything that can lift human beings into the spiritual world. We need to familiarize ourselves with these laws to lessen misunderstandings about the flowing of spiritual truths into the physical world. Only by freeing ourselves from every trace of egoism—and this includes the desire for information on just any subject—will we create healthy conditions for the sort of movement this should and must be. Certain spiritual truths simply must be incorporated into the world today. But they should not encounter the kind of aspirations brought in from the world we formerly lived in or be pursued according to our erstwhile habits. The spiritual movement should not be undermined by them. In most cases, spiritual movements have been undermined by people's failure to adapt their habitual ways to spiritual truths, instead of bringing their accustomed habits to the reception of those truths. And so it could come about that a society was founded in the eighteenth century based upon what Jacob Boehme introduced into the spiritual life of Europe.⁴ It is now correctly reported that this society had a number of members, but only one—the founder of the society—survived. I certainly hope that more than one will do so in our case! But that was what happened in one attempt to establish a society. It is said, too, that a tremendous number of those who became members turned later on into really peculiar human beings. I don't want to go into all the further details reported about the adherents of that eighteenth century society at this point.

When we familiarize ourselves with the spiritual world, as we do in the process of absorbing spiritual science, we develop an ever growing sense of what it is to participate in it. And we prepare ourselves to make the right kind of understanding ascent into higher worlds by taking in, in the form of sharply defined concepts, the world we live in. Those who are unwilling to think as penetratingly about chance and necessity as we have been attempting to do here will not find it easy to rise to a conception of providence. For you see, we can learn a great deal from the spiritual beings who surround us.

The mental niveau of our time is that of mindlessness. I've tried to give you an idea of it by citing some of Fritz Mauthner's comments. I want to add one of the most curious remarks he has made so that you will see what an honest man is capable of, a man who not only says of the prevailing science of the day that it is the only science in existence and that we have overcome the ignorance of our stupid ancestors, but who honestly accepts the prevailing outlook and then goes on to draw some remarkable conclusions about a certain matter.

I once described Mauthner as “out-Kanting Kant.” He did not just write a Critique of Pure Reason, but a Critique of Language. He really got going on words. He invented a definition for the way a word moves from one category to another. I am deliberately citing an incorrect example from his Dictionary of Philosophy, but it is one that he himself held to be correct. The earlier periods of Latin civilization had a word for truth: veritas. Now Mauthner says that the word veritas was introduced into more recent German use, was simply taken over, to become the German word Wahrheit. He terms words in this category “borrowings” (literally “loan translations”). And he traces words thus borrowed through civilization after civilization with tremendous acuity and conscientiousness, tracking down their wanderings and transformations. He does an incredible amount of rummaging around in words. Nowhere does he share Faust's longing to behold “germs and productive powers”; he simply rummages around in words with utmost zeal.

He made attempts like the following: Let us imagine some people or other with its characteristic views. Mauthner cares only about the words derived from these views, for, to him, thinking consists of words. Now, he says, there are the words, but they can be traced back to another people. The second group, where we now come upon the words, borrowed them from the first group and transformed them. And he actually perpetrates the following: (I must cite the example, as it is really too nice for words to show you the way adherents of the present outlook must think to be faithful to it. It is vitally important not to pass lightly over things of this sort.) Mauthner traces various borrowings, looking for the various transformations that have come about in words. Among them the following:

Kaffee (“coffee”), borrowed from another language and still a foreign word in the sense that in German at least the way it is written and spoken is not homogeneous. “Potato” is an English loan from some Red Indian language; in the German Kartoffel there is either a borrowing or a bastardization based upon a shift in meaning; whereas in Erd-apfel (“earth-apple”) and Grum- or Bodebirn (“ground-pear”) we are dealing with cases of transliteration or of description.

The Romans adopted the Greek custom of crowning victors of a race, or on the occasion of a feast, with a wreath, and wreaths of flowers were also used elsewhere for these purposes. But it was only at the time of the Renaissance that the term “crown” was re-introduced in noun and verb form; there were poets' crowns and crowned poets, with the word “crown” signifying “wreath” as in Latin. The plant species used was native to Greece, and was imported, in historical times at least, both as a plant and as a word. The German Lorbeer (“laurel”) (the shrub, not the berry; “baccalaureus” became in turn the symbol of an academic title, the baccalauriat; in French, bachelier; its meaning twisted again to become the English “bachelor”) became the “vegetable of fame” of Speidel's jesting. And crowned poets from Petrarch to Tennyson were called “poets laureate.” The cheap laurel needed no replacement. The myrtle-wreath, which, as a result of faulty observation, or of a still more mistaken popular etymology, was regarded somewhere in the Orient as the symbol of sexual life and later became a chastity symbol, was more easily acquired in Germany as a weed than as a blossom; German brides therefore wear wreaths or crowns of the genuine leaves and false blossoms. Palms are replaced at Easter by pussy-willows as the only seasonal green plant available. And because palms, which in the Orient are the obvious plants for decorative purposes, have lent their name as a prefix to such terms as Palm Sunday and Palm Week in characterizations of the festival season, the green willow branches substituted for them have been designated “palm branches” and “palm catkins.”

As you see, Mauthner traces borrowed terms and words like these in their transmutations from one national region to another. And then he adds, “In the case of verbs too there is no end to the carry-over from Christianity to western peoples of such actual borrowings. The migration of the real facts of the Christian ritual and of Christian thinking may be studied in this book (cf. the article on Christianity).”

If we open the book to that article we come upon a remarkable sentence; “I want to state and demonstrate one thing only in regard to the development of Christianity as the creation of the Germanic and Germanic-Roman peoples, and to the way it still dominates western civilization, for the time being, in western usage, vocabulary and concerns. That is, that Christianity as a whole represents the most prodigious borrowing, or chain of borrowings, that it is possible to find in a scrutiny of history.”

What, then, is Christianity, according to Mauthner? A collection of borrowings! There were words at the time Christianity began. And if we want to find Christianity in Europe today, we'll have to make a search for borrowed words! What Mauthner is claiming is that Christianity is nothing but a collection of such borrowings. The whole civilization of Europe would have to have developed quite differently if certain words had just not happened to get borrowed! But the important thing to note here is that this finding is the logical consequence of current scientific assumptions. It is a consequence logically and honestly reached, and those who fail to draw it are simply less honest than Mauthner. Those who have adopted today's scientific outlook can only agree that all of Christianity means nothing more to them than a collection of borrowed words.

Somebody might object that Mauthner is only pointing out the fact that “coffee” entered our language as a borrowed word, but not how coffee itself was introduced into Europe. It is true that Mauthner didn't indicate that Christianity had to be introduced into Europe because it was a collection of borrowings. He made no assertion whatever on this score. This objection cannot be made without further ado; instead we have to say that those who think in the style of modern science are simply incapable of judging the matter. They are excluding themselves from any discussion of the issue; that is the point.

Small wonder, then, that a man who, in addition to all that I've had to say about him, is also really quite a clever fellow, says,

I don't go as far as James does (Psychology, p. 297) when he holds it impossible to improve memory.⁵ It would not be impossible to render the organs that serve memory capable of greater achievement by exercising them, as has been shown to be possible in the case of the muscles. It is certainly true that educational psychology, which believes that it can strengthen memory in the young by senseless exercises, is based upon the old associative psychology, which sees in memory the mental picture of a force, just as it does in the case of imagining other such mental pictures which this force learns to play with. If memory is nothing more than activity in the same sense that the soul is nothing more than its experiences, then nothing remains to be strengthened. Iron will that does not permit itself to forget useful knowledge and exerts itself to remember when remembering is required is a facet of character, and an individual's memory is in this sense unalterable, as character is. But quite aside from all such considerations, the pointless drilling that goes on in schools is every bit as senseless as the training of the wrong muscles for some special use of the limbs would be. A person who has learned nothing in his younger years except to walk on his hands can make no use of this capability later unless he intends to become a circus performer.

In Mauthner's opinion, schoolchildren receive training that teaches them a wrong use of their brains, analogous to a person's learning only to walk on his hands, an equally useless ability. But although this is clear to Mauthner, he has absolutely no suggestions as to what should take the place of this schooling. (I have explained to you how, in this respect too, furthering what we are developing in eurythmy is important).

Walking on their hands, with their heads down, is the chief training being given our young people. Bible verses (in the elementary grades), memorizing all the tributaries of some foreign river (in the middle school), tables and professional data presented in reference books (at the university level) form the memory training defended on the basis of an assumed strengthening of memory! On the occasion of my state examinations in the history of jurisprudence, I was required to list the 13 prerogatives of a cardinal in their God-ordained order, not forgetting the prerogative of a pallium woven by a particular group of nuns in a particular convent.

Schools should limit themselves to training character, to training it for the function of finding the easiest and best means of access to useful concepts of the real world.

By now we might expect this gentleman to be suggesting what the substitute for the above should be. People of any intelligence can only agree that the way mental training has been carried on ought not to continue, so they expect to hear what he suggests instead. But the article ends right there! There is nothing more! He has been chasing his pigtail in vain, to use yesterday's metaphor. Almost every article in his dictionary creates the impression that he is unsuccessfully chasing the pigtail hanging down behind him.

If we work our way through the concepts necessity and chance and learn to recognize that the human world is to be regarded as an “immortal individual” continuously bringing necessity about and thus establishing dominion over chance, and then add to this the concept that must be acquired if we are to understand how the spiritual world streams into the human soul, we gradually work our way through to a concept of something elevated above necessity and chance, and that is providence. It is a concept attained by a gradual working up to it.

I have often called your attention to the fact that merely looking at the world conveys nothing as to the effect of activities going on in it. It would be good to cultivate the right feeling for what I've just been saying by concerning ourselves in depth with the genius of language that lives behind words, instead of doing as Mauthner does in his concern with speech. Mauthner's data could even assist such an effort on occasion, for the tremendous zeal with which he has ferreted things out can sometimes bring a person contemplating the activity of the genius of language to significant insights that he might not otherwise become aware of. The genius of language does indeed guide us to a plane elevated above necessity and chance. A great deal we participate in goes on around us as we are speaking, without our having a true knowledge of it because we are incapable of lifting it fully into our consciousness. This is the spiritual world, holding sway around us. And to take just a random example, when we speak, these spiritual worlds speak too. We should make the attempt to be aware of this.

Let us try to make a small beginning with it. We have associated necessity with the past and chance with the immediate present. For if everything were necessity, it would also be of the past, and nothing new could ever come into being. That would mean that there could be no life. So if we involve ourselves and our own lives in the world's evolution, we would be confronted by necessity or the reflected past, and in our current life by what is called chance. These two interact. We have two streams: our present life, which we think of as simply chance, and the reflected past or necessity flowing along underneath it. What is considered real from the ordinary physical standpoint can only be related to the past, to necessity, if reality is taken to mean conformity with what already exists. The real has to belong to the past, to the necessary, while what is in the living process of coming into being always has to be freshly produced. Our life is lived in this, and we have to develop living concepts that flow out of necessity to deal with that life. Here, we cannot be onlookers at something corresponding to the concept; we can only live in it. When our own lives confront the stream of evolution, we can therefore preserve the past in the developing stream of life by now transforming the reflected picture into a present element. And we can make it into an ongoing present.

We can make a human virtue of transforming into ongoing life the past that has become rigid necessity, carrying reflections further, keeping them alive and evolving in ourselves. And what name do we give the virtue that carries the past into further life stages? Loyalty! Loyalty is the virtue related to the past, just as love is the virtue related to the present, to immediate living.

But speaking of these matters brings us to what I want to say about the genius of language that we need to become aware of. Wahrheit, the German word for truth, has no connection whatsoever with the Latin veritas; it suggests the past and necessity and ordinary truth, for it is related to the German bewahren (“to preserve”), to bewähren (“to hold good”), to währen, (“to last”), with all that is carried over into the present from the past. And there is a still stronger suggestion of the same meaning in the English language, which translates both the German wahr (“true”) and the German treu (“loyal”) as “true.” And if we want to describe someone telling the truth and being believed, the old German saying auf Treu und Glauben (“on trust,” “in good faith”) is still in use, with treu rather than wahr. Here we see the genius of language at work, and its work is wiser than what human beings do.

And when we ascend from the concept of loyalty to that of love, and then to what I have described in the past as grace, a state of being we have to wait for, we come to the concept of providence; we enter the world where providence holds sway.

If Fritz Mauthner were to concern himself with providence, he would of course search out the source from which it is borrowed and trace the connection of the German Vorsehung (“providence”) to sehen (“to see”) and vorhersehen (“to foresee”), and so on. But a person concerned with reality searches for the world indicated when the union of chance and necessity plays the dominant role rather than either one alone. And the world referred to is that in which there is no such thing as the past in our sense.

I have often told you that when we look into the spiritual world and see the past, it is as though the past had remained standing; it is still there. Time becomes space. The past ceases to be simply the past. Then the concept of necessity also ceases to have any meaning. There is no longer a past, a present, and a future, but rather a state of duration. Lucifer remained behind during the moon evolution in exactly the same way that someone on a walk with another person may stay behind, either out of laziness or because his feet are sore, while his companion keeps on walking. Lucifer has as little directly to do with our earth existence as a person who stays behind has to do with places eventually reached by his companion. He stayed behind during the moon evolution, and there he still remains. In the spiritual world we cannot speak of past things, but only of a state of duration. Lucifer has remained as he was on the moon. All our concepts of necessity and chance change when we look into the spiritual world; providence holds sway there.

I wanted at least to particularize the realms in which what we call necessity, chance and providence are to be sought. This has been a beginning only, and we will return to these matters after spending some time on others. For we must devote ourselves occasionally to studies of a kind that more “mystically” oriented natures may consider unnecessary in a movement like ours. I must regard them as very necessary, however, because I believe that it is also essential for every genuine mystic to occupy himself with thinking.

• 1. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749–1832, German poet, dramatist, and novelist. The quoted quatrain is from his poetry collection entitled The East-West Divan, published in 1819. The poems are influenced by ancient Persian and Arabian poetry.
• 2. Sixth International Congress for Philosophy, Bologna, 1911.
• 3. Rudolf Steiner, Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, (Hudson, N.Y.: Anthroposophic Press, 1986).
• 4. Jacob Boehme, 1575–1624, German pantheist mystic. He was a shoemaker by profession and the first philosopher to write in German rather than in Latin.
• 5. William James, 1842–1910, American psychologist and Pragmatist philosopher. Published Principles of Psychology in 1890

We are far too accustomed to dealing with big problems like necessity and freedom in the simplest possible concepts and trying, as it were, in the twinkling of an eye to cover as many aspects as we can. We usually do not consider that problems of this kind require that we realize how complicated many of the interrelationships are in the world, and that what takes place in one area must be looked at in an entirely different light, if we want to understand it, than something quite similar in another area of the world.

I would like first of all to remind you of something I mentioned here a short time ago in a different connection. When we see such significant world events as those of the present, we are very much inclined to look hastily for the most obvious causes and to expect to find the consequences in what will happen immediately afterward. With this kind of observation we do the facts a thorough injustice. When I mentioned this before, I drew your attention to the fact that at the beginning of the Middle Ages the Roman world and what is now Central Europe were in opposition to one another. From a historical point of view we can say lightly, “Well, we try to discover the particular political motives of ancient Rome that made those Romans feel compelled to carry out their campaigns against the countries to their north, against what is now Central Europe. And we can look for the consequences in subsequent developments.”

Yet if we look at things this way we do not by any means exhaust all the points that should be considered. For just imagine, if something different had happened in the way the tribes moved across Europe from east to west, or something had happened differently in the clash between the might of Rome and the Teutonic tribes, the whole subsequent development of Central Europe right up to modern times would have had a different appearance. All the various events we have seen taking place in the course of the centuries up to our time would have been different if, at that time, the world of the ancient Roman people, who owing to their particular quality and their position in world history could not fully take up Christianity, had not fused with the world of historically young peoples who had taken up Christianity with youthful energy.

Out of the way this encounter came about between a culturally overly mature people, such as the Romans were, and a historically young people, such as the Teutonic people were in those days, all the later events have developed right up to Goethe's Faust and all that nineteenth century culture has produced. Could things have happened the way they did if that encounter had not occurred? Here, we are looking at a stream permeated with a strict inner necessity moving through world events and spreading out over immense regions. How could anyone at that time possibly have even wanted to arrange his actions in keeping with what has happened on the physical plane through the centuries from then until now?

What is taking place today is in turn the starting point of universal configurations that will of course be connected with current happenings; yet, as far as events on the physical plane are concerned, these configurations will on the face of it look very dissimilar to what takes place compressed into a short time span. I only want to mention this so that you become aware that there are deep reasons behind what I already mentioned in connection with these studies, namely, that we do not get far by brooding and speculating about how things are connected in the world. Imagine a Roman or a Teuton of the third or fourth century speculating on the possible consequences of the battles taking place in that time, and how far he would have got. Not very far!

It is essential that we become aware that the deciding factors concerning things that have to happen and our recognition that they really ought to happen are not our speculations about their possible results or immediate consequences but other things. It is essential that we become aware that into the stream of events taking place on the physical plane there actually enter forces we sense as coming from the spiritual world, impulses about the particular effects of which we don't need to speculate in regard to what ought to happen on the physical plane. We must be in no doubt that looking at human action and world history shows clearly how necessary it is that we should extend our view beyond what lies on the physical plane. And after having prepared the way for these essentials, let us return to considering the human being as such.

In the last lecture I showed how impossible it is to acquire a right relationship to our past actions if we merely continue mulling them over. On the contrary, we must realize that what is past, including our own actions, belongs to the realm of necessity, and we must become familiar with the thought that what happened had to happen. That is to say, we acquire a right relationship to our actions if we can look objectively at our past achievements, looking at a successful or unsuccessful deed of ours with equal objectivity.

Now you are bound to have serious objections to what I have just said, for such objections do exist. Consider for a moment what I have just said, that when we have done something, it is over; that we establish a proper attitude to it by facing it objectively and not wishing we had acted differently. The serious objection is this: What about the whole domain that should play a great part in human life, the domain of repentance for a deed we have done? Obviously people are quite right in saying that repentance is necessary and has to take place. If we could manage to remove from the human soul the feeling of regret, we would be removing a moral impulse of the highest order. But are we not actually doing away with it when we simply look at all that has happened completely objectively?

Here indeed is a new difficulty, one that can be the starting point for endless misunderstandings. We will have to go to the heart of the question of freedom if we want to clear away this difficulty. You know, the great Spinoza said that when we look at the world, we can really only speak of necessity.¹ Freedom is fundamentally a kind of illusion. For if a ball is hit by another one, it has to go the way the second one goes. “If it had consciousness it would believe”—Philosophy of Spiritual Activity—“that it was going its way by choice. And it is the same with the human being,” says Spinoza.¹ “Even though he is in the clutches of necessity, just because he is conscious of what he does, he thinks he is free.”

But Spinoza is utterly and totally wrong. The matter is quite different. If we really flew off somewhere like the ball that follows only the necessity of propulsion, we would lose consciousness regarding everything to do with our flying and our acting out of necessity. We would be bound to be unconscious of it. Consciousness would be eliminated. And that is what happens. Just think of the speed with which you are moving through space according to the science of astronomy! You most certainly do not do that consciously. There, consciousness is cut out. You would not be capable of being conscious, for you would not be able to hurtle through space as the science of astronomy shows you do. Consciousness of everything a person does out of necessity has to be eliminated, and in such an obvious case as flying through space we can readily see that processes subject to necessity eliminate our consciousness.

However, we are not always so obviously conscious of things, but more or less unconscious of them. In real life it is very difficult to distinguish one from the other. Where one thing borders on another we cannot understand them as easily as in our case above. On the contrary, we could say, “In all matters where we are absolutely conscious, our actions cannot be other than free. If a ball that I struck really had consciousness, it would only fly in a certain direction if it received into its consciousness the impulse I gave it and directed its own course accordingly. The ball would first of all have to become unconscious in order merely to follow the momentum.”

If you think this over, you will make a distinction that we unfortunately do not make in ordinary life with regard to actions. The fact that we do not make this distinction has not only a theoretical significance but also a very practical one. We do not in fact distinguish between situations where we have been unsuccessful and cases that are immoral and bad. This distinction is an extraordinarily important one. It is absolutely true that we arrive at a correct estimate of an action that has not succeeded and has not turned out as we intended only if we can look at it objectively as though it had been absolutely necessary. For as soon as it is over it is in the realm of absolute necessity. If something does not work out and we feel uncomfortable later on because it has not worked out, it is absolutely true that our uneasiness arises from egotism. One would have liked to have been a better person, a more capable person. That is egotism expressing itself. And unless this egotism is completely rooted out, we cannot see the further development of our soul in as significant a light as we should.

But not every deed we have done is an unsuccessful one; there can also be a bad deed, a morally bad deed. Let us look at morally bad deeds, for instance, the following one, to choose a really striking example. Suppose someone has nothing to eat, or would like something for some other reason than hunger, and he steals. Stealing is a bad deed, isn't it? Does what we have said keep a person who has stolen something from feeling remorse for his deed? No, it does not! And why not? For the very simple reason that he did not seriously want to steal, but only wanted to possess what he stole. He could readily have cut out the stealing if you had given him what he wanted, or if he had been able to acquire it in some other way than by stealing.

This is a striking case, but in a certain way it applies to all forms of bad deeds. The bad deed as such is never really intended, and language has a subtle feeling for this. When an evil deed has been done, we say, “conscience stirs.” Why does conscience stir? Because the bad deed only now becomes a matter of knowledge. It comes up into consciousness. When the deed happened, the awareness was taken up by the motive on account of which the bad deed was done. A bad deed is not willed. And repenting means that the perpetrator becomes aware that he allowed his consciousness to be dulled at the time the bad deed was done. Whenever anyone does a bad deed, it is always a matter of his consciousness of the deed being dulled, and of his having to acquire an awareness of cases like the one in which his consciousness was dimmed. The whole point of punishment is to awaken forces in the soul that will enable consciousness to extend to the kind of situations that previously produced an elimination of consciousness.

Among the dissertations done at universities by philosophers who are also occupied with legal problems there is usually one on “the right to administer punishment.” Now a great many theories have been drawn up concerning reasons for giving punishment. The one and only possible reason can be found only when we realize that punishment is given for the sake of exerting the soul forces so that consciousness will extend into spheres it did not previously reach. This is also the task of repentance. Its purpose is precisely to let us observe the deed in such a way that the force of the repentance raises the action into consciousness. Then the consciousness will see the whole picture and will not be dulled the next time. You see what is involved. We must learn to discriminate properly between a fully conscious deed and one where the consciousness is dimmed.

On the other hand, if you have an action that does not fit the category of good or bad but was only unfortunate, an action in which something we had intended to do was not successful, there the point is that we ourselves can obscure our view of it if we judge it by bringing in the thought, the feeling, that it would perhaps have turned out differently if we had done this or that better, or if we ourselves had been different. Here, it is a matter of bearing in mind that if the eye is to see an object, it cannot see itself. It must hold up a mirror, for the moment the eye holds up a mirror to see itself, it cannot see the object. The moment a person broods about how differently he should have acted, the deed cannot act upon him with the kind of power that will further his soul development. For as soon as you set egotism between yourself and your deed, as implied in the fact that you would really like to have done the deed differently, you are doing exactly the same as when you hold a mirror in front of your eye so that it cannot see the object.

We can also put it another way. You know there are so-called astigmatic eyes, eyes in which the cornea are curved in different degrees in the perpendicular and the horizontal direction. Eyes like that have a peculiar kind of inaccurate vision. Such persons see specters merely because the cornea has an irregular curve. They see specters because they are actually perceiving their own eyes and not what is outside. If one perceives one's own eye because it is incorrectly constructed and has not become an eye that can completely eliminate itself and allow the object to affect it, one cannot perceive the object. If we fill our mind with the thought “You should have been different, and if you had only done this or that differently, it would all have turned out well,” it is just as though we had astigmatism and did not see the actual fact but distorted it. Yet a person must see the real facts allotted him, only then will they really be effective. Their effect on a person who is not filled with feeling about facts but allows the facts themselves to work upon him will be the same as the effect an outside object has on healthy eyes. The facts then continue their work in the soul.

One can say that anyone who has not yet acquired an objective view of past facts in which he was involved cannot see them in their objectivity and therefore cannot obtain from them what he ought to have for his soul. It is exactly as though our eyes were to remain at their stage of development in the sixth or seventh month of embryonic growth, while we ourselves were born at the proper time. We would see the whole world wrongly. If the eyes were not to continue developing during the sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth month, but were to stop short, they would not eliminate themselves in the process of seeing. We would see something entirely different from what we actually see when we develop normally.

Thus what we have done acquires its right value only when we have come to the point of being able to let it enter the stream of necessity, and when we can regard it as necessity. But as has been said, we must realize that we then have to make the distinction between what is successful and unsuccessful and what is called “good” or “bad” in a moral sense.

Broadly speaking, you will find all this analyzed, though more philosophically, in my Philosophy of Spiritual Activity for there it is emphasized that human beings become free when they achieve the possibility of drawing impulses from the spiritual world. In one passage it is even expressly stated that impulses of free will come from the spiritual world. However, that does not exclude the utmost freedom in relation to certain events in which we very distinctly follow necessity. For we must distinguish between purely external physical necessity and spiritual necessity, although the two are basically pretty much the same. But they differ in regard to the position they occupy in world existence.

It is like this: Let us look again at a figure such as Goethe, who has appeared in world history and of whom one can say that we can follow up the education of a person such as he, and can see how he became what he was; we can then follow up the impulse that led him to achieve his Faust and his other poetical works. We can, as it were, regard all that Goethe achieved as if it were the result of his education. And then of course we see him as a genius. We certainly can. By doing this we remain focused on Goethe.

But we can do it another way. We can follow the spiritual development in the eighteenth century. We can pick out some details, for instance, that before Goethe had thought of writing a Faust, Lessing had projected one, so there was already one in existence.³ Thus we can say that the conception of Faust arose out of the spiritual problems and impulses of the time. We could say that if we examine Lessing's projected Faust and a number of other similar Faust versions, they all led to the famous Faust. By leaving Goethe out, we still come to Faust as though by necessity. Faust arose out of what preceded it. So we can arrive at Faust by following Goethe's development. One can look at Goethe from a more developmental point of view, or one can entirely leave him out and look in detail at how a type of poetry originated in Europe, such as the Song of the Nibelungs,⁴ and how it became compressed into the poem Parsifal:⁵ Parsifal, the striving human being, belonging to a certain period of evolution. One can look at how another line of development then came about, due to which the Parsifal concept was quite forgotten, and how that remarkable idea took hold of people that found its expression in the popular romance of Faust. This brought the appearance of a Faust about, what one might call a Parsifal of a later age. Goethe can be left out entirely.

Obviously we must not be pedantic; fifty years more or less do not matter. Time is elastic and can be stretched forward or backward, so that that does not interfere. It is only with things that go on in an ahrimanic way that time plays an important part. Things that come from the gods can always be moved forward or backward in time. But speaking generally we can say that even if the Frankfurt councilor Kaspar Goethe and his wife Aja had not had their son Wolfgang, or if he had died immediately after birth, for as you know he was ill at birth and nearly died, someone else would certainly have produced something similar to Faust. Similarly if Goethe had lived in the fourteenth century, he would certainly not have written Faust. These are unreal thoughts of course, but sometimes one has to consider them in order to realize the truth.

Thus we can now ask the question, “Did Goethe produce his Faust or any of his life's work out of freedom, or was it a question of absolute necessity?” The greatest freedom of all is to obey historical necessity! For if anyone imagines that his freedom could ever be endangered by what exists in the world as necessity, he ought also to say, “I want to create a poem, but I am a person who wants to work in total freedom! I want to disregard all the other poets who were unfree; I want to write a free poem. But I could not be free if I were to use the words of our language, for they came about through primeval necessity. That would not do! I will be an absolute champion of freedom. I will make up my own language!” And he sets about doing so. What he would actually achieve, of course, would be that everybody rejects him and his poem written in a nonexistent language, that with his freedom he would be bound to arouse everyone's resistance, which would express itself at first of course merely in incomprehension. From this you will see that there can be no talk of freedom, as it enters into the stream of events, being in any way encroached upon by the necessity present in the ongoing stream of world events.

We might also imagine a painter who wanted to be completely free saying, “I want to paint for sure, but I do not want to paint on a canvas or any other surface; I will paint freely. Do I first of all experiment on a given material? Not me! For then I would perpetually be compelled to comply with its surface.” The material has a very definite conformity to law, yet complying with it does not mean one is not free.

Particularly where major events in world history are concerned, it is obvious that when consciousness plays a part in our actions, what we can call necessity can join directly with freedom. As I have already said, in the fourteenth century Goethe would not have been able to create Faust, for it would have been absolutely impossible for Faust to have come about at that time. He would not have been able to write it. Why not? Because there is something we have to call an empty space in world events with regard to certain evolutionary impulses. Just as we cannot put more water into a cask if it is already full, or we can only put a certain quantity into it if it is already partly full, we cannot put anything we please into an already “full” age.

In the fourteenth century there was no space for anything like the kind of thing that came down from the spiritual world through a human being into the physical world in the form of Faust; no space, only a state of fullness. Events run their course in cycles, and when a cycle has been completed, an empty space appears for new impulses which can then enter the life of the world. A cycle has to be complete in regard to content, and then an empty space must occur again, before new impulses can come in. In the cultural period in which Goethe lived, an empty space had occurred for the impulses that came from the spiritual world to the physical world through him. Evolution really does proceed in waves: emptiness—a state of fullness to the point of completion—an ebbing—emptiness again. Then something new can come.

In the time between death and a new birth a human being plans his next incarnation according to this rhythm. He arranges it so that he encounters the particular level of emptiness or fullness in the physical world that is right for his impulses. Someone bringing with him from earlier incarnations impulses of the highest order that require a space must come at a time when there is an empty space. Whoever has the kind of impulses that need to meet with receptivity must incarnate at a time when there is a space to be filled. In many areas of course one thing will work in opposition to another. That is quite obvious. We see then that in a certain respect we choose—if we may use the word—on the strength of our inner qualities the period in which we come into the world. And on this depends the inner necessity governing our activities.

If you bear this in mind, you will no longer see any contradiction in the consecutive events and realize that Parsifal and so on, and Faust, take their turns, and then comes Goethe who creates a work that can just as well be understood in the succession of periods. You will find no contradiction any longer, because Goethe looked down from above and prepared in his inner being what could become tangible in his work. That is to say, when he was on the physical plane, he brought forth from his inner being what he had absorbed in those particular preceding centuries in which the stream of events had taken place.

Between the two statements “Goethe's work had to be produced at a definite time,” and “Goethe produced it out of freedom” there is just as little contradiction as there would be if I were to have a board and six balls in a row, then produce a small cup and say, “I will put the first ball into the cup, then the second and third and so on, and I pour them out over here.” And if now someone were to say, “But those balls lying over there are the same balls we had to start with,” someone else could reply, “No, they are the balls that came out of the cup.” Both statements can be true.

What took place in the course of time and ultimately led to Faust is what Goethe had absorbed in his inner being and what Goethe then expressed just because it had accumulated within him through looking down from the spiritual world. For we always take part in the whole evolution of the world. If we look at things this way, we can say “The moment we look into the past we have to regard past events themselves as a necessity. And if we look at ourselves and produce the past again as deeds of the present, so long as we do this consciously, we are still free in what we bring into the present of what was prepared in the past out of necessity.” Thus that person is most free of all who knows in full consciousness “what I am doing is nothing but spiritual necessity.” These things cannot be understood by pedantic logic but only by fully grasping reality in a living way.

There is still another approach that can help us understand this completely. We can ask ourselves the following. If we look at animals, we know they have a dimmed consciousness. I have often described that. Human beings have a level of consciousness in which freedom can come to expression. But what kind of consciousness do angels have, the beings immediately above human beings? What is the consciousness of the angels like?

It is actually very difficult to have an immediate perception of the consciousness of angels. When we as human beings want to do something, we consider what form our action is going to take. And if it does not work out on the physical plane as we imagined it should, we have failed. If someone sews two pieces of cloth together, and when he has finished it they come apart, the endeavor has not been a success. This can happen with a sewing machine. If things do not turn out as we had envisioned they would on the physical plane, we say the deed has miscarried. That is to say, people aim their will at something they picture happening on the physical plane. This is how our human willing proceeds.

But not in the case of angels. Their intention is everything. An angel's intention can be carried out in many different ways and the effect can still be exactly the same. This is quite true, though it is of course contrary to ordinary logic. In the artistic sphere only, and then only from the human point of view, can we acquire any feeling for this kind of consciousness. For you will always find that if the artist can take things in a human way—he may not always be in a position to do so, but if he can—he may possibly appreciate what turns out contrary to his expectations, even to the point of failure, and regard it to be of greater value than those things he did exactly as they should have been done. We then come a little closer to what is so extraordinarily difficult to grasp: that with the angels' consciousness, their will, everything depends on the intentions, and that these intentions may be realized in the most varied ways on the physical plane, even in polar opposite ways. That is to say, when an angel decides to do something, he chooses something quite definite, but not in the way that he says, “It has to look like this.” That is not in the least implied. He will not know what it looks like until it has happened.

