The Rudolf Steiner Archive

[ 1 ] When leaving thy body behind thee thou soarest up into the ether,
Then thou becomest a god, immortal, beyond the power of death.

In this utterance of Empedocles (cf. p. 46) is epitomized what the ancient Egyptians thought about the eternal clement in man and its connection with the Divine. Proof of this may be found in the so-called Book of the Dead, which has been deciphered by the diligence of nineteenth-century scholars.¹ It is “the greatest coherent literary work that has come down to us from ancient Egypt.” It contains all kinds of instructions and prayers that were put into the tomb of each deceased person to serve as a guide when he was released from his mortal tenement. The most intimate ideas of the Egyptians about the eternal and the origin of the world are contained in this work. These views point to a conception of the gods similar to that of Greek mysticism.

Osiris gradually became the preëminent and most universally recognized of the various deities worshipped in different parts of Egypt. In him were comprized the ideas about the other divinities. Whatever the majority of the Egyptian people may have thought about Osiris, the Book of the Dead indicates that the priestly wisdom saw in him a being that might be found in the human soul herself. Everything said about death and the dead shows this plainly. While the body is given to earth and kept by it, the Eternal in man enters upon the path to the primordial Eternal. It comes before the tribunal of Osiris and the forty-two judges of the dead. The fate of the Eternal in man depends on the verdict of these judges. If the soul has confessed her sins, and has been deemed reconciled to eternal justice, invisible powers approach her and say: “The Osiris N. has been purified in the pool which is south of the field of Hotep. and north of the field of Locusts, where the gods of verdure purify themselves at the fourth hour of the night and the eighth hour of the day with the image of the heart of the gods, passing from night to day.” Thus, within the eternal cosmic order the Eternal in man is itself addressed as an Osiris. After the name Osiris comes the deceased person’s own name; and the one who is uniting with the eternal cosmic order also alls himself “Osiris”. “I am the Osiris N. Growing under the blossoms of the fig-tree is the name of Osiris N.” Thus man becomes an Osiris. Being Osiris is only a perfect stage in human development. It seems obvious that even the Osiris who is a judge within the eternal cosmic order is nothing more than a perfect man, Between being human and being divine there is a difference in degree and number. The mystic view of the mystery of number underlies this. Osiris as a cosmic being is One, yet he exists, nevertheless, undivided in each human soul. Every human being is an Osiris, yet the One Osiris must be represented as a Separate being. Man is in course of development, and at the end of his evolutionary career he becomes divine. In taking this view we must speak of Divine-ness, or becoming divine, rather than of a finished divine being, complete in himself.

[ 2 ] It cannot be doubted that, according to this view, only he can really enter upon the Osiris existence who has reached the portals of the eternal cosmic order as an Osiris. Thus the highest life which man can lead must consist in his changing himself into Osiris. Even during mortal life a true man will live as a perfect Osiris as far as he can. He becomes perfect when he lives as an Osiris, when he passes through the experiences of Osiris. This lends a deeper significance to the Osiris myth. It becomes the ideal of the man who wishes to awaken the Eternal within himself.

Osiris is torn to pieces, killed by Typhon. The fragments of his body are preserved and cared for by his consort, Isis. After his death he let a ray of his own light fall upon her, and she bore him Horus. This Horus takes up the earthly tasks of Osiris. He is the second Osiris, still imperfect, but progressing towards the true Osiris.

The true Osiris is in the human soul, who at the outset is of a transitory nature; but as such she i destined to give birth to the Eternal. Man may there: fore regard himself as the tomb of Osiris. Man's lower nature (Typhon) has killed his higher nature. Love in his soul (Isis) must nurture the dead fragments of his body, and then the higher nature, the eternal soul (Horus) will be born, who can progress to Osiris existence. The man aspiring to the highest kind of existence must repeat in himself microcosmically the macrocosmic universal Osiris process. This is the meaning of Egyptian initiation. What Plato (cf. p. 66) describes as a cosmic process—that the Creator has stretched the soul of the world on the body of the world in the form of a cross, and that the cosmic process is the redemption of this crucified soul,—this process had to be enacted in man on a smaller scale if he was to be qualified for Osiris-existence. The candidate for initiation had to develop himself in such a way that his soul-experience, his becoming an Osiris, blended into one with the cosmic Osiris process.

If we could look into the temples of initiation in which people underwent the transformation into Osiris, we should see that what took place represented microcosmically a cosmic genesis. Man who proceeded from the Father was to give birth to the Son in himself. What he actually bears within him, that is, Divinity under a spell, was to become manifest in him. This divinity is kept down in him by the power of the earthly nature; this lower nature must first be buried in order that the higher nature may arise.

This clarifies what we are told about the incidents of initiation. The candidate was subjected to mysterious procedures by means of which his earthly nature was killed and his higher nature awakened. It is not Necessary to study these procedures in detail if we understand their meaning. This meaning is contained in the confession possible to everyone who went through initiation. He could say: “I envisioned the endless perspective at the end of which lies the perfection of the Divine. I felt that the power of this Divine is within me. I buried what keeps down that bower in me. I died to earthly things. I was dead. I had died as a lower man; I was in the nether-world. I had intercourse with the dead, with those who have already become part of the eternal cosmic order. After my sojourn in the nether-world I arose from the dead. I overcame death, but now I have become a different being. I have nothing more to do with perishable nature. For me this has become saturated with the Logos. I now belong to those who live eternally, and who will sit at the right hand of Osiris. I myself shall be a true Osiris, part of the eternal cosmic order; and the judgment of life and death will be placed in my hands.” The candidate for initiation had to submit to the experience which made such a confession possible for him. It was an experience of the highest kind that the neophite passed through.

[ 3 ] Let us now imagine that a non-initiate hears of such experiences. He cannot know what has really taken place in the initiate’s soul. In his eyes the initiate died physically, lay in the grave, and rose again. What is a spiritual reality at a higher stage of existence appears, when expressed in the form of sense-reality, as an event which breaks through the order of nature. It is a “miracle”. In this sense initiation was a miracle. One who really wished to understand it must have awakened within himself powers to enable him to stand on a higher plane of existence. He must have approached these higher experiences through a course of life specially adapted to that purpose. In whatever way these prepared experiences took place in individual cases, they are always found to be of quite a definite type; so an initiate’s life is a typical one. It may be described quite apart from the single personality. In fact, an individual could only be described as being on the way to the Divine if he had passed through these definite typical experiences.

Such a personality was Buddha, living in the midst of his disciples. Jesus appeared as such a personality to his followers. Nowadays we know of the parallelism that exists between the biographies of Buddha and of Jesus. Rudolf Seydel has convincingly proved this parallelism in his book, Buddha und Christus. We have only to follow out the two lives in detail in order to see that all objections to the parallelism are futile.

[ 4 ] The birth of Buddha is announced by a white elephant that descends from heaven and declares to the queen, Maya, that she will bring forth a divine man who “will attune all beings to love and friendship, and will unite them in a close alliance.” We read in St. Luke’s Gospel: “To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin’s name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, ‘Hail, thou that art highly favoured... Behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest.”

The Brahmins, or Indian priests, who know what the birth of a Buddha means, interpret Maya’s dream. They have a definite, typical idea of a Buddha, to which the life of the personality about to be born will have to correspond. Similarly we read in Matthew II, 1, that when Herod “had gathered all the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he demanded of them where Christ should be born.” The Brahmin Asita says of Buddha: “This is the child which will become Buddha, the redeemer, the leader to immortality, freedom, and light.” Compare with this Luke 11, 25: “And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon; and the same man was just and devout, waiting for the consolation of Israel: and the Holy Ghost was upon him ... And when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him after the custom of the law, then took he him up in his arms, and blessed God, and said, Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word: for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people: a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.”

It is related of Buddha that at the age of twelve he was lost, and found again under a tree, surrounded by poets and sages of the olden time, whom he was teaching. With this incident the following passage in St. Luke corresponds: “Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem after the custom of the feast. And when they had fulfilled the days, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it. But they, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day's journey; and they sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintance. And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came to pass that after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.” (Luke II, 41-47).

After Buddha had lived in solitude and returned, he was received by the benediction of a virgin, “Blessed is thy mother, blessed is thy father, blessed is the wife to whom thou belongest.” But he replied, “Only they are blessed who are in Nirvana,” that is, who have entered the eternal cosmic order. In St. Luke’s Gospel (XI, 27), we read: “And it came to pass, as he spake these things, a certain woman of the company lifted up her voice and said unto him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked.” But he said, ‘Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it.'”

In the course of Buddha’s life, the tempter comes to him and promises him all the kingdoms of the earth. Buddha refuses everything in the words: “I know well that I am destined to have a kingdom, but I do not desire an earthly one. I shall become Buddha and make all the world exult with joy.” The tempter has to own that his reign is over. Jesus answers the same temptation in the words: “Get thee hence, Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Then the devil leaveth him.” (Matthew IV, 10, 11). This description of the parallelism might be extended to many other points with the same result.

The life of Buddha ended sublimely. On a journey, he felt ill; he came to the river Hiranja, near Kuschinagara. There he lay down on a carpet which his favorite disciple, Ananda, spread for him. His body began to be luminous from within. He died transfigured, his body irradiating light, saying: “Nothing endures.”

The death of Buddha corresponds with the trans: figuration of Jesus. “And it came to pass about eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered and his raiment was white and glistering.”

Buddha’s earthly life ends at this point, but it is here that the most important part of the life of Jesus begins—His suffering, death, and resurrection. What differentiates Buddha from Christ exists in the conditions necessitating the extension of the life of Christ Jesus beyond the scope of the Buddha life. Buddha and Christ will not be understood by merely mixing them. (This will become clear in the course of this book.) Other accounts of Buddha's death need not here be considered, even though they reveal profound aspects.

[ 5 ] The agreement in the lives of the two redeemers leads to the same conclusion. The narratives themselves indicate the nature of this conclusion. When the Priest-sages hear what kind of birth is to take place, they know what is involved. They know that they have to do with a God-Man; they know beforehand what kind of personality it is who is appearing. And therefore his course of life can only correspond with what they know about the life of a God-Man. In the Wisdom of their Mysteries such a life is traced out for all eternity. It can only be as it must be; it comes into manifestation like an eternal law of nature. Just as a chemical substance can only behave in a certain definite way, so a Buddha or a Christ can only live in A certain definite way. His life is not described merely by writing a fortuitous biography, but by giving its typical features that are contained for all time in the Wisdom of the Mysteries. The Buddha legend is no more a biography in the ordinary sense than the Gospels are meant to be a biography of the Christ Jesus in the ordinary sense. In neither is the merely accidental given; both relate the course of life marked out for a world-redeemer. The pattern of the two accounts is to be found in the Mystery traditions, not in outer physical history. Jesus and Buddha are, to those who have recognized their divine nature, initiates in the most eminent sense. (Jesus is the initiate by virtue of the Christ Being dwelling in Him.) Hence their lives are lifted out of things transitory, and what is known about initiates applies to them. The fortuitous incidents in their lives are not narrated, but rather it is said of them:

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a God... And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” (St. John I, 1 and 14).

[ 6 ] But the life of Jesus contains more than does the life of Buddha. Buddha’s life ends with the transfiguration; the most momentous part of the life of Jesus begins after the transfiguration. In the language of initiates this means that Buddha reached the point at which divine light begins to shine in men. He faces mortal death. He becomes the light of the world: Jesus goes farther. He does not physically,die at the moment when the light of the world shines through him. At that moment he is a Buddha. But at that very moment he enters upon a stage which finds expression in a higher degree of initiation. He suffers and dies. What is earthly disappears. But the spiritual element, the light of the world, does not. His resurrection follows. He is revealed to his followers as Christ. Buddha, at the moment of his transfiguration, dissolves into the blissful life of the universal spirit. Christ Jesus once more calls the universal spirit into Present existence in human form. Such an event had formerly taken place at the higher stages of initiation in a symbolical sense. Those initiated in the spirit of the Osiris myth attained in their consciousness to such a resurrection as a symbolical experience. In the life of Jesus, this “great” initiation was added to the Buddha initiation, not as a symbolical experience, but as reality. Buddha demonstrated by his life that man is the Logos, and that he returns to the Logos, to the light, when his earthly part dies. In Jesus, the Logos itself became a person. In Him, the Word was made flesh.

[ 7 ] Therefore, what was enacted in the innermost recesses of the temples by the guardians of the ancient Mysteries has been apprehended through Christianity as a historical fact. The followers of Christ Jesus confessed their belief in Him, the initiate; in Him who was initiated in a manner unique in its magnitude. He proved to them that the world is divine. In the Christian community the wisdom of the Mysteries was indissolubly bound up with the personality of Christ Jesus. That which man previously had sought to attain through the Mysteries was now replaced by the belief that Christ had lived on earth, and that the faithful belonged to him.

Henceforward, part of what was formerly only to be gained through mystic methods could be replaced in the Christian community by the conviction that the Divine had been manifested in the Word present among them. Not that for which each individual soul underwent a long preparation was now alone decisive, but what those had heard and seen who were with Jesus, and what was handed down by them. “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which... our hands have handled, of the Word of Life... that which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us.” Thus do we read in the first Epistle of St. John. And this immediate reality is to embrace all future generations in a living bond of union, and as a church is mystically to extend from race to race. It is in this sense that the words of St. Augustine are to be under " stood, “I should not believe the Gospels unless the authority of the Catholic Church induced me to do so.” Thus the Gospels do not contain within themselves testimony to their truth, but they are to be believed because they are founded on the personality of Jesus, and because the Church from that personality mysteriously draws the power to make the truth of the Gospels manifest.

The Mysteries handed down traditionally the means of arriving at truth; the Christian community propaBates truth itself. To the confidence in the mystical forces that spring up in the inmost being of man durIng initiation was to be added the confidence in the One, in the primordial Initiator.

The mystics sought to become divine, they wished to experience divinity. Jesus was divine, we must hold fast to Him, and then we shall become partakers of His divinity in the community founded by Him—this became Christian conviction. What was divine in Jesus became so for all His followers. “Lo, I am with you alway even unto the end of the world.” (St. Matthew, XXVIII 20). The one who was born in Bethlehem has an eternal character. The Christmas anthem rightly sings of the birth of Jesus as if it took place each Christmas “Christ is born to-day, the Saviour has come into the world to-day, today the angels are singing on earth.”

In the Christ-experience we should recognize a definite stage of initiation. When the mystic of pre-Christian times passed through this Christ-experience he was, through his initiation, in a state that enabled him to perceive something spiritually—in higher worlds—to which no fact in the world of sense corresponded. He experienced in the higher world what the Mystery of Golgotha comprises. Now, when the Christian mystic goes through this experience by initiation he at the same time beholds the historical event that took place on Golgotha, and he knows that in that event, enacted within the physical world, there is the same content that existed formerly only in the super sensible facts of the Mysteries. Thus there was poured out on the Christian community, through the Mystery of Golgotha, that which formerly had been poured out on the mystics within the temples. And initiation gives Christian mystics the possibility of discerning what is contained in the Mystery of Golgotha, whereas faith makes man an unconscious partaker of the mystical stream which flowed from the events depicted in the New Testament, and which has ever since pervaded the spiritual life of humanity.

• 1. (Cf. Lepsius, Das Totenbuch der alten Ägypter, (The Book Of the Dead of the Ancient Egyptians.) Berlin, 1842).

From June 19 to 21, 1904, the Federation of European Sections of the Theosophical Society held its congress in Amsterdam. The members of the Dutch section were tasked with taking care of all the work to be done at the meeting location. And they took on this truly difficult task in a way that must ensure them the full recognition and warmest thanks of the European sections, who were their guests this time. They organized the three-day proceedings in the most dignified and meaningful way, interspersing the actual Theosophical meetings with artistic performances that included musical and declamatory performances. These performances were not organized with outside artists, but by the members of the Dutch section themselves. It is only with heartfelt satisfaction that one can look back on what was offered there. It has testified to the tireless work and successful propaganda of the great spiritual movement in Holland. It already has almost eight hundred members there.

The proceedings of the congress will now be outlined in a few strokes. — Annie Besant chaired the meeting. She returned to Europe a few weeks ago from an eighteen-month stay in India. It was good that she was able to lead the proceedings. Everyone who understands the true meaning of the important spiritual movement embodied in the Theosophical movement knows this. After the death of H.P. Blavatsky, the spiritual leadership of the Society passed to Annie Besant. This must be counted as a good karma for the Society. In everything that comes from this woman lives the power by which the Society must be guided if it is to fulfill its mission. This mission consists in elevating present-day civilization to a spiritual life. This civilization has achieved untold intellectual and material cultural work. It has enormously expanded humanity's outlook and outer work and will continue to expand it even further. The spiritual deepening was bound to suffer. The nineteenth century lacked the spiritual direction, it lacked the spiritual life that gave impulses to earlier great epochs of human development. That was the necessary fate of cultural development. For when man's energy is particularly expressed in one direction, it must withdraw its activity somewhat in the other. At present, however, we have again reached the point where spiritual life must be added to our culture if it is not to become completely externalized, and if humanity is not to lose touch with spiritual experiences. This mission of the Theosophical Society is now expressed completely in everything Annie Besant does and says. The highest task of our time is the innermost impulse of her own soul. Knowledge and will, insight and ideal of our time are united in Annie Besant, to be fertilized by her own highly developed spiritual life as a force emanating from her and to communicate as such to her fellow human beings. Where she speaks, the spirit of the audience is raised to the heights of divine knowledge and their hearts are filled with enthusiasm for the spiritual currents of humanity. And so it was when she gave her magnificent opening address at the Amsterdam Congress. She set out the conditions under which the work of the Society must be carried out. The question of the “why” and “wherefore” of the gathering was answered by her in broad strokes. She described the theosophical movement as part of the great spiritual movement that is taking hold of the whole world today. The spiritualization of the whole civilization must be achieved. A glance at this civilization teaches this. In the material, this civilization lives itself out. In a science that seeks to understand the material, in an industry and technology that serves the outer life, in a traffic that makes the material interests of the whole earth more and more common. But all this lacks the spiritual. Our knowledge is a mind knowledge, our commercial prosperity promotes external well-being. But this science on the one hand and material prosperity on the other are only an external form of culture, not its inner life. To everything we have conquered, the heart and the life must be added. We must again include the divine ideal in our will; then all externals will no longer be an end in themselves, but only the outer garment, only the form of civilization. The spirit must fill the body of our civilization if it is to endure. And to fill this body with the spirit is the purpose for which the Theosophical movement has been called into being. It starts from the most ancient thoughts of mankind, from that wisdom which in primeval times raised our race to its present level of consciousness, and which has always been effective in all great progress. These thoughts, this wisdom are essentially as old as humanity. Only their forms must change according to the different needs of different times.

Theosophy does not ascribe the origin of wisdom to an external, random development. Rather, it derives it from the brotherhood of the great leaders of humanity. These are the beings who have already achieved the high degree of perfection in the past that the average human being will strive for in the future. Such advanced brothers of the human race use their degree of perfection to help the rest of humanity to progress. Their work is done in secret. It must be done in secret because it is too high to be understood by the masses. They are the custodians of the divine ideals. From time to time they send their emissaries into the world to give it great cultural impulses. The great world religions owe their origin to such impulses; all cultural achievements owe their foundations to them.

One such impulse has been sent into the world in recent times, leading to the founding of the Theosophical Society by H.P. Blavatsky and H.S. Olcott. Its aim is to remind mankind that thought is greater than expression, spirit greater than form. It seeks to show that science must regain its knowledge not only of the sensual but also of the supersensible worlds, that the heart should not cling only to material goods but should open itself to the divine ideal. Above and beyond the material gain that each individual can derive from our present means of culture stands the general spiritual uplift of the whole of mankind. All the prosperity that humanity strives for should be sought only in order to build a dwelling for the spirit on this earth. And this dwelling is worthy only if it is suffused with beauty. But beauty is only possible when it emanates from the spirit. Our material culture cannot have true art unless it conquers true faith again. From the art of the Middle Ages, the faith of medieval humanity shines out to us. Its painters allowed themselves to be inspired by the religious feeling that lived in their hearts. The content of faith gave meaning and significance to the lines and colors of the artists. A new content of thought, appropriate to the imagination of contemporary humanity, is what Theosophy seeks to bring to bear. And the new content of thought will be the creator of a new art. This is a task of our time. All nobler spirits feel this. The striving towards it is noticeable everywhere. The Theosophical Society wants to be a leader, a vanguard in this movement. It wants to inspire individual men and women for this goal, which is currently felt so clearly.

And in this way it unites the striving for tolerance and universal love of humanity. These have always been the forces from which the great advances of humanity have emerged. What individual cultural movements strive for, the theosophical current seeks to form into a great unity. It seeks to overcome narrow-mindedness and intolerance. For only in united striving can humanity today achieve its goal. The Theosophical Society does not exist for the selfish pursuit of its members. It is a mistake to join it for the purpose of one's own advancement. It wants to be there for humanity, it wants to work in its service. One should become a member of the Society only to be a channel through which flows a knowledge that promotes human progress. The Society does not grow when its membership increases daily, but when these members grow in confidence and insight into their lofty task with each passing day. The justification of the Society lies in the change that has taken place in human thinking over the last thirty years. Today, people no longer look down on those who no longer focus solely on the material side of culture. The heart begins to expand, and people have an appreciation again for those who strive for the spiritual. Our materialism became so powerful because our devotion had become so weak. But the person who is unable to ascend to spiritual heights in adoration closes himself off. But devotion opens the heart and mind. We rise to that which we behold in devotional love and high esteem. The call for such deepening has gone out to those who have united in the “Theosophical Society”; they shall be good helmsmen for the path that is mapped out for the present civilization.

The individual sections were represented by their general secretaries: the English section by Bertram Keightley, the Dutch section by W. B. Fricke, the French section by Dr. Th. Pascal, and the German section by Dr. Rudolf Steiner. Unfortunately, the general secretary of the Italian section, Decio Calvari, could not be present. Johan van Manen conducted the business of the congress and also gave his report at the meeting on June 19, 1904. His work deserves special mention. He had an enormous workload during the preparations for the meeting and during the meeting itself. One could only admire the willingness to make sacrifices, the prudence and energy of this member of the Theosophical Society.

On the evening of June 19, a public lecture was held. Annie Besant spoke on “the new psychology”. She outlined the change that has taken place in the last forty years in the prevailing views on the nature of the mind. Forty years ago, materialism, in the form of men like Büchner and Vogt, could claim that the brain secretes thoughts like the liver secretes bile. Since that time, people have abandoned the belief that the nature of the mind can be known by studying the mechanism of the brain. Today we know that such a process would be the same as trying to penetrate the secrets of a Mozart or Beethoven creation by studying the hammers and keys of a piano. The phenomena of dream life have been studied, and those manifestations of consciousness that occur in abnormal states of the physical body have been studied in depth. This has led to the conviction that the spiritual is an independent entity in man, and that the way in which it manifests itself in the ordinary state is only one of its forms. Only this form, this mode of expression, is conditioned by the physical structure of the human senses and the human brain. It must be the nature of the spirit to express itself through other instruments in a different way. Experimental science has thus confirmed the fundamental truth of all deeper religious world views that the spirit in human day-consciousness has only one of its revelations. It has shown that through certain processes (in trance, etc.) forms of consciousness arise in man in which he is quite different from his so-called normal consciousness. Thus it is also scientifically justified not to seek the truth only through the form of consciousness that comes to us in everyday life, but to rise to higher forms of consciousness in order to get to know the higher worlds.

The other works of the congress were dealt with in such a way that departments were formed according to the subject matter, in which corresponding lectures were held. It became clear how Theosophy has already extended its work to all branches of modern spiritual life and to social ideals. Theosophists seek to bring the suitability of their goals to bear in all branches of culture, and they also seek to integrate their thoughts and ideals into the endeavors of the present everywhere. The individual departments were as follows: 1. Science; 2. Comparative Religion; 3. Philology; 4. Human Brotherhood; 5. Occultism; 6. Philosophy; 7. Theosophical Method of Work; 8. Art.

In the scientific section, a paper by Dr. Pascal on the “Nature of Consciousness” was read. The author had subtly combined the basic tenets of Theosophy with modern ideas. This was followed by a suggestion from Ludwig Deinhard (Munich). He pointed out the various experimentally determined states of consciousness (multiplex personality), explained them lucidly, and called on those who had developed higher states of consciousness within themselves to also put their experiences at the service of the theosophical basic views (reincarnation and karma). This was followed by a stimulating discussion of the “Development of a Second Personality” by Alfred R. Orage (Leeds). The two presentations followed on nicely from what Annie Besant had presented in her lecture on “the new psychology”. From the proceedings of this section, it can only be stated that Emilio Scalfaro (Bologna), Arturio Reghini (Italy) and Mrs. Sarah Corbett (Manchester) presented papers on important questions of space, matter and other topics. The wealth of material presented cannot be covered in a short summary, especially since lectures were held in different rooms at the same time and it was only possible for individuals to attend a part of each. The works will also be published in a detailed congress report (yearbook of the congress) and will thus be accessible to everyone. Therefore, only a few things will be reported here. In the section on comparative religion, the following was available: “The Religion of the Future - a View of Vaishnavism” by Purnendu Narayana Sinha (India).

In the section on “human brotherhood”, there was a treatise on community life among so-called primitive peoples by Mme Emma Weise (Paris). Works of this kind are important for the theosophist because they point to conditions in which the principle of brotherhood was effective as a natural law of the soul in human tribes. Progress had to lead necessarily to separation and to egoism. But this is only a transitional epoch. Seclusion must give way to selfless devotion, to ethical brotherhood, again, at a higher level, to what was once innate in man at a lower level. The social coexistence of people was the subject of the lectures by D. A. Courmes (Paris) and S. Edgar Aldermann (Sacramento, Cal.).

In the “Occultism” section, Annie Besant spoke about the “Nature of Occultism”. She pointed out H.P. Blavatsky's saying that occultism is the study of the universal world spirit in all of nature. The occultist recognizes that everything that can be perceived in the world is based on a universal spirit; and that the world of appearances only gives the forms, the expressions of this hidden (occult) world spirit. This conviction is expressed in all great world religions, and occultists find the real foundations of religions confirmed by their own experience. The science of the intellect can only recognize the outside of the world. It speaks of forces and laws. The occultist sees behind these forces and laws. And he then perceives that these are only the outer shell for living entities, just as man's body is the shell for soul and spirit. From the lower forms that hide behind the forces of nature, to the exalted world spirits, whom he addresses as Logoi, the occultist pursues the spiritual realm according to his ability. But in order to recognize this world as a reality, he must go through a careful training. He must achieve two things. First, he must expand his consciousness so that it can embrace higher worlds, just as the ordinary conscious mind dominates the physical world. Second, he must develop the higher senses, which can perceive in these worlds as eyes and ears perceive in the physical world. The first goal, the expansion of consciousness, depends on man learning to control his thoughts. In ordinary life, man is controlled by his thoughts. They come and go, dragging the consciousness hither and thither. The occultist must be master of the course of his thoughts. He regulates their course. It is in his power to decide which thoughts he will allow to enter and which he will reject. This goal can only be achieved through the most diligent self-education. Once you have prepared yourself in this way, you can begin to develop the higher senses. As long as a person is still under the influence of his passions, desires and instincts, the possession of higher senses can only be harmful to him. A pure, selfless life is a matter of course for the occultist. The personal desires he harbors of his own accord take shape in the higher worlds. Man himself is the author of these forms. If he begins to see these forms, he is exposed to the danger of mistaking his own personal creations of desire and longing for objective realities. These products of his body of desire and longing are hidden from the average person. If they are not to become the source of serious errors and illusions for the developed higher senses, they must fade from view. The occultist must personally be without desire. There is a further danger that man may mistake the fragments of higher worlds that present themselves to his open eyes for exhaustive realities. The occultist must learn to recognize all this.

What particularly hinders the development of occult abilities is the haste and rush with which some disciples want to advance. These arise from personal impatience and restlessness. But the occultist must develop complete inner calm and patience. He must be able to wait until the right time for inspiration has come. He must wait patiently until he is given what he should not take in greed. He must do everything to enable the voices from the spiritual world to speak to him at the right moment; but he must not have the slightest belief that he can force these voices to come. He who is proud because he believes he knows more than others cannot become an occultist. This is why occultists speak of the heresy of separatism. If a person wants something for himself, if he does not want to possess everything in community, then he is immature for occultism. Every separation, every striving for personal self-interest, even if it is of the highest spiritual nature, kills the occult senses. The dangers of the occult path are great. Only patience and selflessness, willingness to make sacrifices and true love can make the occultist.

One of Leadbeater's letters, which was intended for this section, included some interesting remarks about the astral forms that are evoked by musical works of art. A sonata by Beethoven or a piano piece by Mozart can be characterized by the architecture that the clairvoyant can perceive in the astral space.

In the “Philosophy” section, Dr. Rudolf Steiner gave a lecture on “Mathematics and Occultism”. He assumed that Plato demanded a mathematical education from his students, that the Gnostics referred to their higher wisdom as mathesis and that the Pythagoreans saw the basis of all being in number and form. He explained that they all had not the abstract mathematics in mind, but that they meant the intuitive vision of the occultist, who perceives the laws in the higher worlds with the help of a spiritual sensation that presents in the spiritual that which music is for our ordinary sensual world. Just as air, through vibrations that can be expressed in numbers, arouses musical sensations, so the occultist, if he prepares himself by knowing the secrets of numbers, can perceive spiritual music in the higher worlds, which, with particularly high development of the human being, intensifies to the sensation of the music of the spheres. This music of the spheres is not a figment of the imagination; it is a real experience for the occultist. By incorporating the arithmetics into his own being, by permeating his astral and mental body with the intimate sense that is expressed in the numerical relationships, the human being prepares himself to let hidden world phenomena have an effect on him.

In more recent times, the occult sense has withdrawn from the sciences. Since Copernicus and Galileo, science has been concerned with conquering the physical world. But it is in the eternal plan of human development that physical science, too, should find access to the spiritual world. In the age of physical research, mathematics has been enriched by Newton and Leibnitz's analysis of the infinite, by differential and integral calculus. Those who seek not only to understand in the abstract but to experience inwardly what a differential really represents will gain a view that is free of sensuality. For in the differential, the sensual view of space is overcome even in the symbol; for moments, human cognition can become purely mental. To the clairvoyant, this reveals itself in that the thought form of the differential is open to the outside, in contrast to the thought forms that a person receives through sensual observation. These are closed to the outside. Thus, through the analysis of the infinite, one of the paths is opened through which the higher senses of the human being open to the outside. The occultist knows what happens to the chakra (lotus flower) between the eyebrows when he develops the spirit of the differential within himself. If the mathematician is a selfless person, he can lay what he has achieved in this way on the general altar of human brotherhood. And the seemingly driest science can become an important source for occultism.

In the same section, Gaston Polak (Brussels) spoke about symmetry and rhythm in man. It was interesting to hear these discussions about the way in which the human being can be integrated into the general laws of the world. A paper by Bhagavän Däs (Benares) on the “Relationship between Self and Non-Self” was read out. Since this paper will soon be available in book form, a summary can be dispensed with here, which would also be rather difficult due to the subtle form of the train of thought.

In the section on the “Method of theosophical work”, the remarks of Ms. Ivy Hooper (London) were of great importance. She emphasized that the essential thing for the theosophist is not the dogmatic forms in which the spirit, the spiritual life is expressed, but this spirit, this life itself. It is commendable that this has been said with such clarity. We can express the spirit with Christian as well as with oriental symbols, if only we preserve this spirit. Where Christian symbolism is better understood, the Theosophist may make use of it. For one can be a good Theosophist without knowing anything about the dogmas in which spiritual wisdom was necessarily taught in the beginning. The Theosophical Society is supposed to be the bearer of this wisdom; but it should change the forms according to necessity. Buddhist formulas and oriental dogmas must not be confused with the theosophical spirit. Theosophy has no dogmatics. It only wants to be spiritual life.

A section on “Art” showed how the Theosophical worldview can also bring light to this area. Jean Delville (Brussels), for example, developed something spiritual in his lecture on the “Mission of Art.” Ludwig Deinhard (Munich) took this opportunity to present a treatise by the German painter Fidus, in which the latter expresses his Theosophical view of the secrets of art.

On Tuesday afternoon, the congress concluded with a short address by Annie Besant and expressions of thanks to our Dutch Theosophists from the attending general secretaries. That evening, there was another public lecture by Dr. Hall on the human aura, illustrated with slides.

An exhibition of works of art of particular interest to Theosophists had been organized and could be viewed during the entire duration of the congress.

London was chosen as the venue for next year's congress.

A week ago, I tried to explain the manner of thinking, so strange to western minds, through which the theosophist attains his insights and knowledge of the cosmos. The sketchy character these lectures necessarily have prevents me from delving more profoundly into theosophical cosmology. Nevertheless, I will attempt today to give you at least a picture in descriptive form of the origin of the world based on Theosophy. I beg those who have scientific bents to bear in mind that in the course of three short lectures it isn't possible to go into scientific explanations of what I will say today. These scientific explanations will be included in a subsequent lecture cycle, in which I will speak in more detail about this subject. Also, in the second volume of my Theosophy, which will soon be published, cosmology will be discussed.¹

Allow me first of all to mention an important thought, which is basically very simple, but which must be clear to whoever wishes to understand evolution in the theosophical sense. When we speak of development, or evolution in a broad sense, we don't only mean the development of animal or plant life from a previous form, but we also mean the great transformations within the universe, and we include the origin of matter, the matter we can today perceive with our physical senses.

We said last time that in the history of the evolution of our planet there are seven consecutive stages, and I also briefly described these to you. You must therefore think of how our earthly planet goes through seven stages, which we call Rounds, in rhythmical sequence. Everything that exists and lives on our Earth was also existent before our present Earth come into being; it was existent in a kind of seed state, just as a whole plant is present in a seed, sleeps in the seed, so to speak, before it takes on form in the outer world. Such a slumber stage is called a “Pralaya”. On the other hand, the state in which everything awakens, gradually emerges and progresses from a beginning to a high point of perfection, we call “Manvantara”. When the state of perfection is reached, a Pralaya, a sleeping state, occurs once more, and this is followed again by a state of waking and growth. Thus the planet goes through this sequence seven times, reawakening seven times to a new Round.

