The Rudolf Steiner Archive

For esoteric development—the true path to knowledge—the individual must find the way to understanding what it means to live in a world in which the senses, the whole physical organization, in not a facilitator; that is, to live with the psychic-spiritual, which is man's true identity, in a spiritual world. In order to do so there are many different more or less meditative exercises, mental exertions meant to affect the soul.

And to give a picture of what a human soul can pass through on the way from experiencing the physical sensory world to experiencing the spiritual world is what will be provided in these class lessons by means of the various considerations and the summarizing of such considerations in individual verses, which may then be meditated upon according to each member's possibilities and needs.

Once a certain time has passed the communications given in these class lessons, which, as I have often stressed, are real communications from the spiritual world, will coalesce in such a way that those who have participated—it is also karma for those who could be here—will have a complete picture of the first stage of esoteric development.

As a result of the various indications which are given here we can gradually rise above our earthly existence to an experience of the cosmos, we can develop the feelings which carry us out into those distant reaches of the universe from which the spiritual comes to meet us. But as long as we confine ourselves to using our senses and reason only in connection with the sense-perceptible world which surrounds us, it will be impossible for us to grasp what the spiritual world reveals as the truth accessible to man.

You see my dear friends, as I have often stressed, human common sense can understand everything offered by anthroposophy, if it exerts itself sufficiently and is free of prejudice. But it is just in reference to this common sense where a touchstone exists concerning whether or not someone is really destined by their karma nowadays to participate in anthroposophy.

There are two possibilities. One is that the person hears about anthroposophical truths, lets them work on him and considers them to be self-evident. It is obvious that everyone sitting here today belongs to that group. For if someone who does not belong to that group wishes to participate in a lesson as a member, it would not be honest of them. And honesty is the most important aspect of esoteric life—complete truthfulness penetrating the human soul and spirit.

There is another group of people who find what is presented by anthroposophy to be fantastic, somehow belonging only to visionaries. These people show by their behavior that they are not able, according to their karma, to sufficiently separate common sense from physicality and the senses to be able to grasp sense-free truth, sense-free knowledge.

It is therefore the extent to which common sense is bound to corporeality or not which determines such a great divergence between people. For if you honestly consider that you possess a common sense which understands anthroposophy, then at the moment it grasps anthroposophy honestly, it does so independently of corporeality. And this healthy common sense which grasps anthroposophy honestly is the beginning of esoteric striving. And we should treasure the fact that healthy common sense which understands anthroposophy is the beginning of esoteric striving. It should not be overlooked. For when one starts with this understanding through healthy common sense and then follows the indications given in the appropriate schools, one proceeds farther and farther along the esoteric path. You can use whichever of the verses provided here which you consider appropriate for you. But you should apply them together with the indications as to how they relate to the inner life of man.

Today I would like to again provide an indication of how you can leave the body—if only by means of so slight a jolt that you don't even realize it.

We should develop the ability to observe and study the minerals and plants in our environment to the extent that we feel them within—if only by means of thinking—and become truly aware of how this earthly environment is related to us, that due to our wearing a physical body we are directly related to the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms around us. And then we ask the question in all honesty: Why? Why did I absorb the physical substances of the earth just by being born? Why do I drag myself through life from birth till death in order to end physical life once my organism is no longer able to process its physical elements? We must deeply feel our relationship to our physical environment starting from such a personal enigma. Then, however, we will also feel more and more what the starting point for esoteric life can be. Then we feel that in physical earthly life we are blindly groping in the dark.

And finally, my dear sisters and brothers, consider the people of today who have been placed in earthly life after birth and educated according to the usual methods and called to this or that work due to purely external circumstances. They do not understand the relationship of this work to the totality of human existence. Perhaps they do not know much more than that they work in order to eat. They do not realize that in the plants they eat cosmic forces from the distant boundaries of the universe are present which pass through the human organism and therefore in a certain sense undergo a cosmic evolution. Many people today cannot even begin to glimpse this process due to the materialism of the times. But to admit that by the mere consideration of earthly relationships one stands spiritually blind in life and lives in the dark—that is the starting point for true esoteric development.

And then change the direction of your gaze from what surrounds you on the earth to the star-studded heaven—either in thought, or if you really want to be affected by it, in reality. Behold the planets, behold the stars, fill yourselves with the infinite transcendence of what shines back to you from the universe, and say to yourself: as human beings we are related just as much to what radiates down from the universe as we are to what surrounds us in the physical environment.

Then by gazing up to the star-studded heaven, we really have the feeling that we do not live in darkness, but that we are freed from life in the darkness by rising with our soul-spiritual being to the stars, rise to what the stars represent as pictures in their constellations. And, you see, if we can really enter meditating into this vision of the star-filled sky it becomes a plenitude of imaginations. You know the old pictures in which not only the constellations have been painted, but in which they have been recapitulated symbolically as animals. Not only the star group that is in Aries, or in Taurus has been represented, but also the symbolic images of the ram and the bull are included.

Today people think: Well, it was arbitrary on the part of those ancient inhabitants of the earth that just because the constellations were so named that the corresponding pictures were added. But that was not the case at all. In reality in ancient times the shepherds in the fields did not merely gaze up at the star-studded sky with physical eyes, but also in dream-consciousness or sleep-consciousness out there with their flocks they turned their souls with closed eyes towards outer space. They did not see the constellations which physical eyes see. But they actually perceived those pictures, those imaginations which fill universal space—albeit somewhat differently from what was later painted.

We can no longer go back to what the simple shepherds experienced by instinctive clairvoyance. But we can do something else. With far greater thoughtfulness we can imagine ourselves into the star-filled sky. We can feel the depth and at the same time the awesome majesty of what radiates back to us. And gradually we can come to a sense of veneration for what is expanding out there in cosmic space. And the more ardent the veneration is the more clearly can the experience be that the outer sense-images of the stars disappear and the star-filled sky becomes an Imagination for us. But only then, when the star-filled sky becomes an Imagination for us, do we feel ourselves carried away by our soul's vision.

You see, still in Plato's time one felt something special about the physical eye when it is observing. Plato himself described seeing as follows: When I look at a person something leaves my eye and encompasses him. People in ancient times sensed that something streams out of the eye and encompasses the object. The etheric streams out. Just as when I stretch out my hand and grasp something I know that I am connected to my hand until reaching the grasped object, so in the times of instinctive clairvoyance people knew that something etheric goes out from the eye and encompasses the thing looked at. Today people think, well,the eye is here, the object seen is there. So the object sends out ether-waves which drum against the eye and the drumming is perceived by some kind of soul—about which even the materialist talks about here, but without having any idea of what it is. But that is not true. It is not a mere impact on the person emanating from the object, but really also an emanation of the person's inner etheric substance.

And we perceive our ether body as belonging to the universe when the star-filled sky becomes for us the grand open page of the universe on which the imaginative secrets of cosmic being are written—if we are able to read it.

And then the feeling comes to us: When you are here on earth you are in the robust sense-perceptible reality. But you are blind, you live in darkness. When you rise up with your sensibility then you live in what otherwise only shines down to you from the distant universe, and you live in the illusion of the distant universe. But at the same time you take your own etheric being out into the distant flooding stream of this illusionary world.

And the illusion ceases to be illusion. It cannot be a nothing if we immerse ourselves in it. When we have this feeling—I will draw it—.

We live as blind people in the darkness of earthly existence, (white arc); then we journey out into the distant universe (yellow rays), at the end of which we can feel the cosmic Imaginations by means of reverence for the brilliance of the stars (red waves).

So now that we have journeyed out we are together with our etheric being within the imaginative cosmic web. If we can accomplish this, then we are no longer in the physical body. We have traveled through the etheric emptiness to experiencing the cosmic Imaginations.

You see, it's like when in the physical world someone writes something down and, because we have learned to read, we read it. By being out in the cosmos—the gods have written the cosmic imaginations for us in the cosmos—when we arrive we see the imaginations from the other side (arrows). At first we live here on the earth (inner circle). Then we draw ourselves up to the cosmic imaginations (outer wave-circle).

Yes, my dear friends, my sisters and brothers, the zodiac speaks a meaningful language when we do not observe it from the earth—Arias, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo—but rather when we encircle it from without. And it is a task of our consciousness to encircle it from without. Then we begin to read the cosmic secrets, which are the deeds of the spiritual beings. In a novel we read of the deeds of men. When we look at the zodiac from the other side and read what from the earth we see virtually from behind, as Moses was told that he always had to look at God from behind, that is, from the earth. Initiation consists of seeing from the other side—not a matter of gawking, but of reading. And what we read are the spiritual deeds of the spiritual beings who brought it all about.

And when we have silently read long enough, when our souls have concentrated deeply on this reading, then we begin to hear in a spiritual way. Then the gods speak with us. When the gods speak with us we are within the spiritual world.

Now you see, my dear sisters and brothers, the initiate can tell you: the soul can rise up to the cosmic heights, receive the cosmic imaginations, read them from the other side, the spiritual deeds, become capable of hearing in a spiritual way the language of the gods.

But if you really immerse yourself in what the initiate relates with your whole heart, your whole feeling, if you don't just listen to it greedily and say: Well, if I also could do that I'd like it, it would be interesting—but I'm not going to bother. But you receive it as something which you can revere, which you can love, which you can repeatedly meditate on, then it is the path to enter esoteric life yourself.

And you will find this path by meditating profoundly on the words:¹

1. I live in the dark domain of the earth,
2. I wander in the brilliance of the stars,
3. I read in the deeds of the spirits,
4. I hear in the speech of the gods.

When experienced with the necessary deeply meditative feeling this works wonders in the human soul, transforms the human soul. It must rhythmically flow through the soul again and again, for it leads the human being through his own interior cosmic being.

But it is necessary that such a thing be deeply interiorized. And even though it still speaks more to the head, the heart should also participate in the whole process of going out into the etheric universe, then into the spiritual universe, that is, on the other side of the universe. It is necessary in such a process that we take our hearts with us in the experience and that it stimulate in you the feelings which can come quite naturally by this excursion into the outer universe. But these feelings must be really stimulated. It is therefore good to look deeply into what the words say:

I live in the dark domain of the earth,
I wander in the brilliance of the stars
I read in the deeds of the spirits.
I hear in the speech of the gods.

Then you try to imagine that someone is speaking to you from a spiritual depth, as though you were not thinking it, but as though you were hearing it, as if another being were speaking. You really imagine that another being is speaking to you from an unknown depth. Then you try to develop the right feelings for what you have heard.

These feelings live in the second part of the verse:²

5. The darkness of the earth creates longing in me,
6. The brilliance of the stars is comfort to me

When I am aware that I live blindly in the darkness of the earth, I long to get out. Then the brilliance of the stars becomes the comforter which expands my being:

The brilliance of the stars is comfort to me.

Now from the other side:

7. The deeds of the spirits are teaching to me,

—when I read them—

8. The speech of the gods is creating to me.

Only you must use it correctly. Imagine yourself vividly in this meditating which you are doing. As though someone were speaking to you from spiritual depths is how you hear the lines of the first verse. You bring the corresponding feeling to each verse, so that you experience in the meditation: first listen, then bring feeling; listen, then bring feeling; and so on.³

I live in the dark domain of the earth,
The darkness of the earth creates longing in me,

I wander in the brilliance of the stars,
The brilliance of the stars is comfort to me.

I read in the deeds of the spirits,
The deeds of the spirits are teaching to me.

I hear in the speech of the gods,
The speech of the gods is creating for me.

It is a meditation in dialog in which you always objectify the first line, but the second you feel as though streaming out of your heart. Now you try again to visualize how one acts and weaves into the other, and then try to feel with your will what you can experience through the dialog.⁴

From depth of spirit resounds:

I live in the dark domain of the earth,

The heart replies:

The darkness of the earth creates longing in me.

The will senses the impulse in the dialog between lines 1 and 5:

9. The earth's darkness extinguishes me.

After this dialog has taken place we recall the connection of lines 2 and 6:

I wander in the brilliance of the stars,
The brilliance of the stars is comfort to me.

10. The brilliance of the stars awakens me.

Afterward we recall what resounds from spiritual depths and the heart's reply:

I read in the deeds of the spirits,
The deeds of the spirits are teaching to me.

The will now senses:

11. The deeds of the spirits call to me.

into the spiritual world.

And now the most sublime, where we feel ourselves in dialog with the gods themselves, where the gods not only let us read, but speak:

I hear in the speech of the gods,
The speech of the gods is creating for me.

12. The speech of the gods engenders me.

—brings me forth, engenders me.

Now imagine the whole meditation. It runs as follows: dialog—line for line with a spiritual being present in the dim spiritual depths that always speaks the top line of the verse. And the heart always replies:

I live in the dark domain of the earth,
The darkness of the earth creates longing in me,

I wander in the brilliance of the stars,
The brilliance of the stars is comfort to me,

I read in the deeds of the spirits,
The deeds of the spirits are teaching to me,

I hear in the speech of the gods,
The speech of the gods is creating for me.

Now I recall each one and add the outpouring of will as a remembrance of what had just gone before:

I live in the dark domain of the earth,
The darkness of the earth creates longing in me,
The earth's darkness extinguishes me.

I wander in the brilliance of the stars,
The brilliance of the stars is comfort to me,
The brilliance of the stars awakens me.

I read in the deeds of the spirits,
The deeds of the spirits are teaching to me,
The deeds of the spirits call to me.

I hear in the speech of the gods,
The speech of the gods is creating for me,
The speech of the gods engenders me.

Conviction results from the dialog in meditation, from recalling the dialog and in strengthening the recollection by means of the will.

If, firstly, with inner devotional feeling, secondly with complete soul and interest we have done what I have just described, if we do it not as mechanical meditating but as a true experience of the soul, then this means of creating a relation to the spiritual world really does have an awakening effect on the soul.

Also in the case of the last verse, which in the way I have described should really be experienced as remembrance of speech and answering speech—speech of the spirit and answering speech of the heart, we must correctly feel how, firstly, consciousness, which we wish to achieve, is extinguished by the earth's darkness. We must sense how a moment of extinguishing sleep overcomes consciousness, and how upon awakening, at the second line, we hear the spirits calling us to them, how afterward we feel: the spirits have called us so that they can bring us forth, engender us in the spiritual world by their own cosmic word.

If these nuances of inner experience flow through the soul—and the representations of the spiritual being who speaks to us are included—and the heart reciprocates with its dedication to the spiritual being, then yes, then the stimulation exists in the soul which will gradually lead this soul onto the esoteric path. And we must be clear that as we experience these three verses in our souls in the way in which I have described as best we can, something powerful takes place in the subconscious mind. If we sincerely live in these three verses as I have described, then when the first line resounds, our soul unconsciously passes through the starting-point of earthly life when the etheric body was first formed.

If we can vividly imagine what from the spirit resounds:

I live in the dark domain of the earth,

then we approach—in the unconscious—with this hearing in spirit, the moment in which our etheric body was formed; and from pre-earthly existence, from life between death and a new birth, acts the force with which we sincerely reply from the heart:

The darkness of the earth creates longing in me;

because we have the longing for the spiritual as a heritage from pre-earthly existence.

And again we are transported to the beginning of earthly existence. And what acts from our hearts is inspired by the previous earthly existence.

I wander in the brilliance of the stars:

We are transported to the beginning of our earthly life. The real comfort the brilliance of the stars can give when we are transported back is in our heart's reply:

The brilliance of the stars is comfort to me.

And then:

I read in the deeds of the spirits:

We are transported back to the earth's beginning. Remember how we are taught by spiritual beings in pre-earthly existence.

The deeds of the spirits are teaching to me,

Among whom I lived and wandered before I descended to the earth.

I hear in the speech of the gods:

We heard them during the period between death and a new birth. We sense that what the gods say is not mere information as is what men say; we realize that the speech of the Gods is creative:

The speech of the gods is creating for me.

But then, if we can see it so, lines 9, 10, 11, 12 also acquire the correct meaning:⁵

I live in the dark domain of the earth,
The earth's darkness extinguishes me,
The darkness of the earth creates longing in me,

—deletes me from my present earth life for I am led back, through the region between death and a new birth, to my earlier incarnation. I divine this; therefor my consciousness is extinguished, for my consciousness was, until now, that of my current incarnation. In this moment of sleep I am transported back so I can divine: I am wandering in my previous incarnation.⁶

I wander in the brilliance of the stars,
The brilliance of the stars awakens me
The brilliance of the stars is comfort to me,

I am brought back to what I was in the previous incarnation as though awakened in it. My karma arises before me, the connection of destiny arises before me, it arises before me from the other side.⁷

I read in the deeds of the spirits,
The deeds of the spirits call to me
The deeds of the spirits are teaching to me,

to fulfill my karma with the forces which derive from my previous earth-life.⁸

I hear in the speech of the gods,
The speech of the gods engenders me.
The speech of the gods is creating for me,

Everything I am becomes clear to me when my earlier earthly existence penetrates the present one and shines through it and wanders through it and pulses through it. For here I am. My present I is in a process, it is a seed which will have meaning once I have passed through the gates of death. What shines and works in me from the previous earthly existence into the present one makes me into a human being, engenders me as an existing human being.

If we have the conviction that it is so, that—although we believe only to be in the ordinary world of physical existence—our soul really makes the journey back to the previous earth-life, then we will be aware of the gravity of what we are experiencing. And through this awareness a warmer, luminous current streams through our thinking, feeling and willing. And with that inner magical feeling, which is necessary for the meditation to work in the right way, our meditation will prevail. We may call it a magical feeling for it cannot be compared with any feeling we have on earth, because it is completely independent of all corporeality. If we cannot yet leave the physical body behind with our thinking, this magical thinking which we experience through the gravity of our soul's activity is present in the purely spiritual world.

According to the way we experience these things, our esoteric striving is fulfilled. And that is what I was obliged to lay before your souls today, my dear sisters and brothers.

In conclusion I would like to say one more thing. It should not happen that someone passes on the verses and the information given here without first asking permission. Only with permission may these things be passed on from one to another or to a group. It is especially frowned upon, my dear friends, that these verses or their interpretation be sent by post. They may not be sent by post, and I ask that this be strictly observed.

• 1. The first part of the verse is written on the blackboard.
• 2. The second part is written on the blackboard.
• 3. An arc is drawn connecting lines 1 and 5; another connecting 2 and 6, another connecting 3 and 7, and another connecting lines 4 and 8
• 4. The third part of the verse is arranged in connection with the first and the second parts while lines 9, 10, 11 and 12 are written on the blackboard.
• 5. Line 9 is written again, this time on the arc connecting lines 1 and 5.
• 6. Line 10 is written again, this time at the arc connecting lines 2 and 6.
• 7. Line 11 is written again, at the arc connecting lines 3 and 7.
• 8. Line 12 is written again, at the arc connecting lines 4 and 8.

My dear friends,

The call to self-knowledge, which the human soul can hear when it objectively pays attention to all the beings and events in nature and spiritual life, will pass before our souls again at the beginning of our considerations.

O man, know thyself!
So resounds the Cosmic-Word.
You hear it strong in soul,
You feel it firm in spirit.

Who speaks with such cosmic might?
Who speaks with such depth of heart?

Does it work through distant radiant space
Into your senses' sense of being?
Does it ring through weaving waves of time
Into your life's evolving stream?

It's you yourself who,
In feeling space, in experiencing time,

Create the Word, feeling foreign
In the soulless void of space
Because you lose the force of thought
In time's destructive flow.

On the path to the answer which the soul can find to this question, my dear sisters and brothers, we have followed the path leading to the Guardian of the Threshold, to the abyss of being. We have progressed to where the Guardian of the Threshold instructs us so that what was previously dark and gloomy—although we knew that it contained the source of our being—expanded and became light. And then, in the increasing light, we heard the Guardian's call:

See the ether-rainbow arc's
Light teeming round,
Let the light creating force
Pass through your eyes,
Your I penetrate the circle,
Observe from the other side's vantage point
Color flooding the cosmic bowl.

And the voices of the Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai are intoned with these words as they are directed to the human souls:

Sense our thoughts
Breathing the colors of life
To the light-flooded bowl;
We carry the mirage of the senses
To spirit's domain of being
And turn, by the world inspired
To serve the higher spirits.

And we see how through the flooding light in the cosmic bowl, which we met in the last lesson, the beings of the third hierarchy illuminate and are illuminated; we see the multitudes of these beings, Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai, turn to the higher spirits, which they serve, to the Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes; and we are witnesses to how the Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes tell their serving spirits to fulfill the needs of human beings.

The Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes speak:

What you have received
From dead illusion made live:
We waken it to existence;
We give it to the rays,
Who manifest with love
The nothingness of matter
In the spirit's essence.

And then—impelled from within—we must turn our gaze to the highest spirits, the first hierarchy, who now turn to humanity in blessing. From them we hear:

In the willing of your worlds
Feel our world working:
Spirit glows in matter
When, thinking, we create.
Spirit creates in matter
When we live in willing:
World is the I-willing Spirit-Word.

As witnesses to how the beings of the higher worlds speak to each other, so penetrated with what the highest beings let stream into human souls as the cosmic-word so that the human heart may resonate with it, we must feel ourselves to be within the all-moving, all-pervading cosmic light in which we ourselves live and move.

And now we come to a truth, which is perceived where the non-embodied beings live, where the spirits live their lives, where the spirits think their truths, where the spirits radiate their beauty, where their spiritual acts take place. And we recognize the greatness, the all-pervading, weaving truth in the spirit-worlds: spirit is. For we are, we live, we act in spirit. We perceive spiritual being.

And now we realize that spirit, in which we now live, alone is. We now know that even here, in the world of sensory illusion, is only spirit. Only spirit is. This stands before our souls as unshakable, all-pervading truth: spirit is. And we do well to place this truth before our souls in picture form.

[Drawing on the blackboard: red]

What is expressed here in the drawing is spirit. It is spirit alone.

[While continuing to speak, Rudolf Steiner inserts the word “Ist” in the red lines of the drawing—barely visible here.]

What is here: Is— is spirit. And what is outside this red is nothing. This is placed before our souls. And the spirit-world tells us [pointing]: here Is, here Is, here Is. Everywhere that spirit is, Is something.

[As he continues to speak, Rudolf Steiner writes the word Nichts (nothing) in various places between the read lines, then the worlds Mineralien (minerals), Pflanzen (plants), Tiere (animals).]

And where there is no spirit, there is nothing. We are profoundly impressed by this truth: Everywhere where spirit is, is something, and where there is no spirit, is nothing. And now we wonder: How did all this seem to us there in the world of sensory illusion, which we left to enter the spiritual world, where we find true being, the spirit revealed to our souls. Over there we did not see what is drawn here in red. We are too weak there to see what is drawn here in red. What remains there then? Nothing. Over there we see Nothing, call it minerals, one kind of Nothing; call it plants, a second kind of Nothing; call it animals, a third kind of Nothing, and so forth.

We see Nothing because we are too weak to see Something. And we call the Nothings the kingdoms of nature. That is the great deception, the great illusion. Over there only variations of the Nothing are visible when we look out from the body. And we feel deeply the impression, as we live over there and give names to what is fundamentally Nothing, that it is the great illusion. And what is Nothing, and what we give names to now appears to us as the sum of names which we give to Nothingness. For in their reality all beings are only present in the spiritual world that we have now entered. Names dedicated to Nothing we have wasted on the non-existent. And beings—not those from the domains of the gods to which we belong and to which we should belong—can take possession of the names which we have wasted on the Nothings. And they keep these names from now on.

If we are not clear about the fact that here on earth we give names to nullities, we fall with our nullities into the greatest illusion. We must know that we are giving names to the nullities. It is now clear to us, because over there [in the spirit-world] we live and move in the light, and the spiritual strength of our hearts has remained there, we can feel deeply, deeply, deeply: We now know that we have gone from the kingdom of illusions to the kingdom of truth. Earnestness, holy earnestness in respect to the truth begins to act in our souls.

And now we look back at the faithful Guardian of the Threshold, who stands at the abyss of being. He doesn't speak now. He spoke from out of the darkness. He spoke when we first felt the brightness. He spoke when the darkness [in the stenography “brightness”—possibly an error.] was brightening for us. Now, as we stand shaken by the great truth “only spirit is”, he stands there speechless, pointing above to where the beings of the higher hierarchies speak to each other. And with presence of mind we think for a moment: Below in earthly life we perceived the impression made on us by minerals, by plants, by animals, by physical human beings; we heard what the clouds say, what the mountains say, how the fountains ripple, how the lightning flashes, how the thunder rolls, what the stars whisper about cosmic secrets. That was our experience down below. Now beyond the abyss of existence all that is silent. Now we are witnesses to the gods speaking to each other. The whole choir of Angeloi begins to speak.

We look up and see how the choir turns to the spirits of the second hierarchy, which they wish to serve. We observe the loving, serving gestures of the Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai, who turn to the Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes. We view the serving multitudes of the third hierarchy.