We have seen, and I have drawn your attention to the fact, that this is even the case with the Elohim. The Elohim created light and saw that it was good. This means that what comes first for human beings, the mental image of what is on the physical plane, does not come first at all in the consciousness of spiritual beings above human beings. With them the intention comes first, and how it is to be carried out is quite another matter. Now in this respect humans are of course midway between animals and angels. Therefore, they tend on the one hand to descend to the unconsciousness of animals. Whenever a criminal deed occurs, it is essentially due to the animality in human beings. On the other hand, however, we also have a tendency to ascend to the consciousness of the Angeloi. We have within us the possibility of developing a higher consciousness, a consciousness beyond the ordinary one, in which intentions take on a different aspect than is normally the case.

Thus we can say, that if as human beings we get involved in some of life's important problems, we cannot then make plans in the ordinary way. Suppose that as a teacher—a proper teacher this time—you have a particular child to educate. Now an average person has his educational principles. He knows when to give punishment and when not to; perhaps that he should never give any punishment at all. He knows how to do that. But if you look at the matter from the point of view of a higher consciousness, you will not always judge in this way, but will leave everything in life's hands. You will wait for the results of observation. Your one intention will be to bring out all the latent talents. But these potential talents can be drawn out in various ways. This is the important thing.

If we take all these things into consideration, we will realize that in order to understand how necessity and freedom affect the human being we must observe both the external physical part and the inner part, first of all the etheric. I have already drawn your attention to the fact that our etheric body takes quite a different course from the physical body. Our physical body, as I once told you, is young to begin with. It then develops and grows older until it becomes senile. The etheric body does the opposite. Whereas we say we grow older when speaking of the physical body, we ought really to say we grow younger as regards the etheric body. If we want to use the words “old” and “young” for the etheric body, it is actually old when we are born, for it is all wrinkled up and small enough to fit us. When we reach a normal old age, and die, our etheric body has become so rejuvenated that we can hand it over to the whole world, where it can work again as a youthful force. While the physical grows older, the etheric body grows younger. It gets younger and younger.

If we die at an unusual time, die young, significant things can happen with the etheric body, such as those I have told you about. But it is not only with regard to aging that we see a difference between the physical and etheric bodies, but also with regard to necessity and freedom. When the human being is most enmeshed in necessity in what he does with the physical body or in general as a being on the physical plane, he is then freest in his etheric body, and the latter is then left entirely to itself. Whenever the etheric body is enmeshed in necessity, everything a person does on the physical plane is left to his own freedom. Thus, where the physical body is subject to necessity, the etheric body has a corresponding degree of freedom, and where the etheric body is subject to necessity, the physical body has a certain amount of freedom.

Let us look at what this means. You cannot say we are completely free to get up and go to bed whenever we want to. People get up in the morning and go to bed in the evening. There is no question of freedom there. This is part of the iron necessities of life. And even if you vary the time of getting up and going to bed, freedom is obviously out of the question. You also eat every day. There is no question of freedom there. You cannot resolve to do away with this necessity and try to be free by not eating, because you feel the taking in of food to be a compulsion. With regard to all these things a human being is tied to necessity. And why is he tied to necessity? Because the companion—as I called him last time—the inner self accompanying us through life on the physical plane and through all the compulsions connected with the physical plane, lives all the while in freedom.

But if we are to involve our inner being, our etheric body, in necessity, how are we to do it? By consciously submitting to what we recognize to be a necessity. For instance, by telling ourselves that the time has come when everyone who realizes he is ready for spiritual science ought to take it up. Nobody is forced to do this by an external necessity, of course. But we can see it as an inner necessity, because it is necessary in the present cycle of humanity. Thus out of our own free will we yield to necessity. There is no external pressure on the physical plane. We must follow compulsion out of inner freedom, as it were. The etheric body itself makes the resolve, which permeates it with necessity; it creates the necessity itself, thus acquiring the possibility of developing in freedom with regard to what happens on the physical plane. That is to say, we become acquainted with spiritual necessity, thereby making ourselves more and more free with regard to life on the physical plane.

You will now say, “Through the very fact that we find our way into a spiritual necessity we ought to become more and more free in life on the physical plane.” That is indeed so. By uniting ourselves with the spirit that streams through the world and letting it pass through us, we really do receive elements that set us free from the fetters of the physical world. We cannot of course free ourselves from what is allotted us by our previous incarnation, by our karma. But if we do not thus free ourselves through our knowledge of spiritual necessity from conditions of necessity on the physical plane, we remain bound to these after death, and have to carry them with us. We have to carry the necessities of the physical plane with us through the life between death and a new birth, and cannot free ourselves from them. But each moment in which we connect ourselves in our etheric body with the necessities of the spiritual plane, we become freer and freer of the necessities of the physical plane.

It is indeed so that if we can follow out of a free resolve a purely spiritual impulse, we become freer and freer from all that would otherwise fetter us to physical life, fetter us far beyond death. On the other hand, with regard to everything we are enmeshed in during physical life, and which is unalterable, the etheric body as such becomes freer and freer.

Thus we see how freedom and necessity interact on the physical plane and also in connection with the etheric body. The etheric body receives its freedom through the necessity of the physical plane, and has to recognize its own necessity. The physical body receives its freedom when the etheric body thus recognizes its necessity, and its necessity arises through its self-chosen karmic involvement in the events on the physical plane.

In this way we see the physical part of human beings, free in bondage, and the spiritual-soul part, bound in freedom, interacting organically. Freedom and necessity always interweave. It is quite impossible for us to be subject to pure necessity when we are fully conscious. Through the fact that we permeate a thing with consciousness, that is to say, accept it in full consciousness, freedom governs our soul. This is how we lift ourselves out of necessity in our soul and make ourselves free concerning matters we are conscious of. However, if we acknowledge with our minds that something is necessary, for instance, that the present time is the time for taking part in spiritual science, if we freely comply with a necessity, so to speak, does this give us a degree of unconsciousness? In a certain sense it does. We do become unconscious to the extent that we undertake to develop our consciousness to the point where we reach the gate through which streams and radiates what is to come from the spiritual world. We then receive this, and bend to the powerful forces coming to meet us from the spirit world. This is why in connection with working our way into spiritual necessity we speak of working our way up to the beings who bend down toward us.

Therefore we shall always stress that with our consciousness we soar toward the beings who permeate and pulse through us from the spiritual world and when we say, “We must of necessity accommodate ourselves to the impulses coming from the spiritual world,” we expect that at the same time the impulses of higher spiritual beings will descend into these our impulses. Thus a relative, deep unconsciousness arises, where we become aware of what is at work in us spiritually in the same way as we would be aware of an unconscious action where we are quite sure that the spirit is in us and the right thing to do is to obey, where we are privileged to obey.

We have now come back to our starting point. If we tried with our ordinary consciousness to mull over the many consequences that can arise from such significant events as those of the present, for instance—and I compared them earlier to the Roman-Teutonic wars—we would get nowhere. However, the moment we can tell ourselves we do not want to find the right solution through mulling them over but through giving way to the spiritual impulse and letting it stream in, we do not need to brood. For then we know that if only we let these spiritual impulses take hold of us, they lead us to the right solution, to spiritual currents that even go beyond the centuries, beyond millennia. This is what is important.

Then we see that we no longer need to think that things must go like this today and like that tomorrow for such and such to happen, for we will realize that we are now living in the particular epoch of humanity in which the further evolution of earthly existence can progress in the right way only if spiritual impulses coming from the spiritual world are directly taken up. That is how it is. And the things that happen externally on the physical plane must of necessity unite with these impulses in the right way. Then the right things will happen. Then we shall know, without mulling over what will happen tomorrow and the day after tomorrow, that what will really come about will be that the souls now passing through the gate of death will continue to work on, both in their etheric bodies and as souls, to the extent that the thoughts of those human beings who will in the future populate the blood-stained battlefields of the earth join with them, so that something will arise that will live for centuries. But we must have a direct awareness of this in the spirit of these words we have often heard:

Out of the courage of the fighters,
Out of the blood of battles,
Out of the grief of the bereaved,
Out of the peoples' deeds of sacrifice
There shall arise spirit fruit
If only souls, in spirit-mindfulness,
Will reach out to the spirits' realm.

The important thing to realize is that from a certain point in the present our souls must become conscious of the spirit, souls that have the will to direct their consciousness toward the spirit. Then, from what is happening today, the right things will come for the future. To make this thought our own, steadfast confidence is needed, such as those beings have whom we count as members of the hierarchy of the angels. For angels act out of that kind of confidence. They know that if they have the right intentions, the right things will come of them; not because they envision that future events should take a definite form, but because they have the right intentions. These right intentions, however, can only be grasped spiritually. And only through thinking in the way of spiritual science can we find the way to grasp something spiritually, as we have endeavored to do.

• 1. Baruch Spinoza, 1632–1677, Dutch pantheist philosopher. The example of a stone being pushed into motion can be found in his sixty-second letter of 1674.
• 1. Philosophy of Spiritual Activity, (Hudson, N.Y.: Anthroposophic Press, 1986).
• 3. Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, 1729–1781, German poet, playwright, and critic.
• 4. Nibelungenlied, a Middle High German epic of about 1200, telling of the life of Siegfried, his marriage to Kriemhild, his wooing of Brunhild on behalf of Gunther, his murder by Hägen, and the revenge of Kriemhild.
• 5. Parsifal, a hero of mythology and various epics and romances, especially the one by Wolfram von Eschenbach.

The occult brotherhoods do possess the ancient tradition, but they are not aware of what the spiritual world is trying to reveal to us in our age. There is a universal formula which rules a large number of these brotherhoods. They speak of the creative power which pulses and permeates the cosmos. When they want, in their sense, to direct themselves to these creative powers, namely, to the divine spiritual which pulsates and permeates the cosmos, then they speak about the Grand Architect of the World. This is a very often used formulation: The Elevated Grand Architect of the world.

For those who can understand the development of mankind from spiritual science, it proves the fact that in truth such brotherhoods go far, far back. These brotherhoods, to be sure, had other forms in more ancient times, but, nevertheless, they go far back in an unbroken sequence to the ancient communities which existed with the Greeks and Romans in the 4th post-Atlantean cultural epoch and we can also go back still farther to the ancient Egyptian times, and our present brotherhoods come from these ancient communities. But as we mentioned earlier, they do not stand in a direct connection with the spiritual world as did the earlier communities, but they preserved that which they had as knowledge more as traditional knowledge.

Now, you already find the concept of the primal revelation in the writings of individually illuminated, theological researchers or researchers of ancient times. What do these people mean by primal revelation? This concept of the primal revelation can become clear when you attempt to become familiar with the ancient religious writings. All you need to do is go back to the writings of Gautama Buddha you will see that what is said there is said upon the basis of the great knowledge; however, as far as he was concerned, it was transmitted by tradition which goes back into distant ancient times built up on a primal knowledge. Thus we are led back to a primal knowledge going back through the earliest centuries to that which was known by people, but which for our particular time is considered to be distorted nonsense by those modern intellectuals when they try to read Jacob Boehme, or Paracelsus. Then you come to the time when people did all sorts of alchemistic experiment and then you go farther and farther back and when an unprejudiced person goes back through the Romans, the Greeks and the Egyptians, he comes to a humanity which once had a knowledge which was spread out over the world in a way in which present day man, however, cannot acquire. Now, it is very difficult for present day man to obtain an idea of this particular situation, because when he tries to transplant himself into these ancient times, all he can think of is that man is a type of ape man. However, in spite of all these theories about the ape man, the unprejudiced person must admit that there must have originally been a knowledge which mankind with his present cleverness cannot reach, a knowledge which is infinitely deep and which stretched itself out over the spiritual worlds in such a superior way that in it is contained not only a consciousness of the fact that man can rise up into the spiritual worlds, but that man can find other beings in these spiritual worlds who are not incarnated in fleshy bodies, beings which we call Angels, Archangels and so on. So, we can find in these ancient religious writings that the people knew of these higher beings and they speak of them as beings with whom they were able to interact. As I said, the writings themselves prove this.

What actually is at the basis of this fact? From a certain stage of initiation, one can come directly behind this mystery. We know that the world around us is not only spread out in the way today's sense knowledge speaks of it, but there is a so-called elementary world at the basis of this nature, world which, if we go back into ancient mythologies we find descriptions of these elemental beings. These elemental beings that lie at the base of the mineral kingdom are called gnomes, those at the base of the water plant kingdom are known as undines, those aeroform elementals as sylphs and the warmth elementals as salamanders. These beings which we just described have their special task in the world; they have a great deal to do. External materialistic science says that everything makes itself of itself, but this is not true. Things do not make themselves of themselves. The person whose eyes are open to the elementary world sees how these elementals actually go through a kind of cycle of the year, how there are beings working down from the spiritual world upon these elementals, they work differently in spring, differently in summer, differently in autumn and differently in winter. This means that we have an elementary kingdom spread out around us which lies at the basis of the nature kingdom and there streams down, one cannot say an instruction, but one can say that forces pour down in order that these elementary beings can receive the power in the spring in order to form the plant covering for the earth. The forces of certain spiritual beings are carried down which impart themselves to these elementary beings so that a new world of form can sprout forth in the spring. And as summer approaches, they receive, as it were, a later course of instruction, forces are poured down upon them so that they can effect that which has to come about in summer. An interworking between the spirits of the higher hierarchies and the elementary beings who weave and live in the nature which surrounds us performs itself in the cycle of the year. This means we are continuously concerned with an up and down pouring, with an up and down streaming of spiritual beings of the hierarchies whose students are the elementary beings who provide the enlivening forces for all that which has to sprout and germinate in the course of the year. All that which arises and fades away in the course of the year, that does not simply grow out of the earth, but stands in a direct interworking with the divine spiritual. And it was said that that which germinates and sprouts in the course of the year stands in direct interworking with the beings who permit their forces to stream up and down and they pour these forces into the elementary world. But, my dear friends just as today sylphs, gnomes, undines and salamanders receive their influence from the beings of the hierarchies who stream up and down according to the course of the year, so when man did not have such a solid physical body in those ancient times, he received instructions from the higher hierarchies who streamed up and down. All the sagas and myths that remain tell us that in ancient times man received such instruction from beings who themselves had descended out of the spiritual worlds. These myths absolutely rest upon a truth. Man found himself with those spirits among whom the gnomes, sylphs, undines, and salamanders exist today, and whereas these elementary beings receive those forces through which they are able to effect the forms which sprout out of the Earth during the course of the year, so man in ancient times received his instructions from hierarchies who streamed up and down. And that which he received in ancient time remains as a residue in writings which have still been preserved and from which an unprejudiced person can prove—as we said—that once upon a time such a primal revelation did exist. Thus we see that such a primal revelation really did exist and in those periods which preceded the eighth century B.C. you have the last residue flowing down to mankind from this primal revelation. Actually we can put the year 747 B.C. as the year which mankind, a result of the further development of his physical nature, was excluded from a direct participation in such instruction. Naturally such an exclusion occurs very gradually, step by step. All that which was contained in ancient science flowed down in this way as a direct knowledge from the spiritual worlds into mankind and has been transmitted by tradition, but is no longer understood today.

Let us focus our attention upon the last science which came to the human being in this way. The question is: What did man experience from such a primal revelation that had flowed down in the course of the time from the earliest periods an into ancient Atlantis? He experienced the connection in which he himself as a human being stood within the spiritual worlds since he is a microcosm and all the processes and forces in the microcosm which otherwise occur in the great macrocosmic world play in him. And the last thing which man learned in this way, the last thing which flowed to him from the external is geometry and mathematics. That person who today allows geometry and mathematics to work upon him in a true sense, will still be able to perceive the fact that a different kind of knowledge comes to him in geometry and mathematics, a different kind of knowledge from the other knowledge which he gathers from experience. There is something within geometry and mathematics which one can perceive apart from external experience. No man can prove that the three angles of the triangle are 180° by merely drawing a triangle in a sense sort of way. He can arrive at the fact, but proving it can only be done as a result of an inner experience of thinking. Man does not need to use his fingers to prove to himself that 3x3=9; all he need do is ideate it to himself and in an inward way he will come to the truth that 3x3=9.

But what comes to expression in the forms of architecture is obtained from a much wider basis. That which is at the basis of geometry and mathematics goes back to a much more ancient knowledge than that which is at the basis of architecture art. In the Graeco-Latin times, that which was ancient knowledge in the mysteries was mediated to the human being by one saying the following to him: ‘When you really deepen yourself, then you bring out of yourself that which was revealed to you by the spirits of the higher hierarchies earlier lives on Earth.’ In the Egyptian Mysteries you did not have to do that. The higher beings themselves still came down. Now in the Greco-Latin period the master assembled his students and said the following: “You were there in earlier incarnations and you went through human development in which the spirits of the higher hierarchies took part. This has established itself in your souls. Bring it up.” Thus Masters of the Greco-Latin mysteries were still able in this way to fetch up that which was established in the human soul. Everything is to be found in the human soul, because everything streamed down through spiritual beings into the human beings from the primal revelation. What we once upon a time experienced in instructions from the hierarchies we really bring out of ourselves.

Now came the year 1413 and man can no longer become conscious of what the earlier spiritual instruction was because it has been covered over in his soul by the materialistic age. Since 1413 the soul unites itself thickly with the body and that is able to act as a covering for that which exists within our souls. However, in the whole period from 747 B.C. to 1413 A.D. it was possible to bring up out of the soul that which in earlier times streamed in in the way I indicated. Just imagine how a person, particularly in the ancient Greek Age, actually had to perceive. Precisely in the ancient Greek Age he perceived as I have indicated. he said to himself: “Geometry as it is brought to expression in the form of architecture, flowed down earlier through divine spiritual instruction from the external would.” Man was hemmed in by forms. Now when man wants to draw a triangle, he takes a piece of chalk and draws it, but the ancient Greek did not have to do that. All he needed to do was to meditate upon himself and at the same time he could, as it were, clairvoyantly see the triangle for himself. Thus he was still able to diagram geometry for himself in a clairvoyant way. It was also so with writing in primal ages, but this applies to a still earlier period. There one did not need to write upon papyrus, but one was able to write clairvoyantly for oneself; you wrote for yourself clairvoyantly. At a certain time in the Greek Mysteries, man was told the following: you are able to have thoughts about yourself and meditate clearly upon yourself, you can then recall what lives in you. You can recall the divine being which lives in you when you do not just focus on the transient earth human being but recall the divine being in you, then you would be able to build up an architectural structure around you which is put together from the forms of geometry. You are within all of that. Just as the spider who spins her web is within it, thus such a student of the Greek Mysteries etherically spun geometry around himself, whole geometry and the other human knowledge is presented in itself in this geometrical structure which he spun out of himself. All he needed to do was establish it outside of himself and then he had the Greek Temple. The Greek Temple is nothing other than the filling in with physical material that which presented itself in this way clairvoyantly in geometrical forms around the human being. The Greek Temple only put the stones into that which appeared before the Greek. Hence the Greek always had the tendency to present a figure of the god in the Temple which he actually had to think of to himself as his own divine hunan being. He did not simply build a temple, but he also put in a divine god such as Pallas Athene.

Thus from all this you can see the connection of architecture, the building of the temple with the original clairvoyance. That person felt something in architecture of a divine nature in these times, something which is connected in the highest degree with all the inner revelations of the human being. They felt that one did not build in the way people build today where you learn all sorts of things at the university, but at that time man could perceive the architectural structure as the revelation of the Spirits of Form. For this reason, we can see the rather special way in which Vitruvius, the great architect of the time of Augustus, speaks of the architect, of the moral qualities which the architect must have, of recollecting the divine spiritual of the universe. And why was it necessary that according to Vetruvius' perception, the architect had to know all this? They saw the manifestations of the beings of the higher hierarchies in the forms of the buildings and this is of great significance. It is true that today's architect would make a face if you demanded that he also learn medicine, philosophy, astronomy, etc., besides his studies at the technical university; in other words, he would be a spiritual scientist of sorts.

Now, why was this so? It was so because Vetruvius, himself, was still able to perceive the following: “When I build” he said to himself “this finite human being is not allowed to build, but this finite human being must be a channel so that a being, of the higher hierarchies can work through him.” However, this possibility of coming into connection with the higher hierarchies so that when one puts stone upon stone in the building, not what finite man creates but what the spirits of the hierarchies create, this possibility was received only in the secret places of the mysteries. One had to be initiated into the connection of the divine spiritual with the human. One had to know medicine, because one had to so adapt the forms so that they could actually be an imprint of the human being himself. Note how in a similar way the shell of the snail is an imprint of the snail himself, how the macrocosm injects the forces into the snail enabling the snail to build the shell out of its own beingness. In a similar way man felt the working of the divine spiritual beings in him; a divine spiritual being led his hand, his own spirit and worked into the forms of architecture.

Now, because the forms of the architecture were the last which were revealed, all those spiritual brotherhoods of which I spoke last time, speak of the real architecture and of the soul mood which real architecture must have. Above all, there live in these occult brotherhoods, even if it is in caricature, that which entered from the spiritual world in the way just described. The person who enters the first grade enters into the spiritual world upon this path. He is presented in these occult communities in the second grade and is made familiar not with those external social relationships but with those relationships which pass from one human soul to another. He becomes a brother member in the second grade and finally he learns to feel in himself what it means to say: ‘Here I stand as a human being and I, as a man, feel that I am a sheath of that which lives in me as spirit man to whom beings of the higher hierarchies can speak, down to whom they can descend; that I can speak no word that is not inspired by these spirits of the higher hierarchies.’ Even if only a small consciousness of this is present in those who are in the third grade of such occult brotherhoods, nevertheless they still call themselves masters of the third grade. But because revelations do not occur any longer, because today things do not work so intensively, because today there is no longer a direct connection with the spiritual world, one has to take hold of the traditions of that which was handed down, then one spreads a mystery over it and does not allow it to be imparted to any one else. However, this primal knowledge was continued in such communities from generation to generation, from century to century and sometimes it was utilized in a very bad way as I indicated last time.

I have already indicated that during the whole time from the year 747 B.C. to 1413 A.D. there was a certain connection with the spiritual world. One could at least enliven it out of one's inner being in these years, one could at least enliven it out of memory. That ended in the 14th century. However, beyond the 14th century certain sensitive people did feel that the spirit still plays in, that if, for example, you want to understand the 15th, 16th, 17th century, you must get an idea that those were still times in which the breath of spiritual life still streamed over the earth. However, this gradually disappeared. In the time from the 14th, 15th, 16th, even from the 17th century, there were sensitive natures who knew: The spirit weaves and lives around us.

Now, I want to bring a fact to your attention. The present historian speaks about the time of Savonarola in the 15th century, for example, in such a way that he speaks of Florence as he does of a city today, because he cannot transplant himself into the soul mood of that time, into that mood where one could still experience something of the spiritual. Why was it that at that time in a certain week in Florence every person who you met on the street looked so very sad and walked with his head bent down and his eyes dimmed? This was because Savanarola had given a sermon on the previous Sunday and he had said: “If the moral aspect continues as it is, then the flood will break in.” And he ended it with the words: “I tell you, waters will flow over the earth.” When he spoke these words, they were enlivened with spirit. The spirit streamed out, and for a whole week the people of Florence dwelled under this spiritual influence. It was very sad.

One of the contemporaries of Savanarola was Pico della Mirandola, Count Mirandola, who lived at the end of the 15th century and also experienced the soul mood which lived in Florence. Pico della Mirandola was one of those spirits who belonged to the sensitive spirits and in that year which passes over from the 4th to the 5th period he felt how the spirit was disappearing from the environment and at the same time he received an inner yearning to feel the spirit. There were a number of people in Florence at that time who experienced this in the same way. They felt that the spirit disappears for the normal person, but they must try to receive it into themselves and these Renaissance men called themselves the Neo-Platonists. In the Academy of Florence, there was a reliving of Plato. I wanted to characterize this for you so that you can understand that there was a sudden transition from the 14th to the 15th century in the soul mood in reference to how these men connected themselves with the spiritual world. When you go back into those times, you can see that people yearned to receive impressions of the spiritual world, but these people were single people all over the world and they had to do special ascetic exercises so that they could receive something of the spiritual in a sort of caricature way. You know that modern science says that nature makes no jumps, but that is not true, it does jump everywhere. When the leaf transforms itself into the blossom, that is a jump. So we see that there was a sudden spring from the 14th to the 15th century and this feeling died away.

Our task is to appeal to those forces which we have as a replacement for the ancient way of grasping the spiritual. There are two ways of doing this. One way is to continue to propagate tradition and many secret societies arose from being satisfied with the propagation of what the ancient said through tradition. However, there were people who attempted to reckon with the new soul forces which came in as replacements for it. They attempted to translate that which came in from the ancient way in the form of pictures, of direct perception into the form of intellectual power, this intellect which is bound to the physical body of our 5th post-Atlantean period. One of the people who tried to do this was Amos Comenius.

Very few people today know that Amos Comenius was the actual founder of the modern pedagogy and that he founded the primer in the 16th, 17th century. A book by Friedrich Eckstein entitled Comenius and the Bohemian Brothers was recently published. Friedrich Eckstein is one of those people who was united with me in a small theosophical group in Vienna at the end of the 1880's. Then he went his own way and I had not heard of him until this book about Amos Comenius appeared. These 150 wood cuts from the original edition are given with German and Latin texts. Here you have wood cuts beginning with God, the world, heaven, the elementals, the elements, plants, fruits, animals, the human body and its members, etc., all of which was put in such a way as to appeal to the heart. This sort of presentation still appeals very much to people. Herder and Goethe loved all this in their childhood. The whole way of writing children's books rests upon Amos Comenius. He was connected with many secret brotherhoods all over Europe and he wanted to establish what he called his “Pan Sophia”. In the beginning of our period, in the 16th, 17th century, we have in Amos Comenius a human being who knew that now is the time for a sudden change, that one must transmute all the knowledge from earlier times into the form of external intellect. You do not simply continue it in the form of the ancient tradition. This tradition rests upon that which was the Temple architecture. Amos Comenius had as his task translating in his “Pan Sophia” everything which worked in the 5th post-Atlantean period and he says the following: “Why should the Temple of Pan Sophia be erected according to the ideas, directions and laws of the higher architect Himself? Because we have to follow the primal picture of the totality; measure, number, position and the goal of the paths according to the wisdom of God, Himself, when, indeed, He instructed Moses to erect the Tabernacle, then Solomon to erect the Temple and finally Ezekial to reestablish the Temple. The structure materials of Solomon's Temple were very precious stones, metals, marble and sappy, good smelling trees like spruce and cedar.” And so we want to establish a school of wisdom, a universal wisdom, a “Pan Sophia” wisdom so that one can say that that which is in Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, which was represented in the Wander Years, is a continuation of what Amos Comenius wanted.

In conclusion I want to add some more things. A book has recently been written by Karl Ludwig Sleiss entirely out of natural science. I just want to read something of it to you. (Summary of what was read) He talks about a hysterical young woman sitting on a sofa in a room where an electrical ventilator was running. She became hysterical and said: “Oh, there is a bee that wants to sting me.” She had heard the buzzing of the ventilator. Low and behold, she did produce an inflammation of the eyelid which was quite large. Here is another case where Sleiss talks about a well-known business man who approached him and asked him to cut off his arm because he felt that it was poisoned. Sleiss said that the arm was not poisoned. The man went away and the next day he died. Sleiss said that there was no inflection at all and his diagnosis was death by hysteria. What he wanted to say is that you cannot only cause an inflammation of the eyelid through thought, but you can also kill yourself through thought. What this modern scientist is saying is that thought can incarnate itself, that thought can make itself flesh. However, in the second case of the businessman who wanted his arm cut off because it was poisoned, this was a case of mediumistic clairvoyance where he knew he was going to die. Now, what happened in the case of the hysterical woman who had a swollen eyelid was that the thought that she imagined there was a bee from the sound of the ventilator became imagination and then descended into the astral body, it then came through the ether body and incarnated in the physical body.

In this same book in a chapter entitled “The Myth of Metabolism in the Brain”, Sleiss says that Goethe must have been some sort of clairvoyant, because Goethe had come to the idea that not only are the bones transformed out of the spinal column but also the whole brain has been transformed from it. Now, Sleiss said this in 1916 and he wondered if he could find some indication that Goethe had this idea. However he does not know that in 1892, I, myself, found this indication in the Goethe Archives.

Therefore we can see how certain truths of the spiritual world are penetrating into mankind's consciousness through certain channels. For example, they are talking about Strindberg's play of dream, “Tramspiel” which he produced and they can see the spiritual world breaking in everywhere. Strindberg worked in an extraordinary way and people are saying that there must be some spiritual communication there. Much streamed into Strindberg; however, everything is caricatured. Even that is very interesting for people today. For example, you can read the book Golom by Gustav Merig and you can find something there of which you can say that a stream of spiritual life breaks into mankind in a powerful way; however it is caricatured in forms where it can be more damaging than useful for those people who are not solidly established. Again you get a stream of the spiritual world breaking into the short story entitled “Cardinal Napaloos” (sic). In this story you find certain knowledge about the playing in of the Akashic Chronicle and so forth in a quite wonderful way. You can find indications of how the spiritual world wants to pour into mankind. It is very important to open our eyes to the fact that the spiritual world wants to pour into mankind today. We do not have to warm up ancient traditions, although they are interesting to study. We ought to meet the demands of the present. The spiritual worlds want to pour in. It comes unconsciously and is caricatured. However, when we develop ourselves according to spiritual science, it will not be caricatured; we can actually experience the spiritual world properly. through anthroposophical spiritual science, one can get an understanding for the opening up of our soul, our heart, our head, to the streams of the spiritual world.

From the year 1509 to 1547 Henry VIII was on the throne of England. He had six wives, two of which he executed because they no longer appealed to him; the others he divorced. He would have executed his last wife, but she was cunning enough to talk him out of it. He had difficulty in getting a divorce from his first wife, because the marriage had been performed according to all churchly rules and it was necessary to obtain the agreement of Pope Clement VII in order to divorce her. But the Pope would not grant him one because he could not find any reason for a divorce. As a result, Henry VIII founded a new church and it still continues as the Anglican Church of England which today has twenty million members.

Now, Henry VIII Was not a very intelligent person as is indicated by his conversation with his last wife. All he actually wanted to do was to found a new church, but he did not really want to produce new teachings for it, therefore he continued the old ways in the Church. What he really wanted was that the enlightened members of Parliament should agree to recognize him as head of the English Church instead of the Pope.

Now, Thomas More, 1478–1535, did not agree that such a “holy person” as Henry VIII should be the head of the Church; and as a result, Thomas More was executed. He called his book “Utopia”, and since that time the name Utopia is given to books which deal with the idea of an ideal state—remember the “Utopia” of Belemies (sic). Thomas More indicated in his book “Utopia” that there should be complete freedom of religion, a tolerance of different religions, because the state agreed that religion is a question of one's private conscience. Yet in spite of this fact, we know that the Catholic Church is trying to make Thomas More a saint because of his defense of the Catholic Church against Henry VIII.

Before a person can be raised to sainthood, there is an exhaustive procedure in the Catholic Church. First you have the Advocate who must bring forward everything which would support this sainthood and it is necessary that one should have performed a miracle in order to become a saint. This procedure is quite long. There is the Advocate who brings forward evidence against the candidate for sainthood. Now, just imagine that the miracle which Thomas More was quoted as having performed was the miracle of suggesting religious tolerance in the Catholic Church! This is the sort of thing that the opposing advocate would put forward against him becoming a saint.

Thomas More was really fortune's favourite. He advanced from various state offices, became a member of Parliment, and finally High Chancellor for Henry VIII who had him executed because he would not agree to the Succession Act. This was a sin against the new institution of the English Church. Then the enlightened Lord Justices had to decide what sort of judgement should be meted out to Thomas More. The following is the decision which these enlightened justices reached as the price Thomas More had to pay for his so-called treason of not going along with Henry VIII. He was to be condemned and brought to the Tower by Sheriff William Pinkston and then put in a braided basket and dragged through the City of London to Tiburn. In Tiburn he was to be hanged only until he was half dead, then he was to be taken down form the scaffold and certain of his limbs would be cut off; his body torn open and the entrails burned. Then his body with the exception of the head would be divided into four portions and each would be placed on a pike and set at the four ends of the City of London. His head, however would be put on a high spear and placed on London Bridge in order to serve as a warning for people to go along with the King. This was the sort of judgement that these enlightened lords issued. This was not carried out, however, he was beheaded and the head was placed upon a spear on London Bridge.