The time between one Manvantara and the next passes in a state in which everything living on the earth sleeps, so to speak. But it isn't comparable to normal human sleep. In normal sleep only the activities of understanding and sense are interrupted, but you can see the physical body. The sleeping state of the Earth must be thought of differently. No earthly being is visible during this sleeping state. This state would be perceptible only to the opened eye of the so-called Dangma, the highest developed seer. This state is indescribable in words, for our words are inadequate for this kind of existence. I find no words in any language for this state. Therefore the developed seer says something quite different in order to give an idea of this state. He says: imagine a plant. You see this plant. Now imagine a kind of plaster impression of the plant, but in such a way that the plant itself is empty space and a Round is the plaster. Consider that the plaster is spiritual and only perceptible for certain senses. Whoever can see the plant cannot see the plaster impression at the same time, that is, the negative of the plant. Something similar is what the developed seer would perceive of the Earth during the Pralaya sleep. The Earth is not there. It is the hollow form, swimming in a great, mighty sea of the highest spiritual beings that is gradually disappearing and out of which the Being of the Earth itself flows.

Then something begins to originate within this hollow space, something not yet perceptible to the physical senses; it is only perceptible to the highly developed seer who can consciously move in the spiritual plane. At the beginning of the Earth's existence he would see a sphere in space, a purely spiritual sphere in which only the spiritual is present. Every time before a new Round begins, our Earth exists in such a spiritual state. When it awakens from the Pralaya sleep, it does so as such a sphere. The spiritual seer perceives it in a wonderful reddish glimmer. But that Earth contains everything that later becomes Earth. The densest bodies are also contained in this sphere.

How can we imagine this? It can be made clear by means of a simple process. Imagine a glass full of water. The water is fluid. When you cool the temperature sufficiently, the water becomes ice. You have the same thing in front of you as previously—ice is nothing other than water, only in another form. Raise the temperature and the ice reverts to water, with higher temperatures even to steam. By this example you can imagine how all matter derives from the spirit through densification. The spiritual sphere—seen only by the seer's developed eye—densifies gradually after it passes through a small Pralaya. It can then be seen by a less developed seer's eye. Then follows a kind of short sleeping state, and now the sphere is visible to the astral eye, that is, for whoever has developed this sense on the astral plane. Again a Pralaya state follows, and the sphere appears again as physical solid matter. Only now can physical eyes see it, physical ears hear it, physical hands grasp it. That is the fourth stage. Then a short Pralaya comes again. This stage disappears and again an astral sphere presents itself, but with much more highly developed beings. An analogous state appears in the sixth Round, also only visible to the spiritual seer. Thereafter another Pralaya and then a state only visible to the highest developed seer. Then follows what is invisible even to the Dangma. A long Pralaya follows and then the whole process begins again. This happens seven times. In this way the Earth is transformed from the lowest to the highest level.

Let us now follow the first Round. We can study it best by observing what exists on our Earth where it is most solid. In the first Round there were no mineral forms yet, no physical nature energy and no chemical energy. The Earth had carried out the previous evolution only to create a foundation for physical existence; it created this foundation in order to prepare a physical existence in the fourth Round. Our Earth looked like a fiery mass, with such tremendous temperatures that none of our present substances could have the form they now have. All substances were jumbled up in that fiery primal porridge—allow me to use that trivial word—in homogeneous, undifferentiated matter. Theosophy says: the Earth was in the fiery stage. Common fire is not meant, however, but fire of a higher, spiritual nature. There were no chemical elements involved. But what was in the interior of this matter was active. Two kinds of spiritual beings were active: those we call “Dhyani Chohans”,² and those beings who had not yet descended to physical materiality, who had a partially spiritual body, and who flowed through the fiery matter with tremendous rapidity. We see here a continuous emergence and disappearance of irregular forms, also of forms that remind us of those that will exist on Earth at a much later time.

The emerging and disappearing seems to follow a pattern. Forms arise which are reminiscent of later crystals and plants—even something that takes on human form, and then disperses. The humans who would later incarnate lived in that fire, modeling and preparing their bodies. That is how the Earth's first Round appears to us. Then followed the transition from this fiery, flowing Earth to the sleep-state.

The second Round began in the same spiritual way. “Ether” is finer than our present-day gas, but denser than the Earth was in the previous stage. In this very fine matter what we call chemical elements formed. You can find this second stage wonderfully described in religious books, where it is written that the divine beings ordered everything according to mass, number and weight. What had earlier been irregular was now organized in chemical elements according to number. The chemist will understand me, for he knows the regular periodic system of the elements. The individual substances were not yet related to each other. Now, however, as matter became differentiated, we see the most wonderful forms coming into existence which remind us of later forms, only they are not yet solid: star-like forms, angular forms, tetrahedrons, polyhedrons, round forms and so on. The forms that will later constitute nature are intimated. As in the first Round crystal forms were prearranged, the plant forms were constituted in the second Round. Then all flowed away; the astral and spiritual natures went through a Pralaya stage again and re-appeared in the third Round.

When we consider the physical state of the third Round, we find matter in a quite different state. It is not yet differentiated as air and water, but forms a kind of mist, or steam. It is no longer an ether form, but rather somewhat as cloud formations are today. And within these mist formations, which we find described in old sagas—the sagas of Nebelheim (home of mist) and Niflheim describe this state—we see matter in another form, no longer organized according to number, but equipped with energy. The esoteric researcher speaks here of the Law of Selected Relationships. The chemical substances organize themselves according to the Law of Selected Relationships. Now, however, in the third Round, energy emerged, which allowed the small to become larger and expand. The substances could organize themselves from within, energize themselves. Not only the first plant forms, which we met in the second Round, appeared, but growth was also possible. The first animal forms appeared, which we would consider to be extremely grotesque today. Gigantically large, colossal shapes formed themselves out of the mass of mist. For the occultist there is something of truth when he looks at the clouds and sees that one cloud looks like a camel, another like a horse. In the third Round the beings were mist-like forms, which reproduced by one transforming itself into the other, one deriving from the other, like the lower cell organisms, which are reminiscent of this process. These animal bodies, which formed out of the mist, could now provide the basis for those individualities who came from previous worlds to find bodies. The human being could now incarnate. He found a body which allowed him to appear, at first in an imperfect, primitive, groping way. Failed incarnations were also possible. We could say that during the third Round beings existed on the Earth who were intermediate beings between man and animal, in which the human being did not feel completely right, but could nevertheless incarnate.

Then another Pralaya occurred, and then the fourth Round. That is the Round to which we belong today. The Earth passed through the spiritual state, went through the astral and etheric states and finally arrived at the physical state which we have now reached. During the first Round the foundation for the mineral kingdom was formed, during the second Round the foundation for the vegetable kingdom was formed, during the third Round the possibility for animal forms was established. And now, during the fourth Round, the human being acquired the ability to take on the form he has today.

Let us consider the state of our physical Earth somewhat more closely. The state of the Earth in this fourth Round must be described as being much denser than the states of the previous Rounds. First there was a fiery state, then a misty one, then one between air and water. Still during the beginning of the fourth Round we had a kind of gushing matter, similar to protein. Gradually it all condensed, and what we have today as matter is nothing other than the condensed, originally gushing matter, exactly as ice is condensed water. At the beginning of the fourth Round all beings were created so they could live in this gushing matter. Man had a form similar to the one he has now, but his consciousness was extremely dim, comparable to that of a dreaming person. He dreamed his being in a kind of sleeping consciousness; the spirit was still lacking. Let us consider this state more closely. The human being was possible in that flowing, gushing state. We call these people of the first race³ dream-men. It is difficult to describe them. Another stage followed this one, in which matter became denser and separated into a more spiritual and a more physical materiality, comparable to the North and South Poles.

Now I ask you to consider the difference between the esoteric and the usual understanding of Darwinism. We have the human being present in the indicated stage of the earth, as well as the vegetable kingdom. The animal kingdom was also present, but without sexual reproduction capability, without warm blood and not yet capable of bringing forth sounds. The human being was also mute. He could not yet think, not even dim thoughts. The spirit had not yet entered the bodies. In the following, second race, matter separated into two poles. The human beings withdrew the matter that was useful to them and separated out the less useful matter, from which a kind of lateral branch of the higher animals formed. The lower animals were similar to today's mollusks, even fish-like forms developed.

The human being developed further and at the third stage discarded the matter that would not enable him to become the bearer of a higher consciousness. He gave it up as material for the animals, which now looked like amphibians with gigantic forms. They are described in fables and myths as flying dragons and so on. Until then, no being possessed sexual reproductive capacities. Not until the middle of the third race, the Lemurian epoch, does this appear, albeit primitively. The scene of this development, Lemuria, was in Asia in the Indian Ocean.

During the middle of the Lemurian age the great event occurred which allowed man to become a human being. The human beings who came over from previous planetary states were not all at the same level of development. Those who had reached a normal evolution during the previous misty earth cycle were able to incarnate during the third epoch. Among them, however, there were some who had already reached a higher stage; they could not incorporate during the third race at all. During every Round there are humans who develop to a normal stage and others who are more advanced. These are the masters. They are more highly developed individuals. In Theosophy they are called solar pitris or sun pitris. They had reached a higher spirituality, but could no more incarnate in the bodies of the men of those times than a contemporary person could incarnate in a plant. They waited for further evolution until the appropriate time had come, during the fourth race, when their incarnation could take place. Thus a spiritually highly developed humanity arose. The sagas and myths relate how at that time personalities existed who rose far above their fellow men. Individuals such as Prometheus, the Indian Rishis, Fire-Rishis, who were the leaders of humanity, including Manus, who gave later humanity laws. Only these solar Pitris could incarnate as adepts.

I already mentioned that at the start of the fourth Round sexuality did not yet exist. The separation of the sexes occurred only during the Lemurian time. Therewith the first incarnations were possible, the taking over of a body which hadn't already existed. Previously one being derived from another. With the separation of the sexes during the middle of the Lemurian age, birth and death arose and therefore the possibility of the effects of karma. The human being could burden himself with guilt. Everything we know as “human” arose at that time.

The Lemurian continent was destroyed by a fire-like catastrophe, and the Atlantean continent arose on the floor of what is now the Atlantic Ocean. During the Atlantean time another important event occurred to which I drew your attention when I spoke of the Whitsun holiday. I said that, with the exception of the solar Pitris, all beings lived in a lower spiritual condition. The solar Pitris could only take on selected bodies. Other bodies would only have allowed them to live with a dim consciousness. Dull-minded individuals would have resulted had they used the existent bodies. The Pitris therefore waited until certain animal-like forms evolved further. On the one hand they sank deeper into instinctual desires, but on the other hand, by this means the prerequisites for the later development of the brain were given. Matter was differentiated into nervous matter and sexual matter. The Pitris who had waited for that later time incarnated in this inferior matter. Religion indicates this as the biblical fall from paradise: the incarnation in worsened matter. If that hadn't happened, they would have remained in a much less conscious state. They would not have attained the clear thinking we now posses, but would have remained in a much duller state. They paid for this by allowing their bodies to be inferior, which however was compensated for by refined brain matter, thereby allowing them to achieve a higher level of consciousness and spirituality. A particular result of the evolution of the Atlantean race was the development of a phenomenal memory.

After Atlantis was destroyed by water, continued evolution resulted in our contemporary fifth race, during which deductive reasoning was a special achievement. This enabled the human race to bring art and science to a high level of development, which previously had not been possible. During the fifth sub-race of the fourth Round humanity reached a high-point: control by the spirit, which had incarnated in matter, so that humanity could ascend to higher and higher stages of evolution.

We have seen how the cosmos evolved in rhythmic stages to the point where we now stand. In previous Rounds the following developed:

1. the mineral kingdom

2. the vegetable kingdom

3. the animal kingdom

and then—

4. the human being

Theosophical cosmology is a self-contained whole, derived from the wisdom of the most developed seers. If I had a little more time I would be able to indicate to you how certain natural scientific facts are conducive to testifying to the accuracy of this image of the world. Look at Haeckel's famous phylogenic trees, for example, in which evolution is materialistically explained. If instead of matter you consider the spiritual stages, as Theosophy describes them, then you can make the phylogenic trees as Haeckel did—only the explanation is different.

In order that you do not confuse what I have said with what is described in many theosophical books as the various astral or physical states, I would like to bring the following to your attention. Evolution is often described as if they were concurrent stages. You find spheres placed next to each other, so that it appears as though life went from one sphere to another. In reality only one sphere exists, and only its conditions change. It is always the same sphere which goes through the various metamorphoses: spiritual, astral, physical, and so on.

We have seen that the introduction to these lectures, which we took from Goethe's words, is completely justified—that it is after all the human being who is the goal, the task of the earthly planet. The esotericist knows that every planet has its specific task. Nothing in the cosmos is coincidental.

The task of physical evolution is that what is created for us humans achieve its objective. You will not find a human being as he is today on Earth on any other planet. Beings, yes—but not human beings. The Earth exists in order that “I”-conscious human beings could be created. Through the first four Rounds the kingdoms of nature evolved in order that in the fourth man could be made a self-conscious being, who could reflect himself in his body. He will rise to higher levels of evolution, something that few can understand correctly. In the next, the fifth Round, the mineral kingdom will disappear. All mineral matter will be transformed to vegetable matter. Then the vegetable kingdom will reach its culmination and in the next Round the animal kingdom will form the lowest kingdom. During the seventh Round the human being will achieve his highest level of evolution. He will have become what planetary evolution intends.

Whoever understands this can have a profounder insight into the religious documents. There was a time when people believed like children in the religious documents. Then the Enlightenment came, and nothing is believed any more. But a time will come when people will learn to understand the images preserved for us in religious documents, fairy tales and fables. Thus we have the seven Rounds as the seven days of creation in the Bible. The first three days of creation have gone by, we are now in the fourth day of creation and the last three days of creation are yet to come. The first three days of creation in Genesis represent the past Rounds, and the last three indicate what is to come in the future. Rightly understood, Moses wanted to say with the description of the first three days, that we live in the fourth Round; he describes the fourth day of creation in a quite special way. That is why you find a double creation in Genesis.⁴ Those who judge the Bible with their intellect only will never understand it. The human being of the seventh day of creation has not been created. That man was made of clay is a symbol of our fourth Round. The double creation tells us in images of what has been created, the stage in which we now find ourselves, and of the stage at the end of the seventh Round. When we see the Bible's message in this way, a meaning of these documents suddenly arises which we could not have previously understood. Humanity will finally see that there is such a profound meaning there that one would almost have to become a different person in order to understand it.

It is necessary that in our times the high, spiritual meaning of these old documents be revealed, and that is the task of the theosophical movement. It doesn't criticize the materialism of our times because it considers it to be necessary. But it strives to enable people to again recognize the spiritual meaning of these documents. We will work on this during the coming winter. Today's lecture is the last of this cycle. We will, however, still meet here every Monday at eight o'clock.

• 1. The second volume of Theosophy never appeared. Instead, Steiner's An Outline of Esoteric Science, which includes a detailed description of cosmological evolution, was published in 1909.
• 2. Dhyani Chohans: in Christian terminology these are archangels.
• 3. “Race” in this sense is a theosophical term. Steiner later used the expression “cultural epoch” and similar ones.
• 4. Double creation: This may refer to Genesis 1, 26, where God creates humankind. In Genesis 2, 7, this creation is described again, albeit differently.

If we want to understand the migrations of the fifth post-Atlantic races, we must be aware that it is difficult to see clearly in this chaos. Descendants of all previous races have settled here, and we are already working in the fourth [root] race with a population that is spreading out in a radiating manner, as it were, and is itself mixed with descendants of other races. In the fifth race, the situation is most complicated. Everywhere we find remnants of populations that once already had a culture. As far as we look at the peoples of the southern Asian continent, we have remnants of the ancient Lemurian population. In the interior of Australia, their descendants can still be found. In western and northern Asia, in Central Asia and southern Europe, we find remnants of the fourth Atlantic epoch. This is the soil into which the branches of the fifth post-Atlantic epoch sink. So here we have the result of two currents: the Lemurian-Aryan on the one hand, and the Atlantean-Aryan on the other. All these cultures, however, have absorbed an even older one; Siberia, Scandinavia, northern Russia, China even have remnants of the Hyperborean culture. These mixtures are difficult to unravel. Let us try to trace the course of the Aryan cultural impact.

From a point in Central Asia, near the Gobi and Khamo deserts, this cultivation spread outwards in a radius. It was a decidedly priestly culture that prepared a spiritually highly educated race to enter the chaos of nations, to send out colonies from which new civilizations would arise. This small tribal people emerged from the fifth sub-race, the Ursemites of the fourth Atlantic epoch. We must bear in mind that these Ursemites were given their specific task, which is expressed in the Law of Manu, to offer to people in the broadest sense what is expressed in the words of Jesus: 'The kingdom of God does not come with external gestures, but the kingdom of God is among you'. Everything that came before was only a preparation for this point in time. It was what became the guiding tendency of Christianity: the sanctification of the personality, the full descent to the physical plane. This mission first had to be carefully prepared.

From the very beginning, the Manu in the root race placed very little emphasis on what goes beyond birth and death in man. These teachings had played an important role in the past and were now slowly dying out to gradually disappear. The Manu of the fifth post-Atlantic epoch wanted to lead people down to the physical plane in order to understand the physical heart, brain, and lungs. So these teachings, which went beyond birth and death, slowly faded in the first three post-Atlantic cultures. For even a Manu cannot direct fate and events as he wills, but must accomplish everything in accordance with the great laws of nature. Two things were available to him: the culture that still existed from the Lemurian population in southern Asia, and the remnants of the Atlantean culture in Africa. He sent his colonies there with initiated priests. Some to India, others to Africa. He gave them the teaching of non-reincarnation, the teaching [about life] between birth and death. In fact, the oldest Vedas contain nothing of what goes beyond birth and death. He said to himself: “Peoples who know nothing about reincarnation are coming together with those who have a precise knowledge of it. The result will be the right one.

In Egypt, they came together with the Atlanteans, who did not have such a sharp doctrine of reincarnation. For while the last Lemurians had trained them to the highest degree, it had already been distorted by the Atlanteans; with them, everything had come to a head in memory; the memory of the Atlanteans was so sharp that it outweighed everything else, that all that was physical lived in them through inheritance. So in this first excerpt we have two branches: the Indo-Aryans and the Hamites.

In India, the immigrating Indo-Aryans, who came with the old teaching of the word revealed by God - Veda word - took up the doctrine of reincarnation, and in Brahmanism we have what comes out so beautifully as the doctrine of reincarnation. This was brought about by the Manu. Meanwhile, the subjugated Lemurians became pariahs, and the Indians became the four castes. This is the principle of the initiates: the blending of the new with the old, here the powerful manasic spirituality with the doctrine of reincarnation.

In the Hamitic branch – Noah's three sons Shem, Ham and Japheth – the doctrine of reincarnation receded somewhat. It was less clear on the surface. The Egyptians placed more emphasis on the preservation of corpses. The inheritance system was more emphasized, which places the main value on physical continuity. The value of the individual life was emphasized and already transformed the ancient Rishi doctrine. A less decided doctrine of reincarnation mixed here with the doctrine of personality.

The second migration consists in the fact that a new branch was sent out, as it were. We can follow it if we first look eastward to the Medes and Persians and then to the tribe that passed through Chaldea and found its historical expression in the migrations of Abraham - from Ur in Chaldea. On the one hand, the tribe that went west also came into contact with the remnants of the Atlantic culture, namely with the fourth sub-race of the Atlanteans, the Turanian population, who had been engaged in agriculture.

Thus a peculiar mixture arises. Grafted onto that Turanian branch was the practice of magic – and it had to be grafted on firmly! From here came the teachings of the Medes and Bactrians. Here the first Zarathustras were active, endeavoring to use the external techniques of magical time in the service of external culture. The result is a mighty flourishing of agriculture and viticulture; in them we have the revival of the old magical skills.

A colonist branch goes further west and came across remnants of the undrawn Ursemites of the Atlantean race, and these form what is called the ancient Semitic tribe: Chaldeans, Babylonians, Phoenicians, Arabs. They form a new Semitic culture.

The most significant events occurred first among the Medes and Persians. They are contained in an ancient saga that has undergone many transformations and finally comes to us in the form of Cyrus: King Astyages had a daughter, Mandane, who married not a Mede but a Persian. The father dreamt that a tree was growing out of his daughter's womb. The dream was interpreted to mean that the Persian tribe would overshadow the Median tribe. The ancient saga of Cyrus has a uresoteric meaning. Cyrus represents the agricultural Persians in contrast to the non-agricultural Medes, and the [peasant] signifies that agriculture will win out: ancient culture will pass to the farmers.

How this came about can be seen from the institution of the Persian character. Physically strong they should become. There were no Lemurians here; the Atlanteans had prepared the ground for the development of personality. The Persians emphasized personal virtues above all. It is a remarkable trait that they had lessons in telling the truth; this was a main subject for boys, along with gymnastic exercises. And that is very important. They were preparing for what would lead to personal prowess reaching its peak.

Now we come to the point where the original Semitic element mixed with the new. Priest-Rishis migrated over and found decadent Old Semites and also decadent Akkadians. Thus the Manu formed a new branch by combining his immigrants with the decadent Semites, those who had developed arithmetic during their Atlantean heyday. What emerged from this was the Chaldean wisdom. [...] Astrology, astronomy, the observatories, the calendar, weights and measures emerged. The immigrants who had encountered the Akkadians, the ancient trading people, were used to create new colonies in this mixture. These were the Phoenicians.

Another excerpt followed: A colony of Rishis with followers went over to Europe. Here he found the old Hyperborean element, and in the south the Atlantic one. The Hyperboreans had already mixed with the Atlanteans; so only a small remnant of them remained. In the south, Hyperborean was almost non-existent. Here, on the soil of ancient Greece, the Pelasgian population arose with a kind of nature service that is reminiscent of Egyptian practices in many ways; only here it is more of a local cult instead of an ancestral cult: we find sacred trees, sacred caves; it is more closely tied to nature. There was a belief that the sacred is more closely tied to the place than to the tribe - Zeus of Dodona and others. The physical place becomes sacred. That was the new formation.

In Italy, too, a mixture of ancient Atlantean and Rishi culture is being brought into the physical plan again. Here, what had developed in the Atlanteans as a social being and as an attachment to technical culture penetrated: in the social legislation and technical skill of the Etruscans.

In the north, the mixture of Hyperborean and Rishi culture gave rise to the new formation of Celtic culture. What was found was an Atlantean-Hyperborean culture that was of little use. A new influence had to be given, and the result is the Celtic mixture with the Druid culture. This has so much spirituality because it absorbed the highly spiritual, which went beyond the spirituality of the Atlantic and Lemurian. Because it had the Hyperborean element in it, the Celtic could not quite withstand it and was absorbed by the later cultures.

We now come to the third sending forth. It is very complicated. It goes partly into what was previously prepared by the first two. We have preserved it in the representations of different peoples. Wherever the strong, powerful people are already in the foreground in the traditions. Thus, above all, a group of initiates went west and fertilized the already fertilized pre-Semitic element once again. Because it is about summarizing everything that was originally poured into the great idea of state-building. The result of this third sending out according to this poetry is Genesis, the Old Testament.

Another dissemination was the one that went to Asia Minor and formed what is preserved in Trojan culture and its daughter cultures, one of which is Albalong culture. These initiates had the task of taking over state formation as soon as it suited the various peoples.

We have thus become acquainted with three groups of initiates, the first of which had the task of creating the religious culture, the second of creating the material cultural basis - Persia - and the third of forming the state and consolidating the passions. This happens in forms adapted to the different peoples, as in Troy, or Alba Longa, or the theocratic state of Palestine. But essentially these were only preparations, made with peoples who were not called to form states. Among the people who were most called upon to carry the spiritual out onto the physical plane through their culture, the formation of states was least successful: the Greeks are above all the people of art. The highest personal thing brought out onto the physical plane: that is art. The initiate of the third group - in the case of the Greeks - is the hero, the strong man.

Over there in Asia, the peoples had already mixed repeatedly. And those who had received the highest legislation, the Jews, had mixed so much that they had already become hypertrophied. In contrast, in Europe, in central Italy, there had been a simpler mixture. We find a very strong Atlantic element there. The Etruscan colony had cooperated with Alba Longa, the priest state, and brought about Rome. Here there was simple racial formation and a great deal of Atlanticism in it. The two traits were enough to establish what is called the Etruscan-Roman culture, with the priestly influence that had to lead to the institution of the Pontifex Maximus. The conditions were simple, and so the people of the Roman Republic emerged, who developed personal bravery purely for themselves. The Roman citizen, the cives, was the fully-fledged human being who felt entirely as a personality. The Greeks had to feel themselves above all as wise men and artists. When they cultivated what most emerges from the personality, oratory and law, they had to perish. Private law and oratory, eloquence, were only developed to perfection in Rome. The Greek first sensed [...] and then developed the perfect personality by representing it in his gods. The Roman represents in his person the perfected personality as a citizen, as a real human being. The works of Greek sculptors, so to speak, arise in the Romans and come to life.

Thus, in Rome something was being prepared that the Lodge of the Initiates could use to give a further impetus. The highest peak of spiritual life had to be taken for this purpose. This could only be found where most spiritual impacts had occurred, namely in the Near East. There spirit was grafted onto spirit:

1. The self-impact: the fifth sub-race of the Atlantians Ursemites on the first sub-race of the Aryan population.
2. The move into the area of the Euphrates and Tigris.
3. The patriarchal period - the time of the heroes.
4. The theocracy.

This wonderful mixture is expressed in all branches of intellectual life. The new influence there could only come from a personality who came from far away, not from their own country.

The lodge carefully selected the family from which an initiate was to come. The old Rishi culture had prepared, foretold the initiate who must now come. It was written in the Sibylline books.

Thus, in secret, away from Judaism, in Galilee, the Messiah of the fourth sub-race was being prepared. There in Galilee, Judaism had never gained a firm foothold; it had not penetrated there. The Galileans are very mixed in racial character. It was important that He should have nothing of the Galilean, that He should come as from the hidden. That is why the apocrypha tell of him as being a son of his mother, and speak of his unchaste birth. This was Jesus of Nazareth, the Galilean. He was initiated to the third degree of a disciple. Now it was a matter of making him the highest initiate for everything that was to be realized on the physical plane. This was done by taking possession of the whole personality by another, who represents the whole fifth root race, by the Christ. In the Greco-Latin culture, the whole fifth post-Atlantic epoch emerged, and this is symbolically represented in the descent of the dove. If one wanted to express the truths at issue here, one could only choose the highest form.

The Manu said to himself, “I will make the fourth sub-race into a union of all the previous impacts and endow it with the spirit of the entire fifth root race. The Christ can do this, who is the actual impact of the entire fifth root race. The Manu prepared it, and Christ, as it were, entered into what had been prepared. The revelation of the actual secret of the fourth race was to take place. Earlier it had only been prepared, the highest initiates had seen it, the others prepared. That was the darkness into which the light came.

If we survey the development, we have results that are prepared by the fact that the first three sub-races are gradually educated to become personalities - until in the fourth the most profound part of the personality is seized, as the equality of all people before God.

Initiates who were sent out were not begotten by the father and mother of the race in question. They were sexless everywhere.

This is really said in the Gospel of John:

He came to that which is His own, but His own did not receive Him. And as many as received Him, to them He gave power to become the sons of God, even to those who believe in His name: <5>they were born, not of flesh and blood, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Christ is the inwardly divine principle; he must pour himself into forms and takes the form of the law from the theocratic state, from Judaism. The Jews could not accept the new forms, they already had their own; that was the highest. But He had to accept them, step by step He had to emerge onto the physical plane. So He expressed His wisdom through the wisdom of ancient Judaism. Now this wisdom had to be understood. This wisdom could be understood where the physical plane had already been conquered, where philosophy existed. That is why the first church fathers came from the Greeks. In their philosophy, they had developed the ability to understand that which emerged on the physical plane. When the will emerged in the personality, they could also understand this personality.

The people who had formed a Zeus, who had incarnated a God in their art of sculpture, could also understand the idea of an incarnated God. This idea could only come to life through the Roman people. The human being who had formed the personality could have this idea. That was the Roman.

The Christ Himself is formed in the Jewish people, He is understood through Greek gnosis and the Greek apostles: Paul and the Greek evangelist John. But all this could not have led to the spread of Christianity on the physical plane, but at most to an understanding. The Romans, who adopt Greek culture, destroy Jerusalem, go to Asia, become Christians.

So:
The Jews form Christ.
The Greeks understand Christ.
The Romans become Christians.

Therefore, Christianity spread only after the destruction of Jerusalem and has a specifically Roman form. In Rome, the physical vessel for the Christ had already been prepared, namely the state, which was already founding the empire, and the priest who could administer it, the Pontifex Maximus. This brings us to the fourth sub-race. We have seen that it was carefully prepared. The fifth sub-race is still in the process of being formed.

We have reached the summit or center. The following teachers are therefore those who have to preserve what has been created in order to apply it again on the particular physical. It is a matter of some initiates specifying these summits for the individuals. Thus we have preserved the Christian tradition in the Brotherhood of the Holy Grail. Christianity is constantly degenerating and degenerating. So it is a matter of continually giving new impetus from what is called the Mount Montsalvatsch, the Grail. These impacts take on a different character. Again, it is the Rishis who experience the actual teaching in a Christian way and only ever want to protect original Christianity from degeneration.

In this way, the most diverse attempts at regeneration have been made. The first attempt can be traced back to an initiate who cannot yet play a historical role because this is still prehistory. However, he is mentioned in legend. He is the German apostle Boniface. He is the source of the original form in which Christianity came from Ireland to Germany, with a mixture of Druidic culture, Indian influence, and the impact of Dionysius the Areopagite.

A new influence was given and a new possibility created by the initiate known as Lohengrin. This initiation proceeded from a very complicated point of view, as all initiations become complicated. For it was necessary to connect the original Christianity, which had developed continuously from Dionysius the Areopagite through Scotus Eriugena up to scholasticism and mysticism. This current could indeed have an effect on peoples through preaching; but gradually it had been lost to the people because it went to the highest heights of thought. Therefore, a fertilization had to be brought from the original spiritual element. A high point had been reached, but it was also an impasse, and in order to have an effect on the initiate Lohengrin, a new fertilization from the Orient had to be brought about through the crusades. The essential thing that emerged from this is the Knights Templar, the actual messengers of the Holy Grail. They build a place of wisdom at the site of Solomon's Temple and after they are prepared there, they become servants of the Holy Grail, are initiated there by the Grail. This happens at the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries and is prepared in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Now we are in the preparatory stage of the fifth sub-race, the Germanic-English. From the Temple service we can see that it is about the application of Christianity to a new race. The service of the Temple Knights prepares for the transition of Christianity to full externality [...] in Christianity, which later leads to Protestantism. This helps us to understand the actual confession of the Knights Templar and their secret cult. They said to themselves: The Christ represented by the Western Church means nothing to us, because he is the Christ on the cross. But we proclaim the Christ who walked in Jerusalem and received initiation from the Baptist; our teachers about Christ are therefore not church teachers and church fathers, but John the Baptist, the initiator himself. Therefore, the main ceremony consisted of spitting out the crucifix symbol of Western worship and the unconsecrated wafer. This symbolized the contempt of Roman Christianity, the one that had developed into Catholicism, and it was prepared to turn away from Catholic Christ back to evangelical Christ. That was one principle. Another was:

1. We again accept the belief in the elementary forces of the world.
2. We believe that the destinies of men are a result of the interrelationships of the stars and that man himself is born out of the great interrelationships of the stars, the laws of nature.

Out of these two principles the culture of the Anglo-German race has developed: the religious-Protestant on the one hand, the scientific of the physical world on the other.

But this was only the vessel. The content came in a roundabout way

through the Moors. So here we have a Semitic influence again. There were five Semitic influences that provided the content. The mold was always prepared.

The Rosicrucians guarded the common basis of what diverged into a purely secular science and a materialistic religion. They were the ones who wanted to hold together. The Rosicrucians essentially studied evolution in the concrete within the fifth sub-race, prepared social legislation and will be the actual leaders of the sixth sub-race.

Members' Lecture

It could seem to the earnest seeker of truth, and – basically, a certain satisfaction is missing within the /illegible abbreviation, then gap] – it could seem to the earnest seeker of truth as if it were possible truth, the realization, to be recorded in a certain way, proclaimed and then given to humanity; and on the other hand, it could seem as if it would be enough for a person to acquire this realization once and for all.

It may be said that from the very beginning of a way of looking at things, nothing seems more plausible than this, and yet it would be a mistake to believe that the one-time possession of a certain number of words could suffice for human striving. If someone who is embodied today, let us say, in one of the previous incarnations, perhaps within the ancient Egyptian culture, had come to high realizations and today would remember those high realizations, so that he would possess that again, could we then say that the realizations attained at that time would already be beneficial in the present embodiment through mere remembrance? We cannot say that. However strange it may seem to say this, given that there is only one truth, we must say that it is absolutely necessary for human development that different forms of truth come to man in different times, because human nature changes over time. It changes in such a way that the powers of cognition also change. Man does not pass from incarnation to incarnation in vain; he progresses from embodiment to embodiment because, as the world changes, he can absorb something new within himself and give the old a new form.

Therefore, it was necessary at all times for people to work their way up to such a higher level of knowledge in the mysteries, so that they were able to judge how the whole earth, with all its physical and spiritual aspects, has changed compared to earlier times, and how human souls change within this earth development. In occult wisdom, this is expressed in the words: There always had to be people who were able to read the signs of the times.

