The Rudolf Steiner Archive

LET us dwell again today a little on the considerations already referred to as the so-called Three Meetings. We have said that the two alternate states of sleeping and waking, in which man lives in the short course of twenty-four hours, are not only what they seem to external physical life, but that during every one of these two-fold periods man has a meeting with the Spiritual world. We explained this by saying that the ego and the astral bodies, which are separated from the physical and etheric bodies during sleep—being breathed forth as it were, on going to sleep and breathed in again on waking—that these during the hours of sleep meet with the world we reckon as belonging to the Hierarchy of the Angeloi. To this world our own human soul will also belong when it has formed the Spirit-Self; in this rules as highest directing principle, that which in the life of religion we are accustomed to call the Holy Spirit. We have gone somewhat minutely into the meeting which man has with the Holy Spirit in the Spiritual world, during each one of his normal periods of sleep.

Now, we must very clearly understand that in the course of the development of the human race, during the evolution of the earth, changes have taken place with regard to these things. What then actually takes place while man is asleep? Well, I think I made that clear in the last lecture, from the standpoint of what takes place within man. Considered in his relation to the universe, man in a certain sense, imitates that rhythm in the world-order, which is established in any one part of the earth by the fact that one half of the twenty-four hour period is day and the other half night. Of course, it is always day in some part of the earth, but a man only lives in one part of it, and in respect to this the rule given holds good: wherever he lives, he imitates the rhythm between day and night in his own rhythm of sleeping and waking. The fact that this rhythm is broken through in modern life, that man is no longer compelled to be awake at day and asleep at night, is connected with his progress in evolution, in the course of which he raises himself above the objective course of the world, and now only has within him the one rhythm of day and night,—no longer the two rhythms working together. These rhythms work in a certain sense at one time for the universe, for the Macrocosm, and at another for man, for the Microcosm; but they are no longer in unison. In this way man has, in a certain respect, become a being independent of the Macrocosm.

Now, in those olden times, when, as we know, there was a certain atavistic clairvoyance in man, he was then more in harmony with the great course of the world-order, with respect to this rhythm. In olden times people slept all night, and were awake all day. For this reason the whole circle of man's experience was different from what it is now. But man has had in a sense to be lifted out of this parallel with the Macrocosm, and being thus torn away he has been compelled to stimulate an inner independent life of his own. It cannot be said that the main point was, that as in those days man slept at night he did not then observe the stars; for he did observe them, notwithstanding the fables of external science with respect to worship of the stars. The essential thing was that man was then differently organised into the whole world-order; for, while the sun was at the other side of the earth and consequently did not exercise its immediate activity on the part of the earth on which he lived, a man was then able in his ego and astral bodies—which were outside his physical and etheric bodies—to devote himself to the stars. He thus observed not merely the physical stars, but perceived the Spiritual part of the physical stars. He did not actually see the physical stars with external eyes; but he saw the Spiritual part of the physical stars. Hence we must not look upon what is related of the ancient star-worship, as though the ancients looked up to the stars and then made all sorts of beautiful symbols and images. It is very easy to say, according to modern science: In those olden times the imagination was very active; men imagined gods behind Saturn, Sun and Moon; they pictured animal forms in the signs of the Zodiac. But it is only the imagination of the learned scientists that works in this way, inventing such ideas True it is, however, that in the state of consciousness of the egos and astral bodies of the ancients, this did seem to them to be as we have described, so that they really saw and perceived those things. In this way man had direct vision of the spirit which is the soul of the universe; he lived with it. In reality it is only as regards our physical and etheric body that we are suited for the earth; the ego and astral body in their present condition are suited to the spirit that ensouls the universe, in the manner described. We may say that they belong to that region of the universe; but man must develop so far as really to be able to experience the innermost being of his ego and astral body, and to have experiences within them. For this purpose the external experience which was present in olden times, had to disappear for a while, it had to be blurred. The consciousness of communication with the stars had to recede; it had to be dimmed, so that the inner being of man could become powerful enough to enable him, at a definite time in the future, to learn so to strengthen it that he may be able to find the spirit, as spirit. Just as the ancients were united every night, when asleep, with the spirit of the stellar-world, so was man once connected with that spirit in the course of every year; but as time went on, in the course of the year he came in touch with a Higher Spirit of the world of the stars, and also in a sense with what went on in that world. While asleep at night the forms of the stars in their calm repose worked upon him; in the course of the year he was affected by the changes connected with the sun's course through the year; connected, as one might say, through the sun's course with the destiny of the earth for the year, caused by her passage through the seasons, and especially through the summer and winter.

You see, although some traditions are still extant relating to the experiences man formerly went through when asleep at night, there are but few remaining of those yet more distant times (or rather few traced back to their origin), when men took part in the secrets of the year's course. The echoes of these experiences still persist, but they are little understood. If you seek among the myths of the different peoples you will constantly come across that which proves that man then knew something of a conflict between winter and summer, summer and winter. Here again external erudition sees nothing but the symbolic creative imagination of the ancients; it says, we in our advanced times have gone much further than that! These were, however, real experiences which man went through, and they played a significant and profound part in the whole Spiritual civilisation of the ancient past. There were mysteries in which the knowledge of the secrets of the year were taught. Let us just consider the significance of such mysteries. These were not the same in the very ancient times as they became later, in the times when the history of ancient Egypt and of ancient Greece and to some extent even the earlier Roman history was enacted. We will, therefore, consider those mysteries which passed away with the older civilisations of Egypt, Greece, and Rome.

In these mysteries there was still a consciousness of the connection of the earth with the whole universe. At that time it was customary for suitable persons to be subjected to a definite Psychical process—but this could no longer be done today. They could then, during a certain number of days—in winter—be sent to certain definite localities, there to serve in a sense as receiving stations for the universe, the supra-earthly universe, and to receive what it is able to communicate to the earth at such times, if the times could provide a sufficiently receptive receiving-station. Our present Christmas time was then not precisely the most important time, though approximately so but the exact time does not signify for the moment. Let us assume the time to be between the 24th December, and the early days of January. This season is one in which, through the special position of the sun to the earth, the universe conveys something to the earth that it does not at other times. At this season the universe speaks in a more intimate way to the earth than at other times. This is because the sun does not unfold its summer-force at this time; the summer-force has in a certain respect, withdrawn. Now, the leaders of the ancient mysteries took advantage of that time to make it possible in certain organised places with the help of specially prepared persons, to receive the inner secrets of the universe, which came down to the earth during this intimate duologue. This may be compared today with something certainly much more trivial, yet the two can be compared. You know that what is known as ‘wireless telegraphy’ rests upon the fact that electric waves are set in motion, which are then further transmitted without wires, and that in certain places an instrument called a coherer is installed, which, by its peculiar arrangement makes it possible for the electric waves to be received and the coherer is then set in action. The whole thing depends entirely on the arrangement and formation of the metal filings in the coherer which are then shaken back into place when the waves have passed through it. Now, if we assume that the secrets of the universe, of the supra-earthly universe, pass through the earth at the special time alluded to, it would be necessary to have an instrument for receiving them; for the electric waves would pass by the receiving-station to no purpose, unless the right instrument attuned to receive them were there! Such an instrument is needed to receive what comes from the universe. The ancient Greeks used their Pythia, their priestesses for this purpose; they were trained for the purpose and were very specially sensitive to what came down from the universe, and were able to communicate its secrets. These secrets were then later on taught by those who perhaps, had long been unable themselves to act as receivers. Still the secrets of the universe were given out. This, of course, took place under the sign of the holy mysteries, a sign of which the present age, which has -no longer any feeling for what is holy, has no conception. In our age the first thing would obviously be to ‘interview’ the priests of the mysteries!

Now, what was above all demanded of these priests? It was necessary in a certain sense that they should know that if they made themselves acquainted with what streamed down from the universe for the fructification of earth-life, and especially if they used it in their social knowledge, they must be capable, having thereby become much cleverer, of establishing the principal laws and other rules for government during the coming year.

It would at one time have been impossible to establish laws or social ordinances, without first seeking guidance from those who were able to receive the secrets of the Macrocosm. Later ages have retained dim and dubious echoes of this greatness in their superstitious fancies. When on New Year's Eve people pour melted lead into water to learn the future of the coming year, that is but the superstitious remains of that great matter of which I have described. Therein the endeavour was made so to fructify the spirit of man that he might carry over into the earth what could only spring from the universe; for it was desired that man should so live on the earth that his life should not merely consist of what can be experienced here, but also of what can be drawn from the universe. In the same way, it was known that during the summer time of the earth we are in a quite different relation to the universe, and that during that season the earth cannot receive any intimate communications from thence. The summer mysteries were based upon this knowledge, and were intended for a quite different purpose, which I need not go into today.

Now, as I have said, even less has come down to us in tradition concerning the secrets of the course of the year, than of those things relating to the rhythm between day and night, and between sleeping and waking. But in those olden times, when man still had a high degree of atavistic clairvoyance, through which he was able to experience in the course of the year the intimate relations between the universe and the earth, he was still conscious that what he thus experienced came from that meeting with the Spiritual world, which he cannot now have every time he sleeps. It came from the meeting with the Spiritual world in which dwell those Spiritual beings we reckon as belonging to the world of the Archangels—where man will some day dwell with his innermost being, after he has developed his Life-Spirit, during the Venus period. That is the world in which we must think of Christ, the Son, as the directing and guiding principle. (Man had this meeting in all ages, of course, but it was formerly perceived by means of atavistic clairvoyance.) We have, therefore, called this meeting, which in the course of the year man has in any part of the earth where he makes Christmas in his winter: the meeting with the Son. Thus in the course of a year, a man really goes through a rhythm which imitates that of the seasons of the year, in which he has a meeting and a union with the world of the Son.

Now we know that through the Mystery of Golgotha, that Being whom we designate as the Christ has united Himself with the course of the Earth. At the very time this union took place, the direct vision into the Spiritual world had become blurred, as I have just explained.

We see the objective fact: that the Event of Golgotha is directly connected with the alteration in the evolution of mankind on the earth itself. Yet we may say that there were times in the earth's development when, in the sense of the old atavistic clairvoyance, man entered into relation with Christ, through becoming aware of the intimate duologue held between the earth and the Macrocosm. Upon this rests the belief held by certain modern learned men, students of religion, with some justification:—the belief that an original primal revelation had once been given to the earth. It came about in the manner described. It was an old primeval revelation. All the different religions on the face of the earth are fragments of that original revelation, fragments fallen into decadence. In what position then are those who accepted the Mystery of Golgotha? They are able to express an intense inner recognition of the Spiritual content of the universe, by saying: That which in olden times could only be perceived through the duologue of the earth with the cosmos, has now descended; it dwelt within a human being, it appeared in the Man, Jesus of Nazareth, in the course of the Mystery of Golgotha. Recognition of the Christ who dwelt in Jesus of Nazareth, recognition of that Being who was formerly perceptible to the atavistic clairvoyance of man at certain seasons of the year, must be increasingly emphasised as necessary for the Spiritual development of humanity. For the two elements of Christianity will be then united as they really should and must be, if on the one hand Christianity, and on the other humanity, are each to develop further in the right way. The fact that in the old Christian traditions the Legend of Christ Jesus was part of the yearly celebration of the Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide Festivals, is connected with this; and, as I stated in a former lecture, the fact that the Festival of Christmas is kept at a fixed date, while Easter is regulated according to the heavenly constellations, is also connected with this. Christmas is celebrated in accordance with the earth-conditions, it is kept in what is always the very depth of winter and this hangs together with the meeting with Christ, with the Son, which meeting really takes place at that season. Christ, however, is a Being belonging to the Macrocosm. He descended from thence, yet is One with it; and this is expressed in the fixing of Easter by the heavens in spring, according to the constellations of sun and moon;—for the Easter Festival is intended to show that Christ belongs to the whole universe, just as Christmas should point to the descent of Christ to the earth. So it was right that what belongs to the seasons of the year through their rhythm in human life, should be inserted into the course of the year as has been done. For this is so profound a thing, as regards the inner being of man, that it is really right that these Festivals relating to the Mystery of Golgotha, should continue to be held in harmony with the rhythm of the great universe, and not be subject to the alteration which in modern cities has taken place in the hours of sleeping and waking.

Here we have something in which man should not as yet exercise his freewill, something in which each year the consciousness should come to him, that, though he can no longer come into touch with the great universe through atavistic clairvoyance, there is still something living within him which belongs to the universe and expresses itself in the course of the year.

Now, among the things which are perhaps the most found fault with in Spiritual Science by certain religious sects, is, that according to Spiritual Science the Christ-Impulse must once again be bound up with the whole universe. I have often emphatically stated that Spiritual Science takes nothing away from the traditions of religion with respect to the mystery of Christ Jesus; but rather adds to them the connection which surrounds that mystery extending, as it does, from the earth to the whole universe. Spiritual Science does not seek Christ on the earth alone, but in the whole universe.

It is indeed not easy to understand why certain religious confessions so strongly condemn this connecting of the Christ-Impulse with Cosmic Events. This attitude would be comprehensible if Spiritual Science wished to do away with the traditions of Christianity; but as it only adds to them, that should not be a reason for censure. So it is, however; and the reason is that people do not wish anything to be added to certain traditions.

There is, however, something very serious behind all this, something of very great importance to our age. I have often drawn your attention to the fact, which is also mentioned in the first of my Mystery Plays, that we are approaching a time in which we can speak of a Spiritual return of Christ. I need not go more fully into this today, it is well known to all our friends. This Christ Event will, however, not merely be an event satisfying the transcendental curiosity of man, but it will above all bring to their minds a demand for a new understanding of the Christ-Impulse. Certain basic words of the Christian faith, which ought to surge through the whole world as holy impulses—at any rate through the world of those who wish to take up the Christ-Impulse—are not understood deeply enough. I will now only call to your remembrance the significant and incisive words: ‘My kingdom is not of this world.’ These words will take on a new meaning when Christ appears in a world which is truly not of this world, not of the world of sense. It must be a profound attribute of the Christian conception of the world to cultivate an understanding of other human views and conceptions, with the sole exception of rough and crude materialism. Once we know that all the religions on the earth are the remnants of ancient vision, it will then only be a question of taking seriously enough what was thus perceived; for later on, because mankind was no longer organised for vision, the results of the former vision only filtered through in fragmentary form into the different religious creeds. This can once again be recognised through Christianity. Through Christianity a profound understanding can be gained, not only of the great religions, but of every form of religious creed on the earth. It is certainly easy to say this; though at the same time very difficult to make men really adopt these views. Yet they must become part of their convictions, all the wide world over. For Christianity, in so far as it has spread over the earth up to the present time, is but one religion among many, one creed among a number of others. That is not the purpose for which it was founded; it was founded that it might spread understanding over the whole earth. Christ did not suffer death for a limited number of people, nor was He born for a few; but for all. In a certain sense there is a contradiction between the demand that Christianity should be for all men and the fact that it has become one of many creeds. It is not intended to be a separate creed, and it can only be that, because it is not understood in its full and deep meaning. To grasp this deep meaning a cosmic understanding is necessary.

One is compelled today to wrestle for words wherewith to express certain truths, which are now so far removed from man that we lack the words to express them. One is often obliged to express the great truths by means of comparisons. You will recollect that I have often said that Christ may be called the Sun-Spirit. From what I have said today about the yearly course of the sun, you will see that there is some justification for calling Him the Sun-Spirit. But we can form no idea of this, we cannot picture it, unless we keep the cosmic relation of Christ in view, unless we consider the Mystery of Golgotha as a real Christ-Mystery, as something that certainly took place on this earth, and yet is of significance for the whole universe and took place for the whole universe.

Now, men are in conflict with one another about many things on the earth, and they are at variance on many questions; they are at variance in their religious beliefs, and believe themselves to be at variance as regards their nationality and many other things. This lack of unity brings about times such as those in which we are living now. Men are not of one mind even with regard to the Mystery of Golgotha. For no China-man or Indian will straightway accept what a European missionary says about the Mystery of Golgotha. To those who look at things as they are, this fact is not without significance. There is, however, one thing concerning which men are still of one mind. It seems hardly credible, but it is a commonplace truth and one we cannot help admitting, that when we reflect how people live together on the earth, we cannot help wondering that there should be anything left upon which they are not at variance; yet there still are things about which people are of one mind, and one such example is the view people hold about the sun. The Japanese, Chinese, and even the English and Americans, do not believe that one sun rises and sets for them and another for the Germans. They still believe in the sun being the common property of all; indeed they still believe that what is supra-earthly is the common property of all. They do not even dispute that, they do not go to war about these things. And that can be taken as a sort of comparison. As has been said, these things can only be expressed by comparisons. When once people realise the connection of Christ with these things which men do not dispute, they will not dispute about Him, but will learn to see Him in the Kingdom which is not of this world, but which belongs to Him. But until men recognise the cosmic significance of Christ, they will not be of one mind with respect to the things concerning which unity should prevail. For we shall then be able to speak of Christ to the Jews, to the Chinese, to the Japanese, and to the Indians,—just as we speak to Christian Europeans. This will open up an immensely significant perspective for the further development of Christianity on the earth, as well as for the development of mankind on the earth. For ways must be found of arousing in the souls of men, sentiments which all people shall be able to understand equally.