We have Thomas More here before us in history and all this occurred in the first half of the 16th century. That is not so long ago. But we should remember that Thomas More who in his Utopia talked about religious tolerance could not be considered the sort of rationalist or free thinker who preached religious tolerance in the 18th century. No, in order to understand his concept of religious tolerance and where it came from, we must examine his book “Utopia” carefully.

This book contains the configuration of a state that was developed on a far away island called Utopia. Utopia was supposed to be ruled by the dry intellect, it was a very rationalistic state. All the houses would be in squares on streets that were all parallel. Every house was strongly regulated by the police stating how many young men and young women could live in a certain house. If there were too many people in one house, then some had to be shifted 'to another house. It was a very exact division of human beings in different houses. Private possessions were not allowed; it had a certain communistic economy. There was a set order at meals, older people setting here, younger people there; who had to serve, and so on. Everything about the people who dwelt in Utopia was a result of the very intellectual, rationalistic organization of the state; they were educated so that they became completely freed of any of the lower passions, desires and instincts. Here is an example: One was not to eat simply for the taste of the food or for any satisfaction. However, when they ate, they ought to feel thankful that there was a pleasant feeling united with the eating of the food. During their meals a lecturer sermon would be given by one of the enlightened spirits in Utopia. Things were so arranged that everything was governed by these enlightened people who were at the same time priests. Everyone was permitted complete religious freedom; however there was a presupposition that no man could be in Utopia who denied the existence of God or denied the immortality of the soul or denied the fact that after he died he would enter into some sort of judgement. This would be the common ground for all religions, but apart from that there would be religious tolerance. The whole thing was arranged in a very realistic, sober, intellectual way; this was Thomas More's Utopia.

Let us speak about Thomas More himself. We must not forget that Thomas More had been very religious even as a young child and he also carried out spiritual exercises incessantly; he was a man who took his meditations in the deepest earnestness. He spent many hours every day in meditation. On the last day before his execution, he sent those secret practices which constituted his spiritual exercises from the Tower to his daughter so that the people who led him away would not find them in his cell. You can see that he continued his spiritual exercises right up to the point of his execution. He was very earnest about the development of his soul. Remember that we spoke about a time before the expansion of Protestantism and we find that Thomas More wanted nothing more than to be a true son of his Church, the Roman Catholic Church, in the sense of his age. And because of his loyalty to the Roman Catholic Church, he allowed himself to be executed.

Let us now continue to focus upon Utopia, this distant island which was supposed to have no geographical connection with Europe. Once upon a time, wise old people landed an this island, Romans and Egyptians who were then responsible for the establishment of Utopia. These people developed a certain alphabet which consisted of right angles and other geometrical shapes; this was the alphabet of Utopia. Take the person who today can see a resemblance between the sort of alphabet in certain Freemasonry books and Thomas More's description of the writing of Utopia. Besides that there were certain maxims which were guiding principles for all actions an Utopia, and you could put Latin, Greek and Hebrew texts together in a very remarkable way and again be reminded of certain formulations which are present in the occult brotherhoods today even though these things are very mach hidden. It is also expressly stated in this book “Utopia” that Roman and Egyptian wise men landed upon that island, but nothing is said about Christianity.

Now this makes for a very curious situation. Remember that Thomas More is a religious Catholic, one who does spiritual exercises. He writes a book entitled “Utopia”, describes an island in all its details and organizations, but nothing is said about Christianity. How can we understand these things? We mentioned that Thomas More was a person who did many spiritual exercises. Also remember that this is a time of transition between the 4th period and the 5th period and how I described the situation in the period when I mentioned people like Pico della Mirandola, Savanarola and others. We also mentioned that around this time there was a disappearance of the ancient occult capacities; how for the ordinary person that actually disappeared. However, these occult capacities were accessible through spiritual exercises, the very exercises which Thomas More did.

When such spiritual exercises are correctly done today, the person is able for example to see the connection between the ordinary everyday thinking and that which draws up out of the depths of the soul as a perception of a higher spiritual world. However something else can also make its appearance, and in the case of Thomas More this happened. Through his spiritual exercises he was transplanted during his sleep state into the astral world in such a way that he was able to have quite different experiences from the ordinary person. Although he had these experiences in the astral world, he was not able to bring them directly into his consciousness. He could experience certain things in an exhaustive way in the spiritual world, but he could not bring them over consciously, but he brought them over in such a way that he was able to write these experiences down in his book of“Utopia”.

Now we can very quickly realize that when you study this book “Utopia”, which most of the intellectuals of today might consider as pure fantasy but for one who knows about these things can be understood as a result of a spiritual experience which exists between the ordinary thinking and the spiritual experience, a connection does not come to consciousness and these experiences which do not come to consciousness are all the more compelling. One can be a martyr for Catholicism as was Thomas More, a very religious Catholic such a religious Catholic that subsequently they speak of making him a saint. However, when you have such spiritual experiences as he had on the astral plane, then you write them down. You have experienced them and this experience works with elementary force. When one actually enters the astral world, the first thing one experiences there is that the three dimensional space rules which we experience here on the earth no longer apply. Those laws which we learn in geometry only have validity for the external sense world. One can speak symbolically but one realizes that in reality this symbolic expression signifies something different. It is impossible to speak in the same way of that which one experiences on the astral plane as we speak here of things and beings of the sense world. As you know, when we speak of things of the sense world, we can say: This woman sits here, that woman sits there. However, this has no meaning when you consider the astral world. In the astral world one soon realizes that you are in a world of non-place, something which denies that which is of a spatial aspect in the sense physical world. Therefore a correct translation of Utopia would be non-place. So the word Utopia refers to the quality of the world. It is a world which has no spatial elements. Now we ask the question: When he entered this world, what is it which especially confronted him?

Now you can very easily realize that these occult brotherhoods also draw their particular practices from the astral world, so you will not be surprised when you see a resemblance between what Thomas More inserted in his “Utopia” and the customs of the occult brotherhoods. These customs which are projected from an occult wisdom, from an ancient observation of this astral world, but this ancient observation of the astral world had disappeared and lives further in the different brotherhoods as tradition. People who themselves had no opportunity could not look into the spiritual world; however, through the fact that such people as Thomas More did certain spiritual exercises; they were transplanted into the spiritual world and were confronted by similar-things which were present in the brotherhoods. Naturally it is no wonder that that which lives in many occult brotherhoods are teachings which are not affected by Christianity. We also find in the case of Thomas More that everything which permeates the organization of the state on the island of Utopia goes back to ancient Egypt and ancient Rome, but does not involve Christianity. These occult brotherhoods place great emphasis on the fact that they go back to Egyptian and still earlier orders.

Now put what I have just said together with what we have learned about that which is essentially the basis of the Christian world view. I have often mentioned that Christianity rests upon the fact that that spiritual power which we designate with the name of Christ descended and spiritualized the body of Jesus in the 30th year of his life which gradually was able to acquire this ability because it developed and passed through the souls of the two Jesus boys. Now, what actually happened? A spiritual power which up to the time of the Mystery of Golgotha had not been involved in earth evolution had interwoven itself into earth evolution from the Mystery of Golgotha onwards. In so far as this spiritual force lived in the body of Jesus of Nazareth and then went through the Mystery of Golgotha, it was able to pass deeper and deeper into earth development and continuously united itself more solidly with the further development of the Earth We have often expressed this. Thus this power descended on the physical earth plane from spiritual heights in which it had dwelt earlier.

Thus when an ancient clairvoyant lifted himself into the spiritual worlds in the time before the Mystery of Golgotha, naturally he met the Christ Being in the spiritual heights. Hence those people who were prophets and so on, were able to speak about the future coming of Christ. They could prophesy it, because they found Christ in the spiritual worlds and saw Him on His path towards the earth. They regarded HIm as the Sun Spirit who gradually descended in order to become an Earth Spirit. These prophets were able to see into the future development of the earth evolution in so far as they perceived in the spiritual heights that which ultimately was to unite itself with the earth development. Therefore you would not find the Christ in the earth before the Mystery of Golgotha. Obviously those people who lived before the Mystery of Golgotha could not have the Christ in their earth science, because Christ was not present on the earth at that time. However, when the initiates of these Mysteries had achieved a certain degree, they were able to announce the coming of the Christ upon the earth.

You must bear in mind how everything is entirely different since the Mystery of Golgotha; an entirely reversed position holds true since then. When you investigate the earth development, you find the Christ interwoven in the whole history of those people who are permeated by Christianity; and to present a historical thesis without speaking about Christ is actually not right. The historical Ranke perceived this and when he was quite old he presented the question: Can one know anything about history if you do not show how the Christ Impulse lives and penetrates into every single phenomena? However, when one rises up into those worlds from which Christ has descended in order to unite himself with the earth, then the Christ is not directly there. One must descend from those heights upon the earth to see how he has united Himself with the earth.

This is a real fact, and it is the basis for the terrible anxiety which certain religious confessions have in reference to occultism. Naturally they do not understand the real occultism; they do not understand how Christ can be found through the real spiritual science. All that these religious orders know is that shallow occultism which says the following: Christ is now to be found upon the earth and when you lift yourself up into the higher worlds, the Christ is no longer there. Thus we have anxious priests working against the spreading of this occultism. It is for this reason that here in our movement we have often indicated that when one is able to cross over the borders and enter into the spiritual worlds, we are not permitted to forget that which can be occultly experienced about the Christ within the earth. This is what real spiritual science teaches; whereas these shallow brotherhoods either tell people that the Christ is only present for earthly perception or they talk about the Christ incarnating Himself in Krishna Murti, whom they called Alcione.

Let us now transplant ourselves into Thomas More's situation. He had done exercises which enabled him to come into complete clarity in reference to the Christ. Now, the Jesuits try to guard against all sorts of distortions and errors in reference to the Christ which occur in the world and through their Jesuit exercises they guard against these distortions. Thomas More did not do such Jesuit exercises; the spiritual exercises he did do did not enable him to enter with full consciousness into the spiritual world. If he had been able to enter into the spiritual world with full consciousness, naturally he would have perceived how Christ descended onto the earth; but he could not maintain a complete consciousness. The consequence was that he actually wrote down that which he experienced in half consciousness in the spiritual world; hence you find that Christianity did not exist on his island of Utopia.

Now we can understand that if he had really written his book “Utopia” from the standpoint of ordinary consciousness, he would never have inserted the idea of religious tolerance. But he wrote something down which did not enter completely into his consciousness. Religious tolerance was emphasized in that which he perceived in Utopia; the emphasis was not placed on a single form of worship. In a higher sense the following could have been said by Thomas More: Alas, two souls live in my breast; one soul here in the physical world, the other soul which lives in a quite different world between going to sleep and waking up, a world into which the Christ Impulse cannot be carried. If we speak of this fundamental feeling which can permeate a person such as Thomas More, then we find that he did not have a full occult experience of the spiritual world even though he struggled to get into it. When you get the sort of entry into the spiritual world which Thomas More had, there are certain anxieties there, but they are not perceived by the soul as such, but that which actually is a feeling of anxiety is more or less suppressed in the unconscious. And then one looks for other reasons to explain what one experiences and does. A masked anxiety transforms itself into something quite different for the consciousness. Now in the case of Thomas More, he transformed this suppressed anxiety into something different through the working of his occult experiences. The working of these occult experiences caused Thomas More to receive anxiety in his soul, but what would this anxiety be if it had drawn up in a conscious way in his soul? What would Thomas More then have said to himself?

Let us hypothesize something which can never be possible, namely, that the following entered into Thomas More's complete consciousness. You see that which he wrote down later in “Utopia” he saw in the astral world and he wanted to describe it. Why? If he had grasped the anxiety completely and had written out of this anxiety, then he might have had the following thought: One must do everything in the present world period in order to penetrate into the Christ Impulse and to maintain it with all the phases of one's soul in a correct sense for human development. However, if men are able in some way to return to the ancient clairvoyance, then they would see why his “Utopia” contains no Christ Impulse. If he had really perceived the anxiety, he would have said: “Protect yourself from wanting to depart from the Christ Impulse.” However, he had not really experienced this anxiety, it remained in his unconscious and the consequence was that he wrote down that which came from his inner being. This presents a riddle to us when we see the apparent contradiction of the whole nature of Thomas More.

After we have set all this before our soul, let us transplant ourselves into the position of those people who belonged to certain occult brotherhoods. Here we have Thomas More; he wrote his “Utopia” that is not such a terrible thing. The writing of his “Utopia” would not have justified that awful punishment which these Lords had placed upon him. Even without this, he was a suspicious person because he was acting against the intentions of Henry VIII. However, let us just assume that there were people who formed the majority of those judges who at the same time belonged to occult brotherhoods. They then studied what was written in “Utopia” and realized that here is something which they wanted to preserve as mysteries and it was betrayed. All sorts of indications are given in this book; not only was it a betrayal, but it showed how this then continues to work into external human culture. Therefore, when they considered Thomas More, they see that an oath had been betrayed and this betrayal carries a certain sentence with it. If one investigates the sentence for the betrayal of occult mysteries, one finds it identical with the sentence which we indicated previously—those awful things which were not carried out.

So you see, my dear friends, in order to understand history, it is not enough to focus upon the so-called fable convenue which is really what present day history is; but in order to learn history properly you must be able to penetrate deeply into the development of mankind and be able to see into what actually is occurring in the souls of human beings. Thus you see that the death of Thomas More is a great signal and you must understand the existence of this signal in order that you can decipher many mysteries of history. These mysteries can only be deciphered when one is able to learn how such super-sensible impulses play into these facts; and you can only learn these things through spiritual science. It is also so in many cases of historical development. Much of that which is called history and is seen from the outside is merely an external fable convenue. You learn the truth of it when you are really able to investigate what actually is occurring in those souls who take part in the particular processes which we are examining. This belongs to the great demands,which the present time places upon us, that we eliminate the thoughtlessness, the lack of thought which occurs in certain connections, because ultimately no one can objectively evaluate the value of the Anglican Church which he does not know that in the soul of this co-called “holy man” who established this Church there was the possibility of executing two wives. When things are placed in the correct light so that we can learn many things of the times in which we live, then one can exercise a true contemplation of such things. Then the soul can be impelled to investigate that which needs more investigation, because these significant facts which can be revealed to us in connection with his whole life and the writing of “Utopia” by Thomas More is something which is intimately connected with historical events.

Now, my dear friends, the Advocate Diabolo might set forth much against Thomas More becoming a saint, but his opponent, the good advocate could also reply: “All occultism is the work of the devil.” And when one is able to prove that Thomas More has fetched his “Utopia” up out of occult foundations, then he becomes all the more holy, because he resists all the devilish things which exist in occultism.

It is necessary in our times which are so filled with destiny, to understand what spiritual facts and conditions play into the external historical events. You have to understand these things because what I am giving you now is the fundamental motifs of all the lectures in order that you can understand the importance of how spiritual acts can throw light upon external historical indications.

My dear friends:

Let us, first of all, turn our thoughts to those who stand out there upon the battlefields, where historic events are being enacted, and who must be answerable with body, soul and spirit for these tremendous happenings of the present time.

Spirits ever watchful. Guardians of their souls,
May your vibrations waft,
to the Earth-men committed to your charge.
Our souls' petitioning love:
That, united with your power,
Our prayer may helpfully radiate
To the souls it lovingly seeks.

And for those who, in consequence of these events, have already passed through the gate of death:—

Spirits ever watchful. Guardians of their souls,
May your vibrations waft,
To the Men of the Spheres committed to your charge,
Our souls' petitioning love:
That, united with your power,
Our prayer may helpfully radiate
To the souls it lovingly seeks.

And that Spirit whom we seek to know through our Spiritual Science, who passed through the Mystery of Golgotha for the salvation of the earth, for the progress and freedom of mankind—may He be with you and your difficult duties.

It is our striving to penetrate, knowingly and at the same time livingly, in so far as this is possible, into those worlds which are closed to the usual everyday knowledge, the usual intellectual knowledge—bound to the physical plane.

For, in the life in which man is enclosed in his physical body, he stands in a world, as we have become accustomed to think during the course of years, which is only a part, a small part, of the entire actual world. As we come together so seldom, it is not possible, at these meetings, to explain everything from its foundations. How well founded these things are, that must be spoken of at such meetings, which take place only at less frequent intervals, and by what means they are established—this we must assume to be known from other meetings and through our books. For particularly at such a gathering it may, indeed, be our desire to learn something more important and more essential about what has just been referred to, about the greater, real world, which embraces both the physical and the spiritual world.

Since we last gathered here, many things have taken place within the circle which nurtures our spiritual science. A larger number of our dear friends have passed through the portal of death. Also, since the beginning of this hard war time, friends have passed through the portal of death who had to take part directly in these great events. In other words, within our circle, we are ourselves touched by the great spiritual world, because souls who were among us have entered this spiritual world after laying aside their bodies. It lies within the attitude which results from our Spiritual Science that, for us, the souls who have left the physical plane, who are received by another world, remain united with us, as they were united with us while they still looked at us with physical eyes and could speak to us by means of the instrument of the physical body.

Precisely when we approach the world which has received into itself our dead, in this moment, as we draw nearer to the souls of the so-called dead, we learn to know all those shattering experiences which must heap themselves upon our soul where it seeks to look across the threshold which separates us from the spiritual world, when it seeks to enter the world which can only be seen in the disembodied state of the soul. And you will perhaps understand that many of the words spoken here to-day resound out of the many feelings which have passed through my own soul in the course of the year, since we last saw one another.

Particularly during the last year, I have often had to say to our friends, that the right confidence can be gained only gradually, by one who sees into the fundamental conditions of existence, when he knows that those who have passed through the portal of death and who were faithful fellow-workers here on earth, will remain so also after death; so that in our work we quite certainly do not lose those souls who have won an understanding of our work, because they were already united with us here before they passed through the portal of death. And just among such souls there are such faithful fellow-worker that we may say: Even if the enemies and the lack of understanding here on the physical plane are sometimes so strong in opposition to our work, and become ever stronger, as we can well see, yet we may still have faith that Spiritual Science will penetrate into the evolution of mankind, because we can win this faith through our connection with the disembodied souls who have reached an understanding of the whole significance of our work for the course of man's development.

Of course, just when the human being, by means of his opened soul, approaches the world in which the so-called dead are—we can speak in this way, although it is, of course, the entire spiritual world in which the dead are to be found—precisely then, when the human being is able to approach this world as a visitor, as one who accompanies the dead into the spiritual world, he learns to know again and again that which has also been emphasised here: that, in reality, the concepts, the percepts and ideas which we form concerning the world, since we form them as we do because we are in a physical body, must be changed, must be made pliant, flexible, so that they can also encompass the secrets of the spiritual world. The man of to-day is adapted very strongly to the purely material perception of his surroundings, and thus he also forms concepts according to a purely material perception. For this reason, it becomes especially difficult for him to penetrate into the spiritual world even by means of concepts. In fact, many people believe that it is not possible to attain to an understanding of the spiritual world, if we are not able to see into it. They believe this, however, only because their ideas have become stiff and dead, through the fact that they have too strongly accustomed themselves to think only about the physical world.

Now that I have made these introductory remarks, I should like to speak to you to-day particularly about certain things in connection with the life of the so-called dead.

We know that, if we wish to consider the life between death and a new birth, we must consider and notice carefully how the human being forms himself of four parts, which are well known to us: physical body, etheric body, astral body and Ego.

If we consider, to begin with, the most outward fact regarding the dead a fact visible even from the physical plane, we find it to be the fact that man lays aside his physical body. We do not need to go into the different ways by which this physical body becomes united with the earth, be it by means of fire or decay—these differ, after all, only in regard to the time which they require.

But, even when we consider this fact, that the physical body falls away from the whole being of man in the moment of death and unites itself with the earth, as we say,—if we consider even this fact only with regard to its meaning for the physical plane, we shall have considered it, in reality, in a very inadequate way. And, in fact, it is often considered in a most inadequate way by persons of all manner of spiritual-scientific tendencies, who allow themselves still to be led astray by all sorts of moral conceptions, which do indeed penetrate into spiritual realms, to a certain extent, but are unfitted, in many respects, to understand in the right way the penetration of the spiritual into the physical world.

All physical events have also their spiritual significance. There is no physical event which has not, at the same time, a spiritual significance. In this case, then, the physical event is that our physical body falls away from us and is at the same time separated into its parts, into its molecules, into its atoms, and given over to the earth.

Now, it is a great prejudice of the modern materialistic world-conception, which has, however, held mankind more or less in its grip already for a long time, that the human body, as we carry it about from birth until death, or let us say from conception until death, that this human body simply falls into the smallest possible parts, into atoms, and that these atoms are then incorporated in the earth, or the sphere of the earth, and thereafter remain atoms, and then pass over as such into other beings.

Through the modern materialistic mode of investigation one comes very easily to such a preconception. But this mode of conception is, after all, nothing but nonsense, in view of spiritual science. It is nonsense. For, in reality, there are no such things as atoms, in the sense in which the chemists assume them. What the smallest parts of our bodies finally become, under all circumstances, regardless of the way in which we, as bodies, are united with the earth, is warmth. Our whole physical organism finally transforms itself, in reality, in one way or another, in a short or a long time, into warmth.

For this reason, we often speak, as you know, in spiritual science of warmth as a fourth physical state of aggregation, whereas physics does not acknowledge it as such, but only as a kind of characteristic. But it is this warmth which is, in reality, given to the earth; this is given over to the earth. Thus, from our physical body, we give to our earth—Warmth.

The warmth which is to be found in the earth, is, in reality, intimately connected with what human beings leave behind. Man does not transform himself into air, water, etc. These are only transitional stages through which he passes. Those parts of him which become air and water become at last warmth. Yes, even though it may be after a long time, even though the last remnants of matter may pass over into warmth only after hundreds of years, indeed, even though what belongs to the bone-system may pass over into warmth only after thousands of years, it is transformed finally into warmth.

If you go into Museums to-day, you will find skeletons of ancient men who lived upon earth in bygone ages, yet the time will indeed come when what is present there to-day as skeletons, will exist only as warmth within the body of the earth.

In any case, however, the way in which we are united with the earth, through warmth, is the materialistic way. The fact that even our physical body remains connected with the earth, has a great, an essential, importance for the one who has passed through the gate of death. He passes into the spiritual world. He leaves his body to the earth. This is an experience, an event, for the so-called dead. He has the experience:—“Your body passes away from you”. We must realise that this is an experience.

What is an experience? Well, you can form a conception of what it is, if you consider the experiences on the physical plane. It is an experience, if you have some new sensation, or feeling which you have never had before, and you learn to understand this. You have added something to your soul which you did not possess before a new concept, a new perception.

But now imagine such a small experience increased into a very great one. It is something mighty, something unfathomably mighty, that the human being experiences, which gives him the possibility between death and birth to see, to realise, to grasp the fact that he lays this physical body aside, that he gives over to the planet which he is leaving. It is a very great experience, an experience which naturally cannot be compared with any experience on earth—a mighty experience. The value of an experience lies in the fact that something remains in our soul as a result, as a consequence, of this experience. We may, therefore, ask the question:—What then remains as a result, as a consequence of this experience of the falling away of the physical body from the entirety of our being?

Indeed, if we were not able to have this experience when we pass through the gate of death, of knowingly participating in the falling away of our physical body, we should never be able to develop an Ego-consciousness after death. The Ego consciousness is aroused after death through this experience of the falling away of the physical body. For the dead it is of the greatest significance that he is able to say:—“I see my physical body slipping away from me and disappearing.” And, on the other hand:—“I see growing within me, out of this event, the feeling—I am an Ego.”

We may express this with the paradox words:—“If we were unable to experience our death from the other side, we would not have an Ego-consciousness after death.”

Just as the human soul entering existence through birth or, let us say, through conception—gradually becomes accustomed to the use of the physical apparatus and thereby acquires the Ego-consciousness within the body, so does the human being acquire the Ego consciousness after death, from the other side of existence, through the fact that he experiences the falling away of the physical body from the whole human being.

Consider now, for a moment, what this means. When we contemplate Death from the physical side of existence, we may say that it appears to us as the end of existence—as that which has beyond it, as far as the physical outlook is concerned, “Nothing”. Viewed from the other side, Death as such is a most wonderful thing, which can ever anew stand before man's soul. For it signifies that man can always have the feeling of the victory of spiritual life over physical life. And just as long as we can always have before us the conception of our birth here, in physical life—for no one can have the conceptual nature of his birth through physical means alone, indeed, no one knows anything about his birth through his own physical experience—just so surely do we always have before us, when we become fully conscious after death, a direct experience of the event of our death.

At the same time, this event of our death contains nothing which is in any way depressing; on the contrary, this death event, viewed from the other side, is the greatest, most wonderful and beautiful event which can appear before our soul. For it always places before us, in its entirety, the greatness of the idea that in the spiritual world, consciousness, self-consciousness is the result of death—that death stimulates this self-consciousness, in the spiritual world.

Secondly, we must observe the second member of our human existence, the etheric body. We find, with the help of the elementary presentations which we have all shared in, in the interval since we last met together, that this ether-body remains with us for a brief—a relatively brief—period after death, but after this, it is also laid aside. We know, too, that a certain importance must be attributed to the fact that our etheric body—the same one we possessed on earth—remains still united with us after death, for several days.

So long as we still carry this etheric body, after having laid aside our physical body, we can still think everything that we were able to think during our physical existence. We can, therefore, survey all the thoughts which we carry in us, as in a mighty picture. We see those thoughts which we experienced during life, in the life-picture which has often been described to you. Our whole life lies before us like a panorama, during the days in which we still carry our etheric body with us; and we have it before us simultaneously, i.e. we see it all at one glance. For, what we call memory, here, in the physical world, arises, to be sure, in the etheric body, but it is bound, nevertheless, to the physical body. This physical body we have laid aside. We see our thoughts. We do not draw them out of the depths that are connected with the physical body, but we see them; and we survey, as if in a panorama, the life which we have just passed through.

We then lay aside this etheric body. But this etheric body which we lay aside, remains visible for us, throughout our entire remaining life after death. It is outside, but it remains visible to us. It unites itself with the whole universe; nevertheless, whatever happens to it there, remains visible to us—we see it.

And this is one of the mysteries of death: that, so long as we carry our etheric body, we see in a panorama what we had in us in the form of thoughts while we were alive—we survey, as it were, what is outside us as being united with, woven into, the world; we see that, after death, it forms part of our surrounding world, not of our Ego. In this experience, it actually is as if that which weaved and lived in us as our etheric body, during life, were now entering the life of the etheric world outside.

Then comes the time, as you know, when we carry with us—of that which we carried here on the physical plane—only the Ego and the astral body, and when we, of course, look back. upon what we were. We then experience ourselves in an entirely different way from the way we did in the physical body—we experience ourselves with an enhanced consciousness, with a consciousness which death has founded in us.

We must never think, for instance, as the fanatics so easily do, that this life between death and a new birth is an unconscious experience for the soul. Connected with this life, is a stronger, more intensive consciousness, than is the consciousness belonging to the physical body—only that it has an entirely different form. And, of course, we can approach the way in which we should imagine the dead, only by taking all that Spiritual Science can give us, to help us to transform those conceptions which are suited to purely physical objects and events here on the physical plane.

Thus we now live, as we see, within our Ego and our astral body. We have cast off our etheric body. It is united with objective existence.

For one who is able to enter the spiritual world, it is a moving experience, indeed—and from this standpoint also, I may say—to visit and accompany the dead with whom one is able to find a contact; it is a moving experience to follow, not only the individual life of the dead between death and a new birth, but also, for instance, to follow what the dead beholds: that part of himself which is now contained, as his etheric body, in the woof of the world, which is now for him an exterior world, an objective world. It is deeply moving to observe what, the dead has just given over to the etheric world. Thus we may experience the dead in a twofold way, as it were. We can experience that part of him which he has passed on to the etheric world; and we can experience also that part which contains his consciousness after death.

I repeat, that this first contact with what the dead leave behind in the etheric world, is deeply moving. It would move us even if we were unable to come into contact with the Being itself, which continues to live between death and a new birth, and which carries both the consciousness and the self-consciousness of the deceased, but could come into contact only with what he had left behind. Even then this kind of experience would move our souls most deeply—it would have that moving quality peculiar to all contacts with the spiritual world.

And a part of what especially moves us is the actual, living experience that such spiritual substance as has here been indicated—indeed, that etheric spiritual thing which has been left behind by the dead—is, in reality, always round about us. Just so truly as we are living in the air which surrounds man everywhere, just so truly are we, at the same time, surrounded by what the dead have left behind them, as etheric spirituality. In this world, in which we stand, even with our physical bodies there is also that spiritual element which I have just mentioned. Just as we are surrounded by the air, so are we, in the same way, surrounded by what the dead leave behind. It is only states of consciousness that sever us from the spiritual world—we are not separated from them through spatial conditions, but only through conditions of consciousness.

Consider, for instance, the following fact:—Let us imagine a human being who is striving to carry out the following soul exercises. But I should like to emphasize that such soul-exercises must be carried out in perfect calmness of soul. If anyone becomes in any way excited through these exercises, he will damage himself. If soul-exercises are carried on in the way described here and in our literature, so that they are real soul-exercises, and our physical being does not take part in them, then they can never damage a human being in the very least—they cannot even damage his soul. Yet we should not on the other hand, be able to penetrate into spiritual knowledge, did we not call attention to such things, now and again.

Let us suppose that someone does the following exercise, and that he says to himself:—With my eyes I see red, blue, etc. And now he proceeds by experiencing something that is in a certain sense alive—when he sees red, blue green, etc.

Gradually, we begin to realise that, after all, we live in the physical world—especially our modern materialistic age—in a very coarse way—that we do not notice the finer experiences which come to us.

This finer element may be experienced if we take notice of the more purely soul-impression made upon us—let us say by colours—but also by other sense-impressions. Of course everybody knows, roughly speaking, that when he looks upon a blue surface, the impression it leaves will not be the same as that left by a red surface. A red surface—and I must emphasize this particularly—even when a person is not made nervous by looking at it, has something that attacks something which comes out of the surface, as it were, and thrusts itself at us. Whereas blue, for instance, awakens the opposite sensation—it remains quietly in its place; nothing comes toward us, out of the blue. On the contrary, we feel—if we are able to accompany colour-impressions with a fine feeling—that we can penetrate into this blue with our soul forces, that we can press through it.

Green is, as it were, in a rythmical state of balance. This is why it has so beneficent an effect upon us, as the plant's covering of the earth. Green works upon us in such a way that we are able, in part, to penetrate into it, while at the same time it comes back again toward us. When we look out upon the wide green field, we have this impression, that we enter into something; yet, at the same time, that it comes toward us. This is what constitutes the refreshing effect made upon us by a wide green field.

You will be able to convince yourselves of this fact: that human beings have noticed that it is possible to live with colour as it were, and if you read in Goethe's Theory of Colours—which, to be sure, is understood by very few persons of to-day—the chapter on the ethical effects of colours, you will find indicated the corresponding feeling to be experienced through each colour. Thus we find that we can experience colours ... we can also experience other sense-impressions; but, for the moment, we are speaking about colours, in order to have an example.

We can live with colours in such a way that blue, for example, calls to life in our souls a force that resembles the longing which goes forth from us and which is taken up kindly by blue.

In the case of red, something always arises which seems to come toward us and will not leave us alone—something that wishes to overpower us, as it were.

When we thus feel colours, we may have a soul-experience—a moral soul-experience, as it were. Of course, not every human being can carry on such experiences in any one incarnation; but I am describing them to you, in order that you may see how the different worlds are interrelated.

If, accordingly, a man were to carry on these exercises, he would live far more purely in the world of colours. And if he did them in connection with other sense-impressions, he would likewise live more purely in the other sense-impressions. In that case, however, something else would very soon have to arise—something different would take place.

Suppose that such a person were to experience the blue sky in this living way; he would in this case, not simply have the blue above him, (this is, moreover, a very subjective blue; for, in reality, there is no vault above us) but he would feel it above him as the inner surface of a beneficent, inner hemisphere, everywhere receiving his soul-life—a hemisphere, behind the apparent surface of which the soul's experience could penetrate.

It is because of this that human beings who experience the world in a deeper sense, speak as did Jacob Böhme, for instance, who did not say:—“When we see the blue vault of heaven ...”, but, rather:—“When we see the depths”. In these words, “When we see the depths”, we find contained the whole experience of “blue”.

But there is another parallel phenomenon which arises, if we so completely penetrate into the life of colour, that soul-experiences begin to light up when we see colours. There is then awakened in us the ability to make use of a very brief space of time, which we should otherwise not use at all.