Now, what is particularly necessary to teach people, to proclaim, to recognize this necessity? This all only arises when one is able to fully survey the overall situation of development in any given time. Times change and actually change in shorter periods than is usually assumed. If we consider the development of humanity, we will be able to admit that the interesting periods for the present human being are those that roughly three millennia before the founding of Christianity and after the founding of Christianity, the first and second before and after / gap ]. We ourselves are at the end of the second millennium of the post-Christian era, and the third is approaching.

These six millennia, in which we are placed in such a peculiar way, are of very special importance. What is beneficial for man? What should the soul take particularly to heart? Much is included in the development of mankind during these millennia. Our souls, which have been embodied several times during this time, well, they will have gone through important things during these periods, and these periods are to be characterized to some extent today.

If we go back to the third millennium before the founding of Christianity, it is the time when the little Kali Yuga, the Dark Age, has just begun for people. What is man of this age like? So that we can say: Before that, for a larger number of people, the last remnants of the old, twilight clairvoyance were still [there]. They could see not only the physical world, but also through it into the spiritual world. They could delve into the soul and find what was spiritually at the root of it. They could get there in two ways. Behind the material world they saw the spiritual beings who were guiding and creating, who had not descended into an earthly incarnation. They knew – as we know – that there is earth, air and water, that there are spiritual hierarchies. And on the other hand, when they descended into the physical world of feeling, willing and thinking, they found the spiritual foundations in a second way.

This ceased before the beginning of the third millennium. Then man was increasingly forced to look into the physical world of the senses. In the past, he had directed his mystical gaze into the world of feeling and will; now he said, “I will, I think, I feel,” and could no longer perceive the spiritual realm behind pure human thinking, feeling and willing, from which everything and he himself has its origin.

But the development of the world took such a peculiarly even course; to the deeper view it proves to be permeated with wisdom everywhere. What had been taken from humanity on the one side was given to it on the other, namely, to find the way back into the spiritual world by applying what was given to it in the sensual world in the right way.

How did this happen? What was actually given to man by being pushed out of the spiritual world? - He was given self-awareness. Especially in the most important states in those times, he was without self-awareness; only when he looked into the sensory world did it come to him, but it was completely silent both in those moments when he could see the spiritual through the outer sensory carpet - everyone was then completely raptured, in ecstasy.

This was especially given to the initiates in the northern countries. In ancient times, we find initiation sites in the areas from Britain and Russia to Persia; in the west, the sites of the Druids; and in the east, the trotters. There was the possibility that they would enter into ecstasy, where they were enraptured but felt they were a link to the whole world. They were guided to follow the path of the stellar world, for example. It was not the case that people were banished to the innermost circle of earthly existence; they experienced the great world events. The sun has a different position around our Christmas time. The sun draws a certain part of its strength from earthly existence. What today's people feel only weakly when autumn comes and the vegetation fades, the melancholy of autumn, was intensified in those people to an immensely intense sensation, so that they experienced what the sun experienced, right down to the sun's lowest point.

All this was not only experienced by the soul as a concept, but also as a deep empathy. When this melancholy reached its highest pitch, it was given a substitute, as it were. The soul learned to feel. The outer world of the senses offered nothing joyful, but something like a counter-blow, which came like an elastic ball when it expands after being compressed on one side. The spiritual senses opened up, man was devoted to the spirit of the sun. He saw into, at least sensed, the hierarchies of existence. And when the sun sent more power to the earth again, the human being lived with /gap]. The sun had a certain symbol, and in the temple sites one could experience how the sun works by the shadow that the sun cast there, so that the service of the spirit was one that integrated itself into the service of nature. Man lived with it when the days made it possible for him to turn his gaze back to the world of the senses. He experienced this in jubilant joy until those days when the sun seemed strongest to him.

There were two moments in the course of the year: first, when he was also devoted to the spiritual in ecstasy, and secondly, when he was jubilantly devoted to the external; people were taught this in the Nordic mystery centers. At one point, he no longer felt the germs of the ego; he was poured out into the whole world.

It became less and less possible for people to put themselves in this mood. But something else was given to them. They could now place their I-consciousness more and more in their I, the ecstasy was taken away, the I was strengthened. The moment was prepared for people when the Being was to come who could not come to man in ecstasy, but could enter into the deepest inner being of man. The Christ-entity took on such a form that man could feel in his ego as if he could pour the entity into his ego. In the past, he was outside of himself, outside of the world from which he was taken. Through the appearance of Christ, it should be made possible for man to become aware of his own ego. When I relive what Christ experienced, I experience something divine within me. This could be prepared. It was prepared by the three millennia before the founding of Christianity. There we encounter Abraham. He had the mission [...] to rise with his I first to the deity that wanted to descend. The deity was only fully recognizable after it had descended. This was usually done by selecting, from the whole of humanity, the physical individual who was capable not of seeing God in ecstasy and not of having to delve into the human soul, but who, through his intelligence, was able to see God with some degree of clairvoyance. He had the physical instrument in his brain that, with the help of the physical instrument, he could summarize the external physical conditions and in this combination he understood: there is something underlying the whole world that underlies the human ego. Abraham was the first to recognize the deity as the world-I. This ability was connected to the physical body. In the beginning it was not connected to the physical instrument, but the person had to come to a body-free vision. That was Abraham's special mission. [His era is the third millennium BC.] The knowledge of God was comprehended to the physical level of the brain. In all ancient times, knowledge of God and the spirit was dependent on leaving the physical. With Abraham, a personality first appeared who could attain knowledge of God with the physical brain. He was able to implant this in the development of humanity.

This is expressed in the records in such a low mood that one is amazed and in awe. For example, we are told that Joseph came to dreams. This is supposed to indicate to us that he was an exception to the rule; they were not supposed to have insight through dreamlike clairvoyance. It was present in him as an inherited trait, so it could not be used in a direct line for development and was therefore rejected by his brothers. Such an ability – to see with the physical brain – could only be passed on through physical inheritance, because it was a physical ability.

The people who had this mission must have felt that this physical property was given by God. They showed those who were to find this mission that it was a gift from God by asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. He would have sacrificed the whole nation, because all the Hebrew people were to descend from him. By receiving Isaac back, he was given the opportunity to inherit the physical trait. The mission was given to the people as a gift. These things are so deeply presented in the occult documents. If we go back to the first millennium of the Kali Yuga, we find that through which humanity was given the self-awareness for clairvoyance.

But all this had to be increased. The next step was taken in the second millennium of the dark age, in that now, through special developmental processes, the one who had become able to perceive the external God from the mission through the inherited characteristics from external nature - Moses could perceive the ego-God, which man perceives in his own ego, [directly in the elementary events of the world]. The [second millennium of the Dark Age before Christ – the beginning of the Dark Age, the great Kali Yuga 3101 BC, the end of 1899 AD –] is the age of Moses, when the ego-God is perceived in nature.

Third millennium – [the first millennium BC]: The revelation of the same entity, the entity that gave Isaac back and that appeared in the burning bush, now incarnated in human form, is at the end. Prepared for this event to be understood, humanity was to become through those leaders who connect to the name of Solomon. His wisdom in the last millennium should be there so that humanity could understand how this entity incarnated humanly. So that in occult wisdom we call this millennium the Solomonic.

We have outlined these three ages as the first three in the Dark Ages. Then come ages that can only be understood if you know a certain law of human development. Earlier events repeat themselves in a certain way, but you have to know how. Some events repeat themselves like this: 1, 2, 3, then 3, 2, 1. You can only understand them if you know exactly how they repeat themselves. We must not apply any pattern, because it is precisely the fact that the repetition is different that gives rise to the diversity. The repetition of the first three ages was reversed; for those who were able to assess the overall world situation, it was clear that the first age after the founding of Christianity was a repetition of the age of Solomon. It was also a reincarnation of Solomon: the entire spirit that flowed from the wisdom of Solomon dominates the understanding that is gradually developing for the Christ impulse.

In the second millennium, the Moses impulse: the event at Sinai was actually repeated in reverse. When Moses perceived the I-Godhead in the burning bush, it was the perception of the Godhead outside through the elements of nature. The reverse event took place in the second millennium. It consisted of the I-Godhead now announcing itself through a deep insight into the souls. In the mysteries of the Middle Ages, the individualities who were allowed to experience this by descending into the soul lived. A reverse Moses experience: the ego-deity reveals itself to the Christian mystics in their own soul. Now the deity radiates out of the soul. Just as Moses had a kindred spirit, so he also had the other mystics as kindred spirits.

We live in a special age, in which [one] sees the conclusion of the second millennium approaching. In the third millennium, a repetition of the Abrahamic age will be announced, very slowly and gradually, but it will be characterized by the fact that the Abraham event is happening in reverse. What used to be found only in ecstasy was experienced by Abraham as self-awareness. Man will conquer the old clairvoyant abilities in addition to these abilities. Through the mission of Abraham, what was previously found directly has flowed into the brain. Man will have to step out of the immediate circle of his consciousness, preserving this consciousness to a spiritual knowledge with powers that are bound to the physical body.

In a sense, the fact that we are now in an important epoch brings about a decision for the knowledge of the third millennium. The Kali Yuga expired in 1899. Now we are moving towards the development of completely new abilities.

Humanity is moving in two currents. One goes through the mysteries, not the old ones, but the present ones. Through this current, man has to develop the ability to develop clairvoyant insight. Humanity cannot be without this path, because without it no orientation would be possible. Alongside this, there is another current within which humanity is changing in a natural way.

We must realize that these two currents are present. All the souls that are here today were also present in the past. When a soul in ancient Egypt came into existence through birth, it experienced something very specific and had to experience something specific. You cannot relive in a later age what you should have experienced earlier.

You will say: That is something terribly discouraging. What has been missed would be irretrievably lost. Now you come to the realization and yet you can't change it anymore. — This is so because through all previous incarnations, people were actually not in a position to miss anything. Only now is time beginning; in the past, people were guided from the spiritual world. In the ages that preceded the Kali Yuga, the old impulses were still in effect. Now [man] becomes free, he must take [his] own development into his own hands; in the age when it is only possible for man to miss something, it is also ensured that people become aware that they must not miss anything. With each incarnation, the human being becomes increasingly freer. One experiences two to three incarnations in such a time, and only the fifth is so far that it is irretrievably lost. Those who do not come to Theosophy today, without gaining consciousness, will be able to receive it in the next or the second next incarnation. An example that shows how it is true that it is not enough to communicate general truths, but that there is a need for individuals who can assess the overall situation. They know that a new era is now beginning for the benefit and development of humanity. For each time it is necessary to find the particular form of words. We still have to recognize how these abilities of people develop. These abilities, which people will grow into, will be found in the fact that people develop new soul abilities in addition to the old ones, namely ethereal clairvoyance. A certain number of people will walk the earth who, through natural development, will be able to see not only the physical body but also the etheric body. This ability faded with the approach of Kali Yuga. It is beginning again.

Two:} When people have acquired sufficient understanding, they will be able to judge in due time what is real. They will know how to deal with someone who says they see something that penetrates the physical body. We practice Theosophy because we feel a responsibility to make this understandable to people. It could also be that people get stuck in the materialistic swamp, then it would happen that those who see something like that would be regarded as sick people. They will be crushed by the materialistic view.

The prophecy will be wrong if these abilities are ignored. It depends on people how they can receive and understand an event when people will acquire an understanding of the experience that will develop in the first half of our century as a natural human characteristic. The first foundations of initiation will develop naturally. The first to receive this without initiation will show themselves between 1930, -40, -50. This is how progress manifests itself. For those who cannot yet experience this in such an early time, the opportunity arises to attain it in the next 2500 years. During this time, if humanity proves itself worthy, a sufficiently large number will have acquired this ability. It does not matter whether one lives in the life between birth and death or also in the time between death and a new birth. Because this event means something very important. People will experience a renewal of the event of Damascus and more and more will experience it in the next 2500 years. In the beginning, the Christ was physically incarnated, now the abilities of man are rising and he can perceive the Christ with more highly developed abilities. Once Christ was physically incarnated, and since that time the initiate has seen him in his etheric body. When this event occurs, when the illumination of Christ enters our earth, it means not only something for the time between birth and death, but just as Christ descended at that time to the souls that were between death and a new birth, so the event that we call the Christ event of the 20th century extends – he will descend to those who have acquired an understanding of it in the physical world.

If a person passes by without understanding, he does not bring with him the possibility of understanding Christ and he must wait until he can prepare himself in a new incarnation. Understanding must be developed here. Life here is important.

This understanding is, so to speak, the last thing we have to acquire through the brain from the Kali Yuga era. It will be a peculiar moment when the re-appearance of Christ occurs in the 20th century. Little by little, people are losing sight of the external Christian documents. Efforts are being made from all sides to pick apart the documents and to deny Christ altogether. Those who believe that they can preserve the old are short-sighted. With enormous speed, the view that the [truth of the] gospels cannot be determined will spread among so-called enlightened humanity. Those who resist it, who say: “Let [the] human being stop with [theosophy],” are as short-sighted as possible.

When the crisis has reached its peak, the Christ will be there for people. Then there will be no records for them and they will no longer be necessary. How many incredible things there were, so people will become; how many incredible things were seen, so people will know without historical records what Christ is, who will perceive him in clairvoyance. The theosophists will be tested in this age. It will be the case that in the next few decades simply everything will be proclaimed, and the materialists will be unable to believe anything else. /2 blank pages] It must be a sensual perception. Belief in a physical return will become established. Whether they will be ready to believe in the spiritual, or whether they will only believe it when it comes to them in a carnal form? A number of people will embrace the belief in the return of Christ and present themselves as false messiahs to the world.

People must now consciously take their development into their own hands. There have often been false messiahs in the past, and they have all been believed. At that time, it happened without any particular harm to humanity because people did not yet [have] their destiny in their own hands. Now they must learn to distinguish the real from the Maya.

The era in which the Christ will appear as an ethereal being is the time when the first ethereal clairvoyance will show itself and break off shorthand.]

When one is speaking of the being of man and of mankind's relation to the cosmos, some of what has to be said may seem complicated. When it comes to the human being—you may well say—is there anything that is not included! We are confronted, however, with the fact that a human being is formed in an intricate way from the entire cosmos, and we have to come to terms with it. It is especially important that people of our time begin to come to terms with these things, as otherwise it will be too late. Today men are living in an incarnation in which it is just possible to get by without knowing much about the complicated nature of the human being; but the time is coming—a time when these souls will again incarnate—when this will not be possible. Then souls will finally have to begin to know how humanity is related to the cosmos. You could say that we are still just within a period when the responsibility for holding together the different members of which a human being is composed has not yet been turned over to mankind itself. We are still living in an epoch when these various members hold together without our having to do anything, when the easy-going fellow can come to us and say, ‘Really! This so-called anthroposophical wisdom is so complicated! But truth is simple, and anything that is not simple cannot really be true!’ Today, this speech is frequently heard. Those who are misled by Lucifer into speaking in such a fashion do not have the faintest inkling of how they befog their heads with this talk about the so-called simplicity of truth. They are unaware of how they are deceiving themselves. For the time will come when people will experience how complicated they are, a time when people will require knowledge in order to hold themselves together. But everything in the future has to be prepared, and the stream that carries a spiritual-scientific world view has the task of preparing the development of earthly culture for the age when a person will have to know how to hold together the various parts of his being.

Let us remind ourselves of the fundamental truths that have been described in some detail over these last few days—of man's essentially dual nature, and of how his external body already reveals this dual nature. The body divides into two parts which are built according to quite different principles—the head and the rest of the body. If we examine a human head as it is today, what we have is essentially the result of what became of the body in the previous incarnation. And, after we have passed through the period between death and a new birth, our present body, except for the head, will become the head of the next incarnation. Thus, the passage of a person through successive incarnations could be drawn as follows: Man has his head, and he has the rest of his body. What is now his head is essentially lost. When he once more receives a body from the earth, what is now the rest of his body appears, transformed, as the head of that next incarnation. Then this body, in turn, becomes the head of the following incarnation and he receives another body from his forebears, from the earth. The head is always lost. Naturally, we are talking about forces. Of course, the material of the rest of the body is also lost. But this material is not the essential thing-in the truest sense of the word it is maya-all the forces that reside in the body, exclusive of the head, are the essential thing. These forces are transformed into the forces of the head during our passage through the period between death and a new birth. And the forces that were bound up in our bodies during our previous incarnation really are present now in our heads. That was the basic concept whose particular details we were elaborating.

Now, in order to understand these things better and better, we want to call on the help of some other ideas that we have acquired. To begin with, we will ask: How will our present body become the head of our next incarnation? How are the forces of our present body transformed so that they can become the head of the next incarnation?

The transformation of our body into a head is hard to imagine at first. We need to ask ourselves: How is this transformation possible?

In order to answer that question we must review in our souls the things we have been saying about the part of the human soul that is concerned with knowledge and concepts. This is the part that is dependent on the head, and is concerned with truth and wisdom. Today, people usually believe that the knowledge we acquire is only there to give us pictures of the external world and to enable us to learn something about the external world. There are philosophical epistemologists who theorise endlessly about the interconnections, between concepts and ideas, and about the mysterious connection between the nature of a concept and the thing that the concept represents. All such theories are afflicted by a common error. Initially, I can only explain this error by speaking pictorially. Imagine there is a botanist, a gardener, who wants to investigate the nature of a grain of wheat. As he sets about it, he says: ‘I will investigate it chemically to see what substances it contains. I will see if its constituents include all the things man needs in his grain and flour, and such, for nourishment.’ And the botanist then proceeds to seek for the nature of the grain of wheat in its relationship to human nourishment in order to explain why the grain of wheat contains what it does. A man who believed that he was discovering something essential about the nature of a grain of wheat by investigating its suitability as human nourishment would be making a curious mistake. The grain of wheat occurs as a part of the whole wheat plant, as its fruit. A person who wants to discover why it corresponds to the nature of a grain of wheat to be as it is, must investigate die manner in which a new wheat plant can develop from it. Whether or not it contains substances for human nourishment is a secondary matter. It has nothing to do with the inner nature of a grain of wheat. A person who investigates the utility of everything and wants to turn utilitarian knowledge into the true science would investigate the grain of wheat chemically. He would discover that here nature provides something good for human nourishment. But that has nothing to do with the inner nature of a grain of wheat, or with the fact that a new wheat plant can grow from it.

To someone who approaches matters with clear ideas and in the spirit of knowledge, the philosophers of knowledge, the epistemologists, often resemble people investigating a grain of wheat by considering its value as food for human beings. For if one were to question a grain of wheat as to its original task, it would not say that it is originally here for the nourishment of mankind; rather would it say that its original task is to allow a new wheat plant to develop. When someone with clear ideas and a feeling for knowledge considers the epistemologists, he is confronted by mistakes such as the one I have just described. For building up a picture of the things around us is not the original purpose of what we call knowledge—of what lives in us as ideas, truth and wisdom. Building up a picture of the things outside us is just as inessential to knowledge as nourishing human beings is inessential to a grain of wheat. Knowledge does not exist for the purpose of making pictures of external things; it exists for another reason. Its purpose lies in the way it lives and works and weaves in man. As we pass through our existence between birth and death, we gradually accumulate wisdom. We employ it to form a picture of the external world, just as we use a grain of wheat as nourishment. But we withdraw all the wheat that we use in this way from its original purpose of establishing new plants. We similarly withdraw from its original purpose all the knowledge that we use for taking hold of the external world. That is not the original purpose of the realm of truth and ideas. Why, then, does the realm of truth exist—why, I mean, in the sense that the grain of wheat is here to bring about a new wheat plant? Our involvement with knowledge and our efforts to achieve truth exist so that we can develop certain powers. These powers we develop during the period between birth and death are the very powers that transform our organism after death. That is to say, they transform its forces into the forces of the head! This extraordinary connection is what one discovers when one looks at man's passage between birth and death on the one hand, and between death and a new birth on the other. The primary purpose of the knowledge a person acquires is the transformation of the organism, exclusive of the head, into the head of the next incarnation. But there are so many people who acquire no knowledge at all, you will say, and so remain frightfully ignorant; only a few become clever—one usually counts oneself among these latter! But there is more than a little justification for those who say—and many, quite independently of one another, have said this—that a human being acquires more wisdom in his first three or four years than ... well, at the very least, than in his three academic years. In our first three years we really do learn a great deal that can only be learned on earth with the use of our head. We acquire the knowledge necessary for speaking, for understanding what is said, and much, much more. We really do learn a great deal. And that is included in the wisdom we accumulate.

People are actually not so different as regards the wisdom they acquire. In it surge and weave the forces that will transform our organism into a head during the passage from death to a new birth. The picture that we take into ourselves through ideas and knowledge is by its nature quite a complicated one. And it is only in dreams such as those of the Polish poet I cited yesterday that people are given a glimpse of what surges and weaves in among our fully-conscious ideas. But it is there, surging and weaving in us, in order that it can be led over after death to become the power that actually transforms our organism. With the exception of what we use to take hold of the external world, all that we acquire through knowledge accumulates and becomes the power that will transform our organism. In a certain sense, what we use for normal understanding of the external world is lost to our development, it is withdrawn from our development. All the grains of wheat we use for nourishment are withdrawn from the plant's whole, ongoing process of development—and these are much more numerous than the grains that are strewn back over the earth. And this is how things are during our present phase of development. We connect ourselves with external things: we also withdraw very much more from the ongoing stream of human development than we retain. Think back to earlier times when human knowledge was obtained through atavistic clairvoyance. Men's attention was not so dissipated by the external world. The knowledge of such ancient peoples as the old Egyptians and Chaldeans was obtained through atavistic clairvoyance. It depended very little on external development. In this respect, our age is the opposite of that one. Today, much is taken in from what is outside, and, inwardly, very little is added to development. The Greek culture occupies a wonderful middle position, and this is not solely due to their special talents. These they certainly had, but with these alone nothing could have been accomplished. The relatively small patch of earth inhabited by the Greeks and their relatively slight knowledge of the rest of the world, also contributed to the unity of their whole culture. They knew of little else beyond what lay in the direction of Asia Minor and Asia. They knew little about Africa, and nothing at all about America or most of Europe. The fact that Plato still possessed knowledge of morality, of sophrosyne and of dikaiosyne, is in many respects thanks to the fact that the external scope of Greek knowledge was so small. For that reason it was still possible to retain many of the spiritual forces of wisdom for developing the inner life. Nevertheless, the Greeks used less of these forces than the ancient Egyptians or Chaldeans had used, not to mention the ancient Persians and Indians. In our day, when the whole earth has gradually been explored and has become accessible, men seek to acquire as much external knowledge as they possibly can. How that has increased! If that were as intensive as it is extensive, then men would have infinitesimally little to take with them for the transformation of the physical body into the head of the next incarnation. They would have much, much less than a peasant has, particularly in the case of the most educated people. But, thanks be to God, most people have travelled without looking at very much. They have followed their Baedeker or other travel books closely. But, in spite of the great extent of their travels, they have not acquainted themselves with very much, so they have not withdrawn everything. Otherwise, those who rush about everywhere in search of sensations and who want everything they learn to come from outside themselves would be in danger. They would be in danger of arriving in the world in their next incarnation with a head formed from a body that had undergone very little transformation. It would have an animal-like appearance, for that would be the fate of someone who had not accumulated many formative forces.

Now, imaginative comparisons can be expanded. We have said that everything we use externally to develop knowledge and to learn about the external world is separated from its own true inner being—just as the grain of wheat that is used for food is separated from the inner nature of wheat. We can go on to ask: What are the further similarities between external knowledge, or what becomes outer knowledge, and the grain of wheat that is used as food? There are similarities, but they have to be elicited.

Let us once more consider the curious fact that a great number of grains of wheat are used as food for human beings instead of for the generation of new wheat plants! So we can say that the grains of wheat are removed from the direct line of their own ongoing development. Otherwise, a new wheat plant is generated from the grain, and this bears further grains of wheat, and so on. But countless grains are split away from this procession; they are transferred into an entirely different realm, that of human nourishment, and this has nothing to do with the ongoing stream.

Here nature gives you an opportunity to build a concept that must be carefully heeded if you want to achieve a realistic view of the world.

Our external science has gradually brought us to the terrible pass where everything has to be explained by cause and effect, so that a later event must always be explained as following from what came before. There is nothing more foolish than this undifferentiated picture of the world in which all effects can be traced back to a cause and every cause leads on to its effects. There are effects which have no causal connection to anything that preceded them. How could a grain of wheat contain the causes for its being used as human nourishment? Only in the context of a simple-minded teleology such as the one that was taken for granted in some quarters in the eighteenth century. According to this point of view, the presence of cork-like substances in nature was explained as the work of mysterious spirits who put them there so that they could be used to produce champagne corks! But on the contrary, the grains of wheat really do pass over into another sphere.

It is similar when we go about acquiring knowledge of external nature and of outer things. This transfers the things to another sphere. We human beings are able to extract a substantial portion of what is in us, in the form of matters concerned with truth, for the purpose of enabling the body of our present incarnation to be transformed into the head of the next incarnation. We can extract much for the sake of present knowledge, but we must take care that this knowledge is put to a different use. In a certain sense, the grains of wheat are ennobled by being used as human nourishment, so they receive a recompense for being separated from their own original nature. Something similar should come about in the case of external human knowledge, which is developed in a way that runs totally contrary to the nature of ideas and truth. In his heart, man should make a gift to the gods of all the truths acquired in the form of pictures of the external world. Man should always say to himself: When you obtain knowledge, you remove it from the progressive stream. Be clear that the acquisition of knowledge must be in the service of the gods. There is other knowledge, knowledge untouched by any awareness of the holy service that knowledge renders to developing humanity. Such knowledge is taken away from the external world, but it is not given to the gods, who would be nourished by what they thus would receive. The knowledge that is not gathered in this spirit, but is taken, instead, without thanks, is like grains of wheat that fall to earth and rot. In other words, it serves no goal at all—neither its own nor that of becoming nourishment for human beings.

Here we arrive at a point where you will feel how important it is that our spiritual-scientific efforts lead to some very definite practical results. For in our hearts we should cultivate a fundamental mood when we receive spiritual-science. It must not become a thing we merely learn, or just a thing to be known. Therefore, we must unite knowing with the feeling that knowledge should be in the service of the gods, and that it is a fundamental sin against the divine meaning of evolution to profane knowledge by removing it from that for which the gods intended it.

I said that acquiring much external knowledge has only become possible in more recent times. For the ancient Egyptians, most knowing was an inward matter; external knowledge was comprised of only the most immediate things. During the Greco-Roman epoch it became possible for men to acquire more and more external knowledge. That is not very long ago. But at the same time there arose the possibility of discovering the path by which knowing becomes a holy service, for at this time the Christ brought his message to the Earth.

Here you have another relationship, which history makes clear to us. At the very moment in human development when knowing becomes predominantly a knowledge of the external world, the Christ appears from out of the spiritual world. And so does it becomes possible for a person who experiences the guidance of Christ to transform knowing into a holy service—by connecting it with the Christ. Today, mankind has not yet developed much feeling for knowledge as a divine service. But as mankind comes more and more to understand how Christ has brought the life of the gods into earthly life, it will also learn how to put knowledge at the service of the gods.

Thus we can live with everything of which our head is the outer sign. We can establish there a little plot that prepares for the transformation of our body into a head. As for the rest of knowledge, if we use it with the proper feeling, as I have just characterised it, the higher spiritual beings will receive nourishment from the concepts we use. In this way we strive for a knowing that serves the gods, in order that wheat may also be grown for the nourishment of mankind. This is already happening, but mankind still has to learn the measure of this mood. Through our feeling, knowledge will acquire the measure of the mood I have been describing. It is very, very important for the healthy development of humanity that such feelings be developed.

In the ancient Mysteries and Mystery schools it was simply taken for granted that those who acquired knowledge would treat it with holy regard. Indeed, that was one of the main reasons why not everyone was admitted to the mysteries. Those who were admitted had to provide a guarantee that they would regard the knowledge as holy and would treat it as a service to the gods. The attitude was also engendered by atavistic feelings. Today, it is necessary for mankind to achieve this attitude once more. Humanity has passed through an age when it developed in accordance with materialism-and we know there are good reasons for this. Now, it needs to heal itself of materialism, and this will only happen when mankind is reunited with the feeling of holy service that was once a part of knowing. But in the future this will have to be brought about consciously. And that will only be possible if spiritual science spreads to more and more of humanity. Knowledge should not be like the seed that rots on the ground. Everything that is used for external convenience and arranging things mechanically is like the seed that rots. What is not placed in the service of the gods is lost. It is neither used to help us in our next incarnation, nor is it used to nourish the gods. Something really happens when the seed rots; this is a real process. When knowledge is wasted without being incorporated into the service of the gods and without becoming part of a divine process, a real process takes place. It would take us too far today if I were to speak about what the rotten grain of wheat signifies, but it is senseless for it to rot. Nothing can come of it—it simply dies. But Ahriman is able to do something with knowledge that is not acquired in the context of the service of the gods. This knowledge is taken over into the service of Ahriman and establishes his power. His servants introduce it into the world process and thereby create more obstacles for the world process than rightfully ought to be there or would otherwise have to be there. For, after all, Ahriman is the god of hindrance.

This will give you a glimpse of how far the significance of what lives in us in the form of ideas and truth extends. The next two lectures will be concerned with beauty and morality so that we can then bring all three things together. That will furnish us with another opportunity to deepen our understanding of the human being.

In yesterday's lecture I treated of the bodily nature of man from the standpoint of spirit and of soul, and if you understand this survey you will readily be able to fit into it all that you need to know of the body's structure and growth. Thus, before we pass on in the remaining lectures to a description of the human body, we will throw further light on the subject from the side of soul and spirit.

You have realised that man is a threefold being, head-man, trunk man and limb man; and you saw how each of the three parts has a different relationship to the world of soul and spirit.

First let us consider the head formation of man. Yesterday we said that the head is mainly body; the chest is body and soul; and the limb man body, soul and spirit. But of course it is not an exhaustive description of the head to say that it is principally body. In actual truth things are not sharply divided from one another. Therefore we may equally well say that the head is also soul and spirit, but in a different manner from that of chest and limbs. Even at birth the head is principally body. That is to say the soul and spirit of the head have set their seal on the bodily form. The head (the first thing to evolve in the embryo) is a manifestation of what is essentially human, of the human soul and spirit. What relation has the bodily head to the soul and spirit? Because the head has reached something like completion in its bodily aspect, having evolved in former epochs through the necessary stages from animal to man, it is therefore capable of fullest physical development. The manner of the soul's relation to the head is this: at birth and throughout its earliest years the child's soul is dreaming in the head; while his spirit in the head is asleep.

Thus we find body, soul and spirit related to each other in the human head in a remarkable way. In our head nature we have a very highly developed body, a dreaming soul—truly a dreaming soul—and a spirit that is still asleep. Now we must see how we can bring this into harmony with the whole development of man. The characteristic feature of this development up to the change of teeth is that man is an imitative being. He imitates everything that he sees going on around him. He is able to do this owing to the fact that his head spirit is asleep. Hence in his head spirit he can dwell outside the head body. He can remain in the environment. For man's spirit and soul are outside his body in sleep. The child in spirit and soul, in his sleeping spirit and dreaming soul, is outside his head; he is with those who are around him. Because of this the child is an imitative being. Because of this, love goes forth from the dreaming soul towards his environment, particularly love towards his parents. Now when the child changes his teeth, and the second ones appear, this is an actual indication that the head development has reached its final stage. Even though the head as body is born complete yet it goes through a final stage of its development during the first seven years of life. The last stage culminates in the change of teeth.

What is it that is thus brought to an end? It is the moulding of the form. Man has now poured into his body all the hardening elements, all that gives him form. When we see the second teeth appear we can say that the first stage in man's intercourse with the world has come to an end. He has accomplished the formation of his body, its moulding and configuration. But whilst the head is occupied during this time in giving man his form and figure, something different is happening in the chest system.

For things are essentially different in the chest. From the very beginning, from birth, the chest is an organism both of body and soul. It is not solely body, as is the head, it is body and soul; but its spirit is still dreaming and outside of itself. When we observe a child in his early years, we see clearly that the chest organs, as contrasted with the head organs, are much more awake and more living. It would be quite wrong to look upon the human being as a chaotic conglomeration of parts.

With the limbs it is different again. Here from the first moment of life spirit, soul and body are intimately connected; they all flow into one another. Moreover it is here that the child is first fully awake, as those who have to bring up these lively, kicking little creatures in their babyhood very well know. Everything is awake, but absolutely unformed. This is the great secret of man: when he is born his head spirit is already very highly developed, but asleep. His head soul, when he is born, is very highly developed, but it only dreams. The spirit and soul have yet gradually to awaken. The limb man is indeed fully awake at birth, but unformed, undeveloped.

All we have really to do is to develop the limb man and part of the chest man. For after that it is the task of the limb man and chest man to awaken the head-man. Here we come to the true function of teaching and education. You have to develop the limb man and part of the chest man, and then let this limb man and part of the chest man awaken the other part of the chest man and the head-man. From this you will see that the child brings something of great consequence to meet you. He meets you with a perfected spirit and relatively perfected soul, which he has brought through birth. All you have to do is to develop that part of his spirit which is not yet perfect, and that part of his soul which is as yet still less perfect.

If this were not so, real education and teaching would be utterly impossible. For suppose we had to teach and educate the whole of the spirit which man brings into the world only in germ, then our stature as teachers would require to be equal to whatever the human beings in our care might become. If this were so you might as well give up teaching at once, for you could only educate people equal in brilliance and ability to yourselves. But you must of course be ready to educate people who, in some ways, are much more clever and brilliant than you are. This is only possible if in education we have to touch only one part of man, for we can educate this one part even if we are not as clever, as brilliant, perhaps not even as good, as the child potentially is. The thing we can accomplish best in our teaching is the education of the will, and part of the education of the feeling life. For we can bring what we educate through the will—that is through the limbs—and through the heart, that is through part of the chest man—to the stage of perfection we have reached ourselves. And just as a man servant (or even an alarm clock) can be trained to awaken a much cleverer man than himself, so a person much inferior in cleverness, or even in goodness, can educate someone who has greater possibilities than he. We must of course realise that we do not need to be equal to the developing human being in intellectual capacity; but as, once again, it is a question of the development of the will it is for the attainment of goodness that we must strive to the uttermost. Our pupil may become better than we are, but he will very probably not do so unless in addition to the education we give him he gets another education from the world or from other people.