We view the multitudes of the second hierarchy in world-creation, in world-dominion, in world-illumination, and we hear what the spiritual-illuminating, divine-willing beings speak to each other.

We hear the Angeloi intoning their words of concern for the guidance of human souls. Their words resonate:

The human beings think!

This weighs on the Angeloi. They are concerned as to how they should guide human souls, because humans think. Then they turn to the Dynamis for the force needed to guide human beings in their thinking.

Angeloi:

The human beings think!
We need the light from the heights
That we may illuminate their thinking.

From the realm of radiance, dominion, acting, the Dynamis lovingly and benevolently reply:

Receive the light from the heights,
So you can illuminate thought,
When human beings think.

And the flooding light, the force of illumination in thought, streams over from the Dynamis to the Angeloi. What the Angeloi receive enlightens, without our knowing, human thinking. Now we realize what acts and weaves in human thinking: the illumination of the Angeloi. But the light force for this illumination they receive from the Dynamis.

[The first part of the mantra is written on the blackboard. Italics indicate writing.]

I) Angeloi:

“Human being think!”: their concern is expressed in their words.

Human beings think!

They turn to the Dynamis with their concern:

We need the light from the heights
That we may illuminate their thinking.

The Dynamis reply:

Dynamis:

Receive the light from the heights,
So you can illuminate thought,
When human beings think.

Our spiritual view goes farther. We see the multitude of Archangeloi turning to the second hierarchy. They turn to the Exusiai and Kyriotetes, to two categories of spirits of the second hierarchy. (The Angeloi had turned to the Dynamis: Archangeloi turn to the Exusiai and Kyriotetes.) Their concern is for human beings' feeling. And they request from the Exusiai and Kyriotetes what they need in order to guide human beings in their feeling.

Archangeloi:

The human beings feel!
We need warmth of soul,
That we may live in feeling.

They must breathe life into feeling. And with powerful voices, because two choirs are answering, Kyriotetes and Exusiai voices ring out in the spiritual cosmos:

Receive warmth of soul
That you may live in feeling
When human beings feel.

[The second part of the mantra is written on the blackboard.]

II) Archangeloi:

The human beings feel!
We need warmth of soul,
That we may live in feeling.

The reply:

Kyriotetes and Exusiai:

Receive warmth of soul
That you may live in feeling
When human beings feel.

We turn to the third multitude of the third hierarchy, to the Archai. They have concern for the will of the human being, the third concern of the third hierarchy.

We feel: when the Angeloi turn to the Dynamis, then the Dynamis act way up in the heights in order to give the light they create from the heights to the Archai for their concern for human thinking. And we feel: everything in the compass of cosmic warmth is created by the Exusiai and Kyriotetes, and it is given over to the Archangeloi so that they can guide human feeling. And deep below, where the spirits and gods of the depths prevail, and where from the abysses—in which much evil moves—the good forces of the deep must be drawn up high, so all the gods of the second hierarchy pull together; for in their concern for the human being's will, the Archai need the forces of the deep. They speak:

The human beings will!
We need the forces of the depths,
That we may work in willing.

And the powerful spirits of the second hierarchy answer with a mighty cosmic voice in the combined voices of all three together, the three choirs forming one choir—Kyriotetes, Dynamis, Exusiai—three choirs in one:

Receive the force of the depths,
That you may work in willing,
When human beings will.

[The third part of the mantra is written on the blackboard.]

III) Archai:

The human beings will!
We need the forces of the depths,
That we may work in willing.

Kyriotetes, Dynamis and Exusiai answer together:

Kyriotetes, Dynamis and Exusiai:

Receive the force of the depths,
That you may work in willing,
When human beings will.

This is the world, existing in the holy words of creation, of which we will be witnesses in spiritual worlds, as we are witnesses of the events in the mineral and vegetable kingdoms here in earth.

And we hear, in that it becomes our experience:

The human beings think!
We need the light from the heights
That we may illuminate their thinking.

Receive the light from the heights,
So you can illuminate thought,
When human beings think.

The human beings feel!
We need warmth of soul,
That we may live in feeling.

Receive warmth of soul
That you may live in feeling

The human beings will!
We need the forces of the depths,
That we may work in willing.

Receive the force of the depths,
That you may work in willing,
When human beings will.

We grow into the spiritual world. Instead of what surrounds us here in the sensory earth, the choirs of the spiritual world surround us. And we become witnesses to what the gods say in their creative concern for the world of humans.

Only when in our meditation we go on to the complete elimination of what we are here on earth, and to having a feeling for the world the gods are forming with their divine speech, do we experience true reality. And only when we possess this reality, do we also know what really surrounds us between birth and death. Because behind the appearances in life between birth and death is the reality of what we experience between death and rebirth.

In earlier times people living on earth had a dull, dreamlike clairvoyance. Their souls were filled with dreamlike pictures, spoken [sic] from the spiritual world. Let us imagine a person from olden times. When he was not working, and was resting—although the sun was still in the sky—and was thinking back, pictures arose which he experienced in his soul and which reminded him of what he had experienced in pre-earthly existence in the spiritual world. But he didn't understand the connection between his earthly existence and that existence which shone into his clairvoyant dreams. But the initiates and their teachings were there. They explained the connection, first to their students, and through their students to all the people. So they lived in the earthly world experiencing the memories of pre-earthly existence.

Nowadays in earthly life the memory of pre-earthly existence has been extinguished. Initiates cannot explain the connection between earthly life and pre-earthly existence, because humans have forgotten what they experienced in pre-earthly existence. Such an explanation is not possible because the cosmic memory no longer exists.

Nevertheless, what the gods are saying behind sensory being must be heard by means of initiation-science. Human beings must experience it. And soon the time will come—it's approaching more and more—when a person who passes through the gate of death will only be able to understand the spiritual world into which he enters if he realizes that when a person enters heavenly existence through the gate of death, and finds himself in the reality of the spiritual worlds, within the world of Angeloi, Archangeloi, Archai, Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes, Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones—if he experiences all this, if what he experiences after death it is not to remain incomprehensible and dark to him, then he will have to remember what he experienced here on earth through initiation-science.

And what is extremely important in understanding what can be experienced in life between death and a new birth—if it has been heard, otherwise it cannot be understood—is remembrance of what is still heard on earth, and which resounds as follows:

The human beings think!
Receive the light from the heights.

The human beings feel!
Receive warmth of soul.

The human beings will!
Receive the force of the depths.

These, my sisters and brothers, are the words that should be heard today in the esoteric schools. They should resound through the instructions of those who lead the esoteric schools with the force of the Michael age. Then it can be thus:

In the esoteric schools the voice of the Angeloi are first heard within the earthly sphere:

The human beings think!

The Dynamis' reply:

Receive the light of the heights.

The voice of the Archangeloi is heard:

The human beings feel!

The reply of the Kyriotetes and Exusiai:

Receive the warmth of soul.

The Archai's words:

The human beings will!

All three members of the second hierarchy, Exusiai, Dynamis, Kyriotetes, answer:

Receive the force of the depths.

Those people who have heard those words in esoteric schools will go through the gate of death, where they will again hear all these words resounding together: the esoteric schools here, life between death and a new birth there. They will understand what is resonating there.

Or they will be dull and unwilling—after preparation by general anthroposophy—in respect to what is said in the esoteric schools. They do not perceive what can be heard through initiation-science from the realm of the heights. They go through the gate of death. They hear there what they should already have heard here. They don't understand it. When the gods speak to each other with powerful words, it sounds to them like incomprehensible ringing, mere sounds, cosmic noise.

Paul speaks about this in the Gospel—that through the teachings of Christ men should protect themselves from death in the spirit-land. For death soon comes in the spirit-land if we go through the gate of death and don't understand what is resonating there, if we can only hear the incomprehensible sounds instead of the understandable words of the gods, because we have been overcome by the soul's death instead of the soul's life. There is an initiation-science because souls are alive. There are esoteric schools so that souls may remain alive when they go through the gate of death. This we must feel deeply. [In a previous paragraph leading up to these words, Rudolf Steiner says: “And soon the time will come—it's approaching more and more—when a person who passes through the gate of death will only be able to understand the spiritual world into which he enters if …” (Und immer mehr wird die Zeit kommen…) which seems to indicate that this means sometime in the future. {Ed./Trans.}]

And now let us consider the path we have taken in spirit, how we approached the Guardian in order to learn how the human being crosses the abyss of existence. And let us also consider how the impressions there acted on our souls; let us take into our souls the inner drama of self-knowledge.

We have traveled the path. Three tablets stood there, so to speak. We are now standing before the third one, after we have taken into our souls all the profundities of divine speech. On the first tablet, long before we arrived at the abyss of existence, resonated:

O man, know thyself!
So resounds the Cosmic-Word.
You hear it strong in soul,
You feel it firm in spirit.

Who speaks with such cosmic might?
Who speaks with depth of heart?

Does it work through distant radiant space
Into your senses' sense of being?
Does it ring through weaving waves of time
Into your life's evolving stream?

It's you yourself who,
In feeling space, in experiencing time

Create the Word, feeling foreign
In the soulless void of space
Because you lose the force of thought
In time's destructive flow.

Then we approached the Guardian. The second tablet stands there. On it stands:

Recognize first the earnest Guardian,
Who stands before the gates of spirit-land,
Denying entrance of your sensory force
And your power of understanding,
For in your sensory weaving
And in creation of your thoughts,
From space's emptiness,
From the illusion of time's might,
You must first forcefully seize
The truth of your own being.

We have arrived on the other side, passing the earnest Guardian, and have heard a conversation such as this:

The human beings think!
Receive the light of the heights.

The human beings feel!
Receive the warmth of soul.

The human beings will!
Receive the force of the depths.

We look back to the world of senses and we feel about this sensory world the words:

I entered in this world of senses,
Bearing with me thinking's legacy,
A godly force led me in.
Death stands at the path's end.
I will to feel the being of Christ.
In matter's death he wakens spirit-birth.
Thus in spirit I find the world
And know myself in world-becoming

Blackboard texts in German:

To characterise the successive epochs of human evolution on the earth (referring, to begin with, only to post-Atlantean time) we can select one item or another out of spiritual science; we are thus gradually led to form real conceptions of the several epochs. To-day we shall speak about the fourth—that is, the Graeco-Latin time; and about the fifth, our own time, which began about the year 1413. We shall add certain particulars to what we already know about these epochs.

Every such epoch may be said to have a special task. I beg you not to think in this connection of a merely theoretic or scientific task, or of anything exclusively concerned with knowledge.

Every epoch has a special task,—a task which must be solved in life itself. In actual life itself, impulses have to arise with which the individuals living in these epochs must come to terms,—with which they have to wrestle, and out of which proceed not only their ideas but their feelings, their emotions, their loves and hates, and the will-impulse which they receive into themselves. Thus in the widest sense we can say: Every such epoch has a task to solve.

Looking into the Graeco-Latin epoch, we find that the task it had to solve is chiefly related to what we may comprise with the words “Birth and Death” within the Universe. These things have become rather vague and obliterated in our time. No longer in the deepest sense of life, but in a more theoretic sense, the great problems of Birth and Death stand before the human being of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. He no longer has a true feeling of the deep way in which the phenomena of Birth and Death entered the heart and mind of the human being of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. We human beings of the fifth epoch (as you know, we are still more or less at the beginning of it, for it began in the year 1413; and an epoch lasts 2160 years) We have to solve in the widest sense, in a living and energetic way, what we may call the problem of Evil. I beg you to envisage this most thoroughly. Evil will approach the human being of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch in every conceivable form. Scientifically he will have to solve the nature and essence of Evil. In his loving and in his hating, he will have to grapple in the right way with all that springs from Evil; he will have to fight and wrestle with the resistances of Evil to the impulses of the Will. All this is essential to the tasks of the fifth post-Atlantean time.

Nay, more, the problem of Evil belongs to the fifth post-Atlantean epoch in a still higher degree than did the problem of Birth and Death to the life of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch. Why so? It was, in fact, the Atlantean time which had to solve the question about Birth and Death with the same vital intensity with which the fifth post-Atlantean time will have to solve the problem of Evil. In Atlantean time the phenomena of Birth and Death stood before the human beings of that evolutionary epoch far more vividly and directly, in a far more elemental way, than now. That which is hidden behind Birth and Death, is, in effect, far more concealed to-day from human vision and from human feeling. Now the Graeco-Latin time, fundamentally speaking, was after all but a faint repetition of that which the Atlanteans had had to experience with regard to Birth and Death. The experiences of the Graeco-Latin time were, therefore, not so intense and vivid as will become the wrestlings of the fifth post-Atlantean time, which began in 1413, with all the powers of Evil,—with all that springs from Evil. For the human being himself will have to free himself from all this by means of the very opposite forces, which to evolve is in effect the specific task and need of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. What I have said in this moment need only be envisaged in a sufficiently intense and vivid way, and many things which we have characterised during these weeks will be clearly illustrated. Many things will appear as consequences of this fundamental premiss: that it is the task of the fifth post-Atlantean time to wrestle with the life-problem of Evil.

Let us now ask, how did Goethe perceive that this is so, when in his drama he showed Faust as the representative of humanity, placing him in conflict with Mephistopheles who is the representative of Evil? From this very fact you can see that the Faust drama is derived out of the deepest interests of the present epoch.

It is peculiar to man that he can only come to terms with the things with which he has to wrestle, if he extends his consciousness over them, i.e., if they do not remain in the unconscious. (We emphasised this more than once during our recent studies.) That is the peculiarity: Whatever evil impulses can possibly arise from the foundations of the cosmic order, must betray their presence to our consciousness.

But there is also another necessity. It is insufficient, as a rule, merely to know what belongs to the one epoch. These things can only be rightly judged by comparison. It is not really enough to be aware that now, in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, man has to wrestle with Evil in the historic evolution of Earth-life. There must be added a certain consciousness about the preceding epoch,—that is, in our case, the Graeco-Latin epoch. The impulses that lived in the Graeco-Latin epoch must also become impulses of human beings of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. Observe how wonderfully what the poet Goethe felt is connected with this perception, derived as it is from the very nature of human evolution—of the historic evolution of mankind. Goethe longed to know the world of classical-antiquity by direct perception, as well as it could be known in his time. He wanted, as it were, to guess its secret from all that he saw and realised in Italy. Therefore the longing for Italy lived in him like a kind of illness. But this was essentially due to the fact that Goethe felt himself in the fullest way a child of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. Goethe did not aspire to Italy with the kind of impulse which inspires any Professor of the History of Art, who thinks himself already clever in every domain, and only wishes to extend his information. That was not what Goethe wanted. Goethe desired no less than a change in his state of consciousness,—another kind of vision. Many things could be cited in evidence of this. Goethe said to himself as it were: If I remain only in the North, my soul will have a form of vision that is not wide enough. I must live, for once, in the atmosphere of the South in order to get other forms of vision,—other forms of concept, other forms of thought, of feeling. The Witches' Kitchen Scene in Faust, for example, with its decidedly Northern content, was written by Goethe in Rome. He believed that he would only be able to enter fully into the very nature of spiritual contemplation, if his state of consciousness was transformed by the atmosphere that there prevailed. We must endeavour to find our way into Goethe in a more intimate and delicate way.

Now we can also see that Goethe did not set Faust over against Mephistopheles out of an empty or merely abstract reflection, but rather because he wanted to portray the representative man of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch within the evolution of mankind. At the same time, endeavouring as he did to compare things vividly in the two states of consciousness, he found it necessary to let Faust experience not only conditions and events of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch, but to carry him backward in time and let his soul dive down into the fourth epoch, so that this epoch, too, might set its stamp upon Faust's consciousness. For this is what happens where Faust comes together with Helena.

It is often interesting to put the different Scenes together in this all-embracing poem. It would be interesting, for example, to produce one after another the Witches' Kitchen, the Invocation Scene at the Imperial Court, and then the Scene where Helena herself appears. For these three scenes represent three successive acquaintances of Faust with Helena. In the Witches' Kitchen, while Mephistopheles is entertaining himself with the apes, etc., and with the witch. Faust sees the picture in the magic looking-glass. Faust, as he sees it, only speaks of the woman's beauty, but the words of Mephistopheles even now remind us that the picture of Helena appears:—

“Thou'lt find, this drink thy blood compelling,
Each woman beautiful as Helen.”

Here, then, emerges for the first time what is afterwards developed in the scene at the Emperor's Court, and finally appears in its third form in the “Classico-romantic Phantasmagoria” in the third Act of the Second Part. It would be interesting, for once, to see these three put together one after another. People might then perceive that the Faust drama is an organic, living entity, full of inner order.

It is not for nothing that we hear it again out of the lips of Faust himself at the Emperor's Court: “I scent the Witches' Kitchen.” As soon as the action is approaching Helena once more, he scents the Witches' Kitchen. We are reminded of Helena. These things are carefully weighed. Goethe is not like any other poet. Goethe is one who created out of necessities and impulses derived from a far wider sphere.

Let us now ask ourselves more precisely: “What is the meaning of this threefold encounter of Faust with Helena? The three are very different from one another. In the first, in the Witches' Kitchen, in the magic looking-glass, Faust is to a slight extent transfixed. He sees a picture. One who is acquainted with the more subtle distinctions of occult science can well estimate this picture which Faust sees in the magic look-glass. As I have often told you, our thoughts or ideas in ordinary life are no more than the corpses of that which we really experience. Behind all thoughts are Imaginations; we, however, kill the Imaginative part. You can read of it in a more exact philosophic form in my forthcoming book Riddles of the Soul, which contains a brief chapter on this very subject. That which Faust sees in the magic mirror in the Witches' Kitchen is something which is living in himself, raised up into an Imagination. In ordinary life he only has the idea in an abstract form. Now he experiences the picture of Helena which Goethe lifts out of the whole realm of his imaginative life; now he experiences it transformed again to a living Imagination. Thus in the first place—I beg you to observe this well—in the Witches' Kitchen Scene we have an Idea that has become Imagination.

In the Invocation Scene at the Emperor's Court, the thing goes further. Far more of Faust is taken hold of than the mere life of ideas. if Faust had merely seen the picture as he saw it in the magic mirror, he could not have reproduced it outwardly, whether by smoke or any other means. For him to reproduce it outwardly, it must be connected with his inner life of feeling and emotion. We cannot but admit that Goethe indicates his meaning with the greatest possible intensity. Faust no longer merely admires—within the life of ideas—the beauty of Helena, as in the picture in the magic looking-glass in the Witches' Kitchen. You can perceive this from the wonderful way in which Goethe describes, in the Invocation Scene, the entire scale of emotions and feelings whereby Faust feels himself united with Helena. Truly it is a wonderful enhancement. No single word could be removed, where Faust breaks out into the words that tell of his inner relationship to Helena: inclination—love—worship—mania. It could not be described more truly to the inner life of soul. Remember this enhancement, and you will see how Goethe emphasises the intimate connection of what happens here with all that Faust experiences in his heart, in his life of feeling. That which emerges in the Invocation Scene is no longer merely an idea transformed into Imagination; it is Feeling that has become Imagination. Here, then, you have the second stage—the Invocation Scene in the Emperor's Court—Feeling that has become Imagination.

Now we pass on to the “Classico-romantic Phantasmagoria,” where Helena appears not merely as a spectre, but as a present reality to Faust, for he begets Euphorion his son. Here Goethe clearly indicates that the ‘Classico-romantic Phantasmagoria’ proceeds from Faust's life of Will, no longer merely from his Feeling or his Thinking. The ‘Classico-romantic Phantasmagoria’ is Willing that has become Imagination.

Ideation, Feeling and Willing, translated into the Imaginative sphere—that is what you have in the enhancements of the encounter with Helena. All this is shaped with artistic truth. Even for one who does not dismember Faust as we are doing, but simply enjoys it, these things are there. Now the very fact that Goethe chooses Helena to appear to Faust, is in a way connected with the essence of the life-tasks of the fourth and fifth post-Atlantean epochs. We are here touching upon a problem which even the Bible only very gently touches. Ricarda Huch in her new book on Luther's Faith touches it rather less gently. It is the connection of the problem of the knowledge of Woman with that of the knowledge of Evil. A mysterious connection is indicated in the Bible, in that the Luciferic temptation took place through the Woman in Paradise. The longing for the Devil during the present, fifth post-Atlantean epoch is well described in Ricarda Huch's book, Luther's Faith. It is characteristic; but we cannot enter into these things any more, for we should be treading on very thin ice in our time if we were to indicate them, let alone to discuss them further.

Nevertheless, it was out of this impulse that the culture of ancient Greece—and Goethe in connection with it—derived the figure of Helena. We must, remember that the Helena problem played an important part in the content of the old Greek Mysteries. To recognise the being of Helena was essential to a certain process of Initiation. For in the being of Helena, in the old Greek Mysteries, one learned to know something of the tasks of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch in relation to the Spiritual World. Therefore in ancient Greece there was an exoteric and an esoteric legend of Helena. The exoteric legend is well known; the other has also become known, for all things esoteric become exoteric by-and-by. The exoteric legend is as follows: Through the well-known event with the three Goddesses, Paris was instigated to take Helena from Menelaus. He appeared in Greece; and with Helena's consent eloped with her,—took her to Troy. Thereupon the Trojan War broke out. The Greeks besieged and conquered Troy, and Menelaus took Helena back with him again. That is the exoteric legend.

Homer, as you are well aware, only reveals this exoteric legend. Though he himself was initiated into the esoteric legend, he would in no way betray it. It was not until a later period of Greece that the Dramatists—Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides—condescended to betray something of the esoteric legend, which was to this effect: that Helena did not acquiesce in her elopement; Paris did not elope with her, but stole her away by force against her will, and went with her across the sea. Hera drew the ships from their course, and Paris had to land with Helena in Egypt, where at that time king Proteus was ruling. Slaves who had escaped from Paris' ships told the whole story to Proteus, whereupon he took Paris and his train, and Helena, into captivity. Paris he let go, but he took Helena from him. According to this legend, Helena never became the wife of Paris. His treasures were taken from him; he was sent back to Troy without Helena, but on this journey to Troy he was able to take with him the Idol of Helena, in place of the real Helena who had remained behind with Proteus in Egypt. Paris, therefore, appeared in Troy with the mere Idol of Helena, and it was for the Idol that the Greeks fought; they would not believe the Trojans that the real Helena was not in Troy. Then, when the Trojan War was ended, Menelaus himself travelled to Egypt, and brought with him from thence his wife who had remained guiltless.

You are perhaps aware that Goethe very clearly hints at this esoteric aspect of the legend in the third Act of the Second Part of Faust,—in the ‘Classico-romantic Phantasmagoria.’ Mephistopheles-Phorkyas continues the speech of Helena who is at a loss and no longer knows where she is. In this Act Goethe places Helena before us, burdened with all the doubts that have befallen her. She has been robbed, and now she hears all that is being said of her. It is all utterly confusing. Things that relate to the Idol and not to the reality come to her ears, and in the last resort she herself no longer knows who she is. And out of all these doubts we hear her say:—

“Name not those joys to me! for
sorrow all too stern.
Unendingly was poured upon my
breast and brain.”

Mephistopheles-Phorkyas replies:

“Nathless, they say, dost thou
appear in double form,
Beheld in Ilion,—in Egypt, too,
beheld.”

Thus Goethe very clearly hints at the fact, how complicated the figure of Helena really is. He brings it into his Faust. For with the Helena problem much indeed is told. And it is not without meaning that it is Mephistopheles who acts as mediator in the second part of the Drama. He gives the key to Faust, directing him into those regions which to Mephistopheles himself are empty Nothing, yet in which Faust is confident that he will find the All. Here again, every word is of significance. Faust has the possibility to change his state of consciousness,—to lead it over into that which was experienced in the preceding, Graeco-Latin epoch,—in the fourth post-Atlantean. We must not take ‘the All’ in a merely abstract sense, but in a concrete spiritual shape and form. Into this spiritual form Mephistopheles cannot enter. He belongs to a different region. Mephistopheles is really there to work as Spirit in the spiritless world of material events, which above all must give its impulses to the man of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch.

In effect, during this fifth post-Atlantean epoch certain human beings have the task to be aware of the aspect of the spiritual world, thus to make conscious that which can really be achieved by means of the impulse of Evil.

Just as the eye cannot see itself but only other things, so too Mephistopheles, who is the very Impulse of Evil cannot see Evil himself. This is among the things which Faust must see and learn to know. Mephistopheles cannot see Helena; at least he cannot see her with full consciousness, with full attention. Yet after all, he is not altogether unakin to Helena. The way to Mephistopheles was only possible out of those impulses which Christianity gave for the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. There is indeed a certain tendency to Helena; nevertheless, what ancient Greece—or her Initiates—desired to express through the Helena-problem remained remote and strange. The Christians of past centuries also knew Helena, but they knew her in the form of ‘Hell.’ However remote the kinship is, the word ‘Hell’ is not altogether without etymological connection with ‘Helena,’ for the things themselves have to do with one another. The Helena-problem is very complicated, as you can see when you behold the esoteric form of the Greek legend.