When you face an exterior object in ordinary physical life, you see it—you see a certain colour. And, indeed, this is the starting-point of your impression. Then you are able to think about it. You can form a conceptual idea of the colour. But it is with the act of vision that you begin to live with the object. Yet, nevertheless, this is not the actual beginning of what takes place. Even the modern physiologist, working in the laboratories, knows that a certain time elapses between the effect upon our eye, and the arising of the idea connected with the colour blue. Thus, we see that, first of all, the blue colour works upon our eye. We do not immediately perceive it, but a certain time elapses, and only then do we become conscious of it.

You may read, even in ordinary books, how experiments connected with these things are carried on nowadays in the laboratories. Certain kinds of apparatus are constructed; and then the attempt is made to cause a certain impression—the student is the experimental rabbit. He must register, by means of another apparatus, when he receives the impression, so that one can establish the small fraction of time which elapses between the moment an impression strikes our sense-organs, and the moment we grow conscious of this. A certain space of time elapses. In this short interval, we do not as yet, for instance, experience the blue colour, (in the case of an impression of blue), but we do experience the moral effect of the colour. This works in us. Thus, the whole process of how the soul pours itself into the blue colour, how it is accepted with a kindly pleasure—all this lives in us already—the soul-element of the colour is active in us before anything else. Only, this activity remains unconscious; man does not perceive it. Man does not begin to develop his consciousness of the colour, until the colour arises. He does not notice what precedes the colour-sensation.

Now, let us think for a moment: when one is impelled to notice more particularly this moral impression of colours, this soul-experience of colours, then something special appears. We notice this when we should colour some sort of a surface—i.e. when we paint, or transmit colours in any way at all, which ought first to arise out of thoughts. In any real painting, the artist works out of the soul-impression of the colours. In this case, it is not as it is with the artist who simply uses a model—who simply imitates the model; but, rather the real artist knows that, because he has called forth a particular soul-impression, he must therefore use red; whereas, on some other surface, he uses blue, because he has called forth this or that soul-impression.

This is the way, you see, in which all of the painting has been worked out in our Dornach Building. The application of the colours has here arisen entirely out of the soul-element—which indeed must then shine through the colours. Yet, in order to achieve this, it was necessary, in the deepest sense of the word, first of all to have the Building in ourselves—as a Soul Being. The way in which the Building faces the world will be identical with the way in which it has grown out of “the Building”, as a Soul-Being.

People would perceive the thing out of which this Dornach Building has grown, were they able to make use of that short interval of time elapsing between the moment in which the Building strikes their sense-organs, and the moment in which the impression reaches their consciousness.

Any one, moreover, who has a share in the erection of the Building, must himself create all that is in it—its forms and colours—out of that short interval of time.

I have led you in a more scientific way, I might say, to something which may appear difficult to you. But we must also overcome difficulties such as these. Moreover, the possibility may arise, even in this modern Age, as if through an act of grace—and, in a certain sense, we are constantly being favoured by an act of grace, through the simple fact that we are in the world—for man to hold fast, in some way, to this moment. He will see something, and will at times be able to feel that something reciprocal has taken place between himself and the object which he sees outside—if he succeeds in bringing it to his consciousness. He will say to himself, when he sees something:—When I am looking at it, it seems almost as if I had already seen it before this moment.

Perhaps you have all become familiar with the experience of facing a being or an object, and then feeling, as it were, as if, after all, it is not there before you for the first time, when it makes an impression on your consciousness, but that it had already come nearer—indeed, it had come quite close. This creeping nearer—as one might call it—can indeed at times be observed. But, in ordinary life, what here takes place within this brief space of time, lies beyond our consciousness—beyond the threshold.

The moment we are able to bring into our consciousness what thus lies just beyond the threshold, we make an important spiritual discovery. I shall again bring it to your minds by citing a special case. Many of you have already heard about this. Perhaps I have also mentioned it here, in this place. Last year, a little boy died in close proximity to the Goetheanum Building; he was crushed by a furniture-van. The etheric body of this little boy is now united with the Dornach Building—forms the aura of the Dornach Building and lives in this aura. And when some artistic work must be carried out, in connection with this Building, forces come out of this etheric body, which then, of course, appears enlarged. We can feel these forces in us, in the same way that we feel the Building within our souls.

Why is this so? Because the world of which I have just spoken—that world which is always round about us, but which we do not perceive because it remains unnoticed until its impressions reach us—contains the etheric bodies of the dead, and the dead are looking on these bodies. What the dead see of our world—what the dead look upon—is contained in the etheric world which surrounds us. And we should always see it, if we could, so to speak, look into it before we look out into the physical world—if we were able to take even a little step across the threshold.

This does not, however, prevent the dead from being active in this world, through what they have left behind. We are surrounded by a world in which the etheric bodies of the dead are living. In some way or other, they are connected with that world. And only because what lives in the etheric must first come into contact with our physical body, and must set the physical apparatus into movement, do we fail to perceive this powerful weaving around us, of what the dead leave behind them, in etheric form, in our world. But we must acquire the feeling that it is our duty to enrich our world, in our conceptual ideas, by including in it, in the first place, what is contained in the whole etheric world, through the etheric bodies of the dead.

The dead themselves are not in this world—but only the etheric bodies which they have left behind. We cannot find the dead themselves in so easy a way—although even this “easy way” is difficult.

The dead, after they have laid aside their etheric bodies, continue to live in their astral bodies and their Egos. You can gauge to what extent we must transform our conceptions, if you bear in mind that everything pertaining to thought, is stripped off with our etheric bodies, which pass over into the exterior etheric world. After death, we do not keep the thoughts which we have collected here, in our physical body. All that pertains to thought becomes an exterior world. The one who has died, does not look upon his thoughts after death in the same way in which he looked upon thoughts which he formed during his life, and which he then remembered and drew up out of his sub-consciousness. After death he looks upon his thoughts as if they were an etheric painting; he sees his thoughts in the world outside. Thoughts are something exterior for one who has passed through the portal of death—they are outside. What reveals itself here through feeling and will, remains connected with our individuality. It continues to live in our astral body and in our Ego.

Our Ego lights up in self-consciousness through the contemplation of the moment of death. Our astral body is kindled because the thoughts contained in the picture before us, penetrate into the astral body. Thus we experience them in our astral body.

In the physical body, on the other hand, we experience thoughts by drawing them up from within us. After death, we experience thoughts by looking at them as we look at the stars, or as we look out at the world and the mountains, and they make an impression upon us; we take up this impression and experience it in our astral body and our Ego. Thus we see that just the opposite thing takes place: Whereas here on Earth we look upon thoughts as something within us, we must consider them as being something external, after death. Our life then dissolves in the world, flows out in the world.

It is important for us to bear this in mind and not to adopt the idea that the world after death is like a fine, thin repetition of the physical world here—an idea which is often accepted in spiritist circles. It is in fact something entirely different. And it is different, for the reason that our thoughts are Beings outside of us. Now, at the moment we begin to call up before our souls, conceptual ideas like these, we notice not only that we need a certain freedom from prejudice, as I might say, in order to accept Spiritual Science, but also that we must have a certain kind of ability to render our concepts more fluid, to transform our concepts—and that we cannot claim to be able to picture what is in the spiritual world with the same concepts and ideas which we have here, in the physical world.

Consequently, one who is in a position to visit—let us say—a so-called dead person, must first learn how to carry on this intercourse with the dead. Whereas, here, when we meet a person, we come into contact with his inner life through the fact that he expresses this inner life in words or gestures, we find instead, in the case of the dead, that if we wish to come into contact with him, he shows us what he wishes to tell us in the objective world. We see, as it were, in the form of imaginations, which he shows us, what it is that he experiences, and what he wishes to say to us. I might say that the dead person, when we ask him something, says to us: Look over there—it is there that you will find what I am now experiencing.

But all of this is a rapid process. The dead, accordingly, as you see from what I have said, have the capacity to see supersensibly the thoughts which we, here on earth, can experience only in an inward, invisible way. Only if we acquire the capacity to behold thoughts in union with him, are we able to share in his experience, for this reason, he has the special capacity, as a dead person—as a so-called dead person—to share with us the experience of our thoughts.

We are particularly struck by this in the case of a certain phenomenon which I should like to touch upon. When someone whom we have loved has departed from us, we continue, as we all know, to cherish our thoughts of him within our souls. We think about the experiences we have had in common, about the feelings we have shared with him, and so forth. The dead person, as I have said, beholds thoughts. He can also see our thoughts, and he can even distinguish very soon the thoughts which he himself has, in the form of impressions of the spiritual world—these are Imaginations of what is contained in the spiritual world, and thoughts living in the soul of a human being who is still dwelling in a physical body. He can distinguish these thoughts. His own inner experience enables him to make this distinction. For, you see, the difference is really very great. When a deceased person (and exactly the same thing applies to an initiate) has to experience a thought about something which exists only in the spiritual world, he must himself experience this thought, actively. He must himself first follow the thought—every position of it, as it were. It is difficult to make this process clear; but I might explain it as follows:—Suppose a painting were hanging before us, here. But supposing you were to see this painting only when you yourself had traced its lines and painted its colours—followed all the details. This is what the dead can do. He paints every thought he sees; he himself creates the thoughts anew, as it were, and experiences his own activity. A large portion of the life between death and a new birth consists in this—in a creative copying of what exists in the spiritual world as thought-formations. We must learn to create these anew, with the dead—then we know that these are forms of thought which pertain only to the spiritual world.

The experience is different when we look down from the spiritual world upon the thoughts living in the human beings who have been left behind in the physical world. In this case, it is not necessary to re-create them; but these thoughts actually come to meet us, so that the dead person can remain passive. Just as a flower does not need first to be drawn or painted by us, but immediately makes an impression upon us, so it is with the thoughts coming from those who are still alive. These thoughts actually arise in a way similar to the way in which impressions arise, here in the physical world.

And this is just what uplifts, gladdens and warms the dead, in the thoughts of the living whom they have loved. For it is a very special sphere of activity for the dead—this being able to look into the thoughts of those whom they have left behind and who loved them. This is a special world for them.

It would be possible—would it not—for us to experience the physical world, as if it contained only what arises in the mineral, animal and vegetable kingdom and in the kingdom of man. In this case, for example, the physical world would contain no Art. Art would have to be added to all this—it would have to be created in addition to what we actually need. Yet Art is the very element which, from a soul-aspect of human evolution, must not be absent in the world, in spite of the fact that Nature would be just as perfect as it is, even if there were no Art. Thus, the dead could go on living, if necessary—although it would be like the human being living in a barren, lifeless, naked world of Nature, a world devoid of Art—were the peculiar circumstance to arise that everyone who had died were to be immediately forgotten, after death, by those who had loved him. Whatever can be seen as thoughts, remaining in the souls of those who love the dead, is something which is, to be sure, an additional element, going beyond the immediate requirements of the world of the dead; yet, at the same time, it uplifts and beautifies the life of the dead. It cannot be compared with Art in the physical world—that is to say, it can be compared, but the comparison is a lame one—for it means for the dead, as I have said, an uplifting, a beautifying element, yet in a far higher sense than the beautifying influence of Art is for us, here, in the physical world.

Thus it is deeply significant for the whole existence of the world, if we unite our thoughts with the thoughts of the dead, and especially if we do this in the form which we have often spoken about, here. Above all, we should approach the dead with thoughts clothed in that language, in that language of concepts which is common both to the living and to the dead—in the language which we speak here, in Spiritual Science. For the dead understand what constitutes the contents of Spiritual Science, just as well as do the living. And, moreover, it never becomes alien to the dead.

It is precisely through the bringing together of conceptual ideas such as these, I believe, that we shall be able gradually to form a plastic picture of the spiritual world. We can thus find our way into what lies beyond the threshold—whence, in reality, there flows forth all that exists for us on this side of the threshold.

In the face of these phenomena, we must bear in mind that present-day humanity is shortsighted in its vision of the world—and this is justified, to be sure, because it forms part of the universal plan—at the same time, it really is more shortsighted than it needs to be. For, you see, when a materialistic person of the present day forms his ideas, his conceptions of the world, he thinks that these are the universally-accepted human ideas and conceptions. You know how difficult it is to convince a materialistically-minded person that there are also other ways of thinking than his own. The standpoint taken by the materialist causes him to say that anyone who does not think as he does is a fool. There is no greater inward intolerance than that of a materialist.

Hence, a materialistic person actually thinks, generally speaking:—“Oh, of course, in the past, men thought all manner of things as to the existence of the spiritual; they could hardly move a step, in their daily life, without suspecting the presence of spirits everywhere, or indeed without seeing them. But all this was sheer fancy—now, at last, we have progressed so far that we have discarded this childish play of the human race.”

And yet it would seem as if human beings ought to be able to see at each step how nonsensical such a conception really is.

I shall try to make this clear to you, by citing an example, which may appear to be far-fetched, and from an entirely different side than the one we have discussed to-day in essence.

Let us think, for a moment, about that picture, which we have often discussed from various aspects, relating to the first stage of human evolution on earth—of man's life in Paradise, as we find it described in the Bible. Let us think about this picture of Adam and Eve in Paradise, the first human beings—Eve biting into the apple and giving the apple to Adam. Let us think of the picture of the Serpent on the Tree, tempting Eve.

When the painter of our day paints this picture—and even to-day, the modern painters still occasionally do paint it—he paints it, to be sure, in such a way that the picture will show a woman as true to Nature as possible, and a still more naturalistic man, because this is modern ... Impressionism, Expressionism, and I do not know what else; in any case, a very naturalistic woman and a still more naturalistic man, then a naturalistic landscape, and a naturalistic serpent showing, of course, greedy naturalistic teeth, etc. This is actually the way it is painted.

Painters have not always painted in this way, however; for such a picture would not render the true facts, as we know them. We know that in the Serpent, we may recognize a symbol of the real Tempter, Lucifer. Moreover, Lucifer is a Being who, as we know, remained behind during the Moon Period, and who—in the way in which he appears during the Earth Period—may be symbolized by the Serpent. Nevertheless, the Serpent is not Lucifer, and this must somehow become evident, spiritually. In other words, this Lucifer must also be seen with the forces of the soul—he must be seen from within, through the effort of inner forces.

How is it possible to see him, my dear friends? Indeed, we bear within us all the impressions of Lucifer. We actually carry them about within us. Just as we carry about the impressions of Ahriman, so we carry these in us, also.

Now I shall explain to you as briefly as possible, without any proofs or detailed explanations—these you must find for yourselves, in our already existing literature on this subject—how it is possible to form a conception of Lucifer.

Man carries about within him the impulses of Lucifer. They live in him in such a way that they are centred in his head, and from there they permeate the astral body where the Luciferic principle has remained within him; that is to say they force their way into his head—whereas otherwise it is the Spirits of Form which have moulded his head—and they also force their way into what is formed by the astral force into the spinal cord.

Thus, if we were to draw the head of a man and prolongation, the spine, the result would be a Serpent, a serpent like form, with a human head. Of course, the whole thing should be imagined as an astral form—the head to some extent still resembling a human head, and the spinal cord appended to it and turning around like a serpent. Imagine this projected objectively—and you will have a serpent with a human head. That is, Lucifer viewed externally, in the form of an image, assumes the aspect of a serpent with a human head. Not a serpent with a serpent's head, for that would no longer be a Lucifer—that would be an earthly serpent, which has already, as an earthly creature, been subjected to the influence of the Spirits of Form.

Hence, if a painter wished to paint Lucifer on the Tree, he would have to imagine the Serpent coiled around the Tree with a human head looking out above. He would then be painting out of the knowledge gained through our Spiritual Science.

Thus, we should have to picture Adam and Eve by the side of the Tree, and—coiled into the Tree—the astral shape of the spinal cord, resembling, as I have said, a serpent body, together with the image of the human head. If the woman Eve, sees it first, it will, of course, take on the form of a woman's face.

If you go into the Museum here, and look at the painting of Master Bertram, you will see there, that in the Middle Ages this kind of serpent was still portrayed coiled on the Tree, as I have explained. It is most striking and sublime; for it proves to us that a painter living in the very heart of the Middle Ages could paint from out of the true and real concepts of the spiritual world. This is an undeniable proof for the fact that we need not go back so very many centuries; and there are many documents, still existing to-day, to show us that in those days people still knew something of what our present materialistic humanity has already forgotten.

Of course, in an exterior history of Art, this fact which I have just mentioned is never touched upon. Nevertheless, anyone—by adopting not only the modern materialistic attitude, but also the materialistic standpoint or conception—can convince himself that both the vision of the spiritual, and the disappearance of this vision, are events of only a few centuries ago. Anyone here in Hamburg can convince himself of this, by going to the Museum and looking at this Paradise-picture of Master Bertram, he will find, there, the irrefutable proof, furnished on the physical plane, that it was not at all so long ago that men were able, by means of atavistic clairvoyance—as we may call it—to look into the spiritual world, and to have knowledge of its mysteries in a way that was entirely different from the way of to-day.

We need only think how blindly people go through the world to-day; how, if they only wished to do so, they could convince themselves, even externally, on the physical plane that evolution takes place, in the human race.

The significant fact is that during the course of the last three to four centuries, the formerly extant, more atavistic and unconscious clairvoyance has been disappearing. For, naturally, Master Bertram would not have been able to develop Spiritual Science. He merely saw, still saw in the etheric world, what Lucifer was really like, and then painted him accordingly. It was an unconscious, instinctive clairvoyance.

In order that man should acquire the external form of vision, the old way of looking at the spiritual world had to disappear. But it must be acquired anew by man. And the time must gradually come, only of course, this must be in the sphere of consciousness—when what has been lost, must be striven after anew. For this reason, the way must be prepared by Spiritual Science. People can approach the spiritual world again only if they study Spiritual Science. But this Spiritual Science must really bring an insight into the spiritual world.

To-day it is possible to prove scientifically, as it were how far natural science can bring the world forward. When a scientifically-trained person to-day speaks about such matters, he really speaks about the soul-apparatus, about the bodily instrument of soul-life. Now, if you try to investigate in the descriptions available to-day—they are generally called psycho-physiology—even those written by the most significant modern scientists, you will find there, what they have to say about the soul-instrument. You will find that these people express themselves, everywhere, in a most peculiar way. They say, for instance:—Let us consider the life of impressions and reactions, and the life of conceptual ideas; to this life of impressions and conceptual ideas belongs, in every case, the soul-apparatus. And then they describe what happens in the brain and in the nervous system when a man has impressions or forms conceptions. The parallel bodily process can always be found. But when these scientists approach feeling and the will, they cannot find a parallel bodily process. They cannot find anything.

That a thing like this does not come to light, but remains unnoticed, is due only to the fact that natural science and its rear-guard—we cannot really say rear-guard, because a rearguard is useful, and the monistic rear-guard of natural science is entirely superfluous—because natural science and its rearguard, the Monists, simply crow about the fact that for every process of thought and sensation, a certain physical parallel process is to be found, and that thought and sensation are bound to the brain. But they do not speak of shades of feeling or will. At the most, they speak of shades of feeling—in other words, a certain nuance of conceptual thought. But they do not go as far as feeling and will.

And the honest scientists say:—Our science does not extend as far as feeling and will. You can read for yourselves what I have just said, in the natural-scientific literature. It is possible to corroborate it in all spheres of science. For instance, in the case of Dr. Th. Ziehen, the well known modern psychiatrist and psycho-physiologist—in his book, you can find most easily of all a confirmation of what I have just said. He points out the single processes which correspond to thought and to sensation. He goes as far as certain shades of feeling; but he does not reach to actual feeling and will. Thus he disavows feeling and will. They do not exist at all, he says.

Now could we really find any clearer scientific proof than this, for the fact that natural-scientific thought extends only over the sphere of the temporal—only over that which we lay aside with death; whereas, at the same time, there is something that extends beyond this, living, precisely, as I have indicated, in feeling and will, and yet so far removed from the body that the scientist simply does not find it, indeed he rejects it and disavows it!

This is, accordingly, the reason why the scientists boast that feeling and will do not exist: because they cannot be found by the ordinary science. Indeed, it is natural science itself, as we see, that proves to us today that feeling and will are not bound to the body as such, like thought and sensation.

This is connected with the fact that our thoughts separate themselves from us; after death they appear spread out, outside of us. Feeling and will remain ours. And out of feeling and will springs forth the power to create the thought-tableau. He who wishes to do so to-day, can show by means of what is strictly scientific, that feeling and will are not connected with what we call “Nature”, but that, on the contrary, they pass out after death, as astral body and Ego, and remain united with the human individuality—kindling themselves to a new consciousness, in the way that I have described, through the fact that what spreads itself out is all etheric, that is, mirrors itself first in the astral body and then in the Ego when the astral body has been laid aside.

This is all as it should be. Modern science does not refute Spiritual Science, but confirms it. It really does confirm it. If it were possible to arouse even a little understanding, it would be seen that, for a right understanding, it is precisely an honest natural science that points to a justification of Spiritual Science, even in all its separate details.

Spiritual Science is, as you see—in view of all that has been said—something which must in our day begin to enter into the development of humanity, which must begin to have a grip on humanity, because otherwise the human race will reach the point where it will understand only the temporal, and when it will know nothing of the eternal, which lives in us. The time will come, when people will first recognise this, and when they will also concern themselves more with the development of their feeling-life. For only through feeling and will do we unite ourselves with the world which is not devoid of thought.

The objection might be made:—Very well, then, you feel the spiritual world, but you do not will it. But no, it is precisely through feeling and will that we are united with the objective thought-world—with the thoughts that live, and which we do not merely think. And just as truly as in the past mankind possessed a power of seeing into the spiritual world, just so truly will it have to win this power again in the future. Man will be able to win it again, however, only if he determines first to enter a little way into the thought-world which is no longer recognised by our generation, as coming from the spiritual world.

In order to attain this, a very great deal of what is rumoured about to-day as concept and percept will have to be corrected. Indeed, it would be hard to believe how thoughtlessly, as a matter of fact, human beings of to-day—allow me to use a paradox—how thoughtlessly human beings think. This really would be hard to believe. They make definitions which they are unshakably convinced are right, and cannot be refuted in any way. It belongs to the task of the spiritual scientist, however, to test all the more carefully what it is that convinces people so unshakably—just because it appears to them to be entirely logical and thus they are convinced of it. What, for instance—they think—could be a better definition than this, when someone is asked, in this modern materialistic Age of ours “What is a true concept?”—that he answers by saying:—“It is a true concept, when I form an inner picture of an object which is actually present, outside in the world. This is then a true picture of an object which exists outside.” In other words, everyone, in our day, would give this definition: “Truth consists in the conformity of a picture which we form in thought, to something actually existing outside.” We can now very easily show, however, if we examine concepts, that true concept has nothing to do with what we usually call by this name—has nothing whatever to do with it, in so far as it is supposed to be a picture of something having actual existence. It can easily be shown that actual existence goes along quite another path than does the picture which we fancy to be concept. You see, if this were true: that a concept is only true when it conforms with something having actual existence, naturally, then, it would also be true only so long as that which has actual existence verifies it.

Thus a concept might be compared with a portrait which someone has made of a human being. The portrait is good, if it resembles the person in question. Yet it has nothing to do with his being. The fact that the picture corresponds to the person, does not lead to an inner truth in the picture. Imagine to yourself that you have painted the picture of some man who then dies, soon afterwards. At first, the picture corresponded to what was there, but afterwards to what no longer exists. There is no connection between actual existence or life, and the portrait; as far as life is concerned, it is an entirely indifferent matter whether the picture is a true one or not. Such a connection is quite imaginary, when we look at things really logically. The essential thing is to experience things inwardly. It is this inner experience which humanity must again acquire.

In order to acquire this, however—and it is just during these hard, sorrowful days that we can be brought to realise in a special measure how necessary this is—in order to acquire this, it is necessary above all that humanity should acquire again a feeling for Truth, for real Truth.

Materialism gradually estranges us completely from Truth. We have gone astray through materialism—and especially where the idea of Truth is concerned. Compare for yourselves, for instance, the journalistic descriptions of today—and how many people read nothing but the newspapers, nowadays—compare these with the real events, which you may happen to have seen yourself! When you read this again, in the newspapers, you will find that the reporter has written it up in the way that he believes will make an impression on his readers. All feeling that such descriptions should correspond to the Truth grows weaker and weaker. And so long as this feeling for Truth does not permeate humanity, the impulse that leads from the sense-world into the spiritual world cannot be awakened to activity in human souls. For, with this want of any concepts of Truth in our thoughts, our concepts become falsified. How often, for instance, do we come across the following case:

Someone writes about Spiritual Science—let us suppose about what I have published in connection with Spiritual Science. He writes about this, and he cannot help saying—owing to his materialistic mentality—that everything is invented, and that it is not permissible to invent such things. And then he continues by investigating the question of how it can be possible for a man to be so fantastic.

As a matter of fact, this article actually appeared not so very long ago. The writer tries to find out how it is possible that a man can be so fantastic! And then he relates where this man comes from—in this case, it was I—where he used to live (not his recent abode, but where the writer reports him to have lived) and how it is because of his peculiar race-mixture that he can invent such fantastic things. And then this reporter himself invents the most incredible things, impelled by his materialistic mentality. And here you have an example of what I mean: People simply take hold of lies, and allow truth to become inwardly distorted.

Of course, no direct proof can be supplied for this. Yet what could be more false than to accuse someone of inventing fantastic things, and then to invent the most incredibly fantastic things about him, oneself! If you will study our modern life carefully, you will find that there is a very widespread lack of any feeling of responsibility, which would see to it that everything one says should correspond to the Reality. Unless we possess this feeling for Truth most intensively, we cannot gain access to the spiritual world. Nor can we understand why we must believe to be true, what Spiritual Science brings down for us as Truth, from the spiritual world.

But our thinking is far too inadequate for a true contemplation of this sort—and we cling too much to our own personal interests, to be able to see how untruthfulness glitters in everything and how its fragments can be found in all the happenings of life.

A true feeling, a true conception of this is what should occupy our thoughts, and should constitute the first preparatory steps in Spiritual Science. Thoughts like these should be, I might say, a kind of conscious preparation for what Man's future really should be. For, the welfare of the human race can become a reality only if our souls become united again with the spirit. Spiritual Science is not something that we seek in the form of a new kind of sensation, but something whereof we know that it must arise, because humanity needs it. And we ought to feel indebted, as it were, to Spiritual Science, if we observe, in a clear and lucid way the course of human evolution.

How much richer we grow, through what Spiritual Science can give us, because the world widens out for us more and more, through the fact that spiritual reality is added to physical reality, in human evolution! Human beings have been more and more cut off, in this materialistic age, from the world in which man lives between death and a new birth. Spiritual Science must give back to them, again, that life which comprises the whole human being—including that part which remains when man no longer possesses a physical body. In this respect, the physical world has nothing to give us.

It can weigh heavily, very heavily, upon our souls—especially just at the present difficult time—to see a volume like the one by Ernst Haeckel, which has just appeared. He calls it “Thoughts of Eternity”. Now, Ernst Haeckel is one of the most distinguished men of our day. This book, “Thoughts of Eternity”, starts out with the present Great War. What is the chief content of this book? The chief content of this newest book by Haeckel, “Thoughts of Eternity”, is expressed in these words: What can this particular war teach us? Thousands and thousands of people die a death of external violence, without any necessity whatsoever. “Must we not see”—asks Haeckel—“in this very war, the proof for the fact that all thoughts on eternity and infinity are absurd? Does not this same war, which ruins men's lives through outer chance, such as a bullet, for example—does it not show us that there is nothing beyond ordinary physical life?”

Of course, there will be other people of our day, who will be led to a different kind of thinking about eternity, through these events—to quite the opposite kind of thoughts of eternity, to thoughts which, in any case, call up in us the feeling that those who pass through the portal of death in times such as these continue their tasks for humanity in other worlds, and that the very sacrifice which they make, partly constitutes, in their new life, the starting point for what they have to fulfil when they no longer carry a physical body.

It is possible to prove all sorts of things, through ordinary science: it is possible to prove, for instance, that ordinary science enables man to construct all sorts of excellent kinds of apparatus, which raise the standard of human life and advance human civilisation—in a peaceful sense. Yet this same science can also construct the most terrible things—for the destruction of human life. External science enables man to construct both good and destructive things, and to prove all sorts of facts.

In order really to penetrate into the world where the eternal lives, there is need for Spiritual Science. And this Spiritual Science—I have already spoken to you about this, at least to some of you—shows us, among other things, and makes it quite clear to us, that those who leave their physical body at an early age, before the ordinary span of life on the physical plane has elapsed, give over their etheric body to the etheric world, and continue to live as individualities. Then, the spirit and the sense of Spiritual Science show us that such an etheric body, which would still have been able to support a physical body for a long time, still contains vital forces, when it is handed over to the etheric world—forces which would have been able to keep the physical body alive for decades. It exists in the etheric world, as illustrated by the example I have already cited to you.

What a human being acquires, through his sacrificial death continues to live in his individuality. It continues to live in him, especially at a time like the present; and we are able to gain an insight into the significance of what is taking place only when we look at things with our spiritual eyes, through Spiritual Science. Then our attention will be drawn to the fact that the spiritual counterpart of what is now happening on European soil, as the spiritual correlation, the spiritual parallel process of the mighty and sorrowful events taking place on the physical plane, here in Europe—since all physical events are under the guidance of the spiritual world—must flow through physical events, into the future of human evolution.

But this will bear fruit only if human souls, living in physical bodies on the earth, acquire a consciousness of the fact that an active and helping influence is going out to them—from those forces which live in the spiritual world as the result of thousands and thousands of sacrificial deaths: and that they can submit themselves to this influence, in a sense, in order to be able to continue in the future their activity on this earth—united with the dead through that consciousness of the reality of a spiritual world, which can be acquired by the human soul.

This is what Spiritual Science must give to men—also in connection with these events now taking place. And human beings will then be able to render fruitful for the future, in the right way, the spiritual counterpart of this mightiest of all world-events, and they will be able also to think and to feel, in the right way.

From the courage of fighters,
from the blood of battles,
from the sorrow of those who are left behind,
from a nation's sacrifice,
will ripen spiritual fruit—
if, toward the spirit-kingdom,
souls will spirit-conscious turn.

The truths we look for in spiritual science should not be dead facts, but should bring with them understanding of such a vital kind that it finds entrance into life in all circumstances and at every point. Taken in the abstract, as is often the case at present, spiritual science may seem to offer a diluted and unproductive kind of knowledge, and it is natural that people who know very little about it should be induced to ask: What, after all, is the use of learning that man consists of such and such parts; that humanity has developed, and will develop further, through different epochs of culture, and so on? Those who feel that a realistic attitude is demanded by modern life find spiritual science unprofitable. And it is often applied in an unprofitable way, even by its most devoted adherents.

Nevertheless, spiritual science itself is infinitely alive, and is something which in the course of time can and must bring life into our most external concerns. I should like to make this clear today by a particular example. Most of us know that our present age was preceded by the so-called fourth post-Atlantean culture epoch, during which the most important peoples were the Greeks and Romans; that the following centuries down to the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries continued to be influenced by impulses preceding from that epoch; and that since the fifteenth century mankind has been living in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, into which we ourselves in our present incarnation have been born and in which humanity will be living for many hundreds of years to come. We know furthermore that in man in the fourth post-Atlantean period of civilisation—the Graeco-Roman epoch—was built up pre-eminently the so-called intellectual soul through external culture and work and that cultivation of the consciousness soul is our present task. What does the cultivation of the consciousness soul mean? This abstract statement, rightly understood, contains the destiny of mankind for our entire fifth post-Atlantean period. In order that the consciousness soul may be brought to expression, the various peoples of this period of culture should work together. All the conditions and circumstances of life proclaim this truth; on all sides we find it confirmed that our age stands for the development of the consciousness soul.

Human life was completely different in the preceding Graeco-Roman period when, according to the stage of development mankind had reached, the faculties of intellect and of feeling were bestowed upon them. Intellect covers a wide field; today this is not sufficiently understood. In their soul-life the Greeks and Romans were dependent upon it in a different way from ourselves in the fifth post-Atlantean period. They received the intellect, in so far as they needed to make use of it, “ready-made”, as a natural tendency of their stage of development; there was no need to cultivate it as we must do at present, and as will be increasingly necessary in the further course of the fifth post-Atlantean period—it developed as a natural tendency. The child grew up, and as his natural tendencies developed, the natural intellect—in a certain sense—developed with them. Growing up in ordinary conditions in a particular incarnation he either possessed an intellect, or he did not. The latter case was considered pathological, or at any rate abnormal, out of the common.