I have shown you in these lectures that there lives a certain genius in language. The genius of language is truly gifted; it is cleverer than we are. We can learn a great deal from the articulation of language and the way its spirit dwells within it.

But genius is to be found in other parts of our environment as well as in language. Let us consider what we have now discovered: that the human being enters the world with a sleeping spirit and a dreaming soul, as far as his head is concerned; that hence it is necessary right from the beginning, from birth onwards, to educate him through his will, for we can only approach his sleeping head spirit by working upon his will. But if we could not approach his head spirit in some way we should inevitably have a great gap in human development. Man would be born—his head spirit would be asleep. We could not make the little child who lies kicking his legs do gymnastics, for instance, or Eurythmy. It wouldn't do. Nor can we give him a musical training as long as he can only kick his legs or yell. Neither can we bring art to him as yet. We find, as yet, no distinct bridge from the will to the sleeping spirit of the child. Later on, when we have managed to approach the child's will, we can work upon his sleeping spirit simply through the very first words we say for him to repeat.

Here we have a direct access to the will. For now what we release in the vocal organs through these first words will penetrate the sleeping head spirit as an activity of will, and will arouse it. But in the earlier years we have no direct bridge. No stream passes over from the limbs—where the will, the spirit, is awake—to the sleeping spirit of the head. Another mediator is needed here. We human educators have nothing at our disposal.

But now comes something, apart from us, which is both genius and spirit. Language indeed has its genius, but in the very earliest babyhood we cannot appeal to the spirit of language at all. But Nature has her own genius, her own spirit. If it were not so we human beings would perish, because a discontinuous education in babyhood would create a breach in our development. Here the genius of Nature intervenes and creates something which can build this bridge. Out of the limb system it produces a substance which partakes of the limb nature, as it is bound up with its development, and has something of that nature in it. This substance is milk. In woman the production of milk is connected with the upper limbs, with the arms. The milk producing organs can be said to be a continuation of the limbs, inwards. Both in the animal and human kingdoms milk is the only substance which has an inner connection with the limbs, which is, as it were, born of the limbs, and hence retains the power of the limbs within it. And as we give the child milk it works upon the sleeping spirit and awakens it—the only substance, essentially, which can do this. Here the spirit that dwells in all matter asserts itself in its rightful place. Milk bears its own spirit within it, and this spirit has the task of awakening the sleeping spirit of the child. This is no mere picture, it is a profound scientific truth that the genius in Nature, which creates the substance milk from out of secret depths, is the awakener of the human spirit in the child. We must learn to penetrate into these deep and secret relationships in the world, for only then shall we understand the wonderful laws that hold sway in the universe. Only then do we come to see what horrible ignoramuses we are when we theorise about matter as though it were some uniform mass that could be divided into atoms and molecules. Indeed it is no such thing. Matter is of such a nature, rather, that when milk, which is an integral part of it, is produced it has the inner need to awaken the sleeping human spirit. As in human beings and in animals we can speak of an inner need, namely of the force that lies at the basis of will, so can we speak of a “need” in matter generally. And if we want fully to comprehend the nature of milk we must say: when milk is produced it seeks to be the awakener of the child's human spirit. Thus everything we see around us springs to life if we regard it aright. Nor do we ever lose the relationship between man and what is in the world outside.

Thus, it is the genius of Nature herself which cares for the early years of human development. And when we educate and develop the child we are, in a certain sense, taking over the work of this genius. Through our words and actions, which the child copies, we begin to work upon the child through his will, and in so doing we continue the activity which we have left to the genius of Nature to carry out; for Nature has made use of the adult merely as a means to the process of nourishing the child with milk. From this you will perceive that Nature educates naturally; for her nourishment by milk is the first medium of education. Nature educates in a natural way. But we, as human beings, working to educate the child through language and through our actions, begin to educate in the realm of soul. For this reason it is so important to be conscious in our teaching and education that we cannot really undertake much with the head. At birth the head brings with it what it is destined to become in the world. We can awaken what is in the child, but we cannot implant a content into him.

Here we must indeed be clear that it is only certain definite things that can be brought into the physical earth existence through birth. The spiritual world has no concern with things which have come into civilisation only through external convention. For instance, the child naturally does not bring with him our conventional methods of reading and writing—I have shown this before in other connections. The spirits do not write, neither do they read. They do not read out of books, nor do they write with pens. It is only an invention of spiritualists that spirits use human language and can write. Language and writing as we know them are conventions of our civilisation. They belong to life on earth. And only when we bring this conventional reading and writing to the child, not by way of his head alone, but by way of his chest and limb systems too, can we really do him any good.

Now, of course, when the child is seven years old, he has not merely been lying in his cradle all the time, he has achieved something, he has been helping himself forward by imitating grown-up people, and he has seen to it that his head spirit is in some respects awake; then we can, of course, take advantage of this awakening to introduce reading and writing to him in a conventional way. But as soon as we do this we have a damaging effect upon the head spirit. This is why I told you that in good teaching reading and writing must only be given by way of art. The first elements of drawing, painting and music must precede it. For these work upon the limbs and chest man, and only indirectly on the head. But in time they awaken what is within the head-man. They do not misuse the head nature as we misuse it when we teach children the conventional reading and writing of to-day in a merely intellectual manner. If we first let the child draw, and then develop the written forms from its drawings, we shall be educating through the limb man up to the head-man. When, for instance, we make an “F” on the board for the children, and let them look at it and follow its form with their hands, we are then working through perception directly upon the intellect. That is the wrong way round. The right way is, as far as possible, to awaken the intellect through the will. We can only do this by passing over to intellectual education by way of artistic education. Thus, even in these early years when the child is first given into our charge, we must teach him reading and writing in an artistic way.

You must bear in mind that the child you are teaching and educating has something else to do besides what you do with him. He has all manner of things to do which only indirectly belong to your sphere of work. The child has to grow. Yes, he must grow, and while educating him you should realise that he must grow rightly. What does this mean? It means that you must not by your teaching, by your education, disturb the child's growth. You must not effect a disturbance of his growth; rather your teaching and education should only be such as is compatible with the child's growth. What I am now saying is of special significance for the primary school period. For just as up to the change of teeth there takes place the building up of forms from the head, so during the primary school period—from the change of teeth to adolescence—there takes place life-development, growth and all that goes with it. This belongs to the primary school period. This life-development which proceeds from the chest, only reaches completion with the onset of adolescence, Thus during the primary school period you have chiefly to do with the chest man. You cannot teach rightly unless you know that, while you are teaching and educating the child, he is growing and evolving through his chest organisation. Thus you are called upon to be the comrade of Nature, for Nature is developing the child through his chest organisation, through breathing, nourishment, movement, and the like. And you must become a good comrade to Nature's development. But how can you be this if you are ignorant of natural development? How can you teach if you do not know by what means you can work through the soul to retard or accelerate growth? It is within your power, to a certain extent, so to affect the healthy growth of the child, by way of the soul, that he shoots up, lanky and lean—a thing which could have bad results. Similarly it is within your power, to a certain extent, to check the child's growth in an unhealthy way, so that he will remain short and stumpy. You have this power, of course, only to a certain extent—but you have it. Thus you must have insight into the conditions of human growth. You must have this insight from the point of view of the soul and also of the body.

Now how can we gain an understanding of the growth forces from the point of view of the soul? For this we must turn to a better kind of psychology than that current to-day. This better psychology tells us that all that accelerates the growing forces of the human being, or makes him shoot up too rapidly, is related to a certain aspect of memory formation. Now, if we over-stimulate the memory, we cause the human being, within certain limits, to grow tall and thin. And if we over-stimulate his imagination and fantasy we retard his growth. Memory and imaginative fantasy have a certain secret relation to the forces of life development in man. And we must acquire the power of perceiving such a relation. For example the teacher should be able to do as follows: At the beginning of the school year he must pass his pupils through his mind in a comprehensive review; this is particularly important for those turning points of the ninth and twelfth year which I have described to you. (see Practical Course for Teachers) He must, then, hold a review, so to speak, of the bodily development of his children, and he must notice what they look like. And then at the end of the school year, or of some definite period, he must pass them once more in review and see what changes have taken place. And the result of these two reviews must be that he knows if some child or other has not grown as much as he should during that time; or perhaps another has shot up too much. Then the teacher must ask himself: How can I get the right balance between imagination and memory in the next school year, or period, so that I can counteract this irregularity?

This is why it is so important to keep the children right through their school life; why it is such a mad arrangement to pass the children on to another teacher every year. And, to look at the matter the other way round, at the beginning of the school year, or of the periods of development (seventh, ninth, twelfth year) the teacher gets to know his pupils. He gets to know those who are typically children of imagination, who transform everything in their minds, and those on the other hand who are typically children of memory, who easily notice and remember things. The teacher must get to know all this. And he does so by twice passing the children in review, as I have explained. But he must come to know whether a child threatens to grow too quickly or too slowly, not only by watching the outward physical growth, but also by means of the powers of imagination and memory themselves; for the child would be in danger of growing too fast if he had too good a memory, and too slowly if he had too much imagination. It is not enough to acknowledge the connection between body and soul in catchwords and phrases, we must be able to observe in the growing human being the working together of body, soul and spirit. Imaginative children grow differently from children endowed with a good memory.

The psychologists of to-day look upon everything as a finished product. Memory exists, and a description of it is given in the psychological book. Imagination exists; it, too, is described. But in the world of reality all things are in mutual relation to one another. And we can only come to know these mutual relations if we adjust ourselves and adapt our understanding to them. That is, we must use our power of understanding not in strict definition of everything, but in exercising mobility, so that the child can himself transform what he has acquired—transform it inwardly, in thought.

You see how the spiritual-soul element leads over of itself into the bodily element. So much so that we can say: through bodily influences, through milk, the genius of nature educates the child in his earliest years. From the change of teeth onwards it is we who educate the child by nurturing him in art in the way that is proper to him at this period. And as the end of the primary school age approaches there is another change. More and more there appear flashes of what is to come in later years, namely, the power of independent judgment, a feeling of personality, the independent impulse of will. We must meet all this by so arranging our curriculum as to make a right use of all that has to be contained in it.

by Marie Steiner (1943)

Germany's collapse after the World War had fateful consequences. Revolution, coups, impoverishment and hunger, exploitation by unscrupulous profiteers: all of this played out in wild confusion. Complete chaos loomed.

Then the energies of the people coalesced. While some sought salvation in the violent incitement of national and racial sentiment, hoping in this way to overcome the external and internal enemy in the future, others strove to rekindle the idealism of the intellectual life, which had once been Germany's greatness, in a way that was appropriate to the present. They sought to raise the level of culture and also to overcome social damage by recognizing the true nature of man and his destiny.

Those who, like Rudolf Steiner, had striven for such goals before the war, had been repelled by the indifference of the bourgeoisie, by the resistance and even the scorn of the circles dominating intellectual and economic life. The growing external power of the Reich, its successes in the fields of industry and world trade, gave satisfaction. The gathering storm on the periphery was often overlooked; too little attention had been paid to the forces pushing from below; warning voices had been ignored. Now, in the ever-increasing misery and despair, some hoped that the German would once again focus on his true calling and follow the paths laid out for him by his great minds.

Ways had to be found to channel intellectual impulses into the reality of everyday life in the most diverse areas of practical and social activity. Above all, education had to be placed on a healthy basis, elementary school teaching had to be rescued from dryness and a fresh approach had to be brought into teacher training; university life had to be withdrawn from mechanization; and new methods had to be worked out in medicine that would be based more on knowledge of the living than of the dead. Theologians approached Dr. Steiner, longing to tap into new sources of knowledge; artists were driven by the desire to consciously grasp the unconscious that was seething within them and struggling for expression. With all these desires and problems, people came to Rudolf Steiner, seeking his help to translate their burning aspirations into action.

He had been the voice of warning at the beginning of the 20th century, pointing out the symptoms of our culture and their inevitable consequences, which would have catastrophic effects if we continued to remain indifferent to the demands of the spirit and in the deafening rush for mere material goods. Where this would lead had now been shown in the catastrophe of the world war. The old order had collapsed; now it was necessary to build up anew from the ruins.

The members of the Anthroposophical Society felt obliged to help in this building up. Full of goodwill and noble fire, they wanted to throw their idealism into the balance. They drew courage from the enthusiasm that had been kindled in them by what Rudolf Steiner had revealed to them over the course of almost two decades: the nature of the world and the destiny of the earth, the eternal laws of being and the human-transforming depths of the act of Christ. They wanted to use the knowledge they had gained to enrich practical life.

The most pressing social obligation seemed to be the establishment of a unified school based on an understanding of the nature of the human being. Dr. Steiner gladly accepted the offer to lead the school founded by industrialist Emil Molt for the children of his factory workers. A thorough training course for teachers, led by Dr. Steiner, preceded the opening of the Waldorf School, which soon became known in many circles at home and abroad.

The aim was to bring order and system to the confusion of councils of all kinds in the economic field. Lectures were given at the request of many workers' circles, which had a strong urge but aroused the anger of the party leaders because their content did not correspond to Marxist theories and the slogans that had been issued. A university federation was founded by academic youth with the aim of revitalizing the deadlocked university system. A number of talented young scholars joined forces to fertilize the natural sciences with the results of spiritual research and to experiment in laboratories from new perspectives. Particular attention was paid to the production of remedies based on the knowledge of cosmic laws reflected in earthly ones. The good results achieved led to the founding of clinical-therapeutic institutes in Stuttgart and Arlesheim, which were supervised by several anthroposophical doctors, and later to similar foundations in other countries. Good results were achieved in the field of the production of plant dyes by working out their inherent intense luminosity. Economic associations of members working in industry were formed in order to take tentative steps towards the ideal of the association. Among other things, it was hoped that this merging of businesses would generate more funds to finance the above-mentioned foundations for the benefit of science. Dr. Steiner felt, even if some concerns arose in relation to success, obliged to let the men, who had matured in the practical work, have their way in these matters, since otherwise he could have been reproached with having prevented the necessary basis for the material security of the new enterprises; but this aspect of the matter caused him particular concern.

And here it was where the difficulties soon arose, piled up like mountains. The practitioners proved to be too bound by the thought patterns of the present to be able to cope with the resistance they encountered and the attacks by experienced opponents. Some forces weakened when the first enthusiasm had to be transformed into the laborious drudgery of everyday life in the midst of the most complicated external circumstances. It was a time of inflation, hostile occupations, repeated taxes of all kinds under changing designations, party struggles and the associated malicious persecution of dissenters. Dr. Steiner had to devote more and more of his time to the complications that arose in the enterprises, which the leading personalities there could not cope with. And unfortunately there were also more and more personal differences to be reconciled.

The worst thing was that the best forces were thus drawn away from the work for the anthroposophical movement as such. The new cultural foundations and the economic enterprises were now at the forefront of the interest of those burdened with them, and there was a lack of energetic advocacy for the living conditions of society, a lack of unity in leadership; special interests began to assert themselves there as well. The periphery, however, was dissatisfied with Stuttgart. And the youth, who were now pushing forward and strongly insisting on their cleverness, sought above all to express their new sense of community by criticizing and rebelling. In the midst of this turmoil, Dr. Steiner had to speak out sharply against what was then called the Stuttgart system; he had to travel to Stuttgart more and more often to try to set things right there. It was a time of unspeakable trials and tribulations for him — one can truly say: a martyrdom.

Several years had now passed in the midst of such work and worries, and many a hope had to be buried. Harmonious cooperation could have compensated for much of what the strength of character and endurance of the individual could not achieve. But harsh contradictions had arisen, characters had not found each other, and cliques dominated in society. Dr. Steiner was forced to demand a change in attitude and methods in all seriousness, so that personal considerations would be set aside and whatever was necessary for the consolidation of the Society would be done; otherwise he would be compelled to take quite different paths in order to prevent the movement from being fundamentally damaged by the Society.

Achieving harmony between strongly divergent temperaments was the most difficult task: Dr. Steiner tirelessly tried to bridge the tensions and awaken insight into this necessity.

We live in an age of pronounced personal idiosyncrasy and the most diverse differentiations. And where the strongest convictions have taken hold of souls, it is perhaps most difficult to find a balance between the contradictions that arise. One must have attained a very high degree of respect for other people, of inner tolerance, in order to achieve harmony where the clearly contoured thoughts of individuals come into conflict with each other and “the will hardens in delusion”. The history of the Church shows how relentlessly opposing opinions can confront each other and how quickly fanatical zeal can take the place of inner tolerance. In his mystery drama “The Testing of the Soul”, Dr. Steiner has the young miner say:

... It is still hidden from you
How compelling the power of thought proves,
When it completely takes hold of the human soul...
Thought turns from thought.—
I feel its power in my soul;
To resist it would be for me
would be the true spiritual death of my own being.

This is just to point out some of the otherwise incomprehensible things in the history of the church and religious movements in general. But back then in Stuttgart it was not about matters of faith. Rather, it was about finding each other in order to realize the ideal expressed in the words:

When many people's words
Present themselves to the soul in such a way,
Then it is as if
Mysteriously standing between them
Is the full image of man;
It shows itself in many souls
In a structured way, like the One Light
in the rainbow in many colors.

The souls had to learn to find their way to each other in kindness; the bossy and arrogant in one's own nature had to be recognized so that it could be overcome of one's own free will. They had to recognize the untruthfulness and power-hungry nature within themselves in order to be able to renounce seemingly justified claims. Dr. Steiner called on the souls to do this self-reflection as well, so that the powerful spiritual impulse behind the anthroposophical movement would not be shattered by what can best be characterized by Dr. Steiner's words:

He who, by the grace of higher spiritual powers,
Is allowed to cast glances into human souls,
Sees the enemies that oppose themselves
In their own being.
The battle that our opponents prepare for us
Is only a reflection of the great war
Which a power in the heart of perpetually
Out of hostility against others must lead.

These forces still rage today with their burning embers in souls; they spark catastrophes: both those within people that then destroy the social community, and those of the course of history. To detect them, even in the most secret folds of the soul where they hide, is the task of the modern human being who, in developing the powers of consciousness, is now to cultivate not only self-knowledge but also a sense of community. To do this, we need not only the philosopher's lamp and the surgeon's probe, but also the cherub's lightning bolt that strikes the conscience. Steiner gave us an abundance of light for the development of such self-knowledge, which leads to the formation of an alert sense of community. And the devastating flash of a mighty blow of fate also hit our community. 1923 became the year of the most severe test. The fire destroyed the Goetheanum building, which was a visible symbol of our spiritual and artistic work. But this catastrophe was preceded by discrepancies that manifested the drifting apart of forces that, in their unity, would have formed a spiritual defense. Too many special interests had asserted themselves. This had already become apparent in 1921 and 1922. Dr. Steiner himself described this regrettable phenomenon as follows: the daughter movements forgot the mother movement from which they had drawn their strength. They withdrew from it inwardly by concentrating exclusively on the interests of their particular sphere of activity, and harmed it by often seeking financial support from the impoverished Anthroposophists, despite promises not to do so because other possibilities were available, thus depriving the Society of the very limited funds available.

Dr. Steiner recognized that in order to save the anthroposophical movement from disintegration, he had to gradually reject the increasing number of burdens and responsibilities that were not directly related to it. In an essay that appeared in the “Goetheanum” in 1923, he briefly and objectively explained the reasons for this decision (see Open Letter Regarding My Resignation as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of “Kommende Tag AG”).

From the ranks of the Anthroposophical Youth, who, in addition to a beautiful zeal, naturally also revealed some rashness and clumsiness, an academic university federation had meanwhile emerged, which provoked the worst enmity among professors. The opponents of the most diverse camps and shades, the political, the ecclesiastical, the ideological, the backward occult currents, clenched themselves together into a well-organized hostile power, which had the extermination and destruction of the anthroposophical movement as its goal. They were no longer a few venomous haters spewing venom, whose rage should have gradually dissipated in the face of the truth: powerful, organized parties with widespread hate propaganda emerged.

Dr. Steiner had to make the members aware of the extent to which these things were connected with the mistakes that had been made. Just as he had always warmly and cordially praised all achievements that were made to him, gratefully acknowledged and emphasized every spirit of sacrifice, so now, in order to awaken an awareness of the transgressions, he had to appear firm and seemingly harsh and make demands for the consolidation of society. As early as the beginning of December 1922, he had spoken a decisive word in this direction and at the same time given a Stuttgart board member a task for his colleagues, the conscientious execution of which was particularly important to him – but it was not carried out, it was ignored, overlooked, perhaps overslept... It is not clear what word to use for this failure; it does not seem to have penetrated to the consciousness of the person who received the order. But Dr. Steiner, who had to devote himself to the work in Dornach, waited for the result of the order he had given. When he next visited Stuttgart, he was confronted with an unexpected and confusing situation. In some of his later speeches, he regretfully refers to this [see p. 201 ff.].

The purpose of this commemorative volume is to preserve the words spoken under such difficult conditions and bitter suffering at that time in their context. The above remarks may serve as an introduction to it. They are intended to create an understanding of the special situation in which the anthroposophical movement found itself at that time. They complete the picture of our society's development, which has by no means been happily illuminated only by the gifts of the spirit, but which has also had to struggle through unspeakable hardships and hard struggles and has suffered severely from human inadequacies. It would not be right to keep this secret. Looking at errors must also serve to sharpen and foster our sense of truth and to protect us from vain appearances. Outwardly, the words strung together here as the final words of various lectures may appear pieced together; but they give a picture of our social struggle, and it has historical value to trace these stages chronologically, past the milestones of our trials and our intellectual fall from grace. They point to the confusions and karmic chains of life and to the life conflicts and problems that arise from them. The answer, which only Dr. Steiner could have given, was an unparalleled act of sacrifice; it took place at the Christmas Conference of 1923/24 [GA 260]. After this spiritual atonement for sin that he performed for us, we were able to gain insights into the mighty workings of destiny, as set down in the esoteric reflections of 1924 [GA 235-240]. Cosmic and human events are interwoven there, as if at the focal point of a turning point in time. That we are experiencing such a turning point can be seen from the tragic events of our present time, which exceed all measure and surpass everything that has gone before in terms of horror. The waves of these events have also thrown our ship onto many reefs and dragged it into many whirlpools. It has not yet sunk – a kind fate has spared it. Will we be able to steer it through? That is the anxious question. – We will, if we sharpen our powers of perception on the paths that Rudolf Steiner has shown us, transform them through wisdom into love and mature them into action.

From December 24, 1922 to January 6, 1923, Dr. Steiner gave the lecture cycle “The Moment of Origin of Natural Science in World History and its Development since then” [GA 326], following the very significant lectures “The Spiritual Communion of Humanity” [in GA 219]. It was addressed primarily to young academics, and they also had access to the lectures for members, which began on January 1 following the above-mentioned theme and esoterically deepened what had been said in many directions. On New Year's Eve, the fire disaster occurred: on January 1, 1923, the Goetheanum was a pile of rubble. Despite the fire, there was no break in the work. Not a single event was canceled. Dr. Steiner only touched on the tragic event in brief, simple words, for pain cannot be expressed in words. He did not miss a single lecture or hour of his usual work. He had to divide his attention between Dornach and Stuttgart, interrupting the work in Dornach several times to travel back and forth to Stuttgart. The lectures on 1, 5, 6 and 7 January were on the theme: The Need for the Christ. The task of academic youth to gain knowledge. The recognition of the human heart [in GA 220]. On January 5, he gave the first lecture to the construction workers since the fire; they had all risen from their seats in sympathy when he entered — and even now he only touched on the event with few words, pointing to the crude agitation that had preceded it and to the hate-filled enmity to which the opposition had risen [see p. 70].

The subsequent January lectures, which tie in with the problems of the time and today's science, meet the aspirations of young students; they are contained in the volume “Lebendiges Naturerkennen. Intellektueller Sündenfall und spirituelle Sinnenerhebung” [GA 220]. February 2 saw the lecture 'Know Thyself'. Experiencing the Christ in Man as Light, Life and Love'; the theme of February 3 and 4 was 'The Night-Person and the Day-Person. The I-Being can be introduced into pure thinking' [all three in GA 221]. These are followed by admonitions that are particularly addressed to the members of the Anthroposophical Society and draw on much of what had to be said in Stuttgart in the meantime: “Words of pain, of soul-searching, words to awaken to responsibility” on January 23, and on the 30th: “Forming judgments based on facts. The twofold remelting of a spiritual-scientific judgment” [in GA 257]. February 9 and 10 brought the Dornach lectures: ‘Earthly Knowledge and Celestial Insight. Man as a Citizen of the Universe and Man as an Earthly Hermit’. These were followed on February 11 by ”The Invisible Man in Us. The pathology underlying therapy], and on February 16, 17 and 18, “Moral Impulses and Physical Effectiveness in the Human Being” [all in CW 221]. The subtlest cognitive problems were treated by presenting the phenomena of nature and the facts of the soul life and cosmic events in their context before the spiritual eye of the audience; the fate of those who, struggling to solve these problems, suffered greatly or were broken by them, was described. But in addition to this, Dr. Steiner also spoke those words that related to the new situation of our movement that had arisen as a result of the fire and to the conditions in society and its living conditions, to its tasks in the present and future. Or he interspersed episodic observations that were intended only for the members.

Meanwhile, these problems of society had been discussed again in Stuttgart in an intensive way in the lectures of February 6 and 13 [in GA 257]: “New Thinking and New Volition. The Three Phases of Anthroposophical Work”; “Anthroposophical Society Development. The Soul Drama of the Anthroposophist”. The warning and rallying cry of these lectures was consolidation of the society, self-reflection: an appeal to courageous will.

Dr. Steiner summed up the spiritual goal of the Society in the concluding lecture of the Dornach February series on 22 February: “The Renewal of the Three Great Ideals of Humanity: Art, Science and Religion” [in GA 257]. This lecture, which followed on from the consideration of the previous difficult life problems, is imbued with a solemn and festive mood.

Now the time had come for the delegates' meeting, which had been convened in the meantime, to take place in Stuttgart from February 25 to 28, 1923. The results of those discussions are sufficiently well known through the minutes that were immediately published for the members and through the private printing of the lectures given by Dr. Steiner at the time: “Two lectures for the delegates' meeting”. Dr. Steiner also reported on them in Dornach on 2, 3 and 4 March [GA 257].

The severe social crises unfolding in Stuttgart in 1922 were followed by the fire disaster in Dornach on New Year's Eve. Internal failings and external misfortune demanded a powerful awakening, a mighty upsurge of the soul. The words of Rudolf Steiner give us the awakening power to do so, if we open ourselves to them and do not shy away from the introspection they call for.

He shows us ways out of seemingly unsolvable situations, which, if we enter them with a pure heart and good will, can lead to a broadening of our horizons and to a healthy social structure. In order to accomplish this in conscious awareness – organically alive, not intellectually constructed – he gives us a comprehensive overview of the development of the anthroposophical movement in the Dornach lectures of 1923, about its necessity in the context of the decline of materialistic culture, and about the tremendous responsibility that lies with those who have been called to work in and carry it through.

On January 6, at the end of a meeting convened by the Dornach members to discuss the reconstruction of the Goetheanum, he spoke the following [see p. 73].

Additions to the lectures given by Dr. Steiner in February 1923 “The Will as Active Force" (GA 221)

The theme of the lecture on February 3, “The Night Person and the Day Person,” was the significance for waking daytime life of the experiences of the I and astral body that remain unconscious after they have emerged from the physical body during sleep. In order to make these experiences effective, the will was pointed to as the active force. Choosing an example, Dr. Steiner concluded with the following explanatory consideration:

Looking back at the development of the Anthroposophical Society. Sharpening our sense of responsibility.

In the second part of the lecture on February 4, “The Night-Person and the Day-Person – The I-Being can be thrust into pure thinking,” it was said that the will must be drawn into the inner life of the soul in order for the human being to awaken. This is the basis of initiation in modern times. The Theosophical Society, however, wanted to carry old methods of initiation over into the present. It lacked an historical overview and a sense of the importance of an awareness of the times. Dr. Steiner placed particular emphasis on this difference.

The theme of the lecture on February 9 was “Man as a citizen of the universe and man as an earth hermit”. Anthroposophy must be supported by a new life. The Society has not fully complied with the development of Anthroposophy and must decide whether it is viable or not. The state of the negotiations in Stuttgart. The provisional committee (see p. 113).

The theme of the lecture on February 16 was: “The conflict between Nietzsche's honesty and the dishonesty of the time”. Nietzsche, the representative personality of the last third of the 19th century, was broken by the problems of that time. The task of the Anthroposophical Society is to work on their solution. This can only come about through the soul of the human being acquiring a concrete relationship with the spiritual world. A powerful opposition is rising up against this. The development of the Anthroposophical Society is not keeping pace with the anthroposophical movement. The Society can be compared to a garment that has become too short. Referring to Nietzsche, Dr. Steiner says [see p. 116].

The theme for February 22 was “The renewal of the three great ideals of humanity: art, science and religion” [in GA 257).

The Stuttgart Negotiations on the Consolidation of the Anthroposophical Society

The provisional committee in Stuttgart, which had replaced the former central board, now issued an appeal to the Central European membership, calling on them to send representatives from all branches and working groups to send representatives to a delegate assembly to discuss with awakened responsibility the situation in which the Society had found itself as a result of the various foundations and its own inactivity [see the appeal on page 334]. |

The call was widely heard. The members flocked in droves. From February 25 to 28, this memorable assembly met in the great hall of the Siegle House in Stuttgart, where debates were held with short breaks well into the night. The lectures that Dr. Steiner himself gave during the proceedings in Stuttgart [in CW 257] are not recommended for study with sufficient intensity. If we let the content of these transcripts sink in, we too will be able to find ways out of seemingly unsolvable situations in the sense of growing organically beyond ourselves. Even if situations do not repeat themselves in the same way, the spirit in which they were resolved at the time points the way forward. It comes to us fully in Rudolf Steiner's speeches, in their straightforward severity, unity and all-embracing warmth of love, in their urgency that awakens our conscience. In this commemorative volume, those words are to be reproduced in which Dr. Steiner intervened, albeit rarely, in the general discussion during the four days of negotiations in Stuttgart.

Course of the Stuttgart Delegates' Conference

On February 25th, after the welcoming address by the chairman of the assembly, Mr. Leinhas, Dr. Kolisko gave a report on the serious situation in which society had found itself since 1919 due to the various new foundations; above all, the Federation for the Threefold Social Order, the School of Spiritual Science, the research institutes and the movement for religious renewal. The leading personalities of the individual institutions focused all their attention on their new foundations, which included, most gratefully, the Waldorf School, the Clinical Therapy Institute and the Kommende Tag. But it is fair to say that the parent organization, from which the daughter movements drew their strength, was forgotten. It was, so to speak, neglected. The tasks that arose for the anthroposophical community were neglected. Instead of warm relationships from person to person, a sober bureaucracy gradually emerged; the leading personalities in the institutions faced each other individually, without mutual understanding. The branch offices on the periphery were not sufficiently informed about what was happening in the society. This is what has been called the “Stuttgart system.” It led to compartmentalization and isolation; now this must stop, and contact with the entire membership must be reestablished. The delegates are asked to provide a picture of the situation in the Society from their point of view and not to be afraid to express criticism.

On this first day, a great many people immediately spoke up. When on the second day, February 26, the danger of digressing from the central question repeatedly emerged, Dr. Steiner had to point out that in order not to lose sight of the goal, one should stick to the actual topic: the consolidation of the Society, which now had to reflect on itself and its tasks. He spoke as follows (see p. 376).

After a procedural debate, the decision was taken to hear the reports on the individual institutions, since the difficulties had arisen from their justifications. Dr. Unger's paper on the threefold social organism points to the source of the difficulties: the branches had been appropriated for work in the spirit of threefolding; but the work of the Anthroposophical Society had been largely destroyed by this. The consequence of that work in the outer world was an enormous opposition that now pounced on Anthroposophy and Dr. Steiner. In a good sense, the threefold social order movement gave rise to the Waldorf School, founded on social impulse, the Clinical Therapeutic Institute, the scientific institutes, the journals and the 'Federation for Free Spiritual Life' — as well as the efforts of the 'Day to Come', which of course met with strong resistance in the outside world. The task for the Society now is to give effect to the social impulse within. The social demand involves something that is connected with the transformation of the whole person and requires constant work on oneself; the lectures that Dr. Steiner gave at the Vienna Congress are an example of this. — The proletarians take a lively part in the discussion that now follows.

In response to a delegate's request that we should first hear all the presentations before continuing with the discussion that has just begun, Dr. Steiner remarks:

"I think we really should take care to bring this to a fruitful conclusion. It may well be — although this has not been emphasized enough — that the fate of the Society depends on these three days. If we do not come to a result in these three days, there will be no alternative but for me to address every single member of the Society myself to ensure that this is carried out. So, if a reorganization is to take place within the Society, it must be done in these three days. We are in an Anthroposophical Society: everything is interrelated. You will be best able to form an opinion and also to talk about the threefold order when you have heard everything. Everything is interrelated. Therefore, it is most practical if you let the presentations run and get the full picture; then a fruitful discussion can arise, while each speaker will be tempted to talk about each individual detail — which leads to infertility. Mr. Conrad's proposal is practical: that we run the presentations as quickly as possible so that we know what has happened in Stuttgart as a whole.

Conrad's motion is carried.

In the presentation by Mr. Emil Leinhas on the 'Coming Day', he describes the emergence of joint-stock companies as an attempt to form a core of associative economic life through a merger of banking, industry and agriculture with scientific and intellectual enterprises. The implementation of the idea on a large scale failed due to the lack of understanding shown by leading circles of economic life.