The same thing is clearly indicated at several points in my Mystery Plays: Ahriman-Mephistopheles must be recognised; we must see through him. The Faust Drama says in a certain sense the same. Referring to Ahriman-Mephistopheles, Goethe coined a sentence of great importance for the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. The human being of the fifth post-Atlantean age must somehow bring it about that Ahriman-Mephistopheles feels himself recognised by him. You will recall the closing scene in the last of my Mystery Plays. It is an important moment where Ahriman-Mephistopheles feels that he is recognised. At this moment the Impulse of Evil knows it:—Those who are having to experience Evil have found a standpoint which enables them to stand not within Evil, but outside it. That is most important. It is of deep significance when Mephistopheles calls out to Faust:—

“I'll praise thee, ere we separate; I see
Thou knowest the Devil thoroughly.”

This is important. Mephistopheles would not have said the same to Woodrow Wilson. He would have had no cause.

This relation between Faust and Mephistopheles contains a great deal of the problem of the fifth post-Atlantean age. For, as I told you, this fifth post-Atlantean age has the task to go on into the inevitable battle with the most manifold forms of Evil. The impulses of human evolution must become sharp and clear again. Such impulses must arise as have arisen in the conflict with Evil. Far more intense, I said, is this experience than the experience of the fourth postAtlantean age, because the latter was in a sense a repetition of the Atlantean epoch.

Wherein sloes a first experience in the course of human evolution on the Earth consist? It is indeed a first experience—an initial experience—which stands before us here. The fourth post-Atlantean age had to live through the problem of Birth and Death, but only as a repetition of the Atlantean epoch. Now, in the fifth post-Atlantean age, an initial experience has entered in once more. And—it consists in this: that we must draw anew out of the fount of Maya—out of illusion. The human being must make acquaintance with illusion—with Maya, with the great illusion.

I have repeatedly drawn attention to this from quite other. points of view. I did so, for instance, in my book The Riddle of Man, where I associated the problem of freedom with the fact that in our consciousness, to begin with, mere mirror-images take place,—mirror-images, that is to say, Maya. And in my present essay on the Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz, anno 1459, I emphasise the real function of illusion for our consciousness. The fact is that these things can only now be said directly for the first time. They do not belong to any abstract theory or fantasy, but to immediate reality. It is wonderful to see how Goethe was initiated into these things. The fifth post-Atlantean epoch must create very much out of illusion. In the character of Faust Goethe represents the human being of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. When Faust enters the larger world, he creates, paper currency. This too is characteristic of the Ahrimanic nature of commerce in the fifth post-Atlantean epoch. Paper currency is the tangible economic proof of the fact that the imaginary, the unreal, the illusory, prevails and plays its part in the commerce of this time.

It was not so in those periods of human evolution when the chief thing was not money but the exchange of commodities, or barter. Even if money was there, the economic life was not based upon it. In those times it would not have been true to say that the outer economic life was permeated by a network of illusions, as in fact it is during the present, fifth post-Atlantean epoch. Goethe brings Faust himself into connection with this illusion of the economic life. What does he mean to tell us when he places the second appearance of Helena directly after the Scene at the Emperor's Court? What is it really at this point? We are confronted with the whisperings of an astrologer, with suggestive influences—I mentioned it in yesterday's lecture—we are confronted with illusion. Illusion lives—this was what Goethe meant to say—illusion lives in the outer historic reality, lives in it spiritually. How often have we spoken of it in recent lectures! The concepts, the ideas, that lead to such great errors as I mentioned recently,—all these are born of illusion. You will remember: I told you of one characteristic error, but we could mention hundreds of others of this kind. Certain economists who thought themselves particularly clever, stated in 1914—out of their economic laws—that the War could not last longer than four to six months at most. It was impossible otherwise. Yet it will soon have lasted as many years. Why is it so? Why do human beings live in ideas that are proved absurd by the reality? Because there plays into their life of thought that ‘spectral fabric’ which Goethe represents as coming into the Emperor's Court through Faust. It is because the human beings do not see through what lives as spectral fabric in their ideas. As soon as the fifth, post-Atlantean epoch began, the imagination of those, who were sensitive to such things, was turned to the perception of reality over against such ‘spectral fabrics.’ Goethe had a prototype for this Scene at the Emperor's Court. I refer to Hans Sachs' beautiful description of the necromancer who causes Helena to appear at the Court of the Emperor Maximilian. It is not Faust in this case, it is the Emperor himself who wants to seize the image and falls a prey to it,—is paralysed by it. So then we have this weaving of ‘spectral fabrics’ into the reality of the historic process. And I should like to ask: Where else is it represented so grandly, so truly, out of the fulness of spiritual realities, as in Goethe's Faust?

Now as I said before, the consciousness of the fifth post-Atlantean epoch and that of the fourth must work together. Faust grows away from Mephistopheles. Mephistopheles gains nothing from it but the conclusion:—

“One's self with fools to hamper,
At last even on the Devil puts a damper.”

Faust is seized by apoplexy, he is paralysed. His soul-nature has separated from his body. Yet there now follows the Scene which we presented here last year,—Faust's dream, which is perceived by Homunculus.

Whence comes the Helena of this second apparition, even though she is a mere ‘spectre’? It, is quite clearly indicated: it is the astrologer who brings her—albeit only by suggestion—out of the rhythm of the stars. Connect this fact with what I told you recently of the macrocosmic element that works in the woman before fertilisation. This Helena comes from the stars; but she guides the impulses within Faust's soul towards another Helena. Homunculus sees how in the vision of Faust the birth of Helena emerges. It is the Scene of Zeus, of Leda with the Swan. Faust is led over to the problem of the fourth post-Atlantean epoch,—to the solving of the problem of Birth. This is the thing that emerges at the very moment where Faust grows away from the clutches of Mephistopheles,—where Mephistopheles has nothing left of him but the outer physical body. Now there arises in the soul of Faust the impulse to go over into the fourth post-Atlantean epoch.

It is roost wonderful how the motifs are intertwined. We see how Goethe uses the interplay of that which lives within us out of the fourth and the fifth post-Atlantean epochs. But he knew still more. He points to the esoteric legend of Helena,—of how in Troy there was only the Idol, that which is founded in the stars, which is of cosmic origin; while the other, the individual Being of Helena, had moved to Egypt, to Proteus. In the declining city of Troy, that part of Helena remained which belonged to the third post-Atlantean epoch, which the third post-Atlantean epoch expelled. It was the part of Helena which Egypt allowed to go; while as to that which Egypt reserved for the fourth post-Atlantean epoch, Menelaus took it back from Egypt and brought it again to Greece. Thus in the esoteric Helena-legend, which Goethe certainly adapted, not only the fifth but the fourth and also the third post-Atlantean epochs play their part. Goethe made use of the Helena-problem in a most wonderful way.

All of our medieval stories—Parsifal, the Round Table, Hartmann von Aue—reveal mystical truths in esoteric form, even though they are usually only understood in their outward aspect. Where do we search for their origin? We must look to a time before the spread of Christianity. Into Christianity was blended what had lived in Ireland, Scotland ... [Gap in the notes.] We are led to a particular centre whence this spiritual life was disseminated. The spiritual life [of Europe] emanated from a mother lodge in Scandinavia, ‘Drottes’ Lodge. Druids = Oak. For this reason the Germanic peoples were said to receive their instructions beneath oak trees.

‘Drottes’, or Druids, were ancient Germanic initiates. They still existed in England till Elizabethan times. All that we read in the Edda or can find in the ancient German sagas refers back to the temples of the ‘Drottes’ or Druids. The author of these tales was always an initiate. The sagas not only have a symbolical or allegorical meaning, but something else as well.

Example: We know the saga of Baldur. We know that he is the hope of the gods, that he is killed by the god Loki with a branch of mistletoe. The God of Light is killed. This whole story has a deep mystery content which all who underwent initiation not only had to learn, but had to experience.

The Mysteries. Initiation: the first deed was called the search for the body of Baldur. It was supposed that Baldur was always alive. The search consisted of a complete enlightenment about the nature of man. For Baldur was the human being who has gone astray. Once upon a time the human being was not as he is today, he was undifferentiated, not bowed down by passionate experiences, but composed of finer ephemeral substance. Baldur, the radiant human being. When truly understood, all things which appear to us in the form of symbols must be understood in a higher sense. This human being who has not descended into what today we call matter, is Baldur. He lives in each one of us. The Druid priest had to search for the higher self within him. He had to become clear about where this differentiation took place, between the higher and the lower ... [Gap]

The secret of all initiation is to give birth to the higher human being within oneself. What the priest accomplishes more quickly, the rest of mankind must undergo in long stages of development. To become leaders of the rest of mankind, the Druids had to receive this initiation.

Man who had descended deeper now had to overcome matter and regain his former higher level. This birth of the higher human being takes place in all the Mysteries in a similar sort of way. The man who had become submerged in matter had to be reawakened. One had to make a series of experiences—real experiences—which were unlike any sense experiences one can have on the physical plane.

The stages. The first step was that one was led before the ‘Throne of Necessity’. One stood in front of the abyss: really experienced through one's own body what lived in the lower kingdoms of nature. Man is both mineral and plant, but the man of today is unable to experience what is undergone by the elementary substances and yet the enduring, the constraining things in the world are due to the fact that we are also mineral and plant in our nature.

The next step led the human being to all that lived in the animal kingdom. Everything which existed in the form of passions and desires was beheld in swirling and interweaving movement- All this had to be observed by the candidate for initiation so that his eyes would be opened to what lay behind the veil of the senses. Man is not aware that what swirls around in astral space is hidden behind the physical sheath. The veil of maya is really a sheath which must be penetrated by him who is to be initiated—the sheaths drop away, the human being sees clearly. That is a very special moment: the priest becomes aware that the sheaths had dammed back the impulses which would have been frightful if they had been let loose.

The third step led to a vision of the elemental nature forces. That is a step which man finds difficult to comprehend without previous preparation. That powerful occult forces are residing in these nature forces and through them express elemental passions, is something which makes man aware that there are powers quite outside the scope of anything he can experience as his own suffering.

The next trial is called the ‘Handing over of the Serpent’ by the hierophant. One can only explain it by means of the effects which it brings about. It is elucidated in the Tantalus saga. The privilege of being allowed to sit in the Council of the Gods can be abused. It signifies a reality which certainly raises man above himself, but dangers accompany it which are not exaggerated in the story of the Tantalus curse. As a rule man says he is powerless in face of the laws of nature. These are thoughts. With that kind of thinking, which is only a shadowy brain-thinking, nothing can be achieved. In creative thinking, which builds and constructs things of the world, which is productive and fruitful, the passive kind of thinking is replaced by a thinking permeated by spiritual force. The blown skin of a caterpillar is the empty sheath of the caterpillar; when filled with [productive] thinking it is the living caterpillar. Into the sheath-thoughts, living active power is poured so that the priest is enabled, not only to see the world in vision, but to work in it through magic. The danger is that this power can be abused. He can ... [Gap]

At this stage the occultist acquires a certain power, whereby he is enabled to deceive even the higher beings. He must not only repeat truths but experience them and decide whether a thing is true or false. That is what is called ‘The Handing over of the Serpent by the Hierophant’. [it denotes the same thing on a spiritual level that the rudimentary stages in the formation of the spinal cord signify on the physical level. In the animal kingdom we pass through the fishes, amphibians and so on till we reach the brain of the vertebrates and man. See notes.] We have a spiritual backbone, too, which determines whether we are to develop a spiritual brain. Man goes through this process at this stage of his development. He is lifted out of Kama (feelings, passions, desires) and endowed with a spiritual backbone so that he can be raised up into the spiraling of the spiritual brain. On a spiritual level, the windings of the labyrinth are the same as the convolutions of the brain on the physical level. Man gains access to the labyrinth, to the windings within the spiritual realm.

Then he had to take the oath of silence. A naked sword was presented to him and he was obliged to swear the most binding oath. This was that he would henceforth keep silence about his experiences where it concerned people who had not been initiated as he had. It is quite impossible to reveal the true content of these secrets without preparation. He, [the initiate] however, could create these sagas so that they became the expression of the eternal. One who could give utterance to things in this way of course had great power over his fellow men. The creator of a saga of this kind imprinted something into the human spirit. What is thus spoken is then forgotten and only the merest vestige of it survives death. Eternal truths remain longest after death. Of less elevated scientific thought hardly anything remains. The eternal does so and appears again in a new incarnation.

The Druid priest spoke out of the higher plane. His words, though simple, being the expression of higher truths, sank into the souls of his hearers. He spoke to simple folk but the truth sank into their souls and something was incorporated into them which would be reborn in a new incarnation. At that time men experienced the truth through fairy stories; thus today our spirit bodies have been prepared and if we are able to grasp higher truths today it is because we have been prepared.

Thus this time, which came to an end in 60 A.D., had prepared the spiritual life of Europe, had provided the soil on which Christianity could build. These teachings have been preserved and whoever searches will be able to find access to what was taught in these Lodges.

After he [the Druid] had given his oath on the sword he had to drink a certain draught—and this he did from a human skull. The meaning of this was that he had transcended what was human. That was the feeling which the Druid priest had to develop concerning his lower bodily nature. He had to look upon all that lived within his body with the same objective, cool attitude as he felt towards a containing vessel. Then he was initiated into the higher secrets and shown the path to higher worlds. Baldur ... [Gap] He was led into an immense palace which was roofed by flashing shields. He encountered a man who cast forth seven flowers. Cosmic Space, Cherubim, Demi-urge [Maker of the World]. Thus he became truly a Priest of the Sun.

Many people read the Edda and are unaware that it is an account of what really took place in the ancient ‘Drottes’ mysteries. An immense power lay at the disposal of the ancient ‘Drottes’ priests, a power over life and death. It is true that everything becomes corrupt in time. It was once the highest, the holiest of things. At the time when Christianity was spreading, much had degenerated and there were many black magicians, so that Christianity came as a redemption.

The study of these old truths alone is able to give an almost complete survey of the whole of occultism.

Unlike our present practice, not one stone was laid upon another in the building of a Druid temple without the use of exact astronomical measurement. Doorways were built according to astronomical measurement. The Druid priests were the builders of humanity. A faint reflection of this is preserved today in the views which the Freemasons hold.

Learning to penetrate astral substance, viewing the sun at midnight: First initiation.

Handing over of the Serpent by the Hierophant: Second Initiation.

The journey into the Labyrinth: Third Initiation.

Note on Lecture III

The only source for this lecture was the short notes of Marie Steiner von Sivers. Sentences enclosed in square brackets are the amendments of the editor, where the text seemed insufficiently clear.

Further source material has been appended below, gleaned from the writings of Charles William Heckethorn on the subject of the Druids and the Scandinavian Mysteries. A copy of Heckethorn's book in German translation was in Rudolf Steiner's private library, and from marginal notes in Rudolf Steiner's handwriting it appears to have been used by him in connection with this lecture and other lectures included in this volume. (Charles William Heckethorn Geheime Gesellschaften, Geheimbünde und Geheimlehren, Leipzig, 1900. Original English edition: The Secret Societies of all Ages and Countries, London,1875.)

From Charles William Heckethorn
The Secret Societies of all Ages and Countries
Chapter VIII. The Druids.

The Druids, the Magi of the West.
The secret doctrines of the Druids were much the same as those of the Gymnosophists and Brahmins of India, the Magi of Persia, the priests of Egypt, and of all other priests of antiquity. Like them they had two sets of religious doctrines, exoteric and esoteric. Their rites were practised in Britain and Gaul, though they were brought to a much greater perfection in the former country, where the Isle of Anglesey was considered their chief seat. The word Druid is generally supposed to be derived from “an oak,” which tree was particularly sacred among them, though its etymology may also be found in the Gaelic word Druidh, “a wise man” or “magician.”

Temples.
Their temples, wherein the sacred fire was preserved, were generally situate on eminences and in dense groves of oaks, and assumed various forms—circular, because a circle was an emblem of the universe; oval, in allusion to the mundane egg, from which, according to the traditions of many nations, the universe, or according to others, our first parents, issued; serpentine, because a serpent was the symbol of Hu, the Druidic Osiris; cruciform, because a cross is an emblem of regeneration; or winged, to represent the motion of the divine spirit. Their only canopy was the sky, and they were constructed of unhewn stones, their numbers having reference to astronomical calculations. In the centre was placed a stone of larger dimensions than the others, and worshipped as the representative of the Deity. The three principal temples of this description in Britain were undoubtedly those of Stonehenge and Avebury in the south, and that of Shap in Cumbria. Where stone was scarce, rude banks of earth were substituted, and the temple was formed of a high vallum and ditch. The most Herculean labours were performed in their construction; Stukeley says that it would cost, at the present time, £20,000 to throw up such a mound as Silbury Hill.

Places of Initiation.
The adytum or ark of the mysteries was called a cromlech, and was used as the sacred pastos, or place of regeneration. It consisted of three upright stones, as supporters of a broad, flat stone laid across them on the top, so as to form a small cell. Kit Cotey's House, in Kent, was such a pastos. Considerable space, however, was necessary for the machinery of initiation in its largest and most comprehensive scale. Therefore, the Coer Sidi, where the mysteries of Druidism were performed, consisted of a range of buildings, adjoining the temple, containing apartments of all sizes, cells, vaults, baths, and long and artfully contrived passages, with all the apparatus of terror used on these occasions. Most frequently these places were subterranean; and many of the caverns in this country were the scenes of Druidical initiation. The stupendous grotto at Castleton, in Derbyshire [Peak Cavern], called by Stukeley the Stygian Cave, as well as the “Giants Caves” between Luckington and Badminton [in Wilts.], certainly were used for this purpose.

Rites.
The system of Druidism embraced every religious and philosophical pursuit then known in these islands. The rites bore an undoubted reference to astronomical facts. Their chief deities are reducible to two,—a male and a female, the great father and mother, Hu and Ceridwen, distinguished by the same characteristics as belonged to Osiris and Isis, Bacchus and Ceres, or any other supreme god and goddess representing the two principles of all being. The grand periods of initiation were quarterly, and determined by the course of the sun, and his arrival at the equinoctial and solstitial points. But the time of annual celebration was May-eve, when fires were kindled on all the cairns and cromlechs throughout the island, which burned all night to introduce the sports of May-day, whence all the national sports formerly or still practised date their origin. Round these fires choral dances were performed in honour of the sun, who, at this season was figuratively said to rise from his tomb. The festival was licentious, and continued till the luminary had attained his meridian height, when priests and attendants retired to the woods, where the most disgraceful orgies were perpetrated. But the solemn initiations were performed at midnight, and contained three degrees, the first or lowest being the Eubates, the second the Bards, and the third the Druids. The candidate was first placed in the pastos bed, or coffin, where his symbolical death represented the death of Hu, or the sun; and his restoration in the third degree symbolized the resurrection of the sun. He had to undergo trials and tests of courage similar to those practised in the mysteries of other countries, and which therefore need not be detailed here.

The festival of the 25th of December was celebrated with great fires lighted on the tops of the hills, to announce the birth-day of the god Sol. This was the moment when, after the supposed winter solstice, he began to increase, and gradually to ascend. This festival indeed was kept not by the Druids only, but throughout the ancient world, from India to Ultima Thule. The fires, of course, were typical of the power and ardour of the sun, whilst the evergreens used on the occasion foreshadowed the results of the sun's renewed action on vegetation. The festival of the summer solstice was kept on the 24th of June. Both days are still kept as festivals in the Christian church, the former as Christmas, the latter as St. John's Day; because the early Christians judiciously adopted not only the festival days of the pagans, but also, so far as this could be done with propriety, their mode of keeping them; substituting, however, a theological meaning for astronomical allusions. The use of evergreens in churches at Christmas time is the Christian perpetuation of an ancient Druidic custom.

Doctrines.
The Druids taught the doctrine of one supreme being, a future state of rewards and punishments, the immortality of the soul and a metempsychosis. It was a maxim with them that water was the first principle of all things, and existed before the creation in unsullied purity, which seems a contradiction to their other doctrine that day was the offspring of night, because night or chaos was in existence before day was created. They taught that time was only an intercepted fragment of eternity, and that there was an endless succession of worlds. In fact, their doctrines were chiefly those of Pythagoras. They entertained great veneration for the numbers three, seven, nineteen (the Metonic cycle), and one hundred and forty-seven, produced by multiplying the square of seven by three. They also practised vaticination [prophecy], pretending to predict future events from the flights of birds, human sacrifices, by white horses, the agitation of water, and lots. They seem, however, to have possessed considerable scientific knowledge.

Political and Judicial Power.
Their authority in many cases exceeded that of the monarch. They were, of course, the sole interpreters of religion, and consequently superintended all sacrifices; for no private person was allowed to offer a sacrifice without their sanction. They possessed the power of excommunication, which was the most horrible punishment that could be inflicted next to that of death, and from the effects of which the highest magistrate was not exempt. The great council of the realm was not competent to declare war or conclude peace without their concurrence. They determined all disputes by a final and unalterable decision, and had the power of inflicting the punishment of death. And, indeed, their altars streamed with the blood of human victims. Holocausts of men, women, and children, inclosed in large towers of wicker-work, were sometimes sacrificed as a burnt offering to their superstitions, which were, at the same time, intended to enhance the consideration of the priests, who were an ambitious race delighting in blood. The Druids, it is said, preferred such as had been guilty of theft, robbery, or other crimes, as most acceptable to their gods; but when there was a scarcity of criminals, they made no scruple to supply their place with innocent persons. These dreadful sacrifices were offered by the Druids, for the public, on the eve of a dangerous war, or in the time of any national calamity; and also for particular persons of high rank, when they were afflicted with any dangerous disease.

Priestesses.
The priestesses, clothed in white, and wearing a metal girdle, foretold the future from the observation of natural phenomena, but more especially from human sacrifices. For them was reserved the frightful task of putting to death the prisoners taken in war, and individuals condemned by the Druids; and their auguries were drawn from the manner in which the blood issued from the many wounds inflicted, and also from the smoking entrails. Many of these priestesses maintained a perpetual virginity, others gave themselves up to the most luxurious excesses. They dwelt on lonely rocks, beaten by the waves of the ocean which the mariners looked upon as temples surrounded with unspeakable prodigies. Thus the island of Sena or Liambis, The Saints, near Ushant, was the residence of certain of these priestesses, who delivered oracles to sailors; and there was no power that was not attributed to them. Others, living near the mouth of the Loire, once a year destroyed their temple, scattered its materials, and, having collected others, built a new one—of course a symbolical ceremony; and if one of the priestesses dropped any of the sacred materials, the others fell upon her with fierce yells, tore her to pieces, and scattered her bleeding limbs.

Abolition.
As the Romans gained ground in these islands the power of the Druids gradually declined; and the were finally assailed by Suetonius Paulinus, governor of Britain under Nero, A.D. 61, in their stronghold, the Isle of Anglesey, and entirely defeated, the conqueror consuming many of them in the fires which they had kindled for burning the Roman prisoners they had expected to make—a very just retaliation upon these sanguinary priests. But though their dominion was thus destroyed, many of their religious practices continued much longer; and so late as the eleventh century, in the reign of Canute, it was necessary to forbid the people to worship the sun, moon, fires, etc. Certainly many of the practices of the Druids are still adhered to in Freemasonry; and some writers on this Order endeavour to show that it was established soon after the edict of Canute, and that as thereby the Druidical worship was prohibited in toto, the strongest oaths were required to bind the initiated to secrecy.

Chapter IX. Scandinavian Mysteries

Drottes.
The priests of Scandinavia were named Drottes, and instituted by Sigge, a Scythian prince, who is said afterwards to have assumed the name of Odin. Their number was twelve, who were alike priests and judges; and from this order proceeded the establishment of British juries. Their power was extended to its utmost limits, by being allowed a discretionary privilege of determining on the choice of human victims for sacrifice, from which even the monarch was not exempt—hence arose the necessity of cultivating the goodwill of these sovereign pontiffs; and as this order, like the Israelitish priesthood, was restricted to one family, they became possessed of unbounded wealth, and at last became so tyrannical as to be objects of terror to the whole community. Christianity, promising to relieve it from this yoke, was hailed with enthusiasm; and the inhabitants of Scandinavia, inspired with a thirst for vengeance on account of accumulated and long-continued suffering, retaliated with dreadful severity on their persecutors, overthrowing the palaces and temples, the statues of their gods, and all the paraphernalia of Gothic superstition. Of this nothing remains but a few cromlechs; some stupendous monuments of rough stone, which human fury could not destroy; certain ranges of caverns hewn out of the solid rock; and some natural grottos used for the purpose of initiation.