That will be one thing demanded of us in the time that shall bring the return, the Spiritual return, of the Christ. Especially with respect to the words: ‘My Kingdom is not of this world,’ a deeper understanding will come about in that time; a deeper understanding of the fact that there is in the human being not only what pertains to the earth, but something supra-earthly, which lives in the annual course of the sun. We must grow to feel that as in the individual human life the soul rules the body, so in everything that goes on outside, in the rising and setting stars, in the bright sunlight, and fading twilight, there dwells something Spiritual; and just as we belong to the air with our lungs, so do we belong to the Spiritual part of the universe with our souls. We do not belong to the abstract Spiritual life of an outgrown Pantheism, but to that concrete Spirituality which lives in each individual being. Thus we shall find that there is something Spiritual which belongs to the human soul, which indeed is the human soul; and that this is in inner connection with what lives in the course of the year as does the breath in a man; and that the course of the year with its secrets belongs to the Christ-Being, who went through the Mystery of Golgotha. We must soar high enough to be able to connect what took place historically on the earth in the Mystery of Golgotha, with the great secrets of the world—with the Macrocosmic secrets. From such an understanding will proceed something extremely important: a knowledge of the social needs of man. A great deal of social science is practised in our day, and all sorts of social ideals mooted. Certainly nothing can be said against that, but all these things will have to be fructified by that which will spring up in man, through realising the course of the year as a Spiritual impulse. For only by vividly experiencing each year the image of the Mystery of Golgotha, parallel with the course of the year, can we become inspired with real social knowledge and feeling.

What I am now saying must certainly seem absolutely strange to people of the present day, yet it is true. When the year's course is again generally felt by humanity as in inner connection with the Mystery of Golgotha, then, by attuning the feelings of the soul with both the course of the year and the secret of the Mystery of Golgotha, a true social ruling will be the true solution, or at any rate the true continuation of what is today so foolishly called (in reference to what is really in view) the social question. Precisely through Spiritual Science people will have to acquire a knowledge of the connections of man with the universe. This will certainly lead them to see more in this universe than does the materialism of today.

Just those very things to which least importance is attributed today, are really the most important. The materialistic biology, the materialistic Natural Science of today compares man with the animal; though it certainly does admit a certain difference,—in degree. In its own domain it is of course right; but what it completely leaves out of account is the relation of man to the directions of the universe. The animal spine—and in this respect the exceptions prove the rule—the animal spine is parallel with the surface of the earth, its direction is out into the universe. The human spine is directed towards the earth. For this reason man is quite different from the animal, above and below. The ‘above and below’ in man determine his whole being. In the animal the spine is directed to the infinite distances of the Macrocosm; in man the upper part of the head, the brain, and man himself are inserted into the whole Macrocosm. This is of enormous significance. This brings about what establishes a relation between the Spiritual and bodily in man, and through this his Spiritual and bodily parts are made subject to the conditions of above and below. I shall have more to say on this subject, but today I will merely just allude to it in a sketchy way. This ‘above and below’ characterises what we may call ‘the going out of the ego and astral body during sleep.’ For man with his physical body and etheric body is really inserted into and forms part of the earth while he is awake. During the night time he, with his ego and astral body is in a certain sense, inserted into that which is above.

Now we may ask: well, how is it then with other opposites to be found in the Macrocosm? There is also the opposite which in man can be described as ‘before and behind.’ In respect to these, too, man is inserted in a different way into the whole universe than is the animal or, indeed the plant. Man is inserted in such a way that he corresponds both before and behind to the course of the sun. This ‘before and behind’ is the direction which corresponds to the rhythm in which man takes part in living and dying. Just as man expresses in a sense a living relation of the ‘above and below’ in his sleeping and waking, so in his living and dying does he also express the relation of ‘before and behind.’ This ‘before and behind’ is in correspondence with the course of the sun; so that for man, ‘before’ signifies towards the east, and ‘behind’ towards the west. East and west form the second direction of space, that direction of which we really speak when we say that the human soul forsakes the human body not in sleep, but at death. For the soul on leaving the body goes towards the east. This is only still to be found in those traditions in which, when a man dies it is said: he has ‘entered the eternal east.’ Such old traditional sayings will some day, as indeed they are even now, be looked upon by learned men as merely symbolic. Some such platitudes as the following will be uttered: ‘The sun rises in the east,’ and is a beautiful sight; therefore, when it was desired to speak of eternity, the ancients spoke of the east! Yet this corresponded to a reality, and indeed one more closely connected with the yearly course of the sun than with the course of the day.

The third difference is that between the inner and the outer. Above and below, east and west, inner and outer. We live an inner life and we live an outer life. The day after tomorrow (15 March, 1917) I shall give a public lecture on this inner and outer life, entitled: ‘The human soul and the human body.’ We live an inner and an outer life. These form just as great opposites in man as above and below, east and west. Whereas in the course of the year man has more to do with what I might call a representative delineation of the whole course of life, we may say that when we speak of an inner and outer life in connection with the life and death of man, we refer to the whole course of his life, especially in so far as it has an ascending and a descending development. We know that up to a certain age a man goes through an ascending development. His collective growth then ceases, it remains at a standstill for a while, and then retrogrades. Now it hangs together with the collective course of a man's life, that at its early stages his whole body is then more connected in a natural, elemental way, with the Spiritual. I might say that at the beginning of his life a man is constituted in the very opposite way from what he is at the middle of his life, when he attains the zenith of his ascending development. In the first part of his life a man grows, thrives, and increases; afterwards his descending development begins. This is connected with the fact that the physical forces of man are then no longer in themselves forces of growth, for with the forces of growth are also intermingled the forces of decay. The inner nature of man is then connected in a similar way with the universe, as at his birth, at the beginning of his life, his outer bodily nature is connected with the universe. A complete turning round takes place. That is why at the present day a man goes through in a state of unconsciousness, in the middle of his life, the meeting with the Father-Principle, with that Spiritual Being whom we reckon as belonging to the Hierarchy of the Archai. He then meets with that Spiritual world in which he will dwell when he has completely developed his Spirit-Man.

Now, one might ask: Is this too in any way connected with the whole universe? Is there anything in the life of the universe connected in a similar way with the meeting that occurs in the middle of a man's life with the Father-Principle, as the meeting with the Spirit is connected with the rhythm of day and night, and the meeting with the Son with the rhythm of the year? That question might be asked. Well, now, my dear friends, we must bear in mind and hold firmly to the fact that, as regards the meeting with the Father-Principle, and also as regards that with the Spirit-Principle, man is lifted above rhythm, rhythm does not run quite parallel with man. For men are not all born at the same time, but at different times, therefore, the course of their lives cannot be parallel; but they can inwardly reflect some Spiritual Cosmic happening.

Do they do this?

Well, you see, if we recall what is stated in the little book: Education of the Child in the Light of Anthroposophy, and in other books and courses of lectures, we shall know, that in the first seven years man more particularly builds up his physical body, in the next seven years his etheric body, in the next seven years his astral body. Then for seven years he forms the sentient soul; from twenty-eight to thirty-five he forms the intellectual or reasoning soul; and during this period he has the meeting with the Father-Principle. It takes place during that time;—not that it extends over the whole period, but it occurs during those years;—so that we may say: a man prepares for it in his twenty-eight, twenty-ninth, and thirtieth years. In the case of most people the meeting takes place in the deepest subconscious regions of the human soul. Now, we must assume that this corresponds to something that takes place in the universe; that is, we must find in the universe something representing a course, a rhythm. Just as the rhythm of day and night is one of twenty-four hours, and the course of the year one of three hundred and sixty-five days, so we ought to be able to find something of a like nature in the universe, only that would have to be more comprehensive. All this is connected with the sun, or at least with the solar system. Just as the twenty-eighth twenty-ninth, and thirtieth years are more comprehensive than the period of twenty-four hours; and the three hundred and sixty-five days than any other period, so something yet greater must be connected with the sun, something corresponding with this third meeting. Now, the ancients rightly considered Saturn as the most distant planet from our solar system; it is the furthest away. From the standpoint of materialistic astronomy it was quite justifiable to add Uranus and Neptune to our system; but they have a different origin and do not belong to the solar system; so that we may speak of Saturn as the outermost Planet of our system. Now let us consider this. If Saturn forms the boundary of the solar system, we may say that in its circuit round the sun, it travels round the outermost boundaries of the solar system. When Saturn travels round this and returns to the point from which he started, he describes the extreme limits of the solar system. When he has traveled round the Sun and returned to his starting point, he then occupies the same relation to the sun as he did at first. Now Saturn, (as may be said, according to the Copernican Cosmic System) takes from twenty-nine to thirty years to complete his course, which is thus of about that duration. Here then, in the circuit of Saturn round the sun, which is not yet understood today—(the facts are really quite different, but the Copernican Cosmic System has not yet gone far enough to understand these) in this course of Saturn we have a connection, extending to the furthest limits of the solar system, with the course of a human life, which is thus an image of the Saturnian circuit in so far as the life-course of man leads to the meeting with the Father. That also leads us out into the Macrocosm. In this way, my dear friends, I think I have shown you that the innermost being of man can only be understood when considered in its connection to the supra-earthly. The supra-earthly, being Spiritual, is organised into that which in a sense it turns towards us visibly. But that which it manifests visibly is also merely an expression of the Spiritual. The raising of man above materialism will only take place when knowledge has progressed far enough to raise itself above the mere comprehension of earthly connections, and ascends once more to the grasp of the world of the stars and the sun.

I have already pointed out on a former occasion, that many things of which the present scholastic wisdom does not allow itself to dream, are connected with these things. Today men believe they will some day be able to generate living beings in their laboratories from inorganic matter. Materialism makes the most of this today. But it is not necessary to be a materialist to believe that a living being can be created out of inorganic matter, in the laboratory; for the alchemists, who certainly were not materialists, testified that they could make Homunculi; but today this is taken in a materialistic sense. The time will come, however, when it will be realised and inwardly felt, on approaching a man at work in his laboratory—(for living beings will indeed be produced in the laboratory from that which has no life)—on approaching such a man we shall feel ourselves compelled to say: ‘Welcome to the star of the hour!’ For this cannot be brought about at any hour; it will depend on the constellations. Whether life arises from the lifeless, will depend on the forces that do not belong to the earth, but come from the universe. Much is connected with these secrets. We shall speak of these things again in the near future, for it is now possible to say somewhat on these subjects, concerning which de Saint-Martin, who was called ‘The unknown philosopher’ says in many passages of his book on Truth and Error, that he thanks God that they are shrouded in secrecy. They cannot remain shrouded in secrecy however, for man will need them for his further development; but one thing is necessary, my dear friends, it is necessary that men should once more acquire that earnestness and feeling for the holiness of all these things, without which the world will not make the right use of such knowledge.

We will speak of these things again in the next lecture.

It is difficult to communicate with someone who expresses himself differently than we do. To clarify our own spiritual secrets, it is important to measure our own thinking, feeling, and willing against the spirits of others.

The usual newer historical research does not even know how to determine the lifetime of Zarathustra; they place him in the time of the Buddha, the ancient Greeks place them 5000 years before Christ: as far back as possible or not very far back. Theosophy places him in pre-Asian culture, but his influence can be seen into Christian times.

All soul life has been greatly modified, and the development of what has come into being is now a satisfying study. Man's spiritual development would have to undergo the same investigation to shed light; one has to go back to earlier states of mind, where people became aware of a different environment than they are now. There was a kind of clairvoyant consciousness, an often misused word, an image consciousness. The images that go up and down in the usual forms mean little, they are a leftover remnant of a completely different state of consciousness. The earlier image consciousness can be related to the external reality in the spiritual world behind the sensory world, when the object consciousness was still in its infancy, of an intermediate world between waking and sleeping, through symbols that related to the real spiritual world.

A certain ability is achieved at the expense of another. We have to go back up, but to a form of clairvoyance imbued with intellectuality. First the intellect was lost. Myths, sagas, legends are the oldest records of ancient clairvoyance. The images of the gods in mythology were initially only images. There were two spiritual currents: one from ancient India, the other, more northern, from ancient Persia. These went alongside one another in the older millennia, flowing together in ancient Greek culture. That is why the pessimism of the ancient Indians is so characteristic. The ancient Indian found it uncanny when he saw spiritual beings behind external things. He called them asuras. The last impulse of this, which was therefore so significant, appeared in Buddha. Through an unspiritual tendency towards the inner, he was transported into Maya, and so he had to come out of it into Nirvana. Nirvana has nothing of what the senses offer. Nirvana is the last great call of the senses as this development of humanity is felt to be a descent. This too is shot through with pessimistic anti-reality muzzling.

In ancient Greece, this submergence was not felt in quite the same way. In the Dionysian culture, the Greeks felt what was not yet present in the culture transplanted to Greece from ancient India. Zarathustra developed precisely the opposite, the Persians wanted to lend a hand to direct reality, a transition to a new, joyful future for humanity. He had gained something new, new human soul forces. Zarathustra pointed out to the Persian people that the physical world is not only Maya. To him, the outer world was like the garment of a spiritual world, the sensual world like a carpet. The spiritual world lies behind the sensual world; the spiritual world is behind everything. This is not only meant as a pantheistic reference to spiritual wisdom, but as a concrete insight into the spiritual world. Behind the most important sensual reality, the spiritual importance is hidden. And just as the sun has its great aura, so does man have his small aura: Ahura Mazdao, later Ormuzd. He no longer finds the good through mere mystical insight. These are dying forces, therefore the devas are evil to him, the asuras are the right thing.

This reversal can be explained from the development of culture. Ahuras are the Indian Asuras. There is spirituality in and behind all sensuality, especially behind the center. The Greek Apollo is the Greek translation of the Mazdao culture. Both currents came together when the greatest impulse for humanity came, in Christ.

At that time, in Zarathustra's time, completely different signs were needed, a completely different writing to make sense of this. This ancient writing was in the heavenly bodies. Zarathustra attributed both contradictions to something higher. He needed symbols. During the day, the sun passes through part of the zodiac; the day sun is Ormuzd, the night sun is Ahriman. Ormuzd is associated with one half of the zodiacal signs and Ahriman with the other. There is a common basis for good and evil. In an ever-widening arc, the circle becomes flatter and flatter, finally becoming a straight line, infinity. A circle with an infinite diameter is a representation of the infinite passage of time. The past holds back, the future is for progress, uplifting. The entire zodiac is actually a line, imagined as a minimized circle. “Zaroana akarena” is the image of infinite time.

Thus, the writing in the stars represents what is in the spiritual world. Zoroaster is not an abstract spirit who only moves in generalities; that is why lower spirits are under Ormuzd. Today's man is comfortable and wants to ascend to the highest God right away. The six or seven Amschaspands were, as it were, messengers. Goethe mentions in his Faust: Sons of the gods, preserve the beautiful, and so on. It is the same. Ahriman also has five to six evil spiritual entities; that makes twelve in total.

Each constellation is an expression of one of the forces. Ormuzd, for example, works through [the] lion as a good disposition, through the ram as wisdom. In this way, the spiritual beings enter into people, as it were. But people are not as wise as their little finger, which knows that it is nothing without the whole organism. So the powers of the human soul enter into the person and continue in the person, becoming materially condensed in what is in the person. Thus, a person can be an Ormuzd or an Ahriman person. The new physiology, which dissects the human being, says [anatomically and physiologically]: twelve pairs of brain nerves emanate from the brain. Thus, the materialized twelve Amshaspands have been found again after millennia. Both ages join hands.

There are 28 to 31 Izeds, spirits that perform subordinate functions that are effective in the cosmos and in human nature. In the human head, these are the mental abilities [= the Amshaspands] and the abilities that emanate from the spinal nerves and, for all I care, return [the Izeds]. Then, in the Feroars, we see the spiritual archetypes that underlie everything else.

Plato says: All sensual things are based on archetypes. But here it is meant more abstractly. Plato speaks of the spiritual world, Zoroaster of the spirit world. But Plato still had a living feeling for today's views. Zoroaster saw in the outer light what is inner wisdom, as does spiritual science today.

Pythagoras learned from the Persians the correct attitude towards the spiritual and the moral world. This is quite different from the way it is in Egypt or in the Dionysian mysteries. There, the masculine and the feminine, Osiris - Isis, Apollo - Aphrodite, are valid. Such sexual opposites can be found everywhere. Even with the ancient Hebrews, Lucifer, evil, is indicated by the feminine. Only Zoroaster has it the other way around, taking the organic, moral contrast of good and evil in images, not from nature.

Therefore, Zoroaster must be important in the present day in order not to reduce everything to the opposites of the sexes, as it is today. Hence the scent that emanates from Zoroastrianism. Through purification, through moral cleansing, heroic, moral strength develops, not philistine morality like today's. The ancient Persian is not contemplative, he is hardworking, lays his hands on the treasures of the earth. Thus he becomes the companion of Ormuzd, who always wrestled with Ahriman. Such was the case with this simple cultured people. Through moral purification the obstacles are overcome.

I will speak, come and listen to what is highest in the world. I speak not of it with an evil tongue, but of the opposite. Listen to what I mean, otherwise you will hear bad things at the end of the world. – Thus speaks Zoroaster. It is not enough to study the Gathas literally; one should put oneself in Zoroaster's feelings and thoughts. This requires a sense of history. One should be grateful to Ahriman.