There then followed papers [see p. 392 ff.] on the free Waldorf school (Dr. Caroline von Heydebrand), on the Clinical-Therapeutic Institute (Dr. Otto Palmer), the scientific research institute (Dr. Rudolf Maier), the scientific movement (Dr. Eugen Kolisko), a paper on the relation of anthroposophy to the Movement for Religious Renewal (Dr. Herbert Hahn), and one on the “Federation for Anthroposophical School of Spiritual Science Work” (Dr. W. J. Stein). The discussions continued on Tuesday, February 27. The address of the chairman introducing the proceedings was followed by a lecture on “Youth Movement and Anthroposophy” (Ernst Lehrs, Jena) and one on the opposition (Louis Werbeck, Hamburg); there was also a lecture on the “Bund für freies Geistesleben” (Dr. Karl Heyer). For the following discussions, speaking time had to be limited to ten minutes. When a motion to elect a new executive committee was suddenly raised, Dr. Steiner responded with the following words:

"This assembly has come together to decide on the fate of the Society. And it is truly necessary that the individual participants become aware of the importance of the moment. The Anthroposophical Society is certainly not a bowling club. It is therefore absolutely impossible to approach the Anthroposophical Society with the pretension that a board of directors should now be elected before the circumstances as they now exist have been thoroughly discussed. That is something you can do in a bowling club, but not in the Anthroposophical Society, where continuity is above all necessary. It can only be a matter of this meeting being brought to a close by those who were the leading personalities in Stuttgart. How this can be discussed, especially at this moment, is beyond me. We would descend into utter chaos if motions such as Dr. Toepel's were to be tabled at such a moment. Such motions can only be tabled if the intention is to blow the whole meeting apart.

Dr. Toepel's motion was rejected.

Discussions on the problems of youth and the proletariat continued until the evening, when Dr. Steiner gave the first of his two lectures on the conditions for “Anthroposophical Community Building”. It is printed in the stenographic transcript [GA 257] and should be studied in detail. In it, particular emphasis is placed on the understanding of a different kind of community element than that present in the original human context, which is based first on blood ties, then on language and the memory of shared experiences. A powerful relationship that connects people arises from a shared cult, as it has now been given to the movement for religious renewal. The true cultus imparts the memory of the pre-earthly existence, even if this memory remains in the subconscious depths of the soul. Forces from the spiritual worlds are carried down in the living images of the cultus; the cultic act is then not a symbol, but a bearer of power, because the human being has before him that which belongs to his spiritual environment when he is not in the earthly body. This different nature, which the Anthroposophical Society needs as a basis for building a community, lies in the fact that it must not only understand the secret of language and memory, which is the connecting element in community life, but must also look to something else in human life. A comparison of the dreaming state of man with the waking state can lead us to this understanding. In the world of his dreams, the human being is isolated; he is alone there. When he wakes up, he wakes up to a certain extent into a human community through the nature of his relationship to the outside world: through light and sound, through space in its warmth and the rest of the sensory world, through the appearance of other people, that which is their natural side. But there is still another awakening; this can take place through the call of the spiritual soul in the other person. And here the first understanding of the spiritual world begins. We may see beautiful pictures in the isolation of dreams, we may experience great things in this isolated dream consciousness: but our real understanding of anthroposophy only begins when we awaken to the soul and spiritual reality of the other person. And the strength for this awakening can be generated by cultivating spiritual idealism in a community of people. Real idealism is present when — just as in the form of worship the spiritual world is carried down into the earthly world — something that the human being has learned to recognize and understand in the earthly world is now elevated by him into the ideal. He can raise it into the spiritual and supersensible, and it comes to life when he penetrates it in the right way with feeling and a true will impulse. By permeating his whole inner being with such will, man, by idealizing his sensory experience, takes the opposite path to a cultic act. Through the living power he puts into shaping his ideas about the spiritual, he experiences something awakening that is the opposite of a cult: the sensual is raised into the supersensible. We must learn, through our soul disposition, to let a real spiritual being be present in the space in which the word of anthroposophy resounds. Then, shared real spirituality will sink into the awakened soul; but it must be evoked from the deepest sources of human consciousness itself.

Anthroposophy is independent of any anthroposophical society. It can be found by people forming communities out of the awakening they experience with each other; then they want to stay together for spiritual reasons. If we can pour anthroposophical impulses into our hearts with full clarity, we will also emerge from the present chaos; otherwise we will get deeper and deeper into the tragedy of this chaos. Two groups of people in this hall cannot understand each other, but both want to stand up for anthroposophy: that is the reality of the present situation. Since no possibility has been found to bring the two groups of people in the Anthroposophical Society to a mutual understanding, only one solution remains: each group could continue to work in their own way in separate organizations. One could then accept each other, since one no longer stands in each other's way, and would be able to achieve the desired unity and brotherhood through this purely organizational separation.

At first, this suggestion by Dr. Steiner caused great consternation. It was difficult to come to terms with what seemed to realize what everyone had feared above all: the threatening split in the Anthroposophical Society.

The chairman now asks that the discussion be adapted to what has been given by Dr. Steiner's lecture.

First, Mr. Uehli emphasized that, although he was no longer speaking as a member of the central board, he would like to express what he sees as his life's work: to continue to work with both the young, new members and those who have been there from the beginning and represent the historically developed society, in constant loyalty and with firm, honest will. He hopes that if the membership follows this path, then the various institutions founded since 1919 can also be supported by all and carried to what they are needed for.

After him, Dr. Unger takes the floor. It is only fair to let him, as the most outstanding representative of the historic Anthroposophical Society, which has become a hindrance to the egoism of some new members, have a personal word here. Dr. Unger stated the following [see p. 420].

Dr. Kolisko was the third to speak. He expressed the horror he felt at Dr. Steiner's suggestion that they should henceforth work together in two groups in a friendly way, instead of fighting each other in one [see p. 422].

Dr. Steiner replied: “I have only one request: you have seen from what has been discussed that tomorrow we will all have every reason to talk about those things that lead to a kind of consolidation of the Society in one form or another. I see no need to talk about things that are in order, for example the eurythmy section. We must begin with the present central council briefly setting out its view, so that we can arrive at something positive. I do not see that it is necessary to talk about things that are in order. Why do we want to fill the time with this and not finally address the things that need to be put in order? I would like to point out this necessity with the perspective that I ask you to consider something tonight or tomorrow and to deal first with what is necessary: to remodel or to redesign."

On behalf of the nine-member board, which has now taken the place of the old central board, Dr. Unger makes the following statement [see $. 429].

A representative of the youth movement, Dr. H. Büchenbacher, expressed his thanks to Dr. Steiner for helping to find a solution by which young people could continue their own anthroposophical development without having to contribute to the chaos and atomization of society. Until yesterday it seemed as if the youth were the impetus that could have led society into chaos. Now, alongside what has become historically established society, something new could unfold with a certain independence, but which also wants to serve the whole anthroposophical movement. Dr. Steiner believes it is possible for one and the same person to be active in both groups, regardless of age. The friendly connection between the two groups will arise out of Anthroposophy, and the present obstructive opposition will disappear.

Dr. Kolisko no longer wishes to adhere to his previously stated objections, now that it has been established that the split is not a “split” but a division.

In response to the chairman's announcement that there are 55 requests to speak and some written communications, a motion is made to vote on the program of the commission of nine. After a few comments, the assembly unanimously approves the program. The depression has given way to a joyful feeling since Dr. Steiner helped out of the emergency with his advice. A so-called tactical proposal for this living together of two families under one roof is still made out of a concerned soul: if the three different directions - art, science and religion - were represented more, without prejudice to the actual leadership of the branches, this living together could be easier.

After the morning discussion, Dr. Steiner gave his second lecture on the conditions for building community in the Anthroposophical Society (in GA 257).

The subsequent discussion mainly focuses on this area. In addition, debates are held on scientific problems and discussions about the possible founding of a free university. Finally, the great moment arrives when the chairman closes the meeting with a review of the serious concerns that gave rise to the convening of this meeting of delegates; the proceedings have shown how justified these concerns were. He expresses his thanks to the audience for the serious participation they have shown in the fate of the Society. It is thanks to the active help of Dr. Steiner that we have emerged from chaos and can look to the future with confidence. It is out of the right love for the work that the strength for the right action will arise.

Dr. Steiner's advice had been given on the basis of what he had encountered from the assembly, and with full consideration of what he wanted to be respected and observed as the sphere of human freedom of the soul. That is why the negotiations and discussions had to take so long and could not be abruptly interrupted; they were intended to lead to insight, not to surging emotions and majority decisions. In wise foresight of human weakness, which overcomes only through repeated new approaches and constant willingness to purify the will and recognize the errors, he spoke the prophetic but so obvious word: For a few years it would now go well again! At least it would be possible to work again. — And with his usual energy, he now set to work on the new construction of the international society, which was to be based on the individual national societies, now that it could be hoped that the affairs of the society in Germany would be steered in the right direction.

“What was the aim of the Goetheanum and what is the aim of anthroposophy?”

Further work in Switzerland and Stuttgart
Journey to Prague and Norway
The international delegates' conference in Dornach

Dr. Steiner reports on the events of the Stuttgart delegates' meeting in Dornach on 2, 3 and 4 March [in GA 257].

What Dr. Steiner otherwise spoke about in Dornach from the beginning of March to the end of June carries us upwards with a mighty flapping of wings, beyond the troubles and pains of everyday life to cosmic expanses, to the brilliant deeds of the spirit, which radiate over and give impulses to the historical becoming on earth and are mirrored in that which is our connecting link with the spiritual world: art. These new Dornach lecture series begin with esoteric reflections on: “The Impulsion of World-historical Events by Spiritual Powers” (March 11-23 [GA 222]). Language and music relate us to spiritual powers; between falling asleep and waking, they create a connection between our astral body and our ego and the hierarchies. But their influence on earthly events is reflected in historical events, which are, after all, images of supersensible deeds.

A trip to Stuttgart brings new ideas for education (March 25-29); the given material is presented in the lectures: “Education and Art”, “Education and Morality” [in GA 304 a]. On March 31, the esoteric reflections on the “Annual Cycle of the Year and the Four Great Festival Seasons” [CW 223] began in Dornach, which particularly elaborate the idea of resurrection and came to a preliminary conclusion on April 8. On the 13th, a further spiritual high point was reached in the lectures on “The Recapturing of the Living Source of Language through the Christ Impulse” [in GA 224], which open up the prospect of a future Michaelmas festival.

Meanwhile, Bern had also been visited. In the local branch there, Dr. Steiner spoke about “Shaping Destiny in Sleep and Wakefulness, about the Spirituality of Language and the Voice of Conscience” [in GA 224]. On April 5, he gave the public lecture in the Grossratssaal in Bern, and on the 9th in Basel: “What did the Goetheanum want and what should anthroposophy do?” The text of the Basel lecture is contained in the volume of the same title [GA 84].

Now, in addition to the workers' lectures and introductory words to public eurythmy performances, education is once again taking center stage in Dornach. A vacation course is taking place for teachers and those interested in education (April 14-22): eight lectures, published under the title “Educational Practice from the Point of View of Anthroposophical Knowledge of Man. The Education of Children and Young People” [GA 306]. The focus was on school management.

Following the course for teachers and those interested in education, Dr. Steiner gave the anthroposophical evening lectures in such a way that they could also be understood by those who had only recently come to anthroposophy. They provide an overview of human life in its entirety, in sleep and in wakefulness. Everything that had been gathered so far from the most diverse sources to shed light on the soul life of man: how it develops out of a dull germinal state, becomes a mirror of unfolding images, gradually to grasp itself consciously in the faculty of thinking and finally to awaken in it through lively, inwardly stirring thoughts – it is here transformed into a practice of knowledge, into a science of the soul that grows beyond dogmatic boundaries. The path is precisely characterized, which, through methodical practice, can give each individual the opportunity to overcome, from within, the passivity of reflecting thought and to transform it into active engagement. And this is something that is needed not only by the philosopher and the scientist to overcome cultural decline, but above all by the artist if he is to grasp the creative element in which art is rooted and can flourish alone. Above all, it is needed by the artist of life, who has made the education of the developing human being his particular task.

The presentation of this path of knowledge through the awakening of thinking activity provides a living foundation, not only for an insight into the human being's structure of being, but also for his being placed in the totality of the universe. How the individual elements of the human being are connected to the corresponding worlds of the universe is described here from within.

These five lectures, which effectively supplement the content of “How to Know Higher Worlds” and “The Stages of Higher Knowledge”, are printed in the volume “What Was the Goal of the Goetheanum and What is the Purpose of Anthroposophy?” [GA 84].

On April 22, the general assembly of the Swiss national society took place, during which the decision was made to take the necessary external steps to secure the reconstruction of the Goetheanum [see $. 477 ff.]. The inner possibility for this had been created by Rudolf Steiner's consciousness-awakening and morally uplifting activity. His tireless response to the pleas of the distant branches that invited him had developed that unifying sense of community that made the members look to Dornach as the center of their spiritual striving, where they would always seek to strengthen themselves. In essence, the form of reorganization of the society, which had been torn apart by the world war, emerged naturally from the real forces present: the outstanding spirituality of Rudolf Steiner, the world situation at that time and the soul need of the members to have a common meeting place, also locally at the place itself, for that activity combining art, science and mystery knowledge. It was only necessary to have a clear picture of all the circumstances present, so that each individual could develop the will to participate in deeds that would benefit humanity, out of an objectively focused clarity of soul.

Via Stuttgart, which was always urgently awaiting Dr. Steiner with its many concerns, the journey now continued to Prague. Negotiations were planned there with a view to founding a Czech national society. In addition to the public lectures on “The Eternity of the Soul in the Light of Anthroposophy” (April 27) and on “Human Development and Education in the Light of Anthroposophy” (April 30) [both in CW 84], and in addition to the introductory the introductory words to the eurythmy performance in the large, sold-out Deutsches Theater (Sunday matinee on April 29), Dr. Steiner addressed the branch in the Zweige during the important discussions about human development in early childhood and the work of the hierarchies on him in prenatal life. These two lectures, given on April 28 and 29, penetrate deeply into the mystery of language; they culminate in remarks about the mystery of Golgotha and are printed in the volume: “The Human Soul in Its Connection with Divine-Spiritual Individualities. The Interiorization of the Annual Festivals” [GA 224]. We do not have a shorthand transcript of the proceedings concerning the Society's finances, but we do have the short address with which Dr. Steiner responded to the words of greeting from the local friends [see $. 134].

On 2 May, Dr. Steiner will once again be giving his lecture in Stuttgart, which is of great importance for speech artists. The lecture is published as a brochure with the title 'The Individualized Logos and the Art of Detaching the Spirit from the Word' [in GA 224]. On May 5, before his actual topic 'The Spiritual Crisis of the 19th Century', he reports in Dornach on the working days in Prague (see $. 136).

Following on from the Dornach report on the working days in Prague, Dr. Steiner also spoke on May 6 about the spiritual crisis in the last third of the 19th century [fin GA 225], which started from a critical consideration of the novel “Auch Einer” by the so-called Schwaben-Vischer, the well-known aesthetician. And on May 7, Ascension Day, we receive as a festival gift the lecture “The Easter Thought, the Revelation of Ascension and the Mystery of Pentecost” [in GA 224]. The festival reflection was followed by a workers' lecture on May 7 and 9 [in GA 349]. Seen in retrospect, the closing words of the lecture for members, which relate to the guard duty of those who have taken on the task of watching over the place of work that remains to us since the fire, may seem curious, but perhaps they are indicative of all the things to which Dr. Steiner had to devote his care.

Dr. Steiner was able to work in Dornach for barely a week before we left for Norway via Stuttgart and Berlin.

The stay there lasted from 14 to 21 May with several events each day: In Kristiania (Oslo) there were two semi-public lectures on education; six branch lectures, recorded in the essay 'Human Nature, Human Destiny and World Development' [GA 226]; an address in the Vidar branch on social issues, on the occasion of the founding of the national society; two eurythmy performances; two semi-public lectures on “Anthroposophy and Art. Anthroposophy and Poetry” [in CW 276]; a Whitsun meditation: ‘World Whitsun, the Message of Anthroposophy’ [in CW 226] — and much more. It may be mentioned in this brief survey, which categorizes the lectures recorded in shorthand, that in addition to countless conversations with visitors, many other events had to be inserted into the overcrowded daily program. — Dr. Steiner's address at the Vidar Group's general assembly on 17 May has been preserved for us [see $. 469].

Dr. Steiner reported only briefly on the Nordic journey, introducing his first lecture in Dornach [see $. 143], after he had returned via Berlin and Stuttgart and arrived here on May 27. On May 23, in addition to a eurythmy performance, a branch lecture had taken place in Berlin about the nature of human experience during sleep and waking, about the feasts and the approach of the power of Michael. This lecture is printed under the title 'The Riddles of the Inner Man' [in CW 224]. Stuttgart had many concerns of a different kind that took up all of Dr. Steiner's time.

And now Dr. Steiner [in Dornach] spoke about the nature of the different cultural epochs in their connection with art, especially about ancient Greece, and about the original art: language. In the reflections that followed this lecture, 'The Artistic in its World Mission, the Genius of Language and the World of the Revealing Radiance' (May 27 to June 9 [GA 276]), he gave what is surely the most profound and comprehensive account of art that has ever been given.

The lectures for the workers at the Goetheanum should also be mentioned, which took place repeatedly in Dornach from 1922 onwards. They are of a very special educational value and contain Dr. Steiner's answers to questions on various topics of interest to workers. They surprise with the freshness and immediacy of their tone.

Meanwhile, the wishes of the foreign members to see a second Goetheanum erected had taken on ever more concrete form and combined with the efforts of the Swiss members. The Annual General Meeting of the Anthroposophical Society in Switzerland, held in Dornach on June 10, took up a proposal contained in a letter dated June 8 “To the branches in all countries” from the Anthroposophical Society in Great Britain, and passed a resolution to convene a meeting of delegates from all countries in Dornach at the end of July. This joint decision was to lead to the longed-for reconstruction of the Goetheanum and the necessary financial measures. The negotiations of the general assembly of the Swiss national society on June 10 [see p. 512] were followed by the eight lectures on “The History and Conditions of the Anthroposophical Movement in Relation to the Anthroposophical Society” [GA 258]. They lasted until June 17. On the morning of June 17, the memorable general assembly of the Goetheanum Building Association took place, attended by a large number of delegates. Dr. Steiner's address was a deeply moving one.

Now it had become necessary to visit Stuttgart again. The subject of the lecture of June 21, which followed the usual concerns, was: “Our Thought Life in Sleep and Wakefulness and in the Post-mortal Existence” [in GA 224]. He gave a presentation of the duality in man, who is at once a rung in heaven and an earthly germ, and how both express themselves in the nervous system on the one hand and in the blood system on the other. The lecture has just been published and should be of particular interest. It culminates in the description of that region of the physical being that makes it possible to realize human freedom.

On this occasion, the profound difference between the theosophical and anthroposophical movements was also discussed and the essential point of the anthroposophical movement was emphasized.

On June 24, a double Midsummer celebration took place in Dornach, with introductory words about the Midsummer mood during the eurythmy performance, and in the evening with the now also published lecture: “The Sharpened Midsummer View” [in GA 224].

On June 29, we experienced the deeply moving cremation ceremony of Hermann Linde, the second chair of the building association, who worked so devotedly for the Goetheanum, and the painter of the great dome of the Goetheanum, who, it can be said, had his heart broken by the fire disaster. That same evening, Dr. Steiner gave a lecture in his memory on life after death and our relationship with the dead [in GA 261]. On June 30 and July 1, at a subsequent pedagogical conference for Swiss teachers, Dr. Steiner spoke on the topic “Why Anthroposophical Pedagogy?” The lecture was published in “Anthroposophical Study of Man and Education” [GA 304 a]. The evening lecture on July 1 was on “The Constitution of Our Civilization” [in GA 225]. This was followed by daily visits to the Waldorf School in Stuttgart, as well as attending to social concerns and inspecting the scientific institutes and research laboratories. The lecture of 4 July [in GA 224], which is contained in the same volume as that of 21 June, took up considerations about living and dead thinking and emphasized the necessity of penetrating to a real soul teaching. Starting from Mauthner's 'Criticism of Language', Dr. Steiner discusses the spiritual foundations of the human soul life, the reality of thinking, feeling and willing, which has been lost to our time, so that only the abstract word remains. With all due recognition of the scientific merits of some outstanding contemporaries, such as Rubner and Schweitzer, and with full appreciation of Albert Schweitzer's important work “Decay and Rebuilding of Culture”, Rudolf Steiner shows the powerlessness of today's thinking in the face of the cultural decline of our time, using examples taken from some of their works.

It can only be noted that from July 11 to 14 in Stuttgart, the priests of the Christian Community were also given what enabled them to further develop the movement for religious renewal.

In Dornach, a new series of lectures began on July 6, which has been published in the volume 'Three Perspectives on Anthroposophy' [GA 225]. In it, the difference between Western, Central European and Eastern folk spirituality was elaborated; the reflection culminates in the harrowing lecture of July 15 on the earthly astral realm in the Ural and Volga region.

And now, after some profound remarks in the introductory words to eurythmy, we arrive at some interesting working lectures, at the proceedings of the particularly well-attended international assembly of delegates from 20 to 23 July and the three informative lectures on the “Three Perspectives of Anthroposophy” given in the evenings following those important proceedings. The words of serious admonition spoken by Dr. Steiner during those negotiations can be found in this volume [see p. 593]. The reconstruction of the Goetheanum was now assured. In the third lecture of the “Three Perspectives”, Dr. Steiner expressed, in the name of anthroposophy, his deepest satisfaction with what had been negotiated at this conference with regard to the reconstruction of the Goetheanum.

The decision to rebuild the Goetheanum was taken by the entire Anthroposophical Society that had gathered in Dornach – in other words, by the entire Society through its authorized representatives. The work should be approached with new joy, albeit with new concerns.

Anthroposophical impulses must bring about an awakening from the cultural slumber of humanity.

Now that the construction of a second Goetheanum building had to be considered, Dr. Steiner again turned to the tasks of art with particular intensity. He saw the main task of anthroposophy in relation to art as being its reunification with the forces of the universe. It arises from the spirit and enables human beings to sense the divine in the image. When science became dominant in the sense of intellectualistic thinking, art also led to naturalism. Gradually, it too lost its connection with the universe, which had become a mechanically functioning structure of rotating spheres. Art lost its significance through the materialism that dominated it; after all, nature itself cannot be surpassed by its image, and the trivialities of life cannot satisfy the soul in the long run. The consequence is a barbarization of culture through naturalism, which remains in the realm of the obvious. If art does not rise above nature by absorbing its creative principle and climbing up to spiritual heights through the path of spiritual experience, if it is unable to elevate earthly reality to the level of the ideal, then it must degenerate. Dr. Steiner repeatedly emphasized the infinite significance of art as a path to the spirit. Art, religion and science had to be reunited, as was the case in the ancient mysteries. The Goetheanum wanted to serve this purpose. Hostile forces had destroyed it. Now a second attempt should be made.

For months, Dr. Steiner had been working tirelessly on the moral foundation of society. He could hope that his call, which repeatedly called on souls to awaken, to become aware of what they owed to the world situation and what they had to bring into the world to counteract the decline of culture, had not gone unheard. Now that the new building was to be tackled, he turned again from the scientific and philosophical problems that had been treated particularly intensively in the preceding months, to ever deeper explanations of the ancient mystery being and the art that emerged from it. During the delegates' meeting, he was able to say many things not yet expressed about the weaving of language rooted in the universe during a eurythmy performance, since he could count on the anthroposophists as an audience that had the necessary prerequisites for understanding more intimate spiritual nuances. It is preserved under the title 'The Imaginative Revelation of Language' [in GA 277]. Then, after the delegates' conference, he gave a cycle of three lectures on the secrets of the planetary system, in addition to the carefully prepared workers' lectures. More could not be wrested from the limited time before the new journey, but this short cycle gives a basis for the mood that must prevail in the souls if they are to penetrate into the essence of the mystery teaching.

These three lectures concluded with an appeal to overcome all sectarianism so that anthroposophy can continue the development of humanity in the right way [see p. 162].

“Coming out of the sectarianism” was something that Dr. Steiner had to emphasize again and again. A broad-heartedness towards the needs and demands of the world, not becoming absorbed in one's own concerns but having one's eyes open to one's surroundings: this was what he regarded as the necessary basis in that fateful year of 1923 in order to be able to respond to the repeated pleas of members : to begin again with the closed circle the esoteric work together, similar to that which had taken place before the World War, but during the war and the post-war period was not considered by him to be an option [GA 264 and 265]. This is because the demonically ravaged astral sphere of the earthly realm makes it impossible; it would, so to speak, give the demons of hatred the opportunity to open themselves gateways into the souls. In other ways too, people are never more exposed to whisperings or distracting, tempting thoughts than in such hours of collective concentration, which can signify a catharsis, but where the evil and contradictory still present in the souls still rise up before they recede, the elemental beings, so to speak, gather. It is not without reason that monasteries were often said to be besieged by demons. — Dr. Steiner replied to those complaining about the renunciation: We too have to bear our share of human karma; we cannot withdraw from it. This makes it all the more important for the individual to be vigilant in their meditation. To those who repeatedly asked Dr. Steiner in the post-war period to resume the joint esoteric work, he replied: “First learn to get along with each other. You must first learn to sit at the same table. Only then can you work together esoterically.

Slowly and gradually, he tried to prepare the future by creating a moral fund that he intended to give and that would become a summary of everything that is set out in his many esoteric considerations, which are available as cycles, in his individual appearances.

Working weeks in England

The journey to England was a rich and varied experience. It began with the pedagogical course in Ilkley, a small town in Yorkshire, which lasted from August 5 to 17 and the content of which has been published in several editions as a book entitled “Contemporary Spiritual Life and Education” [GA 307]. On his return to Dornach, Dr. Steiner gave a detailed report on the conference, which also conveys the mood associated with this area, where naked industrialism devastates the soul in black cities, and where traces of ancient spirituality surprisingly emerge from the green solitude of high moors.

This cycle, dedicated to pedagogy, was followed by the purely anthroposophical one in Penmaenmawr from August 18 to 31, which is preserved in the book “Initiations-Erkenntnis. The spiritual and physical development of the world and of humanity in the past, present and future, from the point of view of anthroposophy” [GA 227]. There were also several addresses by Dr. Steiner that have not yet been published, which may find their place here because they repeatedly contain new, surprising or essential insights, sometimes ones that are not noted anywhere else.

After being welcomed by the organizers of the conference in Penmaenmawr, Dr. Steiner gave the following address.

The first course lecture took place on the morning of the following day, opened by the highly esteemed pedagogue and social worker Miss McMillan, whose effectiveness in the report of Dr. Steiner will be mentioned. In the afternoon, a discussion followed among members about anthroposophical work in England, at which Dr. Steiner was asked to speak. He said the following, which can also give us some guidelines [see $. 170].

The following evenings were devoted to discussing the wisdom that had been received in the meantime. Dr. Steiner was asked to answer questions that people had not fully grasped intellectually. He was happy to address them.

Art and its future task: colors, language, eurythmy.

The course lectures continued in the mornings, with discussions and presentations by members in the evenings. On the evening of August 24, Dr. Steiner spoke about colors and the tasks of art [in GA 284] following Baron Rosenkrantz's lecture and concluded with the words: “But that [replicating nature] is also true artistic creation, and all the arts will come back to this to a greater or lesser extent in the future. That was artistic creation in all great art epochs. And that is what also shone forth in all the individual examples of Baron Rosenkrantz's excellent lecture. That is what you can see particularly wherever new artistic impulses emerge in the evolution of the earth. From these new impulses one can draw courage and hope that new forms of art can indeed arise out of what can be experienced in spiritual science. — How eurythmy has arisen from this, I will take the liberty of explaining in a special lecture, which is to be scheduled, which has been requested. In doing so, I will perhaps be able to add a few more details to what I have said today.

Dr. Steiner was also asked to give more details about the art of eurythmy and how it came about. On August 26, he gave a brief overview of its origin and sketched out its basic laws, which rest in the supersensible and embrace the whole human being. We find this lecture printed as an introduction to the book 'Eurythmie als sichtbarer Gesang' [GA 278].

Therapeutic principles and curative eurythmy

On one of the following evenings, Dr. Steiner was asked to speak about the therapeutic principles that have emerged from the anthroposophical world view. The rather long lecture he gave on this subject is printed in the volume “Anthroposophical Knowledge of Man and Medicine” [GA 319].

On August 31, Dr. Steiner said goodbye to the organizers and participants of the course [His farewell words will appear in the Complete Edition in GA 227].

Re-constitution of the English Anthroposophical Society

Some questions about the reconstitution of the English Anthroposophical Society had already been discussed in Penmaenmawr. Now in London, this was the focus of attention. On September 2, the Annual General Meeting of the “British Anthroposophical Society” took place in London. He answered the questions put to him by Dr. Steiner in a way that also pointed the way forward for us. We have a shorthand record of his remarks [see $. 603].

On the same day, the lecture that appeared some time ago as the esoteric study, “The Human Being as the Image of Spiritual Beings and Spiritual Activity on Earth” (in GA 228), took place in the Zweige. As if continuing to answer a question that had already been asked in Penmaenmawr, Dr. Steiner spoke about the significance of the state of sleep for the development of the ego in man: there his soul plunges into the world of the stars. In earthly existence, the ego is initially darkness of life, non-existence, only a hint of the true being. Man on earth is only the image of that which of his true nature never descends into earthly existence. But the hierarchies also work in his organism. They gave him a dull cosmic consciousness, which lived as an instinctive clairvoyant power in an older human race. Through the Mystery of Golgotha, man can now freely acquire a new cosmic and ego consciousness. This meditation concludes with a meditation to gain the I.

Medical lectures for doctors were also held on September 2 and 3 [in GA 319]. It should also be noted that it was not uncommon, no, often the case that Dr. Steiner had to give three or even four lectures in one day.

Dr. Steiner took leave of his friends in London with the words [see p. 177].

Dr. Steiner on the work and impressions of the journey in England

On September 9, Dr. Steiner gave an account of his journey and stay in England in Dornach. This lecture is a wonderful evocation of the many impressions that made that time so rich. [In the new edition of GA 228.]

The lecture on September 10 was another highlight in the presentation of cosmic-human interrelations, of the interlocking of heavenly wisdom and the human soul opening to it, which ultimately, “always creating itself, becomes aware of itself.” [*From ” Anthroposophical Calendar of the Soul] This irradiation of the spiritual and divine into the earthly-human sphere is the content of the meditation that pictorially describes cosmic-earthly becoming and its metamorphosis into self-awareness in the time between Johanni and Michaelmas, but in the magic of the ancient Druidic culture, under the immediate impression of those mountain peaks of Wales with the remains of ancient cult sites – austere, stone-grey and primeval, but sun-drenched and with an inner strength that is still tangible today. The gusts of wind and heavy showers that blow in between give the radiance in the sky ever-new charm and proclaim the sun's triumph, despite the forces fighting against it. And in the deep warm violet of the heather flowing down the mountain slopes, sending its color greeting to the foaming sea below, the soul drinks in refreshment.

This lecture has also been preserved and will soon be published under the title: “The Druid Priest's Solar Initiation and his Knowledge of the Moon Beings” [in GA 228].

Conference of the German Anthroposophical Society

The first conference of the Anthroposophical Society in Germany, founded at the end of February, took place in Stuttgart from September 13 to 17 at the Siegle House. In the invitation, its goals were described as follows [see $. 615].

On three evenings (14, 15 and 16), Dr. Steiner gave lectures on the subject “Man in the Past, Present and Future” [in GA 228]. He greeted those present with the words [see $. 625].

This was followed by a presentation of the human being, how it has developed in a certain past, how it stands in the immediate present, and how its perspectives arise for the future of human development on our planet Earth.

Dr. Unger submitted the “Draft of the Basic Principles” for discussion (see p. 635). The meeting decided to leave further work on it and its transmission to the Dornach Conference to the Executive Council.

From this point of view, the members in Germany prepared the founding of the General Anthroposophical Society on a new basis in Dornach during the Christmas period.

From Dornach to Vienna and back via Stuttgart

In addition to the lectures for workers, the work in Dornach during the September days should also include the celebration in memory of the laying of the foundation stone of the building that was lost to us only ten years ago, with a report on the Stuttgart conference [see $p. 639]. This was followed on September 22 and 23 by descriptions of the various states of consciousness in humans, sleeping and waking, and reflections on contemporary scientific works [in GA 225].

The next destination was Vienna, where the Austrian national society was to be founded. This social event was preceded by a lecture cycle for members, which is available as “Anthroposophie und das menschliche Gemüt” [in GA 223]. A lecture for physicians was also given [in CW 319]. The first public lecture took place on the 26th, the second on the 29th, with a large crowd in the main hall of the concert hall. The two lectures were published [in CW 84].

At the founding meeting of the Austrian national society, Dr. Steiner did not take the floor. It was only after his final lecture to the members that evening that he referred to the afternoon's merger of the Austrian branches into a national society (see footnote 657).

How lovingly Dr. Steiner penetrates to the essence of things and people, even when he has to say things that call for wakefulness, that do not flatter and want to win, but educate, can be seen in this address as an example.

On October 5, Dr. Steiner gave a brief report in Dornach on the Vienna Days [see p. 182], and then moved on to the lectures that have become known as the Archangel lectures [GA 229].

The following descriptions of the archangel imaginations interwoven with the annual cycle are among the most powerful impressions we have experienced through the words of Rudolf Steiner. After they were made available to every member as an addition to the newsletter on the occasion of the great festivals, they will now also be available, in response to many requests, as esoteric reflections and a beautiful festival gift under the title “Experiencing the Course of the Year in Four Cosmic Imaginations” (Oct. 5-13) [GA 229].