Rituals.
The whole ritual had an astronomical bearing. The places of initiation, as in other mysteries, were in caverns, natural or artificial, and the candidate had to undergo trials as frightful as the priests could render them. But instead of having to pass through seven caves or passages, as in the Mithraic and other mysteries, he descended through nine—the square of the mystic number three—subterranean passages, and he was instructed to search for the body of Baldur, the Scandinavian Osiris, slain by Loki, the principle of darkness, and to use his utmost endeavours to raise him to life. To enter into particulars of the process of initiation would involve the repetition of what has been said before; it may therefore suffice to observe that the candidate on arriving at the sacellum had a solemn oath administered to him on a naked sword, and ratified it by drinking mead out of a human skull. The sacred sign of the cross was impressed upon him, and a ring of magic virtues, the gift of Baldur the Good, delivered to him.

Astronomical Meaning Demonstrated.
The first canto of the Edda, which apparently contains a description of the ceremonies performed on the initiation of an aspirant, says that he seeks to know the sciences possessed by the Aesas or gods. He discovers a palace, whose roof of boundless dimensions is covered with golden shields. He encounters a man engaged in launching upwards seven flowers. Here we easily discover the astronomical meaning: the palace is the world, the roof the sky; the golden shields are the stars, the seven flowers the seven planets. The candidate is asked what is his name, and replies Gangler, that is, the wanderer, he that performs a revolution, distributing necessaries to mankind; for the candidate personates the sun. The palace is that of the king, the epithet the ancient Mystagogues gave to the head of the planetary system. Then he discovers three seats; on the lowest is the king called Har, sublime; on the central one, Jafuhar, the equal of the sublime; on the highest Tredie, the number three. These personages are those the neophyte beheld in the Eleusinian initiation, the hierophant, the daduchus or torchbearer, and the epibomite or attendant on the altar; those he sees in Freemasonry, the master, and the senior and junior wardens, symbolical personifications of the sun, moon, and Demiurgus, or grand architect of the universe. But the Scandinavian triad is usually represented by Odin, the chief deity; Thor, his first-born, the reputed mediator between god and man, possessing unlimited power over the universe, wherefore his head was surrounded by a circle of twelve stars; and Freya, a hermaphrodite, adorned with a variety of symbols significant of dominion over love and marriage. In the instructions given to the neophyte, he is told that the greatest and most ancient of gods is called Alfader (the father of all), and has twelve epithets, which recall the twelve attributes of the sun, the twelve constellations, the twelve superior gods of Egypt, Greece, and Rome. Among the gods of the Scandinavian theogony there is Baldur the Good, whose story, as already hinted above, formed the object of the initiatory ceremonies. Baldur is Mithras, the sun's love. He foresees the danger that threatens him; he dreams of it at night. The other gods of Valhalla, the Scandinavian Olympus, to whom he reveals his sad fore-bodings, reassure him, and to guard against any harm befalling him, exact an oath from every thing in nature on his behalf, except from the mistletoe, which was omitted on account of its apparently inoffensive qualities. For an experiment, and in sport, the gods cast at Baldur all kinds of missiles, without wounding him. Hoder the blind [that is, Fate], takes no part in the diversion; but Loki [the principle of evil, darkness, the season of winter] places a sprig in the hands of Hoder, and persuades him to cast it at the devoted victim, who falls pierced with mortal wounds. For this reason it was that this plant was gathered at the winter solstice by the Druids of Scandinavia, Gaul, and Britain, with a curved knife, whose form symbolised the segment of the zodiacal circle during which the murder of Baldur took place. In the Edda of Snorro we have another legend of Odin and Freya, the Scandinavian Isis or Venus, giving an account of the wanderings of the latter in search of the former, which, of course, have the same astronomical meaning as the search of Isis for Osiris, of Ceres for Proserpine, etc. One of the chief festivals in the year, as with the Druids, was the winter solstice; and this being the longest night in the year, the Scandinavians assigned to it the formation of the world from primeval darkness, and called it “Mother Night.” This festival was denominated “Yule,” and was a season of universal festivity.

We really ought to acquaint ourselves, somewhat, with the fundamental problem and fundamental currents of Christianity, if we wish to throw light upon the two ideals of the Christian world-conception in all their profundity. You already know, through previous lectures, that the teachings of Christianity, as generally proclaimed, are based upon a so-called esoteric Christianity. You know, moreover, that even in the Gospels we find intimations concerning this esoteric Christianity, clearly expressed in the words: When the Lord stood before the people He spoke in parables, but when he was alone with His disciples He explained these parables unto them. Thus, it is clear that He gave one form of his Teaching to those who had less understanding—to whom it was necessary to speak in parables, for it was not yet possible to go into things any deeper with them; and He proclaimed another Teaching which was destined for the initiated.

In the same way, also, Paul—the great expander of Christianity—taught, before the people, an external form of that Teaching, which we know through his Epistles. On the other hand, in addition to this Teaching of Paul—which was an external Teaching, meant for the people—he expounded an esoteric Teaching, as well. External history knows nothing about the fact that Paul founded the esoteric School at Athens, which was under the leadership of Dionysius. In this School of esoteric Christianity, the same Mystery-Teaching, or Occultism, was taught, which you also—at the present time—are learning to know anew, through Spiritual Science. Scientific learning does not know very much concerning those Teachings which were proclaimed at that time, at Athens, by the esoteric companions of St. Paul, to their more intimate disciples. One even speaks about a false Dionysius, because—it is said—it is not possible to prove that any of these Teachings were ever recorded in writing.

Pseudo-Dionysius is the name given to the man who taught this form of esotericism during the 6th century. Yet only those persons can call him by that name who do not know what was customary, in earlier times, in connection with Initiate-teachings of this sort. Only in our days has it become customary for people to record everything, as quickly as possible, in writing. Whatever was contained in the holiest Truth was preserved from publicity, in those days. One to whom such a Truth was to be entrusted was first scrutinised carefully. Only within the esoteric Schools was this Truth passed on from mouth to mouth—and only to such persons as could really value it aright. Thus it was that these particular teachings of esoteric Christianity were likewise handed down from man to man—till, finally, some of them were written down during the sixth century. Since it was customary for the leaders of such a School to always bear the name of Dionysius, the leader of this School at Athens, during the sixth century, therefore also bore this name—the same name which had been borne by his great predecessor at Athens, the friend of Paul.

Let us now consider in the spirit of this esoteric School, and actually in the way in which it was taught there, the concept of Sin, or, we might say, of slander against the Holy Ghost—and the Christian concept of Grace.

If we wish to grasp the fundamental meaning of Christianity, we must return, in thought, to a very remote past in the history of human evolution; and we must realise that, through the appearance of Christ-Jesus, something entirely new has actually been impressed upon the history of the spiritual evolution of humanity. What it is that has thus been impressed finds its fervent expression in the initiation of Paul himself.

The fact that a man like Saul, through so sudden an illumination, could attain to complete conviction of the Truth of Christianity, would not have been possible before the appearance of Christ-Jesus. We have already often spoken about the form of initiation which preceded the appearance of Christ-Jesus upon earth. Let us now do this, once again, in order to understand what the Spirit of Truth really signifies, in the Christian sense. If we wish to grasp what is was that took place, in the ancient sites of initiation, we must briefly recall to our minds the nature and being of man.

We know that man consists of a seven-fold being. His physical body is built up out of the same substances as those contained in the lifeless materials of the physical world. His etheric body calls these forces into life, and works—at every moment of life—against the decay of the physical body; only at death does the etheric or life-body go out of the physical body. The crystal is able to hold its substances together, through its own forces; the living body, on the other hand, decays as soon as it is abandoned and left to itself. It is indeed a fact that, at every moment, there is a fighter battling within this body against death; if this fighter ceases to battle, death ensues.

Man's third member is the astral body, or the consciousness-body. His fourth member is the Ego; by means of this member he is the crown of creation.

All Mystery-Teachings have thought of man as being built up of these four members. In the Pythagorean School, each disciple had to be introduced, first of all, to this Teaching of the fourfold man. Only when this Teaching had become his innermost conviction, could he be advanced to higher knowledge. Hence he had to take this vow: "I vow allegiance, by virtue of what is deeply engraved in our hearts: to the holy fourfold Being, to the sublime spiritual symbol—the primal fount of all natural and spiritual Creation."

Even the most undeveloped human being has these four members. Man evolves, throughout the course of his various incarnations, to an ever greater degree o perfection, through the fact that the Ego works upon these three members of his being.

It begins, first of all, within the astral body, to work upon everything that constitutes the progress of civilisation and logical scientific learning—upon everything, that is to say, which serves to bring about a freedom from the animal stage. This is the work of the Ego upon the astral body. In the case of every moderately-developed human being, whose Ego has already worked upon the astral body, we find that the astral body divides into two parts: into the originally existing part, and that part produced by the Ego. This latter part which expands more and more—the more the human being progresses—is designated by the name of Manas or Spirit-Self.

Christian esotericism designates this part as the Holy Ghost—the Holy Spirit, in contrast to the unpurified, unholy part of the astral body.

Thus, we have learned to know the fifth member. But the Ego can also work upon the more dense, etheric body. In a certain sense, this already takes place in the ordinary human being—that is to say, unconsciously. It has often been stated that we should learn to distinguish between the work upon the astral and the etheric bodies. The ratio of speed, in the progress of the first of these, in relation to the latter, may be compared with the movement of the minute-hand of the clock, in relation to the hour-hand. If a human being surrenders himself to the impression made upon him by some lofty work of art, this has a transforming effect upon his life-body and his consciousness-body. Every great artistic impulse has this effect. Strongest of all is the effect of those religious impulses which were brought into the world by the founders of religions, and which direct the Ego toward the Eternal. The clairvoyant eye can see how the etheric body becomes more and more beautiful and pure.

That part of the human etheric body which is spiritualised by the Ego, is called Budhi or Life-Spirit; it is the transformed life-body. Christian esotericism designates this part, which is transformed by the Ego, the Christos. The fifth member of the human being is the Holy Ghost—the sixth member is the Christ, the inner Christos.

Our attention has already been called to the fact that so-called Mystery-schoolings, or preparations, have always existed for man—enabling him to become an Initiate, and to look into the spiritual world. Such a training is based upon the transformation, on a higher plane, of the etheric or life-body. For this reason, we must be quite clear in our realisation that every higher form of schooling is more than a mere acquisition of concepts and material for study. The occult training consists, rather, in the transformation of the qualities of our etheric body. Anyone who has transformed a temperament has thereby achieved far more than if he had acquired an infinite amount of scientific learning.

Now, there is a still higher form of metamorphosis, which takes place only through secret or occult schooling. Through this, the human being purifies his physical body. How much, indeed, does man know concerning his physical body! Through the fact that he examines it by dissection in an "anatomical museum" he does not by any means acquire any real knowledge concerning the laws which rule it, nor any inner control of these laws. Yet there is a possibility for him to look into himself, so that the movements of the nerve-currents, of the pulse-beat, and of the breath-streams, will become clear to him, and he can then be consciously active within these. When the human being, accordingly—through so-called occult training—is able to transform his physical body also, this now transformed body is designated as Atman, because the work upon it begins with the regulation of the breathing processes. (In German "Atmen" means: to breathe.) The seventh member of the human being is Atman—in Christian esotericism: the Father.

Thus we first attain to the Holy Ghost, to the transformed astral body; through the Holy Ghost we come to the Christ—to the consciousness of the etheric body; and through the Christ, to the Father, or the consciousness of the physical body.

If you have understood how these seven members of human nature are inter-related, you will also understand how Initiation took place in ancient times, before Christ, and how this Initia-tion took place, after Christ-Jesus had appeared on the earth.

When the human being is asleep, only his physical and etheric bodies lie in bed—his astral body is outside. When he dies, he leaves his physical body behind: only that part of the physical body which he has already transformed goes with him: forces, that is to say, not substances. What the human being thus takes with him, is very little indeed. Nevertheless, it is just this part which, in a new incarnation, serves to build up a new physical body. Materialism designates this part as the "permanent atom". And this part of the physical body, which the human being himself has transformed, is the first to leave the physical body; then the etheric body leaves it; then the consciousness-body, and then the Ego. After a short time, that part of the etheric body which the human being has not yet worked upon separates itself.

Thus it is that the human being enters Kamaloca, the Place of Purification. After another period of time, that part of the astral body which the Ego has not yet worked upon, severs itself likewise… And then there comes the time when the human being has left to him, from his three bodies, only those parts which the Ego has worked upon and transformed, through its own forces; and this is what passes through Devachan—this is the eternal kernel of man's being. It increases more and more, the more the Ego has worked upon it.

The Holy Ghost is the eternal Spirit in man. The Christ is the eternal part of the life-body; the Father, the eternal part of the physical body. These Three accompany the human being throughout all time, as that part of him which is eternal.

Before the Christian era, Initiation took place in such a way that the disciple was first prepared for everything which Mystery Teaching was able to give, until he reached the point where he was familiar with all the concepts and ideas, all the habits and feelings which are needed for living and perceiving in the higher worlds. This was followed by what was designated as the Awakening, which lasted for three and a half days and three nights. This consisted of a process whereby, through the skill of the Temple-Priest, the human being was artificially placed in a condition resembling death, for three and a half days. Whereas, normally the physical and etheric bodies remain connected during sleep, the initiating priest now drew out, during this space of time, the etheric body of the disciple about to be initiated, so that only a very loose connection existed between the etheric and physical body, on the one hand, and the remaining two bodies, on the other hand. It was a deep, trance-like sleep. The Ego of the man lived in the higher worlds, during this period of time. As the disciple had been given a knowledge of the higher worlds, he now felt at home there. The Priest was his guide. First of all, the Priest had to free the etheric body from the lethargic physical body, in order to lead it out of the physical body; in a fully-conscious state, the human being would never have been able to rise to these higher worlds ; it was necessary for him to be lifted out of such a state. Although the experiences which a human being passed through in such a process, were sublime and overpowering, he was nevertheless entirely in the hands of the Priest; he was under the power of another, and only under these conditions was he able to enter the higher worlds.

What the human being was like, after having passed through this experience, may be imagined if we bear in mind that it gave him the opportunity of experiencing his own eternal being: he was then emancipated from the part which was not eternal—his physical body—which he could not use, if he wished to move about in the higher worlds. Such a human being returned as one endowed with knowledge—as one who could bear witness, through his own vision, to the victory of life over death. Those who could bear witness, in this way, were Initiates. Their etheric body had to be lifted out of the physical body, in order that they might experience the Christos in man. These Initiates were able to say to themselves: "I have learned through my own experience that there is a part in man, which is eternal, which outlasts all incarnations. I know it, for I myself have experienced this eternal kernel of man's being". In order to attain to this, they were obliged to dwell for three days in a state of profound, dream-like sleep.

But there was something else that was connected with this—this kind of Initiation was dependent upon still another factor. And, the further we go back in time, the more we realise the truth of this. I have already characterised this to you, when I once explained that, in ancient times, there existed what we might call "close marriage", in contrast to distant marriage. In all nations, we find small communities which were inter-related; people married within these communities, and it was considered immoral to abandon them by marrying outside. The same blood always streamed through these marriages. Only very gradually was this close marriage substituted by the principle of distant marriage. Indeed, in the case of initiation, very special measures had to be observed, it was necessary to choose most carefully, from preceding incarnations, in order to produce the best possible mixture o blood. Such a genealogy then produced the one who was capable of passing through the higher grades of Initiation. In the case of persons related by blood, it is especially easy to draw the etheric body out of the physical body. In the case of distant marriages, this is by no means so easy. Throughout long generations of priests, it was their duty to see that the blood was maintained in a specially determined way. Human life is complicated; it does not always follow a straight road; and it is necessary to penetrate more and more deeply into the riddles of existence.

In ever increasing measure, this principle of close marriage was broken; the tribe extended more and more to the folk or nation. In the case of the Israelites, we see how the tribal principle rose completely to the idea of the national community. Christ extends this perspective into the far distant future: "He that forsaketh not his father, mother, brother or sister for my sake, cannot be my disciple."—In a stern, yet in a most deeply true way, do these words indicate the direction followed by Christianity. Within the national community, one would say: This is my brother, for he was born in the same nation. in the human brotherhood, which must encompass the whole human race, one should say: Because you are a human being, you are my brother. This is the most profound of all Christian principles. All narrow-mindedness contained in the other form of relationship must be torn asunder, and a common tie must unite human beings. At the same time, this implies also that the old principle of Initiation has been torn asunder; for it was based upon relationship of the blood.

The new principle of Initiation—which is not connected, since the coming of Christ, with any physical quality—is clearly indicated to us, in the case of Paul: He is initiated in the Light, not in the darkness of the Temple. This could not have taken place, earlier. When we bear this in mind, we shall be able to realise the tremendous turning-point brought about by Christ Jesus. The way to this was prepared by Moses, Zarathustra Buddha, Pythagoras;—but it was brought to fulfilment by Christ-Jesus.

Thus we see also that in the Christian Schools of Initiation this new principle is carried through, for the first time—the principle of not drawing the human being out of the physical body, in order to lead him into the higher worlds, but of leading him into the higher worlds while completely conscious in his physical body. This is what took place, accordingly, in the Christian esoteric Schools. In contrast to this, there is the old way—and this still includes a great part of humanity, even at the present time—in which there is the initiating Temple-priest, to whose stern authority the neophyte surrenders himself. Only by subjecting oneself entirely to the power of such an Initiating priest, was it possible to ascend to higher worlds.

The principle of enforced authority came to expression also in social life. The Priests were rulers. Every law of government, the whole structure of the state, was in the power of the Initiates. From the blood-community of the tribe, up to the community of the nation, this was possible. But, through the fact that the old principle of initiation was eliminated, the way was opened for an entirely new form of authority: a free authority, based solely upon trust and confidence. "Believe only in the one whom you trust"—this is the most sublime Christian idea to which we can rise, by virtue of which we all face one another as brothers, and the one who, stands higher will be recognised as the one who deserves our trust.

"Watch and pray": this is a fundamental Christian principle. The new Initiation takes place in a state of full consciousness. "You will know the Truth, and the Truth will make you free”: these are profoundly Christian words, for they signify a perspective into the farthest future of Christianity. Christianity is at the beginning of its evolution.

Let us consider the intensely close tie that existed between the initiating Teacher and the disciple, during the ancient Temple-Sleep, which lasted three and a half days—when the neophyte was being initiated into the highest Mysteries. This relation was of a kind which we cannot even imagine, to-day. The relation between the hypnotiser and the one who is hypnotised may give a faint idea of the way in which the initiating Temple-priest first called to life the Holy Ghost, and then the Christos. The disciple reflected the Holy Ghost and the Christos of the Teacher: the personalities of the Teacher and the disciple streamed into each other, and the clairvoyant could observe the process. During the three days, the Teacher and disciple were one. The Ego of the Guru thus lived on, in all of his disciples, and was deeply merged with them, during the three and a half days.

Let us observe the pyramidal structure of social life: the folk below; above the folk, the Initiates; and, above these, the Teachers of the Initiates. One and the same Spirit streamed down through all these stages. Many things, consequently, passed over into, and lived on, in those who were initiated in this way—even things that were alien to them.

As a result of the Christian principle, the individuality appeared in its full value. This explains the fundamental principle of Christian initiation. Never should the disciple become merged with the Teacher in the old way. They must not become one person, during Initiation. The Holy Ghost must arise, and awaken within the Ego of each single human being: this has become the principle of Christian Initiation. And this is also expressed symbolically, in the miracle of Pentecost. The possibility of Initiation, in that case, was given through the fact that all who were present began to speak in different tongues.

The Teacher respects the individuality of the other person; he enters into the heart of his disciple—he does not draw this out of the physical body.

We should bear in mind that, for the modern human being, everything depends upon the free and independent development, within each one, of the Holy Ghost and the Christos. We shall then realise that it is through this principle of Christianity that—for the first time, indeed—this human personality can be looked upon as free and independent. Only through Christianity has the human individuality become really free; and, for this reason, through Christianity, an entirely new relation to Truth and Wisdom has become necessary.

In olden times, the spirit of Wisdom ruled over all things, because it was centralised. Through the cleavage that followed, it became de-centralised; but Egoism arose. The more the principle of distant marriage begins to hold sway, the greater must become the power of that element which brings together human beings, now become free. And what is this element? If we consider what we may learn to-day, in the elementary parts of spiritual science, and then go back to ancient times, we shall find that this knowledge was in the possession of small communities only—and, indeed, even then, only in the possession of the highest authority. For this reason, the ruling principle was based upon compulsion. We are now approaching the time when Wisdom will become m.re and more popular. This will be the means whereby the great Brotherhood of humanity will be established.

Two occultists will never be of a different opinion. Where-ever this is the case, one of the two opinions is wrong. Wisdom is something unified—a oneness—which cannot contain differences. The more individualised human beings become, the more they will need this wisdom; for, through it, they will be drawn together. To-day, we are living in an age of transition. The principle of different viewpoints ceases entirely, through the progressive development of Wisdom. The more individualised men become, the wiser they must grow; for knowledge will lead them together. This is the Spirit of Wisdom which Christ-Jesus his promised to His followers. The Sun of Wisdom draws into itself all differing standpoints—just as the sun attracts the plants. The Spirit which will make men free, is the Holy Ghost. Against this Spirit, no Christian may ever sin. For he who sins against it, sins against Christianity itself—against that promised Spirit which is able to draw together all separate human individualities.

There is a passage which tells us that Christ-Jesus cast out demons. Demons exist only as long as the human being is not free—as long as he has not yet received into himself the Spirit of Wisdom. The human being is absolutely filled with all kinds of beings, which stream in and out of his lower members. (Perhaps we may use the trivial comparison of a piece of cheese, with maggots creeping in and out of it). We call these beings shadows, spectres, ghosts, or demons. In making Himself known as the Spirit who casts out demons, Christ-Jesus has shown that He is the Spirit of Freedom. For demons can be cast out only by calling forth the one Spirit against the others—the Spirit of Freedom against all the other spirits.

Let us now consider once more the ancient communities—extending from the tribal community to the nation. How may these human beings, who are not yet individually free, be drawn together? Imagine to yourselves that everyone who is sitting here has become truly free—that the Spirit of Truth lives in each one! Would we, in that case, ever quarrel, ever fall into dissension? No—for where the Spirit unites us, there can be no divergence of opinions. In ancient times, external law had to hold sway, in order to hold human beings together. Where two human beings know the Spirit of Truth, they will, because of this, feel themselves drawn to each other.

At the beginning of human evolution was the Law: at the end of evolution, there will be peaceful, harmonious cooperation from within. Esoteric Christianity calls this, in contrast to the Law—Grace. To be able to share, in complete harmony, the feelings of one's fellow-man: this is the profoundest concept of Christianity.

The astral body that has been filled with the Holy Ghost, is the same in all men—the Spirit of Truth, in each one, is the same. Imagine to yourselves this Spirit within a human individuality in which also the Christos has been awakened—that is to say, that principle which is active as Life-Spirit within the Life-Body. If each one of us were to permeate his etheric body with this feeling, we should then have, in every heart, the feeling for the One, unified Spirit. Human individualities are brought together by the Wisdom which is common to all; and what each one feels within himself, is Caritas—Grace.

The One who brought Grace to earth was He Who, at the beginning of our Era, contained within His own individuality the whole Christos—the One Who fulfilled, for the first time, the principle of humanity, as a whole. Christ-Jesus developed in Himself what should live in every single human being. Whatever exists through freedom and peaceful cooperation, has come into the world through Him.

"Become alive again in Christ and kill the Spirit of discord", says Paul.

A human being may sin against everything which is not contained in this Spirit. But, if he were to sin against this Spirit of a common humanity, if he were to deny this Spirit—he would no longer be a Christian.

The human being must reach the stage of being conscious of the Spirit. If he develops himself, ever more and more, his consciousness-body becomes transformed into the Holy Ghost. It is for this reason that the Sin against the Holy Ghost cannot be forgiven. In the case of an uninitiated person, the transformation of the etheric body takes place unconsciously. As long as the human being is not initiated, the unforgivable sin can be committed only within his astral body. The Initiate may not sin, even against the physical or etheric body: to the one who is not initiated, these sins may be forgiven. All of this takes place with the help of those who are the Leaders of humanity.

If we recall what we have learnt so far about our earth's beginnings, we find many things which still need to be explained. What we have so far learnt does, however, make clear that we have to look for much more reality—many more Beings—in Genesis than the usual translations convey.

We pointed out yesterday that the word yom does not indicate the abstract period of time which is what the word “day” means now, but refers to the Beings whom we call Spirits of Personality, Time-Spirits, Archai. This discovery enables us to enter more deeply into what I have already repeated several times: that behind the weaving life of elementary existence described in the Bible account of the creation, soul-spiritual Beings are everywhere to be seen. We may now see Being instead of empty abstractions behind much else that comes before us in the Genesis account. Of course it is easy to see Being when the Bible is referring to the Spirit of the Elohim—Ruach Elohim¹—but if we wish to grasp the sense of the ancient tradition we have to look for Being not only in those expressions where probably even modern minds would be prepared to recognise it; we must be prepared to find it everywhere. For example we should be quite justified in raising the question in connection with such expressions (to use my own words) as “The inner activity was tohu wabohu” and “And darkness was upon the elementary material existence.” Have we not perhaps also to see something of the nature of Being behind what is described as “darkness”? We cannot understand the Genesis account unless we can answer such questions. Just as we have to see manifestations of the spirit behind all that appears in the positive direction, such as light, air, water, earth, warmth, so we shall perhaps have to see manifestations of a deeper spiritual nature in the more negative expressions.