During the latter period, the German nationalists often expressed the view that they should come to an understanding with the clerical Germans in order to take joint action with them against their Slavic opponents where national issues were concerned. In doing so, the party formation of these opponents was kept in mind, in which strong political and religious differences were held together by the bond of common nationality. If the view were to become more widespread that we should use the fighting methods of our national opponents in the struggle for our national cause, we would find this very alarming. For it would show how little the profound contrast that exists between the national idea of the German and that of the non-German nationalities in Cisleithania is still being grasped.

The Germans are fighting for a cultural task that was given to them by their national development, and what they are up against in this struggle is national chauvinism. It is not our dear national ego, not the name that has come to us by chance of birth, that we have to defend, but the content that is linked to this ego, that is expressed by this name. We do not want to confront our opponents as what we were born as, but as what we have become in the course of many centuries of development. What do our opponents have to confront us with? Nothing but that they are also a nation. The empty national "I" that presents itself as pretentiously as possible and at the same time makes no claim other than that it is there. That is the hallmark of chauvinism as the German people have never known it. What is wrong with this narrow-minded national ego, which only wants to assert its own emptiness as much as possible and wants to know nothing of the whole world, when it allies itself with parties that would prefer to destroy the achievements of our European culture of the last centuries? With parties that are only national, it does not matter how the national self exists, whether it is at the level of education of the time or not, it only matters that it has as much space as possible for its inanity and as much validity as possible for its intellectual barrenness. Who will join the Germans, say the Slovenes, if they make it a condition that we should not close our minds to the level of education they have achieved and that we should erect a barrier to our national character in their education? We are more comfortable with the clerics, who demand nothing but submission to the Church, but leave our national pretensions completely free rein.

The hostility of the Slavic nations towards German education coincides with the hostility with which the Roman Church opposes modern culture, which is mainly supported by the Germans. Only those who have never set foot on the ground of historical observation can delude themselves into believing that there is a reconciliation between German character, German culture and the Roman Church. If circumstances may make it necessary for truces to occur at certain times, the opposites will always sharpen the weapons again. The deep trait of the German nature will never fail to bring forth the religious mission from its own interior at the same time as its culture. Indeed, one might say that everything the German does has the deeply religious imprint that lies in his character and which rears up powerfully when his conscience, his heart, is to be given direction from outside. The German always appears as a totality, and just as his other education is, so he also wants his religious conviction to spring from within himself. The German cannot need an international religion, he only understands his national religion. That is the reason why the German protests again and again against the shackles of Rome. But do not think that this spirit of protest lives only among Protestants, German Catholics and Old Catholics; it exists among all enlightened Germans, even if it is not outwardly displayed. For it is the protest of the German heart against foreign beings. Only those for whom Germanness has become indifferent, has sunk to an empty name, can place themselves completely at the service of this foreign being. It is of no use if peasant members of parliament recall their German ancestry from time to time if they have no idea of the spiritual ties that bind every true German to his people. It is not possible to unite with such a party as long as we do not want to lose ourselves, as long as we do not want to give up that which alone earns us the right to bear the German name. We do not want to achieve what we want to achieve through lazy compromises; we want to achieve it solely under the banner of the German idea. We do not want to give up our hundred-year-old traditions, we do not want to slap our entire national development in the face in order to gain a few questionable concessions from a government which, according to its own statement, can govern without the Germans, in association with an un-German party made up of born Germans. However, as much as the idea of such coexistence contradicts the healthy development of German party life and our national organization, it seems to be in constant expansion. The path that may be quite fruitful for our national opponents, the path of gaining as much as possible for each individual through mutual concessions, can never be a good thing for us Germans. For there can be no doubt in the mind of anyone who considers our circumstances objectively that the political basis on which Count Taaffe's government rests can never have any understanding of the tasks of the German people. Does anyone believe that a real government program can be made without the Germans in Austria? There are two kinds of government. One with a political program that sets the direction for the circumstances, and one on a case-by-case basis that seeks to maintain itself on the surface at all costs through diplomatic use of the political constellations that present themselves. What one calls a politician in ordinary life is also decidedly in favor of governing in the latter sense. And Count Taaffe is a not insignificant politician in this sense. And because he is, and because the Germans are only able to put up insufficient resistance to his external art of governing, hence their miserable situation. It does not occur to us to expect the Germans to devote the stirrings of their hearts to the art of diplomacy, but a little more political sense would be necessary. Above all, we must know which parties can make common cause with us and not give ourselves over to insubstantial political chimeras. There is so much in the turning away of Austria's non-German nationalities from German education that suits the clericals that the latter cannot be thought of turning away.

The "keeping afloat" through diplomatic arts without a guiding state idea cannot be without end; what is not borne by inner necessity, but only by the ambition of honor, must dissolve itself. Rumors keep surfacing that the Ministry of Education is drafting an Imperial National School Act, which is supposed to be such that Prince Liechtenstein can waive his application with a clear conscience. Mr. v. Gautsch, who only recently rejected any influence from the left or the right in the most self-confident language, must understand this. Certain wills will soon be broken in this regime, and men from it who still impressed with their energy last year have already become quite colorless today. In the meantime, it is up to the Germans to work on their national organization, to show false pleasures the door and to protest against rotten compromises, if such are represented within their own party.

When observing individual development, one should not limit oneself to human beings, because their development is only a special case in the whole of nature. Development is the change of day and night, everything that takes place in time, ebb and flow - a similar thing takes place everywhere in inanimate nature: changes in temporal events. What remains [in this changeable] is the law. In spring, the sun is in a certain constellation, that of Aries - on March 21. It was the symbol of the Logos – the ram or lamb is therefore the sign of the re-appeared solar Logos: the Lamb of God. Greek Argonaut saga: the rams, the sun god, is brought home. The sun follows the same law. What changes is the appearance and what allows the appearance to repeat itself in the same rhythmic play is the law.

But in a certain sense, the law also changes. Eight hundred years before Christ, the sun began to rise in Aries, earlier in Taurus; very slowly it moves on. Therefore, the Egyptians had the sacred bull ‹Apis›, also the Persians. As long as the sun moved in the sign of Taurus, it was worshiped like that.

Before that, the sun rose in Gemini, and we hear of its worship among ancient peoples, among the Persians, and also among the ancient Germans. About every two thousand years, the sun moves forward very slowly. So the law is relatively constant, but it also undergoes development. The law is the constant, the eternally changing is the phenomenon.

Let us now move from inanimate to animate nature. The individual plant continually dies, but the species emerges from the seed. Just as in inanimate nature the phenomena pass away and the law remains, so in animate nature the species is preserved and the individuals perish. This applies to the plant and animal world.

But here, too, the species remains and changes at the same time over the course of time: the tame city pigeon has developed from the rock dove. The essence of the species remains, but something changes. How did the species undergo this development? Through the external living conditions in which the species find themselves. The effect of the external on the internal changes the species. Everything that previously came upon a being as external circumstances subsequently becomes a process of further development in the being itself. The caves of Kentucky deprive the animal of its sight; the animal absorbs the darkness.

The sun would remain if other powerful celestial bodies did not continue to move it. Every being absorbs and then develops itself further. Every process of further development is therefore interaction. The animal develops itself in such a way that it provides for the next generation.

Let us now move up to the level of personality. It is capable of imagining and can therefore enter into a new type of living conditions and absorb spiritual impressions. It enters into a new, spiritual environment. Just as in the species, the process of further development is formed in the personality through the new spiritual conditions. Personality passes away like the phenomenon and the individual, and like the law and the species, individuality remains. It would be a violation of the law if it were otherwise, and so we understand reincarnation. The spiritual essence of the personality is absorbed from within by the living conditions, and develops further. This is the agreement of the law of reincarnation with that of the preservation of the species and the law.

When we follow the developing species, we observe the adaptation to external living conditions, which is then inherited. Adaptation and inheritance are the great laws that govern living nature. All inheritance is a transfer of acquired characteristics to the heirs. When I look at the pouter pigeon, I will only understand it if I go back to its ancestors and look for the causes that gave rise to its organs. The present formations must be sought in the activities of times gone by. What was previously an activity later becomes an organ. The same thing happens spiritually with the individuality. It adapts and passes on to the successor of the personality the individuality it has acquired in the spiritual realm. What is taken in through experience is furthered in the process of development.

Take the bean: it develops to the germ, everything else falls away, only the small part remains, and that dies off, only life itself with the species passes over to the offspring plant. Only the species remains, but when it became a germ, the bean species itself was still surrounded by a part of vegetable matter, which must also fall away. The developed plant is no longer the species, but it has something of the sheaths that the germ has to save. Only when everything has fallen away can it arise anew. It is a new incarnation. Just as in individuality, which is surrounded by all sheaths and can only incarnate when all remnants have fallen away. Man has even more sheaths; they must return to where they came from. Then his germ is free and single, in the world in which alone it can develop - to a new existence. Man belongs to the earth, without it he would be inconceivable. He can only exist under this atmospheric pressure; this also applies to the spiritual conditions. This is because he has developed into this earth, into its physical, astral and mental spheres, which are interwoven. The human being is constructed from these three spheres as an earthly human being. The individuality itself is only in the higher mind, which is not bound to the earth, but belongs to the solar sphere; the earth with its three spheres, but also the sun and all other planets, rests in it. So we still consist of a substance that does not change, the unwritten page in which the experiences are recorded.

We call the mental sphere, in so far as it belongs to the earth, “Rupa”, formed; the other, which extends, “Arup”, mental. This is where [the] individuality belongs. We are children of the sun in a certain respect, which is why we also call our teachers sun children.

Just as the plant slowly returns all the substances it has taken in to build itself, keeping only what is of the species, so the human being - individuality - retains only what is arupa, mental, in order to reincarnate. Arupa is the region that leads out of the earth into the general. Then it is the freed butterfly that can spread freely in the Arupa-Mental, then [gap in the transcript] it must return to experience anew.

When man has given up his physical, he also has to give back to the astral what has served his construction from there, then he lives in Kamaloka.

What he learns in this life becomes an inclination, it must develop in Arupa, then it will reach full development. Man is not only an earthling, but also a sun child through his belonging to the sphere. In the third race the spark was ignited. Where did this spark come from, which the Manasaputra brought? The first knowledge was not given earthly, but brought over from an earlier state; it is something that goes beyond the sphere of action; so it remains when these effects cease. Only by the fact that man is able to pass through Arupa does he remain, otherwise he would have to shatter. But in the same way, the progressive development of the spiritual is a law that applies to individuality.

The external becomes the internal, what is experienced externally becomes the inner principle of progress. What comes to the individuality becomes inner law. The stream of the macrocosm flows into the individual and thus becomes microcosm. Predispositions are the results of previous experience: our conscience is previous experience. Just as in the study of nature, we have to explain it; that is the law of karma: causation through the various incarnations. You have the cause for a present-day disposition in an earlier activity.

Vedanta: What you think today, you are tomorrow.

Reincarnation means: the preservation of the spiritual in the physical.

Karma means: what is first an activity later becomes a habit or trait.

Two sayings are given to pupils in Rosicrucian schools to support them in their meditations: Beware of drowning in your esoteric striving. Beware of burning in the fire of your own ego.

There's an outer and an inner way to strive towards the spiritual.

Everything around us is like a veil, like a cover before the spiritual that we must punch through to get to the spiritual behind it. But in which direction? This cover surrounds us on all sides, above below front back right and left. And inwardly, everything that we experience as joy, pain, etc., is like a veil, like fog that conceals the spiritual in us, and this spiritual is the same one that we find when we break through the outer cover.

So that mankind can evolve further and get into the spiritual there's always men from time to time who're more advanced than is permitted by the momentary stage of human development, and who have things to tell us about states of human evolution that reach far into the future. Such advanced beings must exist to lead men further. John, the writer of the Apocalypse, was such a man. When he wanted to write a revelation of the future, he told himself: If I write this book out of the whole surroundings in which I'm living here and now it'll be influenced by the self that's in my body, since I'm connected with everything around and in me. I must free myself from all of this. He had to place himself on something like a rock that served him as a firm support, on which he didn't wobble and wasn't influenced by anything that surged around and in him. And he moved himself to the evening to 9-30-395, to Patmos Island, as the sun had already disappeared under the horizon, though its effect could still be felt, and as the moon and stars appeared. The Virgin constellation was there in the western sky, irradiated by the last gleam of the sun that had set, with the moon under it. This picture is reproduced in one of the seals—the virgin with the radiating sun and the moon under her feet. Thus, all of these seals were produced out of deep mystical connections.

John broke through the cover that surrounds us in this one direction—that of Virgo. There are 12 of these signs. Seven of them are good—the ones reproduced in the seals; the other five are more or less dangerous. Just as John chose this particular point in time and space to become completely separated from himself and all temporal things around him, so a Rosicrucian pupil must acquire a firm foundation in himself. The best way to do this is to let theosophical teachings work on us. Our astral body and thereby our etheric body become expanded by listening to theosophical ideas. This is the effect on anyone who hears anything about theosophy But the effect on those who are inclined towards theosophy is different than on those who aren't. The former feel the etheric body's expansion and fill it up with theosophical teachings, by accepting them. The other feel an emptiness in their etheric body through its expansion because they don't accept these ideas and so don't fill the expansion. Then doubt and skepticism arise through this emptiness. Whereas with the first men, it's like a pouring of oneself into the universe, which they can't let go too far, for they'll get a feeling of hollowness, of not feeling at home in these widths of space, like a fish that's taken out of water and can't live in air, because its organs haven't adapted themselves to this changed element. When a theosophist devotes himself to the teachings and his astral body expands evermore, he loses himself in this unfamiliar element One must avoid drowning here. And this is possible if one studies theosophy seriously, takes it in, elaborates it, and grasps it with feeling, not just with thinking and will, but permeates it completely with feeling. One can only do this with great earnestness. One must gain a firm support within oneself—like John when he wanted to write the Apocalypse and he transported himself to Patmos Island at sundown of Sept. 30, 395.

The configuration of the sun, Virgo and moon on that evening can be checked astronomically, and this was done. From this materialistic science draws the conclusion: Therefore the Apocalypse was written at that time. And then we're told that science has ascertained this. That's the way science ascertains things.

On the inner path one finds all the joys and sorrows, pains and blissfulness that live in us. But all of this is attached to our lower, perishable ego This whole desire world surrounds us like a fog that covers the spiritual for us. It keeps us from seeing and noticing the spiritual. We must break through it to get to the spiritual. There are forces that approach an esoteric pupil to make this fog even denser. The fog gets even denser if we don't resist it. We must burn it to avoid burning in the fire of our passions. If we don't overcome this fog, if we don't resist its becoming ever denser through Luciferic and Ahrimanic forces, we're prisoners, as occultists say. There actually are men today who are born with great capacities and reach certain stages very quickly, but are then completely wrapped up in such a fog by the adversarial powers that they can't get out. One calls this occult imprisonment.

Our desire world consists entirely of egoism. And we can only overcome this egoism in deep humility. Which thought can lead us to an over-coming of egoism? The thought that we already spoke about yesterday in the exoteric lecture, the thought that we killed Christ. We're murderers, yes, that's what we are. We can transform this fact, but only if we let Paul's words live and become truth in us, “Not I, but Christ in me.” We shouldn't kill the divine in us through egoism, through our life of desires, etc., we should let Christ live in us. We should begin to carry out this easy and yet so difficult thing in us with shivering earnestness.

We arose from the divine: Ex Deo nascimur. We should take all suffering upon us willingly and patiently with the thought that we killed Christ; we should devote ourselves to him completely and die in him: In Christo morimur. Then we'll be reborn, reawakened through the Holy Spirit: Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus. This verse sounds different exoterically than esoterically, but the difference is in only one word that's left out in the esoteric version. As we leave this word out and don't speak this word in shy reverence for what this word expresses, our feeling goes out to what is left unspoken in shy reverence.

Ex Deo nascimur
In … morimur
Per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus.

This tells us that man arose from the spiritual; that he was originally contained in the spirit:

In the spirit lay the germ of my body.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
The eyes of sense,
That through them I may see
The lights of bodies.
And the spirit has imprinted in my body
Reason and sensation
And feeling and will,
That through them I may perceive bodies
And act upon them.
In the spirit lay the germ of my body.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.
And I will incorporate into my spirit
The super-sensible eyes
That through them I may behold the light of spirits.
And I will imprint in my spirit
Wisdom and power and love,
So that through me the spirits may act
And I become a self-conscious organ
Of their deeds.
In my body lies the germ of the spirit.

Berlin, January 2, 1905

Dear Mrs. Wagner!

A few weeks ago I was only able to briefly inform you that your affiliation to the Esoteric School can be realized. One enters this school as a “shravaka”, which is literally “listener” or “pupil”.