On October 15, Dr. Steiner also spoke in Stuttgart about the imaginative life connected with the course of the year, about the meteoric iron and the Michael festival to be renewed in the lecture on the Michael Imagination. Spiritual Milestone in the Course of the Year [in GA 229]. For Waldorf teachers, he gave two lectures: one on the comprehensive human insight as a source of imagination for educators and the other on the phenomenon of the gymnast, the rhetorician and the doctor, which arose over time within different civilizations, and their necessary synthesis for the present [in GA 302 a]. On the nineteenth of September in Dornach, he was able to begin the wonderful series of esoteric reflections on the inner connection between world phenomena and world essence, which have become known under the title 'Man as the Consonance of the Creative, Formative and Shaping World Word' [GA 230]. They were continued until November 11. In our soul's eye, the entire multiform nature arises before us in its pictorialness, its formative urge and creative urge, in the richness of its sprouting and sprouting, and dissolves into spirituality - as it is indeed in a saying by Dr. Steiner: “The spirit melts in the world's weaving, the heaviness of the earth into the light of the future.”

Conference in Holland

Establishment of the Dutch national society
End of the year in Dornach

The need for active work within the Anthroposophical Society in order to make it a reality. It is necessary to awaken to what is happening in the world, to what interests people, so that the anthroposophical movement can have an instrument in society. Anthroposophy is knocking at our hearts to bring us the true human being. The historical passage of modern civilization through the threshold to the spiritual world.

On November 12, the trip to the Netherlands took place on the occasion of the imminent founding of the local country society. As early as November 13, the cycle of five esoteric reflections “The Supernatural Man, Anthroposophically Recorded” [GA 231], one of the most important study materials, begins in The Hague. The public lectures of that time are: “Anthroposophy as a Challenge of Our Time” and ‘Anthroposophy as a Human and Personal Path of Life’ [in GA 231] as well as two lectures on education [in GA 304a]. For physicians, two lectures could again be held on ‘Anthroposophical Knowledge of Man and Medicine’ [in GA 319].

The introductory words that Dr. Steiner addressed to the members before the start of the internal lecture cycle, which refer to the warm welcome he received [see p. 663], as well as the words with which he the Hague [see $681], they are, like the entire lecture cycle, an objective with regard to what runs through the manifold reflections of 1923 as a guiding thought: We have lost the human being. How do we find him again?

Unfortunately, we have no shorthand notes or notes of the negotiations during the founding of the national society.

The report that Dr. Steiner gave about this on November 23 in Dornach contains the essentials of what he, in all the places he had wished to write in the hearts of the members at all the places where he spoke – and which, if properly received in feeling and carried through in will, should place the founding of the International Anthroposophical Society, planned for Christmas and centered in Dornach, as a living factor in the service of human evolution.

The following words were added to this report, as a transition to the actual lecture:

"Now, my dear friends, we want to use the time we have left for lectures here at the Goetheanum before Christmas Week in such a way that those members who live here in Dornach in the expectation of Christmas Week being here will be able to take with them as much as possible of what the Anthroposophical Movement is able to bring into people's hearts. So that those who will be here until Christmas will really have something to say in their thoughts, especially about what can still happen in the last hour. I will not talk about the International Anthroposophical Society, that can be done in a few hours during the meeting itself. But I will now try to structure these reflections in such a way that they can also convey something about the mood that should then be. What I have already explained here in the last few weeks, I will try to approach from a different starting point. Today I will begin by approaching an understanding of the secrets of the world through the life of the soul of man himself.

This promise was more than amply kept. After the attempt, carried out with so much self-sacrifice, to morally strengthen the membership, to awaken in them a keen sense of responsibility for the duties towards the world that arise from receiving such impulses, the spiritual generosity of From this spiritual generosity of Steiner's flowed an infinite abundance of cosmic and historical overviews, which revealed the seamless connection between the laws of nature on earth and the human soul life with the powers of the universe that are active in the supersensible. Deeper and deeper they penetrated into the secrets of a knowledge of nature that was illuminated from within. The ancient wisdom could be freely subjected to the test of the newly acquired intellectual thinking: the objective facts yield the proof of truth. These truths of a spiritual revelation that encompasses the past and the future at the same time can be sensed inwardly by the soul and inwardly felt through newly awakening powers of consciousness, as it were. Exposed to the criterion of unprejudiced science, intellectual knowledge was at the same time offered a magnificent, cosmic-historical picture of the metamorphosing ability of the human soul under the influence and wise guidance of the mystery being, which reached back into gray primeval times and led this development. The mystery centers were also subject to historical change in their development and work, to the law of flowering, maturity and decay; but the stream of life that permeated their various forms of expression continued to flow secretly into our darkened time.

These cycles must be read in the wording. Keywords taken from them could only weaken their effect, extinguish the living spirit. The “Mysteries” [GA 232] are an organic continuation of the cycle “Man as the harmony of the creative, forming and shaping world word” [GA 230] and lead to the esoteric-historical reflections that introduced the Christmas Conference: “World History in Anthroposophical Light and as a Basis for Knowledge of the Human Spirit” [GA 233].

The workers at the Goetheanum were still allowed to gain insights into the secrets of immediate nature through a course on bees given at their request. GA 351].

Retrospective

A cycle had been completed. Starting from the knowledge of external nature at the beginning of the year, Rudolf Steiner had allowed his audience to glimpse into its deep secrets and thus into the hidden foundations of the cosmos, from which nature can only be recognized. Today's mechanistic natural science has made us lose sight of the human being, who is the sum of the world's riddles. We must rediscover this supersensible human being in us, whom we have lost. He allowed the figures of the victims of a dark age, consumed in a futile spiritual struggle, to pass before our soul's eye. Their struggle was not in vain, for it is only through such vicarious struggle that the creative spirit can be forced down through the soul's prayer of action, and grace flows to mankind. Even the negative ultimately gives birth to the positive if it is selfless, if it fights out of honesty. Despair drew near the savior, who became the instrument of the descending revelation, he who possessed the perfect equipment of earthly knowledge and was willing to sacrifice his individual being to humanity in full selflessness. He did not shy away from the difficulty of this act of rescue, however weak and inadequate the human material was with which he had to work. Despite the meagreness of the talents or the weakness of the souls that confronted him, he saw the striving of the individual ego, saw the longing of the souls to rise above themselves. And he gave this soul flame spiritual nourishment so that it would grow and communicate itself to humanity, not extinguish itself. A tireless educator of humanity, he guarded this sacred fire, calling it to alert activity again and again when it threatened to fade away. Often the inert mass of matter seemed to paralyze the momentum of the soul; the power of resistance on the part of the forces dominating the outer world seemed to carry the victory. But anyone who works with the forces of the future knows that the spiritual seed, and not only the earthly seed, must first make its way through chaos and death in order to sprout. We are experiencing the chaos. Rudolf Steiner's spiritual deed looks forward to its resurrection in the future.

Dear attendees! For many years now, I have had the honor of giving a lecture here almost every winter, as in various cities in Germany, on topics in the field that I dare to call spiritual science. In our fateful time, however, it will be appropriate to turn our attention to the events of which we are all participants and witnesses during this time. This seems all the more appropriate to me, esteemed attendees, as it is my conviction, flowing not from a dark feeling but from spiritual science itself, that precisely what spiritual scientific world knowledge is, is intimately connected with what the German people and the German soul have produced as the world picture of German idealism, which revealed itself most impressively and powerfully out of this German soul at the end of the eighteenth and in the first half of the nineteenth century, but which has continued to work and has worked into our days.

In the true sense of being a study of spiritual life, spiritual science wants to be a continuation of what the natural scientific world view has achieved for the outer world of the senses. But to mature the spirit for such an understanding of the spiritual foundations of the world, this world view of German Idealism seems to me – as I said, I say this from the knowledge of the spirit itself – but this world view of German Idealism seems to me to be the actual root and the actual source. Therefore, allow me this evening to present a kind of reflection on this world view of German idealism and its influence on the present, its effect on the whole of time formation and on the world-historical development of humanity.

Of course, this world view of German idealism is born, entirely born, as we shall see, out of the essence of German nationality, and in this respect one could deny it a certain comprehensive validity according to the saying often heard today: All knowledge, all science must actually assume an international character and becomes untrue to itself if it proves to be in any way shaded by the aspect of one nation.

As plausible as it may seem at first, I would like to say, as self-evident as such an assertion appears, one must still say that from a deeper world view point of view it is misleading. It seems self-evident because it is, I would say, the most extraordinary thing that can be said about science and penetration into world knowledge. When we speak of the internationality of knowledge and insight, we are actually saying no more than that the sun or the moon are the common thought of all people. That is what they are; but the way in which what people have to say about the sun and the moon speaks from the souls, from the hearts of people, this way, it is different according to the talents, according to the spiritual directions and dispositions of the different peoples. The most diverse talents are involved in order to make this knowledge fruitful for human spiritual culture in one direction or another. That is precisely what is at stake: the extent to which what can be known can penetrate into all human spiritual development in a healthy way. But in this the talents, the soul directions of the different peoples have their very distinct specificity. Otherwise, how could it be otherwise meaningful to understand that one of the most German minds, Goethe, when he had begun his journey through the world, in order to see not only what was offered to him in the contemplation of art, but also what nature could offer him. How else could it have been possible for him to write to his German friends from Italy: “After all the natural phenomena and facts I have seen in public, I would now most like to take a trip to India - so said Goethe - not to discover it, but to see what I have discovered in my own way.

The way in which we view what is given to everyone is what matters when we consider the actual impulses and driving forces for the progress of humanity as a whole.

Now it is precisely possible for spiritual science to look at the souls of nations in a truly cognitive way. To do so, however, one must start from a spiritual-scientific insight that - like so many insights today - may be regarded by some as paradoxical, perhaps even fantastic. But what I will say next about the souls of different peoples from a spiritual-scientific point of view is something that may still seem fantastic and paradoxical to the present day, but which human knowledge wants to incorporate, just as certain physical and certain scientific knowledge has incorporated.

If we consider the soul today in the light of current psychology, we see everything that swirls and lives in the soul in terms of impulses of will, feelings, perceptions, thoughts and ideas as a unity. Of course it is; but that does not lead to any real knowledge. Nor does one come to a real understanding of the soul itself, as one might come to a real understanding of light if one did not perceive its interaction with material existence, with material things that confront it, in such a way that one would believe that one would emerge from the light the different shades of colors: the reddish-yellow nuance on one side, the green nuance in the middle, the bluish-violet nuance on the other side - just as the physicist, in his interaction with material existence, must observe these color shades, structured from this one light , and how he cannot come to an understanding of the deeds of light, as Goethe says, in any other way, one cannot come to an understanding of what the human soul actually is if one does not, I would say, also divide it into three shades of its being. And so we call the first shade of the soul being - corresponding, as it were, to the red-yellow shades of light in the rainbow - [...] then the human sentient soul. The human sentient soul contains everything that often wells up unconsciously and subconsciously from the dark depths of the soul. Everything that lives in a person without them immediately having an intellectual grasp of it – their passions, their desires and so on, as well as what gives people this or that temperament – all this wells up in the sentient soul. But in this sentient soul is contained at the same time, in a certain way, if also, one might say, in a natural way, that which can be called the eternal powers of the human soul, which pass through births and deaths and can reappear in repeated earthly lives.

Let us distinguish – as it were, as a parallel phenomenon for the greenish shading of the light – let us distinguish the so-called intellectual or emotional soul. This is the part of the soul through which man acquires an overview, a rationally considered overview, a level-headed overview of that which would otherwise live indeterminately and unconsciously in his soul as affects, as inner tremors.

And as the third shade of life - corresponding to the color blue-violet in the light - we speak of the consciousness soul. It is that through which the human being is most connected, from his soul existence, with the surrounding physical world in which he finds himself; it is that which contains within itself the most temporal, the most transient, power of human being; it is also that through which the human being appears individually as a personality, through which he puts the world to use, through which he puts that which he deliberately lets flow out of the subconscious soul life into practical life.

And just as the one light, the one sunlight, lives in the different colors of the rainbow, so the one I, the one, self-aware being of man, lives in the totality of the shades of the soul. And just as the light appears as the unity of that red and green and blue, as the unity of everything, so the self appears, so the personality, the individuality of man, the actual I appears.

I cannot say more today in the way of an introduction to this scientifically well-founded fact, law of the soul, because it seems appropriate to me to apply this law of the soul to the different national souls, insofar as they are spread over European intellectual life.

We have to say that [...] what can be called the soul of a nation is just as much a reality for spiritual science, something alive in itself, not just an abstract concept that summarizes the characteristics of a nation, but something alive in itself. You will also find the necessary references for this in our spiritual science literature, especially in my Theosophy.

And here we must say that the individual nations differ so much that in one nation more of the shades of the sentient soul comes to the fore, in another nation more of a different shade of soul life. In this way the European peoples are structured according to their folk souls – not the individual people, but to the extent that these individual people belong to the folk soul – they bring to manifestation that which lives as the shade of the rainbow in the individual folk souls.

In this context, the approach that I would like to say is justified by spiritual science shows us that when we look to the south, to the Italian people – to some extent this also applies to the Spanish people – when we look to the Italian people, we see that the folk soul of the Italian people is expressed through the shades of the and everything that can be observed in the various expressions of this Italian national soul, in its good and bad aspects, is connected with the fact that the Italian national soul is dominated by the shades of the sentient soul, that everything springs from the sentient soul.

Today, we only want to emphasize the best qualities of the Italian people that come from their emotional soul; but it will be seen that the Italian people, insofar as they appear as a national soul – not as individual human beings, as I said – must have a certain one-sidedness because their expressions and revelations come from the emotional soul. Yes, if we take the greatest – I will refrain from the development of art, the actual visual arts, but they could very easily prove exactly what I have to say – if we take the greatest – Dante, Giordano Bruno – we learn, precisely when we immerse ourselves in them, that what they have achieved in a gloriously designed world view is created entirely from the sentient soul. One only has to read Giordano's work to see how he has become a great inspirer. When one delves into what he has brought, it is like an expression of feeling for the world view that man can create out of the abundance of the world's phenomena. Feeling lives in this one of the greatest [spirits of] Italians, in Giordano Bruno. I would just like to hint at this.

It is particularly important to look at the French national soul from the point of view that has been gained. This French national soul shows itself to the spiritual-scientific gaze in such a way that it actually sets the tone for the chiseling of the intellectual soul. Everything in the French spirit that appears great but also one-sided stems from the fact that the intellectual soul finds particular expression there. And today we shall mention only that which has influenced the development of an actual world view. The greatest Frenchman in this field, under whose influence French world-view life still stands today, was born at the end of the sixteenth century and lived into the seventeenth century, namely Descartes or Cartesius; but it is precisely in this Descartes or Cart esius, the man of world-view who emerged at the dawn of the newer development of world-view — one can see how in him in particular everything lives that can lead from the intellect to a world-picture. His saying, “I think, therefore I am,” has become famous. Thinking, that is, that which lives in the soul of the intellect, is now based on the being of the soul itself.

The human mind still has the peculiarity of building the world as if it were externally mechanical. It is indeed the peculiarity of the mind that it is unable to penetrate the inner vitality of the world, that it shrinks back, as it were, from the inner vitality, and that it wants to construct everything. But this is particularly evident in Descartes, in Cartesius. And now we will draw attention to one particular way in which this world view of Descartes came about: I would say that it is the one-sided expression of intellectual life. Descartes looks at the world; and after he has given himself over to doubting everything (and this doubt is also, in turn, an expression of the intellectual way of looking at the world), he comes to saying to himself how he can form a world picture that has sensuality. Indeed, this world view becomes such that everything mechanical only wants to be included in it. The world appears as a great mechanism. And it is characteristic of this – I would say genuinely French – world view that Descartes explicitly states: we can only perceive soul in ourselves, as humans. Animals are moving machines. Descartes denies that animals, or indeed all of nature except for human beings, have souls. Animals are automatons.

Thus, for Descartes, the whole of nature except for human beings is like a complicated machine, and animals are within this complicated machine. Indeed, it is precisely the rational mind that recoils from the living. And this intellectualism, it remained in its one-sidedness, and in the end it led to the fact that precisely from France and right up to our times the impetus has been given to establish the actual materialism of the world view, of mechanism, one might say, the world view,

Dear attendees, one could very easily reproach the one who describes the relationships of the folk souls in this way today: Yes, you are describing the feelings of the present time, because the war has brought about a situation in which what we ourselves regard as our world view, as the source of our national identity, is being vilified and even defamed from all sides in Europe. And so we are now trying – I would say – in this time to either justify or avenge ourselves.

Now, esteemed attendees, there are listeners here who know that what I am saying about the different national souls in these difficult times of European events is something I have said again and again for many years, long before this war, and not only to Germans but also to members of other European nations. I consider this to be a firm result of spiritual scientific knowledge about European conditions.

The mechanistic nature of this worldview has been so ingrained in French culture to this day that it has allowed what was French, materialistic or mechanistic world view to emerge. And today we may recall how Goethe, even as a young man, confronted the French mechanistic worldview from his German consciousness, which seeks to take account of the living soul and the vitality of the worldview. He said: They bring us this mechanical play, a mechanism only, a worldview as if the whole world were just a game, a real automaton! Yes, if only what one sees in the world of phenomena could at least be explained to one! These are moving atoms! But then, when he has explained how the atoms collide, he withdraws and leaves the whole world unexplained.

This is what repels Goethe, even as a young man, about the one-sidedness that arises from a purely intellectual development of a world view. And basically, to this day, we can see how this mechanistic world view affects what we seek in a worldview, a folk worldview. For only a few individuals have tried to work their way out of it, for example, the famous philosopher Bergson, I don't know whether one can still mention him today, after the beginning of the war, after the mood of the French, or whether the word Bergson is now taboo as his name in France, I don't know. It is precisely Bergson who, since the war broke out, one might say, has continually presented his French to his French in the most savage manner against the German essence, namely against the German world view, and has managed to that it is precisely the Germans – who were great in a certain way, especially during the period of German idealism – but who have now fallen so low in the present day, [the Germans] have become a nation that only trains itself mechanically and in a machine-like way. The Germans have become a nation that itself represents only a kind of machine!

Bergson probably thought – Bergson, who formed this view of the German people because the Germans opposed the French with cannons and rifles – he probably formed this view because he believed that the Germans will oppose the products of what he calls the “greatness, the great age” of the Germans to the French cannons and French rifles by reciting Novalis and Schiller and Goethe, because that is all they would rely on, right!

Well, this Bergson, he has in a sense worked his way out. But I showed in my book “The Riddles of Philosophy” - which was not written during the outbreak of the war, but appeared at the very beginning of the war and was finished long before - that those of Bergson's thoughts that are reasonably plausible could be found long before that in much more intense and much more thorough form in the minds of German thinkers! But quite apart from that, Bergson always wants to be seen as the one who brought the French a world view that went far beyond the mechanistic and materialistic view of things.

Now, this world view, how did Bergson himself present it to the Germans in his lectures, to these Germans who are said to have come down so much since the time of their greatness? It is just a shame that it has been possible to prove, especially in recent times, that Bergson copied entire pages – not just repeating, but copying – from the German philosopher Schelling, the German philosopher Schopenhauer, and so on, and so on!

What the Frenchman is able to counter as a higher world view to the German, whom he defames, esteemed attendees, is something he himself has copied! It is necessary to bear these things in mind more often in the present if one wants to have an understanding of the mutual relationship between the European peoples and what is now being said about this relationship by the opponents of this German essence.

And, dearest attendees, when we turn our eye to the British national soul, we find that this British national soul bears the very shade of the consciousness soul. And in every detail of this British national soul, one can see how it expresses this consciousness soul, how the British, the Englishman in particular, has the intention of putting what wells up from his inner being into the service of practical life alone.

This is what English culture has in itself, without taking into account the development of the whole world view. Starting with Milton and Bacon, it can be seen everywhere that a world view was actually sought that was to be placed only at the service of the actually immediately tangible life. But I will refrain from that now, I will only point out that in the very last period, this English national character, insofar as it really arose from the British national character, has led to a very peculiar direction: truth, that is what a person who has a sense of truth regards as something that is intimately and genuinely connected to the soul as a reality. Ladies and gentlemen: The English – and in this case in harmony with the Americans – have developed a world view that they call pragmatism. What is this pragmatism? Well, this pragmatism, dear attendees, is characterized above all by the fact that it treats the truth, the concept, the idea of truth itself, in a highly peculiar way. Truth as something that connects the soul with reality, with spiritual reality, is something that this pragmatism, this primeval English product, does not recognize at all. Man perceives truth as an idea, as an idea - in the sense of pragmatism - purely for the purpose of dealing with the external world of the senses, with external tangible reality, in order to intervene in it. In the sense of this pragmatism, truth is a concept that proves useful for practical life. One could say that truth is a tool for usefulness in the very outermost sense, including scientific truth, when understood in this way. Truth has no independent significance, but only serves as a tool for finding one's way in the outer life – that is what this pragmatism has brought forth.

Do we not see this consciousness soul, which places everything that the human being produces in a spiritual way only at the service of the external life? Do we not see it at work in all the details - most honored attendees - that are found in the three peoples mentioned, that order and inner understanding will come into the matter when they are considered in terms of the guidelines that can only be briefly sketched here, but which can be fully substantiated from the insights of spiritual science?

And if we now turn our gaze to the center of Europe, let us turn our gaze to German spiritual life, insofar as it is rooted in its national character. Let us turn our gaze to that spiritual striving within the German people that is to lead to a world view, to such a world view that at least corresponds to the German being, the German national character, then we find confirmed in the most comprehensive way that spiritual science also shows in other respects that this German soul is shaded in such a way that it appears like light in three different color shades: in reddish-yellow, in greenish, and in bluish-violet. That the German soul is such that the I, the self-awareness, works through the three different soul nuances, the unity of the soul-living, working through all three soul nuances, this turns out to be the essence of the German national spirit, the German national soul, in a truly lively, penetrating observation.

And this can be said in a completely objective sense; it does not require any kind of one-sided nationalistic view, as we see it emerging from the Italian, French, and British national souls.

The German is in a position to be able to truly rely on what an insight into his nature, striven for in the soul, gives him, and [he is in a position] to understand his nature from this insight.

And if one wants historical proof that this I, this self, the whole living personality in German national character is really effective through the three soul nuances, then one can present precisely the three great world-view men who, at the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, so clearly emerged within German intellectual life and sought to reveal German national character at the highest spiritual level. Kant, who tried to educate himself from philosophy, was indeed ahead of them; but we do not want to look at him, although he provided the foundation for the others, so to speak.

But before our soul we want to place one of the most German men, one of those men who knew - even when they strove with their thoughts to the highest, to a world view - that they can only gain this world view in the right sense, in the living sense, within the German essence if this world view is the result of a conversation with the German national spirit itself. And so Fichte, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, knew that in the world view he created, German essence was most wonderfully revealed. How does he appear to us when we first consider his personality only in terms of appearance?

Allow me, esteemed attendees, to mention just a few essential traits of his life, so that we can see how this whole man, Fichte, attempts to obtain, from the unity of human life, from the self itself, that which illuminates the world in its deepest life and can bring it to knowledge for man.

The young Fichte, how does he appear to us? Two traits, wonderfully real in this sensitive beauty, we can hardly find them in any other mind: the six-year-old son of a simple, rural man is first of all a decent student; and because he is such a good student, he is given the book “Gehörnte Siegfried” by his father as a Christmas reward - he can already read. It soon becomes apparent that Johann Gottlieb Fichte is becoming somewhat inattentive in his studies; he is reproached for this. We see him one day standing by the stream that flows past his parents' house, throwing into it the “Gehörnte Siegfried”, which has become so dear to him, on which he has pinned his entire soul. And when his father comes along, the father realizes the reason for the boy's strange behavior: he could not tolerate, in the face of the iron concept of duty that was already living in him at the root of his soul, that what was dear to him as a human being, as a personality, should remain with him if he could violate his duty over it. Thus, even the boy Fichte, the six-year-old boy, feels trapped in a world that is, I would say, completely permeated by forces of duty.

Later, when Johann Gottlieb Fichte was nine years old, the village where his parents lived was visited by the estate neighbor. He actually wanted to hear the sermon on Sunday; but he came too late. What happened? Because the pastor had already delivered the sermon, they showed him the young boy, the nine-year-old boy in the blue farmer's coat, who at first behaved awkwardly, but then, when he saw what they wanted from him, came to life and now the whole sermon, which he had listened to as a nine-year-old boy, had listened to as a nine-year-old boy, and he now recites it word for word to the neighbor of the estate, so that everything he said comes from his soul – he had connected with the innermost view of his soul with what he had just heard, and so he could let it flow out again from the innermost. Thus he lived a spiritual life in the immediacy of his own being. Thus he was prepared to find in Fichte the world picture of German idealism, which was able to flow to him, I might say, admittedly from a certain one-sided point of view, but still from a genuinely German one.

Fichte's fundamental awareness of the fact that what lives in the human being, what is inside this I, how it contains the source forces of the world itself – that which pervades and permeates the world in a divine-spiritual way – how this can be found if only man plunges completely into the depths of his inner being, this is evident in all of Fichte's work. He was appointed to the professorship in Jena relatively early, which at that time was the center of German intellectual life. But the way in which Fichte as a teacher affected his listeners is really quite different from what one - I would say usually dreams of.

People who heard Fichte characterize him in the following way: When Fichte spoke, it was like rolling thunder that discharged in sparks of lightning; and when he spoke, he wanted to educate not only good, but great individuals. And one of those who had listened to some of those standing nearby said: What Fichte said revealed that he had not practical, but bold images, energetic images, that his imagination was not graceful in the proper sense but forceful and powerful, and that he speaks in the realm of thought, in the realm of ideas, not like one who merely makes grand words, but like one who is able to rule in this invisible, in this supersensible world.

When Fichte spoke to his listeners, he did not merely seek to communicate to them the content of what he had to say to them. He never spoke the same thing twice about a subject; he never spoke in such a way – I would say that he had only a certain content in his soul that he wanted to convey to his listeners, but rather he had in his own inner being an overall feeling of what he wanted to say, an overall feeling, and above all he sought to establish an inner bond between himself and each individual listener. He wanted that which lived in his soul to become active, not just as a word, but as a force in each individual listener, [but] that it resound in each individual listener himself. He wanted to pour a living fluid over his entire audience. He wanted the listeners, when they had heard his phrases, to leave with a different inner life than when they came. He wanted to awaken something in them. But that is how he worked, vividly, seizing the self.

And so Fichte, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, was able to completely negate, I would say, that which emerged from Descartes' rational world view. Striving to be in one's own self and to strive for the divine in the self, by starting from thinking, and because one thinks, one shows – Fichte could not approve of that either – so the self would have been something dead. For him, the ego was something that could never become dead, for the reason that it constantly creates itself. It cannot cease to be - because it constantly creates itself. That is to say: He saw the essence of the ego - Fichte - in the will. And by the fact that the ego wills itself, it places itself into the world through its own power.

But this also had to result in a world view for Fichte that saw in the will that pervades the world as the actual active force in the world. And the wonderful thing about Fichte is that he says: This external sense world, as it presents itself to us, is not the true, real one. Why is it there? It is there so that man can appear within this sensory world as a sensual being; so that in this human being the will that permeates the world and expresses itself as the divine duty that permeates the world, so that this will forms a material, in order to fulfill the duty, in order to fulfill the moral. Thus, for Fichte, the whole world is permeated by moral substance, by moral reality. For him, the whole world is a spiritual whole of duty, and that which exists as an individual is so that duty, so that the will, so that the divine that is alive in the will can live out itself.

Fichte calls the external sensual world matter, the sensualized material of duty. If one tries to hold together Fichte's placing in a divine-moral world order with the mechanistic materialism that emerged from a unified rational world view, as with Descartes —- Cartesius —, one tries to recognize how this Johann Gottlieb Fichte lived - I would like to say - a certain inner connection of the soul with what, as the divine, flows through and permeates the world, how he then tried to see this connection in the individual national spirits. But Fichte could only ascribe to the German national spirit the ability of a national spirit to grasp this living connection with the universal spirit in the ego. And so Fichte became quite aware that the German national spirit, in connection with the development of humanity, would be called upon to bring living knowledge in place of mechanistic, dead knowledge.

But what is true is that the “Addresses to the German Nation” are pulsating with an ethos, a world-historical sense of duty. Fichte delivered these magnificent addresses in Berlin, in the midst of the enemies who had invaded Berlin at that time, and during his Address to the German Nation, where he sought to show how the German national spirit is called upon to grasp, out of the living self, the connection of the human being with the spirit of the world, when he delivered these speeches, which can still have a wonderfully inspiring effect on the German mind today, the marching French regiments drummed outside. He could have been captured by the enemy at any moment. But he also stood firm as the German man, aware that he had to express the world-historical mission of the German national spirit.

One need not, honored attendees, take a one-sided view today that one should accept the philosophy, the worldview, of such a mind in terms of its content as dogma. Today we can go beyond that. We do not have to profess everything that Fichte said here or there, or what the others said, which we will discuss later; we can turn our attention to the way these people strive and how, in this striving, they show – which Fichte was also fully aware of – that they wanted to draw from the depths of the German national spirit.

Thus, we see Johann Gottlieb Fichte as one of those who, out of German Idealism, sought a world view. We want to look at this striving in him, and also in the others, not at what they said. One need not be a follower of anyone whom one finds to be a great and admirable personality, but one can continue to be inspired by the individual striving, even in those areas where one believes that one cannot go with him in terms of the content of a teaching. But it is not the doctrine that matters, it is the personality that matters, which, as it stands, can serve to characterize the German people themselves, because it must lie in the essence of the German people if, as I would say, with Fichte, such a thing can arise from this German essence with such awareness as Fichte brought forth from this German essence.

Then we see Fichte's succession from another, from Schelling. Schelling is also such a personality. I am convinced, dear attendees, that precisely these three figures, whom I am speaking of here, will be called upon again when the time, which is certainly a time of great hopes and activity that we are living through, but which is also a difficult time of trial, when this time will bear fruit.

We see Fichte's successor in Schelling. In him, too, we have a personality who wants to create a world picture directly from the depths of the ego, because he is clear that the divine-spiritual is at work in what man experiences in his innermost being, and that this divine-spiritual floods through all nature and all being and can be grasped in its activity in the world. If only man is able to experience his ego strongly enough within himself.

If for Fichte the divine essence is something that permeates the world – I would like to say – like a great weaving and working morality, then for Schelling the divine essence is first of all the great artist who, out of the artistic weaving of his own being, first confronts nature in order to see his own truth, his own being and working in the mirror of nature. For Schelling, God's work of art is nature. No natural science that is to be abstractly intellectual - a natural science that works in such a way that with every idea that is brought forth about nature, the human soul feels at the same time related to nature. But Schelling feels this nature in such a way that he says: Now man has emerged, now other animated beings have emerged in nature. But all of nature had preceded this, as it were, as the unconscious and subconscious, which had to be present beforehand like a skeleton. The whole spiritualized world view is nature; as the past and at the same time as the solid ground for the present; as the past in terms of material on which the spirit can stand, having prepared its existence in the existence of nature. And so, for Schelling, nature and spirit grow together, but they grow together in such a way that what lives out of Schelling as a world view of German idealism is again connected to the entire personality, not just one-sidedly with the sentient soul, one-sidedly with the consciousness soul, one-sidedly with the mind soul, but out of the fullness of the soul's being. One would like to say: This whole Schelling was there.

Those who knew him personally described how, even in old age, he spoke with his eyes sparkling, as if he wanted to pour out to his listeners through the shining gaze of his eyes what lived in his inner being as a spiritualized, ensouled nature, whereby he always felt that the soul of man was interwoven with all of nature. Schelling felt that this world view, which I would describe as having been woven out of the German mind, out of the soul of the emotions – as was the case with Fichte, out of the soul of the will – carried him to ever greater heights, to the point where he could ultimately be understood only to a limited extent. God as the artist, nature as a wonderful work of art, knowledge of nature through the senses, which Schelling believed was so interwoven with the human ego that he was carried away to say: To recognize nature is to create nature.

Of course, these spirits were one-sided; but they were as one-sided as all human beings are one-sided, who have the faults of their virtues, not the faults of their small characteristics. - To recognize nature is to create nature! He felt that whatever lives as a force in nature can be grasped by the soul if that soul only grasps itself in its own ego, that nature can be recreated.

And the third one is the much-maligned Hegel, who is, however, revered by some in the present day. If Fichte tried to revive in the will that can permeate everything, in the ego, if Schelling tried to create an idealistic world view in the world mind that comes to life in the ego and spiritualizes and ensouls everything, then Hegel tries to create a world view out of pure concepts, out of the idea. And with Hegel in particular it is obvious that he wanted to grasp a world picture in concepts, in ideas, to compare this Hegelian world picture with the mechanistic, with the intellectual one of Cartesius, of Descartes: there everything is intellectual! But what did Hegel want? Hegel did not want the concept, the idea, in such a way that his world picture was only an instrument, as it were, to recognize an external reality. Hegel wanted to have this world in such a way that the human soul, for its part, experiences the concepts themselves, that it lives with its I into the icy regions, but thereby also forms the experience of the pure concept. For Hegel had the inner experience - one may call it the inner experience - that when man grasps the ideas of the world in their purity, that he may then partake with the innermost part of his I-being in what, as divine thought itself, underlying all of the world, participating in the thought-work of the Godhead, because a thought in the soul is, so to speak, only an ideational representation of that which, as a divine thought, permeates the world - that is what Hegel wanted.

This world view is also one-sided, because it reduces the divine spiritual beings that underlie the world to mere logic, because the whole world is reduced to a mere skeleton of its reality. But it is significant that for once — I would like to say — there appeared a stage in the development of the German being, this inwardly living feeling and interweaving of a thought that permeates the world: I want to unite myself with the thought that is active in the world, and I am convinced that in so doing I have not only something in my soul that outwardly reflects the world, but that when thoughts flow through my soul, it is divine activity itself that allows its thoughts to appear in my soul — those thoughts according to which minerals, plants, animals and human beings are created. Outside, God creates the form and the facts according to the ideas; then, having stripped them of the material, he lets these ideas flow through the human soul, and man participates by surrendering to this flow in a mysticism that is not vague, not an emotional mysticism, but an idea-mysticism, crystal clear: Man participates in the efficacy of divine thoughts in the world!