To get to the bottom of this, we must again go back to the earliest point we can reach in the development of our planet. As we have often said, we must think of the ancient Saturn existence as a condition of pure warmth, and that with the transition to the Sun there then took place on the one hand a densification to air or gas, on the other hand a rarefaction in the direction of the etheric, to light-ether. We have said that the passage in which the words ring forth And God (the Elohim) said, Let there be light; and there was light is describing a kind of repetition of this coming into existence of the light-ether.

Now we may ask: Was the darkness there of itself; or does spiritual Being lie behind this also? If you read the relevant passages in my Occult Science you will come across something extremely important for the understanding of all development—the fact that at each stage of evolution certain Beings remain behind. Only a certain number of Beings reach their goal. I have often used a singularly bald illustration, pointing out that not only are some schoolboys backward, to the sorrow of their parents, but in the cosmic process, too, certain Beings do in fact lag behind, do not attain their appropriate goal. Thus we may say that during the ancient Saturn evolution certain Beings did not reach their proper goal, they lagged behind. During the Sun evolution they still remained at the Saturn stage.

How could one recognise on the Sun the Beings who were still really Saturn Beings? By the fact that they had not acquired the light nature, which was of the very essence of the Sun state. But because these Beings were nevertheless there, the Sun, which I have described as an inweaving of light, warmth and air, had darkness as well as light in it. And this darkness was the mark of the Beings remaining at the Saturn stage, just as the weaving light indicated the Beings who had progressed regularly to the Sun stage. Thus, there was an interweaving of Beings who were still at the Saturn stage of development with Beings who had progressed normally to the Sun stage. From the inner aspect these Beings moved in and out among one another; and outwardly they manifested themselves as an interplay of light and darkness. We can call the manifestation of the more advanced Beings, light, and the manifestation of the Beings remaining behind at the Saturn stage, darkness.

If we know this, we shall expect the relationship between advanced and backward Beings to reappear during the recapitulation of the Saturn and Sun epochs in earth evolution. And because the backward Saturn Beings represent an earlier stage of evolution, they will appear earlier than the light in the recapitulation also. Thus, quite rightly, in the first verse of Genesis we are told that darkness prevailed over the elementary substances. That is the recapitulation of the Saturn existence, now a backward one. The Sun existence has to wait; it comes later, it comes at the point where the Bible says: Let there be light.

Thus we see that the Genesis story is in complete accordance with the recapitulation described in my Occult Science.

If we would understand existence, we must be clear that what emerged at an earlier stage does not just go on for a time and then disappear. Something new is continually arising, but the old remains actual alongside the new and continues to work within it. And so even today we have co-existing the two stages of evolution which we can call light and darkness. Light and darkness permeate our existence.

Here we come to a rather thorny subject. Possibly some of you may know that for the last thirty years or so I have been trying at intervals to show the deep significance and value of Goethe's Theory of Colour. Of course, anyone who supports this theory today must make up his mind that he will not gain the ear of his contemporaries. For those whose knowledge of physics would qualify them to understand its significance are today wholly unprepared for it. Modern physics, with its fantastic nonsense about ether vibrations and so on, is utterly incapable of penetrating to the real heart of Goethe's Theory of Colour. For this we shall still have to wait for several decades. Anyone who treats of the subject knows that. And the others—forgive me for saying this—those whose knowledge of occultism would perhaps equip them to understand the essential nature of the Goethean theory, know too little about physics for me to be able to discuss the subject in detail. Thus there is today no proper basis for such a discussion. The fundamental content of Goethe's theory of colour is the mystery of light and darkness, working together as two real polaric entities in the world. The concept of matter which is put forward today is simply a fantasy; it is an illusion. Matter is in reality a soul-spiritual being, which is to be traced everywhere where the polaric contrast of light and darkness is effective. The physical notion of matter which is generally accepted is, in truth, a chimera. In the regions of space where, according to physics, we are to look for a sort of apparition called “matter,” there is in actual fact nothing else but a certain degree of darkness. And this dark content of space is filled out with something of a soul-spiritual nature, something akin to what is intended in Genesis in the passage where “darkness” (the word used to denote the collective whole of this soul-spiritual entity) is described as weaving over the elementary existence. All these things are much more profound than modern natural science dreams! Thus when Genesis speaks of darkness, it is speaking of the manifestation of the backward Saturn Beings. And when it speaks of light, it is referring to the advanced Beings. They interact and interweave with one another.

We said yesterday that the main lines, the main features, of evolution were laid down by Beings at the stage of the Exusiai, the Spirits of Form, so that these Beings plan the general direction of the activities of light. And further, we have seen that they make use of the Spirits of Personality as their servants, and that behind the expression yom, day, we have to see a Being of the rank of the Archai, appointed under the Elohim. We may also assume that, just as on the positive side these servants of the Elohim, these Spirits of Personality indicated by yom, are active, so also the backward spiritual Beings, who work in opposition to them in darkness, play their part. Indeed we may say that darkness is something that the Elohim find already there. Light is something they bring into being through their musing, their meditation. When they think out the two complexes from what has remained over from the earlier existence, it comes about that darkness is interwoven therein as the expression of the backward Beings. They themselves bestow the light. But just as out of the light the Elohim appoint the Beings represented by yom, day, so out of the darkness come Beings who are of the same rank as these, but Beings who have lagged behind at an earlier stage. Thus we can say that all that manifests itself as darkness stands together on one side in opposition to the Elohim And now we have to ask, who are the Beings who oppose the Archai, servants of the Elohim, the Beings indicated by the word yom? Who are the corresponding backward Beings in opposition to them?

To avoid misunderstanding, it would be as well to clear up first another point—whether we have always to look upon these backward Beings as evil, as something wrong in the world-context. It is easy for the abstract man, the man who is concerned only with concepts, to feel something like indignation over the backward Beings; or he can make the mistake of being sorry for the poor things! We should not harbour feelings and ideas of such a kind as regards these tremendous realities of the universe. That would lead us completely astray. On the contrary we should remind ourselves that everything happens out of cosmic wisdom, and that whenever Beings remain behind at a particular stage of development, it means something; it has significance for the whole for Beings to remain behind, just as it has for them to attain their goal; in other words, there are certain functions which cannot be carried out by the advanced Beings, functions for which Beings are needed who remain at an earlier stage. They are in their proper place in their backwardness. What would become of the world if all those who ought to be teachers of young children were to become university professors? Those who do not become professors are much better where they are than the professors would be. Those who occupy academic chairs would probably turn out to be very badly suited for the instruction of seven-, eight-, nine- and ten-year-olds! Something of the same kind is true in cosmic relationships. There are certain tasks for which those who attain their goal would be little fitted. For certain tasks those who have remained behind—we could equally well say those who have renounced progress—must take their place. And just as the advanced Spirits of Personality, the Yamim, were given their task by the Elohim, so the backward Archai also, those Spirits of Personality who reveal themselves not through light, but through darkness, are made use of in order to evoke the laws of earthly development. They are allotted their proper place, so that they may make their contribution to the orderly development of our existence.

How important that is we can see from an illustration borrowed from everyday life. The light of which Genesis speaks is not the light which we can see with our physical eyes—that is a subsequent form of light. In the same way what we designate as physical darkness, what surrounds us at night, is a later form of what is called darkness in Genesis. None of you will doubt that the physical daylight which we see nowadays is important both for man and for other living things. Take for example the plants! If you remove them from the light they deteriorate, become stunted in their growth. Light is an element of life for every living thing, and, so far as their external physical existence is concerned, it is a necessity for men too.

But something else is also necessary as well as light. To understand what this is, we have to consider the rhythmic alternation of sleeping and waking. What does it really mean to be awake? All the activity of our souls, all that we develop in our thinking and feeling, all the ebb and flow of our passions—in short, all that happens through the fluctuating energies of our astral bodies and our egos, constitutes a continual using up of our physical bodies during day life. That is a very ancient occult truth, a truth to which even modern physiology comes if it knows how to interpret its own findings properly. What the soul unfolds as its inner life in the waking state continuously uses up the forces of the external physical body, the first rudiments of which were bestowed during the Saturn existence. The life of the physical body is quite different in sleep, when the astral body with its fluctuant inner life is outside it. Whereas in waking life there is a continuous consumption, or even a continuous destruction, of the forces of the physical body, in sleep these forces are being restored, being renewed and built up again all the time. So that in our physical and etheric bodies we have to distinguish destructive processes and processes of renewal—destructive processes which take place during waking life, processes of renewal which take place during sleep. But nothing which happens anywhere in space is isolated, it is always related to existence as a whole. And we must not think of those processes of destruction, which take place in our physical bodies from the time we awaken to the time we go to sleep again, as being confined within the limits of our skin. They are closely bound up with cosmic processes. They are merely a continuation of what flows into us from outside, so that during the waking life of day we are connected with the destructive forces of the universe, and during sleep with the forces of renewal.

This destruction of our physical bodies which goes on during the waking life of day could not have happened during the Saturn evolution, otherwise the first rudiments of our physical body could never have been formed. For obviously one can build up nothing if one starts to destroy it. The Saturnian operation on our bodies had to be a constructive one. The destructive process takes place in the daytime under the influence of light, but on Saturn there was no light. Therefore the Saturn activity on our physical bodies was an up-building one, and had to be maintained at least for a time, even into the later period, when on the Sun light appeared. Then the up-building activity could only be maintained through Saturn Beings remaining behind to care for it.

It was necessary for the Saturn Beings to be kept back in cosmic evolution, so that they could undertake the rebuilding of the physical body during sleep, while there was no light. Thus the backward Saturn Beings have their part to play in our existence; without them we should be exposed to nothing but destruction. There has to be an alternation, a co-operation, of Sun Beings and Saturn Beings, of light and darkness. Thus if the activity of the light Beings is to be rightly guided by the Elohim, they must inweave into their own work in an orderly fashion the work of the Beings of darkness. There can be no stability in cosmic activity unless the force of darkness is everywhere interwoven with the force of light. And in this complication of the forces of light and darkness lies one of the secrets of cosmic existence, of cosmic alchemy. This secret is touched upon in the seventh scene of my first Mystery Play, where Johannes Thomasius enters Devachan, and where one of Maria's companions, Astrid, is given the task of weaving the dark into the light. Throughout the conversation between Maria and her three companions you will find many cosmic mysteries concealed, which can well be pondered for a long, long time.

Thus we must never forget that the interplay between the forces of sun-light and Saturn-darkness is a necessity of our existence. When therefore the Elohim placed the Spirits of Personality as their deputies in charge of the weaving of the light forces, of the work which is performed upon us men and upon other earthly beings while the light is affecting us, they had also to appoint the backward Saturn Beings as fellow-workers; they had to see that the whole work of the universe was carried on by the normally advanced and the backward Archai together. The backward Archai are active in the darkness. Hence the Elohim employ not only the Beings designated by yom, day, but they set in opposition to them Beings who weave in the darkness. And the Bible says with a wonderfully realistic description of the facts: And God called the light Day (yom), and the darkness He called Night (lay'lah).² And lay'lah does not mean our abstract night, but lay'lah are the Saturn Archai, who at that time had not advanced to the Sun stage. And to this day it is they who are active in us during sleep, when they work upon our physical and etheric bodies, building them up. This mysterious expression lay'lah, which has given rise to all kinds of myths, is neither our abstract “night” nor is it anything which need lead to myth-making. It is simply the name of the backward Archai, who unite their activity with that of the advanced Archai.

Thus we have paraphrased the appropriate words in Genesis somewhat as follows: The Elohim planned the main lines of existence; they deputed the advanced Archai to work under them, and appointed to help them those Archai who in resignation had remained in darkness at the Saturn stage, in order that existence could come about. Thus we have yom and lay'lah as two contrasted groups of Beings, who help the Elohim and who are at the stage of the Time-Spirits, the Spirits of Personality. We see existence being woven out of the Spirits of Form and the Spirits of Personality, out of advanced Beings and the backward Beings of these two hierarchies.

Now that we have found an answer to these questions which satisfies us up to a certain point (there is of course much more behind all these things), another question will be on the tip of all your tongues. What of the other hierarchies? We distinguish among the hierarchies in descending order from the Spirits of Form, first the Archai, the Spirits of Personality, then the Archangeloi, the Archangels, or Fire-Spirits. Does Genesis say nothing of these? Let us look more closely to find out what the position is with regard to the Fire-Spirits. We know that they reached their human stage during the Sun evolution. They have advanced through the Moon stage to that of earth. They are the Beings who are inwardly connected with everything of a sun nature, for it was during the Sun evolution that they reached their human stage. And when during the Moon evolution it became necessary for the Sun to separate from the earth, which was at that time of a Moon nature, then these Beings, who had gone through their most important stage of development on the Sun, who were, so to say, by their very nature associated with the Sun, naturally remained united with the Sun. When therefore the Moon (later to become earth) separated from the Sun, these Beings remained, not with the separating Earth-Moon, but with the Sun. They are the principal Beings who work upon the earth from without.

I have already indicated that in the evolution from Saturn to Sun, the highest form of life which could be reached on the Sun was the plant species. Before an animal nature with an inner life could come about there had to be a separation, a cleavage. Thus it was not until the Moon evolution that anything of an animal nature could arise. An influence from without was needed. Now in Genesis we are not told of anything being active from without up to the end of the third day of creation. The transition from the third to the fourth day is an important one, for we are told that on the fourth day light forces, Beings of light, began to be active from without. So that, just as in the Moon period the sun shone upon the Moon from without, so now both the sun and the moon shone upon the earth from without. It amounts to no less than this—up to this point all those forces which were themselves within the earth element could take effect. Up to this point it was possible for there to be a recapitulation of earlier stages of evolution, and for forces centralised in the earth itself to arise anew. Thus we saw yesterday how in the Spirit of the Elohim who brooded over the waters the warmth state was recapitulated; how in the moment designated by the words Let there be light the entry of light was recapitulated; how at the point where the forces of the sound-ether broke in and separated the upper from the lower, the sound-ether stage was recapitulated. That was on the second day of creation. Then we saw how the life-ether intervened on the third day, when out of the earth element, out of the new condition, there came forth all that can be brought about by the life-ether—the sprouting green. But in order for anything animal to find a place on the earth there has to be a repetition of the “being shone upon” (if I may use the expression), an influence of forces acting from without. Hence it is quite in accordance with the facts that there should be no mention in Genesis of anything of an animal nature until after we have been told of forces working upon the earth from cosmic space. Up to that time Genesis speaks only of the plant nature; all the beings on the earth were at the plant stage. The animal nature could not begin until light Beings were influencing the earth from its environment.

What then came about is described in Genesis in words of which various translations exist. [The English Authorised Version is: And God said, ... let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years.]

Now there are some commentators, some exegetists, who have begun to think. But at the present day, when people scorn to penetrate to fundamental realities, it is the wretched lot of commentators that they begin to think, but cannot think anything through to the end. I have known some of these commentators who have reached the point of acknowledging that the usual rendering is nonsense. I should like to meet the man who can really make any sense of these words. What really lies behind them?

If we wish to render this passage faithfully with a real sense of the associations which the words would have had for the ancient Hebrew sage, and with philological thoroughness, we shall have to say that once more it is not a question of signs, but of the activity of living Beings making themselves known in the form of successive events in time. A correct translation would be: And the Elohim appointed Beings to regulate the course of time for the beings on earth, to regulate specific divisions of time (the word “day” is not mentioned at all), larger or smaller periods (usually given as “year” and “day”). Thus the reference is to those Beings who stand next below the rank of the Archai and who regulate life. The tasks performed by the Time-Spirits, the Archai, lie a stage lower than the tasks of the Elohim. Then come the regulators, the sign-fixers, for what has to be regulated, grouped, within the activity of the Archai. But these are none other than the Archangels. Thus we may venture to say that in the moment to which Genesis refers, when not only is something taking place in the body of the earth, but when forces are working into the earth from without, it becomes possible for Beings who are already united with the sun existence—the regulating Archangels, who are one stage lower than the Archai—to intervene. While the Archai themselves are still active as Aeons, for the deployment of their forces they make use of the Archangels, the light-bearers, who act from the circumference. That means that through the constellations of the light-Beings surrounding the earth, the Archangels work out of cosmic space in such a way that the great ordinances laid down by the Archai may be carried into effect.

Those who were present at the course of lectures I gave in Christiania will remember that even today the Archai are still behind what we are accustomed to call the Spirit of the Age. If we look around at the way our own world has been organised, we find that each age has a number of peoples over whom for a specific period a Time-Spirit holds sway. Side by side with him and subordinated to him work the several Folk-Spirits. And just as today the Spirits of the Age or Time-Spirits are in control, and behind them are the Archai—I described that in my Christiania lectures³—so behind the Folk-Spirits are the Archangels; in a certain way they are the Folk-Spirits. Genesis points to the fact that even in times when man himself was really not yet there, these spiritual Beings were the organising powers.

Thus we must say that it was the Elohim who brought light into existence; they manifested themselves through light. But for lesser activities within the light they appointed the Archai, who are indicated in Genesis by the word yom, and who ranked next below them among the hierarchies; and they placed beside the Archai the Beings who must of necessity be woven into the web of existence, in order that the requisite activity of darkness can come into association with the activity of light. Side by side with yom they placed lay'lah, which is usually translated “night.” Then it became a question of how to progress further and into greater detail. For this, other Beings from the ranks of the hierarchies are chosen. Thus when it has been said that the Elohim or Spirits of Form manifested themselves through light, and placed the affairs of light and darkness in charge of the Archai, one has to add that now they took another step and, specialising further, appointed the Archangels to activities which not only call an external plant life into existence, but which are now to call forth an inner life, an inner life capable of reflecting the outer; they entrusted to the Archangels the activity which has to stream upon our earth from without, so that not only can the plant species shoot up, but also the animal nature, weaving its inward life of image and sensation.

Thus we see how, when we know how to interpret it, the Genesis account refers to Archangels too, quite in accordance with the facts. When you turn to the exegesis of the general run of commentators you will always feel dissatisfied. But if you turn for help to the same source from which the Genesis account came, if you turn to Occult Science, a flood of light will be thrown upon that account. It will all appear to you in a new light. And this ancient document, which otherwise would inevitably remain incomprehensible, because of the impossibility of translating the ancient living words into our language, will endure as a document which speaks to mankind for all time.

• 1. According to the Authorised Version: and darkness was upon the face of the deep.
• 2. The “y” is consonantal, as in the word yellow.
• 3. The Mission of Folk-Souls in connection with Germanic and Scandinavian Mythology. Eleven lectures by Rudolf Steiner given at Oslo in June, 1910. (English translation, 1929, out of print.

If we recall what we have learnt so far about our earth's beginnings, we find many things which still need to be explained. What we have so far learnt does, however, make clear that we have to look for much more reality—many more Beings—in Genesis than the usual translations convey.

We pointed out yesterday that the word yom does not indicate the abstract period of time which is what the word “day” means now, but refers to the Beings whom we call Spirits of Personality, Time-Spirits, Archai. This discovery enables us to enter more deeply into what I have already repeated several times: that behind the weaving life of elementary existence described in the Bible account of the creation, soul-spiritual Beings are everywhere to be seen. We may now see Being instead of empty abstractions behind much else that comes before us in the Genesis account. Of course it is easy to see Being when the Bible is referring to the Spirit of the Elohim—Ruach Elohim—but if we wish to grasp the sense of the ancient tradition we have to look for Being not only in those expressions where probably even modern minds would be prepared to recognise it; we must be prepared to find it everywhere. For example we should be quite justified in raising the question in connection with such expressions (to use my own words) as “The inner activity was tohu wabohu” and “And darkness was upon the elementary material existence.” Have we not perhaps also to see something of the nature of Being behind what is described as “darkness”? We cannot understand the Genesis account unless we can answer such questions. Just as we have to see manifestations of the spirit behind all that appears in the positive direction, such as light, air, water, earth, warmth, so we shall perhaps have to see manifestations of a deeper spiritual nature in the more negative expressions.

To get to the bottom of this, we must again go back to the earliest point we can reach in the development of our planet. As we have often said, we must think of the ancient Saturn existence as a condition of pure warmth, and that with the transition to the Sun there then took place on the one hand a densification to air or gas, on the other hand a rarefaction in the direction of the etheric, to light-ether. We have said that the passage in which the words ring forth And God (the Elohim) said, Let there be light; and there was light is describing a kind of repetition of this coming into existence of the light-ether.

Now we may ask: Was the darkness there of itself; or does spiritual Being lie behind this also? If you read the relevant passages in my >Occult Science you will come across something extremely important for the understanding of all development—the fact that at each stage of evolution certain Beings remain behind. Only a certain number of Beings reach their goal. I have often used a singularly bald illustration, pointing out that not only are some schoolboys backward, to the sorrow of their parents, but in the cosmic process, too, certain Beings do in fact lag behind, do not attain their appropriate goal. Thus we may say that during the ancient Saturn evolution certain Beings did not reach their proper goal, they lagged behind. During the Sun evolution they still remained at the Saturn stage.

How could one recognise on the Sun the Beings who were still really Saturn Beings? By the fact that they had not acquired the light nature, which was of the very essence of the Sun state. But because these Beings were nevertheless there, the Sun, which I have described as an inweaving of light, warmth and air, had darkness as well as light in it. And this darkness was the mark of the Beings remaining at the Saturn stage, just as the weaving light indicated the Beings who had progressed regularly to the Sun stage. Thus, there was an interweaving of Beings who were still at the Saturn stage of development with Beings who had progressed normally to the Sun stage. From the inner aspect these Beings moved in and out among one another; and outwardly they manifested themselves as an interplay of light and darkness. We can call the manifestation of the more advanced Beings, light, and the manifestation of the Beings remaining behind at the Saturn stage, darkness.

If we know this, we shall expect the relationship between advanced and backward Beings to reappear during the recapitulation of the Saturn and Sun epochs in earth evolution. And because the backward Saturn Beings represent an earlier stage of evolution, they will appear earlier than the light in the recapitulation also. Thus, quite rightly, in the first verse of Genesis we are told that darkness prevailed over the elementary substances. That is the recapitulation of the Saturn existence, now a backward one. The Sun existence has to wait; it comes later, it comes at the point where the Bible says: Let there be light.

Thus we see that the Genesis story is in complete accordance with the recapitulation described in my Occult Science.

If we would understand existence, we must be clear that what emerged at an earlier stage does not just go on for a time and then disappear. Something new is continually arising, but the old remains actual alongside the new and continues to work within it. And so even today we have co-existing the two stages of evolution which we can call light and darkness. Light and darkness permeate our existence.

Here we come to a rather thorny subject. Possibly some of you may know that for the last thirty years or so I have been trying at intervals to show the deep significance and value of Goethe's Theory of Colour. Of course, anyone who supports this theory today must make up his mind that he will not gain the ear of his contemporaries. For those whose knowledge of physics would qualify them to understand its significance are today wholly unprepared for it. Modern physics, with its fantastic nonsense about ether vibrations and so on, is utterly incapable of penetrating to the real heart of Goethe's Theory of Colour. For this we shall still have to wait for several decades. Anyone who treats of the subject knows that. And the others—forgive me for saying this—those whose knowledge of occultism would perhaps equip them to understand the essential nature of the Goethean theory, know too little about physics for me to be able to discuss the subject in detail. Thus there is today no proper basis for such a discussion. The fundamental content of Goethe's theory of colour is the mystery of light and darkness, working together as two real polaric entities in the world. The concept of matter which is put forward today is simply a fantasy; it is an illusion. Matter is in reality a soul-spiritual being, which is to be traced everywhere where the polaric contrast of light and darkness is effective. The physical notion of matter which is generally accepted is, in truth, a chimera. In the regions of space where, according to physics, we are to look for a sort of apparition called “matter,” there is in actual fact nothing else but a certain degree of darkness. And this dark content of space is filled out with something of a soul-spiritual nature, something akin to what is intended in Genesis in the passage where “darkness” (the word used to denote the collective whole of this soul-spiritual entity) is described as weaving over the elementary existence.¹ All these things are much more profound than modern natural science dreams! Thus when Genesis speaks of darkness, it is speaking of the manifestation of the backward Saturn Beings. And when it speaks of light, it is referring to the advanced Beings. They interact and interweave with one another.