Now it is my duty to speak to you about the nature and significance of the school. You know that behind the entire theosophical movement stand highly developed beings whom we call “masters” or “mahatmas”. These exalted Beings have already traversed the path which the rest of humanity still has to travel. They are now working as the great “Teachers of Wisdom and of the Harmony of Human Feelings”. They are already active today on the higher planes, to which the rest of humanity will organize themselves in the course of the next developmental periods, or “rounds”. On the physical plane they work through their authorized “messengers”, of whom H. P. Blavatsky was the first, that is, for the Theosophical movement. The Masters neither found an outer organization or society nor preside over one. The Theosophical Society was brought into being by its founders (H. P. Blavatsky, Olcott and others) in order to promote the work of the Masters on the physical plane, but these Masters themselves have never influenced the Society itself as such. In its nature and leadership it is the work of people purely on the physical plane.

The situation is different with regard to the “Esoteric School”. It was founded by the Masters themselves and is under the direction of the Masters. All the knowledge and power that flows into the Theosophical Society flows to it through this school. Its members undergo their probationary period and ultimately attain direct communion with the Sublime Ones themselves. How long this process takes depends entirely on the devotees themselves. At first, each person cannot do more than promote the work of the masters with loyal devotion.

The Masters appointed Mrs. H. P. Blavatsky as the first “Head of the School.” The present head is our dear, esteemed Annie Besant.

The Shrâvaka should come to a point where reincarnation and karma are not just theory but certainties of life, and furthermore, where he recognizes the great mission of H.P. Blavatsky through himself. Nothing is imposed on anyone in the school; only self-knowledge is encouraged. Now there are four ways to travel the path of the Shrävaka. You will receive further information about these four ways very soon. I would ask you to go through them carefully with your dear husband and to let me know which of the four ways you intend to choose.

You can already consider yourself part of the school if you begin a meditation exercise on the day determined by the star constellation. I will describe this to you for the time being. It will be modified later.

For the time being, this exercise would consist of the following:

1. Early in the morning, before starting any other daily work, preferably before breakfast, if this is at all compatible with other family and other duties, the following should happen:

I. One should be completely awake, inwardly calm and collected. No external impressions should gain access to our inner being. We should also suppress the memory of all everyday experiences. Once we have established complete “inner silence”, we enter into the elevation to our higher self.

This is done by intensely repeating the following formula to ourselves:

Brighter than the sun
Purer than the snow
Is the Self,
The Spirit in my heart.
That Self am I; I am that Self.

Allow about five minutes for this.

II. This is followed by silent, introspective meditation on a sentence from one of the inspired writings. For this part of the meditation, you should spend four weeks reflecting on the sentence: “Steadfastness stands higher than all success”.

This sentence was given to us by the masters to impress upon us that we should never allow ourselves to be distracted or discouraged by any failure in our actions. A hundred failures should not deter us from doing - for the hundred and first time - what we have recognized as being right.

III. Then, after II. has lasted five minutes, there follows a further five-minute prayer-like devotion to that which is the highest, the most divine in us. It is not a matter of regarding this or that as divine, but of directing all our thoughts, feelings and will to that which we have always regarded as divine. This may be called by different names by different people. It is not important whether we call that to which we give ourselves, God, Christ or the “Master”, but it is the devotion itself.

This completes the three-part morning meditation, which lasts fifteen minutes.

2. In the evening before going to sleep, every student has to look back on their life during the day. The important thing is not to let as many events of the day as possible pass before our soul, but to do so with the most important thing. We ask ourselves: What can we learn from what we have experienced or done? In this way we make our life a lesson. We relate to ourselves in such a way that we learn from each day for each day. - In this way we take the past with us into the future and prepare our immortality. Then we end the day with the thought of dear fellow human beings who need our good thoughts.

It does not matter if the student falls asleep during this evening exercise. Then he will fall asleep with a tendency to develop upwards. And that too is good. Only the morning meditation must be done from beginning to end in a fully alert state. I only ask that you do the evening review in reverse, that is, starting with the events of the evening and then going back to the morning.

You can start with the meditation on one of the days between January 6 and January 20. You cannot start after this day. If you are unable to start during this period, you will not be able to start again until between February 6 and February 18. I cannot tell you today why this is so. But a time will come when it will be quite obvious to you.

I do not need to tell you anything else for the time being, since you have long since organized your life as a theosophist. Wine or other alcoholic beverages prevent development.

When we carry out what I have indicated, the “Exalted Masters” find access to our soul. They can help us and under their blessed influence we grow in strength, knowledge and confidence in life. Our dear Annie Besant emphasizes again and again that the Esoteric School is the “heart of the Theosophical movement”. And so it is. Believe me on this, dearest, most revered Mrs. Wagner: in this school, it is much less about learning and intellectual work and much more about loyal devotion to the Theosophical ideals. Love for spiritual life and, as a result, genuine great love for humanity leads to where we are meant to come. The study is nothing more than a means to an end. We should pursue it as far as we can each. But it is the theosophical attitude that makes the genuine E.S. disciple.

And with that, I welcome you as one of us in the name of the holy masters, at whose feet I place what I can, and against whose will I never want to consciously do anything in my life. Blessed are they, the exalted.

With warmest regards,

Dr. Rudolf Steiner

Please do not hesitate to ask me anything you need to know about E.S. I will set aside time in the future to answer E.S. messages.

I

Antisemitism does not exactly have a great store of ideas, not even of witty phrases and catchphrases. One has to hear the same stale platitudes over and over again when the advocates of this "view of life" express the dull feelings of their breast. One experiences peculiar phenomena. You may think what you like about Eugen Dühring, but those who know him must be clear about one thing: he is a thinker who is thoroughly versed in many scientific fields, highly stimulating in mathematical and physical questions and original in many respects. As soon as he starts talking about things in which his anti-Semitism comes into play, he becomes as flat as a little anti-Semitic agitator in what he says. He differs from such a person only in the way he presents his platitudes, in the brilliance of his style.

Having such paragon writers is of particular value to the anti-Semites. There is hardly any other party tendency where there is more constant reference to authorities than in this one. This or that person has said this or that derogatory word about the Jews; this is something that is always recurring in the publications of the anti-Semites.

So it was particularly convenient for these people when they were able to track down some of the old glittering phrases of anti-Semitism in a book by a German university lecturer, and one who enjoys a certain reputation in the widest circles, in the "System der Ethik mit einem Umriß der Staats- und Gesellschaftslehre" by the Berlin professor Friedrich Paulsen. - Indeed, in the first chapter of the fourth book of the aforementioned ethics, one encounters sentences that could have been said - perhaps somewhat less elegantly - by an anti-Semitic agitator among beer philistines in a small town or written - albeit also less elegantly - by the corner editor of an anti-Semitic newspaper. And they can be read in a philosophical theory of morals, written by a German professor of philosophy and pedagogy who gives well-attended lectures, who writes books that are widely acclaimed, and who is even considered by many to be one of the best philosophers of our time. He writes what we have heard so often:

"Different by descent, religion and historical past, they" (the Jews) "formed a foreign protective citizenship in the European states for centuries. Admission to citizenship was apparently based on equality not only of language and education, but above all of their political aspirations with those of the population group that had gained decisive influence on state life since 1848. With the change in the political constellation since 1866, the view of the position of the Jews in relation to the nation states has changed in wide circles of the population. If I am not mistaken, the mood of antipathy towards the Jews depends in no small measure on the instinctive feeling that the Jew does not see his future, the future of his family, as exclusively connected with the future of the state or people under which he lives, as other citizens do: If Hungary were to become Russian today, the hitherto Hungarian Jew would soon find himself in being a Russian Jew now, or he would shake the Hungarian soil from his feet and move to Vienna or Berlin or Paris, and be an Austrian, German or French Jew for the time being."

If I happened to open Paulsen's "System of Ethics" at the place where these remarks appear, without knowing the whole context in which they are found, I would first be astonished that a contemporary philosopher would dare to write things of this kind in a serious book. For, first of all, there is something striking about these sentences that would suggest anything other than that they originate from a philosopher whose first and most necessary tool is supposed to be an uncontradictory logic. But to be logical means above all to examine the contradictions in real life more closely, to trace them back to their real causes. One may ask: may a philosopher do what Professor Paulsen does: simply register the change in two successive moods of the times, which contradict each other thoroughly, without uncovering the causes of this change or at least making an attempt to uncover them? The liberal views that came to the surface of historical development in 1848 brought with them the conviction that the Jews were "equal in language and education" and even in "political aspirations" with the Western peoples. A later period created a "mood averse to the Jews" in many circles. Paulsen makes it easy to understand this change. He attributes it to an "instinctive feeling", which he then describes in more detail.

We will see in a sequel to this essay what this "instinctive feeling" is really all about. For now, let us just point out the inadmissibility of referring to "instinctive feelings" in a philosophical presentation of the "doctrine of morals", the basis and justification of which are not examined. After all, it is precisely the business of the philosopher to bring to clear conceptions what settles in other people's minds as unclear ideas. But Paulsen does not even attempt to do this. He simply makes the "instinctive feelings" that he thought he perceived his own and then says, quite worthy of the vague, unphilosophical pre-sentences: "Only when the Jews become completely settled... will the feeling of the abnormality of their citizenship disappear completely. Whether this can happen without the abandonment of the old national religious practice is, however, doubtful. After reading this sentence, I have only one question: whether it is not outrageous to say something so irrelevant in such a place, in a book that is intended for so many in an important matter? For one wonders what Professor Paulsen actually claimed. He has said nothing but that he believes he perceives "instinctive feelings" and that he cannot form an opinion about what is to become. If you want to take that as philosophical, you can. I think it is more philosophical to remain silent about things in which I have to confess so openly that I have no opinion.

As I said, someone who only reads one passage in Paulsen's book would have to say that. And he would be right at first. In a second part of this article, we want to show how Paulsen's version appears in the light of the rest of his thought, and then how it appears in the light of German intellectual life in recent decades. I hope that in such an examination one will find a not uninteresting chapter on the "psychology of anti-Semitism".

II

Those dull sentiments from which, among all other things, anti-Semitism springs, have the peculiarity that they undermine all straightforwardness and simplicity of judgment. Perhaps no social phenomenon in recent times has demonstrated this better than anti-Semitism itself. I was in a position to do so during my years as a student in Vienna some twenty years ago. It was the time when the Lower Austrian landowner Georg von Schönerer, who until then had mainly been a radical democrat, became a "national" anti-Semite. It will not be easy to explain this change in Sch6nerer himself. Anyone who has had the opportunity to observe this man in his public activities knows that he is a completely unpredictable character, for whom personal whim is more important than political thought, who is completely dominated by an unlimited vanity. It is not this man's own transformations, but rather the transformations of those who became his followers, that are a significant fact in the history of the development of the new anti-Semitism. Before Schönerer's appearance, it was easy to talk to young people in Vienna who had grown up under the influence of liberal sentiments. There was a genuine sense of freedom based on reason in this part of the youth. Anti-Semitic instincts also existed at that time. These instincts were not lacking in the more distinguished part of the German bourgeoisie either. But everywhere they were on the way to seeing such instincts as unjustified and overcoming them. It was clear that such things were remnants of a less advanced age that should not be indulged. In any case, it was clear that everything that was said with the claim to public validity should not have grown out of the kind of sentiment that anti-Semitism had, of which a person with a true claim to education would have been truly ashamed.

Schönerer had an effect on the student youth and, moreover, initially on classes of the population that were not very intellectually advanced. The people who switched from freer views of life to his unclear manner suddenly began to speak in a completely different key. People who had previously been heard to declaim about "true human dignity", "humanity" and the "liberal achievements of the age" now began to speak unreservedly of feelings, of antipathies, which were like black and white to their earlier declamations and to which they would not have confessed shortly before without blushing with shame. A point had been reached in the spiritual life of such people which I would prefer to characterize by saying that strict logic has been removed from the ranks of the powers that rule man inwardly. You can see this for yourself at any moment. None of those who had just crossed over into the anti-Semitic camp dared to seriously argue against their former liberal principles. On the contrary, each of them claimed that in essence he was still committed to these principles, but as far as the application of these principles to the Jews was concerned, yes... And then came some kind of phrase that smacked every sane person in the face. Logic has been dethroned by anti-Semitism.

For someone who, like me, has always been very sensitive to sins against logic, dealing with such people has now become particularly embarrassing. Lest one or the other think they can make bad jokes about this sentence, I would like to say that I am allowed to confess my nervousness about illogic without any immodesty. For I regard "logical thinking" as a general human duty and the particular nervousness in such matters as a disposition for which one can do as little as for one's muscular strength. But because of my nervousness, I myself was able to study the development of anti-Semitism using a particular example - I would say intimately. Every day I saw countless examples of the corruption of logical thinking by dull feelings.

I know that I am only talking about one example here. Things have happened differently in many other places. But I believe that you can only truly understand something if you have experienced it intimately somewhere. And I am perhaps particularly well prepared to judge the "Paulsen case" through these "studies" of mine. All due respect to the professor. But there is a worrying logical conflict in his case. Not as blatant as with my peers who converted from liberalism to Schönererianism. That goes without saying. But I think: the milder case of Paulsen is put into perspective by the more blatant case.

In the second book of his "System of Ethics", in the essay on the concepts of "good and evil", Paulsen writes: "A person's behavior is morally good if it objectively tends to promote the overall welfare, and subjectively if it is accompanied by a sense of duty or moral necessity." Shortly before this, Paulsen writes about the sentence "The end justifies the means": "If one understands the sentence in this way: not just any permitted end, but the end justifies the means; but there is only one end from which all determination of value proceeds, namely the highest good, the welfare or the most perfect organization of human life."

Can there be a bridge from these two sentences to the views that the aversion to the Jews brings about? Should one not, in the truly logical progress of thought, energetically demand the purification of such aversion through reason? What does Paulsen do instead? He says: "With the change in the political constellation since 1866, the view of the position of the Jews in relation to the nation states has changed in wider circles of the population." Should he not now regard this change as a departure from his moral ideal, from devotion to the one end that truly justifies the means? Liberalism has taken the belief in the "most perfect organization of human life" as a moral ideal seriously. This seriousness, however, does not permit a change such as that which has occurred since 1866. It makes it impossible to arbitrarily limit humanity in any way.

This is where Paulsen, in order not to become bitter against anti-Semitism, becomes lukewarm against logic.

I will save further elaboration on this logical fissure for the end of this article.

III

There must be deeper reasons in the intellectual culture of the present for the fact that a judgment such as that of Professor Paulsen on the Jews is possible within a work that claims to be at the height of contemporary philosophical education. Anyone who follows the course of intellectual development in the nineteenth century will, with some impartiality, easily be led to these reasons. There were always two currents in this development. One was in a straight line the successor to the "Enlightenment" of the eighteenth century; the other was a kind of counter-current to the results of the Enlightenment. The eternal merit of the latter will be to have held up the "pure, harmonious humanity" itself to man as the highest ideal. It is a moral demand of incomparable height to say that one should refrain from all accidental contexts in which man is placed and seek to emphasize the "pure human being" in everything, in the family, society, nation, and so on. Of course, those who say this know just as well as the wise philistines that ideals cannot be realized in direct life. But is it nonsensical to speak of the circle in geometry, because you can only draw a very imperfect circle on paper with a pencil? No, it is not absurd at all. Rather, it is extremely foolish to emphasize such a self-evident fact. It is equally foolish to speak in ethics of what cannot be because of the incompleteness of everything that is real. What is truly valuable here is only to state the goals that one wants to approach. This is what the Enlightenment did.

This view was contrasted with the other, which sought its roots in the consideration of historical development. When one speaks of this, one touches on great errors in the education of the nineteenth century, which are connected with great virtues. One need only mention the names of Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm to recall the full meaning of the phrase: nineteenth-century man learned to understand his own past, he learned to understand what he is now through what he once was. The Brothers Grimm introduced us to our linguistic, our mythical past. Their conviction is contained in the beautiful words: "A good angel is given to man from his native land, who, when he sets out into life, accompanies him under the familiar guise of a fellow traveler; he who does not suspect what good will befall him as a result may feel it when he crosses the border of his fatherland, where he is left by that angel. This benevolent companionship is the inexhaustible wealth of fairy tales, legends and history." We know that in the nineteenth century such views were vigorously pursued. The arbitrary ideas that Rousseau's contemporaries had formed about the original states of mankind were replaced by observations of real conditions. Linguistics, religious studies, general cultural history and the history of peoples made the greatest progress. Research was carried out in all directions to find out how man had developed.

Only a fool could underestimate all this. But it also revealed a deficiency in our views of life that must not be overlooked. Knowledge of the past should have merely enriched our knowledge; instead, it influenced the motives of our actions. Thinking about what happened to me yesterday becomes a stumbling block if it robs me of the impartiality of my decisions today. If I do not act today according to the circumstances that confront me, but according to what I did yesterday, then I am on the wrong track. If I want to act, I should not look at my diary, but at reality. The present can be seen from the perspective of the past, but it cannot be controlled from it. In one of his interesting writings, Friedrich Nietzsche's "Unzeitgemäßen Betrachtung" (Untimely Reflection) on the "benefits and harms of history for life" sheds light on the damage that occurs when the present is to be mastered through the past.