Yes, esteemed attendees, with these three figures – who, much more than one might think, also in the period when they were rarely mentioned, in the second half of the nineteenth century and up to the present day, live on in the German essence – in these three figures, the world view of German idealism presents itself to us, that German idealism that was called upon – and we can see this directly and objectively in these minds, the spirits of this German idealism, - was called upon - I would say cognitively, I emphasize explicitly, not religiously, but cognitively - although the cognitive is a support of the religious, the religious emerges from another part - to conjure up the second great tidal wave in terms of a human world view from the depths of human existence.

Let us look across to Asia. Asia, especially India, still retains, I would say, an ancient world view in which the human being has also tried to come to that from the depths of his being, which as divine-spiritual flows through, works through and lives through the world. But how does the Asian and the descendant of this ancient Asian, the present-day Indian, attempt to make the divine-spiritual activity and flow in the world present in their own soul being? By attenuating and paralyzing the soul and paralyzing the I. The I must be extinguished so that the human being can give themselves over to the general flow of Brahman. This is the ancient striving for a world picture, I would say, the primeval striving for a world picture. Characteristic of this is that the ego is tuned down, paralyzed to the point of extinction, so that what the human being experiences in his ego does not stand in the way when he wants to revive in his soul that which flows through the world in a divine-spiritual way, giving it soul. To extinguish himself so that the Divine may work in him, that is the ideal of this Pan-Asiatic world picture.

This world picture was no longer possible when the greatest event in the world development of humanity had taken place. This world picture was no longer possible when the Christ Impulse had entered into humanity. From the religious side, humanity was given a deepening, of such magnitude that the Asian religion may never again emerge in its strength, for it could never again be adequate to this event, in which the Christ Impulse lives as the highest event. It was the destiny of the German national spirit to have created an understanding of earthly existence that is adequate to the Christ Impulse.

And these three spirits are like the three symptoms in which the striving for such a world view is expressed. As I said, how does one not seek such a world view by extinguishing the self! We have seen how these three spirits in particular – Fichte, Schelling and Hegel – want to fully live out the I, how they place it at the center of the three soul shades, not by extinguishing the I, but precisely by fully experiencing it, by elevating the I; how the divine-spiritual flows into this I, that is what was incumbent on the German national spirit. And it could do so because it was able to let the I shine through the three soul nuances, just as the unified light shines through the three rainbow nuances.

To place oneself in the more recent development of the world as those who now place everything that is recognized of the existence of nature and soul in the service of such an idealistic world view, that was the duty of the greatest German thinkers, who knew themselves to be one with what the truly German national spirit wants in the further development of humanity.

It seems appropriate to me to point this out to you today, esteemed attendees. What will become of the great external events will be decided by weapons and other circumstances. But it seems appropriate to me, especially in the present, to delve into the nature of the German national spirit itself, which is now being reviled and slandered from all sides, and which, precisely because it must work in the manner indicated, is so little understood by those who, out of their hatred, today all around us, not only misunderstand the German world view, but also want to misunderstand it. But they cannot understand it because they work in a one-sided way, in the one-sidedness of their particular shade of soul; whereas the German must work out of his nature, out of his whole being, towards a wholeness.

A kind of reverent mood is poured out over what the German spirit is meant to achieve in the world. This German national soul is particularly predisposed to acquiring knowledge through nature and the soul, and then enriching this knowledge in the soul so that this knowledge is like the soul's approach to the divine being.

If we do not see this – and I would like to read these words to you literally – if we do not see this beautifully when we look at those who always wanted to visualize from the depths of the German being, that which is the German folk spirit? Do we not see this striving - to know what the German can know, how to make it accessible to the divine-spiritual, to develop a devout mood in science as well? How beautiful and wonderful it is, for example, when a German — and that is precisely why he may perhaps be mentioned today — who appears in Austria as one of the greatest German-Austrians, delves into the German essence, even if he has not perhaps arrived at the concepts that have been developed today and presented to us, so as to feel the full expression of what has been developed in ideas today here: I am referring to Robert Hamerling, Austria's greatest German poet of modern times, who spoke the beautiful words, feeling like a German in Austria, spoke the beautiful words: Austria is my fatherland; but I feel it: Germany is my motherland - thus expressing the unity that has been so firmly forged today through Germany and Austria, through Central Europe. All these peculiarities of the German national soul, which I have been trying to develop today from the idealistic world view of the Germans - at the time when they believed they could turn back the tide, when the Germans came over from Asia, bringing with them the urge to grasp the Allgeist, which they would later express in their art, in their education, in their philosophy, in all their being and working in the world, by elevating the ego, not by dampening the ego. And there, as in a beautiful poet's dream in his “Germanenzug”, Robert Hamerling remembers - the old ancestors of the Germans are still sitting over there in Asia, while these old ancestors of the Germans are moving into Europe, into the West , Robert Hamerling describes beautifully how these Teutons are camped on the border of Asia and Europe, how the sun goes down - he beautifully describes the moon that rises, the whole landscape -, how the Teutons are camped. Only one is awake: the blond Teut, the youth. But in front of Teut, the future destinies of the Germans are written in the stars in wonderful signs. And the genius of the Germans, the spirit of the German people, speaks to the blond Teut, to the leader of the Germanic peoples to the German West. And Hamerling says beautifully:

"To whom does the word break out of the depths of the soul one day
Like your people, so rich, so tender, so powerful?
Who breathes so solemnly into the sounds of the strings
His innermost self? Who draws the senses so magnificently
Into the blue of heaven, granite hieroglyphics
of the soul's upsurge from the narrowness of life?
Who finally ties the strands
of the searching thought to the stars
so boldly and strives and fights on all paths?
Who is led so high, so deep by his urge, his foreboding?
Who grasps the near and the far so faithfully?
Where are all the zones of earth and heaven
reflected as in your thinking, O Teuton?

Not from such a self-exalting consciousness, not from national immodesty, as we often find among our opponents today, but from a devout consideration of the nature of the German, of the spiritual nature that has prevailed throughout world history.

The poet speaks of duty, the Austrian poet, in complete harmony with those who have created a German world view, an imaginative world view of the Germans, out of the German world view.

That is why it is so profoundly true what the “Philosophus teutonicus” Jakob Böhme said about all research and reflection on that world view that has a right to exist, which, fundamentally, for the German national character - so Jakob Böhme believes - the search for knowledge, for science, must be a path to God, even if it does not encroach on religion. Jakob Böhme expresses this, thereby characterizing the guiding principle for the world view of German idealism, beautifully from the depths of the German mind. Jakob Böhme says:

“When you see the depths”

he means the depths of heaven

"When you look at the depths of heaven

This is the union of the most beautiful sense of the German national character with the highest striving for knowledge of that which, in a divine and spiritual sense, permeates, interweaves and suffuses the world. Thus, in order to elevate his ego, the German seeks to penetrate into the innermost nature of things, and this is indeed something that can be understood only to a limited extent.

One can see how little it can be understood! There is one of those who, shortly before the beginning of this war, used to move around in Germany as foreign spirits, talking about all kinds of friendships with the German essence, about all kinds of understanding that they claim to have acquired for the German essence: that is Emile Boutroux. Shortly before the war, he even lectured at German universities about how one should revere the depths of the German spirit. And now the true Frenchman [Boutroux] is telling his fellow Frenchmen – he wants to be funny, of course, the good [Boutroux] wants to be funny – he is telling them what a difference there is between the French, the English and the Germans; what we - though for the French, certainly in a joking way - have sought today from the depths of the German character, yes, Boutroux talked about that in a similar way to his French not too long ago. He said: Yes, when the French want to recognize a lion or a hyena – you don't get the news exactly, but that's roughly how he spoke – and in any case, what I am saying is essentially not inaccurate – when the French describe a lion or a hyena, they go to the menagerie and observe the lion or the hyena; when the English want to recognize a lion or a hyena, they travel around the world and observe the life of the lion or the hyena. But when the Germans want to recognize a lion or a hyena, they neither go to a menagerie nor travel around the world, but retreat to their study and design the image of the lion and the hyena from within, without looking at the outside!

It is certainly a witty saying, and we are accustomed to the French speaking wittily from their intellectual culture; it is just a shame that this joke is by Heinrich Heine, repeated by Boutroux, because it comes from Heine; and the Frenchman, who we are accustomed to making good jokes, made a German joke in this case, to make a witty comment about the English and the French! This is another illustration of how the opponents of Germanness try to ascribe to themselves something higher than what a German can live with!

However, this same man recently told his Parisians what a barbaric people the Germans actually are; one can already deduce this from the word. For example, he said: the Germans have no word for generosity; therefore they don't even have this quality, they lack it, only the French have it. On the other hand, the Germans have a word that the French don't have: that is the word 'Schadenfreude'; so only the Germans have the quality of Schadenfreude. The French don't have this ignoble quality. And similar things more are what indicates the spirit from which one today vilifies and degrades the German essence.

But one has not always looked at this German essence in this way! And it would be particularly interesting to see which minds have tried to find their way into this German essence, as one can also see from this just how little account is taken of the actual meaning of this German essence, this spirit. Take, for example, the writer of “The Life of Jesus” — Ernest Renan — he wrote in a corresponding way even during the Franco-Prussian War about German essence to David Friedrich Strauß, who wrote about German essence. Strangely, the Frenchman, Ernest Renan, wrote; he says that at a certain age he realized what this German essence actually means. And he makes an interesting comparison. He says that after he had absorbed the French character in his education, he approached the German character through Goethe and Herder, and it was as if he encountered realities instead of mere concepts, whereas before he had only seen a lot of faded paper flowers. And then he compares the height of German intellectual life, which has been revealed to him in this way, by saying that everything he got to know outside of this German essence seems to him, well, like elementary mathematics to differential and potential mathematics. We shall see in a moment how such a mind itself utilizes, in terms of feeling, what has come to it through contact with the German essence.

But first, let us see a little more of how this Central European, German essence is viewed in the East, in that East from which the European West, that is to say our West, is currently suffering so much for what is, after all, its sphere of influence, its work for freedom and democracy today, this European West. If we have to consider the Russian national soul, we have to say: in Russia's national soul, the direct driving force of the I, everything still lives as something external. The Russian receives his religion as a foreign one, the Greek-Christian religion, which he does not have within him in the form of rebirth, as the German has experienced it from his innermost being, but which he accepts as something like a cloud that hovers over him, that he has from outside. While the Italian works from the sentient soul, the Frenchman from the intellectual and mind soul, the Englishman, the Briton from the consciousness soul, the German from the actual self, the person who truly belongs to the Russian national soul, works from the subconscious of the ego, which still has the ego that the ego has not yet absorbed into itself, which the ego still wants to see in a mystical darkness. This Russian soul, this eastern Russian soul, works like the national soul that has not yet fully come to consciousness.

And this is why this still immature national soul has not only so misunderstood the German national soul, but also all the national souls of Western Europe, especially in the course of the nineteenth century and up to our own times, so infinitely misunderstood them.

People have not even noticed what the relationship is, let us say, between the nature of the German spirit and the Russian spirit. In selfless German modesty, one has naturally included the great Russians – Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky. They are not to be disparaged here; they can be fully recognized; but one must become aware of the gulf that exists between the Russian and the German essence, and which, especially in the Russian essence, has come to such an immature outbreak and revelation in our own time.

In the course of the nineteenth century, we encounter the best Russian minds, which - I would like to say - philosophically and artistically express, as in a world view, what, in political terms, the “Testament of Peter the Great” – whether it is forged or not, that is not the point now – which, in political terms, aims to achieve the complete annihilation and replacement of Western and Central Europe, as it exists today, with Eastern Europe! [The “Testament of Peter the Great” is the only thing that should be considered sustainable.] But everything, I would like to say, even Russian literary-philosophical and artistic thought, is in the service of this “Testament of Peter the Great”. And this is what we encounter again and again in all of nineteenth-century Russian intellectual life.

Then we encounter the best minds in Russia, who turn their gaze to what minds like Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel have achieved. I would say that Herzen is able to observe this in a single such spirit. He seeks to delve into what Western culture has brought forth; he finds that it has all grown old, has become decrepit, that it must all disappear, that it is all superficial, because he cannot comprehend how this world view of German Idealism is inwardly lived and interwoven; and so it becomes worthless to him. In his book From the Other Bank, Herzen expresses how all these ideals that have sprung up in Western Europe must be destroyed and how something else must take their place.

One of Herzen's opponents, also a Russian, wrote to Herzen: So you want to destroy everything that has emerged in Western Europe: Greater, more significant – as a Russian wrote to Herzen, one of his Russian opponents, to appeal to his conscience – Greater than all the ideals of Central Europe, is the Russian sheepskin coat to you? – the friend wrote to Herzen!

What does he mean by the “Russian sheep's clothing”? Well, Herzen said it: In what this European culture, this European spiritual life has brought forth, there cannot be anything redemptive, anything salvific for humanity; but that which is salvific for humanity is the Russian peasant; that is, the one who, in all his originality, contains within him that which must flood the whole of Western and Central Europe. And this appears to be so deeply ingrained in Russian souls, especially in the most Russian of Russians, for example in Dostoyevsky, the great artist – whom we want to acknowledge in terms of his skill – that it is increasingly apparent in his work, when we take a closer look at it, that he regards German culture in particular as decrepit and obsolete, and that he already sees Russia as destined to be the redeemer. Basically, the delusional rage that is now to be poured out over Europe is nothing more than the brutal expression of this tendency, which has even found expression in great Russian writers; however, care has been taken to ensure that the good Germans do not become too aware of this, which, I might say, has always lived and breathed between the lines of Russian intellectual life! And so it comes about that - and those who know me better know how much I appreciate Tolstoy - but what is in Tolstoy, especially in such older works as “Anna Karenina” and so on, that shows how he - Tolstoy - always aimed to depict the German character in such a way that it appears decrepit and inferior.

Why have the Germans paid so little attention to such things? Why are they now surprised at the fact that hatred is being heaped on them from all sides? Well, you only have to take the fact that, for example, the older translations of Tolstoy, namely those works by translators that people still read, up to the last translation in the middle of the nineteenth century by [Raphael Löwenfeld], which people no longer read, these translations all either left out the passages in question entirely or translated them differently, so that no one actually knows the real Tolstoy!

It will be necessary, dear honored attendees, to go a little deeper into the nuances that live in the expressions of souls, so that the German knows how to fulfill his mission in the world. And so it came about that even insightful Russian minds, such as the great philosopher Soloviev, rebelled against this generally Russian view, against the view of those who, according to a Russian world view, had grown old and died, and that Russianism should overthrow this European essence.

If I emphasize individual personalities, it is because I want to cite facts and show by individual characteristics how many there are.

There is, for example, one Danilewski, who attempts to address the question in broad terms, entirely in the spirit of the Russian essence I have just hinted at, how Russia must expand, how Europe's west and center are ripe to because the European West and the Center have fulfilled their task; and Danilewski once asks the question in a book that is so completely formed from the Russian point of view: Why does Europe not love us, why does Europe fear us? Now he seeks to answer this question from his own point of view, and Danilevsky writes for his Russians something like this: Europe does not love us because Europe instinctively senses that we are the ones who are actually the only ones still entitled to exist, and who are to replace what lives in the rest of Europe. But Soloviev takes up this question, and Soloviev is one of those who has drawn from this life himself. And the great philosopher Solowjow, who, unbiased by his own Russian nature, takes up this question: Why does Germany not love us? He does not answer this question in the way Danilewski and the spirits of the most diverse kinds of Russians speak, that Europe feared Russia, but Solowjow answers Danilewski's question: Why does Europe not love us? Why does Europe fear us?” and Danilevsky's answer to this: ‘Because Europe instinctively senses that the Russians are the only ones who are still entitled to exist and should replace what is still alive in the rest of Europe,’ Solowjow replies to these words of Danilevsky:

“And yet both the content of his book and his later admissions, as well as those of his like-minded friend”

referring to a certain Strachow

“point to a different answer: Europe looks at us with apprehension and fear”

Solovyov wrote his reply, and it is certainly necessary for anyone who wants to get to know the conditions in the Russian east to listen to these Russians. Solovyov himself says:

"Europe regards us with apprehension and mistrust because dark and obscure elemental forces live in the Russian people, because its spiritual and cultural forces are poor and inadequate, but because its demands are clearly and sharply defined. The calls for what the Russian people want as a nation resound powerfully out to Europe: that it wants to destroy Turkey and Austria, conquer Germany, and seize Constantinople and, if possible, India.

And when we are asked how we intend to replace what we have destroyed and failed to accomplish, how we plan to rejuvenate the world intellectually and culturally, we either have to remain silent or spout meaningless phrases. And if Danilevsky's bitter confession is true, that Russia is beginning to fall ill, then instead of dealing with the question “Why doesn't Europe love us,” we would have to deal with another, more important question that is closer to us: “Why and how did we become ill?” Physically, Russia is still quite strong, as it showed in the last Russian war; so our suffering is a moral one. We are burdened, according to the words of an old writer, by the sins hidden in the national character and not conscious to us - and so it is necessary above all to bring these into the light of clear consciousness. As long as we are spiritually bound and paralyzed, all our elementary instincts must only harm us. The essential, indeed the only essential question of true patriotism is not the question of power and vocation, but of the sins of Russia."

Thus the Russian Solowjow, from a spiritual insight into the Russian character, thus the great philosopher Solowjow about Russia itself. And it is interesting to see this in conclusion: how have others perceived this relationship between Russia and the West, even the further West – with whom they are now in league or who is in league with them, one does not quite know how to say – how have others perceived this relationship with their further West? Oh, there are also interesting facts here! For example, a book by the Russian writer Yushakov was published in 1885. In 1885, he wrote a book in which he speaks quite differently from how he was later spoken of regarding the views that he attributes to his Russian people. It is interesting to take a look at Yushakov's ideas.

This man looks across to Asia and says: Yes, over there in Asia, we have peoples who have brought a very old culture from ancient times into more recent times. These peoples, how they have been mistreated by the Europeans. Russia must look across to Asia, and must bring redemption to this sacred, venerable, but by the Europeans mistreated Asian culture, this spiritual culture of Asia. Nice words Jushakow speaks. He says that Russia alone is capable – because it cannot yet grasp the human interior in such a way that it has been made sick and aged by the ego as in the European West – Russia alone can feel related to this Asia, which is now lying prostrate, groaning under the rape of Europe. And an old myth brings Yushakov back to mind when he says: Over there in Asia, Iranian, Turanian peoples are fighting. He himself also includes the Indians, the Persians, and so on, among the Iranian peoples. And then Yushakov says: These have found a wonderful, ancient myth of Ormuzd and Ahriman for their destiny. But we always see Ahriman and Ormuzd at work over there in Asia forever. And there, in his book, Yushakov says – in 1885 – and he points this out in his memoirs, that the Iranians worshiped the good Ormuzd over there in Asia; the good Ormuzd gave the Iranians all the fruits and crops that the earth can produce; they took them for themselves. Then they joined forces with Ahriman. These Europeans have worked like Ahriman, like the evil Ahriman himself. But Russia, by working across into Asia, will liberate people from the evil Ahriman. What the Asians have received under the blessing of the good Ormuzd, the selfish Europeans have appropriated for themselves. Russia will cross over to Asia and help by founding an alliance, yes – Yushakov says it, I have to repeat it to you – an alliance that will be formed with the greatest ideals in the world, as the most spiritual alliance in the world – Yushakov says it all, I am only repeating it. It will be formed by Russian peasants and Cossacks, who will rush over to Asia, which is groaning under European rule, and will carry over what Russia will be able to bring. Then the peasantry and Cossacks will advance into Asia, and Russia will redeem Asia from Ahriman. 1885, think Sic, written by Jushakow. It is interesting to hear some of what Jushakow said at the time in the book, which is called: “The Anglo-Russian Conflict”. It says that the comrades of Ahriman, the evil god – from whom Russia must liberate Asia and bring order and harmony – are primarily the English.

The English – says Yushakov – have behaved in this Asia as if they believed that the Asian peoples existed only to clothe themselves in English fabrics, to fight each other with English weapons, to work with English tools, to eat from English vessels and to play with English baubles. And then he says:

“England exploits millions of Hindus, but her very existence depends on the obedience of the various peoples inhabiting the rich peninsula.”

And so he continues, Yushakov:

“I do not wish anything similar for my homeland – I can only be pleased that it is sufficiently far removed from this state, which is as brilliant as it is sad.”

Apparently because these Russians were so keen to distance themselves from this Englishness, so that they could free Asia from this hideous England, they soon allied themselves with this England, not to free Asia, but to destroy Europe.

One must also look at world development from this intellectual perspective in the nineteenth century, and in this way delve into what actually constitutes the German character and how it stands now, this German character, which has to defend itself in a way against the ring that has been formed around it, yes, in a way that can be simply hinted at when numbers are spoken.

These people – who want to keep Germany and Austria locked up in a big fortress today – are taking a stand for freedom, for the rights of small nations, and for all sorts of things they believe in. You only have to look at the numbers: 777 million people in the so-called Entente around the Central European powers, against 150 million; 777 million are “fighting” - let's put that in quotation marks - “fighting” against 150 million, and fighting in such a way that to this day still want to strike at the very essence of their actual bravery, they also want to strike at the German spirit, which they believe they understand so well, that 777 million people are turning against 150 million, joining forces to starve them out, to defeat them with starvation, the better part of bravery.

Actually, they had no need to be envious of what the Central Europeans were taking away from them; for the Entente Powers possess 68 million square kilometers of the earth, compared to 6 million square kilometers of the Central European Powers. One need only let these numbers speak. These numbers speak to this day, and will also speak in world history, ladies and gentlemen, that after all, within these 150 million present-day Central Europeans and on these 6 million square kilometers of Central European soil, those people live who have the world-historical, spiritual mission that we were allowed to speak of, and which they ascribe to themselves not ascribe it to themselves out of national chauvinism, but out of their spiritual gifts, out of the spirit of their Germanness, to which they have not devoted themselves through their egoism, but to which they have to approach if they want to offer the best of their being on the altar of this their national spirit. And those who feel this German essence in Central Europe feel a close bond with it, especially the best in Austria and Germany – and I am allowed to speak about this since I have spent thirty years of my life in Austria:

Precisely the best Austrians, those who have grown up with Central European culture, like the excellent philosopher Carneri, know how to experience and fathom the relationship between their own people and the German national spirit and German essence not out of national chauvinism but out of a sure knowledge of the essence of their own people.

For example, Carneri, the most important Austrian philosopher, says of the English: “Carneri, a wonderful man who, out of the deepest suffering, has founded a spiritual world view that is so completely in line with our time, a conceptual world view from German-Austria. Carneri talks about how the English have really focused their attention on external practical culture and he says: It has become so practical, this culture, that the English had to learn from the Germans the fact that the great playwright and poet Shakespeare lived among them. For it is true that it is only through the Germans delving into Shakespeare that Shakespeare has been recognized at all. And if one day someone has to write the story of Shakespeare's greatness, it will not be an English chapter in intellectual history that they have to write, but a German one.

All this characterizes the nature of the German world view, which creates out of all intellectual inner life, in contrast to everything around it. And so we may well believe that this is what the German must strive for above all else: spiritual science, knowledge of the spirit, just as there is knowledge of nature. Knowledge of the spirit, which must be based above all on the sources, on the roots that lie in the world view of German idealism. This is, as I said, not a conviction born out of blind national sentiment, but a conviction born out of knowledge. It is that which humanity is to scientifically fathom in the future about the spirit, that this must grow out of German national culture – and above all out of the ideal world view of German national culture – as it has been attempted to describe today.

And how little understanding there is among other nations today – let me say this in conclusion – this war can show the German so clearly how little understanding there is on the part of other nations towards the world view of German idealism and the German spirit, and how he must first ensure and strive to ensure that what he is called upon to create out of the depths of the German being can become part of the world development of humanity. The French, how did they look at this world view of German idealism? Or the Russians, for example, how did they look at this world view that the Germans have formed, this world view? The Russians look at it as if it only existed to be destroyed by them, as something decrepit and worn out. While we must see roots and leaves in it, from which the blossoms and fruits must first ripen in the future! We want to commit ourselves to this view! But the Russians need a new delusion; because the ego does not yet live in their soul, they must dream of a new delusion. They need a new delusion.

What do the French need? What do the French need today if they want to characterize their relationship to the German essence? Well, perhaps one could refer to one of their youngest poets to avoid doing them an injustice. What do the French want? They have been so accustomed to their nature being everywhere in Europe, just as the Germans were accustomed to their nature living in the Germans themselves, just as the Germans were accustomed to the way they felt the power, the driving force of what, for example, also lived in this world view of German idealism, up to Lessing, until they had to free themselves, the Germans, [so] these French were so accustomed that their nature lived everywhere in Europe. And after that, they believed that nothing could actually be done without what they did and what they produced intellectually, that everything had to come from them, that they had to be the cause of everything. In a very interesting and witty poem, Rostand, one of their own poets, recently illustrated how the French – that is, his own – national character can be compared to the cock crowing in the morning; and when the cock crows, the sun rises. And because the sun rises when the cock crows, the Frenchman believes that with his crowing he makes the sun rise. So he says to himself: If I don't crow, the sun can't rise!

This is said by the French poet Rostand himself as a characteristic of the French nature. The Frenchman thinks: If he doesn't crow, nothing at all can happen in the world. And that is why it is so incredible that he no longer occupies the position he once did; for it is actually the case that the German character, as expressed by Ranke, for example, is to be defended against the delusion of the crowing of the French national spirit, as early as 1870, when the Germans had to face the French: “We are still fighting against Louis XV!”

The French need a new delusion. The Russians need a new mission. The English – well, one really doesn't want to do them an injustice. What should one say so as not to do them an injustice? They declaim to the world: for the sake of the violation of Belgium's neutrality, for the sake of justice and democracy, we must undertake this war to the point of destroying the German essence; for these Germans are disgraceful people. They preach the principle of might over right. It is likely that one only forgets, as a result of a particularly refined education, that the English minister who decreed this – only recently – that the phrase “might over right” comes from the English philosopher, English utilitarian philosopher Thomas Hobbes. But: “might over right” – and England has adhered to this phrase for centuries. [gap in the transcript] as a professor in England himself, where he said: freedom and democracy, that is something that cannot be united, which should be advocated after the last English history, but that Great Britain's expansion [gap in the transcript], he says, is also a truth, also a practical truth, as the English world view must strive for. Yes, what can you say? “Might is right” – since Thomas Hobbes this principle has been winding its way through English history, concealing the real reasons why England tramples underfoot the entire mission of the German people. Yes, one would not want to do such things an injustice, but one must say: the English need a new lie to drown out that which cannot be compensated for.

The Russians need a new delusion; the French need a new conceit; the English need a new lie. The Italians – yes, a very outstanding man told me even before the Italian war broke out: “Italy needs this war!” There are people, of course, who are not so naive as to have believed that Italy could not join the Entente in this war. Italy needs this war; we must have this war; the Italians have become lethargic, sluggish and lazy; they are actually on the road to the abyss - said this important political figure at the time - and need to have something that will shake them up again, that will awaken them to life, otherwise they will become completely rotten and sluggish! What do these Italians need? These Italians needed a new sensation in order to have something at the same time – just as the French needed imagination, the English needed a new lie, the Russians needed a new delusion, a new mission, so the Italians needed a new saint, something very special! – They truly have a saint, namely, holy egoism – sacro egoismo – which is preached everywhere and on whose altar people are sacrificed. And the apostle of modern Italian nationalism, the hierophant, is Gabriele d'Annunzio! Perhaps history will one day rank him among the buffoons of the mind – that can be said without any national chauvinism. But he will nevertheless stand without dignity as the one who also made sacrifices to this new egoism, the sacro egoismo, which Italy represents and to which they have dedicated themselves, this new saint!

When we see all this going on around us, we can truly say that, without the Germans needing to become as nationally egotistical as those who want to surround, encircle and contain them, we can truly say that, from the inner fertility and knowledge of the greatness of the German essence, to which we humbly bow, we cannot, in arrogance, say that we experience in the German essence: It is the germs, it is the roots, it is the leaves – and the blossoms and the fruits must develop from them. And we can look to the future with confidence and hope!

And finally, I would like to say that – as if in a unified thinking – those who understood the German essence in Central Europe always felt it. One of my teachers in Austria once spoke a beautiful word. I may perhaps read it to you at the end, a little poem. It is called “Austria and Germany”. Today, when Austria and Germany are welded together, I may perhaps read it, this little poem:

"Let Russia and England wisely deliberate,
Perhaps not even find it unwelcome
If we get into a little bit of a fight here,
If they take away our good right!

You, German brothers, will not - advise here,
The enemy's attack will only unite us
And all ambition will fade among us
Before: being one people in word and deed.

And if one among us has failed,
If discord has reigned in a German heart,
There is only one thing that now inspires us:
What we have in common, in joy and in sorrow!
So may we also have in common:
A German war, if not a German peace!

Thus spoke the German of Austria in 1859. Those who feel that they are part of the German national spirit, who recognize it without national chauvinism, are so united in their awareness that loyalty springs from the soul to this German essence. Then this Karl Julius Schröer, who has remained so unknown, but who felt German essence in Austria quite extraordinarily, then he said:

A spirit arises, a giant to behold
[Who does not yet long gather all his strength
The German spirit rises up, aflame with courage
Wherever you look in all German regions.
He has been called a master in many a field,
In art and knowledge, in the building system,
he is first to be seen
then he will be truly recognized by the world.

To see him as a whole, this also includes the symptom that so clearly shows how the immortal martial forces come from the German essence. Likewise, the idealistic world view of the German stems from the primal power of the German essence, which has borne its roots and its leaves, and - looking towards it - we may have faith in the future: it must struggle through to its blossoms and fruits in the future, undisturbed by the hatred of the opposition.

This awareness wells up in us as 150 million people facing 777 million, as standing on 6 million square kilometers against 68 million square kilometers; this wells up in us from the spiritual, from the soul, from the heart of the German spiritual being!

So let us speak out of the knowledge itself and out of the most justified feeling: Yes, by being aware of our essence, we may believe, we may hope that the blossoms and fruits to the roots and leaves of the German being will unfold in the future.

Therefore, we can confidently live into the future of this German national spirit, also from the depths of the German endeavor.

And so may it be, because it must be so!

On this occasion let me once more call attention to the fact that as the German Section of the Theosophical¹ Society we find ourselves in an epoch of importance. What has been said in different lectures with regard to the cycles which run in sevens is no mere figure of speech, but is in harmony with the laws of existence. And having now completed a 7-years' cycle in the life of the German Section we may do well to pause and look into our whole work and endeavour. This work is only possible if the spiritual Movement, in its development, contains in its inner ordering something of the laws of the great cosmic system. The cosmic system runs its course in cycles which can be reckoned according to the number 7; for we reckon 7 planetary conditions and so on.

In a Movement like our own, the number 7 also has a certain part to play, and after 7 years our striving in a sense turns back again to the beginning, for it has in the meantime incorporated in itself what has been achieved; our striving turns back again to its beginning, but at a higher stage. It is only possible to arrive at this by considering how the whole rests upon an inner law.

If you look back a little at the work we have done in these 7 years, you will be able to notice one thing: there has been a certain order and regularity about this work. Of course you cannot take what I have said as being correct to a day, but if you take it in its essentials, you will see that it is true.

In the first years of our work in the German Section we so to speak laid the foundations. What we did in the first four years was to acquire some knowledge of the paths-which lead to the higher worlds, of the great cosmic connections, and of the examination and testing of what is found in the Akashic Record with regard to the secrets of the cosmos. Those members who joined later have found it necessary—and will always do so—to acquire knowledge afterwards of this foundation of our work. This is indispensable for everybody; for it is not sufficient to assimilate only what has happened in the last three years and has enabled the Movement to progress in the right way. If you look back you will see that the last three years have brought about the development of those truths and facts which have been put before you of late, perhaps in a somewhat astonishing form. If you try to establish the connection with what was done in the first four years of our work in the four-fold foundation, as it were, of the whole, you will see that even those great and all-embracing truths which have been impressing you so deeply, have a very close connection with what happened in the first four years. You will be able to convince yourselves of this if you ponder it well. The younger members must bear written upon their hearts the absolute necessity of acquiring for themselves a firm and sure foundation. Wherever the work is being carried on, we are making it more and more possible for those who join later to pick up for themselves what has been accomplished here in the early days. It is really impossible for them to co-operate without this recapitulation; and the Theosophical Movement must be taken seriously in the deepest sense. In this connection we may perhaps speak to-day on a subject that concerns the theosophical attitude of mind and the whole manner of theosophical thought; and we will relate it to the significant time through which we are passing. I mean the question: “What is the right attitude for the theosophist to take with regard to Theosophy itself?”

What is here meant will be clearer if I put the question in another way: “Why is Theosophy taught to-day at all as it is taught? Why is information given about the higher worlds, information that is the result of spiritual research and clairvoyant consciousness? Could one not perhaps proceed in quite a different way?” Let us suppose, e.g., that we were to begin by giving each person certain instructions as to how he can develop those inner faculties which at present are dormant within his soul, so that by means of these instructions it would be possible for him gradually to penetrate into the spiritual worlds himself, without having first been given any of the facts of the higher worlds, as is done to-day.

This was indeed the custom formerly, to a certain extent: it was so before the Theosophical Movement in the modern sense came into being. For a long time it had been said: It is really not of much use for anyone to stand before the world and communicate the results of spiritual investigation. Such communications were accordingly withheld as far as possible, and only certain maxims were given to people as to how they should develop the faculties dormant within their own souls; as a rule people were not told any more than they had gradually come to see for themselves in the higher worlds. The question might now arise: Why is this path not taken to-day? Why are the results of spiritual investigation communicated to men?

This step has not been taken out of any personal preference or from any personal decision: there are good reasons for it. We shall understand it better if we constantly remind ourselves of what it is that Spiritual Science really tells us. It tells us of facts and truths from the realm of the higher super-sensible worlds; it tells us of that which clairvoyant consciousness can discover in these higher worlds.