We said yesterday that the main lines, the main features, of evolution were laid down by Beings at the stage of the Exusiai, the Spirits of Form, so that these Beings plan the general direction of the activities of light. And further, we have seen that they make use of the Spirits of Personality as their servants, and that behind the expression yom, day, we have to see a Being of the rank of the Archai, appointed under the Elohim. We may also assume that, just as on the positive side these servants of the Elohim, these Spirits of Personality indicated by yom, are active, so also the backward spiritual Beings, who work in opposition to them in darkness, play their part. Indeed we may say that darkness is something that the Elohim find already there. Light is something they bring into being through their musing, their meditation. When they think out the two complexes from what has remained over from the earlier existence, it comes about that darkness is interwoven therein as the expression of the backward Beings. They themselves bestow the light. But just as out of the light the Elohim appoint the Beings represented by yom, day, so out of the darkness come Beings who are of the same rank as these, but Beings who have lagged behind at an earlier stage. Thus we can say that all that manifests itself as darkness stands together on one side in opposition to the Elohim And now we have to ask, who are the Beings who oppose the Archai, servants of the Elohim, the Beings indicated by the word yom? Who are the corresponding backward Beings in opposition to them?

To avoid misunderstanding, it would be as well to clear up first another point—whether we have always to look upon these backward Beings as evil, as something wrong in the world-context. It is easy for the abstract man, the man who is concerned only with concepts, to feel something like indignation over the backward Beings; or he can make the mistake of being sorry for the poor things! We should not harbour feelings and ideas of such a kind as regards these tremendous realities of the universe. That would lead us completely astray. On the contrary we should remind ourselves that everything happens out of cosmic wisdom, and that whenever Beings remain behind at a particular stage of development, it means something; it has significance for the whole for Beings to remain behind, just as it has for them to attain their goal; in other words, there are certain functions which cannot be carried out by the advanced Beings, functions for which Beings are needed who remain at an earlier stage. They are in their proper place in their backwardness. What would become of the world if all those who ought to be teachers of young children were to become university professors? Those who do not become professors are much better where they are than the professors would be. Those who occupy academic chairs would probably turn out to be very badly suited for the instruction of seven-, eight-, nine- and ten-year-olds! Something of the same kind is true in cosmic relationships. There are certain tasks for which those who attain their goal would be little fitted. For certain tasks those who have remained behind—we could equally well say those who have renounced progress—must take their place. And just as the advanced Spirits of Personality, the Yamim, were given their task by the Elohim, so the backward Archai also, those Spirits of Personality who reveal themselves not through light, but through darkness, are made use of in order to evoke the laws of earthly development. They are allotted their proper place, so that they may make their contribution to the orderly development of our existence.

How important that is we can see from an illustration borrowed from everyday life. The light of which Genesis speaks is not the light which we can see with our physical eyes—that is a subsequent form of light. In the same way what we designate as physical darkness, what surrounds us at night, is a later form of what is called darkness in Genesis. None of you will doubt that the physical daylight which we see nowadays is important both for man and for other living things. Take for example the plants! If you remove them from the light they deteriorate, become stunted in their growth. Light is an element of life for every living thing, and, so far as their external physical existence is concerned, it is a necessity for men too.

But something else is also necessary as well as light. To understand what this is, we have to consider the rhythmic alternation of sleeping and waking. What does it really mean to be awake? All the activity of our souls, all that we develop in our thinking and feeling, all the ebb and flow of our passions—in short, all that happens through the fluctuating energies of our astral bodies and our egos, constitutes a continual using up of our physical bodies during day life. That is a very ancient occult truth, a truth to which even modern physiology comes if it knows how to interpret its own findings properly. What the soul unfolds as its inner life in the waking state continuously uses up the forces of the external physical body, the first rudiments of which were bestowed during the Saturn existence. The life of the physical body is quite different in sleep, when the astral body with its fluctuant inner life is outside it. Whereas in waking life there is a continuous consumption, or even a continuous destruction, of the forces of the physical body, in sleep these forces are being restored, being renewed and built up again all the time. So that in our physical and etheric bodies we have to distinguish destructive processes and processes of renewal—destructive processes which take place during waking life, processes of renewal which take place during sleep. But nothing which happens anywhere in space is isolated, it is always related to existence as a whole. And we must not think of those processes of destruction, which take place in our physical bodies from the time we awaken to the time we go to sleep again, as being confined within the limits of our skin. They are closely bound up with cosmic processes. They are merely a continuation of what flows into us from outside, so that during the waking life of day we are connected with the destructive forces of the universe, and during sleep with the forces of renewal.

This destruction of our physical bodies which goes on during the waking life of day could not have happened during the Saturn evolution, otherwise the first rudiments of our physical body could never have been formed. For obviously one can build up nothing if one starts to destroy it. The Saturnian operation on our bodies had to be a constructive one. The destructive process takes place in the daytime under the influence of light, but on Saturn there was no light. Therefore the Saturn activity on our physical bodies was an up-building one, and had to be maintained at least for a time, even into the later period, when on the Sun light appeared. Then the up-building activity could only be maintained through Saturn Beings remaining behind to care for it.

It was necessary for the Saturn Beings to be kept back in cosmic evolution, so that they could undertake the rebuilding of the physical body during sleep, while there was no light. Thus the backward Saturn Beings have their part to play in our existence; without them we should be exposed to nothing but destruction. There has to be an alternation, a co-operation, of Sun Beings and Saturn Beings, of light and darkness. Thus if the activity of the light Beings is to be rightly guided by the Elohim, they must inweave into their own work in an orderly fashion the work of the Beings of darkness. There can be no stability in cosmic activity unless the force of darkness is everywhere interwoven with the force of light. And in this complication of the forces of light and darkness lies one of the secrets of cosmic existence, of cosmic alchemy. This secret is touched upon in the seventh scene of my first Mystery Play, where Johannes Thomasius enters Devachan, and where one of Maria's companions, Astrid, is given the task of weaving the dark into the light. Throughout the conversation between Maria and her three companions you will find many cosmic mysteries concealed, which can well be pondered for a long, long time.

Thus we must never forget that the interplay between the forces of sun-light and Saturn-darkness is a necessity of our existence. When therefore the Elohim placed the Spirits of Personality as their deputies in charge of the weaving of the light forces, of the work which is performed upon us men and upon other earthly beings while the light is affecting us, they had also to appoint the backward Saturn Beings as fellow-workers; they had to see that the whole work of the universe was carried on by the normally advanced and the backward Archai together. The backward Archai are active in the darkness. Hence the Elohim employ not only the Beings designated by yom, day, but they set in opposition to them Beings who weave in the darkness. And the Bible says with a wonderfully realistic description of the facts: And God called the light Day (yom), and the darkness He called Night (lay'lah).² And lay'lah does not mean our abstract night, but lay'lah are the Saturn Archai, who at that time had not advanced to the Sun stage. And to this day it is they who are active in us during sleep, when they work upon our physical and etheric bodies, building them up. This mysterious expression lay'lah, which has given rise to all kinds of myths, is neither our abstract “night” nor is it anything which need lead to myth-making. It is simply the name of the backward Archai, who unite their activity with that of the advanced Archai.

The “y” is consonantal, as in the word yellow.

Thus we have paraphrased the appropriate words in Genesis somewhat as follows: The Elohim planned the main lines of existence; they deputed the advanced Archai to work under them, and appointed to help them those Archai who in resignation had remained in darkness at the Saturn stage, in order that existence could come about. Thus we have yom and lay'lah as two contrasted groups of Beings, who help the Elohim and who are at the stage of the Time-Spirits, the Spirits of Persönality. We see existence being woven out of the Spirits of Form and the Spirits of Personality, out of advanced Beings and the backward Beings of these two hierarchies.

Now that we have found an answer to these questions which satisfies us up to a certain point (there is of course much more behind all these things), another question will be on the tip of all your tongues. What of the other hierarchies? We distinguish among the hierarchies in descending order from the Spirits of Form, first the Archai, the Spirits of Personality, then the Archangeloi, the Archangels, or Fire-Spirits. Does Genesis say nothing of these? Let us look more closely to find out what the position is with regard to the Fire-Spirits. We know that they reached their human stage during the Sun evolution. They have advanced through the Moon stage to that of earth. They are the Beings who are inwardly connected with everything of a sun nature, for it was during the Sun evolution that they reached their human stage. And when during the Moon evolution it became necessary for the Sun to separate from the earth, which was at that time of a Moon nature, then these Beings, who had gone through their most important stage of development on the Sun, who were, so to say, by their very nature associated with the Sun, naturally remained united with the Sun. When therefore the Moon (later to become earth) separated from the Sun, these Beings remained, not with the separating Earth-Moon, but with the Sun. They are the principal Beings who work upon the earth from without.

I have already indicated that in the evolution from Saturn to Sun, the highest form of life which could be reached on the Sun was the plant species. Before an animal nature with an inner life could come about there had to be a separation, a cleavage. Thus it was not until the Moon evolution that anything of an animal nature could arise. An influence from without was needed. Now in Genesis we are not told of anything being active from without up to the end of the third day of creation. The transition from the third to the fourth day is an important one, for we are told that on the fourth day light forces, Beings of light, began to be active from without. So that, just as in the Moon period the sun shone upon the Moon from without, so now both the sun and the moon shone upon the earth from without. It amounts to no less than this—up to this point all those forces which were themselves within the earth element could take effect. Up to this point it was possible for there to be a recapitulation of earlier stages of evolution, and for forces centralised in the earth itself to arise anew. Thus we saw yesterday how in the Spirit of the Elohim who brooded over the waters the warmth state was recapitulated; how in the moment designated by the words Let there be light the entry of light was recapitulated; how at the point where the forces of the sound-ether broke in and separated the upper from the lower, the sound-ether stage was recapitulated. That was on the second day of creation. Then we saw how the life-ether intervened on the third day, when out of the earth element, out of the new condition, there came forth all that can be brought about by the life-ether—the sprouting green. But in order for anything animal to find a place on the earth there has to be a repetition of the “being shone upon” (if I may use the expression), an influence of forces acting from without. Hence it is quite in accordance with the facts that there should be no mention in Genesis of anything of an animal nature until after we have been told of forces working upon the earth from cosmic space. Up to that time Genesis speaks only of the plant nature; all the beings on the earth were at the plant stage. The animal nature could not begin until light Beings were influencing the earth from its environment.

What then came about is described in Genesis in words of which various translations exist. [The English Authorised Version is: And God said, ... let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years.]

Now there are some commentators, some exegetists, who have begun to think. But at the present day, when people scorn to penetrate to fundamental realities, it is the wretched lot of commentators that they begin to think, but cannot think anything through to the end. I have known some of these commentators who have reached the point of acknowledging that the usual rendering is nonsense. I should like to meet the man who can really make any sense of these words. What really lies behind them?

If we wish to render this passage faithfully with a real sense of the associations which the words would have had for the ancient Hebrew sage, and with philological thoroughness, we shall have to say that once more it is not a question of signs, but of the activity of living Beings making themselves known in the form of successive events in time. A correct translation would be: And the Elohim appointed Beings to regulate the course of time for the beings on earth, to regulate specific divisions of time (the word “day” is not mentioned at all), larger or smaller periods (usually given as “year” and “day”). Thus the reference is to those Beings who stand next below the rank of the Archai and who regulate life. The tasks performed by the Time-Spirits, the Archai, lie a stage lower than the tasks of the Elohim. Then come the regulators, the sign-fixers, for what has to be regulated, grouped, within the activity of the Archai. But these are none other than the Archangels. Thus we may venture to say that in the moment to which Genesis refers, when not only is something taking place in the body of the earth, but when forces are working into the earth from without, it becomes possible for Beings who are already united with the sun existence—the regulating Archangels, who are one stage lower than the Archai—to intervene. While the Archai themselves are still active as Aeons, for the deployment of their forces they make use of the Archangels, the light-bearers, who act from the circumference. That means that through the constellations of the light-Beings surrounding the earth, the Archangels work out of cosmic space in such a way that the great ordinances laid down by the Archai may be carried into effect.

Those who were present at the course of lectures I gave in Christiania will remember that even today the Archai are still behind what we are accustomed to call the Spirit of the Age. If we look around at the way our own world has been organised, we find that each age has a number of peoples over whom for a specific period a Time-Spirit holds sway. Side by side with him and subordinated to him work the several Folk-Spirits. And just as today the Spirits of the Age or Time-Spirits are in control, and behind them are the Archai—I described that in my Christiania lectures—so behind the Folk-Spirits are the Archangels; in a certain way they are the Folk-Spirits. Genesis points to the fact that even in times when man himself was really not yet there, these spiritual Beings were the organising powers.

Thus we must say that it was the Elohim who brought light into existence; they manifested themselves through light. But for lesser activities within the light they appointed the Archai, who are indicated in Genesis by the word yom, and who ranked next below them among the hierarchies; and they placed beside the Archai the Beings who must of necessity be woven into the web of existence, in order that the requisite activity of darkness can come into association with the activity of light. Side by side with yom they placed lay'lah, which is usually translated “night.” Then it became a question of how to progress further and into greater detail. For this, other Beings from the ranks of the hierarchies are chosen. Thus when it has been said that the Elohim or Spirits of Form manifested themselves through light, and placed the affairs of light and darkness in charge of the Archai, one has to add that now they took another step and, specialising further, appointed the Archangels to activities which not only call an external plant life into existence, but which are now to call forth an inner life, an inner life capable of reflecting the outer; they entrusted to the Archangels the activity which has to stream upon our earth from without, so that not only can the plant species shoot up, but also the animal nature, weaving its inward life of image and sensation.

Thus we see how, when we know how to interpret it, the Genesis account refers to Archangels too, quite in accordance with the facts. When you turn to the exegesis of the general run of commentators you will always feel dissatisfied. But if you turn for help to the same source from which the Genesis account came, if you turn to Occult Science, a flood of light will be thrown upon that account. It will all appear to you in a new light. And this ancient document, which otherwise would inevitably remain incomprehensible, because of the impossibility of translating the ancient living words into our language, will endure as a document which speaks to mankind for all time.

• 1. According to the Authorised Version: and darkness was upon the face of the deep
• 2. See Figure 10b, below.

Jesus ben Pandira and Initiation among the Essenes. The secret of numbers. Reflection of cosmic conditions in human evolution. The secret of the blood in the line of descent, and the secret of cosmic space

Ww have to realize that Jesus ben Pandira was in no way related to the personality or individuality of either the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew or of the Gospel of Luke, or any other Gospel; he lived a hundred years before the Christ Event, and was stoned and hanged upon a tree. It is most important that he should not be confused with the Jesus of the Gospels.

Of Jesus ben Pandira it need only be stated that neither occult knowledge nor any clairvoyant faculties are necessary to prove his existence, for information in regard to this can be had from the Hebrew Talmud. Confusion with the actual Jesus has occurred at various times, even as early as the second century of the Christian era. Having stated emphatically that Jesus ben Pandira is not to be identified with the Jesus of the Evangelists, it is nevertheless necessary to establish the real historical connection of these two personalities. This is only possible by means of occult investigation; the connection between them only emerges after a study of the evolution of mankind and those who guide it.

Gazing upwards to those beings who lead human development, we come at last to a group of high individualities who, according to Eastern terminology, are called Bodhisattvas—for it is in the East where knowledge of them has been established. There are many Bodhisattvas; they are the great teachers of mankind. From the spiritual worlds they infuse into humanity through the Mystery schools what according to the degree of human ripeness is appropriate to each epoch. Bodhisattvas succeed one another throughout the ages. Two of them are of special interest to present humanity, one, who as son of King Sudhodana became Buddha; and the other, his successor in this dignity, who is still a Bodhisattva. Both Oriental wisdom and clairvoyant investigation agree that the latter's mission will extend over the next two thousand five hundred years, when this Bodhisattva will rise to the higher rank of Buddha as did his predecessor. This, the present Bodhisattva will then be exalted to the dignity of Maitreya Buddha. In the long line of Bodhisattvas we have to recognize the great guiding teachers of evolution, but they should not be confused with the source of their teaching, the source from which they themselves draw what they bestow upon humanity. Rather we have to picture a collegium of Bodhisattvas, and the centre of this collegium is the living source whence this teaching is derived. This living source is none other than He Whom we call the Christ, from Whom all Bodhisattvas receive what in due course they hand on to humanity. A Bodhisattva devotes himself principally to teaching, but upon attaining Buddha-hood he ceases to descend into incarnation, and his mission becomes different. In accordance with all Eastern philosophy it can be said that Gautama Buddha, who, in his last incarnation, was the son of King Sudhodana, has since then only experienced incorporation as far as the etheric body. In the course of lectures on the Gospel of Luke we explained what the next task of this Buddha was.

When the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke was born—the Nathan Jesus of whom Luke tells, and who is not to be confused with the Jesus of the Gospel of Matthew—the Being of the Buddha, who was then incorporated as far as the etheric body, entered into the astral body of the Nathan Jesus. It is therefore possible to say that having incarnated as Gautama Buddha, this Being did not come again as a teacher, but was henceforth present as a living force. He had become an actual force working from the spiritual world into our physical world.

To teach is one thing; to work as a living force with the forces of growth is something quite different. A Bodhisattva is a teacher up to the moment he attains Buddha-hood, from then onwards he becomes a vital force, filling with constructive power everything with which he is concerned. In this way the Buddha entered the organism of the Nathan Jesus as described by Luke. From the sixth century B.C. it is to the Buddha's successor, the coming Maitreya Buddha, that humanity must look for its teacher. His chosen instrument was the circle of the Therapeutæ and Essenes, and he poured down his inspiration especially through his disciple, Jesus, the son of Pandira, the purest, the most noted, the most exalted of them all. Thus we have to realize that the content of this Bodhisattva-teaching streamed forth into humanity through the Essenes.

The actual sect of the Essenes, as regards its profounder teaching, disappeared comparatively soon after the Christ Event, as external history testifies. Hence it need not sound improbable when I say that they were employed as a means for bringing down from the spheres of the Bodhisattvas what was necessary to prepare humanity to grasp the mighty event of the coming of Christ. The most important teaching man had received to aid him in the understanding of the Christ Event had its source in these communities. Jesus ben Pandira was chosen to receive inspiration from that Bodhisattva who was destined to become the Maitreya Buddha, and whose influence was active among the Essenes; he was inspired to impart a teaching that was to make comprehensible the Mystery of Palestine—the Mystery of Christ. External history knows little of the Essenes, more exact information regarding them is only possible with the aid of occult investigation; hence in a society like this I can speak without hesitation of secrets known to the Essenes and Therapeutæ that are needful to an understanding of the Gospel of Matthew.

These communities flourished a hundred years before the Christ Event, and taught how preparation was to be made for it. Their most important feature was the manner of their initiation. It was specially adapted to evoke an understanding, through clairvoyant perception, of the significance of Hebraism and Abrahamism as connected with the Christ Event. This was a mystery peculiar to these communities. The very purpose of their initiation was to impart clairvoyant perception in this connection. A follower of the Essenes had in the first place to attain full appreciation of the significance of what had come to pass in the Hebrew race through Abraham. Through his own individual vision, an Essene had to see in Abraham a true forefather of the race, one in whom a seed had been implanted which then, by means of the blood, percolated from generation to generation, as explained in the last lecture.

To understand how something of such great importance in human evolution could take place through a personality like Abraham, we must keep in mind a most important saying. This saying shows that whenever a man is destined to be a special instrument for human evolution he must be in direct contact with some divine spiritual being.

Those who attended the performance of the Rosicrucian Mystery Play, given at Munich, and those who have read it, know that one of the most important dramatic manifestations occurs where the hierophant informs Maria that her mission will only be possible after such an influx from a higher being has taken place. This was actually accomplished in her. What then took place may be called a separation of the higher from the lower principles, which made it possible for the latter to be possessed by a subordinate spirit. All this is to be found in the Rosicrucian Mystery Play, and if allowed to act on the soul, and not accepted lightly, it directs our attention to mighty secrets of human evolution.

Abraham having been selected for his great mission, the Spirit that had been recognized in early Atlantis as the Spirit who moved and lived in all the surrounding world had to enter into his inner organism. This happened for the first time in the case of Abraham, and therefore a change in man's spiritual perception then became possible for the first time. A divine Being implanted as it were a germ in Abraham's organism that was to enter all the other organisms descending from him in the direct line.

An Essene of that time would have said: The seed which actually formed the Hebrew people so as to fit them to be the vehicle for the mission of Christ, was first implanted in them by the mysterious Being only to be discovered when they looked back through the generations to Abraham. This Being worked as a kind of Folk-spirit from out the inner organism of Abraham in the blood of the Hebrew people. To reach some understanding of the crowning mystery of human evolution, it is necessary to rise to the Spirit who implanted this seed, and seek him where he was before he had entered into Abraham's organization. In order to rise to this Spirit who had organized and inspired the Hebrew people, to know him in his purity, the Essenes felt it to be necessary to pass through a certain training; they felt they must purify themselves from all that had come to human souls from the physical world since the time of Abraham. And further, an Essene would declare: The spiritual being which man bears within him, and all the other spiritual beings concerned with his development, are only to be seen in their purity in the spiritual world. As found in man, they have become defiled by the forces of the physical world.

From the point of view of the Essenes (which in a certain sphere of knowledge is absolutely correct), every single person then living had impurities in his soul from early times which disturbed his free vision of the Spiritual Being who had implanted the attribute in Abraham which has been described. Every Essene sought in his soul to be purified from what had entered him in this way, and which dimmed his vision of the Being who dwelt in the blood passing through the generations, the Being who could only be rightly seen after much purification. All the methods of their training were directed towards freeing the soul from its inherited tendencies and influences that clouded its vision and hid the spiritual inspirer of Abraham. Not only had man a spiritual being within him, but this being had been sullied through these inherited tendencies.

There is a law in Spiritual Science which was perceived by the Essenes through their clairvoyant investigation and spiritual vision: that hereditary influences only cease to be active when a man has passed through forty-two stages in the line of descent; only then has he purged his soul of inherited influences. What is inherited by man from father and mother, from grandfather and grandmother, and so on, becomes feebler the farther back the line is traced; beyond forty-two generations nothing more of this could be found, which means that the influence of inheritance is then lost. By careful training and inner exercises, the Essenes directed their attention towards eliminating the impurities of the forty-two generations. This meant a severe training on a mystical path of forty-two clearly defined degrees or stages. Once these were passed, the Essene knew he was freed from the influences of the world of sense, and had reached the point where he experienced his inner self; where he felt the centre of his being to be united with Divinity. Therefore said he: ‘In going through these forty-two stages I ascend to God—to the God with whom I am concerned.’

The Essenes and the Therapeutæ had a clear vision of man's path to a divine Being who had not as yet descended into matter; they alone knew the truth of the fact which can be described as the ‘Event of Abraham’ they knew it at least in so far as it was concerned with inheritance. They also knew that if a man was to rise to a Being who was to enter the line of inheritance he must reach a place where he was no longer steeped in matter he must pass through forty-two stages of development corresponding to the forty-two generations; then he would find that Being. The Essene knew something more; he knew just as man has to rise through these forty-two stages to reach Divinity, so this Divine Being must descend, in the reverse direction, through forty-two generations if He was to enter into physical humanity. If man required to rise through forty-two stages before attaining to God, God had to descend through forty-two stages in order to become a man among men. So taught the Essenes, and so taught above all Jesus ben Pandira, who was inspired by the Bodhisattva. Having learnt this we know the source whence flowed the knowledge given out by the writer of the Gospel of Matthew, and exactly why he traces back these forty-two generations.

Jesus ben Pandira, who instructed the Essenes in these matters, lived a century before these forty-two generations could be completed. He taught them that advance beyond a certain point on their journey through the forty-two stages was only possible if an historical event were connected with it, that any further achievement could only come by grace from above. A time, however, would come, he told them, when this would be a natural event; a man would be born who, through the power in his own blood, would be able to rise so high that divine Spiritual Forces could descend into him, which he had need of in order that he might make fully manifest the Spirit of the Race—the Spirit of Jahve—in the blood of the Hebrew people. Jesus ben Pandira taught them further; that if Zarathustra, he who would bring Ahura Mazdao, were to incarnate in human form, this could only come to pass if this human form had been so prepared that the Divine Spirit ensouling it had passed down through forty-two generations.

It is now apparent that the teaching concerning the descent through the generations with which the Gospel of Matthew begins had its origin among the sect of the Essenes. If these facts are to be fully understood we must refer to something still deeper in this whole connection.