Whoever has open eyes for the present knows that it is wrong to think that the solidarity of the Jews among themselves is greater than their solidarity with modern cultural endeavors. Even if this has been the case in recent years, anti-Semitism has made a significant contribution to this. Anyone who, like me, has seen with horror what anti-Semitism has done to the minds of noble Jews must have come to this conclusion. When Paulsen expresses a view such as that of the special interests of the Jews, he only shows that he does not know how to observe impartially. Let us not allow our judgment of how we should live together in the present to be clouded by our ideas that we have undergone separate developments in the past. Why do we encounter a certain bashful anti-Semitism within the educated world where the study of history is taken as a starting point? The future will certainly bring nothing other than the effects of the past; but where does the rule prevail in nature that the effects are equal to their causes?

Whoever considers Paulsen's entire way of thinking will have to admit that he is an isolated phenomenon within the circles of so-called historical education. I will substantiate this in particular in a concluding statement.

IV

Friedrich Paulsen once characterized the dark sides of our present day in treacherous words. In his essay "Kant, the philosopher of Protestantism", he says: "The signature of our century, which is drawing to a close, is: belief in power, disbelief in ideas. At the end of the last century, the hands of time stood the other way round: belief in ideas was dominant, Rousseau, Kant, Goethe, Schiller were the great powers of the time. Today, after the failure of the ideological revolutions of 1789 and 1848, after the successes of power politics, the keyword is the will to power." There is no doubt that our time does not understand the mission of true idealism. Goethe once said that anyone who has really grasped the meaning of an idea will not allow any apparent contradiction with experience to rob him of his faith in it. Experience must submit to the idea once it has been recognized as correct. At present, such an idea has little appeal. Ideas have lost their power in our imagination. People point to "practical interests", to what "can prevail". One should consider that the history of intellectual progress itself, when seen from the right point of view, proves the power of ideas. Let me point to a striking example. When Copernicus put forward the great idea of the orbits of the planets around the sun, anything could be objected to it from the point of view of astronomical practice. Some of the facts about which people had experience contradicted the doctrine that Copernicus put forward. From the point of view of the practical astronomer, it was not Copernicus who was right at the time, but Tycho Brahe, who replied: "The earth is a coarse, heavy mass that is awkward to move, so how can Copernicus make a star out of it and guide it around in the skies?" Historical developments proved Copernicus right because, seeing through the correctness of the idea he had once conceived, he rose to the belief that later facts would eliminate the apparent contradiction.

As it is with ideas in scientific progress, so it must be with them in moral life. Paulsen also admits this in theory by defending the above-mentioned proposition. He deviates from it in practice when he presents anti-Semitism as a partially justified phenomenon. Those who believe in the ideas cannot allow themselves to be distracted by the historical development of the last decades in the unconditional validity of these ideas. He would have to say to himself: things may be such for the time being that reality seems to contradict the absolutely liberal ideas; these ideas are independent of such contradiction. Anti-Semitism is a mockery of all faith in ideas. Above all, it makes a mockery of the idea that humanity is higher than any individual form (tribe, race, people) in which humanity lives itself out.

But where are we heading if the philosophers, these bearers of the world of ideas, these appointed advocates of idealism, no longer have the proper trust in the ideas themselves? What will happen if they allow themselves to be robbed of this trust by the fact that, for a few decades, the instincts of a certain mass of people take a different path to that indicated by these ideas? A man like Paulsen can only be led to assertions such as those for which I have written these remarks by an excessive respect for historical reality. In the contradiction in which he sets himself to his own assertions, Paulsen shows quite clearly that he is under the spell of the false historical education I have characterized. He does not set out to criticize the historical development of popular instincts; on the contrary, he allows these popular instincts to have their say. That this is the case is also sufficiently expressed in the vague way in which Paulsen talks about antipathies towards the Jews. This way of speaking can certainly be recognized as "bashful anti-Semitism". Nowhere is it more necessary than in this area to document one's belief in the ideas through a decisive, unambiguous statement.

One rightly complains that philosophy enjoys a low reputation in the present day. It would deserve this low esteem if it lost faith in what it has to guard above all, the ideas. The philosopher must understand his time. He does not understand it by making concessions to its perversities, but only by opposing these perversities with the criticism that comes to him from his world of ideas. The philosophical moral teacher should treat everything that the anti-Semites claim about the Jews in the same way as the mineralogist, who will also claim that salt forms cube-shaped crystals if someone shows him a salt crystal that has had its corners chipped off due to some circumstances.

Antisemitism is not only a danger for Jews, it is also a danger for non-Jews. It stems from a mindset that is not serious about sound, straightforward judgment. It promotes such an attitude. And anyone who thinks philosophically should not stand by and watch. Belief in ideas will only come into its own again when we fight the unbelief that opposes it as vigorously as possible in all areas.

It is painful to see a philosopher contradicting the very principles that he himself has clearly and excellently characterized. I do not believe that it is easy for a man like Paulsen to be intensely committed to anti-Semitism. Like so many others, the philosophical spirit protects him from this. But at present more is needed in this matter. Any vague attitude is evil. The anti-Semites will use the utterances of any personality as grist to their mill if that personality gives them cause to do so even by an indeterminate utterance. Now the philosopher can always say that he is not responsible for what others make of his teachings. That is undoubtedly to be admitted. But if a philosophical moral teacher intervenes in the current issues of the day, then in certain matters his position must be clear and unambiguous. And with anti-Semitism as a cultural disease, the situation today is such that no one who meditates in public matters should be in doubt as to how to interpret his statements about it.

As an extension of my comments of the last few days, I would like today to take a closer look at the astronomical aspect of Easter. To do this, however, I will first have to touch upon certain facts relating to the so-called mystery of the moon.

For as long as there was Mystery knowledge people spoke of a secret of the moon. Inasmuch as human beings participate in the cosmos as a whole, this secret was related to human nature. It must be understood that with respect to our whole nature we are connected with the cosmos, just as through our physical bodies we are connected with the earth. Our materialistic times, however, have deprived us of the ancient awareness of the spirituality pervading the universe, spirituality that lives in the forms of constellations and in the motions of heavenly bodies. Our perception of heavenly bodies is now purely external; all we can do with them is calculate their movements, as we do with the planets.

Such an approach to astronomy, however, is like studying the human organism while ignoring that it is animated by a being of soul and spirit. Attending only to measurable quantities and to mechanical laws of motion, we overlook the spirit and soul that express themselves through these phenomena.

This spirit and soul, as they manifest themselves in the human being, are unified by the ego into a single entity, whereas in the cosmos as a whole we have to do in spiritual observation not with one but with a multitude, an immeasurable, limitless multitude of spiritual beings. Some of these express themselves in the forms of the constellations, others in the wanderings of the planets, still others in the radiant light of the stars, and so on.

This many-faceted heavenly spirituality is related to humanity's inner nature in the same way that earthly foodstuffs are related to our physical nature. The secret of the moon represents the most basic of these inner relations between us and the cosmos.

To the earthly eye the moon appears engaged in a constant metamorphosis. From a round, luminous disk such as we see now, it diminishes to half, then to a quarter, until finally it vanishes from sight in a phenomenon we call the new moon. This is followed by a gradual growth in size back to the full moon.

The usual explanation for this is, of course, that the moon is just a body that moves about in space and is illuminated from different angles by the sun, so that its shape apparently changes. Such an explanation, however, does not encompass everything the moon means to earth and to earthly humanity. Instead it must be realized that when we look at something as physically conspicuous as the full moon, something that presents us with a physical aspect, we are dealing with a completely different thing than when the same object presents itself to us as the new moon, which obviously cannot manifest itself in a visible, physical way due to the celestial configuration connected with it. However, we must not conclude from this that the new moon is completely without effect. When the state of the heavens is such that we know the moon to be new, it is simply a matter of the moon being present in an invisible and therefore more spiritual manner than when it appears in the physical light as full moon. The moon is therefore present at one time in a completely physical way, at another in a completely spiritual way, always rhythmically alternating between these two forms of expression.

In order to understand why this is so, it is necessary to recall certain facts with which you may be familiar from the account I give of them in my Outline of Occult Science. [Rudolf Steiner, An Outline of Occult Science, (Spring Valley, N.Y.: Anthroposophic Press, 1972). ] We must particularly call to mind that the moon was once inside the earth. It was part of it. Then it split away, becoming a satellite, as they say, and since then has orbited around it. But during the time when it was still joined with the earth, it acted upon human beings from within it.

Humanity, of course, lived and developed completely differently on the earth when it still had the moon within it. Earth was impoverished when the moon split off, because the forces by which humanity was shaped and held fast from then on were entirely earthly rather than both earthly and lunar. Lunar forces that once acted upon human beings from within the earth now exert their influence from without.

At one time the lunar forces radiated into the human being from below upwards, affecting first the feet and legs and coursing upwards from there into the entire body. Since the moon split off, however, these forces have acted in the opposite direction, from the head downwards, and in doing so have acquired a completely different role in the life of humanity from the one they had previously.

Where do we see this different function of the moon? In descending from pre-earthly existence to a new life on earth the human being has very definite experiences. When he has undergone everything necessary in the period between death and a new birth, the human being prepares to come down to earth, to unite himself with a physical body provided by an earthly father and mother. But before his ego and astral body can unite themselves with a physical body, he must clothe himself in an etheric body, which he gathers form the surrounding cosmos. It is here that the new role of the lunar forces comes to expression, for this process has changed fundamentally since the moon separated from the earth. Prior to that time, human beings who had completed the life between death and a new birth and again approached earth needed forces to gather the ether, which is scattered throughout the cosmos, around their ego and astral bodies, in order to fashion from it the shape of their etheric bodies. Such forces were provided by the moon from within the earth. Since the moon split off, human beings have obtained the necessary forces from outside the earth, that is, from the moon. Immediately before they enter earthly existence, then, human beings must call upon what lies in the moon forces, that is, upon something cosmic, in order to fashion their etheric bodies.

This etheric body must be shaped in such a way that it has, so to speak, an outside and an inside. This may be depicted as follows:

In fashioning the outer side of the etheric body human beings need forces of light, for in addition to other substances the etheric body is composed primarily of the streaming light of the cosmos. Sunlight, however, is of no use for this. Sunlight cannot bestow the forces that enable human beings to shape their etheric bodies. To obtain these we need the light that shines from the sun to the moon and is then reflected back, for in this process the light is essentially changed. All the light we receive from the moon, the light that the moon sends out into the cosmos, contains the forces we need to form the outside of our etheric bodies. Conversely, the spiritual forces that radiate from the new moon are the ones we need to shape the inside of our etheric bodies.

Thus our ability to form the outside and inside of our etheric bodies is related to the moon's rhythmic alternation between light and darkness. And this is possible only because the moon, contrary to the idle chatter of modern science, is really more than just a body in space; in reality it is permeated with spirit; it bears a multiplicity of spiritual beings within it.

On various occasions I have explained that when the moon separated from the earth not only did physical matter stream out into space but also a class of spiritual beings who had lived on earth in spiritual rather than physical form and who were mankind's original teachers. These beings went with the moon into space and founded a sort of lunar colony. We must therefore distinguish between the moon's physical-etheric and its soul-spirit aspects, keeping in mind that the latter is a multiplicity rather than a unity.

The activity of the moon's spiritual beings is entirely determined by how they view the surrounding world from their standpoint. To express myself pictorially, these beings first direct their gaze to what is most important to them, namely, to the planets. All occurrences on the moon, including those that assure human beings of the forces they need to fashion their etheric bodies, depend upon the results of observations that the beings living in the moon make of our solar system's planets—Mercury, sun, moon, and so on.

This was known in certain of the old Mysteries. Initiates of such Mysteries were aware that the moon-beings acted according to observations of the planets' positions and motions. This was expressed by bringing the moon, by which celestial configurations important to the fashioning of the human etheric body were determined, into human awareness and in connection with the other planetary forces. This was done by means of the names given to the days of the week:

In this way the moon's viewpoint was incorporated into a structuring of time that reminded human beings of the entire planetary context. In this way the ancient Mysteries attempted to awaken people's memories of pre-earthly existence, of a time when they had needed forces created on the moon by the moon-beings' observation of the planets. People were to be reminded that they owed the particular form of their etheric bodies to what the moon had been able to glean from Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and so on.

Thus we have on the one hand the moon's rhythmic oscillation between light and darkness as it orbits around the earth, and on the other the entire planetary system, inscribed into human consciousness by the names of days of the week. And to this the Mysteries could add even more. They taught, for example, that because the moon-beings can look toward Mars, we receive etheric bodies endowed with the capacity for speech. Likewise, because the moon-beings can observe Mercury, our etheric bodies are infused with the capacity for movement. In fact, if we consider these same teachings from an altogether different point of view, we can discover how eurythmy arises from human speech. Eurythmy develops out of speech when we explore the mysteries of speech by asking the moon-beings about their observations of Mars, and then watch how these observations change when they shift their gaze to Mercury. If we transform the Mars experiences of the moon-beings into their Mercury experiences, then we see the capacity for eurythmy develop out of our capacity for speech. This is the cosmic perspective on how speech is metamorphosed into eurythmy.

The capacity for wisdom that lives within us is made possible by the moon-beings' experiences of Jupiter. Our ability to love and to appreciate beauty derives from their experiences of Venus. Inner warmth of soul is planted into our etheric bodies by what the moon-beings learn from observing Saturn. And in order that our etheric body's formation not be disturbed during the period immediately preceding our descent to earth, everything that derives from the sun is kept at a distance; one could almost say, it is pushed away. It is from the sun or rather from the sight of the sun that protective forces must shield us if we are to become self-contained beings through the formation of an etheric body.

In this way we come to know what takes place on the moon, as well as how the etheric body is fashioned as the human being descends from pre-earthly into earthly existence. These are the facts I mentioned relating to the secret of the moon.

Such things may be spoken of today. In certain of the older Mysteries they were not merely spoken of, but actually lived through. What I wrote on the blackboard was not just known, but inwardly experienced:

The Mysteries of which I spoke to you yesterday enabled initiates to transcend the merely external use of their bodily senses, to free or distance themselves from their physical bodies, and to live exclusively in their etheric bodies. When they did so, however, they lived with all the realities of which I have just spoken. Rather than the speech that is formed in the larynx, they experienced the cosmic language that resonates from Mars. Their movements, too, were in harmony with the guidance Mercury exerts over the cosmos. They moved, that is, not with feet and legs, but in their essential being in accordance with Mercury's direction. And instead of having the wisdom we normally acquire with such difficulty as we progress through childhood and youth—nowadays it is really a lack of wisdom—the initiates lived entirely within the wisdom of Jupiter, not directly, but by uniting themselves with the moon-beings who observed it.

Through this form of initiation one could live entirely in the moon's radiant light. One actually left the earth.

No longer a being of earthly flesh and blood, one lived within the moonlight, but in the moonlight structured and modified by what lived in the other planets of the solar system. Through this kind of spiritual observation one actually became a light-being of the moon.

This must not be taken symbolically or abstractly. Just as today when we take a walk into Basel and back, we are fully conscious that what we are experiencing is real, so at that time people could be conscious of actually paying the moon-beings a visit through initiation. Initiates were conscious of taking leave for a while of their physical bodies and of moving into the moon's luminous realm as beings of spirit and soul. Clothed in bodies of light and united with the moon-beings, they could gaze out into the solar system and observe what revealed itself there.

Primary among the things they observed was that sun-beings exerted forces that could not be permitted to play any part in the fashioning of the human etheric body. They perceived, that is, that the sun tends to disintegrate or destroy the etheric body. And for that reason they knew that the forces emanating from the sun-beings must be received by the higher human members, the ego and the astral body, but not by the etheric body. Only upon the higher members could the sun-forces be allowed to work. For the etheric body, on the other hand, one turned not to the sun but to the planets. For the astral body and even more so for the ego's full inner power one had to turn to the sun.

This was the second thing revealed by the Mysteries that had access to the secret of the moon. Initiates knew that through their etheric bodies they belonged to the system of the planets, but that their ego forces in particular and also those of their astral bodies derived from the sun. In other words, through this form of initiation they became one with the moonlight, but looked at the same time toward the sun.

Initiates grasped that the sun shines its light upon the moon because it may not directly transmit that light to human beings. We then have moonlight in conjunction with the influences of the planets, out of which, as we have seen, the human etheric body is fashioned. That was the knowledge conveyed by this particular form of initiation, which thus also revealed the extent to which an initiate carried within himself the power of the spiritual sun. The initiate observed this directly, achieving thereby the level of a Christ-bearer. He became the bearer of a sun-being, not a vessel, but a bearer. Just as the moon itself, when it is full, is a sunlight-bearer, the initiate became a Christ-bearer, a christophor. His initiation into this was a thoroughly real experience. He escaped form the earth and ascended to become a being of light.

Now try to imagine this real experience, this earlier, inner Easter experience, transformed into a cosmic festival. In later times people no longer knew that they could rise above the earthly, unite themselves spiritually with the moon, and from there observe the sun. However, a reminder of all this had to be preserved, and it was preserved in the Easter festival.

Although in later times people with a more materialistic outlook could not recognize the possibility of such experiences, they did retain an abstract recollection of them. Rather than looking within themselves and knowing that they could unite themselves with the moonlight, they looked up to the full moon, imagining that not they but rather the entire earth was striving up towards it.

At no time could this be experienced more strongly than at the beginning of spring, when forces rise upward from the earth's surface out of the seeds buried in it.