Now it is of course true that one who hears of such things and is not himself clairvoyant cannot convince himself of the facts as such through his own immediate vision; it is quite true that he receives them and cannot prove them by clairvoyant evidence. That is true; but it would be quite wrong to imagine that the man who is not clairvoyant cannot in any way prove or have insight into the facts which are now being presented. And it would be wrong to assert that one must merely take in faith and on authority what is given out of clairvoyant consciousness. These communications would be in the highest degree imperfect, would lack something essential, if they appealed only to authority and faith. What is being given out in the right way—this has often been emphasised—can be discovered only by clairvoyant consciousness but when it has once been discovered—if only by one person—when it has once been seen and communicated, everyone can understand it by means of unprejudiced reason, that is to say by those faculties which are accessible to him on the physical plane. And it may well be said: Even if no one of those here present ever has the opportunity of proving everything immediately in the most comprehensive sense, everyone could at any rate make this possible if he had the time and the necessary mental faculties (I mean, faculties of the physical plane). Let us even consider such difficult matters as were treated of here in recent lectures, with regard to the incarnations of Zarathustra, such difficulties as, e.g. that Zarathustra's etheric body passed over into Moses²—let us even imagine that such difficult, far-reaching and significant subjects are being dealt with, even then let no one assert that he who knows these things as the result of spiritual research appeals for blind credulity! That is by no means the case. But suppose someone were to come and say: “I for my part am no clairvoyant. But here is someone asserting these things about Zarathustra and his incarnations. I will now lay hold of everything that is at my disposal on the physical plane, everything that history hands down to us, everything that is contained in the stone monuments, or in ancient religious documents, and I will test all these most carefully.” And suppose he were to say further: “Assuming that what is being said is correct, does it tally with the facts that can be externally corroborated?”—Such a person would then investigate thoroughly what can be confirmed by external means, and he would see that the more closely he investigated the more he would find corroboration for what the clairvoyant has set forth. If the word “fear” had any meaning at all in this connection, then one could say that the research of Spiritual Science might perhaps really feel fear of an inexact examination; but it could never fear those who are ready to follow fully and accurately the paths of material investigation. For such people will see that the more closely they pursue their investigations the more corroboration they will find for the facts which the clairvoyant communicates. But for the things that are not so remote or difficult, things which are connected with karma and reincarnation, and the life between death and a new birth—for these one only needs to observe, in an open-minded way, what ordinary life has to offer. And the more this is done, the more will confirmation be found for the facts communicated by the clairvoyant; that is to say, there are possibilities enough of convincing oneself that what is acquired from super-sensible worlds can be confirmed by the outer physical world. This is something which should not be taken lightly, but which we should look upon as an essential fact. We must in our own lives put to the test the facts that only a few can really investigate, we should not. always be repeating the phrase: That must be taken on trust! Accept as little as possible on trust; examine, test and prove all the time! Only be sure that you do it in an open-minded, unprejudiced way. This, then, is the first thing upon which stress must be laid.

But now you will find that a testing of this kind requires great effort, it demands thought and work. It means that one must really set out to find confirmations in the physical world for what is stated out of clairvoyant research. And here we come to a matter of which we shall do well to speak, a matter that is closely connected with our main question. Is it not necessary, is it not even good, for the man of to-day, besides striving (as he certainly should strive) to penetrate into the spiritual world, also to occupy himself at the same time with an energetic cultivation of the ordinary means of knowledge and the ordinary methods of thought? In other words: Does the theosophist not do well to overcome the indolence that is certainly prevalent in the world to-day, and to develop his world of thought in all earnestness, to lay hold of the means by which man can be comprehended even only on the physical plane, and to turn these to his use? Is it not right that he should learn a great deal, and especially learn how to think?

It is indeed very difficult to make clear to the consciousness of the present day what is meant by this. It once happened that someone who wanted to make progress in theosophical knowledge and at the same time to learn how to think the thoughts with greater exactitude, came and asked me to recommend him what to read. I recommended him to study Spinoza's Ethics, so that he would be able to formulate in clear-cut outlines the thoughts that were being given him. Not many weeks afterwards he wrote to me that he could not see why he should study this book; it was rather voluminous and the whole object was simply to prove the existence of God, which he had never doubted; therefore he saw no need to wade through long trains of thought in order to prove the existence of God!

This is an example of just that kind of indolence with which men approach Theosophy or Spiritual Science to-day. They are very soon satisfied when they have come to some belief or other, and they fight shy of the trouble of building it up for themselves, bit by bit, into conceptions which are, admittedly, troublesome to acquire. But for such persons the only possible result is blind faith, whereas you will find that it ceases to be blind faith if you will really school your thinking and not simply want, out of curiosity, to develop those powers which lead to an elementary stage of clairvoyance. I do not, of course, say that this could not run parallel, but we need to train at the same time the physical powers of thought, those faculties of knowledge that have been given to us here on the physical plane; these must be trained too, even if it is irksome, in order that we may be in a position to form clearly defined ideas and clearly defined concepts of what is communicated to us from out of the higher worlds. It is very easy to imagine that it is better to have clairvoyance in the very smallest degree than it is to understand through the reasoning mind ever so many of the facts of the higher worlds. It might easily be said: “I really do not know why I am a member of this Society; we are always being told things about the higher worlds; all that is quite nice, but I would much prefer it if I could catch the merest glimpse of them myself by means of clairvoyant vision.”—I know a very learned theosophist who had an intense longing to get beyond mere learning to direct vision, and he expressed this longing as follows: “If only I could once be able to see even the tip of the tail of one of these elemental beings!” Such a remark is quite understandable. This particular theosophist would never have been ready to give up his knowledge of theosophical truth in exchange; but there might well be someone ready to do so, if he could gain only a small degree of clairvoyant vision. Such a feeling would, however be wrong from every point of view. For we must consider the age in which we live. It is the age which, in the whole evolution of man, is the epoch when conscious thought must be developed, just as in the ancient Indian period a quite different kind of consciousness was evolved, a consciousness that was reminiscent of a dim, shadowy clairvoyance; the powers of the present day have gradually been developing ever since that time. It is only we in this age, who in conjunction with the development of the Spiritual Soul have brought human thinking into the sphere of earth-evolution. For this reason Theosophy must now, at this time, be brought down out of the super-sensible world and must make its appeal to the reasoned thinking of men.

We need to distinguish clearly between two conditions. Firstly: a man may not be much of a thinker, his thinking may indeed be quite primitive and yet he may at the same time be comparatively far advanced as regards vision on the astral plane, and even, up to a certain point, on the devachanic plane; he may be quite advanced in this respect and able to see a great deal. Or again, the other case is possible: A man who knows a great deal about the theosophical truths may yet be able to see nothing at all for himself, may not be in the position, as we were saying, to see even “the tip of the tail” of an elemental being! This is also quite possible. Now let us ask ourselves: What is really the inner connection between these different faculties of the human soul?

Here it must be emphasised that to have something, and to be conscious of what we have, are two distinct things. It is extraordinarily important to grasp this point. You will understand it rightly if the question is put somewhat differently. You were all once clairvoyant, in primeval times everyone was clairvoyant, and there was a time too when men were able to look back into the far, far past. And now you may ask: But how is it that we do not remember our former incarnations if we were once able to look back through the ages? Then you may ask: If we become clairvoyant now, will that help us in the next incarnation to look back?

This fact you must have clearly before you, that the old clairvoyance is of no use for looking back to-day. You once had this clairvoyance. How is it, then, that the majority of people to-day do not remember their former incarnations? This question is of the greatest importance. People do not remember their former incarnations—although in earlier epochs they were clairvoyant to a greater or less degree—because in those times they had not developed the faculties which are the faculties of the self, of the ego. For the development of clairvoyant faculties in the general sense is not the essential point.

Let me make this clear to you by a comparison. Imagine that when you woke up in the morning you could remember nothing about your experiences of the day before.—Now however clairvoyant people may have been in former times, if they did not pay attention to the development of the faculties of the ego, namely, the faculty of thinking, the power of discrimination, which are the special faculties of the human ego on this earth, then the ego was not actively present in the former incarnations, the self-hood was not there! What, then, is there for people to remember? A self-contained ego must be there in the previous incarnation. That is the whole point! So that to-day it is only those people who in their earlier incarnations have worked through the medium of thought, of logic, of discrimination, who can remember those incarnations. Thus however advanced a man is in clairvoyance, if he has not in former incarnations worked through the power of discrimination, of logical thinking, he cannot remember a former incarnation. For he had not at that time set up the signpost as it were, to which his recollection has to go back. So you will see that when one understands Spiritual Science, one cannot too quickly set to work to acquire just these very faculties of genuine thought.

Now perhaps you will say: But when I am clairvoyant I shall already have mastered the faculty of logical thinking. That is not so! Why have the Gods allowed human beings to exist at all? Because it was only in human beings that they could cause faculties to develop which otherwise could not have been developed at all. The power to think, to picture something in thoughts in which there is the quality of discrimination—this faculty can be developed only on this our earth; formerly it did not exist, it could only come about through the fact of the existence of human beings. We might take the following comparison.—Suppose you have a grain of corn—of wheat, let us say. However long you look at it, no wheat will grow out of it. You must put it in the soil and let it grow, you must let the growth-forces work upon it. That which the divine-spiritual Beings had before the formation of man may be compared to the grain of wheat. If this “grain of wheat” was to come to life in the form of thoughts, it had first to be cultivated by human beings on the physical plane. The only possible means of cultivating thoughts on the earth from the higher world is through human incarnations. So that the thoughts of men on the physical plane have a character which is entirely their own and must lead up to what is possible in the higher worlds. It was necessary for the Gods that there should be men on the earth. The Gods allowed men to come into being in order to preserve through them in the form of thought what they had had in the higher worlds. Thus what comes down from the higher worlds would never have taken form in thought, if man had not been able to give it this form. And he who will not think, on the earth, deprives the Gods of what they have reckoned upon, and he cannot accomplish what is his real human task and destiny upon earth. For he can only attain this in an incarnation wherein he really labours at the development of his powers of thought. If this is realised, all the rest follows from it.

That which brings revelations, real facts about the spiritual world, can enter the human soul in manifold ways. It is certainly possible for men to come to clairvoyant vision without being clear thinkers, and indeed this is very frequently the case to-day. The majority of those who become clairvoyant are not clear thinkers. But those who are clear thinkers and those who are not will have very different experiences in the spiritual world. The difference might be expressed thus: What is revealed from out of the higher worlds impresses itself most clearly into those forms of mental perception which we bring to the higher worlds as thoughts. Thoughts are the best vehicle for the revelations.

But if we are not thinkers, the revelations must seek other forms, e.g. a picture. The most usual way for one who is not a thinker to receive revelations is in the form of a sense-image. And you may often hear those who are visionary clairvoyants without being thinkers, describe in sense-images what they have seen. These may have beauty; but we must at the same time be aware that a thinker has a different. subjective experience from a non-thinker. If you have revelations as a non-thinker, the sense-image is there; this or that figure stands before you. It reveals itself out of the spiritual world. Let us say, you see the figure of an angel, or some symbolic form—perhaps a cross, a monstrance, a chalice. This is present in the super-sensible realm and you see it as a finished picture. You say to yourselves that it is reality—but actually it is a picture. New experiences of the spiritual world will present themselves to the subjective consciousness of the thinker in a rather different way. It will not be the same as for the non-thinker. For the thinker, the things will not suddenly be there before him as though they had been shot out of a pistol; they will appear in a different way. Take a non-thinking, visionary clairvoyant and a thinking, visionary clairvoyant. They may both receive the same revelations. Let us take some particular case. The non-thinking clairvoyant sees this or that phenomenon of the spiritual world. The thinking clairvoyant does not see it yet, but only later; and the very moment he sees it, it is taken hold of by his own thought and he can at once discriminate and know whether it is or is not truth. He sees it somewhat later, but when he does see it, it comes to him in such a form that he has already penetrated it with his thoughts, and can tell whether it is illusion or reality; so that in a sense he possesses something before he actually sees it. The revelation comes to him at the same moment as to the non-thinking clairvoyant, but he sees it later. When he sees it, however, it is already penetrated with judgment and thought, and he knows exactly whether it is an hallucination, i.e. whether his own desires are being objectivised, or whether it is objective reality. That is the difference in the subjective experiences of the two clairvoyants. The non-thinking clairvoyant sees the phenomenon at once, the thinking clairvoyant, later. In the ease of the former the picture will remain as it was; all he can do is to describe it. But the thinking clairvoyant will be able to link it up and bring it completely into line with what is present in the ordinary physical world; for the physical world, no less than the phenomenon which he has seen, is a revelation from out of the spiritual world.

From this you will see that if you approach the spiritual world equipped with the instrument of thought, you will be able to bring reliable judgment to bear upon what is presented to you.

But now something else follows. A person might dispute the value of communications from the spiritual world if he has not seen the phenomena for himself. Let us imagine a third person as well as the two mentioned. This third person is not clairvoyant at all but is informed of the results of spiritual investigation in so far as they have been acquired by clairvoyance combined with clear thinking. He looks upon them as reasonable. Yes, they are facts from the spiritual world. The thinking clairvoyant has acquired them, and anyone who has grasped them with his reason possesses them, even if he is not conscious of it. You do not need to be at all clairvoyant, yet you have the full value in yourself of what has been communicated to you.. There is a difference between having something and being conscious that one has it. The relation of a non-clairvoyant theosophist to a clairvoyant theosophist can become clear by thinking of the following.—Imagine that you had been given a legacy, but had not yet heard about it. If this were the case, the legacy would nevertheless have its value for you. Even if you do not hear about it until later, yet you possess it all the same. So it is with whoever learns of the facts of the spiritual world through Spiritual Science. They are his, if he has grasped them in an understanding way; he possesses them and need only wait for the time when he will become conscious of them. The becoming conscious of them, however, is not of equal significance with their possession. This is particularly noticeable after death. Which is of more use—if we may put it thus trivially, to make the meaning clear—which is of more use to man after death: to see something in a visionary way, without thought, or to receive purely theosophical communications without seeing things in a visionary way?

One could easily imagine that visionary sight would be a better preparation for death than merely to hear of the facts of the spiritual world. And yet the truth is that after death, what a man has simply seen in a visionary way is of very little use to him, while on the other hand an actual reality is immediately present, as soon as he becomes conscious of what he has received in spiritual communications, if he has grasped these with his understanding. It is what has been understood that is of value after death, whether it has been seen or not.

Consider the deepest Initiate. Through his clairvoyance he can behold the whole spiritual world! But this will not enhance his significance after death, if he is not able to express these facts in human concepts. All that will help him after death is what he has possessed here on earth in the form of clear concepts of thought. There are the seeds for the life after death. Of course anyone who is a thinker as well as a visionary clairvoyant can turn his visions to good account. But two non-thinking persons, of whom one is clairvoyant and the other merely listens to the results of the clairvoyance—these two will be in exactly the same position after death. There is no difference between them, for what we take into the life after death is what we acquire for ourselves here by means of clear thinking. This springs up like a seed; but not so, what we have merely already seen on earth of the worlds we now enter. What we receive here from the higher worlds is not given to us as a free gift so as to make it easier for us when we leave the physical plane, but in order that we may translate it into the current coin of the earth. What we have thus translated, just so much helps us after death. That is the essential thing.

Thus it is in regard to the life after death. But here on the physical plane too, the case of the visionary clairvoyant is different from that of the thinking clairvoyant. It is interesting and beautiful to see into the spiritual worlds, but none the less there is a difference when the spiritual worlds are beheld merely in a visionary way. Apart from the fact that it is impossible to be secure from illusions—and the only way to avoid illusions is to apply clear thinking to what has been seen—apart from this, let us suppose that a visionary clairvoyant has perceived this or that; then the form in which he perceives it, and which you can discover from his own account of it, is penetrated by elements of the physical plane. Has anyone ever described to you an angel that was not permeated by elements of the physical plane? He had wings. So have the birds. He had a human-shaped body. So has every human being on the physical plane. The things the visionary clairvoyant describes are, it is true, put together in a fashion that is not to be found on the physical plane, but the pictures are nevertheless composed of elements of the physical plane. This is not without justification; but you will see that such a picture has within it something that belongs to the earth. The forms and pictures in your vision that are taken from the physical plane do not belong to the spiritual world, they only give a picture of the spiritual world in the domain of the senses. This I have set forth clearly in my Occult Science, which has now been completed. I have there shown that present-day clairvoyance must indeed be of a pictorial character in its early stages, but that it must not remain there, it must develop to the point where the last remnant of what is earthly in the visions is cast aside. There is of course a certain danger for the clairvoyant when he thus strips off the last remnant of earth. For example, when he sees the angel and then strips off all that is earthly, he is faced with the danger of seeing nothing at all! What is it that can prevent one from losing the vision altogether on entering actually into the spiritual world? The seed that can spring up out of thinking! Thoughts afford the substance whereby what is in the spiritual world may be comprehended. We acquire the power really to live in the spiritual world by comprehending, in our world of the senses, what is no longer permeated by sense-elements and yet is on the physical plane. Thoughts alone fulfil this condition. The only thing we may bring into the spiritual world is thoughts. With regard to a circle, for example, nothing of the chalk drawing of it, but simply and solely our thoughts about a circle. With these thoughts you can ascend into the spiritual worlds. You must bring nothing of the picture with you.

And now I can describe the above-mentioned subjective process more exactly. Let us suppose, for example, that something is seen in the field of spiritual vision, let us say, a monstrance. I will now characterise the two clairvoyants, the merely visionary and the thinking clairvoyant, by supposing that the one sees the monstrance here (a) and the other, the thinking clairvoyant, only sees it here (b)

It is only from this point onwards that he becomes conscious of it. He receives it, however, immediately with thoughts, he penetrates it with thought. But at the moment when the thinking clairvoyant fills his image with thoughts, it becomes indistinct for the visionary clairvoyant. It becomes black and indistinct here at this point (b) and reappears only after some time. Just at the point where thought can unite with the image, it becomes indistinct for the visionary clairvoyant; he is really never in a position to unite thought with it, therefore he never has the experience: ‘I was there with my ego’. This experience can never come to the merely visionary clairvoyant.

All this takes us more intimately into the whole question, and it is exceedingly important to reflect upon it. It leads us to consider the necessity of developing our thinking, and of overcoming the disinclination to acquire an understanding knowledge for ourselves. It is a thousand times better to have grasped the ideas of Spiritual Science with thought first of all, and then—sooner or later, each according to his karma—to be able oneself to ascend into the spiritual worlds; a thousand times better than to have ‘seen’ straight-away and not to have grasped with thought the knowledge that is imparted in the Movement known as the Theosophical. A thousand times better it is indeed, to know Theosophy and to see nothing as yet, than to see something and not be able to penetrate it with thought, for that is how unreliability is introduced.

You can express the matter even more exactly, as follows.—You say: There are at the present time very clear thinkers who can understand the theosophical view of the world in an intellectual way. How is it that it is sometimes just these people who have such difficulty in reaching clairvoyance?—Those who are not clear thinkers find it comparatively easy to become clairvoyant, and they are then apt to feel themselves superior to the thinkers, whilst the latter find it difficult to become clairvoyant at all. Here is the point—distant by a hair's breadth only—where a certain arrogance in disguise begins to assert itself. There is indeed hardly anything that breeds and fosters pride so much as a clairvoyance which has not been illumined with thought, and that is why it is so dangerous, because the clairvoyant does not as a rule consider himself proud at all, but very humble. He has no notion of the pride that consists in undervaluing the activity of thought and laying the chief emphasis on inspirations. It is a terrible form of pride, a masked pride.

The question is really as follows: How is it that for many a thinker—as experience teaches us—it is so exceedingly difficult to come to the point of being clairvoyant? This is connected with an important fact. What we call power of discrimination, power of judgment in man, in other words the logical thinking of the thinker, brings about a definite change in the whole structure of the human brain. Clear thinking causes a change in the physical instrument of the brain. Scientific research knows little of this, but it is a fact that a physical brain that has been used by a thinker has a different appearance from the brain which belongs to a non-thinker. The fact of being clairvoyant does not change it much. The brain of a non-thinker has very complicated convolutions, but that of a clear thinker is comparatively simple, without any special complications. Thinking actually expresses itself in the simplification of the convolutions of the brain. Present-day research knows nothing of this. Clear thinking is thinking that can survey wide vistas, not the thinking that occupies itself with analysis. Hence the greater simplicity of the brain-convolutions of a clear thinker. Whenever scientific research does condescend in any way to test clear thinking in its connection with material conditions, then it very soon appears that scientific research corroborates the statements of Spiritual Science. The examination of the brain of Mendeleeff to whom science owes the exposition of the periodic system of the elements confirms what Spiritual Science says. His brain-convolutions were simpler than usual. Within certain limits he had the power of comprehensive thinking, and physical examination bore out absolutely the truth of what I have said.—I do not mention this as being of any very special value but only by the way.—Thus, as I have said, a change comes about in the instrument, and this change must be brought about by the activity of thought itself. No one is born with all the faculties he will possess later; he may have tendencies in certain directions, but the faculties themselves he must first develop. So it is a fact that changes take place in the brain in the course of a man's life. After a life of thought the instrument of thinking is different from what it was before.

Now the fact is that our etheric body, which for clairvoyant consciousness must be loosened from the physical brain, becomes more closely bound to the brain through the activity of thought. Thinking chains the etheric body firmly to the brain. If through his karma anyone has not yet the forces necessary to loosen it again at the right time, it may be that he cannot get far in clairvoyance in this incarnation; this depends on his karma. Supposing that in a former incarnation his karma had ordained him to be a clear thinker, then at the present time his thinking will not bind his etheric body so strongly to the brain; he will be able to set free his etheric body comparatively easily, and for the very reason that the elements of thought are the best preparation for ascending into the higher worlds—for this very reason he can investigate the secrets of the higher worlds in the most intimate way. Of course he must first set free again the etheric body from the brain. But if with what one may call the fine chiseling of thought the etheric body has become so caught in the physical brain that it is exhausted, then his karma may perhaps make him wait a long time before he can set it free again. When, however, the etheric body does become free, it will mean that he has passed the point of logical thought. Then what he has acquired can never be lost; no one can take it away from him. That is an essential and important fact, because otherwise clairvoyance can often be lost again after it has been acquired. Let me remind you once again that you were all clairvoyant in earlier times. Why is it that you no longer possess the faculty of clairvoyance? It is because in former times you were not bound to the earth's existence, because you were remote, in spiritual worlds; you did not bring the spiritual world down into your faculties; your visionary clairvoyance was based upon the condition of being remote from the physical world.

This must be clear to us. We must inscribe these fine shades of thought upon our minds and souls; we must be clear that the task of a real occult science to-day is to impart those results of spiritual investigation which are permeated with a thinking content, so that one can always clothe the results of spiritual research in such a way as to be comprehensible through thinking to the man who is not clairvoyant. To this end they must first be combined with thought. This is why there is such difficulty with old books which speak of phenomena of the higher worlds. If you take up old books of this kind and approach them with the attitude of modern Spiritual Science, you will find something lacking in them all. These old books may impart wonderful knowledge, but they are not of much use to the man of to-day unless he is himself clairvoyant and knows how to place the knowledge rightly. In the case of modern Spiritual Science, however, anyone who takes pains is able to make something of what it presents, because he can permeate it with the element of thought he acquires on the physical plane. For the same concepts are used to grasp what is in the spiritual world and what is in the physical world. Present-day Natural Science speaks of evolution; so does Spiritual Science. If you have grasped the concept of evolution you can understand what is set forth in Spiritual Science. You can create a concept of karma, because you can create a picture of it in thought. Of course if you simply say, as many theosophists do: “Every spiritual cause has a spiritual effect and this is karma”, you have then no conception of karma. You can see the law of cause and effect in a billiard ball, but that would be no right comparison for karma. But now take an iron ball and throw it into a vessel of water. If the ball is cold the water will remain as it is. But if you make the ball hot and then throw it in, the water will get warm as a result of what has been done to the ball. Here we have something which may be compared with karma; here we have a later event that is the result of an earlier.

It must be quite clear to us that one who permeates the facts of the spiritual world with thought can also impart them in such a way that everyone who has thoughts acquired here on the physical plane can apply these same thoughts to what is imparted from the spiritual worlds. If he does this he can understand it. Everyone ought to keep this in mind. Everyone ought to understand that the important thing is, not the fact that we receive knowledge from the higher worlds, but how we receive it—that we receive it in a way that is suited to our present earthly conditions. We must see to it that we do not receive knowledge from the higher worlds in any other way. It is tempting just to believe what is told us but this is very wrong. If someone is willing just to believe, it is as though he wanted merely to be told that there is a light; whereas he needs the light to light up his room! He must have the light; mere belief is no use. Thus it is important first of all to understand the nature of thorough, conscientious thinking, so that the knowledge of the spiritual world may be received through this channel. The knowledge can only be discovered if one has the power of clairvoyance; but when it has been discovered and investigated, it can be understood by everyone who receives it in the right way.

If one thinks in this way, then all the dangers which are otherwise bound up with what is called the Theosophical Movement, will be, in the main, averted. These very dangers will however immediately arise if people develop clairvoyant powers and do not see to it that their thinking, and more especially their perception and discernment, are enriched at the same time through their own thinking. Many people have the desire just to seize hold of something out of the spiritual world instead of carefully bringing their perceptive thought to bear upon what has after all to be acquired on the physical plane. Even a God cannot comprehend the world in terms of thought unless he incarnates on this physical earth. He can comprehend the world in other forms and ways, but to comprehend it in this form he must incarnate upon the earth. If you reflect upon this it will be clear to you that there are certain dangers connected with the development of faculties within oneself which are then wrongly used. He who develops a certain visionary clairvoyance and uses it wrongly by cutting off all possibility of convincing the world with it, he who remains on the astral plane alone and does not bring his experiences down on to the physical plane, is laying himself open to the danger that an abyss will open between his visions and the physical plane. Let us suppose that someone has had visions of real significance which belong to the astral plane. They may be true visions of reality—for this may happen even with the non-thinking, visionary clairvoyant. But now between him and the real foundations of the physical plane there opens out an abyss. Imagine for a moment that this cloth were the physical plane. The visionary clairvoyant is standing in front of it; he sees his vision. But behind the physical plane is the real spiritual world; the physical plane is Maya. The visionary clairvoyant does not strip away the physical plane; this can be done only by one who makes use of the means of thought. Then only do you penetrate behind the physical plane; only with thinking clairvoyance can you ever understand it. The physical plane is there, but you do not see the spiritual world, the real spiritual world. The abyss opens before you, and the physical plane remains as Maya. And the impossibility of penetrating through the physical plane rests upon the fact that the brain is not capable of eliminating itself. If you have learnt to think rightly, you do not directly use your brain in thinking. Thinking works on the brain, but the activity of thinking does not directly need the brain; it is nonsense to assert that the brain itself thinks.

About 35 years ago I was once walking along the street with a young student who was then well on the way to becoming an out-and-out materialist. He said “When a man thinks, the brain atoms are vibrating; every definite thought has a definite form”—and then he continued to speak of how it is really nonsense to presuppose anything like a soul which can think, for it is the brain which does the thinking.—I said to him: “Yes, but now tell me, why do you tell such fibs? If this is true you cannot say: I think! You must say: my brain thinks, And you must also say: My brain eats, my brain sees the sun! You would then be speaking the truth.” He would soon see then what nonsense he had been carrying about in his head.

So it is not the brain that thinks. It needs no very serious consideration, to get this point clear, unless one is a thorough-going modern materialist. Unless you are a ‘Monist’ in the modern sense of the word, you can easily be clear on this point. The activity of thinking is not primarily dependent on having the brain as its instrument. When thinking becomes pure, the brain is not involved. It only plays a part when a sense-picture is made. If you have a picture of a chalk circle in your mind, then this picture has been formed by the brain, but when you think of a pure circle apart from all sense-qualities, then the circle is itself the active element that gives form to the brain. Now when a man has visionary clairvoyance he remains in his etheric body and does not reach the physical brain. But the abyss can never be bridged by this method. What is there seen clairvoyantly is connected with what is behind the physical plane. He who scorns the path of thought develops powers which, so to speak, do not attain their object, do not really penetrate into the spiritual world. And the consequence is that there is a false relationship between what is continually being developed in his etheric body, and what he really is as man. The relationship is entirely false; his brain is not developed to the level of his clairvoyant faculties. The brain is crude, for the man has made no effort to ennoble it through thinking. It is crude, it has built up a barrier which it cannot penetrate and which hinders him from reaching spiritual reality in his visions. He goes away from reality, instead of coming nearer to it. And every possibility of making a judgment about the spiritual world is taken away. Such a man may certainly be able to see a great deal; but there is never any guarantee that what he sees will correspond with the reality. He alone is capable of judging who can distinguish between mere vision and reality. It is only the power of discrimination that can discriminate, and if this is lacking, mere vision can never be distinguished from reality. But this power of discrimination can be acquired only by effort on the physical plane. Thus one will be for ever hovering about without firm foundations if one scorns the activity of thinking—hard and troublesome as it is.

This is what we must have clearly in our minds. Then it will be impossible for conditions to arise which otherwise arise so easily and may recur again and again, when by developing visionary clairvoyance men build up a dam against the world of reality and live in their dreams—which comes to the same thing as losing one's bearings in the physical world, as being not quite in one's right mind. Mere visionary clairvoyance easily leads to this. One can acquire the power of thoughtful discrimination. by working in the only sphere where this can be developed, namely in the sphere of thinking, on the physical plane. If you despise the acquisition of this thoughtful discrimination, you will stray far from the path of truth. Discrimination is what we need, otherwise we shall bring about all the ills that are necessarily connected with what is called the Theosophical Movement. He who gives himself up to blind belief, who merely accepts without reasoned thought all the communications from the higher worlds on the authority of another, will be doing something that is pleasant and easy, but in itself is fraught with danger. Instead of working the things out for himself and reflecting upon them, he accepts the knowledge of another, he assimilates the things that another person has seen, and refuses to test by means of his own thought what has been communicated. This is the cause of the ills to which the Theosophical Movement is liable—but of course this should not frighten anyone from attaching themselves to it. It may happen that a person, who has blind belief of this kind loses his bearings altogether and can no longer discriminate between what is true and what is untrue. Nothing can breed untruthfulness as effectively as a certain kind of visionary clairvoyance which is not supported and controlled by thought. And on the other hand, such clairvoyance breeds another quality, namely, a certain haughtiness and superiority which can even lead to megalomania. This is all the more dangerous because it is often not noticed. There is very serious danger of coming to think oneself superior because one sees something that another person does not see. And usually there is no idea of how deeply embedded in the soul this self-importance that borders on megalomania can be. It conceals itself in a certain way, especially when the (clairvoyant swears by his own visions with absolute certainty and suffers no one to take exception to them. So we sometimes find people believing the most ridiculous rubbish, just because it has been communicated to them “from the astral plane”. They would never dream of believing such things if they had been told them as matters belonging to the physical plane; but if they are told them “from the astral plane” they believe them with the most slavish credulity. Whoever has freed himself from this habit will not be led astray by this or that swindle or humbug. But people will fall into the trap unless they develop within themselves the impulse to prove and test, instead of accepting and believing without effort or exertion. We must not make it easy for ourselves; we must consider it one of the most sacred tasks of man to reach a right conviction. If we think of it in this light, we shall spare no effort of real work, and we shall not merely listen to sensational communications from the spiritual world. Of communications from the spiritual world we have, so to speak, enough. It is necessary that we should have them, but it is also necessary to acquire the right attitude and the right kind of thinking to receive these things worthily.

This is what I wanted to say to you to-day. I did not want to say it merely as an admonition or a sermon. I wanted to show the whole basis and for this reason it may have been rather difficult to keep pace with it in your thought; but in the methods I use I always try to adhere to what may be rightly looked for in the Theosophical Society. Many people like pious exhortations. I dislike them! I try to present things in such a way that they can clothe themselves in true forms of thought. When things of the physical plane are expounded, as has been done to-day, it does of course often entail hard thinking; for such things are neither as sensational nor as attractive as communications from the higher worlds. They are nevertheless of extraordinary importance. And you will not undervalue their importance if you say to yourselves: If that is really to come to pass which ought to come to pass, namely, that in the course of ensuing incarnations a sufficiently large number of people have a memory of this present incarnation, then provision for this must be made beforehand. Develop, therefore, your power of judgment; then you are candidates for the memory, in your next incarnation, of the present one. See to it that you are able to follow the world with your thoughts. For however much you can see m a visionary way, it will give you no help in remembering back to the present incarnation. And it is the mission of Spiritual Science to prepare the way for what must needs come—namely, that there may be a sufficiently large number of people who out of their own knowledge can look back to this present incarnation. How many come to the point in this incarnation of accompanying their knowledge of Spiritual Science with clairvoyant powers depends on the karma of each individual. There are certainly many sitting here whose karma will not allow them to see the world clairvoyantly in this incarnation. But all those who acquire what is given in true Spiritual Science, clothed as it is in the forms of thought, will reap the fruits of it in the next incarnation; for in this one they will have laid the right foundation. A man may, so to speak, be a clairvoyant without knowing it; and one who studies Spiritual Science in the right way has the insight and can wait until his karma also allows him actually to behold the things for himself.

• 1. In connection with the use of the words ‘Theosophy’, ‘theosophical’, in this text, it will be remembered that from the beginning of the century until the years 1911 or 1912, Dr. Steiner had been able to work as an independent teacher within the framework of the Theosophical Society and was the General Secretary of the German Section. His teaching of the unique nature and position of the Christ was at variance with the tendencies which had come to prevail in that Society and the statements on this subject made by its leaders, and Dr. Steiner's association with it inevitably came to an end. In 1912 the Anthroposophical Society was provisionally founded and its Headquarters established at Dornach in 1913.
• 2. cp. The Alpha and the Omega. Lecture given in Berlin, 25.V.O9; also lectures 4 and 5 of the Course on The Gospel of St. Luke.