Everything concerned with human evolution confronts us, as it were, from two sides, for the simple reason that man is a two-fold being. Seen during waking consciousness, when the four members of his being are united, the reason for man's dual nature is not at first discernible. But it is easily seen at night when one part, consisting of physical body and etheric body, remains in the physical world, and the other, composed of the astral body and ego, leaves it. Man is made up of these two parts. The human qualities and attributes of the physical world belong to the physical and etheric bodies alone, although the other members have a share in them during the waking state. When awake, man functions by means of his astral body and ego in the other two members; when asleep he leaves them to themselves. The moment that he falls asleep, however, the beings and forces of the cosmos begin to function in, and to permeate, the forsaken members, so that there is a constant influx from the cosmos into the physical and etheric bodies of man. That part of him, however, which is left sleeping in bed, is actually limited to the forty-two generations, during which time it is under the law of inheritance. Beginning with the first generation and taking all that then belonged to physical nature, we shall find at the end, if we trace this through forty-two generations, nothing of what was the most essential in the first case. Thus in six times seven generations are comprised all the active characteristics of the physical and etheric bodies of a man. The inherited tendencies found in these two bodies must be sought for among his ancestors, but only in the forty-two preceding generations; beyond that time they cannot be traced, all belonging to an earlier generation has disappeared.

Human evolution in time is based on a certain numerical relationship. If we consider this more closely we find everything concerning the physical body is limited to forty-two generations, because everything connected with evolution in time is connected with the number seven. The Essenes knew this. An Essene said to himself: ‘Thou must pass through six times seven stages—that is forty-two—thou wilt then have arrived at the last seven which complete the sevenfold count, making forty-nine stages in all.’ What lies beyond the forty-two stages cannot be attributed to the forces and beings active in the physical and etheric body. The whole evolution of these bodies is finished—in accordance with the sevenfold law—after seven times seven generations, but during the last seven of these a complete change has taken place, and nothing of the first generation remains. What we are now concerned with is something entirely new in the realm into which man enters after the forty-two generations. We are now no longer concerned with a human existence but with a superhuman one. The six times seven generations, therefore, are connected entirely with the earth, and the seven times seven that follows is connected with what is beyond the earth; that is fruit for the spiritual world.

Hence the people from among whom the Gospel of Matthew had its origin, expressed their thoughts somewhat in this way: ‘The physical body used by Zarathustra had to be so ripe at the end of forty-two generations that it was already on the verge of becoming spiritualized; it was at the point where deification could take place.’ This could have taken place at the beginning of the forty-third generation, but it did not; this body allowed itself to be used by another being, who, as the spirit of Zarathustra, incarnated on earth as Jesus of Nazareth. In the events capable of providing a fitting body and fitting blood for the soul of Zarathustra, in Jesus of Nazareth, everything was fulfilled in accordance with this mystery of numbers. Everything relating to the physical and etheric body in human evolution has been prepared in this way.

Now, however, there are in man—and hence too in him who was to be the bearer of the Christ-being—not only a physical and an etheric body, but also an astral body and ego. Preparation therefore had to be made not only for a suitable physical and etheric body, but what was needful had also to be done to prepare a suitable astral body and ego. For such a mighty Event not one, but two personalities were necessary. The physical and etheric bodies were prepared in the case of the personality described in the Gospel of Matthew; the astral body and ego were prepared in another personality—the Nathan Jesus, of whom the Gospel of Luke relates. For the early years this was another personality. While the Matthew Jesus received a suitable physical and etheric organism, the Luke Jesus received the appropriate astral-body and bearer of the ego.

How could this come to pass? We have seen that the forces of the forty-two generations had to be prepared in order that the sheaths might come about which were necessary for the Jesus of the Matthew gospel. The astral body and ego had also to be prepared in order to appear later in the appropriate manner. How this happened we shall now explain.

As an introduction to the understanding of the Jesus of the Gospel of Luke, for whom special preparation had also to be made, let us consider the nature of sleep. The notion, derived from the assertions of lower clairvoyance, that the whole astral and ego-nature of man is contained within the nebulous appearance seen near the body of a sleeping man, is entirely erroneous. For it is a fact that during sleep, when man forsakes his physical and etheric sheaths, he expands, and is spread abroad through the whole cosmos. The mystery of the sleeping state is contained in the fact that the astral body expands through the whole stellar world, attracting towards it the purest cosmic forces; and these forces man brings with him when at the moment of awakening he plunges once more into his physical and etheric bodies. Hence he emerges from sleep strengthened by what he has derived from the whole cosmos.

If man were clairvoyant to-day in the highest sense—and this was the same at the time of Christ Jesus—what must then take place in him? Modern man is normally unconscious during sleep when with his astral body and ego he goes forth from his physical and etheric bodies; clairvoyant consciousness must, however, become capable of perception by means of the astral body and ego, without the aid of the physical and etheric bodies. It will then belong to the world the stars, and will not only perceive this world but actually enter into it. Just as the consciousness of the Essene had to rise through successive stages (at the root of which lay the number seven), so man must surmount the stages which enable him to perceive universal space clairvoyantly.

The dangers attending both courses of development I have often pointed out.

The development of the Essenes was fundamentally a penetration into the physical body and etheric body, that they might find their God. With them it was as if a man on awakening did not see the world around him, but plunged into his physical and etheric bodies in order to realize their forces; therefore to see what was external from within. Man's descent into his physical vehicles on awakening is not a conscious act, for at that moment consciousness is attracted to the environment, and is not directed to the forces within his physical and etheric bodies. The essential fact for the Essene was, that, disregarding his environment, he should dip down into his own physical vehicles and perceive all the forces that in the sense of occult science had their rise in the mystery of the six times seven generations.

Similar and even mightier exertions are necessary if a man is to ascend into the cosmos and discover its secrets. In penetrating into his own inner being he is only exposed to the danger of being overcome by the forces of this being, the desires and passions of its depths, of which he is ordinarily unaware and of which he does not dream. Ordinary training usually prevents knowledge of these forces—his attention being attracted to the emergence of the outer world on awakening, so that he should not be overcome by this. Another danger meets him when he experiences ‘expansion over the whole cosmos.’ He who experiences this moment, by retaining his consciousness during sleep, he who is able to perceive the spiritual world through the instrumentality of his astral body and ego, is confronted by a great danger. Like a man attempting to gaze at the sun, he is blinded and bewildered by the overwhelming grandeur of his experiences.

Just as the different stages of wisdom striven for by the Essenes, in order to learn of the hereditary tendencies in the physical and etheric bodies, were connected with the mystery of numbers (six x seven), so there was a secret number in the Mysteries of the Great World, showing how knowledge of these could be acquired. The best approach to these mysteries is through the stars themselves which, in their movements and groupings into constellations, provide a form of expression—a language. As, by passing through six times seven stages man attains the key to the mysteries of his own inner being; twelve times seven or eighty-four stages are necessary before he can rise to the spiritual mysteries of universal space. When we have surmounted the eighty-four stages we are no longer blinded by the complexity of these spiritual cosmic forces. Beyond these eighty-four stages we have attained that calm wherein a way may be found through the mighty labyrinth.

This was taught to a certain extent among the Essenes. A person having attained clairvoyance during sleep, as just described, could pour his being forth into something that is expressed in the mystery of numbers as twelve times seven. Anyone who has attained to the ‘twelve times seven’ degree is already in spiritual realms, for when he has completed the eleven times seven, he has already reached the verge of the Mysteries. As in the other, the seven times seven, he is already in the spiritual realm; so he is in the twelve times seven. On the latter path the spiritual realm is beyond the eleven times seven stage. Such are the number of the stages to be passed through by the astral body and ego. All this is imprinted in the starry script, seven is the number derived from the planets; they are seven in number; what man has to pass through in cosmic space is derived from the number twelve, the number of the Signs of the Zodiac.

As the seven planets group themselves within, and pass through the twelve signs, so if man is to live into cosmic space he must pass through seven times twelve, or rather seven times eleven stages, to attain spirituality. The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac may be pictured as forming a spiritual periphery in the centre of which is man himself. Now man does not reach the spiritual realm spread around him simply by advancing from a centre outwards; he must expand in spiral form; he must advance, as it were, in seven spiral movements. Each time he completes one spiral turn he has passed through all the twelve signs; he has in this way to pass through seven times twelve points. Man gradually expands in spiral form through the cosmos—this is naturally only an image for what man experiences—and in circling thus, on the seventh journey through the twelve signs, spirituality is reached. Then instead of regarding the cosmos from the central point of his own self; he regards it from the spiritual circumference—from twelve points of view—and from these different aspects he views the external world. It is not enough to see things from one point only, they must be considered from twelve aspects.

He who is in quest of what is divinely spiritual must guide his astral body and ego in this way through eleven times seven stages, and at the twelfth he is in the spiritual world.

If Divinity wished to descend and assume a human ego, it would likewise have to pass down through eleven times seven stages. So when the Gospel of Luke wished to describe the spiritual forces that prepared a human astral body and ego to be the bearer of the Christ, it had to relate how the divine force descended through eleven times seven stages. This is truly told in the Gospel of Luke. Because this Gospel tells of the personality for whom the astral body and ego were prepared, it is not concerned, like the Gospel of Matthew, with six times seven generations, but with eleven times seven successive stages through which is traced down, from God Himself; that which dwelt in the individuality of the Luke-Jesus. These seventy-seven different human stages can be counted in the Gospel of Luke.

Because the Gospel of Matthew describes the mystery of the descent of the divine force which worked constructively within the physical and etheric bodies, the ruling number in it must be six times seven. In the Gospel of Luke, because it describes the descent of the divine force which built the astral body and ego, the number must be eleven times seven. Such is the infinite depth of the origin of these facts as related in the Gospels. These Gospels of Luke and Matthew reveal the secrets of initiation; the descent by certain stages of the Divine Spirit into a human individuality, and correspondingly the successive stages by which an individual can reach forth into the cosmos.

It will be explained in the next lecture how a table of descent is also found in the Gospel of Luke; and why, in an age when the Mystery of Christ was imparted only to a few, it should have been demonstrated that there were seventy-seven generations from God and from Adam, down to the Jesus of this Gospel.

In the last lecture we spoke in broad outline of the development of the human being in connection with the evolution of the cosmos. One can look at such things from most varied points of view. For when we let our spiritual gaze sweep back into the primeval past, then a no less rich manifoldness of events is presented to us than in our immediate present, and one must not think that when one has characterized phases of evolution with a few concepts and ideas that one has fully grasped the matter or presented it completely. It is necessary to characterize these past ages too, and up to our present day, from the most varied aspects. We then become increasingly clear about them, but must not let ourselves be misled by what appear here and there to be contradictions.

Such apparent contradictions arise from the fact that even to spiritual vision a matter can be seen from very varied aspects. One can walk round a tree, for instance, and make a picture of it from many sides. Each picture is true and there may be a hundred of them. This is naturally only a comparison, but in a certain respect it is perfectly right for the ages of earthly evolution to be considered too from many different aspects. Today we will consider the evolution of our Earth in connection with the evolution of mankind from a different point of view, and will pay special attention to the human being himself. We will describe the processes which are presented in what we call the Akashic Record when we look back in spiritual vision to the past.

We have often related that our Earth before it became “Earth” went through a series of embodiments. First came the Saturn period, the Sun period, the Moon period, and only then our actual Earth period.

If we quite briefly look back to the time of ancient Saturn we remember that of the elements and bodily conditions which we find on the earth today, of the solid or earthy, the fluid or watery, the airy and the fiery, only warmth, fire, was present on ancient Saturn. We have the true picture of the first embodiment of the Earth if we realize the following: Saturn had nothing in it of the gaseous, the watery, nor of the earthy constituents. If you could have visited ancient Saturn, that is to say, supposing you could have been a modern human being at that time—as you neared old Saturn you would have found nothing of hardened, or watery, or any other substance, but a globe consisting purely of warmth; you would have gone into a sort of baking oven. You would have felt that you came into a different region of warmth. Thus old Saturn consisted purely of fire or warmth.

On the Sun, which was the second embodiment of our Earth, the warmth had already reached such a densification that we can speak of a gaseous or airy condition. The Moon condition showed a watery stage of our substances in its earlier period, and I have already told you how the Sun-substance went out of the old Moon and how then there suddenly came about a powerful densification of all Moon-beings.

The chief thing for us today is to be clearly conscious that at every later stage of evolution the earlier must in a certain way be recapitulated. So when we look back at the evolution of our Earth itself we have at the beginning a kind of Saturn stage, a repetition of the Saturn stage. Then we have a kind of Sun evolution, a repetition of the Sun stage, then a kind of Moon evolution, a repetition of the Moon stage, and only then really began the present embodiment of our Earth evolution. As our Earth came out of the Pralaya, the twilight condition which it passed through after being Moon, our Earth too was again only a ball of fire. I have given you a description of how the other planets had loosed themselves. Let us first hold fast to the fact that the Earth was purely a fiery ball containing nothing but warmth substance. Within this warmth ball of fire the human being was potentially already in existence. As the first rudiment of man was present on Saturn, so now in the recapitulation of the Saturn condition on the Earth, again man was present. There was no other kingdom. Man is the first-born of the Earth condition. At the beginning of our earthly evolution there was no plant kingdom, no animal kingdom, no mineral kingdom. Our Earth at the beginning of its evolution was in fact composed only of human bodies.

What then is the difference between the old Saturn condition and its recapitulation on Earth? There is a considerable difference, for the human bodies which then came forth, as fresh plants develop from seeds, had passed through the three earlier stages of evolution. Their formation was essentially more diverse, more complex, for all the forces which were at work in Saturn were present in this first Earth condition. Within it too were the old Sun and old Moon. They united at the beginning of Earth evolution forming again a single body, the forces of Saturn, Sun and Moon worked in it together. And so this first humanity at the beginning of Earth evolution was much more complex than the human being of Saturn. In Saturn all was undifferentiated—everything then was Saturn man. Now in the newly-arisen Earth, Saturn, Sun, and Moon worked together. Man arose in his first rudiments, although these rudiments were very complex.

When the Earth emerged and lifted itself, so to speak, out of the darkness of cosmic space, it was a space glowing with inner warmth, and living within it were the first forms of mankind as warmth-beings. When with clairvoyant sight you look back at what actually existed of man at that time you find at first these original human rudiments as if the whole warmth sphere had many, many currents in it. These currents go towards the surface of the newly-arisen Earth, sink into the surface, and form there masses warmer than the surroundings. The human being was distinct from the environment simply through the fact that one felt that certain spaces were warmer. It may be clearer for you to realize to what extent man was then in existence, if I record which of the human organs had been formed in its first rudiments at that time.

Think of a new-born child which still has a quite soft place on the top of the head. Imagine this place quite open, and imagine a warmth-current coming from outside into this opening. Think of the warmth-current not densely material in blood-streams, but in streams of force going down and forming a kind of centre where your own heart is and taking its course in separate arteries—not blood arteries, but force-arteries. There you have the first rudiments of warmth-man. Later on, in the progress of evolution, the human heart with its blood vessels arose from this rudimentary warmth-man. The blood circulation has arisen from it, and the organ which existed for a long time in man's evolution and which later disappeared was a shining warmth-organ, though in its first rudiments. Much later in earthly evolution the human being still had such an organ. At the place still remaining soft in the head of an infant a kind of warmth-organ projected from man when as yet he was unable to see his surroundings. When he was still a sea-being and could not perceive in our present way, when he still swam about in the sea, he had to know of the temperature conditions, whether he might move to-wards a certain direction or not. He was made aware by this lantern-like organ whether he might go here or there. Man possessed this organ right into the third epoch, the Lemurian Age. I once told you that the legend of the Cyclops—the human being with the one eye—went back to this stage. It was no real eye and to describe it as an eye is not correct. It was a sort of warmth-organ which indicated the directions which might be taken. So we should have something like a goblet-shaped organ spreading out downwards to the first rudiments of the heart, and surrounded by something like prehensile arms, while up above one would have a sort of blood-organ. This was the appearance of the organ in the earliest periods.

Now in the course of the evolution of the Earth some-thing very important entered. Matter, substance, became differentiated. The homogeneous warmth-matter was differentiated in such a way that air-matter arose while a part of the earlier warmth-matter remained. And here you must be aware of a law: you must be quite clear about it if you wish to consider these human beginnings in the course of evolution: Wherever the warmth-matter densifies to air, then at the same time light arises.—Warmth-matter is still dark, not permeated by light. But when a portion of the warmth in such a cosmic sphere condenses to gas or air, then a portion of this matter can let light come through. And so it was.

Now we have the Earth in the second stage of its evolution. (All other aspects go parallel with it.) We have now an Earth which consisted partly of warmth, partly of air, and shining inwardly. And all that takes place is expressed at the same time in the development of man. What was formerly merely a rudimentary warmth-organ now began actually to shine. The human being was like a kind of lantern, he shone. One need not find this particularly marvellous, it is no longer anything extraordinary. A few centuries ago one would have been amazed to hear of luminous beings, but there is no cause for amazement today. Natural science knows that down in the ocean depths, where it is impossible for a ray of light to penetrate, there are beings which shine, shedding their own light. And thus at that time the human being began to radiate light.

Now something extremely peculiar came about on this human formation, the rudiments were added for making use of the surrounding air. This was further developed later and the beginnings of a breathing process were formed. Thus we see a sort of breathing process added to the previous warmth process. It is important to be clear that with the deposit of air in the Earth the breathing process appeared, and that this in fact was the addition of air to the warmth-matter, permeating the warmth with little bubbles of air. This, however, is connected with something else, the effect of the light is there too and is manifested in the first beginnings of a nerve-system, an inner nerve-system. Not indeed a physical nerve-system, it is more a case of lines of force which have developed to densification. You must think of the whole as airy and only very fine air-currents can be there as lines of force. Thus we have now a rudimentary human being which in all fineness was still etherically a being of warmth and air and in which the first signs of a nervous system were shown. That was the stage of our earthly evolution when the Sun was still in the Earth. Imagine how this cosmic body appeared in universal space.

Imagine that someone looked across at this cosmic body from outside. All the beings which we have just described as the human beings radiated an individual light, and this light became the total light that shone out into the uni-verse. If you could have examined the Saturn-condition you would have found that you could approach without seeing it; it could only be perceived through its warmth. But now you have to do with a Sun-body, inwardly warmed but sending its light out into space.

Now gradually came the time which I have described to you as the departure of the sun. All the higher beings who were connected with the sun and who gave the human beings the capacities of which we have just spoken, detached themselves, together with the finer substances. The sun went out. It no longer shone and spread out light, it went out of the earth.

So then we have a cosmic body which consisted of earth and moon, for the present moon was at that time still in the earth. And something very remarkable came about. Since all the finer forces had gone out with the sun, a very rapid—relatively rapid—densification resulted. What were earlier only lines of force took on a thicker form. And as the finer substances went away we see how the gaseous condition condensed to water. The whole body now consisted not only of fire and air but of water, too. The force of illumination had gone out with the departing sun and there was again darkness on the earth; the beings had kept for themselves inwardly only a portion of the light-force. This was an interesting stage of humanity's evolution. I. have shown that the light laid the foundation of the nervous system. The nervous system is a creation of the light. In all your nerves you have the original streaming-in of the light. Now the light, the sun, went out into cosmic space and substance therefore densified very rapidly. It was not yet the same as the nerve-substance of today, but it was denser than before, it was no longer a fine etheric substance. And the important thing was this: formerly it shone out-wards, now it became luminous inwardly. That means that man's first nerve-system had the power of creating inner light-pictures, visions; clairvoyant consciousness arose.

Thus the sun went out of the earth, left the earth without light, but the beings created an inner light. Formerly they had shone out to the light that shone towards them; now they had lost the power of shining. The earth was no longer sun; but their inner consciousness was illumined as today in sleep you illumine your consciousness with the whole world of dreams. This inner shining consciousness, however, was at that time infinitely more significant, more living. And now we come again to an important matter.

Just as light had arisen when the air arose, so now with the densification of air to water there likewise appeared a counterpart. As air is related to light, so is water related to sound, tone. Sound can of course pass through air, it sets the air vibrating and in that way it becomes audible. On the earth, however, sound arose—sound as such—side by side with the forming of water. And exactly as the action of light streamed through the air, so now the whole of the water to which the air had condensed was vibrated through and through by the currents of tone. The earth consisted then of warmth, air, water. The parts of the earth which had become fluid were in particular permeated by sphere-harmonies, by tones which streamed into the earth from the universe in every possible harmony. The result of this action of sound in the water-element was a very, very important one. You must picture to your-selves that in this original water, this fluid-earthly water, were contained all those substances which exist separately today as metals, minerals, and so on. It is extremely interesting to look back with spiritual vision to this ancient time and see how most varied shapes were formed. Tone created forms in the water. It was a quite amazing period of our earth's evolution. Something took place then on the grandest scale similar to what happens when you strew fine sand on a metal plate and stroke the plate with a violin bow. The Chladni sound-figures are formed and you know of course what regularly-shaped figures and formations appear. Thus the instreaming music from cosmic space gives rise to most manifold forms and figures, and the substances dissolved in the water which were them-selves watery, they listened to the cosmic music and arranged themselves in conformity to it. The most important formation of the dance of the substances to cosmic music is albumen, protoplasm, the foundation of all living growth. Materialists may think as they will of the mechanical construction of albumen from oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, and so on; the original protoplasm was formed of cosmic substance that had been formed from the harmonies of cosmic music. And thus the substances in the living were organized according to the world-music. The albuminous substance, protoplasm, now surrounded and entered into the fine structures, penetrating everything. The water, congealed to albumen according to cosmic tone, took its course along the lines which I described as lines of warmth and gradually passed over into blood formation. The congealed water established itself as albumen in the lines of the nerves. And in the first place the albumen formed a kind of sheath, cartilaginous gluten, one might say, as a protection from outside. All this actually took form from the dance of substances to the music of the spheres.

This was all in existence before there was a single cell. The cell is not the origin of the organism, but what I have just described. The origin of the organism is spirit, first existing as warmth, then indicated more in lines of force, then what arose from the sphere-harmonies through the arrangement of substances, depositing itself in these lines of force, and only relatively later as the final formation the cell arose. The cell as the last excretion had to be born from a living creature. Organisms have never formed themselves out of cells, but the cell has first formed itself from the living. The anatomical is always a sequel of combination.

We have all this at the beginning of the condition of the earth when it still contained the moon after the departure of the sun. But as long as the moon remained in the earth there was an increasing hardening of the albuminous formation, and the state that I have described to you as mummifying would have resulted if the coarsest substances and beings had not left the earth. The last developed portion of the human creature at that time were the nerves that went to the sense organs. But the sense organs had not yet opened. They had been formed from within outwards but as yet they were not open. And now the moon went out together with the coarsest substances. The consequence was that the human being could then gradually pass over to a higher condition. His senses were opened, the two heavenly bodies were now outside and could hold a mutual balance. Whereas they built up man as long as they were united with the earth, they now worked in from out-side; they opened his senses and made him a seeing, hearing being as he appears to us today. The departure of the moon was practically in the middle of the ancient Lemurian Age. We then have a human being who had not yet opened his sense-organs but who had a powerful gift of clairvoyance. I have already described how he could fill his consciousness with most varied color and warmth phenomena from within, all of which had real worth and significance, yet he could not perceive the objects in space. That only began after the moon had left the earth.

If you consider this brief sketch which I have given you of the ancient earth-evolution you will see that present man actually took his starting point as earthly being from the heart outwards. The heart was of course not such an organ as it is today; that only developed much later, but the rudiments of the heart proceeded from the fire-element. Then were added the breathing system born of the air, the nerve-system born of the light. Then came the protoplasmic material which inserted itself into the organs and formed the whole to living matter through the cosmic tones congealing the fluid substances. In the final period, when the moon substance was still present in the earth, densification to the condition of earthy solidness came about. It was actually only shortly before the departure of the moon that what today we call the mineral kingdom arose, that is, the earth element out of the fluid element. Albumen is in fact a state midway between the solid and the fluid. But the earthy, the solid, actually arose only in the latest period. Why was that? It arose because under the influence of densification—for everything was involved in a continuous process of condensation—the elements themselves had become more and more material. Think for a moment of the beginning of Earth-evolution. What did the warmth-matter do there? It gave you for your bodily nature that which now pulsates in your blood. You must not think that when we speak of the earliest warmth condition of the Earth we are speaking of such a warmth as arises when you strike a match. That is mineral-fire and mineral-warmth. We are speaking of the fire and warmth that pulsates in your blood; that is living warmth. In fact there is not only the mineral warmth that arises externally in space, but there is a very different one, a living warmth which you have in yourselves. That was present at the beginning of the Earth and from it were formed the first rudiments of man. But even this living warmth gradually became lifeless with the continuous densification. That was connected with the densifying process which came about when the sun went out and the moon was united with the earth. The mineral warmth first appeared as the process of combustion.

Here we come to something important which I ask you particularly to note. It is true that at the beginning we can talk of a condition of fire, of warmth, but we cannot speak actually of combustion. That would not be correct. We should speak only of what we feel pulsing warmly in our own blood. The warmth that comes from an external mineral combustion appeared only when the sun had gone out and the earth was alone with the moon. And through the combustion process, formerly not there at all, a substance was separated off within the earth-mass which is described in occultism as “ash.” When you burn something it gives rise to ash. The ash embedded itself in the structure of the earth when earth and moon were united. Evolution had now got so far that through the cosmic tone which pressed in and brought the substances to dance, the protoplasmic masses inserted themselves. There were beings where fine protoplasmic substances had earlier become organized along the lines of force, this protoplasm being similar in outer formation to the formation of the present albumen. There were also denser substances which acted as a protection, surrounding the beings like a sort of glutinous sheath.