Even after developing into plants these forces continue to stream upward into the cosmos. In the ancient Mysteries it was known that human beings could most readily achieve the lunar and solar initiation and become christophors when the earth's inner forces streamed up in this way into the cosmos through the stems and leaves of plants. The Mysteries represented this in the image of a human being floating upward on these forces toward the moon. This could only happen, however, when the moon was full.

Something of this knowledge survived into later times, but it became abstract. “The moon must be full.” Dimly, no longer realizing it could be an actual human experience, people subconsciously imagined something other than themselves streaming upward in the spring toward the first full moon. The moon itself, they thought, then looked toward the sun, that is, toward the first following Sunday. In other words, instead of a christophor looking at the sun from his newly-gained vantage point in the moon, people imagined that the moon looked at the sun, that is, at its symbolization in Sunday. Thus we have the following sequence:

March 21: Full moon: Sunday.

March 21 is the beginning of spring; the earth's forces burgeon forth into the cosmos. One must then wait until the proper observer, the full moon, is there. The moon then observes the sun, making the following Sunday Easter. Our method for fixing Easter's date is thus an abstract vestige of what was once a thoroughly real Mystery procedure, one that in ancient times many people experienced.

This procedure, however, is different from the one I described the day before yesterday. The latter, as you will recall, led to an understanding of the nature of death. I said that the process of resurrection, which was symbolized by the rituals of the Adonis cult and of others like it, demanded that one first undergo a kind of death experience in order to rise in the spiritual world after three days. For reasons I have already set forth, this resurrection process took place in the fall. By contrast, the procedure I have described today was celebrated or enacted in a different set of Mysteries, those conferring the solar and lunar initiation. It carried the initiates back before the beginning of earthly life.

Thus we look back to a time when certain Mysteries recognized our descent from pre-earthly into earthly life, while others, the autumnal Mysteries, recognized our ascent into the spiritual. In later times, however, when people no longer sensed this living relationship between themselves and the cosmos, the autumnal Mystery of ascent was mistakenly combined with the spring Mystery of descent.

Here materialism began to show its effects. For materialism not only gave rise to false opinions, it cast people into total confusion concerning things that had previously lent a kind of sacred order to human existence.

Part of that sacred order was that when fall came, a cosmic festival was observed that pointed toward a Mystery procedure, the spirit of which might be captured by the following words: “Nature is falling into decay, withering away. In this it resembles the decay of our own physical being. However, even as we look at nature, perceiving only transient things, the eternal lives within us. This must be viewed with spiritual eyes and is not affected by what happens in nature. After death it rises again in the spiritual world.”

Through the spring Mysteries, on the other hand, humanity realized that nature is overcome by the spirit.

Spirit works in from the cosmos, causing physical life to burgeon and sprout forth from the earth. People were thus reminded, not of how we proceed into the spiritual world at death, but rather of how we emerge from it and descend to earth. In other words, precisely when nature was on the rise, human beings were reminded of their descent into the physical, while when nature fell into decay, they were to reflect upon their rise, their resurrection, into the spiritual.

You can imagine the extent to which inner life was deepened by this experience of humanity's relation to the cosmos.

Different regions stressed different festivals. In ancient times there really were peoples who were more autumnal, while others were more vernal. The autumnal peoples celebrated Mysteries like those of Adonis; the others had Mysteries based upon such realities as I have described today. Only people of whom it is reported, and correctly so, that they traveled like Pythagoras from place to place, from Mystery center to Mystery center seeking knowledge, were able to have the entire range of human experience. Traveling from one place to another, they might at one time behold the autumnal Mystery, which is actually the Mystery of the sun, and at another the spring Mystery, which is the Mystery of the moon. This is why the ancient universal initiates are always portrayed as traveling from one Mystery center to another. And it may truly be said that they thereby inwardly experienced the year through the various festivals. Coming to a place where an Adonis festival was celebrated, they might say: “I behold the cosmic autumn and the radiance of the spiritual sun at the onset of winter's night.” Where a spring Mystery was celebrated they might say: “I behold the Mystery of the moon.” In this way they came to know the year's full inner meaning.

Thus, as you can see, Easter as we know it today is encumbered with things that do not really belong to it. It should actually be a ceremony of burial, one that goads us into working, just as the spring festivals did for ancient peoples. Such festivals gave them the spiritual incentives they needed for work in the summer; in other words, Easter was an admonishment to prepare for the summer's work. By contrast, the fall festival of resurrection was celebrated at a time when human beings left work behind. In leaving it behind, however, they experienced within themselves something of supreme importance to beings of spirit and soul, namely, an awakening to the eternal in them. This they experienced by contemplating the soul's resurrection in the spiritual world three days after death.

By proceeding from earthly Mysteries to cosmic Mysteries, from earthly knowledge to cosmic knowledge, we thus begin to recognize the year's inner structure as revealed through the festivals, even though much of the festivals' hidden meaning has been lost. Tomorrow, as time permits, I will try to go more deeply into matters that have been described today in more general, cosmic terms, by focusing on particular Mystery centers.

We have seen how the Mysteries provided human beings with a conscious connection to the world in such a way that this connection could be portrayed in the yearly cycle of festivals. In particular we have seen how Easter developed out of the principle of initiation. It should be obvious from all that has been said that the Mysteries played a highly significant role in humanity's development. Indeed, in ancient times essentially all of humanity's spiritual life and development originated within the Mysteries. To put it in modern terms, the Mysteries wielded great power in the overall guidance of spiritual life.

Human beings, however, were destined to achieve freedom, which meant that the Mysteries' powerful influence had to diminish and for a time leave human beings more or less to their own devices. Although today it can hardly be said that we have already achieved true inner freedom and are ready to proceed with the next evolutionary step, still a significant number of people have gone through incarnations in which the power of the Mysteries has been less palpable than it was in earlier times. The fruit of these incarnations, although not yet ripe, is alive in peoples' souls. And when an age finally dawns that is once again more spiritual, the current ignorance will be overcome. People will then freely greet with esteem and reverence the spiritual knowledge and experience that can be achieved through modern initiation. For without esteem and reverence, neither knowledge nor humanity's spiritual life would be possible.

One of the purposes of the festivals is to try to cultivate this reverence in ourselves by understanding how the spiritual has developed throughout human history. Through the festivals we can learn to look very intimately at how historical events pass spiritual contents on from one age to another. For even though human beings are the most fundamental link in the chain of historical development, in that they reincarnate and thereby carry experiences of earlier epochs into later ones, nevertheless each life is lived in a particular milieu, of which the Mysteries are of course a highly significant part. A most important factor for the progress of humanity is the carrying of the contents of Mystery experiences into later incarnations, where they are encountered again, either in new Mysteries, which in turn have their effect upon humanity as a whole, or in some other form of knowledge.

It is in some other form of knowledge that past Mystery wisdom must be experienced in our time, for the actual Mysteries have all but disappeared from outer life, and must rise again. I might say that if the impulse originating from the Christmas Conference that was held here at the Goetheanum truly takes hold within the Anthroposophical Society, then the Society, inasmuch as it leads to the Classes, which have already begun to be established, will become the basis for a renewal of the Mysteries. [The School for Spiritual Science, which was founded at the Christmas Conference in 1923, was divided into subject sections. In addition, the esoteric training was to progress through three classes, only the first of which had been established before Rudolf Steiner died in 1925. ] The Anthroposophical Society must consciously cultivate this renewal. The Society was, after all, witness to an event that, like the burning of the Temple at Ephesus, can be turned to good historical account. In both cases a grievous wrong was perpetrated. However, what is a terrible wrong on one level can turn out to be useful for human freedom on another level. Such harrowing events can indeed call forth a true step forward in human evolution.

To understand such matters we must examine them, as I mentioned before, on as intimate a level as possible. We must look at the particular way in which the world's spirituality lived within the Mysteries.

As I indicated yesterday, the fixing of Easter's date grew out of a spiritual appreciation of the constellation of the sun and the moon. I also indicated that moon-beings observe the planets, and that these observations guide human beings in their descent from pre-earthly into earthly life, guide them in the formation of their etheric bodies. Now in order to understand how the lunar forces or, one might say, the spiritual observatory on the moon makes etheric forces available to human beings, we can look to the cosmos; for, as we have had occasion to see, it is inscribed there, it exists there as a fact. However, it is also important to appreciate the interest human beings have taken in these matters throughout history. And that interest was nowhere more sincere than in the Mysteries at Ephesus.

Every aspect of the service to the goddess of Ephesus, known exoterically as Artemis, was designed to give an experience of the creative spiritual forces pervading the cosmic ether. When the participants in the Mysteries approached the statue of the goddess, they had the sensation of hearing her speak, in words such as this: “I delight in all that bears fruit within the vast cosmic ether.”

To hear the goddess thus express her heartfelt delight in everything that grows, buds, and sprouts within the cosmic ether was a truly profound experience. Indeed, the spiritual atmosphere of Ephesus was aglow with heartfelt sympathy for all budding and sprouting things. The Mysteries there were instituted in such a way that nowhere else could one find such sympathy with vegetative growth, with the budding and sprouting of the earth into the plant world.

One consequence of this was that the lessons, if I may call them that, that dealt with the mystery of the moon, of which I spoke yesterday, could be given at Ephesus with particular force and clarity. As a result of such instruction, each student was able to experience himself as a figure of light formed by the moon. One exercise in particular directly placed a person capable of performing it into a process of building himself up out of sunlight transformed by the moon. In the midst of this the sounds I, O, A * rang forth, as if emanating from the sun.

[*Translator's note: Pronounced as in English “eagle,” “boat,” “father.”]

These sounds, the Mystery student knew, enlivened his ego and astral body. I, O: ego, astral body, and with A, the approach of the luminous etheric body: I, O, A. As these sounds vibrated within him, he experienced himself as ego, as astral body, and as etheric body. Then, as if resounding from the earth, for the student was now outside the earth, came the sounds eh-v, which mingled with the I, O, A.

In this word, IehOvA, the Mystery student experienced himself as a complete human being. Through the consonants, he felt a premonition of his earthly physical body. These consonants are bound up with the vowels, I O A, which express the ego, astral body, and etheric body.

It was through such immersion in the word IehOvA that the Ephesian apprentice was able to experience the final stages of his descent out of the spiritual world. As he did so, however, he felt himself living within the light. Now truly human, he was a sounding ego and sounding astral body within a light-filled etheric body. Sound within light—such is the cosmic human being.

In this way it was possible to take in what is visible in the cosmos, just as what happens in the earth's physical surroundings can be taken in through the eyes.

While carrying I O A within himself, the Ephesian student felt himself transported to the sphere of the moon, where he shared in the observations that could be made from there. In this condition he was still a human being in general, undifferentiated; only upon descending to earth did he become man or woman.

It was a pre-earthly state into which the student was transported, a state preparatory to the descent to Earth. In the Ephesian Mysteries this self-elevation into the sphere of the moon was an especially vivid experience, which the initiates inwardly cherished, and whose content might be expressed in the following words:

Every Ephesian bore this reality within himself, counting it among the most important things that permeated his being. Indeed, he felt himself to be truly human when these verses sounded in his ears, to use a somewhat trivial expression. For he associated them with a newly-awakened consciousness of his connection with all the planets through his etheric body's forces. The verses, pregnant with meaning, were addressed by the cosmos to the etheric body:

The human being is experiencing himself here within the power of the shining moon.

Creative tones resonate forth from Mars. Then comes the force that animates our limbs, makes us into beings of movement:

Jupiter sends forth its rays:

As does Venus:

So that Saturn may gather all together and complete our inner and outer development, preparing us to descend to Earth and to clothe ourselves in a physical body, so that we might live on Earth as physical beings who carry the god within us:

From these descriptions you may gather that a brilliant inner light permeated the spiritual life of Ephesus. In fact, all that had ever been known about humanity's true stature within the cosmos was gathered and preserved there in the concept of Easter.

Yesterday I mentioned that certain people wandered from place to place in order to experience the totality of Mystery wisdom. Of these, many expressed wonder at the richness of the spiritual life at Ephesus. They assure us repeatedly that nowhere but there could they perceive so clearly and richly the harmony of the spheres as heard from the standpoint of the moon. The most brilliant astral light of the cosmos appeared to them there: they sensed it in the sunlight glimmering around the moon, pervading that light with spirit in the same way that the human soul pervades the physical body. Nowhere else than in Ephesus could they experience this, at least not with the same sense of joy or artistic vision.

Such was the Mystery center that went up in flames through the deed of a criminal or a madman. Ephesian initiates later reincarnated in Aristotle and Alexander, as I mentioned at the Christmas Conference. [Alexander the Great, 356–323 B.C., king of Macedonia 336–323, conqueror of Greek city-states and of the Persian empire. Pupil of Aristotle.
Aristotle, 384–322 B.C. Greek philosopher, pupil of Plato. Tutor of Alexander the Great.] These individualities then came into contact with what remained of the Mysteries of Samothrace.

As an example of how a seemingly meaningless outer coincidence can actually be of great significance in the world's spiritual evolution, I may mention, as I have before, indeed for many years now, that the temple at Ephesus was burning at the very moment as Alexander the Great was born. As it burned, however, something else happened as well.

Consider for a moment how much the devotees of the temple had experienced throughout the centuries, how much spiritual light and wisdom had passed through its halls. All that was passed on to the cosmic ether by the flames. One might indeed say that the temple's continuous, concealed celebration of Easter was henceforth inscribed, although in somewhat less legible characters, into the vault of the heavens, to the extent that that vault is etheric. This is also true of much other human wisdom as well. Surrounded in ancient times by temple walls, it later escaped and was written into the cosmic ether, where those who have risen to true Imagination may perceive it directly. Because of this, Imagination may be said to be an interpreter of the secrets of the stars. It is the key to former temple secrets now inscribed into the cosmic ether.

The same thought may be expressed in another way. Imagine that you are looking at a crystal clear night sky, allowing your perceptions to sink deep into your soul. Provided you are properly prepared, the forms of the constellations, the movements of the planets will all begin to transform themselves into something like a cosmic script. And by reading this script you will grasp the outlines of the mystery of the moon, which I set forth yesterday. Such things can be read in the cosmic script, provided the stars are no longer seen merely as objects of mathematical and mechanical calculation, but as letters of a cosmic alphabet.

To continue with the Ephesian Mysteries: as I mentioned, Aristotle and Alexander came into contact with the Cabeirian Mysteries in Samothrace at a time when all the ancient Mysteries were in decline. At Samothrace, however, these Mysteries were remembered and preserved, even practiced. Under their influence, Alexander and Aristotle experienced something akin to a memory of Ephesus, in whose spiritual life both had of course participated in an earlier incarnation. Once more the I O A sounded forth for them, as well as the verses:

Cosmic-born being, thou clothed in light,
Strengthened by sun in the realm of moon's might,

Blessed art thou by Mars' creative ringing
And Mercury's swiftness, mobility bringing,

Illumined by wisdom from Jupiter raying
And by Venus's beauty, love portraying—

So that Saturn's venerable spirit-ways
Might consecrate thee to the world of space and time.

But this was more than just a memory of times past. Rather, it gave them the strength to create something new, something unusual and hence little regarded by humankind. Before I reveal it, you must understand just what kind of creation it was.

Take any significant work of literature, for example, the Bhagavad Gita, or Goethe's Faust, or Iphigenia, in short, any work that you admire, and think about its richness and powerful content. Now, how is that content transmitted to you? Let us assume that it was transmitted in the usual way, that is, that at some point in your life, you read it. Physically speaking, what precisely did you have before you? Nothing but combinations of letters of the alphabet on paper. The entire magnificent content comes to you through mere combinations of the twenty odd letters of the alphabet. But provided you can read, something comes to life through these twenty odd letters that enables you to experience the entire rich content of Goethe's Faust.

On the other hand, you may decide that the alphabet is a frightfully boring thing, that such a concatenation of letters is the most abstract thing imaginable. And yet these little abstract letters, properly combined, can give you all of Goethe's Faust!

When Aristotle and Alexander heard the celestial harmonies once again at Samothrace, they realized what the burning of the temple at Ephesus had meant. They perceived that the Ephesian Mysteries had been carried out by the flames into the vast cosmic ether. At that moment they became inspired to found the cosmic script, which is composed not of letters of the alphabet, but of thoughts.

Thus the letters of the cosmic script were discovered, which in their own way are as abstract as the alphabet:

What we have here is a collection of concepts, first introduced by Aristotle to his pupil Alexander. One can learn to use them in much the same way that one learns to use the letters of the alphabet and read the cosmic script with them.

In later times, particularly in the abstract phase of scholastic logic, a very unusual thing occurred. Imagine a school in which the students are taught not to read, but rather only to learn the various letters of the alphabet in every imaginable combination—ac, ab, ae, and so on. In essence, this is what happened to Aristotelian logic. Works on logic would enumerate the above concepts, called categories. Students would learn them by heart, but not know what else to do with them next. It was as if they learned the alphabet but never learned to spell.

In a way, the concepts of quantity, quality, relation, and so on, are as simple as the letters of the alphabet, but knowledge of them is required in order to read in the cosmic script, just as to read Faust one must know the alphabet. And in essence, all past and future achievements of anthroposophy are experienced in terms of these concepts. For all the secrets of the physical and spiritual worlds are contained in them. These simple concepts, in other words, constitute the alphabet of the cosmos.