And so it was with heart-and-feeling. Appropriately to the fourth post-Atlantean period heart-and-feeling developed. And though history tells us little of such things, it is nevertheless true that two people meeting for the first time knew how to tune in to each other. In this respect there is a great, difference between the preceding centuries down to the fifteenth century, and our own time. People, then, did not pass each other by with the complete indifference often shown nowadays. At present we are slow, as a rule, to make friends. We must know a great deal about each other before confidence can be established. But what is now only to be arrived at after long acquaintance—if at all—in former centuries, particularly during the Graeco-Roman period of civilisation, could be won at a stroke. In virtue of their respective individualities people were drawn rapidly together, without so much need to exchange feelings and thoughts. Acquaintance was quickly made, in so far as it might be good for the two persons concerned, or necessary to a group of people forming themselves into a community. Heart-and-feeling in the one could still reach out more spiritually and make immediate contact with heart-and-feeling in the other. Up to the present, through the medium of our senses, we can still accurately distinguish the colours, and so forth, of plants; but it will no longer be possible to do this spontaneously in the seventh post-Atlantean epoch when learning to know nature will necessitate special conditions. And there is a resemblance between our actual connection with plants and human connections in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. We must remember that this kind of feeling-and-heart connection was well adapted to that age, but a very different network of feelings and sensations spans the world of today. In the fourth post-Atlantean epoch human relationships and undertakings depended to the greatest possible extent upon personal contacts. The art of printing which has done so much up to now, and will do more and more in the future, to establish impersonal relationships, belongs to the fifth post-Atlantean epoch; and modern terms of intercourse are such that, fundamentally speaking, connections formed at a stroke are no longer even beneficial, and people can only approach one another on far more impersonal grounds.

Towards this, modern man is developing; he is no longer possessed of a ready-made heart-and-feeling with its spontaneous reactions, nor of a penetrating intellect, but impelled by the consciousness soul to develop something far more detached, more individual, more dependent upon egoism, upon human loneliness inherent in the organisation of his own body, than was the intellectual soul or mind soul. Through the consciousness soul man is much more an individual, a solitary traveler through the world. And the tendency people now show to withdraw into themselves is becoming [a] more and more pronounced characteristic of our time. The hallmark of the consciousness soul is the urge towards an isolated life, secluded from the rest of mankind. Hence the difficulty of getting to know one another, especially of establishing confidence, without the transition period of formal acquaintanceship.

The significance of all this becomes clearer if we give due weight to the spiritual-scientific truth that in the present age we are not thrown together by chance with other people. That the path of life brings us into contact with certain people and not with others depends upon the working out of individual karma. For we have entered upon a period of human evolution which brings man's preceding karmic developments to a culminating point. Think how much less karma had been accumulated in the earlier periods of earth evolution! With every incarnation fresh karma is made. At first, people had to meet under totally new conditions, with the possibility of forming fresh connections. But through repeated earth-lives we have gradually reached a point at which, as a general rule, we do not meet anyone with whom in former incarnations we have not shared this or that experience. And these experiences bring us into contact again with those who shared them. We meet other people as it would appear by chance but in reality because in former incarnations we had already met, and on the strength of this are brought together again.

Now the self-contained consciousness soul can only develop—and its development is destined to take place in our time—when less importance is attached to what takes place at present between one person and another than to what works inwardly in solitude as the result of former incarnations. In the Graeco-Roman period two persons meeting for the first time made an impression upon each other which worked with the immediacy of a blow. At present, if a meeting is to take place that is to further the development of the consciousness soul, the moving factor between them must be what emerges in one or [the] other as the result of previous incarnations. This takes longer than recognition at first sight; it implies the gradual coming to the surface, little by little in a feeling, instinctive way, of what they formerly lived through together. What we ask today is that in becoming acquainted individual corners should be rubbed off. Because it is in the becoming acquainted, this rubbing off of corners, that the still unconscious, instinctive reminiscences and after-effects of former incarnations strike upwards. The consciousness soul can only develop when our contacts with other people are made from within; whereas the intellectual and mind soul develops more through immediate contact.

What I have now described for the fifth post-Atlantean epoch is only in its initial stage. And as the epoch continues it will become increasingly difficult to bring ourselves into a right relationship with others, because this demands inner development, inner activity. A beginning has been made, but what has begun must continue to spread and become more and more intensive. How hard it is already in this present time for people drawn together by karma to understand each other, perhaps because owing to other karmic connections they have not the force instinctively to conjure up all the relations leading over from former incarnations. Stirred by certain after-effects of previous earth-lives, people are drawn together in love; but other forces work against these rising memories, and friends grow apart again. And this putting the durability of their relationship to the test is not only for those who meet in life as friends; it will also be increasingly difficult for children to understand their parents, parents their children, brothers and sisters each other. Reciprocal understanding will become more and more difficult, because of the increasing need to free what is karmically imprisoned within us, and to let it rise to the surface.

Now this negative prospect of ever increasing difficulty in reciprocal understanding in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch requires of us that we should not dream our lives away in the dark, nor close our eyes to the condition of evolution, because this is an absolutely necessary condition. If the difficulty of coming to mutual understanding were not hanging over fifth post-Atlantean humanity, the consciousness soul could not develop, and people would have to live their life in common dependent upon their natural tendencies. And cultivation of individuality—which belongs to the consciousness soul—would not be able to develop either. This must take place. Men will have to undergo this test.

Nevertheless, if only this negative aspect of evolutionary conditions in the fifth post-Atlantean period were to prevail, war and strife would inevitably arise, and find their way into even our most unimportant concerns. I need refer only to one thing and it will be plain to all of us how the remedy is to be sought for one of our necessary ills—for the difficulty we find in understanding each other. I need only say—because we are living in the age of the consciousness soul, as the fifth post-Atlantean epoch proceeds more and more conscious interest will have to be felt for SOCIAL UNDERSTANDING. In this term needs are summed up which in the fourth post-Atlantean period did not exist to at all the same extent. Anyone able accurately to study the history of ancient Greece and Rome knows that for these peoples the individual was not yet possessed of the abilities that can now be made use of by European humanity, and by their American connections. This becomes clearer if we compare human beings with an animal species. Why do animals of the same species live, within certain limits, harmoniously together? For through their group soul, the soul of their species, they have this inborn faculty; it is inherent in the species, and a matter of course. But this represents a stage of development at which the animal remains stationary, but which man must outgrow. Every single human being must develop himself as an individual, and particularly in our modern age of the consciousness soul this self-culture of the individual is one of the most important matters. The Graeco-Roman civilisation is still coloured by a group-soul element. We find its peoples making part of a social order, the structure of which, though certainly derived more from moral forces, is in itself a fixed structure and will in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch be increasingly broken up. This group-soul element in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch has no longer any meaning for the fifth. A conscious form of social understanding must take its place, proceeding from a deep knowledge of the true being of the human individual. And it is spiritual science which will first develop this understanding. When spiritual science blossoms more and more out of the abstract into the concrete, into fullness of life, among its adherents a very special knowledge of, a very special interest in, humanity will be aroused. There will be people with special gifts for teaching others about the different temperaments and characterological tendencies, how this person with a particular temperament should be taken in such a way, whereas that other person with the same temperament but with a different trend of character requires different treatment. These specially gifted men will say to those who are ready to learn: “Look carefully; there is this type of person and there is that other type, and, with each, must deal differently.” Practical psychology, practical knowledge of the soul, but also a practical knowledge of life, will be cultivated, and out of this true social understanding for human development will grow.

What have we had up to now in the shape of social understanding? All kinds of abstract ideals, concerned with national welfare and human happiness, this or that form of socialism, have made their appearance. And only when certain sociological ideas are really on the point of being put into practice, is the acknowledgment of their impracticability forthcoming. What in the first place is important is not to found sects and societies with fixed programmes, but to spread the knowledge of men, notably such knowledge of human nature as will enable us to understand the growing, developing human being, to understand the child, and how each child develops according to its particular individuality. In this way we shall learn so to adjust ourselves in life that when confronted by karma with a personal connection to be made, a connection to be drawn closer, we shall establish a real and enduring relationship, of the kind which can prove itself in life to be most truly fruitful. Practical knowledge of man, practical, effectual interest in humanity, this is what counts. Up to the present mankind has gone only a short way along this path and with small success. For how do we judge a person whom we meet nowadays? As being agreeable to us, or the reverse. Look about you and you will find that this is, in most cases, the sole criterion, or if more than one opinion is pronounced there is only one point of view; “This man appeals to me, another does not. I like this about so-and-so, but I do not like that.” Foregone conclusions! We make for ourselves an idea of what someone should be, and when we find that they differ from it we criticise. No progress will be made towards a true practical understanding of man until we do away with these prejudices and fancies for this person or that, and make up our minds to take people as they are.

How often, when two people meet for the first time, one of them arouses instantaneous antipathy in the other, whom he dislikes so much that afterwards whatever they have to do with each other is coloured by this dislike. As a consequence the karmic connection between them can be entirely blotted out, or set on a false track, and will have to be laid aside until the two meet again in their next incarnation. Sympathy and antipathy are the greatest enemies of true social interests, though only too little heed is paid to the fact. But to anyone deeply aware of the importance of true social understanding for the further development of mankind, it is distressing to watch the effect teachers in a school often have upon their pupils, when out of prejudice they show preference for one rather than another, whereas it is important to take each of them as he is able and to make the very most of that.

But here we are up against regulations. Our regulations and social laws often so implacably wipe out individuality in the teacher himself, that any real effort to uphold individuality as such is impossible.

Understanding for spiritual science would cause practical knowledge of the human soul and practical knowledge of man to become matters of general interest. This is a necessity for social understanding if it is, to some extent, to create the opposite pole to the difficulty of understanding one another. It is what must come in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch of the consciousness soul is to develop fully. Man must go through trials and provings, for the opposing forces set snares in our way. And accordingly feelings of sympathy and antipathy will be widespread, and it is only by consciously combating these superficial feelings that we shall bring the consciousness soul safely to birth. Social understanding between man and man will also be more and more powerfully opposed by those nationalistic feelings and emotions, which only assumed their present form in the nineteenth century but are gaining the upper hand more and more. And since good is to be found only in the overcoming of them, these national antagonisms, these national sympathies and antipathies,[as they arise] are so strong that they are fearful testings for mankind. Were they to gain the upper hand, as they bid fair to do, we should dream away the development of the consciousness soul, because nationalism works in the opposite direction, and stands in the way of man's independence by tending to make of him a mere reflection of this or that national group. This is the first thing to bear in mind if we want the otherwise empty saying to become a reality in our souls: that the fifth post-Atlantean epoch is in particular for the development of the consciousness soul. And further to this development: if as individualism increases religion does not adapt itself to the needs of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, but remains as it was suitable for the fourth post-Atlantean period, a certain drying up of the religious life must take place.

Religious groups were bound to arise in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch because at that time mankind lived more as groups. It was necessary for authority to pour out dogmas, principles of religion, religious thought, upon groups of people, as common to them all. But because the urge to develop individuality through the consciousness soul in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch is becoming stronger and stronger, that which speaks out of the group religions can no longer find its way to human hearts, and individual human souls. And what comes from these group religions will simply not be understood. In the fourth post-Atlantean epoch it was still possible out of the group to teach people about Christ. But in the fifth period Christ is already actually entering the individual soul. Already, unconsciously or subconsciously, we all carry Christ within us. But through ourselves alone we must find the way to understand Him anew. This will not come from the imposing of fixed dogmas, only from doing all we can to further what will make Christ universally comprehensible, to further the spread of universal religious knowledge in general, and to search out everything which can work to this end. Hence in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch the need for more and more tolerance, particularly where thought in connection with religious experience is concerned. And whereas in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch those who worked to spread religious truths did so by imposing certain dogmas and fixed principles, in the fifth period this must all completely change. It is a question of something entirely different. Because men are becoming more and more individual an attempt should be made for anyone to describe his inner experiences completely freed from dogma to another, in such a way that the latter might also be able to develop his own free life of religious thought as an individual. It is a fact that dogmatic religion, the fixed dogmas of the religious confessions, will kill the religious life of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. So that a fresh start from this age must consist in making it clear that in the first centuries of the Christian era this or that may have been adapted to man's development at the time, and that in the following centuries something different is needed. Also that there are different religions. We must try to make the essential nature of the different religions intelligible, to make clear different aspects of the Christ-conception. In this way we bring to every soul what it requires for its particular deepening. But we do not ourselves intervene in the moulding of the soul; we leave the soul, especially in the sphere of religion, its own liberty of thinking and scope to unfold this liberty.

Just as social understanding is necessary for the fifth post-Atlantean period at the point I have described, so is liberty of thought on religious grounds a fundamental condition for the development of the consciousness soul. SOCIAL UNDERSTANDING IN THE SPHERE OF HUMAN RELATIONSHIPS. LIBERTY OF THOUGHT IN THE SPHERE OF RELIGION—of the religious life.

This effort of ours to understand the religious aspect of life more and more, to penetrate it, and by so doing to come to terms with our fellow men even though each of them may have his own religious life to unfold, must be kept clearly in view because it is a basic need of the fifth post-Atlantean period and something humanity must acquire by consciously drawing upon their own strength. In this very age of the consciousness soul, the ahrimanic powers are most fiercely renewing their attack upon liberty of thought—the nerve and sinew in the stream of the spiritual scientific conception of life—and we know what opposition it encounters from the religious confessions in general, and what calumnies are directed from every side upon spiritual science, on account of its complete and luminous acceptance of the birth of the consciousness soul, and its refusal to take part in propagating the kind of religious life which is still dependent upon the support of the intellectual or mind soul, as in the fourth post-Atlantean period. The various forms assumed by Christianity were established in the fourth post-Atlantean period according to the requirements of the Graeco-Roman civilisation. As Church-forms they are already unsuitable and will become ever more unsuitable for the growth of free thought which must take place.

And in the age which prompted by modern life feels the first stirrings of a need to think freely, we find the opposing power at work in the so-called Jesuitism of the different religions—although much comes under this heading which would have to be described in detail. It is actually brought to life in order that the strongest possible resistance may be offered to liberty of thought, so vital a necessity for the fifth post-Atlantean period. It will become more and more necessary to exterminate Jesuitism, the enemy in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch of free thinking, because from religion outwards liberty of thought must spread over every sphere of life. But as it must be striven for independently, mankind is put, as it were, to the proof, and difficulties spring up everywhere. These difficulties will increase as men of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch advance towards clear consciousness, yet feeling this at first to be a disadvantage, and in many respects stupefying themselves.

So we find the clash of sharp conflict between germinating liberty of thought and the principle of authority which works into our times like a hang-over from the past. And there is a passion for dulling the consciousness and for self-deception where belief in authority is concerned. In our time putting faith in authority has become so great and so intensified that under its influence people are losing their power of judgment. In the fourth post-Atlantean epoch they were endowed by nature with sound understanding; now they must acquire it, develop it, and their belief in authority holds them back from doing so. We are becoming bound hand and foot to our belief in authority. Only think how helpless human beings appear when compared to the unreasoning animal creation! How completely the animal is guided by instincts which lead it in a sound way even from sickness back to health; whereas modern man fights against sound judgment in this respect and submits himself entirely to authority. He has very little wish to acquire discernment for healthy conditions of living, although it is true that praiseworthy efforts are made in this direction by various societies and institutions. But these efforts need to be very much intensified; above all we must realise that we have increasingly to contend with our own trust in authority, and that whole theories are being built up which in their turn will become the basis of convictions only serving to uphold belief in authority.

In medicine, in law and in every other sphere people declare themselves from the outset incompetent to judge, and accept what science tells them. The complications of modern life make this understandable. But under the pressure of authority we shall become more and more helpless. And systematically to build up this force of authority, this habit of authority, is actually the principle of Jesuitism. And Jesuitism in the Catholic religion is only a special instance of other less noticeable performances in other directions. It begins in the sphere of ecclesiastical dogma with the tendency to uphold papal authority projected over from the fourth post-Atlantean period into the fifth where it can do no good. But the same Jesuitical principle will gradually transfer itself to other spheres of life. In a form hardly differing from the Jesuitism of dogmatic religion, we already find it in medical circles where a certain dogmatism strives after more power for the medical profession. This is typical of Jesuitical aspiration everywhere; and it will grow stronger and stronger. People will find themselves more and more tied down by what authority imposes upon them. And in face of this ahrimanic opposition—for such it is—salvation for the fifth post-Atlantean epoch will be found in asserting the rights of the consciousness soul which is wishing to develop. But as the gift of reason is no longer bestowed upon us like our two arms by Nature, as was still to some extent the case in the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, this can only come about through our good will to develop the faculties of understanding and sound judgment. The development of the consciousness soul demands liberty of thought; and this can flourish only in a particular aura, in a certain atmosphere.

I have pointed out that the fifth post-Atlantean epoch is beset with difficulties on account of its pressing forward in a certain direction, to the development of the consciousness soul. The consciousness soul—just because it should develop as such—must encounter opposition and pass through trials. We see what tremendous and growing opposition there is to social understanding and liberty of thought. But this opposition is not acknowledged to be such; it is looked upon in the most extensive circles as right and proper, as something in no way to be condemned but on the contrary most carefully to be fostered.

There are, however, a great many people whose sincerity and clear vision make them fully aware of what dangers modern man is exposed to and who have a keen sense for what is already plain to see: that karmic connections having entered the period of crisis described above, the moment has come when parents and children, brothers and sister peoples and nations will no longer understand each other. There are already a sufficient number of people who realise that these necessary conditions can work for good only when they are faced with the understanding which rises from the very life of the heart. For the impulse for this new world-working must be consciously wrung out of the heart's blood. What comes spontaneously brings estrangement between individuals. We must consciously strive after what springs from the human heart. Every single soul has difficulties to encounter in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch because the consciousness soul can develop only through the testing occasioned by the overcoming of these difficulties.

How often nowadays one hears: “I don't know what to do with myself, I don't know how to organise my life.” This comes from inability to see clearly what the needs of the present time are, and what man's position is with regard to them. Many people are reduced by existing conditions to physical illness, physical strain and loss of balance. And a real understanding for this must be more and more intensively cultivated because what threatens us, and is at the same time a necessity for the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, is the danger of DESTITUTION OF SOUL—destitution of the particular “shade” described in today's lecture. Many people see what this means and feel how necessary it is that we should come to social understanding on the one hand and liberty of thought on the other. But today very few are inclined to make use of the right means to this end. For social understanding, what would be necessary to achieve it, is only too often served by a hotch-potch [hodge-podge?—e.Ed] of high-sounding phrases. There is a lot of talk nowadays about the necessity for the individual treatment of the growing child. What long-winded theories are devised in every branch of pedagogy! Very little of this is to the point. Whereas an intelligent circulation of as many positive descriptions as possible of how the human being actually develops, a positive natural history of individual development, is needed. Wherever possible we should describe how the human beings A, B and C have developed and enter lovingly into such human development as takes place before our eyes—this is what we need. Above all the study of life is necessary, the will to gain knowledge of life itself, rather than to make out programmes. The theoretical programme is the enemy of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch of culture.

Now when a society is formed, this should take place in accordance with the aims of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. This means that the members of it must constitute the chief reason for its existence, and the exchange of ideas between these actual men should yield the best results possible; and if sufficient attention is given to this, very individual results will show themselves. At present, what is the usual procedure? It begins with a drawing up of rules. This can be quite good, and may be necessary, because external conditions demand rules and regulations. But on our own ground we must be very clear that talk about programmes and regulations is merely a concession to the outside world; that what concerns us must be the life in common as individuals, what issues from actual human beings; that reciprocal understanding is what counts. This will make it possible even in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch—which has centuries yet before it—that from among those who understand such things, understanding could go forth for vital individual development in the world generally, which at present puts everything into sections and regulations as if into a straight jacket. From thence come the high-sounding doctrines which from pulpit and platform proclaim the art of living. Theories crop up on every hand, dripping with abstractions and demonstrating every imaginable idea and ideal. So importance can be attached to them, but only to what is concrete, and to a comprehending penetration of the actualities of life. How can this come about?

It stands to reason that to what has been said the following objections would be justified: “Yes, indeed—but we are not qualified to pronounce an opinion upon what experts nowadays officially give out. Only consider”—it might be objected—“what the medical student has to learn! That he should learn it is right and proper, but we could not; and then add to this what the lawyer must know, and the art student, and so on.”—It is certainly out of the question that we should learn these things; but we are not called upon to be creative, we need only be capable of judging. We must allow the expert to create, but we must be able to criticise the expert. And this faculty of judgment we shall not acquire by specialising, but only by cultivating in an all-round way our powers of understanding and our faculty of judgment. This, however, can never come about through expert knowledge in some particular branch of science, but only through the all-embracing knowledge of the Spirit.

Spiritual science must be the centre around which all the sciences revolve; for it not only throws light upon the connections in human evolution, but the way of thinking peculiar to it develops in us sound understanding, and this must be produced and given out from far deeper depths than during the Graeco-Roman civilisation of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. The construction of concepts and representations necessary for spiritual science, and peculiar to it, does not qualify us to become experts in any particular sphere, but it gives us the power of judging. And the reason for this will become more and more plain to see. There are mysterious forces in the human soul, and these forces, these mystery forces, will link the human soul with the spiritual world, and through our participation in spiritual science this link will enable us to use our judgment when we stand in the presence of authority. We shall not have expert knowledge but when in certain cases the expert acts on the strength of what he knows, we shall be able to form our own judgment about it.

Emphasis must be laid upon the fact that spiritual science not only teaches us but in this connection develops our faculty of judgment—that is to say, it makes possible and fosters the freedom and independence of our thinking. Spiritual science may not qualify us to enter the medical profession, but if we can penetrate to its reality it makes us capable of forming a right judgment upon the results of medicine in public life. If what I mean by this could once be fully understood, there would be understanding as well for the many, many life-giving forces of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. For very much is contained in what I mean by saying that spiritual science will, as it were, remodel the human Intellect in such a way that man's critical faculty may be able to unfold itself, and in releasing his intellectual life from the life of his soul he may be able to develop true liberty of thought.

I should like now, if you will allow me, to put these thoughts before you in a more pictorial, imaginative way» We are told in spiritual science of a concrete spiritual world; of elemental beings surrounding us; of the Hierarchies, Angels, Archangels and so forth. The world becomes peopled for us with real spiritual content, spiritual forces and spiritual beings. That we should know nothing about these spiritual beings is no longer a matter of indifference to them as to some extent it still was in the fourth post-Atlantean period. But if in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch men on earth know nothing about them it is as though, a part of their spiritual nourishment was being withheld. The spiritual world is in close communication with our present physical world of earth. You will understand this better when I tell you something which may seem strange now, but is quite simply true; and although at present it is still not possible to say very much, yet certain truths must be given out because humanity should no longer be without them.

From the point of view of humanity on earth we are perfectly justified in saying: With the Mystery of Golgotha Christ entered earth-life, and He has remained in earth-life since then; and from this point of view we can feel it as good fortune for earth-life that Christ should have entered it. But now let us consider this from the standpoint of the Angels—which is no invention of mine, but follows as a reality from occult investigation—let us transfer ourselves to the standpoint of the Angels. Their experience in the spiritual sphere was quite different, it was the reverse of ours. Christ left the sphere of the Angels to come to mankind; He forsook their world. Speaking for themselves they could say: Christ left our world to go through the Mystery of Golgotha. And they would have as much reason to sorrow over this as we have to rejoice that Christ in His healing power should have come to us in as far as we live on earth in our physical bodies. This is a real train of thought, and anyone with actual knowledge of the spiritual world knows that there is only one way for the Angels to find solace, and I described it rightly when I said that men on earth in their physical bodies should live with the Christ-thought in such a way that it can shine upwards as a light to the Angels—since the Mystery of Golgotha—shine up to the Angels as a light. Men say: Christ has entered into us, and we can develop in such a way that He will be able to dwell in us—“not I, but Christ in me.” The Angels say: Christ has gone from the sphere of our inner life, and He shines up to us now like so many stars in the Christ-thought of individual men; He shines up to us since the Mystery of Golgotha, and there we find Him again. There is a real connection between the spiritual world and the human world. And this is also shown by the fact that the spiritual beings who apart from ourselves inhabit the spiritual world look with satisfaction and approval upon our thoughts about their world. They can help us only if we think about them; and although we may not have attained to clairvoyant vision into the spiritual world, if we know about these spiritual beings they can help us. In return for our study of spiritual science help comes to us from the spiritual world. It is not merely the things we learn, the knowledge we acquire, it is the beings of the higher Hierarchies themselves who help us when we know about them. And if in future, as the fifth post-Atlantean epoch proceeds, we face the authority of the expert, it will be good to have behind us not only our own human understanding but also what the spiritual beings are able to weave into it through our knowing about them. They qualify us to confront authority with sound judgment. The spiritual world helps us. We have need of it, we must know about it, and unite ourselves with it through conscious understanding. This is the third thing which must come to pass in the fifth post-Atlantean period.

1. RECIPROCAL UNDERSTANDING IN SOCIAL LIFE.
2. THE ACQUIRING OF FREEDOM OF THOUGHT.
3. LIVING KNOWLEDGE OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLDS THROUGH SPIRITUAL SCIENCE.

These three things must be the great true ideals of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. We must have reciprocal understanding in the social sphere, liberty of thought in religion and in the other branches of community life; and in the sphere of knowledge we must have knowledge of the spiritual worlds.

SOCIAL UNDERSTANDING, LIBERTY OF THOUGHT, KNOWLEDGE OF THE SPIRITUAL WORLDS. These are the three great aims and impulses of the fifth post-Atlantean period. In the light of these impulses we must develop, for they are the true lights of our time. Many people feel strongly that some change is necessary, particularly in the social sphere where a quite different way of living must be adopted, and that we must have different concepts. But out of ignorance or unwillingness they evade the ultimate conclusions. This can be seen from the attitude of so many towards the aspirations of spiritual science. And here we need not confine ourselves to deliberately malicious calumny of it or of Theosophy. We need only consider the sincere will that abounds among men today, sincere will that aims at the creation of impulses tending in the direction post-Atlantean humanity should take.

Only think how many reformers there are in every sphere, pastors and preachers on social matters; preachers too who do not belong to theological or religious circles. How they all take the floor! And often prompted by the best will possible. How is that to lead humanity in the direction towards which modern life is striving today? Good intentions are to be found everywhere, so let us for the moment consider what comes, not from bad intentions, but from good. And yet these good intentions do not help so long as they consist only in vague talk, however warm the feelings which underlie it; because the three great true ideals of human understanding, liberty of thought and knowledge of the spiritual worlds cannot reach fulfilment unless the knowledge which comes only from spiritual science is quickened into life. At present, however, except for the little company rallied round the spiritual-scientific conception of the world, understanding for such things has not yet reached even its initial stage.

But we come nowadays upon fine and lofty theories tending in this direction. And, as an example, I should like to tell you of something which happened—“by chance”, as we say—to myself. Actually it came about through karma that looking one day into a shop window my eye was caught by the title of a little book which I bought. The subject of it is modern man, what he is in search of, under what impressions he grows up; it describes the many advantages of modern times which make life easy and comfortable—the convenience of steam and electricity, and so on—all set forth in detail. Emphasis is laid upon the jostle and rush of modern life, but also upon its increased possibilities; allusion is made to the outstanding discoveries and inventions of our time in comparison with the duller, poorer, more instinctive way of living in former times—all this is described with a kind of fervour and delight. But then follows a description of the difficulties of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, which I have pointed out today, only without any indication that these things proceed from the peculiarities of the age itself and its demand that the consciousness soul should be developed. What stands out is a complete lack of clear vision, in spite of an open compassionate heart. I will quote: “It is strange that a description of our modern civilisation, which begins on a high note of joy in existence, must end upon the deep note of inner destitution of soul. What we experience here in a small way” (he means by ‘a small way’ the place where he lives) “is in a far greater sense the experience of our age. An abundance of culture beyond compare, a display of beauty and power in life scarcely to be equaled in history, and side by side with it all a spiritual destitution mounting upwards to lay hold on every class.”

And now, having given evidence of so much perspicacity, the author goes on to review various possibilities whereby the true impulse in modern humanity may find its right outlet. And among these possibilities, Theosophy, as he sees it, comes into consideration. Here, among its many enemies, we find a well-wisher of Theosophy, someone who with all good-will takes the trouble to interest himself in it and for this reason claims our attention. Indeed it is not without good reason that I bring these things to your notice; it is essential that we should concern ourselves with what are the positive connections of spiritual science with the outside world.

After passing “pseudo mysticism” in review as a means of deepening life and as a remedy for destitution of soul, the writer goes on to say; “Theosophy is a near neighbour to mysticism. Many people see it only as a substitute for more trustworthy forces, or as a tendency to syncretism or to eclecticism”—that is to say a hotch-potch [hodge-podge, again—e.Ed] of religious confessions and world-conceptions, just as people who do not wish to go into spiritual science call it warmed-up gnosticism and so on. But the author of this book goes a step further, for he says; “Those who see it only as a tendency to syncretism and eclecticism, equivalent to individual inclinations, confuse it with still more doubtful symptoms of modern life such as superstition, spiritualism, apparitions, symbolism and similar trifling with the mystery-loving element in human nature. But this is not the case. We do this Movement an injustice by refusing to acknowledge its deep inner connections and values,”—Thus we stand indeed in the presence of a well-wisher.—He continues: “Where Steiner's circle at least is concerned, we must try to understand it as a contemporary religious Movement, although perhaps more syncretic than original, but going to the roots of all life.” Let us hope that as this man shows so much goodwill, he may yet find his way to the “originality” of our Movement. “We may look upon it as a Movement dedicated to the satisfying of man's super-sensible interests, and therefore as having outgrown the realism attached to the senses. Above all we may recognise it as a Movement which exhorts men to consider their moral problems, to work for inner re-birth through scrupulous concentration upon self-education.” As I have already said; I am not reading this to you out of silly sentimentality, but considering the many things said from other points of view about Anthroposophy, it seems not irrelevant that we should make ourselves acquainted with a criticism such as this:—“One has only to read Steiner’s book on Theosophy to be struck by the earnestness with which he enjoins upon his readers the necessity for purification and self-improvement. The speculations contained in it upon the super-sensible are in themselves a reaction to materialism; of course”—and now comes something to which I must beg that you will pay particular attention—“here the book loses touch with reality, and soars into the realms of hypothesis and clairvoyant fantasy, into a world of dreams in which there is no place for the realities of individual and social life. Nevertheless theosophy must be registered as a corrective phenomenon in the cultural progress of our time.”

And so there is just one thing to which the author of this book takes exception, and that is the ascent, to knowledge of the spirit, to concrete knowledge of the spirit; which means that he would be glad of the impulse towards man's moral improvement which, by his own showing, springs from Theosophy, but he does not yet understand that for the fifth post-Atlantean epoch moral improvement can only come about through concrete spiritual knowledge. He cannot perceive the roots, and he wants the fruits without them. His range of vision cannot embrace the whole connection. And he is so extraordinarily interesting for just this reason: that, as we see, he has given deep thought to the study of my book “Theosophy” and yet cannot understand that the one is impossible without the other. He would like to cut off the book's head and keep its body because the latter he feels to be important.

This bears out what I have been sayings that such people acknowledge the need for social understanding and liberty of thought—this they understand; but that the third, namely, knowledge of the spirit, must form the basis of our fifth post-Atlantean epoch they are not willing to admit; it is something they cannot rise to. And one of the most important tasks in the world-conception of spiritual science is to arouse understanding for this. People often say that rising to the spiritual worlds is a fantastic illusion. They do not see that it is the loss of this knowledge which has brought materialism upon us, with the incapacity for social understanding to which it is allied, with the materialistic way of living, and attitude towards life. And it is by studying our well-wishers that we can realise how difficult it is for people to admit the existence of concrete spiritual worlds. Because of this we must try the harder to gain understanding for such impulses as those I have brought forward today in my lecture.

The title of the little book I mentioned is “Die Gedankenwelt des Gebildeten, Probleme and Aufgaben” by Prof. Dr. Friedrich Mahling, published in Hamburg in 1914, and it is the reprint of a lecture given by Dr. Mahling at Hamburg on the 23rd September 1913, during the 37th Congress for the Inner Mission. I am only surprised that no one in our circle has ever mentioned the book, for since its publication in 1914 it might easily have come under the notice of any one of us. And although it is important to concern ourselves with the various crossing and re-crossing threads between different spheres of thought at this present time, and with the various shades of abuse and mockery by which our Movement is attacked, we ought also to interest ourselves when, for once in a way as in this case, we are met by an honest effort to understand, and when we could learn from it something about the difficulties such an effort encounters.