What is lacking in these beings? The hard bone substance! If I may express myself popularly, everything was still more of a glutinous mass, and anything of a mineral nature was entirely absent from them up to the time I have now described to you. Now you must think how different these beings were. You have nothing in your physical body today that is not permeated by mineral substance. The human body as it is today has arisen only relatively late. It consists not only of bones but of muscles and blood, mineral substance has embedded itself in everything. Think the mineral substance away, think of the whole Earth and its beings as yet without mineral substance—and then by a combustion process the deposit of ash, ash of the most varied mineral substances. In the human beings, therefore, which up to then had in fact only arrived at a glutinous density, ash constituents became embedded in every direction. And the beings absorbed the ash as formerly they had taken up the albumen and organized themselves in their own way—took up the mineral element from the dense bones to the fluid blood.

You can easily form an idea of what was embedded—all that remains behind as ash when the body is burnt or decays. What actually remains behind as ash is what originated the last of all. Everything in you that does not remain behind as ash was there previously; it stored up the ash in itself. One who observantly regards the ash derived from a moldering corpse must say to himself: that is the mineral substance in me, which was last of all absorbed by what existed previously. Thus the mineral arose last in the course of the earth's development and the other kingdoms stored it up in themselves, having previously consisted entirely of other substances.

We can ask what was the reason of this incorporation of the ash. We carry ash within us the whole time, only it is distributed and is left behind when our corpse is burnt or decays. How did the ash press into the lines which were filled by albuminous substance?

We have seen that originally there was fire and the rudiments of the heart were formed from it. Then the rudimentary stage of breathing was produced by the air, light entered and formed the rudiments of the nerves. Then came sound and produced the living substance by causing the materials to dance. But what caused the ash-element, the mineral, to stream into this substance?

What pressed ash into the human bodies was now henceforth thought, which made the sound, the tone, into the word. Even in Atlantean times, when everything was immersed in mist, what the human being spoke was not the only articulated language, but man understood the speech of the rustling trees, the rippling springs and founts. All that today is articulated language and all that was expressed in it, formed the dance; tone, the musical element in it, formed the materials into living substance. The sense, the significance, of the word pressed into this living substance the ash that formed out of the combustion process. And to the degree in which the bony system gradually condensed towards the end of the Atlantean Age man was penetrated by thoughts, by self-consciousness. His intellect dawned and he became increasingly a self-conscious being. The things that exist in us are created from outside: First, the rudiments which develop into the human heart; second, our nervous system with the rudiments of breathing; third, the glandular organs, arising out of the living; fourth, the bony structure, permeated by ash; finally, man becomes a self-conscious being. Such was the course of evolution within our own Earth-embodiment, and we have now arrived in our description nearly at the end of the Atlantean time.

If you compare this with our earlier studies, you will see that what is active last was always there first; for that which pressed into matter as “Word” was there the first of all. That which has given man his ego was there at the very beginning. If you try clearly to understand what has been said today you can also very readily find the facts again in the first sentences of St. John's Gospel. In one of our next lectures we must show how our studies which have swept out into cosmic space are beautifully presented in the Gospel of St. John and also in the first sentences of Genesis. All these things are regained for us when we consider the course of evolution. One thing, however, will plainly emerge: When we look at the facts, our human evolution is seen to be very different from what materialistic fantasy imagines. Materialists think that man has been produced from coarse matter and that his spiritual faculties have been developed out of it.

You see now that the actual mission of earthly evolution, that in which Love comes to expression in man, was laid down first in what we possessed as warmth organ, which emerged the first of all. Before anything organic, Spirit was there in the form of lines of force, then came the incorporation of the organic under the wonder-working of world music. Then only was the whole impregnated with mineral substance, solid matter, through the Word or thought. The densest arises the latest. Man develops out of the Spirit, and this is seen too if we study the course of earthly evolution. Man has his origin and primal state—as every genuine study of the universe has always shown—not in matter but in Spirit. Matter embedded itself in the human being later than the spiritual forces, and this becomes increasingly clear from what we have been studying.

When I have had occasion in recent years to speak on any of the great yearly festivals, Christmas, Easter or Whitsuntide, I have felt bound to say that we have no right, especially under the conditions that obtain today, to commemorate these occasions in the old accustomed manner; we have no right to forget the widespread suffering, the widespread sorrow of the times, and to recall only the greatest Event which took place in earthly evolution. It is our duty, standing as we do on the ground of our Spiritual conception of the World, so fully to realize all that which indicates decline in human civilization today, that this realization permeates our thoughts even round the Christmas tree. It is clearly our duty so to receive the birth of Christ Jesus into our hearts, into our souls, that we do not close our eyes to the fearful deterioration that has overtaken the so-called culture of mankind.

At this very time it is for us to bring forward the question: “Has not the thought of Christmas also suffered the fate of being seized by the forces of general deterioration?” When Christmas is spoken of today are we still conscious of that of which man ought to be conscious when he raises his thoughts and feelings to the contemplation of the festival of Christ? Are men in general conscious of the true meaning of what entered human evolution at the Mystery of Golgotha?

We light up our Christmas trees, we repeat the customary words and phrases associated with the Christmas festival, but all too often we avoid opening our eyes fully, we avoid awakening our consciousness fully to the need of saying to ourselves: “Here, too, there is decline. Where art Thou, O Christ-Power, Thou who canst actively bring about a new ascent?” For it must have been very clear to you in the lectures which for many years have been given in our circles, that only by the power of Christ will it be possible to permeate declining civilization with that impulse which can give it a new uplift.

In these days we must often think of men, in the middle of the nineteenth century, or towards the last third of it, who, from a certain materialistic mentality, spoke quite differently from the way many men speak today. They spoke more honestly than most men do today. I should like to recall to you one personality, a truly materialistic mind—David Friedrich Strauss. You know that his book, The Old Faith and the New, is a kind of Bible of materialism.

Among the questions Strauss asks in this book is the following: “Can we still be Christians?” He answers this question, and the unusual thing about his answer is that it comes from a mind fundamentally materialistic, but at the same time honest.

David Friedrich Strauss constructed a world-edifice of thoughts, of ideas, formed entirely according to materialistic, physical laws. He placed man within it in a world-order in which human nature contained none but physical laws. From these convictions, Strauss answered the question “can we still be Christians?” with an emphatic “No”. For men who held the views on natural science which Strauss held in accordance with the consciousness of his times, could not be Christians.

Thus a fatal, but entirely honest opinion is expressed in this “No” of David Friedrich Strauss, and the feeling often occurs to us today: Would that the official advocates of this or that religious faith were as honest as was David Friedrich Strauss. Could they but see that though they use the name of Christ they are really active opponents of Christianity.

My dear friends, we dare not surrender ourselves in these days to a love of ease, nor close our eyes to the essentially important happenings of the present time. It may not seem to you to be associated with Christmas, though it does indeed seem so to me, when I refer to an experience which came to me through a kind of spiritual investigation of an actual fact of the present day.

You all know those persons who to a great extent are responsible, especially in Central Europe, for the dreadful conditions into which we have drifted, so far as any human being can be called responsible for these things. What did these men do when misfortune broke over Europe? They wrote books! We had books written by all kinds of people.

Now, the following experiment can be made with the help of Spiritual Science. The question can be asked, but strictly in accordance with Spiritual Science: “What forms of thought speak to us from the greater part of these self-vindicating books?” I have tried from every side to answer this question conscientiously. I have asked myself: “Of what kind are the thought-forms of these men on whom so much of the fate of Central Europe depends?” If we do not proceed in the abstract, but enter into things in the concrete, we compare one thing with another. In this way a comparison came to me when I asked myself the question: “About what period in the normal course of evolution in Europe were such thought-forms cultivated as those which we find in the leading personalities during the world war?” After conscientious scrutiny of the facts it was made plain to me that men thought in this manner about the time of the Roman, Julius Caesar. There is no difference between the soul- and thought-life of Julius Caesar at the time, let us say, of his Gallic wars, and the way in which such modern personalities form their thoughts. This means that these men have remained in a life of thought entirely unaffected by Christianity, for Caesar lived before the Mystery of Golgotha had broken into evolution. Even if the name of Christ Jesus is sometimes on their lips, the soul-life of these men has developed in such a way that it has nothing to do with concrete Christianity.

As the result of our many-sided studies we know that if anything develops in its own period, it is fundamentally good for humanity, but that it is otherwise when this thing remains stationary and comes to the front later. When this happens, when for instance that which was suited to the time of the Caesars continues to play a part in the twentieth century, that which was suitable to Caesar's day is transformed into something Luciferic. For that which ought to have worked properly in another period becomes, if it remains stationary, Luciferic. It is indeed essentially Luciferic.

We may now ask: “How is it that people whose fate has placed them in a leading position, have in their lives remained behind in this way?” If this question is to be answered we must turn our attention to those who claim to fill their spiritual life with the Christ-impulse, but who really work in an anti-Christian direction. Let us turn our attention to many official representatives of religious creeds, men who pretend to speak according to the Gospels, but who are opposed to everything that really tells of the living Christ in our day. The most anti-Christian persons are frequently found today among the clergy, among the preachers of the so-called Christian creeds.

If among other writings people would investigate a book—regarded by many as setting the fashion—a book entitled Das Wesen des Christentums (The Nature of Christianity), by Adolf Harnack, they would find an answer to this question. If the name of Christ were struck out of this book and replaced by the name of a God generally little known, a God who permeates and controls human life just as he permeates and controls Nature; if the name of Christ were struck out and replaced by the name of Jahve of the Old Testament, this book would be nearer the truth than it is, and would then have some meaning.

The fact is that Adolf Harnack knows nothing of the real Being of Christ, that he has not the vaguest idea of the real Being of Christ, that he worships a universal, indefinite God and then labels this universal, indefinite God with the name of Christ. And who is Adolf Harnack? Adolf Harnack has become the fashionable theologian of the circles which have provided the ground for the spiritual tendencies of those persons of whom I have been speaking. It is because no true revelation regarding the Christ comes any longer from the representatives of the creeds, that we no longer find in the events of the present day, among the men bound up with these events, any understanding for the true revelation of the Christ.

It hardly means anything to thousands, to millions of people at the present day, when they speak of the festival of Christmas; for they know nothing of the Being of Christ in the sense that is so necessary for our time. We must look into these things if in a deeper sense we will to understand the original causes of the downfall in contemporary events, and in the life of mankind within these events.

I have frequently spoken to you here of that important event which came to pass in the last third of the nineteenth century, the event through which a special relationship was established between the Archangelic Power, that Being whom we call the Archangel Michael, and the destiny of mankind. I have reminded you that since November, 1879, Michael has become the Regent, as it were, of all those who seek to bring to men the beneficial forces necessary to their healthy progress.

My dear friends, in our day we know that when such a matter is indicated, the indication refers to two different things: first, to the objective fact, and second, to the way this objective fact is connected with what men are willing to receive into their consciousness, into their Will. The objective fact is simply this, that in November, 1879, beyond the sphere of the Sense World, in the Supersensible World, that event took place which may be described as follows: Michael has gained for himself the power, when men come to meet him with all the living content of their souls, so to permeate them with his power, that they are able to transform their old materialistic intellectual power—which by that time had become strong in humanity—into spiritual intellectual power, into spiritual power of understanding. That is objective fact; it has taken place. We may say concerning it that since November, 1879, Michael has entered into another relationship with man than that in which he formerly stood. But it is required of men that they shall become the servants of Michael.

What I mean by this will become quite clear to you through the following explanation. You are aware that before the Mystery of Golgotha was accomplished upon earth, the Jews of the Old Testament looked up to their Jahve (or Jehovah). Those who, among the Jewish priests, looked up in full consciousness to Jahve, were well aware that they could not reach him directly with human perception. The very name, Jahve, was held to be unspeakable, and if it had to be uttered, a sign only was made, a sign which resembles certain combinations of signs which we attempt in the art of Eurhythmy. The Jewish priesthood, however, was well aware that men could approach Jahve through Michael. They called Michael the countenance of Jahve. Just as we learn to know a man when we look into his face, just as we draw conclusions about the gentleness of his soul from the gentleness of his countenance, and about his character from the way he looks at us, so the priesthood of the Old Testament, through the atavistic clairvoyance which flowed into their souls in dreams, desired to gain from the countenance of Jahve, from Michael's connection with Jahve, that which it was not yet possible for mankind to gain.

The position of this priesthood towards Michael and Jahve was the right one. Their position towards Michael was right because they knew that if a man of that time turned to Michael, he could find through Michael the Jahve-power, which it was proper for the humanity of that time to seek.

Other Soul-Regents of humanity have appeared since then in the place of Michael; but in November, 1879, Michael once more took the lead, and can become active in the soul-life of those who seek the paths to him. These paths today are the paths of Spiritual Scientific Knowledge. We may speak of “the paths of Michael”, just as well as of the “paths of Spiritual Scientific Knowledge”.

But just at the time when Michael entered in this way into relationship with the souls of men, in order again to become their inspirer for three centuries, at this very time the demonic opposing force, having previously prepared itself, set up the very strongest opposition to him, so that a cry went through the world during our so-called war-years, in reality years of terror, a cry which has become the great World-misunderstanding which now fills the hearts and souls of men.

Let us consider what would have become of the Jewish people of the Old Testament, if instead of approaching Jahve through Michael they had sought to approach Him directly. They would have become an intolerant people, a national self-seeking people concerned with the aggrandizement of their own nation, a nation thinking only of itself. For Jahve is the God who is connected with all natural things, and in the external historical development of mankind, He manifests His Being through the connection of generations, as it expresses itself in the essential qualities of the people. It was only because the ancient Jewish people desired at that time to approach Jahve through Michael, that they saved themselves from becoming nationally so egoistic that Christ Jesus would not have been able to come forth from among them. Because they had permeated themselves with the Michael power, as this power was in their time, the Jewish people were not so strongly impregnated with forces given over to national egoism, as would have been the case had they turned directly to Jahve.

Today Michael is again the Regent of the World, but it is in a new way that mankind must become related to him. For now Michael is not the countenance of Jahve, but the countenance of Christ Jesus. Today we must approach the Christ-impulse through Michael. In many respects humanity has not yet struggled through to this. Humanity has retained atavistically the old qualities of perception by which Michael could be approached when he was still the intermediary to Jahve; and so today humanity has a false relationship to Michael. This false relationship to Michael is apparent in a very characteristic phenomenon.

During the years of the war we heard continually the universal lie: “Freedom for individual nations, even for the smallest nations.” This is an essentially false idea, because today, in the Michael period, the all-important matter is not groups of men, but human individuals, separate men. This lie is nothing else than the endeavour to permeate each individual nation not with the new force of Michael, but with the force of the old, the pre-Christian time, with the Michael-force of the Old Testament. However paradoxical it may sound, there is a tendency among so-called civilized nations at the present day to transform what was justifiable among the Jewish people of the Old Testament, into something Luciferic, and to make of this the most powerful impulse in every single nation.

People wish today to build up the republics of Poland, of France, of America, etc., upon methods of thought suited to Old Testament times. They strive to follow Michael as it was right to follow him before the Mystery of Golgotha, when men found through him the Folk-God Jahve. Today it is Christ Jesus whom we must strive to find through Michael, Christ Jesus the Divine Leader of the whole human race. This means that we must seek for feelings and ideas which have nothing to do with human distinctions of any kind on the Earth. Such feelings and ideas cannot be found on the surface. They must be sought where the spirit and soul-part of man pulsate i.e., along the path of Spiritual Science. The matter lies thus, that we must resolve to seek the real Christ upon the path of Spiritual Science i.e., upon the Michael-path. Only through this striving after spiritual truth is the real Christ to be sought and found; otherwise it would be better to extinguish the lights of Christmas, to destroy all Christmas trees, and to acknowledge at least with truth, that we want nothing that will recall what Christ Jesus has brought into human evolution.

Pre-Christian ways of thinking speak to us from the memoirs of our contemporaries i.e., ways of thinking which in our time are anti-Christian. When men, who are held to be representative, make pronouncements such as Wilson has done in the Fourteen Points, from such pronouncements there resounds nothing but pure Old Testament mentality, a mentality which in our time has become Luciferic.

Whence comes this, my dear friends? What really lies before us? When we travel back through the periods of human evolution prior to the Mystery of Golgotha, we find, early in the course of Oriental civilization, within that civilization out of which the Chinese civilization of today has developed, a human personality who was the external incorporation of Lucifer. Lucifer really did walk the earth at that time, in a human body. He it was who brought that human light which we find at the foundation of the ancient pre-Christian wisdom, with the exception of Judaism. In the art, the philosophy, and the statesmanship of Greece, much was still active which had proceeded from this Luciferic incarnation thousands of years before the Mystery of Golgotha.

We must endeavour clearly to understand, that that which today we call human understanding is always, so long as we have not spiritualized it, a gift of that Lucifer. We must not hold merely, in a matter-of-fact, bourgeois way, the one-sided idea that anything Luciferic is dreadful, and we must get rid of it. The more we seek to get rid of Lucifer, the more we are dominated by him, for it was necessary during thousands of years of human evolution to enter into the inheritance of the incarnated Lucifer. Then came the Mystery of Golgotha. And a time will come in the future when, just as Lucifer was incorporated in the East in an earthly personality, to prepare for Christianity among the heathen, so in the West there will take place an earthly incarnation of Ahriman himself. This time is approaching. Ahriman will appear, objectively, on the earth. Just as truly as Lucifer has walked the Earth, and as Christ has walked the Earth, objectively, in human form, so will Ahriman walk the Earth, bringing with him an extraordinary increase of power to the earthly human understanding. We men have not the task of hindering in any way this incarnation of Ahriman, but it is our task so to prepare humanity beforehand, that Ahriman may be estimated in the right way. For Ahriman will have tasks, he will have to do this and that, and men must value rightly and make a right use of that which, through Ahriman, comes into the world. Men will only be able to do this if they are able to adjust themselves now in the right way to that which Ahriman is already sending to the Earth from the Worlds beyond in order that he may control the Economic life upon Earth without being noticed. This must not be. Ahriman must not control the Economic life on the Earth without his being noticed. We must thoroughly learn to know his particular qualities. We must be able to oppose him with full consciousness.

During the time I am lecturing here at Stuttgart I shall point out much that we must carefully note in human evolution up to the time of the Ahriman incarnation, so that when this comes to pass we may know how rightly to assess it. Today I shall only call your attention to one thing more. In this respect many of the modern interpretations of the Gospels are just as bad as the worst materialistic conceptions. When the representatives of so-called religious societies accept the Gospels today simply as they are written, and when every new revelation is rejected, such devotion to the Gospels, such a way of furthering Christianity, is really the best way to prepare for Ahriman's appearance on earth. A great many of the exponents of the so-called creeds of today are working intensively for Ahriman; they leave unnoticed the truth: “I am with you always, even unto the end of the Earth-age,” when they declare heretical all that proceeds from the immediate vision of the Christ today. They leave this truth unnoticed because it is more comfortable to take the Gospels in a literal way only, that is, to hold to what they deem to be the literal interpretation of the Gospels.

Mankind must be protected by wisdom from regarding the Gospels in this way, for the four Gospels, as regards external physical understanding, do contradict one another. He who does not press forward today to a spiritual interpretation of the Gospels, spreads abroad an untruthful interpretation of these Gospels, for he deceives men as regards the external contradictions which are to be found in the four Gospels. He who deceives man regarding the things that concern him most vitally, best furthers the progress of Ahriman.

It is most important for man at the present time to place Christ in the centre between Ahriman and Lucifer. The Christ power must permeate us. But as men we must always seek the balance between the mystic enthusiasm which tends to lift us above ourselves, and the materialistic understanding which by its bourgeois heaviness drags us down to earth. At every moment we must seek the balance between the Luciferic impulses which lift us up, and the Ahrimanic which drag us down. In the effort to gain this balance we find the Christ. When we strive to gain this balance, then alone can we find the Christ.

By a strange coincidence, a remarkable thing happened in human evolution at the time when materialism entered into it. I shall mention (concerning it) only two documents: Milton's “Paradise Lost” and Klopstock's “Messiah”. In these poems the Spiritual Powers are described as if a Paradise had been lost, and man had been driven out of it. The work of both poets is based upon the idea of Duality in the Universe, upon the opposition of good and evil, of the Divine and the Diabolical. It is the great error of modern times that World-Evolution should be represented as a Duality, whereas it should be represented as a Trinity. One set of forces are the upward-striving Luciferic forces which approach man in mysticism, in sentimentalism, in fantasy—in what in fantasy is degenerate, fantastic; these forces dwell in man's blood. The second are the Ahrimanic forces which dwell in all that is dry, heavy, (speaking physiologically) in the bony system. The Christ stands in the middle between these two. His is the third group of forces. Lucifer's is the first, Ahriman's the second, and in the centre, between the two, is the Christ-force.

What then has happened in more recent days? Something has taken place to which men should look up with true spiritual-intellectual fervour, for unless they understand what it is that has happened they cannot enter in the right way into the Christmas festival. We read today Milton and Klopstock, we read their descriptions of the Supersensible World. What do we find? Everywhere we find Luciferic qualities ascribed to Beings who are called Divine. Writers such as Milton and Klopstock describe the fight between Luciferic qualities which appear to them Divine, and Ahrimanic qualities. And a great part of that which modern humanity describes as Godlike, is simply Luciferic. They do not recognize it for what it is; just as little as they recognize that which is Ahrimanic for what it is.

The same thing appears in Goethe's Faust, where we find Mephistopheles contrasted with “the Lord”. Goethe, too, was unable to distinguish between the Luciferic and the Ahrimanic. Consequently his Mephistopheles is a kind of mixture of the two. I have already pointed this out in my little book Goethe's Standard of the Soul (Geistesart).

True followers of Goethe do not merely quote literally from his works, as do so many academic persons and the like. If we faithfully travel the path that Goethe has taken, so that we are able to recognize the things wherein he must have changed, especially if we follow his Conception of the World beyond the year 1832, we are able to speak of a Goethe of the year 1919, now soon to be 1920.

The way must be found calmly to admit that in the materialistic centuries, much that is Luciferic is hidden behind what is called Divine. There is much by which men seek to spread religion at the present day that reaches humanity only as words born on the wings of Lucifer.

Only when men are once more able to recognize this Dualism—the Luciferic that would lead them above themselves, and the Ahrimanic that would lead them down below themselves—and turn from these to what is truly Christ-like, only then will they again celebrate in the right way the Christmas event, that event by which we should recall how that which gives its own particular meaning, its true meaning to the Earth, entered into human evolution.

Today we cannot help thinking sometimes of Leonardo da Vinci, of Leonardo, who once as you know, painted in Milan his great picture, the “Last Supper”—Christ with His Disciples around Him. Leonardo was a long time painting this picture—twenty years. He wanted to put a great deal into it, and could never finish it, because he was always making a fresh attempt to paint the figure of Judas in the right way. Now under the State organization of Milan, the abbot of the monastery for which the picture was being painted was his immediate employer. When later a new abbot came, a sharp resolute man, not so patient as his predecessor, he went to Leonardo and told him sternly that the picture must be finished forthwith. Leonardo replied that he could now finish the picture, for since the new abbot had come he had a model for Judas. In a short time he had painted the face of Judas as we see it in the picture.

Just as at the beginning of the new age the face of Judas appeared to Leonardo on the ground of a positive faith, so we in our day have frequent occasion to write on our hearts and souls the fact that He whose birth we commemorate at this holy season, is betrayed most of all by many of those who declare that it is in accordance with their creed that they prepare this festival. We know that the Christmas Festival itself is one of those that has been adopted in the course of Christian evolution, that it was not till the third or fourth century that people began in these December days, to commemorate the birth of Christ. The event of Golgotha had already taken place some centuries before, when those whose thoughts were centred upon that Event, adopted something so incisively new, at that time, as the institution of the Festival of Christmas. Much, much later it was still possible for new things to be implanted in Christianity. Many of those who called themselves true Christians, fought at the time against these innovations. Today there are very many such people at work, who will not advance in the way their own creed advanced when it accepted in the third and fourth centuries the institution of Christmas; people who hold rigidly to that of which they say, “it stands written”, people who turn away from every living revelation.

Terrible as is the state of sleep of people at the present day—of people who with their non-moral thoughts soil, too often, things which are seeking to enter the Spiritual life—the most terrible of all is the case of those who betray the true spirit of Christian evolution from out of the very faith itself.

It is in this earnest mood that I wished to present the lights of the Christmas tree to you today; next time I hope to speak of them in another connection.