Starting in the time of Alexander, the earlier, direct perceptions characteristic of practices at Ephesus were replaced by something deeply hidden, something esoteric, that really began to develop only during the Middle Ages and that is embodied in the above-mentioned eight concepts (they may actually be expanded to ten). We are learning to live more and more with these, but we must strive to keep them as alive in our souls as the letters of the alphabet are when we read any rich and spiritual work of literature.

And so you see how ten concepts, whose illuminating and effective power has yet to be rediscovered, came to embody an enormous wisdom known instinctively for thousands of years. And although this light-filled wisdom lies, as it were, in the grave, someday it will rise again. People will then be able to read once again in the cosmic script, and to experience the resurrection of what has been hidden in the time between the two spiritual epochs.

It is of course our mission, my dear friends, to bring to light what has been hidden. We are here, after all, to find the human meaning of Easter. On another occasion I said that anthroposophy is a Christmas experience, but in all its endeavors it is also an Easter experience, a resurrection experience, bound up with the experience of the grave. It is essential, particularly at an Easter gathering such as this, to experience something of the solemnity, if I may put it that way, of our anthroposophical striving. We should sense the presence of a spiritual being just beyond the threshold to whom we can go and say: “How blessed mankind once was by divine-spiritual revelation! How glorious that revelation was in the temple at Ephesus! Now all that is buried; where must I dig for it?” To which the being beyond the threshold will reply, just as another did on a similar occasion, “What you seek is no longer here; it is in your hearts, if only you know how to open them.”

Anthroposophy is indeed in people's hearts, and these hearts need only be opened in the right way. That should be our conviction, and if it is, we shall be led back, not instinctively as in ancient times but in full awareness, to the wisdom that lived and shone in the Mysteries.

I offer you these Easter words in the hope that they might reach your hearts, for by devotedly cultivating the solemn mood that anthroposophy can enkindle within our souls, we reach up into the spiritual world. At the same time, this solemn mood is connected with the Christmas impulse given at Dornach, which must not be allowed to remain abstract or intellectual, but must issue from the heart. Avoiding both joylessness and sentimentality, it must be a natural expression of the solemn facts.

Just as the fire of Ephesus flared anew within the hearts of Aristotle and Alexander, after scorching the cosmic ether and revealing to them the secrets that they compressed into the simplest of forms, just as they used the burning of Ephesus, so too must we—and this may be said in all modesty—be able to make use of what the flames of the Goetheanum carried out into the ether as the substance of our anthroposophical aims, both past and to come.

It was in keeping with this, my dear friends, that at Christmas time, at the beginning of the new year, the very time of year in which our misfortune occurred, we were permitted to let issue forth a new impulse from the Goetheanum. Why? Because we could feel that a previously earthly concern had been carried out by the flames into the vastness of the cosmos, and that because of this misfortune, what we represent is no longer a merely earthly concern, but rather of significance for the whole cosmic-etheric world. This world, filled with spiritual wisdom, has adopted the Goetheanum's cause, which was carried out by the flames. The Goetheanum impulses with which we imbue ourselves now stream in from the cosmos.

Take this any way you like; take it as a picture. But as a picture it points to a profound reality. To put it simply, since the impulse at Christmas all anthroposophical endeavor must be infused with esotericism. This is because impulses are now working their way in from the cosmos as a result of the astral light that streamed up from the burning Goetheanum. These impulses can strengthen the anthroposophical movement, provided we are in a position to receive them. If we are, then everything anthroposophical, including the Easter mood, will be sensed as an essential part of the whole that is anthroposophy.

The anthroposophical Easter mood convinces us that the spirit never dies, that though it may die to the world, it always rises again. Anthroposophy must base itself upon this spirit that rises ever anew from its eternal foundations.

Such is the feeling and concept of Easter that we may take into our hearts. And from this gathering, my dear friends, we shall carry away courage and strength for our work in other places.

Mementos of time, the Festivals direct our feelings and thoughts to the past. By their own inner significance they awake in us the thoughts which bind us to all that our own souls held sacred in the past. And moreover, the understanding of everything which underlies the Festivals awakes in us thoughts which direct our gaze to the future of mankind, in other words, to the future of our own souls. Feelings are awakened in us which fill us with enthusiasm to fit ourselves to play our part in times to come; our will is fired by ideals which give us strength so to labour that we may be enabled to fulfil more and more perfectly our tasks for the future.

In the deeper sense of the word Whitsuntide may be characterised by a looking in spirit back to the past and yet on towards the future. The significance of the Festival for the nations of the West stands out before us in a stupendous scene, which appeals to the deepest feelings of our nature. The scene is familiar to every one here present. After the accomplishment of the Mystery of Golgotha, the Founder of Christianity lingers awhile among those who are able to see Him in that body which He used after the Mystery, and the further succession of events is placed before our souls in an impressive series of pictures. The body which the Founder of Christianity took after the Mystery of Golgotha, dissolves visibly, and is revealed to His most intimate disciples in the mighty vision known to us as the Ascension and ten days later there follows that which is now to be shown us in a picture, speaking a language which goes to the very hearts of all willing to understand it. The disciples of Christ are assembled; those who first understood Him are gathered together. Profoundly they feel the mighty impulse which has entered through Him into the evolution of mankind and their souls anxiously await the fulfilment of the promise made to them, of events which should be accomplished in their own souls. Gathered together in deep fervour of spirit are these first disciples and followers of the Christ-Impulse on the day, time-honoured in their land, of the Feast of Pentecost. Their souls are raised to a loftier perception; they are called upon, as it were, by a ‘rushing mighty wind,’ to direct their powers of observation to that which should come, to that which awaited them when, reborn again and again with that fiery impulse which they had received into their hearts, they should live on this Earth of ours. Before our souls there rises a picture of the ‘fiery tongues’ as they descend on the head of each disciple and a new and mighty vision appears to those present, in which they see what the future of this impulse will be.

Those first disciples of Christ who were assembled together and who beheld in spirit the spiritual world, felt that they were not addressing only those nearest to themselves within the Emit of space and time. They felt their hearts transported far away to the people scattered over the face of the Earth; they felt that something lived in their hearts translatable into all languages and into the understanding of the hearts of all men. In this mighty vision, in which the future of Christianity is revealed, these earliest disciples saw themselves as if encircled by the future believers out of all the nations of the Earth; it impressed them with the feeling that they would one day have the power to announce the Christian message in words which would be understood, not alone by those nearest to them in space and time, but by all the human beings who would in future work out their destiny on the Earth.

That was the sum of feeling and inner experience which filled the minds of those first followers of Christ on that first Christian Whitsunday. But according to the explanation given in the true esoterically Christian sense and clothed in symbolical language, the Spirit, also called the Holy Ghost, Who lives, and Who poured out His force on Earth at the time when Christ Jesus descended in spirit into the Earth, Who first appeared again at the baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist—the same Spirit in another form, in that of many single fiery tongues, descended on the different individualities of the first Christian believers. On Whitsunday, we hear of the Holy Ghost in a special form. Let us call up the meaning of the expression ‘Holy Ghost,’ as it is understood in the Gospels. How in olden times (including pre-Christian times) was the spirit generally described?

In ancient times spirit was mentioned in many connections but especially in one. The view was held, which is now again justified by the knowledge gained through our present Spiritual Science, that when a human being at birth enters upon the existence between birth and death, the body in which this individuality incarnates is determined in a two-fold manner. In reality this body has a double task to perform. As regards our corporality we belong to the whole human race, but we are also more particularly individuals of a certain nation, race or family. In those olden times preceding the proclamation of Christianity, there was but little to be observed of what we may call ‘common humanity,’ there was little of that feeling of belonging to one another which has been gaining ground more and more in the human heart ever since the proclamation of Christianity, the feeling that prompts the words: ‘Thou art man in common with all men on Earth!’ On the other hand, the feeling of the individual that he belonged to a particular nation or family was all the stronger. This feeling is even expressed in the venerable Hindu religion, in the belief that only he can be a true Hindu who is one by community of blood. In many respects, though they had often broken through it, the old Hebrews kept strictly to this principle before the coming of Christ Jesus. In their opinion a man was one of their nation only because his parents, who also belonged to it through blood relationship, had placed him there. But there was something else that invariably made itself felt. In old times and in all nations the individual always felt himself more or less to be the member of a group, the member of an organism which was his nation, and the farther we retreat into the far distant past the more intense do we find the feeling of membership of an organism, of a nation and the rarer becomes the feeling of being a single individual. But gradually the human being learnt also at the same time to be conscious of himself as an individual,—as a separate human being with distinct human qualities of his own. Two principles were felt to be at work in ordinary human life: the attachment to a people, and the individualisation as a separate human being.

Now the forces behind these two principles were variously attributed to the parents. The principle by which the human being belonged to his nation, that which made him a part of the community, was ascribed to heredity on the mother’s side. One in sympathy with these old opinions would say of the mother: The spirit of the people reigns in her; she was filled with the spirit of the people, and has handed on to the child the attributes common to all the members of his nation. Of the father it was said that he was the bearer and transmitter of the principle that tends to confer the individual, personal qualities. When, therefore, a human being was born into the world, it was said—among the old Hebrews of pre-Christian time, for instance—he is a person, an individual, by virtue of the paternal forces, whereas the whole nature of the mother was steeped in the spirit of her people and she has handed that spirit on to her child. It was said of the mother that the national spirit dwelt in her. And in this connection the spirit specially meant was that Spirit who from the spiritual regions directs his forces to mankind, by causing them to flow into the human race in the physical world, by way of the maternal principle.

But now, through the impulse of Christ a new point of view had arisen, namely, a belief that the Spirit formerly reverenced, the National Spirit, should be replaced by one akin to him, indeed, but Whose activity was of a far, far loftier character—a Spirit Who held the same relationship to all mankind as the former Spirit had held to the separate peoples. This Spirit was to be communicated to mankind, and was to fill men with the inward strength which should inspire the thought: 11 no longer feel myself belonging merely to a fraction of humanity, but to the whole of it. I am a member of the whole human race—I shall continue to feel more and more a member of that whole race!’ The force which thus poured out over the whole of mankind the element of common humanity, was ascribed to the Holy Ghost. The Spirit dwelling in the force which communicated itself from the nation to the mother was exalted from ‘Spirit’ to ‘Holy Spirit.’

He Who should bring mankind the power of developing in earthly existence that principle common to all mankind, could only dwell as the First-born in a body inherited by the power of the Holy Ghost; and this power of the Holy Ghost was conceived in the Annunciation, by the mother of Jesus. And in the Gospel of St. Matthew we read of the consternation of Joseph, of whom we are told that he was a pious man. According to the old meaning of the words this would imply that Joseph was one who would consider that, if he ever had a, child, it must be born out of the Spirit of its nation. Joseph now learns that the mother of his child is filled, ‘penetrated’ (for this is the true meaning of the word in our language) by the force of a Spirit, but not merely of a National Spirit (Archangel); she is penetrated by the force of that Spirit Who is the Spirit of universal humanity I And he believes that he can have no fellowship with a woman who bears in her the Spirit of all humanity and not that Spirit in whom he had piously placed his confidence; he does not believe that such a woman could ever be the mother of his children. Therefore, as it is said, he was ‘minded to put her away privily.’ And it was not until he, too, had received from the spiritual world a communication bestowing power on him, that he could make up his mind to have a son of that woman who was penetrated and filled with the power of the Holy Ghost. This Spirit is therefore creatively active, inasmuch as He pours out His forces into the evolution of mankind at the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. And the same Spirit is again active in that stupendous deed, the Baptism of John in the Jordan. Now we understand what is meant by the power of the Holy Ghost. It is the force which will raise man more and more above all that would tend to differentiate and isolate him, to that which makes him a member of the whole of humanity over all the Earth, that force which works like a link binding every soul to every other soul—no matter in what body it may be.

Now we are told of this same Holy Ghost that it is He Who descended, in a new revelation at Whitsuntide, into the individualities of the first confessors of the Christian faith. At the Baptism by John we have the picture of the Spirit in the form of a dove; but now another picture is given in the tongues of fire. It is one dove, a single form, in which the Holy Ghost manifests at the Baptism by John; whereas at Whitsuntide He manifests in many separate tongues! And every one of these tongues is an inspiration for the individual souls for every single individual among the first confessors of Christianity. What then does this Whitsun symbol represent to our souls?

After the Bearer of the universal human spirit had finished His labours on Earth, after the Christ had rendered up His last vestures to be dissolved in the Universe; when the visible form of Christ was dissolved as Unity in the spiritual part of the Earth,—then, for the first time, the possibility was created, that from the hearts of the disciples of the Christ-Impulse should go forth the ability to speak of that Christ-Impulse, to labour in conformity with that Christ- Impulse. Gone is the Christ-Impulse in so far as He had manifested in visible form, into the one and indivisible spiritual world, in the Ascension; ten days later He reappears, bom out of the hearts of every one of these first disciples. The reappearance in manifold form of the same Spirit that had been operative in the force of the Impulse of Christ, made of the first disciples of Christianity the channels and preachers of the Message of Christ, thus placing at the beginning of the Christian evolution the mighty token which proclaims to us the message. As each of the first disciples was privileged individually to receive the Christ-Impulse in the form of fiery tongues, kindling inspiration in his own soul, so can each one of you, if you endeavour to understand the Impulse of Christ, receive this power individually in your hearts. That power can then grow more and more in you and can become more and more perfect. That token that was set up at the beginning of Christianity may become the fountain of a vast hope welling up in us. And as he advances in perfection, the human being can feel that the Holy Ghost speaks from within him in proportion as his thought, feeling and will are penetrated with the Holy Ghost, Who, by cleaving asunder, or multiplying Himself, becomes an individual Spirit in each separate human individuality in whom He works. Thus, as regards our future evolution, the Holy Ghost is for us men the Spirit of development into free men, the freedom of the human soul. The spirit of freedom reigns in that Spirit which was poured out on the first disciples of Christianity, on that first Christian Whitsun Festival—the Spirit Whose most salient quality is indicated by Christ Jesus Himself in the words: ‘Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free 1’ Man can be free only in spirit; so long as he is dependent on that in which his spirit dwells, namely his body, so long is he a slave of that body; he can only be free when he finds himself again in spirit and when, out of that spirit, he becomes master of that which is within him. ‘To be free’ presupposes that we have found the spirit within us. The true spirit, in whom we can find ourselves, is the universal human spirit, which we recognise as the force of the Holy Ghost entering us at Whitsuntide, the spirit to which we must give birth within ourselves and which we must allow to become manifest.

Thus we see the symbol of Whitsuntide transformed into our mightiest ideal of the free unfolding of the human soul to a self-contained, free individual. This was felt more or less dimly even by those who, not impelled by any clear consciousness of their own, but acting on inspiration, were concerned in the fixing of Whitsunday on a definite day in the year. Even this outer institution of the Feast-days is remarkable and no one who is unable to trace the guiding wisdom, even in the fixing of the Festivals, has any real understanding of the world.

Let us take the three Festivals, Christmas, Easter and Whitsuntide. As a Christian Festival Christmas falls on a certain fixed day of the year. It is fixed once for all on that particular day of December; every year we celebrate the Christmas Feast on that same day. Easter is different, it is a ‘movable’ feast, dependent on the constellations in the heavens. Easter falls on the first Sunday after the full moon following the Vernal equinox. In order to determine this, man must turn his gaze heavenward, to the expanse in which the stars follow their course and from the fields of space proclaim to us the laws governing the world. Easter is a movable feast, precisely as in every individual the moment varies which awakens the force of the higher man, endowed with a higher consciousness, to free himself from ordinary, lower human frailty. As in one year Easter falls on one day, the next year on another day, so also in the case of the individual human being—according to his past and the earnestness of his striving—sooner or later the moment will come in which he will be able to say with conviction: ‘I feel that I have the strength to bring forth a higher self from within me!’

Christmas is, however, an immovable feast. At that Festival one can look back over the course of the year, on the blossoming and the decay of Nature, with all the joys of the swelling and bursting forth of Nature’s forces. Then one sees the Earth-life in its state of sleep, into which it has withdrawn its germinal force. External Nature has withdrawn, taking with it all its germinating forces. When the outer world of the senses sees least of the manifestation of these springs of growth, when the Earth itself shows how at a certain period the spiritual forces withdraw, in order that they may gather strength for a new year of life, when physical nature is most silent, at that time of the Christmas Festival man should let the thought of a hope stir within him—the hope that he is not only united with the Earth-forces now lying dormant at Christmastide, but is also united with those other forces, which are never dormant, the forces dwelling in the spiritual regions as well as on Earth. This hope should rise in his soul when he watches the Earth as it were sinking to rest. From the inmost depths of the soul itself this hope will spring; it will be the spiritual light of the soul at the time of deepest gloom outside in physical Nature. Then shall man be reminded by the token of the Christmas Festival that he is for a while bound to his earth-body with the forces of the ego, in the same way as everything in the nature of manifestation around him is bound to the circuit of the Earth during the year. Coinciding with the sleep of the Earth, which every year begins at the same period, is the Christmas Festival when man should call to mind that he is chained to a body, but that he is not condemned to remain bound to that body; that he may cherish the hope that he will find strength to make of himself a free soul. What we recognise as important in the Christmas Festival should thus remind us of our connection with our body and of the heritage which is ours to free ourselves from that body. But it depends on the earnestness of our endeavour whether we bring to fruition sooner or later the forces for which we dare to hope, and which will lead us back again to spiritual worlds, to heavenly places.