The purpose of this lecture has been to point out what should be the three great concrete Ideals of our fifth post-Atlantean epoch; reciprocal understanding in social life, liberty of thought, knowledge of the Spirit. In the future it will be for these three great ideals to direct the sciences. It will be for them to refine and purify life, to inspire morality with fresh impulses, to direct, penetrate and further the life of modern humanity to the greatest extent possible. But the first two demands, social understanding and liberty of thought, cannot be satisfied unless the third, knowledge of the Spirit, is added to them, because the consciousness soul should be developed. And the highest stage of the consciousness soul is the spirit-self, the natural predisposition for which will appear in the sixth post-Atlantean epoch. But it cannot develop without the preparatory stage of inner self-dependence, only to be attained by man through the unfolding of the consciousness soul. And we must remind ourselves as part of our endeavour in spiritual science that what may seem to us abstract truths have in them magic power which has only to be released for clear light to pour over the whole of life. And wherever we are placed, as scientists or practical workers in whatever sphere, however small our part, if we know how to quicken into life, for whatever that sphere may be, the abstract truths we take in during our meetings, we shall be fellow-workers at the greatest tasks of our time. And our souls will then be filled with a gladness which is not superficial good cheer, but has its part in the life-giving seriousness that increases our strength; and instead of allowing life to degenerate into a mere excuse for enjoyment makes of us true workers in life.

In this sense the three great concrete social ideals and ideals of cognition will enable the consciousness soul in the fifth post-Atlantean period to understand the Mystery of Golgotha, and to receive Christ in a new way. For we forge a real link with the spiritual worlds by learning to know how these worlds also stand to the central impulse of earth evolution, to the Christ impulse. The Christ impulse will become our real link with the spiritual worlds under the influence of the thoughts which stream from them earthwards, and which we offer up again in our thinking about Christ; because in earth existence since the Mystery of Golgotha the thoughts of human souls shine upwards consolingly like bright stars, as I have described, even to the world of the angels who lost Christ from their sphere in order that they might find Him again shining up to them from the sphere of human thinking.

No, knowledge of the Spirit may not be described as fantastic. It is knowledge of the Spirit which first, of all endeavours to find a way of influencing the actual conditions under which destitution of soul, necessarily bound up with the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, arises. It is of these things that I wished to speak to you today. Let us hope that we may meet again here at a not too distant date, and that until then we may be united in thought and continue to work in the spirit of our Movement.

It would not be fitting to speak of Pentecost in our fateful time in the same way as in earlier days. We are living in a time of severe ordeals, and we cannot look only for the lofty feelings that warm our souls. If we have any right and true feeling at all, we cannot possibly, even for a moment, forget the terrible pain and suffering in our time. It would even be selfish for us to want to forget this pain and suffering and to give ourselves up to contemplations that warm our souls. Therefore it will be more appropriate today to speak of what may be useful in these times—useful insofar as we have to look for the reasons of the great sufferings of our time in our prevailing spiritual condition. As we have found in many of our previous talks here, we have to realize that we must work on the development of our souls particularly in these difficult times so that humanity as a whole can meet better days in the future.

Nevertheless, I would like to begin with some thoughts that can lead us to an understanding of the meaning of Pentecost. In the course of the year there are three important festivals, Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. Everyone will feel the great difference between them—everyone, that is, whose feelings have not become dulled, as in the case of most of our contemporaries, to the meaning of these festivals in the evolution of humanity and the universe. The difference in our feelings for these festivals is expressed in the external symbolism of the festivities connected with them.

Christmas is pre-eminently celebrated as a festival for the joy of children, a festival that in our times—though not always—includes a Christmas tree, brought into our houses from snow- and ice-clad nature. And we remember the Christmas plays we have performed here on several occasions, plays that have for centuries uplifted even the simplest human hearts, guiding them to the mighty event that came to pass once in the evolution of the earth—the birth of Jesus of Nazareth in Bethlehem. The birth of Jesus of Nazareth is a festival connected almost by nature to a world of feelings that was born out of the Gospel of St. Luke, particularly out of its most popular parts that are easiest to understand. Thus, Christmas is a festival of what is universally human. It is understood, at least to a certain extent, by children and by people who have remained childlike in their hearts, and it brings into these hearts something great and tremendous that is then taken up into consciousness.

Easter, however, although celebrated at the time of nature's awakening, leads us to the gates of death. We can characterize the difference between the two festivals by saying that while there is much that is lovely and speaks to all human hearts in Christmas, there is something infinitely sublime in Easter. To celebrate Easter rightly, our souls must be imbued with something of tremendous sublimity. We are led to the great and sublime idea that the divine being descended to earth, incarnated in a human body, and passed through death. The enigma of death and of the preservation of the eternal life of the soul in death—Easter brings all this before our souls.

We can have deep feelings for these festivals only when we remember what we know through spiritual science. Christmas and the ideas it evokes are closely connected with all the festivals ever celebrated to commemorate the birth of a Savior. Christmas is connected with the Mithras festival, which celebrates the birth of Mithras in a cave. Thus, Christmas is a festival closely linked with nature, as symbolized by the Christmas tree. Even the birth it celebrates is a part of nature. At the same time, because Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus of Nazareth, which has great significance particularly for us in spiritual science, it includes much that is spiritual. As we have often said, the spirit of the earth awakens in winter and is most active when nature appears to be asleep and frozen. Christmas leads us into elemental nature; the lighting of the Christmas candles should be our symbol of the awakening of the spirit in the darkness of winter, the awakening of the spirit in nature. And if we want to understand the relationship between Christmas and human beings, we have to think of what connects us to nature even when we are spiritually separated from it, as in sleep when our astral body and our I ascend as spirit into the spiritual world. The etheric body, though also spirit, remains bound to the outer, physical body. Elemental nature, which comes to life deep inside the earth when it is shrouded in wintry ice, is present in us primarily in the etheric body.

It is not just a mere analogy, but a profound truth that Christmas also commemorates our etheric, elemental nature, our etheric body, which connects us with what is elemental in nature.

If you consider everything that has been said over many years about the gradual paralyzing and diminishing of humanity's forces, you will be struck by the close relationship between all the forces living in our astral body and the events bringing us this diminishing and death. We have to develop our astral body during life and take in what is spiritual by means of it, and therefore we take into ourselves the seeds of death. It is quite wrong to believe that death is connected with life only outwardly and superficially; there is a most intimate connection between death and life, as I have often pointed out. Our life is the way it is only because we are able to die as we do, and this in turn is connected with the evolution of our astral body.

Again, it is not just an analogy to say that Easter is a symbol of everything related to our astral nature, to that part of our nature through which we leave our physical body when we sleep and enter the spiritual world—the world from which the divine spiritual Being descended who experienced death in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. If I were speaking in a time when the sense for the spiritual was more alive than it is in ours, then what I have just said would quite likely be taken more as reality. However, nowadays it is taken as merely symbolic. People would then realize that the celebration of Christmas and Easter is also intended to remind us of our connection with elemental nature and with the nature that brings spiritual and physical death. In other words, the festivals are tokens reminding us that we bear a spiritual element in our astral and etheric bodies. But in our age these things have been forgotten. They will come to the fore again when people decide to work at understanding such spiritual things.

In addition to the etheric and astral bodies, we bear another spiritual element in us—the I. We know how complex this I is and that it continues from incarnation to incarnation. Its inner forces build the garment, so to speak, that we put on with each new incarnation. We rise from the dead in the I to prepare for a new incarnation. It is the I that makes each of us a unique individual. We can say our etheric body represents in a sense everything birth-like, everything connected with the elemental forces of nature. Our astral body symbolizes what brings death and is connected with the higher spiritual world. And the I represents our continual resurrection in the spirit, our renewed life in the spiritual world, which is neither nature nor the world of the stars but permeates everything.

Just as we can associate Christmas with the etheric body and Easter with the astral body, so Pentecost can be connected with the I. Pentecost represents the immortality of our I; it is a sign of the immortal world of the I, reminding us that we participate not only in the life of nature in general and pass through repeated deaths, but that we are immortal, unique beings who continually rise again from the dead. And how beautifully this is expressed in the elaboration of Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost! Just think, Christmas as we celebrate it is directly connected with earthly events; it follows immediately upon the winter solstice, that is, at the time when the earth is shrouded in deepest darkness.

In a way, our celebration of Christmas follows the laws of the earth: when the nights are longest and the days shortest, when the earth is frozen, we withdraw into ourselves and seek the spiritual insofar as it lives in the earth. Thus Christmas is a festival bound to the spirit of the earth. It reminds us continually that as human beings we belong to the earth, that the spirit had to descend from the heights of the world and take on earthly form to become one of us children of the earth.

On the other hand, Easter is linked to the relationship between sun and moon and is always celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon in spring, that is, the first full moon after the twenty-first day of March. We fix the date of Easter according to the relative position of sun and moon. You see how wonderfully Christmas is connected with the earth and Easter with the cosmos. Christmas reminds us of what is most holy in the earth, and Easter of what is holiest in the heavens.

Our Christian festival of Pentecost is related in a beautiful way to what is above the stars: the universal spiritual fire of the cosmos, individualized and descending in fiery tongues upon the Apostles. This fire is neither of the heavens nor of the earth, neither cosmic nor merely terrestrial, but permeates everything, yet it is individualized and reaches every human being. Pentecost is connected with the whole world! As Christmas belongs to the earth and Easter to the starry heavens, so Pentecost is directly connected to every human being when he or she receives the spark of spiritual life from all the worlds. What all humanity received in the descent of the divine human being to earth is given to each individual in the fiery tongues of Pentecost. The fiery tongues represent what is in us, in the universe, and in the stars. Thus, especially for those who seek the spirit, Pentecost has a special, profound meaning, summoning us again and again to seek anew for the spirit.

I think in our age we have to take these festive thoughts a step further and consider them more deeply than we would at other times. For how we will extricate ourselves from the sorrowful and disheartening events of our times will largely depend on how deeply we can grasp such thoughts. Our souls will have to work their way out of these events. In certain circles people are already beginning to feel that. And I would add that particularly people who are close to spiritual science should increasingly feel this necessity of our times to renew our spiritual life and to rise above materialism. We will overcome materialism only if we have the good will to kindle the flames of the spiritual world within ourselves and to truly celebrate Pentecost inwardly, to take it with inner seriousness.

In our recent talks here we have spoken about how difficult it is for people to find what is right in this area of the renewal of spirituality under the conditions of the present age. We see nowadays a development of forces we cannot admire enough; yet we lack adequate feelings to respond to them. When feelings become as necessary for the spiritual, people will realize that it is important to celebrate and not neglect the inner Pentecost in our soul. Some people—of course, not you, my dear friends, who have after all participated in such studies for several years—might well think our recent talks here smack of hypochondria and carping.¹ I think the very opposite is true, for it seems to me absolutely necessary to point out the things we talked about because people should know where to intervene spiritually in the course of human evolution. In fact, here and there other people also realize what is essential for our times.

The grandson of Schiller, Alexander von Gleichen-Russwurm, has written a nice little book called Cultural Superstition.² As I read it, I was reminded of many things I said to you here. For instance, I told you that spiritual science should not remain merely a lifeless theory. Instead, it must flow into our souls so that our thinking becomes really enlivened, truly judicious, and flexible, for only then can it get to the heart of the tasks of our age. In this connection, let me read you a few sentences from this booklet Cultural Superstition by Alexander von Gleichen-Russwurm.

If all of us bear part of the guilt for this terrible tragedy, it is because throughout all of Europe, in spite of culture, schools, and other educational facilities, we have gradually forfeited our independent thinking.

O, freedom of thought, in vain have the greatest poets called for you in the name of humanity. You languished, faded—you sank down as if dead! Unfree, we parroted others, our power of thinking chained, lamed, and weary.

We had time, desire, and ambition for everything except actual thinking. Even here, in the erstwhile nation of poets and philosophers, thought has become an illustrious stranger, a rare, disquieting guest. Reading and writing are no longer of any help to us; indeed, they can only be harmful if we do not know how to think.

Recently everything has been conducive to wean us of thinking altogether—everything, even our education, our art, recreation, work, social life, travel, and domestic life.

But genuine culture should teach us above all to think, for feelings and instincts alone will never suffice to make possible a peaceful coexistence of people and nations. For this, a sound, carefully trained, political mind is necessary.

And von Gleichen-Russwurm, this grandson of Schiller, traces the fact that we have forgotten how to think far back in history:

Since the Vienna Congress of 1815, all nations have made a certain effort to get along and settle down on this planet. Innumerable treaties, attempts of every kind, bear witness to this. People believed that by struggling for a constitution and suffrage they would gain real participation in government and be able to determine their own fate.

Then von Gleichen-Russwurm says we cannot do without thinking. He shows this by painting a strange picture of our present time, which we must always think about and cannot forget even for a moment.

Indeed, we have not made such wonderful progress when everything that formerly would have been spun into the yarns of the most harebrained poets has become reality. We are in such an immense and frantic jumble, more fantastic than anything that happened during the migration of peoples. Senegalese kill our poets, artists groom horses, professors tend sheep. Theater managers give orders of execution over the telephone, pious Indians seek death on our battlefields in accordance with their ancient rites. Beautiful buildings fall into ruins and shelters fit for cave-dwellers are built. Millionaires starve and struggle with vermin, while beggars sit at abandoned sumptuous tables in old castles. Suspicious characters are rehabilitated and the most harmless people languish and die in prisons.

This state of things compels Schiller's grandson to consider the necessity of enlivening thinking. However, I have not been able to find, either in this pamphlet or in his other writings, that he is looking in the right direction for the true sources of enlivened thinking.

It is indeed not easy to celebrate Pentecost in our soul nowadays, not at all easy. Now I have here the book of a man who has taken great pains in the last few years to understand Goethe—as far as he found it possible—and who has gone to great lengths to understand our spiritual science.³ This very man, who has really tried to understand Goethe and is delighted that he is now beginning to do so, had earlier written nine novels, fourteen plays, and nine volumes of essays. His case is very characteristic of the difficulties people have nowadays in finding their way to spiritual life. In his latest book, the tenth volume of his essays, he says how glad he is to have found Goethe at last and to have the opportunity to try to understand him. One can see from this tenth volume of essays that the author is really trying very hard to comprehend Goethe. But think what it means that a man who has written so many novels, so many plays, and who is quite well-known, admits now when he is perhaps fifty or fifty-one that he is just beginning to understand Goethe.

Now his latest book is called Expressionism. The writer is Hermann Bahr.⁴ Hermann Bahr is the man I just described. I haven't counted all his plays; he wrote still more, but he disavows the earlier ones. It is not difficult for me to speak about Bahr because I have known him since his student days; indeed I knew him quite well. You see, he wrote on every kind of subject, and much of his writing is very good. He says of himself that he has been an impressionist all his life, because he was born in the age of impressionism.

Now let us define in a few words what impressionism really is. We will not argue about matters of art, but let us try to understand what people like Hermann Bahr mean by impressionism. Consider the work of artists such as Goethe, Schiller, Shakespeare, Corneille, Racine, Dante—or take whomever you want. You will find that what they considered great about their art was that they had perceived the external world and then worked with it spiritually. In art the perception of the outer world unites with what lives in the spirit. Goethe would have denied the status of “art” to all works that do not strive for such a union of nature and spirit.

But in modern times what is called impressionism has emerged. Hermann Bahr grew up with it and is now aware that he has been an impressionist in all he did. When he discussed paintings—and many of his essays are about painting—he did so from the standpoint of impressionism. When he wrote about painting, he wanted to be an impressionist himself, and that is what he was, and still is in his own way. Now what does such a man mean by impressionism in art? He means by impressionism that the artist is utterly afraid to add anything out of his or her own soul to the external impression given by nature. Nothing must be added by the soul.

Of course, under such conditions no music could be created; but Bahr excluded music. Neither could there be architecture. Music and architecture can therefore never be purely impressionist. However, in painting and in poetry pure impressionism is quite possible. Very well, as far as possible everything coming out of the artist's own soul was to be excluded. Thus, the impressionist painters tried to create a picture of an object before they had properly perceived it, before they had in any way digested the visual impression. In other words, looking at the object, and then right away, if possible, capturing it before one has added anything to the picture and the impression it evoked—that is impressionism! Of course, there are different interpretations of impressionism, but this is its essential nature.

As I said in a public lecture in Berlin, Hermann Bahr is a man who champions whatever he thinks to be right at the moment with the greatest enthusiasm. When he first came to the university in Vienna, he was heart and soul for socialism; he had a passion for it and was the most ardent social democrat you can imagine. One of the plays he now disavows, The New Humanity, is written from this socialist standpoint. I think it is out of print now. It has many pages of social democratic speeches that cannot be produced on stage. Then the German National Movement developed in Vienna, and Hermann Bahr became an ardent nationalist and wrote his Great Sin, which he now also repudiates. By that time, after having been a socialist and a nationalist, Bahr had reached the age when men in Austria are drafted for military service, and so at nineteen he became a soldier.

He had left behind socialism and nationalism and now became a soldier, a passionate soldier, and developed an entirely military outlook on life. For a year he was a soldier, a one-year volunteer. After this he went for a short time to Berlin. In Berlin he became—well, he did not become a fervent Berliner; he couldn't stand that, so he never became an ardent Berliner. But then he went to Paris where he became an enthusiastic disciple of Maurice Barrès and people of his ilk. He was also an ardent follower of Boulanger who just at that time was playing an important role.⁵ Well, I don't want to rake up old stories, and so I will not tell you of the passionate Boulangist letters the enthusiastic Bahr wrote from Paris at that time.

Then he went to Spain, where he became inflamed with enthusiasm for Spanish culture, so much so that he wrote an article against the Sultan of Morocco and his rotten behavior toward Spanish politics. Bahr then returned to Berlin and worked for a while as editor of the journal Freie Bühne, but, as I said, he never became an ardent Berliner. Then he went back and gradually discovered Austria. After all, he was born in Linz. Oh, sorry, I didn't mention that before all this he had also been to St. Petersburg where he wrote his book on Russia and became a passionate Russian. Then he returned and discovered Austria, its various regions and cultural history and so on.

Bahr was always brilliant and sometimes even profound. He always tried to convey what he saw by just giving his first impression of it, without having mentally digested it. As you can imagine, it can work quite well to give only the first impression. A socialist—nothing more than the first impression; German nationalist or Boulangist—nothing more than the first impression; Russian, Spaniard, and so on and so forth. And now to be looking at the different aspects of the Austrian national character—doubtlessly an extraordinarily interesting phenomenon! But just imagine: Bahr has now reached the age of fifty, and suddenly expressionism appears on the scene, the very opposite of impressionism.

For many years Hermann Bahr has been lecturing in Danzig. On his way there he always passed through Berlin, but without stopping. He is fond of the people of Danzig and claims that when he speaks to them, they always stimulate him to profound thoughts, something that does not happen in any other German town. Well, the people of Danzig asked him to give a lecture there on expressionism. But just think what that means to Hermann Bahr, who has been an impressionist all his life! And only now does expressionism make its appearance! When he was young and began to be an impressionist, people were far from delighted with impressionist pictures. On the contrary, all the philistines, the petty bourgeois—and of course other people too—considered them mere daubing. This may often have been true, but we will not argue about that now. Hermann Bahr, however, was all aglow and whosoever said anything against an impressionist painting was of course a narrow-minded, reactionary blockhead of the first order who would have nothing unless it was hoary with age and who was completely unable to keep pace with the progress of mankind. That is the sort of thing you could often hear from Hermann Bahr. Many people were blockheads in those days.

There was a certain coffee-house in Vienna, the Café Griensteidl , where such matters were usually settled. It used to be opposite the old Burgtheater on the Michaeler Platz but is now defunct. Karl Kraus, the writer who is also known as “cocky Kraus” and who publishes small books, wrote a pamphlet about this coffee-house, which back in 1848 had Lenau and Anastasius Grün among its illustrious guests.⁶ When the building was torn down, Kraus wrote a booklet entitled Literature Demolished.⁷

The emergence of impressionism was often the topic of discussion in this coffee-house. As we have seen, Hermann Bahr had been speaking for years about impressionism, which runs like a red thread through all the rest of his metamorphoses. But now he has become older; expressionists, cubists, and futurists have come along, and they in turn call impressionists like Hermann Bahr dull blockheads who are only warming over the past. To Hermann Bahr's surprise the rest of the world was not greatly affected by their comments. However, he was annoyed, for he had to admit that this is exactly what he had done when he was young. He had called all the others blockheads and now they said he was one himself. And why should those who called him a blockhead be less right than he had been in saying it of others?

A bad business, you see! So there was nothing else for Hermann Bahr but to leam about expressionism, particularly as he had been asked by the people of Danzig, whom he loved so much, to speak about it. And then it was a question of finding a correct formula for expressionism. I assure you I am not making fun of Hermann Bahr. In fact, I like him very much and would like to make every possible excuse for him—I mean, that is, I like him as a cultural phenomenon.

Hermann Bahr now had to come to terms with expressionism. As you will no doubt agree, a man with a keen and active mind will surely not be satisfied to have reached the ripe age of fifty only to be called a blockhead by the next generation—especially not when he is asked to speak about expressionism to the people of Danzig who inspire him with such good thoughts. Perhaps you have seen some expressionist, cubist, or futurist paintings. Most people when they see them say, We have put up with a great deal, but this really goes too far! You have a canvas, then dashes, white ones running from the top to the bottom, red lines across them, and then perhaps something else, suggesting neither a leaf nor a house, a tree nor a bird, but rather all these together and none in particular.

But, of course, Hermann Bahr could not speak about it like this. So what did he do? It dawned upon him what expressionism is after much brooding on it. In fact, through all his metamorphoses he gradually became a brooding person. Now he realized (under the influence of the Danzig inspiration, of course!) that the impressionists take nature and quickly set it down, without any inner work on the visual impression. Expressionists do the opposite. That is true; Hermann Bahr understood that. Expressionists do not look at nature at all—I am quite serious about this. They do not look at anything in nature, they only look within. This means what is out there in nature—houses, rivers, elephants, lions—is of no interest to the expressionist, for he looks within. Bahr then went on to say that if we want to look within, such looking within must be possible for us. And what does Bahr do? He turns to Goethe, reads his works, for example, the following report:

I had the gift that when I closed my eyes, and with bowed head imagined a flower in the center of my eye, it did not stay for even a moment in its first form, but unfolded itself and new flowers with colored as well as green leaves grew out of it. They were not natural flowers, but imaginary ones, yet regular as the roses of a sculptor.⁸

Goethe could close his eyes, think of a flower, and it would appear before him as a spiritual form and then of itself take on various forms.

It was impossible to fix this creation welling forth in me, but it lasted as long as I wished, and neither faded nor grew stronger. I could produce the same thing by imagining an ornamental, many-colored disc, which also continually changed from the center to the periphery, exactly like the recently discovered kaleidoscope ...

Here afterimage, memory, creative imagination, concept and idea are all at work at once, manifesting with complete freedom in the inherent living nature of the organ, without design or guidance.

Now if you are not familiar with Goethe and with the world view of modern idealism and spiritualism, you will find it impossible to make something of this right away. Therefore, Hermann Bahr continued reading the literature on the subject. He lighted on the Englishman Galton who had studied people with the kind of inner sight Goethe had according to his own description.⁹ As is customary in England, Galton had collected all kinds of statistics about such people. One of his special examples was a certain clergyman who was able to call forth an image in his imagination that then changed of itself, and he could also return it to its first form through willing it. The clergyman described this beautifully. Hermann Bahr followed up these matters and gradually came to the conclusion that there was indeed such a thing as inner sight. You see, what Goethe described—Goethe indeed knew other things too—is only the very first stage of being moved in the etheric body. Hermann Bahr began to study such fundamental matters to understand expressionism, because it dawned on him that expressionism is based on this kind of elementary inner sight. And then he went further. He read the works of the old physiologist Johannes Müller, who described this inner sight so beautifully at a time when natural science had not yet begun to laugh at these things.¹⁰

So, Bahr gradually worked his way through Goethe, finding it very stimulating to read Goethe, to begin to understand him, and in the process to realize that there is such a thing as inner sight. On that basis he arrived at the following insight: in expressionism nature is not needed because the artist captures on canvas what he or she sees in this elementary inner vision. Later on, this will develop into something else, as I have said here before. If we do not view expressionism as a stroke of genius, but as the first beginnings of something still to mature, we will probably do these artists more justice than they do themselves in overestimating their achievements. But Hermann Bahr considers them artists of genius and indeed was led to admit with tremendous enthusiasm that we have not only external sight through our eyes, but also inner sight. His chapter on inner sight is really very fine, and he is immensely delighted to discover in Goethe's writings the words “eye of the spirit.”

Just think for how many years we have already been using this expression. As I said, Bahr has even tried to master our spiritual science! From Bahr's book we know that so far he has read Eugene Levy's description of my world view.¹¹ Apparently, Bahr has not yet advanced to my books, but that day may still come. In any case, you can see that here a man is working his way through the difficulties of the present time and then takes a position on what is most elementary. I have to mention this because it proves what I have so often said: it is terribly difficult for people in our age to come to anything spiritual. Just think of it: a man who has written ten novels, fourteen plays, and many books of essays, finally arrives at reading Goethe. Working his way through Goethe's writings, he comes to understand him—though rather late in his life. Bahr's book is written with wonderful freshness and bears witness to the joy he experienced in understanding Goethe. Indeed, in years past I often sat and talked with Hermann Bahr, but then it was not possible to speak with him about Goethe. At that time he naturally still considered Goethe a blockhead, one of the ancient, not-yet-impressionist sort of people.

We have to keep in mind, I think, how difficult it is for people who are educated in our time to find the way to the most elementary things leading to spiritual science. And yet, these are the very people who shape public opinion. For example, when Hermann Bahr came to Vienna, he edited a very influential weekly called Die Zeit. No one would believe us if we said that many people in the western world whose opinions are valued do not understand a thing about Goethe, and therefore cannot come to spiritual science on the basis of their education—of course, it is possible to come to spiritual science without education. Yet Bahr is living proof of this because he himself admits at the age of fifty how happy he is finally to understand Goethe. It is very sad to see how happy he is to have found what others were looking for all around him when he was still young. By the same token, to see this is also most instructive and significant for understanding our age. That somebody like Hermann Bahr needs expressionism to realize that one can form ideas and paint them without looking at nature shows us that the trend-setting, so-called cultural world nowadays lives in ideas that are completely removed from anything spiritual. It takes expressionism for him to understand that there is an inner seeing, an inner spiritual eye. You see, all this is closely connected with the way our writers, artists, and critics grow up and develop.

Hermann Bahr's latest novel is characteristic of this. It is called Himmelfahrt (“Ascension”).¹² The end of the book indicates that Bahr is beginning to develop yet another burning enthusiasm on the side—all his other passions run like a red thread through the novel—namely, a new enthusiasm for Catholicism. Anyone who knows Bahr will have no doubt that there is something of him in the character of Franz, the protagonist of his latest novel. The book is not an autobiography, nor a biographical novel; yet a good deal of Hermann Bahr is to be found in this Franz. A writer—not one who writes for the newspapers; let's not talk about how journalists develop because we don't want the word “develop” to lose its original meaning—but a writer who is serious about writing, who is a true seeker, such as Hermann Bahr, cannot help but reveal his own development in the character of his protagonist. Bahr describes Franz's gradual development and his quest. Franz tries to experience everything the age has to offer, to learn everything, to look for the truth everywhere. Thus, he searches in the sciences, first studying botany under Wiessner, the famous Viennese botanist, then chemistry under Ostwald, then political economy and so on.¹³ He looks into everything the age has to offer. He might also have become a student of ancient Greek under Wilamowitz, or have learned about philosophy from Eucken or Kohler.¹⁴ After that, he studies political economy under Schmoller; it might just as well have been in somebody else's course, possibly Brentano's.¹⁵ After that, Franz studies with Richet how to unravel the mysteries of the soul; again it might just as well have been with another teacher.¹⁶ He then tries a different method and studies psychoanalysis under Freud.¹⁷ However, none of this satisfies him, and so he continues his quest for the truth by going to the theosophists in London. Then he allows someone who has so far remained in the background of the story to give him esoteric exercises. But Franz soon tires of them and stops doing them. Nevertheless, he feels compelled to continue his quest.

Then Franz happens upon a medium. This psychic has performed the most remarkable manifestations of all sorts for years. And then the medium is exposed after Franz, the hero of the book, has already fallen in love with her. He goes off on a journey, leaving in a hurry as he always does. Well, he departs again all of a sudden, leaving the medium to her fate. Of course, the woman is exposed as a spy—naturally, because this novel was written only just recently.

There are many people like Franz, especially among the current critics of spiritual life. Indeed, this is how we must picture the people who pronounce their judgments before they have penetrated to even the most elementary first stages. They have not gone as far as Hermann Bahr, who after all, by studying expressionism, discovered that there is an inner seeing. Of course, Hermann Bahr's current opinions on many things will be different from those he had in the past. For example, if he had read my book Theosophy back then, he would have judged it to be—well, never mind, it is not necessary to put it into Bahr's words.¹⁸ Today he would probably say there is an inner eye, an inner seeing, which is really a kind of expressionism. After all, now he has advanced as far as the inner seeing that lives today in expressionism. Well, never mind. These are the ideas Hermann Bahr arrived at inspired by the people of Danzig, and out of these ideas he then wrote this book.

I mention this merely as an example of how difficult it is nowadays for people to find their way to spiritual science. This example also shows that anyone with a clear idea of what spiritual science intends has the responsibility, as far as possible and necessary, to do everything to break down prejudices. We know the foundations of these prejudices. And we know that even the best minds of our age—those who have written countless essays and plays—even if they are sincerely seeking, reach the most elementary level only after their fiftieth year. So we have to admit that it is difficult for spiritual science to gain ground. Even though the simplest souls would readily accept spiritual science, they are held back by people who judge on the basis of motivations and reasons such as the ones I have described.

Well, much is going on in our time, and, as I have often said, materialistic thinking has now become second nature with people. People are not aware that they are thinking up fantastic nonsense when they build their lofty theories. I have often entertained you with describing how the Kant- Laplace theory is taught to children in school. They are carefully taught that the earth at one time was like a solar nebula and rotated and that the planets eventually split off from it. And what could make this clearer than the example of a drop: all you need is a little drop of oil, a bit of cardboard with a cut in the middle for the equatorial plane, and a needle to stick through it. Then you rotate the cardboard with the needle, and you'll see the “planets” splitting off just beautifully. Then the students are told that what they see there in miniature happened long ago on a much larger scale in the universe. How could you possibly refute a proof like this? Of course, there must have been a big teacher out there in the universe to do the rotating. Most people forget this. But it should not be forgotten; all factors must be taken into account. What if there was no big teacher or learned professor standing in the universe to do the rotating? This question is usually not asked because it is so obvious—too obvious. In fact, it is really a great achievement to find thinking people in what is left of idealism and spiritualism who understand the full significance of this matter. Therefore I have to refer again and again to the following fine passage about Goethe by Herman Grimm, which I am also quoting in my next book.¹⁹

Long ago, in the time of his [Goethe's] youth, the famous Kant-Laplace fantasy [you see, Grimm calls it a fantasy!] about the origin and future destruction of the earth had taken root. Out of the rotating cosmic nebula our children leam about in school, a central nucleus of gas forms, which later becomes the earth. During unfathomable periods of time, this congealing globe goes through all its developmental phases, including that of human habitation, until it finally falls back into the sun as a piece of burnt-out slag. This long, but to the public fully comprehensible, process would need no outside intervention to run its course, except the exertion of some exterior force to keep the sun at an equal temperature. It is impossible to conceive of a more barren prospect for the future than this, urged upon us as scientifically logical and necessary. A carrion bone that a hungry dog would not go near would be a refreshing, appetizing morsel compared to this final excrement of creation our earth is supposed to be when it finally falls back into the sun. The eagerness for knowledge that makes our generation accept and believe theories of this kind is a sign of a sick imagination, a historical phenomenon it will take future scholars a lot of ingenuity to explain.

Indeed, later generations will wonder how we could ever have taken such nonsense for the truth—nonsense that is now taught as truth in all our schools! Herman Grimm goes on to say:

Goethe never entertained such comfortless theories ... Goethe would have taken care not to derive the Darwinists' conclusions from what he had first learnt in this respect from nature and has expressed in his works.

As you know, a more spiritual understanding of Darwinism would have led to quite different results. What Grimm meant here and what I myself have to say is not directed against Darwinism as such, but rather against the materialistic interpretation of it, which Grimm characterized in one of his talks as violating all human dignity by insisting that we have evolved in a straight line from lower animals. As you know, Huxley was widely acclaimed for his answer to all kinds of objections against the evolution of human beings from the apes—I think the objections were raised by a bishop, no less.²⁰ People applauded Huxley's reply that he would rather have descended from an ape and have gradually worked his way up to his current world view from there, than have descended in the way the bishop claimed and then have worked his way down to the bishop's world view. Such anecdotes are often very witty, but they remind me of the story of the little boy who came home from school and explained to his father that he'd just learnt that humans are descended from apes. “What do you mean, you silly boy?” asked the father. “Yes, it's true, father, we do all come from the apes,” said the boy, to which the father replied, “Perhaps that may be the case with you, but definitely not with me!” I have often called your attention to many such logical blunders perpetrated against true thinking and leading to a materialistic interpretation of Darwinism.

But these days, people always have to outdo themselves. We have not yet reached the point where people would say they have gone far enough; no, they want to go still further and outdo themselves grandiosely. For example, there is a man who is furious about the very existence of philosophy and the many philosophers in the world who created philosophies. He rails at all philosophy. Now this man recently published a volley of abuse against philosophy and wanted to find an especially pithy phrase to vent his rage. I will read you his pronouncement so you can see what is thought in our time of philosophy, by which people hope to find the truth and which has achieved a great deal, as you will see from my forthcoming book: “We have no more philosophy than animals.”

In other words, he not only claims we are descended from animals, but goes on to demonstrate that even in our loftiest strivings, namely in philosophy, we have not yet advanced beyond the animals because we cannot know more than the animals know. He is very serious about this: “We have no more philosophy than animals, and only our frantic attempts to attain a philosophy and the final resignation to our ignorance distinguish us from the animals.” That is to say, knowing that we know as little as cattle is the only difference between us and the animals. This man makes short work of the whole history of philosophy by trying to prove that it is nothing but a series of desperate attempts by philosophers to rise above the simple truth that we know no more of the world than the animals.

Now you will probably ask who could possibly have such a distorted view of philosophy? I think it may interest you to know who is able to come up with such an incredible view of philosophy. As a matter of fact, the person in question is a professor of philosophy at the university in Czernowitz! Many years ago he wrote a book called The End of Philosophy and another one called The End of Thinking, and he just recently wrote The Tragicomedy of Wisdom, where you can find the sentences I quoted. This man fulfills the duties of his office as professor of philosophy at a university by convincing his attentive audience that human beings know no more than animals! His name is Richard Wahle, and he is a full professor of philosophy at the university in Czemowitz.²¹

We have to look at things like this, for they bear witness to how “wonderfully far” we have advanced. It is important to look a bit more closely at what is necessary in life, namely, that the time has come when humanity has to resolve to take the inner Pentecost seriously, to kindle the light in the soul, and to take in the spiritual. Much will depend on whether there are at least some people in the world who understand how the Pentecost of the soul can and must be celebrated in our time.

I do not know how long it will be before my book is ready, but I have to stay here until it is finished, and so we may be able to meet again next week for another lecture.

• 1. This comment refers to the lecture cycle Gegenwärtiges und Vergangenes im Menschengeist, lectures February 13 to May 30, 1916; vol. 167 in the Collected Works, (Dornach, Switzerland: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1962).
• 2. Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, 1759–1805, German poet, playwright, and critic.
  
  Alexander von Gleichen-Russwurm, 1865–1947, Kultur-Aber-glaube (“Cultural Superstition”), (Munich: Forum, 1916).
• 3. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749–1832, leading German poet. Also wrote extensively on botany, optics, and other scientific topics.
• 4. Hermann Bahr, 1863–1934, Austrian journalist, playwright, and theater manager. Expressionismus (“Expressionism”), 3rd ed., Munich, 1919.
• 5. Georges-Ernest-Jean-Marie Boulanger, 1837–1891, French general and politician, became figurehead among revanchists, including Bonapartists, royalists, and leftists. Aroused popular enthusiasm among elements antagonistic to government. Fled to England.
• 6. Karl Kraus, 1874–1936, Austrian satirist, critic, and poet. In his writings attacked middle-class circles and the liberal press. Wrote dramas, essay collections, and translated Shakespeare.
  
  Nikolaus Lenau, pseudonym of Nikolaus Niembsch von Strehle- nau, 1802–1850, Austrian poet, bom in Hungary. Wrote in tradition of German Romantic pessimism; known for his lyric verse.
  
  Anastasius Griin, pseudonym of Anton Alexander von Auersperg, Duke, 1806–1876. Austrian poet and politician. Outspoken leader of liberal sentiment. Wrote verse and ironic epics.
• 7. Karl Kraus, Die demolierte Liteiatur (“Literature Demolished”), Vienna, 1896.
• 8. Goethe, quoted in Bahr, Expressionismus, p. 85.
• 9. Sir Francis Galton, 1822–1911, English scientist. Traveled widely. His studies of meteorology form basis of modern weather maps. Best known for his work in anthropology and the study of heredity; founder of eugenics; devised system of fingerprint identification.
• 10. Johannes Müller, 1801–1858, German physiologist and comparative anatomist. Taught Virchow, DuBois-Reymond, and Haeckel.
• 11. Eugene Levy, Rudolf Steiners Weltanschauung und ihre Gegner (“Rudolf Steiner's World View and its Opponents”), Berlin, 1913.
• 12. Hermann Bahr, Himmelfahrt (“Ascension”), Berlin, 1916.
• 13. Friedrich Wilhelm Ostwald, 1854–1932, German physical chemist. Invented a process for preparation of nitric acid by oxidizing ammonia, important in the production of explosives during World War I. Was awarded 1909 Nobel prize for chemistry.
• 14. Rudolph Christoph Eucken, 1846–1926, German philosopher. Wrote on historical philosophy and his own philosophy of ethical activism. Awarded Nobel prize for literature in 1908.
  
  Josef Kohler, 1849–1919, German jurist and writer.
• 15. Gustav von Schmoller, 1838–1917, German economist.
  
  Lujo Brentano, 1844–1931, German economist. A leading pacifist and opponent of German militarism. Awarded Nobel prize for peace in 1927.
• 16. Charles-Robert Richet, 1850–1935, French physiologist. Conducted research in serum therapy, epilepsy; discovered phenomenon of anaphylaxis. Awarded 1913 Nobel prize for physiology. Also studied psychic phenomena.
• 17. Sigmund Freud, 1856–1939, Austrian neurologist and founder of psychoanalysis.
• 18. Rudolf Steiner, Theosophy: An Introduction to the Supersensible Knowledge of the World and the Destination of Man, (Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1988).
• 19. Herman Grimm, Goethe, vol. 2, Lecture 23, p. 171f., Berlin, 1817.
• 20. Thomas Henry Huxley, 1825–1895, English biologist. Foremost advocate in England of Darwin's theory of evolution. Engaged Bishop Samuel Wilberforce (1805–1873) in famous exchange at Oxford (1860). In later years wrote philosophy.
• 21. Richard Wahle, Die Tragikomödie der Weisheit: Die Ergebnisse und die Geschichte des Philosophierens (“The Tragicomedy of Wisdom: The Results and History of Philosophy”), Vienna and Leipzig, 1915, p. 132.

I will begin today by adding a few things to what we have said over the years about spiritual science. One of the most elementary facts we know is that human beings as they have developed through what we have called Saturn, Sun, Moon, and Earth phases of evolution are composed of four principal parts, namely physical body, etheric body, astral body, and I. We have often emphasized that merely naming the four parts of human beings and listing them is saying and doing very little. What is important is that we connect increasingly definite and concrete ideas and concepts with what arises in our soul when we speak of these four parts of the human being.

Let us first look at the physical body. We think we know it really well, or at least the physical sciences must know this body very well since they study it so much. Well, we know our physical body has to be a highly complicated creation for the simple reason that its first rudimentary form can be found as far back as the Saturn phase of evolution. That early physical form was then transformed during the Sun phase of evolution and changed further during the Moon phase of evolution, and by now it has undergone long ages of earth evolution, which have also left their imprint on our physical body. Thus, our physical body has been shaped in the course of four very long periods of time. We have to assume then a fourfold structure for this physical body.

When we ask what has come into our physical body during Earth evolution, we will only get a false idea if we rely on what ordinary life and conventional science tell us. For during earth evolution our physical body has only been remodeled, transformed, and metamorphosed. Much of it already existed, not merely in rudimentary form, but in a process of development, of unfolding, during the old Moon phase of evolution. We cannot really see much of what has been added during earth evolution if we take “see” in the true sense of the word. Actually, it is only our posture that has been changed during earth evolution; we have become upright beings, walking around with our spine perpendicular to the earth's surface. Our posture and everything connected with it has changed. Our upright physiognomy on the surface of the earth has been imprinted upon us during our evolution on earth.

When we think of a centaur, a very well-known mythological figure, we can say, based on spiritual science, that this figure of human being and horse, or generally of a human being and any animal form, is actually an imaginative representation of our physical body as it would be if we envisioned our present upright position combined with what human beings had been during the Moon phase of evolution before they became upright. Such figures or imaginations, which are preserved in mythology, conceal infinitely profound wisdom.

I wanted to mention this only as an example of the profound wisdom in such imaginations. Let us recapitulate briefly: If we really want to do justice to our physical body, we have to think of it as much more complicated than any of the physical sciences nowadays finds it convenient to do. We must realize that really only the position of the individual organs and the posture of our whole organism have been impressed upon us in the long course of earth evolution. Essentially, human development reaches very far back into the past to a time long before the earth existed.

Naturally, we must think in similar terms of the development of our higher, spiritual elements, namely, the etheric body, the astral body, and the I. Now we have to contemplate the interrelations, the interconnections, between these parts. At first glance, the physical body seems to be built out of physical substances, and as we grow, we see it constantly becoming bigger, adding on matter or inserting matter in the spaces between its limbs and its cells. Later, when we become fat—if we do—we see how more substance or matter is added on to our physical body. When we now study the etheric body in the same way, we find something similar going on. Only in this case it is not substances but movements that are added. These movements get more complicated in the course of life. In the etheric body of a newborn child we find comparatively simple and primitive movements. But gradually they become more complicated. Clearly, there is a process of multiplying, of growth an development, at work in both the physical and the etheric bodies.

Things are different in the astral body and I. In our life in the physical world, we are at first active only in our I, for it alone possesses full consciousness. When you look at a colored surface, your I is active; when you think, your I is active; when you feel, your I is active. In all your activities, even when you walk or move your hands, the I is active. Everything you do while you are awake on the physical plane is ego activity. The ego is present in all activity.

How does ego activity express itself in relation to our other parts? How do all the things we do between waking up and falling asleep, that is, in full consciousness, manifest themselves? They manifest not in building up and growth, but in breaking down, in a depletion of the substances of the physical body and of the movements and forces of the etheric body.

For example, when you look at something red, or at anything colored, you are in a process of breakdown or depletion through the mere fact that you received an impression of the colored object. What takes place in your physical body, albeit in a very subtle sense, is a kind of killing or destruction of living substance, of living matter. To use a rather crude example, suppose you had a crystal that could still be changed and undergo transformations and imagine you exposed it to some kind of influence, for instance, the influence of light, so that the crystal would change and turn cloudy. In the same way something in your physical body becomes cloudy, and matter is being destroyed in your constitution, every time light reaches your eyes.

From the moment of waking up to the moment of falling asleep, we are destroying, albeit only in a very subtle way, our physical substance with our ego activity. Therefore, we must compensate for this by sleeping. During sleep, physical matter is restored for our use. There is a perpetual building up and breaking down going on in us. Activity when we sleep means building up of physical matter, especially its constitution; activity when we are awake, that is, ego activity, means a breaking down. Thus you have a continual, cyclical alternation: building up and breaking down, building up and breaking down. We are actually constantly being depleted, being consumed, by the activity of our I, and when we sleep, we have to regenerate ourselves.

That is why we often notice that something ascends, as it were, from our physical organism when we wake up. These are the regenerating forces, the restoring forces. When we have something pathological or diseased in our organism, even if only very slightly so, that also ascends. As long as our organism is healthy, it regenerates itself in a healthy way by the time we wake up. However, if it is sick, it works to expel the sickness upward. That is why many people and even children are in a bad mood and not cheerful when they wake up. The aftereffect of what is coming up out of the organism is still there. What spiritual science tells us about the human being and human life agrees with the phenomena of life in a wonderful way. It is only about an hour and a half after waking up that we are completely free of the forces of sickness that can rise up. This is how our I and physical body interact. This interaction plays itself out in the rhythm of sleeping and waking: building up, breaking down, building up, breaking down.

There is still another relationship that is very important although we don't notice it much in our everyday life. Our I and physical body interact in building up and depletion, and a similar relationship exists between our astral body and etheric body. The only difference is that the building up, insofar as it comes from the astral body, is completed earlier in life, and the breaking down thus begins earlier. What our astral body breaks down in our etheric body is connected essentially with the fact that we become weaker in the course of life and die when we have become totally decrepit. The relationship between our astral body and etheric body is fundamentally connected with our death. It is only because our astral body gradually consumes the forces of our etheric body; which in turn depletes, consumes, our physical body, that we can die. In a sense, then, we can observe a building up and breaking down in the interaction between our etheric and our astral body in the course of life—although this is not as rapid a succession as the alternation between sleeping and waking, it nevertheless has a certain rhythm.

We know that exerting ourselves with too much ego activity harms us. This is easy to understand because ego activity is after all a breaking-down process. If there is too much breaking down, we clearly and visibly weaken our organism. We can notice this visible weakening at first glance. But there can also be a weakening of our etheric body through the astral body since the latter can, so to speak, deplete our etheric body excessively. The most common symptom of this kind occurs when we live in a way that demands too much of our astral body, the vehicle of our passions and emotions. As you know, such a life-style can lead to permanent weakening. This impairment results from the astral body depleting the etheric body.

However, things may happen quite differently. How we gradually build up our astral body in the course of our life—beginning at birth or, let's say, at conception—is connected with our karma. Whether we have a tendency to develop strong emotions and passions in our astral body is of course connected with our karma. These passions, however, can in a way be humanly significant and meaningful. For example, let's take a quality that plays a role throughout human life and that is nevertheless a passion, albeit the noblest passion, the one that in its noblest form can develop into freedom from selfishness: love. Love is a passion, but it can become entirely free of egoism. It is the only passion that can become free of egoism. It is located in the astral body; the astral body is its vehicle.

Let us assume an artist with a true feeling for reality had been given the task to create a human form suffused and permeated through and through with the passion of love, the noble passion of love. Clearly, this artist could not be a naturalist, for naturalists have no feeling for realities but see only abstract, “naturalist” matter, so-called actuality. Every time artists had the task to create a Venus or an Aphrodite, they had to feel that the figure had to be completely suffused by this passion of love. Love has to be abundant; it has to pour itself out. What is the only thing that could happen in such a case? Obviously, not every ordinary female figure can represent Aphrodite or Venus. Consequently, then, the astral body of Aphrodite or Venus cannot be like any other female astral body, for otherwise every woman, every girl; would be an Aphrodite or a Venus—and that is not the case, is it? Thus, it is a matter of a special development of the astral body. The artist does not have to know anything about spiritual science, but he must feel as he creates a Venus that her astral body must be more developed, more strongly developed than that of a non-Aphrodite, a non-Venus.

However, as we have said, the astral body has a depleting, consuming nature. That has to be expressed in the work of art. How will the artist who really feels this, who really has a sense for the depleting astral body, set about creating a Venus? He will have to make it visible that there is something about the physical body that gradually consumes it. And here the spiritual scientist is in a different situation than a modern physician, for example.

Suppose an artist had created a Venus. As he was creating her, he felt correctly that she had a more strongly consuming and depleting astral body than any other woman. We will see this in the slender neck and the shape of the chest. We will also see in other parts of the body that her astral body basically has a depleting nature. If the artist gives the matter physical expression, perhaps we will see in her overall shape that she will not live to a very old age. When an artist achieves such a creation, spiritual scientists will say he has a sense for the underlying reality. From this standpoint, we will say that artists, while they are creating, often feel a true spiritual reality.

However, what will a physician say, especially one who is not a spiritual scientist, when he sees such a figure created by an artist? He will say, “This is a representation of a person suffering from consumption.” For indeed people who suffer from consumption also have a more strongly consuming and depleting astral body—due to their karma in an earlier incarnation—than do other people. Now, Botticelli has painted a most beautiful and wonderful Venus, which most of you will know.¹ In this picture of Venus standing on a shell, we see a physical body painted in such a way that we cannot help thinking it is based on a depleting astral body. That is why art historians disagree about this painting. Some of them admire the figure of this Venus precisely for its deviation from the so-called normal human form; they admire her slender neck and the unusual shape of her upper chest, and so forth. Others say these features are the result of Botticelli having painted a model who suffered from consumption.

Well, it is certainly possible to explain everything in a materialistic way. Probably Botticelli really did paint a consumptive model, namely, Simonetta, who died at the age of twenty-three. But that is not the point. What is important is that he knew he wanted precisely this woman to sit for his Venus, a woman who made it possible for him to paint a person whose physical body was being depleted by the astral body more quickly than is usually the case. I will pass around this reproduction of the painting although it is not good, but I don't have a better one at the moment. In this picture, you will see it is really clearly noticeable that we are dealing here with an astral body of a different constitution, namely, with an astral body depleting the physical body by means of the etheric body. You see, spiritual science can guide us and show us the way to an understanding of such things.

You will find that observation not sharpened by spiritual science is never enough to elucidate life. However, all things are illuminated when we approach them with the help of spiritual science, in everyday life as well as in art. We need to become patient and realize the human being is far more complicated than conventional science cares to acknowledge. The human being is a complicated creature, and one of the most irresponsible pronouncements frequently uttered in connection with world views is that the best explanation is always the one that is simplest. Well, it is not the simplest explanation that is the best; the best explanation is the one that correctly explains the matter. That's what we have to realize.

Now let me give you another example to show that the conventional sciences cannot get very far without using the approach of spiritual science. Remember the public lecture I gave in the Architektenhaus this winter where I said we have to distinguish first of all between two parts of our physical body: our head and the rest of our body. When you look at the human skeleton, you'll see the head standing out clearly, distinct from the rest of the body. In that lecture I said that, roughly speaking, everything “hanging” from the head basically developed on earth. The condition of the human being at the end of the Moon phase of evolution, at the transition to the earth is retained only in the shape of the head. The head is a considerably older organ than the rest of our organism. The head is our oldest, most venerable part. The earth added all the rest to the head—that is, not quite all, but roughly speaking all the rest; we have to approximate these things.

When we consider that the I continues from incarnation to incarnation, we have to differentiate between the forces underlying the head and those underlying the rest of the organism. Remember, as I said, the form and shape of our head are essentially the result of our previous incarnation. How we conducted our life, how we acted in our previous incarnation, has left its mark on our organism and manifests in the following incarnation in our physiognomy, particularly in the shape of our skull.

As you may remember, I once said that the existence of reincarnation, repeated earth lives, is plainly visible in your skull, for the shape of your skull is determined by what kind of person you were in your previous incarnation. The formation of the rest of our physiognomy, our posture, whether we are fidgety or not and whether we gesture much or little—all this has a bearing on the next incarnation, when it is expressed in the shape of our face and particularly in that of the skull.

You can see how disputes about quite important things can arise. There are people who, especially according to their own opinion, are very learned in craniology. They feel a person's skull with their hands and read his or her character from it. What they say may be more or less true and can sometimes even be quite correct, but it can never be the whole truth or be exhaustive, because it is a fact that every one of us has indeed a head of his or her own. No skull is exactly like any other, for our skull is the result of our previous incarnation. The rest of our organism prepares the skull we will have in the next incarnation. Craniologists and phrenologists quarrel among themselves because they insist on generalizing where they ought to individualize. Well, every one has a head of his or her own!

It is only through intuition that we can find anything about a person's deeper nature revealed in the structure of the skull. Not only phrenologists, but science as a whole does not know what to make of the shape of the human skull. I would like to point out here that this is another area where the conventional natural sciences need to be supplemented by spiritual science.

In 1887, the famous anatomist Karl Langer gave a lecture on three truly important human heads, namely, the skulls of Schubert, Haydn, and Beethoven.² Karl Langer examined the anatomy of these three skulls. He emphasized that in none of them had he been able to find any indication of special musical talents, least of all in the skull of Beethoven. He underscored that from the standpoint of anatomy and physiology, Beethoven's skull was so ugly one would have expected anything else but not that the soul of Beethoven could have been active in it. Now Karl Langer is an anatomist who observed carefully in this particular case and proceeded on the basis of realities, not fantastic theories. He had to admit there is nothing to be found in these skulls that would indicate musical talents.

We know that Haydn, Schubert, and Beethoven were indeed musicians in the incarnation where the anatomist found these skulls. However, they may not have been musicians in their preceding incarnation. And we can well understand that particularly in the case of Beethoven everything that was purified in the time between death and rebirth could have come from a strong, powerful fighter. What is retained from the preceding incarnation manifests in the shape of the skull.

Langer was particularly struck by the fact that all three men had been musicians, and yet their skulls had nothing in common. There were no characteristics common to all three men precisely because they probably had completely different experiences in their previous incarnations and became musicians only in the incarnation where they had the skulls Langer examined. Their musical disposition expressed itself in their soul, while the shape of their skull was an expression of their experiences during the previous incarnation.

Eventually, arguments about these three skulls resulted. Another anatomist tried to prove Langer wrong. But the argument wasn't leading anywhere; after all, on what does a physical anatomist depend to study such matters? Of course, he will not want to hear of a previous incarnation and will therefore seize upon heredity. And Schaaffhausen, the anatomist who wanted to refute Karl Langer, observed that the shape of our skull is inherited.³ In connection with such pronouncements, people never study what really happens in the hereditary transmission of the shape of the skull. If they did and did not proceed with the usual logic people so love to use in this area, they would soon see how unfounded it is to talk of heredity in this connection. In reality, we create the form of our skull based on the result of our previous incarnation. Granted, other elements can overlap or clash with what has come about in accordance with the preceding incarnation. We grow up in a certain environment, and especially if our feelings, our heart and soul, are attached to personalities in a particular environment, a good deal will still be impressed into the finer organization of our body. However, in essence, the skull is shaped according to the preceding incarnation.

You know, of course, how brilliantly people are trying to apply the so-called theory of genetics. There is now an erudite book, diligently researched—I really don't want to say anything against erudition in such a case; on the whole, the author really worked like a beaver to present his points. This book traces Goethe's ancestors as far back as possible. And what is the purpose of all this busy work? The objective is to show that traits that have appeared in several of a person's ancestors also emerge when the line of ancestors culminates in a genius. People think this is highly logical.

However, as I have often said, it proves no more than saying if a man falls into water and is pulled out again, he will be wet.

Obviously, anyone coming from a certain line of ancestors still bears traits of this ancestry, which, after all, he or she has sought out. In order to prove that the theory of genetics really applies the way natural science assumes, one would have to start with certain traits and then show they are present in the following generations. Thus, we would have to start with the genius and then show that his or her extraordinary capacities were passed on to the offspring. But, of course, people will do nothing of the kind. After all, they could not prove that Goethe's genius was transmitted to his son or to his grandchildren, for we know all about them, don't we! Among the descendants of other people of genius this can also generally not be proved. When hereditary transmission could be proved, it was due to something quite different from physical heredity, namely to an inclination of the soul to incarnate in a particular family and to look for certain traits. Well, we have often talked about this.

You see, this is another example showing that conventional science must be complemented by spiritual science. What conventional science and everyday life have to offer us must at every turn be illuminated by the insights of spiritual science. Nowadays people have no idea how wonderfully the mysteries of cosmic evolution work on the soul when they are seen in the light of spiritual science.

I have often spoken of the fourth post-Atlantean or Greco-Latin epoch, and of our present epoch, the fifth one, and indicated how we differ from the people of the fourth post- Atlantean epoch. People of our epoch look at the art of Greek antiquity and admire the artists' keen perception, particularly in the sculptures, revealing things people in our time cannot easily perceive anymore. The crass, materialist explanation for this difference is that the ancient Greeks simply had a keener sense of sight. Besides, they could observe the human body in their games, which some people have half a mind to reinstate in this day and age. Well, those who nowadays imitate ancient Greek games certainly won't turn into Greeks, you can take my word for it; but people just love to imitate mere outer appearances.

As I have emphasized before, the ancient Greeks represented what they saw differently than we do now. This was because the Greeks still had something within them. We know the Greeks had developed their intellectual or mind soul. Our I is directed to the outside while our intellectual or mind soul is oriented to the inside and perceives our inner balance and the inner mobility of our body. The ancient Greeks lived more within themselves than we do. Consequently, the artists in ancient Greece did not work with their models as modern artists do. Instead, when the artist wanted to represent an arm, he felt within himself the shape and form of the muscle. And when he wanted to represent a movement, he felt what it is like to perform the movement himself. Yes, indeed, the ancient Greeks could do more than we because they were more within themselves.

As you know, the sentient soul developed during the Egypto-Chaldean epoch, and the intellectual or mind soul in the Greco-Latin epoch. Yet, the intellectual soul is still focused on what is inside us. It is only the I that emerges from our inner life and perceives the outer world. When the ancient Greeks watched a bird and imitated its flight with their own arms, they could feel in their arm movements how they had to sculpt the wings. In contrast, we need a model; we need to look at a real bird, and then we reproduce it in a painting or a sculpture.

It is with good reason that modern humanity has lost this faculty of inner experiencing. But we have to know and acknowledge the inner understanding of sculpture the ancient Greeks still had and we no longer have. We have to understand that when a Greek artist sculpted a person in movement, he knew out of inner knowledge, and not from looking at a model, how he had to position the legs, the toes, and the fingers.

Strictly speaking, people nowadays are unable to draw a bird in flight. In modern pictures, birds hover; they do not fly, and that is perfectly all right, but we have to understand it. We must not expect of our contemporaries what was expected of the ancient Greeks. This inner life of feeling had to be subdued so human beings could direct their I to the outside. We must not think of human evolution the way modern, materialistic Darwinists do and begin with imperfect human beings that develop into more perfect ones. Instead, we must see a parallel spiritual development that descends from the perfect state in the spiritual world down to human beings adapting themselves more and more to their physical organism. There are two streams of evolution, not just one. Thus, we can say our way of seeing things allows us to take in something that could not be perceived in earlier times. This earlier way of looking at things should not be carried over into later times, but, of course, it is occasionally carried over.

At this point, I would like to draw your attention to snapshots of people walking on the street you can find in any illustrated magazine. Snapshots reproduce the immediate outer reality; they show the person as he or she is—most of the time, that isn't very pretty. A snapshot of a bird will look very different from a painting. Now the strange thing is, when you look at a Japanese drawing of birds, you'll see it resembles a snapshot. That is a fact. There is a certain resemblance between Japanese drawings of birds in flight and a snapshot of birds. This resemblance applies even to Japanese drawings of people, because Japanese artists, more so than others, paint what a snapshot reveals—of course, we have to limit our observation to the representation of people walking.

This is because the Japanese have retained their way of seeing things from the fourth post-Atlantean epoch into the present. We, however, can no longer see things the way the Japanese do. Modern Japanese still see more correctly in the Greek sense—albeit not with the ancient Greeks' sense for beauty—than we Europeans do, for we have advanced to the fifth post-Atlantean cultural epoch. We can comprehend these things only when we consider them from the point of view of spiritual science. And when you compare Asian and European painting and sculpture, you will find the difference between the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, which has been preserved there, and our fifth post-Atlantean epoch.

You can see everywhere the necessity to bring spiritual science into things. However, in our culture today we are very far from understanding this need to bring spiritual science into outer knowledge. For the most part this is not because it is especially difficult to attain a spiritual scientific outlook; rather it is simply due to the fact that people resist it. What is described in my book Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment is relatively easy to understand.⁴ People could quite easily learn this, but they resist it. Of course, I am not speaking about you, my dear friends, but our outer culture resists spiritual science. The main reason for this resistance is that our culture does not want to establish the basic prerequisites for the development of conscience in thinking, conscientiousness in thinking, or logical conscience. Here we come upon an actual sickness in the culture of our age, and spiritual scientists have to take it into account because it confronts them everywhere. This sickness is the lack of a logical conscience, of a conscience in thinking. You can make the most peculiar discoveries in this connection. We have already looked at examples of this, but let's look at one more example today.

There was a man—and he is still alive—who wanted to prove philosophically that ideals are nothing real, nothing vital. He simply wanted to make allowances for the modern view that will let ideals stand at a pinch but considers them as not really existing in the way physically perceptible things do. By the same token, this man was a philosopher and thus would have had very little to do if he did not let ideals stand. After all, the physical realm is already taken care of by the other sciences, and there must be something left for the philosopher to do.

Now, then, ideals have no intrinsic existence, but he still wants to let them stand. Thus, he says they are just fictions, we must accept them as necessary fictions, as necessary assumptions. And this man then developed this idea into a whole philosophy, the philosophy of the As if, we have already talked about it earlier.⁵ According to this philosophy we don't need to assume atoms exist, but we can look at the world as if atoms existed. We don't need to assume the soul exists, but we can look at the world as if it did. You see, it's a complete philosophy of the As if.

Now this man used an analogy to help his readers understand that we can hold on to ideals while at the same time denying them an intrinsic existence, and this analogy is typical of this philosopher's logical conscience. His analogy was of a child playing with a doll, which the child knows has no life of its own. In other words, why should we reject ideals when children do not reject dolls? Even though dolls are not alive, children treat them as though they were. Why shouldn't we do the same with ideals even though we know they have no intrinsic being?

Here we have the view that ideals have no real existence but can nevertheless be useful to us in life when we use them as little children use their dolls, which are not alive either and yet are treated like living beings. We are dealing here with a philosopher who compares ideals to dolls! Now, let us try to understand this analogy, this image. First, we have a little child playing with a doll, but this is based on the premise that the doll is at least a reproduction of a living being. The child would hardly play with the doll at all if it did not in some way resemble or represent a living being. This is the precondition. Clearly, then, we can hardly compare the doll to an ideal unless we also assume the ideal is after all a representation of something real and alive.

This philosopher's first nonsense is to use this analogy. The second lies in saying we should base our life on ideals as if they existed. And what will come of all this? Naturally about as much as usually comes of children playing with dolls—on which he bases his recommendation—in other words, only a mere imitation of life. We are not only dealing here with a foolish analogy but also with a second error, a second foolishness. The analogy does not hold water because the comparison to a doll does not work: dolls are at least representations of living beings; ideals, on the other hand, are not supposed to represent anything. But even if they did, they would only lead to an imitation of life, not life itself.

We are dealing here with double nonsense. Here is a philosopher who perpetrates not just one but two absurdities. We could find many more such double absurdities in the sciences as well as in modern life in general. They are particularly numerous in the so-called wisdom of the world, in philosophy. When such thinking exists, when thinking has gone so far off the track, it cannot discipline itself to develop only valid analogies or at least a feeling for valid analogies—indeed, then we have no foundation for a spiritual view at all. For a spiritual view can develop only if our thinking is sound.

Therefore I would like to ask you to pay attention to what I say about the concept of reality in my new book, Vom Menschenrätsel.⁶ We must develop a concept of reality, and not just a concept of the logical. A crystal is a self-contained reality, complete in itself. When I examine the crystal for what it is, it tells me the truth about itself. But look at a tree trunk without its roots and branches, does it also tell us the truth about itself? No, certainly not; it is telling lies as it is lying there, for it cannot exist as a tree trunk by itself. It could never exist if it did not grow in connection with roots, branches, and leaves; all these belong to the tree trunk. I find the truth about it only if I picture the tree as a whole. With the trunk by itself I have a piece cut out of the world of the senses, but this fragment is not a reality.

If our thinking is to be true to reality, we must develop a sense for what has to be included in our concepts. Only when we have a feeling that a leaf is not a reality because it cannot be thought of apart from a plant—you see, a crystal and a leaf are very different—only when we develop this sense for reality, are we ready to ascend in the right way to spiritual realities. Many things can be logical, but whether they are true to reality is another matter.

It is very easy to make mistakes in regard to this sense for reality. When I look at a painting of a figure taken out of the whole context, then I am not looking at reality, for I have to see the whole picture. If someone now objected that this painting is the result of earlier paintings by the same and other painters, and we would therefore have to look at the whole history of art, that would again be nonsense. We have to develop a sense for reality that tells us there are self-contained realities. Otherwise the only thing that would be “real” would be the whole universe.

Now that I have more or less covered the topic of today's talk and am not subtracting anything from its essence, I would like to add the following—not to say anything derogatory or disparaging, but only to throw light on the way our whole movement should be taken. We can introduce spiritual science into modern culture only if there are many people with the good will to stand by this spiritual science with the right feeling and sensitivity. I do not like to say such things, but they have to be said. You see, I try in every way possible to show that there is in our time a tendency, an impulse, toward spiritual science. That is why I quoted from Hermann Bahr's two books Expressionismus and Himmelfahrt. Here we have a man who is over fifty years old and is now beginning, after having written many plays and novels, to develop a longing for spiritual science and also for Goethe, who is so closely connected with its impulses. I tried to show that at the age of fifty Hermann Bahr had the good will to finally begin—according to his own admission—to read Goethe's works and that he slowly began to find his way—“groping” as I put it—into spiritual science and so has reached the very first elementary stages of it.