The Easter Festival should awaken such thoughts in us. It should remind us that we have not only at our disposal those forces that are ours through our body and which are also divine, spiritual forces; it should remind us besides that as human beings we can rise above the Earth. It is the Easter Festival that reminds us of that force which sooner or later will be awakened within us. The Easter Festival has been instituted as a movable feast, in conformity with the heavenly constellations. Man must arouse in himself the remembrance of what he can become, by raising his eyes to Heaven, in order to find help to free himself from all earthly existence, to raise himself above all earthly life. In the strength we derive in this way lies the possibility of our inner freedom, our inner liberation. When we feel in ourselves the ability to rise above ourselves, we shall be striving verily to attain that elevation. Then shall we desire to make our inner man free from the bonds that chain him to the outer man. Then shall we indeed dwell in the outer man, but we shall be fully conscious of our inner spiritual force, the inner man. On the consciousness that we can liberate ourselves, on the experience of that inward Easter Festival within us, depends the attainment of that other experience, that of Whitsuntide—the penetration of that spirit which has now found itself, with a content, not of this world, but of the spiritual realms. This content from the spiritual worlds can alone make us free. It is the spiritual truth of which Jesus Christ said: ‘Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.’ The Festival of Whitsuntide depends on the Easter Festival. It is a consequence of the Easter Festival—that feast determined by the constellations in the heavens; Whitsuntide is, as it were, a necessary consequence, one that must follow the Easter Festival at the end of a certain number of weeks.

On deeper reflection, we thus discover sovereign wisdom even in the fixing of the seasons for those Festivals; we discover that their recurrence precisely in this order in the course of the year is a necessity and that they show us with each new year what we as human beings have been, are, and may yet become. If we are able to reflect on these Festivals in this way, as Festivals uniting us with all the past, they will be to us like an impulse bestowed on humanity, urging us forward. Whitsuntide especially, if we so understand it, arms us with confidence, strength and hope, when we know what our inward growth may be if we become followers of those who, through their understanding of the Christ-Impulse first made themselves worthy of the outpourings of the tongues of fire. The anticipation of the conception of the Holy Ghost enraptures our spiritual gaze when we understand its character as a Festival of the future. But if we would attain this we must learn to understand the true Christian significance of Whitsuntide. Then we must learn to understand the language of those mighty tongues, of the stupendous Pentecostal Inspirations. What were the tones, as of sounding brass, which were heard above the ‘rushing’ of the mighty wind, described in that picture presented to us as that of the first Christian Whit-Sunday? What voices were those which in a wonderful cosmic harmony declared ‘Ye who are the first to understand it, have felt the force of the Christ-Impulse, and the power of Christ has become such a force in your own souls, that, since the Crucifixion on Golgotha, every one of these souls has become able to behold Christ present with you; thus mightily has the Christ- Impulse worked in some among you!’

The Christ-Impulse is one of freedom; its effect, in the truest sense, is not seen in its operation outside the human soul. The true working of the Christ Impulse appears when it is active within the individual human soul itself. Those who were the first to understand Christ felt themselves called by their experience on the Day of Pentecost to announce what they had witnessed, what was revealed to them in the visions and inspirations of their own souls as the content of the doctrine of Christ. Being conscious that the Christ-Impulse had been at work in the holy preparation that they had made before the Whitsuntide Festival, they felt themselves called by the power of the Christ-Impulse working in them, to let the tongues of fire speak through them—the Holy Ghost individualised in themselves—and to go forth and preach the message of Christ. Not merely what Christ had said to them, not alone the words spoken by Him, were recognised by those who understood the significance of the Day of Pentecost; they recognised as the words of Christ those uttered by the power of a soul that feels within it the Impulse of the Christ. For this reason the Holy Ghost pours Himself, as an individualised Spirit, into every single human soul that develops in itself the power to feel the Christ-Impulse. To such a soul the words: ‘I am with you always, even unto the end of the world!’ have a new meaning. Those whose efforts to receive the Christ-Impulse are sincere, may also feel called by the stimulus of that Impulse working in their hearts to proclaim the Word of Christ, however new, however different it may sound in every fresh epoch of humanity. The Holy Spirit was not poured forth so that we might adhere to the few words in the Gospels which were uttered in the first decades after the founding of Christianity, but He was poured forth, so that the message of Christ might always say something new. According as the human souls advance from one epoch to another, and from incarnation to incarnation, a new message must be proclaimed to them. Is it reasonable to suppose that the souls progressing from incarnation to incarnation should always be obliged to listen to the proclamation of Christ in the words which were spoken when those same souls were living in bodies contemporary with the historical appearance of Christ on earth? The power to speak to all men till the end of the Earth-cycle is innate in the Christ-Impulse.

But something else is necessary, in order to make it possible that the message of Christ may be announced in every epoch, in conformity with the advance that has meantime taken place in the human souls. When the whole power and might of the Pentecostal Impulse is borne in upon us, we must feel that it is our bounden duty to give heed to the words: ‘I am with you always unto the end of the Earth-cycle!’ And if we are filled with the Christ-Impulse, we can hear those words, first spoken at the beginning of Christianity by its Founder, sounding through all ages—the words that Christ speaks at all times, because He is always with us—but words audible only for those who desire to hear them.

Thus we comprehend the power of the Whitsuntide Impulse as something that bestows on us the right to regard Christianity as an ever growing organism, ever revealing itself to us in new aspects. And we whose mission it is to proclaim in the Anthroposophy of our day the words of Christ, echoing to us from the heavenly choirs—we say to all who would preserve Christianity in its original form: ‘We are those who truly understand Christ, for we understand the true significance of Whitsuntide!’

When we feel thus called again and again to draw from Christianity new treasures of wisdom, we find in it that wisdom which is needed by the soul, developing from incarnation to incarnation. Christianity is infinite in its fulness and inexhaustible in its riches; but mankind was not ready for the reception of this fulness in the early centuries of its development, when it was necessary to proclaim it for the first time. Even to-day it would be a presumption to say that mankind is now ripe for the understanding of Christianity in its boundless fulness and magnitude! True Christian humility alone consists in the feeling that the extent of Christian wisdom is unlimited, but man’s receptivity for this wisdom, though at first restricted, will become ever more and more complete. Let us glance at the first centuries of Christianity and on up to our own time. A vast and powerful impulse, the greatest that has been given during the evolution of the Earth, was imparted to the world in the Christ-Impulse. Any one can realise this truth who has become acquainted with the fundamental laws governing the evolution of the Earth. But one thing must not be forgotten in this connection, namely, that only a fraction of all that is contained in the Christ-Impulse is as yet understood. In the two thousand years of Christian evolution which have almost elapsed since the coming of Christ, the teachings of esoteric Christianity have been hidden from the world to which Christianity was brought, nor have they yet penetrated into exoteric life. That doctrine, for instance, which can be proclaimed as a Christian truth in the present epoch, the return of the human soul to earth-life, or reincarnation, could not become a part of the Christian teachings at an earlier time. And if we now proclaim reincarnation, we do so in full consciousness, and in the same sense in which we have to-day characterised the Whitsuntide Festival—that reincarnation is a Christian truth which can be communicated to mature souls to-day, even exoterically, but which could not be proclaimed to the still immature souls of the first centuries of Christendom.

It is of little use to point out particular passages to prove that the idea of reincarnation is found in Christianity. We can learn from all the opponents of Anthroposophy who call themselves ‘Christians,’ how little is known of reincarnation in exoteric Christianity. All that is known is that theosophy teaches something called rebirth, and this is quite enough to call forth the assertion: ‘That is an Indian—or Buddhist—doctrine!’ How little do such people know that the living Christ is the living Teacher from the spiritual worlds of reincarnation. They merely think that reincarnation and with it the doctrine of Karma, have not as yet been able to find their way into exoteric Christianity. In fragments, and at different times, mankind has gradually to be prepared for the reception of the fulness of truth contained in Christianity. Together with the Impulse of the Christ, which is no doctrine or theory, but a force that must be experienced in the depths of the soul, we gain something else. What do we gain? It is precisely when we unite the doctrine of reincarnation with the Christ-Impulse that we can understand what it brings us.

We know that only a few centuries before the dawn of Christianity, other, more doctrinal teachings were given in the East:—the teachings of Buddha. While the force and the impulse of Christianity had spread from Asia Minor westwards, the East was the scene of a widespread extension of Buddhism. We know that that religion contains the doctrine of reincarnation. But in what form? For those acquainted with the facts, Buddhism presents itself as the final outcome of teachings and revelations that had gone before. Hence the accumulated greatness of primal ages is contained in Buddhism; yet we see in it the final consequence of the primeval wisdom of humanity, which likewise contained the teaching of reincarnation. What form does reincarnation assume in the revelations of Buddhism? It is presented so that the human being looks back on incarnations through which he has lived—and forward to others still lying before him. The doctrine that the human being passes from life to life is entirely exoteric in Buddhism. Let no one speak in abstract terms of the similarity of all religions; in reality, vast and mighty differences exist, for instance, between Christianity, in which for centuries there was no thought of reincarnation, and exoteric Buddhism, which lived and moved in this doctrine. Instead of bringing together abstractions, we must be willing to admit facts. To the Buddhist it is a positive truth that man returns over and over again to earth-life; but he regards it in a light which urges him to say to himself: ‘Fight against the desire to return to incarnation, for it is your duty to free yourself as soon as possible from the longing for rebirth, and to live in a spiritual realm free from all earthly incarnations.’ Thus the Buddhist recognises the sequence of human lives; but he strives to acquire all possible strength in order to free himself as soon as possible from the necessity for reincarnation. There is something lacking in Buddhism,—its exoteric teaching proves this. It is wanting in something which we may call an impulse strong and vigorous enough to prompt the Buddhist to say: ‘Let me be born again and again if necessary!’ We can so change ourselves through the Christ-Impulse that we are enabled to draw more and more strength from it. Through that Impulse a strength comes to us that makes each incarnation more perfect than the last. Penetrate Buddhism—or the teaching of reincarnation in Buddhism—with the Impulse of Christ, and you have a new element, one which imparts to the Earth a new significance in the evolution of man!

On the other hand we have Christianity. The Christ-Impulse is contained in it indeed, but exoterically. What has this Impulse been to Christians in the past centuries? The exoteric Christian undoubtedly sees in its infinite perfection something to which he looks up as his great ideal and which he approaches ever more and more. But what presumption would it be for the Christian to imagine that in a single life he could somehow gather strength sufficient to bring to fruition the germ that can be stimulated by the Impulse of Christ. What presumption it would be for the exoteric Christian to suppose that he were capable of doing anything adequate to bring the Christ-Impulse to fruition and unfoldment! Such a belief would cause the exoteric Christian to say: ‘We pass through the gates of death; in the spiritual realms the opportunity will be given us of evolving and of bringing to fuller development the Christ-Impulse there.’ And thus the exoteric Christian believes in a spiritual life after death—one from which he does not return to Earth. Does the exoteric Christian who believes in a never-ending spiritual existence following life on Earth, understand the Christ-Impulse? He does not understand it. Did he understand it, he would never believe that, without returning to earth, he could win for himself what the Christ-Impulse has to give him in a spiritual existence following death.

In order that the Deed on Golgotha might be accomplished, in order that the victory over death might be achieved, it was necessary that Christ Himself should descend to Earth-life;—this was necessary in order to fulfil that which could only be fulfilled and experienced on our Earth. For this reason Christ descended to Earth; because the force of that Deed of the Mystery on Golgotha must of necessity influence man in the physical body. If he has received the Impulse of the Mystery of Golgotha while in the physical body, that impulse will continue to work when he has passed through the gates of death. Only as much of the impulse as man has received in his life on Earth, continues to work after death. When he returns again to Earth, he must work out for himself the perfecting of what he has received. Only in the later earth-lives succeeding one another can man learn what is the real nature of the Christ- Impulse. Never could he understand the Christ-Impulse in one life; it must be his guide through repeated earth-lives; because Earth is the place for the understanding of the Mystery of Golgotha.

Thus Christianity will be lacking in something till the presumptuous thought that the Christ-Impulse could be exhausted in one life is replaced by that other: that repeated earth-lives are necessary to enable man so to perfect himself that he can give free expansion to the ideal of Christ within him. Then he can carry with him into the spiritual worlds the result of his experiences on Earth. But he can bring with him only as much of that Impulse as he has assimilated while on Earth,—that Impulse, the most important event in the whole history of our Earth, which had to be accomplished on the Earth.

We thus see that the next revelation by which Christianity must be enriched from the spiritual worlds, is the idea of rebirth, evolved out of Christianity itself. When we understand this we shall recognise the importance for us to-day, in the region of Spiritual Science, of the knowledge gained by us as a result of the Whitsuntide revelation. That knowledge confers on us the right to participate in the revelation; it means that we can feel a renewal of the revelation of the force conveyed in the ‘tongues of fire’ that descended on the first disciples of Christ.

We are reminded to-day in a new form, of much of what has been said of late in our movement. It is like the drawing together of East and West, of the two mighty revelations of Christianity and Buddhism. In spirit we can see the fusion of those two streams, and, through a right understanding of the Christian signification of Whitsuntide, we are able to vindicate the fusion of these two greatest of all religions at present on the face of the Earth. But it is not possible to unite two such streams of revelation by mere outer impulses: that would only be theory. Were any one to take what Christianity has given us up to the present time and weld it into a new religion, together with what Buddhism has so far given to the world, he would provide nothing new for the nourishment of the souls of mankind, but merely an abstract theory incapable of inflaming a single human soul. If such an event is to happen, new revelations must come. For us that is the message which has become known as Anthroposophy—a message now indeed audible only to those who have, by an assiduous assimilation of Spiritual Science, prepared themselves to let Christ speak through them—the Christ Who is ever with us. It has been pointed out that the present is a momentous time for the evolution of mankind; that before the close of this century new forces will be developed in the human soul, which will produce in man a kind of etheric clairvoyance, by which, as by a natural development, a repetition of the vision beheld by Paul on his way to Damascus will be experienced by certain persons; so that Christ will reappear clothed with etheric raiment, to those whose spiritual forces have been raised. The vision of Paul at Damascus will become a more and more frequent occurrence. Then the world will become aware of the existence of Anthroposophy, and will see in it the revelation foretold of a new presentment of the truth of the Christ-Impulse. This new revelation will be understood by those alone who believe that the fresh current of spiritual life into which Christ once and for ever poured Himself, will remain a living force for all time to come. Those who will not believe this may continue to proclaim a Christianity that has outlived its time. But they who understand it and believe in the real Whitsuntide outpouring will be able to comprehend that that which began with the Christian Annunciation will grow continually and will speak to mankind again and again in tones that are ever new. They will understand that the individualised outpouring of the Holy Ghost, the ‘fiery tongues,’ will ever be with us and that the human soul will know and bring to fruition the Christ Impulse with constantly renewed ardour and devotion.

We can believe in the future of Christianity when we truly understand the significance of Whitsuntide. And then with a power that works as a force immanent in the soul, the stupendous scene comes before us; then we realise the future as the first apostles realised it, under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost; so that we long to bring to life in our own souls something that knows not the bounds set between the separate fragments of humanity; something that speaks a tongue understood by all the souls on the face of the Earth. We are sensible of the peace, the love and harmony contained in the thoughts of Whitsuntide, and we feel the vivifying power of those thoughts at our Whitsun Festival. We recognise in them a pledge of our hope of freedom and of eternity. As we feel in our souls the awakening of the individualised spirit, the most momentous attribute of spirit—the infinity of the spiritual—is aroused within us. By his participation in the spiritual, man may become aware of his immortality and eternity. In the thought of Whitsuntide we feel most deeply the power of those primeval words, which Initiate after Initiate has implanted in various languages, revealing to us the meaning of Wisdom and Eternity. We feel them as a Whitsuntide thought that has been transmitted from epoch to epoch, in words spoken to-day for the first time exoterically:

‘Wesen reiht sich an Wesen in den Raumesweiten,
Wesen folgt auf Wesen in den Zeitenlaufen.
Verbleibst du in Raumesweiten und Zeitenläufen,
Bist du, O Mensch, allein im Gebiete der Vergänglichkeit.
Über sie aber erhebt deine Seele sich gewaltiglich,
Wenn sie erahnend oder wissend schaut das Unvergängliche
Jenseits der Raumesweiten und jenseits der Zeitenläufe!’

An approximate rendering of the foregoing is:

‘Being is ranged beside Being in the realms of space,
Being follows Being in the cycles of time.
Wouldst thou remain within the limits of space and time,
Then art thou, 0 man, in the realms of the Temporal alone.
But mightily thy soul wings its flight above space and time,
When, dimly foreseeing or knowing, it beholds the Eternal
Beyond the bounds of space and beyond the cycles of time.’