Books such as Hermann Bahr's Expressionismus and Himmelfahrt are really extraordinarily revealing because they show us that spiritual science is also—pardon the trivial expression—a matter of time. We will advance in this area only if we take things really seriously, if we have the right kind of reverence for spiritual science, and know that spiritual science is a basic impulse people seek in the current stage of our cultural development. It will always be detrimental to our cause if things are taken only superficially. It will be harmful if what we are trying to do here, and—it may be said in all modesty—what we are trying to do thoroughly, is mistaken for charlatanism, foolishness, fantasy, or other things like that. Nothing is as damaging to our cause as being mistaken for some sort of fantastic nonsense.

Now we have been working together for a long time, and gradually a seriousness toward our cause has developed as well as the ability to distinguish between it and other things that resemble it to some extent. After all, even a mongrel dog has some resemblance to a lion: they both have four legs! Ultimately, everything resembles everything else! What has to be taken into consideration above all is the seriousness of our striving, the seriousness of our work. Now, let me put it this way: in the case I'm talking about, I certainly appreciate the underlying good will and am grateful for it; yet I must discuss the symptomatic features of this case.

In my last two lectures, I explained that Hermann Bahr in a sense presented a self-portrait in the character of his protagonist Franz, who went through various experiences in life, and then came to a kind of mysticism. In other words, this is a serious book that portrays a person's whole life. Well, someone who had heard all this sent me a book, the book Apostel Dodenscheidt by Margarethe Böhme. It arrived with a note saying Apostel Dodenscheidt, like Hermann Bahr's Franz, had gone through all kinds of developments and had finally found his way to accepting reincarnation and karma. Well, that book by Böhme is a roman à clef of the worst kind. You only need to remember certain events that happened here in and around Berlin at one time and names such as Josua Klein and others. In this novel there is a man named Gottfried Gross, and so on. There is nothing worse than for the things I meant here to be mentioned in one breath with the events behind that roman à clef, a novel that in terms of literature and art is a very poor and inferior one to boot.

Indeed, there is a tendency to name things in the same breath whenever there is any chance to connect and confuse them. Granted, it was no sin that this has happened in this particular case—after all, the book was sent to me. Nevertheless, this shows what kinds of associations between ideas are formed and what kinds of things people will mistake for what we are seeking here out of the wellsprings of life. I do not want to reprimand but only to discuss a symptomatic occurrence. The things discussed here are not meant as those people understand them who take the absurdities in the book Apostel Dodenscheidt seriously. It is precisely this connecting of our cause with one or another striving that does it the most damage, and it is important that this truth stirs our souls; for those who find any resemblance here to the Apostel Dodenscheidt do not really understand what we are saying here.

I do not intend to deliver a philippic here, but I want to point out again that I certainly recognize and appreciate the good will in this case. Nevertheless, I have to talk about symptomatic occurrences, for what came to light here is the same thing that comes up in the world outside again and again: what is discussed and represented here is not really taken with the necessary seriousness and insight.

• 1. Sandro Botticelli, 1445–1510, Italian painter.
• 2. Karl Langer, 1819–1887, German anatomist.
  
  Franz Peter Schubert, 1797–1828, Austrian composer. Famous for his song cycles.
  
  Franz Joseph Haydn, 1732–1809, Austrian composer. Regarded as first great master of the symphony and the quartet.
  
  Ludwig van Beethoven, 1770–1827, German composer. Studied with Haydn.
• 3. Hermann Schaaffhausen, 1816–1893, German anthropologist.
• 4. Rudolf Steiner, Knowledge of the Higher Worlds and Its Attainment, 3rd ed., (Hudson, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1986).
• 5. Hans Vaihinger, 1852–1933, German philosopher. Developed his “As if” philosophy 1911.
• 6. Rudolf Steiner, Vom Menschenrätsel (“The Riddle of Man”), vol. 20 in the Collected Works, (Domach, Switzerland: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1984).

Before today's talk, there will be a recitation of several poems in the first part of the evening. In these poems I have tried to express some things connected with the way we think and feel in our spiritual science. These verses were originally intended for a eurythmy performance in Dornach and were indeed first performed in eurythmy. I will soon publish them with a few words of explanation, and they will be available here in a little booklet as part of our published cycles.¹ However, before we begin, I would like to introduce the verses with a few comments.

Last time, in another context, I spoke about the art of poetry. Now we must really take seriously what I have said so often this winter, namely, that the whole impulse, the whole spirit of our spiritual science has to enter the culture of our times and bring something special to it. Poetry is after all not just a matter of expressing something one has invented or thought, but of expressing it in a certain form. Spiritual science seeks to connect the human being with the great laws of the universe, the great laws of the cosmos. The deepest impulses of spiritual science will be understood in the true sense of the word only when people realize how extensively we are actually searching for the connection between human beings and the great transcendental laws of the universe.

What is nowadays called poetry will gradually take on a new face. Granted, this is hard to understand these days, but it is true nevertheless. Though nowadays people hardly feel this way, poetry should represent what human beings experience together with the cosmos, what is drawn from the mysteries of the cosmos. All this must flow into poetic form. If we create certain mental images that are representations of what belongs to imaginative knowledge, we can then discover the laws governing the position of the twelve signs of the zodiac and the relationship of the movements of the seven planets to these twelve signs. We can also identify certain movements and laws that do not apply to all seven planets, but only to the sun and moon and their passage through the signs of the zodiac. What matters is not that we serenade what goes on in the universe, but that what speaks there in the great laws of the universe also speaks in the form of our poetry.

And today you will hear attempts at poetry where the laws that reign in the cosmos also prevail in the sequence of the lines, their relationship to each other, and in their meaning. For instance, you will hear a poem of twelve stanzas, and each stanza has seven lines. The structure of the poem is such that what the seven lines express represents the laws of the movements of the seven planets. The fact that there are exactly twelve stanzas and that the mood of the seven lines is repeated in each stanza corresponds to the laws determining the planets' orbits through the signs of the zodiac. Thus, what is going on outside in the cosmos, in the harmony of the spheres, is also in the meaning of the twelve stanzas of seven lines each. The laws of the cosmos are meant to prevail in these twelve verses of seven lines.

You will find, let us say, in the Capricorn stanza that the fourth line expresses a certain position of Mars in regard to Capricorn. The meaning of this line must be such that if you were woken up from sleep and heard only this one line from the Capricorn stanza, this Mars line, you would be able, after having developed a feeling for this, to say this line is the Mars line of the Capricorn stanza. In the same way, all the other lines have their meaning. Thus, the structure is not just superficial or merely external; it is the poem's inner structure. This is what matters.

Similarly, the short poem of quatrains is arranged so that certain movements express cosmic events. One of the poems of twelve verses is to be taken seriously; the other, as you will see, is really a satire. Now you may easily think it improper to treat “sacred things” satirically. But truly, my dear friends, if we want to advance in this sphere of a spiritual world view, one of the basic requirements is precisely that we do not forget to laugh at those things in the world that are a laughing matter when judged rightly. A lady once told a story about a man who was always in a mood of “looking up to the great cosmic revelations.” He never spoke of other people at all, only of “masters,” and she also said he usually made a long face.

When she told me about this man with his long, tragic face, I remembered a very interesting experience I had long ago in Vienna. Back then, there lived a man in Vienna who tried in every sort of way to live himself into spiritual spheres. He was professor of physics and mathematics at the Vienna Agricultural College, and his name was Oskar Simony, the same man who found a tragic end much later, in fact only just recently.² We met in Vienna—I remember it as if it had happened only yesterday—in the Salesianergasse. I knew him by sight but had never spoken to him. He did not know me at all, and we met just as two people do who pass each other on the sidewalk. I was then just a young fellow of twenty-six or twenty-seven. Oskar Simony looked at me, stopped, and began a conversation about all sorts of things spiritual—remember, I am only telling you the facts. Then he took me to his house and gave me his latest publication on the extension of the four arithmetical operations, which he had published in the old Academy of Science. All this happened just at the time when the Austrian Crown Prince Rudolf and the Archduke Johann—who, as you may know, later disappeared under the assumed name of Johann Orth—were busying themselves with the unmasking of a psychic medium and other such things.³ Naturally, people in Vienna back then talked a great deal about these kinds of things, and Oskar Simony examined these matters scientifically. He wrote a book about tying a knot into a round ribbon of one piece, which is very interesting.⁴

Well, as we were talking, Simony paused and then said, “In dealing with these things, one needs a good sense of humor!” Indeed, that is true; for precisely when we enter into the depths of spiritual understanding, we must not forget how to laugh. In other words, we should not feel obliged to always make a long, tragic face! I am convinced that Oskar Simony lost his sense of humor in the last part of his life before he found such a tragic end.

Now there is ample opportunity to develop this sense of humor, particularly in our spiritual movement. Caricatures of the striving for the spirit love to cling to such spiritual movements. By caricatures I do not mean people, but only aspirations; the things said to sail under the colors of spiritual striving or, shall we say, of membership in a movement that has taken on spiritual striving!

That is what makes it so difficult to represent our spiritual movement in the world. Basically, there was nothing to be said—and still is nothing to be said—against some women wearing the kind of clothing I had to design for the performance of the first scene of my first mystery drama. After all, we couldn't have had modern dress on stage there. Then several women made such dresses for themselves. That is certainly praiseworthy, but then it got out of hand.

I don't need to tell you about that, as it is well-known how far these things got out of hand. Then people believed such clothes absolutely called for short hair. Yes, indeed, one could hear people say that in our movement the women wore their hair short, and the men theirs quite long—which has actually happened in only a few exceptional cases. Anyway, this has led to people asking me after public lectures whether having one's hair cut short was part and parcel of being a theosophist.

Well, all this is merely a matter of appearances; however, even in matters of inner, spiritual significance people in our circle have been up to mischief many times, mischief we must strongly oppose. The things I am supposed to have said and the things that are supposedly thus and so, and on and on! Sometimes what is said seems to indicate that the person who spoke just wanted to get some attention, to put it mildly. In other words, there are excesses that make it difficult to represent our movement to people who can't help laughing when they hear about things they do not understand. They will then also laugh about what is serious and even about what is most significant. But we do not need to provoke their laughter and give them a certain justification for it with the caricatures accompanying the striving for the spiritual. These things have led me to write a satirical poem to be performed in eurythmy, which will also be presented
today.

In this satire on the twelve moods of the signs of the zodiac, the planets are also used, but they are used to give you a glimpse, so to speak, of the seamy side of all this to-do about spiritual science—not of spiritual science itself, which, of course, has no seamy or dark sides at all, only its adherents do. These poems are intended to show how the intuited cosmic laws lead to true laws of form for the poetry of the future.

These verses will be recited with several by Robert Hamerling.⁵ Please keep in mind that they were intended for performance in eurythmy; today they will be presented without eurythmy, but never mind.

Program of the recitation by Frau Steiner that followed:
Poems by Robert Hamerling: “O, let me sing in solitude,”
“Son and heir of eternity,” “Between heaven and earth,”
“Nightly movement,” “Spirits of Night,”
“Don’t scold the soft tones,” “Venice,” “Song of life.”
”Followed by music on the harmonium
“The Eagle” by Robert Hamerling
Poems by Rudolf Steiner:
“Dance of the Planets,” “Pentecost,” “Twelve Moods.
Followed by music on the harmonium
“Lost Echoes” by Robert Hamerling
“Diamonds ”by Robert Hamerling
“ The Song of Initiation,” a satire by Rudolf Steiner.

I want to start from the same basis as in so many of our talks, namely, spiritual science as it permeates us should not live in our souls so that we simply know it in the same way we know geography, botany, or political science, and can keep it nicely separate from the rest of life. On the contrary, spiritual science should give us impulses and life forces that flow into our understanding of the reality surrounding us. This is how it must be for the sake of spiritual science and also because it has the task to intervene in our cultural life and revitalize many areas where our culture has reached a dead end. Spiritual science is to heal what is sick in our cultural and spiritual life. One thing above all must permeate the activity of our soul if we really want to enter deeply into spiritual science, and that is honesty. We will have to be so imbued with honesty that we do not waver from it in our whole understanding of life. However, we are confronted today by a view of life that is certainly not permeated by honesty in its judgments and attitudes.

Now let us take as our point of departure an event we have recently learned about. It is already a bit dishonest to think too little about such events and not to see them clearly enough in the context of life as a whole. You may have read about the shocking events that have recently taken place on a small scale, in one person's life, and must be added to those terrible, great, and gigantic blows of fate we witness in our time. Nowadays everything that is not part of the great events of the day is considered to be on a small scale.

Well, a painter, and apparently a good one at that, as the court records show, had painted pictures and signed them Böcklin, Uhde, Menzel, Spitzweg, and other famous names.⁶ He had painted many such pictures and sold them to people who wanted to buy a Menzel, a Lenbach, a Böcklin. However, the painter's name was really Lehmann.⁷ Lehmann was a good painter, and so his paintings were bought as genuine Böcklins, Menzels, Uhdes, and so forth. And then he was prosecuted. It was obviously a clear case of fraud. The experts held the fraud to be the greater because he was such a good painter and had been able to do so well that his paintings were indistinguishable from those painted by these famous artists. For this fraud he was sentenced to four years in prison.

Now, let me tell you a story that is the counterpart to this event. Goethe used to place a picture and its counter-picture side by side; that was his method. This is of course not so convenient as the usual way of thinking, but it throws more light on reality and truth. In Brussels, there is the Wiertz Museum, where paintings by Wiertz are exhibited.⁸ One can't help but be utterly amazed at the originality of these pictures by Wiertz. They are indeed different from any other paintings; they are unique. Some of them may seem weird and crazy to strict and narrow-minded critics. Well, their opinion may not always be a valid criterion,—in any case some of the paintings are very deeply moving.

Wiertz was born into a poor family at the beginning of the nineteenth century and grew up in poverty. One day, however, he was struck by the thought—and here true vocation met with extraordinary vanity; a combination that is indeed possible—that he wanted to become a painter greater even than Rubens, a successor of Rubens, a super-Rubens.⁹ In post-Nietzschean times, I think we can say a super-Rubens. So he wanted to be a super-Rubens, and he certainly had talent. He got a scholarship and could go to Rome and study Italian painting. And then he painted a picture, a very large picture, a gigantic picture, of a scene from the Trojan war. It was better, indeed far better, than the average pictures you can see in exhibitions.

So, he submitted this picture to the committee of the Louvre in Paris. The committee accepted it, but hung the painting in such a way that it looked as though it had not really been accepted. You know it is a frequent practice of the committees in charge of selecting artworks for museums to hang pictures as if they did not really belong in the exhibition. But it is of course essential for a picture to be seen! When people cannot see it because it is hung in a poorly lit place, then even though the painting is on exhibit, it's as good as not really there. And since Wiertz had just as much vanity as talent, this vexed him greatly. He got very furious with Paris, went back to Brussels, and never again wrote the word “Paris” without drawing a thunderbolt above it that was striking the word. He later received other distinctions, but they did not particularly please him. For instance, he received a bronze medal from the king for something he did. However, Wiertz only said that if he could not have gold or silver, he did not need bronze either. He remained furious.

Then he wanted to test the Louvre committee again. In 1840 he sent two pictures to an exhibition. One of them he painted and signed with his name. The other he had come by in a different way. An acquaintance of his had a genuine, an admittedly genuine and significant Rubens painting. Wiertz at once scratched out the name Rubens and put in his own name instead. Thus, he sent two pictures signed Wiertz to the Louvre committee. The Louvre committee looked at them, at the two paintings by Wiertz and said, nothing doing; both are not suited for exhibition; they are both worthless daubs! But one of them was a genuine, even a quite excellent, Rubens! Thus Wiertz avenged himself; naturally he broadcast the story everywhere, and at the time it made quite a stir.

This is the counterpart to the event I told you about earlier. Think of the amount of dishonesty there is these days when people judge art. Do people buy actual works of art? No, names are what people buy. Names are bought! If somebody were to paint a picture today that was as good as any of Leonardo's—it might be a really good painting—it goes without saying people would buy Leonardo's but not the other person's painting.¹⁰

There have been other painters, and a newspaper wrote about them, who have taken to copying old masters because they were unable to sell their own work. When they wrote the name Leonardo or Michelangelo on their pictures, they could sell them!¹¹ By the time it was discovered what they had done, they had already died, and so it was too late to imprison them for four years!

Such events have to be seen in the light of the dishonesty of our general culture. Lehmann would not have sold a single one of his pictures had he signed them Lehmann, but they would have been just as good as they are with another name on them. These things are very distressing. It is necessary to think about them, for they are examples of things that are becoming more and more frequent in other areas of everyday life and show how much our age needs honesty and the avowal of honesty, the striving for honesty. But striving for honesty is not within our reach if we do not have the will to face things, to deal with them, instead of quickly passing over them and ignoring them. What matters is that we concern ourselves with what is happening around us and try to understand things more deeply. If we do not take a practice of observing reality in all its depth, we cannot really get very far in understanding the impulses of spiritual science. For spiritual science is born out of true reality, and if we are to understand spiritual science, we must familiarize ourselves with the impulse of true reality.

Those who know the facts realize that people who deal with truth the way it is usually done cannot understand spiritual science. At the same time, they see that the impulses of spiritual science must enter the spiritual life of the present and the immediate future. People nowadays read everything that comes before their eyes only superficially, their books as well as life. They look only at the surface of events, skimming lightly over them. Here I would like to point out something that can be understood only when we accept to some degree the facts of spiritual science. If you look at the development of our age, you can make an astonishing discovery if you pay attention to what the human soul takes in directly and to what it takes in to preserve and work on.

Now, in our time most people who read anything read the newspapers. Newspapers don't last beyond their day, and people think the newspapers leave their soul as easily as they entered it. They imagine this compensates for the superficiality and dishonesty of our journalism, which really defy description. But things are not the way people usually believe them to be. The contents of a book does not imprint itself as deeply into the soul of most people these days, though they remember it much longer, as the contents of the short-lived newspaper. It is precisely this fleeting and transitory character of the newspaper and the fact that we do not try to remember it but want to forget it quickly—forgetting here must be quick—that allows it to imprint itself infinitely deeply into our unconscious.

I have pointed out before how quickly we must forget in the case of some newspapers. One time, we were in the area of Pirano in Istria, where the Piccolo della Sera is published. Now, that is an evening paper, and one day it ran a very sensational article; I don't even remember anymore what it was about. Anyway, the article took up three columns, nearly the whole of the front page. But there was still a bit of space left on that page, and there this very same article was officially disclaimed and corrected because the article was based on an error. Now this is a thing not often found: a newspaper article that is disclaimed on the very same page. Particularly the big city newspapers are ever so gradually moving in this direction.

It is important to know that what we take in so quickly and then quickly forget is actually imprinted deeply into the subconscious of our soul and works there as a force over time. It goes on working in what we can call the general spirit of the times, the ahrimanic spirit of the times. In other words, good books today have far less effect than newspaper articles. What is carefully taken in and works upon the ego, which imprints it into our memory, has much less effect than what we take in hastily from a newspaper. Please do not take this to mean that you should not read newspapers, but accept it as your karma. Obviously, I don't mean that we must avoid reading so much as a line in a newspaper. We must take newspapers as part of the karma of our age and develop the side of our being that is able to sense whether we are reading actual content, something containing true spiritual striving, or mere empty words.

Thus, one can only hope that people will once again develop a feeling for how mental and spiritual achievements come about. For this feeling is what we are so sorely lacking nowadays. We cannot distinguish between what is written well and what is written very badly. We take in the content of a well-written piece just as indifferently as we do that of a badly written piece. The difference, the capacity to distinguish, is what we have lost. How many people nowadays can tell the difference between a page written by Herman Grimm and one written by Eucken, Kohler, or Simmel, and I could name many other writers, too?¹²

Who can see that in one page of Herman Grimm lives the whole culture of Central and Western Europe—in his composition, in the way he forms his sentences? Who can sense that if we give ourselves over to this sentence structure, we can connect with what is ruling spiritually in the world? The usual scholarly babble, however, connects us with nothing except the eccentricities of the gentlemen, or, as we may say today, of the ladies in question. I have known scholars and spoken with them about Grimm; well, these scholars actually dared to compare Herman Grimm with Richard M. Meyer, or someone like him.¹³ The initial “M” in Meyer's name was always used; Meyer never wrote his full middle name; I don't know why he was too timid to do that. Well, these scholars said Meyer's works showed clear, decisive, and strictly methodical research. Herman Grimm, on the other hand, was not to be called a real worker in the field of science; rather, he was only strolling through it. It was customary in those days to call him a stroller through the field of science because he had too few footnotes. Who nowadays can see that the whole of European culture up to the end of the nineteenth century really lives in the style of Herman Grimm's works, in his manner of presentation, regardless of the content? That is precisely what we must achieve: a sense for style, a true feeling for art even in this area, for that alone can school us in honesty. The hurried reading for content only, which aims only at getting information, is really a schooling in dishonesty, in lies.

You need only look at our modern age to see how infinitely much has to be done before people will again develop a feeling for style. Granted, we have to read newspapers nowadays, but we should also be so sensitive that the style that has gradually taken root there irritates us and drives us to distraction. This must really come about. How much this is lacking these days can be seen in countless examples, and you have no idea how little people are generally inclined to go to the bottom of things in their thinking.

I am not introducing what now follows in order to talk about national prejudices or personal likes and dislikes after all, we must be able to understand every point of view and get a feeling for it. No, what I would like to tell you has nothing to do with all this. A few months ago, a book was published that is not available in Germany, and for good reason. It is entitled J’Accuse, written by a German and has been translated into all languages except German, and several hundred thousand copies have been sold throughout the world.¹⁴ Now I am not going to speak of the accusations in this book and the very pessimistic picture it presents of the connections between Germany and the war and Austria and the war. I do not want to talk about that; everyone has his or her own point of view in these matters. The point here is not that this book presents everything in the darkest light and puts the blame exclusively on the Central European powers, while exonerating all the others, completely clearing and whitewashing them—and not just whitewashing them, but presenting them as whiter than white. That is not what I want to talk about.

What matters is that this book has evidently been distributed widely not only among people who have been corrupted by newspaper reading and read nothing else anyway, but also among people with supposedly enlightened minds. Now this book is trashy literature of the very worst kind imaginable, quite apart from its point of view. If you just read it as it is, you will find in terms of form, in terms of sentence structure, a piece of trashy literature, really artistically abominable literature. It is the artistic side I want to look at here, regardless of the point of view; for I can perfectly well understand a point of view opposed to mine, or indeed any point of view. But what is so infinitely sad in this case is that people did not feel that anyone who writes so abominably badly—in his sentence structure, his thinking, and logic—comes into consideration only for those readers who do not go in for respectable literature but only for stuff that's peddled on the backstairs.

I would not be speaking about this today if the subject had not been revived the day before yesterday in an article in the Vossische Zeitung, which used to be a gossipy rag but is now a modern newspaper. The article was written by Dr. F. Oppenheimer, an untenured extramural lecturer, and deals with this book as well as with a very successful reply published as Anti-J'accuse.¹⁵ However, Dr. Oppenheimer starts out in a strange way by explaining that this book J'Accuse had been brought to his attention by a man from one of the neutral countries whom he had always considered one of the most outstanding and most unappreciated authors of our time. Then Oppenheimer goes on to talk about his own impressions of the book. He has at least some idea of how badly the book is written—and that is what I want to emphasize here—but I was anxious to see whether he would draw any conclusions from this insight. It seemed to me that Oppenheimer's thoughts and feelings about the book should have led him to question whether he had been in full possession of his faculties when he believed the man great who recommended such an abominable book as something special. But he did not come to that conclusion in this article.

Now I am not saying this to criticize this particular case, but to point out that it is a typical one. People just skim over the facts these days. After all, isn't this case suited to make Oppenheimer ask himself what his judgment is worth when he had taken a man for important who later tried to foist such a book off on him as significant? Is this not something that leads necessarily to some self-knowledge? Clearly, drawing the obvious conclusions from the situations confronting us now in such a terrible way is not a priority in the souls of many people. We can see the basic character and structure of contemporary spiritual life in just such typical examples. We must really feel that the basic shortcomings of our time are expressed in such things, and we must not ignore them as if they were of no importance.

These things are tremendously important, for they show on a small scale what I pointed to on a larger scale when I said that nowadays many people believe themselves to be good Christians though they have not even managed to be good Turks! Remember, I once read you a short passage from the Koran to show that Turks who know their Koran believe much more about Jesus than many modern pastors do. It is the same all over again but now on a field where the mighty facts of existence arise before the soul. The same mistake, however, the same type of mistake, meets us everywhere in our daily life, in the terrible superficiality of modern everyday life, which is really nothing else but dishonesty. We must go beyond that if all talking about spiritual science is not to be a washout for our time. The important thing is that spiritual science be more than just a failure and a waste.

We have to realize that in the nineteenth century and so far also in the twentieth century we have been wedged into a spiritual scientific development that has influenced modern thinking and feeling from two sides. There have been two streams, left and right, so to speak, and we have been wedged in between them. And now we have to extricate ourselves. Just this winter I have devoted a good many of my talks to drawing your attention to the fundamentals leading to what is thought nowadays. Truly, it is possible to show in many different symptoms what prevails these days. I have showed you this by drawing your attention to many occult movements active in different societies. I have told you that to a large extent the direction and attitude of modern thinking go back to the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, when the predominating spirit lived in the accomplishments of Bacon, Shakespeare, and Jacob Bohme.¹⁶ This had to be so. However, we are now at a point where we have to overcome what was rightfully inaugurated at the beginning of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch.

This is what I wanted to present in my new book Vom Menschenrätsel,¹⁷ I wanted to explain the spiritual streams to which the fifth post-Atlantean epoch led, especially in Central Europe, and that the way out through spiritual science must be found. Time will tell whether this book, into which I really put all my heart—sometimes spending two whole days on a sentence that takes up a quarter of a page in order to be able to justify every word and turn of phrase—whether it will be read properly or just as badly as previous books.

You see, my dear friends, all our reflections amount to the insight that we must find in our soul the elements, the forces, to take in the Mystery of Golgotha in a new way. However, only those can understand the Mystery of Golgotha who do not seek this understanding with the forces of the physical body but by means independent of the physical body. Now, you may object that then the Mystery of Golgotha, the true wellspring of life for Christianity, can be understood only by people who have gone through esoteric development. Well, this is not the case, definitely not. Up to now people have indeed been able, even without spiritual science, to experience this freedom of the soul from the body necessary to understand the Mystery of Golgotha. But the number of those who understood dwindled while the number of those who opposed this true understanding grew ever larger.

Just think of one of the symptoms of this development: in earlier centuries, people were also reading the four Gospels and found the force contained in them. Thus, they approached an emotional and psychological understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha. Then came the people of the nineteenth century who were naturally more clever than their ancestors and discovered that the four Gospels contradict each other! How could their intellect avoid seeing that the Gospels contradicted each other? Great pains were taken to find all the contradictions and to unearth a core common to all Gospels. Not much came of all this, but the attempt made many people famous in the course of the nineteenth and even in the twentieth century. Well, are people of earlier centuries supposed to not have seen that the Gospels contradict each other? Were they really so foolish that they didn't see that the Gospel of Matthew differs from the Gospel of John? Or, perhaps, has it just not occurred to nineteenth century people that their ancestors had a different sort of understanding, sought understanding with a quite different organ of their soul? You can answer that question for yourselves on the basis of what you have learned of spiritual science.

However, the days are gone when people could understand Christianity and the Mystery of Golgotha without taking the path of spiritual science. The number of people who can understand Christianity without spiritual science will become smaller and smaller. Spiritual science will become more and more an indispensable path to the understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha, which has to be understood with the etheric body. Everything else can be understood with the physical body. But spiritual science alone can prepare us for an understanding of all that has to be understood with the etheric body. Therefore either spiritual science will be fortunate and succeed, or there will be no further spread of Christianity because the Mystery of Golgotha will not be understood. In this respect we are still misunderstood by all those who think they are on the right path.

I have to tell the following story again and again. A few years ago, I lectured in a town in southern Germany about some of the treasures of wisdom in Christianity. Two clergymen were present who came up to me after the lecture and said they were really astonished at my positive attitude toward Christianity. They remarked that I had presented everything exactly the way it was supposed to be in Christianity. However, they felt my manner of presentation could e understood only by people with a certain amount of education, while their way of presenting Christianity was for all people and therefore the right way.

Well, I told them we must not judge on the basis of what pleases people; rather we are obligated to consider for our judgment only what corresponds to reality. People can easily delude themselves into believing that what they think is right. The less people are grounded in reality, the more they are usually convinced their opinion is right. Those who know the least about Christianity are often the very same ones who believe they know the most about it. In other words, it does not matter what we fool ourselves into thinking true; what matters is that we judge on the basis of reality.

So I asked the two clergymen whether everyone was still going to their churches, for that alone would decide the issue. The decisive point was not what these clergymen thought about Christianity but whether they were indeed speaking for all people, whether all people still went to their churches. They had to admit that indeed many people were staying away, unfortunately! Well, I told them that some of those people who didn't go to their churches anymore had come to hear my lecture, and I was speaking to them. For those who do not go to their churches are also seeking a way to the Mystery of Golgotha.

This way must be found. Our opinions must be dictated to us by reality, by what lives and works in reality, not by what we imagine. Obviously, everybody thinks his or her own method is the right one. But the right thing is not what we think is right, what we have thought out and have felt is right, but what reality reveals to us. Of course, that requires that we get used to immersing ourselves deeply into reality. It requires that we have the reverence for reality and devotion to it necessary to have our power of discernment, our sensitivity, and our feelings guided by reality. This is precisely what people have forgotten these days. They must learn it again in order to understand the smallest as well as the greatest things, to understand everyday life as well as what gives meaning to the whole earth evolution, that is, the Mystery of Golgotha.

• 1. Rudolf Steiner, Twelve Moods, (Spring Valley, NY: Mercury Press, 1984).
• 2. Oskar Simony, 1852–1915, Austrian mathematician.
• 3. Rudolf, 1858–1889, Archduke and Crown Prince of Austria. Only son of Emperor Franz Joseph. Died, allegedly by suicide, at his hunting lodge Mayerling together with Baroness Maria Vetsera.
• 4. Oskar Simony, Gemeinverständliche, leicht contiolierbare Lösung der Aufgabe: In ein ringförmiges geschlossenes Band einen Knoten zu machen, und verwandter merkwürdiger Probleme (“Generally understandable and controllable solution to the problem of making a knot in a ringlike, closed ribbon, and other curious related problems”), 3rd. ed., Vienna, 1881.
• 5. Robert Hamerling, pseudonym of Rupert Hammerling, 1830–1889, Austrian poet. Best known for his epics Ahasverus in Rom (1865) and Homunculus (1888).
• 6. Arnold Böcklin, 1827–1901, Swiss painter. Known for paintings of moody landscapes and sinister allegories.
  
  Fritz von Uhde, 1848–1911, German painter.
  
  Adolph Friedrich Erdmann von Menzel, 1815-1905, German painter.
  
  Carl Spitzweg, 1808–1885, German painter. Most representative of Biedermeier artists in Germany. Known for humorous and detailed portraits of small-town characters.
• 7. Franz von Lenbach, 1836-1904, German painter. His works included copies of Rubens, Titian, and others, as well as portraits of famous people.
• 8. Antoine Joseph Wiertz, 1806-1865, painter.
• 9. Peter Paul Rubens, 1577–1640, Flemish painter. Renowned for excellence of his coloring.
• 10. Leonardo da Vinci, 1452–1519, Italian painter, sculptor, architect, engineer, and scientist.
• 11. Michelangelo, 1475–1564, Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet.
• 12. Herman Grimm, Goethe, vol. 2, Lecture 23, p. 171f., Berlin, 1817.
  
  Rudolph Christoph Eucken, 1846–1926, German philosopher. See Lecture One, note 14.
  
  Josef Kohler, 1849–1919, German jurist and writer. See Lecture One, note 14.
  
  Georg Simmel, 1858–1918, German philosopher and sociologist. His work was very influential in establishing sociology as a scientific discipline in the United States.
• 13. Richard M. Meyer, 1860–1914, German philologist.
• 14. J’accuse von einem Deutschen (“J'accuse by a German”), Lausanne, 1915.
• 15. Franz Oppenheimer, 1864–1943, German economist and sociologist. The reply was J’accuse! Aus den Aufzeichnungen eines feldgrauen Akademikers (“J'accuse! From the Notes of an Academic in field-gray”), Berlin, 1915.
• 16. Francis Bacon, 1st Baron Verulam and Viscount St. Albans, 1561–1626. English philosopher and author.
  
  William Shakespeare, 1564–1616, English dramatist and poet.
  
  Jakob Böhme, 1575–1624. German mystic. He was first a shoemaker, then had a mystical experience in 1600.
• 17. Rudolf Steiner, Vom Menschenrätsel (“The Riddle of Man”), vol. 20 in the Collected Works, (Domach, Switzerland: Rudolf Steiner Verlag, 1984).